Gerald Bivens

In the Preface, Pamphilus tells us that the dialogue will be about natural religion, in contrast to revealed religion. The latter is any religion based on the belief that a deity has revealed himself and his will to mankind, whereas natural religion is religion based upon rational and scientific evidence and reasonings. It is taken as obvious and certain in natural religion that God exists; what will be explored is God's Nature and His Providential plans.¹

Happily, these circumstances are all to be found in the subject of NATURAL RELIGION. What truth so obvious, so certain, as the being of a God, which the most ignorant ages have acknowledged, for which the most refined geniuses have ambitiously striven to produce new proofs and arguments? What truth so important as this, which is the ground of all our hopes, the surest foundation of morality, the firmest support of society, and the only principle which ought never to be a moment absent from our thoughts and meditations? But, in treating of this obvious and important truth, what obscure questions occur concerning the nature of that Divine Being; his attributes, his decrees, his plan of providence? These have been always subjected to the disputations of men: Concerning these, human reason has not reached any certain determination. But these are topics so interesting that we cannot restrain our restless inquiry with regard to them; though nothing but doubt, uncertainty, and contradiction have as yet been the result of our most accurate researches.²