The Analogy of Religion to the Constitution and Course of Nature / To which are added two brief dissertations: I. On personal identity. II. On the nature of virtue.

by Joseph Butler

Conclusion.—It follows that necessity, if true, neither proves that God will not make his creatures happy or miserable according to their conduct, nor destroys the proofs that he will do so. That is, necessity, practically, is false.

CHAPTER VII.
DIVINE GOVERNMENT A SCHEME IMPERFECTLY COMPREHENDED.

Moral government, as a fact, has now been considered; it remains for us to remove objections against its wisdom and goodness. A thing being true does not prove it to be good.

In arguing as to its truth, analogy could only show it to be credible. But, if a moral government be admitted as a fact, analogy makes it credible that it is a scheme or system, and that man’s comprehension of it is necessarily so limited, as to be inadequate to determine its injustice.

This we shall find to be the case.

Doctrine. On the supposition that God exercises moral government, the analogy of nature teaches that it must be a scheme, and one quite beyond our comprehension.

I. The ordering of nature is a scheme; and makes it credible by analogy, that moral government is a scheme.

• 1. The parts curiously correspond to each other; individuals to individuals, species to species, events to events; and all these both immediate and remote.
• 2. This correspondence embraces all the past, and all the future; including all creatures, actions, and events.
  • 1.) There is no event, which does not depend for its occurrence on some further thing, unknown to us; we cannot give the whole account of any one thing.
  • 2.) Things apparently the most insignificant, seem to be necessary to others, of the greatest importance.
• 3. If such is God’s natural government, it is credible that such is his moral government.
  • 1.) In fact they are so blended as to make one scheme.
    • —One is subservient to the other, just as the vegetable kingdom subserves the animal, and our animal organization subserves our mental.
    • —Every act of God seems to look beyond the occasion, and to have reference to a general plan.
    • —There is evidently a previous adjustment.
      • · The periods, &c. for trying men.
      • · The instruments of justice.
      • · The kinds of retribution.
  • 2.) The whole comprises a system, a very small part of which is known to us: therefore no objections against any part can be insisted on.
  • 3.) This ignorance is universally acknowledged, except in arguing against religion. That it ought to be a valid answer to objections against religion, we proceed to show.
    • —Suppose it to be asserted that all evils might have been prevented by repeated interpositions; or that more good might have been so produced; which would be the utmost that could be said: still,
    • —Our ignorance would vindicate religion from any objections arising from apparent disorders in the world.
    • —The government of the world might be good, even on those suppositions; for at most they could but suggest that it might be better.
    • —At any rate, they are mere assertions.
    • —Instances may be alleged, in things much less out of reach, of suppositions palpably impossible, which all do not see to be so: nor any, at first sight.
  • 4.) It follows that our ignorance is a satisfactory answer to all objections against the divine government.
    • —An objection against an act of Providence, no way connected with any other thing, as being unjust, could not be answered by our ignorance.
    • —But when the objection is made against an act related to other and unknown acts, then our ignorance is a full answer.
    • —Some unknown relation, or unknown impossibility, may render the act not only good, but good in the highest degree.

II. Consider some particular things, in the natural government of God, the like of which we may infer, by analogy, to be contained in his moral government.