A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory

by Albert Taylor Bledsoe

Having got rid of the scheme of necessity, which opposed so many obstacles to the prosecution of our design, we were then prepared to investigate the great problem of evil: but, before entering on this subject, we paused to consider the difficulty which, in all ages, the human mind has found in attempting to reconcile the influence of the Divine Spirit with the freedom of the will. In regard to this difficulty, it has been made to appear, we trust, that we need not understand how the Spirit of God acts, in order to reconcile his influence with the free-agency of man. We need to know, not how the one Spirit acts on the other, but only what is done by each, in order to see a perfect agreement and harmony in their coöperation. The inquiry relates, then, to the precise thing done by each, and not to the modus operandi. Having, in opposition to the commonly received notion, ascertained this to be the difficulty, we have found it comparatively easy of solution.

For the improved psychology of the present day, which gives so clear and steady a view of the simple facts of consciousness, has enabled us to see what may, and what may not, be produced [pg 345] by an extraneous agency. This again has enabled us to make out and define the sphere of the divine power, as well as that of the human; and to determine the point at which they come into contact, without interfering with or intersecting each other.

The same means have also shown us, that the opposite errors of Pelagianism and Augustinism have a common root in a false psychology. The psychology of the past, which identifies the passive states of the sensibility with the active states of the will, is common to both of these schemes. From this common root the two doctrines branch out in opposite directions; the one on the side of the mind's activity, and the other on that of its passivity. Each perceives only one phase of the complex whole, and denies the reality of the other. With one, the active phase is the whole; with the other, the passive impression is the whole. Hence the one recognises the human power alone; while the other causes this power entirely to disappear beneath the overshadowing influence of the divine.

Now the foregoing system, by availing itself of the psychology of the present day, not only does not cause the one of these great facts to exclude the other, but, by showing their logical coherency and agreement, it removes the temptation that the speculative reason has ever felt to do such violence to the cause of truth. It embraces the half views of both schemes, and moulds them into one great and full-orbed truth. In the great theandric work of regeneration, in particular, it neither causes the human element to exclude the divine, nor the divine to swallow up the human; but preserves each in its integrity, and both in their harmonious union and coöperation. The mutual inter-dependency, and the undisturbed inter-working, of these all-important elements of the moral world, it aims to place on a firm basis, and exhibit in a clear light. If this object has been accomplished, though but in part, or by way of a first approximation only, it will be conceded to be no small gain, or advantage, to the cause of truth.

Section VI.

The existence of moral evil consistent with the infinite purity of God.

The relation of the foregoing treatise to the great problem of the spiritual world, concerning the origin and existence of [pg 346] evil, may be easily indicated, and the solution it proposes distinguished from that of others. This may be best done, perhaps, with the aid of logical forms.

The world, created by an infinitely perfect Being, says the sceptic, must needs be the best of all possible worlds: but the actual world is not the best of all possible worlds: therefore it was not created by an infinitely perfect Being. Now, in replying to this argument, no theist denies the major premiss. All have conceded, that the idea of an infinitely perfect Being necessarily implies the existence and preservation of the greatest possible perfection in the created universe. In the two celebrated works of M. Leibnitz and Archbishop King, both put forth in reply to Bayle, this admission is repeatedly and distinctly made. This seems to have been rightly done; for, in the language of Cudworth, “To believe a God, is to believe the existence of all possible good and perfection in the universe.”[220]

In this, says Leibnitz, is embosomed all possible good. But how is this point established? “We judge from the event itself,” says he; “since God has made it, it was not possible to have made a better.”[221] But this is the language of faith, and not of reason. As an argument addressed to the sceptic, it is radically unsound; for as a medium of proof, it employs the very thing in dispute, namely, that God is infinitely perfect. Hence this is a petitio principii, a begging of the question. If this were all that M. Leibnitz had to offer, he might as well have believed, and remained silent.