of hope—the opposite of fear—as a direct passion that occurred when “the mind by an original instinct tends to unite itself with the good, and to avoid the evil” (T, 2.3.9.2). He showed in both the Enquiry (1748) and the Natural History of Religion (1757) that this hope, always linked to fear, was the driving force behind popular religion, superstition, and enthusiasm, along with their concomitants, miracles and salvation. My intervention is to elucidate Hume’s notion of hope in light of Joseph Godfrey’s theory of hope. This exposes that Hume’s own hopes—“where experiments of this kind are judiciously collected and compared, we may hope to establish on them a science” (T, intro., 10)—were very calm and moderate. He never exhibited, in his life, letters, or work, personal hopes of the sort that he described as direct passion hopes. He consciously moderated his passions and was generally known to be of a temperate, peaceful, and congenial disposition even in the face of personal misery. This disposition, which Godfrey contends is a type of hope (fundamental hope), might be a useful component of our Humean true religion. It implies a trust in nature, and this particular kind of trust implies a belief that what we have is all we need.23
Chapter 4 places Hume’s moral thought in the context of his immediate predecessors, that is, between the rationalists and sentimentalists. This sets up my argument, based on Annette Baier’s extensive work, for a religious sensibility in Hume’s practical morality. Hume’s conviction is that sympathy—a psychological mechanism that allows us to share the feelings of another—assists us in the development of virtuous character. Our moral lives are constituted by the exercise of this mechanism that affirms the power of the affective realm to bind us in a common, sociohistorical project for practical morality. The attainment of a feeling of social happiness leads toward approbation and the development of virtuous character. If we take this practical morality as a means of binding humans more closely, it gives us a final dimension for our Humean true religion. This aspect celebrates our natural capacity to form affective solidarity (the common point of view) and acknowledges the social constitution of our moral sentiments.
My concluding chapter discusses the possible usefulness of attending to genuine theism, practical morality, and moderate hope in Hume’s work. It highlights the closeness between Thomas Nagel’s recent naturalist teleology and Hume’s genuine theism, notes how my reading of Hume can be deployed against radical atheists and evangelicals alike, and discusses some general theories of religion amenable to my argument for Hume’s true religion. By doing so, it attempts to provide further justification for why we might benefit from having scrutinized Hume’s inchoate category ‘true religion.’ Or, to put it slightly differently, it gives Hume’s argument value for thinkers in religious studies. Philosophers have traditionally dismissed Hume’s category ‘true religion’ on the grounds that it is useless as religious worldview, that Hume was insincere in his assertions of it, or that it was a simple way to subvert religion. These approaches refuse to appreciate the breadth of religious theories, methods in the study of religion, and diversity within the history of religion. Reflection on religion demonstrates that affection-based worldviews that celebrate nature yet posit no worship content or those that have a broad sense of a deity with no attributes and refuse to stipulate a firm moral code can still be referred to as “religion.”
A general theme that runs through my argument is that the field of philosophy of religion is a mode of inquiry that perennially raises the questions of what constitutes religion and how we might talk about it. This reminds us that religion always manifests as a specific set of beliefs, actions, and reflections located in a particular tradition. These traditions are always fluid and malleable; in part, they are shaped by social forces, habits of common life, political contexts, geographical location, and so on. We should, therefore, consistently challenge our presuppositions about religion and keep track of the various commitments that we import to our discussions of it. I hope that readers will use Hume’s work as a source for reenergized discourse in the field of religious studies. If our speculative, Humean-influenced true religion is constituted by a humble philosophical theism, a moral commitment to happiness, and a moderate way of hoping, then we have extended the set of tools we have to work with in religious studies. Still, “I am apt, in a cool hour, to suspect, in general, that most of my reasonings will be more useful by furnishing hints and exciting people’s curiosity than as containing any principles that will augment the stock of knowledge that must pass to future ages” (LET, 1.16.39).
But if we consider the matter more closely, we shall find, that this interested diligence of the clergy is what every wise legislator will study to prevent; because in every religion, except the true, it is highly pernicious, and it has even a natural tendency to pervert the true, by infusing into it a strong mixture of superstition, folly, and delusion.
—HE, 3.135–36
The majority of the literature on David Hume is relatively silent about what he takes the proper office of religion to be. This is understandable given Hume’s powerful critique of traditional Christian doctrine and the fact that he neither offered a prescriptive language for religion nor detailed its proper office. Unlike his peers who assumed the natural progress of history (Smith), proposed a Christian vision for society (Locke), or accepted that the universe had a moral dimension (Hutcheson), Hume challenged these ideas and contested the philosophical justification of religion. Still, his work was rich with constructive insights—some inchoate and others implicit—that contemporary thinkers in religious studies might benefit from considering. Taking his Ciceronian influences into account and reading Hume through the lens of our speculative true religion brings these constructive elements into view. From this perspective, Hume’s arguments regarding causation, his sense that passions can be moderated, and his commitment to a practical morality (T, 3.3.6.6) supply content for what Hume might have meant by religion’s proper office. This chapter elaborates on the rare form of religion that “regulate[s] the heart[s] of men” and “humanize[s] their conduct” (DCNR, 12.12) and attempts to extend Hume’s project for religion so that it might be useful for contemporary discourse in the philosophy of religion.
Hume’s explicitly stated aim regarding religion was to discern its manifestations in common life, explain its foundations in reason, and narrate its “origin[s] in human nature” (NHR, introd). His actual reflections on religion went a bit further: they were multidimensional and included penetrating observations as well as moderate suggestions couched in the terms he inherited: false religion and true religion.1 Characteristically, the critical framework of Hume’s science easily conveyed his distaste for false religion: “a species of philosophy” (E, 11.27). His positive project for religion, however, was largely concealed in indirection. Isabel Rivers offers a crucial reminder: we must “be aware of what is taken for granted, the unstated moral and theological assumptions” in the work of Radical Enlightenment philosophers.2 Her point, that the aspirations of some thinkers cannot find expression in their theoretical framing due to the critical structure of their work, is an important filter for the following investigation. To effectively consider what Hume may have meant by religion’s proper office, that is, to detect his mild suggestions for religion so we might build on them, we should generally work from a positive philosophical temperament and keep in mind the broad aims of his project.3
We expand our understanding of Hume when we acknowledge both the trenchant criticisms and tacit recommendations for religion across his writings. To be sure, Hume’s generically voiced project for religion was mostly a critical one directed against the Evangelical Presbyterianism in which he was raised. Though his work contained inconsistencies and incongruities, his critical disposition toward religion did not vary: he dubbed popular forms of Christian practice and doctrine “false religion” and he loathed them. Hume further derided the theism of popular religion
