"
Nicholas Capaldi argues that Hume outright accepted the design
argument for God's existence.5 Similarly, according to James
O'Higgins, Hume accepted the design argument, although remained
skeptical about the entire enterprise of reasoning. For
O'Higgins, Hume reluctantly conceded God's existence, yet, like
the Deists, denied that God concerns himself with governing the
world.6 J.C.A. Gaskin sees Hume as an attenuated deist insofar as
Hume held that there was a weak probability that natural order
resulted from an intelligence remotely analogous to our own. For
Gaskin, Hume maintains that this weak probability combines with
our more subjective human feeling that natural order springs from
a designer, hence we assent to the existence of a designer
(although this being has no moral claim on us). Norman Kemp Smith
argues that religion for Hume consists exclusively in an
intellectual assent to the proposition "God exists." Kemp Smith
concludes, though, that religion for Hume ought not to have any
influence on human conduct.7 Similarly, for B.A.O. Williams,
Hume's religion consisted of merely holding open the possibility
of an intelligent creator.8
Ernest C. Mossner argues that Hume denied all supernatural
and conventional religion, but advanced a "religion of man"
insofar as Hume optimistically believed that the enlightened
determine the fate of humanity and are the measure of all
things.9 Similarly, Donald Livingston argues that Hume offers a
"philosophical theism" which is an historically determined
natural belief, yet one which eschews the writings and rituals of
the theistic tradition.
Pages:
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36