18. The only Moral Force Is Love
The only Moral Force Is Love But here we find a question forced upon us. Why did God set an attractive fruit before Adam and Eve, and then command them not to eat it? If He is really a God of love, then He would act in kindness, to say the least, toward those He loved, and how could kindness tantalize our first parents like that? The answer to this lies in a reason why, a divine philosophy, which runs through the whole course of human history, and too few seem able to find it. The reason why rests on basic principles of moral life and action that are self-evident and inescapable. Let them be given in outline. In such a moral universe as God has created, with such moral beings as angels and men as its inhabitants, questions concerning moral attitudes and actions are inevitable.
Man finds himself in a moral realm in which love is the only moral force; with only two possible ultimate objects of love, the Creator and the creature; confronted by two mutually exclusive moral principles, the sacrificial and the selfish; with no escape from one or the other as the dominant life principle, and therefore compelled to make choice between them; these inescapable alternatives, in the final analysis, being a life choice between wills: God’s and his own. In such a situation, questions on moral actions and outcomes are inevitable. And so somewhere, if not on this earth, and some when, if not during the course of time, the final question is certain to be arrived at. That question is obviously the one outside of which there can never be any further moral questions, and in the answer to which will be found the perfect and final solution of every moral question that could ever arise, under any possible circumstances, throughout all eternity. That final and all-inclusive question is not far to find. Confronted by the inescapable necessity of making choice between two wills, God’s and one’s own, as the ultimate moral choice; with God making announcement that His will is best as perfectly satisfying the imperative ought of our moral being; with His will leading to happiness and ours to unhappiness; the question is sure to arise sometime, with some being in the universe: How can I know infallibly that God’s will is best, unless I try the experiment of yielding to my own will to find out?
If that question ever arises anywhere in the universe, it must be answered. And the answer must be so full as to be final, so that such a question can never again arise throughout all eternity.
There are only two possible ways to answer such a question. Either by the authority of the Creator, or by the experiment of the creature. The answer of God’s authority is, for all who believe His word, and should forever remain, for all His creatures, the abundantly sufficient answer to that question. But the very raising of such a question would in itself indicate an incipient doubt about the reliability of God’s word. So there can be no infallible certainty that the answer of God’s authority will forever remain the sufficient and final answer for all His creatures. For with the capacity for free choice, and the possibility that any query at all about God’s word might grow into doubt, and then into actual unbelief and final rebellion, there would always seem to be a possibility, under the answer of authority alone, for some creature to discredit and turn from that answer, and try the experiment of his own will, perhaps leading uncounted myriads of others with him. The answer of authority is at least capable of being set aside. This is not, however, to put our own experience above the authority of God and His Word, but to say that those who are determined to try the experiment of their own wills against His, will thereby find confirmed to them what faith in His word of authority would have told them, had they simply believed it. By either pathway to the answer, it will be forever settled that God’s will is best. For by experiment, the authority of His Word, instead of being set aside, is confirmed.
It is to say, therefore, that the question of wills having arisen on this earth, and then the experiment of choosing one’s own will having been finally tried out and the answer found in the aggregate experience of the whole race, this question can never again recur through all eternity. The answer of experiment is thus the final answer. It can never be set aside, because it is the complete answer, and therefore must be final. For when the experiment has once been tried, no further questions remain to be asked; the information is all in. The babe creeping about the floor is not satisfied with the mother’s authority when she warns him that the hot stove will burn. But when at last he eludes her watchful eye and puts his hand on the stove, his cries of pain give ample evidence that he has found out what he wanted to know. His experiment has given him the final answer, for “the burnt child dreads the fire.”
Herein is an underlying philosophy in human misery and sorrow. From the crucible of our experiences of suffering here, as also from our experiences in obedience, is being worked out the experiential answer to the question of wills. And when every possible phase of the question has been answered in the aggregate experience of the race, the end of human history on earth can come, so far as we can see.