EARLY MODERN PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIANS

From Classics in the Philosophy of Religion, by James Fieser

© 2026, updated 6/1/2026, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

 

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CONTENTS

• Edward Herbert of Cherbury: Common Notions of a Universal Religion (from On Truth, Ancient Religions)

• Blaise Pascal: Wagering on Belief in God (from Pensées)

• Samuel Clarke: Cosmological Argument from Dependency (from Demonstration).

• William Derham: Divine Designer of a Mechanical World (from Physico-Theology)

• William Tindal: The Deist's Bible (from Christianity as Old as the Creation)

Throughout the entire early modern period of philosophy, countless theologians contributed to debates within the philosophy of religion. Some were proponents of new and controversial ideas, but most were conservative critics of non-traditional views. Some, though, gained special prominence through their philosophical abilities and creativity. The five here represent radically different approaches from each other. Edward Herbert established a universal natural religion grounded in innate human faculties, famously earning the title the father of deism. He argued that reason alone can discover the core truths of piety, effectively making traditional sectarian faith obsolete. Blaise Pascal went in the reverse direction, arguing that human reason is fundamentally broken and incapable of grasping the divine. He instead emphasized the necessity of faith, and a pragmatic wager on the existence of God. Samuel Clarke rejected both materialism and deism, attempting to construct an invincible system of theology. He deployed strict a priori demonstrations for a necessary being, making him the quintessential religious rationalist of the era. William Derham turned away from abstract logic to champion the design argument, drawing upon the empirical science of his day. His works represent the most popular defenses of divine design until William Paley a century later. Matthew Tindal pushed deism to its political maturity by publishing what became known as the deist bible. While Herbert laid the early theoretical foundation of deism, Tindal applied these principles directly against religious institutional authority, arguing that true Christianity is as old as creation. Collectively, these approaches stretched the rational defense of religion to its limit, and set the stage for the destructive skepticism of the Enlightenment critics.

 

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EDWARD HERBERT OF CHERBURY:

COMMON NOTIONS OF A UNIVERSAL RELIGION

 

Edward Herbert, first Baron Herbert of Cherbury (1583–1648), was an English philosopher, diplomat, and historian widely regarded as the "Father of English Deism." He was born in Wales into a prominent Anglo‑Welsh noble family, his father a member of Parliament and his mother from an influential lineage. Educated at University College, Oxford, he gained prominence at the royal court and served as an ambassador to France, though his lasting legacy rests entirely on his pioneering contributions to the philosophy of religion. His masterwork, On Truth (De Veritate, 1624), attempts to establish a universal foundation for religious belief grounded in innate principles rather than revelation. It appeared when Europe was in the opening decades of the Thirty Years' War, a conflict driven largely by the competing Catholic and Protestant stances on divine revelation. As a high-ranking diplomat, he wanted to find a path to international peace, and his solution was the realization that no historical revelation could be accepted at face value. Rather, our innate "common notions" must serve as the ultimate judge of any religious claim, which prevents humans from blindly accepting institutional dogmas. While his position is radical, Herbert did not view himself as an atheist or an enemy of religion. On the contrary, he believed he was saving religion. His book, written in Latin for an educated audience, was too abstract to cause immediate outcry, but his underlying radicalism was picked up by later thinkers, directly influencing the rise of Deism, the general view that God created the world and thereafter left it alone.

          The first set of selections are from On Truth. In the section on the quest for universal truths, he argues that truth resides within all people, yet previous scholars have failed to define it. Instead of relying on external objects, the understanding utilizes innate "common notions" engraved within every person to judge reality. These sacred principles are not derived from experience; rather, they are necessary prerequisites that make all observation, distinction, and inquiry possible. In the section on the six marks of common notions, he argues that these differ from more systematic reasoning processes in six ways: (1) they are instinctively prior to reasoning processes, (2) they stand independent of other claims for their validity, (3) they are held universally, (4) they certain and incapable of doubt, (5) they are necessary for human preservation, and (6) we form the notions instantly. In the section on common notions concerning religion, he first argues that the claims of divine revelation by religions must be judged by common notions. For, religious institutions commonly demand that believers hold to claims such claims through blind faith, which is then routinely used by corrupt leaders to establish false religions and promote absurd superstitions. He then lists his famous five common notions: (1) that God exists, (2) that we should worship him, (3) morality is the best form of such worship, (4) we should repent for our immorality, and (5) we will be rewarded or punished in the afterlife.

          In the selections from Herbert's Ancient Religions, he presents his case for a universal religion. In the section on whether a good God would eternally damn heathens for their disbelief, he explains how this question led him to his views. He notes that church leaders, past and present, unjustly condemn all heathens to hell, which argues is incompatible with a good God and the universal scope of divine providence. In the section on salvation Open to all through general providence, he presents his idea of a universal religion. He notes that God supplies all humanity with the natural means for salvation. Heathens who lead virtuous lives, reject sin, and expect future rewards fully participate in divine grace. In the section on right reason, he argues that even heathens hold to the five common notions. In the final section on heathens rejecting religious embellishments, he argues that ordinary people accepted the core principles as undeniable truths while treating priestly fables and rituals as mere probabilities or completely rejecting them as fraudulent impostures.

TRUTH AND COMMON NOTIONS (De Veritate)

Quest for Universal Truths

As for the overall purpose of this work, it is the universal inquiry into truth, which resides within all people. It is astonishing that no one has ever expressly embraced this subject in a general sense. Among those who pride themselves on their learnedness, I have not yet encountered anyone who has dared to offer a good definition of truth. Perhaps the difficulty of finding one has deterred them, especially since they have often exerted more effort in refuting the opinions of others than in exploring the nature of things to establish a system of doctrine. . . .

          I have spoken about what is necessary to establish the required conditions for simple truths, and I come now to the nature of understanding. Understanding, having something divine within it, does not need to rely on external things and is satisfied with its own truths. For although these truths may seem to vanish in the absence of objects, they cannot be entirely idle, since the objects cannot fail to correspond to them, just as the truths cannot fail to correspond to the objects. Now, these truths [of the understanding] are certain common notions found in all sound and whole individuals, whose minds, having been granted by Heaven, judge the objects that appear on the world's stage. It is through this sole means that the understanding judges both known and new things, such that it alone can discern whether our primary faculties have encountered truth in their pursuit of it. Nevertheless, the understanding does not stop there. After comparing the notions received internally with the required conditions, it presents them internally as either legitimate and conforming or as flawed and deformed. Thus, these sacred elements or principles are not drawn from experience and observations, since we cannot even experiment or observe anything without their aid. At the very least, some of these notions are necessary. If we had not found it written and engraved within ourselves that we ought to seek the nature of things (for it is not the objects themselves that imprint this knowledge upon us), and if we did not possess some common notions of this, we could neither distinguish these things nor even undertake the search for a common nature. Without this, such efforts would be in vain and even harmful. We would experience the representations and terrors of images without purpose if the internal analogy by which we judge whether they are good or bad were not presented to us by notions imprinted on the soul. For we do not learn this from any external source.

Six Marks that Distinguish Common Notions from Those formed through Reasoning

To distinguish innate common notions, which arise from natural instinct on their own, from those formed through the aid of reasoning, we identify six marks or differences to separate those of the first order from those of the second.

          1. Priority: Natural instinct is the first of our faculties, while reasoning is the last. For this reason, in elements, zoophytes, and even embryos, this instinctive faculty works to ensure self-preservation. It develops gradually, anticipating the concepts of reason at every step. For example, natural instinct perceives the beauty of symmetry in a house built according to architectural rules more immediately than reason does. Reason, by contrast, requires laborious comparisons of proportions—both between the parts and in relation to the whole—and even this process depends on common notions. The same is evident in the beauty of faces, the elegance of form, and musical harmony. Although ordinary people take pleasure in such things, no one calls them mathematicians or musicians for it.

          2. Independence: If a common notion depends on something else for its validity, it no longer belongs to the first order but to the second, even if it remains true. When no further recourse is possible, the notion is to be considered of the first order, and the entire chain of proof must be based on it.

          3. Universality: The supreme law of natural instinct (excluding the insane and mentally impaired) is universal consent. Particular notions, by contrast, are suspect, carrying traces of imposture or error. Common notions, drawn from nature's wisdom, are universal in themselves, though reasoning may extend them to particular cases.

          4. Certainty: These notions hold such authority that doubting them would disrupt the entire natural order, effectively stripping a person of their humanity. It is forbidden to argue against such principles; once understood, they cannot be denied. As is rightly said, the intellect naturally assents to principles, just as the will naturally assents to its proper ends.

          5. Necessity: Every common notion contributes to human preservation. They are so rich in mystery that, when ordered properly, they offer a glimpse of eternal universal wisdom, for which there is no greater idea within or outside ourselves. This is why we govern ourselves by our own counsel. Providence is so aligned with free will that while God alone is wise in the fool, both God and the individual are wise in the sage. Arrange these notions accordingly, and avoid reckless reasoning as if they existed beyond yourself. Instead, return inward by the same steps through which the most wise Creator has reached you.

          6. Mode of Formation: Common notions form instantly, provided one grasps the sense of the matter or words, whereas reasoning works slowly through its categories and questions, advancing and retreating endlessly. This process often contradicts sensory evidence, leading to countless errors in schools where reasoning is misapplied to experience. For instance, when qualities are assigned to elements without proper observation, reasoning is wrongly credited with what belongs to the senses, or vice versa. Each faculty has its proper scope, beyond which it acts improperly or not at all.

          It should also be noted that notions arising from natural instinct can be derived even from a false hypothesis, as they carry their own credibility. This is why divine worship can persist even under a false religion, though the fault lies with reasoning, as true religion requires no such assistance.

Common Notions Concerning Religion

As we are about to enter directly into a discussion on Revelation, we have thought it necessary to first map out certain prerequisites of Revelation itself. For not every religion that boasts of a Revelation is good, nor is every doctrine that comes forth under its authority necessarily required or even useful. Some things can be expunged and cut out, and indeed some must be. The doctrine of common notions serves this purpose so completely that without their aid, no proper choice or judgment concerning Revelation, or even Religion itself, can possibly be made. For the ideas about "implicit faith" that are commonly tossed about—not only in our part of the world, but even among the most distant nations—are quite wide of the mark. These are arguments to the effect that human reason must be stripped of authority and faith substituted in its place; that the right of Divine worship rests solely with one's own Church (which cannot err), whose judgment must therefore be insisted upon in all matters; and that no one ought to rely so much on their own strength as to presume to call into examination the sacred authority of the Prelates and the heralds of the heavenly Word. They argue that beneath the things preached, even if they surpass human understanding, there underlie truths so deep that they should not be sifted or debated, but simply stored away in the mind, and that God can certainly do these things and even greater.

          All these arguments, I say, and others of that grain (varying according to the age and region), are routinely used to establish false religion just as easily as the true. Any faith whatsoever will sprout and put forth grain from that sort of seed, nor can I think of any doctrine that would not bloom from it. What solemn impostor, after all, would not suggest these very things to his own unclean flock? What barbarous superstition might not be asserted in this manner? What fiction will ever be abolished in any age, especially when the craftiest lawgivers assert that their decrees were delivered from heaven—men whose custom it has always been to mix the false with the true, and to dilute the true with the false? Therefore, unless a path is paved for truth by the common notions, and unless its own proper dignity is granted to each individual article of faith, why should not even the most absurd opinion prevail? Certainly, however much they may play the fool, those who try to stabilize their doctrines using ambiguous and shifting rules of belief act exactly like people who, in order to pluck out a traveler's eyes with the least trouble, offer themselves with wonderful kindness as guides for the course that must be finished. But the matter stands otherwise. For the Supreme Judge will demand an account of one's deeds on the final day not from another person's faith, but from each individual's own. For this reason, the prerequisites of Religion must be sanctioned out of universal wisdom, so that whatever is next added by the true dictate of faith may be supported by that foundation, like a lintel or a rooftop.

          From this it is clear that any religion is not to be received rashly, and therefore those things must first be sought out from which its proper honor is established—all of which, reader, you will find rest upon the common notions. For who, I ask, unfolding that great pile of books built up with such a display and pomp of words, would not laugh at the fictions and impostures of certain ages, unless it put forward the holiness of life in some way or another? Who, finally, would surrender themselves entirely, even unto implicit faith, to that masked name of the Church—playing with so many rites, ceremonies, and absurdities, and fighting under different banners in so many diverse quarters of the world—unless the worship of God, piety, repentance, reward, and punishment were enjoined by the attestation of conscience itself? Who, indeed, would give credence to a Prophet preaching with a living voice, unless he referred whatever he said or did back to the Supreme Being? I should be tedious if I were to tally up every single instance; let it suffice us that none of these things can stand without the common notions, which we value so highly that I would call whatever comes closest to their observance the best book, the best religion, the best prophet. In bringing into the open the series of these notions, precisely as they relate to the theological course, it will be enough to have indicated that they are, or have been, accepted by every sane and whole person; for they will require no further explanation beyond this. First, therefore, the doctrine of common notions acknowledges that truly Catholic Church which neither fails nor ever will fail, that Church in which alone universal Divine providence triumphs.

COMMON NOTIONS IN THE RELIGION OF THE GENTILES (Ancient Religions, Chapter 1)

Whether a Good God would Eternally Damn Heathens for their Disbelief

When, for a long time I had employed my most serious thoughts, in considering whether any common means for the obtaining [of] eternal salvation, were so proposed to all mankind, that from thence we might necessarily conclude and infer the certainty of an universal divine providence, I met with many doubts and difficulties, not easy to be solved. I found that very many fathers of the church had not only a mean and contemptible opinion of the ancient divulged religion of the heathens, but also absolutely and entirely condemned it. The divines of this present age also pronounce as severe a sentence against all those that are without their pale; so that, according to their opinions, the far greatest part of mankind must be inevitably sentenced to eternal punishment.

          This appearing to me too rigid and severe to be consistent with the attributes of the most great and good God, I began to consult the writings of the heathens themselves. But when, by their own histories, I found their gods were often not only mere men, but also some of the most vile; and when I had observed that their religious worship, rites and ceremonies, were ridiculous and extravagant, I was very much inclined to be of the common opinion against them. But then again, when I considered that this was altogether incompatible with the dignity of a universal divine providence, I began to make a diligent inquiry, whether they meant the same by God as we now do.

          Now by God we understand a perfect, immense, and eternal being. But I found, that with them it [i.e., the term "God"] sometimes signified nature, or a certain imperfect, finite, and transitory power; so that not only heaven, the planets, stars, ethereal and aerial spirits; but those men also who had deserved well of mankind in general, or their own country in particular, were unanimously translated into the number of their deities. Their emperors also (some of whom were the worst of men) were deified in their lifetime; and even the fever, fear, and paleness were esteemed gods and goddesses by them; so that they ascribed divine honor to whatsoever was above the common rank of mankind, or exceeded the apprehension of the vulgar. But still it is very evident, that wherever we find the attributes of summus, optimus, maximus; most supreme, most good, and most great, they meant the same God and common father with us. So that the homonymy [i.e., different meanings] of the word being explained, the doubts that arise by comparing our God with theirs, will soon be cleared.

          But yet neither their religious worship or rites, could ever make me have an ill opinion of the common people, they being the invention of the priests only. Accordingly, this crime ought solely to be imputed to their great men, and not to the populace, who were only passive in the matter. I suppose none will deny but that priests have introduced superstition and idolatry, as well as sown quarrels and dissentions wherever they came: this inclined me not to make so rash and peremptory a determination, concerning the future state or the laity, as some divines have done; they being only culpable, for totally devoting and subjecting themselves to the authority of their priests. Their great defection from the pure worship of the supreme God being justly to be attributed to the sacerdotal order [i.e., the priests of organized heathen religions], put me upon the inquiry, whether among those heaps of ethnical superstitions, a thread of truth might be found, by the assistance of which it was possible for them to extricate themselves out of that labyrinth of error, in which they were involved.

          Upon this, five undeniable propositions presently occurred; which not only we, but all mankind in general, must acknowledge: 1. That there it one supreme God; 2. That he ought to be worshipped; 3. That virtue and piety are the chief parts of divine worship; 4. That we ought to be sorry for our sins, and resent of them. 5. That divine goodness doth dispense rewards and punishments both in this life, and after it. . . .

Salvation Open to All through General Providence

Then I had recourse to other authors, but especially [Johannes] Crellius, a very learned man, who has written concerning the souls of the heathens, he quotes several very excellent passages upon this subject out of the most ancient [Christian] fathers by which I found they were of opinion, that some of the best amongst the heathens, through the infinite mercy of God, might be capable of eternal salvation. I soon embraced their opinion, not seeing how the doctrine of a universal divine providence could be solved otherwise, than that some means should be afforded unto all men, by which they might come to God. And seeing that nature or common providence, did supply us here with all things that were necessary and convenient for food and clothing; I could not conceive how the same God, either could or would, leave any man quite destitute (either by nature or grace) of the means of obtaining a more happy state, and though the heathens did not make so good use of them as they might have done, yet the most good and great God, was not in the least to be charged with their miscarriage.

          I know it is a generally received opinion, that common providence does not afford sufficient means, without the concurrence of grace and particular providence. But my design is to make it evident, that a universal providence is extended to all mankind. Now insofar as the heathens (as the holy scriptures testify, and learned divines acknowledge) worshipped the same God as we do; had the same abhorrence of sin, believed rewards and punishment after this life; I cannot but think, that after they had led a good life, they were made partakers of the fulness of that divine grace; especially since they knew the most rational and clearest parts of the true divine worship.

          I pretend not to defend the gross of the heathen religion, which I always esteemed foolish, incongruous, and absurd, but only propose those truths which shined in the midst of their greatest obscurity. Now when they mixt superstitions and fictions with them, and had polluted their souls with such crimes as no repentance could sufficiently purge and expiate, their destruction was justly owing to themselves. But let glory be to the great God for ever. Whether these means for attaining a better state, are so sufficiently effectual, that eternal happiness will be the necessary consequence, shall be discoursed of hereafter in its place.

THE SOUNDEST PARTS OF HEATHEN RELIGION (Ancient Religions, Chapter 15)

Mind (Right Reason) Gives us the Five Common Principles, which Heathen Believers Follow

And first of the mind by which the ancients understood no more than right reason. They esteemed a sound mind beyond all things; for without it they could not make a just choice of religion, or lead a holy life according to such precepts, and reject false and spurious doctrines.

          The wise and sagacious amongst the heathen received the first principles of their religion—such as, (1.) That there is one supreme God, (2.) That he ought to be worshipped, (3.) That virtue is the principal part of his worship, (4.) That we ought to repent of our sins, (5) that there are rewards and punishments both in in this life and hereafter—from the mind or right reason, and the rest derive its authority from the priest only; to the first they gave a firm and entire assent, the others they esteemed at best but doubtful and probable. Thus they did not condemn and reject the revelation, traditions and dreams of their priests, but were somewhat cautious and not easily to be imposed on by them, or run the hazard of resting an entire faith in them. They did not think any doctrines ought to be built on faith only, though the most extensive, for they easily discovered how they might be imposed on by that means. For these reasons the ancients deified the mind, but especially (as Varro, Lactantius, St. Augustine and others say) that they might be endued with a good mind. . . .

          All which, I leave my reader to judge of, as he thinks fit, though there is nothing which we can find amongst them, that carries more probability in it, unless it be those common principles; that God is good and just, and therefore he will reward and punish men, both in this life, and after it, according to their actions and very thoughts.

          But the great men amongst the heathens, began to wander beyond these known bounds; introducing many things that had not the least foundation in humane reason, or any other faculty to support them.

          Thus, the philosopher adds one thing, the priest another, and the poet many more, that quite overturned the fabric of truth, and reduced it to a mere heap of rubbish. For what can be safely established concerning the state after this life, besides those common principles mentioned before, unless we did partake with the inspector of humane consciences and the divine counsels. . . .

Ordinary Heathens Reject the Religious Embellishments of their Priests

It is my established opinion, therefore, that the heathens accounted these five articles as common principles and selected and separated them from all the rest, and recorded them in their interior court as incontrovertible truths; and whatever else the priests added from their oracles, revelations and dreams, they either gave them reception only as probabilities, or else totally rejected them as smelling too rank of cheat and imposture.  Now as in every proposition that is advanced, some new degree of knowledge is excited, it will follow that as there were different degrees of proofs, so different: degrees of assent or dissent must arise in the auditors [i.e., listeners]. So that we may justly conclude that in that wonderful hotchpotch of religion, contrived and patched up by the priests, the heathens did esteem these propositions as altogether undeniable, others more or less probable, and others absurd, contradictory, impossible or false.

          But if it be objected that these truths were not discoverable perfect and entire, but involved and shrouded in lies and fictions. I answer, though some light and trivial truths, like things which support themselves in the air, or float upon the water, presently fall down or sink when any heavy weight is laid on them and cannot rise again till it either falls away or is taken off. Yet the five above mentioned truths ever were, and always will be, of that divine nature, that, like the sunbeams, which no weight can depress, nor any wind blow out, they have darted their glorious rays into the minds of men in all parts of the earth, where they did but exercise their natural use of reason. These then were the parts of the sound religion of the heathens. The rest were either factitious fables, faint resemblances, or frivolous ceremonies, amongst which (to the great prejudice of mankind) some favored of distraction and others of impiety.

          Now in regard all these things were imposed upon the people by the impostures of the sacerdotal order, the fault must lie at their door, for the people very easily submitted to whatever was commanded by the pontifical college. Here the patrons of the heathens, may tax me with making too severe reflections upon their religious worship. For besides the true practice of virtue; they had faith, gave alms, and had public prayers as well as we, and their hierarchy and priesthood was very exemplary and eminent, now why might not they embrace that faith and those rites they received from their ancestors, as well as we have done; and they are not to be blamed for approving those things which have been delivered to them through a long tract of time.

Source: Edward Herbert of Cherbury, De Veritate, 1624, Antient Religions of the Gentiles (1648/1663), De Veritate independently machine translated, not based on published translations.

 

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SAMUEL CLARKE:

COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FROM DEPENDENCY

 

Samuel Clarke (1675–1729) was born in Norwich, England, the son of a well‑respected alderman in the city. He studied at Cambridge University, where he developed interests in mathematics, natural philosophy, and theology. He helped popularize Newton's physics through translations and commentary. After completing his studies, he entered the Anglican ministry and held a series of clerical appointments, eventually becoming rector of a prominent London parish. During these years he published on religious and philosophical topics and became involved in several high‑profile controversies, including a published correspondence exchange with Leibniz. His most important writings include Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God (1705), and On the Obligations of Natural Religion (1706). He died in London in 1729 at the age of 54.

          The selections below are from his Demonstration, which is based on his Boyle Lectures, a series founded by Robert Boyle aimed at defending Christianity against atheists, deists, and materialists. The aim of this work is to provide a strictly rational, a priori demonstration of the existence and attributes of God in response to the deterministic and materialistic philosophies of Hobbes and Spinoza. In the Introduction to this work, he begins by distinguishing between three types of atheists: those whose disbelief stems from extreme ignorance and stupidity, those whose degenerate lives lead them to merely mock religion, and those who rely on speculative and philosophical reasoning. Clarke explicitly targets only this third group, since they are the only ones capable of being reasoned with at all. In the section on proving God with demonstrative certainty, he argues that the being and attributes of God are strictly demonstrable to any unprejudiced mind using right reason. Since his audience rejects revelation and scripture, he bypasses popular arguments to construct a single, connected series of propositions. It is Proposition 2 in the next section where he presents his cosmological argument for God's existence. Clarke's argument is commonly equated with the strategy that Leibniz used (i.e., even if you explain each link in the infinite series of causes, the whole series itself still requires an explanation). However, while Clarke does use the words "whole" and "parts" in his argument, he nowhere states or implies that the whole still needs to be explained. Rather, Clarke's actual strategy is that of a reduction to absurdity argument. The short version is this: there must be a self-existent being since an infinite series of dependent beings could not have originated from a dependent being either inside that series or outside it. The longer version of the argument is this:

(1) An existing being is either dependent or it is self-existent.

(2) Either (a) the universe is only a series of dependent beings or (b) the universe contains a self-existent being.

(3) If (a) the universe is only a series of dependent beings, then either (c) the infinite series originates from dependent being outside that series; or (d) the cause of the infinite series originates from a dependent being inside that series.

(4) Option (c) fails since such a cause (if dependent) would already be within the series.

(5) Option (d) fails since no member inside that series would fulfill the requirement of self-existence (since all members of that series are dependent).

(6) Therefore, it is not the case that the universe is only a series of dependent beings.

(7) Therefore, there exists a self-existent being.

Anticipating potential criticisms of his proof, in the final section he argues that an infinite succession cannot itself be self-existent. One reason is that pushing a question back through endless steps is a rhetorical trick that merely removes the problem from sight. For, collapsing the infinite chain into one continuous eternal block reveals that an unnecessary universe still exists without any foundation. The second reason is that an exclusively dependent universe makes existence and absolute nothingness equally possible. For, neither necessity, chance, nor an external being determined reality to exist rather than nothing. Thus, the atheist is forced to claim the scale was tipped absolutely by nothing, which is a logical contradiction.

 

RESPONSE TO ATHEISTS (Demonstration, Introduction)

Three Types of Atheism

All those who either are or pretend to be atheists; who either disbelieve the being of God, or would be thought to do so; or, (which is all one,) who deny the principal attributes of the divine nature, and suppose God to be an unintelligent being, which acts merely by necessity; that is, which, in any tolerable propriety of speech, acts not at all, but is only acted upon: all men that are atheists, I say, in this sense, must be so upon one or other of these three accounts.

          Either, first, Because being extremely ignorant and stupid, they have never duly considered any thing at all; nor made any just use of their natural reason, to discover even the plainest and most obvious truths; but have spent their time in a manner of life very little superior to that of beasts.

          Or, secondly, Because being totally debauched and corrupted in their practice, they have, by a vicious and degenerate life, corrupted the principles of their nature, and defaced the reason of their own minds; and, instead of fairly and impartially inquiring into the rules and obligations of nature, and the reason and fitness of things, have accustomed themselves only to mock and scoff at religion; and, being under the power of evil habits, and the slavery of unreasonable and indulged lusts, are resolved not to hearken to any reasoning which would oblige them to forsake their beloved.

          Or, thirdly, Because in the way of speculative reasoning, and upon the principles of philosophy, they pretend that the arguments used against the being or attributes of God, seem to them, after the strictest and fullest inquiry, to be more strong and conclusive than those by which we endeavor to prove these great truths.

          These seem the only causes that can be imagined, of any man's disbelieving the being or attributes of God; and no man can be supposed to be an atheist but upon one or other of these three accounts. Now, to the two former of these three sorts of men; namely, to such as are wholly ignorant and stupid, or to such as through habitual debauchery have brought themselves to a custom of mocking and scoffing at all religion, and will not hearken to any fair reasoning; it is not my present business to apply myself. The one of these wants [i.e., lacks] to be instructed in the first principles of reason as well as of religion. The other disbelieves only for a present false interest, and because he is desirous that the thing should not be true. The one has not yet arrived to the use of his natural faculties: the other has renounced them; and declares he will not be argued with, as a rational creature. It is therefore the third sort of atheists only (namely those who in the way of speculative reasoning, description and upon the principles of philosophy, pretend that the arguments brought against the being or attributes of God, do, upon the strictest and fullest examination, appear to them to be more strong and conclusive, than those by which these great truths are attempted to be proved;) these, I say, are the only atheistical persons to whom my present discourse can be supposed to be directed, or indeed who are capable of being reasoned with at all. . . .

Proving God with Demonstrative Certainty

This much being premised, which no atheist, who pretends to be a rational and fair inquirer into things, can possibly avoid granting; (and other atheists, I have before said, are not to be disputed with at all; as being enemies to reason, no less than to religion, and therefore absolutely self-condemned;) I proceed now to the main thing I at first proposed; namely, to endeavour to show, to such considering persons as I have already described, that the being and attributes of God are not only possible, or barely probable in themselves, but also strictly demonstrable to any unprejudiced mind, from the most incontestable principles of right reason.

          And here, because the persons I am at present dealing with, must be supposed not to believe any revelation, nor acknowledge any authority which they will submit to, but only the bare force of reasoning; I shall not, at this time, draw any testimony from Scripture, nor make use of any sort of authority, nor lay any stress upon any popular arguments in the matter before us; but confine myself to the rules of strict and demonstrative argumentation.

          Now, many arguments there are, by which the being and attributes of God have been undertaken to be demonstrated. And perhaps most of those arguments, if thoroughly understood, rightly stated, fully pursued, and duly separated from the false or uncertain reasonings which have sometimes been intermixed with them; would at length appear to be substantial and conclusive. But because I would endeavour, as far as possible, to avoid all manner of perplexity and confusion; therefore I shall not at this time use any variety of arguments, but endeavour, by one clear and plain series of propositions necessarily connected and following one from another, to demonstrate the certainty of the being of God, and to deduce in order the necessary attributes of his nature, so far as by our finite reason we are enabled to discover and apprehend them. And because it is not to my present purpose to explain or illustrate things to them that believe, but only to convince unbelievers, and settle them that doubt, by strict and undeniable reasoning; therefore I shall not allege any thing, which, however really true and useful, may yet be liable to contradiction or dispute; but shall endeavour to urge such propositions only as cannot be denied, without departing from that reason, which all atheists pretend to be the foundation of their unbelief. Only it is absolutely necessary, before all things, that they consent to lay aside all manner of prejudices; and especially such as have been apt to arise from the too frequent use of terms of art, which have no ideas belonging to them; and from the common receiving certain maxims of philosophy as true, which at the bottom seem to be only propositions without any meaning or signification at all.

COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FOR A SELF-EXISTENT BEING (Proposition 2)

The Universe Cannot be Only a Series of Dependent Beings

There has existed from eternity, some one unchangeable and independent being. For since something must needs have been from eternity, as has been already proved, and is granted on all hands, either there has always existed some one unchangeable and independent being, from which all other beings that are or ever were in the universe have received their original; or else there has been an infinite succession of changeable and dependent beings, produced one from another, in an endless progression, without any original cause at all. Now this latter supposition is so very absurd, that though all atheism must in its account of most things (as shall be shown hereafter,) terminate in it, yet I think very description few atheists ever were so weak as openly and directly to defend it; for it is plainly impossible, and contradictory to itself. I shall not argue against it from the supposed impossibility of infinite succession, barely and absolutely considered in itself; for a reason which shall be mentioned hereafter. But, if we consider such an infinite progression, as one entire endless series of dependent beings, it is plain this whole series of beings can have no cause from without, of its existence; because in it are supposed to be included all things that are or ever were in the universe: And it is plain it can have no reason within itself, of its existence; because no one being in this infinite succession is supposed to be self-existent or necessary, (which is the only ground or reason of existence of any thing that can be imagined within the thing itself, as will presently more fully appear,) but every one dependent on the foregoing: and where no part is necessary, it is manifest the whole cannot be necessary: absolute necessity of existence, not being an extrinsic, relative, and accidental denomination, but an inward and essential property of the nature of the thing which so exists. An infinite succession, therefore, of merely dependent beings, without any original independent cause, is a series of beings that has neither necessity, nor cause, nor any reason or ground at all of its existence, either within itself or from without; that is, it is an express contradiction and impossibility; it is a supposing something to be caused, (because it is granted in every one of its stages of succession, not to be necessarily and of itself;) and yet that, in the whole, it is caused absolutely by nothing; which every man knows is a contradiction to imagine done in time; and, because duration in this case makes no difference, it is equally a contradiction to suppose it done from eternity; and, consequently, there must, on the contrary, of necessity, have existed from eternity some one immutable and independent being.

An Infinite Succession cannot Itself be Self-Existent

To suppose an infinite succession of changeable description and dependent beings produced one from another in an endless progression, without any original cause at all, is only a driving back from one step to another, and (as it were) removing out of sight, the question concerning the ground or reason of the existence of things. It is in reality, and in point of argument, the very same supposition, as it would be to suppose one continued being, of beginningless and endless duration, neither self-existent and necessary in itself, nor having its existence founded in any self-existent cause; which is directly absurd and contradictory.

          Otherwise, thus: Either there has always existed some one unchangeable and independent being, from which all other beings have received their original; or else there has been an infinite succession of changeable and dependent beings, produced one from another, in an endless progression, without any original cause at all. According to this latter supposition, there is nothing in the universe self-existent or necessarily-existing: and, if so, then it was originally equally possible, that from eternity there should never have existed any thing at all, as that there should from eternity have existed a succession of changeable and dependent beings: which being supposed, then, what is it that has from eternity determined such a succession of beings to exist, rather than that from eternity there should never have existed any thing at all? Necessity it was not; because it was equally possible, in this supposition, that they should not have existed at all. Chance is nothing but a mere word, without any signification: And other being it is supposed there was none, to determine the existence of these. Their existence, therefore, was determined by nothing; neither by any necessity in the nature of the things themselves, because it is supposed that none of them are self-existent; nor by any other being, because no other is supposed to exist. That is to say; of two equally possible things, (viz. whether any thing or nothing should from eternity have existed,) the one is determined, rather than the other, absolutely by nothing; which is an express contradiction. And, consequently, as before, there must on the contrary, of necessity, have existed, from eternity, some one immutable and independent being, which, what it is, remains in the next place to be inquired.

Source: Samuel Clarke, Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God (1705), adapted.

 

 

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BLAISE PASCAL:

WAGERING ON BELIEF IN GOD

 

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) was a native of Clermont-Ferrand, France, raised by a father who was a prominent government official and scholar. Blaise had a severe, lifelong illness that began in his infancy. Following his mother's death when he was three, his father resigned his administrative post and relocated the family to Paris to focus on scientific and mathematical research. Under his father's tutelage, Pascal entered a prominent network of European intellectuals. By his late teens, his father moved to another government post as a tax collector. There, Blaise published mathematical treatises and constructed a mechanical adding machine to assist his father's tax calculations. At age twenty-three, Blaise had a religious experience that prompted him and his family to embraced the austere Catholic movement of Jansenism. He returned to Paris where he spent several years conducting scientific experiments, but permanently abandoned these after a second religious experience. He dedicated his remaining years to theology, working on what he hoped would be major defense of the Christian faith. However, his failing health cut the project short, and he died in 1662 at age thirty-nine. The notes that Pascal left behind in his final writing project are disconnected and of varying length, some being only a few words long. Nevertheless, his family and friends gathered them together and published them under the appropriate title Pensées (Thoughts) in 1670. It is mainly this work upon which Pascal's fame rests. Scholars have sought ways of thematically organizing his notes, one of which is a two-part scheme suggested by Pascal himself. First is a description of what human beings are like without God, and second a description of us with God. What bridges the transition from one to the other is his famous wager. The selections below are from the Pensées, and follow this progression.

          In the section on humans without God, Pascal describes the natural limitations of human reasoning, drawing on the views of modern skeptics. A central skeptical problem with human reasoning is that we are trapped between two infinities. For, on one hand, we are confronted by the immense grandeur of the visible universe, an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference is nowhere. On the other hand, if we look inward, we discover an equally infinite realm of the minuscule, where nature divides matter beyond our comprehension into microscopic worlds of atoms and organisms. Human reason is lost between these two abysses of the infinite and nothingness. The wager serves as the turning point between skepticism and belief. The entire section is written as a dialogue between Pascal vs. a skeptic who holds that we must suspend judgment on God's existence if the evidence is not there. Pascal begins conceding that the proofs of God's existence fail, and that reason is in fact neutral on issues of God's existence and nature. Nevertheless, he argues, the stakes of believing vs. not believing are so high that we are compelled to decide whether God does or does not exist. He suggests that we look at like a gamble between which of two choices will bring us the most happiness. If we wager to believe in God, we lose nothing but hold open the possibility of infinite happiness. On the other hand, if we wager to disbelieve in God, we gain nothing, but lose the possibility of infinite happiness. The skeptic then criticizes: my happiness right now is certain, whereas infinite gain in the afterlife is infinitely uncertain. To this Pascal responds that, because the potential reward is infinite, the mathematical value of the wager remains infinitely high. This completely overrides the finite value of the earthly happiness that is put at risk. The skeptic concedes this, but responds that belief through faith alone is too difficult. Pascal's responds that we should reduce our passion and act religiously as though we did believe. This then will tame and quiet our demand for rational proof. In a related discussion, he argues that we experience God through faith, not reason.

          In the section on humans with God, he presents his defense of Christianity. Of all ancient histories, he argues, the Old Testament is the one that is historically trustworthy. The most compelling evidence for Christianity, then, is from prophesies and miracles as described in the Bible. Concerning prophesies, he argues that these are the strongest proofs that Jesus is the messiah, since, for over four thousand years, prophets uniformly proclaimed that a messiah would arise who would convert the nations. In Jesus own day, however, Jesus needed to perform miracles to convince people that he indeed was the messiah that the prophets spoke about, so that the conversion of the nations could in fact take place. As to miracles themselves, Pascal argues that we need a test or rule to distinguish true miracles from false ones. That rule is that a given miracle must not undermine the central point that the miracle intends to prove, namely, that Jesus is the Messiah. False miracles themselves presuppose that there are true ones, in the same way that quack remedies would not be believed unless there were true remidies.

HUMANS WITHOUT GOD: LIMITATIONS OF REASONING (Pensées, 1670)

Conceptions of Human Nature proposed by Skeptics

60. First part: Misery of man without God. Second part: Happiness of man with God. Or, First part: That nature is corrupt. Proved by nature itself. Second part: That there is a Redeemer. Proved by Scripture. 

          61. Order. I might well have taken this discourse in an order like this: to show the vanity of all conditions of men, to show the vanity of ordinary lives, and then the vanity of philosophic lives, sceptics, stoics; but the order would not have been kept. I know a little what it is, and how few people understand it. No human science can keep it. Saint Thomas did not keep it. Mathematics keep it, but they are useless on account of their depth.

          62. Preface to the first part. To speak of (1) those who have examined knowledge of self; (2) of the divisions [of human intelligence] by [French atheist Pierre] Charron, which sadden and weary us; (3) of the confusion of Montaigne; that he was quite aware of his lack of method and avoided it by jumping from subject to subject; that he tried to be fashionable.

          His foolish project of describing himself! And this not casually and against his maxims, since everyone makes mistakes, but by his maxims themselves, and by first and chief design. For to say silly things by chance and weakness is a common misfortune, but to say them intentionally is intolerable, and to say such as that. . . .

          64. It is not in Montaigne, but in myself, that I find all that I see in him.

          65. What good there is in Montaigne can only have been acquired with difficulty. The evil that is in him, I mean apart from his morality, could have been corrected in a moment, if he had been informed that he made too much of trivial things and spoke too much of himself.

Reason's Confusion about Nature: Trapped between two Infinities

72. . . . Returning to himself, let man consider what he is in comparison with all existence; let him regard himself as lost in this remote corner of nature; and from the little cell in which he finds himself lodged, I mean the universe, let him estimate at their true value the earth, kingdoms, cities, and himself. What is a man in the Infinite?

          But to show him another wonder equally astonishing, let him examine the most delicate things he knows. Let a mite be given him, with its minute body and parts incomparably more minute, limbs with their joints, veins in the limbs, blood in the veins, humors in the blood, drops in the humors, vapors in the drops. Dividing these last things again, let him exhaust his powers of conception, and let the last object at which he can arrive be now that of our discourse. Perhaps he will think that here is the smallest point in nature. I will let him see therein a new abyss. I will paint for him not only the visible universe, but all that he can conceive of nature's immensity in the womb of this abridged atom. Let him see therein an infinity of universes, each of which has its firmament, its planets, its earth, in the same proportion as in the visible world; in each earth animals, and in the last mites, in which he will find again all that the first had, finding still in these others the same thing without end and without cessation. Let him lose himself in wonders as amazing in their littleness as the others in their vastness. For who will not be astounded at the fact that our body, which a little while ago was imperceptible in the universe, itself imperceptible in the bosom of the whole, is now a colossus, a world, or rather a whole, in respect of the nothingness which we cannot reach? He who regards himself in this light will be afraid of himself, and observing himself sustained in the body given him by nature between those two abysses of the Infinite and Nothing, will tremble at the sight of these marvels; and I think that, as his curiosity changes into admiration, he will be more disposed to contemplate them in silence than to examine them with presumption.

          For, in fact, what is man in nature? A Nothing in comparison with the Infinite, an All in comparison with the Nothing, a mean between nothing and everything. Since he is infinitely removed from comprehending the extremes, the end of things and their beginning are hopelessly hidden from him in an impenetrable secret; he is equally incapable of seeing the Nothing from which he was made, and the Infinite in which he is swallowed up.

          What will he do then, but perceive the appearance of the middle of things, in an eternal despair of knowing either their beginning or their end. All things proceed from the Nothing, and are borne towards the Infinite. Who will follow these marvelous processes? The Author of these wonders understands them. None other can do so.

          Through failure to contemplate these Infinites, men have rashly rushed into the examination of nature, as though they bore some proportion to her. It is strange that they have wished to understand the beginnings of things, and thence to arrive at the knowledge of the whole, with a presumption as infinite as their object. For surely this design cannot be formed without presumption or without a capacity infinite like nature.

THE WAGER

Failure of Proofs for God's Existence

242. To speak of those who have treated this matter [of proving God's existence]. I admire the boldness with which these persons assume to speak of God. In addressing their argument to infidels, their first chapter is to prove Divinity from the works of nature. I should not be astonished at their enterprise, if they were addressing their argument to the faithful; for it is certain that those who have the living faith in their hearts see at once that all existence is none other than the work of the God whom they adore. But for those in whom this light is extinguished, and in whom we purpose to rekindle it, persons destitute of faith and grace, who, seeking with all their light whatever they see in nature that can bring them to this knowledge, find only obscurity and darkness; to tell them that they have only to look at the smallest things which surround them, and they will see God openly, to give them, as a complete proof of this great and important matter, the course of the moon and planets, and to claim to have concluded the proof with such an argument, is to give them ground for believing that the proofs of our religion are very weak. I see by reason and experience that nothing is more calculated to arouse their contempt.

          It is not after this manner that Scripture speaks, which has a better knowledge of the things that are of God. It says, on the contrary, that God is a hidden God, and that, since the corruption of nature, He has left men in a darkness from which they can escape only through Jesus Christ, without whom all communion with God is cut off. "Neither knows any man the Father, except the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him" [Matt 11:27].

          This is what Scripture points out to us, when it says in so many places that those who seek God find Him. It is not of that light, "like the noonday sun," that this is said. We do not say that those who seek the noonday sun, or water in the sea, will find them; and hence the evidence of God must not be of this nature. So it tells us elsewhere: "Truly, you are a God that hides yourself" [Is. 45:15].

          243. It is an astounding fact that no canonical writer has ever made use of nature to prove God. They all strive to make us believe in Him. David, Solomon, etc., have never said, "There is no void, therefore there is a God." They must have had more knowledge than the most learned people who came after them, and who have all made use of this argument. This is worthy of attention.

          244. "Why! Do you not say yourself that the heavens and birds prove God?" No. "And does your religion not say so"? No. For although it is true in a sense for some souls to whom God gives this light, yet it is false with respect to the majority of men.

          245. There are three sources of belief: reason, custom, inspiration. The Christian religion, which alone has reason, does not acknowledge as her true children those who believe without inspiration. It is not that she excludes reason and custom. On the contrary, the mind must be opened to proofs, must be confirmed by custom and offer itself in humbleness to inspirations, which alone can produce a true and saving effect. "Lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect" [I Cor. 1:17].

          543. The metaphysical proofs of God are so remote from the reasoning of men, and so complicated, that they make little impression; and if they should be of service to some, it would be only during the moment that they see such demonstration; but an hour afterwards they fear they have been mistaken. "What they have found by their curiosity, they have lost by their pride" [Augustine, Sermon 141].   This is the result of the knowledge of God obtained without Jesus Christ; it is communion without a mediator with the God whom they have known without a mediator. Whereas those who have known God by a mediator know their own wretchedness.

Reason is Neutral Concerning God's Existence and Nature

233. We know then the existence and nature of the finite, because we also are finite and have extension. We know the existence of the infinite and are ignorant of its nature, because it has extension like us, but not limits like us. But we know neither the existence nor the nature of God, because He has neither extension nor limits.

          By faith we know God's existence. In the glorious state of heaven we will know his nature. Now, I have already shown that we may easily know the existence of a thing without knowing its nature. Let us speak now according to the light of nature. If there is a God he is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having neither parts nor limits, he has no proportion to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what he is, or whether he is. This being true, who will dare to undertake to resolve this question? It cannot be we who have no proportion to him.

           Who, then, will blame those Christians who are not able to give a reason for their belief insofar as they profess a religion for which they can give no reason? In exposing it to the world, they declare that it is foolishness (1 Corinthians, 1:18). Then you complain that they do not prove it! If they proved it, they would not keep their word. It is in lacking proofs that they do not lack sense. Yes, but though this may excuse those who offer it such, and take away the blame for producing it without reason, this does not excuse those who receive it.

          Let us examine this point then, and say "God is, or he is not." But to which side will we incline? Reason cannot decide it at all. There is an infinite chaos that separates us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance in which heads or tails must come up. Which will you take? By reason you can wager on neither. By reason you can hinder neither from winning.

          Do not, then, charge those with falsehood who have made a choice. For you know nothing about it.

          "No. But I blame them for having made, not this choice, but a choice. For although he who takes heads, and the other, are in the same fault, they are both in fault. The proper way is simply not to wager."

High Stakes of the Wager Compel a Decision

Yes, but you must wager. This is not voluntary. You have set sail. Which will you take? Let's see. Since a choice must be made, let's see which interests you the least. You have two things to lose: the true and the good. You also have two things to stake: your reason and your will; that is, your knowledge and your complete happiness. Your nature has two things to shun: error and misery. Your reason is not more wounded, since a choice must necessarily be made in choosing one rather than the other. Here a point is eliminated. But what about your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in taking heads that God exists. Let us weigh these two cases. If you gain, you gain all. If you lose, you lose nothing. Wager without hesitation, then, that he is.

          "This is admirable. Yes, it is necessary to wager, but perhaps I wager too much."

          Let us see. Since there is equal risk of gaining or losing, if you had to gain but two lives for one, still you might wager. But if there were three lives to gain, it would be required to play (since you are under the necessity of playing). When you are forced to play, you would be imprudent not to risk your life in order to gain three in a play where there is equal hazard of loss and gain. But there is an eternity of life and happiness. This being true, even if there were an infinity of chances (only one of which might be for you) you would still be right in wagering one in order to have two. Being obliged to play, if there was an infinity of life infinitely happy to gain, you would act foolishly to refuse to play one life against three in a game where among an infinity of chances there is one for you. But there is here an infinity of life infinitely happy to gain. There is a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you play is finite.

          This [i.e., the balance of gain over loss] is quite settled. Wherever the infinite is, and where there is not an infinity of chances of loss against the chance of gain, there is nothing to weigh, and we must give all. Thus, when we are forced to play, we must renounce reason in order to keep life, rather than to risk it for the infinite gain, which is as likely to occur as the loss of annihilation.

Possible Criticism: Happiness now is Certain, but Infinite Gain in the Afterlife is Infinitely Uncertain

For there is no use in saying that it is uncertain whether we will gain, and that it is certain that we risk. There is no use in saying that, [a] the infinite distance between the certainty of what we risk and, [b] the uncertainty of what we will gain, raises the finite good which we certainly risk to a level of equality with the uncertain infinite gain. It is not so. Every player, without violating reason, risks a certainty to gain uncertainty, and nevertheless he risks a finite certainty to gain a finite uncertainty. The distance is not infinite between this certainty of what we risk, and the uncertainty of gain. This is false. There is, in truth, an infinity between the certainty of gaining and the certainty of losing. But the uncertainty of gaining is proportioned to the certainty of what we risk, according to the proportion of the chances of gain and loss. It follows from this that if there are as many chances on one side as there are on the other, the game is playing even. Then the certainty of what we risk is equal to the uncertainty of the gain. This is quite far from being infinitely distant. Thus our proposition [of infinite gain] is of infinite force when there is the finite to hazard in a play where the chances of gain and loss are equal, and the infinite to gain. This is demonstrative, and if people are capable of any truths, this is one of them.

If Belief through Faith is Difficult, then Reduce Passion and Act Religiously

 "I confess it, I admit it. But, still, are there no means of seeing the truth behind the game?"

          Yes, the scriptures and the rest.

          "Yes, but my hands are tied and my mouth is dumb. I am forced to wager, yet I am not free. I am chained and so constituted that I cannot believe. What will you have me do then?"

          That is true. But at least learn your inability to believe, since reason brings you to such belief [given the above reasoning], and yet you cannot believe. Try then to convince yourself not by the addition of proofs for the existence of God, but by the reduction of your own passions. You would have recourse to faith, but don't know the ways. You wish to be cured of infidelity, and you ask for the remedy. Learn it from those who have been bound like yourself, and who would wager now all their goods. These know the road that you wish to follow, and are cured of a disease that you wish to be cured of. Follow their course, then, from its beginning. It consisted in doing all things as if they believed in them, in using holy water, in having masses said, etc. Naturally this will make you believe and tame (abêtira) you at the same time.

          "But this is what I fear."

          And why? What have you to lose? But to show you that this leads you there, it is this which will lessen the passions, which are your greatest obstacles.

End of this Discourse

Religious Commitment Creates no Loss in this Life

          Now, what harm will come to you in taking this course? You would be faithful, virtuous, humble, grateful, beneficent, a sincere friend, truthful. Indeed, you would not be given up to poisonous pleasures, to false glory, or false joys. But would you not have other pleasures?

          I tell you that you will gain by it in this life. Each step you take in this direction, you will see so much of the certainty of gain, and so much of the nothingness of what you risk, that you will acknowledge in the end that you have wagered something certain, infinite for which you have given nothing.

          "Ah! This discourse moves me, charms me," etc.

          If this discourse pleases you and seems impressive, know that it is made by a man who has knelt, both before and after it, in prayer to that Being, infinite and without parts, before whom he lays all he has, for you also to lay before Him all you have for your own good and for His glory, that so strength may be given to lowliness.

Experiencing God through Faith, not Reason

278. It is the heart which experiences God, and not the reason. This, then, is faith: God felt by the heart, not by the reason.

          Faith is a gift of God; do not believe that we said it was a gift of reasoning. Other religions do not say this of their faith. They only give reasoning in order to arrive at it, and yet it does not bring them to it.

          282. We know truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart, and it is in this last way that we know first principles; and reason, which has no part in it, tries in vain to impugn them. The sceptics, who have only this for their object, labor to no purpose. We know that we do not dream, and, however impossible it is for us to prove it by reason, this inability demonstrates only the weakness of our reason, but not, as they affirm, the uncertainty of all our knowledge. For the knowledge of first principles, as space, time, motion, number, is as sure as any of those which we get from reasoning. Reason must trust these intuitions of the heart, and must base them on every argument. (We have intuitive knowledge of the tri-dimensional nature of space and of the infinity of number, and reason then shows that there are no two square numbers one of which is double of the other. Principles are intuited, propositions are inferred, all with certainty, though in different ways.) It is as useless and absurd for reason to demand from the heart proofs of her first principles, before admitting them, as it would be for the heart to demand from reason an intuition of all demonstrated propositions before accepting them.

          This inability ought, then, to serve only to humble reason, which would judge all, but not to challenge our certainty, as if only reason were capable of instructing us. Would to God, on the contrary, that we had never need of it, and that we knew everything by instinct and intuition! But nature has refused us this advantage. On the contrary, she has given us only very little knowledge of this kind; and all the rest can be acquired only by reasoning.

          Therefore, those to whom God has imparted religion by intuition are very fortunate and justly convinced. But to those who do not have it, we can give it only by reasoning, waiting for God to give them spiritual insight, without which faith is only human and useless for salvation.

HUMANS WITH GOD

The Falsity of Non-Biblical Ancient Histories

Antiquity of the Jews. What a difference there is between one book and another! I am not astonished that the Greeks made the Iliad, nor the Egyptians and the Chinese their histories.

          We have only to see how this originates. These fabulous historians are not contemporaneous with the facts about which they write. Homer composes a romance, which he gives out as such, and which is received as such. For nobody doubted that Troy and Agamemnon no more existed than did the golden apple. Accordingly, he did not think of making a history, but solely a book to amuse; he is the only writer of his time; the beauty of the work has made it last, everyone learns it and talks about it, it is necessary to know it, and each one knows it by heart. Four hundred years afterwards the witnesses of these facts are no longer alive, no one knows of his own knowledge if it is a fable or a history; one has only learnt it from his ancestors, and this can pass for truth.

          Every history which is not contemporaneous, as the books of the Sibyls and Trismegistus, and so many others which have been believed by the world, are false, and found to be false in the course of time. It is not so with contemporaneous writers.

          There is a great difference between a book which an individual writes and publishes to a nation [i.e., non-biblical ancient histories], and a book which itself creates a nation [i.e., biblical history]. We cannot doubt that the book is as old as the people.

Prophecies Not Absolutely Convincing but Still Believable

          693. When I see the blindness and the wretchedness of man, when I regard the whole silent universe and man without light, left to himself and, as it were, lost in this corner of the universe, without knowing who has put him there, what he has come to do, what will become of him at death, and incapable of all knowledge, I become terrified, like a man who should be carried in his sleep to a dreadful desert island and should awake without knowing where he is and without means of escape. And thereupon I wonder how people in a condition so wretched do not fall into despair. I see other persons around me of a like nature. I ask them if they are better informed than I am. They tell me that they are not. And thereupon these wretched and lost beings, having looked around them and seen some pleasing objects, have given and attached themselves to them. For my own part, I have not been able to attach myself to them, and, considering how strongly it appears that there is something else than what I see, I have examined whether this God has not left some sign of Himself.

          I see many contradictory religions, and consequently all false except one. Each wants to be believed on its own authority, and threatens unbelievers. I do not therefore believe them. Everyone can say this; everyone can call himself a prophet.   But I see that Christian religion wherein prophecies are fulfilled; and that is what everyone cannot do.

          564. The prophecies, the very miracles and proofs of our religion, are not of such a nature that they can be said to be absolutely convincing. But they are also of such a kind that it cannot be said that it is unreasonable to believe them. Thus there is both evidence and obscurity to enlighten some and confuse others. But the evidence is such that it surpasses, or at least equals, the evidence to the contrary. Thus, it is not reason which can determine men not to follow it, and thus it can only be lust or malice of heart. And by this means there is sufficient evidence to condemn, and insufficient to convince. So it appears in those who follow it that it is grace, and not reason, which makes them follow it; and in those who shun it, that it is lust, not reason, which makes them shun it.

          588. Our religion is wise and foolish. Wise, because it is the most learned and the most founded on miracles, prophecies, etc. Foolish, because it is not all this which makes us belong to it. This makes us, indeed, condemn those who do not belong to it; but it does not cause belief in those who do belong to it. It is the cross that makes them believe, ne evacuata sit crux ["so that the cross should not be emptied of its power," 1 Cor. 1:17]. So Saint Paul, who came with wisdom and signs, says that he has come neither with wisdom nor with signs; for he came to convert. But those who come only to convince can say that they come with wisdom and with signs. 

          706. The prophecies are the strongest proof of Jesus Christ. It is for them also that God has made most provision; for the event which has fulfilled them is a miracle existing since the birth of the Church to the end. So God has raised up prophets during sixteen hundred years, and, during four hundred years afterwards, He has scattered all these prophecies among all the Jews, who carried them into all parts of the world. Such was the preparation for the birth of Jesus Christ, and, as His Gospel was to be believed by all the world, it was not only necessary that there should be prophecies to make it believed, but that these prophecies should exist throughout the whole world, in order to make it embraced by the whole world.

          710. Prophecies.  If one man alone had made a book of predictions about Jesus Christ, as to the time and the manner, and Jesus Christ had come in conformity to these prophecies, this fact would have infinite weight. But there is much more here. Here is a succession of men during four thousand years, who, consequently and without variation, come, one after another, to foretell this same event. Here is a whole people who announce it and who have existed for four thousand years, in order to give corporate testimony of the assurances which they have and from which they cannot be diverted by whatever threats and persecutions people may make against them. This is far more important.

Distinguising False Miracles from True Ones

          803. Miracles enable us to judge doctrine, and doctrine enables us to judge miracles. There are false miracles and true. There must be a distinction in order to know them; otherwise they would be useless. Now they are not useless; on the contrary, they are fundamental. Now the rule which is given to us must be such that it does not destroy the proof which the true miracles give of the truth, which is the chief end of the miracles. Moses has given two rules: that the prediction does not come to pass (Deut. 18.), and that they do not lead to idolatry (Deut. 13.); and Jesus Christ [has given us] one.

          804. Miracle. It is an effect, which exceeds the natural power of the means which are employed for it. What is not a miracle is an effect, which does not exceed the natural power of the means which are employed for it. Thus, those who heal by invocation of the devil do not work a miracle; for that does not exceed the natural power of the devil. . . .

          815. It is not possible to have a reasonable belief against miracles.

          816. Unbelievers the most gullible. They believe the miracles of Vespasian, in order not to believe those of Moses.

          817. Having considered how it happens that so great credibility is given to so many impostors who say they have remedies, often to the length of men putting their lives into their hands, it has appeared to me that the true cause is that there are true remedies. For it would not be possible that there should be so many false remedies and that so much faith should be placed in them, if there were none true. If there had never been any remedy for any in, and all ills had been incurable, it is impossible that men should have imagined that they could give remedies, and still more impossible that so many others should have believed those who boasted of having remedies; in the same way as did a man boast of preventing death, no one would believe him, because there is no example of this. But as there were a number of remedies found to be true by the very knowledge of the greatest men, the belief of men is thereby induced; and, this being known to be possible, it has been therefore concluded that it was. For people commonly reason thus: "A thing is possible, therefore it is"; because the thing cannot be denied generally, since there are particular effects which are true, the people, who cannot distinguish which among these particular effects are true, believe them all. In the same way, the reason why so many false effects are credited to the moon is that there are some true, as the tide.

          It is the same with prophecies, miracles, divination by dreams, sorceries, etc. For if there had been nothing true in all this, men would have believed nothing of them; and thus, instead of concluding that there are no true miracles because there are so many false, we must, on the contrary, say that there certainly are true miracles, since there are false, and that there are false miracles only because some are true. We must reason in the same way about religion; for it would not be possible that men should have imagined so many false religions, if there had not been a true one. The objection to this is that savages have a religion; but the answer is that they have heard the true spoken of, as appears by the Deluge, circumcision, the cross of Saint Andrew, etc.

          818. Having considered how it happens that there are so many false miracles, false revelations, sorceries, etc., it has seemed to me that the true cause is that there are some true. For it would not be possible that there should be so many false miracles, if there were no true ones, nor so many false revelations, if there were no true ones, nor so many false religions, if there were not one true. For if there had never been all this, it is almost impossible that men should have imagined it, and still more impossible that so many others should have believed it. But as there have been very great things true, and as they have been believed by great men, this impression has been the cause that nearly everybody is made capable of believing also the false. And thus, instead of concluding that there are no true miracles, since there are so many false, it must be said, on the contrary, that there are true miracles, since there are so many false; and that there are false ones only because there are true; and that in the same way there are false religions because there is one true.- Objection to this: savages have a religion. But this is because they have heard the true spoken of, as appears by the cross of Saint Andrew, the Deluge, circumcision, etc. This arises from the fact that the human mind, finding itself inclined to that side by the truth, becomes thereby susceptible of all the falsehoods of this.

          823. If there were no false miracles, there would be certainty. If there were no rule to judge them, miracles would be useless and there would be no reason for believing. Now there is, humanly speaking, no human certainty, but we have reason.

          832. Miracles are no longer necessary, because we have had them already. But when tradition is no longer minded; when the Pope alone is offered to us; when he has been imposed upon; and when the true source of truth, which is tradition, is thus excluded; and the Pope, who is its guardian, is biased; the truth is no longer free to appear. Then, as men speak no longer of truth, truth itself must speak to men. This is what happened in the time of Arius. (Miracles under Diocletian and under Arius.)

Source: Blaise Pascal, Pensées, translated by William Finlayson Trotter, adapted.

 

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WILLIAM DERHAM:

DIVINE DESIGNER OF A MECHANICAL WORLD

 

William Derham (1657–1735) was born in the village of Stoulton in Worcestershire, England, into a family with clerical ties, his father serving as a country rector. He studied at Trinity College, Oxford, where he developed interests in natural philosophy alongside his theological training. After completing his degree he entered the Anglican ministry. In 1682 he became rector of Upminster, a parish just east of London, where he spent the remainder of his life. There he pursued scientific investigations in astronomy, meteorology, and acoustics, corresponding with members of the Royal Society and eventually being elected a fellow in 1703. His calculation of the speed of sound brought him recognition within the scientific community. During these years he also wrote extensively, publishing works that combined empirical science with natural theology, the best known of which are Physico‑Theology (1713) and Astro‑Theology (1715). He died in Upminster in 1735 at the age of 78. The selections below are from his Physico-Theology.

          Derham first presented his Physico-Theology for the Boyle Lectures. The theme of his work is to prove that the universe was not the product of Epicurean chance or unguided Cartesian mechanics. The bulk of the book consists of non-technical but systematic discussions of physics, astronomy, geology, and biology, with more detailed scientific information in footnotes. It is essentially a science book for the masses with an underlying theological message. It is specifically the beginning and ending of its chapters that contain brief comments emphasizing natural design. The work was successful, serving as a compendium of cutting-edge discoveries for the scientifically curious British public. It went through several revised editions before Derham's death in 1735, and multiple reprintings followed until it was superseded by William Paley's Natural Theology in 1802. The selections below represent some of his more prominent theological discussions in that work. He nowhere lays out an explicit philosophical argument for God's existence from natural design. Rather, based on the science he presents, he stresses how obvious the inference is to a natural designer, often making analogies to the design exhibited in sophisticated human machines.

          Derham opens with a discussion of the design of the earth. In the section on the design of the atmosphere, he argues that it is so perfectly adapted to survival and functioning of the terrestrial globe that it could only be the work of an infinite God. Attributing such an intricate, functional instrument to blind chance, he says, is as absurd as imagining a complex pneumatic engine could build itself without a human creator. In the section on the design of the earth, he argues that the vast fabric of the world is completely unified in its craftsmanship, functioning like a magnificent palace adorned with gardens and aqueducts. Every environmental component, from air and light to gravity, is perfectly engineered to preserve life without redundancy or defect. In the section on human limitations, he argues that we ignorant humans should humbly submit to divine wisdom rather than complain about natural disasters or rugged terrain. Despite occasional hardships, creation is a balanced habitat where we can achieve human happiness through virtue and divine providence. In the section on the design of the eye (4.2), he argues that only an omnipotent Creator could compose so magnificent and delicate an organ. The eye rescues animals from perpetual darkness, and enables humans to navigate dangers and conduct commerce.

          Turning to the design of human beings, in the section on the human soul, he argues that the rational mind is a divine substance created by God, rather than a mechanical product of atomic collisions or matter in motion. To prove that the human mind does not operate through purely mechanical laws, he discusses two distinct historical anomalies that a materialistic hypothesis cannot explain. First, he notes a chronological issue, where monumental technological inventions were randomly reserved for later generations rather than being discovered early by ancient geniuses. Second, he identifies a geographical issue, where the arts and sciences flourish unevenly across different nations. This demonstrates that God directly regulates human ingenuity to advance his larger providential designs. In the section on praise of the creator, he argues that the synthesis of a highly engineered body and a rational soul places humans under a strict moral obligation of gratitude towards God. Attributing all this to blind chance, he says, is a perverse abandonment of human reason.

          In the section on minor works of nature, he argues that even the smallest and seemingly trivial parts of creation exhibit divine design and thus deserve investigation rather than contempt. Critics who dismiss microbiology fail to realize that the creator's wisdom is evident within these tiny pieces of workmanship. In the section on scientific inquiry as a religious duty, he argues that such research directly reveals the purpose for which God gave us sensory faculties and curiosity. Investigating natural history allows researchers to trace God's handiwork, which thereby transforms scientific labor into an act of praise and adoration. In the section on the universal evidence of design, he argues that the visible world offers such obvious indications of a deity that all nations have naturally deduced a belief in God. Consequently, modern infidelity is entirely inexcusable. Anyone who studies nature and still denies the creator is blinded from moral corruption and passion and not dissuaded by lack of clear evidence.

DESIGN IN PHYSICS, GEOLOGY, BIOLOGY

Creator Revealed in the Design of the Atmosphere (1.3)

And now, if we reflect upon this necessary appendage of the terraqueous globe, the atmosphere; and consider the absolute necessity thereof to many uses of our globe, and its great convenience to the whole: and in a word, that it answereth all the ends and purposes that we can suppose there can be for such an appendage: who can but own this to be the contrivance, the work of the great creator? Who would ever say or imagine such a body, so different from the globe it serves, could be made by chance, or be adapted so exactly to all those forementioned grand ends, by any other efficient than by the power and wisdom of the infinite god! Who would not rather, from so noble a work, readily acknowledge the workman and as easily conclude the atmosphere to be made by God, as an instrument wrought by its power, any pneumatic engine, to be contrived and made by man!

Creator Revealed in the Design of the Earth (1.5)

And now from this transient view of no other than the out-works, than the bare appendages of the terraqueous globe, we have so manifest a sample of the wisdom, power, and goodness of the infinite creator, that it is easy to imagine the whole fabric is of a piece, the work of at least a skillful artist. A man that should meet with a palace, beset with pleasant gardens, adorned with stately avenues, furnished with well-contrived aqueducts, cascades, and all other appendages conducing to convenience or pleasure, would easily imagine, that proportionable architecture and magnificence were within: but we should conclude the man was out of his wits that should assert and plead that all was the work of chance, or other than of some wise and skillful hand. And so when we survey the bare out-works of this our globe, when we see so vast a body, accoutered with so noble a furniture of air, light and gravity; with everything, in short, that is necessary to the preservation and security of the globe itself, or that conduces to the life, health, and happiness, to the propagation and increase of all the prodigious variety of creatures the globe is stocked with; when we see nothing wanting, nothing redundant or frivolous, nothing botching or ill-made, but that everything, even in the very appendages alone, exactly answers all its ends and occasions: what else can be concluded, but that all was made with manifest design, and that all the whole structure is the work of some intelligent being; some artist, of power and skill equivalent to such a work?

Human Limitations and the Harmony of the World (3.4)

It is therefore fitter for such finite, weak, ignorant beings as we, to be humble and meek, and conscious of our ignorance, and jealous of our own judgment, when it thus confronts infinite wisdom. Let us remember how few things we know, how many we err about, and how many we are ignorant of: and those, many of them, the most familiar, obvious things: things that we see and handle at pleasure; yea, our own very bodies, and that very part of us whereby we understand at all, our soul. And should we therefore pretend to censure what God does! Should we pretend to amend his work! Or to advise infinite wisdom! Or to know the ends and purposes of his infinite will, as if we were of his council! No, let us bear in mind, that their objections are the products, not of reason, but of peevishness. They have been incommoded by storms and tempests; they have been terrified with the burning mountains, and earthquakes; they have been annoyed by the noxious animals, and fatigued by the hills; and therefore are angry, and will pretend to amend these works of the almighty. But in the words of St. Paul, "we may say, nay, but o man, who art thou that replies against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus? Has not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel to honor, and another to dishonor?" 

          If the almighty lord of the world, had for his own pleasure, made this our world more inconvenient for man, it would better become us to sit still, and be quiet; to lament our own great infirmities and failings, which deserve a worse place, a more incommodious habitation, than we meet with in this elegant, this well contrived, well-formed world; in which we find everything necessary for the sustentation, use and pleasure, both of man, and every other creature here below; as well as some whips, some rods to scourge us for our sins. But yet so admirably well-tempered is our state, such an accord, such an harmony is there throughout the creation, that if we will but pursue the ways of piety and virtue, which God hath appointed; if we will form our lives according to the creator's laws, we may escape the evils of this our frail state, and find sufficient means to make us happy while we are in the body. The natural force and tendency of our virtue, will prevent many of the harms, and the watchful providence of our almighty benefactor, will be a guard against others; and then nothing is wanting to make us happy, as long as we are in this world, there being abundantly enough to entertain the minds of the most contemplative; glories enough to please the eye of the most curious and inquisitive; harmonies and comforts of nature's own, as well as man's making, sufficient to delight the ear of the most harmonious and musical; all sorts of pleasant gusto's to gratify the taste and appetite, even of the most luxurious; and fragrant odors to please the nicest and tenderest smell: and in a word, enough to make us love and delight in this world, rather too much, than too little, considering how nearly we are allied to another world, as well as this.

Creator Revealed in the Design of the Eye (4.2)

Thus have I surveyed this first sense of animals, I may say in a cursory, not accurate, strict manner, considering the prodigious workmanship thereof; but so, as abundantly to demonstrate it to be the contrivance, the work of no less a being than the infinite wise, potent, and indulgent creator. For none less could compose so admirable an organ, so adapt all its parts, so adjust it to all occasions, so nicely provide for every use, and for every emergency: in a word, none less than God, could, I say, thus contrive, order, and provide an organ, as magnificent and curious as the sense is useful; a sense without which, as all the animal world would be in perpetual darkness, so it would labor under perpetual inconveniencies, be exposed to perpetual harms, and suffer perpetual wants and distresses. But now by this admirable sense, the great God, who hath placed us in this world, hath as well provided for our comfortable residence in it; enabled us to see and choose wholesome, yea delicate food, to provide our selves useful, yea gaudy clothing, and commodious places of habitation and retreat. We can now dispatch our affairs with alacrity and pleasure, go here and there as our occasions call us. We can, if need be, ransack the whole globe, penetrate into the bowels of the earth, descend to the bottom of the deep, travel to the farthest regions of this world, to acquire wealth, to increase our knowledge, or even only to please our eye and fancy. We can now look about us, discern and shun the precipices and dangers which everywhere enclose us, and would destroy us. And those glorious objects which fill the heavens and the earth, those admirable works of God which everywhere surround us, and which would be as nothing to us, without being seen, do by means of this noble sense present their glories to us, and fill us with admiration and pleasure. But I need not expatiate in the usefulness and praises of this sense, which we receive the benefit of every moment, and the want, or any defect of which, we lament among our greatest misfortunes.

DESIGN IN HUMANS

The Human Soul as a Divine Substance, Not a Mechanical Engine (5.1)

My survey of man, I shall begin with the soul of man, by reason it is his most noble part, the copy of the divine image in us, in which we have enough to fill us with admiration of the munisence, power, and wisdom of the infinite creator, when we contemplate the noble faculties of this our superior part, the vast reach and compass of its understanding, the prodigious quickness and piercingness of its thought, the admirable subtilty of its invention, the commanding power of its wisdom, the great depth of its memory, and in a word, its divine nature and operations. . . .

          Thus doth the word of God, ascribe the contrivances and crafts of men, to the agency, or influence of the spirit of God, upon that of man. And there is the same reason for the variety of genii, or inclinations of men also; which from the same scriptures, may be concluded to be a designation, and transaction of the same almighty governor of the world's affairs. And who indeed but he, could make such a divine substance, endowed with those admirable faculties, and powers, as the rational soul hath; a being to bear the great creator's vicegerency in this lower world; to employ the several creatures; to make use of the various materials; to manage the grand businesses; and to survey the glories of all the visible works of God? A creature, without which this lower world would have been a dull, uncouth, and desolate kind of globe. Who, I say, or what less than the infinite God, could make such a rational creature, such a divine substance as the soul? For if we should allow the atheist any of his nonsensical schemes, the epicurean his fortuitous concourse of atoms, or the cartesian his created matter put in motion; yet with what tolerable sense could he, in his way, produce such a divine, thinking, speaking, contriving substance as the soul is; endowed exactly with such faculties, power, and dispositions as the various necessities and occasions of the world require from such a creature? Why should not rather all the acts, the dispositions and contrivances of such a creature as man, (if made in a mechanical way, and not contrived by God) have been the same? Particularly, why should he not have hit upon all contrivances of equal use, early as well as many ages since? Why not that man have effected it, as well as this, some thousands of years after? Why also should not all nations, and all ages, improve in everything, as well as this, or that age, or nation only? Why should the Greeks, the Arabians, the Persians, or the Egyptians of old, so far exceed those of the same nations now? Why the Africans and Americans so generally ignorant and barbarous, and the Europeans, for the most part, polite and cultivated, addicted to arts and learning? How could it come to pass that the use of the magnet, printing, clocks, telescopes, and all hundred things besides, should escape the discovery of Archimedes, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Posidonius, or other great virtuoso's of the early ages, whose contrivances of various engines, spheres, Clepsydrae and other curious instruments are recorded? And why cannot the present or past age, so eminent for polite literature, for discoveries and improvements in all curious arts and businesses (perhaps beyond any known age of the world; why cannot it, I say) discover those hidden quaesita, which may probably be reserved for the discovery of future and less learned generations?

          Of these matters, no satisfactory account can be given by any mechanical hypothesis, or any other way, without taking in the superintendence of the great creator and ruler of the world; who oftentimes doth manifest himself in some of the most considerable of those works of men, by some remarkable transactions of his providence, or by some great revolution or other happening in the world thereupon. Of this I might instance in the invention of printing, succeeded first by a train of learned men, and the revival of learning, and soon after that by the reformation, and the much greater improvements of learning at this day. But the most considerable instance I can give is, the progress of Christianity, by means of the civilized disposition, and large extent of the Roman Empire. The latter of which, as it made way for human power; so the former made way for our most excellent religion into the minds of men. And so I hope, and earnestly pray, that the omnipotent and all-wise ruler of the world will transact the affairs of our most holy religion, e'er it be long, in the heathen world; that the great improvements made in the last, and present age, in arts and sciences, in navigation and commerce, may be a means to transport our religion, as well as name, through all the nations of the earth. For we find that our culture of the more polite and curious sciences, and our great improvements in even the mechanic arts, have already made a way for us into some of the largest and farthest distant nations of the earth; particularly into the great empire of China.

Design Exhibited in Humans Mandates Praise of the Creator (5:10)

And now having taken a view of man, and finding every part of him, everything relating to him contrived, and made in the very best manner; his body fitted up with the utmost foresight, art and care; and this body, (to the great honor, privilege, and benefit of man,) possessed by a divine part, the soul, a substance made as 'twere on purpose to contemplate the works of God, and glorify the great creator; and since this soul can discern, think, reason, and speak; what can we conclude upon the whole matter, but that we lie under all the obligations of duty and gratitude, to be thankful and obedient to, and to set forth the glories of our great creator, and noble benefactor? And what ungrateful wretches are we, how much worse than the poor irrationals, if we do not employ the utmost power of our tongue, and all our members, and all the faculties of our souls in the praises of God! But above all, should we, who have the benefit of those glorious acts and contrivances of the creator, be such wicked, such base, such worse than brutal fools, to deny the creator, in some of his noblest works? Should we so abuse our reason, yea, our very senses; should we be so besotted by the devil, and blinded by our lusts, as to attribute one of the best contrived pieces of workmanship to blind chance, or unguided matter and motion, or any other such sottish, wretched, atheistical stuff; which we never saw, nor ever heard made any one being in any age since the creation? No, no! But like wise and unprejudiced men, let us with David say, Psalm 139:14. (with which I conclude,) "I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are thy works, and that my soul knows right well".

Design Exhibited even in Minor Works of Nature (11.1)

The first inference I shall make, shall be by way of confirmation of the text, that the works of the lord are great. And this is necessary to be observed, not against the atheist only, but all other careless, incurious observers of God's works. Many of our useful labors, and some of our best modern books shall be condemned with only this note of reproach, that they are about trivial matters, when in truth they are ingenious and noble discoveries of the works of God. And how often will many own the world in general to be a manifestation of the infinite creator, but look upon the several parts thereof as only toys and trifles, scarce deserving their regard? But in the foregoing (I may call it) transient view I have given of this lower, and most slighted part of the creation, I have, I hope, abundantly made out, that all the works of the Lord, from the most regarded, admired, and praised, to the meanest and most slighted, are great and glorious works, incomparably contrived, and as admirably made, fitted up, and placed in the world. So far then are any of the works of the Lord, (even those esteemed the meanest) from deserving to be disregarded, or contemned by us, that on the contrary they deserve (as shall be shown in the next chapter) to be sought out, enquired after, and curiously and diligently pried into by us; as I have shewed the word in the text implies.

Scientific Inquiry as a Religious Duty (11.2)

The creator doubtless did not bestow so much curiosity, and exquisite workmanship and skill upon his creatures, to be looked upon with a careless, incurious eye, especially to have them slighted or contemned; but to be admired by the rational part of the world, to magnify his own power, wisdom and goodness throughout all the world, and the ages thereof. And therefore we may look upon it as a great error, not to answer those ends of the infinite creator, but rather to oppose and affront them. On the contrary, my text commends God's works, not only for being great, but also approves of those curious and ingenious enquirers, that seek them out, or pry into them. And the more we pry into, and discover of them, the greater and more glorious we find them to be, the more worthy of, and the more expressly to proclaim their great creator.

          Commendable then are the researches, which many amongst us have, of late years, made into the works of nature, more than hath been done in some ages before. And therefore when we are asked, cui bono? To what purpose such enquiries, such pains, such expense? The answer is easy, it is to answer the ends for which God bestowed so much art, wisdom and power about them, as well as given us senses to view and survey them; and an understanding and curiosity to search into them: it is to follow and trace him, when and whither he leads us, that we may see and admire his handy-work ourselves, and set it forth to others, that they may see, admire and praise it also. I shall then conclude this inference with what Elihu recommends, Job 36: 24, 25. Remember that thou magnify his work, which men behold. Every man may see it, men may behold it afar off.

Universal Evidence of Design vs. Willful Blindness of Atheism (11.3)

The concluding words of the preceding chapter suggests a third inference, that the works of God are so visible to all the world, and withal such manifest indications of the being, and attributes of the infinite creator, that they plainly argue the vileness and perverseness of the atheist, and leave him inexcusable. For it is a sign a man is a willful, perverse atheist, that will impute so glorious a work, as the creation is, to anything, yea, a mere nothing (as chance is) rather than to God. It is a sign the man is willfully blind, that he is under the power of the devil, under the government of prejudice, lust, and passion, not right reason, that will not discern what everyone can see, what every man may behold afar off, even the existence and attributes of the creator from his works. For as there is no speech or language where their voice is not heard, their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world: so all, even the barbarous nations, that never heard of God, have from these his works inferred the existence of a deity, and paid their homages to some deity, although they have been under great mistakes in their notions and conclusions about him. But however, this shews how naturally and universally all mankind agree, in deducing their belief of a God from the contemplation of his works, or as even Epicurus himself, in Tully says, from a notion that nature itself hath imprinted upon the minds of men. For, saith he, what nation is there, or what kind of men, that without any teaching or instructions, have not a kind of anticipation, or preconceived notion of a deity?

          But above all, monstrous is this, or would be, in such as have heard of God, who have had the benefit of the clear gospel-revelation. And still more monstrous this would be, in one born and baptized in the Christian church, that hath studied nature, and pried farther than others into God's works. For such an one (if it be possible for such to be) to deny the existence, or any of the attributes of God, would be a great argument of the infinite inconvenience of those sins of intemperance, lust, and riot, that have made the man abandon his reason, his senses, yea, I had almost said his very human nature, to engage him thus to deny the being of God.

Source: William Derham, Physico‑Theology (1713), adapted.

 

 

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MATTHEW TINDAL:

THE DEIST'S BIBLE

 

Matthew Tindal (1657–1733) was born in Devonshire, England, into a family with strong ties to the Anglican Church, his father serving as a clergyman. He studied at Oxford University, where he became a fellow and spent much of his adult life. Trained initially in law, he was admitted to the bar at Doctors' Commons, but his interests soon shifted toward religious controversy and the emerging debates about reason and revelation. Tindal lived through a period of political and theological conflict in England, and he frequently found himself at the center of public disputes, including a brief conversion to Catholicism under James II and a prompt return to Protestantism after the Glorious Revolution. Although he wrote several earlier works, he became widely known late in life for his anonymously published Christianity as Old as the Creation (1730). Often nicknamed "the deist's bible", the work immediately drew both acclaim and condemnation. He died in Oxford in 1733 at the age of 76. He had completed a second volume of this work, leaving the manuscript to a friend to publish it after his death, but it was destroyed by order of an Anglican Bishop.

          The selections below are from Christianity as Old as the Creation. The work is a dialogue between an orthodox believer and a defender of deism. Its dominant theme is that true religion is identical to the eternal, immutable law of nature, which is discoverable by human reason alone. Consequently, the Christian gospel did not introduce a new moral system, but merely served as a republishing of this original natural religion. As such it makes unnecessary all divine revelation, traditional dogmas, and mysterious church rituals. In the opening section Tindal argues that natural and revealed religion differ only in the means of communication. For him, the unchangeable will of an infinitely wise and good God cannot be added to or altered. Accordingly, an absolutely perfect natural religion has existed from the beginning. Because a law must be intelligible to be valid, God implanted sufficient rational faculties in all human beings, making true Christianity as old and as wide as human nature itself.

          In the section on the nature of God as happy, Tindal argues that an absolutely perfect and infinitely happy being derives no personal benefit from his creation. Consequently, God can have no self-serving motive in prescribing laws, which makes it impossible for any divine command to exist purely for his own sake. Every part of the divine law must instead solely promote the common interest and mutual happiness of his creatures. In the section on natural religion being the standard of judging all religions, he argues that any instituted religion must be tested against the immutable law of nature and reason written in human hearts. If a revelation varies from this baseline even minutely, its entire cause becomes ineffective. Thus, true external revelation and natural religion must perfectly correspond like two tallies, and differ only in their manner of delivery. In the section on reason the only reliable interpreter of scripture, Tindal argues that readers must constantly judge the text by the unalterable reason of things rather than blindly following the literal construction. Because scripture is often delivered in general or exaggerated terms, interpreters must logically limit and restrain these precepts to conform with natural righteousness, effectively recognizing that the gospel is merely a republication of original natural religion.

KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THROUGH NATURAL RELIGION (from Christianity as Old as Creation)

Natural and Revealed Religion Differ only in the Means of Communication (Ch. 1)

          A. . . . I think, too great a stress can't be laid on Natural Religion; which, as I take it, differs not from Revealed, but in the manner of its being communicated. The one being the internal, as the other the external revelation of the same unchangeable will of a being, who is alike at all times infinitely wise and good.

          B. Surely, Sir, this must be extremely heterodox. Can you believe that Natural and Revealed religion differ in nothing, but the manner of their being conveyed to us?

          A. As heterodox as I may seem at present, I doubt not, but by asking you a few questions, to let you see, I advance nothing in either of these points without Reason; and in order to it, I desire to be informed, whether God has not, from the beginning, given mankind some rule, or law, for their conduct? And whether the observing that did not make them acceptable to him?

          B. There can be, no doubt, but the observing such a law, must have answered the end for which it was given; and made men acceptable to God.

          A. What more can any external revelation do, than render men acceptable to God? If God, then, from the beginning gave men a religion, I ask, was that religion imperfect, or perfect?

          B. Most perfect, without doubt; since no religion can come from a being of infinite wisdom and perfection, but what is absolutely perfect.

          A. Can, therefore, a religion absolutely perfect, admit of any alteration; or be capable of addition or diminution, and not be as immutable as the author of it? Can revelation, I say, add anything to a religion thus absolutely perfect, universal, and immutable? Besides, if God has given mankind a law, he must have given them likewise sufficient means of knowing it; he would, otherwise, have defeated his own intent in giving it; since a law, as far as it is unintelligible, ceases to be a law. Shall we say that God, who had the forming human understanding, as well as his own laws, did not know how to adjust the one to the other?

          If God, at all times, was "willing that all men should come to the knowledge of his truth"; could not his infinite wisdom and power, at all times, find sufficient means for making mankind capable of knowing what his infinite goodness designed they should know?

          B. I grant you that God was always willing that all men should come to the knowledge of True Religion; and we say that the Christian religion, being the only true and absolutely perfect religion, was what God, from the beginning, designed for all mankind.

          A. If so, it follows that the Christian religion has existed from the beginning; and that God, both then, and ever since, has continued to give all mankind sufficient means to know it; and that it is their duty to know, believe, profess, and practice it; so that Christianity, though the name is of a later date, must be as old and as extensive as human nature; and as the "Law of our Creation," must have been then implanted in us by God himself.

          B. It would be too presuming in us poor mortals, to pretend to account for the methods providence takes, in relation to the discovery of it's will; and, therefore, a person of less moderation might condemn your questions as captious, presumptuous, and founded in heterodoxy.

          A. If God never intended mankind should at any time be without religion, or have false religion; and there be but one true religion which ALL have been ever bound to believe and profess; I can't see any heterodoxy in affirming that the means to effect this end of infinite wisdom bust be as universal and extensive as the end itself; or that all men, at all times, must have had sufficient means to discover whatever God designed they should know and practice. I do not mean by this that all should have equal knowledge; but that all should have what is sufficient for the circumstances they are in.

          B. Since you have asked me questions, let me, in my turn, demand of you, What are your sentiments in this matter? Particularly, What are those means, which, you suppose, God has, at all times, given the whole race of mankind, to enable them to discover what he wills them to know, believe, profess and practice?

          A. I asked you those few questions at present, not to determine the point; but only to let you see you had no reason to be surprised at my saying, Natural and Revealed religion only differ as to the manner of their being communicated. I shall now readily answer your questions; and, as I think it my duty never to disown my religious sentiments, so I freely declare that the use of those faculties, by which men are distinguished from brutes, is the only means they have to discern whether there is a God; and whether he concerns himself with human affairs, or has given them any laws; and what those laws are? And as men have no other faculties to judge with, so their using there after the best manner they can, must answer the end for which God gave them, and justify their conduct. For, if God will judge mankind as they are accountable, that is, as they are rational; the judgment must hold an exact proportion to the use they make of their Reason. And it would be in vain to use it, if the due use of it would not justify them before God; and men would be in a miserable condition, indeed, if whether they used it, or not, they should be alike criminal. And if God designed all mankind should at all times know what he wills them to know, believe, profess and practice; and has given them no other means for this but the use of Reason; Reason, human Reason, must then be that means; for as God has made us rational creatures, and Reason tells us that it is his will that we act up to the dignity of our natures; so it is Reason must tell when we do so. What God requires us to know, believe, profess and practice, must be in itself a reasonable service; but whether what is offered to us as such be really so, it is Reason alone that must judge; as the eye is the sole judge of what is visible; the ear of what is audible; so Reason of what is reasonable. If then Reason was given men to bring them to the knowledge of God's will, that must be sufficient to produce it's intended effect, and can never bring men to take that for his will which he designed, they, by using their Reason, should avoid as contrary to it.

The Nature of God as Happy and the Definition of Religion (Chap. 2)

          A. That the Religion of Nature consists in observing those things which our reason (by considering the nature of God and Man, and the relation we stand in to him and one another) demonstrates to be our duty; and that those things are plain; and likewise what they are.

          B. That we may the better know whether the "Law", or "Religion of Nature" is universal, and the Gospel a republication of it, and not a new religion; I desire you will give a definition of the "Religion of Nature."

          A. By "Natural Religion," I understand the belief of the existence of a God, and the sense and practice of those duties, which result from the knowledge, we, by our Reason, have of him and his perfections; and of ourselves and our own imperfections; and of the relation we stand in to him and to our fellow creatures; so that the "Religion of Nature" takes in every thing that is founded on the Reason and Nature of Things. Hence "Grotius" defines the "Law of Nature" to be "Dictatum rectae rationis, indicans actui alicui, ex ejus convenientia aut disconvenientia cum ipsa natura rationali, inesse moralem turpitudinem, aut necessitatem moralem, ac consequenter ab auctore naturae Deo talem actum aut vetari aut praecipi." ["a dictate of right reason, indicating that an act, from its agreement or disagreement with rational nature itself, possesses a moral baseness or a moral necessity, and consequently that such an act is either forbidden or commanded by God, the author of nature."

          I suppose you will allow that it is evident by the "Light of Nature" that there is a God; or in other words, a being absolutely perfect and infinitely happy in himself, who is the source of all other beings; and that what perfections soever the creatures have, they are wholly derived from him.

          B. This, no doubt, has been demonstrated over and over; and I must own that I can't be more certain of my own existence, than of the existence of such a being.

          A. Since then, it is demonstrable there is such a being, it is equally demonstrable that the creatures can neither add to, or take from the happiness of that being; and that he could have no motive in framing his creatures, or in giving laws to such of them as he made capable of knowing his will, but their own good.

          To imagine he created them at first for his own sake, and has since required things of them for that reason, is to suppose he was not perfectly happy in himself before the creation; and that the creatures, by either observing, or not observing the rules prescribed them, could add to, or take from his happiness.

          If then, a being infinitely happy in himself, could not command his creatures any thing for his own good; nor an all-wise being things to no end or purpose; nor an all-good being any thing but for their good; it unavoidably follows, nothing can be a part of the divine law, but what tends to promote the common interest and mutual happiness of his rational creatures; and every thing that does so must be a part of it. . . .

The Book of Nature (Chap. 3)

          A. . . . God's will is so clearly, and fully manifested in the book of nature, that he who runs may read it.

          This can't be denied, if the book of nature shows us in characters legible to the whole world, the relation we stand in to God and our fellow-creatures, and the duties resulting from thence; for then it must teach us the whole of our duty, since it would be unjust and tyrannical in any being, to require more of others than the relation they stand in to him makes it their duty to pay; it being that relation alone which gives him his just power and authority. We are encompassed with many artificial relations, such a "Governor" and "Governed", "Master" and "Servant", "Husband" and "Wife", etc. and the end of these relations teaches us what they require; and they being entered into for the sake of each others assistance, either party is injured by the others not observing what these relations demand, or by exacting more than the end of entering into them requires.

          Though the relation we stand in to God, is not artificial, as most are amongst men, who want each others assistance; but is natural at least on our Part. Yet this does not hinder, but that we may know by Reason the end he had in being related to us as Creator and Governor; and what he requires of his creatures and subjects. This the divine nature which contains in itself all perfection, and all happiness, plainly points out to us. And if we are once certain of the end of God's entering into this relation with man, we may be as certain from his wisdom and goodness, and all his divine perfections, that he will require no more of us than the end he had in entering into this relation requires.

          If it would be unjust and tyrannical in an earthly Governor, to exact things of his subjects, that do not contribute to the end for which this relation between them was entered into; can we suppose a Governor of infinite wisdom and goodness, who has always in his mind the end for which he governs mankind, will act the tyrant, and put them under severe penalties for not observing such things as have no relation to the end for which he created, and governs them? . . .

NATURAL RELIGION AND CHRISTIANITY

Natural Religion the Standard of Judging All Religions (Chap. 6)

          B. Indeed, it must be owned, that divines as well as others, make the same concession in relation to Natural Religion, which Dr. Prideaux does in his celebrated letter to the Deists at the end of Mahomet's life: "Let what is written in all the books of the New Testament be tried by that which is the touchstone of all religion; I mean that Religion of Nature and Reason, which God has written in the hearts of every one of us from the first creation; and if it varies from it in any one particular, if it prescribes any one thing, which may in the minutest circumstances thereof be contrary to its righteousness, I will acknowledge this to be an argument against us, strong enough to overthrow the whole cause, and make all things else that can be said for it totally ineffectual for its support."

          A. I desire no more than to be allowed, that there's a Religion of Nature and Reason written in the hearts of every one of us from the first creation; by which all mankind must judge of the truth of any instituted religion whatever; and if it varies from the Religion of Nature and Reason in any one particular, nay, in the minutest circumstance, that alone is an argument which make all things else that can be said for its support totally ineffectual. If so, must not Natural Religion and external Revelation, like two tallies, exactly answer one another; without any other difference between them, but as to the manner of their being delivered? And how can it be otherwise? Can laws be imperfect, where a legislator is absolutely perfect? Can time discover anything to him, which he did not foresee from eternity? And as his wisdom is always the same, so is his goodness; and consequently from the consideration of both these his laws must always be the same. Is it not from the infinite wisdom and goodness of God, that you suppose the Gospel a most perfect law, incapable of being repealed, or altered, or of having additions; and must not you own the Law of Nature as perfect a law, except you will say, that God did not arrive to the perfection of wisdom and goodness till about seventeen hundred years since.

Reason the only Reliable Interpreter of Scripture (Chap. 13)

A. To plead, that the gospel is incapable of any additions, because the will of God is immutable, and his law too perfect to need them, is an argument, was Christianity a new religion, which destroys itself; since from the time it commenced, you must own god is mutable; and that such additions have been made to the all-perfect laws of infinite wisdom, as constitute a new religion. The reason why the law of nature is immutable, is, because it is founded on the unalterable reason of things; but if God is an arbitrary being, and can command things merely from will and pleasure; some things today and other tomorrow; there is nothing either in the nature of God, or in the things themselves, to hinder him from perpetually changing his mind. If he once commanded things without reason, there can be no reason why he may not endlessly change such commands. . . .

          B. there's one objection which will always stick, you will be represented as an affecter of novelty; and that it is pride and vainglory, which makes you go out of the common road.

          A. That is a reflection all must expect, who endeavor to reform any prevailing abuses: they little understand human nature, who do not see, that novelty, in this case, can only serve to make a man despised by the majority, for his ignorance; in not being able to discover that truth, which they, at first sight, clearly perceive; as well as hated by them, for propagating false doctrine; and inhumanly treated for it, if it clashes (and where does not reformation clash) with the interest of a certain set of men, who have two thirds of mankind, viz. The bigots and immoral, entirely at their devotion.

          But, I am so far from being a novelist, that all, except where they disagree with themselves, must agree with me: are not all of my sentiments, who own, that their revelation contains all things worthy of having God for its author? For that supposes, that reason, antecedently to revelation, can tell them what is, or is not worthy of having God for its author: and do not all recede from revelation, or, which is the same, recede from the plain, obvious, grammatical construction of its words, whenever that, in the least point, recedes from the religion of nature and reason? Which being, as dr. Prideaux owns, wrote in the hearts of every one of us from the creation; is "the touchstone of all religion"; and the passage that, "if the gospel varies from it in any particular, or in the minutest circumstance is contrary to its righteousness; that is strong enough to destroy the whole cause; and make all things else that can be said for " its support, totally ineffectual." Which supposes, we can't judge of the truth of any revelation, till we apply to it the touchstone of all religion; and see whether it agrees with that in all particulars: and do not all, without regard to the plain meaning of the words, in interpreting the precepts of the gospel (which are, for the most part, delivered in general, undetermined, and very often, hyperbolical terms;) so explain, limit, and restrain these precepts, as to make them agreeable to the touchstone of all religion, the nature, and reason of things; for fear, that otherwise they might depreciate morality: and in this case, they, as it is allowed, are the best interpreters, who most recede from the killing letter. And is not this, in effect, saying with the present Bishop of Bangor, "That the gospel is a republication of the law of nature; and its precepts declarative of that original religion, which is as old as the creation." And, "It is as reasonable to suppose, that three angles of a triangle should be equal to two right ones in one age, and unequal in another; as to suppose, that the duties of religion should differ in one age, from what they were in another; the habitudes, and relations from which they flow continuing always the same."

          The principles I maintain are so evident, that they who are introducing things in opposition to them, yet must own their force. Dare any say, that God is an arbitrary being, and his laws not founded on the eternal reason of things; even while they are contending for his acting arbitrarily, and giving us such laws as are founded on mere will and pleasure? Will any maintain, that our reasoning faculties were not given us, to distinguish between good and evil, religion and superstition? Or that they will not answer the end for which they were given? . . .

          Before we part, I must remind you of the occasion of this conference; for though you plainly saw, that God never intended mankind should be without religion; or could ordain an imperfect religion; and therefore, did not see how to avoid concluding, there must have been, from the beginning, a religion most perfect, which mankind, at all times, were capable of knowing; yet you were at a loss, how to make out Christianity to be this perfect, this original religion; how far I have gone in removing this difficulty, you best know: all I can say, is, I am willing, whenever you please, to resume the conference; and begging leave to repeat what I mentioned at first, am ready to give up my hypothesis, if you can name one attended with fewer difficulties; and likewise, to assure you, that if I have advanced any notion, which does not naturally, and necessarily show itself to be the will of god; by tending to promote his honor, and the good of men; I here entirely renounce it: and by not persisting to defend error, give this uncommon mark of an ingenuous disposition. Errare possum, hæreticus esse nolo. ["I can err, but I do not wish to be a heretic."]

Source: William Tindal, Christianity as Old as the Creation (1730), adapted.

STUDY QUESTIONS

Please answer all of the following questions.

1. According to Herbert of Cherbury in De Veritate, why must the understanding rely on innate common notions rather than sensory experience when seeking universal truth?

2. According to Herbert of Cherbury in De Veritate, what six marks distinguish innate common notions from concepts formed through reasoning?

3. According to Herbert of Cherbury in De Veritate, why must common notions serve as the ultimate standard for evaluating claims of divine revelation?

4. According to Herbert of Cherbury in Ancient Religions, why does the general condemnation of heathens contradict the nature of divine providence?

5. According to Herbert of Cherbury in Ancient Religions, what five common principles formed the core of sound heathen religion?

6. According to Clarke in the Demonstration, why does his argument target speculative philosophical atheists rather than ignorant or morally debauched unbelievers?

7. According to Clarke in the Demonstration, why is an infinite series of dependent beings incapable of containing the cause or ground of its own existence?

8. According to Clarke in the Demonstration, why does an exclusively dependent universe make existence and non-existence equally possible without a self-existent cause?

9. According to Pascal in the Pensées, why is human reason trapped between the two abysses of the infinite and nothingness?

10. According to Pascal in the Pensées, why are traditional metaphysical proofs for God's existence ineffective for converting non-believers?

11. According to Pascal in the Pensées, why does the infinite value of potential heavenly happiness override the finite earthly goods risked in his wager?

12. According to Pascal in the Pensées, how can a person who is mentally incapable of belief cultivate faith through religious habit and action?

13. According to Derham in Physico-Theology, why does the intricate design of the earth's atmosphere require an infinite Creator rather than blind chance?

14. According to Derham in Physico-Theology, how do historical and geographical variations in human invention demonstrate God's regulation of the human soul?

15. According to Derham in Physico-Theology, why does the study of nature constitute a religious duty for rational human beings?

16. According to Derham in Physico-Theology, why is modern atheism inexcusable in light of universal evidence for natural design?

17. According to Tindal in Christianity as Old as the Creation, why must an absolutely perfect natural religion be immutable and universal from the beginning?

18. According to Tindal in Christianity as Old as the Creation, why can an infinitely happy God prescribe no divine laws for His own benefit?

19. According to Tindal in Christianity as Old as the Creation, why must external revelation and natural religion correspond perfectly like two matching tallies?

20. According to Tindal in Christianity as Old as the Creation, why must human reason restrain and interpret scripture beyond the literal wording?

21. Short Essay Options: Please select one of the following and answer it in a minimum of 100 words.

(a) Critics argue that Herbert's five common notions are not truly universal across all human cultures. Different societies hold wildly conflicting views on divine worship, morality, and the afterlife. How might Herbert respond?

(b) Critics argue that Herbert's deism renders historical revelation useless. If reason already discovers every essential religious duty, then additional divine messages serve no purpose. How might Herbert respond?

(c) Critics argue that Clarke's cosmological proof commits a fallacy of composition. Explaining the cause of every individual member in an infinite chain fully explains the entire chain itself. How might Clarke respond?

(d) Critics argue that Clarke's rationalist demonstration fails to establish a personal, moral God. Abstract necessary existence does not prove a caring divine governor. How might Clarke respond?

(e) Critics argue that Pascal's wager invalidates genuine faith. Pragmatic self-interest and calculated profit cannot produce sincere religious devotion. How might Pascal respond?

(f) Critics argue that Pascal's wager fails due to the problem of many gods. Multiple competing religions offer infinite rewards and demand exclusive belief. How might Pascal respond?

(g) Critics argue that Derham's design argument relies on a flawed analogy. The natural universe is an organic, self-organizing system rather than an engineered human machine. How might Derham respond?

(h) Critics argue that Derham ignores the problem of natural evil. Harsh environments, destructive tempests, and predatory animals contradict the claim that nature is perfectly designed for human comfort. How might Derham respond?

(i) Critics argue that Tindal's deism strips Christianity of its distinct identity. Reducing the gospel to natural morality eliminates divine grace, sacraments, and historical miracles. How might Tindal respond?

(j) Critics argue that Tindal overestimates human reason. Fallible human minds cannot serve as an infallible touchstone to judge divine revelation. How might Tindal respond?