"And if ye shall say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin. If ye shall say there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness, there be no happiness. And if there be no righteousness nor happiness, there be no punishment nor misery. And if these things are not, there is no God. And if there is no God, we are not, neither the earth; for there could have been no creation of things; neither to act nor to be acted upon, wherefore, all things must have vanished away."
This may be regarded as a very bold setting forth of the doctrine of antinomies, and yet I think the logic of it, and the inevitableness of the conclusion unassailable. "The world presents us with a picture of unity and distinction," says S. Baring-Gould, in his excellent work "Origin and Development of Religious Beliefs" "Unity without uniformity, and distinction without antagonism. * * * * * Everywhere, around us and within us, we see that radical antimony. The whole astronomic order resolves itself into attraction and repulsion—a centripetal and a centrifugal force; the chemical order into the antimony of positive and negative electricity, decomposing substances and recomposing them. The whole visible universe presents the antimony of light and darkness, movement and repose, force and matter, heat and cold, the one and the multiple. The order of life is resumed in the antimony of the individual and the species, the particular and the general; the order of our sentiments in that of happiness and sorrow, pleasure and pain; that of our conceptions in the antimony of the ideal and the real; that of our will in the conditions of activity and passivity.[A] The American Philosopher, Emerson, also has something like this. He says: Polarity, or action and reaction, we meet in every part of nature; in darkness and light; in heat and cold; in the ebb and flow of waters; in male and female; in the inspiration and expiration of plants and animals; in the systole and diastole of the heart; in the undulations of fluids and of sound; in the centrifugal and centripetal gravity; in electricity, galvanism and chemical affinity. Superinduce magnetism at one end of the needle, the opposite magnetism takes place at the other end. If the south attracts, the north repels. To empty here, you must condense there.' An inevitable dualism bisects nature, so that each thing is a half, and suggests another thing to make it whole; as, spirit, matter; man, woman; subjective, objective; in, out; upper, under; motion, rest; yea, nay. * * * * * Every sweet hath its sour, every evil its good." (Emerson's "Compensation.")
[Footnote A: "Origin and Development of Religious Belief" Vol. II pp. 22, 23.]
In view of the utterances of the Book of Mormon already quoted I am justified in saying that evil as well as good is among the eternal things. Its existence did not begin with its appearance on our earth. Evil existed even in heaven; for Lucifer and many other spirits sinned there; rebelled against heaven's matchless King, waged war, and were thrust out into the earth for their transgression.
Evil is not a created quality. It has always existed as the background of good. It is as eternal as goodness; it is as eternal as law; it is as eternal as the agency of intelligences. Sin, which is evil active, is trangression of law; and so long as the agency of intelligences and law have existed, the possibility of the trangression of law has existed; and as the agency of intelligences and law have eternally existed, so, too, evil has existed, eternally, either potentially or active, and will always so exist.
Evil may not be referred to God for its origin. He is not its creator, [A] it is one of those independent existences that is uncreate, and stands in the category of qualities of eternal things. While not prepared to accept the doctrine of some philosophers that "good and evil are two sides of one thing." I am prepared to believe that evil is a necessary antithesis to good, and essential to the realization of the harmony of the universe. "The good cannot exist without the antithesis of the evil—the foil on which it produces itself and becomes known." As remarked by Orlando J. Smith, "Evil exists in the balance of natural forces. * * * * * It is also the background of good, the incentive to good, and the trial of good, without which good could not be. As the virtue of courage could not exist without the evil of danger, and as the virtue of sympathy could not exist without the evil of suffering, so no other virtue could exist without its corresponding evil. In a world without evil—if such a world be really conceivable, all men would have perfect health, perfect intelligence, and perfect morals. No one could gain or impart information, each one's cup of knowledge being full. The temperature would stand forever at seventy degrees, both heat and cold being evil. There could be no progress, since progress is the overcoming of evil. A world without evil would be as toil without exertion, as light without darkness, as a battle with no antagonist. It would be a world without meaning." Or, as Lehi puts it, in still stronger terms—after describing what conditions would be without the existence of opposites—"Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it [i. e. the sum of things] should be one body, [i. e. of one character—so called good without evil] it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility. Wherefore, it [the sum of things] must needs have been created for a thing of naught; wherefore there would have been no purpose in the end of its creation. Wherefore, this thing [the absence of opposites] must needs destroy the wisdom of God, and his eternal purposes; and also, the power, and the mercy, and the justice of God."[B]
[Footnote A: Lest some text-proofer should extort, upon the me and cite the words of Isaiah—"I make peace and create evil"—the only text of scripture ascribing the creation of evil to God—I will anticipate so far as to say that it is quite generally agreed that no reference is made in the words of Isaiah to "moral evil;" but to such evils as may come as judgments upon people for their correction, such as famine or tempest or war: such an "evil" as would stand in natural antithesis to "peace," which word precedes, "I create evil," in the text—"I make peace and create"—the opposite to peace, "The evil of afflictions and punishments, but not the evil of sin" (Catholic Comment on Isaiah 45: 7). Meantime we have the clearest scriptural evidence that moral evil is not a product of God's: "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man." That is to say, God has nothing to do with the creation of moral evil; "But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." (James i: 13-15).]
[Footnote B: Nephi ii:13.]
As there can be no good without the antimony of evil, so there can be no evil without its antimony, or antithesis—good. The existence of one implies the existence of the other; and, conversely, the non-existence of the latter would imply the non-existence of the former. It is from this basis that Lehi reached the conclusion that either his doctrine of antinomies, or the existence of opposites, is true, or else there are no existences. That is to say—to use his own words—"If ye shall say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin. If ye shall say there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness, there be no happiness. And if there be no righteousness nor happiness, there be no punishment nor misery. And if these things are not, there is no God, and if there is no God, we are not, neither the earth; for there could have been no creation of things, neither to act nor to be acted upon: wherefore, all things must have vanished away."[A]
[Footnote A: Nephi ii:13.]