1817 Oct. 26

Not Paul

Ch. Paul’s Doctrine

Doctrine not Paul’s

Faith as duty

At first sight it may well seem a paradox and that paradox an absurdity and that absurdity a gross one to say / suppose / that in every case the / any / human mind should be so constituted should have been brought into such a state and condition, that the grosser the absurdity of the / a / proposition, the greater the facility it found in obtaining admittance the more eagerly it were / would be / received and the more pertinaciously / obstinately / and inexorably it would be clung to and maintained and defended. This however is no more than the natural and not only the natural but the necessary consequence of a steady and consistent belief in the maxim notion or persuasion of the meritoriousness of faith. For the[?] proof as before.

In this temper of mind whatsoever be the mass or portion of discourse in which the tenets or positions which are to be taken for the subjects or objects of the persuasion in question, the mind / invention / is put upon the hunt for the most absurd and extravagant sense―the sense most unconformable / unconnected / to and irreconcileable with experience continual and universal experience that can be found.

For / In the pursuit of food for / the gratification of this appetite thus created for absurdity no subject is held sacred: the […?] purposes and decrees of the Almighty are taken in hand, and designs and resolves the most repugnant to all notions / conceptions / of benevolence and justice are ascribed to him.
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    Not Paul

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    The strength of a man’s faith is in proportion to the strength of the command obtained by his will over his judgment. But of the strength of that command the only assignable measure is the absurdity of the proposition which he has brought himself to believe.

    At the top of the scale of absurdity / absurd propositions / stands beyond all dispute the sort of proposition stiled a self-contradictory proposition. This therefore is the point to which on the part of the believer in the merit of faith and its necessity to salvation all exertions all efforts tend.

    Hence it is that / This being /, if he were consistent every man by / in / whom / whose mind / the idea of merit is attached to that of faith would be not only a Trinitarian but a Catholic or Lutheran: a believer in Transubstantiation or Consubstantiation.

    Bentham footnote at bottom of page: ‘Note.

    ‘(a) If Transubstantiation is more strikingly contradictory to all physical experience, a proposition asserting a belief in Trinitarianism is more directly and palpably a self-contradictory proposition.’
  • Title: [1817 Oct. 25 Not Paul Ch Paul]
    Description: 1817 Oct. 25

    Not Paul

    Ch Paul’s Doctrine

    § Faith & Works

    Mischief of faith

    But if there be merit in faith, and in such sort that the quantity of merit is / encreases / as the quantity of faith―as the intensity of the persuasion produced by the exercise of the will it is not Trinitarianism, it is not Catholicism that is the true religion / the true religion is―not Trinitarianism not Catholicism /: it is the religion of Bramah.

    For though, neither in the religion of Bramah, nor in any still more absurd religion if there were one which a persuasion offered for absurdity could produce, can any thing more palpably absurd be found than a self contradictory proposition nor consequently than a / the / Trinitarian proposition, yet the Trinitarian proposition is but one: to this proposition add that by which transubstantiation is asserted, still there are but two of them. But the religion of Bramah is a whole ocean of absurdity, and that ocean a / an altogether / boundless one: to which ocean trinitar[ian]ism[?] and transubstantiation put together are but drops. In the whole field of Catholicism suppose a few hundred such drops capable of being gleaned: in comparison of an ocean what are a few hundred drops.

    Bentham footnote at bottom of page: ‘Note (a)

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    [Around folios 173 to 186]

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    [Around folios 187 to 199]

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    [Around folios 209 to 211]

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    [Around folios 212 to 214]

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