David Hume was born in 1711 and in the same year that the colonies declared

their independence from Great Britain 1776 David Hume died He's known as a skeptical Scottish philosopher. He's a key figure in the

Enlightenment and in the study of modern philosophy, especially epistemology, which is the study of knowledge. How we know what we know,

and how what we know is actually truth. That's epistemology, and David Hume was a very significant figure in it. He was known as an empiricist and by that he meant that knowledge is not innate.

Knowledge must come through experience, which of course we relate to or know through

the senses. As I mentioned he was ultimately a skeptic. He argued that the senses could be deceived and if all knowledge comes

through the senses we must be skeptical. We certainly can't be certain of our

knowledge. He also argued that our experiences are not universal, certainly not eternal.

So we can't speak of laws.

For instance, he said we can't speak of the law of cause and effect, but instead we can only speak of what Hume called customary relationships.

In terms of the field of ethics, David Hume rejected the idea of

moral absolutes. He advanced what he called sentimentalism, morality and the laws that govern societies and human relations are based on

sentiment, even emotion, but certainly not on some moral absolute that is discovered or understood from the rational processes.

David Hume is the progenitor of any number of 20th century philosophies like logical positivism,

analytical philosophy, or even we could say 20th century atheism,

he was certainly no friend of Christianity at all.

So, all of that raises a question.

Why am I talking about David Hume to you on five minutes in church history?

Well, that's a great question, and I have two answers. First he

was an historian. He wrote these philosophical books but in his own day nobody

bought them and he wanted to be a popular writer. He truly wanted to do that. So he wrote an 8 volume

History of England. I have a 1786 edition, only have volume 7 of that edition. And on page 32, and in this volume he's talking

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