Hume's skepticism was the result of more than his strong commitment to the Enlightenment ideal of the supremacy of reason; it was also largely the result of his equally strong commitment to the philosophical principles of British Empiricism. Following in the footsteps of George Berkeley, Hume believed that all factual knowledge derives from experience. In contrast to the rationalists, such as Rene Descartes and Nicolas Malebranche (both influential for Hume), who believed that knowledge of matters of fact can be attained through the use of our reasoning faculty, Hume maintained that all matters of fact are established solely on the basis of our experience of the world. (In other words, according to Hume, you cannot just sit in your armchair, think really hard, and expect to come up with any knowledge of matters of fact. In order to arrive at new substantive knowledge, you have to go out into the world and investigate.)
In exploring the possibilities of human knowledge—whether it be scientific knowledge, moral knowledge, or religious knowledge—the relevant question for Hume was always the same: does our experience of the world provide us with enough evidence to draw a rational inference to the relevant conclusions? If experience does provide us with enough evidence, then the relevant beliefs (e.g. religious belief, in the case of the Dialogues) are justified and so rational, and if experience does not provide us with enough evidence, then the relevant beliefs are not justified and so not rational. (The assertion that a claim is rational if and only if it is supported by the evidence is commonly referred to as evidentialism. Both empiricists and rationalists alike believed firmly in evidentialism.)
Hume's commitment to empiricism accounts for the narrow focus of his religious investigation in the Dialogues. It might seem arbitrary, given the variety of arguments for God's existence that were employed in Hume's day, for him to have focused almost exclusively on one such argument, the argument from design. It is true that this particular argument (which claims that the intricate order and beauty of our universe is proof of an intelligent and benevolent designer) was enjoying a particular vogue during this period, largely because it was espoused by Sir Isaac Newton, but there were also other fashionable arguments, such as the ontological argument (which sought to prove God's existence from His very nature) and the cosmological argument (which claimed that God had to exist in order to account for our existence). Hume's focus makes sense when we consider that the argument from design is the only one of the three that seeks to base its conclusions on evidence drawn from experience of the world. Only the argument from design looks to the world and asks, "is there enough evidence here to justify our belief in an infinitely good, wise, and omnipotent God?"
In engaging in his investigation of religious belief, Hume was engaging three types of 18th century thinkers, each of whom is represented by a character in the dialogue. First of all, he discusses sort of man who would believe in the argument from design, the empirical theist. The empirical theist believes that by looking at the world, we can come to knowledge about both the existence and the nature of God. The most famous empirical theist of Hume's day was Sir Isaac Newton, but there were also other prominent defenders of the position such as the Dutch scientist and theologian Bernard Nieuwentyt. The second type of man that Hume discusses in this dialogue is the orthodox Christian or fideist, who believes that because human intellectual resources are too weak to lead us to any certain truths, we should abandon reason and accept truths on faith. Famous fideists include Montaigne and Pascal. Finally, Hume presents the skeptic, who is not wholly satisfied with either of these alternatives.
It is in part a testament to Hume's fair and thorough treatment of all these positions that followers of all three of these philosophical traditions have claimed Hume as their greatest mouthpiece. It is almost certainly the religious skeptics who have the best case for calling Hume one of their own (he incontrovertibly set the model for all later attacks on the rationality of religious belief), but fideists have been nearly as adamant in declaring him the greatest voice defending religious orthodoxy. The German philosopher J.G Hamann, for instance, was convinced that Hume had provided the most cogent argument for fideism by proving that there was no rational evidence for Christianity. He translated the dialogues into German hoping that Immanual Kant would read them and become a serious Christian. The Danish theologian Søren Kierkegaard, the most important Christian fideist of the nineteenth century, was also very impressed by this interpretation of Hume's position.
In Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion Hume explores whether religious belief can be rational. Because Hume is an empiricist (i.e. someone who thinks that all knowledge comes through experience), he thinks that a belief is rational only if it is sufficiently supported by experiential evidence. So the question is really, is there enough evidence in the world to allow us to infer an infinitely good, wise, powerful, perfect God? Hume does not ask whether we can rationally prove that God exists, but rather whether we can rationally come to any conclusions about God's nature. He asserts that the first question is beyond doubt; the latter is initially undecided.
Hume presents three characters, each of whom represent a different position on this issue, engaged in a dialogue together. Demea argues for the position of religious Orthodoxy, and insists that we cannot possibly come to know the nature of God through reason. He believes, in fact, that we cannot ever know the nature of God at all because God's nature is inherently beyond the capacity of human comprehension. Philo, the philosophical skeptic, agrees with Demea that God is incomprehensible and provides the most convincing arguments for this position. Cleanthes argues the position of empirical theism—the position that we can come to know about God by reasoning from the evidence afforded us by nature—against these two opponents.
Cleanthes bases his belief in empirical theism on the argument from design. According to this argument, the complex order and beauty of our universe can only be explained by positing the existence of an intelligent designer, that is, God. The argument is supposed to work by way of analogy (an argument of this form is called an argument by analogy): (1) The world resembles a finely tuned machine. (2) All machines we know of are created by intelligence (human intelligence). (3) Therefore, the world must also be caused by intelligence (divine intelligence). By looking at nature, in other words, we obtain overwhelming evidence that God's intelligence resembles human intelligence (though of course, in much more perfect form). The argument from design is supposed to be the best case that can be made for the claim that religious belief can be rational. By showing that the argument from design fails, Hume hopes to prove that religious belief cannot possibly be based on reason.
Philo the skeptic delivers Hume's objections to the argument from design. In part II he attempts to demonstrate that the argument from design is not even an actual instance of the sort of argument it purports to be, and as such is faulty. The argument from design seems to be an argument by analogy, but it does not work even under this rubric. First, the analogy between machines and the universe is weak at best, and as such any reasoning based on this analogy must also be weak. Second, the universe and a machine are not strictly analogous phenomena because they are not independently existing entities, rather the universe is a whole and a machine is a part of it.
Philo also argues that it is not true that all order we experience is caused by intelligence that we can sense. Some order, such as that found in organic bodies, is caused by generation and vegetation. There is no reason, then, to think that just because the world is ordered, it is necessarily a result of intelligent design. Finally, an inductive argument (that is, an argument that argues for a conclusion based on past evidence), which the argument from design certainly is, requires repeated experience of the phenomena in question (i.e. repeated experience of the cause followed by the effect). However here the relevant cause (God) and effect (the universe) are both wholly unique, so there is no way that we could have such repeated experience of their existences or anything that resembles them.
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