Catholic Mode.
The Catholic mode is that of mystery and sovereignty, and is based on the assumption that the mind of man, being utterly depraved, has no capacity to judge of what is right and wrong.
According to this, the most abominable and horrible crimes are to be considered virtues if God should commit them, or should teach us that they are so.
Among the most distinguished of the Catholic theologians is the learned Abelard, who teaches thus:
“Would it not be deemed the summit of injustice among men, if any one should cast an innocent son, for the sin of a father, into those flames, even if they endured but a short time? How much more so if eternal? Truly I confess this would be unjust in men, because they are forbidden to avenge even their own real injuries. But it is not so in God, who says, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay;’ and again, in another place, ‘I will kill and I will make alive.’ Now God commits no injustice towards his creature in whatever way he treats him—whether he assigns him to punishment or to life.... In whatever way God may wish to treat his creature, he can be accused of no injustice; nor can any thing be called evil in any way if it is done according to his will. Nor can we in any other way distinguish good from evil, except by noticing what is agreeable to his will.”
Another celebrated Catholic theologian, “the good Pascal,” thus disparages our natural sense of justice as “wretched,” and of no account before this awful doctrine.
“What can be more contrary to the rules of our wretched justicethan to damn eternally an infant incapable of volition, for an offense in which he seems to have had no share, and which was committed six thousand years before he was born? Certainly nothing strikes us more rudely than this doctrine; and yet without this mystery, the most incomprehensible of all, we are incomprehensible to ourselves.”
Thus it is seen that Pascal concedes it as a truth that infants are to be eternally damned for offenses in which they “seem to have no share,” and that our sense of justice, which revolts from it, is “wretched.”
The Andover Theological Seminary was the first one established in New England for educating ministers, and for nearly half a century Dr. Woods filled the leading theological chair. The following is introduced, from the Conflict of Ages, to verify the statement that the Catholic mode of mystery and sovereignty was the method adopted by him in training the clergy of New England on this subject.
“He [Dr. Woods] expressly teaches that there is in the nature of man, anterior to knowledge or choice, a proneness or propensity to sin, which is in its own nature sinful, ‘the essence of moral evil, the sum of all that is vile and hateful.’ He also teaches that God inflicts this ‘tremendous calamity’ on all men for the sin of one man. ‘This,’ he says, ‘has been the belief of the church in all ages.’
“He then asks, ‘But how is this proceeding just to Adam's posterity? What have they done, before they commit sin, to merit pain and death? What have they done to merit the evil of existing without original righteousness, and with a nature prone [pg 030]to sin? Here,’ he says, ‘our wisdom fails. We apply in vain to human reason or human consciousness for an answer.’ Nay more; he even admits that such conduct is ‘contrary to the dictates of our fallible minds.’ Yet he still insists that we ought not to judge at all in the case, but to believe that it is right because God has done it. ‘God has not made us judges. The case lies wholly out of our province. It is a doctrine which is not to be brought for trial to the bar of human reason. Mere natural reason, mere philosophy or metaphysical sagacity transcends its just bounds, and commits a heinous sacrilege, when it attacks this primary article of our faith, and labors to distort it, to undermine it, or to expose its truth or its importance to distrust.’ ”
The preceding serves to establish the correctness of the writer's statements as to the modes of meeting difficulties adopted by theologians.
In the next chapter we shall see that none of these methods prove satisfactory even to theologians themselves.
Chapter VII. Theologians Themselves Concede the Augustinian Dogmas Indefensible.
Although each theologian claims that the mode of meeting difficulties adopted by his school is satisfactory, yet as each maintains that all other modes are unavailing, it comes to pass that a majority of theologians declare each attempt to make the Augustinian dogma consistent with the moral sense of humanity an utter failure.
It has been shown that the Catholic mode is not to attempt to defend the dogma. It is “decreed” by [pg 031] “the church,” which is the only infallible interpreter of God's Word, to be in the Bible, and it is to be received, like the doctrine of transubstantiation, as an inscrutable mystery. This is the mode also adopted by Dr. Woods and many other Protestants.
The following from the Princeton theologians presents their protest against this Catholic method. They perceive that if they allow it in this case, they have no excuse for denying the validity of the Catholic defense of transubstantiation. And so they proceed to claim that imputing to children sins that they never committed, and thus involving them in endless misery, is the true mode, while the Catholic one is vain.
The Princeton Mode against the Catholic Mode.
The Princeton Reviewers, in opposing the Catholic mode, as defended by Dr. Woods, say:
“How is it to be reconciled with the divine character that the fate of unborn millions should depend on an act over which they had not the slightest control, and in which they had no agency? This difficulty presses the opponents of the doctrine (of imputation) more heavily than its advocates. God must produce such results either on the ground of justice or of sovereignty. The defenders of imputation take the ground of justice—their opponents that of sovereignty.
“Is it more congenial with the unsophisticated moral feelings of men that God, out of his mere sovereignty, should determine that because one man sinned all men should sin, that because one man forfeited his favor all men should incur his curse, or because one man sinned all should be born with a contaminated moral nature, than that, in virtue of a most benevolent constitution by which one was made the representative of the race, the punishment of the one should come upon all?”
That is to say, they affirm interrogatively that imputing [pg 032] sins to innocent beings that they never committed, as the ground of penal inflictions, is a better defense of God from the charge of being the author of sin and of cruel injustice than the Catholic mode of sovereignty and mystery. At the same time they discard the constitutional transmission mode of Andover and New Haven.
The following from President Edwards the younger, gives the argument of a constitutional transmission divine against the imputation mode.
The Transmission Mode against the Imputation Mode.
“The common doctrine has been, that Adam's posterity, unless saved by Christ, are damned on account of Adam's sin, and that this is just, because his sin is imputed or transferred to them. By imputation his sin becomes their sin.
“When the justice of such a transfer is demanded, it is said that the constitution which God has established makes the transfer just.
“To this it may be replied, that the same way it may be proved just to damn a man without any sin at all, either personal or imputed. We need only to resolve it into a sovereign constitution of God.”
The Andover and New Haven theologians regard both the Catholic and the Princeton modes as utterly unsatisfactory, and offer instead the mode of constitutional transmission as relieving the difficulties.
But Dr. Woods thus argues the case against them, and appeals powerfully to “intelligent and candid men:”
Dr. Woods in behalf of the Catholic Mode against the Constitutional Transmission Mode.
“And is there not just as much reason to urge this objection against the theory just named? Its advocates hold that God [pg 033]brings the whole human race into existence without holiness, and with such propensities and in such circumstances as will certainly lead them into sin; and that he brings them into this fearful condition in consequence of the sin of their first father, without any fault of their own. Now, as far as the divine justice or goodness is concerned, what great difference is there between our being depraved at first, and being in such circumstances as will certainly lead to depravity the moment moral action begins? Will not the latter as infallibly bring about our destruction as the former? And how is it more compatible with the justice or the goodness of God to put us into one of these conditions than into the other, when they are both equally fatal? It is said that our natural appetites and propensities and our outward circumstances do not lead us into sin by any absolute or physical necessity; but they do in all cases certainly lead us into sin, and God knows that they will when he appoints them for us. Now, how can our merciful Father voluntarily place us, while feeble, helpless infants, in such circumstances as he knows beforehand will be the certain occasion of our sin and ruin?... What difference does it make, either as to God's character, or the result of his proceedings, whether he constitutes us sinners at first, or knowingly places us in such circumstances that we shall certainly become sinners, and that very soon? Must not God's design as to our being sinners be the same in one case as in the other; and must not the final result be the same? Is not one of these states of mankind fraught with as many and as great evils as the other? What ground of preference then would any man have?...
“Let intelligent, candid men, who do not believe either of these schemes, say whether one of them is not open to as many objections as the other.”
The idea of a preëxistence of the race before Adam, is not held by any denomination.
Thus it appears that whenever any person claims that each of these attempts to make the Augustine theory, as held by the great Christian sects, consistent with the moral sense of humanity is an utter failure, [pg 034] he is sustained by a majority of the most learned and acute theologians of our age and nation.
Chapter VIII. The Augustinian Theory Contrary to the Moral Sense of Mankind.
Having presented evidence that both Catholics and Protestants of Europe and America unite in holding the Augustinian theory of the origin of evil, and also that theologians themselves find it indefensible, the next aim will be to present a portion of the evidence to show that this system is at war with the moral feelings and common sense of mankind.
There are remains of the writings of those who were the opposers of this theory in the time of Augustine, which show the strong emotions called forth at that remote period by the introduction of this doctrine.
The following is from one of the theologians of that day, addressed to the author of the theory: