Defense of the Faith and the Saints (Volume 2 of 2)

by B. H. Roberts

IV.
SOURCE OF MORAL EVIL.

Now we come to an element in our faith, extremely interesting and that is the transgression of law, which the Apostle John declares to be sin: "for sin," said he, "is the transgression of the law." This transgression of law is a fact that has to be taken into account in the sum of things. The existence of moral evil in the world is one of the problems that has vexed Christian theologians from the earliest of times until now. They have had extreme difficulty in reconciling their conception of God as an absolute being, infinitely wise, all-powerful, all-good, and that he created everything out of nothing, and yet not assign to him the creation of evil. If all things have been produced by an infinitely righteous, perfect, all-powerful, and good Creator, how can moral evil exist in his economy? That is a question to which no satisfactory explanation has yet been found. Mormonism teaches that God does not create moral evil; but that moral evil arises out of the agency of intelligences, and that so long as there are intelligences, possessed of free agency, it means that they can violate law, if they insist upon doing it. To conceive this as impossible would be to deny the free agency of intelligences.

I know there is one passage that, perhaps, might be quoted against my contention, that God does not create evil. It occurs in the writings of Isaiah, it is said—and it is the only place in Scripture where it is said, so far as I have been able to learn—"I [God] make peace," and "I create evil." "I create"—what? "Evil," such as the opposite of peace, such as war, famine, and the like. But to what end does God cause war, or famine? For corrective purposes only, to chastize men, to bring them to a realization of wrong-doing, or national transgression. For these ends God has, sometimes, brought to pass these conditions that we recognize as evil. But that class of evils is quite a distinct thing from moral evil. Though God may bring on a famine, storm, tempest, or war for corrective purposes, yet God is not the creator of falsehood; he is not the creator of slander; nor of drunkenness; nor of avarice, nor malice, nor of robbery, nor unkindness, nor of adulteries. These moral evils are not of his creating. Jesus Christ did not say, "Lead us not into temptation," for, as the Apostle James instructs us, God cannot be tempted of evil. "Let no man," says he, "when he is tempted, say, I am tempted of God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man. But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lusts and enticed. Then lust when it hath conceived bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death." The prayer of the Christ, as taught to his apostles, and as restored through the word of the Lord to our Prophet, is not, "And lead us not into temptation," but "Suffer us not to be led into temptation, deliver us from evil."

So far as moral evil is concerned, then, I say it is not of God's creation. It is one of those possibilities that are eternal. It did not begin with the transgression of Adam upon this earth. It existed before that; even in the heavens, when Lucifer rebelled against the King and majesty of heaven—God. Lucifer had power even there to sin; and so far back as the agency of intelligences extends, there has existed always the possibility of sin; and so far forward as the agency of intelligences shall extend, there will always be the possibility, of the transgression of law, of sin; for sin potentially, is an eternal reality. It is concurrent with the free agency of intelligences.

But God, according to Mormon doctrine, does not create evil, tempt men with it, and then when not sufficiently strong to withstand the temptation, damn them everlastingly for falling. The only way in which God affects men is favorably, that is, he helps them in their apprehension of and their adoption of the good. He does not, according to Mormon doctrine, create intelligence, for that is an independent, self-existing thing; therefore not even God creates man's intelligence, that is uncreated and uncreatable—an eternal thing. As I have said elsewhere, God is not responsible for the use they make of their freedom; nor is he the author of their sufferings when they fall into sin; suffering arises out of the violations of law to which the "intelligence" subscribed, and must be endured until the lessons of obedience to law are learned.

Man has his choice of moving upward or downward in every estate he occupies; often defeating even the benevolent purposes of God respecting him, through his own perverseness; he passes through dire experiences, suffers terribly, yet learns by what he suffers, so that his very suffering becomes a means to his improvement; he learns swiftly or slowly, according to the inherent nature of him, obedience to law; he learns that "that which is governed by law is also preserved by law, and perfected and sanctified by the same; and that which breaketh the law and abideth not by law, but seeketh to become a law unto itself, and willeth to abide in sin, and altogether abideth in sin, cannot be sanctified by law, neither by mercy, justice nor judgment. Therefore they must remain filthy still." This conception of things relieves God of the responsibility for the nature and status of intelligences in all stages of their development; their inherent nature and their volition makes them primarily what they are, and this nature they may change, slowly, perhaps, yet change it they may. God has put them in the way of changing it, by enlarging their intelligence through change of environment, and through experiences.

THE PLACE AND MISSION OF CHRIST IN MORMON DOCTRINE.

There is a singular fact connected with this subject of moral evil—of sin. And that is that the transgression of the moral law entails suffering, even as violation of physical law may result in pain, or sickness or death. The way of the transgressor is hard. "Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap." "The wages of sin is death." Not only are these truisms, but it is also true that often the righteous are made to suffer because of the transgressions of the wicked. The innocent are involved in the misery of the guilty. No man lives unto himself alone, and he may, and often does involve others in his transgressions. It is possible for the fathers to suffer because of the sins of the children. It is possible for the children to suffer because of the sins of the fathers. Many a father can still exclaim as David did over his wayward son Absalom, "O! my son! Would to God that I had died for thee!" This is one of the difficulties that confront religious thought—the innocent being involved in the sufferings of the guilty. Yet, from the midst of our perplexity over such a seeming injustice as this, there comes to us the mighty testimony that it is not only possible but it is a fact, that the innocent can and do suffer with and because of the transgression of the guilty; may they not also suffer for them, since vicarious suffering is a possibility? On that possibility hinges the whole gospel of the Christ, and the saving power of the atonement. It is deeply written in the experiences of men that the innocent can suffer with and because of the guilty; and it is the doctrine of the Christian revelation that the innocent can suffer for the guilty, as witness the following testimonies: "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for us." "Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God." "He [the Christ] appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. * * * So Christ once suffered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation." "Christ also suffered for us. * * Who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sin, should live unto righteousness; by whose stripes we were healed." It is very clear, then, that it is the doctrine of the Christian revelation, which doctrine of course, Mormonism accepts, that Christ suffered for man's transgressions. There is Scripture evidence also, could we but take the time to point it out, to prove that the whole scheme of man's earth-life and his redemption was considered even before the foundations of the earth itself were laid. And the Redeemer chosen and agreed upon and hence was "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." Paul announces himself as living, "In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began." The facts in brief are that the time came when for the progress of spirit intelligences an earth-life, under conditions such as exist in this world, became necessary to them. To bring to pass that earth-life the union of spirit with earth element and attended by the experiences which such a life would bring, involved transgression of law, involving the race in sin and death from which it was only possible to extricate it by adequate atonement being made to satisfy the claims of inexorable law. In this crisis there arose in the councils in heaven one great, sympathetic Soul who recognized not only the fact that the innocent can suffer with the guilty, or because of the guilty, but for the guilty, and offered himself a sacrifice for the sin that should be committed in breaking the harmony of things in order to give intelligences the advantages of earth-life and its lessons. The Christ would make atonement for Adam's transgression, so that as in Adam all should die, as saith the Scriptures, so in Christ should all be made alive; that "since by man came death, by man should come also the resurrection of the dead." And not only was this vicarious atonement made to cover the transgression of Adam, but it was made to reach also to the individual sins of men, that they might not suffer if they would accept the gospel. The doctrine is better stated in a revelation given to our Prophet than anywhere else in sacred literature, hence I quote that revelation. Let it be borne in mind that transgression of the moral law—sin—is attended upon by suffering, and now this revelation. It was given through the Prophet to Martin Harris, one of the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon, reproving him for some of his delinquencies:

"And surely every man must repent or suffer, for I, God, am endless,

"Wherefore, I revoke not the judgments which I shall pass, but woes shall go forth, weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth, yea, to those who are found on my left hand;

* * * * *

"Therefore I command you to repent, repent, lest I smite you by the rod of my mouth, and by my wrath, and by my anger, and your sufferings be sore—how sore you know not! how exquisite you know not! yea, how hard to bear you know not!

"For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent,

"But if they would not repent, they must suffer even as I,

"Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit; and would that I might not drink that bitter cup and shrink—

"Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men;

"Wherefore, I command you again to repent, lest I humble you with my almighty power, and that you confess your sins, test you suffer these punishments of which I have spoken, of which in the smallest, yea, even in the least degree you have tasted at the time I withdrew my spirit."

I presume that the experience of Martin Harris, here described, has at least been sufficiently the experience of every matured man and woman—that they know this testimony to be true, that is, that sin produces suffering—sorrow, anguish of heart; and when the Spirit of the Lord is withdrawn and darkness, like the blackness of night surges through the soul of man, and the sun of righteousness seems set for him, he is then made to feel what it means to sin against the law of God as it has been revealed unto his soul. When you think of the bitterness of that personal suffering, you will not marvel that when the heavy burden of a world's sin rested down upon the Son of God in Gethsemane—you certainly will not marvel that he sweat great drops of blood in his agony; nor wonder at his suffering on the cross.