No More Learning

Still less than with the hypothesis of a God will the doctrine of
Necessity accord with the belief of a future state of punishment. God
made man such as he is, and than damned him for being so: for to say
that God was the author of all good, and man the author of all evil, is
to say that one man made a straight line and a crooked one, and another
man made the incongruity.

A Mahometan story, much to the present purpose, is recorded, wherein
Adam and Moses are introduced disputing before God in the following
manner. Thou, says Moses, art Adam, whom God created, and animated with
the breath of life, and caused to be worshipped by the angels, and
placed in Paradise, from whence mankind have been expelled for thy
fault. Whereto Adam answered, Thou art Moses, whom God chose for His
apostle, and entrusted with His word, by giving thee the tables of the
law, and whom He vouchsafed to admit to discourse with Himself. How many
years dost thou find the law was written before I was created? Says
Moses, Forty. And dost thou not find, replied Adam, these words therein,
And Adam rebelled against his Lord and transgressed? Which Moses
confessing, Dost thou therefore blame me, continued he, for doing that
which God wrote of me that I should do, forty years before I was
created, nay, for what was decreed concerning me fifty thousand years
before the creation of heaven and earth? --Sale's "Prelim. Disc. to the
Koran", page 164.

7. 13:--

There is no God.

This negation must be understood solely to affect a creative Deity.
The
hypothesis of a pervading Spirit co-eternal with the universe remains
unshaken.

A close examination of the validity of the proofs adduced to support any
proposition is the only secure way of attaining truth, on the advantages
of which it is unnecessary to descant: our knowledge of the existence of
a Deity is a subject of such importance that it cannot be too minutely
investigated; in consequence of this conviction we proceed briefly and
impartially to examine the proofs which have been adduced. It is
necessary first to consider the nature of belief.

When a proposition is offered to the mind, it perceives the agreement or
disagreement of the ideas of which it is composed. A perception of their
agreement is termed BELIEF. Many obstacles frequently prevent this
perception from being immediate; these the mind attempts to remove in
order that the perception may be distinct. The mind is active in the
investigation in order to perfect the state of perception of the
relation which the component ideas of the proposition bear to each,
which is passive: the investigation being confused with the perception
has induced many falsely to imagine that the mind is active in
belief,--that belief is an act of volition,--in consequence of which it
may be regulated by the mind. Pursuing, continuing this mistake, they
have attached a degree of criminality to disbelief; of which, in its
nature, it is incapable: it is equally incapable of merit.

Belief, then, is a passion, the strength of which, like every other
passion, is in precise proportion to the degrees of excitement.

The degrees of excitement are three.

The senses are the sources of all knowledge to the mind; consequently
their evidence claims the strongest assent.

The decision of the mind, founded upon our own experience, derived from
these sources, claims the next degree.

The experience of others, which addresses itself to the former one,
occupies the lowest degree.

(A graduated scale, on which should be marked the capabilities of
propositions to approach to the test of the senses, would be a just
barometer of the belief which ought to be attached to them. )

Consequently no testimony can be admitted which is contrary to reason;
reason is founded on the evidence of our senses.

Every proof may be referred to one of these three divisions: it is to be
considered what arguments we receive from each of them, which should
convince us of the existence of a Deity.