Filler out of the can...

The Test Question:

As thoroughly as possible, explain Hume's argument for being skeptical of the idea that all good humans or dogs for that matter go to Heaven. In expressing this argument of Hume's, you will need to explain his philosophical perspective with respect to human knowledge and understanding as clearly and completely as you can. (Hint*, if you think you can do this well without explaining how Hume thinks of causality then you are the only one between us who thinks you can). Provide examples from the text and be sure to express what you think are the strengths and weaknesses of his argument(s).

To speak to the subject of “going to Heaven” from the perspective of David Hume’s philosophy is, in my opinion, to sacrifice the ultimately human qualities of hope and dignity on the alter of a logic which places no value on either, an ironic and futile sacrifice of the very sort the consummately skeptical Hume would likely point to as solid reason to not build alters of any sort.  Be that as it may, the toxic task at hand is to explain Hume’s philosophy while using it to construct an argument he might have used to introduce the greatest possible degree of doubt into anyone holding a belief in a post mortem awareness spent in a state of consummate peace and satisfaction, what is commonly called Heaven, as reward for the effort of a mortal life lived to any code of ethics more demanding than the approval of one’s fellows concerning some expediency of the moment.

To approach explaining Hume’s skepticism concerning any human going to heaven, or even the existence of heaven and all thought associated, one must first frame in an understanding of how the boundaries and limitations Hume enforced on his own thought, the often rigid and mechanistic logic by which he defined human existence, would impact on such concepts.

In Hume’s world view there are only two categories of knowledge, those being Relations of Ideas, concepts that by their basic definition allow no possibility of contradiction; and, Matters of Fact containing all other things that expose the possibility of polarity without contradiction.  Interestingly, it would seem Hume does not consider the Relations of Ideas as of equal importance to Matters of Fact, saying these may be discovered by the “mere operation of thought”  as if thought and ideas are, to him, separate things. *¹  (p15.5: ALL the objects of human reason or inquiry may naturally be divided into two kinds, to wit, Relations of Ideas, and Matters of Fact. Of the first kind… are discoverable by the mere operation of thought… Matters of fact, which are the second objects of human reason, are not ascertained in the same manner… The contrary of every matter of fact is still possible; because it can never imply a con­tradiction, and is conceived by the mind with the same facility and dis­tinctness, as if ever so conformable to reality.)

The concept of an “impression” is the key to Hume’s vision of human existence,  an Impression (also referred to as a “sentiment”) defined as an internal and incommunicable event of the mind linked with, and giving rise to, a unique structure of symbolic thought representing some facet (of either the inner or outer reality) which can be communicated, called Ideas.  In Hume’s philosophy the contents of the inner reality, the human mind, follow a tightly prescribed path into existence: an impression inspired by some perceived facet of reality giving rise to an idea, this irreversible sequence an obvious parallel to the structures of the causal logic he rigorously enforces on the outer reality, the instigating cause giving rise to the observable effect.  (52.2:  Every idea is… …and this sentiment is the original of that idea which we seek.  50.2: But when one particular species of event has always, in all instances, been conjoined with another… …we then call the one object, Cause; the other, Effect.)

Hume makes it quite clear he does not subscribe to the human as possessing any inborn or instinctive knowledge, holding forth that experience, and only experience, provides the human knowledge as said human comes to understand the connection  between cause and effect, the sum of such knowledge stored in memory becoming what Hume refers to as custom, or habit.  An astute observation concerning human nature Hume brings forward has to do with custom as the most primal of expectations, the absolutely mandatory assumption that the future will resemble the past, that a similar effect may be expected from a similar cause, the expectation that enables knowledge to be of value.

For the purpose at hand a truly critical issue Hume points out is the absolute truth that experience can only exist after the event which creates it.  If experience, and only experience, begets knowledge then knowledge cannot exist before the event which taught it, ergo no human during his life has any possibility of personal knowledge concerning the nature of any perception that might, or might not, exist beyond his mortal tenure. By the definition given custom cannot play a legitimate role in the subject at hand.  By Hume’s philosophy a claim that any mortal “knows” there is an afterlife could be nothing more than wishful thinking in response to lifelong indoctrination by the institutions of religion substituting an overwhelming repetition of assertion to usurp the valid functions of custom, installing in that place a false belief, a sentiment conceived to peer pressure rather than any verifiable knowledge. ( 18.3  Such is the function of custom, that, where it is strongest, it not only covers our natural ignorance, but even conceals itself, and seems not to take lace, merely because it is found in the highest degree.)

Hume’s philosophy brought to focus on such matters devolves down to saying that never having been dead you cannot actually know anything of what being dead might be like, not Heaven nor Hell, there is no experience among mortals to provide the originating impression from which any idea might arise.  Therefore what you think you know of such things can be no more than a deception worked on your life by those who were deceived in the same manner, a deception that blinds you to the fact that left to your own devices without knowledge of where Heaven might be, in your own thought or in reality, or how to recognize it should you stumble on it by accident it becomes most improbable that you would ever dwell there by your own effort or intent.

The reason Hume would not set high the probability of anyone getting to Heaven is that unlike his predecessor Descartes who obviously treated with matters of the spirit as belonging to that category of thought called Relation of Ideas, where it is possible to consider the actions and motives of a self aware deity who might, in mercy, offset the limitation listed above, Hume (most likely as response to the effect  of the injustices created by the socio-political force of religion misused, and likely enough in a defense of the emotional self as cause ) sets such thought solidly as Matters of Fact demanding they produce evidence from the perceivable reality of nature as validation.  Given the inherent differences between the two modes of thought it isn't all that hard to construct, or perhaps better said emulate in imagination, a monologue approximating what Hume might have put forward on the subject of “going to heaven.” 

To speak as might have Hume:  “The fools.  In all matters of industry and commerce to which they dedicate their lives they demand a payment of equal or greater value than that cost which their labor draws from their lives, and will accept no less, nor counterfeit of value, and yet in matters which govern that portion of their lives not dedicated to their labors they exercise no such discretion, indeed, they extend an endless credit whose payment is to be drawn on a bank unknown to any nation on earth, as if the custom of equating to some degree of pomposity an equal degree of potency assures them the  payment promised in a currency never seen, indeed unknown and unknowable, will carry a greater value than that portion of their lifetime (afforded by all of mankind as the more endearing part by reason of its’ freedom from onerous labor) they will have spent indentured to a contract drawn with no collateral assessed against the borrower, a contract where upon default no Court of Law might enforce justice by the impossibility of a posthumous plaintiff!  The fools.  At the price of all innocence in life they book a sunset passage on a vessel bound for an utterly uncharted land called Heaven upon the promise, not by the master of that vessel but rather by uncertified and unsupervised agents, that said vessel will deliver them to a land of mythic ecstasy whose true nature they cannot even, for the reason of having never known such a land nor even received report by proven courier, bring into feeblest imagination with any degree of fidelity.  Such a vessel could deliver them to the sunrise coast of their very country of departure by dark of night and call the contract fulfilled, they would be none the wiser; or, presuming the good master of such vessel should in all good faith endeavor to honor his agents’ promise find himself with no course to steer as a consequence of that same most acute ignorance such that in the end, the provision of his vessel exhausted, he be compelled by hardest necessity to reprise the duplicity suspected of the agents!  The fools.  In either case their ignorance will be their undoing, they will be going nowhere, and the innocence of their life will have been spent in vain.  The fools.”

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*1)  Thought is conducted using symbolic forms to identify the portions of reality addressed by the thought, a symbolic structure the result of an idea demanding an originating impression, to my thought even and especially in considering the Relation of Ideas it would seem inevitable that the same logic of impression resulting in idea set symbolic would put the same demand on the thinker to produce the source of the impression, or abandon it.  Were this essay a semester term paper I might dive into how this would apply to the subject of “going to heaven,” but a week is not nearly enough time to attempt such a work.