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


THIRTY-FIRST OBJECTION. GOD HAS FORESEEN FROM ALL ETERNITY WHETHER I SHALL BE SAVED OR LOST. I MAY DO WHAT I WILL; I CANNOT CHANGE MY DESTINY.

Answer. Suppose your wife were to say to you, "My dear, God has foreseen from all eternity whether you will dine to-day or not. I may do what I will; it will happen as God has foreseen. I go, therefore, to take a promenade, and your dinner will prepare itself as it may."

Or if one of your children were to say, "My dear papa, God has foreseen from all eternity whether I shall work to-day or play the truant. Do what I will, I cannot change my destiny; so I will go and amuse myself, instead of going to school."

I think you would not be puzzled to reply to them, and especially to bring them to reason.

What you would reply to your wife and child, I will now reply to you.

The fore-knowledge of God does not destroy our liberty. And although our feeble reason cannot thoroughly solve this great mystery, it still knows enough about it to be certain of its truth.

1. First, we have all an inward conviction, in spite of all arguments, all sophistries, that we are free in all our resolutions.

I feel in writing these lines that it depends on my will, to place one word here instead of another, to continue or break off my work, etc. You who are reading, you feel, and nothing can convince you to the contrary, that it depends on yourself whether to read this book or close it, to sing or to be silent, to rise or remain seated, etc. You and I, then, are free agents.

2. In the second place, is it as difficult, really, as it appears, to reconcile our moral liberty with the fore-knowledge of God? I do not think it is, and I only see in it a question of words.

We measure God by our standard, we speak of Him as of ourselves. We invest Him in our minds with our weaknesses; and thereby create for ourselves chimerical difficulties.

There is not, to say truth, any prescience in God. Prescience or foresight is to see beforehand, to see what will one day happen. To foresee is to suppose a future, not yet arrived. Now there is neither future nor succession of time with God, but an eternal and immutable present. The past and future exist only for finite beings subject to change. We, human creatures, foresee; but that is just one of the imperfections of our being. God, the perfect being, sees, He does not foresee.

He sees us act. Now I never heard of any one saying, that the actual knowledge that God possesses of our actions was in any way a restraint on our liberty. Very well, my friend, God has no other but that.

This appears to me very simple, very easy to comprehend. There now only remains the mystery of God's eternity and immutability, or rather, the mystery of His existence. But who would ever be mad enough to say, I refuse to believe in God, because I cannot comprehend the infinite? Use, then, your liberty, under the eye of a merciful God, who will render to every man according to his works.

[Stone]

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


THIRTY-SECOND OBJECTION. IT IS NOT WHAT GOES INTO THE MOUTH THAT DEFILES THE SOUL. GOD WILL NEVER DAMN ME FOR A MORSEL OF MEAT. MEAT IS NO WORSE ON FRIDAYS THAN ON OTHER DAYS.

Answer. You are quite right: it is not the meat which would condemn you; meat is as harmless one day as another. What does condemn you is disobedience, which is the cause of your eating meat on those days.

The wrong done on Friday is the violation of a law which does not exist for other days; it is the revolt against the legitimate authority of those pastors whom we ought to obey as representing Him who sends them: "Go, I send you forth. He who heareth you heareth Me; he who despiseth you despiseth Me."

It is not, then, a question of any particular food or day, or of the palate; but of the sin incurred by refusing to obey a law at once obligatory and easy to keep.

Besides the great and general motive for observing all the laws of the Church, we may further urge that these laws are not made at random, or through caprice; they are based on solid and important reasons.

Thus the law of abstinence, the application of which occurs every week, is designed to recall incessantly to the Christian's recollection the Passion, sufferings, and death of the Saviour, as well as the necessity of doing penance; it is the public practice of penance among Christians, etc.

None but the ignorant and superficial can regard this institution as useless. It is incredible how efficacious in practice is this simple observance of abstinence on Fridays in retaining the soul within the sacred influence of religious ideas.

The laws of the Church, although binding on pain of sin, are far from being harsh or tyrannical. The Church is a Mother, not an imperious mistress. It is quite sufficient that serious and legitimate reasons prevent your observing abstinence, to insure its dispensation in your case. The Church desires to do you good, not to do you harm. She desires to make you expiate your sins, not to make you ill. Illness, weakness of constitution, the fatigues of constant hard labor, extreme poverty, great difficulty in procuring abstinence fare; such are the reasons which dispense with this law.

To avoid any mistake, however, it is better to consult beforehand your parish priest or confessor, who are the proper interpreters of the law.

This observation, which extends to all the laws of the Church, shows how wise and moderate is the authority which enacts them. Let us, then, respect this authority from the bottom of our hearts; let us leave those to laugh who know nothing about it, while we fulfil, without murmuring, commandments so simple, so judicious, and so profitable for our souls.