The motive which induces me to present to you this
Treatise is so excellent, and, when you become acquainted with
its design, I am convinced that you will also have so
excellent a motive for taking it under your protection, that I
feel that I cannot do better, in order to render it in some
sort acceptable to you, than in a few words to state what I
have set myself to do.
I have always considered that the two questions
respecting God and the Soul were the chief of those that ought
to be demonstrated by philosophical rather than theological
argument. For although it is quite enough for us faithful
ones to accept by means of faith the fact that the human soul
does not perish with the body, and that God exists, it
certainly does not seem possible ever to persuade infidels of
any religion, indeed, we may almost say, of any moral virtue,
unless, to begin with, we prove these two facts by means of
the natural reason. And inasmuch as often in this life
greater rewards are offered for vice than for virtue, few
people would prefer the right to the useful, were they
restrained neither by the fear of God nor the expectation of
another life; and although it is absolutely true that we must
believe that there is a God, because we are so taught in the
Holy Scriptures, and, on the other hand, that we must believe
the Holy Scriptures because they come from God (the reason of
this is, that, faith being a gift of God, He who gives the
grace to cause us to believe other things can likewise give it
to cause us to believe that He exists), we nevertheless could
not place this argument before infidels, who might accuse us
of reasoning in a circle.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25