In the period of the Scottish Enlightenment the term ‘natural religion’ was used to refer to two important different phenomena – theological beliefs based on evidence drawn from the natural world, and the religious impulses that can be found ‘implanted’ in human nature. This paper takes two works by David Hume as exemplifying this difference. It critically investigates what Hume has to say about natural religion in the second sense, and compares it with the approach of his friend and contemporary Adam Smith. The paper argues that, though in general the two philosophers have much in common, on the matter of the place of religion in human nature, and its social accommodation, they differ significantly, and a case is made for thinking that Smith’s account of religion is superior to Hume’s.
Gordon Graham (Tue,) studied this question.