A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory

by Albert Taylor Bledsoe

Edwards says, that the will of God does not oppose sin in the same sense in which it prefers sin, and that, therefore, there is no inconsistency in the case. But let us not deceive ourselves by words. Is it true, that sin is opposed by what is called the revealed will of God, by his command; and yet that it is, all things considered, chosen by his secret and working will? He commands one thing, and yet works to bring another to pass! He prohibits all sin, under the awful penalty of eternal death, and yet secretly arranges and plans things in such a manner as to secure the commission of it!

We have already seen one of these defences. God “hates sin as it is in itself;” and hence he prohibits it by his command. “Yet it may be his will it should come to pass, considering all its consequences;” and hence his secret will is bent on bringing it into existence. There is no inconsistency here, says Edwards, because the divine will relates to two different objects; namely, to “sin considered simply as sin,” and to “sin considered in all its consequences.” We do not care whether [pg 106] the two propositions contradict each other or not; it is abundantly evident, as we have seen, that it makes God choose that which he hates, even sin itself, as the means of good. It makes the end sanctify the means, even in the eye of the holy God. This doctrine we utterly reject and infinitely abhor. We had rather have “our sight, hearing, and motive power, and what not besides, disputed, and even torn away from us, than suffer ourselves to be disputed into a belief,” that the holy God can choose moral evil as a means of good. We had rather believe all the fables in the Talmud and the Koran, than that the ever-blessed God should, by his providence and his power, plunge his feeble creatures into sin, and then punish them with everlasting torments for their transgression. We know of nothing in the Pantheism of Spinoza, or in the atheism of Hobbes, more revolting than this hideous dogma.

The great metaphysician of New-England has made a still further attempt to vindicate the dogma in question. “The Arminians,” says he, “ridicule the distinction between the secret and revealed will of God, or, more properly expressed, the distinction between the decree and law of God; because we say he may decree one thing and command another. And so, they argue, we hold a contrariety in God, as if one will of his contradicted another. However, if they will call this a contradiction of wills, we know that there is such a thing; so that it is the greatest absurdity to dispute about it. We and they know it was God's secret will, that Abraham should not sacrifice his son Isaac; but yet his command was, that he should do it.”[79] Such is the instance produced by this acute divine, to show that the secret will of God may prefer the very thing which is condemned by his revealed will or law; and on the strength of it, he is bold to say, “We know it, so that it is the greatest absurdity to dispute about it.”

We have often seen this passage of Scripture produced by infidels, to show that the Old Testament contains unworthy representations of God. If Edwards had undertaken to refute the infidel ground in relation to this passage, he might have done so with very great ease: but then he would at the same time have refuted himself. The Scriptural account of God's commanding Abraham to offer up his son Isaac, was long ago [pg 107] employed by the famous infidel Hobbes to show that there are two wills in God. This argument of Hobbes has been refuted by Leibnitz. “Hobbes contends,” says Leibnitz, “that God wills not always what he commands, as when he commands Abraham to sacrifice his son;” and he replies, that “God, in commanding Abraham to sacrifice his son, willed the obedience, and not the action, which he prevented after having the obedience; for that was not an action which merited in itself to be willed: but such is not the case with those actions which he positively wills, and which are indeed worthy of being the objects of his will; such as piety, charity, and every virtuous action which God commands, and such as the avoidance of sin, more repugnant to the divine perfections than any other thing. It is incomparably better, therefore, to explain the will of God, as we have done it in this work.”[80] It is evident that Leibnitz did not relish the idea of two wills in God; and perhaps few pious minds would do so, if it were presented to them by an atheist. But there was too close an affinity between the philosophy of Leibnitz and that of Hobbes, to permit the former to furnish the most satisfactory refutation of the argument of the latter.

This command to Abraham does not show that there ever was any such contrariety between the revealed and the decretal wills of God, as is contended for by Hobbes and Edwards. God intended, as we are told, to prove the faith of Abraham, in order that it might shine forth and become a bright example to all succeeding ages. For this purpose he commanded him to take his only son, whom he loved, and go into the land of Moriah, and there offer him up as a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains. Abraham obeyed without a murmur. After several days travelling and preparation, Abraham has reached the appointed place, and is ready for the sacrifice. His son Isaac is bound, and laid upon the altar; the father stretches forth his hand to take the knife and slay him. But a voice is heard, saying, “Lay not thine hand on the lad; neither do thou anything unto him.” Now, the conduct of Abraham on this memorable occasion, is one of the most remarkable exhibitions of confidence in the wisdom and goodness of God, which the history of the world has furnished. It deserves to be held up to the admiration of mankind, and to be celebrated in all ages [pg 108] of the world. We sincerely pity the man, who is so taken up with superficial appearances, or who is so destitute of sympathy with the moral greatness and beauty of soul manifested in this simple narrative, that he can approach it in a little, captious, sneering spirit, rather than in an attitude of profound admiration. But our business, at present, is not so much with the laughing sceptic as with the grave divine.

What evidence, then, does this story furnish that the secret will of God had anything to do with the simple but sublime transaction which it records? God commanded Abraham to repair to the land of Moriah with his son Isaac; but are we informed that his secret will was opposed to the patriarch's going thither, or that it opposed any obstacle to his obedience? Are we told that God so arranged the events of his providence as to render the disobedience of Abraham, in any one particular, certain and infallible? We cannot find the shadow of any such information in the sacred story. And is there the least intimation, that when Abraham was commanded to stay the uplifted knife, the secret will of God was in favour of its being plunged into the bosom of his son? Clearly there is not. Where, then, is the discrepancy between the revealed and the secret wills of God in this case, which we are required to see? Where is this discrepancy so plainly manifested, that we absolutely know its existence, so that it is the height of absurdity to dispute against it?

If there is any contrariety at all in this case, it is between the revealed will of God in commanding Abraham to offer up his son, and his subsequently revealed will to desist from the sacrifice. It does not present even a seeming inconsistency between his secret will and his command, but between two portions of his revealed will. This seeming inconsistency between the command of God and his countermand, in relation to the same external action, has been fully removed by Leibnitz; and if it had not been, it is just as incumbent on the abettors of Edwards's scheme to explain it, as it is upon his opponents. If God had commanded Abraham to do a thing, and yet exerted his secret will to make him violate the injunction, this would have been a case in point: but there is no such case to be found in the word of God.

It may not be improper, in this connexion, to quote the following [pg 109] judicious admonition of Howe: “Take heed,” says he, “that we do not oppose the secret and revealed will of God to one another, or allow ourselves so much as to imagine an opposition or contrariety between them. And that ground being once firmly laid and stuck to, as it is impossible that there can be a will against a will in God, or that he can be divided from himself, or against himself, or that he should reveal anything to us as his will that is not his will, (it being a thing inconsistent with his nature, and impossible to him to lie,) that being, I say, firmly laid, (as nothing can be firmer or surer than that,) then measure all your conceptions of the secret will of God by his revealed will, about which you may be sure. But never measure your conceptions of his revealed by his secret will; that is, by what you may imagine concerning that. For you can but imagine while it is secret, and so far as it is unrevealed.”[81]

“It properly belongs,” says Edwards, “to the supreme absolute Governor of the universe, to order all important events within his dominions by wisdom; but the events in the moral world are of the most important kind, such as the moral actions of intelligent creatures, and the consequences. These events will be ordered by something. They will either be disposed by wisdom, or they will be disposed by chance; that is, they will be disposed by blind and undesigning causes, if that were possible, and could be called a disposal. Is it not better that the good and evil which happen in God's world should be ordered, regulated, bounded, and determined by the good pleasure of an infinitely wise being, than to leave these things to fall out by chance, and to be determined by those causes which have no understanding and aim?... It is in its own nature fit, that wisdom, and not chance, should order these things.”[82]

In our opinion, if there be no other alternative, it is better that sin should be left to chance, than ascribed to the high and holy One. But why must sin be ordered and determined by the supreme Ruler of the world, or else be left to chance? Has the great metaphysician forgotten, that there may be such things as men and angels in the universe; or does he mean, with Spinoza, to blot out all created agents, and all subordinate agency, from existence? If not, then certainly God may refuse to be the author of sin, without leaving it to blind chance, [pg 110] which is incapable of such a thing. He may leave it, as we conceive he has done, to the determination of finite created intelligences. If sin is to come into the world, as come it evidently does, it is infinitely better, we say, that it should be left to proceed from the creature, and not be made to emanate from God himself, the fountain of light, and the great object of all adoration. It is infinitely better that the high and holy One should do nothing either by his wisdom or by his decree, by his providence or his power, to help this hideous thing to raise its head amid the inconceivable splendours of his dominion.