" As such, Philo represents the ideology that God should remain important within the religious sphere, and that it is perfectly ok for people to love and admire Him from a religious standpoint. Yet, science is based on collecting evidence from actual observations. Because we cannot directly observe God, there is no room for Him in the genre of science. We cannot observe His behavior or record what he looks like in any sort of detail. Neither can we ask Him fundamental questions about the nature of our existence in order to help us on our quest to understand why we are here. He simply won't answer. Due to that, there is no way to rely on Him for anyone to base any sort of scientific or empirical assumptions of God's word or teachings as seen from the Bible, which was written by a mere human being. Philo does not reject the...

The character simply expresses that there is no real way to understand God on some sort of scientific level. The way the character speaks of God is in a mysterious tone. Here, Hume writes "Nothing exists without a cause; and the original cause of this universe (whatever it may be) we call God; and piously ascribe to him every species of perfection." In this, the character clearly shows a belief in God, yet this belief is a mysterious one. Philo cannot say with absolute certainty what God is and what He is not. Therefore, he cannot remain a source of knowledge within the sciences. This was a very controversial viewpoint at the time, but it was definitely aligned with Hume's own beliefs. As such, Hume uses the character of Philo to rely his own beliefs through a third party character in his fictional writings.