A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory

by Albert Taylor Bledsoe

The argument of the atheist—The reply of Leibnitz and other theists—The insufficiency of this reply.

Sin exists. This is the astounding fact of which the atheist avails himself. He has never ceased to contend, that as God has permitted sin to exist, he was either unable or unwilling to prevent it. God might easily have prevented sin, says he, if he had chosen to do so; but he has not chosen to do so, and therefore his love of virtue is not infinite, his holiness is not unlimited. Now, we deny this conclusion, and assert the infinite holiness of God.

This assertion may be true, says Voltaire, and hence God would have prevented all sin, if his power had not been limited. The only conceivable way, says he, to reconcile the existence of sin with the purity of God, is “to deny his omnipotence.” We insist, on the contrary, that the power of God is absolutely without bounds or limits. Though sin exists, we still maintain, in opposition to every form of atheism, that this fact implies no limitation of any of the perfections of God.

Before proceeding to establish this position, we shall consider the usual reply of the theist to the great argument of the atheist. “The greatest love which a ruler can show for virtue,” says Bayle, “is to cause it, if he can, to be always practised without any mixture of vice. If it is easy for him to procure this advantage to his subjects, and he nevertheless permits vice to raise its head in his dominions, intending to punish it after having tolerated it for a long time, his affection for virtue is not the greatest of which we can conceive; it is then not infinite.” This has been the great standing argument of atheism in all ages of the world. This argument, as held by the atheists of [pg 190] antiquity, is presented by Cudworth in the following words: “The supposed Deity and Maker of the world was either willing to abolish all evils, but not able; or he was able but not willing; or else, lastly, he was both able and willing. This latter is the only thing that answers fully to the notion of a God. Now that the supposed Creator of all things was not thus both able and willing to abolish all evils, is plain, because then there would have been no evils at all left. Wherefore, since there is such a deluge of evils overflowing all, it must needs be that either he was willing, and not able to remove them, and then he was impotent; or else he was able and not willing, and then he was envious; or, lastly, he was neither able nor willing, and then he was both impotent and envious.” This argument is, in substance, the same as that presented by Bayle, and relied upon by atheists in all subsequent times.

To the argument of Bayle, the following reply is given by Leibnitz: “When we detach things that are connected together,—the parts from the whole, the human race from the universe, the attributes of God from each other, his power from his wisdom,—we are permitted to say that God can cause virtue to be in the world without any mixture of vice, and even that he many easily cause it to be so.”[143] But he does not cause virtue to exist without any mixture of vice, says Leibnitz, because the good of the whole universe requires the permission of moral evil. How the good of the universe requires the permission of evil, he has not shown us; but he repeatedly asserts this to be the fact, and insists that if God were to prevent all evil, this would work a greater harm to the whole than the permission of some evil. Now, is this a sufficient and satisfactory reply to the argument of the atheist?

It certainly seems to possess weight, and is entitled to serious consideration. Bayle contends, that as evil exists, the Creator and Governor of the world cannot be absolutely perfect. He should have concluded with me, Leibnitz truly says, that as God is absolutely perfect, the existence of evil is necessary to the perfection of the universe, or is an unavoidable part of the best world that could have been created. It is thus that he neutralizes, without demolishing, the argument of the atheist, and each person is left to be more deeply affected by the argument [pg 191] of Leibnitz, or by that of Bayle, as his faith in the unlimited goodness of God is strong or weak. If the theist, by such means, should gain a complete victory, this would be due to the faith of the vanquished, rather than to the superiority of the logic by which he is subdued.

To this argument of Leibnitz we may then well apply his own remarks upon another celebrated philosopher. Descartes met the argument of the necessitarian, not by exposing its fallacy, but by repelling the conclusion of it on extraneous grounds. “This was to cut the Gordian knot,” says Leibnitz, who was himself a necessitarian, “and to reply to the conclusion of one argument, not by resolving it, but by opposing to it a contrary argument; which is not conformed to the laws of philosophical controversy.” The reply of Leibnitz to Bayle is clearly open to the same objection. It does not analyze the sophism of the sceptic, or resolve it into its elements, and point out its error; it merely opposes its conclusion by the presentation of a contrary argument. Hence it is not likely to produce very great effect; for, as Leibnitz himself says, in relation to this mode of attacking sceptics, “It may arrest them a little, but they will always return to their reasoning, presented in different forms, until we cause them to comprehend wherein the defect of their sophism consists.” Leibnitz has, then, according to his own canons of criticism, merely cut the Gordian knot of atheism, which he should have unravelled. He has merely arrested the champions of scepticism “a little,” whom he should have overthrown and demolished.

His reply is not only incomplete, in that it does not expose the sophistry of the atheist; it is also unsound. It carries in its bosom the elements of its own destruction. It is self-contradictory, and consequently untenable. It admits that it is easy for God to cause virtue to exist, and yet contends that, in certain cases, he fails to do so, because the highest good of the universe requires the existence of moral evil. But how is this possible? It will be conceded that the good of the individual would be promoted, if God should cause him to be perfectly holy and happy. This would be for the good of each and every individual moral agent in the universe. How, then, is it possible for such an exercise of the divine power to be for the good of all the parts, and yet not for the good of the whole? [pg 192] So far from being able to see how these things can hang together, it seems evident that they are utterly repugnant to each other.

The highest good of the universe, we are told, requires the permission of evil. What good? Is it the holiness of moral agents? This, it is said, can be produced by the agency of God, without the introduction of evil, and produced, too, in the greatest conceivable degree of perfection. Why should evil be permitted, then, in order to attain an end, which it is conceded can be perfectly attained without it? Is there any higher end than the perfect moral purity of the universe, which God seeks to accomplish by the permission of sin? It certainly is not the happiness of the moral universe; for this can also be secured, in the highest possible degree, by the agency of the Divine Being, without the permission of moral evil. What good is there, then, beside the perfect holiness and happiness of the universe, to the production of which the existence of moral evil is necessary? There seems to be no such good in reality. It appears to be a dream of the imagination, a splendid fiction, which has been recommended to the human mind by its horror of the cheerless gloom of scepticism.