A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory

by Albert Taylor Bledsoe

If the above remarks be just, then the great question, why has God permitted sin, which has exercised the ingenuity of man in all ages, is a most idle and insignificant inquiry. The only real question is, why he created such beings as men at all; and [pg 197] not why he created them, and then permitted them to sin. The first question is easily answered. The second, though often propounded, seems to be a most unmeaning question. It is unmeaning, because it seeks to ascertain the reason why God has permitted a thing, which, in reality, he has not permitted at all. Having created a world of moral agents, that is, a world endowed with a power to sin, it was impossible for him to prevent sin, so long as they retained this power, or, in other words, so long as they continued to exist as moral agents. A universe of such agents given, its liability to sin is not a matter for the will of God to permit; this is a necessary consequence from the nature of moral agents. He could no more deny peccability to such creatures than he could deny the properties of the circle to a circle; and if he could not prevent such a thing, it is surely very absurd to ask why he permitted it.

On the supposition of such a world, God did not permit sin at all; it could not have been prevented. It would be considered a very absurd inquiry, if we should ask, why God permitted two and two to be equal to four, or why he permitted the three angles of a triangle to be equal to two right angles. But all such questions, however idle and absurd, are not more so than the great inquiry respecting the permission of moral evil. If this does not so appear to our minds, it is because we have not sufficiently reflected on the great truth, that a necessary virtue is a contradiction in terms, an inherent and utter impossibility. The full possession of this truth will show us, that the cause of theism has been encumbered with great difficulties, because its advocates have endeavoured to explain the reason why God has permitted a thing, which, in point of fact, he has not permitted. Having attempted to explain a fact which has no existence, it is no wonder that they should have involved themselves in clouds and darkness. Let us cease then, to seek the reason of that which is not, in order that we may behold the glory of that which is.

We have seen that it is impossible for Omnipotence to create moral agents, and yet prevent them from possessing an ability to sin or transgress the law of God. In other words, that the Almighty cannot give agents a power to sin, and at the same time deny this power to them. To expect such things of him, is to expect him to work contradictions; to expect him to cause [pg 198] a thing to be what it is, and not what it is, at one and the same time. Thus, although sin exists, we vindicate the character of God, on the ground that it is an inherent impossibility to exclude all evil from a moral universe. This is the high, impregnable ground of the true Christian theist.

We have already said, that the only real question is, not why God permitted evil, but why he created beings capable of sinning. Such creatures are, beyond all question, the most noble specimens of his workmanship. St. Augustine has beautifully said, that the horse which has gone astray is a more noble creature than a stone which has no power to go astray. In like manner, we may say, a moral agent that is capable of knowing, and loving, and serving God, though its very nature implies an ability to do otherwise, is a more glorious creature than any being destitute of such a capacity. If God had created no such beings, his work might have represented him “as a house doth the builder,” but not “as a son doth his father.” If he had created no such beings, there would have been no eye in the universe, except his own, to admire and to love his works. Traces of his wisdom and goodness might have been seen here and there, scattered over his works, provided any eye had been lighted up with intelligence to see them; but nowhere would his living and immortal image have been seen in the magnificent temple of the world. It will be conceded, then, that there is no difficulty in conceiving why God should have preferred a universe of creatures, beaming with the glories of his own image, to one wholly destitute of the beauty of holiness and the light of intelligence. But having preferred the noblest order of beings, its inseparable incident, a liability to moral evil, could not have been excluded.

Hence God is the author of all good, and of good alone; and evil proceeds, not from him nor from his permission, but from an abuse of those exalted and unshackled powers, whose nature and whose freedom constitute the glory of the moral universe.

This, then, is the sublime purpose of God, to give and continue existence to free moral agents, and to govern them for their good as well as for his own glory. This is the decree of the Almighty, to call forth from nothing into actual existence, the universe which now shines around us, and spread over it the dominion of his perfect moral law. He does not cause sin. [pg 199] He does not permit sin. He sees that it will raise its hideous head, but he does not say—so let it be. No! sin is the thing which God hates, and which he is determined, by all the means within the reach of his omnipotence, utterly to root out and destroy. The word has gone forth, “Offences must needs come, but woe unto the man by whom they come!” His omnipotence is pledged to wipe out the stain and efface the shadow of evil, in as far as possible, from the glory of his creation. But yet, so long as the light and glory of the moral universe is permitted to shine, may the dark shadow of evil, which moral agents cast upon its brightness and its beauty, continue to exist and partially obscure its divine perfections. And would it not be unworthy of the divine wisdom and goodness to remove this partial shadow, by an utter extinction of the universal light?

Section VI.

The true and only foundation of optimism.

Though few have been satisfied with the details of the system of optimism, yet has the great fundamental conception of that system been received by the wise and good in all ages. “The atheist takes it for granted,” says Cudworth, “that whosoever asserts a God, or a perfect mind, to be the original of all things, does therefore ipso facto suppose all things to be well made, and as they should be. And this, doubtless, was the sense of all the ancient theologers,” &c.[146] This distinguished philosopher himself maintains, as well as Leibnitz, that the intellectual world could not have been made better than it is, even by a being of infinite power and goodness. “To believe a God,” says he, “is to believe the existence of all possible good and perfection in the universe; it is to believe that things are as they should be, and that the world is so well framed and governed, as that the whole system thereof could not possibly have been better.”[147]