The founders of all religions have usually proved their mission by
miracles. But what is a miracle? It is an operation directly opposed to
the laws of nature. But, according to you, who has made these laws? It
is God. Thus your God, who, according to you, has foreseen everything,
counteracts the laws which His wisdom had imposed upon nature! These
laws were then defective, or at least in certain circumstances they
were but in accordance with the views of this same God, for you tell us
that He thought He ought to suspend or counteract them.
An attempt is made to persuade us that men who have been favored by the
Most High have received from Him the power to perform miracles; but in
order to perform a miracle, it is necessary to have the faculty of
creating new causes capable of producing effects opposed to those which
ordinary causes can produce. Can we realize how God can give to men the
inconceivable power of creating causes out of nothing? Can it be
believed that an unchangeable God can communicate to man the power to
change or rectify His plan, a power which, according to His essence, an
immutable being can not have himself? Miracles, far from doing much
honor to God, far from proving the Divinity of religion, destroy
evidently the idea which is given to us of God, of His immutability, of
His incommunicable attributes, and even of His omnipotence. How can a
theologian tell us that a God who embraced at once the whole of His
plan, who could make but perfect laws, who can change nothing in them,
should be obliged to employ miracles to make His projects successful, or
grant to His creatures the faculty of performing prodigies, in order to
execute His Divine will? Is it probable that a God needs the support of
men? An Omnipotent Being, whose wishes are always gratified, a Being who
holds in His hands the hearts and the minds of His creatures, needs but
to wish, in order to make them believe all He desires.
CXXX.--REFUTATION OF PASCAL'S MANNER OF REASONING AS TO HOW WE SHOULD
JUDGE MIRACLES.
What should we say of religions that based their Divinity upon miracles
which they themselves cause to appear suspicious? How can we place any
faith in the miracles related in the Holy Books of the Christians, where
God Himself boasts of hardening hearts, of blinding those whom He wishes
to ruin; where this God permits wicked spirits and magicians to perform
as wonderful miracles as those of His servants; where it is prophesied
that the Anti-Christ will have the power to perform miracles capable of
destroying the faith even of the elect? This granted, how can we know
whether God wants to instruct us or to lay a snare for us? How can we
distinguish whether the wonders which we see, proceed from God or the
Devil? Pascal, in order to disembarrass us, says very gravely, that we
must judge the doctrine by miracles, and the miracles by the doctrine;
that doctrine judges the miracles, and the miracles judge the doctrine.
If there exists a defective and ridiculous circle, it is no doubt in
this fine reasoning of one of the greatest defenders of the Christian
religion. Which of all the religions in the world does not claim to
possess the most admirable doctrine, and which does not bring to its aid
a great number of miracles?
Is a miracle capable of destroying a demonstrated truth? Although a man
should have the secret of curing all diseases, of making the lame to
walk, of raising all the dead of a city, of floating in the air, of
arresting the course of the sun and of the moon, will he be able to
convince me by all this that two and two do not make four; that one
makes three and that three makes but one; that a God who fills the
universe with His immensity, could have transformed Himself into the
body of a Jew; that the eternal can perish like man; that an immutable,
foreseeing, and sensible God could have changed His opinion upon His
religion, and reform His own work by a new revelation?
CXXXI.--EVEN ACCORDING TO THE PRINCIPLES OF THEOLOGY ITSELF, EVERY NEW
REVELATION SHOULD BE REFUTED AS FALSE AND IMPIOUS.
According to the principles of theology itself, whether natural or
revealed, every new revelation ought to be considered false; every
change in a religion which had emanated from the Deity ought to be
refuted as ungodly and blasphemous. Does not every reform suppose that
God did not know how at the start to give His religion the required
solidity and perfection? To say that God in giving a first law
accommodated Himself to the gross ideas of a people whom He wished to
enlighten, is to pretend that God neither could nor would make the
people whom He enlightened at that time, as reasonable as they ought to
be to please Him.
Christianity is an impiety, if it is true that Judaism as a religion
really emanated from a Holy, Immutable, Almighty, grid Foreseeing God.
Christ's religion implies either defects in the law that God Himself
gave by Moses, or impotence or malice in this God who could not, or
would not make the Jews as they ought to be to please Him. All
religions, whether new, or ancient ones reformed, are evidently founded
on the weakness, the inconstancy, the imprudence, and the malice of the
Deity.
CXXXII.--EVEN THE BLOOD OF THE MARTYRS, TESTIFIES AGAINST THE TRUTH OF
MIRACLES AND AGAINST THE DIVINE ORIGIN WHICH CHRISTIANITY CLAIMS.
If history informs me that the first apostles, founders or reformers of
religions, performed great miracles, history teaches me also that these
reforming apostles and their adherents have been usually despised,
persecuted, and put to death as disturbers of the peace of nations. I am
then tempted to believe that they have not performed the miracles
attributed to them. Finally, these miracles should have procured to them
a great number of disciples among those who witnessed them, who ought to
have prevented the performers from being maltreated. My incredulity
increases if I am told that the performers of miracles have been cruelly
tormented or slain. How can we believe that missionaries, protected by a
God, invested with His Divine Power, and enjoying the gift of miracles,
could not perform the simple miracle of escaping from the cruelty of
their persecutors?
Persecutions themselves are considered as a convincing proof in favor of
the religion of those who have suffered them; but a religion which
boasts of having caused the death of many martyrs, and which informs us
that its founders have suffered for its extension unheard-of torments,
can not be the religion of a benevolent, equitable, and Almighty God. A
good God would not permit that men charged with revealing His will
should be misused. An omnipotent God desiring to found a religion, would
have employed simpler and less fatal means for His most faithful
servants. To say that God desired that His religion should be sealed by
blood, is to say that this God is weak, unjust, ungrateful, and
sanguinary, and that He sacrifices unworthily His missionaries to the
interests of His ambition.
CXXXIII.--THE FANATICISM OF THE MARTYRS, THE INTERESTED ZEAL OF
MISSIONARIES, PROVE IN NOWISE THE TRUTH OF RELIGION.
To die for a religion does not prove it true or Divine; this proves at
most that we suppose it to be so. An enthusiast in dying proves nothing
but that religious fanaticism is often stronger than the love of life.
An impostor can sometimes die with courage; he makes then, as is said,
"a virtue of necessity." We are often surprised and affected at the
sight of the generous courage and the disinterested zeal which have led
missionaries to preach their doctrine at the risk even of suffering the
most rigorous torments. We draw from this love, which is exhibited for
the salvation of men, deductions favorable to the religion which they
have proclaimed; but in truth this disinterestedness is only apparent.
"Nothing ventured, nothing gained!" A missionary seeks fortune by the
aid of his doctrine; he knows that if he has the good fortune to retail
his commodity, he will become the absolute master of those who accept
him as their guide; he is sure to become the object of their care, of
their respect, of their veneration; he has every reason to believe that
he will be abundantly provided for. These are the true motives which
kindle the zeal and the charity of so many preachers and missionaries
who travel all over the world.
To die for an opinion, proves no more the truth or the soundness of this
opinion than to die in a battle proves the right of the prince, for
whose benefit so many people are foolish enough to sacrifice themselves.
The courage of a martyr, animated by the idea of Paradise, is not any
more supernatural than the courage of a warrior, inspired with the idea
of glory or held to duty by the fear of disgrace. What difference do we
find between an Iroquois who sings while he is burned by a slow fire,
and the martyr St. Lawrence, who while upon the gridiron insults his
tyrant?
The preachers of a new doctrine succumb because they are not the
strongest; the apostles usually practice a perilous business, whose
consequences they can foresee; their courageous death does not prove any
more the truth of their principles or their own sincerity, than the
violent death of an ambitious man or a brigand proves that they had the
right to trouble society, or that they believed themselves authorized to
do it. A missionary's profession has been always flattering to his
ambition, and has enabled him to subsist at the expense of the common
people; these advantages have been sufficient to make him forget the
dangers which are connected with it.
CXXXIV.--THEOLOGY MAKES OF ITS GOD AN ENEMY OF COMMON SENSE AND OF
ENLIGHTENMENT.
You tell us, O theologians! that "what is folly in the eyes of men, is
wisdom before God, who is pleased to confound the wisdom of the wise."
But do you not pretend that human wisdom is a gift from Heaven? In
telling us that this wisdom displeases God, is but folly in His eyes,
and that He wishes to confound it, you proclaim that your God is but the
friend of unenlightened people, and that He makes to sensible people a
fatal gift, for which this perfidious Tyrant promises to punish them
cruelly some day. Is it not very strange that we can not be the friend
of your God but by declaring ourselves the enemy of reason and common
sense?
CXXXV.--FAITH IS IRRECONCILABLE WITH REASON, AND REASON IS PREFERABLE TO
FAITH.
Faith, according to theologians, is consent without evidence. From this
it follows that religion exacts that we should firmly believe, without
evidence, in propositions which are often improbable or opposed to
reason. But to challenge reason as a judge of faith, is it not
acknowledging that reason can not agree with faith? As the ministers of
religion have determined to banish reason, they must have felt the
impossibility of reconciling reason with faith, which is visibly but a
blind submission to those priests whose authority, in many minds,
appears to be of a greater importance than evidence itself, and
preferable to the testimony of the senses. "Sacrifice your reason; give
up experience; distrust the testimony of your senses; submit without
examination to all that is given to you as coming from Heaven." This is
the usual language of all the priests of the world; they do not agree
upon any point, except in the necessity of never reasoning when they
present principles to us which they claim as the most important to our
happiness.
I will not sacrifice my reason, because this reason alone enables me to
distinguish good from evil, the true from the false. If, as you pretend,
my reason comes from God, I will never believe that a God whom you call
so good, had ever given me reason but as a snare, in order to lead me to
perdition. Priests! in crying down reason, do you not see that you
slander your God, who, as you assure us, has given us this reason?
I will not give up experience, because it is a much better guide than
imagination, or than the authority of the guides whom they wish to give
me. This experience teaches me that enthusiasm and interest can blind
and mislead them, and that the authority of experience ought to have
more weight upon my mind than the suspicious testimony of many men whom
I know to be capable of deceiving themselves, or very much interested in
deceiving others.
I will not distrust my senses. I do not ignore the fact that they can
sometimes lead me into error; but on the other hand, I know that they do
not deceive me always. I know very well that the eye shows the sun much
smaller than it really is; but experience, which is only the repeated
application of the senses, teaches me that objects continually diminish
by reason of their distance; it is by these means that I reach the
conclusion that the sun is much larger than the earth; it is thus that
my senses suffice to rectify the hasty judgments which they induced me
to form. In warning me to doubt the testimony of my senses, you destroy
for me the proofs of all religion. If men can be dupes of their
imagination, if their senses are deceivers, why would you have me
believe in the miracles which made an impression upon the deceiving
senses of our ancestors? If my senses are faithless guides, I learn that
I should not have faith even in the miracles which I might see performed
under my own eyes.
CXXXVI.--HOW ABSURD AND RIDICULOUS IS THE SOPHISTRY OF THOSE WHO WISH TO
SUBSTITUTE FAITH FOR REASON.
You tell me continually that the "truths of religion are beyond reason."
Do you not admit, then, that these truths are not made for reasonable
beings? To pretend that reason can deceive us, is to say that truth can
be false, that usefulness can be injurious. Is reason anything else but
the knowledge of the useful and the true? Besides, as we have but our
reason, which is more or less exercised, and our senses, such as they
are, to lead us in this life, to claim that reason is an unsafe guide,
and that our senses are deceivers, is to tell us that our errors are
necessary, that our ignorance is invincible, and that, without extreme
injustice, God can not punish us for having followed the only guides
which He desired to give us. To pretend that we are obliged to believe
in things which are beyond our reason, is an assertion as ridiculous as
to say that God would compel us to fly without wings. To claim that
there are objects on which reason should not be consulted, is to say
that in the most important affairs, we must consult but imagination, or
act by chance.
Our Doctors of Divinity tell us that we ought to sacrifice our reason to
God; but what motives can we have for sacrificing our reason to a being
who gives us but useless gifts, which He does not intend that we should
make use of? What confidence can we place in a God who, according to our
Doctors themselves, is wicked enough to harden hearts, to strike us with
blindness, to place snares in our way, to lead us into temptation?
Finally, how can we place confidence in the ministers of this God, who,
in order to guide us more conveniently, command us to close our eyes?
CXXXVII.--HOW PRETEND THAT MAN OUGHT TO BELIEVE VERBAL TESTIMONY ON WHAT
IS CLAIMED TO BE THE MOST IMPORTANT THING FOR HIM?
Men persuade themselves that religion is the most serious affair in the
world for them, while it is the very thing which they least examine for
themselves. If the question arises in the purchase of land, of a house,
of the investment of money, of a transaction, or of some kind of an
agreement, you will see each one examine everything with care, take the
greatest precautions, weigh all the words of a document, to beware of
any surprise or imposition. It is not the same with religion; each one
accepts it at hazard, and believes it upon verbal testimony, without
taking the trouble to examine it. Two causes seem to concur in
sustaining men in the negligence and the thoughtlessness which they
exhibit when the question comes up of examining their religious
opinions. The first one is, the hopelessness of penetrating the
obscurity by which every religion is surrounded; even in its first
principles, it has only a tendency to repel indolent minds, who see in
it but chaos, to penetrate which, they judge impossible. The second is,
that each one is afraid to incommode himself by the severe precepts
which everybody admires in the theory, and which few persons take the
trouble of practicing. Many people preserve their religion like old
family titles which they have never taken the trouble to examine
minutely, but which they place in their archives in case they need them.