Consequently, the affirmation that all the sin and misery of man is the result of a depraved nature which the Creator has power both to prevent and to remove, conveys no other idea than that God prefers to make misery when he has power to make happiness, and thus is a malevolent being.
If God would make all minds perfectly holy, as theologians claim he has power to do, all sin would cease. He chooses not to do so, but rather to perpetuate the depraved nature transmitted from Adam, which is “the origin of all evil.”
Now all classes of theologians who hold to the depravity of man's nature consequent on Adam's sin, agree that this is the cause or origin of all sin and its consequent suffering.
They all agree, also, that God has proved his power to make a perfectly holy nature in the case of angels and of Adam, and that in consequence of the first sin of Adam, every human mind begins to exist with a depraved nature, according to a constitution of things instituted by God.
They all agree that God can regenerate every human mind, and that this boon is withheld, not for want of power, but for want of will on the part of God.
The difficulty that they have to meet is this—How can the Creator, having done thus, be regarded as any other than a malevolent being, the malignant and hateful “author of sin,” and all its consequent sufferings?
The following exhibits the several modes of attempting to meet this question.
The Catholic Method.
The first mode of meeting this difficulty is called that of mystery and sovereignty. It is simply saying that there is no explanation to be given. It is a mystery that God as a sovereign does not choose to explain, and it must be submitted to in uncomplaining silence.
This is the Catholic mode which has been perpetuated by many Protestants. It is the same method as is adopted in defending the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation.