known. How could a pure spirit render himself sensible? What form did
he take? Of what material organs did he make use in order to speak?
How can an infinite Being communicate with those which are finite? I
may be assured that, to accommodate himself to the weakness of his
creatures, he made use of the agency of some chosen men to announce
his wishes to all the rest, and that he filled these agents with his
spirit, and spoke by their mouths. But can we possibly conceive that
an infinite Being could unite himself with the finite nature of man?
How can I be certain that he who professes to be inspired by the
Divinity does not promulgate his own reveries or impostures as the
oracles of heaven? What means have I of recognizing whether God really
speaks by his voice? The immediate reply will be, that God, to give
weight to the declarations of those whom he has chosen to be his
interpreters, endowed them with a portion of his own omnipotence, and
that they wrought miracles to prove their divine mission.
I therefore inquire, What is a miracle? I am told that it is an
operation contrary to the laws of nature, which God himself has fixed;
to which I reply, that, according to the ideas I have formed of the
divine wisdom, it appears to me impossible that an immutable God can
change the wise laws which he himself has established. I thence
conclude that miracles are impossible, seeing they are incompatible
with our ideas of the wisdom and immutability of the Creator of the
universe. Besides, these miracles would be useless to God. If he be
omnipotent, can he not modify the minds of his creatures according to
his own will?
To convince and to persuade them, he has only to will that they shall
be convinced and persuaded. He has only to tell them things that are
clear and sensible, things that may be demonstrated; and to evidence
of such a kind they will not fail to give their assent. To do this, he
will have no need either of miracles or interpreters; truth alone is
sufficient to win mankind.
Supposing, nevertheless, the utility and possibility of these
miracles, how shall I ascertain whether the wonderful operation which
I see performed by the interpreter of the Deity be conformable or
contrary to the laws of nature? Am I acquainted with all these laws?
May not he who speaks to me in the name of the Lord execute by natural
means, though to me unknown, those works which appear altogether
extraordinary? How shall I assure myself that he does not deceive me?
Does not my ignorance of the secrets and shifts of his art expose me
to be the dupe of an able impostor, who might make use of the name of
God to inspire me with respect, and to screen his deception? Thus his
pretended miracles ought to make me suspect him, even though I were a
witness of them; but how would the case stand, were these miracles
said to have been performed some thousands of years before my
existence? I shall be told that they were attested by a multitude of
witnesses; but if I cannot trust to myself when a miracle is
performing, how shall I have confidence in others, who may be either
more ignorant or more stupid than myself, or who perhaps thought
themselves interested in supporting by their testimony tales entirely
destitute of reality?
If, on the contrary, I admit these miracles, what do they prove to me?
Will they furnish me with a belief that God has made use of his
omnipotence to convince me of things which are in direct opposition
to the ideas I have formed of his essence, his nature, and his divine
perfections? If I be persuaded that God is immutable, a miracle will
not force me to believe that he is subject to change. If I be
convinced that God is just and good, a miracle will never be
sufficient to persuade me that he is unjust and wicked. If I possess
an idea of his wisdom, all the miracles in the world would not
persuade me that God would act like a madman. Shall I be told that he
would consent to perform miracles that destroy his divinity, or that
are proper only to erase from the minds of men the ideas which they
ought to entertain of his infinite perfections? This, however, is what
would happen were God himself to perform, or to grant the power of
performing, miracles in favor of a particular revelation. He would, in
that case, derange the course of nature, to teach the world that he is
capricious, partial, unjust, and cruel; he would make use of his
omnipotence purposely to convince us that his goodness was
insufficient for the welfare of his creatures; he would make a vain
parade of his power, to hide his inability to convince mankind by a
single act of his will. In short, he would interfere with the eternal
and immutable laws of nature, to show us that he is subject to change,
and to announce to mankind some important news, which they had
hitherto been destitute of, notwithstanding all his goodness.
Thus, under whatever point of view we regard revelation, by whatever
miracles we may suppose it attested, it will always be in
contradiction to the ideas we have of the Deity. They will show us
that he acts in an unjust and an arbitrary manner, consulting only his
own whims in the favors he bestows, and continually changing his
conduct; that he was unable to communicate all at once to mankind the
knowledge necessary to their existence, and to give them that degree
of perfection of which their natures were susceptible. Hence, Madam,
you may see that the supposition of a revelation can never be
reconciled with the infinite goodness, justice, omnipotence, and
immutability of the Sovereign of the universe.
They will not fail to tell you that the Creator of all things, the
independent Monarch of nature is the master of his favors; that he
owes nothing to his creatures; that he can dispose of them as he
pleases, without any injustice, and without their having any right of
complaint; that man is incapable of sounding the profundity of his
decrees; and that his justice is not the justice of men. But all these
answers, which divines have continually in their mouths, serve only to
accelerate the destruction of those sublime ideas which they have
given us of the Deity. The result appears to be, that God conducts
himself according to the maxims of a fantastic sovereign, who,
satisfied in having rewarded some of his favorites, thinks himself
justified in neglecting the rest of his subjects, and to leave them
groaning in the most deplorable misery.
You must acknowledge, Madam, it is not on such a model that we can
form a powerful, equitable, and beneficent God, whose omnipotence
ought to enable him to procure happiness to all his subjects, without
fear of exhausting the treasures of his goodness.
If we are told that divine justice bears no resemblance to the justice
of men, I reply, that in this case we are not authorized to say that
God is _just_; seeing that by justice it is not possible for us to
conceive any thing except a similar quality to that called justice by
the beings of our own species. If divine justice bears no resemblance
to human justice,--if, on the contrary, this justice resembles what we
call injustice,--then all our ideas confound themselves, and we know
not either what we mean or what we say when we affirm that God is
just. According to human ideas, (which are, however, the only ones
that men are possessed of,) justice will always exclude caprice and
partiality; and never can we prevent ourselves from regarding as
iniquitous and vicious a sovereign who, being both able and willing to
occupy himself with the happiness of his subjects, should plunge the
greatest number of them into misfortune, and reserve his kindness for
those to whom his whims have given the preference.
With respect to telling us that _God owes nothing to his creatures_,
such an atrocious principle is destructive of every idea of justice
and goodness, and tends visibly to sap the foundation of all religion.
A God that is just and good owes happiness to every being to whom he
has given existence; he ceases to be just and good if he produce them
only to render them miserable; and he would be destitute of both
wisdom and reason were he to give them birth only to be the victims of
his caprice. What should we think of a father bringing children into
the world for the sole purpose of putting their eyes out and
tormenting them at his ease?
On the other hand, all religions are entirely founded upon the
reciprocal engagements which are supposed to exist between God and his
creatures. If God owes nothing to the latter, if he is not under an
obligation to fulfil his engagements to them when they have fulfilled
theirs to him, of what use is religion? What motives can men have to
offer their homage and worship to the Divinity? Why should they feel
much desire to love or serve a master who can absolve himself of all
duty towards those who entered his service with an expectation of the
recompense promised under such circumstances?
It is easy to see that the destructive ideas of divine justice which
are inculcated are only founded upon a fatal prejudice prevalent among
the generality of men, leading them to suppose that unlimited power
must inevitably exempt its possessor from an accordance with the laws
of equity; that force can confer the right of committing bad actions;
and that no one could properly demand an account of his conduct of a
man sufficiently powerful to carry out all his caprices. These ideas
are evidently borrowed from the conduct of tyrants, who no sooner
find themselves possessed of absolute power than they cease to
recognize any other rules than their own fantasies, and imagine that
justice has no claims upon potentates like them.
It is upon this frightful model that theologians have formed that God
whom they, notwithstanding, assert to be a just being, while, if the
conduct they attribute to him was true, we should be constrained to
regard him as the most unjust of tyrants, as the most partial of
fathers, as the most fantastic of princes, and, in a word, as a being
the most to be feared and the least worthy of love that the
imagination could devise. We are informed that the God who created all
men has been unwilling to be known except to a very small number of
them, and that while this favored portion exclusively enjoyed the
benefits of his kindness, all the others were objects of his anger,
and were only created by him to be left in blindness for the very
purpose of punishing them in the most cruel manner. We see these
pernicious characteristics of the Divinity penetrating the entire
economy of the Christian religion; we find them in the books which are
pretended to be inspired, and we discover them in the dogmas of
predestination and grace. In a word, every thing in religion announces
a despotic God, whom his disciples vainly attempt to represent to us
as just, while all that they declare of him only proves his injustice,
his tyrannical caprices, his extravagances, so frequently cruel, and
his partiality, so pernicious to the greater portion of the human
race. When we exclaim against conduct which, in the eyes of all
reasonable men, must appear so excessively capricious, it is expected
that our mouths will be closed by the assertion that God is
omnipotent, that it is for him to determine how he will bestow
benefits, and that he is under no obligations to any of his creatures.
His apologists end by endeavoring to intimidate us with the frightful
and iniquitous punishments that he reserves for those who are so
audacious as to murmur.
It is easy to perceive the futility of these arguments. Power, I do
contend, can never confer the right of violating equity. Let a
sovereign be as powerful as he may, he is not on that account less
blamable when in rewards and punishments he follows only his caprice.
It is true, we may fear him, we may flatter him, we may pay him
servile homage; but never shall we love him sincerely; never shall we
serve him faithfully; never shall we look up to him as the model of
justice and goodness. If those who receive his kindness believe him to
be just and good, those who are the objects of his folly and rigor
cannot prevent themselves from detesting his monstrous iniquity in
their hearts.
If we be told that we are only as worms of earth relatively to God, or
that we are only like a vase in the hands of a potter, I reply in this
case, that there can neither be connection nor moral duty between the
creature and his Creator; and I shall hence conclude that religion is
useless, seeing that a worm of earth can owe nothing to a man who
crushes it, and that the vase can owe nothing to the potter that has
formed it. In the supposition that man is only a worm or an earthen
vessel in the eyes of the Deity, he would be incapable either of
serving him, glorifying him, honoring him, or offending him. We are,
however, continually told that man is capable of merit and demerit in
the sight of his God, whom he is ordered to love, serve, and worship.
We are likewise assured that it was man alone whom the Deity had in
view in all his works; that it is for him alone the universe was
created; for him alone that the course of nature was so often
deranged; and, in short, it was with a view of being honored,
cherished, and glorified by man that God has revealed himself to us.
According to the principles of the Christian religion, God does not
cease, for a single instant, his occupations for man, this _worm of
earth_, this _earthen vessel_, which he has formed. Nay, more: man is
sufficiently powerful to influence the honor, the felicity, and the
glory of his God; it rests with man to please him or to irritate him,
to deserve his favor or his hatred, to appease him or to kindle his
wrath.
Do you not perceive, Madam, the striking contradictions of those
principles which, nevertheless, form the basis of all revealed
religions? Indeed, we cannot find one of them that is not erected on
the reciprocal influence between God and man, and between man and God.
Our own species, which are annihilated (if I may use the expression)
every time that it becomes necessary to whitewash the Deity from some
reproachful stain of injustice and partiality,--these miserable
beings, to whom it is pretended that God owes nothing, and who, we are
assured, are unnecessary to him for his own felicity,--the human race,
which is nothing in his eyes, becomes all at once the principal
performer on the stage of nature. We find that mankind are necessary
to support the glory of their Creator; we see them become the sole
objects of his care; we behold in them the power to gladden or afflict
him; we see them meriting his favor and provoking his wrath. According
to these contradictory notions concerning the God of the universe, the
source of all felicity, is he not really the most wretched of beings?
We behold him perpetually exposed to the insults of men, who offend
him by their thoughts, their words, their actions, and their neglect
of duty. They incommode him, they irritate him, by the capriciousness
of their minds, by their actions, their desires, and even by their
ignorance. If we admit those Christian principles which suppose that
the greater portion of the human race excites the fury of the Eternal,
and that very few of them live in a manner conformable to his views,
will it not necessarily result therefrom, that in the immense crowd of
beings whom God has created for his glory, only a very small number of
them glorify and please him; while all the rest are occupied in vexing
him, exciting his wrath, troubling his felicity, deranging the order
that he loves, frustrating his designs, and forcing him to change his
immutable intentions?
You are, undoubtedly, surprised at the contradictions to be
encountered at the very first step we take in examining this religion;
and I take upon myself to predict that your embarrassment will
increase as you proceed therein. If you coolly examine the ideas
presented to us in the revelation common both to Jews and Christians,
and contained in the books which they tell us are _sacred_, you will
find that the Deity who speaks is always in contradiction with
himself; that he becomes his own destroyer, and is perpetually
occupied in undoing what he has just done, and in repairing his own
workmanship, to which, in the first instance, he was incapable of
giving that degree of perfection he wished it to possess. He is never
satisfied with his own works, and cannot, in spite of his omnipotence,
bring the human race to the point of perfection he intended. The books
containing the revelation, on which Christianity is founded, every
where display to us a God of goodness in the commission of wickedness;
an omnipotent God, whose projects unceasingly miscarry; an immutable
God, changing his maxims and his conduct; an omniscient God,
continually deceived unawares; a resolute God, yet repenting of his
most important actions; a God of wisdom, whose arrangements never
attain success. He is a great God, who occupies himself with the most
puerile trifles; an all-sufficient God, yet subject to jealousy; a
powerful God, yet suspicious, vindictive, and cruel; and a just God,
yet permitting and prescribing the most atrocious iniquities. In a
word, he is a perfect God, yet displaying at the same time such
imperfections and vices that the most despicable of men would blush to
resemble him.
Behold, Madam, the God whom this religion orders you to adore _in
spirit and in truth_. I reserve for another letter an analysis of the
holy books which you are taught to respect as the oracles of heaven. I
now perceive for the first time that I have perhaps made too long a
dissertation; and I doubt not you have already perceived that a system
built on a basis possessing so little solidity as that of the God whom
his devotees raise with one hand and destroy with the other, can have
no stability attached to it, and can only be regarded as a long tissue
of errors and contradictions.
I am, &c.
LETTER III.
An Examination of the Holy Scriptures, of the Nature of the
Christian Religion, and of the Proofs upon which Christianity is
founded.
You have seen, Madam, in my preceding letter, the incompatible and
contradictory ideas which this religion gives us of the Deity. You
will have seen that the revelation which is announced to us, instead
of being the offspring of his goodness and tenderness for the human
race, is really only a proof of injustice and partiality, of which a
God who is equally just and good would be entirely incapable. Let us
now examine whether the ideas suggested to us by these books,
containing the divine oracles, are more rational, more consistent, or
more conformable to the divine perfections. Let us see whether the
statements related in the Bible, whether the commands prescribed to us
in the name of God himself, are really worthy of God, and display to
us the characters of infinite wisdom, goodness, power, and justice.
These inspired books go back to the origin of the world. Moses, the
confidant, the interpreter, the historian of the Deity, makes us (if
we may use such an expression) witnesses of the formation of the
universe. He tells us that the Eternal, tired of his inaction, one
fine day took it into his head to create a world that was necessary to
his glory. To effect this, he forms matter out of nothing; a pure
spirit produces a substance which has no affinity to himself; although
this God fills all space with his immensity, yet still he found room
enough in it to admit the universe, as well as all the material bodies
contained therein.
These, at least, are the ideas which divines wish us to form
respecting the creation, if such a thing were possible as that of
possessing a clear idea of a pure spirit producing matter. But this
discussion is throwing us into metaphysical researches, which I wish
to avoid. It will be sufficient to you that you may console yourself
for not being able to comprehend it, seeing that the most profound
thinkers, who talk about the creation or the eduction of the world
from nothing, have no ideas on the subject more precise than those
which you form to yourself. As soon, Madam, as you take the trouble to
reflect thereon, you will find that divines, instead of explaining
things, have done nothing but invent words, in order to render them
dubious, and to confound all our natural conceptions.
I will not, however, tire you by a fastidious display of the blunders
which fill the narrative of Moses, which they announce to us as being
dictated by the Deity. If we read it with a little attention, we shall
perceive in every page philosophical and astronomical errors,
unpardonable in an inspired author, and such as we should consider
ridiculous in any man, who, in the most superficial manner, should
have studied and contemplated nature.
You will find, for example, light created before the sun, although
this star is visibly the source of light which communicates itself to
our globe. You will find the evening and the morning established
before the formation of this same sun, whose presence alone produces
day, whose absence produces night, and whose different aspects
constitute morning and evening. You will there find that the moon is
spoken of as a body possessing its own light, in a similar manner as
the sun possesses it, although this planet is a dark body, and
receives its light from the sun. These ignorant blunders are
sufficient to show you that the Deity who revealed himself to Moses
was quite unacquainted with the nature of those substances which he
had created out of nothing, and that you at present possess more
information respecting them than was once possessed by the Creator of
the world.
I am not ignorant that our divines have an answer always ready to
those difficulties which would attack their divine science, and place
their knowledge far below that of Galileo, Descartes, Newton, and even
below that of young people who have scarcely studied the first
elements of natural philosophy. They will tell us that God, in order
to render himself intelligible to the savage and ignorant Jews, spoke
in conformity to their imperfect notions, in the false and incorrect
language of the vulgar. We must not be imposed upon by this solution,
which our doctors regard as triumphant, and which they so frequently
employ when it becomes necessary to justify the Bible against the
ignorance and vulgarities contained therein. We answer them, that a
God who knows every thing, and can perform every thing, might by a
single word have rectified the false notions of the people he wished
to enlighten, and enabled them to know the nature of bodies more
perfectly than the most able men who have since appeared. If it be
replied that revelation is not intended to render men learned, but to
make them pious, I answer that revelation was not sent to establish
false notions; that it would be unworthy of God to borrow the language
of falsehood and ignorance; that the knowledge of nature, so far from
being an injury to piety, is, by the avowal of divines, the most
proper study to display the greatness of God. They tell us that
religion would be unmovable, were it conformable to true knowledge;
that we should have no objections to make to the recital of Moses, nor
to the philosophy of the Holy Scriptures, if we found nothing but what
was continually confirmed by experience, astronomy, and the
demonstrations of geometry.