Belief and unbelief are not matters of moral excellence or depravity:
they are questions of evidence.

The Christian believes the Scriptures because they are the words of God.
But he believes they are the words of God because some other man has
told him so.

Let him probe the matter to the bottom, and he will inevitably find
that his authority is human, and not, as he supposes, divine.

For you, my Christian friend, have never _seen_ God. You have never
heard God's voice. You have received from God no message in spoken
or written words. You have no direct divine warrant for the divine
authorship of the Scriptures. The authority on which your belief in
the divine revelation rests consists entirely of the Scriptures
themselves and the statements of the Church. But the Church is
composed solely of human beings, and the Scriptures were written
and translated and printed solely by human beings.

You believe that the Ten Commandments were dictated to Moses by God.
But God has not told _you_ so. You only believe the statement of the
unknown author of the Pentateuch that God told _him_ so. You do not
_know_ who Moses was. You do not _know_ who wrote the Pentateuch.
You do not _know_ who edited and translated the Scriptures.

Clearly, then, you accept the Scriptures upon the authority of unknown
men, and upon no other demonstrable authority whatever.

Clearly, then, to doubt the doctrine of the divine revelation of the
Scriptures is not to doubt the word of God, but to doubt the words