An Appeal to the People in Behalf of Their Rights as Authorized Interpreters of the Bible

by Catharine Esther Beecher

In a previous chapter was pointed out the distinction to be recognized between the producing cause and the occasional causes of volition.

Mind itself is the only producing cause of its own volitions. Excited desires, and those objects which excite desire, are the occasional causes of choice.

The question is, in what sense can any being be the cause of virtuous actions, or virtuous character, in another mind?

Here we must recur to the fact that the Creator, as the author of all minds, and of all the things that excite desire, is the cause, in one sense, of all the volitions and of all the characters of all finite minds. It is in this sense that, in the Bible, the Jehovah of the Old Testament says, “I make peace and create evil.” No other being but the Creator can be regarded as the cause of volitions in this sense, viz., as the author of all minds and their circumstances of temptation.

There is a second sense in which the Creator is never the cause of sinful action in any mind. It is this: creating or modifying our susceptibilities, or arranging temptations with the design or intention of producing sinful action. This is established by proving, that the chief end of God is to make the most possible happiness, and that sin is the needless destruction of happiness, resulting from disobedience to the laws of God.

The only sense, then, in which God can be called the author or cause of sinful volitions in the minds of his creatures, is the fact that he is the author of all created minds and of their circumstances of temptation.

In regard to man, there are only two conceivable modes, in which he can be the cause of sinful or virtuous character in other minds.

The first mode is so to combine circumstances of temptation as to affect the most excitable and powerful sensibilities, or to remove those objects and influences that sustain moral principle, or by a long course of training, to form habits and induce principles. The combinations of motive influences that one mind can thus bring to bear on another, as temptations to right or wrong action, are almost infinite.

Another mode is by changing the constitutional susceptibilities. This can sometimes be effected to a certain degree by education, and the formation of habits. It can be still more directly effected through the physical organization. For example, a child may be trained to use coffee, tea, alcohol, or tobacco, till the nervous system is shattered, and then a placid temper becomes excitable, an active nature becomes indolent, and multitudes of other disastrous changes are the result.

When these two modes are employed with the design to induce wrong action, then men are blameable causes of sinful action and character in their fellow men. God, as above shown, never thus causes sin. When these modes are employed with the intention to induce virtuous actions and character, then both God and man are causes of right moral action in mankind.