I have long had a fraught relationship with Christianity. Raised as a Roman Catholic in a Massachusetts family with Irish roots I was taught to revere the institution, which I did until I did not. Indeed, throughout much of my life I became a Catholic rebel or eschewer more content with finding fault with the Church than looking for the virtues, which to be honest I have always known were hidden there among the layers of hypocrisy, intolerance, and self-righteousness.
What follows is the kind of Christian story that still appeals to me. It is a kind of David and Goliath tale of an individual standing up to a far superior power. The commanding strength of the Church pitted against a single wily and crafty intellect. To set the stage let us review how Christian supremacy came to reign across Europe and the western world.
Christianity has long played a paramount and highly influential role in the life and history of the European continent since the fall of the Roman Empire. The collapse of Roman rule in the western part of Europe is generally dated to the year 476 CE, the date the Germanic chieftain Odoacer ousted the last Roman emperor who controlled the western part of Europe, Romulus Augustulus. (Of note, the eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire, lasted for another thousand years. The Great Schism of 1054 permanently separated Roman Catholicism in the west from the Orthodox Church in the east.)
The theological underpinnings of Christianity had been codified just prior to the fall of the empire in the form of the teachings of Saint Augustine. These stringent, uncompromising, yet to many revered dictates on topics such as the meaning of original sin, the necessity of salvation, the reach of God’s omnipotence, and the rigorous dedication required for each individual to pursue a spiritual journey set the stage for influencing western European religion and culture for many centuries to come.
With Augustine’s theological structure in place the Roman Catholic Church became one of the only significant institutions remaining from the empire that represented social steadfastness and constancy in western Europe. As the seceding centuries transpired a blend of the growing power of popes, the expansion of monasteries, missionary zeal, conversions to Christianity among royal lines, political marriages, military partnerships, and cultural intermingling led to the establishment of Christian kingdoms and religious unification across much of the continent.
It is difficult to overstate the authoritarian importance of Christianity across western Europe. As the faith became more entrenched across the continent the very identity of Europeans became defined by their adherence to Christian doctrine. Culture, social order, education, the arts, and personal conduct were decreed from the papacy in Rome as the Church replaced the empire in its universality. Indeed, state control in the form of feudal systems collaborated companionably with the Church to sustain and defend Christian orthodoxy.
Over time, however, cracks began to appear in papal control of western Europe. An eventual establishment in and slow rise of nationalism led to challenges of papal sovereignty. This was clearly evident during the Avignon Papacy of the fourteenth century when for seven decades seven consecutive popes left Rome to govern the Church from Avignon, France. Disputes with French royalty and instability among Italian states resulted in Rome being temporally abandoned by the Church creating an impression that popes were not as invincible as previously thought.
Of course, the most significant confrontation to Roman Catholic control of European religious life was the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. Northern European religious reformers beginning with Martin Luther and John Calvin and nation state rulers such as King Henry VIII of England among others dared the papal preeminence on matters of theology, liturgy, and jurisdictional reach. By the end of the seventeenth century religious wars, internal corruption, political transformations, and theological disagreements permanently ended the Roman Catholic Church’s hegemony over the religious life of western Europe.
Nevertheless, western Europe remained under the ecclesiastical sway of Christianity, albeit within the two churchly provinces of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. To challenge the core of Christian canon with an alternative doctrinal conception was close to unheard of across the continent. To be sure, spiritual variants existed in medieval Europe although they were always limited in their reach. Folk and pagan traditions, heretical factions, mystical and charismatic visionaries, Jewish and Muslim communities, and general doubters and skeptics were evident, but restrained in their capacity to seriously narrow the scope of Christianity.
Rather, a dogged defiance of Christian creed that could not be easily ignored came from an Enlightenment-era philosopher, in the person of David Hume. Born in Edinburgh in 1711 and raised in the Scottish Lowlands close to the English border Hume became one of the deepest thinkers and greatest intellects of the eighteenth century. When I first began studying western philosophy my initial impression of Hume was that he was a radical empiricist. Nothing I have learned about him since has dissuaded me from that original notion.
David Hume presented a much more extensive body of philosophical thought than merely religious critique. His explorations involving epistemology, skepticism, ethics, and early psychology were sweeping, but it was Hume’s radical empiricism that prompted him to confront the frailties he found apparent in religious thinking—with Christianity, the prominent religion in his culture acutely in his sights.
Hume’s entire philosophical project rested on core assumptions chief among them that human beings are simply too restricted in their ability to perceive anything beyond what sensory experience reveals. A grand metaphysical structure, whether it be divine or solely physical, is an abstraction outside of our capacity to comprehend. All we can know about the world begins with our sensory impressions; those vibrant connections we make with the world external to our minds. These impressions convert to ideas which are the thoughts and conceptions we mentally construct as we reflect on our sensory experiences.
By rejecting metaphysics as a credible invention due to the lack of a direct tangible sensorial connection between humans and any alleged existential actuality, Hume concedes that we humans can never know the true nature of ultimate reality. Because of our epistemological limitations, which are confined to our senses, we cannot prove the existence of any transcendental realms or realities. This would include the existence of God, which most Christians of the eighteenth century (and indeed today) still view as a transcendent being. If God cannot be proven to exist, then by extension all the works and effects believers claim are the result of God’s actions are also called into question.
At the time of Hume Newtonian science was in full development. What science was exposing was that the universe had order—from the movement of heavenly bodies to the flow of blood within our own bodies. Surely, many contended, a grand design was evident in the makings of the universe, which deists and theists claimed was the handiwork of God. However, Hume was having none of it. How do we know God designed the universe? And if God did design the universe why did he design one with so many faults in it?
Hume intentionally engaged with conventional Christian thought assailing key tenets by consistently basing his commentary on his premise of the prominence of sensory experience. Take the causality of the universe, a fundamental discourse in the eighteenth century that goes as far back as the pre-Socratic philosopher Parmenides. Most agreed that whatever exists must have a cause for its existence. Afterall, nothing can come from nothing. Furthermore, no cause can manifest perfection unless the cause itself is perfect. God, an immaterial, intelligent, and perfect being must be the preeminent cause of the universe.
Not necessarily so said Hume. To begin with the typical claim of cause and effect in general is faulty. Because we observe repeated sequences does not establish causation. These common and everyday repetitions we notice in our lives only highlight typical courses of action, not causal relationships. Could we therefore not also be incorrect about claiming God as the cause of the universe? What sensory experience can we attribute to God creating the universe? Such a declaration exceeds human awareness.
Hume’s skepticism extends to religious conceptions of souls, miracles, and the idea of future states of being in heaven and hell. Humans are driven by emotions and passions and not by reason according to Hume. We want to share as social creatures in the glorification of common convictions, moral judgments, and belief in God. Custom and habit motivate our behavior. Our ideas about religion are based more on feelings, imaginations, and what we think works best. Abstract reasoning and identifying divine purpose are not our strong suits. Religion will not solve the ultimate mysteries of existence, but it feels good for many to enlist in spiritual community and to practice traditional rituals. David Hume is content to leave religion to that.
Hume is not an atheist in the way we typically think of a non-believer. To me this is revealed in his approach to the age old problem of evil in religion. Most atheists I hear say that because evil clearly exists in the world, then that is proof God does not exist. Hume’s method of relying on sensory experience can no more disprove God than to prove God’s existence. So, he states the obvious. God may or may not exist. We can never know for sure. But what is evident is that pretenses to God’s infinite goodness are suspect in a world where evil abounds. Hume calls into question what kind of God is it that permits evil? And on that point Hume is not alone.
We also do not find Hume rejecting morality. Rather he devises a secular set of ethics that rests on human nature and conduct which promotes happiness and reduces suffering. Religion is not required to live a life of integrity and goodness. I think Hume would have agreed with the future Abraham Lincoln who said, “When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion.”
It is difficult with a twenty-first century perspective to fully appreciate how socially and politically thorny it was for David Hume to confront the established Christian thinking of eighteenth century Britain. He showed awareness of knowing he needed to temper the presentation of his convictions when for example he expounded his critique cloaked in the guise of a fictional character’s dialogue. He was known also to conduct self-censorship. What is unmistakable is that he exposed himself to a hefty dose of inconvenience and distress.
Hume had very much wanted to be appointed to ethics and philosophy teaching positions at both the University of Edinburgh and Glasgow University. However, religious authorities consistently discouraged such appointments due to their claims of Hume’s heresy and atheism. The Catholic Church’s Index Librorum Prohibitorum or List of Prohibited Books included all of Hume’s books in 1761. Although never completely followed through, The Church of Scotland also began an action to try Hume for infidelity.
His personal life fared no better than his professional one. Throughout his life his critics referred to him as The Great Infidel and as an atheist. He was shunned by many of the professional class, although not by all intellectuals. In short, he existed as a controversial figure for presenting alternative views to the ideological norm. The time in which Hume lived is now referred to as The Enlightenment, but plainly that did not mean the period was fully illuminated.
As David Hume faced death during the summer of 1776 there was a public captivation across Britain with whether or not The Great Infidel would renounce his irreverent skepticism. Another great Scottish Enlightenment philosopher and friend of Hume’s, Adam Smith described Hume’s final days as buoyant and calm with no reservations of his beliefs evident. Another philosopher friend, the pious James Boswell, was beside Hume’s deathbed and gave his friend an opportunity to experience a last-minute conversion. But it was not to be. David Hume died as he had lived—content with his philosophical skepticism and steadfast in his convictions.