pain; that it is sufficiently accounted for by moral evil, and involves
no separate problem. The history of suffering began on our planet
long before that of sin; ages prior to the appearance of man, earth
was a scene of war and mutual destruction; hunger and fear, violence
and agony, disease and death, have prevailed throughout the air, the
land, and ocean, ever since they were tenanted. And what connection in
reason can there be between the sin of men or the sin of angels and
the suffering endured or inflicted by primeval saurians? The suffering
of the animals is, in fact, more mysterious than the suffering of
man, just because so little of the former and so much of the latter
can be traced, directly or indirectly, to sin. But every animal is
made subject to suffering; every animal appetite springs out of a
want; every sense and every faculty of every animal are so constituted
as to be in certain circumstances sources of pain; hosts of animals
are so constructed that they can only live by rending and devouring
other animals; no large animal can move without crushing and killing
numbers of minute yet sentient creatures. How can all this be under the
government of Infinite Goodness?
The human mind may very probably be unable fully to answer this
question. It can only hope truthfully to answer it even in a measure by
studying the relevant facts, the actual effects and natural tendencies
of suffering; general speculations are not likely to profit it much.
Now, among the relevant facts, one of the most manifest is that pain
serves to warn animals against what would injure or destroy them. It
has a preservative use. Were animals unsusceptible of pain, they would
be in continual peril. Bayle has ingeniously devised some hypotheses
with a view to show that pain might have safely been dispensed with
in the animal constitution, but they are obviously insufficient. It
would be rash to affirm that pain is indispensable as a warning against
danger, but certainly no one has shown how it could be dispensed with,
or even plausibly imagined how it might be dispensed with. For anything
we can see or even conceive, animal organisms could only be preserved
in a world like ours by being endowed with a susceptibility to pain.
For anything we know or can even imagine, the demand that there should
be no pain is implicitly a demand that there should be no animal life
and no world like the earth;--a most foolish and presumptuous demand.
But however this may be, pain has, as a fact, plain reference to the
prevention of physical injury. "Painful sensations," says Professor Le
Conte, "are only watchful vedettes upon the outposts of our organism
to warn us of approaching danger. Without these, the citadel of our
life would be quickly surprised and taken." Now, to the whole extent
that what has just been said is true, pain is not evil but good, and
justifies both itself and its author. It is not an end in itself, but
a means to an end, and its end is a benevolent one. The character of
pain itself is such as to indicate that its author must be a benevolent
being,--one who does not afflict for his own pleasure, but for his
creatures' profit.
Another fact makes this still more evident. Pain is a stimulus to
exertion, and it is only through exertion that the faculties are
disciplined and developed. Every appetite originates in the experience
of a want, and the experience of a want is a pain; but what would the
animals be without their appetites and the activities to which these
give rise? Would they be the magnificent and beautiful creatures so
many of them are? If the hare had no fear, would it be as swift as
it is? If the lion had no hunger, would it be as strong as it is? If
man had nothing to struggle with, would he be as enterprising, as
ingenious, as variously skilled and educated as he is? Pain tends
to the perfection of the animals. It has, that is to say, a good
end; an end which justifies its use; one which would do so even if
perfection should not be conducive to happiness. Perfection, it seems
to me, is a worthy aim in itself, and the pain which naturally tends
to it is no real evil, and needs no apology. I fail to see that the
nearest approximation to the ideal of animal life is the existence
of a well-fed hog, which does not need to exert itself, and is not
designed for the slaughter. Whatever pain is needed to make the animals
so exercise their faculties as to improve and develop their natures,
has been wisely and rightly allotted to them. We assign a low aim
to Providence when we affirm that it looks merely to the happiness
even of the animals. It would be no disproof of benevolence in the
Creator if pain in the creatures tended simply to perfection and not
to happiness; while it must be regarded as a proof of His benevolence
if the means which lead to perfection lead also to happiness. And this
they do. The pain which gives rise to exertion and the pain which
is involved in exertion are, as a rule, amply rewarded even with
pleasure. Perhaps susceptibility to pain is a necessary condition of
susceptibility to pleasure; perhaps the bodily organism could not
be capable of pleasure and insensible to pain; but whether this be
the case or not, it is a plain and certain matter of fact that the
activities which pain originates are the chief sources of enjoyment
throughout the animal creation. This fact entitles us to hold that
pain itself is an evidence of the benevolence of God. The perfecting
power of suffering is seen in its highest form not in the brute, but
in man; not in its effects on the body, but in its influence on the
mind. It is of incalculable use in correcting and disciplining the
spirit. It serves to soften the hard of heart, to subdue the proud, to
produce fortitude and patience, to expand the sympathies, to exercise
the religious affections, to refine, strengthen, and elevate the entire
disposition. To come out pure gold, the character must pass through the
furnace of affliction. And no one who has borne suffering aright has
ever complained that he had been called on to endure too much of it. On
the contrary, all the noblest of our race have learned from experience
to count suffering not an evil but a privilege, and to rejoice in it
as working out in them, through its purifying and perfecting power, an
eternal weight of glory.
In the measure that the theory of evolution can be established,
the wisdom and benevolence displayed in pain would seem to receive
confirmation. So far as that theory can be proved, want, the struggle
for existence, the sufferings which flow from it, and death itself,
must, it would appear, be regarded as means to the formation,
improvement, and adornment of species and races. The afflictions which
befall individuals will in this case be scientifically demonstrated to
have a reference not merely to their own good, but to the welfare of
their kind in all future time. The truth that nothing lives or dies
to itself would thus receive remarkable verification. But although it
should never receive this verification, although a strictly scientific
proof of it shall never be forthcoming, there is already sufficient
evidence for it of an obvious and unambiguous kind. Every being, and
the animated certainly not less than the inanimate, is adjusted, as
I have previously had occasion to show, to every other. "All are but
parts of one stupendous whole." This is a truth which throws a kindly
and cheering light on many an otherwise dark and depressing fact. Turn
it even towards death. Can death itself, when seen in the light of
it, be denied to be an evidence of benevolence? I think not. The law
of animal generation makes necessary the law of animal death, if the
largest amount of animal happiness is to be secured. If there had been
less death there must have been also less life, and what life there
was must have been poorer and meaner. Death is a condition of the
prolificness of nature, the multiplicity of species, the succession
of generations, the coexistence of the young and the old; and these
things, it cannot reasonably be doubted, add immensely to the sum of
animal happiness.
Such considerations as have now been indicated are sufficient to show
that suffering is a means to ends which only a benevolent Being can
be conceived of as designing. They show that pain and death are not
what they would have been if a malevolent Being had contrived them;
that they are characterised by peculiarities which only love and mercy
can explain. We do not need for any practical spiritual purpose to
know more than this. An objector may still ask, Could not God have
attained all good ends without employing any painful means? He may
still confront us with the Epicurean dilemma: "The Deity is either
willing to take away all evil, but is not able to do so, in which case
He is not omnipotent; or He is able to remove the evil, but is not
willing, in which case He is not benevolent; or He is neither willing
nor able, which is a denial of the Divine perfections; or He is both
able and willing to do away with the evil, and yet it exists." But only
superficial and immature minds will attach much weight to questionings
and reasonings of this kind. A slight tincture of inductive science
will suffice to make any man aware that speculations as to what God
can or can not do, as to what the universe might or might not have
been, belong to a very different region from investigations into the
tendencies of real facts and processes. It would seem as if, with our
present faculties, these speculations could lead us to no reliable
conclusions. We clearly perceive that pain and death serve many good
ends; but we should require a knowledge of God and of the universe
far beyond that which we possess, to be able to state, even as an
intelligent conjecture, that these evils could be wisely dispensed
with, or that there is anything in them in the least inconsistent
either with the power or the benevolence of God.[45]
[45] See Appendix XXXIV.
A large amount of human suffering is accounted for by its connection
with human sin. Whatever so-called physical evil is needed to prevent
moral evil, or to punish it, or to cure it, or to discipline in moral
good, is not really evil. Any earthly suffering which saves us from
sin is to be classed among benefits. There is nothing to perplex
either mind or heart in the circumstance that sin causes a profound
and widespread unhappiness. It is strange that it should sometimes
apparently produce so little misery; only a dull conscience, I think,
will be surprised that it produces so much. It is merely in so far as
physical evil is dissociated from moral evil that its existence is a
problem and a perplexity. But the very existence of moral evil is a
most painful mystery. The absence of physical evil while moral evil was
present would be inconsistent with a moral government of the world;
whereas if moral evil were removed no real difficulty would be left.
Physical evil may be a relative good, which God can easily be conceived
of as causing and approving; moral evil is an unconditional evil, and
cannot be the work of any morally perfect being.
Have we any reason, however, to suppose that sin is willed by God in
the sense either of being caused or approved by Him? All the sin we
know of on earth is willed by man, and all the sin which Scripture
tells us of as existing elsewhere is said to be willed by evil spirits;
neither nature nor Scripture informs us that there is any moral evil
willed by God. In other words, there are no facts which refer us to God
as the author of evil. In the absence of facts, we can, it is true,
form conjectures, and give expression to them in such questions as, How
could God make beings capable of sinning? Why did He not prevent them
sinning? Wherefore has He permitted sin to endure so long and spread
so widely? But thoughtful searchers for truth, at least after a certain
age, cannot feel much interested in, or much perplexed by, questions
like these. They will be quite willing to leave the discussion of them
to debating societies. They will resolutely refuse to assign the same
value to conjectures as to facts.
Sin is not God's work. Moral order may exist without moral disorder,
but moral disorder can only exist as rebellion against moral order. The
very notion of moral evil implies a moral good which it contravenes,
and a moral law by which it is condemned. It can never be thought of as
other than a something grafted on nature, by which nature is perverted
and depraved. It is not natural, but unnatural; not primary and
original, but secondary and derivative; not the law, but the violation
of the law.
"The primal Will, innately good, hath never
Swerved, or from its own perfect self declined."
Between this Will and sin there are ever interposed created wills,
which are conscious of their power to choose good or evil, obedience
or disobedience to God's law. God bestows on His creatures only good
gifts, but one of the best of all these gifts includes in its very
nature ability to abuse and pervert itself and all things else.
Freewill needs no vindication, for it is the primary and indispensable
condition of moral agency. Without it there might be a certain animal
goodness, but there could be no true virtue. A virtuous being is one
which chooses of its own accord to do what is right. The notion of a
moral creature being governed and guided without the concurrence and
approval of its own will is a contradiction. If God desired to have
moral creatures in His universe He could only have them by endowing
them with freewill, which is the power to accept or reject His own
will. The determination to create moral beings was a determination
to create beings who should be the causes of their own actions, and
who might set aside His own law. It was a determination to limit His
own will to that extent and in that manner. Hence, when He created
moral beings, and these beings, in the free exercise of their power,
violated His law, sin entered into the world, but not through His
will. It resulted from the exercise of an original good gift which He
had bestowed on certain of His creatures, who could abuse that gift,
but were not necessitated to abuse it. Their abuse of it was their
own action, and the action consisted not in conforming to, but in
contravening, God's will. Thus, God's character is not stained by the
sins which His creatures have committed.
But, it will be objected, could not God have made moral creatures who
would be certain always to choose what is right, always to acquiesce
in His own holy will? and if He could do this, why did He not? Why did
He create a class of moral creatures whom He could not but foresee
to be certain to abuse their power of choice between obedience and
disobedience to His law? Well, far be it from me to deny that God could
have originated a sinless moral system. If anything I have already said
be understood to imply this, it has been completely misunderstood. I
have no doubt that God has actually made many moral beings who are
certain never to oppose their own wills to His; or that He might, if
it had so pleased Him, have created only such angels as were sure to
keep their first estate. But if questioned as to why He has not done
the latter, I feel no shame in confessing my ignorance. It seems to me
that when you have resolved the problem of the origin of moral evil
into the question, Why has God not originated a moral universe in which
the lowest moral being would be as excellent as the archangels are?
you have at once shown it to be speculatively incapable of solution
and practically without importance. The question is one which would
obviously give rise to another, Why has God not created only moral
beings as much superior to the archangels as they are superior to
the lowest Australian aborigines? and that to still another of the
same kind, and so on _ad infinitum_? But no complete answer can be
given to a question which may be followed by a series of similar
questions to which there is no end. We have, besides, neither the
facts nor the faculties requisite to answer such questions. A merely
imaginary universe is one on which we have no data to reason. We who
are so incompetent judges of the actual universe, notwithstanding the
various opportunities which we possess of studying it, and the special
adaptation of our organs and powers to the objects which it presents,
can have no right to affirm its inferiority to any universe which we
can imagine as possible. The best world, we may be assured, that our
fancies can feign, would in reality be far inferior to the world God
has made, whatever imperfections we may think we see in it. We ought to
be content if we can show that what God has done is wise and right, and
not perplex ourselves as to why He has not done an infinity of other
things, the propriety of which we cannot possibly estimate aright or as
parts of any scheme unlimited in extent and eternal in duration.
Sin, then, is not God's work, and we are unable to prove that He
ought to have prevented it. Can we go any farther than this? Yes; we
can show that the permission of it has been made subservient to the
attainment of certain great ends. Man has the power to choose evil, but
God has also the power to overrule it--to cause it, as it were, to
contradict itself, to work out its own defeat and disgrace, to promote
what it threatens to hinder; and the facts of experience and history
show us that this is what He does. There is thus developed in His
human creatures a higher kind of virtue than that of mere innocence;
a virtue which can only be reached through suffering, and conflict,
and conquest. The struggle with moral evil, still more than that
with physical disadvantages and intellectual difficulties, tests and
exercises the soul, teaches it its weakness and dependence on Divine
strength, and elicits and trains its spiritual faculties. Successive
battles with vice raise honest combatants to successive stages of
virtue. The type of character presented to us in the second Adam is
no bare restoration of that which was lost in the first Adam, but one
immeasurably superior. The humblest of true Christians now aspires
after a far grander moral ideal than that of an untested innocence. Is
there not in this fact a vindication of God's wisdom and holiness worth
more than volumes of abstract speculation?
Due weight ought also to be given to the circumstance that the system
of God's moral government of our race is only in course of development.
We can see but a small part of it, for the rest is as yet unevolved.
History is not a whole, but the initial or preliminary portion of a
process which may be of vast duration, and the sequel of which may
be far grander than the past has been. That portion of the process
which has been already accomplished, small though it be, indicates the
direction which is being taken; it is, on the whole, a progressive
movement; a movement bearing humanity towards truth, freedom, and
justice. Is it scientific, or in any wise reasonable, to believe that
the process will not advance to its legitimate goal? Surely not.
The physical history of the earth affords abundant evidence of the
realisation of the most comprehensive plans, and no indication of
failure. We can have no right to imagine that it will be otherwise in
the moral sphere; that the ideals towards which history shows humanity
to have been approaching in the past will not be reached even in the
most distant future. But if moral progress will, no less than physical
progress, be carried on unto completion, the future cannot fail to
throw light on the past--cannot fail to some extent to justify the
past. The slowness of the progress may perplex us, and yet, perhaps,
it is just what we ought to expect, both from God's greatness and our
own littleness. He is patient because eternal. His plans stretch from
everlasting to everlasting, and a thousand years are in His sight but
as yesterday when it is past. We have not the faculties which fit us
for rapid movements and vast achievements. We need to be conducted by
easy and circuitous courses. "Lofty heights must be ascended by winding
paths."
"We have not wings, we cannot soar,
But we have feet to scale and climb
By slow degrees, by more and more,
The cloudy summits of our time."
It must be added that whoever acknowledges Christianity to be a
revelation from God, must see in it reasons which go far to explain
the permission of sin. There is, it is true, in the authoritative
records of the Christian religion, the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, no
explanation of the origin of moral evil as a speculative problem. The
account of the first parents of the human race introducing sin into the
world by yielding to the seduction of a being who had himself sinned,
is wholly of a historical character, and can neither be compared
nor contrasted with the theories of philosophers as to the nature,
possibility, and cause of sin. To measure the one by the others, or
to set the one over against the others, is to do injustice both to
Scripture and philosophy. But the whole scheme of Christianity must
seem to those who accept it the strongest possible of practical grounds
for the Divine permission of man's abuse of freewill. The existence
of sin has, according to the Christian view, been the occasion and
condition of a manifestation of the Divine character far more glorious
than that which had been given by the creation of the heavens and the
earth. It called forth a display of justice, love, and mercy before
which all moral beings in the universe may well bow down in wonder
and adoration, and man especially with unspeakable gratitude. If God
has really manifested Himself in Christ for the reconciliation of the
world to Himself, His permission of sin has certainly to all practical
intents been amply justified.