Letters To Eugenia; Or, A Preservative Against Religious Prejudices

by baron d' Paul Henri Thiry Holbach

Every religion is a system of opinions and conduct founded upon the notions, true or false, that we entertain of the Divinity. To judge of the truth of any system, it is requisite to examine its principles, to see if they accord, and to satisfy ourselves whether all its parts lend a mutual support to each other. A religion, to be true, should give us true ideas of God; and it is by our reason alone that we are able to decide whether what theology asserts concerning this being and his attributes is true or otherwise. Truth for men is only conformity to reason; and thus the same reason which the clergy proscribe is, in the last resort, our only means of judging the system that religion proposes for our assent. That God can only be the true God who is most conformable to our reason, and the true worship can be no other than that which reason approves.

Religion is only important in accordance with the advantages it bestows upon mankind. The best religion must be that which procures its disciples the most real, the most extensive, and the most durable advantages. A false religion must necessarily bestow upon those who practise it only a false, chimerical, and transient utility. Reason must be the judge whether the benefits derived are real or imaginary. Thus, as we constantly see, it belongs to reason to decide whether a religion, a mode of worship, or a system of conduct is advantageous or injurious to the human race.

It is in accordance with these incontestable principles that I shall examine the religion of the Christians. I shall commence by analyzing the ideas which their system gives us of the Divinity, which it boasts of presenting to us in a more perfect manner than all other religions in the world.

I shall examine whether these ideas accord with each other, whether the dogmas taught by this religion are conformable to those fundamental principles which are every where acknowledged, whether they are consonant with them, and whether the conduct which Christianity prescribes answers to the notions which itself gives us of the Divinity. I shall conclude the inquiry by investigating the advantages that the Christian religion procures the human race—advantages, according to its partisans, that infinitely surpass those which result from all the other religions of the earth.

The Christian religion, as the basis of its belief, sets forth an only God, which it defines as a pure spirit, as an eternal intelligence, as independent and immutable, who has infinite power, who is the cause of all things, who foresees all things, who fills immensity, who created from nothing the world and all it encloses, and who preserves and governs it according to the laws of his infinite wisdom, and the perfections of his infinite goodness and justice, which are all so evident in his works.

Such are the ideas that Christianity gives us of the Divinity. Let us now see whether they accord with the other notions presented to us by this religious system, and which it pretends were revealed by God himself; or, in other words, that these truths were received directly from the Deity, who concealed them from the remainder of mankind, and deprived them of a knowledge of his essence. Thus the Christian religion is founded upon a special revelation. And to whom was the revelation made? At first to Abraham, and then to his posterity. The God of the universe, then, the Father of all men, was only willing to be known to the descendants of a Chaldean, who for a long series of years were the exclusive possessors of the knowledge of the true God. By an effect of his special kindness, the Jewish people was for a long time the only race favored with a revelation equally necessary for all men. This was the only people which understood the relations between man and the Supreme Being. All other nations wandered in darkness, or possessed no ideas of the Sovereign of nature but such as were crude, ridiculous, or criminal.

Thus, at the very first step, do we not see that Christianity impairs the goodness and justice of its God? A revelation to a particular people only announces a partial God, who favors a portion of his children, to the prejudice of all the others; who consults only his caprice, and not real merit; who, incapable of conferring happiness upon all men, shows his tenderness solely to some individuals, who have, however, no titles upon his consideration not possessed by the others. What would you say of a father who, placed at the head of a numerous family, had no eyes but for a single one of his children, and who never allowed himself to be seen by any of them except that favored one? What would you say if he was displeased with the rest for not being acquainted with his features, notwithstanding he would never allow them to approach his person? Would you not accuse such a father of caprice, cruelty, folly, and a want of reason, if he visited with his anger the children whom he had himself excluded from his presence? Would you not impute to him an injustice of which none but the most brutal of our species could be guilty if he actually punished them for not having executed orders which he was never pleased to give them?

Conclude, then, with me, Madam, that the revelation of a religion to only a single tribe or nation sets forth a God neither good, impartial, nor equitable, but an unjust and capricious tyrant, who, though he may show kindness and preference to some of his creatures, at any rate acts with the greatest cruelty towards all the others. This admitted, revelation does not prove the goodness, but the caprice and partiality of the God that religion represents to us as full of sagacity, benevolence, and equity, and that it describes as the common father of all the inhabitants of the earth. If the interest and self-love of those whom he favors makes them admire the profound views of a God because he has loaded them with benefits to the prejudice of their brethren, he must appear very unjust, on the other hand, to all those who are the victims of his partiality. A hateful pride alone could induce a few persons to believe that they were, to the exclusion of all others, the cherished children of Providence. Blinded by their vanity, they do not perceive that it is to give the lie to universal and infinite goodness to suppose that God was capable of favoring with his preference some men or nations, to the exclusion of others. All ought to be equal in his eyes if it is true they are all equally the work of his hands.

It is nevertheless, upon partial revelations that are founded all the religions of the world. In the same manner that every individual believes himself the most important being in the universe, every nation entertains the idea that it ought to enjoy the peculiar tenderness of the Sovereign of nature, to the exclusion of all the others. If the inhabitants of Hindostan imagine that it was for them alone that Brama spoke, the Jews and the Christians have persuaded themselves that it was only for them that the world was created, and that it is solely for them that God was revealed.

But let us suppose for a moment that God has really made himself 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.