 Such reflections demonstrate the need for Bayle’s third principle (assuming that one is interested in upholding Christian monotheism). The origin of evil, like the Trinity, is a mystery fraught with endless difficulties. On Bayle’s view of religious mysteries, which he lays out at the beginning of his Eclaircissement sur les Manichéens, philosophical objections to mysteries are nothing troubling, but merely serve to confirm that God’s mind infinitely surpasses human minds. If there were no insoluble philosophical objections to mysteries, then there would be nothing mysterious about the doctrines in question-reason could answer every difficulty, and could claim equality with God’s own mind. For these reasons Bayle conflated the traditional categories of “above reason” and “against reason,” claiming that mysteries were necessarily both. Reason is consequently useless, even pernicious, as a basis for belief in the mysteries, and so must be replaced by simple faith (Bayle’s third principle).