“If, instead of the glad tidings that there exists a Being in whom all the excellences which the highest human mind can conceive, exist in a degree inconceivable to us, I am informed that the world is ruled by a being whose attributes are infinite, but what they are we cannot learn, nor what are the principles of his government, except that ’the highest human morality which we are capable of conceiving’ does not sanction them; convince me of it, and I will bear my fate as I may. But when I am told that I must believe this, and at the same time call this being by the names which express and affirm the highest human morality, I say in plain terms that I will not. Whatever power such a being may have over me, there is one thing which he shall not do: he shall not compel me to worship him. I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow-creatures; and if such a being can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go.”—(P. 103.)
We will not pause to comment on the temper and taste of this declamation; we will simply ask whether Mr. Mill really supposes the word good to lose all community of meaning, when it is applied, as it constantly is, to different persons among our “fellow-creatures,” with express reference to their different duties and different qualifications for performing them? The duties of a father are not the same as those of a son; is the word therefore wholly equivocal when we speak of one person as a good father, and another as a good son? Nay, when we speak generally of a man as good, has not the epithet a tacit reference to human nature and human duties? and yet is there no community of meaning when the same epithet is applied to other Creatures? Ἡ ἀρετὴ πρὸs τὸ ἔργον τὸ οἰκεῖον—the goodness of any being whatever has relation to the nature and office of that being. We may therefore test Mr. Mill’s declamation by a parallel case. A wise and experienced father addresses a young and inexperienced son: “My son,” he says, “there may be some of my actions which do not seem to you to be wise or good, or such as you would do in my place. Remember, however, that your duties are different from mine; that your knowledge of my duties is very imperfect; and that there may be things which you cannot now see to be wise and good, but which you may hereafter discover to be so.” “Father,” says the son, “your principles of action are not the same as mine; the highest morality which I can conceive at present does not sanction them; and as for believing that you are good in anything of which I do not plainly see the goodness,”—We will not repeat Mr. Mill’s alternative; we will only ask whether it is not just possible that there may be as much difference between man and God as there is between a child and his father?
This declamation is followed by a sneer, which is worth quoting, not on its own account, but as an evidence of the generosity with which Mr. Mill deals with the supposed motives of his antagonists, and of the accuracy of his acquaintance with the subject discussed. He says:—
“It is worthy of remark, that the doubt whether words applied to God have their human signification, is only felt when the words relate to his moral attributes; it is never heard of with regard to his power. We are never told that God’s omnipotence must not be supposed to mean an infinite degree of the power we know in man and nature, and that perhaps it does not mean that he is able to kill us, or consign us to eternal flames. The Divine Power is always interpreted in a completely human signification; but the Divine Goodness and Justice must be understood to be such only in an unintelligible sense. Is it unfair to surmise that this is because those who speak in the name of God, have need of the human conception of his power, since an idea which can overawe and enforce obedience must address itself to real feelings; but are content that his goodness should be conceived only as something inconceivable, because they are so often required to teach doctrines respecting him which conflict irreconcilably with all goodness that we can conceive?”—(P. 104.)
On the latter part of this paragraph we will not attempt to comment. But as regards the former part, we meet Mr. Mill’s confident assertion with a direct denial, and take the opportunity of informing him that the conception of infinite Power has suggested the same difficulties; and has been discussed by philosophers and theologians in the same manner, as those of infinite Wisdom and infinite Goodness. Has Mr. Mill never heard of such questions as, Whether Omnipotence can reverse the past?—Whether God can do that which He does not will to do?—Whether God’s perfect foreknowledge is compatible with his own perfect liberty?—Whether God could have made a better world than the existing one? Nay, has not our critic, in this very chapter, been arguing against Mr. Mansel on the question, whether the Absolute can be conceived as a Cause acting in time: and what is this but a form of the question, whether power, when predicated of God is exactly the same thing as power when predicated of man? Or why has it been said that creation ex nihilo—an absolutely first act of causation, is inconceivable by us, but from the impossibility of finding in human power an exact type of Divine power? To attribute discreditable motives to an opponent, even to account for unquestionable facts, is usually considered as an abuse of criticism. What shall we say when the facts are fictitious as well as the motives? With regard to Mr. Mansel, the only person who is included by name in this accusation, it is “worthy of remark,” that the earliest mention of the obnoxious theory in his writings occurs in connection with a difficulty relating solely to the conception of infinite power, and not at all to the moral attributes of God.[BG]
See Prolegomena Logica, p. 77 (2nd ed., p. 85.)
Mr. Mill concludes this chapter with another instance of that ignoratio elenchi which has been so abundantly manifested throughout his previous criticisms. His opponent, he allows, “would and does admit that the qualities as conceived by us bear some likeness to the justice and goodness which belong to God, since man was made in God’s image.” But he considers that this “semi-concession” “destroys the whole fabric” of Mr. Mansel’s argument. “The Divine goodness,” he says, “which is said to be a different thing from human goodness, but of which the human conception of goodness is some imperfect reflexion or resemblance, does it agree with what men call goodness in the essence of the quality—in what constitutes it goodness? If it does, the ‘Rationalists’ are right; it is not illicit to reason from the one to the other. If not, the divine attribute, whatever else it may be, is not goodness, and ought not to be called by the name.” Now the question really at issue is not whether the “Rationalist” argument is licit or illicit, but whether, in its lawful use, it is to be regarded as infallible or fallible. We have already quoted a portion of Mr. Mansel’s language on this point; we will now quote two more passages, which, without any comment, will sufficiently show how utterly Mr. Mill has mistaken the purport of the argument which he has undertaken to examine.
“We do not certainly know the exact nature and operation of the moral attributes of God: we can but infer and conjecture from what we know of the moral attributes of man: and the analogy between the Finite and the Infinite can never be so perfect as to preclude all possibility of error in the process. But the possibility becomes almost a certainty, when any one human faculty is elevated by itself into an authoritative criterion of religious truth, without regard to those collateral evidences by which its decisions may be modified and corrected.”[BH]... “Beyond question, every doubt which our reason may suggest in matters of religion is entitled to its due place in the examination of the evidences of religion; if we will treat it as a part only, and not the whole; if we will not insist on a positive solution of that which, it may be, is given us for another purpose than to be solved. It is reasonable to believe that, in matters of belief as well as of practice, God has not thought fit to annihilate the free will of man, but has permitted speculative difficulties to exist as the trial and the discipline of sharp and subtle intellects, as He has permitted moral temptations to form the trial and the discipline of strong and eager passions.... We do not doubt that the conditions of our moral trial tend towards good, and not towards evil; that human nature, even in its fallen state, bears traces of the image of its Maker, and is fitted to be an instrument in His moral government. And we believe this, notwithstanding the existence of passions and appetites which, isolated and uncontrolled, appear to lead in an opposite direction. Is it then more reasonable to deny that a system of revealed religion, whose unquestionable tendency as a whole is to promote the glory of God and the welfare of mankind, can have proceeded from the same Author, merely because we may be unable to detect the same character in some of its minuter features, viewed apart from the system to which they belong?”[BI]