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What We
Are To Believe
by Saint Augustine
When, then, the question is asked what we are to
believe in regard to religion, it is not necessary
to probe into the nature of things, as was done by
those whom the Greeks call physici; nor need
we be in alarm lest the Christian should be
ignorant of the force and number of the elements,
-- the motion, and order, and eclipses of the
heavenly bodies; the form of the heavens; the
species and the natures of animals, plants, stones,
fountains, rivers, mountains; about chronology and
distances; the signs of coming storms; and a
thousand other things which those philosophers
either have found out, or think they have found
out. For even these men themselves, endowed though
they are with so much genius, burning with zeal,
abounding in leisure, tracking some things by the
aid of human conjecture, searching into others with
the aids of history and experience, have not found
out all things; and even their boasted discoveries
are oftener mere guesses than certain knowledge. It
is enough for the Christian to believe that the
only cause of all created things, whether heavenly
or earthy, whether visible or invisible, is the
goodness of the Creator, the one true God; and that
nothing exists but Himself that does not derive its
existence from Him; and that He is the Trinity --
to wit, the Father, and the Son begotten of the
Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeding from the
same Father, but one and the same Spirit of Father
and Son.
Excerpted from Enchiridon, by Saint
Augustine
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The
Augustine Catechism: The Enchiridion on Faith,
Hope, and Love, by St. Augustine
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