QUOTATIONS FROM GREAT MINDS

Quotations by great supporters of the Divine origins of the Ten Commandments.

W. KANT
(German philosopher)

"God created the world for His honors 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 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)


G. LEOPARDI
(Foremost Italian poet of the Romantic period)

"The ten commandments contain general principles . . .
conceived for the good of humanity . . . They are infinite and diverse.
(Ibid., 356)


ELIZABETH BEECHER STOWE
(American writer)

God always makes most prosperous those who are most obedient to His laws in the Bible.
(Wagenknecht, 1965, 177)

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Kant, I. Lectures on Philosophical Theology. Ithaca: Cornell U. Press, 1978.

Kant, I. Philosophical Writings, In The German Library: Vol. 13. New York: Continuum Publishing Co., 1986.

Leopardi, G. Opere, Tomo II, Milano: Riccardo Ricciardi Editore,
1977

Wagenknecht, E. Harriet Beecher Stowe. New York: Oxford University Press, 1965.