A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory

by Albert Taylor Bledsoe

We should not conclude from this, however, that all suffering or natural evil bears the characteristic of a punishment for moral evil. This seems to be a great mistake of certain theologians, who pay more attention to the coherency of their system than to the light of nature or of revelation. Thus, says Dr. [pg 246] Dick: “If our antagonists will change the meaning of words, they cannot alter the nature of things. Pain and death are evils, and when inflicted by the hand of a just God, must be punishments: for although the innocent may be harassed and destroyed by the arbitrary exercise of human power, none but the guilty suffer under his administration. To pretend that, although death and other temporal evils have come upon us through the sin of Adam, yet these are not to be regarded as a punishment, is neither more nor less than to say,—they must not be called a punishment, because this would not agree with our system. If we should concede that they are a punishment, we should be compelled to admit that the sin of the first man is imputed to his posterity, and that he was their federal head. We deny, therefore, that the labours and sorrows of the present life, the loss of such joys as are left to us at its close, and the dreadful agonies and terrors with which death is often attended, have the nature of a penalty. In like manner, a man may call black white, and bitter sweet, because it will serve his purpose; but he would be the veriest simpleton who should believe him.”

Now, we do not deny that the agonies and terrors of death are sometimes a punishment for sin: this is the case in regard to all those who actually commit sin, and sink into the grave amid the horrors of a guilty conscience. But the question is, Do suffering and death never fall upon the innocent under the administration of God? We affirm that they do; and also that they may fall upon the innocent, in perfect accordance with the infinite goodness of God. In the first place, we reply to the confident assertions of Dr. Dick, and of the whole school to which he belongs, as follows: To pretend that death and other temporal evils are always punishments, is neither more nor less than to say, “they must be called punishments, because this would agree with our system. If we should concede that they are not a punishment, we should be compelled to admit that the sin of the first man is not imputed to his posterity, and that he was not their federal head. If our antagonists,” &c. Surely it is not very wise to use language which may be so easily retorted.

Secondly, it is true, the change of a word cannot alter the nature of things; but it may alter, and very materially too, our [pg 247] view of the nature of things. Besides, if to refuse to call suffering in certain cases a punishment, be merely to change a word, why should so great an outcry be made about it? Why may we not use that word which sounds the most pleasantly to the ear, and sits the most easily upon the heart?

Thirdly, we do not arbitrarily and blindly reject the term punishment, “because it does not agree with our system.” We not only reject the term, but also the very idea and the thing for which it stands. We mean to affirm, that the innocent do sometimes suffer under the administration of God; and that all suffering is not a punishment for sin. The very idea of punishment, according to Dr. Dick himself, is, that it is suffering inflicted on account of sin in the person upon whom it is inflicted; and hence, wherever pain or death falls under the administration of God, we must there find, says he, either actual or imputed sin. Now, in regard to certain cases, we deny both the name and the thing. And we make this denial, as it will be seen, not because it agrees with our system merely, but because it agrees with the universal voice and reason of mankind, except where that voice has been silenced, and that reason perverted, by dark and blindly-dogmatizing schemes of theology.

Fourthly, there is a vast difference, in reality, between regarding some sufferings as mere calamities, and all suffering as punishment. If we regard all suffering as punishment, then we need look no higher and no further in order to vindicate the character of God in the infliction of them. For, according to this view, they are the infliction of his retributive justice, merited by the person upon whom they fall, and adapted to prevent sin; and consequently here our inquiries may terminate; just as when we see the criminal receive the penalty due to his crimes. On the other hand, if we may not view all suffering as punishment, then must we seek for other grounds and principles on which to vindicate the goodness of God; then must we look for other ends, or final causes, of suffering under the wise economy of divine providence. And this search, as we shall see, will lead us to behold the moral government of the world, not as it is darkly distorted in certain systems of theology, but as it is in itself, replete with light and ineffable beauty.

But before we undertake to show this by direct arguments, let us pause and consider the predicament to which the greatest divines have reduced themselves, by their advocacy of such an imputation of the sin of one man. Dr. Dick affirms, as we have seen, that every evil brought upon man under the good providence of God, must be a punishment for sin; and hence, as infants do not actually sin, they are exposed to divine wrath on account of the sin of Adam, which is imputed to them. But is not this imputation, which draws after itself pain and death, also an evil? How has it happened, then, that in the good providence of God, this tremendous evil, this frightful source of so many evils, has been permitted to fall on the infant world? Must there not be some other sin imputed to justify the infliction of such an evil, and so on ad infinitum? Will Dr. Dick carry out his principle to this consequence? Will he require, as in consistency he is bound to require, that the tremendous evil of the imputation of sin shall not fall upon any part of God's creation, except as a punishment for some antecedent guilt? No, indeed: at the very second step his great principle, so confidently and so dogmatically asserted, completely breaks down under him. The imposition of this evil is justified, not by any antecedent guilt, but by the divine constitution, according to which Adam is the federal head and representative of the human race. Thus, after all, Dr. Dick has found some principle or ground on which to justify the infliction of evil, beside the principle of guilt or ill-desert. Might there not possibly be, then, such a divine constitution of things, as to bring suffering upon the offspring of Adam in consequence of his sin, without resorting to the dark and enigmatical fiction of the imputation of his transgression? If there be a divine constitution, as Dr. Dick contends there is, which justifies the imputation of moral evil, with all its frightful consequences, both temporal and eternal death, may it not be possible, in the nature of things, to suppose a divine constitution to justify suffering without the imputation of sin? How can the one of these things be so utterly repugnant to the divine character, and the other so perfectly agreeable to it? Until this question be answered, we may suspect the author himself of having assumed positions and made confident assertions, “because they agree with his system.”

“We say, then,” says Dr. Dick, “that by his sin his posterity became liable to the punishment denounced against himself. They became guilty through his guilt, which is imputed to them, or placed to their account; so that they are treated as if they had personally broken the covenant.” Thus all the posterity of Adam, not excepting infants, became justly obnoxious to the “penalty of the covenant of works,—death, temporal, spiritual, and eternal.” Now, we would suppose that this scheme of imputation is attended with at least as great a difficulty as the doctrine that the innocent do sometimes suffer under the good providence of God. Indeed, the author does not deny that it is attended with difficulties, which have never been answered. In regard to the imputation of sin, he says: “Candour requires me to add, that we are not competent fully to assign the reasons of this dispensation. After the most mature consideration of the subject, it appears mysterious that God should have placed our first parent in such circumstances, that while he might insure, he might forfeit, his own happiness and that of millions of beings who were to spring from his loins. We cannot tell why he adopted this plan with us and not with angels, each of whom was left to stand or fall for himself.”[167] Now, when it is affirmed that the innocent may suffer for wise and good purposes, why is all this candour and modesty forgotten? Why is it not admitted, “It may be so;” “We cannot tell?” Why is the fact, of which these writers so often and so eloquently remind us, that the human intellect is a poor, blind, weak thing, quite unfit to pry into mysteries, then sunk in utter oblivion, and a tone of confident dogmatism assumed? Why not act consistently with the character of the sceptic or the dogmatist, and not put on the one or the other by turns, according to the exigencies of a system?

If we ask, why infants are exposed to death, we are told, that it is a punishment for Adam's sin imputed to them. We are told that this must be so; since “none but the guilty ever suffer under the administration of God,” who is not an arbitrary and cruel tyrant to cause the innocent to suffer. Why then, we ask, does he impute sin to them? To this it is replied, “We cannot tell.” No wonder; for if there must always be antecedent guilt to justify God in imposing evil upon his subjects, [pg 250] then there can be no reason for such a dispensation for imposing the tremendous evil of the imputation of sin. The advocates of it themselves have laid down a principle, which shows it to be without a reason. Hence they may well say, “We cannot tell.” Thus suffering is justified by the imputation of guilt; the imputation of guilt by the divine constitution; and the divine constitution, by nothing! If this is all that can be done, would it not have been just as well to have begun, as well as ended, in the divine constitution of things? But, no! even the most humble of men must have some explanation, some little mitigation of their difficulties, if it be only to place the world upon the back of an elephant, the elephant upon the back of a tortoise, and the tortoise upon nothing.

It seems to be inconceivably horrible to Dr. Dick, and others of his school, that the innocent should ever be made to suffer under the providence of God; but yet they earnestly insist that the same good providence plunges the whole human race—infants and all—into unavoidable guilt, and then punishes them for it! To say that the innocent may be made to suffer is monstrous injustice—is horrible; but to say that they are made sinners, and then punished, is all right and proper! To say that the innocent can suffer under the administration of God, is to shock our sense of justice, and put out the light of the divine goodness; but it is all well if we only say that the punishment due to Adam's sin is made, by the same good administration, to fall upon all his posterity in the form of moral evil, and that then they are justly punished for this punishment! Alas, that the minds of the great and the good, born to reflect the light of the glorious gospel of God upon a darkened world, should be so sadly warped, so awfully distorted, by the inexorable necessities of a despotic system!