The Heresy of David Hume: Alive and Well in the Church Today?

While many Christians associate the name of David Hume with his arguments against the possibility of miracles, the late Christian philosopher and theologian Ronald Nash argued back in 1976 that we ought to be aware of Hume for another reason. In his article, "Hume's Heresy: Believing is Beyond Knowing," Nash asserts a bold thesis:

"My contention is that Hume's major threat to Christianity today comes not from the theories for which he gained notoriety but rather from his espousal of a notion that has, in fact, become widely held in Christendom."

This "notioin that has . . . become widely held in Christendom," is what Nash labels, "Hume's Heresy." This heresy is "that man cannot have knowledge of the transcendent."

In essence, Hume argues that it is impossible for us to have any knowledge of God whatsoever. Furthermore, Hume said that any belief we have of God is located "in man's non-rational nature." In other words, humans still believe in God, but not for logical reasons. They do so because of "custom or tradition."
Is Hume's heresy alive and well in the church today? Ronald Nash definitely thought so. He said this thought began to gain currency with the rise of liberalism. For instance, he said:

“The last two centuries of Christian theology are the record of an evolving attack on the place of knowledge in Christianity. Following Hume and Kant, liberal theologians rejected the truth content of Christianity and asserted that the essence of faith is feeling or trust or obedience. Neo-orthodoxy, too, rejected objective, rational revelation and replaced God's disclosure of propositional truth with personal encounter."

Thus, the conclusion of the liberals was that since we can't have objective knowledge of God, we must come to know and experience God another way. This "other way" is through non-cognitive or emotionalistic venues. Nash says this mentality has infected the church insofar as we downplay the "cognitive dimension of revelation."

So how is Hume's heresy alive and well in the church? Nash gives some great insights:

"Hume's heresy has infected orthodoxy to the extent that if evangelicals are not de-emphasizing the cognitive dimension of revelation, they are successfully ignoring it. The new anti-intellectualism that threatens evangelicalism is evidenced by its disregard for the revealed truth of God and its effort to substitute other concerns for that truth. Christian anti-intellectualism may be manifested in a variety of ways: in a contempt for creeds, in a search for God through the emotions, in a dependence upon some kind of mystical experience. Hume would be comfortable in many of our churches today, for he would hear stories and testimonies about religious experiences that appeal to emotions. Hume could teach in most theological seminaries (including some that call themselves evangelical). . . . The most obvious consequence of Hume's Heresy is a minimal theism. Once Hume's stance is adopted, New Testament Christianity, with its proclamation of a divine Christ whose death and resurrection secured redemption from sin and gave men hope beyond the grave, must be replaced with religion that talks about how good it feels to have an experience with a god about whom nothing definite can be known. The threat to Christianity today from the legacy of David Hume is not a full-fledged frontal assault upon Christian theism, with all the troops advancing in full light of day. That kind of attack would fail because it would arouse Christians to a rational defense of their faith. David Hume's legacy is more insidious. This time around, the enemy comes while everyone is asleep. He undermines the faith not by denying it but by directing our attention away from the importance of knowledge-claims and its truth-content."

It's hard to believe this was written in the 1970s