A Freethinker.

From the book Rizal's Proses:

(can't flip the two :P)

A Freethinker.
Jose Rizal


I have never seen in my life a being more repugnant than the freethinker. Since my childhood I have feared him; in my adolescence I had horror of him.  Now I do not know any more what to think of him.

When we are children, they accustom us to see under this name a being damned by our holy religion, or at least by our priests, a soul devoted to the devil, because he does not think like us, nor like the ministers of our God. Already adolescents, hardly out of childish games and the lap of our mothers, we lay aside the kites and little wooden horses to discuss the eternal principles of morality, to explore the depths of the soul, to discover and to refute so many philosophical systems, to penetrate the immaterial religions, labyrinths perhaps of metaphysics, and guided by master hands, we go as far as to decipher all the enigmas that pave the road of life. When, with faith in the soul, love in the heart, and confidence in all our being, we go accepting, without objection or doubt, without sufficient discussion or reservation, everything our great teacher tells us, everything presented to us as dogmatic and infallible; then, full of light and religious zeal, we conceive a horror for those strayed sheep who have become known with the name of freethinkers.

“Proud!” We would tell them, “Hollow and vain souls who do not accept more than what your reason dictates to you; who reason without considering our holy and wholesome principles; you of puny conception, narrow-minded, you do not understand our luminous beliefs; alas, poor you!”

And with as much charity as philosophy, we saw them condemned for all eternity. Absolutely exclusivists, as all partisans of truth should be, which is only one and all the rest is falsehood, we avoided their contagion; we shunned their presence; we closed our eyes and our ears to their writings and their words.


And I am not speaking here about those freethinkers, who are sham, fashionable, imitation or pretentious, nor; we destroyed their objections and reasoning. There are two or three distinctions that they did not use to understand and we made them return to our corral like meek little lamb, friendly as ever. What could they do against us, we who have been nourished with scholastic juices? Catholic since the age of five years, a philosopher at fourteen, a metaphysician at fifteen, a theologian at sixteen, we new Davids knocked down those Goliaths in the twinkling of an eye, stupefying old women with our learning.

No, I do not refer to those freethinkers; they do not deserve the trouble of discussing with them. I refer to those men abandoned by the hand of God, who persevere in evil, who close their eyes to the light, to those who are convinced of what they say, who have reasoned much, and who die in final impenitence, as my teacher says. Ah! They have eyes that do not see, they have ears that don’t hear; their heart is like stones where nothing can be planted or can sprout.


I have had the sad luck of knowing one of these unfortunates and much as I have wished to convert him I have achieved nothing.





He was a famous physician whom all his colleagues called a wise man, a man of profound and wide learning in the different branches of human knowledge. Although he had only lectured to me on the subjects on whom he was a professor, I had admired him and bowed my head. But as soon as he entered the philosophical religious ground, I no longer listened to him and I laughed at his explanations.


And nevertheless, he seemed to be right, so clear were his proofs and so crushing were his arguments. But trained as I have been since my tender youth, I never fell for such deceitful appearances of the devil, and I placed faith against reality, dogma against reason, and never did I lack an opportunity to put in a distinction that satisfied me greatly.

Aside from all this, the physician L. was a man of very simple was without being rude, natural manners without being ever familiar, and he liked to talk with us, to discuss even philosophy, but never attacking our religion, expounding from time to time his own opinions, respecting always those of others. So that if it were not because we found him a little more liberal perhaps than he be, we might have come to love him; but an enemy of my God ought to be also my enemy.

Seeing that a soul so precious and enlightened was being damned irremissibly, if I, failing in Christian charity, would not deign to instruct him in the true religion, to make some rays of light penetrate his darkened intelligence, I made a firm determination of converting him, of giving part of the truth that was overflowing my mind and my heart.


And so taking advantage of a day when he was very sad, I approached him, ready to discuss with him to bring him to the right path. When afflictions descend on the soul, they are a sign that God wishes to prepare one for the good things. Or, as a great Dominican preacher, who delighted me in my childhood, would say: “When the fresh rain of the celestial tears falls on the arid ground of the barren heart of the soul, drops of grace fertilized the ground that the heat of hell has dried up, and then the planter of the Church can plant in those irrigated furrows the divine seed of the commandments of our Holy Mother the Church.


I was already toying with the idea that I was going to convert a great man, for which I will deserve for the forgiveness of my sins. And so one day finding him pensive in his little garden, I approached him with the idea of leading him on a theological discussion.


--- “Ah!” he exclaimed with his natural affability upon seeing me. --- “You come very timely; please look at this grafting…how nature has worked here…it is just admirable…”


And he became pensive.


--- “God, you would like to say,” I hastened to rectify his phrase.

---“God or nature, my friend, it is the same to me,” he replied with a sad smile. “You know very well that one of the many meanings that the scholastics give to the word natura is God. For the rest, I do not engage in finding out if it is God himself who works thus or nature ordered by God. But let us lay this aside, as it is a dry question and we would get nothing clear. Let us talk about yourself.”


---“ No, no,” I said. “On the contrary, let us talk about this; it is a conversation that I liked very much because it informs me about many things and it strengthens my beliefs.” He smiled sadly and replied:

--- “Tell me something about your country that I like to see so much, and nevertheless it seems to me that I shall die without seeing it. At my age…”

---“ At your age, “ I replied, “you should no longer think of trips; there is one that ought to preoccupy you more and we are going to talk about that.”

--- “Have you ever done it?” he asked me, guessing my words.


---“No, but others have done it, as you and I will do it.”


---“Are you sure?”


---“I’m very sure.”


---“But, how do you know that that journey is made? Who has told you about it?”

--- “How? Who? Well…our Holy Mother of the Church.”


--- “And who told her about it?”

---“Jesus Christ in his Gospels.”

---“Who wrote the Gospels?”

---“The Apostles.”

---“Are you sure?”

---“Of course I’m! Besides…”

---“Perfectly, if you’re sure I congratulate you, God can’t ask you for more because you act as you think, and you think as you believe, and you believe according to your conscience. God does not ask the impossible.”

And looking at his watch, he invited me to eat with him, for it was already time.

I realized that he was avoiding all discussion, and not wishing to exasperate him, I postponed to another day the conversion, promising myself better success.

What encourage me most in the task that I had undertaken was that I observed n him, besides his upright moral sense, a natural attachment to or a kind of sympathy with our Holy Religion. His wife and his daughter were Catholics, they heard Mass, they confessed, they took communion, and fasted at all times as the Church ordered. On his part, though he did not practice the sacraments, his life was sufficiently exemplary. He had not had a single vice. He treated the poor gratis, giving them even medicine. He distributed alms. And he never spoke ill of any one or even of the government, which is all that can be said.

What a pity I said to myself many times that so many virtues were not being utilized and that such learning and such abnegation should end in hell! It was true that I did not forget him in my prayers, which it seemed to me, must have contributed towards keeping him in that state.

As I was saying, he had a daughter who was very good, quite pretty, and very charming.

Resolved to be his shadow (in the good sense), I decided to make love to his daughter in order to have more opportunity to speak to him and to find him at home and to see if between his daughter and I, we might succeed to bring him to the right path.

You will tell me that the road I have chosen is a little long. Perhaps you are right, but it is the surest. Everything for the love of God!

So I made love to the girl, but God, to try me, decreed that she would not accept my love in spite of my lively protestations, of my frequent visits, of speaking to her about heaven, and of my hopes. I came to believe one moment that the devil, fearing the realization of my plan, hindered through all possible means my holy aspirations, but reflecting a little, I concluded that it could not be so for the following reason: The devil, very astute, very tempting, would have favoured our love in order to distract me, draw me away from my path and make me enter in other roads.


Convinced therefore that everything was a divine design I became more and more encouraged, seeing in it the unmistakable sign that all I was doing was agreeable to His eyes.

I availed myself of all occasions to discuss with him, and as he was well versed in the Holy Scriptures, the Gospels and the works of the Holy Fathers, I had also to study these foundations of our religion in order not to be left behind.

He did not accept the Christian doctrine. I spoke to him about the four hells found in the centre of the earth, according to Father Astete, and he answered me with a smile.

As to the rest, he did not deny anything that I said, but neither did he accept all that I said.

One day I asked him, if we had a soul and if he believed in it. He replied:

---“Do you believe in it?”

---“Yes, and I’m convinced that it exists, and how it exists, and why it exists.”

---“Much better,” he replied, and he spoke of other things.

However , once in his class, he said that as we did not have an exact knowledge of what was matter, as we did not know its qualities, and consequently we cannot deny what we don’t know or to what kind of being it belonged exclusively.

On another occasion he said that ma conceives ideas of a material form and always under one form, and that he has never an exact notion of what is infinite or what is limitless, and all that is imagined or is formed in the mind is analogous with external objects.

Once, on the occasion of a great event, he said in the midst of his enthusiasm that man, in order to be responsible for his acts, in order to deserve the prize or penalty, ought to act only according to this conscience and his reason, without allowing himself to be led by other men’s opinions; because the instant he acts to the influences of another, he loses his character as a free man and he no longer acts according to himself but according to others. He maintains, however that conscience ought to be enlightened and freed from all pressure. He said also that God does not ask of man the impossible, and consequently he does not demand that he call white that which is black and black that which is white. If my reason tells me that it has to be so, I ought not to believe that it should be the opposite. That I should reason with more or less clarity is not incumbent upon me; it is not my duty to be wise but to be a man of conscience and of conviction. However, I do not reject knowledge so longs as it can illumine me.

I noted that I was scarcely advancing in my two conquests. The father as well as the daughter remained still standing and were not surrendering Notwithstanding, I observed that the father was sticking more and more to his opinions and the daughter was softening from day to day, though imperceptible.

I saw there so clearly the hand of God and I was almost touching the fruit of so much work when one day the father fell ill, never to rise again. A young physician, a relative of the family, took charge of treating him; he enjoyed a great reputation and the sick man himself appreciated him as a physician and as a friend. It is needless to tell you that I have gone there to watch beside his bed two or three nights, now watching for every moment to speak to him about God, now talking with his daughter, who was becoming more and more pensive every day and also more amiable towards me. I was already getting very much interested in her, perhaps because I was seeing in her the instrument of God for laudable ends; and I can assure you of the purity of my thoughts. And I even would be capable of marrying her if that would be necessary. All for the love of God.


The patient, however, was noting that he was nearing the grace and several times he said so. I still remember the night preceding his death. We were all gathered in the bedroom --- he in his bed, his wife, his daughter, and I.

Pale, emaciated, with a sad and deep expression on his face, breathing wearisomely, but bathed always in a kind of tranquil atmosphere that gave his features a singular charm.

His wife, seated in a chair, was praying fervently and silently. Her whole gaze was concentrated on her husband, but, what a gaze! It could be seen that she was recalling a happy past. There was not even one crucifix.

The daughter, who has not slept for two nights, was seated in an arm-chair, motionless. Her glance was wandering, not fixed on any object. How beautiful she seemed to me with her wanes and her suppliant eyes. If the sick man were a Catholic, I would have taken her for his guardian angel, guarding him to transport his soul to heaven, but unfortunately, it could not be so.

--- “Come near,” said the sick man, in a faint but affectionate voice. “Come near, the moments are precious to me...I know that my hour is near and shortly perhaps I may see God and enter what has always been unknown to me…”

---“Yes,” I hastened to reply, “you’re going to appear before God, receive then the sacraments.”

---“My friend,” he answered me with a short gesture and fixing on me a grateful glance, “thank you for your good wishes; but let’s not talk about that…I’m going to die and I need to devote this time to my family.”

The sobs of the mother and the daughter, long repressed, could be heard.

--- “How?  You weep, you who believe in the other life?” he exclaimed. “I’m the one who ought to cry for I don’t know what will become of you…”

---“Oh!” as to that, please be at ease,” I interrupted vigorously.

---“What will become of you?” he continued. “Come, my daughter, come near, put your hand in mine… they’re cold…it is because death is approaching…I no longer feel well the warmth of yours.”

---“Papa, Papa!” the daughter cried, weeping and kneeling.

The wife was also kneeling at the foot of the bed.

---“Don’t cry…rather listen well to me…in the immense doubt about the future…now that I’m going to leave you your life, only one thing preoccupies me…listen my daughter: I know you’re in love, though you have never told me about it, but I know it… is it not true?...Well then.”

---“Oh, don’t bother yourself about that, Papa…if you don’t like him, I’ll not love him.”

My heart fluttered, and I went nearer to hear better.

---“No, not at all,” replied the sick man. “I approve of  your choice and I wish you to marry him.”

I was on the point of falling on my knees to thank him when the door opened and the physician entered, much moved. The appearance of the room surprised him.

---“I was waiting for you, my son,” the sick man said to him. “Come, kneel down…like that…I give you my daughter…make of her a good wife…I bless your love…”

And he expired.

I do not know what happened to me; I no longer was conscious of what occurred afterwards…

Whenever I think of that soul that has been lost forever and I was not able to save him…I who have worked so hard…Ah! The final impenitence!

The punishment that God gives to those freethinkers…Horror!...

Since then, seeing the hand of God withdrawn from these unfortunates, I no longer think of converting any one. May they be damned! And for that, I have had to make love to his daughter.

END.