Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Short Answers to Common Objections Against Religion [1908]

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Mgr. Louis de Ségur: Short Answers to Common Objections Against Religion - 1908


EIGHTEENTH OBJECTION. ALL RELIGIONS ARE GOOD.

Answer. All religions are good, in this sense that it is better to have some, of whatever kind it may be, than to have none at all; but not in the sense that it is quite unimportant whether you profess one or another.

You think, perhaps, provided a man is a worthy member of society, it signifies little whether he be Heathen, Jew, Turk, Christian, Protestant or Catholic; that all religious forms are human inventions, about which our good God must trouble Himself very little.

But tell me, whence have you obtained this notion? And who has revealed to you that all the forms of worship one sees in the world are equally pleasing to the Lord?

Because there are some false religions, does it follow that there is none which is true? If one is surrounded by deceivers, is it no longer possible to discern a real friend?

You have then discovered that God receives with the same love the Christian who adores Jesus Christ, and the Jew who only sees in Him a vile impostor? That it is good and lawful in heathen countries to adore, in the place of the one Supreme God, Jupiter, Mars, Venus? To render divine honors to the sacred crocodiles, and to the ox Apis, in Egypt? To sacrifice, among the Phoenicians, one's children to the god Moloch? In Gaul or Mexico, to immolate hundreds of human victims to the hideous idols there venerated? Elsewhere, to prostrate oneself before a trunk of a tree, before stones, plants, the remains of animals, masses of decay? To repeat from the bottom of the heart, at Constantinople, "God is God, and Mohammed is His prophet?" At Rome, in Paris, to abhor all these false gods, to despise this same Mohammed as an impostor?

It is quite impossible that you believe all this sincerely! That is what you say, however, "All religions are good."

Why not rather have the merit of frankness, and own that you do not wish the trouble of seeking for truth, that it is of little consequence to you, and that you look upon it as useless?

The search after religious truth useless? . . . Rash man! Suppose, in direct contradiction to your affirmation, which is supported by nothing, that God has imposed on man an order of determinate homage? Suppose, that among all religions, one, one only is the religion, religious and absolute truth, like all other truth, rejecting all mixture, excluding all which is not itself. To what are you, then, exposing yourself? Do you think that your indifference will excuse you before the tribunal of the sovereign Judge? And can you, without perfect madness, brave such a terrible prospect?

Just see the misery of man without a divine religion! See him with only the pale rays of his reason, abandoned to doubt, often even to the most inevitable, the most perilous ignorance with regard to the fundamental questions of his destinies, his duties, his happiness! From whence do I come? Who am I? Whither am I going? What is my last end? How am I to attain to it? What is there beyond this life? What is God? What does He desire of me, etc., etc.

Now what answer can reason, left to its unaided strength, give to these important problems? It stammers, it remains mute; it can offer only probable, possible solutions, a thousand times insufficient to enable us to surmount the violence of our passions, to sustain us in the rugged path of duty.

And you would be willing to think that the God of all wisdom, of all goodness, of all light, has thus abandoned His reasonable creature, man, the greatest work of His hands?

No, no. He has caused to shine before his eyes a heavenly light, which, corresponding to the imperious wants of his being, reveals to him, with a divine evidence, the nature, and the justice, and the goodness, and the designs of that God who is his first principle and his last end; a light which shows to him the road of good, and the road of evil, both lying open before him, the one leading to eternal joys, the other to eternal punishments; a light which, amidst the false gleamings wherewith human corruption has surrounded it, is distinguished by the sole splendor of its truth; a light which illumines, quickens, perfects all which it penetrates!
And this light is the Christian Revelation, Christianity, the only religion which has proofs, the only one which enlightens the reason, which sanctifies the heart, and, referring all our moral perfection to the knowledge and love of God, is worthy of God and of ourselves.

What human tongue could enumerate all the titles that Christianity has to our belief? Behold it, at the outset, ascend to the very cradle of the world by the prophecies which announce it, by the faith, the hope, and the love of the holy patriarchs, and by the ceremonies of the Mosaic and primitive worship which foreshadow it!

It has ever been, in fact, one sole and identical religion, though it has been developed in three successive phases.

1st. In the patriarchal religion, which lasted from Adam till the time of Moses;
2d. In the Jewish religion, which Moses promulgated, as sent from God, and which lasted till the Advent of Jesus Christ;
3d. In the Christian, or Catholic religion, taught by Jesus Christ Himself, and preached by His Apostles.

It developed itself, from its origin, gradually and majestically, like all the works of God — like man, who passes through the stages of childhood, of adolescence, before arriving at the perfection of his age; as the day passes through the stages of twilight, and dawn, before it shines in its midday splendor; as the flower, which is first a mere germ, next a closed bud, before it discovers the beauty of its unfolded petals.

And thus Christianity, and it alone, embraces humanity at large; it rules all things, the present time, and the ages past and present. It sets out from eternity to return again to the bosom of eternity. It proceeds from God only to repose eternally in God!

All in it is worthy of its author. All in it is truth and sanctity. And those who study it discover in it a marvellous harmony, a beauty, a grandeur, an evidence of truth; and these ever increasing and growing in proportion as they examine its dogmas.

It touches and purifies the heart, at the same time that it enlightens the mind. It fills the whole man.

• The sublime, superhuman and incomparable character of Jesus Christ, its founder;
  
• The divine perfection of His life;
  
• The sanctity of His law;
  
• The practical sublimity of the doctrine which He taught;
  
• His language, which is absurd, if it is not divine;
  
• The number and evidence of His miracles, recognized even by His most violent enemies;
  
• The power of His Cross;
  
• The events of His ineffable Passion, all foretold beforehand;
  
• His glorious Resurrection, announced at fourteen different times by Him to His disciples, and the unbelief even of His Apostles, whom actual evidence compelled to believe in the truth of the Resurrection of their Master;
  
• His ascension into heaven, in the sight of more than five hundred witnesses;
  
• The supernatural development of His Church, in spite of so many natural impossibilities, both physical and moral;
  
• The resplendent miracles which accompanied, all over the earth, the teachings of the apostles, ignorant and timid fishermen, changed suddenly into doctors and conquerors of the world;
  
• The superhuman strength of His nine millions of martyrs;
  
• The genius of the Fathers of the Church, crushing all errors, by the mere exposition of the Christian faith;
  
• The holy lives of true Christians, opposed to the corruption and natural weakness of men;
  
• The social transformation which Christianity has operated, and still in our day operates, in all the countries where it penetrates;
  
• Finally, its duration, the immutability of its dogmas, of its constitution, of its Catholic hierarchy; its indissoluble unity in the midst of the empires which are crumbling away, of societies which are daily changing; all show us that the finger of God is here, and that it is not in the power of man to conceive, to create, or to preserve a similar work.
  

There is then, you see, a true religion, one only, the Christian religion.

It alone is religion, that is to say, the sacred tie which attaches us to God, our Creator and Father.

It is the only one which transmits to us true religious doctrine, that which God teaches us with regard to Himself, His nature, and works, with regard to ourselves, our eternal destinies, our moral duties.

All other pretended religions, which teach what Christianity rejects, and reject what Christianity teaches, Paganism, Judaism,* Mohammedanism, whatsoever they may be called, are then false, and, consequently, bad.

They are human inventions, while religion is a divine institution. They are only sacrilegious imitations of true religion, as false coin is the dishonest imitation of the genuine.

Would it not be preposterous to say, "All pieces of money are good," without distinguishing the real from the counterfeit?
It would be more preposterous still to repeat henceforth that phrase of which we have just been proving the folly, "All religions are good."

Either it is a piece of heinous impiety, or of prodigious absurdity; of impiety, if said from indifference; of folly, if from ignorance or heedlessness.