" If I were to start as a god or a
prophet, I think I should take the line:
"Thou shalt not believe in me. Thou shalt not have me for a god.
Thou shalt worship any damned thing thou likest except me." This
should be my first and great commandment, and my second should be
like unto it. {333}
Faith and Reason
The instinct towards brushing faith aside and being strictly
reasonable is strong and natural; so also is the instinct towards
brushing logic and consistency on one side if they become
troublesome, in other words--so is the instinct towards basing action
on a faith which is beyond reason. It is because both instincts are
so natural that so many accept and so many reject Catholicism. The
two go along for some time as very good friends and then fight;
sometimes one beats and sometimes the other, but they always make it
up again and jog along as before, for they have a great respect for
one another.
God and the Devil
God's merits are so transcendent that it is not surprising his faults
should be in reasonable proportion. The faults are, indeed, on such
a scale that, when looked at without relation to the merits with
which they are interwoven, they become so appalling that people
shrink from ascribing them to the Deity and have invented the Devil,
without seeing that there would be more excuse for God's killing the
Devil, and so getting rid of evil, than there can be for his failing
to be everything that he would like to be.
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