CHAPTER XXIV.  UNBELIEF.

An atheist in principle is one who denies the existence of God and consequently of all revealed truth.  How, in practice, a man endowed with reason and a conscience can do this, is one of the unexplained mysteries of life.  Christian philosophers refuse to admit that an atheist can exist in the flesh.  They claim that his denial is fathered by his desire and wish, that at most he only doubts, and while professing atheism, he is simply an agnostic.

An agnostic does not know whether God exists or not—­and cares less.  He does not affirm, neither does he deny.  All arguments for and against are either insufficient or equally plausible, and they fail to lodge conviction in his mind of minds.  Elevated upon this pedestal of wisdom, he pretends to dismiss all further consideration of the First Cause.  But he does no such thing, for he lives as though God did not exist.  Why not live as though He did exist!  From a rational point of view, he is a bigger fool than his atheistic brother, for if certainty is impossible, prudence suggests that the surer course be taken.  On one hand, there is all to gain; on the other, all to lose.  The choice he makes smacks of convenience rather than of logic or common sense.

No one may be accused of genuine, or as we call it—­formal—­heresy, unless he persistently refuses to believe all the truths by God revealed.  Heresy supposes error, culpable error, stubborn and pertinacious error.  A person may hold error in good faith, and be disposed as to relinquish it on being convinced of the truth.  To all exterior appearances, he may differ in nothing from a formal heretic, and he passes for a heretic.  In fact, and before God, he belongs to the Church, to the soul of the Church; he will be saved if in spite of his unconscious error he lives well.  He is known as a material heretic.

An infidel is an unbaptized person, whose faith, even if he does believe in God, is not supernatural, but purely natural.  He is an infidel whether he is found in darkest Africa or in the midst of this Christian commonwealth, and in this latter place there are more infidels than most people imagine.  A decadent Protestantism rejects the necessity of baptism, thereby ceasing to be Christian, and in its trail infidelity thrives and spreads, disguised, ’tis true, but nevertheless genuine infidelity.  It is baptism that makes faith possible, for faith is a gift of God.

An apostate is one who, having once believed, ceases to believe.  All heretics and infidels are not apostates, although they may be in themselves or in their ancestors.  One may apostatize to heresy by rejecting the Church, or to infidelity by rejecting all revelation; a Protestant may thus become an apostate from faith as well as a Catholic.  This going back on the Almighty—­for that is what apostasy is,—­is, of all misfortunes the worst that can befall man.  There may be excuses, mitigating