The Equinox (Volume I, Number IX)

RESUME OF THE FIRST PART IN THE FORM OF A DIALOGUE FAITH, SCIENCE, REASON SCIENCE. You will never make me believe in the existence of God. FAITH. You have not the privilege of believing, but you will never prove to me that God does not exist. sciENCE. In order to prove it to you, I must first know what God is. FAITH. You will never know it. If you knew it, you could teach it to me; and when I knew it, I should no longer believe it. scrENCE. Do you then believe without knowing what you believe ? FAITH. Oh, do not let us play with words! It is you who do not know what I believe, and I believe it precisely because you do not knowit. Do you pretend to be infinite? Are you not stopped at every step by mystery? Mystery is for you an infinite ignorance which would reduce to nothing your finite knowledge, if I did not illumine it with my burning aspira- tions; and if, when you say, “I no longer know,” I did not cry, “As for me, I begin to believe.” SCIENCE. But your aspirations and their object are not (and cannot be for me) anything but hypotheses. gI