The slightest reflection suffices to prove to us that God can not have
any of the human qualities, virtues, or perfections. Our virtues and our
perfections are the results of our temperament modified. Has God a
temperament like ours? Our good qualities are our habits relative to the
beings in whose society we live. God, according to you, is a solitary
being. God has no one like Him; He does not live in society; He has no
need of any one; He enjoys a happiness which nothing can alter. Admit,
then, upon your own principles, that God can not possess what we call
virtues, and that man can not be virtuous in regard to Him.
XLIX.--IT IS ABSURD TO SAY THAT THE HUMAN RACE IS THE OBJECT AND THE END
OF CREATION.
Man, charmed with his own merits, imagines that it is but his own kind
that God proposed as the object and the end in the formation of the
universe. Upon what is this so flattering opinion based? It is, we are
told, upon this: that man is the only being endowed with an intelligence
which enables him to know the Divine nature, and to render to it homage
worthy of it. We are assured that God created the world for His own
glory, and that the human race was included in His plan, in order that
He might have somebody to admire and glorify Him in His works. But by
these intentions has not God visibly missed His end?
1. According to you, it would always be impossible for man to know his
God, and he would be kept in the most invincible ignorance of the Divine
essence.
2. A being who has no equals, can not be susceptible of glory. Glory can
result but from the comparison of his own excellence with that of
others.
3. If God by Himself is infinitely happy and is sufficient unto Himself,
why does He need the homage of His feeble creatures?
4. In spite of all His works, God is not glorified; on the contrary, all
the religions of the world show Him to us as perpetually offended; their
great object is to reconcile sinful, ungrateful, and rebellious man with
his wrathful God.