truths simply and solely on God’s authority. If you believe in the
immortality of the soul for

[136] philosophical reasons, you are orthodox, but you have no part in
faith. The merit of faith becomes greater, in proportion as the revealed
truth surpasses all the powers of our mind; the more incomprehensible
the truth and the more repugnant to reason, the greater is the sacrifice
we make in accepting it, the deeper our submission to God. Therefore a
merciless inventory of the objections which reason has to urge against
fundamental doctrines serves to exalt the merits of faith.

The Dictionary was also criticized for the justice done to the moral
excellencies of persons who denied the existence of God. Bayle replies
that if he had been able to find any atheistical thinkers who lived bad
lives, he would have been delighted to dwell on their vices, but he knew
of none such. As for the criminals you meet in history, whose abominable
actions make you tremble, their impieties and blasphemies prove they
believed in a Divinity. This is a natural consequence of the theological
doctrine that the Devil, who is incapable of atheism, is the instigator
of all the sins of men. For man’s wickedness must clearly resemble that
of the Devil and must therefore be joined to a belief in God’s
existence, since the Devil is not an atheist. And is it not a proof of
the infinite wisdom of God that the worst criminals

[137] are not atheists, and that most of the atheists whose names are
recorded have been honest men? By this arrangement Providence sets
bounds to the corruption of man; for if atheism and moral wickedness
were united in the same persons, the societies of earth would be exposed
to a fatal inundation of sin.