Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/386

 instead of proofs, instead of the disclosure of truths, we suddenly hear that it is necessary to make a free effort, not to oppose oneself, but to try to believe, and that he who believes will be saved, and he who does not believe will perish.

Before this were disclosed the God-revealed truths, and it was assumed that this disclosure led us to the only aim of the teaching, to faith, that is, to the knowledge of God. Now an opposite method is used: we are told that in order that the truth about sanctification should be disclosed to us, it is necessary first to believe in that sanctification: believe, and then everything will be disclosed to you. But does not the whole purpose of the teaching consist in bringing me to faith? But if you abandon that path of the disclosure of truths which lead me to faith, and tell me that it is necessary to believe what you say, as any man would say it, if he wanted to be believed, I have no longer any right to believe. If it comes all to a question of trust, my trust will depend only on the greater or lesser respect for him who is trying to convince me, and on the comparative probability of the evidence of truth. There is, however, no probability of this evidence in the teaching of the hierarchy, as we have seen heretofore, and so only one thing is left for me to do: to become frightened at the threats which are uttered against me for not believing, and, out of fear, to submit my reason to what is called grace, that is, to what the hierarchy teaches.

This attempt to su submit our reason, this non-resistance to grace, we have all tried; it not only becomes inactive, but all the proofs in its favour militate against it, the moment a man seriously searches after truth. You say that I shall for ever ruin my soul if I do not believe you, but I do not believe you for the very reason that I am afraid that I may ruin my soul for ever. Especially now, when, after analyzing this article, it has become clear to me that the Theology, in taking up that which is most