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A Critical Evaluation Of David Hume's Critique Of Natural Religion
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CHAPTER ONE
METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATION
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM:
This research study is in the area of philosophy of religion. Joseph Omoregbe, in his book A philosophical look at Religion has defined philosophy of religion as “free, unprejudiced rational inquiry into the nature, meaning and purpose of religion or is a defense of religion, but and unprejudiced investigation into the nature, meaning and purpose of religion and the truth value of religious tenets. The truth value of religion has to do with the truth or falsity of the religion. It lets us know whether religion is worth practicing. The question of truth value has to do with whether to engage in a religious activity is worthwhile. Truth value the way we understand it is what makes a theory or a religious system reasonable to believe. If the truth of a religious system is verified and confirmed to be true, it will give its adherents the motive power to put more effort in the course they believe. This is our task in this study and this will be done within the context of David Hume’ view on Religion.
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher who is generally regarded as the greatest of the British empiricist and it is said that he took empiricism to its logical conclusion which is skepticism.
Hume applied his rigorous empiricist logic to examining religious matters and drew some skeptical conclusion, this is the issue we want to critically examine in this study. The central problem then and controlling question of this study is was Hume an atheist? Our response will be in the negative, as we shall argue subsequently.
1.2 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
Our objective in this study is to critically analyse and evaluate the views of David Hume on religion with a view to determining the validity or otherwise of the description of Hume as an atheist. An atheist is one who maintains that there is no God. Now, the question is, was this the position of David Hume?
Stated differently, our objective in this study is to carry out a detailed critical study of natural religion.
We also aim to study Hume’s controversial essay “of miracles†which appeared in his An Enquiry Concerning Human understanding. A reading of these two pieces gives us a clear picture of Hume’s views on religion; and this is our objective in this study.
CHAPTER ONE -- [Total Page(s) 2]
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