The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 06 (of 12): Dresden Edition—DiscussionsIngersoll, Robert Green
Religion
The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 06 (of 12): Dresden Edition—Discussions
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
It is also admitted that in faith, worship, ceremonial, discipline and
government, the Catholic Church is substantially the same wherever
it exists. This establishes the unity, but not the divinity, of the
institution.
The church that does not allow investigation, that teaches that all
doubts are wicked, attains unity through tyranny, that is, monotony by
repression. Wherever man has had something like freedom, differences
have appeared, heresies have taken root, and the divisions have become
permanent--new sects have been born and the Catholic Church has been
weakened. The boast of unity is the confession of tyranny.
It is insisted that the unity of the church substantiates its claim to
divine origin. This is asserted over and over again, in many ways; and
yet in the Cardinal's article is found this strange mingling of boast
and confession: "Was it only by the human power of man that the unity,
external and internal, which for fourteen hundred years had been
supreme, was once more restored in the Council of Constance, never to be
broken again?"
By this it is admitted that the internal and external unity of the
Catholic Church had been broken, and that it required more than human
power to restore it. Then the boast is made that it will never be broken
again. Yet it is asserted that the internal and external unity of the
Catholic Church is the great fact that demonstrates its divine origin.
Now, if this internal and external unity was broken, and remained broken
for years, there was an interval during which the church had no internal
or external unity, and during which the evidence of divine origin
failed. The unity was broken in spite of the Divine Founder. This is
admitted by the use of the word "again." The unbroken unity of the
church is asserted, and upon this assertion is based the claim of divine
origin; it is then admitted that the unity was broken. The argument is
then shifted, and the claim is made that it required more than human
power to restore the internal and external unity of the church, and that
the restoration, not the unity, is proof of the divine origin. Is there
any contradiction beyond this?
Let us state the case in another way. Let us suppose that a man has a
sword which he claims was made by God, stating that the reason he knows
that God made the sword is that it never had been and never could be
broken. Now, if it was afterwards ascertained that it had been broken,
and the owner admitted that it had been, what would be thought of him
if he then took the ground that it had been welded, and that the welding
was the evidence that it was of divine origin?
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