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In a letter to Henry Home (1696-1782) published in 1737, Hume confessed that he intended to include a skeptical discussion of miracles in his ''Treatise'' but left it out for fear of offending readers. Critics of religion in eighteenth century Europe faced the risk of fine, imprisonment, or worse. [[CiteRef::Fieser (2017)]] Hume did later publish his critique in the ''Enquiry''. He wrote that "A wise man...proportions his belief to the evidence" [[CiteRef::Hume (2004)| p. 56]] and drew the conclusion that "A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and because firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the case against a miracle is- just because it is a miracle- as complete as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined to be....No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless it is of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact it tries to establish...When anyone tells me that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately ask myself whether it is more probable that this person either deceives or has been deceived or that what he reports really has happened...If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous than the event he relates, then he can claim to command my belief or opinion, but not otherwise". [[CiteRef:: Hume (2004)| p. 58-59]] The claim that a dead man was restored to life is, of course, central to Christian theology.

By the eighteenth century Hume''a priori'' rational arguments for s most ambitious skeptical attack on 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 possibility 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 knowledge was his ''Dialogues concerning Natural Religion'', which he arranged to have published posthumously because of its inflammatory nature. In it, Hume raised devastating objections to this the claim that the universe showed evidence of purposeful design argumentby an Intelligent Creator. [[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)]]