Moral evil; its nature and origin

Preface

Everything else being equal, that man is strongest for virtue and against vice who is most widely learned.

There are some truths that some persons ought not to know. One who is walking a wire a hundred feet from the ground is, no doubt, in danger of falling, but it is better, for the time, that he should not know it. There are many cases that will readily occur to the mind of the reader in which ''ignorance is bliss." Nevertheless, our proposition, that he is surest for virtue and against vice who is best informed, other things being equal, is true.

Light, physical, intellectual and spiritual, makes for strength and life. Darkness is, in the respects mentioned, a portent of weakness and of death.

When I speak of wide learning and broad

culture I do not mean to include certain

PBEFACE.

branches of learning to the exclusion or neglect of any others. All truth is one, and truth on all subjects is one. All truth is light, and all light is strength and life.

As no one man can know all things, or, as no man is God ; and, as some certain learning is better adapted to certain persons than other kinds of learning would be, it is not best that any one should attempt to study everything. "Wise, therefore, is he who selects for himself that course of study which best equips him for the work which he proposes to do. It is, however, still true that he who knows most is, as a rule, best qualified for either virtue or vice.

Man is one and yet he is many. He is a complex unit. He is strongest for virtue and against vice when he is educated on all of his sides, or, in respect to every part of his complex being.

A merely physical education, though of great importance to any man in whatever sphere or department of work he may be, develops the brute nature that is in him; only this, nothing more. That is, it makes out of him all the

FEE FACE.

brute that there is in him. This, for him, as a hrute^ would be a good and correct thing to do. Still the man himself and the society in which he lives are both the worse for his brute education with its consequents. He is a slugger.

Of course, one m.ay 6e, by proper training, well developed physically, and still be a refined, cultured gentleman. But this is possible only where the education does not stop with mere physical culture. The wrong and the resulting evil, in the case supposed, is not in the fact of fine physical development, but in the lack of something more. This, it was well to have done, but that should not have been left undone. ''A little learning is a dangerous thing," is not a late untested discovery.

The steam engine had better not have the capacity of 2,000 horses than, having it, not to be under mental and moral control, or guidance. So, if one, called a man, is to be practically a brute, it were better that he should not be a mighty brute.

If one is to be intellectual, but not moral or

8 PREFACE, spiritual, the less intellectual learning and culture he has the better. The more intellectual culture a man has the better, provided the intellect and its culture are thoroughly sanctified to high moral and spiritual ends. But where such cultured intellect is not so sanctified, the less it is educated the better.

The people of these United States are bent upon a desperate experiment in giving intellectual education, often quite extensive, to all the children of the land without stopping to ask what they intend to do with it. It is not, by any means, yet shown that, in educating the intellects of our children as we are doing, and neglecting and more than neglecting their moral and spiritual natures, we are not sowing the seeds of a most destructive cyclone of anarchy in the end, and the end not far in the future.

Is it said : The government must not teach morals nor religion? Whatever maybe true on this point, let the question be raised* On what ground does the government feel it a duty to educate the children of the country at all?

FEE FACE, 9

Is education, as we have it, a function, proper, of our government? If the answer be no, then the whole question is settled. But if the answer should be yes, then I insist that the government's curriculum of study shall be in harmony with the natures of those whom it undertakes to educate. If what is to be educated is physical only, then let the education be adapted to that nature. If it be physical and intellectual, let the education be both, also; and let it be the latter especially, as it is, manifestly, the more important of the two. But, if it be physical, intellectual and moral ^ as it is, then let the education be such as is adapted to, or is inclusive of, the whole unit, the whole complex man. Surely, the most important part of the government's pupil ought not to be neglected. Indeed, this most important, this highest nature in the pupil, cannot,, with reason, or with safety to society, be neglected long.

Whenever the public conscience has come to rest easy under a regime that dismantles man of that which especially characterizes him as

10 PBEFACE.

man, and therefore reduces him to a mere wreck of the man he was intended to be, the end of all desirable, enjoyable civil society is not far away. It surely would be a difficult thing to prove that a government owes the child the education of its lower natures, but not its highest.

The track of such an attempt at argument as is here contemplated, is as devious as that of a serpent.

Is it said that the government educates the child on the plea of self -protection? that the child is of more service to society, and is less dangerous, when educated than when not educated? But, is the conclusion herein true? An educated knave is more dangerous than one who is not. Nor is it true that an education that is merely physical and intellectual has any tendency to make people moral or religious. God has decreed that everything shall bring forth after its kind. A strictly physical or intellectual education may make one a physical or an intellectual giant, but it makes him this only. Morally, he is the same that he

PBEFACE. 11 was; and so he must remain until he is instructed in moral things. It is not reason nor is it yet demonstrated to be a fact that an educated people, where the moral nature is untaught, undeveloped, are apter to be harmless and useful than those who are not.

But my purpose here and now is, only, to preface the following treatise on " Moral Evil."

If the moral nature of man be his highest endowment, as I suppose it is, then surely the impulse that leads one to investigate the very difficult subject of moral evil is a good one. Some of the questions which I have attempted to discuss are, confessedly, very difficult. The hope of reaching conclusions on all of them, which shall be satisfactory to every one, is not entertained. Much of the territory attempted to be explored lies in very high mental and moral latitudes, and some of it borders close upon the limits of intellectual and spiritual thinking.

There are, however, many respects in which the subject of Moral Evil may be treated intel-

12 FEE FACE, ligibly and profitably, and it is confidently hoped that a creditable proportion of the following investigations will be allowed to belong to this class.

If the reader should now and then find statements made, arguments attempted or conclusions supposed to have been reached which he cannot accept, or that he must reject, it may, nevertheless, be that our effort shall provoke a re-examination and a better understanding of the subjects treated, or of some of them, than was had before. In that case our labor is not wholly lost.

The scope of our investigations may be inferred, to some extent, from the following analysis :

1. What is, and What is the Origin of, Moral Evil?

2. Who is the Author of Moral Evil?

3. Will Moral Evil Have an End?

L. B. WILKES.

Stockton, Cal., May 4, 1892.

Introduction

Whenever an earnest, thoughtful mind confronts squarely any one of the great problems of life, and grapples with it honestly and fearlessly, he challenges the attention of all sober minds. The problem herein discussed is one that has claimed the attention of the ablest men of all time. It has thrown its dark shadow of mystery across the lives of unnumbered millions of rational souls, from the crime of Cain to the present hour. Its complete and satisfactory solution has baffled the wisdom of philosopher and theologian, rationalist and mystic. And this, for the reason suggested by the author of this volume, that the lofty theme partakes of the infinite, and we are finite. It cannot be too constantly borne in mind by those who are troubled over unsolved problems, that many of these lie beyond the reach of human reason, at least in our present state. " We know in part and we prophesy in part."

Because of this limitation of our knowledge, (13)

^' we walk by faith, not by sight." Let us be content to leave some of the mysteries of life for the light of eternity to dissipate, when ''that which is perfect is come."

Nevertheless, we do well to grapple earnestly and manfully with the great problems involved in our existence and destiny, and to seek, as far as in us lies, to understand them, and to know their meaning. It is God, Himself, who has planted this impulse within us — this inborn desire to push back the borders of the unknown, and to attain to wider views of truth. It is only when the eager desire to compass and classify all knowledge leads the soul to discard as truth what it cannot verify or comprehend, thus denying to faith its legitimate province, that this natural impulse degenerates into a boastful sciolism. The reverent spirit manifested by the author of this volume, as he cautiously approaches his conclusions along the lines of Scripture and logic, well befits so grave a theme, and is worthy of commendation. The reader may not be able to accept all his interpretations or conclusions, but he cannot but feel that the author himself has not reached them without an honest, pains-taking effort to know the truth. Nor do we see how those who accept his premises — the supreme author-

INTBODUCTION, 15

ity of the Scriptures on this and all other moral problems — can avoid reaching the same conclusions in the cardinal and essential features of the argument. In locating sin in the human will, that is in the choice of evil, in finding the origin of sin in the abuse of moral freedom, in rejecting the Predestinarian theory as a solution of the problem, in makiilg the cessation of punishment depend on repentance, in the future state, in pointing out the danger of moral fixedness in evil so that repentance is not possible, and in emphasizing the will as the decisive factor in this problem of the termination of evil, the author seems to us to rest upon the impregnable basis of truth as taught in the Scriptures and corroborated by the highest reason. The recognition of the human will in its relation to the divine will, may be said to be a distinguishing characteristic of this work. It is this feature, more than any other, that gives the present volume a decided advantage over many other treatises on this subject.

It will no doubt be felt by some that the author's conclusion leaves a very dark picture of human destiny before the mind, so far as those dying impenitent are concerned. This is true, but the author's object, it is evident,

16 INTBODUCTION,

was not to draw a pleasing picture of the destiny of the unsaved, but to present the teaching of God's word upon the subject. The discussion is mainly concerned with those who in this life reject the gospel and harden their hearts to all its tender pleadings. That those who have never heard the gospel will not be judged by it, is the author's reasonable conclusion. There is one phase of the problem of moral evil which the author does not treat, at least directly. It is the theory advanced in what has come to be known as the New Theology. This theory claims that since Christ, as the revelation of the Father, is the highest and strongest appeal which God can make to a human soul, and since millions die without ever having heard of Christ, and therefore without having been appealed to by the highest motive to virtue, these, too, must have Christ offered to them before their destiny can be decisively fixed. It is not held that all these will certainly accept Christ, but it is argued that God could not in justice, and therefore would not condemn to punishment, or leave in an unsaved state, those who might be won by the offer of Christ; and that until Divine Love has put forth its highest effort to win a soul to God, its destiny is not determined.

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This, in brief, is the contention of that new school of thought which has risen within the Old Predestinarian fold. That it is an advance on the old theory of consignment to everlasting punishment because of an eternal decree which has no reference to the moral condition of those thus consigned, the writer at least will not deny. Moreover, not a few devout souls take refuge in this view in the presence of the dark problem of the destiny of by far the larger part of our race who leave this world without ever having heard of the love ot God as revealed in Christ. While admitting the paucity of direct Scripture teaching in support of this theory, may we not hold it as one of the open questions to be decided, if at all, in the light of that wider knowledge of God's will and way which is sure to come in the future? May we not well hesitate to dogmatize, with too great certainty, on a question concerning which the Bible, if not silent, speaks in language of doubtful import?

But having said this, I wish to express my appreciation of the able and scholarly argument of the distinguished author whose close and clear thinking, and whose faithful adherence to the inspired word make this work worthy of the careful examination of the most

18 mTBODUGTION',

thoughtful minds. If his interpretation of a passage or two differs somewhat from my own, this fact does not prevent my cordial approval of the general conclusions he has reached. I wish I could see scriptural ground for hope that moral evil will have an end. This would seem to be an ideal consummation of Christ's mission. But, like the author, looking all the facts full in the face, including Scriptural declarations and human nature as we see it, we confess our inability to find the ground for such a hope. But we need not despair, nor allow our hearts to be dismayed. We may comfort ourselves with the assurance that '^God is love,'' and that "the Lord of the whole earth will do right."

J. H. Garrison. .

GENERAL SURVEY.

THE PROBLEM, OUTLINED.

We are in a world of change. Our fathers are gone and we are going. Here we have no abiding place, no continuing city. We know these things are so, whatsoever else may or may not be.

Men pass into view, take their places upon the stage, play a noble or ignoble part, and are gone, soon gone, never to come back. So we see things.

One leaves the stage for about every second of time, or, in round numbers, nearly or quite one hundred thousand every day. This is a terrible truth, recognized and accepted as such by every one who is at the trouble of making a very simple calculation. "Where do they go? What of them whea gone ?

' Our thought, in its search for them^ traverses the pathless skies, pauses at bright Orion, Aldebaran or Sirius^ muses at the Pleiades, or^ from the Milky Way, pierces the fathomless upper deep in search of our dead. But in answer to our cry of bereavement we receive back only the echo of our bitter complaint. No information or explanation is given us, or can be, aside from Divine revelation. All the sciences^ arts and histories of the world may be examined rigidly, may be questioned severely, as they have been, but no light is obtained. These sources of information, so richly freighted with blessings of a thousand kinds, for us, on this subject do not speak. Their deliverances are of the earth earthy; they are but dust or ashes. They know nothing, and, hence, can say nothing on the high themes of human origin and destiny. The propositions concerning man's origin and destiny are not from the earth; for, man of himself knows nothing of origins or destinies. Therefore, as the proposition must be from above, the proof must be from heaven also, must be homogeneous with the proposition to be proved. N^o one knows the Father save the Soin" and he to whom the Soisr shall reveal him. So, no one knows the future, or can know it, or the condition of the dead in the future state, except him to whom the Son shall reveal them.

In this life we find ourselves surrounded bv sin, and it is in all of us. The bitter effects are seen everywhere. "Was it designed by the Maker that it should be so ? Did '' our Father who is in Heaven " intend that his rational creature, — man — whom he made in his own image, should sin and, therefore, suffer ?

1. To suppose that God had no end in view in man's creation, is to suppose that he worked as no intelligent maa ever works. This supposition is absurd.

2. To suppose that he intended man's unhappiness, or that human suffering was the end had in view iu man's creation, is to reckon God to be worse, perhaps, than the very worst man. that has ever lived. This hypothesis is. monstrous and inadmissible. I think it will not be denied that God designed. man's happiness when he created him, whatever else he may have intended.

If man's happiness was intended, it must be, for the same reason, that he was to \iQ perfectly happy. But he is^ not so. He hungers, thirsts, mourns^ weeps, wails, sickens and dies. He yearns for what he has not, and yet feels^ that he ought to have, and, but for something in the way, would have. This unrest is alv/ays and everywhere present, with every one. Why is this ? An enemy hath done this. Is there no means of removing this impediment? no cure for this moral malady ?

How sin could be in the world and be the cause of so dire consequences as we see, and this fact be reconciled with our conceptions of God and man, has long been a problem. '' Is not God omnipotent ? Can he not, then, do whatever he may choose to do, or wish to see done ?-' These questions being answered in the affirmative, if sin is, it follows that it is by the will of God. But if this be so, then God wills the existence of sin, or, being unwilling that it should be, he was not able to prevent it, and he is not now able to remove it. It is at least true that it was not prevented, nor has it been removed. It is here.

Must we, then, conclude that God is not omnipotent? that he is lacking in respect to one of his attributes essential to the character, and therefore, to the existence of God ? If we should so conclude, it would follow that there is no such thing as sin ; for sin is the violation of the law or will of God. But, if there be no God, there can be no law of God to violate, and hence no sin.

"When omnipotence is affirmed of God, it is meant, or should be understood to mean, only that there is nothing of a pur ely pity sical cTtaracter that he has not the power to do ; this and nothing more is meant.

The question of preventing or removing sin is, however, not one of the exertion of physical power. Hence God's omnipotence has nothing to do with the question of the original or continued existence of sin.

It may be asked, Could not God have made man so that he could not have sinned? '^ Could he not have done a better job ?'' I suppose no one but an infidel could ask such a question as this. It is blasphemy. Its animus and purport are to impugn the character of God, else it has none. God could not have made man different from what he did make him. If he had made him so he could not have sinned, he would not have been mart. If one' is not capable of sinning, neither is he capable of being righteous, and hence he neither is nor can be fit for heaven or hell. The fact is, God did create many beings not capable of sinning, and we see the fact before us that they are not men.

3. But, if God is able to prevent or to remove sin at his pleasure, and it is not prevented nor banished from the earth, what is the conclusion ? This, I suppose : God wills that sin shall be ; he wishes it to be and, of course, wills all of its necessary consequences, also. If this be so, then, as before, sin is not possible. For, in that case, if one should perpetrate what we call a sin, it would be no violation of the will of

God, and therefore not a sin. Thera could be no such thing as righteousness, in the religious sense, either ; for righteousness is the doing of right, according to the will of God. But if the will of God be that man must or may sin, then there is no law of righteousness to violate ; there is, therefore, no sin in such case. Moreover, it would be a very strange proceeding for a mau to bow down in prayer to a being whom he believes is the author of all his sorrows, and give him thanks ; to praise and adore him for all his goodness to the children of men !

4. It has been said that if God is really good, and foresaw that men, if created, would suffer, etc., he ought not to have made them, and that he would not. With the case as it appeared before the objector, perhaps his conclusion is not very objectionable. But we ought never to attempt to draw conclusions from premises unless we understand them. What all the premises before God were, when he was considering the question of creating man, it is highly probable we do not fully understand. What all the physical, moral and spiritual necessities in God's universe were, on which the question of the creation or non- creation of maa would have important bearings, we may not, do not, fully know. Hence such judgments as the one above referred to are rash and impious to the last degree. But God knows the end from the beginning. The facts and bearings of all the realities and necessities in the universes of God were before him, and he decided, in view of them all, to create man. Though we may not know all his reasons for what he did, we know the fact. He says that we were made in his image, which, I venture to say, includes the fact of our free moral agency, and excludes, ex necessitate reiy the idea of moral necessity. If this be not SO, it seems to me that the image in which we were made is a rather poor one.

I believe there have been, and it may be now are, a few theologians of some distinction who have held that sin is a good thing, that God designed its existence, and that when it has served its purpose God will put an end to it. These persons hold that Adam's sin was intended as, and that it was, a blessing to him and to his posterity. If the Bible be the Word of God and true, this hypothesis is false. God not only forbade the sin in question, but he forbade it with great emphasis.

If he forbade the deed, and yet intended that Adam should perform it, the logical conclusion would be hard on the character of the Author of all mercies. If he only pretended to forbid it, whereas he intended Adam should eat of the forbidden fruit, the case is not made any better. In view of these and other reasons which it is not necessary to recite, I feel safe in saying that sin is in the world. But Tiow came it here ?

5. Did Grod design it to be here ? I answer, no. (a) I suppose that he did not, from the fact that he forbade it. To say that he designed its existence in the world, is to say that his words in which he forbids sin may rightly contradict his will, which was in his design, that sin should be. This is impossible. If God does not design to have done what he says man must or must not do, then he does what Paul says God cannot do, viz. : "It is impossible for God to lie." (b) But suppose God designed that man should sin, what follows ? This : Man did not, does not, cannot sin while doing the will of God. As God's design is his will, and as sin is the violation of the will of God, so therefore, in no case, where a man does wliat or as so MOBAL EVIL,

God designed that he should do, does he sin. If it be said that Adam, when he ate the forbidden fruit, did what God expressly told him not to do, and so he sinned, it should be replied that though God did say that man must not eat of the forbidden fruit, yet in fact he willed that he should eat of it ; and as sin consists in violating the will^ and not in violating the word of God in which his will is not, if that could be, so, when man ate of the fruit in question, he did not sin. I would, of course, allow that where one violates the will of God he sins.

The supposition that God designed that sin should be in the world, we have seen, directly contradicts the expressed word of God. If that may be true of any one statement of God in the Bible, it may be true of all of them, for aught we know or can know, so far as I can see. It follows from this, that we have no means of knowing the loill of God, on any subject. Thus, all distinctions "between sin and righteousness are ^one, and we are left as though we had no Bible, " without God and without hope in the world." Indeed, with this Tiew accepted, it is not apparent that either sin or righteousness is a possi- Ibility on the part of man. If there be sin at all, it must be, on oar present theory, that God is himself its author. This is, of course, impossible.

6. Did God permit sin to come into the world? I think he did not. It ought not to be said that one permits what he could not prevent. Is it said that God could have prevented sin? The fact that he did not prevent sin is proof, entirely satisfactory, that he could not do so. Is one shocked at this statement which, to him, seems to limit the power of God? Where no distinction is made between the physical and the moral power of God, the statement that God could not have prevented the birth and continued existence of sin in the world appears, no doubt, blasphemous. But does the objector better the case when he claims that God created, with his own hand, a pure, innocent man in his own image, and then stood by and permitted sin to enter in and ruin his child, whereas he could have easily prevented the calamity, but would not do so ?

There are many things that God cannot do. In so saying I put no limitations upon God ; I do not narrow the grounds upon which man's profound and infinite obligation and moral ability to worship God rest. The very reverse of this is the truth. To say that God cannot deny himself; to say that he '' cannot lie," steal or murder is no defamation, but, rather, the highest possible commendation of his character.

7. Is it said, God could have declined to create man, and thus have prevented sin ? It is not certain that sin would not have been, though man had not been created. It might possibly have been, though man had never been. Indeed, it did exist before the creation of man. But how does the querist know that God could have declined to create man? The probabilities are, he could not have declined the said creation. At least, he did make man. This we know. That he had a reason for the deed which outweighed all reasons to the contrary is of course true. Therefore Grod could not have declined to create man and thus prevent the existence of moral evil among men. This point is more fully discussed elsewhere. 3