To reveal any thing to a man, is to discover to him secrets of which
he was before ignorant. If we ask Christians what the secrets were, the
importance of which rendered it necessary that they should be revealed
by God himself, we shall be told that the greatest of those secrets, and
the one most necessary to mankind, is the Unity of the Godhead; a secret
which, say they, human wisdom could never have discovered, of itself.
But are we not at liberty to doubt the truth of this assertion? Moses,
undoubtedly, declared an only God to the Hebrews, and did all in his
power to render them enemies to the idolatry and polytheism of other
surrounding nations, whose belief and whose modes of worship he
represented as abominable in the eyes of the celestial Monarch, who had
brought them out of the land of Egypt. But have not many wise men
among the heathens discovered, without the assistance of the Jewish
revelation, one supreme God, superior to all others? Moreover, was not
Fate, to which all the other gods of the heathens were subordinate,
an only God, to whose sovereign law all nature was subject? As to the
colours in which Moses paints his Godhead, neither Jews nor Christians
have a right to pride themselves therein. He is represented as
a capricious and irascible despot, full of cruelty, injustice,
partiality, and malignity. What kind of being shall we contemplate, when
we add to this the ineffable attributes ascribed to him in the Christian
theology? Is the Godhead described when it is said that it is a spirit,
an immaterial being, which resembles nothing presented to us by
our senses? Is not human understanding confounded with the negative
attributes of infinity, immensity, eternity, omnipotence, and
omniscience, with which he has been decorated, only to render him still
more incomprehensible? How can the wisdom, the goodness, justice, and
other moral qualities of this God, be reconciled with that strange and
often atrocious conduct, which are attributed to him in almost every
page of the Old and New Testament? Would it not have been better to have
left mankind in entire ignorance of the Godhead, than to reveal to him a
God made up of contradictions, which lead to eternal dispute, and serve
only to trouble his repose? To reveal such a God to mankind, is only to
discover to them the means to embarrass and render themselves wretched,
and quarrel with and injure one another.
But, be this as it may, is it true that Christianity admits but one God,
the same which was revealed by Moses? Do we not see Christians adore a
threefold divinity, under the name of the Trinity? The supreme God begat
from all eternity a son equal to himself; from these two proceeds a
third equal to the two first; these three Gods, equal in perfection,
divinity, and power, form, nevertheless, only one God. To overturn this
system, it seems sufficient only to shew its absurdity. Is it but to
reveal such mysteries as these that the Godhead has taken pains to
instruct mankind? Have opinions more absurd and contrary to reason ever
existed among the most ignorant and savage nations?l In the mean time,
however, the writings of Moses contain nothing that could authorise the
construction of a system so wild. It is only by having recourse to the
most forced explanations, that the doctrine of the Trinity is pretended
to be found in the Bible. As to the Jews, contented with the only God
which their legislator has declared to them, they have never attempted
to create a threefold one.
1 The dogma of the Trinity is evidently borrowed from the
reveries of Plato, or from the allegories under which that
romantic philosopher chose to conceal his doctrine. It
appears that to him the Christian religion is indebted for
the greater part of its dogmas. Plato admitted three
Hypostases, or modes of being in the Divinity. The first
constituted the supreme God; the second the Logos, Word, or
divine intelligence proceeding from the first; the third is
the Spirit, or Soul of the World. The early teachers of the
Christian religion appear to have been Platonics; their
enthusiasm probably found in Plato a doctrine analogous to
their feelings; had they been grateful, they would have
recorded him as a prophet, or, at least, as one of the
fathers of the church. The Jesuitical missionaries found a
Divinity, nearly similar to that of the Christians, at
Thibet. Among the Tartars, God is called Kon-cio-cik, the
only God, and Kon-cio-sum, the threefold God. They also give
him the titles On, Ha, Hum, intelligence, might, power or
words, heart, love. The number three was always revered
among the ancients; because Salom, which in the Oriental
languages signifies three, signifies also health, safety,
salvation.
The second of these Gods, or, according to the Christians, the second
person of the Trinity, having clad himself with human nature, and
become incarnate in the womb of a virgin, he submitted himself to the
infirmities of our species, and even suffered an ignominious death to
expiate the sins of the earth. This is what Christians call the mystery
of Incarnation. He must be indeed blind, who cannot see these absurd
notions are borrowed from the Egyptians, Indians, and Grecians, whose
ridiculous mythologies describe gods as possessing human forms, and
subject to infirmities, like mankind.1
1 The Egyptians appear to have been the first who pretended
that their gods had assumed material bodies. Foe, the God of
the Chinese, was born of a virgin, who was fecundated by a
ray of the sun. In Indostan nobody doubts the incarnations
of Vistnou. It seems that theologists of all nations,
despairing to exalt themselves to a level with God, have
endeavoured to debase him to a level with themselves.
Thus, we are commanded by Christianity to believe that a God having
become man without doing injury to his divine nature, has suffered,
died, and offered himself a sacrifice to himself; and all this was
absolutely and indispensibly necessary to appease his own wrath. This
is what Christians denominate the mystery of the redemption of the human
race.
This dead God, however, was resuscitated. Thus the Adonis of the
Phenicians, the Osiris of the Egyptians, and the Atys of the Phrygians,
are represented as periodically resigning and re-assuming life. The
God of the Christians rises again, re-animated, and bursts the tomb,
triumphant.
Such are the wondrous secrets, or sublime mysteries, that the Christian
religion unfolds to its disciples. So great, so abject, and so ever
incomprehensible are the ideas it gives us of the divine Being. Such is
the illumination our minds receive from revelation! A revelation which
only serves to render still more impenetrable the clouds which veil the
divine essence from human eyes. God, we are told, is willing to render
himself inconsistent and ridiculous, to confound the curiosity of those
whom, we are at the same time informed, he desires to enlighten by
his special grace. What must we think of a revelation which, far from
teaching us any thing, is calculated to darken and puzzle the clearest
ideas?
Thus, notwithstanding the boasted revelation of the Christians, they
know nothing of that Being whom they make the basis of their religion.
On the contrary, it only serves to obscure all the notions which might
otherwise be formed of him. In Holy Writ he is called an hidden God.
David tells us, that he places his dwelling in darkness, that clouds
and troubled waters form the pavilion with which he is covered. In fine,
Christians, although enlightened, as they say, by God himself, have only
ridiculous and inconsistent ideas of him, which render his existence
doubtful, or even impossible, in the eyes of every man who consults his
reason.
What notions, indeed, can we form of a God, who, after having created
the world solely for the happiness of mankind, nevertheless suffers the
greater part of the human race to be miserable both in this world and
that which is to come? How can a God, who enjoys a supreme felicity, be
offended with the actions of his creatures? This God is then susceptible
of grief; his happiness can be disturbed; he is then dependent on man,
who can, at pleasure, delight or afflict him! How can a benevolent God
bestow on his creatures a fatal liberty by the abuse of which they may
incur his anger, and their own destruction? How can that Being, who is
himself the author of life and nature, suffer death? How can an only God
become triple without injuring his unity? We shall be answered, that
all these matters are mysteries; but such mysteries destroy even the
existence of God. It would be more reasonable to admit, with Zoroaster,
or Manes, two principles or opposite powers in nature, than to believe,
with Christians, that there is an omnipotent God, who cannot prevent
the existence of evil; a God who is just, and yet partial; a God
all-merciful, and yet so implacable, that he will punish through an
eternity the crimes of a moment; an only God, who is threefold; a God,
the chief of beings, who consents to die, being unable to satisfy by
any other means his divine justice. If, in the same subject, contraries
cannot subsist at the same time, either the existence of the God of the
Jews, or that of the Christians, must undoubtedly be impossible. Whence
we are forced to conclude, that the teachers of Christianity, by means
of the attributes with which they have decorated, or rather disfigured
their Godhead, have, in fact, annihilated the God of the Jews, or,
at least, so transformed him, that he is no longer the same. Thus,
revelation, with all its fables and mysteries, has only embarrassed the
reason of mankind, and rendered uncertain the simple notions which
they might form to themselves of that necessary Being, who governs the
universe with immutable laws. Though the existence of a God cannot be
denied, it is yet certain that reason cannot admit the existence of
the one which the Christians adore, and whose conduct, commands, and
qualities, their religion pretends to reveal. If they are Atheists,
who have no ideas of the Supreme Being, the Christian theology must be
looked upon as a project invented to destroy his existence.1
1 Divines have always disagreed among themselves respecting
the proofs of the existence of a God. They mutually style
each other Atheists, because their demonstrations have never
been the same. Few Christians have written on the existence
of God, without drawing upon themselves an accusation of
Atheism. Descartes, Clarke, Pascal, Arnauld; and Nicole,
have been considered as Atheists. The reason is plain. It is
impossible to prove the existence of a Being so inconsistent
as the God of the Christians. We shall be told that men have
no means for judging of the Divinity, and that our
understandings are too narrow to form any idea of him. Why
then do they dispute incessantly concerning him? Why assign
to him qualities which destroy each other? Why recount
fables concerning him? Why quarrel and cut each others
throats, because they are differently interpreted by
different persons?