Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
David Hume · Public domain · source
Name	Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
Author	David Hume
Language	English
Country	Kingdom of Great Britain
Genre	Philosophy
Publisher	Unknown (posthumous 1779)
Pub date	1779
Media type	Print

Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion is a philosophical work by David Hume that examines arguments for the existence and nature of God through a conversational format. Written in the 1750s and published posthumously, the work engages with traditions represented by figures and texts across Ancient Greece, Renaissance, and Enlightenment thought. Its method and conclusions influenced debates involving philosophers, theologians, scientists, literary figures, and political actors throughout the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Background and Composition

Hume drafted the Dialogues during a period marked by interactions with thinkers associated with Francis Hutcheson, Thomas Reid, and the intellectual milieu around Edinburgh. He composed the work amid conversations on challenges posed by René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and John Locke to scholastic positions associated with Thomas Aquinas and Anselm of Canterbury. Hume's manuscript circulated among contemporaries such as Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson, and William Robertson before the posthumous edition appeared, attracting attention from ministers at Canongate Kirk and patrons of the British Museum. The Dialogues respond to polemics found in works by William Paley, Leibniz, and commentators on the Nicene Creed while drawing on classical sources like Plato, Aristotle, and Epicurus.

Characters and Structure

Hume arranges the text as a dialogue among three interlocutors: the sceptical Philo (echoing threads from Socrates and Galen Strawson-style scepticism), the theistic Cleanthes (reminiscent of arguments in William Paley and Isaac Newton), and the deferential Demea (reflecting positions associated with Plotinus and Augustine of Hippo). The structure echoes dramatic and dialectical practices seen in works by Plato, Sextus Empiricus, and Cicero while engaging theological claims present in Martin Luther's writings and John Calvin's commentaries. Each interlocutor marshals authorities such as Epicurus, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Blaise Pascal, and Thomas Hobbes to defend causal, teleological, and mystical accounts respectively.

Major Arguments and Themes

The Dialogues explore arguments related to the teleological argument familiar from William Paley, the argument from design invoked in responses to Isaac Newton's cosmology, and the cosmological argument with antecedents in Aquinas and Plotinus. Hume examines the problem of evil as articulated against Augustine of Hippo and Leibniz's optimism, interrogates divine attributes debated by Spinoza and Anselm of Canterbury, and raises sceptical points parallel to those in Sextus Empiricus and Pierre Bayle. Themes include analogical inference critiqued in dialogues with echoes of David Ricardo-era political economy analogies, issues of induction central to John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant, and methodological concerns linked to Francis Bacon and the Royal Society. Hume questions whether empirical evidence supports attributing perfection, benevolence, or unity to the deity, engaging contemporaneous scientific developments from figures like Antoine Lavoisier, James Hutton, and Carl Linnaeus.

Reception and Influence

Initial reactions involved clergy, academics, and statesmen across Scotland, England, and France, with responses from defenders of natural theology such as adherents of William Paley and critics influenced by Joseph Priestley and Edward Gibbon. The Dialogues shaped discussions in universities including Oxford University, University of Cambridge, and University of Edinburgh, and influenced philosophers like Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottfried Herder, and Friedrich Schleiermacher. Literary figures including Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Mary Wollstonecraft, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron engaged with Humean scepticism in poetry and prose, while political actors in the circles of William Pitt the Younger and diplomats in Paris debated implications for moral and religious policy. The work factored into later apologetics by Alvin Plantinga and critical histories by John Locke commentators, and informed legal and educational controversies involving Oxford Movement figures and Reform Acts debates.

Philosophical and Theological Critiques

Critiques draw upon resources from Immanuel Kant's transcendental critique, Thomas Reid's common-sense philosophy, and G.W.F. Hegel's dialectical system. Theologians such as John Henry Newman, Friedrich Schleiermacher, and defenders of natural theology like William Paley and John Tillotson offered rebuttals rooted in sacramental, experiential, and moral arguments. Modern analytic responses invoke modal and probabilistic frameworks developed by Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, Bertrand Russell, and W.V.O. Quine to reassess Humean scepticism about induction and causation. Scholars in the history of ideas such as Peter Gay, Jonathan Israel, and Nicholas Phillipson situate the Dialogues within wider cultural shifts tied to institutions like the Royal Society and events such as the Glorious Revolution and French Revolution. Debates continue in contemporary journals edited by boards associated with Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and university departments at Princeton University and Harvard University.

Category:Philosophy books