(3.) Two difficulties.
But now for the other side. There are two chief difficulties. The first is on the ground of injustice; since any revelation, it is said, would imply a partiality to the men or nation to whom it was given, and would therefore be unjust to the rest of mankind. But this is quite untenable, for God's other benefits are not bestowed impartially. On the contrary, pleasure and pain, good and evil, are never equally distributed in this world. What seems to be partiality and favouritism is the rule everywhere, and this without any apparent merit on the part of the men concerned. Moreover, the advantages of a revelation may not concern this world only. And all who believe in a future life are convinced of God's justice, and that men will only be judged according to the knowledge of His Will which they possessed, or might have possessed had they chosen, and not according to any higher standard which was out of their reach.
The other and more important difficulty is, that if God gave a revelation at all, it would be absolutely convincing. Everything that God does He does well; and we cannot, it is urged, imagine His making a revelation to man, and yet doing it so imperfectly as to leave men in doubt as to whether He had done it or not. For this would imply that He either could not, or would not, make the evidence sufficient to ensure conviction, neither of which is credible.
Now, though all this seems very probable, a moment's reflection will show that it is not conclusive; for exactly the same may be said in regard to the whole of Natural Religion. Is it likely, for instance, that God should create free and responsible men, and yet give them such insufficient evidence about it, that while many are fully convinced, others deny not only their own freedom and responsibility, but even the existence of the God Who made them? Yet He has done so. Therefore there is nothing improbable in the evidence for a revelation, if one were given, being of a similar character.
Indeed, there is much to be said in favour of its being so, since in most other matters man is left a free choice. He is often able to find out how he ought to think and how he ought to act, but he is not forced to do either. And God may have wished that the same rule should be followed in regard to a revelation, and that man should be left free to believe it or not, just as he is left free to act on it or not, if he does believe it, and just as he is left free to choose right or wrong in other cases. Therefore we cannot say that no revelation can come from God unless the evidence for it is overwhelming. It would doubtless be sufficient to convince a man if he took the trouble to examine it carefully; only it need not be such as to compel conviction. What kind of evidence we may expect will be considered in the next chapter.
Neither of these difficulties, then, is at all serious; and we are forced back to the conclusion that, provided man is immortal, a revelation seems for several reasons to be somewhat probable. To put it shortly, if God is good and really cares for man's welfare, it seems unlikely that He should withhold from him that knowledge which is the highest, the noblest, and the most longed for;—the knowledge of Himself. While, if man is a free and immortal being, occupying a unique position in the world, and intended to live for ever, it seems unlikely that he should be told nothing, and therefore know nothing, as to why he was created, or what is his future destiny. Thus when we consider both God's character and man's character, it seems on the whole to be somewhat probable, that God would make a revelation to man; telling him how he ought to use his freedom in this world, and possibly what future is in store for him hereafter.