Clxxxviii — Pride, Presumption, and Corruption of the Heart Are More Often Found Among Priests Than Among Atheists and Unbelievers
Pride and vanity always were and always will be the inherent vices of the priesthood. Is there anything that has a tendency to render men haughty and vain more than the assumption of exercising Heavenly power, of possessing a sacred character, of being the messengers of the Most High? Are not these dispositions continually increased by the credulity of the people, by the deference and the respect of the sovereigns, by the immunities, the privileges, and the distinctions which the clergy enjoy? The common man is, in every country, more devoted to his spiritual guides, whom he considers as Divine men, than to his temporal superiors, whom he considers as ordinary men. Village priests enjoy more honor than the lord or the judge. A Christian priest believes himself far above a king or an emperor. A Spanish grandee having spoken hastily to a monk, the latter said to him, arrogantly, “Learn to respect a man who has every day your God in his hands and your queen at his feet.”
Have the priests any right to accuse the unbelievers of pride? Do they distinguish themselves by a rare modesty or profound humility? Is it not evident that the desire to domineer over men is the essence of their profession? If the Lord’s ministers were truly modest, would we see them so greedy of respect, so easily irritated by contradictions, so prompt and so cruel in revenging themselves upon those whose opinions offend them? Does not modest science impress us with the difficulty of unraveling truth? What other passion than frenzied pride can render men so ferocious, so vindictive, so devoid of toleration and gentleness? What is more presumptuous than to arm nations and cause rivers of blood, in order to establish or to defend futile conjectures?
You say, O Doctors of Divinity! that it is presumption alone which makes atheists. Teach them, then, what your God is; instruct them about His essence; speak of Him in an intelligible way; tell of Him reasonable things, which are not contradictory or impossible! If you are not in the condition to satisfy them; if, so far, none of you have been able to demonstrate the existence of a God in a clear and convincing way; if, according to your own confession, His essence is as much hidden from you as from the rest of mortals, pardon those who can not admit that which they can neither understand nor reconcile. Do not accuse of presumption and vanity those who have the sincerity to confess their ignorance; accuse not of folly those who find it impossible to believe in contradictions. You should blush at the thought of exciting the hatred of the people and the vengeance of the sovereigns against men who do not think as you do upon a Being of whom you have no idea yourselves. Is there anything more audacious and more extravagant than to reason about an object which it is impossible to conceive of?
You tell us it is corruption of the heart which produces atheists; that they shake off the yoke of the Deity because they fear His terrible judgments. But why do you paint your God in such black colors? Why does this powerful God permit that such corrupt hearts should exist? Why should we not make efforts to break the yoke of a Tyrant who, being able to make of the hearts of men what He pleases, allows them to become perverted and hardened; blinds them; refuses them His grace, in order to have the satisfaction of punishing them eternally for having been hardened, blinded, and not having received the grace which He refused them? The theologians and the priests must feel themselves very sure of Heaven’s grace and of a happy future, in order not to detest a Master so capricious as the God whom they announce to us. A God who damns eternally must be the most odious Being that the human mind could imagine.