A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory

by Albert Taylor Bledsoe

Section I.

The attempts of Calvin and other reformers to show that the system of necessity does not make God the author of sin.

Most of the advocates of divine providence have endeavoured to soften their views, so as to bring them into a conformity with the common sentiments of mankind, by supposing that God merely permits, without producing the sinful volitions of men. But Calvin rejects this distinction with the most positive disdain. “A question of still greater difficulty arises,” says he, “from other passages, where God is said to incline or draw Satan himself and all the reprobate. For the carnal understanding scarcely comprehends how he, acting by their means, and even in operations common to himself and them, is free from any fault, and yet righteously condemns those whose ministry he uses. Hence was invented the distinction between doing and permitting; because to many persons this has appeared an inexplicable difficulty, that Satan and all the impious are subject to the power and government of God, so that he directs their malice to whatever end he pleases, and uses their crimes for the execution of his judgments. The modesty of those who are alarmed by absurdity, might perhaps be excusable, if they did not attempt to vindicate the divine justice from all accusation by a pretence utterly destitute of any foundation in truth.”[59] Here the distinction between God's permitting and doing in relation to the sins of men, is declared by Calvin to be utterly without foundation in truth, and purely chimerical. So, in various other places, he treats this distinction as “too weak to be supported.” “The will of God,” says he, “is the supreme and first cause of things;” and he quotes Augustine with approbation to the effect, that “He does not remain an idle spectator, determining to permit anything; there is an [pg 088] intervention of an actual volition, if I may be allowed the expression, which otherwise could never be considered a cause.”[60] According to Calvin, then, nothing ever happens in the universe, not even the sinful volitions of men, which is not caused by God, even by “the intervention of an actual volition” of the supreme will.

It is evident that Calvin scorns to have any recourse to a permissive will in God, in order to soften down the stupendous difficulties under which his system seems to labour. On the contrary, he sometimes betrays a little impatience with those who had endeavoured to mitigate the more rugged features of what he conceived to be the truth. “The fathers,” says he, “are sometimes too scrupulous on this subject, and afraid of a simple confession of the truth.”[61] He entertains no such fears. He is even bold and rigid enough in his consistency to say, “that God often actuates the reprobate by the interposition of Satan, but in such a manner that Satan himself acts his part by the divine impulse.”[62] And again, he declares that by means of Satan, “God excites the will and strengthens the efforts” of the reprobate.[63] Indeed, his great work, whenever it touches upon this awful subject, renders it perfectly clear that Calvin despises all weak evasions in the advocacy of his stern doctrine.

It has been truly said, that Calvin never thinks of “deducing the fall of man from the abuse of human freedom.” So far is he from this, indeed, that he seems to lose his patience with those who trace the origin of moral evil to such a source. “They say it is nowhere declared in express terms,” says Calvin, “that God decreed Adam should perish by his defection; as though the same God, whom the Scriptures represent as doing whatever he pleases, created the noblest of his creatures without any determinate end. They maintain, that he was possessed of free choice, that he might be the author of his own fate, but that God decreed nothing more than to treat him according to his desert. If so weak a scheme as this be received, what will become of God's omnipotence, by which he governs all things according to his secret counsel, independently of every person or thing besides.”[64] The fall of man, says Calvin, was [pg 089] decreed from all eternity, and it was brought to pass by the omnipotence of God. To suppose that Adam was the author of his own fate and fall, is to deny the omnipotence of God, and to rob him of his sovereignty.

Now, if to say that God created man, and then left his sin to proceed wholly from himself, be to rob God of his omnipotence, and to affirm that he made man for no determinate end, the same consequences would follow from the position that God created Satan, and then left his sin and rebellion to proceed wholly from himself. But, strange as it may seem, the very thing which Calvin so vehemently denies in regard to man, he asserts in relation to Satan; and he even feels called upon to make this assertion in order to vindicate the divine purity against the calumny of being implicated in the sin of Satan! “But since the devil was created by God,” says he, “we must remark, that this wickedness which we attribute to his nature is not from creation, but from corruption. For whatever evil quality he has, he has acquired by his defection and fall. And of this Scripture apprizes us; but, believing him to have come from God, just as he now is, we shall ascribe to God himself that which is in direct opposition to him. For this reason, Christ declares, that Satan, ‘when he speaketh a lie, speaketh of his own;’ and adds the reason, ‘because he abode not in the truth.’ When he says that he abode not in the truth, he certainly implied that he had once been in it; and when he calls him the father of a lie, he precludes his imputing to God the depravity of his nature, which originated wholly from himself. Though these things are delivered in a brief and rather obscure manner, yet they are abundantly sufficient to vindicate the majesty of God from every calumny.”[65] Thus, in order to show that God is not the author of sin, Calvin assumes the very positions in regard to the rebellion of Satan which his opponents have always felt constrained to adopt in regard to the transgression of man. What then, on Calvin's own principles, becomes of the omnipotence of God? Does this extend merely to man and not to Satan? Is it not evident that Calvin's scheme in regard to the sin of the first man, is here most emphatically condemned out of his own mouth? Does he not here endorse the very consequence which his adversaries have been accustomed [pg 090] to deduce from his scheme of predestination, namely, that it makes God the author of sin?

This scheme of doctrine, it must be confessed, is not without its difficulties. It clothes man, as he came from the hand of his Maker, with the glorious attributes of freedom; but to what end? Is this attribute employed to account for the introduction of sin into the world? Is it employed to show that man, and not God, is the author of moral evil? It is sad to reflect that it is not. The fall of man is referred to the direct “omnipotence of God.” The feeble creature yields to the decree and power of the Almighty, who, because he does so, kindles into the most fearful wrath and dooms him and all his posterity to temporal, spiritual, and eternal death. Such is the doctrine which is advanced, in order to secure the omnipotence of God, and to exalt his sovereignty. But is it not a great leading feature of deism itself, that it exalts the power of God at the expense of his infinite moral perfections? So we have understood the matter; and hence, it seems to us, that Christian divines should be more guarded in handling the attribute of omnipotence. “The rigid theologians,” says Leibnitz, “have held the greatness of God in higher estimation than his goodness, the latitudinarians have done the contrary; true orthodoxy has these two perfections equally at heart. The error which abases the greatness of God should be called anthropomorphism, and despotism that which divests him of his goodness.”[66]

If Calvin's doctrine be true, God is not the author of sin, inasmuch as he made man pure and upright; but yet, by the same power which created him, has he plunged him into sin and misery. Now, if the creation of man with a sinful nature be inconsistent with the infinite purity of God, will it not be difficult to reconcile with that purity the production of sin in man, after his creation, by an act of the divine omnipotence?

If we ask, How can God be just in causing man to sin, and then punishing him for it? Calvin replies, That all his dealings with us “are guided by equity.”[67] We know, indeed, that all his ways are guided by the most absolute and perfect justice; and this is the very circumstance which creates the difficulty. The more clearly we perceive, and the more vividly we realize, [pg 091] the perfection of the divine equity, the more heavily does the difficulty press upon our minds. This assurance brings us no relief; we still demand, if God be just, as in truth he is, how can he deal with us after such a manner? The answer we obtain is, that God is just. And if this does not satisfy us, we are reminded that “it is impossible ever wholly to prevent the petulance and murmurs of impiety.”[68] We seek for light, and, instead of light, we are turned off with reproaches for the want of piety. We have not that faith, we humbly confess, which “from its exaltation looks down on these mists with contempt;”[69] but we have a reason, it may be “a carnal understanding,” which longs to be enlarged and enlightened by faith. Hence, it cannot but murmur when, instead of being enlarged and enlightened by faith, it is utterly overwhelmed and confounded by it. And these murmurings of reason, which we can no more prevent than we could stop the heavings of the mighty ocean from its depths, are met and sought to be quelled with the rebuke, “Who art thou, O man, that repliest against God?” We reply not against God, but against man's interpretation of God's word; and who art thou, O man, that puttest thyself in the place of God? “Men,” saith Bacon, “are ever ready to usurp the style, ‘Non ego, sed Dominus;’ and not only so, but to bind it with the thunder and denunciation of curses and anathemas, to the terror of those who have not sufficiently learned out of Solomon, that the ‘causeless curse shall not come.’ ”

In relation to the subject under consideration, the amiable and philosophic mind of Melanchthon seems to have been more consistent, at one time, than that of most of the reformers. “He laid down,” says D'Aubigné, “a sort of fatalism, which might lead his readers to think of God as the author of evil, and which consequently has no foundation in Scripture: ‘since whatever happens,’ said he, ‘happens by necessity, agreeably to divine foreknowledge, it is plain our will hath no liberty whatever.’ ” It is certainly a very mild expression to say, that the doctrine of Melanchthon might lead his readers to think of God as the author of evil. This is a consequence which the logical mind of Melanchthon did not fail to draw from his own scheme of necessity. In his commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, in the edition of 1525, he asserted “that God wrought [pg 092] all things, evil as well as good; that he was the author of David's adultery, and the treason of Judas, as well as of Paul's conversion.”