Here, then, is a fearful contradiction between the religion of conscience and the religion of the understanding: the one pronouncing evil to be the antagonist, the other to be the agent, of the divine will. In every age has this difficulty laid a heavy weight upon the human heart; in every age has it pointed the sarcasm of the blasphemer; mingled an occasional sadness with the hopes of benevolence; and tinged the devotion of the thoughtful with a somewhat melancholy trust. The whole history of speculative religion is one prolonged effort of the human mind to destroy this contrariety; system after system has been born in the struggle to cast the oppression off; with what result, it will be my object at present to explain. The question which we have to consider is this: “How should a Christian think of the origin and existence of evil?” I propose to advert, first, to the speculative; secondly, to the scriptural; thirdly, to the moral relations of the subject; to inquire what relief we can obtain from philosophical schemes, from biblical doctrine, and from practical Christianity.
I. Notwithstanding the ingenuity of philosophers in varying the form and language of their systems, there can be but two solutions offered to the great problem respecting evil. The benevolence of the Creator may be vindicated, by denying that he is the author of evil; or, by pronouncing it his mere tool, unavoidably introduced for the production of greater good.
(1.) In Greece, the genius of whose people anticipated most of the great ideas which have since occupied the world, we find the first clear trace of the doctrine of two original causes, one good, the other evil, of the order and disorder of the universe.[[542]] Amid the almost universal pantheism, which gave the sanction of philosophy to a corrupting mythology, one or two great thinkers seized on the true conception of an intelligent, eternal, infinite Mind; not mixed up in indissoluble oneness with the universe, like the principle of life with an animal or vegetable organism, but wholly external to matter, capable of acting objectively upon it, of moulding it into form, of assigning to it laws, of disposing it into uniform arrangements, and subordinating it to the production of beauty, the reception of life and soul, and the ends of benevolence. With the absolute perfection, intellectual and moral, of the creative spirit, there was nothing to interfere; he called into existence only what is good,—light, life, happiness, wisdom, harmony, virtue. All else was to be ascribed to the imperfect materials from which the universe was constructed. Of these he was not supposed to be the author; no conception was entertained of creation out of nothing by the volition of the divine and solitary Spirit. Co-eternally with him, matter was thought to have existed, inert, and dark and formless,—the boundless and unworked quarry, whence the great Artist of earth and skies moulded the orbs of heaven, and furnished his mansions of space with magnificence and beauty. The materials thus provided to his hand, did not afford unlimited facilities for the execution of his good designs; they had the inherent and obstinate properties of all matter, of which skill might variously avail itself, but which Omnipotence could not utterly subdue. They for ever dragged down every being towards the passiveness and chaos of the primeval state, and established a universal gravitation towards nonentity. Hence a ceaseless tendency in all things to descend from the higher to the lower states of existence, and to slip from the divine into the inert: on the soul of man were forces impelling it into the grosser animal life; in the animal life, a propensity towards disease and death; and, in lifeless organisms, a law of corruption and return to atoms. In this unconquerable sluggishness of matter, and not in the intention of the Creator, was to be found the source of all evil, natural and moral. The supreme Spirit had called into being whatever is fair and blessed and pure; and that there is no more good, was due to the resistance which his materials offered to his will, and which had made his execution finite, while his desires were infinite.
In this system, all faults and imperfections are attributed to the opposition of a passive and evil principle, co-existent with the First Cause, and restraining him within certain limits in working out the problem of creation. The essential idea of the scheme is, that the actual frame of the universe is the result of a struggle between two conflicting energies, both primitive and eternal, to the one of which is to be referred all that is good, to the other whatever is evil. Make then a slight and superficial change in this scheme; throw aside its abstract and philosophical dress; personify this impracticable material principle which stands in the way of the Creator’s glorious designs: call it, instead of inert, obstinate; instead of the residence of death, the destroyer of life; instead of a weight on the Divinity, a force against him; in short, treat it, not as negative, but as positive; not as impervious to light, but as the power of darkness; not as a physical obstruction, but as in real antipathy to God: and by such assumption of personality, this hostile energy becomes an active principle of evil, a malignant and antagonist God, busy in frustrating the purposes of Providential goodness, and spreading ruin, disorder, and guilt over the fair regions of nature and the soul.
This doctrine of a good and evil spirit, engaged in perpetual conflict on the theatre of the universe, is then only the popular and mythical form of the philosophical speculations on matter and Deity which I have described. It is commonly known under the name of the Manichean heresy. It was from very early times the characteristic idea of the Persian theology; and thence, as I shall show, by admixture with Judaism, has given rise to the prevailing belief in a devil.
To this scheme, considered as a metaphysical theory of the divine perfections, and a solution of the perplexities respecting natural and moral evil, objections of insurmountable force will occur to every one. It preserves the infinite benevolence by sacrificing the omnipotence of God. It sets up a rival to his government, from whose malignity he can only imperfectly protect us; so that his Providence becomes precarious, and we feel ourselves the sport of a conflict the most awful, beset by pure, unmitigated, indestructible evils, which, however beaten off in the end, must win against us many a dreadful success. A believer in this doctrine may indeed presume, that a Being, omniscient and benign as God, would never have called a world into existence unless assured, by his foreknowledge, that he could prevailingly protect it from the powers which obstructed him, and render life to every creature on it a blessing on the whole. Under any other conditions, his goodness would have restrained him from the act of creation. Still the blessed Ruler sways his works under constant check; and all limitations on his power must be proportionate deductions from our peace. This theory, then, fails to afford us the desired relief. It does not reconcile the God of our conscience with the God of our understanding: it simply adheres to the former, and rejects the latter; assuring us that, as our secret hearts had said, the great Father hates evil as his enemy; not, as our logic had insinuated, wields it as his instrument.
(2.) We turn, then, to the second attempt to extricate our thoughts from this perplexity; which is found, in a consistent form, only in the system of philosophical necessity. This scheme assumes the absolute, unlimited monarchy of God; represents him as originally alone, and without either universe or materials for its construction; teaches that he willed all things into existence; conceiving the plan, speaking the word, beholding the birth, sustaining the order, decreeing the means, ordaining the end. The compass of his design is all-embracing; all causes and effects, all enjoyment and misery, all excellence and guilt, lie within its circuit; nor can “there be evil in a city,” or in a world, “and the Lord hath not done it.” We are assured, that in fact it is impossible to distribute to separate authors the blessing and the curse which appear to mingle in creation; for the same law which brings the one introduces the other; the tempest which blasts the field and flock purifies the air of pestilence; the necessities of the body are the incentives of labour and the stimulants of the mind; and industry and art, commerce and wealth, the whole structure even of society and civilization, rest on the ultimate basis of hunger. Nor is it possible to separate suffering, even in conception, from a scene in which great virtues are to be born, and the diviner forms of character to be trained. Evil is the resistance, by its conquest over which moral force can alone be measured and manifested; without which, conscience and fidelity would have no field of victory, benevolence no place for glorious toil, faith and wisdom no consciousness of power. In the sickly seductions of pleasure, are seen the health and simplicity of holiness; amid the temptations of selfishness, we discern and venerate the spirit of self-oblivious love; beneath the arm of tyranny, and amid examples of hypocrisy, we learn how calm the front of uprightness, and how noble the magnanimity of truth. Pain is never the whole of suffering; which spreads in moral influence beyond itself and its hour, and administers some of our noblest discipline. The anguish of one human being is usually the pity of many; even the guilt of one may be the forbearance, the warning, the affectionate and healing grief, of many. Scarcely can any ill be found that is not so linked with visible benefits, so entangled with arrangements in which we recognize indisputable blessings, that one only author can be assigned to all; if he has had foresight of any thing, he must have had foresight of all; if he has devised a part, he must have devised the whole. Even such free-will as the human mind possesses is a power of his own deliberate bestowal; and the whole extent of its disastrous mistakes, its deluded estimates, its degrading preferences, its faithless abuse of liberty, must be considered as ordained and introduced by him for some ultimate and transcendent good. At present, and for a long future yet, the sufferings are great which sin must entail upon all who come within its range; but even its saddest victim is yet a child of God, and must at last (benevolence requires no less) be enabled to pronounce his existence a boon. And hence we must believe the penalties of guilt to be remedial; subduing the stubborn soul, and leading it back to seek its peace in God; working out their own remission, because their victim’s restoration; till the wail of despair shall be softened into the sob of repentance, and this into the sigh of self-distrustful hope, falling into the silence of deep resolve; leading to the energy of a new fidelity, warmed by the refreshment of a returning love, and bursting at length into grateful chorus with the song of the redeemed.
The essential idea of this system evidently is, that evil is a result of God’s will, his temporary instrument for everlasting ends. This characteristic remaining, it is wholly unimportant whether he is regarded as producing it immediately or mediately; distributively or collectively; by detailed volitions of his own, or by the agency of a being commissioned to this department of his government. As the blessings, scattered by the activity of good minds of every order in the universe, are no less his, than if there were no creature but himself to shed them forth, so the woes, which any dependent spirits of evil may diffuse, belong as truly to his providence, as if they were the personal inflictions of his will. Hence the doctrine of wicked angels, and of a created Prince of darkness, is the very same with the system which I have just described; simply, its popular and mythological form, gathering up the abstract conception of evil into a person; but still representing it, in this living dress, as a creature intentionally formed by the Omniscient and predetermining God. I regard the belief in the existence of Satan, not as opposed to the prevailing Unitarian views of Providence, but, so far as it is consistently held, as in all essential particulars, identical with them. Its relation to the character of God is the same; and the sole difference between the two is in the question of personality; a question of great consequence, when the existence of a divine person, as the Holy Spirit, is suspended on the decision; but of small moment when, as in this case, a mere creature more or less is to be given to the invisible world. What does it matter to us whether there be any, or a myriad, of interposing agents between the ills that touch us and our God? Surely it is with the effects,—with the evils themselves,—that our practice and duty are concerned, and about their original cause that our faith is anxious; and, on both these points, the Necessarian and the Satanic schemes seem to be agreed. Both refer our thoughts back to a time when no evil existed, and say that none could have come into existence, had the creative activity of God never been exercised. Both make the same estimate of the actual sins and sorrows and temptations which are in contact with our life; and whichever view be adopted, these are neither increased nor diminished, their complexion is neither brightened nor darkened, their insidiousness and their treatment continue the same. They come out of the dark upon us; and no more concern us till they strike upon our experience, than a line of light affects us, till its end impinges on our eye. Hence I cannot feel much interest in the mere question respecting the existence of a Devil; and must be excused for treating it as only an insignificant part of a subject vast and terrible.
Does, then, this second system resolve our difficulties, and altogether harmonize the perfections of God? Alas! the success is no greater than before. Why this circuitous method of producing a happy universe? Evil is called into being, as an instrument of good, in this world; and then is annihilated, by the addition of more evil, in another. If it be the great object of Providence to get rid of suffering and sin, if his government be an educative discipline for purifying the guilt, illuminating the ignorance, and destroying the misery of souls, must we not ask, why then were these things created? If God’s providence be thus against them, why was it ever for them? And how are we to think of those agencies, as the work of his own hands, on which his whole administration is said to be aggressive? No answer can be given, except that the temporary operation of natural and moral evil was unavoidable,—the essential and only means of accomplishing results which all admit to be beneficent, especially the development and progress of mind, and the probationary discipline of character. It may be so; but, in this explanation, the benignity of God is again saved at the expense of his Omnipotence. If no other means were open to him than those which he has actually employed, his range of possibilities was mysteriously limited, his choice incomprehensibly narrowed; and he solved the problem of Creation under some restraining conditions. And no theory, which leaves this shadow of necessity lingering behind the throne of God, justifies its pretensions as the vindicator of his Power.
Scarcely does this system seem to be reconcileable with the Holiness of God. I confess myself unable to understand how a Being, who is held to be the prime cause of all the moral evil which the universe contains, can be regarded as morally perfect; or to imagine, if this be consistent with infinite purity, what phenomena would be inconsistent. It is not enough to say, that the evil is produced, by no means for its own sake, but for ultimate good. Often, at least, does a human being do wrong on no other pretext; and the very plea admits, that God subordinates moral distinctions to some other good, and esteems some foreign benefit worth purchasing by the deed of sin. Is it urged, that the foreknowledge and infallible certainty of the Divine mind justify this, and that it is only because man wants the requisite discernment, that he is forbidden in his blindness to do evil, that good may come? Then it would seem that moral distinctions are intended only for the ignorant; and are, to an immeasurable extent, delusions of intellectual infancy, designed to vanish, or undergo unimaginable transformations, as our mental vision is enlarged. And if this be so, none of our ideas of obligation are applicable to God, and he passes beyond the range of our moral apprehension, reverence, and love. No; the language of piety becomes unmeaning, and the sanctity of religion is in danger of utter ruin, unless the divine sentiments of right and wrong are perceived to be akin to our own, recognising the same immutable differences, and spontaneously observing the same laws. Not even can we admit that he has created, and could change, the relations of right and wrong; that his will is the source of obligation, and by a command could make into a binding duty that which in itself is sin. Moral excellence is no creature of mere power, which he has created; for he is, and ever was, excellent himself, rendered venerable by intrinsic and unoriginated perfections; by holy sentiments, whose outward action, indeed, must be dated from the beginning of created things, but whose consciousness has been from everlasting. I dare not think, that the Providence of God largely consists in doing that, which would be guilt in man.