213. I do know, though, that our prudence is more persuasive to our reasoning than divine providence, because we can see prudence but not providence. It is actually easier for us to accept the notion that there is only one life, which is God, and that we are all life-receivers from him, as I have already often explained; and yet this amounts to the same thing, because prudence is a property of life.
Do we not all speak in favor of our own prudence and of the material world when we are arguing from our earthly or outward selves, and speak in favor of divine providence and God when we are arguing from our spiritual or inner selves?
But I have a request, a message to the materialist: Write some books and fill them with plausible, probable, credible arguments, arguments that in your judgment are solid. Write one in favor of our own prudence and one in favor of the material world, and then hand them to an angel. I know the few words the angel will inscribe on your pages: "These are all illusions and distortions."
