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CLASSICAL ESSAY |
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by Denis Diderot
Doubts in religious matters, far from being blamable -- far from being acts of impiety, ought to be regarded as praiseworthy, when they proceed from a man who humbly acknowledges his ignorance, and arise from the fear of offending God by the abuse of reason. To admit any conformity between the reason of man, and the eternal reason of God, and to pretend that God demands the sacrifice of human reason, is to maintain that God wills one thing, and intends another thing at the same time. When God, of whom I hold my reason, demands of me to sacrifice it, he becomes a mere juggler that snatches from me what he pretended to give. If I renounce my reason, I have no longer a guide -- I must then blindly adopt a secondary principle, and the matter in question becomes a supposition. If reason be a gift of Heaven, and we can say as much of faith, Heaven has certainly made us two presents not only incompatible, but in direct contradiction to each other. In order to solve the difficulty, we are compelled to say either that faith is a chimera, or that reason is useless. Pascal, Nicole and others have said, that God will punish with eternal torments the faults of a guilty father upon all his innocent offspring; and that this is a proposition superior to reason, and not in contradiction to it; but what shall we propose as being contradictory to reason if such blasphemy as this is not so? Bewildered in an immense forest during the night, and having only one small torch for my guide, a stranger approaches and thus addresses me: -- "Friend, blow out they light if thou wouldst make sure of the right path." This stranger was a priest. If my reason be the gift of Heaven, it is the voice of Heaven that speaks; shall I hearken to it? Neither merit nor demerit is applicable to the judgment of our rational faculties, for all the submission and good will imaginable could not assist the blind man in the perception of colors. I am compelled to perceive evidence where it is, or the want of evidence where it is not, so long as I retain my senses; and if my judgment fail me, it becomes a misfortune, not a sin. The Author of Nature would not reward me for having been a wit, surely, then, he will not damn me for having been a fool. Nay, more; he will not damn me even for being wicked. Is not my own conscience a sufficient punishment for me?
Excerpted from Thoughts on Religion, by Denis Diderot |
Rameau's Nephew, and Other Works, by Denis Diderot
Jacques the Fatalist and His Master, by Denis Diderot
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