FRANCIS BACON

“God has this attribute that He is a jealous God; and therefore His worship and religion will endure no mixture nor partner.”

(Bacon, 1875, 10)

"It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy brings about man's mind to religion: for while the mind of man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them, and go no further; but when it beholdeth the chain of them confederate and linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and Deity."

(Ibid., 64)

“They that deny a God destroy man's nobility; for certainly man is of kin to the beasts in his body; and, if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature.”

(Ibid., 67)

“It is better to have no opinion of God at all, than such an opinion as is unworthy of him: for the one is unbelief the other is contumely; and certainly superstition is the reproach of the Deity.”

(Ibid., 68

HENRI BERGSON

“God Who effectively reveals Himself, Who illuminates and warms privileged souls with His presence.”

(Bergson, 1933, 214)

“When nations at war each declare that they have God on their side, the deity in question thus becoming the national god of paganism, whereas the God they imagine they are evoking is a God common to all mankind, the mere vision of Whom, could all men but attain it, would mean the immediate abolition of war.”

(Ibid., 215)

“Those who have, from afar off, bowed their head to the mystic word, because they have heard a faint echo of it within themselves, will not remain indifferent to its message.”

(Ibid., 215)

CESARE BECCARIA

"In short, others have imagined, that the greatness of the sin should aggravate the crime. But the fallacy of this opinion will appear on the slightest consideration of the relations between man and man, and between God and man. The relations between man and man are relations of equality. Necessity alone hath produced, from the opposition of private passions and interests, the idea of public utility, which is the foundation of human justice. The other are relations of dependence, between an imperfect creature and his Creator, the most perfect of beings, who has reserved to himself the sole right of being both lawgiver and judge; for he alone can, without injustice, be, at the same time, both one and the other. If he hath decreed eternal punishments for those who disobey his will, shall an insect dare to put himself in the place of divine justice, or pretend to punish for the Almighty, who is himself all sufficient, who cannot receive impressions of pleasure or pain, and who alone, of all other beings, acts without being acted upon? The degree of sin depends on the malignity of the heart, which is impenetrable to finite beings. How then can the degree of sin serve as a standard to determine the degree of crimes? If that were admitted, men may punish when God pardons, and pardon when God condemns; and thus act in opposition to the Supreme Being."

Beccaria, Cesare, Of Crimes and Punishments, Chapter 7.

<http://www.la.utexas.edu/research/poltheory/beccaria/delitti/delitti.c07.html> (28 January, 2007).

BRUNO GIORDANO

“Cause , Principle, Eternal Unity,

On which all being, motion and life depend:

In length, in breath, in depth your powers extend

As far as heaven and earth and hell may be--

With sense, with reason, and with spirit I’ve seen

That reckoning, measure and act can’t comprehend

The force, the number and mass, which, with no end,

Pass all that’s low or high or set between.”

(Bruno, 1962, 55)

“The Universal Intellect is the innermost, most real and essential faculty and the most efficacious part of the word-soul. It is the one and the same thing, which fills the whole, illumines the universe, and directs nature in producing her species in the right way. It plays the same role in the production of natural things as our intellect does in the parallel production of rational systems.”

(Ibid., 81)

TOMMASO CAMPANELLA

I believe in God, Power, Wisdom, Love,

One, Life, Truth, Goodness, Infinite,

First Cause, King of all Kings and Creator.

(Tuscano, 1996, 160)

He who rises to the love of the common Father

Esteemeth all men as brothers.

(Ibid., 120)

It is up to Thee, Oh Lord,

If you have not created me in vain,

To be my saviour

That is why night and day

I supplicate Thee with tears.

When will Thou finally hear me?

I have no more words to say,

But the chains that surround me,

They laugh and ridicule me

For my vain prayers,

My dry ears and tired supplications.

(Ibid., 135-136)

I come to Thee, most mighty Lord,

All knowing God.

Most loving First Cause and One:

Be merciful on our ancient sin;

(Ibid., 141)

Thou, who with strength and love sustain

And move all bodies similar and diverse

Ordained to that end, so that I would discover

fate and the harmony of all laws;

If it is true that I pray for that which Thou correct

Which is not decreed in the eternal verses,

But only the perverse and prosperous times

To quicken or be tardy in the privileges.

So do I pray, that for many years I find myself

Of fools and wicked fable and aim,

And new accusations and sorrow today I feel,

Give relief and shorten these many trials.

(Ibid., 134)

Have mercy on me, Lord, if Thou can

Make short and light the evil

Without interfering with Thy lofty plans.

(Ibid., 140)

RENE` DESCARTES

“The existence of God is the first and the most eternal of all truths that exist and the only one from which proceed all others.”

(Descartes, 1963, 265)

“It is certain that He is the author of the essence as well as the existence of His creatures.”

(Ibid., 267)

“I know that God is the author of all things . . . I said that I know , not that I think nor that I understand; because we know that God is infinite and omnipotent.”

(Ibid., 267)

“God brings everything to its perfection.”

(Ibid., 269)

“It is absolutely necessary to conclude . . . that God exists.”

(Descartes, 1950, P. 54)

“By the name of God, I understand a substance infinite, eternal, immutable, independent, all knowing, all powerful and by which I myself, and everything there is that exists, if any such there be, were created.”

(Ibid., P. 54)

“This idea of God is very clear and distinct, and contains in itself more objective reality than any other.”

(Ibid., P. 55)

“Anything more perfect, or even equal to God, cannot be thought or imagined.”

(Ibid., P. 57)

“The substance which we understand to be supremely perfect, and which we conceive nothing that involves any defect, or limitation of perfection, is called God.”

(Ibid., P. 216)

JOHAN FICHTE

“By the renunciation of the earthly, does faith in the Eternal first arise in our soul, and is there enshrined apart, as the only support to which we can cling after we have given up all else, -- as the only animating principle that can elevate our minds and inspire our lives.”

(Fichte, 1965, 145)

“Only through the Common Fountain of our spiritual being do we know of each other; only in Him do we recognize each other, and influence each other.”

(Ibid, 1965, 156)

“The Eternal Will is thus assuredly the Creator of the world, in the only way in which He can be so, and in the only way in which it needs creation: in the finite reason.”

(Ibid., 157)

“In the contemplation of these Thy relations to me, the finite being, will I rest in calm blessedness. I know immediately what I ought to do. This will I do freely, joyfully , and without cavilling and sophistry, for it is Thy voice which commands me to do it; it is the part assigned to me in the spiritual World-plan; and the power with which I shall perform it is Thy power . Whatever may be commanded by that voice, whatever executed by that power, is, in that plan, assuredly and truly good. I remain tranquil amid all the events of this world, for they are in Thy world. Nothing can perplex or surprise, or dishearten me, as surely as Thou livest, and can look upon Thy life. For in Thee and through Thee, O Infinite One! Do I behold even my present world in another light. Nature, and natural consequences, are opposed to Thee, become empty, unmeaning words. Nature is no longer; Thou, only Thou, art.”

(Ibid., 162)

”My entire complete vocation I cannot comprehend; what I shall be hereafter transcends my thoughts. A part of that vocation is concealed from me; it is visible only to One, to the Father of Spirits, to whose care it is committed. I know only that it is sure, and that it is eternal and glorious like Himself.”

(Ibid., 165)

“Now that my heart is closed against all desire for earthly things, now that I have no longer any sense for the transitory and perishable, the universe appears before my eyes clothed in more glorious form. The dead heavy mass, which only filled up space, has vanished; and in its place there flows inward, with the rushing music of mighty waves, an eternal stream of life and power and action, which issues from the original Source of all life--from Thy life, and only the religious eye penetrates to the realm of True Beauty.”

(Ibid., 172)

“Thy life, as alone the finite mind can conceive it, is self-forming, self-manifesting Will: -- this Life, clothed to the eye of the mortal with manifold sensuous forms, flows forth through me and throughout the immeasurable universe of Nature. Here it streams as self-creating and self-forming matter through my veins and muscles, and pours its abundance into the tree, the flower, the grass. Creative life flows forth in one continuous stream drop on drop, through all forms and into all places where my eye can follow it; and reveals itself to me, in a different shape in each various corner of the universe, as the same power by which in secret darkness my own frame was formed. There, in free play, it leaps and dances as spontaneous motion in the animal, and manifests itself in each new form as anew, peculiar, self-subsisting world:-

the same power which, invisibly to me, moves and animates my own frame. Everything that lives and moves follows this universal impulse, this one principle of all motion, which, from one end of the universe to the other, guides the harmonious movement.”

(Ibid, 172-173)

HEGEL

“Absolute knowledge . . . must not remain in its immediacy as an inner feeling or as a vague faith in an indefinite abstract being-in general, but must proceed to comprehend the Absolute in the mythical term ‘God.’ To know God is not above comprehension, but is above reason which is the knowledge of things finite and relative.”

(Hegel, 277)

“God is the absolute spirit: In its non-mythical truth, it is the pure dialectical essence of all Being which objectifies itself in its own otherness, by means of which it returns eternally to itself; it maintains its identity in and through its non-absolute and finite manifestations.”

(Ibid., 278)

“God is holy is that absolute whole which has nothing alien outside of itself; which has no ‘temptation.’ He is absolute power insofar as He actualizes its concrete wholeness in all individuations.”

(Ibid., 278)

“Sin is alienation from God. The human individual abuses his freedom in declaring his independence from the whole and in striving and clinging to his finite exclusiveness as if he were absolute in and for himself.

But this very freedom to sin, is and remains nevertheless a divine gift. Even in evil, the divine and human nature are not totally alienated. This truth assumes man of divine grace. He may grasp it whereby the reconciliation of God with the world comes to pass and the alienation of man from God is cancelled.

To ‘serve God’ means that the individual strives to effect this unity with God, not only by concentrating his thoughts and feelings on Him in order to receive the assurance of being affirmed in the divine will, but also by proving in its actual life with other individuals that his will and intention is in conformity with the divine will.”

(Ibid., 278)

“Forgiveness of sin is the core of man's relationship to God: I identify myself with the divine love and accept myself in this knowledge that God is love . . .

The love of God for man and the love of man for God is the eternal life in which one's temporal nothingness is both annihilated and affirmed.”

(Ibid., 279)

“The Absolute is the One which distinguishes its many contrary spheres within itself; manifests itself in that which is not and which eternally restores its fullness and unity in and through and out of its appearing and individuated processes.”

(Ibid., 281)

“The Absolute is not only the essential ground of world- spheres such as nature and history; it is also the ground of each individual in his personal uniqueness.”

(Ibid., 282)

“The metaphysical lie and radical evil is this; a finite will pretends to play God. This existential untruth does not touch or remove the ontological truth that the mortal individual is dependent upon, cancelled by, and preserved and justified in the Eternal Being. Sin, which is negativity and destroys itself, is as nothing in the Absolute; also the Absolute affirms itself in it. It is the ‘forgiveness of sin.’ In repentance the infinite sorrow about the negativity of the self is the return to the unbroken wholeness and holiness of the Absolute; in the true repentance, the concrete unity of the universal and the individual exist for itself. In the mythical Christian language: The ‘son takes the sin of the world upon himself;’ the sin is undone in His absolute sacrifice.”

(Ibid., 282-283)

“For God . . . is that Being in whom Spirit and Nature are united, in whom intelligence at the same time also has being and shape.”

(Ibid., 8)

“Thus God alone is truth.”

(Ibid., 13)

“God is subjectivity, activity, infinite actuosity.”

(Ibid., 15)

“Nature is the representation of the idea, one may, and indeed ought, to admire in it the wisdom of God.”

(Ibid., 17)

“God is the beginning of all things, and the end of all things. As all things precede from this point, so all return back.”

(Hegel, 1895, P. 2)

“God is essential self-consciousness.”

(Ibid., P. 211)

“God in His universality . . . in which there is no limitation,

no finiteness, no particularity, is the absolute self-subsisting being and the only self-subsisting being; and what subsists has its roots, its subsistence, in this one alone.”

(Ibid., P. 92)

“God is Spirit, the Absolute Spirit, the Eternally Undifferentiated Spirit, essentially at home with Himself.”

(Ibid., P. 92)

“To think of God means to rise above what is sensuous, external and individual. It means to rise up to what is pure, to that which is in unity with itself; it is a going forth above and beyond the sensuous, beyond what belongs to the sphere of the senses into the pure regions of the universal. And this region is thought.”

(Ibid., P. 95

“All is God.”

(Ibid., P. 96)

“God, who is alone the true reality.”

(Ibid., P. 98)

“In God there is no evil.”

(Ibid., P. 98)

“God is good, and good alone.”

(Ibid., P.99)

“God is the One absolutely self-sufficient Being.”

(Ibid., P. 99)

IMMANUEL KANT

“The world depends on a Supreme Being, but the things in the world all mutually depend on one another. Taken together they constitute a complete whole.”

(Kant, 22)

“The sum total of all possible knowledge of God is not possible for a human being, not even through a true revelation. But it is one of the worthiest inquiries to see how far our reason can go in the knowledge of God.”

(Ibid., 23)

“But if we ask who has so firmly established the laws of nature and who has limited its operations, then we will come to God as the supreme cause of the entirety of reason and nature.”

(Ibid., 25)

“Our knowledge is only a shadow in comparison with the greatness of God, and our powers are far transcended by Him.”

(Ibid., 26)

“That the world created by God is the best all possible worlds, is clear for the following reason. If a better world than the one willed by God were possible, then a will better than the Divine Will would also have to be possible. For indisputably that Divine Will is better which chooses what is better. But if a better will is possible, then so this Being who could express this better will. And therefore this being would be more perfect and better than God. But this is a contradiction; for God is Omnitudo Realitatis.”

(Ibid., 137)

“God created the world for His honor’s sake because it is only through the obedience to His holy laws that God can be honored. For what does it mean to honor God? What, if not to serve Him? But how can He be served? Certainly not by trying to entice His favor by rendering Him all sorts of praise. For such praise is best only a means for preparing our hearts to a good disposition. Instead, the service of God consists simply and solely in following His will and observing His holy laws and commands.”

(Ibid., 143)

“God's omnipresence is not local, but virtual. That is, God's power operates constantly and everywhere in all things.”

(Ibid., 151)

“God has no need of experience at all. He knows everything a priori, because He Himself created everything He cares for; and everything is possible only through Him. Hence God formulated the laws governing the world in light of a true acquaintance with every single event which would be given in the course of it. And in the establishment of the world's course He certainly had the greatest possible perfection in view, because God Himself is the all wise and is All in all.”

(Ibid., 153)

“It is enough that everything is subject to God's direction. This is sufficient for us to place an immeasurable trust in God.”

(Ibid., 154)

“God is the only ruler of the world. He governs as a monarch, but not as a despot; for He wills to have His commands observed out of love, and not out of servile fear. Like a father, He orders what is good for us, and does not command out of mere arbitrariness, like a tyrant. God even demands of us that we reflect on the reason for His commandments, and He insists on our observing them because He wants first to make us worthy of happiness and then participate in it. God' s will is benevolence, and His purpose is what is best. If God commands something for which we cannot see the reason, then this is because of the limitation of our knowledge, and not because of the nature of the commandment itself. God carries out his rulership of the world alone. For He surveys everything with one glance. And certainly e may often use wholly incomprehensible means to carry out His benevolent aims.”

(Ibid., 156)

“The righteous man fears God without being afraid of Him, because he regards the case of his wishing to resist God and His commandments as one which need cause him no anxiety. But in every such case, regarded him as not intrinsically possible he cognizes Him as one to be feared.”

(Kant, 1986, 217)

“But whence do we have the concept of God as the highest good? Solely from the idea of moral perfection which reason formulates a priori and which it inseparably connects with the concept of a free will.”

(Ibid., 75)

“God will compensate for our lack of justice, provided our intention was genuine; That He will do so by means that are inconceivable to us, and that, therefore, we should not relent in our endeavor after good.”

(Ibid., 288)

KIERKEGAARD

“It seems to me that the same discovery which Copernicus made in astronomy was made in dogmatics when it discovered that God is not the one who changes, but that man changes his position in relationship to God-in other words: the sun does not go around the earth, but the earth goes around the sun.”

(Kierkegaard, 1970, 86)

“So impossible is for the world to continue without God that if God were able to forget the world it would instantly disappear.”

(Ibid., 87)

“God’s providence is great precisely in small things; whereas for men there is something lacking here-just as lace seen through a microscope is irregular and unlovely, but the texture of nature under the same scrutiny proves to be more and more ingenious.”

(Ibid., 87)

“God creates out of nothing-marvellous you say. Yes, of course, but He does something more marvellous - He creates saints out of sinners.”

(Ibid., 88)

“Who are you who wants to make your Lord and God as finite as yourself are? He for whom 1,000 years is as a day. Remember that you are created in His image and according to His likeness, and this is the highest, the most glorious thing that can be said -and you wilfully and arbitrarily want to create Him in your image and form Him according to your own likeness.”

(Ibid., 88)

“You felt that there is a love which transcends all sense and understanding, and that this love is not the love with which you love God but the love with which God loves you.”

(Ibid., 89)

“All other religions are indirect .Their founder sets himself aside and introduces another in his place; ... Christianity only is a direct expression ( I am the truth).”

(Wahl, 1967, 516)

“Christianity is the second creation, a new moment, faith that is the immediate conscience of the second stage.”

(Ibid., 519)

“I know that nothing in the world can separate me from Jesus Christ, our Lord.”

(Ibid., 519)

“Man must, according to Christian doctrine, pass to God, not a pantheistic illusion, not by a loss of individual traits in a Divine ocean, but by an intensified conscience.”

(Ibid., 534)

“I have a child-father relationship with Providence.”

(Ibid., 543)

“What is special about my relationship with God is the fact that it is a relationship based on reflection.”

(Ibid., 543)

“God is infinite love, given that He does not land abruptly on a man. No, He seizes gently. It’s a slow operation ; an education.”

(Ibid., 544)

“If I am infinitely nothing. Then, it is sure that God loves me. Because, before God, I am less than nothing, it is, therefore, more sure that God loves me.”

(Ibid., 564)

“God created everything from nothing and everything that God will use, was initially nothing.”

(Ibid., 564)

“I am seeing evermore clearly that all who God has loved . . . all had to suffer in the world . . . This is the Christian doctrine: being loved of God means loving God and suffering,”

(Ibid., 564)

“Suffering is a sign of our relationship with God and of the love of God.”

(Ibid., 564)

“ When Christ cried ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ it was a terrible moment for Christ. But, I believe, that it was more terrible for God to hear His cry. Immutable Being, Love Being, what infinite sadness, deep, incomprehensible.”

(Ibid., 565)

“You, God, full of love, you who sees the secrets of the hearts.”

(Ibid., 508)

“Christ, the greatest of all heroes.”

(Ibid., 520)

“He who sees his brother suffer in need and does not help him, excludes God from his heart.”

(Ibid., 565)

“God is infinitely distant from selfishness. He is absolute selflessness.”

(Ibid., 567)

“Worldly wisdom teaches that love in the relationship between man and man. Christianity teaches that love is the relationship between man and God.”

(Ibid., 604)

“It is not the greatness of power, or wisdom, that determines the level of our relationship with God. The most powerful is in the greatest of weaknesses . . . The most powerful is he who joins his hands.”

(Ibid., 608)

“He who is totally weak, it is in him that God is strong.”

(Ibid., 608)

“What you do to others God will do to you.”

(Ibid., 610)

“Christianity consists in the consciousness of the immediate relationship that men always have with God.”

(Masi, 1971, 184)

“The love for God and for the neighbor are two doors that open simultaneously : It is important to open one without opening the other. It is important to close one without closing the other.”

(Ibid., 186)

“Christianity teaches categorically that enemies must be loved, since even a pagan loves his friends. Love for one’s enemies is only possible by God, because we love God . . . When we love our enemies we show the evidence that we fear and love God, only thus he can be loved.”

(Ibid., 186)

“For as long as a man does not understand how great a sinner he is, he cannot love God . . . he cannot understand what a great sinner he is.”

(Ibid., 188)

“In loving God you become one with God.”

(Ibid., 190)

GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ

"For what greater master can we find than God, the author of the universe? And what more beautiful hymn can we sing to Him than one in which the witness of things themselves expresses His praise. But the more one can give reasons for His love, the more one loves God . . . Nor should we think that anything is badly arranged in the universe or that God neglects those who honor Him."

(Leibniz, 1976, 280)

"Therefore power and knowledge are perfections and insofar as they belong to God, have no limits. Hence it follows that God, who possesses supreme and infinite wisdom, acts in the most perfect way and does this not only in a metaphysical but also in a moral sense. With respect to ourselves we can also express this as follows: the more enlightened and informed we are about the works of God, the more we shall be inclined to find them excellent and in entire conformity with everything which might have been desired."

(Ibid., 304)

"I hold, instead, that God does nothing for which He does not deserve to be praised."

(Ibid., 305)

"That the love of God requires our entire satisfaction with and acquiescence in that which He has done. The general knowledge of this great truth, that God always acts in the most perfect and most desirable way possible, is in my opinion the basis of the love which we owe to God above all things, since he who loves seeks his satisfaction in the felicity or perfection of the object loved and of his actions."

(Ibid., 305)

"I believe that it is difficult to love God truly if, having power to change his inclination, one is not inclined to will what He wills. In fact, those who are not satisfied with what He does seem to me like discontented subjects whose intentions are not very different from those of rebels."

(Ibid., 305)

"Since He is the best of all masters, He never demands more than righteous intentions, and it is for Him to know the proper hour and place for making our good designs successful."

(Ibid., 305)

"It is enough, then, to have this confidence in God that He does everything for the best and that nothing can harm those who love Him. But to understand the reasons in particular which have moved Him to choose this order of the universe - to allow sin to be committed, to dispense His saving grace in a certain way - this surpasses the powers of a finite mind, especially if this mind has not yet attained the blessedness of the vision of God."

(Ibid., 305)

"But it is well to understand that God does nothing without order. So Whatever passes for extraordinary is so only in relation to some particular order established among creatures. For as concerns universal order, everything is in conformity with it. So true is this that not only does nothing happen in the world which is absolutely irregular but one cannot even imagine such an event."

(Ibid., 306)

"Thus we may say that no matter how God might have created the world, it would always have been regular and in a certain general order."

(Ibid., 306)

"But God has chosen the world which is the most perfect, that is to say, which is at the same time the simplest in its hypotheses and the richest in phenomena."

(Ibid., 306)

"Now it is clear, first of all, that the created substances depend on God, who preserves them and indeed even produces them continually by a kind of emanation, as we produce our thoughts."

(Ibid., 311)

"Since every person or substance is like a little world which expresses the great one, we can say equally that this extraordinary action of God upon this substance is always miraculous, though it is included in the general order of the universe insofar as that order is expressed by the essence or individual concept of this substance."

(Ibid., 313)

"For God always aims at the best and the most perfect."

(Ibid., 315-316)

"God is an artisan skillful enough to produce a machine a thousand times more ingenious than that of our bodies, by using nothing but rather simple fluids formed expressly in such a way that only the ordinary laws of nature are needed to give them the organization necessary to produce so admirable an effect. But this is true also that this would not happen if God were not the Author of nature. "

(Ibid., 317)

"For it appears most clearly that all the other substances depend on God as our thoughts emanate from our substance, and that God is all in all, that he is closely united with all his creatures, yet in proportion with their perfection, and that it is he alone who determines them from without through his influence."

(Ibid., 324)

"We must consider God, not only as the principle and cause of all substances and all beings, but also as the head of all persons or intelligent substances and the absolute monarch of

the most perfect city or state, such as is the universe composed of all spirits together, God Himself being the most perfect of all spirits, as well the greatest of all beings.”

(Ibid., 327)

"Everything works for the greatest good of those who are good, and the righteous shall be as the suns, so that neither our senses nor our spirit has ever tasted anything approaching the happiness which God has prepared for those who love Him."

(Ibid., 328)

JACQUES MARITAIN

"God does not leave man to the weakness of his fallen nature; grace, before healing and vivifying man anew, is still present to envelop and attract him, to call him and incite him in anticipation. Our fallen nature is exposed to grace as our tired bodies are to the rays of the sun."

(Maritain, 1953, 73)

"God does not refuse His grace to one who acts to the best of his own ability; but it is under the action of grace that man prepares to receive grace."

(Ibid., 74)

"What is needed first and foremost is a rediscovery of Being, and by the same token a rediscovery of love. This means axiomatically, a rediscovery of God."

(Ibid., 87)

"And I see that the universal whole, whose part I am, is Being-with-nothingness, from the very fact that I am part of it; so that finally, since the universal whole does not exist by itself, there is another Whole, a separate one, another Being, transcendent and self-sufficient and unknown in itself and activating all beings, which is Being-without-nothingness, that is, self-subsisting Being, Being existing through itself.

Thus, the inner dynamism of the intuition of existence or of the intelligible value of Being, causes me to see that absolute existence or Being-without-nothingness transcends the totality of nature-and makes me face the existence of God."

(Ibid., 89)

"There are pseudo-atheists who believe that they do not believe in God and who in reality unconsciously believe in Him, because the God whose existence they deny is not God but something else. There are practical atheists who believe that they believe in God ( and who perhaps believe in Him in their brains) but who in reality deny His existence by each one of their deeds. There are absolute atheists who actually deny the existence of the very God in Whom the believers believe and who are bound to change entirely their own scale of values and to destroy in themselves everything that connotes His name."

(Ibid., 97)

JOHN STUART MILL

“ In voluntary action alone we see a commencement, an origination of motion; since all other causes appear incapable of this origination experience is in favour of the conclusion that all the motion in existence owed this beginning to this one cause, voluntary agency, if not that of man, then of a more powerful being.”

(Mill, 1969, 437)

“Among the facts of the universe to be accounted for, it may be said, is mind; and it is self evident that nothing can have produced Mind but Mind.”

(Ibid., 439)

“I think it must be allowed that, in the present state of our knowledge, the adaptations in nature afford a large balance of probability in favour of creation by intelligence.”

(Ibid., 450)

BLAISE PASCAL

"Let him contemplate all nature in its awful and finished magnificence; let him observe that splendid luminary, set forth as an eternal lamp to enlighten the universe; let him view the earth as a mere speck within the vast circuit described by that luminary; let him think with amazement, that this vast circuit itself is only a minute point , compared with that formed by the revolutions of the stars . . . All that we see in of the creation, is but an almost imperceptible streak in the vast expanse of the universe. No idea can approximate its immense extent . . . This is an infinite sphere, the centre of which is everywhere, but its circumference nowhere. In short, it is one of the greatest sensible evidences of the almightiness of God, that our imagination is overwhelmed by these reflections."

(Pascal, 2)

"Let man reverting to himself, consider what he is compared with all that exists. Let him behold himself a wanderer in this secluded province of nature, and by what he can see from the little dungeon in which he finds himself lodged, (I mean the visible universe), let him learn to make a right estimate of the earth, its kingdoms, its cities and himself."

(Ibid, 2-3)

"All things have sprung from nothing and are borne forward to infinity. Who can follow out such an astonishing career? The Author of these wonders, and He alone, can comprehend them."

(Ibid, 5)

"The stoics said, retire into yourselves, there you will find repose: but this was not true;-others said, Go out of yourselves and seek for happiness in amusement: and this ,too, was wrong. There are diseases ready to destroy these delusions: happiness can be found neither in ourselves nor in external things, but in God and in ourselves as united to Him."

(Ibid, 11-12)

"I perceive it is possible I might not have existed, for my essence consists in the thinking principle; therefore I, this thinking being, should never have existed, had my mother been killed before I was animated:- then I am not a necessary being. Nor am I eternal or infinite, but I see plainly, that there is in nature , a necessary, eternal, and infinite Being.

"(Ibid, 13)

"Whatever we behold, marks neither the total absence nor the unveiled manifestation of the Deity, His divinity would beam fort, from all parts of it, with unshaded splendour."

(Ibid, 132)

"It is invariably true, that he equally conceals

Himself from those who tempt Him, and manifests

Himself to those who seek Him."

(Ibid, 133)

"Every thing in the world shows either the unhappy condition of man, or the mercy of God;

either the weakness of man without God, or the power of man assisted by God. The whole universe bears witness to the corruption or the redemption of man. Every thing betokens His grandeur or His degradation. The withdrawment of God is seen among the Pagan; the protection of God is seen among the Jews.

(Ibid, 134)

Instead of complaining that God is so concealed, it is the duty of men to bless Him, that He has so far revealed Himself, and also, that He has not discovered Himself to the worldly wise, or to the proud, who are unworthy to know so holy a God.

(Ibid, 137)

PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA

"Now the highest Father, God the master-builder, had, by the laws of His secret wisdom, fabricated this house, this world which we see, a very superb temple of divinity. He had adorned the super-celestial region with minds. He had animated the super-celestial globes with eternal souls; He had filled with a diverse throng of animals the cast-off and residual parts of the lower world. But, with the work finished, the Artisan desired that there be someone to reckon up the reason of such a big work, to love its beauty, and to wonder at its greatness."

(Pico Della Mirandola, 1940, 4)

"We may truly say that God is not being, but is above being, and that something is higher than being, that is, God, and since the title One is given to God, we may consequently say that He is the One above being."

(Ibid., 45)

"God is all things, and is all things most eminently and most perfectly. This would not be unless He so included the perfections of all things in Himself that He excluded from Himself whatever pertains to imperfections in things."

(Ibid., 47)

"God is infinite perfections of every sort."

(Ibid., 48)

"God is being itself, the one itself, the good itself, the, likewise, truth itself."

(Ibid., 49)

"The wisdom is not more wisdom than justice, and the justice of God is not more justice than wisdom, and likewise life is not more life in Him than knowledge, nor knowledge more knowledge than life. All these are one in God."

(Ibid., 51)

"God is not only that than which no greater can be conceived...but He is that which is infinitely greater than everything than can be thought, as David the prophet truly says according to the Hebrew text: 'Silence is to praise you.'"

(Ibid., 53)

"God is most true."

(Ibid., 59)

"We conceive God as the university of all act, the plenitude of existence."

(Ibid., 59)

"God is the fullest being, individual unity, most solid truth, most blessed good."

(Ibid., 60)

JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU

(From a letter to Voltaire)

"...forgive me, great man my fervour which is perhaps indiscreet,... but the question at issue is the cause of Providence, which only is my solace... I have suffered too much in my life not to look forward to another. Not all the subtleties of metaphysics can shake for one moment my belief in a beneficent Providence. I sense the existence of Providence, I believe in it, I insist on it, I hope for it, I shall defend it to my last breath..."

(Guelhemo, 1966, 351)

“If God exists, He is perfect; if He is perfect He is wise, powerful and just; if He is wise and powerful, everything is for the best.”

(Ibid, 350)

"An intelligent being, is the active principle of all things. One must have renounced common sense to doubt it, and it is a waste of time to try to prove such self evident truth."

(Russeau, 1973)

"I will never know Him by His being. I can only, therefore, study Him by His attributes."

(Burgelin, 1973, 407)

"(The Bible) is in my opinion the most sublime of all books; when all others will bore me, I will always go back to it with new pleasure; and when all human consolations will be lacking, never have I vainly turned to its own."

(Ibid, 429)

"The blackboard of nature offers me harmony and proportion, that of human beings offers me confusion and disorder."Harmony reigns among the elements while men are in chaos! Animals are happy, their king only is miserable!"

(Ibid, 414)

"Worship the Eternal Being, . . . and by so doing in one breath you will destroy the ghosts of reason, that are nothing but a vain manifestation that runs as a shadow before the immutable truth. Nothing exists but by Him who is... it is His unchangeable substance that is the true model of perfections of which we have an image within ourselves.

(Ibid, 419)

“No, God of my soul, I will never blame you for having made him (man) in your image, so as to be free, good and happy as you are.”

(Ibid, 415)

"Therefore, a Being absolutely infinite, such as God, has from Himself an absolutely infinite power of existence, and hence He does absolutely exist.

"Therefore, we cannot be more certain of the existence of anything, than the existence of a being absolutely infinite or perfect -- that is, of God.

"As God is a being absolutely infinite, of whom no attribute that expresses the essence of substance can be denied, and He, necessarily exists, if any substance besides God were granted, it would have to be explained by some attribute of God, and thus, two substances with the same attribute would exist, which is absurd; therefore, besides God no substance can be granted, or, consequently, be conceived. If it could be conceived, it would, necessarily, have to be conceived as existent; but this...is absurd. Therefore, besides God no substance can be granted or conceived.

"Besides God no substance is granted or can be conceived.

"God is the efficient cause of all that can fall within the sphere of an infinite intellect.

"Without God nothing can be conceived.

"Wherefore the omnipotence of God has been displayed from all eternity, and will for all eternity remain in the same activity.

"The intellect of God is . . . the cause of things, both of their essence and of their existence.

"God and His attributes are eternal.

"God and His attributes are unchangeable.

"God must be the sole cause, inasmuch as to Him alone does existence appertain.

"Things have been brought into being by God in the highest perfection, inasmuch as they have necessarily followed from a most perfect nature.

"Whatsoever exists expresses God's nature or essence in an even conditioned matter; That is, whatsoever exists, expresses in an even conditioned manner God's power.

PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

“At that moment . . . I felt weighing on me the essential burden of an atom lost in the universe. If something helped me, it was hearing the evangelical voice . . . which said to me from the depths of the night: ‘It is me, do not fear.’

Yes, my God, I believe it: and I will believe it . . . It is You who is the origin of the spirit . . . It is also You who gives life . . . to the myriad influences that I am subject to . . . It is You that I meet . . . You who makes me participate in your being.”

(Teilhard De Chardin, 1957, 77)

“Oh Jesus Christ, you truly bring in your goodness and your humanity all the implacable grandness of the world. It is for this, for this ineffable synthesis brought about in you, which our experience and our thought has never dared to unite to worship: the elements of totality, unity, the multitude, the spirit and the substance, the infinite and the personal. It is for the indefinite contours that this complexity gives to your being and your actions, that my heart filled with cosmic realities, gives itself wholly to you.

I love you, Jesus . . . I love you for the transcendent and inexorable stability of your designs . . . I love you as the source, the active and life-giving centre, the end and the origin of the world.”

(Teilhard De Chardin, 79)

“God . . . is not far from us.”

(Ibid., 88)

“Yes, my God, I know and I will believe it very willingly . . . It is you who is at the origin of the soul . . . It is you who vivifies for me, with your omnipresence . . . the myriads of influences that I am always subject to . . . It is you that I meet, you who makes me participate with your being . . .”

(Ibid., 89)

SIMONE WEIL

"If we really love God, we necessarily think of Him as being, amongst other things, the soul of the world; for love is always connected with a body, and God has no other body which is offered to our senses except the universe itself.

Then each occurrence, whatever it may be, is like a touch on the part of God; each even, each thing that takes place, whether it be fortunate, unfortunate or unimportant from our particular point of view, is a caress of God's."

(Weil, 1956, 322)

"We should give God the strict minimum of place in our lives, that which it is absolutely impossible for us to refuse Him - and earnestly desire that one day, and as soon as possible, that strict minimum may become all."

(Ibid., 326)

"Christ . . . is truth itself."

(Panichas, 1977, 23)

"It is in affliction itself that the splendor of God's mercy shines, from its very depths, in the heart of its

inconsolable bitterness."

(Ibid., 107)

"I was brought up by my parents and my brother in a complete agnosticism, and I never made the slightest effort to depart from it; I never had the slightest desire to do so . . . In spite of that, ever since my birth . . . not one of my faults, not one of my imperfections really had the excuse of ignorance. I shall have to answer for everything in that day when the Lamb shall come in anger."

(Ibid., 111)

"Every existing thing is equally upheld in its existence by God's creative love. The friends of God should love Him to the point of merging their love into His with regard to all things here below."

(Ibid., 113)

"I do not need any hope or any promise to know that God is rich in mercy. I know the wealth of His with the certainty of experience; I have touched it."

(Ibid., 106)

LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN

"The good is what God orders."

(Brand, 1979, 164)

"The meaning of life, (I.e., the meaning of the world), we can call God. And connect with this the comparison of God to a father.”

(Ibid, 165)

“To pray is to think about the meaning of life...To believe in a God means to see the facts of the world are not the end of the matter. To believe in God means to see that life has a meaning."

(Ibid, 165)

“Certainly it is correct to say; conscience is the voice of God.”

(Wittgenstein, 1979, 75E)

“How things stand is God. God is how things stand.”

(Ibid, 79E)

“What we are dependent on we call God.”

(Ibid, 74E)

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THE GREATEST PHILOSOPHERS BELIEVED IN GOD

From the award-winning, God Seen Through the Eyes of the Greatest Minds.

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"Therefore, a Being absolutely infinite, such as God, has from Himself an absolutely infinite power of existence, and hence He does absolutely exist.

"Therefore, we cannot be more certain of the existence of anything, than the existence of a being absolutely infinite or perfect -- that is, of God.

"Besides God no substance is granted or can be conceived.

"God is the efficient cause of all that can fall within the sphere of an infinite intellect.

"Without God nothing can be conceived.

"Wherefore the omnipotence of God has been displayed from all eternity, and will for all eternity remain in the same activity.

"The intellect of God is . . . the cause of things, both of their essence and of their existence.

"God and His attributes are eternal.

"God and His attributes are unchangeable.

"God must be the sole cause, inasmuch as to Him alone does existence appertain.

"Things have been brought into being by God in the highest perfection, inasmuch as they have necessarily followed from a most perfect nature.

"Whatsoever exists expresses God's nature or essence in an even conditioned matter; That is, whatsoever exists, expresses in an even conditioned manner God's power.

PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN