God, according to the theological conception, is not only sovereign master of the universe, the infallible and irresponsible king of creatures, the intelligible type of man; he is the eternal, immutable, omnipresent, infinitely wise, infinitely free being.Now, I say that these attributes of God contain more than an ideal, more than an elevation -- to whatever power you will -- of the corresponding attributes of humanity; I say that they are a contradiction of them.God is contradictory of man, just as charity is contradictory of justice; as sanctity, the ideal of perfection, is contradictory of perfectibility; as royalty, the ideal of legislative power, is contradictory of law, etc.So that the divine hypothesis is reborn from its resolution into human reality, and the problem of a complete, harmonious, and absolute existence, ever put aside, ever comes back.
To demonstrate this radical antinomy it suffices to put facts in juxtaposition with definitions.
Of all facts the most certain, most constant, most indubitable, is certainly that in man knowledge is progressive, methodical, the result of reflection, -- in short, experimental; so much so that every theory not having the sanction of experience -- that is, of constancy and concatenation in its representations -- thereby lacks a scientific character.In regard to this not the slightest doubt can be raised.Mathematics themselves, though called pure, are subject to the CONCATENATION of propositions, and hence depend upon experience and acknowledge its law.
Man's knowledge, starting with acquired observation, then progresses and advances in an unlimited sphere.The goal which it has in view, the ideal which it tends to realize without ever being able to attain it, --
placing it on the contrary farther and farther ahead of it, -- is the infinite, the absolute.
Now, what would be an infinite knowledge, an absolute knowledge, determining an equally infinite liberty, such as speculation supposes in God? It would be a knowledge not only universal, but intuitive, spontaneous, as thoroughly free from hesitation as from objectivity, although embracing at once the real and the possible; a knowledge sure, but not demonstrative; complete, not sequential; a knowledge, in short, which, being eternal in its formation, would be destitute of any progressive character in the relation of its parts.
Psychology has collected numerous examples of this mode of knowing in the instinctive and divinatory faculties of animals; in the spontaneous talent of certain men born mathematicians and artists, independent of all education; finally, in most of the primitive human institutions and monuments, products of unconscious genius independent of theories.And the regular and complex movements of the heavenly bodies; the marvellous combinations of matter, -- could it not be said that these too are the effects of a special instinct, inherent in the elements?
If, then, God exists, something of him appears to us in the universe and in ourselves: but this something is in flagrant opposition with our most authentic tendencies, with our most certain destiny; this something is continually being effaced from our soul by education, and to make it disappear is the object of our care.God and man are two natures which shun each other as soon as they know each other; in the absence of a transformation of one or the other or both, how could they ever be reconciled? If the progress of reason tends to separate us from Divinity, how could God and man be identical in point of reason? How, consequently, could humanity become God by education?
Let us take another example.
The essential characteristic of religion is feeling.Hence, by religion, man attributes feeling to God, as he attributes reason to him; moreover, he affirms, following the ordinary course of his ideas, that feeling in God, like knowledge, is infinite.
Now, that alone is sufficient to change the quality of feeling in God, and make it an attribute totally distinct from that of man.In man sentiment flows, so to speak, from a thousand different sources: it contradicts itself, it confuses itself, it rends itself; otherwise, it would not feel itself.
In God, on the contrary, sentiment is infinite, -- that is, one, complete, fixed, clear, above all storms, and not needing irritation as a contrast in order to arrive at happiness.We ourselves experience this divine mode of feeling when a single sentiment, absorbing all our faculties, as in the case of ecstasy, temporarily imposes silence upon the other affections.
But this rapture exists always only by the aid of contrast and by a sort of provocation from without; it is never perfect, or, if it reaches fulness, it is like the star which attains its apogee, for an indivisible instant.
Thus we do not live, we do not feel, we do not think, except by a series of oppositions and shocks, by an internal warfare; our ideal, then, is not infinity, but equilibrium; infinity expresses something other than ourselves.
It is said: God has no attributes peculiar to himself; his attributes are those of man; then man and God are one and the same thing.
On the contrary, the attributes of man, being infinite in God, are for that very reason peculiar and specific: it is the nature of the infinite to become speciality, essence, from the fact that the finite exists.Deny then, if you will, the reality of God, as one denies the reality of a contradictory idea; reject from science and morality this inconceivable and bloody phantom which seems to pursue us the more, the farther it gets from us; up to a certain point that may be justified, and at any rate can do no harm.But do not make God into humanity, for that would be slander of both.
