Hume on God

David Hume one of the most influential philosophers to have written in the English language is widely known as a skeptic and an empiricist. He is famous for raising questions about the existence of things for which there is insufficient empirical evidence such as souls the self miracles and perhaps most importantly God. Despite this reputation however Hume's works contain frequent references to a deity and one searches in vain to find a positive assertion of atheism. This book proposes a different reading of Hume on God in which Hume is seen as proposing a 'genuine theism'. Yoder investigates Hume's use of irony and his relationship with the Deists of his era and offers a thorough re-examination of Hume's writings on religion. Yoder concludes that despite Hume's criticisms of the church religiously-based ethics and the belief in miracles he stops well short of a rejection of the existence of God. Always a creative thinker Hume carves out a unique conception of the divine being.