H 02 The Principle of Moral Goodness

2. The Principle of Moral Goodness. The other point on which it is desirable that we have settled views respects the vital principle of moral goodness or holiness. As this is the opposite of sin, it is obvious that if we can determine it we shall he thereby guided directly to that of which we are in search.

(i.) Your studies in Moral Philosophy have already made you acquainted with the varied answers that have been given to the question, What constitutes virtue or goodness? To enter at any length into the examination of these answers would lead me too far from my proper field; it will be sufficient for my present object that I generally describe and classify them, and then advert particularly to such as may seem more strictly theological in their character. The differences of opinion on this subject are not so much differences as to the nature of virtue or goodness viewed subjectively, as to the basis and essence of goodness viewed objectively. Virtue in the subject in the moral agent of whom it is predicated all will agree in regarding as the love and practice of goodness, i.e. of objective goodness. The point awakening difference and dispute is respecting this objective goodness, on what it rests, what it is that con stitutes it. Now, discounting entirely at present the answers of the sceptical school, who maintain that there is no real, qualitative distinction between right and wrong, but that these are terms descriptive merely of certain prejudices or accidental or convenient distinctions which men have made, just as they have made certain conventional arrangements in matters of business courtesy, the answers which have been given to this may be ranked in four classes :

1. Those which place the basis of moral goodness in the moral nature of man; whether they proceed from the school of Hutchison, who taught that we possess a moral sense which is at once the organ and the criterion of moral truth; or from the school of Brown, who taught that goodness is that which by the constitution of the mind we immediately approve; or from the school of Smith, who taught that goodness is that with which we perfectly sympathize, in other words, that which by the constitution of the mind we fall in with when we see it exhibited by others.

2. Those which place the foundation of goodness in the beneficial results of actions; whether they confine these results to such as affect the temporal interests and physical comforts of the race, or extend them so as to include all that constitutes the true happiness of man.

3. Those which place the foundation of goodness in the mere will of God.

4. Those which place the foundation of goodness in the Divine Nature, and find in the constitution of the human mind, the relations of society, and the fitnesses of things so many revelations or unfoldings of that which in its intrinsic majesty and glory no man hath seen or can see. Of these classes we may dismiss the first two with a very few remarks. With regard to the first, I would observe that its advocates appear to me to be involved in a vicious circle; for they seem first to answer the question, Why is this good? by saying, Because the human mind in virtue of its natural constitution approves it; and then to answer the question, Why does the mind approve this? by saying, Because it is good. A thing is thus made the reason of itself; and good ness is represented as at once the cause and the effect of approval. With regard to the second, its great vice appears to me to lie in this, that it confounds the basis of virtue with the motives to virtue. If I wish to induce a man to be good and virtuous, I may very effectively appeal to the benefits which will flow to him and to society from his following such a course; but these benefits no more con stitute the virtuousness of the course suggested than the good effects of a medicine constitute the curative qualities of that medicine. These qualities reside in the medicine itself, and are to be traced to the wisdom and benevolence of the Creator who implanted them there; whilst the benefits accruing from the use of the medicine are to be set down simply as effects resulting from its possessing such qualities. In like manner the benefits resulting from virtuous conduct are not the source or measure of its virtuousness, but merely the effect of qualities belonging to the conduct, and which exist in it independent of any effect it may produce. And just as I may labour to induce a person to take a certain medicine by detailing its good effects and tendencies, so may I seek to induce to virtue by a similar appeal. To place the virtuousness of the act, therefore, in such beneficial tendencies is to confound the foundation of virtue with what is only an excellent motive to virtue. The opinion which places the foundation of goodness in the will of God is one which in a theological course may be thought deserving of a somewhat fuller consideration; for to those who have not carefully reflected on the subject it often appears as if this was an opinion which as Christians we are bound to support, and it is one which the statements of Scripture have sometimes been supposed to favour. I can only, however, stay to offer on it a very few observations. In the outset it is important to notice what the question before us really is. It is not as to whether the revealed will of God be a perfect development of moral truth a perfect representation of rectitude and goodness; for on this point both sides are agreed. Nor is the question whether the revealed will of God should be made by us the test and standard of rectitude and goodness; for here also both parties are at one. The question before us is, Does the revealed will of God constitute goodness and rectitude? in other words, Are actions and feelings in themselves morally indifferent, and do they become right or wrong simply and primarily because they are commanded or forbidden by the law of God?

Now, when this question is fairly presented to the mind, it cannot fail to strike us that there are undoubtedly some things of which this is true, some actions and feelings which take their moral character solely from their relation to a law forbidding or enjoining them. But is this true of all the objects of moral judgment? If so, what becomes of the dis tinction between positive duties and moral duties? To the moral consciousness of man this distinction is most palpable. No man ever made the mistake of confounding the two.

They are as distinct in the human mind as the ten tables of stone, graven by the finger of God and containing the Decalogue, were in the Mosaic legislation distinguished from the rest of the Law written by Moses. But what becomes of this distinction if all morality be resolved into enactment and prescription? In this case what we call a positive law stands on exactly the same footing as what we call a moral law. Both are enacted, and if it is enactment which produces moral rectitude, the one is not more moral than the other. All duties in this case then are moral, and all are positive. To steal is wrong, for no other reason than to oinit baptism is wrong; to rob and murder, for no other reason than to neglect going to church ! Against such a conclusion as this the moral judgment of all men would rebel; for all feel that the former are wrong inherently, whilst the latter are wrong because contrary to prescription.

It is further to be observed that to resolve all morality into the will of God is to deny the essential distinction between vice and virtue. If it be the will of God which constitutes the one bad and the other good, then apart from this will they were neither the one nor the other; and as it was a mere arbitrary will which made them differ, what we now call virtue might have been made vice, and what we now call vice might have been made virtue. According to the supposition, here are two acts equally destitute per se of moral character; but God, for no reason but in pure arbitrariness, enacts that the one shall be done and the other avoided; and out of this alone, it is alleged, arises the good ness of the one and the badness of the other: who does not see that the case of the two might have been reversed, and that the same arbitrary will which made the one good might have made it bad, and vice versa? I have heard it said, in reply to this, that God could not do this, for He can never command anything but what is good. True, but irrelevant; for the question is not whether God can enjoin anything but what is good, but whether it is His injunction alone which produces the goodness belonging to that which He enjoins. The objector, in fact, concedes what he pretends to deny; for in asserting that God can enjoin only what is good, he im plicitly admits that there is a source of moral distinction apart from the divine will, and antecedent to any utterance of it. If I say God enjoins what is right because it is right, nothing can be more manifest than that I admit that rectitude exists antecedent to any injunction of God’s will concerning it; otherwise I should make rectitude at once the cause and the effect of the divine command.

Once more, it may be observed that to regard rectitude as produced by the mere will of God is to affirm that God wills