The deists say nearly all that the atheists say; but admitting an intelligence back of all phenomena in the universe, they pretend to read his will in the book of nature, [12] and contrast its perfections with the imperfections of all written books of revelation. To them the Bible--the Christian volume of revelation--is imperfect and contradictory; it teaches a morality and seems to tolerate practices unworthy of a Being of infinite goodness. The agnostics join with the deists in their objections. They see all the contradictions, imperfections and alleged immorality that deists see in the Christian volume of revelation; and with them question the authenticity and credibility of the scriptures. If they differ from the deists in anything, it is simply in arriving at a less positive conclusion. But the worst is to come. There has arisen within our century, mainly in Germany, a class of theological writers, who indeed profess a reverence both for the name and person of Jesus Christ, and a real regard, moreover, for the scriptures as "embodiments of what is purest and holiest in religious feeling;" and yet they degrade Christ to a mere name, and strip the scriptures of all their force as the word of God, by denying the historical character of the Biblical narrative. Starting with the postulate that the miraculous is impossible and never happens, or at least has never been proven, [13] they relegate the scriptures--the New Testament as well as the Old--to the realms of poetry, legend or myth, because they are filled with accounts of the miraculous. [14]