by Jean Meslier
But they say that, although there are few actual witnesses of the true miracles, few who can claim a perfect knowledge of the probity and holiness of those who work them, and that there are even far fewer who are capable or in a position to properly examine all the particular circumstances of the miracles which are performed, God nevertheless still makes, by this means, His will sufficiently well known to men, since this small group of men of intellect and probity who see miracles performed and who are aware of the holiness of those who perform them, then provide a sufficient testimony of the truth of what they have seen and known to those who have neither seen nor experienced anything, so that the latter, now adequately informed of the truth, have, it’s claimed, an obligation to accept and firmly believe everything these first witnesses tell them, since they’re adequately informed and convinced of what they should do or believe on the testimony of the former, they are to inform still others as they themselves were informed; and in this say, it will be said, the knowledge of the divine truths and will are soon communicated to a great number of people who bring it to various places, from country to country and from kingdom to kingdom, until it is has spread to almost every part of the world. And, as it is communicated and transported from province to province, from kingdom to kingdom, likewise, it also passes from hand to hand, from one century to another, and thus it passes from centuries to centuries in all generations of men, and thus, our Christ-cultists say, God has made His will sufficiently known to men, so that those who refuse to heed it, will in no way be excusable due to ignorance, since they are adequately informed in all times and all places.
But what an illusion is not there, to pretend that all men must be sufficiently educated and informed about God’s will, on the pretext that some people will tell them what God will have revealed, or that the will have heard it said that He has revealed it to the holy Prophets, who were specially sent by God and who performed many miracles and wonders, to confirm the truth of all they say; what an illusion, I say, is there not in such fancies? What will men not be made to believe, on such a vain pretext as that, if it were even the least bit admissible? Make no mistake, there is no impostor who wouldn’t readily foist whatever they like on everyone, on the same pretext, if they lent them their ears. It would be easy for everyone, especially those who come from afar, to offer divine revelations and forge miracles to second all the lies they were pleased to tell, and if all it takes is to talk about these supposed miracles and these supposed revelations, so that those who gave them a hearing are obliged to believe them, how would things end up? They would have to believe all these fabulists of miracles and all these fabulists of revelations, and consequently forced to believe an infinity of deceptions and lies, which are spun off every day, as if they were the most certain and important truths.
What! On the pretext, for example, there was once, in Judea, a man who called himself the Son of God, who worked miracles and wonders, that not only those who saw him, but also those who never saw him, or who were even in the most distant countries from him, would be obliged, just like those who saw him, to believe everything these strangers told them, many years, and even many hundreds of years later, and now as there are many thousands of years since these things happened many leagues away, and many people, all men on earth are still obliged to believe whatever these strangers might tell them, on the specious pretext of religion, of zeal for the salvation of their souls; and they would be damned to misery forever in the horrible flames of Hell if they do not blindly believe everything these strangers had to say? You are insane, Christ-cultists, to have such thoughts, and to better reveal your insanity, let’s suppose that certain men came from unknown lands to this country, for example, Doctors and Bonzes from China or Japan, which are 2 or 3 thousand leagues from here; if these good foreign Priests told you in all seriousness, that they have only come from so far away because of their zeal for the salvation of your souls and to teach you the mysteries and ceremonies of their so-called holy religion, and that for that they began telling you about the wonders of their great lawgiver Confucius, and to seek to persuade you to abandon your religion to embrace theirs, you’d be shocked at this novelty to begin with; but if, soon after, you began to notice that they wanted you persuade you to believe ridiculous and absurd mysteries, make you observe vain and superstitious ceremonies, and make you worship and revere certain idols of their false Deities, wouldn’t you laugh at their nonsense, and wouldn’t you say that those people are fools and maniacs, to come from so far away, and with so much trouble and fatigue, to tell you such tripe? You would be completely right to say this, because it would indeed be foolish for them to come so far only to be the subject of ridicule, them and their so-called mysteries, and it would also be a folly for you to think that you were obliged to believe them, on the basis of what they say about the alleged wonders of their God and their supposedly holy religion; and also, I don’t think you would be stupid enough to think you owe them your trust.
But then acknowledge too that it's a mistake for you to believe that you are obliged to accept all that your priests tell you, as if God told it to them, and it’s an error for you to believe that all the peoples on the earth are obliged to believe your priests, on the basis of what they tell them on the pretext that they are in this way sufficiently acquainted with the will of God. And if it would be folly for Muslim priests, or Chinese or Japanese priests, to come to this country to persuade us that we must, to be saved, believe in their great prophet Muhammad or their lawgiver Confucius, and that the precepts and ceremonies of their holy religion must be observed, it’s certainly no lesser folly for our priests and our missionaries to go, as they do, at the risk of their lives, to such remote countries, to convince people of things as ridiculous and absurd as what they tell them.
So, as I said, it’s a true illusion to say that men should be sufficiently informed about the will of a God, from the moment someone they might not even know tells them that God revealed it to them, or that they’ve been told that He revealed it to others, who told them in turn. It is, I say, a true illusion to imagine that, because it doesn’t constitute knowledge of the will of a God to blindly believe whatever anyone says about it. And since people in all religions and laws can only believe what liars and hucksters tell them on this subject, and since they blindly believe what they say, it is indubitable and obvious that nobody can truly say that God makes His will known to men adequately by this means. And they are all, by birth, by education, or by some reason of self-interest, or any other human consideration, more attached to one sect or religion to another, this is not because they are better acquainted with the will of God, but because they believe blindly in what they are told about it, and thus men are usually Christians or Muslims, Jews or Pagans, only because they were born or raised in Christianity, in Islam, Judaism or Paganism, and as for us Christians, we are Catholic, Calvinist or Lutheran etc... in the same way, as Montaigne[797] says, that “we are French, Spaniards, Italians, Germans; with a different birth, education, or other circumstances of honor or interest, or certain other particular contingencies would have placed us in another party, and would have imprinted different views and beliefs with equal promises of rewards and threats of punishment,” which clearly shows that there is no Divinity which makes its will sufficiently known to men.
And not only is there no Divinity which makes its will sufficiently known to men, but there is none who makes itself sufficiently known to men. This is clearly demonstrated again, contrary to anything our God-cultists and our Christ-cultists might say, who claim that their God has not only made His will sufficiently, but also quite manifestly, through all the wonderful works He has created, so that, according to them, one only has to see heaven and earth in order to know immediately that there is an Almighty God who created them. The heavens and the earth, they say, clearly announce the infinite greatness, glory, power, and goodness of He who made them, which is nothing but an all-powerful and infinitely perfect God. Coeli, they say, enarrant glor
iam Dei et opera manuum ejus annunciat firmamentum[798].
“I can’t open my eyes,” says the Archbishop of Cambrai[799], “without admiring the artistry which shines forth in all of nature. The slightest glance is enough,” he says, “to see the hand that made everything.” But this argument is completely vain and false; for if the extension, if the beauty, if the variety and multitude of things, and all that is most amazing in nature clearly showed the existence of an all-powerful and infinitely perfect God, then nobody, as I’ve said, could deny or question the existence of this infinitely perfect Being, since all men, who can quite clearly see the order, beauty, grandeur, and excellence of what is most beautiful and most perfect in nature, they would be immediately convinced of the truth of His existence.
But without counting those who deny or question the existence of this Being, a very large number of people who are wise and enlightened, and even among our God-cultists there is a very large number who recognize and candidly confess that none of what is most beautiful and perfect in nature clearly proves the existence of an infinitely perfect God, and they’re all too right to acknowledge and confess this, since reason demonstrates that all that is most beautiful, most perfect, and most amazing in nature, can be carried out by the natural laws of motion alone, and the diverse configurations of the parts of matter when arranged in various ways, united and modified in all the species of Being, which compose that which we call the world, as I intend to show more amply in what follows. Far, then, from meaning in any way to diminish the beauty, excellence, and amazing order visible in all natural things of the world, which our God-cultists sometimes pretend to praise in grand and pompous speeches, to prove the omnipotence and infinite wisdom of their God, who made them, although they seem in the past to have insulted Him by considering all these same works as vain and frivolous things, saying, as they do, that all is vanity and that all is nothing but vanity[800] Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas. For certainly it pays no respect to such a good artisan, to say that everything he made was only vanity; no good artisan would be above offense if he saw people despising these works, and it would be an insult talk about them with contempt, and yet this is the insult that our Christ-cultists still utter, without realizing it, at their God, when they say, as they often do, that all is vanity and all is nothing but vanity. I say this only in passing to point out that everything our God-cultists say doesn’t always conform to their own principles and their own views.
79. UNDER THE GUIDANCE AND DIRECTION OF AN OMNIPOTENT GOD, WHO WOULD BE INFINITELY GOOD AND INFINITELY WISE, NO CREATURE WOULD BE DEFECTIVE, FLAWED, OR UNHAPPY.
And thus, I return to my subject, and I say that, far from diminishing the beauty, excellence, and the amazing order which is seen in all things of nature, I would rather exalt it, if I could, and have these things admired as much as they deserve to be, since I admire them myself, perhaps as much as any of our God-cultists do. I admire them, I say, inasmuch as they are the works of nature; but not inasmuch as they are the works of an all-powerful God. For, in the latter case, I would immediately cease to admire them, since, as amazing are they are in themselves, I would find them quite imperfect as the workmanship of a God who is omnipotent, infinitely good, and infinitely wise, in light of the faults and imperfections, and even the flaws, which are obviously present in most things, and the annoying accidents to which they are subject.
Let our God-cultists exalt them as much as they like, let them amplify, as they please, the beauty, excellence, the order and artifice which are found in everything visible in this world, I agree, but they must also recognize and admit, on the other hand, that they are quite fragile and defective, and that all that has life is subject to many hardships and much suffering. But what I say is that all that is most beautiful and most wonderful in nature doesn’t so much demonstrate the existence of an all-powerful and infinitely good God, since the least bit of evil demonstrates that there isn’t one; and the obvious reason for this is, as I said before, because all that is most beautiful and amazing in nature, can occur due to the laws and forces of nature itself, and that, besides, it’s not credible that there would be no flaw, or any defect in any creature, or that He would allow any evil if it emanated, as our God-cultists say, from the almighty hand of an infinitely good and infinitely wise God. Therefore, death, disease, infirmity, languor, and, even more so, all vice and wickedness, and in general everything capable of making any creature flawed, defective, or unhappy, demonstrate that there is no Divinity who can prevent all these ills, even if the only evil on earth was flies, spiders, or earthworms being smashed, this would be enough to demonstrate that they are not the works of an all-powerful, infinitely good, and infinitely wise God, for if they were his works, he would undoubtedly see to their preservation and would surely save them from all harm. How can anyone think that He would enjoy seeing them suffer or to have them crushed underfoot? This would be unworthy of the omnipotence and infinite goodness of a God, who might preserve them from all evil, and who might procure for them all the good conformable to their nature. There was once a Roman emperor named Domitian, who, among his other vices, boasted of this one, of taking pleasure in performing and showing his skill at stabbing flies with a stylus. Yes, we are right to criticize this emperor for spending his time on such a vain and ridiculous pastime as that, and it should surely be regarded as a sign of the rottenness and cruelty of his soul. Would anyone dare to say or even think that a similar pleasure would be in keeping with the sovereign Majesty, the sovereign Omnipotence, and the sovereign Goodness of a God, and that He would have intentionally made and formed flies, spiders, and earthworms, to watch them suffer and be tread underfoot? Not at all, that would go completely against the supreme perfection of a God, who could easily make all His creatures happy and perfect, each according to their nature and their kind. There is no reason to believe that He would have wanted to make any of them to make them miserable, and indeed none of them would be ill-made or unhappy in their species, if an omnipotent, infinitely good, and infinitely wise God had intervened to make them.
I might confirm this by this maxim of the great Mirmadolin St. Augustine, who explicitly says that under a just and omnipotent God no creature can be miserable if it hasn’t deserved it; it’s the same for the support of all the Roman Church, who says, in one of his public prayers for the people, that nulla ei nocebit adversitas, si nulla ei dominetur iniquitas, at the Mass of the first Friday of Lent. I would add to this that, under a just and almighty God, no creature would ever deserve to be unhappy, since the very kindness, the very wisdom, and the very omnipotence of God, which would have formed them complete and perfect, each after their kind, would also have provided the means to preserve them in the same state of perfection, and to keep them from ever deserving to be unhappy; and if, in the hypothesis an infinitely good and infinitely wise God, no creature would be unhappy if it didn’t deserve to be, it can certainly and absolutely be said that, under a just and all-powerful God, no creature would be unhappy, since, in this hypothesis, no creature would ever do anything to deserve unhappiness, since the same God who would have seen to the complete and perfect formation of all creatures, would also have provided for their complete and perfect preservation. So if an all-powerful, infinitely good and infinitely perfect God had ever created men, as our Christ-cultists say, in a state of perfection, as to the body and as to the soul, and if He had created them, as they say, in a state in innocence and holiness, to render them forever blessed on earth or in heaven, He would never have abandoned them from the succor of His divine providence and the succor of His divine protection, and would never let them fall prey to any vice, or any sin, because an omnipotent, infinitely good, and infinitely wise God would never abandon those whom He would have so perfectly loved to and those specially favored with His graces and His friendship, which our Christ-cultists themselves say in their public prayers: numquam sua gubernatione destituit quos in sodalitate suae dilectionis instituit[801]. And therefore, neither men nor any oth
er creature could ever have been unhappy under the guidance and direction of an omnipotent, infinitely good, and infinitely wise God.
I could also confirm this from the testimony of our Christ-cultists’ so-called Holy Scriptures, which specifically say that their God will make a new covenant with men, with the beasts of the field, with the birds and reptiles of the Earth, i.e., with all living creatures, by which supposed covenant He promises to bring an end to all their problems, and all their suffering, also promising to make them all live in a sweet repose and a sweet felicity[802]. Percutiam enim cum eis foedus in die illa cum bestia agri et cum volucre coeli et cum reptili terrae, et arcum et gladium et bellum conteram de terra et dormire eos faciam fiducialiter. That is why it’s stated in these same books that God will take away all the iniquity of His people, and that He will send justice to reign eternally on Earth[803], that no creature will harm another, that children will play with ferocious beasts, that wolves and lambs, lions and bulls, snakes and goslings will live peacefully together and will eat their pasturage peacefully, with each other; and these book state[804] that there will be no more iniquity, but that all men will be saved and righteous. It is even stated in these so-called holy books that wild beasts will glorify the Lord and praise Him[805] glorificabit me Bestia agri, Draconis et Strutiones. And, in conformity with this, it is stated in another part of the same books that God will then dwell visibly with mankind, that He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and that there will be no more death, no more groans, no more tears, no pain at all, for all these evils will be done away with, and God will make all things new, both for His glory and for the good of his creatures[806].