Condition of infants.
The most difficult point of all, is the probable condition [pg 016] of infants after death. On the Augustinian theory they all have been ruined in nature by Adam's sin, and when they die, go with this depraved nature to their final state. Augustine acquired the name of “durus pater” (cruel father) because he was consistent with his theory and taught that these little ones, if unbaptized, were doomed to endless torments.
But as humanity and common sense have gained ground this hideous tenet has passed away, and few are now found who do not sacrifice consistency to humanity, and allow that in spite of their total depravity, all infants go directly to heaven and are forever blessed. Formerly some would confine this favor to the “elect infants,” others to the infants of “elect parents,” but few are found at this day who venture to teach that God sends even one new-born being to eternal misery for Adam's sin.
The difficulties not removed but rather increased by these methods.
But the difficulties involved in the Augustine theory do not lie in the mode by which it came to pass that all men begin existence with depraved natures, but in the fact, that God, having power to create all minds as perfect as Adam's, and also the power to regenerate all, has chosen not to do so, and thus has preferred the consequent sin and misery to the happiness resulting from making perfect minds.
This grand difficulty stands entirely unrelieved by the above methods. Nay more, they all serve but to increase a sense of the folly and enormity of the awful result, and to present our Maker as the cruel cause of [pg 017] all our miseries, and the fullest and most awful realization of our idea of a perfectly malevolent being.[2]
Illustration of the Augustinian Theory.
The following illustrates the case, though but very imperfectly, inasmuch as any finite temporal evils are as nothing compared to the eternal torments to which are assigned all of our race, whose ruined nature is not regenerated before death.
A father places a poison in the way of his wife, forbids her to taste it, but knows she will do so and that the consequence will be that all his children will be born blind.
Then he places the children thus deprived of sight, in a dreadful morass filled with savage beasts and awful pitfalls, with a narrow and difficult path of escape, which it is certain no one will ever find without sight. The consequence is, that a large part of his children sink into the pitfalls and perish.
Then he justifies himself in these ways. To some he says, I have a right to treat my children as I please, and I allow no one to question me on the matter. All that I do is right and benevolent, and you must not inquire how or why.
To all the rest he says, I am not the author of this evil, it is the mother of the children who took the poison when I forbade her to do so. She either made herself blind by taking the poison, and then transmitted the evil to her children as a hereditary boon, or she had “a common nature” with her children and ruined all together, or they all “sinned in her” and [pg 018] became blind before they were born. And so I am not “the author of sin” in this matter.
To intelligent persons not educated in the belief of the above theory of Augustine, and of these modes of explaining the difficulties connected with it, this account of the matter will seem so incredible and monstrous that they will demand evidence that the preceding statements are true. In the next chapters this evidence will be presented.
Chapter V. The Augustinian Theory in Creeds.
The preceding chapters have presented the Augustinian theory of “the origin of evil,” and certain questions connected with it which have been debated by theologians; also the difficulties involved in the theory, and the modes of meeting these difficulties.
The next aim will be to verify these statements by extracts from the creeds and theologians of the great Christian sects.
Creed of the Catholic Church.
It is well known that the Catholic organization preceded that of the Protestant sects. It is also well known that this church maintains that the decisions of her pope and councils are infallible.
The following extracts, then, from the decisions of the celebrated Councils of Trent at the period of the Reformation, exhibit the theory of Augustine incorporated as a part of the Roman Catholic creed:
Extract from a decree of the Council of Trent.
“Infants derive from Adam that original guilt which must be expiated in the laver of regeneration in order to obtain eternal life. Adam lost the purity and righteousness which he received from God, not for himself only but also for us.”
The catechism of the Council of Trent says:
“The pastor, therefore, will not omit to remind the faithful that the guilt and punishment of original sin were not confined to Adam, but justly descended from him, their source and cause, to all posterity. Hence a sentence of condemnation was pronounced against the human race immediately after the fall of Adam.”