04/08/2013
"We are capable of knowing certainly that there is a
God. Though God has given us no innate ideas of himself;
though he has stamped no original characters on
our minds, wherein we may read his being; yet having
furnished us with those faculties our minds are endowed
with, he hath not left himself without witness: since we
have sense, perception, and reason, and cannot want a
clear proof of him, as long as we carry ourselves about
us. Nor can we justly complain of our ignorance in this great point; since he has so plentifully provided us with
the means to discover and know him; so far as is necessary
to the end of our being, and the great concernment
of our happiness. But, though this be the most
obvious truth that reason discovers, and though its
evidence be (if I mistake not) equal to mathematical
certainty: yet it requires thought and attention; and
the mind must apply itself to a regular deduction of it
from some part of our intuitive knowledge, or else we
shall be as uncertain and ignorant of this as of other
propositions, which are in themselves capable of clear
demonstration. To show, therefore, that we are capable
of knowing, i.e. being certain that there is a God, and
how we may come by this certainty, I think we need go
no further than ourselves, and that undoubted knowledge
we have of our own existence." John Locke - Essay Concerning Human Understanding
