The Truth of Christianity / Being an Examination of the More Important Arguments For and Against Believing in That Religion

by W. H. Turton

(D.) Conclusion.

God's Goodness includes Beneficence and Righteousness.

Having discussed in the last chapter the character of man, we have next to consider, as far as we have any means of doing so, the Character of God; more especially whether He seems to take any interest in man's welfare. And we will first examine the evidence in favour of this; then the two arguments on the other side from the insignificance of man, and the existence of evil; and will conclude by considering in what sense the term Goodness can be ascribed to God.

(A.) The Evidence in its Favour.

To begin with, God is certainly capable of taking an interest in man's welfare, for He is not only a Personal Being, but also a Moral Being. This follows at once from what may be called the moral argument for the Existence of God, or that depending on man's free will. It is briefly this, that no combination of natural forces, which are uniform and always act the same under the same circumstances, can ever produce a free force, able to act or not as it likes. The idea seems inconceivable. If, then, man possesses such a force, which we have already admitted, it cannot have come from any natural forces, nor can it have made itself, so it must have been derived from some previous free force, and this, again, from a previous one, and so on till we finally arrive at a Free Force, which was not derived from any other, but which existed eternally. And this, it will be remembered, was precisely the conclusion we reached in [Chapter I.], though from quite a different argument. And then it follows that this Free Force, or Free Being, must know that He is free; and must therefore be a moral Being, able to distinguish the quality of acts as right or wrong. Indeed, the mere fact that man possesses this remarkable faculty makes it certain that man's Maker must possess it too.

Now a personal and moral God must clearly be able to take an interest in the welfare of His creatures; and there is abundant evidence that He actually does so. For everywhere in nature, and especially in man, we meet with marks, not only of design, but of beneficent design—that is to say of design tending to the welfare and happiness of the beings in question. Take, for instance, the human eye, which we considered in [Chapter II.] Everyone will admit that this conduces very greatly to man's happiness; and therefore the conclusion that God, when He designed the eye, did so with the object of benefiting man seems irresistible. Nor is this altered by the fact that the eye has a few defects, in being liable to various kinds of disease. For no one can think that it was made for the sake of these defects. It was evidently made to see, and not to ache. That it does ache now and then is in all probability due to its being such a complicated instrument; and perhaps also to its being often used too much.

But it may be said, beneficial organs like the eye, though they abound throughout nature, are not the only ones we meet with. There are others, like the claws and teeth of wild animals, which are just the opposite, and seem designed to give pain to other creatures. But this is quite untenable. They were plainly designed to enable the animal to secure its food, and are perhaps necessary for that purpose, and they all tend to the welfare of their possessor, and sometimes also to that of their victim, as it hastens death. There is not, in fact, a single organ in nature the object of which is to produce pain. Where pain is produced it is merely a sort of by-product. Thus far then, we are quite justified in concluding that God takes an interest in man's welfare. But there are two great difficulties.

(B.) The Insignificance of Man.

The first is from the apparent insignificance of man. For though he is doubtless by far the most important being on this planet, and endowed with some of the Divine attributes, yet, after all how utterly insignificant he is in comparison with his Maker. This is no new difficulty,[4] but modern science has increased its force by showing that our earth is only one among the planets which go round the sun, while the sun itself is only one among many millions of stars. And, we may ask, is it likely that the God Who rules these millions of stars should take any interest in the beings on a small planet like our earth?

[4] Ps. 8. 3, 4.