As long as the intellect cannot grasp the beginning of creation, or the end, the original cause of man's existence, or the final result—how can it presume to criticize and doubt, without getting out of its element and beyond its depth?
God's purpose for man, from the point-of-view of God, is an entirely different thing from an individual's purpose in life, from man's point-of-view. As this difference is something which appears to give rise to a certain amount of confusion in some people's minds, it is worth clearing up by a simple illustration.
Suppose a commanding general, in the midst of a campaign, gives orders for a brigade to occupy a certain ridge and defend it at all costs? Suppose these orders are carried out and, after a heroic defence lasting several days, the entire brigade is wiped out by the enemy?
In such a case, when an order comes, what is, and ought to be, the purpose of each individual soldier composing the brigade? To obey orders, do his duty as well and bravely as he can, and hope for the best—which may be victory, glory and promotion.
What, now, was the purpose of the general, in issuing the orders? Was it to enable those individual soldiers to win victory and gain promotion? Quite the contrary. His purpose was to delay the enemy advance at that point for forty-eight hours, for reasons of high strategy.
What was the purpose of God in designing mankind in such a way that millions of fine individuals should go forth to maim and exterminate each other, to the accompaniment of untold suffering and misery?
Because the private does not know the purpose of the general; and because neither the private, nor the general, knows the purpose of God, is that a reason to conclude, or imagine, that there is no purpose?
Is that a reason to conclude, or imagine, that the private cannot have and know a purpose of his own—a fine and worthy purpose of which his conscience approves? Does not that same observation apply to the general and to all other individuals, high or low?
Because certain individuals are born blind or deaf, does that imply that mankind was not designed to see or hear? Because certain individuals, through the effects of disease or abuse, lose their sight, does that disprove a purpose for the eye? Because certain communities, or certain civilizations, decline and decay, through corruption, does that prove anything with regard to the intention and design of the Creator—except that such happenings are apparently a part of the mysterious plan?
It may be that in that plan the soul life of a single individual has more lasting significance than the rise and fall of an empire. Such a conception is apt to strike a matter-of-fact intellect as the height of absurdity. But even in the material world, when it was first suggested that the earth was round, that conception also struck the matter-of-fact intellect as the height of absurdity. So did the idea of Columbus—that he might set sail from Spain, going West, and arrive back at Spain, coming from the East. Nearly all the great discoveries and conceptions of genius have struck the matter-of-fact intellect as the height of absurdity. They dealt with an unknown principle which was different from accepted notions.