_GOD AND EVIL_
iii. 37-9
The eternal problem of the relation of God to evil is here treated
with the keenest discrimination. That God is the supreme and
irresistible ruler, that no man can succeed with any design in
opposition to His will, that whatever happens must be in some way an
execution of His decree, and that He, therefore, is to be regarded as
the author of evil as well as good--these doctrines are so taken for
granted that they are neither proved nor directly affirmed, but thrown
into the form of questions that can have but one answer, as though to
imply that they are known to everybody, and cannot be doubted for a
moment by any one. But the inference drawn from them is strange and
startling. It is that not a single living man has any valid excuse for
complaining. That, too, is considered to be so undeniable that, like
the previous ideas, it is expressed as a self-answering question. But
we are not left in this paradoxical position. The evil experienced by
the sufferer is treated as the punishment of his sin. What right has
he to complain of that? A slightly various rendering has been proposed
for the thirty-ninth verse, so as to resolve into a question and its
answer. Read in this way, it asks, why should a living man complain?
and then suggests the reply, that if he is to complain at all it
should not be on account of his sufferings, treated as wrongs. He
should complain against himself, his own conduct, his sin. We have
seen, however, in other cases, that the breaking of a verse in this
way is not in harmony with the smooth style of the elegiac poetry in
which the words occur. This requires us to take the three verses of
the triplet as continuous, flowing sentences.
Quite a number of considerations arise out of the curious
juxtaposition of ideas in this passage. In the first place, it is very
evident that by the word "evil" the writer here means trouble and
suffering, not wickedness, because he clearly distinguishes it from
the sin the mention of which follows. That sin is a man's own deed,
for which he is justly punished. The poet, then, does not attribute
the causation of sin to God; he does not speculate at all on the
origin of moral evil. As far as he goes in the present instance, he
would seem to throw back the authorship of it upon the will of man.
How that will came to turn astray he does not say. This awful mystery
remains unsolved through the whole course of the revelation of the Old
Testament, and even through that of the New also. It cannot be
maintained that the story of the Fall in Genesis is a solution of the
mystery. To trace temptation back to the serpent is not to account for
its existence, nor for the facility with which man was found to yield
to it. When, at a later period, Satan appears on the stage, it is not
to answer the perplexing question of the origin of evil. In the Old
Testament he is nowhere connected with the Fall--his identification
with the serpent first occurring in the Book of Wisdom,[200] from
which apparently it passed into current language, and so was adopted
by St. John in the Apocalypse.[201] At first Satan is the adversary
and accuser of man, as in Job[202] and Zechariah;[203] then he is
recognised as the tempter, in Chronicles, for example.[204] But in no
case is he said to be the primary cause of evil. No plummet can sound
the depths of that dark pit in which lurks the source of sin.
[200] Wisdom ii. 23 ff.
[201] Rev. xii. 9.
[202] Job i. 6-12, ii. 1-7.
[203] Zech. iii. 1, 2.
[204] 1 Chron. xxi. 1.
Meanwhile a very different problem, the problem of suffering, is
answered by attributing this form of evil quite unreservedly and even
emphatically to God. It is to be remembered that our Lord, accepting
the language of His contemporaries, ascribes this to Satan, speaking
of the woman afflicted with a spirit of infirmity as one whom Satan
had bound;[205] and that similarly St. Paul writes of his thorn in the
flesh as a messenger of Satan,[206] to whom he also assigns the
hindrance of a projected journey.[207] But in these cases it is not in
the least degree suggested that the evil spirit is an irresistible and
irresponsible being. The language only points to his immediate agency.
The absolute supremacy of God is never called in question. There is no
real concession to Persian dualism anywhere in the Bible. In difficult
cases the sacred writers seem more anxious to uphold the authority of
God than to justify His actions. They are perfectly convinced that
those actions are all just and right, and not to be called in
question, and so they are quite fearless in attributing to His direct
commands occurrences that we should perhaps think more satisfactorily
accounted for in some other way. In such cases theirs is the language
of unfailing faith, even when faith is strained almost to breaking.
[205] Luke xiii. 16.
[206] 2 Cor. xii. 7.
[207] 1 Thess. ii. 18.
The unquestionable fact that good and evil both come from the mouth of
the Most High is based on the certain conviction that He _is_ the Most
High. Since it cannot be believed that His decrees should be thwarted,
it cannot be supposed that there is any rival to His power. To speak
of evil as independent of God is to deny that He is God. This is what
a system of pure dualism must come to. If there are two mutually
independent principles in the universe neither of them can be God.
Dualism is as essentially opposed to the idea we attach to the name
"God" as polytheism. The gods of the heathen are no gods, and so also
are the imaginary twin divinities that divide the universe between
them, or contend in a vain endeavour to suppress one another. "God,"
as we understand the title, is the name of the Supreme, the Almighty,
the King of kings and Lord of lords. The Zend-Avesta escapes the
logical conclusion of atheism by regarding its two principles, Ormuzd
and Ahriman, as two streams issuing from a common fountain, or as two
phases of one existence. But then it saves its theism at the expense
of its dualism. In practice, however, this is not done. The dualism,
the mutual antagonism of the two powers, is the central idea of the
Parsee system; and being so, it stands in glaring contrast to the
lofty monism of the Bible.
Nevertheless, it may be said, although it is thus necessary to
attribute evil as well as good to God if we would not abandon the
thought of His supremacy, a thought that is essential to our
conception of His very nature, this is a perplexing necessity, and not
one to be accepted with any sense of satisfaction. How then can the
elegist welcome it with acclamation and set it before us with an air
of triumph? That he does so is undeniable, for the spirit and tone of
the poem here become positively exultant.
We may reply that the writer appears as the champion of the Divine
cause. No attack on God's supremacy is to be permitted. Nothing of the
kind, however, has been suggested. The writer is pursuing another aim,
for he is anxious to still the murmurs of discontent. But how can the
thought of the supremacy of God have that effect? One would have
supposed the ascription to God of the trouble complained of would
deepen the sense of distress and turn the complaint against Him. Yet
it is just here that the elegist sees the unreasonableness of a
complaining spirit.
Of course the uselessness of complaining, or rather the uselessness of
attempting resistance, may be impressed upon us in this way. If the
source of our trouble is nothing less than the Almighty and Supreme
Ruler of all things it is stupid to dream of thwarting His purposes.
If a man will run his head like a battering-ram against a granite
cliff the most he can effect by his madness will be to bespatter the
rock with his brains. It may be necessary to warn the rebel against
Providence of this danger by shewing him that what he mistakes for a
flimsy veil or a shadowy cloud is an immovable wall. But what will he
find to exult over in the information? The hopelessness of resistance
is no better than the consolation of pessimism, and its goal is
despair. Our author, on the other hand, evidently intends to be
reassuring.
Now, is there not something reassuring in the thought that evil and
good come to us from one and the same source? For, consider the
alternative. Remember, the evil exists as surely as the good. The
elegist does not attempt to deny this, or to minimise the fact. He
never calls evil good, never explains it away. There it stands before
us, in all its ugly actuality, speculations concerning its origin
neither aggravating the severity of its symptoms nor alleviating them.
Whence, then, did this perplexing fact arise? If we postulate some
other source than the Divine origin of good, what is it? A dreadful
mystery here yawns at our feet. If evil came from an equally potent
origin it would contend with good on even terms, and the issue would
always hang in the balance. There could be nothing reassuring in that
tantalising situation. The fate of the universe would be always
quivering in uncertainty. And meanwhile we should have to conclude,
that the most awful conflict with absolutely doubtful issues was
raging continually. We could only contemplate the idea of this vast
schism with terror and dismay. But now assuredly there is something
calming in the thought of the unity of the power that distributes our
fortunes; for this means that a man is in no danger of being tossed
like a shuttlecock between two gigantic rival forces. There must be a
singleness of aim in the whole treatment of us by Providence, since
Providence is one. Thus, if only as an escape from an inconceivably
appalling alternative, this doctrine of the common source of good and
evil is truly reassuring.
We may pursue the thought further. Since good and evil spring from one
and the same source, they cannot be so mutually contradictory as we
have been accustomed to esteem them. They are two children of a common
parent; then they must be brothers. But if they are so closely related
a certain family likeness may be traced between them. This does not
destroy the actuality of evil. But it robs it of its worst features.
The pain may be as acute as ever in spite of all our philosophising.
But the significance of it will be wholly changed. We can now no
longer treat it as an accursed thing. If it is so closely related to
good, we may not have far to go in order to discover that it is even
working for good.
Then if evil and good come from the same source it is not just to
characterise that source by reference to one only of its effluents. We
must not take a rose-coloured view of all things, and relapse into
idle complacency, as we might do if we confined our observation to the
pleasant facts of existence, for the unpleasant facts--loss,
disappointment, pain, death--are equally real, and are equally derived
from the very highest Authority. Neither are we justified in denying
the existence of the good when overwhelmed with a sense of the evil in
life. At worst we live in a very mixed world. It is unscientific, it
is unjust to pick out the ills of life and gibbet them as specimens of
the way things are going. If we will recite the first part of such an
elegy as that we are now studying, at least let us have the honesty to
read on to the second part, where the surpassingly lovely vision of
the Divine compassion so much more than counterbalances the preceding
gloom. Is it only by accident that the poet says "evil and good," and
not, as we usually put the phrase, "good and evil"? Good shall have
the last word. Evil exists; but the finality and crown of existence is
not evil, but good.
The conception of the primary unity of causation which the Hebrew poet
reaches through his religion is brought home to us to-day with a vast
accumulation of proof by the discoveries of science. The uniformity
of law, the co-relation of forces, the analyses of the most diverse
and complex organisms into their common chemical elements, the
evidence of the spectroscope to the existence of precisely the same
elements among the distant stars, as well as the more minute
homologies of nature in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, are all
irrefutable confirmations of this great truth. Moreover, science has
demonstrated the intimate association of what we cannot but regard as
good and evil in the physical universe. Thus, while carbon and oxygen
are essential elements for the building up of all living things, the
effect of perfectly healthy vital functions working upon them is to
combine them into carbonic acid, which is a most deadly poison; but
then this noxious gas becomes the food of plants, from which the
animal life in turn derives its nourishment. Similarly microbes, which
we commonly regard as the agents of corruption and disease, are found
to be not only nature's scavengers, but also the indispensable
ministers of life, when clustering round the roots of plants in vast
crowds they convert the organic matter of the soil, such as manure,
into those inorganic nitrates which contain nitrogen in the form
suitable for absorption by vegetable organisms. The mischief wrought
by germs, great as it is, is infinitely outweighed by the necessary
service existences of this kind render to all life by preparing some
of its indispensable conditions. The inevitable conclusion to be drawn
from facts such as these is that health and disease, and life and
death, interact, are inextricably blended together, and mutually
transformable--what we call disease and death in one place being
necessary for life and health in another. The more clearly we
understand the processes of nature the more evident is the fact of
her unity, and therefore the more impossible is it for us to think of
her objectionable characteristics as foreign to her being--alien
immigrants from another sphere. Physical evil itself looks less
dreadful when it is seen to take its place as an integral part of the
complicated movement of the whole system of the universe.
But the chief reason for regarding the prospect with more than
satisfaction has yet to be stated. It is derived from the character of
Him to whom both the evil and the good are attributed. We can go
beyond the assertion that these contrarieties spring from one common
origin to the great truth that this origin is to be found in God. All
that we know of our Father in heaven comes to our aid in reflecting
upon the character of the actions thus attributed to Him. The account
of God's goodness that immediately precedes this ascription of the two
extreme experiences of life to Him would be in the mind of the writer,
and it should be in the mind of the reader also. The poet has just
been dwelling very emphatically on the indubitable justice of God.
When, therefore, he reminds us that both evil and good come from the
Divine Being, it is as though he said that they both originated in
justice. A little earlier he was expressing the most fervent
appreciation of the mercy and compassion of God. Then these gracious
attributes should be in our thoughts while we hear that the mixed
experiences of life are to be traced back to Him of whom so cheering a
view can be taken.
We know the love of God much more fully since it has been revealed to
us in Jesus Christ. Therefore we have a much better reason for
building our faith and hope on the fact of the universal Divine origin
of events. In itself the evil exists all the same whether we can
trace its cause or not, and the discovery of the cause in no way
aggravates it. But this discovery may lead us to take a new view of
its issues. If it comes from One who is as just and merciful as He is
mighty we may certainly conclude that it will lead to the most blessed
results. Considered in the light of the assured character of its
purpose, the evil itself must assume a totally different character.
The child who receives a distasteful draught from the hand of the
kindest of parents knows that it cannot be a cup of poison, and has
good reason for believing it to be a necessary medicine.
The last verse of the triplet startles the reader with an unexpected
thought. The considerations already adduced are all meant to check any
complaint against the course of Providence. Now the poet appends a
final argument, which is all the more forcible for not being stated as
an argument. At the very end of the passage, when we are only
expecting the language to sink into a quiet conclusion, a new idea
springs out upon us, like a tiger from its lair. This trouble about
which a man is so ready to complain, as though it were some
unaccountable piece of injustice, is simply _the punishment of his
sin_! Like the other ideas of the passage, the notion is not
tentatively argued; it is boldly taken for granted. Once again we see
that there is no suspicion in the mind of the elegist of the
perplexing problem that gives its theme to the Book of Job. But do we
not sometimes press that problem too far? Can it be denied that, to a
large extent, suffering is the direct consequence and the natural
punishment of sin? Are we not often burnt for the simple reason that
we have been playing with fire? At all events, the whole course of
previous prophecy went to shew that the national sins of Israel must
be followed by some dreadful disasters; and when the war-cloud was
hovering on the horizon Jeremiah saw in it the herald of approaching
doom. Then the thunderbolt fell; and the wreck it caused became the
topic of this Book of Lamentations. After such a preparation, what was
more natural, and reasonable, and even inevitable, than that the
elegist should calmly assume that the trouble complained of was no
more than was due to the afflicted people? This is clear enough when
we think of the nation as a whole. It is not so obvious when we turn
our attention to individual cases; but the bewildering problem of the
sufferings of innocent children, which constitutes the most prominent
feature in the poet's picture of the miseries of the Jews, is not here
revived.
We must suppose that he is thinking of a typical citizen of Jerusalem.
If the guilty city merited severe punishment, such a man as this would
also merit it; for the deserts of the city are only the deserts of her
citizens. It will be for everybody to say for himself how far the
solution of the mystery of his own troubles is to be looked for in
this direction. A humble conscience will not be eager to repudiate the
possibility that its owner has not been punished beyond his deserts,
whatever may be thought of other people, innocent children in
particular. There is one word that may bring out this aspect of the
question with more distinctness--the word "living." The poet asks,
"Wherefore doth a _living_ man complain?" Why does he attach this
attribute to the subject of his question? The only satisfactory
explanation that has been offered is that he would remind us that
while the sufferer has his life preserved to him he has no valid
ground of complaint. He has not been overpaid; he has not even been
paid in full; for it is an Old Testament doctrine which the New
Testament repeats when it declares that "the wages of sin is
death."[208]
[208] Rom. vi. 23.