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?