A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory

by Albert Taylor Bledsoe

Feeling is one thing; obedience is another. This counterfeit virtue or moral goodness, which begins and terminates in feeling, is far more common than true virtue or holiness. Who can reflect, for instance, on the infinite goodness of God, without an emotion or feeling of love? That man must indeed be [pg 126] uncommonly hard-hearted and sullen, who can walk out on a fine day and behold the wonderful exhibitions of divine goodness on all sides around him, without being warmed into a feeling of admiration and love. When all nature is music to the ear and beauty to the eye, it requires nothing more than a freedom from the darker stains and clouds of guilt within, to lead a sympathizing heart to the sunshine of external nature, as it seems to rejoice in the smile of Infinite Beneficence. The heart may swell with rapture as it looks abroad on a happy universe, replenished with so many evidences of the divine goodness; nay, the story of a Saviour's love, set forth in eloquent and touching language, may draw tears from our eyes, and the soul may rise in gratitude to the Author of such boundless compassion; and yet, after all, we may be mere sentimentalists in religion, whose wills and whose lives are in direct opposition to all laws, both human and divine. Infidelity itself, in such moments of deep but transitory feeling, may exclaim with an emotion known but to few Christian minds, “Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus Christ like a God,” and its iron nature still retain “the unconquerable will.”

We may now safely conclude, we think, that the mists raised by the philosophy and logic of Edwards have not been able to obscure the lustre of the simple truth, that true virtue or holiness cannot be produced in us by external necessitating causes. Whatsoever is thus produced in us, we say, cannot be our virtue, nor can we deserve any praise for its existence. This seems to be a clear dictate of the reason of man; and it would so seem, we have no doubt, to all men, but for certain devices which to some have obscured the light of nature. The principal of these devices we shall now proceed to examine.

Section III.

Of the proposition that “The essence of the virtue and vice of dispositions of the heart and acts of the will, lies not in their cause, but in their nature.”[97]

For the sake of greater distinctness, we shall confine our attention to a single branch of this complex proposition; namely, that the essence of virtuous acts of the will lies not in their [pg 127] cause, but their nature. Our reasoning in relation to this point, may be easily applied to the other branches of the proposition.

We admit, then, that the essence of a virtuous act lies in its nature. If this means that the nature of a virtuous act lies in its nature, or its essence lies in its essence, it is certainly true; and even if the author attached different ideas to the terms essence and nature, we do not care to search out his meaning; as we may very safely admit his proposition, whatever may be its signification. We are told by the editor, that the whole proposition is very important on account of “the negative part,” namely, that “the essence of virtue and vice lies not in their cause.” We are also willing to admit, that the essence of everything lies in its own nature, and not in its cause. But why is this proposition brought forward? What purpose is it designed to serve in the philosophy of the author?

This question is easily answered. He contends that true virtue may be, and is, necessitated to exist by powers and causes over which we have no control. If we raise our eyes to such a source of virtue, its intrinsic lustre and beauty seem to fade from our view. The author, indeed, endeavours to explain why it is, that the scheme of necessity seems to be inconsistent with the nature of true virtue. The main reason is, says he, because we imagine that the essence of virtue and vice consists, not in their nature, but in their origin and cause. Hence this persuasion not to busy ourselves about the origin or cause of virtue and vice, but to estimate them according to their nature.

We are fully persuaded. If any can be found who will assert “that the virtuousness of the dispositions or acts of the will, consists not in the nature of these dispositions or acts of the will, but wholly in the origin or cause of them,” we must deliver them up to the tender mercies of President Edwards. Or if any shall talk so absurdly as to say, “that if the dispositions of the mind, or acts of the will, be never so good, yet if the cause of the disposition or act be not our virtue, there is nothing virtuous or praiseworthy in it,” we have not one word to say in his defence; nor shall we ever raise our voice in favour of any one, who shall maintain, that “if the will, in its inclinations or acts, be never so bad, yet, unless it arises from something that is our vice or fault, there is nothing vicious or blameworthy [pg 128] in it.” For we are firmly persuaded, that if the acts of the will be good, then they are good; and if they be bad, then they are bad; whatever may have been their origin or cause. We shall have no dispute about such truisms as these.

We insist, indeed, that the first virtuous act of the first man was so, because it partook of the nature of virtue, and not because it had a virtuous origin or cause in a preceding virtuous disposition of the mind. But, in his work on Original Sin, Edwards contends otherwise. He there contends, that no act of Adam could have been virtuous, unless it had proceeded from a virtuous origin or cause in the disposition of his heart; and that this could have had no existence in the world, unless it had proceeded from the power of the Creator. Thus he looked beyond the nature of the act itself, even to its origin and cause, in order to show upon what its moral nature depended; but now he insists that we should simply look at its own nature, and not to its origin or cause, in order to determine this point. He ascends from acts of the will to their origin or cause, in order to show that virtue can only consist with the scheme of necessity; and yet he denies to us the privilege of ascending with him, in order to show that the nature of virtue cannot at all consist with the scheme of necessity!