CHAPTER XX. Of Faith, in what this Virtue consists
Generally speaking it is St. Paul, or the author of the Epistles, (wherever he be) that are attributed to him, that ought to be regarded as the true founder of Christian theology. The mysterious obscurity of his works, the tone of fanaticism which reigns in them, and the unintelligible oracles with which they are filled, render them well suited to impose on the vulgar, who respect things only in proportion as they are impossible to be comprehended. Devout enthusiasm and pious melancholy there finds a continual feast for its sickly brain. Oracles and enigmas are taken for divine mysteries, which without a strong dose of faith we should conclude were the production of delirium or the inventions of imposture, which seeks to put reason to flight. Reason had no means of examining ideas which are totally unreasonable; thus they persuaded men that it was necessary to renounce reason in order to become a good Christian. In consequence of this principle, so humiliating to mankind and derogatory to the character of a God, the author of reason, it was no longer permitted to examine anything; man was commanded blindly to subscribe to the most incomprehensible reveries, and it was considered meritorious to renounce common sense and adopt fables and opinions revolting to every thinking being. Thus delirium was changed into wisdom, deception into truth, and frequently crime became virtue. They closed the mouths of reasoners by citing the language of Paul, who had said "that the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." According to the same Apostle God himself had predicted by the mouth of a prophet, the revolution that Christianity was to produce in the minds of mankind. "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent." Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world, &c.* And he concludes by saying, "But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness."
* 1 Corinth, chap. i. ver. 19.
However violent Paul's enthusiasm may have been, he well knew how odd the doctrine he preached, must appear to reasonable beings. He must have been aware, that it overturned all received ideas; that it would not bear the test of examination; that it was a difficult enterprise to persuade sensible beings that a God could die, that this God had arisen again, that an immutable God had changed and annulled the eternal alliance he had made with the Jews, and which been so repeatedly confirmed with oaths, &c. Thus our Apostle in order to pass such improbable opinions, believed it requisite, to substitute folly in the place of reason, and to fortify his disciples against the weapons of logic. For the evidence which results from the testimony of the senses be substituted faith, which according to him is the evidence of things not seen, and evidence which can only be founded on the most stupid credulity.
Thus this prudent orator took care to guard against the philosophy of common sense, and against all science, seeing clearly that they opposed, invincible obstacles to the religion that he sought to establish, and of which he pretended to be the soul and chief. Hence we find he attached the greatest merit to faith, that is to say, to a blind submission to his authority; and such an unbounded confidence in himself as prevented any doubt of those things, the truth of which he attested.
As science was injurious to the establishment of his empire he decried it. "Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth." By charity, we may here understand that affection to a spiritual director which closing the eyes against those defects, which in common with other men he may possess, convinces us that he is always right, that he is incapable of the wish to deceive, and in short, that he ought to be believed in preference to the evidence of our senses.
It is thus that this great Apostle laboured incessantly to establish his own authority on the ruins of wisdom, reason, and science. However we may reply to his doctrine, so useful to those whose interest it is to maintain absurd opinions and incredible fables, that God who, is, according to them, the author of reason could not have destroyed his own work. We shall demand of St. Paul and of those who like him preach up implicit faith, if folly is more able than wisdom to attain to the knowledge of God? We shall ask of them, if God has given wisdom to men on condition of their never using it, and if it is not by the aid of human wisdom, that man gains some idea of the divine wisdom? We shall ask if God can, without absolutely changing the nature of things, make wisdom folly, and folly wisdom? In short we shall ask them, if in order to become a Christian it is necessary to renounce common sense, or how far our folly must prevail to have a religion?
To all these questions theologians, faithfully treading in the steps of St. Paul, will reply, that we must believe, and that as soon as they speak, we must submit to their authority. "Faith" says Paul "comes by hearing," whence it results that have faith, we must sacrifice our reason, to the wills of our spiritual pastors. Charity ought to convince us, that these infallible guides, can neither deceive nor desire to lead us into error.
According to this firm persuasion we shall never be embarrassed, unless, by chance, those pastors should happen to disagree in their opinions. This however often occurs in the church, and has done from the commencement. In fact we have seen St. Paul himself resist St. Peter to his face and differ from him in opinion. Their quarrels like many others had fatal results, and produced a true schism between the partizans of Peter, and those of Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles.