Hume, The Natural History of Religion (1757)
December 26, 2007 5:18 pm Theories of ReligionDavid Hume, The Natural History of Religion
Hume’s The Natural History of Religion was first published in 1757. It was among the first attempts to account for the origins of theism in naturalistic terms. It can therefore be seen as a response to the argument that the sophistication of monotheism is such that it must have been handed down to men by God; Hume disputes this, giving a psychological explanation of the rise of refined monotheism, in just the same way as modern Darwinists give naturalistic explanations of the apparent teleology in nature that theists say can only be explained with reference to God.