by Jean Meslier
64. THEY ARE NO BETTER GROUNDED IN THEIR BELIEF IN THE EXISTENCE OF A SINGLE GOD.
But let us consider whether they have any better grounds for their belief in this single and unique God, than for a belief in a plurality of Gods, which they had to give up, having seen the error and the vanity of it. Let’s consider whether they have better grounds to believe in a God who is completely invisible and immaterial, than to believe in one or many Gods who were physical and visible; for it seems to be, from the start, that they can’t be better grounded in one than the other. So, let’s examine that.
The thing that forces our superstitious God-cultists to recognize, at least, the Existence of a single God who is omnipotent, infinitely good, infinitely wise, and infinitely perfect is the sight of so many great, so many beautiful, and so many wonderful things in nature. They imagine that if so many great, beautiful, and wonderful things can’t have been made or set in place and ordered and situated as they are, without the Omnipotence of an infinitely powerful, infinitely good, infinitely wise, and infinitely perfect Being, to which they assign the name of God. “I can’t open my eyes,” says one of our most famous Arch-God-cultists[725] (this is Fénelon, formerly the Archbishop of Cambrai) “without admiring the artistry shining forth from within all of nature. The slightest glance,” he says, “is enough to perceive the hand, which does all things, etc.…” This is how he opens his book, in which he claims to prove the existence of a God. However, since this hand, which he thinks he sees at his first glance, is only an imaginary hand, and since he himself, as well as all those of his tribe, have been forced to acknowledge that there is no visible Being, nor any corporeal or material Being, to whom they can truly attribute an infinite power and wisdom, nor, consequently, to which they can truly attribute Divinity; this is what has made them form in their imagination the idea of an invisible Being, and an incorporeal and intangible Being, to whom they have attributed an omnipotence and an infinite wisdom and to whom, consequently, they have attributed Divinity, and have given it the name of God, persuading themselves that such a Being was necessary, and that this Being had to be the first efficient cause, and the first preservative and governing cause of all other Beings, by sustaining at the same time, that the mere sight of the admirable beauties and perfections that we see in the works of Nature evidently show us the necessity of the existence of this supposedly infinitely perfect Being. Let us consider if what they say is true.
65. NEITHER THE BEAUTY, NOR THE ORDER, NOR THE PERFECTIONS FOUND IN THE WORKS OF NATURE PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF A SINGLE GOD, WHO WOULD HAVE MADE THEM.
Firstly, as for the beauty, the order, and the perfection we see in works of art, we must agree with them that their beauty and perfection necessarily demonstrate the existence, force, power, wisdom, skill, etc. of the worker who made them, since they clearly cannot have made themselves as they are, if some skilled artisan hadn’t set his hand to it; but we must necessarily also recognize that the beauty, order, and the perfections which are found naturally in the works of nature, i.e., in the works of the world, in no way demonstrate or prove the existence or, consequently, the power or wisdom of any artisan other than nature itself, which makes everything that is most beautiful and wonderful in the visible world. For, in the end, whatever our God-cultists might say about this, they must absolutely recognize that the infinite perfections they imagine they see in their God, equally demonstrate that He Himself must have been made by another, or else they must say that they don’t demonstrate it. If they say that the infinite perfections which they posit in their God also demonstrate that He Himself would have been made by another, then, for the same reason, it follows that they must also say that the infinite perfections of this other entity also demonstrate that He would also have been made by another, and the latter by still another, who himself would have been made by another, and so on, going back from one cause to another, from one God to another, to infinity, which would be completely ridiculous and absurd; and this is also what our God-cultists would hesitate to affirm; for, for an infinitely perfect God, whom they would like to suppose and establish, they must necessarily have recognized and allow an infinity of other ones, which is completely repugnant to right Reason. And if, on the contrary, they say that the infinite perfections that they posit in their God wouldn’t demonstrate or prove that He would have been made by another, then why would they want the perfections they see in this world to demonstrate that it was made by anything else? Certainly, there is no better reason to say one thing than the other; except, perhaps, because the greatest and infinite perfections found in an infinitely perfect God more necessarily demonstrate that He should have been made by another one, since a greater perfection would require a more perfect cause; and in this case the existence of a God would demonstrate the necessity of the existence of an infinity of Gods more than the existence of the world would demonstrate the necessity of the existence of a God, which is also a manifest absurdity, than our God-cultists would like to admit; and thus they necessarily have to say the reason why they claim that the perfections they see in this world, necessarily demonstrate the existence of a God who made it, and why, on the contrary, they claim that the infinite perfections they conceive this God as having, demonstrate that He Himself was also made by another one. The whole argument they can allege here is to say that their God is, of Himself and by Himself, all that He is, and consequently that all His divine perfections are, of themselves and by themselves, what they are, without ever needed to have been produced, or of any other cause than themselves; but that the world can’t be, by itself, what it is, and that the perfections seen in it, could in no way be, if an all-powerful God hadn’t created and formed them as they are, which makes, they’ll say, all the difference.
But this argument is manifestly vain, not only because it presupposes, gratis and without proof, that which is under dispute, but also because it is as easy to say and to suppose that the world is what it is by itself, and consequently, it is as easy to say that the perfections that we see in the world are what they are, of themselves and by themselves, as to say that the perfections of a God are what they are, of themselves and by themselves. And this being so, all that remains is to see which of the two is the truest or the most likely. But it is manifest and evident that there is far more reason to attribute necessary existence, or existence by itself, to a real and true Being, which is seen, which has always been seen, and which is always found everywhere, than to attribute them to a Being which is only imaginary, which is not seen or found anywhere. Equally, it is manifest and obvious that there is far more reason to attribute existence by itself to the perfections which are seen and which have always been seen, than to attribute them to imaginary perfections, which are found nowhere, and which have never been seen, or found anywhere. This is clear and evident.
But the world we see is manifestly a Being that is quite real and quite true, it is visible, it is constantly and manifestly found everywhere; its perfections are, likewise, quite real and quite true; they are visible and are manifestly found everywhere and they have always been visible; and on the contrary, the allegedly infinitely perfect Being which our God-cultists call God, is only an imaginary being, who is not seen or found anywhere; equally, His alleged infinite perfections are only imaginary, they are not seen or found anywhere, and nobody has ever seen them, therefore, we have far more reason to attribute existence, by itself, to the world itself, and to the perfections we see in it, than to attribute it to an alleged infinitely perfect Being, who is found nowhere and who, consequently, is quite uncertain and dubious in Himself.
Yet the world that we see, is manifestly a Being so real and so true, it is seen, it is always openly found everywhere; its very perfections are thus very real and very true; they are seen and found manifestly everywhere and they have always been seen; and on the contrary this so-called infinitely perfect Being that our theists call God, is but an imaginary being, that is not seen nor found anywhere; equally its claimed infinite perfectio
ns are but imaginary; they are not seen or found anywhere, and nobody has ever seen then, thus there is much more reason in attributing existence by itself to the very world and the perfections that we see therein, to attribute them to a Being claimed to be immensely perfect, which are not found anywhere and which, consequently, is quite uncertain and doubtful in itself.
Since, then, the God-cultists must necessarily recognize that there is a Being and perfections, which are necessarily, of and by themselves, and that they are independent of any other cause, it’s clearly an abuse, an error, and an illusion for them to attribute such perfections to an imaginary Being who is neither seen nor found anywhere, rather than to attribute them to a real and true Being which is in plain sight everywhere; from which it follows that the perfections seen in the things of the world in no way demonstrate or prove the existence of an infinitely perfect God.
Moreover, it is clear and certain, despite the little attention it receives, that the hypothesis of this supposed Divine Being advances them in no way, neither in knowledge, nor in the explanation of natural things; it is clear and evident that this hypothesis doesn’t thereby overcome all objections; and it is even certain that, if our God-cultists claim to escape a difficulty with it, it’s certainly only to fall into another one, and even in another one which is far worse than the one they would avoid, and it is, consequently, useless for them to turn to the hypothesis of an all-powerful and infinitely perfect Being, to explain nature and the formation of natural phenomena. For, if on one hand they find it hard to understand or conceive and suppose that the world and all natural things were of themselves, as they are, without any other principle of their Being, of their formation, and their mutual dispositions, on the other hand, they can’t find it any less difficult to understand and conceive how this first and sovereign Being, which they call God, could Himself have been what He is, and how He could have created and formed from nothing so many great, beautiful, and amazing things. For the creation, which they suppose, of all visible things is a mystery, which is certainly no less hidden, or any less difficult to explain and conceive, than the natural formation of things could be, by supposing that they themselves would be what they are; and thus the challenge being equally shared on both sides, or seeming to be equal, there would be no greater reason to say that the world and that all the things in the world would have been created by God, than to say that they would always have been themselves and that they would thus be formed and arranged by themselves, in their present state, matter having been of itself from all eternity.
This first argument should already be sufficient for us to at least suspend our judgment, for a time, about such a subject: for, in a challenge of this sort, where it’s only a case of discovering the truth of something, if there is no greater semblance of truth on one hand than the other, there is no reason to want to judge in favor of one than another. But, to better grasp what it is, or what it might be, let’s examine the thing more closely and see ,1) if the proposed difficulty is effectively equal on both sides, or rather if it is not far greater in the system of the creation than in the system of the natural formation of the World, made by the very matter of which it is composed. In the first system, that of the creation, I initially see several difficulties that are presented to the mind, and which seem insurmountable. The first is to explain, or to conceive what might be the essence or the nature of this supreme Being, who would have created all the others. The second is to show, by compelling arguments, that eternity and independence should be attributed to that Being, rather than to matter itself, which can be supposed eternal and independent of any other cause, as well as He who is supposed to have created it. For since, in either hypothesis, everyone agrees in recognizing a first Being and a first, uncreated cause who is eternal and independent of any other cause, it’s necessary, in the creation of the world, to show with convincing reasons, that this first Being is necessarily something other than matter, and show that matter cannot be eternal, nor be, of itself, what it is, which certainly is no small difficulty, since our God-cultists, as they are, have yet to manage this. The third is to comprehend how it would be possible to create and be able to make something from nothing, which is incontestably far harder to understand than to simply conceive of a universal matter, which would be itself what it is. Why, then, not suppose from the start that matter would effectively be itself what it is? And why have recourse, to make it exist, to a Being who is unknown, to an incomprehensible mystery of creation; since we must necessarily suppose, not only a Being who is uncreatable and eternal, even in the system of creation, but where it’s necessary also to suppose that this Being can create another one, which is absolutely inconceivable and impossible, as I’ll show more amply in what follows? It is evident that, by recognizing matter alone as the first cause, as the eternal and independent Being, many insurmountable difficulties would be thereby avoided, which necessarily appear in the system of creation, and even by this means one would explain the formation of all things quite easily. The fourth problem that resides here, is to say to indicate precisely where this Being, who is supposed to have created all the other beings, and to be the most powerful of all, is? Where is He? Where has He gone? Obviously, nobody senses Him, nor is He recognized anywhere. He isn’t the Sun, or the Earth, He isn’t the air, or fire; and if all Beings were brought into review and enumeration, we wouldn’t find Him in any of them, or in any place. What might this Being be, then, who wouldn’t be ranked among other beings? Where might He be? Nevertheless, this is what must be explained in the system of creation, since, besides, nobody has any special and distinct knowledge of this Being. It’s not the same with that of matter, since it’s certain that it is, nobody can doubt it, it’s plain to see, it’s felt and found everywhere; it is in all Beings. What difficulty could there be, then? Or what would be repugnant in saying that it would itself be this first cause, this uncreated cause, and this eternal and independent cause, about which people argue so avidly.
66. ON THE GOD-CULTISTS’ CHIMERICAL IDEA OF THEIR GOD.
It would be no use to address this latest difficulty to say, as is usually done, that this first and supreme Being, the creator of all things, is equally present everywhere, complete, without division and without increasing its being: for this is to say something that one doesn’t understand, and which is impossible to understand; this is to multiply the difficulties, instead of reducing them, and the more these various attributes are examined, which are to be granted to the supposed Supreme Being, the more one sinks into labyrinths of inexplicable difficulties, which would lead to manifest absurdities, which would lead to manifest absurdities, and would necessarily entail inevitable contradictions. Consider this enigmatic and chimerical description, by a famous writer: “God,” he said, of this supposed Supreme Being:
Is His own beginning and end; however, He has neither beginning nor end, and He lacks neither of these things: He has always been and is always, without any vicissitude of time; with respect to Him, the past does not pass, nor does the future ever come: all time is equally present to Him. He reigns everywhere, without occupying any place; He is immobile without consistency; He is active without movement; He is all beyond all; He is in all things, and is contained in none of them; He is beyond everything but He governs within. He is good without qualification; He is immense without immensity. He is a Totality which has no parts and which is immutable, although He changes everything. His wish is His power; His power is His wish; His work is His will, and His will is His work. He is simple in Himself, without any mixture of acts and power. He is presently all that He can Be, or, to put it better, He is a pure act: He Himself is the first, the second, and the final Act. In fine, He is all, He is in all, He is above all, He is within all, beyond all and other than all that is; He is all before all and all after all.