Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/209



is the doctrine about the Trinity in the radical Christian dogma, as expounded in fifty pages. dogma are based, and with its refutal are refuted, the dogmas about the Redeemer and Sanctifier, and every one of the dogmas which refer to the house-management of our salvation. I reject this dogma. I cannot help rejecting it, because, by accepting it, I should be renouncing the consciousness of my rational soul and the cognition of God. But, while rejecting this dogma, which is so contrary to human reason, and which has no foundation either in Scripture, or in Tradition, I still find inexplicable the cause which has led the church to profess this senseless dogma and so carefully pick out the imaginary proofs to confirm it. That is the more surprising to me since that terrible, blasphemous dogma, as expounded here, can apparently be of no use to any one or in anything, and since it is impossible to deduce any moral rule from it, as indeed is evident from the moral application of the dogma,—a collection of meaningless words, which are not connected in any way. Here is the application of the dogma:

“(1) All the persons of the Most Holy Trinity, except the common attributes, which belong to them according to their essence, have still other, especial attributes, by which they differ from each other, so that the Father is indeed the Father and occupies the first place in the order of divine persons, the Son is the Son and occupies