Experience

Imagine living in a world that is very different than the one that exists today. A world that is based only on the experiences that you have personally encountered. In this world, there is no such thing as hope; no such thing as looking forward to things to come; no such thing as faith. In this world, life is never more than what you can make it because you have such little trust of others that you can’t believe what they may share with you is factual or real. This is the world that David Hume paints as reality. How does one live in a world without hope for tomorrow and believing in things to come? The presumption that Hume takes is based solely on skepticism and a supreme lack of trust in others. This idea is such a lonely way to think and a depressing way to live your life. We will examine the position that Hume takes and refute his points to show that life really is great; people, for the most part, are trustworth and real relationships are built on trust and faith not skepticism.

Hume’s belief that the Bible is faulty because it is based on testimony has some merit, but is also significantly flawed. He states, “The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), ‘That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish.’” (Hume 83). Yes, the Bible is based on testimony and you will find no logically thinking person that disagrees with that idea. If the Bible was based on just one person’s testimony, Hume’s concept would be easier to get behind. However, the Bible is based on the testimony of countless people, and was written by over 40 different people who were either eyewitnesses or inspired by the Holy Spirit. Now more than 2,000 years later not a single idea in the Bible has been proven wrong. People can not base their feelings or faith on something that happens everyday. It would not be called a miracle if it happened all the time.

Hume contradicts himself in his concept that you rely on a person’s testimony. He states, “A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature.” (Hume 83). Hume spends all this time arguing that you can’t trust a persons testimony. He is so untrusting that he doesn’t believe what anyone says. He doesn’t believe miracles happen unless he sees them himself, and even then he has to consider it it was one or not. In the next paragraph of the book, he says, “I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle.” (Hume 83). By his own reasoning, he contradicts himself and says he will believe a miracle but only the one that doesn’t require as much faith to believe it actually happened. It takes more faith to believe in the greater miracle than in the smaller one. By his own admission, he believes in miracles. Hume is open to the truth, but only if he sees it himself. If you apply this concept to something other than religion, his knowledge would not be good. For instance, Hume wouldn’t believe that someone actually walked on the moon in 1969 or that the Wright brothers discovered how to fly in 1903. 

Hume develops the idea that death is a law of nature and resurrection is not. “We may observe in human nature a principle, which, if strictly examined, will be found to diminish extremely the assurance, which we might, from human testimony, have, in any kind of prodigy… where there is an opposition of arguments, we ought to give the preference to such as are founded on the greatest number of past observations.” (Hume 84). Hume does not believe in the existence of a miracle unless he actually encounter them himself. Even then, he still has to think and reason it out, to determine if he actually saw something that does not have a law of nature attached to it yet. So the question remains, is he actually open to the truth? Why would he or should he believe in something that happens that he doesn’t feel he can prove himself. This brings us back to the original thought of what a lonely life it must be if you can’t trust someone else. 

It seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Hume wrote An Enquiry to Human Understanding in 1748. This entire book is a defense against the belief of faith. It would be foolish to belive in something that happens everyday. This is such a lonely way to live one’s life. It is better to believe in something that is false than to not belive in something that is true. For example, as Christians we have faith that heaven exists, therefore we live our lives with the goal of getting to heaven when we die. If we live our lives in such a way to get there and it doesn’t exist, what have we lost? We have lived a good life! If we die and it does exist, we’ve gained eternity. Everything we do requires a little bit of faith.