This being the subject out of which the Gnostic theories appear to have
arisen (there being so many attempts to account for it, without in any
wise bringing it into connexion with the Supreme Being), it might,
perhaps, have been expected that Irenæus should have endeavoured to throw
some light upon it. He has, however, taken a much wiser course. He has
altogether declined making it clear, and thereby escaped the danger of
inventing another heresy.
He grants, indeed, that there is sufficient ground for inquiring why God
has allowed evil and imperfection to exist; but he declares that all
things were intended by the Almighty to be created in the very state and
with the very qualities with which they were created(249). He will not
allow that subsequent dispensations were really intended to remedy the
imperfections of prior ones, because that would be to accuse God himself
of not understanding at first the effects of his works(250).
He asserts, moreover, that supposing angels and men to have a proper
voluntary agency, to be endued with reason and the power of examining and
deciding upon examination, they must, in the very nature of things, be
capable of transgressing; and that, indeed, otherwise excellence would not
have been either pleasant or an object of desire, because they would not
have known its value, neither would it have been capable of reward, or of
being enjoyed when attained; nor would intercourse with God have been
valued, because it would have come without any impulse, choice, care, or
endeavour of their own(251). This is the only approach to a solution of
the difficulty which all the study of philosophers and divines has ever
discovered.
But when we come to inquire why some of God’s creatures transgressed, and
some continued in obedience, this, he says, is a mystery which God has
reserved to himself, and which it is presumption for us to inquire into;
and that we ought to consider what it has pleased him to reveal as a
favour, and leave to him that which he has not thought proper to make
known(252).
He notwithstanding suggests this practical good arising out of the
existence of evil, that the love of God will be more earnestly cherished
for ever by those who have known by experience the evil of sin, and have
obtained their deliverance from it not without their own exertion; and
therefore that this may be regarded as a reason why God permitted
evil(253).
The sobriety of these views is so obvious, that it appears unnecessary to
dwell further upon them.