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Against the Heathen

Section 30

~4 min

Editions · Modern English — VOTF
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What has been said above has been exposed as nothing but error in human life; the way of truth, however, has as its goal the God who truly is. To know this truth and grasp it accurately, we need no one other than ourselves. Nor, just because God Himself is above all, is the way to Him far away or outside us. It is within us, and we can find its beginning from ourselves, as Moses taught when he said, “The word of faith is within your heart.” The Savior likewise indicated and confirmed this when He said, “The kingdom of God is within you.”

For since we have faith and the kingdom of God within ourselves, we can quickly contemplate and understand the King of all, the saving Word of the Father. Let the Greeks who worship idols make no excuses, and let no one else deceive himself by claiming that he does not possess such a way and so finding an excuse for his own godlessness. We have all set foot on this way and possess it, even if not everyone wishes to walk it. Some step off and pass it by because the outward pleasures of life draw them away.

If someone asks what this way is, I mean each person’s soul and the mind within it. For through the mind alone can God be contemplated and understood. Unless, just as the impious have denied God, they also refuse to admit that they have a soul. That at least would be more reasonable than the other things they say, for only those without a mind would deny God, the Maker and Creator of the mind.

It is therefore necessary to show briefly, for the sake of the simple, that every human being has a soul and that this soul is rational, especially since some heretics deny even this and suppose that the human being is nothing more than the visible form of the body. Once this has been shown, they will be able to find in themselves a clearer refutation of the idols.

What has been said above has been exposed as nothing but error in human life; the way of truth, however, has as its goal the God who truly is. To know this truth and grasp it accurately, we need no one other than ourselves. Nor, just because God Himself is above all, is the way to Him far away or outside us. It is within us, and we can find its beginning from ourselves, as Moses taught when he said, “The word of faith is within your heart.” The Savior likewise indicated and confirmed this when He said, “The kingdom of God is within you.”

For since we have faith and the kingdom of God within ourselves, we can quickly contemplate and understand the King of all, the saving Word of the Father. Let the Greeks who worship idols make no excuses, and let no one else deceive himself by claiming that he does not possess such a way and so finding an excuse for his own godlessness.

We have all set foot on this way and possess it, even if not everyone wishes to walk it. Some step off and pass it by because the outward pleasures of life draw them away.

If someone asks what this way is, I mean each person’s soul and the mind within it. For through the mind alone can God be contemplated and understood.

Unless, just as the impious have denied God, they also refuse to admit that they have a soul. That at least would be more reasonable than the other things they say, for only those without a mind would deny God, the Maker and Creator of the mind.

It is therefore necessary to show briefly, for the sake of the simple, that every human being has a soul and that this soul is rational, especially since some heretics deny even this and suppose that the human being is nothing more than the visible form of the body. Once this has been shown, they will be able to find in themselves a clearer refutation of the idols.

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