Correspondence of Gerrit Smith with Albert Barnes. 1868.

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Letter I

Hon. Gerrit Smith:

My Dear Sir : When, nearly forty-eight years ago, I became a student of Hamilton College, your name was more frequently referred to than that of any one wlio had graduated at that Institution. You had preceded me by two or three years. You had received the highest honor in your class, and your high social position, your warm and generous nature, and your acknowledged talents and scholarship, led to a universal expectation of a high career of honor and usefulness.

It has so happened, I believe, that although we were born in the same vicinity ; though we graduated at the same college ; though we have both been with some prominence before the public; and though we have taken a warm interest in the great questions which have been before the nation, and which have so deeply and permanently affected our national affairs, we have never met, nor do I remember to have seen you but once. In common, however, with thousands of others, I have rejoiced in your wide and noble philanthropy; in your ardent love of liberty ; in your friendship for the oppressed and the wronged ; in your opposition to the worst law that was ever enacted in a land of freedom — the "Fugitive Slave" law; and in all that you have done for suffering humanity, and for the happiness of men.

Now, as we are approaching the termination of our long course, j^ou have been pleased to address me, in a printed pamphlet, on a subject which can not be denied to be the most important that can occupy the attention of man at any period of life, and which is eminently appropriate to those who are approaching, as we are, the invisible world. It can not be improper, especially as you have invited me to the task, to inquire whether the views which you have expressed in your letter to me, and which must be regarded as your mature opinions on the subject of religion, will be in the line of the benevolence of your long life, and will tend to promote the happiness of the world when we shall have passed away.

It is not improper for me to say that we have both arrived at

SIJ^ AND SUFFERING IN THE UNIVERSE. 17

a period of life, wben, so for as we are personally concerned, an unspeakable importance must be attached to the utterance of our opinions. In earlier life, we could hope to be able to recall and repair what we might find on maturer reflection to be erroneous or injurious. We can entertain no such hope now. For good or for evil, what we utter goes forth to the world, and escaping from our lips or our pen, it is beyond our reach forever. I do not say that this fact gives us any claim to the attention of our fellow-men, or that any special importance should be attached to our sentiments on that account ; but no man approaching very near the eternal world can fail to desire that his last utterances should be in accordance with truth, and should be such as will promote the happiness of the world when he has gone to his grave. It is with this view, with the highest degree of respect for yourself personally, that I shall examine with freedom the letter which you have been pleased to address to me.

The passage on which your letter to me is founded, referring to the existing foots in this world in regard to sin and misery, and to the punishment of the wicked in the future world, is the following :

" I confess, for one, that I feel them, and feel them more sensibly and powerfully the more I look at them, and the longer I live. I do not understand these facts, and I make no advances toward understanding them. I do not know that I have a ray of light on this subject which I had not when the subject first flashed across my soul. I have read, to some extent, what wise and good men have written. I have looked at their theories and explanations. I have endeavored to weigh their arguments, for my whole soul pants for light and relief on these questions. But I get neither, and, in the distress and anguish of my own spirit, I confess that I see no light whatever. I see not one ray of light to disclose to me why sin came into the world, why the earth is strewn with the dying and the dead, and why men must sufler to all eternity. I have never seen a particle of light thrown on these subjects that has given a moment's ease to my tortured mind, nor have I an explanation to ofler, or a thought to suggest, which would be of relief to you. I trust other men, as they profess to do, understand this better than I do, and tha"t they have not the anguish of spirit which I have. But I confess, when I look on a world of sinners and sufferers ; upon death-beds and grave-yards ; upon the world of woe, filled with hosts to suffer forever ; when I see my friends, my parents, my family, my people, my fellow-citizens — when I look upon a whole race all involved in this sin and danger ; and when I see the great mass of them wholly unconcerned, and when I feel that God only can save them and yet 2

18 SIN AND SUFFEKING IN THE UNIVEESE.

He does not do it, I am struck dumb. It is all dark, dark to my soul, and I can not disguise it."

This was written, if I remember right, more than twenty years ago. I have no doubt that it is correctly quoted. It expressed my feelings then ; it expresses my feelings now. Time has done nothing to modify my vie^vs, nor have I as yet seen any explanation which has removed the difficulties to which I then referred.

Whether the explanations which you have offered will contribute to their removal, will be the main object of my inquiry now. I should welcome more cheerful views if they could be presented. I should hail with joy any explanation which would be a relief from these difficulties. I should then find what the wise and the good of all ages have hitherto longed for and sought in vain.

To a correct appreciation of the value of the solution which you have offered, it will be necessary to consider the following points :

I. The difficulties as they lay in my own mind ; II. The explanation which you have offered ;

III. The system of religion on which your explanation is founded; and

IV. The question whether that system has greater advantages than my own,, or is better fitted to confer happiness. If it is thus fitted to confer happiness, and to calm down the mind in reference to these difficulties, it would not be unreasonable in you to ask that I should abandon the system which I have so long held, and embrace yours.

Your first remark in reference to the passage on which your letter is founded is as follows :

" You are a gifted and a good man, a learned and a just one ; and yet you are a very unhappy one. ' Anguisli of ^pirit' is yours. Whence comes this ? Confessedly from the violence which your theological creed does to your reason, and from your not daring to let your reason condemn your creed. Your reason sees not reason, but unreason, in that story of the forbidden fruit, which lies at the very basis of your theology. Nevertheless, you accept the story and its representation of a purely arbitrary and an utterly inexplicable dealing of God with man. It must be confessed that your creed corresponds with the story — the theological structure with its foundation."

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Now, it is proper forme to ask, by loliom is this " confessecV^f It seems to be implied that /" confessed " or avowed this. Yet this is ill no manner true. I neither confessed nor avowed this in the extract which you have made ; nor have I done it anywhere else ; nor do I now do it ; nor do I now admit it to be true in any sense whatever. I had reference solely to facts ; not to any theor}- in regard to those facts. My dif&culty consisted not at all in reconciling these things to anj^ sj'stem of philosophy or theology which I hold, but to the fact that we are under a divine administration — to the character of a holj^, a just, an almighty, and a benevolent Creator. The matter referred to lay in my mind in the following form :

(1.) The facts could not be called in question.

(2.) Those facts had no necessary connection with any theory of philosophy or religion.

(3.) I had seen no sufficient or satisfactory explanation of those facts.

(1.) The facts, I supposed, could not be called in question.

I still suppose this to be true. The facts referred to are, that this is a world of sinners and sufferers — of death-beds and grave-yards ; that there is danger that large numbers will suffer forever ; that the whole race is involved in this sin and danger; that the great majority of men are unconcerned in regard to this danger ; that God only can save them, and yet that He does not interpose by His power to do it.

It certainly will not be denied by you that a part of these things at least is true— that part which relates to the existence of sin and suffering now on the earth; which have existed for thousands of years ; and vvhich have existed in all lands and under all forms of government, and in connection with all sj'stems of philosophy and religion. You yourself do not refer to any lands, or to any period of history, in which there has been exemption from these things, nor could you do it. As I believe in God, it seems plain to me that this is somehow connected with His administration ; as you believe in God, you must admit this also. My difficulty as to this fact was to understand why the Creator liad suffered this to occur under His administration. The difficulty nmy be expressed in a word. If it might be supposed for a moment that you and I had been con^ suited as to what kind of a world a Being of infinite power and perfect benevolence would make, I think we should have said, without hesitation, that He would not have made sucli a world as this is in this respect. I only add here, that if you will furnish any satisfactory explanation of this fact — of the reason why sin and misery have been allowed to come into the universe at all, and to exist for six thousand years, and how this is to be reconciled with the power, the justice, and the benevolence of God, I think it would not be difficult to advance with the same mode of reasoning which would explain this, and to show that it would not be inconsistent with the same power, justice, and goodness, that it should be allowed to exist, under the same administration, in some form, forever.

The other part of my difficulty related to the fact that suffering and sin will exist in the future world.

The main difficulty here is not peculiarly mine, but it presses on you as really as it does on me. This is apparent, I think, from the following considerations : (a.) On your theory, man, as ■man^ is liable to sin, and, as such, must be liable to it in the future world as well as in this. Indeed, in your apprehension, this constitutes the true, the real dignity of his nature ; and if this exalted dignity of his nature is manifested in this world, it would be difficult to show any reason why it should not also bedone in the world to come, and if at all in the world to come, at any 'period in the world to come — that is, forever. Thus you say (p. 5) :

" It is true that man is so made that he can sin ; but, instead of complaining of this, we should be thankful for it. Instead of lamenting it, we should rejoice in it. How low a being would man be, were he of necessity sinless ! How far inferior to what he now is, were he so constituted that he could not sin ! He would be a mere machine, and his going right would no more argue wisdom and goodness in him than does the right going of a clock argue wisdom and goodness in it."

And again you say (p. 6) :

" Blessed be God that He has made us capable of sinning ; or, in other words, capable of transgressing the laws which He has written upon our being ! . . . I acknowledged the goodness of God in making us capable of sinning. I might have added, in making us capable of sinning so greatly. For to say that we can fcin so greatly is, in effect, to say that we have great powers and advaniiges for learning and obeying law ; it being only in the ab^se of such powers and advantagfes that g^reat sinning is possible. His nature, through the violation of whose laws man has become a great sinner, is the very same sublime nature through the keeping of whose laws he would have been a saint."

From this I infer tliat it is the real exaltation of man that he can sin, and consequently that he does sin ; for to act out his nature is his proper exaltation, and it is this which, distinguishes him from the brute. You have shown no reason why this exaltation of his nature should not manifest itself in a future world as well as in this, and forever.

ib.) It is, if I understand you, a part of your theory that God saves all in this world that He can — implying that there are some whom He can not save ; that is, who will be lost, (p. 9.) If this is so in the present life, it may follow that such as are not saved in the present life will not be in the life to come, for it is fairly implied in your language that the power of Grod in this respect is exhausted in the present life, or, so to speak, that God would have no better chance of success in the life to come ; and that if He can not save such incorrigible sinners here, no hope can be entertained of His being able to do it there. If, as you say, " God has made man too great to be saved by the direct and unaided power of God Himself" here, is it not probable that, with expanded faculties in the future world, man will be found " too great " to be saved by that power there ?

(c.) According to your theory, (p. 14,) as I shall more fully quote hereafter, the universe is governed by unvarying and established laws, not permitting any direct intervention of the divine power. The fixedness of those laws must extend ove'r all worlds, and embrace all time, and must, therefore, comprehend the regions beyond the grave as well as the affairs of this world. The principle implies, too, that this is eternal. It must, therefore, operate as a limitation of the divine power in the future world as well as in this.

{d.) You expressly admit that there maybe sin and suffering in the future world ; that is, that men may be lost : a number made up, according to the statement just referred to, of those whom God can not save. Thus you say :

" Far am I from holding that there is no suffering in the next life. If there is sin there, (and I believe there is,) suffering is also there — for suffeiing necessarily attends sinning."

What will be the extent of this sin and suffering in the future world, you do not, indeed, state, but if the evidence in the case is to be derived from the fewness of those who appear to be converted in this life, and to be prepared for heaven, the number can not be small. So far, however, as the principle is involved, it can make no difference whether it is small or great. The essential point of difficulty is, that any should be lost in the future world.

(g.) There is one other remark to be made here : one other point on which we can not differ, for there is not any ground for a difference of opinion in regard to it. It is, that there is a very general fear or apprehension of future punishment among men, and that that punishment, unless something can be done to avert it, will be unending. This is somehow laid permanently in the human mind. I need not remind you that this universal fear — this " dread of something after death," as expressed by Hamlet, exists everywhere. It is found in the consciences of all men. It is laid at the foundation of all the heathen religions of the world. It enters into the Mohammedan system. It constitutes the foundation of the faith of more than nine tenths of the Christian world. It may be doubted whether a single human mind exists that would be exempt from it on the commission of a great crime. ISTow, this occurs under the government of God, and in the human mind as He has made it. The difficulty is, if there 25, as you say, no " Hell," to understand why He has so made man that he everywhere dreads the future under the belief that there is a " Hell." If there is, as I believe there is, such ? world of woe, I can easily understand why man has been so made as to dread it, that is, to act as if this were true. But what if there is no such world of woe ; if there is nothing, in fact, to be dreaded when the sinner dies? Assuredly this must be known to God, and yet, knowing this, He has filled the world with fear and alarm — on your theory, with false and needless alarm, and, therefore, deceptive alarm.

Are we, then, to believe that God governs the world with false alarms; with unreal fears; with unfounded apprehensions? Are we to believe that the divine administration is founded on a stupendous falsehood? Are we to believe that God controls men, as weak and foolish parents do their children, by bugbears; by delusions; by frightful stories of bears and wolves; of ghosts and hobgoblins? I confess, for one, that I could not, and would not, honor such a God. And yet, so far as I can see, such must be the character of God unless there is real punishment to be feared in the future world. I think it is incumbent on you to explain this fact on the theory which you hold.

Such are some of ihe, facts on which my difficulty was founded.

(2.) My next remark is, that these facts have no necessary connection with my theory of religion ; with my creed or any other creed ; with my theology or any other theology.

You have been pleased to say, as already remarked, that these difficulties pertain to my theory of religion — to my system of theology. But if the facts are as I have now stated them, they have no particular and exclusive reference to any one theory of religion or theology. They pertain to one system as really as to another; to yours as much as to mine ; to you as much as to me. The real difficulty is not in the Calvinistic system, or in the Arminian system; in the Trinitarian theology, or the Socinian theology; in the system of him who believes in the doctrine of future punishment, or the system of the Universalist ; in the belief of the Christian, or the want of belief in the Infidel ; in the Buddhist system of religion, or the system of the Brahmin ; in the religion of Confucius, or the religion of Zoroaster ; in the Koran, the Zendavesta, the Shaster, the Bible, or the Book of Mormon ; in the Mythology of the Greeks and Eomans, or in the system of the Hottentot or the Fejee Islander ; in the philosophy of Plato, Aristotle, Des Cartes, Malebranche, Leibnitz, Locke — of Kant, Ilobbes, Hume, Cousin, or Comte. The difficulty is in the facts themselves ; in reconciling these facts to the ideas of justice, goodness, and mercy with which we find our nature endowed. The real difficulty is to understand how an almighty, a pure, a holy, and a benevolent God — the Creator of the world — should allow these things to come into His system; bow they should be suffered to continue from age to age; how they should be permitted to spread desolation, woe, and sorrow over our world in all its history ; how they should extend into the future world at all ; how there should be either a cerlainty or a possibility that tliey should continue forever. I need not say to you that this has been eminently the great problem to be solved in all ages, and how the problem has entered into every system of theology and philosophy. For one, I felt the greatness of the difficulty, only as millions have done before me, and I gave utterance to my own feelings in the strong language which you have quoted, as human nature has done in all ages.

In my next letter, I shall consider the various explanations •which have been made of these facts, with reference to the inquiry whether they are adapted to calm down the anxieties of a troubled mind. In the third letter, I shall examine the peculiar explanation which you have offered. I am, with great respect, truly yours, Albert Barnes.

LETTER 11.

Hon. Gerrit Smith:

My Bear Sir: In my former letter, in reference to the extract which you bad quoted from me, as expressive of my difficulties respecting the existence of sin and suffering in the universe, I made two remarks : (1.) That the facts can not be called in question ; and (2.) That these facts have no necessary connection with any theory of philosophy or religion.

I proceed now to say, (3.) That no sufficient or satisfactory solution of these facts had been presented to my mind.

(a.) It did not seem to me to be a sufficient explanation to refer these things to Chance, I believe in a God. Besides, there are too many marks of plan, of system, of design, in the arrangement, to make that explanation allowable. Moreover, there is a remedial system existing, which is not easily traceable to chance. The arrangements, for example, for healing diseases — lying at the foundation of the whole science of medicine, as well as the plan of redemption, seem to me to be any thing rather than the production of chance.

(5 ) In like manner, it did not seem to me to be a proper and satisfactory explanation of these things to refer them to Fate,

As in regard to the former solution, so it is in regard to this. I believe in a God, and the idea of a God is as incompatible with the idea of Fate^ as it is with the idea of Chance. Besides, there are evidences of human freedom or liberty in the world, which are not reconcilable with the notion of Fate ; for nothing is plainer than that the state of things on earth is everywhere connected with voluntary human agency.

(c.) I could not find an explanation of these difficulties in the supposition that God could not prevent sin and suffering, or that He could not create an order of free agents so that they would not sin. I see no reason to doubt that He has done so in the case of unfallen angels, and I would hope and believe that He has done so in regard to the inhabitants of far distant worlds. I can not believe that angelic beings are kept from sin by physical force, or that they are not properly free ; nor can I doubt that the redeemed in heaven will be forever secure from all danger of apostasy, and that their security from sin will be in entire consistency with their freedom. I know not why the same thing might not occur on earth. At any rate, it can not be denied or doubted, that God, when He made man, must have foreseen all that would occur, and must have known that 2/ He created him, he would fall and would bring this woe, and ruin, and danger, into the world. But it must be admitted that there was no necessity laid on God to create at all, and, therefore, no necessity for the introduction of sin and misery into the world. Yet, under these circumstances, God chose to create man with the certainty that he would fall into sin ; that He chose to permit the introduction and prevalence of sin and woe on the earth, rather than not create at all.

{d.) The idea that God resolved to introduce sin and misery as a mere act of will and sovereignty — by an arbitrary decree — ordaining His own creatures to sorrow and death simply to show His power, and because He chose that it should be so, did not seem to me to be an admissible explanation. I am so made that I could not embrace such a view of God. I see nothing in the Bible to demand such a solution. I could not reconcile this with my ideas of God. I could see no explanation of the difficulty if this were so. I could see, I thought, that the real difficulty could be augmented by such a supposition, for

26 SIN AND SUFFERING IN THE UNIVEESE.

such a God could be neither adored, honored, worshiped, nor loved.

(e.) The theory that sin is the necessary means of the greatest good — a theory adopted by many — did not seem to me to remove the difficulty, nor to be true in itself. What good, if any, could come out of the permission of evil which could not have been secured in another manner, has never been shown. But if it be alleged that there have been displays of the divine character, as the result of sin, which could not otherwise have been made, still it is not easy to see how it was consistent with benevolence, or with any proper view of that character, to permit or to introduce the crimes and woes of this world and of the world to come, in order that that character should be displayed. It would be difficult, and I think impossible, to show that it would be proper for a sovereign to allow designedly the existence of murder, treason, and rebellion, with all the woes consequent on them, to spring up under his reign when he could easily have prevented them, in order that his own character might be displayed either in pardon or in punishment; still more difficult might it be to see how it would be proper for a father to allow his own child to fall into habits of vice or to experience suffering, in order the better to display his own character, either of clemency or of justice. It is easy, indeed, to understand how, when sin, treason, murder, or rebellion have been committed, the character of a just and benevolent sovereign may be exhibited by the infliction of punishment or by an act of pardon ; or how, when a fault has been committed by a child, the character of a parent may be displayed in a manner in which it could not have been, if no such fault had been committed; but the difficulty is to see how all this could have been permitted or introduced when it might have been easily prevented, or how arrangements could have been made for it as a part of a plan, in order that the character might thus be displayed.

(/) I could not find an explanation of the difficulty in the supposition that this has been suffered to come into the system, because God prefers sin to holiness, evil to good, misery to happiness. I think that all men are so made that they can not believe this. At least, I am so made, and there is evidence that tliis has been the general judgment of mankind. It is clear, moreover, that whatever might be the fact in such a case, even if it should be true that God does prefer sin to holiness, man would not have been made with this conviction on bis mind, and true also, that the world would not have been made as it has been — for there are innumerable proofs in the facts that are constantly occurring that God hates ^in ; that He seeks to check and restrain it ; and that He intends to punish it, and not to bestow His favor on those who persevere in committing it. This theory, therefore, I think, no one could adopt. I am not aware that any class of men, however much perplexed they may have been on the subject, or however wicked they may have been, have in fact adopted it.