Published by

David Hume and the Cancelation of Religious Dogma
But treating faith more subjectively is not the only way to come at this issue, even from a
skeptical standpoint. Some persons think they have rational reasons for rejecting judgments
between the world religions. One who thought so was influential Eighteenth Century Scottish
philosopher David Hume, who concluded that “miracles” in one religion were capable of ruling
out the “miracles” in other faiths. But when the miracles clash, the rival beliefs in both of the
religious systems are destroyed, as well. Therefore, the bottom line is that “miracles” in the
various religions thereby nullified each other. When that occurred, the rest of their teachings
were also eliminated. 1
But this is an odd critique for many reasons and it is usually rejected or at least ignored
even by Hume’s skeptical supporters. To clarify, Hume clearly did not believe in the occurrence
of miracles. But even if most miracle-claims in the world’s religions were bogus, perhaps just
lies, how could false reports conceivably annul the possibility of true miracle claims? Or if all
miracles were rejected as false, on what grounds would any of them cancel each other? Then
again, miracles in different religions might actually occur because of being quite compatible with
each other!
In varying circumstances regarding our alternative examples of miracle-claims, it is
difficult to charge that any of these claims or actual events would cancel each other. For
example, if all miracle-claims are simply false anyway, as Hume believed, then that clearly
1 David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X: “Of Miracles,” Part II, point four.
8