"I do not mean that you should submit your belief to me without reason, and
I do not aspire to overcome you by tyranny. In fact, I do not claim to give
you a reason for everything. And to reconcile these contradictions, I intend
to make you see clearly, by convincing proofs, those divine signs in me,
which may convince you of what I am, and may gain authority for me by
wonders and proofs which you cannot reject; so that you may then believe
without... the things which I teach you, since you will find no other ground
for rejecting them, except that you cannot know of yourselves if they are
true or not.
"God has willed to redeem men and to open salvation to those who seek it.
But men render themselves so unworthy of it that it is right that God should
refuse to some, because of their obduracy, what He grants others from a
compassion which is not due to them. If He had willed to overcome the
obstinacy of the most hardened, He could have done so by revealing Himself
so manifestly to them that they could not have doubted of the truth of His
essence; as it will appear at the last day, with such thunders and such a
convulsion of nature that the dead will rise again, and the blindest will
see Him.
"It is not in this manner that He has willed to appear in His advent of
mercy, because, as so many make themselves unwo