David Hume’s Skepticism

Philosophers have appealed to the law of cause and effect to argue for the existence of God. How do the skeptics respond? In this brief clip, R.C. Sproul introduces us to David Hume, who criticized the law of causality in his attempt to reject Christianity.

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Transcript

David Hume is considered by theologians to be one of the most formidable critics of Christianity that the church has ever had to encounter. Hume wrote several books, but the two books that are most important, particularly for our concerns in this course, are his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. In the Enquiry, he gives a comprehensive critique of causality, and in his Dialogues he gives a comprehensive critique of miracles. Nobody’s name is more associated with a repudiation of the idea of miracle than David Hume. But again, his major claim to fame in the history of philosophy comes as result of his critical analysis of the concept of cause, or of causality. He was skeptical with respect to our ability to know truth. Because he realized that all empirical knowledge was based upon sensations or impressions.