Volume I Part 42 (2/2)
”I ht to rear the idea of a material divinity You are the only men, you Christians, who believe that you see God”
”It is true, we are sure of it, but observe that faith alone gives us that certainty”
”I know it; but you are idolators, for you see nothing but a material representation, and yet you have a complete certainty that you see God, unless you should tell me that faith disaffir! Faith, on the contrary, affirms our certainty”
”We thank God that we have no need of such self-delusion, and there is not one philosopher in the world who could prove to me that you require it”
”That would not be the province of philosophy, dear father, but of theology--a very superior science”
”You are now speaking the language of our theologians, who differ from yours only in this; they use their science to ians try to render those truths more obscure”
”Recollect, dear father, that they are mysteries”
”The existence of God is a sufficiently i to it God can only be simple; any kind of combination would destroy His essence; such is the God announced by our prophet, who ree withto the sie of simplicity You say that He is one and three at the same time, and such a definition strikes us as contradictory, absurd, and impious”
”It is a mystery”
”Do youonly of the definition, which ought not to be a mystery or absurd Common sense, my son, must consider as absurd an assertion which substantiallv nonsensical Prove to me that three is not a compound, that it cannot be a coion tells , and I shudder, h soht be led to renounce the creed of my fathers I first must be convinced that they lived in error Tell ht to have such a good opinion of eainst him?”
My lively remonstrance moved Yusuf deeply, but after a few instants of silence he said to s, race in the eyes of God, and you are, therefore, one of the elect If you are in error, God alone can convince you of it, for no just iven expression to”
We spoke ofwe parted with the often repeated assurance of the warmest affection and of the most perfect devotion
But myover the ht in his opinion as to the essence of God, for it seeht to be perfectly siht at the same time how iion had ht perhaps have just a conception of God, but which caused iven birth to it had been an arrant ihtest idea, however, that Yusuf wished to make a convert of ain the subject of conversation
”Do you believe, dear father, that the religion of Mahomet is the only one in which salvation can be secured?”
”No, my dear son, I am not certain of it, and no man can have such a certainty; but I aion is not the true one, because it cannot be universal”
”Why not?”
”Because there is neither bread nor wine to be found in three-fourths of the world Observe that the precepts of the Koran can be followed everywhere”
I did not kno to answer, and I would not equivocate
”If God cannot be matter,” I said, ”then He must be a spirit?”
”We knohat He is not but we do not knohat He is: man cannot affirm that God is a spirit, because he can only realize the idea in an abstract e and it can never be greater”
I was reminded of Plato, who had said exactly the same an most certainly Yusuf never read Plato
He added that the existence of God could be useful only to those who did not entertain a doubt of that existence, and that, as a natural consequence, Atheists must be the e in order that, ast all the animals created by Him, there should be one that can understand and confess the existence of the Creator Without lory, and hest duty is to glorify God by practising justice and trusting to His providence