02.05.01 - Section 1

Section I. The unequal distribution of favours, which obtains in the economy of natural providence, consistent with the goodness of God.

It has been thought that if the goodness of God were unlimited and impartial, the light and blessings of revelation would be universal. But before we should attach any weight to such an objection, we should first consider and determine two things.

First, we should consider and determine how far the unequal diffusion of the light of revelation has resulted from the agency of man, and how far from the agency of God. For, if this inequality in the spread of a divine blessing has sprung in any degree from the abuse which free, subordinate agents have made of their powers, either by active opposition, or passive neglect, it is in so far no more imputable to a want of goodness in the Divine Being than is any other evil or disorder which the creature has introduced into the world. In so far, the glory of God is clear, and man alone is to blame. It is incumbent upon those, then, who urge this objection against the goodness of God to show that the evil in question has not resulted from the agency of man. This position, we imagine, the objector will not find it very easy to establish; and yet, until he does so, his objection very clearly rests upon a mere unsupported hypothesis.

Secondly, before we can fairly rely upon the objection in question, we should be able to show, that the agency of God might have been so exerted as to spread the light of revelation further than it now extends, without on the whole causing greater evil than good. Light or knowledge, it should be remembered, is not in itself a blessing. It may be so, or it may not; and whether it be a blessing or a curse depends, not upon the beneficence of the giver, but upon the disposition and character of the recipient. Before we should presume to indulge the least complaint, then, against the goodness of divine providence, we should be able to produce the nation, whose character for moral goodness and virtue would, on the whole, and in relation to its circumstances, have been improved by the interposition of God in causing the light of truth to shine in the midst of its corruptions. But we are manifestly incompetent to deal with a question of such a nature. Its infinite complication, as well as its stupendous magnitude, places it entirely beyond the reach of the human mind. So manifold and so multiform are the hidden causes upon which its solution depends, that general principles cannot be brought to bear upon it; and its infinite variety and complication of detail must forever baffle the intellect of man. Hence, an objection which proceeds on the supposition that this question has been solved and determined, is worth nothing.

But, for the sake of argument, let us suppose that the unequal diffusion of religious knowledge has proceeded directly from the agency of God. Still the objection against his goodness, in regard to the dispensation of light, would be no greater than in relation to all the dispensations of his favour. All the gifts of Heaven—health, riches, honour, intelligence, and whatever else comes down from above—are scattered among the children of men with the most promiscuous variety. Hence, the unequal distribution of the blessings of the gospel, or rather of its external advantages, is so far from being inconsistent with the character of God, that it is of a piece with all his other dispensations: it is so far from standing out as an anomaly in the proceedings of the Divine Being, that it falls in with the whole analogy of nature and of providence. Hence, there is no resting-place between the abandonment of this objection, and downright atheism.

Let us see, then, what force there is in this objection, when urged, as it is by the atheist, against the whole constitution and management of the world. It proceeds on the supposition, that if light and knowledge, or any other natural advantage, were bestowed upon one person, it would be bestowed upon all others, and upon all in precisely the same degree. According to his view, there should be no such thing as degrees in knowledge, and consequently no such thing as self-development and progress. To select only one instance out of many: the atheist objects, that it is not worthy of infinite wisdom and goodness to provide us with so complicated an instrument as the eye, as a means of obtaining light and knowledge. Why could not this end be attained by a more simple and direct method? Why leave us, for so great a portion of earthly existence, in comparative ignorance, to grope out our way into regions of light? In the eye of reason, there is no end to this kind of objecting; and it only stops where the shallow conceit, or wayward fancy, of the objector is pleased to terminate. It is very easy to ask, Why a Being of infinite goodness did not confer light and knowledge upon us directly and at once, without leaving us to acquire them by the tedious use of the complicated means provided by his natural providence. But the inquiry does not stop here. He might just as well ask, Why such a Being was pleased to confer so small an amount of light upon us, and leave us to acquire more for ourselves? Why not confer it upon us without measure and without exertion on our part? The same interrogation, it is evident, may be applied to every other blessing, as well as to knowledge; and hence the objection of the atheist, when carried out, terminates in the great difficulty, why God did not make all creatures alike, and each equal to himself. On the principle of this objection, the insect should complain that it is not a man; the man that he is not an angel; and the angel that he is not a god. Hence, such a principle would exclude from the system of the world everything like a diversity and subordination of parts; and would reduce the whole universe, as a system, to as inconceivable a nonentity as would be a watch, all of whose parts should be made of exactly the same materials, and possessing precisely the same force and properties. In every system, whether of nature or of art, there must be a variety and subordination of parts. Hence, to object that each part is not perfect in itself, without considering its relations and adaptation to the whole, is little short of madness. And what heightens the absurdity in the present case is, that the parts which fall under observation may, for aught we know, possess the greatest perfection which is consistent with the highest good and beauty of the whole.

If God has endowed man with the attributes of reason and speech; if he has scattered around him, with a liberal hand, the multiplied blessings of life; if, above all, he has made him capable of eternal blessedness, and of an endless progress in glory; this should warm his heart with the most glowing gratitude, and tune his tongue to the most exalted praise. And the man, the rational and immortal being, whose high endowments should lead him to murmur and repine at the unequal dispensations of the divine bounty, because God has created beings of a higher order than himself, and placed them in a world where no cloud is ever seen, and where no sigh is ever heard, would certainly, to say the very least, be guilty of the most criminal ingratitude. Reason and conscience might well cry out, Shall the thing formed say to Him who formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? And God himself might well demand, Is thine eye evil, because I am good? The case is not altered, if we suppose that the divine favour is unequally bestowed upon different individuals of the same species, instead of the different orders of created beings. The same principle of wisdom and goodness, as Butler remarks, whatever it may be, which led God to make a difference between men and angels, may be the same which induces him to make a difference between one portion of the human family and another—to leave one portion for a season to the dim twilight of nature, while upon another he pours out the light of revelation. The same principle, it may also be, which gives rise to the endless diversity of natural gifts among the different individuals of the same community, as well as to the different situations of the same individual, in regard to his temporal and eternal interests, during the various stages of his earthly existence. And if this be so, we should either cease to object against the goodness of God, because the same powers and advantages are not bestowed upon all, or we should adopt the atheistical principle, in its fullest extent, which has now been shown to be so full of absurdity. But although we cannot see the particular reasons of such a diversity of gifts, or how each is subservient to the good of the whole; yet every shadow of injustice will disappear, if we consider that God deals with every one, to use the language of Scripture, “according to what he hath, and not according to what he hath not.” His bounty overflows, in various degrees, upon his creatures; but his justice equalizes all, by requiring every one to give an account of just exactly as many talents as have been committed to his charge, and no more. In this respect, all the dispensations of divine providence are clearly and broadly distinguished from the Calvinistic scheme of election and reprobation. According to this scheme, the reprobate, or those who are not objects of the divine mercy, have not, and never had, the ability to obey the law of God; and yet they are condemned to eternal death for their failure to obey it. This is to deal with them, not according to what they have, but according to what they have not, and what they could not possibly have. Hence, to reason from one of these cases to the other, from the inequality of gifts and talents ordained by God to a scheme of election and reprobation, as Calvinists uniformly do, is to confound all our notions of just dealing, and to convert the rightful sovereignty of God into frightful tyranny. The perfect justice of this remark will, we trust, be made to appear the more clearly and fully in the course of the following section of the present work.