A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory

by Albert Taylor Bledsoe

But we find the difficulty noticed in a prize essay of three hundred pages, on the subject of native depravity, by Dr. Woods. The author assumes the same ground with Edwards, that all suffering must be justified on the ground of justice; and hence he finds a real and proper sin in infants, in order to reconcile their sufferings with the character of God. This is the only ground, according to Dr. Woods, on which suffering can be vindicated under the administration of a perfect God. Where, then, is the real and proper sin in the inferior animals to justify their sufferings? This difficulty occurs to the distinguished author, and he endeavours to meet it. Let us see his reply. It is a reply which we have long been solicitous to see, and we now have it from one of the most celebrated theologians of the present day.

“Some suppose,” says he, “that infants suffer as irrational animals do, without reference to a moral law or the principles of a moral government. A strange supposition indeed, that human beings should for a time be ranked with beings which are not human, that is, mere animals.” He is evidently shocked at such an insult offered to poor little infants. He will not [pg 266] allow us, for one moment, to take the whole race of man, “during the interesting period of infancy, cut them off from their relation to Adam, degrade them from the dignity of human beings, and put them in the rank of brute animals,—and then say, they suffer as the brutes do.... This would be the worst of all theories,—the farthest off from Scripture and reason, and the most revolting to all the noble sensibilities of man.”

Now, it is really refreshing to find these allusions to “the dignity of human beings” in a writer of this school; and especially in Dr. Woods, who has so often rebuked others for their pride, when they have imagined that they were only engaged in the laudable enterprise of asserting this very dignity, by raising men from the rank of mere machines. It is so refreshing, indeed, to find such allusions in Dr. Woods, that we could almost forgive a little special pleading and bad logic in his attempt to vindicate the “dignity of human beings,” which should have been an attempt to vindicate the goodness of God.

We do not place human beings and brutes in the same rank, except in so far as both are sensitive creatures, and consequently susceptible of pleasure and pain. In this particular, the Creator himself has, to a certain extent, placed them in the same rank, and it is useless to cry out against his appointment. He will not listen to our talk about “the dignity of human beings.” He will still leave us, in so far as bodily pain and death are concerned, in the same rank with mere animals. This single point of resemblance between animals and human beings is all that our argument requires; and the fact that animals do suffer pain and death cannot be denied, or swept away by declamation. Let this fact be fairly and openly met, and not merely evaded. Let it be shown how the suffering of mere animals may be reconciled with the infinite goodness of God, and we will undertake to show how the suffering of guiltless “human beings” may be reconciled with it. Nay, we will undertake to show that the suffering of infants may be reconciled with the divine goodness, on the same, and also on still higher, grounds. We will place their sufferings on a more solid and a more definite foundation, than upon such vague and misty assertions as that they “suffer with reference to a moral law.”

We do not cut off infants from their relation to Adam; nor [pg 267] could we, if we desired to do so, cut them off from their relation to the animal nature which God has given them. It may be a very humiliating thought, it is true, that human beings should ever eat like mere animals, or sleep like mere animals, or suffer like mere animals; but yet we cannot see how any rebellion against so humiliating a thought can possibly alter the fact. We do not deny, indeed, that a theologian may eat, and sleep, and suffer on higher principles than mere animals do; but we seriously doubt if infants ever eat, or sleep, or suffer on any higher principles. It may shock the “noble sensibilities” of man that dear little infants should suffer as brutes do, especially when the term brutes is so strongly emphasized; but how it can relieve the case to have the poor little creatures arraigned at the bar of divine justice, and condemned to suffer as malefactors and criminals do, is more than we can possibly comprehend. To have them thus arraigned, condemned, and punished as criminals, may dignify their sufferings, and render them more worthy of the rank of human beings; but this is a dignity to which, we trust, they will never aspire.

If we are not mistaken, then, the theory for which we contend is “not the worst of all theories,” nor “the most revolting to the noblest sensibilities of man.” It is a worse theory to suppose, with Edwards, that they may be arraigned and banished into “eternal misery” for a sin they have not committed, or the possession of a nature they could not possibly have avoided possessing. It is better, we say, to rank the human race “for a time,” “during the interesting period of infancy,” even with mere animals, than to rank them with the devil and his angels. But, in truth, we rank them with neither; we simply leave them where God hath placed them, as a connecting link between the animal and the angelic natures.

But we may produce many instances of suffering among human beings, which are not a punishment for sin. We might refer to the feeling of compassion, which is always painful, and sometimes wrings the heart with the most exquisite agony; and yet this was not planted in our bosom as a punishment for sin, but, as Bishop Butler has shown,[188] it was ordained by a God of mercy, to teach us a lesson of mercy, and lead us to mitigate the manifold miseries of man's estate. We might also refer to [pg 268] an indignation against crime, which, as the same profound thinker has shown in his sermon on resentment, was planted in our natures, not to punish the subject of it, but to insure the punishment of others, that is, of criminals; and thereby to preserve the good order and well-being of the world. This sense of wrong, of injustice, of outrage, by which the soul is so often tortured, is not designed to punish the subject of it, but to promote the happiness and virtue of mankind. We might refer to these, and many other things of the same kind, but it is not necessary to dwell upon particular instances; for the principle against which we contend may be more directly refuted by an appeal to reason, and to the very authors by whom it is advocated; for, although it is adopted by them, and seems plausible at first view, it is often lost sight of when they lose sight of their system, and they give utterance to another principle more in accordance with the voice of nature.

It is evident, that if the government of God requires that no suffering should be inflicted, except as a punishment for sin, then his perfect moral government requires that the punishment should, in all cases, be exactly proportioned to the demerit of those upon whom it falls.

For, as Butler truly says, “Moral government consists in rewarding the righteous and punishing the wicked; in rendering to men according to their actions, considered as good or evil. And the perfection of moral government consists in doing this, with regard to all intelligent creatures, in exact proportion to their personal merits and demerits.”[189] This will not be denied. Hence, if suffering is distributed by God as a punishment for sin in all cases, as Calvin and his followers assert, then it must, on the same principle, be distributed according to the demerit of men. But is this the case? Does this necessary consequence of this principle agree with fact? If so, then every vile deed, every wicked outrage, committed by man, should be regarded as an instrument of divine justice, and deserved by those upon whom they fall. The inquisition itself, with all its unuttered and unutterable horrors, should be regarded, not merely as an exhibition of human wickedness and wrath, but also as an engine of divine justice, to crush the martyr on its wheels, because he refuses to lie to his own soul and to his God? Nature [pg 269] itself recoils from such a conclusion. Not one of the writers in question would adopt it. Hence, they should not advocate a principle from which it necessarily flows.

Indeed, they all argue the necessity of a future state of retribution, from the unequal distribution of natural good and evil in this life. But Lord Bolingbroke has refuted this argument by reasoning from their own principles. He insists that such is the justice of God, that there can be no suffering or natural evil in this life, except such as is proportioned to the demerits of men; and hence he rejects the argument from the apparent unequal distribution of pleasure and pain in this world in favour of the reality of a future judgment. He resents the imputation that God could ever permit any suffering which is not deserved, as warmly as it is resented by Dr. Dick himself, and proclaims it to be dishonourable to God. All rewards and punishments, says he, are equal and just in this life; and to say otherwise, is to take an atheistical view of the divine character. Learned divines proceed on the same principle, as we have seen, when they contend for the imputation of sin; but they forget and overlook it, when they come to prove the future judgment to the infidel. Thus, in their zeal to establish their own peculiar dogmas, they place themselves and their cause in the power of the infidel.