Hume on Miracles, Religion and History

Hume applied his empiricism to religion and history with controversial results. In his essay 'Of Miracles' (1748), he argued that a wise person proportions belief to evidence, and since the laws of nature rest on uniform experience, testimony for a miracle would almost never outweigh the evidence against it.

His Natural History of Religion (1757) explained religion as arising from human hopes and fears. His Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, published in 1779 after his death on the advice of friends, examined the argument that the order of nature proves a designer, raising objections that later thinkers continued to debate.

Religious critics attacked his views, and they contributed to his failure to win university posts. Hume was also a historian: his History of England (1754 to 1762) was a best-seller that sought to explain events by causes rather than providence. Interpreters still debate whether Hume was an atheist, an agnostic or a cautious skeptic.