Irrumpere aude, sed pudenter praeteri.
Nescire velle, quae Magister optimus
Docere non vult, erudita inscitia est.
M. Bayle, who quotes them (Reply to the Questions of a Provincial, vol. III, p. 1055), holds the likely opinion that Scaliger made them upon the disputes between Arminius and Gomarus. I think M. Bayle repeated them from memory, for he put sacrata instead of afflata. But it is apparently the printer's fault that prudenter stands in place of pudenter (that is, modestly) which the metre requires.
57. Nothing can be more judicious than the warning these lines contain; and M. Bayle is right in saying (p. 729) that those who claim that the behaviour of God with respect to sin and the consequences of sin contains nothing but what they can account for, deliver themselves up to the mercy of their adversary. But he is not right in combining here two very different things, 'to account for a thing', and 'to uphold it against objections'; as he does when he presently adds: 'They are obliged to follow him [their adversary] everywhere whither he shall wish to lead them, and it would be to retire ignominiously and ask for quarter, if they were to admit that our intelligence is too weak to remove completely all the objections advanced by a philosopher.'
58. It seems here that, according to M. Bayle, 'accounting for' comes short of 'answering objections', since he threatens one who should undertake the first with the resulting obligation to pass on to the second. But it is quite the opposite: he who maintains a thesis (the respondens) is not bound to account for it, but he is bound to meet the objections of an opponent. A defendant in law is not bound (as a general rule) to prove his right or to produce his title to possession; but he is obliged to reply to the arguments of the plaintiff. I have marvelled many times that a writer so precise and so shrewd as M. Bayle so often here confuses things where so much difference exists as between these three acts of reason: to comprehend, to prove, and to answer objections; as if when it is a question of the use of reason in theology one term were as good as another. Thus he says in his posthumous Conversations, p. 73: 'There is no principle which M. Bayle has more often inculcated than this, that the incomprehensibility of a dogma and the insolubility of the objections that oppose it provide no legitimate reason for rejecting it.' This is true as regards the incomprehensibility, but it is not the same with the insolubility. And it is indeed
just as if one said that an invincible reason against a thesis was not a legitimate reason for rejecting it. For what other legitimate reason for rejecting an opinion can one find, if an invincible opposing argument is not such an one? And what means shall one have thereafter of demonstrating the falsity, and even the absurdity, of any opinion?
59. It is well to observe also that he who proves a thing a priori accounts for it through the efficient cause; and whosoever can thus account for it in a precise and adequate manner is also in a position to comprehend the thing. Therefore it was that the Scholastic theologians had already censured Raymond Lully for having undertaken to demonstrate the Trinity by philosophy. This so-called demonstration is to be found in his Works; and Bartholomaeus Keckermann, a writer renowned in the Reformed party, having made an attempt of just the same kind upon the same Mystery, has been no less censured for it by some modern theologians. Therefore censure will fall upon those who shall wish to account for this Mystery and make it comprehensible, but praise will be given to those who shall toil to uphold it against the objections of adversaries.
60. I have said already that theologians usually distinguish between what is above reason and what is against reason. They place above reason that which one cannot comprehend and which one cannot account for. But against reason will be all opinion that is opposed by invincible reasons, or the contrary of which can be proved in a precise and sound manner. They avow, therefore, that the Mysteries are above reason, but they do not admit that they are contrary to it. The English author of a book which is ingenious, but has met with disapproval, entitled Christianity not Mysterious, wished to combat this distinction; but it does not seem to me that he has at all weakened it. M. Bayle also is not quite satisfied with this accepted distinction. This is what he says on the matter (vol. III of the Reply to the Questions of a Provincial, ch. 158). Firstly (p. 998) he distinguishes, together with M. Saurin, between these two theses: the one, all the dogmas of Christianity are in conformity with reason; the other, human reason knows that they are in conformity with reason. He affirms the first and denies the second. I am of the same opinion, if in saying 'that a dogma conforms to reason' one means that it is possible to account for it or to explain its how by reason; for God could doubtless do so, and we cannot. But I think that one
must affirm both theses if by 'knowing that a dogma conforms to reason' one means that we can demonstrate, if need be, that there is no contradiction between this dogma and reason, repudiating the objections of those who maintain that this dogma is an absurdity.