On the Motives of Credibility of the Christian Religion, against Unbelievers, Commonly Called Deists

Unbelievers, or deists, are those who acknowledge a supreme being, that is, the true God, but deny that he revealed anything to men, and therefore regard the Christian Religion, with its mysteries, as a human fabrication. They will, however, be led by reason alone in matters that concern God, themselves, or others; and they acknowledge it as the one rule and judge of truth and life in all things.

Hence they pass into various inventions. Some hold that the rational soul is material, and therefore deny its immortality; these are called Materialists; others acknowledge the rational soul to be spiritual and immortal. Some deny divine providence over human affairs, and that God punishes the wicked or rewards the good; others think the opposite. Some reckon justice and injustice to be mere words, and place the supreme rule in their own advantage; others subject the rational creature to certain duties toward God and its equals, according to the dictate of reason. Nor is it any wonder if they are thus torn apart among themselves; for since, as I said, they hold reason alone as their leader and rule, each one forges his own system at the nod of his own reason.

Against this most pestilential error, subversive of all religion and gaining strength in these times, very many and most learned writings have appeared, in which its various systems are effectively assailed and the error utterly routed. But since I aim at brevity, for the benefit of studious youth, I think I have sufficiently accomplished my task if I have invincibly proved that the Christian Religion is divine, revealed and instituted by God. For this being granted, it plainly follows that all the things which it proposes to be believed, such as the mysteries of the Most Holy (it continues on p. 26).

Trinity and of the Incarnation, divine providence over human affairs, the immortality of the soul, the laws of morals, original sin, the eternity of punishments, the resurrection of the dead, the sacraments, etc., are true, and that to them a certain and undoubted faith must be given, notwithstanding their incomprehensibility; for God can neither be deceived nor deceive, as the deists themselves concede; and thus all their fabrications and sophisms vanish. And since these men listen to reason alone, I shall assail them also by reason alone, setting forth the principal motives of credibility of the Christian Religion, against which no one can stand, unless he extinguish within himself the light of human reason.

I argue, therefore, as follows. Reason persuades, indeed compels — unless it be wholly inverted and disordered — to acknowledge as true, revealed and instituted by God, that religion which, first, the prophets foretold long beforehand; secondly, which its author and his coworkers alike confirmed by the prophecies fulfilled and by most manifest miracles; finally, thirdly, which by the power of God alone was born, grew up, and was spread through the whole world against all the laws of human prudence. Now this is the Christian Religion. Therefore. — The major they cannot deny; for the three arguments assigned are the most evident proofs of divinity. Therefore only the minor needs to be proved. Whence it will be demonstrated in the following articles.

[Although reason alone can find the motives of credibility of the Christian Religion, proofs of this kind also belong to faith, as defined by the Vatican Synod thus decreeing: « If anyone shall say that divine revelation cannot be made credible by external signs, and that therefore men ought to be moved to faith by internal experience alone, or by private inspiration of each one: let him be anathema. »]