ABSTRACT
Hume contrasts two different ways in which we might speak about the attributes of the first cause of all: first, in an attempt to describe the actual nature of this ultimate being or principle; second, in ascribing attributes to it as so many honorifics, with no intention to describe but merely to express our own reverence. I survey Hume’s skeptical critique of the former, descriptive kind of talk and also examine his purposes in considering and, through his character Philo, apparently valorizing the latter reverence-expressing kind of religious speech.
