Chapter 5

The world, it will be said, has all the perfection, of which it is susceptible: since it is not God who made it, it must have great qualities and great defects. But we answer, that, as the world must necessarily have great defects, it would have been more conformable to the nature of a good God, not to have created a world, which he could not make completely happy. If God was supremely happy, before the creation of the world, and could have continued to be supremely happy, without creating the world, why did he not remain at rest? Why must man suffer? Why must man exist? Of what importance is his existence to God? Nothing, or something? If man's existence is not useful or necessary to God, why did God make man? If man's existence is necessary to God's glory, he had need of man; he was deficient in something before man existed. We can pardon an unskilful workman for making an imperfect work; because he must work, well or ill, upon penalty of starving. This workman is excusable, but God is not. According to you, he is self-sufficient; if so, why does he make men? He has, you say, every thing requisite to make man happy. Why then does he not do it? Confess, that your God has more malice than goodness, unless you admit, that God, was necessitated to do what he has done, without being able to do it otherwise. Yet, you assure us, that God is free. You say also, that he is immutable, although it was in _Time_ that he began and ceased to exercise his power, like the inconstant beings of this world. O theologians! Vain are your efforts to free your God from defects. This perfect God has always some human imperfections.

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"Is not God master of his favours? Can he not give them? Can he not take them away? It does not belong to his creatures to require reasons for his conduct. He can dispose of the works of his own hands as he pleases. Absolute sovereign of mortals, he distributes happiness or misery, according to his good pleasure." Such are the solutions given by theologians to console us for the evils which God inflicts upon us. We reply, that a God, who is infinitely good, cannot be _master of his favours_, but would by his nature be obliged to bestow them upon his creatures; that a being, truly beneficent, cannot refrain from doing good; that a being, truly generous, does not take back what he has given; and that every man, who does so, dispenses with gratitude, and has no right to complain of finding ungrateful men.

How can the odd and capricious conduct, which theologians ascribe to God, be reconciled with religion, which supposes a covenant, or mutual engagements between God and men? If God owes nothing to his creatures, they, on their part, can owe nothing to their God. All religion is founded upon the happiness that men think they have a right to expect from the Deity, who is supposed to say to them: _Love me, adore me, obey me: and I will make you happy_. Men, on their part, say to him: _Make us happy, be faithful to your promises, and we will love you, we will adore you, and obey your laws_. By neglecting the happiness of his creatures, distributing his favours according to his caprice, and retracting his gifts, does not God break the covenant, which serves as the basis of all religion? Cicero has justly observed, that _if God is not agreeable to man, he cannot be his God_. Goodness constitutes deity; this goodness can be manifested to man only by the blessings he enjoys; as soon as he is unhappy, this goodness disappears, and with it the divinity. An infinite goodness can be neither limited, partial, nor exclusive. If God be infinitely good, he owes happiness to all his creatures. The unhappiness of a single being would suffice to annihilate unbounded goodness. Under an infinitely good and powerful God, is it possible to conceive that a single man should suffer? One animal, or mite, that suffers, furnishes invincible arguments against divine providence and its infinite goodness.

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According to theology, the afflictions and evils of this life are chastisements, which guilty men incur from the hand of God. But why are men guilty? If God is omnipotent, does it cost him more to say: "Let every thing in the world be in order; let all my subjects be good, innocent, and fortunate," than to say: "Let every thing exist"? Was it more difficult for this God to do his work well, than badly? Religion tells us of a hell; that is, a frightful abode, where, notwithstanding his goodness, God reserves infinite torments for the majority of men. Thus after having rendered mortals very unhappy in this world, religion tells them, that God can render them still more unhappy in another! The theologian gets over this, by saying, that the goodness of God will then give place to his justice. But a goodness, which gives place to the most terrible cruelty, is not an infinite goodness. Besides, can a God, who, after having been infinitely good, becomes infinitely bad, be regarded as an immutable being? Can we discern the shadow of clemency or goodness, in a God filled with implacable fury?

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Divine justice, as stated by our divines, is undoubtedly a quality very proper to cherish in us the love of the Divinity. According to the ideas of modern theology, it is evident, that God has created the majority of men, with the sole view of putting them in a fair way to incur eternal punishment. Would it not have been more conformable to goodness, reason, and equity, to have created only stones or plants, and not to have created sensible beings; than to have formed men, whose conduct in this world might subject them to endless punishment in the other? A God perfidious and malicious enough to create a single man, and then to abandon him to the danger of being damned, cannot be regarded as a perfect being; but as an unreasonable, unjust, and ill-natured. Very far from composing a perfect God, theologians have formed the most imperfect of beings. According to theological notions, God would resemble a tyrant, who, having put out the eyes of the greater part of his slaves, should shut them up in a dungeon, where, for his amusement, he would, incognito, observe their conduct through a trap-door, in order to punish with rigour all those, who, while walking about, should hit against each other; but who would magnificently reward the few whom he had not deprived of sight, in avoiding to run against their comrades. Such are the ideas, which the dogma of gratuitous predestination gives us of the divinity!

Although men are continually repeating that their God is infinitely good; yet it is evident, that in reality, they can believe nothing of the kind. How can we love what we do not know? How can we love a being, whose character is only fit to throw us into inquietude and trouble? How can we love a being, of whom all that is said tends to render him an object of utter detestation?

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Many people make a subtle distinction between true religion and superstition. They say, that the latter is only a base and inordinate fear of the Deity; but that the truly religious man has confidence in his God, and loves him sincerely; whereas, the superstitious man sees in him only an enemy, has no confidence in him, and represents him to himself as a distrustful, cruel tyrant, sparing of his benefits, lavish of his chastisements. But, in reality, does not all religion give us the same ideas of God? At the same time that we are told, that God is infinitely good, are we not also told, that he is very easily provoked, that he grants his favours to a few people only, and that he furiously chastises those, to whom he has not been pleased to grant favours?

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If we take our ideas of God from the nature of things, where we find a mixture of good and evil, this God, just like the good and evil of which we experience, must naturally appear capricious, inconstant, sometimes good, and sometimes malevolent; and therefore, instead of exciting our love, must generate distrust, fear, and uncertainty. There is then no real difference between natural religion, and the most gloomy and servile superstition. If the theist sees God only in a favourable light; the bigot views him in the most hideous light. The folly of the one is cheerful, that of the other is melancholy; but both are equally delirious.

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If I draw my ideas of God from theology, he appears to inspire aversion. Devotees, who tell us, that they sincerely love their God, are either liars or fools, who see their God only in profile. It is impossible to love a being, the very idea of whom strikes us with terror, and whose judgments make us tremble. How can we, without being alarmed, look upon a God, who is reputed to be barbarous enough to damn us? Let not divines talk to us of a filial, or respectful fear, mixed with love, which men ought to have for their God. A son can by no means love his father, when he knows him to be cruel enough to inflict upon him studied torments for the least faults he may commit. No man upon earth can have the least spark of love for a God, who reserves chastisements, infinite in duration and violence, for ninety-nine hundredths of his children.

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The inventors of the dogma of eternal hell-torments have made of that God, whom they call so good, the most detestable of beings. Cruelty in men is the last act of wickedness. Every sensible mind must revolt at the bare recital of the torments, inflicted on the greatest criminal; but cruelty is much more apt to excite indignation, when void of motives. The most sanguinary tyrants, the Caligulas, the Neros, the Domitians, had, at least, some motives for tormenting their victims. These motives were, either their own safety, or the fury of revenge, or the design of frightening by terrible examples, or perhaps the vanity of making a display of their power, and the desire of satisfying a barbarous curiosity. Can a God have any of these motives? In tormenting the victims of his wrath, he would punish beings, who could neither endanger his immoveable power, nor disturb his unchangeable felicity. On the other hand, the punishments of the other life would be useless to the living, who cannot be witnesses of them. These punishments would be useless to the damned, since in hell there is no longer room for conversion, and the time of mercy is past. Whence it follows, that God, in the exercise of his eternal vengeance, could have no other end than to amuse himself, and insult the weakness of his creatures. I appeal to the whole human race;--is there a man who feels cruel enough coolly to torment, I do not say his fellow-creature, but any sensible being whatever, without emolument, without profit, without curiosity, without having any thing to fear? Confess then, O theologians, that, even according to your own principles, your God is infinitely more malevolent than the worst of men.

Perhaps you will say, that infinite offences deserve infinite punishments. I answer, that we cannot offend a God, whose happiness is infinite; that the offences of finite beings cannot be infinite; that a God, who is unwilling to be offended, cannot consent that the offences of his creatures should be eternal; that a God, infinitely good, can neither be infinitely cruel, nor grant his creatures an infinite duration, solely for the pleasure of eternal torments.

Nothing but the most savage barbarity, the most egregious roguery, or the blindest ambition could have imagined the doctrine of eternal punishments. If there is a God, whom we can offend or blaspheme, there are not upon earth greater blasphemers than those, who dare to say, that this same God is a tyrant, perverse enough to delight, during eternity, in the useless torments of his feeble creatures.

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To pretend, that God can be offended at the actions of men, is to annihilate all the ideas, which divines endeavour to give us, in other respects, of this being. To say, that man can trouble the order of the universe; that he can kindle the thunder in the hands of his God; that he can defeat his projects, is to say, that man is stronger than his God, that he is the arbiter of his will, that it depends upon him to change his goodness into cruelty. Theology continually pulls down, with one hand, what it erects with the other. If all religion is founded upon a God, who is provoked and appeased, all religion is founded on a palpable contradiction.

All religions agree in exalting the wisdom and infinite power of the Deity. But no sooner do they display his conduct, than we see nothing but imprudence, want of foresight, weakness and folly. God, it is said, created the world for himself; and yet, hitherto, he has never been able to make himself suitably honoured by it. God created men in order to have, in his dominions, subjects to render him their homage; and yet, we see men in continual revolt against him.

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They incessantly extol the divine perfections; and when we demand proofs of them, they point to his works, in which, they assure us, these perfections are written in indelible characters. All these works are, however, imperfect and perishable. Man, who is ever regarded as the most marvellous work, as the master-piece of the Deity, is full of imperfections, which render him disagreeable to the eyes of the almighty Being, who formed him. This surprising work often becomes so revolting and odious to its author, that he is obliged to throw it into the fire. But, if the fairest of God's works is imperfect, how can we judge of the divine perfections? Can a work, with which the author himself is so little pleased, induce us to admire the ability of its Maker? Man, considered in a physical sense, is subject to a thousand infirmities, to numberless evils, and to death. Man, considered in a moral sense, is full of faults; yet we are unceasingly told, that he is the most beautiful work of the most perfect of beings.

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In creating beings more perfect than men, it appears, that heretofore God has not better succeeded, nor given stronger proofs of his perfection. Do we not see, in many religions, that angels, have even attempted to dethrone him? God proposed the happiness of angels and men; yet, he has never been able to render happy either angels or men;--the pride, malice, sins, and imperfections of the creatures have always opposed the will of the perfect Creator.

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All religion is obviously founded upon this principle, that _God does what he can, and man what he will_. Every system of religion presents to us an unequal combat between the Deity on one part, and his creatures on the other, in which the former never comes off to his honour. Notwithstanding his omnipotence, he cannot succeed in rendering the works of his hands such as he would have them. To complete the absurdity, there is a religion, which pretends, that God himself has died to redeem mankind; and yet, men are not farther from any thing, than they are from what God would have them.

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Nothing is more extravagant, than the part, theology makes the Divinity act in every country. Did he really exist, we should see in him the most capricious, and senseless being. We should be compelled to believe, that God made the world only to be the theatre of his disgraceful wars with his creatures; that he created angels, men, and demons, only to make adversaries, against whom he might exercise his power. He renders men free to offend him, malicious enough to defeat his projects, too obstinate to submit; and all this merely for the pleasure of being angry, appeased, reconciled, and of repairing the disorder they have made. Had the Deity at once formed his creatures such as he would have them, what pains would he not have spared himself, or, at least, from what embarrassments would he not have relieved his theologians!

Every religion represents God as busy only in doing himself evil. He resembles those empirics, who inflict upon themselves wounds, to have an opportunity of exhibiting to the public the efficacy of their ointment. But we see not, that the Deity has hitherto been able radically to cure himself of the evil, which he suffers from man.

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God is the author of all; and yet, we are assured that evil does not come from God. Whence then does it come? From man. But, who made man? God. Evil then comes from God. If he had not made man as he is, moral evil or sin would not have existed in the world. The perversity of man is therefore chargeable to God. If man has power to do evil, or to offend God, we are forced to infer, that God chooses to be offended; that God, who made man, has resolved that man shall do evil; otherwise man would be an effect contrary to the cause, from which he derives his being.

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Man ascribes to God the faculty of foreseeing, or knowing beforehand whatever will happen; but this prescience seldom turns to his glory, nor protects him from the lawful reproaches of man. If God foreknows the future, must he not have foreseen the fall of his creatures? If he resolved in his decrees to permit this fall, it is undoubtedly because it was his will that this fall should take place, otherwise it could not have happened. If God's foreknowledge of the sins of his creatures had been necessary or forced, one might suppose, that he has been constrained by his justice to punish the guilty; but, enjoying the faculty of foreseeing, and the power of predetermining every thing, did it not depend upon God not to impose upon himself cruel laws, or, at least, could he not dispense with creating beings, whom he might be under the necessity of punishing, and rendering unhappy by a subsequent decree? Of what consequence is it, whether God has destined men to happiness or misery by an anterior decree, an effect of his prescience, or by a posterior decree, an effect of his justice? Does the arrangement of his decrees alter the fate of the unhappy? Would they not have the same right to complain of a God, who, being able to omit their creation, has notwithstanding created them, although he plainly foresaw that his justice would oblige him, sooner or later, to punish them?

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"Man," you say, "when he came from the hand of God, was pure, innocent, and good; but his nature has been corrupted, as a punishment for sin." If man, when just out of the hands of his God, could sin, his nature was imperfect. Why did God suffer him to sin, and his nature to be corrupted? Why did God permit him to be seduced, well knowing that he was too feeble to resist temptation? Why did God create _satan_, an evil spirit, a tempter? Why did not God, who wishes so much good to the human race, annihilate once for all so many evil genii, who are naturally enemies of our happiness; or rather, why did God create evil spirits, whose victories and fatal influence over mankind, he must have foreseen? In fine, by what strange fatality in all religions of the world, has the evil principle such a decided advantage over the good principle, or the divinity?

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There is related an instance of simplicity, which does honour to the heart of an Italian monk. One day, while preaching, this pious man thought he must announce to his audience, that he had, thank heaven, at last discovered, by dint of meditation, a sure way of rendering all men happy. "The devil," said he, "tempts men only to have in hell companions of his misery. Let us therefore apply to the Pope, who has the keys of heaven and hell; let us prevail upon him to pray to God, at the head of the whole church, to consent to a reconciliation with the devil, to restore him to favour, to reinstate him in his former rank, which cannot fail to put an end to his malicious projects against mankind." Perhaps the honest monk did not see, that the devil is at least as useful as God to the ministers of religion. They have too much interest in their dissensions, to be instrumental in an accommodation between two enemies, upon whose combats their own existence and revenues depend. Let men cease to be tempted and to sin, and the ministry of priests will be useless. Manicheism is evidently the hinge of every religion; but unhappily, the devil, invented to clear the deity from the suspicion of malice, proves to us, every moment, the impotence or unskilfulness of his celestial adversary.

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The nature of man, it is said, was necessarily liable to corruption. God could not communicate to him _impeccability_, which is an inalienable attribute of his divine perfection. But if God could not make man impeccable, why did he give himself the pains to make man, whose nature must necessarily be corrupted, and who must consequently offend God? On the other hand, if God himself could not make human nature impeccable, by what right does he punish men for not being impeccable? It can be only by the right of the strongest; but the right of the strongest is called violence, and violence cannot be compatible with the justest of beings. God would be supremely unjust, should he punish men for not sharing with him his divine perfections, or for not being able to be gods like him.

Could not God, at least, have communicated to all men that kind of perfection, of which their nature is susceptible? If some men are good, or render themselves agreeable to their God, why has not that God done the same favour, or given the same dispositions to all beings of our species? Why does the number of the wicked so much exceed the number of the good? Why, for one friend, has God ten thousand enemies, in a world, which it depended entirely upon him to people with honest men? If it be true, that, in heaven, God designs to form a court of saints, of elect, or of men who shall have lived upon earth conformably to his views, would he not have had a more numerous, brilliant, and honourable assembly, had he composed it of all men, to whom, in creating them, he could grant the degree of goodness, necessary to attain eternal happiness? Finally, would it not have been shorter not to have made man, than to have created him a being full of faults, rebellious to his creator, perpetually exposed to cause his own destruction by a fatal abuse of his liberty?

Instead of creating men, a perfect God ought to have created only angels very docile and submissive. Angels, it is said, are free; some have sinned; but, at any rate, all have not abused their liberty by revolting against their master. Could not God have created only angels of the good kind? If God has created angels, who have not sinned, could he not have created impeccable men, or men who should never abuse their liberty? If the elect are incapable of sinning in heaven, could not God have made impeccable men upon earth?

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