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

• 1. No ends are accomplished without means.
  • 1.) Often, means very disagreeable bring the most desirable results.
  • 2.) How means produce ends, is not learned by reason, but experience.
  • 3.) In many cases, before experience, we should have expected contrary results.
  • 4.) Hence we may infer that those things which are objected against God’s moral government, produce good.
  • 5.) It is evident that our not seeing how the means work good, or their seeming to have an opposite effect, offers no presumption against their fitness to work good.
  • 6.) They may not only be fit, but the only means of ultimate good.
  • Objec. Though our capacity of vice and misery may promote virtue, and our suffering for sin be better than if we were restrained by force, yet it would have been better if evil had not entered the world.
    • Ans. It is granted that though sinful acts may produce benefits, to refrain from them would produce more. We have curative pains, yet pain is not better than health.
• 2. Natural government is carried on by general laws.
  • 1.) Nature shows that this is best: all the good we enjoy is because there are general laws. They enable us to forecast for the procurement of good.
  • 2.) It may not be possible, by general laws, to prevent all irregularities, or remedy them.
  • 3.) Direct interpositions might perhaps remedy many disorders arising under them, but this would have bad effects.
    • —Encouraging improvidence.
    • —Leaving us no rule of life.
    • —Every interposition would have distant effects: so that we could not guess what would be the whole result.
      • · If it be replied that those distant effects might also be corrected by direct interpositions—this is only talking at random.
• Objec. If we are so ignorant as this whole argument supposes, we are too ignorant to understand the proofs of religion.
  • Ans. 1. Total ignorance of a subject precludes argument, but partial ignorance does not. We may, in various degrees, know a man’s character, and the way he is likely to pursue certain ends; and yet not know how he ought to act to gain those ends. In this case objections to his mode of pursuing ends may be answered by our ignorance, though that he does act in a certain manner is capable of proof. So we may have evidence of God’s character and aims, and yet not be competent judges as to his measures. Our ignorance is a good answer to the difficulties of religion, but no objection to religion itself.
  • Ans. 2. If our ignorance did invalidate the proofs of religion, as well as the objections, yet is it undeniable that moral obligations remain unaffected by our ignorance of the consequences of obedience or violation. The consequences of vice and virtue may not be fully known, yet it is credible that they may be such as religion declares: and this credibility is an obligation, in point of prudence, to abstain from sin.
  • Ans. 3. Our answers to the objections against religion, are not equally valid against the proofs of it.
  • [Answers rehearsed.]
  • Ans. 4. Our answers, though they may be said to be based on our ignorance, are really not so, but on what analogy teaches concerning our ignorance,—viz.: that it renders us incompetent judges. They are based on experience, and what we do know; so that to credit religion is to trust to experience, and to disregard it is the contrary.

CONCLUSION.

• 1. The reasoning of the last chapter leads us to regard this life as part of a larger plan of things.
  • 1.) Whether we are connected with the distant parts of the universe, is uncertain; but it is very clear we are connected, more or less, with present, past, and future.
  • 2.) We are evidently in the midst of a scheme, not fixed but progressive; and one equally incomprehensible, whether we regard the present, past, or future.
• 2. This scheme contains as much that is wonderful as religion does: for it certainly would be as wonderful that all nature came into existence without a Creator, as that there should be a Creator: and as wonderful that the Creator should act without any rule or scheme, as that he should act with one; or that he should act by a bad rule, rather than a righteous one.
• 3. Our very nature compels us to believe that the will and character of the Author of nature, is just and good.
• 4. Whatever be his character, he formed the world as it is, and controls it as he does, and has assigned us our part and lot.
• 5. Irrational creatures act their part, and receive their lot, without reflection, but creatures endued with reason, can hardly avoid reflecting whither we go, and what is the scheme, in the midst of which we find ourselves.

[Here follows a recapitulation of the book.]

PART II.

CHAPTER I.
IMPORTANCE OF CHRISTIANITY.

Every one must admit that we need a revelation. Few, if any, could reason out a system, even of natural religion. If they could, there is no probability that they would. Such as might, would still feel the want of revelation. To say that Christianity is superfluous, is as wild as to say all are happy.

No exactness in attending to natural religion can make Christianity of small importance.

If Christianity be from God, we must obey, unless we know all his reasons for giving it: and also that those reasons no longer exist; at least in our case. This we cannot know.