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Although many early eighteenth century thinkers regarded Newton's theories and Locke's empiricism to constitute a unified system, there was a distinct tension between them, which Hume recognized. Newton had been unable to explain his gravitational force in terms of a corpuscular mechanism. He saw his inductive method as an alternative to the demands of a corpuscularism that stood in the way of the acceptance of a mathematically lawful gravitational force on its own terms. Hume's Newton inspired skepticism of speculative metaphysical hypotheses led him to reject corpuscularism, and his enthusiastic championing of Newton's inductive method led him to challenge Locke's concept of causation, and Aristotle's taxonomy of knowledge and opinion in favour of a new epistemic taxonomy and new concept of causation. [[CiteRef::Hume (1975)]][[CiteRef:: Morris and Brown (2016)]]
By the time he started work on ''A Treatise of Human Nature'' at the age of 23, Hume had become skeptical of religious belief. [[CiteRef:: Morris and Brown (2016)]] The term '''atheism''' was coined by Sir John Cheke almost two hundred years earlier in 1540, to refer to a lack of belief in divine providence. The term assumed its modern meaning of disbelief in the existence of God, as divine non-existence emerged as a disquieting possibility in the seventeenth century. [[CiteRef:: Hyman (2007)]] DescartesIn early modern Christian Europe, theological knowledge was deemed to derive from two sources. '''Natural religion''' rationalism had a proof of attempted to demonstrate God's existence at its foundationand nature through reason, but it was also a challenge to the theological methodology established by Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). This methodology stressed the limitations of human reasonlogic, and observation of the necessity of reliance natural world. '''Revealed religion''' was based on divine revelation and the premise that the text of the Bible. Descartes instead stressed the human capacity to know God was divinely inspired and nature through reason alonethus a source of reliable theological knowledge. [[CiteRef::Fieser (2017)]]
Descartes' rationalism had a proof of God's existence at its foundation, but it was also a challenge to the theological methodology established by Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), which stressed the limitations of human reason, and the need to rely on Biblical revelation. Descartes instead claimed a human capacity to know God and nature through reason alone. However, his rationalist argument for God's existence and guarantorship of the certainty of scientific knowledge was soon rejected as circular. [[CiteRef:: Hyman (2007)]][[CiteRef::Cottingham (1992)]] It was supplanted by Newton's experimental philosophy and Locke's empiricism, both of which stressed experience and observation as sources of the limited knowledge to which humans could aspire. It , and eschewed metaphysics and speculative hypotheses. [[CiteRef::Rogers (1982)]] Though Both Newton and Locke were nevertheless devoutly religious, though they held non-standard beliefs, both . Newton and Locke were nevertheless devoutly religiousauthored an entire volume on Biblical prophesies. [[CiteRef::Mandelbrote (2004)]]Like many natural philosophers associated with the Royal Society, they rejected traditional rationalist proofs of God's existence and instead espoused the '''design argument''', supposing that sought to use the experimental method could to demonstrate with probability that the universe was an exhibited the order and purposefulness of a designed artifact crafted by a cosmic Designeran all-powerful Intelligence. Hume's ''Dialogues on Natural Theology'' (1779) was a response to such hopes, and was to raise devastating objections to them. Unlike Locke, Hume saw that empiricism must place God's existence among those speculative questions to be eschewed. [[CiteRef::Hyman (2007)]] Doubts about God's existence also arose among French intellectuals in the mid-eighteenth century, with the first to openly proclaim himself an atheist being Denis Diderot (1713-1784). [[CiteRef:: Hyman (2007)]][[CiteRef::Bristow (2017)]]
|Major Contributions=Hume's main philosophical contributions were made via several works. The first was ''A Treatise of Human Nature'' published in three volumes in 1739 and 1740, when Hume was 29 years old. Since it sold poorly, Hume recast the material into two later publications, ''Enquiries concerning Human Understanding'', published in 1748, and ''concerning the Principles of Morals'' published in 1751. Because of its controversial nature, Hume had ''Dialogs concerning Natural Religion'' published posthumously in 1779, three years after his death. [[CiteRef::Morris and Brown (2016)]][[CiteRef:: Norton (2009)]]
==== Hume's skepticism about theological knowledge ====
In the early modern periodChristian Europe, theology and natural philosophy were not deemed foreign to one another, but rather seen as compatible parts of an integrated [[Scientific Mosaic|mosaic]] of knowledge. [[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|p. 65]] Isaac NewtonTheological knowledge derived from observations of nature and its supposed design, for examplethe divine revelation of the Bible, authored a volume on Biblical prophesiesand supposed miraculous events where God had intervened directly in human affairs. [[CiteRef::Mandelbrote Fieser (20042017)]] As a thoroughgoing empiricist, Hume questioned all these sources of knowledge, and rejected theological knowledge as impossible. By the eighteenth century ''a priori'' rational arguments for the existence of God,that sought to demonstrate God's existence with mathematical certainty and without appeal to experience, were widely recognized as problematic. Descartes argument, for example, had been exposed as circular. [[CiteRef::Cottingham (1992)]] A dominant progressive strain of theological thought, largely associated with the British Royal Society, instead sought to demonstrate God's existence with probability by showing that the universe possesses the order and purposefulness of a designed artifact created by an all-powerful Intelligence. In his ''Dialogues concerning Natural Religion'', published posthumously because of its inflammatory nature, Hume raised devastating objections to this design argument. [[CiteRef::Morris and Brown (2016)]]
The ''Dialogues'' is written as a conversation between three characters; ''Cleanthes'', a proponent of the design argument, ''Demea'', a mystic, and ''Philo'' a religious skeptic generally supposed to be Hume's spokesperson. Philo argues that the analogy between the universe and a designed artifact is weak. For example, we experience only one universe and have nothing to compare it to. We recognize human artifacts by contrast with non-artifacts such as rocks. He also notes that we have no experience of the origin of the universe, and that causal inference requires a basis in experienced constant conjunction between two things. For the origin of the universe we have nothing of the sort. ''Demea'' deems ''Cleanthes'' concept of God as cosmic designer to be anthropomorphic and limiting. In a discussion of the human condition, ''Philo'' asks why an infinitely wise, powerful, and good God would permit human suffering. By the end, Hume's characters arguments lead the reader to the conclude, with ''Philo'', that God's nature seems inconceivable, incomprehensible, and indefinable and therefore the question of God's existence is rendered meaningless. [[CiteRef::Hume (2015)]][[CiteRef::Oppy (1996)]][[CiteRef::Morris and Brown (2016)]]
