 Descartes' Meditations To the Dean and Professors of the Sacred Faculty of Theology in Paris Dear gentlemen, the reason that leads me to present this work to you is so fully justified that I am certain, when you know its purpose, you will justify taking it under your protection. I believe that the best way to recommend it to you is by telling you in a few words what I have in mind. I have always considered two questions, that of God and of the soul, to be the most important ones that should be demonstrated by means of philosophical reasoning rather than by theology. Although it might suffice, for those of us who are believers, to accept by faith that there is a God and that the human soul does not die with the body, it certainly does not seem possible to convince infidels to adopt any religion or any kind of moral virtue if we do not first prove these two things by way of natural reasoning. Inasmuch as this life often provides greater rewards for vices than for virtues, few people would prefer what is just to what is useful if they were not deterred by the fear of God or by the expectation of another life. On one hand it is absolutely true that one must believe that there is a God because that is taught in the Holy Scriptures. And on the other hand we must believe the Holy Scriptures because they come from God. Because faith is a gift from God, the one who gives that gift in order to make other things believable can also give that gift in order to make us believe that he exists. Nevertheless we cannot present this proof to infidels because they would think that this commits the fallacy that logicians call reasoning in a circle. To tell the truth I have observed that you, gentlemen, and all other theologians, not only maintain that the existence of God can be proved by natural reason, but also that we can infer from the Holy Scriptures that the realization of this existence is much clearer than many things that have been created. Simply it is so easy that those who do not grasp it are to be blamed. This is made clear by the following words from the Book of Solomon, Chapter 13, where it tells us their ignorance is not pardonable because if their mind has penetrated so far into the knowledge of things in the world then how is it possible that they have not found their sovereign master? And in the first chapter of Romans it says that they are inexcusable. Likewise, in the same place we find these words. What is known about God is manifested in them. It seems that we are being advised that everything we know about God is not to be found anywhere but in ourselves, and that our mind alone is capable of providing it. For this reason I would find it appropriate to make clear by what means this can be done and in what way God can be identified more easily and precisely than worldly things. Regarding the soul, many people have believed that it is not easy to know its nature, and some of them have even dared to say that human reason convinces us that the soul dies with the body. They claim that only faith can teach us the opposite. However, the Lateran Council under Leo X condemned that view in Session 8 and decreed that Christian philosophers should dismiss the arguments of those people and verify the truth. I have attempted to do just that in the present work. Furthermore, I know that many irreligious people do not want to believe that there is a God and that the human soul is separate. Sample complete. Ready to continue?