JEAN
JACQUES ROUSSEAU AND GOD
"(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."
(Burgelin, 1973, 429)
"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."
"I will
never know Him by His being. I can only, therefore, study Him by His
attributes."
(Ibid, 407)
"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, my worthy and wise friend, 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)
(From
a letter to Voltaire)
"..forgive me, great man my fervor 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..."
(Guehemo, 1966, 351)
________________________________________
Burgelin, P. La Philosophie De L'
Existance De Jean Jacques
Rousseau. Librarie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1973.
Guehermo, J. Jean Jacques Rousseau.
New York: Columbia U. Press, 1966.