It is always a sign that a doctrine or history possesses no depth of authenticity when one is obliged to resort to miracles in order to prove its tru… - Hermann Samuel Reimarus
" "It is always a sign that a doctrine or history possesses no depth of authenticity when one is obliged to resort to miracles in order to prove its truth. Miracles do not possess in or by themselves any principle containing a single article of faith or conclusive fact. It follows not because a prophet has performed miracles that therefore he has spoken the truth, because false prophets and magicians also performed signs and wonders, and false Christs performed miracles by which even the elect might be deceived. It follows not because Jesus restored sight to a blind man and healed a lame one, ergo God is threefold in person, ergo Jesus is a real God and man. It follows not because Jesus awakened Lazarus from death that therefore he also must have arisen from death.
English
Collect this quote
About Hermann Samuel Reimarus
Hermann Samuel Reimarus (22 December 1694, Hamburg – 1 March 1768, Hamburg), was a German philosopher and writer of the Enlightenment who is remembered for his Deism, the doctrine that human reason can arrive at a knowledge of God and ethics from a study of nature and our own internal reality, thus eliminating the need for religions based on revelation. He denied the supernatural origin of Christianity, and is credited by some with initiating historians' investigation of the historical Jesus.
Also Known As
Alternative Names:
Reimarus
Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.
Additional quotes by Hermann Samuel Reimarus
[Jesus' Jewish contemporaries] are still thinking in terms of a temporal redemption and of an earthly kingdom that they had hoped from Jesus up until that time. Israel or the Jewish people was to be redeemed, but not the human race... Thus it was not a savior of the human race who would expiate the sins of the whole world through his Passion and death, but one who would redeem the people of Israel from temporal servitude.
The unerring signs of truth and falsehood are clear, distinct consistency and contradiction. This is also the case with revelation, in so far as that it must, in common with other truths, be free from contradiction. And just as little as miracles can prove that twice two are five or that a triangle has four angles, can a contradiction lying in the history and dogmas of Christianity be removed by any number of miracles.
Limited Time Offer
Premium members can get their quote collection automatically imported into their Quotewise collections.
By unessential things in reference to religion I mean first of all, the miracles, to which nevertheless such particular importance is attached by the Christian religion. No one can affirm that miracles of themselves establish a single article of faith. If we granted that articles of faith carried with them conviction and inherent credibility, how should we dare to require miracles in order to believe them? If we granted that the resurrection had been proved to be true by the most undoubted and unanimous witnesses, as in all fairness it ought to be, we could surely believe it without any assistant miracle. If we granted that Christ really did return in the clouds of Heaven, as according to promise he ought to have done, we should certainly want no miracles to prove it.
Loading...