04-22-2026, 09:01 AM
Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Short Answers to Common Objections Against Religion
NINTH OBJECTION. WE OUGHT TO ENJOY LIFE; WE MUST HAVE A GOOD TIME OF IT; GOD IS TOO GOOD TO HAVE CREATED US FOR ANYTHING BUT HAPPINESS.
Answer. Oh, yes! God, in His goodness, has created us only to make us happy! But the great point is not to misunderstand what happiness is.
You seek happiness. You are right. But beware of deceiving yourself in the choice of your means for attaining it! Many roads lie open before you; one only is the right road; woe be to him who takes a wrong one!!
It is a mistake more easy to make at the present day than ever; for never, I think, has our country been more inundated with lying doctrines on this subject. Wicked or deluded men diffuse on all sides, and through the many channels which the press affords, doctrines which, flattering human passions, easily penetrate into the minds of the people.
They would fain persuade us that we are placed here on earth only for the purpose of enjoyment; that all hopes of a future life are but chimeras; that happiness consists in material prosperity, in money, and the means of enjoyment which money can procure. Such is the doctrine of mere pleasure.
It is the doctrine which is at this moment striving to gain the mastery over Christianity and to materialize happiness. In the last century it was called Philosophy; in our times it is called Communism, Socialism, etc.*
I will not insult you by attempting to prove that such happiness is of a degrading kind. It is sufficiently obvious. It annihilates all that distinguishes us from the brute creation, goodness, virtue, self-devotion, moral order.† Man no longer differs from his dog except externally; happiness for both is the same, the satisfaction of all their inclinations, mere brute enjoyment!
But the point on which the world is not yet convinced, and to which I would direct your attention, is the practical impossibility of the communist doctrine, the absurdity of this universal happiness.
I want to make you feel its absolute opposition to the natural order of things, to existing facts, which nothing can change; and to convince you that such a system is nothing but a dream, a dangerous and ridiculous Utopia, and that under the fine words with which it arrays itself there is nothing.
If there is a fact that is proved, and as clear as the light of the sun, it is without contradiction, the sad necessity we are under, here below, of suffering and dying; this is the condition of man in what is essential to it on earth; it is the condition in which I am, in which you are, in which our fathers were and our children will be, and no human efforts can extricate us from it.
Are there not, I ask, here below, and will there not always, always, always be sickness, sufferings, afflictions? Are there not, and will there not always be widows and orphans? — mothers weeping inconsolably beside the empty cradle of the child?
Are there not, and will there not always be struggles between temperaments opposed to each other? — collisions of wills? — deep deceptions?
Can any thing change this state of things? Will any new organization of society, whatever it be, preserve us from diseases, sufferings, consumption, fever, gout, cholera? — preserve us from losing those whom we love? Will it prevent the disagreeable variations of the seasons, the rigor of winter's cold, the burning heat of summer? Will it free man from his tendencies to vice? from pride, egotism, violence, hatred? Will it, above all, prevent his dying?
Is all this true, or is it not? And is it not as certain, as indubitable, that it is, as it is certain that it will always be the state of things? One must be crazy to deny it!
And what becomes — pray tell me — in presence of this fact — what becomes, in the midst of so many inevitable evils, of that constant enjoyment, that perfect terrestrial happiness which Communism promises us? The mere approach of sickness, sorrow and death, suffices to destroy it! And these terrible foes are ever at our door.
Your Communism, or Socialism, then (give it what name you please), is a dream, a vain Utopia, contrary to the nature of things.
It cheats itself, then, or it cheats me, when it promises to me the repose of perfect happiness on earth, where such cannot exist, and when it makes it consist in an impossible state of enjoyment.
I must, therefore, seek for happiness elsewhere, for that it is somewhere to be found I know; the wisdom, the goodness, the power of God are a sure guarantee of this to me. . . . Where, then, am I to seek it? There, where Christianity points it out to me: in the germ here on earth, but in its perfection in Heaven. "Come to me, all you that labor, and are burdened, and I will refresh you." (Matt. xi. 28.)
Christianity — it is in perfect accordance with the great fact of our mortal condition. It explains to us the formidable problem of suffering and happiness.
Christianity embraces man in all his relations, and takes him just as he is by nature; it takes account of the essential facts which Communism ignores (such as original degradation, the sentence of perpetual penance, the Redemption of Jesus Christ, the necessity of imitating the Saviour, so as to have a share in that redemption, the eternal life which awaits us, etc.). Christianity does not deal in airy reasonings based on chimerical suppositions, like Communism.
Communism discerns in us nothing but the outside shell; it forgets the kernel, which is the soul. Christianity does not forget the shell, that is the body; but it also perceives the kernel, and it finds that the kernel is of more value than the shell. It refers every thing to the soul, to eternity, to God. "What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul?" (St. Matt. xvi. 26.)
By means of an influence as gentle as it is powerful, Christianity cleanses the soul little by little of its pride, its cupidity, its concupiscence, its excesses, its selfishness; in a word, of all its vices; and it thus penetrates to the deepest roots of the greater number of those evils that we have just enumerated. In fact, our troubles, in most cases, spring from our passions, and Christianity calms these passions; it restrains their vehemence, it tames them.
Christianity communicates to the heart that joy, that peace so sweet, which purity of conscience produces. Faith shows us clearly the path which leads to happiness; hope and love make us run in that path, and render light and pleasant the yoke of duty. "My yoke is sweet and my burden light." (St. Matt. xi. 30.)
If Christianity does so much for the soul, it does not forget the body. We have described above the cares which it bestows upon it.
Christianity occupies itself with the body, not as with the chief and master (that would be disorder), but as with the confederate and companion. It preserves it by sobriety and chastity; sanctifies it by external worship, by participation in the sacraments, and, above all, by a union with the sacred body of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.
Christianity receives its dying breath; it accompanies it with honor to its final resting-place; and even there does not bid it an eternal adieu. It knows that one day that Christian body, purified by the baptism of death, will come forth radiant from its dust, will revive in glory, will be re-united to the soul and enjoy with it, in Paradise, ineffable delight! . . .
Such is Christianity.
It understands what happiness is, promises it, and confers it. It confers on earth that happiness which is possible on earth. If it does not give unalloyed happiness it is because such ought not to be given, and cannot, here below.
Christianity rests its promises on the most solid proofs. That which he does not now possess, the Christian knows, is sure he will possess hereafter. Therefore, every true Christian is happy. He has trouble, sorrow; it is impossible to be free from them here; but his heart is ever filled, ever calm and content.
Does Socialism thus treat the poor wanderers whom it amuses with its chimeras? It promises what no human power can give; it promises the impossible. . . . It has no other guarantees than the audacious affirmations of its chiefs; and are those chiefs calculated to inspire confidence?
"The world will be happy," they say, "when every thing is changed." Yes, but when shall every thing be changed? If, as we believe we have proved, this change is contrary to the nature of things, the world runs a great risk of never finding happiness.
Socialism is something like the wily barber, who put over his shop door:
"To-morrow, shaving gratis here!"
To-morrow remained always to-morrow.
Socialism desires the recompense without the labor; the Christian desires the recompense after the labor.
The one talks like workmen of bad character, the other like good workmen. Thus every good-for-nothing, every lazy fellow willingly adopts the Socialist doctrines, and instinctively rejects the voice of religion.
Let our country, therefore, beware of these hollow but seductive promises, with which her enemies fill their newspapers, novels, and pamphlets.
Let her reject such promises; let her punish by a just contempt the men who are not ashamed to propose to their brethren the ignoble happiness of brutes — mere sensual enjoyment.
Let us raise our heads; let us revive our torpid faith; let us again be Christians! Here alone is the remedy for all our evils. Let us learn to understand, like our fathers, those divine lessons which the GREAT MASTER has left to us on the subject of happiness.
"Blessed are the poor in spirit (that is to say, those whose spirit is detached from the fragile goods of the world), for theirs is the kingdom of heaven!
"Blessed are the meek and the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God!
"Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted!
"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy!
"Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God!" (Matt. v. 3, etc.)
The impure cannot see God, nor the things of God, because their hearts are blinded by their impurities. "They will not set their thoughts to return to their God; for the spirit of fornication is in the midst of them, and they have not known the Lord." (Osee v. 4.)
A curse hangs like a gloomy pall over the hearts of the impure and the obstinate. The Almighty said to the Prophet Isaias: "Go and blind the heart of this people, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted and I heal them." (Isaias vi. 10.)
"The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly from temptation, but to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be tormented; and especially them who walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government, audacious, self-willed, they fear not to bring in sects, blaspheming. But these men, as irrational beasts, naturally tending to the snare and to destruction, blaspheming those things which they know not, shall perish in their corruption, having eyes full of adultery and of sin that ceaseth not." (2 Peter ii. 9, etc.)
Let us instruct our minds, and imbue them with this Catholic religion; let us infuse its spirit into our hearts, our manners, our institutions, and our laws! We shall enjoy the happiness which is possible in this world, and the happiness which is perfect in the world to come!
He who desires more than this is a madman who will never enjoy either the one or the other.*
NINTH OBJECTION. WE OUGHT TO ENJOY LIFE; WE MUST HAVE A GOOD TIME OF IT; GOD IS TOO GOOD TO HAVE CREATED US FOR ANYTHING BUT HAPPINESS.
Answer. Oh, yes! God, in His goodness, has created us only to make us happy! But the great point is not to misunderstand what happiness is.
You seek happiness. You are right. But beware of deceiving yourself in the choice of your means for attaining it! Many roads lie open before you; one only is the right road; woe be to him who takes a wrong one!!
It is a mistake more easy to make at the present day than ever; for never, I think, has our country been more inundated with lying doctrines on this subject. Wicked or deluded men diffuse on all sides, and through the many channels which the press affords, doctrines which, flattering human passions, easily penetrate into the minds of the people.
They would fain persuade us that we are placed here on earth only for the purpose of enjoyment; that all hopes of a future life are but chimeras; that happiness consists in material prosperity, in money, and the means of enjoyment which money can procure. Such is the doctrine of mere pleasure.
It is the doctrine which is at this moment striving to gain the mastery over Christianity and to materialize happiness. In the last century it was called Philosophy; in our times it is called Communism, Socialism, etc.*
I will not insult you by attempting to prove that such happiness is of a degrading kind. It is sufficiently obvious. It annihilates all that distinguishes us from the brute creation, goodness, virtue, self-devotion, moral order.† Man no longer differs from his dog except externally; happiness for both is the same, the satisfaction of all their inclinations, mere brute enjoyment!
But the point on which the world is not yet convinced, and to which I would direct your attention, is the practical impossibility of the communist doctrine, the absurdity of this universal happiness.
I want to make you feel its absolute opposition to the natural order of things, to existing facts, which nothing can change; and to convince you that such a system is nothing but a dream, a dangerous and ridiculous Utopia, and that under the fine words with which it arrays itself there is nothing.
If there is a fact that is proved, and as clear as the light of the sun, it is without contradiction, the sad necessity we are under, here below, of suffering and dying; this is the condition of man in what is essential to it on earth; it is the condition in which I am, in which you are, in which our fathers were and our children will be, and no human efforts can extricate us from it.
Are there not, I ask, here below, and will there not always, always, always be sickness, sufferings, afflictions? Are there not, and will there not always be widows and orphans? — mothers weeping inconsolably beside the empty cradle of the child?
Are there not, and will there not always be struggles between temperaments opposed to each other? — collisions of wills? — deep deceptions?
Can any thing change this state of things? Will any new organization of society, whatever it be, preserve us from diseases, sufferings, consumption, fever, gout, cholera? — preserve us from losing those whom we love? Will it prevent the disagreeable variations of the seasons, the rigor of winter's cold, the burning heat of summer? Will it free man from his tendencies to vice? from pride, egotism, violence, hatred? Will it, above all, prevent his dying?
Is all this true, or is it not? And is it not as certain, as indubitable, that it is, as it is certain that it will always be the state of things? One must be crazy to deny it!
And what becomes — pray tell me — in presence of this fact — what becomes, in the midst of so many inevitable evils, of that constant enjoyment, that perfect terrestrial happiness which Communism promises us? The mere approach of sickness, sorrow and death, suffices to destroy it! And these terrible foes are ever at our door.
Your Communism, or Socialism, then (give it what name you please), is a dream, a vain Utopia, contrary to the nature of things.
It cheats itself, then, or it cheats me, when it promises to me the repose of perfect happiness on earth, where such cannot exist, and when it makes it consist in an impossible state of enjoyment.
I must, therefore, seek for happiness elsewhere, for that it is somewhere to be found I know; the wisdom, the goodness, the power of God are a sure guarantee of this to me. . . . Where, then, am I to seek it? There, where Christianity points it out to me: in the germ here on earth, but in its perfection in Heaven. "Come to me, all you that labor, and are burdened, and I will refresh you." (Matt. xi. 28.)
Christianity — it is in perfect accordance with the great fact of our mortal condition. It explains to us the formidable problem of suffering and happiness.
Christianity embraces man in all his relations, and takes him just as he is by nature; it takes account of the essential facts which Communism ignores (such as original degradation, the sentence of perpetual penance, the Redemption of Jesus Christ, the necessity of imitating the Saviour, so as to have a share in that redemption, the eternal life which awaits us, etc.). Christianity does not deal in airy reasonings based on chimerical suppositions, like Communism.
Communism discerns in us nothing but the outside shell; it forgets the kernel, which is the soul. Christianity does not forget the shell, that is the body; but it also perceives the kernel, and it finds that the kernel is of more value than the shell. It refers every thing to the soul, to eternity, to God. "What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul?" (St. Matt. xvi. 26.)
By means of an influence as gentle as it is powerful, Christianity cleanses the soul little by little of its pride, its cupidity, its concupiscence, its excesses, its selfishness; in a word, of all its vices; and it thus penetrates to the deepest roots of the greater number of those evils that we have just enumerated. In fact, our troubles, in most cases, spring from our passions, and Christianity calms these passions; it restrains their vehemence, it tames them.
Christianity communicates to the heart that joy, that peace so sweet, which purity of conscience produces. Faith shows us clearly the path which leads to happiness; hope and love make us run in that path, and render light and pleasant the yoke of duty. "My yoke is sweet and my burden light." (St. Matt. xi. 30.)
If Christianity does so much for the soul, it does not forget the body. We have described above the cares which it bestows upon it.
Christianity occupies itself with the body, not as with the chief and master (that would be disorder), but as with the confederate and companion. It preserves it by sobriety and chastity; sanctifies it by external worship, by participation in the sacraments, and, above all, by a union with the sacred body of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.
Christianity receives its dying breath; it accompanies it with honor to its final resting-place; and even there does not bid it an eternal adieu. It knows that one day that Christian body, purified by the baptism of death, will come forth radiant from its dust, will revive in glory, will be re-united to the soul and enjoy with it, in Paradise, ineffable delight! . . .
Such is Christianity.
It understands what happiness is, promises it, and confers it. It confers on earth that happiness which is possible on earth. If it does not give unalloyed happiness it is because such ought not to be given, and cannot, here below.
Christianity rests its promises on the most solid proofs. That which he does not now possess, the Christian knows, is sure he will possess hereafter. Therefore, every true Christian is happy. He has trouble, sorrow; it is impossible to be free from them here; but his heart is ever filled, ever calm and content.
Does Socialism thus treat the poor wanderers whom it amuses with its chimeras? It promises what no human power can give; it promises the impossible. . . . It has no other guarantees than the audacious affirmations of its chiefs; and are those chiefs calculated to inspire confidence?
"The world will be happy," they say, "when every thing is changed." Yes, but when shall every thing be changed? If, as we believe we have proved, this change is contrary to the nature of things, the world runs a great risk of never finding happiness.
Socialism is something like the wily barber, who put over his shop door:
"To-morrow, shaving gratis here!"
To-morrow remained always to-morrow.
Socialism desires the recompense without the labor; the Christian desires the recompense after the labor.
The one talks like workmen of bad character, the other like good workmen. Thus every good-for-nothing, every lazy fellow willingly adopts the Socialist doctrines, and instinctively rejects the voice of religion.
Let our country, therefore, beware of these hollow but seductive promises, with which her enemies fill their newspapers, novels, and pamphlets.
Let her reject such promises; let her punish by a just contempt the men who are not ashamed to propose to their brethren the ignoble happiness of brutes — mere sensual enjoyment.
Let us raise our heads; let us revive our torpid faith; let us again be Christians! Here alone is the remedy for all our evils. Let us learn to understand, like our fathers, those divine lessons which the GREAT MASTER has left to us on the subject of happiness.
"Blessed are the poor in spirit (that is to say, those whose spirit is detached from the fragile goods of the world), for theirs is the kingdom of heaven!
"Blessed are the meek and the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God!
"Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted!
"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy!
"Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God!" (Matt. v. 3, etc.)
The impure cannot see God, nor the things of God, because their hearts are blinded by their impurities. "They will not set their thoughts to return to their God; for the spirit of fornication is in the midst of them, and they have not known the Lord." (Osee v. 4.)
A curse hangs like a gloomy pall over the hearts of the impure and the obstinate. The Almighty said to the Prophet Isaias: "Go and blind the heart of this people, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted and I heal them." (Isaias vi. 10.)
"The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly from temptation, but to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be tormented; and especially them who walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government, audacious, self-willed, they fear not to bring in sects, blaspheming. But these men, as irrational beasts, naturally tending to the snare and to destruction, blaspheming those things which they know not, shall perish in their corruption, having eyes full of adultery and of sin that ceaseth not." (2 Peter ii. 9, etc.)
Let us instruct our minds, and imbue them with this Catholic religion; let us infuse its spirit into our hearts, our manners, our institutions, and our laws! We shall enjoy the happiness which is possible in this world, and the happiness which is perfect in the world to come!
He who desires more than this is a madman who will never enjoy either the one or the other.*
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre