Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Pressed hard by this, they burst out and say: This one work is enough for our God — that he freed mankind by his own supreme and surpassing goodness, a work to be set above all the locusts in creation! What a greater God indeed, whose work so great could be found nowhere except in the man of a lesser god! But surely you must first prove that he exists by the means by which God ought to be proven — namely, by works — and only then by benefits. The prior question is whether such a being exists at all — only after that comes the question of what kind of being he is. One matter is settled from works, the other from benefits. Now, it is not the case that because he is said to have freed man, therefore it stands proven that he exists; rather, if it is first established that he exists, only then will it also be said that he freed man — so that whether he actually did the freeing depends on that, since it was quite possible for him both to exist and yet not to have freed anyone. How then, just because he is said to have freed man, is his existence to be believed on that basis, when it was entirely possible for him to exist and not to have freed anyone?
Now, on this very point, having been led away from the question of the unknown god, it stands sufficiently established both that he created nothing, and that, had he created anything, he ought to have been recognizable from his works — for supposing he did exist, he should surely have made himself recognized, and that from the very start of all things; for it did not befit God to lie hidden. I must go back of necessity to the origin of the question of the unknown god, so as to shake out its other little branches as well. For it will first have to be asked: this one who later put himself forward into public knowledge — why later, and not from the very origin of things? Since, being God, and indeed being a necessarily better God, he had no business remaining hidden from those very things which needed him. For one cannot say that either the matter or the occasion for knowing God was lacking, since man existed in the world from the very beginning — the very man he now comes to the rescue of — and so did the malice of the Creator, against which, being good, he comes to the rescue. Therefore, he either was ignorant of the occasion and matter of his necessary revelation, or he hesitated, or he was unable, or he was unwilling. All of these are unworthy of God, especially of the best of gods. But this point too we shall fill out elsewhere with a reproach for his late revelation; for now, this bare demonstration is enough. Turn to chapter 18.