We are told that our forefathers, showing that de- (continued)
FAITH AND REASON 33
If this were not the case there would be no heretics, no schismatics, no circumcised in the flesh, no creatureand icon-worshipers. And if these did not exist before the promised perfecting of men, there would be much less effort expended in seeking the truth.
IF I AM DECEIVED, I EXIST*
For we both are, and know that we are, and take 26. delight in our being and knowing. Moreover, in these three things no true-seeming illusion disturbs us; for we do not come into contact with these by some bodily sense, as we perceive the things outside us—colors, e.g., by seeing, sounds by hearing, smells by smelling, tastes by tasting, hard and soft objects by touching—of all which sensible objects it is the images resembling them, but not themselves, that we perceive in the mind and hold in the memory, and which excite us to desire the objects. However, without any delusive representation of images or phantasms, I am most ' certain that I am, that I know, and that I delight in this, On none of these points do I fear the arguments of the skeptics of the Academy who say: what if you are deceived? 7 {For if I am deceived, I am. For he who does not exist can- "not be deceived; and if I'am deceived, by this same token I
Me 4 am. And since I am if I am deceived, how am I deceived in believing that I am? For it is certain that I am, if I am deceived. Since therefore I, the person deceived, should be, even if I were deceived, certainly I am not deceived in this knowledge that I am. Consequently, neither am I deceived | in knowing that I know. For, as I know that I am, so I know this also, that I know. And when I love these two [being and knowing], I add to them a third, that is, my love, which is of equal importance. For neither am I deceived in this, that I love, since in those things which I love I am not deceived; even if these were false, it would still be true that I loved false things. For how could I justly be blamed and prohibited from loving false things, if it were false that I loved them? Since these facts are true and real, who doubts that, when these things are loved, the love of them is itself true and real?
* City of God, XI, 26; trans. Deds, revised by V.J.B.