A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory

by Albert Taylor Bledsoe

This then is the question which we intend to examine: [pg 116] whether that which is concreated with a moral agent, can be his virtue or his vice? Whether, in other words, the dispositions or qualities which Adam derived from the hand of God, partook of the nature of true virtue or otherwise? Edwards assumes the affirmative. To establish his position, he relies upon two arguments, which we shall proceed to examine.

The first argument is designed to show, that unless true virtue, or moral goodness, had been planted in the nature of man by the finger of God, it could never have found its way into the world. To give this argument in his own words, he says: “It is agreeable to the sense of men in all nations and ages, not only that the fruit or effect of a good choice is virtuous, but that the good choice itself, from whence that effect proceeds, is so; yea, also, the antecedent good disposition, temper, or affection of mind, from whence proceeds that good choice, is virtuous. This is the general notion—not that principles derive their goodness from actions, but that actions derive their goodness from the principles whence they proceed; so that the act of choosing what is good is no further virtuous, than it proceeds from a good principle, or virtuous disposition of mind; which supposes that a virtuous disposition of mind may be before a virtuous act of choice; and that, therefore, it is not necessary there should first be thought, reflection, and choice, before there can be any virtuous disposition. If the choice be first, before the existence of a good disposition of heart, what is the character of that choice? There can, according to our natural notions, be no virtue in a choice which proceeds from no virtuous principle, but from mere self-love, ambition, or some animal appetites; therefore, a virtuous temper of mind may be before a good act of choice, as a tree may be before its fruit, and the fountain before the stream which proceeds from it.”[89] Thus, he argues, if there must be choice before a good disposition, or virtue, according to our doctrine, then virtue could not arise at all, or find its way into the world. For all men concede, says he, that every virtuous choice, or act, must proceed from a virtuous disposition; and if this must also proceed from a virtuous act, it is plain there could be no such thing as virtue or moral goodness at all. The scheme which teaches that the act must precede the principle, and the principle the act, reduces the [pg 117] very existence of virtue to a plain impossibility. He shows virtue to be possible, and escapes the difficulty, by referring it to the creative energy of the Divine Being, by which the principle of virtue, he contends, was planted in the mind of the first man.

This argument is plausible; but it will not bear a close examination. It might be made to give way, in various directions, before an analysis of the principle on which it is constructed; but we intend to demolish it by easier and more striking arguments. If we had nothing better to oppose to it, we might indeed neutralize its effect by a counter-argument of Edwards himself, which we find in his celebrated work on the will. He there says, that the virtuousness of every virtuous act or choice depends upon its own nature, and not upon its origin or cause. If we must refer every virtuous act, says he, to something in us that is virtuous as its antecedent, we must likewise refer that antecedent to some other virtuous origin or cause; and so on ad infinitum. Thus we should be compelled to trace virtue back from step to step, until we had quite driven it out of the world, and excluded it from the universality of things.[90]

Now this argument seems just as plausible as that which we have produced from the same author, in his work on Original Sin. Let us lay them together, and contemplate the joint result. According to one, the character of every virtuous act depends upon the virtuousness of the principle or disposition whence it proceeds; according to the other, it depends upon its own nature, and not at all upon anything in its origin, or cause, or antecedent. According to one, we must trace every virtuous act to a virtuous principle, and the virtuous principle itself to the necessitating act of God; according to the other, we must look no higher to determine the character of an act than its own nature; and if we proceed to its origin or cause to determine its character, we shall find no stopping-place. We shall not trace it up to God, as before, but we shall banish all virtue quite out of the world, and exclude it from the universality of things. According to one argument, there can be no virtue in the world, unless it be caused to exist, in the first place, by the necessitating, creative act of the Almighty; and according to the other, the virtuousness of every virtuous act depends upon [pg 118] its own nature, and is wholly independent of the question respecting its origin or cause. The solution of these inconsistencies and contradictions, we shall leave to the followers and admirers of President Edwards.[91]

But we have something better, we trust, to oppose to President Edwards than his own arguments. If his logic be good for anything, it will prove that God is the author of sin as well as of virtue. For it is as much the common notion of mankind that every sinful act must proceed from a sinful disposition or principle, as it is that every virtuous act must proceed from a virtuous disposition or principle; and hence, according to the logic of Edwards, a sinful disposition or principle must have preceded the first sinful act; that an antecedent sinful disposition or principle could not have been introduced by the act of the creature, and consequently it must have been planted in the bosom of the first man by the act of the Creator. This argument, we say, just as clearly shows that sin is impossible, or that it must have been concreated with man, as it shows the same thing in relation to virtue. If we maintain his argument, then, we must either deny the possibility of moral evil or make God the author of it.

After having laid down principles from which the impossibility of moral evil may be demonstrated, it was too late for Edwards to undertake to account for the origin of sin. According to his philosophy, it can have no existence; and hence we are not to look into that philosophy for any very clear account of how it took its rise in the world. Indeed, this point is hurried over by Edwards in a most hasty and superficial manner, [pg 119] in which he seems conscious of no little embarrassment. In his great work on the will he devotes one page and a half to this subject; and the greater part of this small space is filled up with the retort upon the Arminians, that their scheme is encumbered with as great difficulties as his own! He lets the truth drop in one place, however, that “the abiding principle and habit of sin” was “first introduced by an evil act of the creature.”[92] Is it possible? How could there be an evil act which did not proceed from an antecedent evil principle or disposition? What becomes of the great common notion of mankind, on which his demonstration is erected? But we must allow the author to contradict himself, since he has now come around to the truth, that an evil act of the creature may and must have preceded the existence of moral evil in the world. If an intelligent creature, however, as it came from the hand of God, can introduce a “principle of sin by a sinful act,” why should it be thought impossible for such a creature to introduce a principle of virtue by a virtuous act?

The truth is, that a virtuous act does not require an antecedent virtuous disposition or principle to account for its existence; nor does a vicious act require an antecedent vicious principle to account for its existence. In relation to the rise of good and evil in the world, the philosophy of Edwards is radically defective; and no one can discuss that subject on the principles of his philosophy without finding himself involved in contradictions and absurdities. If his psychology had not been false, he might have seen a clear and steady light where he has only beheld difficulties and confusion. As we have already seen, and as we shall still more fully see, Edwards confounds the power by which we act with the susceptibility through which we feel: the will with the emotive part of our nature. Every one knows that we may feel without acting; and yet feeling and acting, suffering and doing, are expressly and repeatedly identified in his writings. Having merged the will in sensibility, he regarded virtue and vice as phenomena of the latter, and as evolved from its bosom by the operation of necessitating causes. Hence his views in relation to the nature of moral good and evil, as well as in relation to their origin, became unavoidably dark and confused.

If we only bear in mind the distinction between the will and the sensibility, we may easily see how either holiness or sin might have taken its rise in the bosom of the first man, without supposing that either a holy or a sinful principle was planted there by the hand of the Creator. If we will only carry the light of this distinction along with us, it will be no more difficult to account for the rise of the first sin in the bosom of a spotless creature of God, than to account for any other volition of the human mind. The first man, by means of his intelligence, could contemplate the perfection of his Creator, and, doing so, he could not but feel an emotion of admiration and delight. But this feeling was not his virtue. It was the natural and the necessary result of the organization which God had given him. He was also so constituted, that certain earthly objects were agreeable to him, and excited his natural appetites and desires. These appetites and desires were not sinful, nor was the sensibility from whose bosom they were evolved: they were the spontaneous workings of the nature which God had bestowed upon him. But his will was free. He could turn his mind to God, or he could turn it to earth. He did the latter, and there was no harm in this. But he listened to the voice of the tempter; he fixed his mind on the forbidden fruit; he saw it was pleasant to the eye; he imagined it was good for food, and greatly to be desired to make one wise. Neither the possession of the intellect by which he perceived the beauty of the fruit, nor of the sensibility in which it excited so many pleasurable emotions, was the sin of Adam. They were given to him by the Author of every good and perfect gift. His will was free. It was not necessitated to act by his desires. But yet, in direct opposition to the known will of God, he put forth an act of his own free mind, his own unnecessitated will, and plucked the forbidden fruit to gratify his desires. This was his sin—this voluntary transgression of the known will of God. On the other hand, if he had resisted the temptation, and instead of voluntarily gratifying his appetite and desire, had preserved his allegiance to God by acting in conformity with his will, this would have been his virtue. He would have acted in conformity with the rule of duty, and thereby gratified a feeling of love to God, instead of the lower feelings of his nature.

Thus, by observing the distinction between the will and the [pg 121] sensitive part of our nature, we may easily see how either holiness or sin might have arisen in the bosom of the first man, though he had neither a holy nor a sinful principle planted in his nature by the hand of the Creator. We may easily see that he had all the powers requisite to moral agency, and that he was really capable of either a holy or a sinful act, without any antecedent principle of holiness or sin in his nature.

We have now said enough, we think, to show the fallacy of Edwards's first great argument in favour of a necessary holiness. We have seen, that we need not suppose the existence of a virtuous principle in the first man, in order to account for his first virtuous act, or to render virtue possible. We might point out many other errors and inconsistencies in which that argument is involved; but to avoid, as far as possible, becoming prolix and tiresome, we shall proceed to consider his second argument in favour of a necessary or concreated holiness.