We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in. - Thomas Paine

Bize ikinci elden yazılı veya sözlü olarak iletilen düşünce ve ifadelerin bir vahiy olduğunu ileri sürmek çelişkidir. Vahiy tanımı gereği ilk ilişkiyle sınırlıdır. Bundan sonrası bu kişinin kendisine vahiy gönderildiğini ileri sürmesinden başka bir şey değildir. Bu kişi kendisini inanmakla yükümlü görebilir, ama benim onun gibi inanma zorunluluğum yoktur, çünkü bu vahiy bana gönderilmemiştir ve benden bu vahyin kendisine gönderildiğini iddia edenin sözüne inanmam istenmektedir.

Of all the modes of evidence that ever were invented to obtain belief to any system or opinion, to which the name of religion has been given, that of miracle, however successful the imposition may have been, is the most inconsistent. [...] It is also the most equivocal sort of evidence that can be set up; for the belief is not to depend upon the thing called a miracle, but upon the credit of the reporter, who says that he saw it; and, therefore the thing, were it true, would have no better chance of being believed than if it were a lie.

The universe is the bible of a true Theophilanthropist. It is there that he reads of God. It is there that the proofs of his existence are to be sought and to be found. As to written or printed books, by whatever name they are called, they are the works of man's hands, and carry no evidence in themselves that God is the author of any of them. It must be in something that man could not make, that we must seek evidence for our belief, and that something is the universe; the true bible; the inimitable word, of God.