======================================================================== WRITINGS OF ROBERT L DABNEY by Robert L. Dabney ======================================================================== A collection of theological writings, sermons, and essays by Robert L. Dabney, compiled for study and devotional reading. Chapters: 91 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TABLE OF CONTENTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. 01.00. Christ our Penal Substitute 2. 01.01. Rationalistic Objections to Penal Substitute 3. 01.02. Definitions and Statement of the Issue 4. 01.03. Objections Examine 5. 01.04. The Utilitarian Theory of Punishments 6. 01.05. Retribution not Revenge 7. 01.06. Witness of Human Consciousness & Experience 8. 01.07. Our Opponents' Self Contradiction 9. 01.08. The Ethical Objections Considered 10. 01.09. What Scripture says of Substitution 11. 01.10. The Testimony of Christendom 12. 01.11. Conclusion 13. 02.00.1. SYSTEMATIC AND POLEMIC THEOLOGY 14. 02.00.2. Note to the Reader 15. 02.00.3. Preface to the Second Edition 16. 02.00.4. Prepared by BibleSupport.com 17. 02.01. Section One—Defending the Faith 18. 02.02. Chapter 1: The Existence of God 19. 02.03. Chapter 2: Evolution 20. 02.04. Chapter 3: Divine Attributes of God 21. 02.05. Chapter 4: Materialism 22. 02.06. Chapter 5: Immortality of the Soul and Defects of Natural Religion 23. 02.07. Chapter 6: Sources of Our Thinking 24. 02.08. Chapter 7: Free Agency and the Will 25. 02.09. Chapter 8: Responsibility and Province of Reason 26. 02.10. Chapter 9: Arminian Theory of Redemption—Part 1 27. 02.11. Chapter 10: Arminian Theory of Redemption—Part 2 28. 02.12. Chapter 11: Faith 29. 02.13. Section Two—Basic Doctrines of the Faith 30. 02.14. Chapter 12: Revealed Theology: God and His Attributes 31. 02.15. Chapter 13: The Trinity 32. 02.16. Chapter 14: The Divinity of Christ 33. 02.17. Chapter 15: The Divinity of the Holy Spirit and of the Son 34. 02.18. Chapter 16: Personal Distinctions in the Trinity 35. 02.19. Chapter 17: The Decrees of God 36. 02.20. Chapter 18: Predestination 37. 02.21. Chapter 19: Creation 38. 02.22. Chapter 20: Angels 39. 02.23. Chapter 21: Providence 40. 02.24. Chapter 22: Effectual Calling 41. 02.25. Chapter 23: Justification 42. 02.26. Chapter 24: Repentance 43. 02.27. Chapter 25: Sanctification and Good Works 44. 02.28. Chapter 26: Perseverance of the Saints 45. 02.29. Chapter 27: Assurance of Grace and Salvation 46. 02.30. Section Three—The Condition of Man 47. 02.31. Chapter 28: Man's Estate of Holiness and the Covenant of Works 48. 02.32. Chapter 29: The Fall and Original Sin 49. 02.33. Section Four—God's Law 50. 02.34. Chapter 30: The Decalogue, or Ten Commandments 51. 02.35. Chapter 31: The First Table of the Law—Commandments 1-4 52. 02.36. Chapter 32: The Second Table of the Law—Commandments 5-10 53. 02.37. Section Five—God's Relationship with His People 54. 02.38. Chapter 33: The Covenant of Grace 55. 02.39. Chapter 34: Mediator of the Covenant of Grace 56. 02.41. Section Six—Christ, Man's Hope 57. 02.42. Chapter 35: The Nature of Christ's Sacrifice 58. 02.43. Chapter 36: Results of Christ's Sacrifice As To God's Glory and Other Worlds. 59. 02.44. Chapter 37: Christ's Humiliation and Exultation 60. 02.45. Chapter 38: Union to Christ 61. 02.46. Section Seven—The Practice of the Church 62. 02.47. Chapter 39: Prayer 63. 02.48. Chapter 40: The Sacraments 64. 02.49. Chapter 41: Baptism 65. 02.50. Chapter 42: The Lord's Supper 66. 02.51. Section Eight—Life After Death for Believers 67. 02.52. Chapter 43: Death of Believers 68. 02.53. Chapter 44: The Resurrection 69. 02.54. Chapter 45: General Judgment and Eternal Life 70. 02.55. Chapter 46: Nature and Duration of Hell Torments 71. 02.56. Section Nine—The Church and the World Around It 72. 02.57. Chapter 47: The Civil Magistrate 73. 02.58. Chapter 48: Religious Liberty and Church and State 74. 02.59. Appendix A: Geologic Theories and Chronology 75. 02.60. Appendix B: Apostolic Succession and Sacramental Grace 76. 03.01. Introduction 77. 03.02. Original Sin 78. 03.03. Effectual Calling 79. 03.04. God's Election 80. 03.05. Particular Redemption 81. 03.06. Perseverance of the Saints 82. S. Against Musical Instruments in Public Worship 83. S. Attractions of Popery 84. S. From the Seventh Day to the First: 85. S. God's Indiscriminate Proposals of Mercy, 86. S. Nature of Christ's Sacrifice 87. S. Our Comfort In Dying 88. S. Secularized Education 89. S. The Public Preaching of Women 90. S. True Courage 91. S. What is Christian Union? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 1: 01.00. CHRIST OUR PENAL SUBSTITUTE ======================================================================== Christ Our Penal Substitute by R. L. Dabney Table of Contents: * 1. The Rationalistic Objections to Penal Substitute * 2. Definitions and Statement of the Issue * 3. Objections Examine * 4. The Utilitarian Theory of Punishments * 5. Retribution not Revenge * 6. The Witness of Human Consciousness and Experience * 7. Our Opponents’ Self Contradiction * 8. The Ethical Objections Considered * 9. What Scripture says of Substitution * 10. The Testimony of Christendom * 11. Conclusion Reformatted for e-Sword by Stored on http://www.davidcox.com.mx/ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 2: 01.01. RATIONALISTIC OBJECTIONS TO PENAL SUBSTITUTE ======================================================================== The Rationalistic Objections to Penal Substitute The student of religious discussion finds these objections as varied and pertinacious as though the blessed conception of righteous pardon, grounded in full satisfaction to law, were irritating and insulting to the objectors, instead of being attractive, as it should be, to all of us sinners. This cardinal conception is rejected by the multitudes of rationalizing nominal Christians through every party, from Socinians upward. They say that they must reject it as essentially unjust, as thus obnoxious to necessary moral intuitions, and so impossible to be ascribed to a righteous God. They say they must infer this from the Bible facts, that God strictly prohibits such substitution to civil magistrates judging in his name (see Deuteronomy 24:16), and that he disclaims the usage for himself, as in the famous text, Ezekiel 18:20. They claim that, while ancient or pagan peoples, taught by barbarism and debasing forms of religious belief, made constant use of the cruel principle of substitution in their antipspchoi and hostages, civilization, Christianity, and correct ethics, have banished these usages from modern Christendom. And this, they say, is but the testimony of a more enlightened, a better age, against the cruelty and injustice of substituting the innocent in place of the guilty under punishment. They argue that, since "God is love," we must not represent his penalties as meaning vengeance on transgressors, or simple retribution for supposed outrage upon his authority and personal honor; to indict misery upon the transgressor for this purpose would not be holy justice, but malicious revenge; and that this notion has descended from the pagan conceptions of their vindictive gods, who were apprehended rather as fearful demons than as a heavenly Father. Hence their only conception of divine justice is the remedial one. Penalties are but modified expressions of divine benevolence, just like the chastisements and bitter medicines administered by loving parents to erring or diseased children, solely for their good, and as deterrents from future transgressions for them and their brothers and sisters. Hence the objectors infer, with loud triumph, that there can be no imputed guilt and vicarious punishment, because the sick child must swallow his own physic in order to get any cure. The taking of it by a healthy comrade can do him no good. They charge that the orthodox doctrine of the necessity of a vicarious satisfaction in order to pardon is directly contradicted by the duty of Christian forgiveness, so strongly enjoined upon us in Scripture. To forgive those who trespass upon us, without waiting for compensation for the injuries done us, is the loveliest Christian virtue. The Lord’s prayer makes such forgiveness the absolute condition of our receiving forgiveness from him. The apostle commands Christians to forgive their enemies "even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven them." But surely our Christian virtue should consist in our being like God. His perfections, therefore, do not prompt him to exact penal satisfaction in order to pardon. But the orthodox doctrine misrepresents God in an odious light, as a vindictive being who refuses to relinquish his own pique, no matter how penitent the transgressor against him, until his vengeance is satiated; yea, so blindly vindictive, that he can be satisfied only by hurting somebody, though that person be the innocent one. The more thoughtful objectors also argue analytically, that there can be no penal substitution in God’s government, because penalty loses its whole propriety and moral significance when transferred away from the person of the transgressor. They ask, What is it that deserves penalty? Everybody’s common sense answers, It is the sin. But sin is not a substantial thing when abstracted from the sinner. In strictness of speech, sin is the sinner acting. The sinfulness and bad desert are nothing more than the attributes of the sinning person. Hence they infer that the penalty must be as inalienable as the personal ill-desert. Therefore, imputation can be but a legal fiction, and that an immoral one. Passing from abstractions to concrete cases, they cry passionately, "How could any right mind view the punishment of an innocent person in place of the guilty except with righteous and burning indignation? " If you, Mr. Calvinist, were the victim of such a legal fiction, we surmise that all the dogmatism of the orthodox would fail to satisfy you under your unjust sufferings! Therefore, the ground upon which God permitted a holy Christ to suffer and die must be otherwise explained. The places in the Scripture which seem to teach his penal substitution must be so expounded as to expunge that doctrine out of them. So far as I know myself, I have above given the points and the arguments of the objectors with complete fairness and sufficient fullness. I have set them in the strongest light which their assertor’s could throw around them. I do not believe that the impartial reader can find any treatise advocating Socinianism, or the new theology, which makes as plausible a showing as I have now made for them. Does the array appear formidable? Yet if the reader will follow me faithfully, he will convince himself that these seeming bulwarks are built not of stone, but of fog. They owe their seeming strength to half truths, false analogies, and defective analyses of elements. Now, reader, audi alteram partem, "A man seemeth right in his own cause until his neighbor cometh and searcheth him." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 3: 01.02. DEFINITIONS AND STATEMENT OF THE ISSUE ======================================================================== Definitions and Statement of the Issue The standard which distinguishes between righteousness and sin is the preceptive will of a holy God. This legislative prerogative belongs to him by right of his moral perfections, omniscience and righteous ownership of us as our Maker, Preserver, and Redeemer. Our righteousness is our intelligent and hearty compliance with that will. Our sin is our conscious and spontaneous discrepancy there from. (1 John 3:4 The badness or evilness expressed in any sin (and usually increased by it) is the attribute or subjective quality of the sinning agent. "Potential guilt" is the ill-desert, or merit of punishment, attaching to the transgressor by reason of his sin. This concept is not identical with that judgment and sentiment of disapprobation which sin awakens in the conscience, though it springs immediately out of it. Where we judge that an agent has sinned, we also judge that he has made himself worthy of penalty; that his sin deserves suffering, and this is a necessary and universal part of the moral intuition whose rise he occasions in us. Such is potential guilt. Actual guilt (reatus) is obligatio ad poenam ex peccafo, the debt of penalty to law arising out of transgression. It is the penal enactment of the lawgiver which ascertains and fixes this guilt. Hence, under a lawgiver who was less than omniscient and all perfect, there might be sin, evil attribute and potential guilt, while yet the actual guilt was absent, because the penal statute defining it did not exist. It thus appears that while evilness or sinfulness is an attribute, actual guilt (reatus) is not an attribute but a relation. It is a personal relation between a sinning agent and the sovereign will which legislates the penal statute. Now, when the Scriptures and theology speak of penal imputation or substitution, it is this relation only which is transferred or counted over from the sinning person to his substitute. We do not dream of a similar transfer of personal acts, or of the personal attributes expressed in such acts. Now let none exclaim that these are the mere subtleties of abstraction. They are the most practical distinctions. They are recognized, and must be recognized, in the civil and criminal laws of men as much as in the government of God. Readers must observe that in sacred Scripture the word "sin" is often used by metonymy where the concept intended is that of actual guilt. Thus a prophet exclaims (Jeremiah 50:20): "In those days, and in that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none." The exact meaning of the word "iniquity" here must be actual guilt, else we should make the prophet contradict himself utterly by first charging on Israel very great sins, and then declaring that no sins of theirs existed, which is, moreover, a statement impossible to be true of any of Adam’s race. In a multitude of places, God’s mercy is said to "remit sins." But actual guilt is what is meant. For God’s act of forgiveness only removes our actual guilt from us; not sinfulness, as is proved by our own subsequent, most hearty confessions of unworthiness and sinfulness whenever God really forgives us. Or let us add another instance, since this distinction is so vital and so much overlooked. A thief steals a horse of a neighboring benefactor, sells him beyond recovery, and loses the money at the gaming table. These acts of the thief give expression to much meanness or vileness of character. The market price of the horse was one hundred dollars. These acts have infected upon the good neighbor a pecuniary loss (damnum) of that amount. They have also laid the thief under the penal obligation of five years or more in the penitentiary, as fixed by statute law. The good man, learning that the thief and his family are still suffering destitution, exclaims: "Oh! I freely forgive the fellow." What he means is that he, at the prompting of charity, remits to the thief his damnum, his lost hundred dollars, and suppresses the anger at first naturally and properly felt. The good man dreams of no such folly as that he can remove from the thief his attribute of vileness or release him from his legal debt of penal servitude; he knows he has neither the power nor the right. The distinction between potential and actual guilt is found, perfectly real and solid, in numerous secular cases; as where the cunning manipulators of business corporations so juggle with the property of creditors and fellow-stockholders as to inflict on them what is mere theft in the sight of God. But the sapient American legislatures, while recklessly creating such corporations, have forgotten to enact any statutes fixing the legal penalties for these juggleries. Hence these men go unwhipped of justice, although the judges of the courts may be thoroughly alert and righteous. Abundant potential guilt is there, but for want of statute law the debt of actual guilt does not exist. The distinction between sinfulness as an attribute and as a penal obligation often receives more practical concrete application. Here is a treasurer who has given an official bond upon which a friend goes security. The treasurer commits the felony of embezzlement, and by flight escapes the clutches of the law. Thereupon the Commonwealth forces the security to pay the official bond; that is to say, it exacts from him the legal obligation which is made his by imputation. And this exaction is, to the good man, a heavy penalty, a mulct, inflicting, perhaps, much suffering on him and his family. Does anybody dream that a shadow of the embezzler’s meanness or sinfulness is transferred to, or infused into this generous friend, who suffers for another’s crime? Not at all. All honor the unfortunate man for the generous friendly help which prompted him to go security, and for the honesty with which he makes good society’s loss. Yet the Commonwealth acts with perfect justice in exacting the money from him. Here is the clearest distinction between actual guilt and sinfulness; nobody is so stupid as to pretend not to see it. Let the vital proposition be repeated, that, in the penal substitution of Christ, it is the actual guilt of sinners as above defined, and nothing else, which is transferred from them to him. And the whole question between us and the objectors is this: May the sovereign Judge righteously provide for such a substitution, when the free consent of the substitute is given, and all the other conditions are provided by God for good results? This issue is cardinal. As the church of all ages has understood the Scriptures, the whole plan of gospel redemption rests upon this substitution of Christ as its corner-stone. He who overthrows the corner-stone overthrows the building. The system which he rears without this foundation may be named Christianity by him, but it will be another building, his own handiwork, not that of God--- another gospel. This is proved by the history of doctrinal discussions. There is scarcely a leading head of divinity which is not changed or perverted as a logical consequence of this denial of penal substitution consistently carried out. It must change the description of God’s attributes, excluding his distributive justice from the catalogue of his essential perfections, and putting in place of it the morals of expediency. It must vitiate our view of God’s immutability. It must change and lower our conception of sin as an infinite evil, because it assails the impartial justice, holiness and unchangeableness of an infinite God. He who pronounces the imputation of guilt to Christ morally impossible for God, has, of course, rejected the doctrine of original sin; for that contains, as Paul teaches in Romans v., a parallel imputation. Next, the church doctrine of justification must be corrupted, for that is founded upon the counterpart imputation of Christ’s righteousness to believers personally unworthy, which is just as bad as the other, if the objectors are right. The true office of faith must next be perverted; for the imputed ground of justification having been denied, there is nothing else to thrust into its place except the believer’s faith. The doctrine of adoption must be changed; there is nothing left to purchase it except the believer’s personal obedience after the merit of Christ’s preceptive righteousness is discarded. The doctrine of the perseverance of the saints becomes an excrescence and an absurdity in this creed; for the title and status of the Christian as a child of grace cannot be more stable than its foundation, and the only foundation left is the believer’s own obedience, which is incomplete and mutable. The whole doctrine of Satan and, his angels, with their fall and eternal condemnation, must be rejected, since the theory asserts that the only penalties which the God of love can inflict must be remedial, whereas everlasting torments are not a remedy, but a destruction. Of course, this creed should reject eternal punishments of reprobate men, and teach universalism for the same reason. A proper belief in God’s providence becomes impossible, because, if there was a special providence in Christ’s sufferings and death, we should have God punishing Christ for other men’s sins. How much now remains of the church theology? Did the limits of this treatise permit, the teachings of one or another of the objectors could be quoted, asserting each of these heretical inferences, and that logically from their denial of penal substitution. All of these errors are not charged upon all our opponents, for many of them are preserved from a part by a fortunate logical inconsistency. These objections against imputation are mostly of Socinian origin; and consistently followed they will lead back to Socinianism. The doctrine of substitution is taught by the Scriptures so expressly in both Testaments, by types and didactic propositions, and with such iteration, that it cannot be eliminated from the Bible system without a license of exegesis destructive of all faith in the inspiration of the Scriptures. Infidelity lies as the next remove from these disingenuous misconstructions. Let these three propositions be set side by side: Jesus was perfectly innocent; guilt cannot be imputed from a sinner to his substitute on any condition whatsoever; Jesus suffered the bitterest sorrows and death. Then there is but one way to reconcile them with each other; it must be asserted that God’s providence does not direct what befalls even the best men, and that the evils of this life and the death of the body are not penal evils, but mere natural consequences, like the fading of the flower and the fall of the leaf. Such is theological result. Obviously, it assails God’s word with the most express and insolent contradiction possible. It gives us practical atheism, that, namely, of the Greek Epicureans, for the god who exercises no providence over us in our most urgent circumstances is practically no god to us. And after an utter rejection of Scripture, it blots out every premise by which natural theology proves that there is a moral government over mankind. Is there any deeper abyss of infidelity? Yet not only is the Socinian literature, but the pretended "Advanced Christian thought" of our day, loaded with denials of the moral possibility of penal substitution, confidently uttered by men who do not foresee whither they are traveling. A generation ago Jenkyn, Beaman, and Barnes excluded this vital truth from their treatises on the atonement. So the New Haven theology had done, and its parent, Dr. Samuel Taylor, of Yale; so does Dr. Joseph Parker, the great light of the English Independents; so does Dr. Burney, lately the theological teacher of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, in a recent world, which, as we hear, his General assembly fail to disclaim; so teach multitudes of pulpit leaders in nearly all the Protestant denominations. The customary tone of secular literature is marked by a fiery and disdainful rejection of the whole concept. And these writers think that nobody can believe it except stupid old fogies besotted in their bigotry. If Presbyterian pastors will probe the opinions of their own people they will find numbers of communicants who regard themselves as more cultivated and intellectual, discarding penal imputation as an insult to their moral intuitions. These facts show that an exhaustive and triumphant refutation of objections and a anal establishment of this vital doctrine are among the urgent needs of the day. If the innovators would but study the masterly demonstrations of the church theologians, of an Anselm, a Calvin, a Turretin, a Witsius, a Hill, a Hodge, a Shedd, they would not need further discussion. But the flippant and superficial spirit of our age disdains a thorough study of these masters; they are filliped aside by the words "antiquated," "Calvinistic." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 4: 01.03. OBJECTIONS EXAMINE ======================================================================== Objections Examine It is objected that the unrighteousness of penal substitution is strongly shown by the fact that God expressly prohibited it to human magistrates (Deuteronomy 24:16), and that in Ezekiel 18:4, he disclaims it as a principle of his own moral government, declaring that "the soul that sinneth, it shall die." The first assertion is correct; the second misconceives the text. But the sophism of the first is contained in the false assumption that because a given moral prerogative is improper for men, it must, therefore, be improper for God. I shall not take the harsh position that because God is sovereign and omnipotent, therefore his will is not regulated by, or responsible to, those fundamental principles of morality which he has enjoined on his creatures. I shall never argue that God’s "might makes his right," as our opponents charge strict Calvinists with arguing. But it is a very different thing, and a perfectly plain and reasonable thing, to say that the infinite sovereignty, wisdom, and holiness of God may condition, and may limit his moral rights in a manner very different from what is proper for us men. The principles of righteousness for the two rulers, God and a human magistrate, are the same; the details of prerogative for the two may differ greatly, while directed by the same holy principles. How simple is this! How ready and facile the instances! Thus, a father entrusts his boy to a distant teacher, and tells him to consider himself as in loco parentis to the child. Does this authorize the pedagogue to inflict any kind of punishment for the boy’s faults which would be righteous for the father, as, for instance, disinheritance? By no means. This plain view makes the inference of our opponents worthless, that because God has told his servants they must not do a certain thing, therefore it is immoral for him to do it. And the reasons limiting the two cases differently are plain and strong. The first is: "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." The prerogative of retribution is God’s alone; magistrates only possess a small fraction of it by delegation from him. Hence, they are properly bound by such restrictions as he chooses to impose upon their judicial functions. Next, men lack the wisdom and infinite serenity of moral judgment which are requisite for these exalted and far-reaching acts of retribution. Third, they cannot possibly find subjects suitable for holy penal substitution. One of the conditions necessary for righteous substitution is the free consent of the substitute, that is, where he himself is innocent. No human being is thus innocent before God, but each is guilty for himself. Now, a guilty life forfeited to the law cannot possibly buy off another guilty life also forfeited to law. One bankrupt cannot release the obligations of another bankrupt by becoming surety for him. The surety must personally be innocent, righteous, and owing nothing for himself to penal law. This principle governed in the establishment of the representative relation between both Adam and Christ and their two federal bodies. Adam was personally innocent when thus chosen, and must have continued so in order to benefit his federal body; and Christ was and continued absolutely innocent, and was thus able to justify his federal body by his imputed merit. Here, then, is one insuperable obstacle to any human ruler’s punishing through a substitute. Not to dwell upon this difficulty, that a good man would rarely be found willing to die under human law for a wicked neighbor, we meet another still more fatal. No subject of human government has that ownership or autocracy of his own faculties and being which are strictly necessary for a penal substitution; these belong to his maker; they are but a loan to the creature. Now, no citizen, however generous, can pay his neighbor’s debt with propriety, nor his own, by robbing another in order to get the wherewithal. Besides this, every man in society owes moral obligations to other fellow-creatures who have a rightful interest in his being and faculties. Let us suppose that a good Damon were found generous enough to propose dying for a bad Pythias; Damon’s wife would very certainly protest, saying, may it please the court, I "have a legal right to object utterly to that arrangement; for our matrimonial contract has invested me with a previous right in Damon’s life and faculties, for the protection and subsistence of me and my children. If the judge knew anything of law, he would be obliged to reply, that the wife was right; that Damon, however generous, had no right to dispose of his life in this substitution, and that the court could not accept his proposal, being clothed with only a limited and delegated power, and strictly forbidden by the sovereign to accept such an arrangement. Another obstacle would arise; the civil magistrate has no power to convert Pythias from the evil of his way. And as he is equally unable to raise Damon from death, the practical results of the substitution would only be to deprive society of a good citizen in order to preserve for it one who had been wicked and mischievous, and who would, probably, continue so. When we add to this that the human judge might wickedly pervert the power of substitution to wreak his malice upon some innocent person, or to gratify a general rage for slaughter, we have the true reason which prompted God to prohibit the power summarily to the magistrate. But how worthless is the inference that he will never exercise it himself under conditions which he knows to be wise, just, and beneficial? Now, we find every condition which was lacking to the human substitute beautifully fulfilled in the case of Christ. He was innocent, owing for himself no debt of guilt. He gave his own free consent, a consent which his Godhead and autocracy of his own being entitled him to give or to withhold. (See John 10:17-18.) He could not be holden by death; but, after paying the penal debt of the world, he resumed a life more glorious, happy, and beneficent than before. He has power to work, and does work, true repentance and sanctity in every transgressor whom he justifies. The founding of this objection upon the inhibition of Deuteronomy xxiv. 16 well illustrates the superficial haste and silliness of our opponents. Had they read a few chapters further, they would have found (in Joshua 7:6-26) what absolutely refutes their inference. They say that, because the civil magistrate may not make any penal substitution, therefore God himself cannot. But in the latter place, in the case of the thief Achan and his children, God did this very thing. The sinning children were punished along with the guilty father. This sentence was not found by Joshua, the human chief magistrate of Israel, but was dictated to him by Jehovah. This case utterly ruins the objectors. The Almighty took it out of Joshua’s hands, as it was one of critical importance, and judged it himself in his own sovereignty. But what shall we say of the audacity of our opponents’ assertion, when we find the same God asserting his purpose to visit the guilt of sinful parents on sinful children in the very Decalogue (Exodus 20:5), a law of perpetual obligation for all ages and dispensations, and in his own most solemn declaration of his own principles to Moses (Exodus 34:7)? And what shall we say when we all have before our eyes indisputable instances in God’s providence of the penal results incurred by parents descending to children, while those children may be exempt from their particular vices? And, last, what shall we say when we hear the meek and lowly Jesus declaring with such emphasis (Luke 11:51-52) that this law of imputation was still in full force under the Christian dispensation, and was to be terribly executed upon that generation of Jews? But does Ezekiel (Ezekiel 18:4) contradict both Moses and Christ as to this principle? If he does, the squarely honest mind has no resort except to give up the inspiration of Ezekiel. He who has a fair understanding of God’s theocratic covenant with Israel and of its history has no difficulty at all. Ezekiel heard the captive Jewish nobles in Chaldea insolently perverting truth by wresting the old adage; it was "the fathers who ate the sour grapes, but it is the children’s teeth which are set on edge." This is the clear line of the debate between the pastor and his backslidden charge: Ezekiel -- Your present, urgent duty is repentance. Jews --- Why so, Ezekiel? Ezekiel --- Because you are great sinners. Jews --- What evidence have you, Ezekiel, that we are great sinners? Ezekiel --- The proof is the great secular calamities that you are now suffering: captivity, exile, and pagan despotism. Jews --- This proof is not conclusive, because it may be that we are only suffering the inherited guilt of our fathers’ great sins. Now, it is to meet this evasion that Ezekiel introduces, with powerful emphasis, the correct statement of the theocratic covenant between God and Israel. It was precisely this: that God was to hold to his chosen people the relation of a political king. This was to be to Israel a great mark of favor, grace, and blessing, chiefly in that the strict principle of God’s government over pagan peoples, by which God visits the guilt of parents also in part upon their guilty children, was by this covenant suspended as to Israel, in special mercy; just as, in the covenant of grace with believing sinners of all races and ages, these are to be delivered from all guilt, imputed or personal, when they receive Christ, and by his gracious merits and intercession. The political compact between God and Israel was this: that he would chastise political transgressions with secular calamities, but that the favored people should be exempt from the fathers’ imputed guilt, and from that awful substitution under which God is still governing all pagan and wicked races. Whence it would follow, that just as soon as a generation of Hebrews, suffering for their sins, should turn from them by repentance, God would promptly lift off their secular miseries. This was the special bargain between God and the Hebrews. Moses explained it thus to them in detail at the end of his ministry. (See Deuteronomy, last chapters.) This compact Gods illustration throughout the Book of Judges (Judges 3:9, Judges 3:15, et passim), and the prophets. Here is just the explanation of a very remarkable fact in history, that for two thousand five hundred years this little commonwealth of Hebrews escaped that doom which befell all pagan commonwealths. The political and religious transgressions of Israel doubtless often became, if not as gross, at least as aggravated as those of any pagan race of Mizraim or Amalek. But these people were all destroyed as nations by God’s providence in punishment of their race transgressions. Where is Mizraim? Where is Amalek? Where are the Amorite commonwealths, and the Hittite, and Edom? Where is Assyria, Chaldea, Tyre, Elam, Carthage? These have ceased forever to have any distinct racial or political existence. The political life of Israel persisted through all his crimes and calamities because he was under the special covenant. Among Israelites, therefore, the old adage could not be true as to political guilt. Therefore, Ezekiel’s argument against his backslidden charge was logically and historically perfect. The heavy woes of that generation did prove them backslidden sinners, and, therefore, repentance and reformation were their prime duty. True, Ezekiel then proceeds to do what all the prophets delight in doing, he proceeds to deduce from the terms of God’s theocratic secular covenant with Israel as a type, the blessed spiritual reality of which it was the standing emblem, the merciful rule of Messiah’s gospel kingdom over believing men of all races, that all penitent and obedient souls are by that gospel mercy released eternally from all guilt, whether original and imputed, or personal. He says under Messiah’s spiritual kingdom no soul incurs eternal death save by his own personal impenitence. Each soul which perishes is the architect of its own ruin. There is, therefore, no suggestion in this famous passage of any disclaimer or repeal of God’s providential law of vicarious secular punishments upon Gentile families and tribes. Now, let us see just what the extent of that law is. God never said that the guilt of wicked parents could be justly visited upon an innocent descendant, nor that the rights of perfect immunity secured by such perfect innocence could ever be invaded, even by the Almighty Sovereign, without the voluntary consent of the substitute. If Adam ever had another son as truly pure as Jesus, the son of Mary, I know, as surely as I know that God is God, that holy son never tasted any punishment, either in this world or the next, for the guilt of the wicked ancestor; and the only reason why the son of Mary was an exception was this, that his superior nature was uncreated, independent, and divine; that this eternal Word clothed himself with humanity for the very purpose of bearing this peculiar substitution, and that in the God-man, Christ, both natures and both wills, the human and divine, consented with perfect freedom to this wondrous arrangement for the glory of God’s moral perfections and for the infinite good of an innumerable company of redeemed men. As to the guilty posterity of guilty parents, these are the principles taught by enlightened conscience and God’s word: That the sovereign Judge may righteously punish any guilty person with adequate sufferings, both secular and eternal, after the death of the body; that the wicked children of wicked parents do primarily incur this personal responsibility by their own sins; that having thus made themselves guilty of death, they are justly liable to be punished in any times and modes, not excessive, which seem wisest and best to the Omniscient; and that God does see fit, for wise and righteous administrative reasons, to put upon these wicked children a part of the earthly sufferings entailed upon them as natural results of parental sins; and this is the extent of that providential law published by God in both Testaments, and administered before our eyes in every generation. I now beg the reader to pause and ask himself this question, whether any other moral dispensation would be possible towards responsible moral agents, connected with each other by racial, parental, and social ties, as we men are; towards creatures whose existence is begun through parentage, qualified by heredity, and closely bound up in social relations which, whatever responsibilities they may bring, are absolutely essential to man’s rational development and welfare? I can see how the young of the human species could be exempted from this principle of imputation, provided God conditioned their existence and growth like those of young monkeys or pigs, namely, without any inheritance of property rights; without any moral or intellectual influences, forming their spiritual natures for better or for worse; without any permanent parental or filial affection; without any spiritual heredity; without any such attributes or social relation as unite rational men; not otherwise. But since man must be the opposite of all these in order to be better than a monkey or a pig, I see not how the principle of social imputation could be eliminated. Let us see some human infidel perfectionists construct a rational and moral social state without it. To save time and space we have completed the argument by analogy from this providential imputation of the guilt of sinful parents to sinful children, to the imputation of the guilt of sinners unto their divine Substitute and Redeemer. We do not claim that the parallel is complete in all its details. It is enough that in both instances we have the principle of imputation, although its applications are conditioned differently in some particulars. And this is all that is required to rebut the objection that the very principle is itself so irrational and contra-ethical, that a wise and holy God cannot have adopted it all. For he does adopt it to a certain extent in a multitude of cases which are continually occurring before our eyes. We must stultify ourselves in order to avoid admitting the facts that sinful children do share the penal consequences of their father’s sins. Bishop Butler well remarks that the argument from these cases to the propriety of the redemptive imputation to Christ is a fortiori, whether or not we may apprehend all of God’s thoughts and purposes in the two cases. For if this imputation of the parents’ punishment to their sinning children is justifiable, though made without asking the children’s consent, the imputation of our sins to Christ must be more justifiable, seeing it is only made after Christ’s free consent. From this reasoning there is absolutely no evasion except by denying God’s providence totally in any of the natural calamities which follow men’s sins, or by denying that such calamities are penal or have any moral significance of God’s displeasure with men’s sins. As I have pointed out, the former denial is practical atheism; and the latter utterly obliterates all evidence from natural theology whether God (if there is any God) possesses any moral attributes or exercises any moral regimen over his rational creatures. Such is the deadly abyss to which this rationalistic line of thought will lead, if it be consistently followed. The second class of objections is thus stated: That this usage of penal substitution is of pagan origin, and is prompted by a barbaric vengeance and hatred, not by sentiments of justice; that the proof is, as Christianity and civilization have educated the nations of Christendom, they have abolished the barbaric usage in all its forms; and that we no longer hear of hostages being put to death, in retribution for the breach of treaties, as antipsychoi. Of course we do not deny that barbaric races and ruthless tyrants have mingled feelings of revenge and cruelty with their execution of their ancient laws. We have already explained in full the sufficient reasons which make penal substitution improper in the retributive actions of civil rulers. But, unfortunately for the objectors, their assertions concerning the usages of modern Christian civilized nations are expressly erroneous. There is not one of them that does not retain and employ the principle of penal imputation in certain cases. A common and familiar instance is the law which compels sureties to pay the debts of insolvent debtors and of delinquent officials. We have already used the instances to illustrate the distinction between the guilt, reatus, or obligation to penalty, and the personal attribute of badness or evilness qualifying the evil agent, and expressed in his sin. We grant that the surety’s motive in joining the bond, now forfeited, may have been generous and honorable. We do not impute to him any shade of the meanness of character exhibited by the delinquent debtor. Yet we judge that this surety is righteously held to make good that debtor’s obligation, inasmuch as he voluntarily assumed it. There is not a sane man upon earth who thinks such eases of imputation unjust. But it is replied that the obligation thus enforced by imputation is not ethical, but merely pecuniary; that the principal was bound only to the payment of so much money, and that the thing exacted from his surety by imputation is only money and not punishment. This evasion is false in both statements. The debtor’s broken contract to pay money for value received was both moral and pecuniary. Its breach was an immorality, except where necessitated by some dispensation of Providence. The common law of England was founded upon this judgment, that the breach of contract was a moral delinquency, a misdemeanor, punishable by imprisonment at the will of the injured creditor, until atoned for by full reparation. This form of penalty was harsh, but the judgment which grounded it is just. And our laws still hold that there is criminality in all debts arising out of official embezzlement and the obtaining of money under false pretenses; yea, criminality amounting to felony. It is equally untrue that the enforcement of the debt against the surety involves no punishment. It is to him an indication of suffering, as practically a fine or mulct as any imposed by a criminal court in punishment of a misdemeanor. It is often a ruinous fine, inflicting upon the surety the miseries of lifelong destitution. Still another instance of penal imputation is found in the law of reprisal; and this is still asserted by all Christian nations. One commonwealth commits sin by breaking its treaty-obligations to another. Thereupon the injured commonwealth seeks retribution by issuing letters of marque and reprisal against the property of any citizen of the sinning commonwealth found upon the high seas. Let the aggressive commonwealth have a representative government; let the citizen whose goods are seized upon the sea for reprisal plead that he voted against the aggressive actions of his own commonwealth, and, therefore, is not morally and personally responsible therefor; there is not an admiralty court in Christendom which would yield to this plea. This merchant must bear his part of the retribution due to his sinning commonwealth, because he is a member of it. The military laws of every civilized nation provide for cases of penal imputation, and of none is this more true, both in theory and practice, than of those of the United States. Let an officer who has surrendered in battle or by capitulation be slain by the enemy while an unresisting prisoner of war, then a captive officer of equal rank among the enemies will be condemned and shot, although, personally, he had never broken any rule of civilized warfare, or, perhaps, had never yet drawn his weapon against any adversary. In view of these legalized usages, it is a mere contention of ignorance or reckless assertion for an opponent to say that these penal substitutions are antiquated and barbaric. These laws are in full force today; and they no more offend the moral sentiments of civilized men than they did those of the ancients. What mere insolence is it, then, in these rationalists to claim that man’s primary and necessary moral intentions condemn all penal substitution, when we see that nearly all men of all races, religions and civilizations justify it in some cases. The valid tests of such an intuition are these: "Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus, creditur." These different legalized instances of imputation may be conditioned by circumstances differing from each other and different from those which condition the imputation of our guilt to Christ. But there is the principle. And my point is, that it is a principle recognized and employed as just by all nations in all ages. This may not be enough to prove it right; for in some cases nearly the whole world has gone wrong. But it is a complete answer to the historical assumption, and to the false inference drawn from it. A sophistical appeal is made by our opponents to men’s moral intuitions in another form. They ask: would not all spectators feel outraged if they now saw a court punish an innocent man, upon some fiction of imputation, in place of the guilty one? And they exclaim, was the innocent victim one of these Calvinists, they presume none of his theologies would reconcile him to the burning wrong by their antiquated logic. Our reply is: that their intuitions would condemn the injustice, provided the imputations were made without their free consent. In the case of Christ this was given. That is the all-important point. Common sense affirms that when reasonable spectators were informed of the substitute’s free assent, this would be the verdict of their intuition: he cannot complain, for he gets what he freely chose to bargain for. The other and more philosophic objections will be dealt with under the appropriate heads of our argument. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 5: 01.04. THE UTILITARIAN THEORY OF PUNISHMENTS ======================================================================== The Utilitarian Theory of Punishments Our opponents virtually adopt the utilitarian ethics, for on it they found a famous objection to the gospel doctrine of substitution. They proceed thus: God is love. But a ruler whose single consummate moral attribute is benevolence can punish one of his creatures only from a benevolent motive. They find this motive in God’s desire to administer a healing medicine to the spirit of the creature whom he loves, which he perceives is suffering from the disease of sin; and also the benevolent desire to deter the other thoughtless creatures from sinning. They suppose that God in his punitive providence regards sin only as a natural mischief, injurious to the welfare of creatures, and not a moral evil incurring his righteous displeasure, and carrying an inherent ill-desert. They suppose that the sentiment of the loving God in view of sin is only compassion, and not moral resentment, just like the feeling of the good, kind mother towards the sickness of her amiable child. This mother, prompted by love alone and prudential expediency, imposes restraints upon the sick child quite irksome to it, and administers remedies which afflict the sufferer with additional nausea, gripings, and burning pains. But in all the treatment, there is nothing vindicatory; her sole object is to deliver the child from the greater miseries resulting from unremedied disease. Exactly such, say they, is God’s punitive policy toward sinners; it is only to be explained as remedial. And on this theory of punishment they found a famous objection against penal substitution. The sick child must swallow his own physic himself. It will be no remedy for him to have it swallowed by a healthy comrade. So, the punishment of a substitute is utterly futile for any medicinal result, and, therefore, foolish and cruel. The shallowness of this boasted argument is revealed by a simple question: Do not our opponents claim for Christ’s sufferings great medicinal or remedial effects? And according to them, were not the sufferings borne by one person, Jesus, and the benefits received by others, converted sinners? Here, then, we have the same case which they pronounce absurd: the healthy person drinking the medicine, and the sick persons healed by it without tasting it. But this explanation of God’s punishments is notoriously that of the utilitarian ethics. The famous book of Dr. Wm. Paley, his Moral and Political Philosophy, with those of Hobbes, Locke, Helvetius, Hume and other advocates of the "Selfish System," once gave currency to the ethics of expediency in New England. To all sound philosophers, that sorry system is dead, slain by the unanswerable logic of Bishop Butler, Dr. Richard Price, Cousin, Jouffroy, Kant, and indeed, a great host in America, Britain, France and Germany. This theory of punishments is an integral part of that utilitarian system of ethics; since the parent stock is dead, this branch must be but rubbish, fit only to be burned. The recital of the general refutation would lead too far away from our special object in this discussion. Such refutation ought to be needless for well-informed men. For the demolition of this remedial theory of punishments, these remarks are sufficient. We were about to say that it finds no support in the Holy Scriptures; but we remember that this old book may carry little authority with our opponents. While the Scripture often describes God as administering medicinal chastisement to his reconciled children for their good, it nowhere ascribes to him such a motive for his retributions upon the condemned and reprobate. His objects here are always different, the satisfaction of his own moral indignation, the meetings of the claims of justice, the vindication of his law. In order to hold this remedial theory we must adopt very degrading views of God’s omniscience, not to say of his sagacity; and we must conclude that as a moral governor he is very much a failure (absit blasphemia)! For even our creature experience has shown us that the temporal miseries visited upon sin by divine providence mostly fail to reform sinners. The prodigal usually goes on, in spite of the evils of poverty, to repeat his sins of waste and idleness. The drunkard experiences the miseries of disease, but returns again to his strong drink. The miseries of pagan life are more severe than those experienced in Christian lands, and they are mostly traceable to their idolatries; but we do not see that they convert any pagans. In truth, whenever we see instances of sanctified affliction, that is to say, of the temporal penalties of sin reforming the sinners, the good result is accounted for, not by the operation of the mere pain, but of the word and Spirit of God, employing it as a timely occasion for the sanctifying impressions. If God is infinitely knowing and wise, does not he also see this? If he is infinitely benevolent, why does he continue to employ this pretended remedial policy when he sees it futile, and therefore cruel? It may be added that if this theory of remedial penalties is relied on to justify the criminal laws of states, then it shows their punitive policies to be wretched and contemptible failures. What felon repents in a Penitentiarium? We demand, then, of our rationalistic and humanitarian opponents, why they permit their boasted commonwealths to continue civil punishments if they believe that penalty can only be justified as a benevolent remedy for transgressions? But a more fatal objection is found in every case of those moral creatures of God who are punished, but not for their restoration. If there is any authority in the Bible, it makes known to us two very numerous classes of such culprits, reprobate men and the fallen and condemned angels. Their punishment cannot be designed to be remedial; because for them there is to be no remedy, but perdition. Of course, therefore, God does not design the penal sufferings of these creatures as benevolent; they simply are retributive, or they are inexplicable. This theory is utterly inapplicable to an infinite heavenly Father. Human parents seek to cure the diseases of their children by using distressing remedies. They know that their remedies are as real natural evils as the disease itself, although smaller and briefer evils. They know that their curative policy is, after all, "a choice of evils." Why do they not employ some relief for their beloved children which is no evil at all? Because they cannot help themselves; their knowledge and power are quite limited. Were they omnipotent their love would surely cause them to prefer another remedy. They would complete the curative work upon those they love by their simple word of power: "Be healed!" But the heavenly Father is sovereign, and infinite in wisdom and power. If benevolence were his sole motive in punishing, why did he not choose some other painless remedy? When we add that, being omniscient, he must have foreseen the complete failure of the distressing remedy in multitudes of sufferers, and that, being almighty, he must have felt himself able to use any other remedy he chose, equally painless and potent, our question becomes crushing. The theory of the remedial policy, as applied to God’s government, stands exposed as equally shallow, thoughtless, and worthless. It breaks down equally when tested in another way. If the ruler’s motive in punishing were only remedial and deterrent, without any eye to retributive justice, then every consideration should decide him to punish where the punishment would be most effective for these ends. Upon this plan many cases would arise in which it would be more politic, and therefore more just, to punish some innocent person, without his consent, closely connected with the real culprit whose reform is designed. For instance, here is a fallen reprobate woman, guilty of frequent disorders, and several times chastised for them by law. But she has became so callous and desperate that the legal penalties fail to influence her. In this arid heart there is yet one green spot; she still has one daughter, the child of her better days, who is innocent and charming. The mother still loves this child with all the passion which centers upon a sole remaining object. The magistrate punishes this child with stripes. As the hardened mother witnesses her torments and her screams, she relents; she resolves to reform, and her mother love keeps her to her resolution. Do we therefore say that it was more wise and just to scourge the innocent child than the guilty mother? This is abhorrent to every right mind. But according to the theory we combat, it should be entirely acceptable to our consciences. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 6: 01.05. RETRIBUTION NOT REVENGE ======================================================================== Retribution not Revenge But our opponents may now exclaim, that, by proving that God’s motive in his punishments is not merely remedial but retributive, we only succeed in making him out a vindictive person, and therefore abhorrent, instead of an object of reverence to right minds. They say that vindicatory punishments are mere revenge, and revenge is sinful and odious. They assert that the concept of retributive sufferings, indicted merely to satisfy moral resentment, is barbaric. Savage and barbarous rulers thought this right, and under the name of justice remorselessly indulged their spite and malice against their enemies. And our opponents claim that, as the light of Christian civilization spreads, this cruel notion is corrected. We must therefore ascertain and settle the truth as to this sentiment of vindicatory justice, as it is ascribed to good men, and especially to the Divine Ruler. Is the desire simple retribution upon guilt malicious revenge, or is it grounded in a reasonable and necessary moral judgment? Is this intrinsic desert of suffering in the sinful agent the counterpart to that intrinsic title to welfare as due to virtuous agents, upon which our opponents insist most strenuously? And is this the simple and primary aim of the wise and righteous Ruler in punishing to requite the ill-desert of the guilty man? We assert the latter set of propositions. We do not disclaim for the Divine Ruler all remedial policy, nor all benevolent motive in the sufferings which he visits upon sin. Doubtless, among the manifold purposes of his wisdom, he does aim to recall transgressors from their sins, and, even in his sterner acts of retributive justice, he has an eye to deterring other men from sin by the spectacle of its woeful consequences. But behind and underneath all these legitimate and benevolent policies is God’s fundamental judgment, that sin is to be punished because it deserves to be, because impartial justice requires due penalty, just as it demands reward for virtue. The position is proved by conclusive facts in the consciousness of all men. Their moral intuition recognizes ill desert as an essential element in evil action. Desert of what? Moral ill-desert is but desert of natural ill. It is an immediate judgment of the reason that voluntary sin deserves penal suffering. Ask any unsophisticated mind why a given penalty is proper, and it will reply, simply because the sinner deserves it. Every person, whether sympathetic and benevolent or harsh and revengeful, when shocked by a crime, feels an instinctive desire that it may receive due retribution. These all think that this is not revenge, but a sentiment of justice. If the criminal escapes judgment, they say that the "gallows has been cheated." So opposite are the two sentiments of retributive justice and revenge, the most compassionate, pure, sympathetic women and ingenuous youths feel this sentiment of justice most keenly, while they would shrink with the greatest reluctance from being obliged to witness the pangs of the wicked. The most righteous and amiable magistrate is at once the most certain to pronounce the righteous judgment against crime, and the most tender and sad in doing it. Such judges are not seldom seen to assert the inexorable claims of the law with tears coming down their faces. The same position is proved by those principles which direct our penal administration. Not only do legislators and lawyers, but all the people, see these principles to be self-evident. For instance, let us suppose that counsel for a murderer, after a just verdict of death rendered, and after admitting that there were no adequate mitigating circumstances, should move the judge to set aside the verdict simply because the fear and anguish of the condemned man were pitiable. Any righteous judge, learned in the law, would reply that such a motion was entirely improper; that it was tantamount to requiring him to perpetrate injustice and to become a traitor to the state and to his own official oath; and if the counsel grew pertinacious in his claim, he would risk being punished for contempt. Or if the repentance of the condemned man were urged as the ground for setting aside a just verdict, the judge would explain that while this was, of course, the proper feeling for the criminal, it constituted no satisfaction whatever for the penal debt, no just recompense for guilt. The due punishment alone must pay that debt of justice. Or let this plea be urged that this murderer had slain but one man, and had always been a harmless person before, and would certainly become so in future. The judge would say this was nothing to the purpose; that because this peaceful life only satisfied the just demands of the law, it could not be offered as payment for guilt of the murder; for this the only compensation was the due and just punishment. We here see that human law does not believe the medicinal or remedial effect of penalty to be its main end; because it proceeds to exact the punishment just the same whether there is or is not any evidence that the criminal is cured of his moral disease by his own penitence and reformation. We introduce a still more conclusive argument. Sin is the antithesis of virtue. That moral principle in the reason which makes us desire the reward of righteousness is one and the same with that which makes us crave the due punishment of wickedness; moral approval of virtue and moral indignation against evil are not effluences of two principles in the reason, but of one only. They are differentiated solely by the opposition of the two contrasted objects. The sincere approbation of the good necessitates moral indignation against the evil, because the objects of the two sentiments are opposites. Everybody thinks thus. Nobody would believe that man to be capable of sincere moral admiration for good actions who should declare himself incapable of moral resentment towards vile conduct. Now, then, if we would have a God without moral indignation against sin, we must have one without any moral pleasure in righteousness. If we must have a God capable of disregarding and violating the essential tie between sin and its penalty, we must have him equally capable of disregarding the righteous tie between meritorious obedience and reward. How would our opponents like that result? They are the very men who hold that the good man’s title to heaven is grounded on this inviolable bond which, in the judgment of the good God, unites righteousness and reward. If we were to say that God is capable of capriciously rending that bond, they would fill the very heavens with their outcry against the injustice and even blasphemy of such a doctrine. Yet these are the men who insist that God may capriciously rend the exactly parallel bond between guilt and deserved penalty. The magnetic needle presents an illustration exactly. When the little bar of steel is charged with this electric energy its upper end invariably seeks the north pole, and as invariably is repelled from the south pole of the earth. They are not two opposite energies in the north pole of this needle, but one only; it is the same magnetism which causes the north pole to attract and the south pole to repel its upper end, because the magnetic conditions of the earth’s two poles are opposite. What should we think of the mariner who should tell us that he had so marvelous a needle that its upper end was always and certainly attracted to the north pole, yet not repelled from the south pole? We would know that he was either ignorant or a liar. Now, we must believe that God’s righteousness is the same in its essential principles with that which he requires of us, and this by two reasons, as even the pagan poet knew, "We are God’s offspring." He formed our spirits in his own image and likeness. Again, God is the moral governor of mankind. If the righteousness which he requires of us were not the same in principle with his own, ruler and ruled could not understand each other. But Scripture expressly confirms our position here. As Proverbs 17:15, "He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the Lord." Romans 2:9-11, "God will render indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul that doeth evil.... But glory, honor and peace to every man that seeketh good.... For there is no respect of persons with God." 2 Thessalonians 1:6-7, "Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; and to you who are troubled rest with us." In each of these scriptures, and in many others of similar import, the retribution of guilt is declared to be the exhibition of the same righteousness (not revenge), with the reward of merit. Again, the Scriptures ascribe retributive justice to God as his essential attribute, not an optional exercise of his physical power. He is declared to be perfectly righteous, and righteousness in a ruler is defined as the principle which gives to every one his due with unvarying impartiality. "Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne." "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil." "He hateth all workers of iniquity." In Ezekiel 18:1-32, he triumphantly asks the sinful Jews: "Are not my ways equal, saith the Lord? (impartial); are not your ways unequal?" He then proceeds to explain this impartiality with the utmost precision, as the expression of that impartiality both in punishing the backsliders and pardoning the penitent. If distributive righteousness is an essential attribute in God, then his immutability necessitates its impartial and universal application to both classes of sinners. The declarative holiness of God necessitates the same regularity. The proper expression of that holiness is the divine action, rather than the divine words. If God rewarded guilt with immunity and welfare, in as many cases as he thus rewards merit, rational creatures could see no evidence at all of his holiness. Were he to vacillate only to the extent of rewarding guilt with welfare in the minority of cases, to that extent he would impair this manifestation of his holiness. The attribute of truth is surely perfect and essential in God. But this also insures the invariable exercise of his punitive justice, for he has not only said, but sworn, that "the wicked shall not go unpunished." But the Scriptures come still nearer to the issue in debate. They declare expressly in many places that in God’s administration sin is unpardonable until satisfaction is made for its guilt. In Numbers 32:23, God says by Moses, "Be sure your sin will find you out." In Romans 1:18, he declares by Paul that "the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men." In two most solemn and emphatic places (Exodus 34:7; Nahum 1:3), Jehovah declares that he will by no means clear the guilty. The crowning evidence is in the words of the Redeemer himself, in that very sermon on the Mount, which our opponents are so fond of claiming, Matthew 5:17-18, "Think not I am come to destroy the law and the prophets; I am not come to destroy but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, until heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle of the law shall not fail until all be fulfilled." The rite of bloody sacrifice, unquestionably ordained for man, the sinner, by God, proves the same truth. Until the Lamb of God came and took away the guilt of the world, God’s requirement of bloody sacrifice was invariable. From Abel down to Zachariah, the father of John, in order that believers might pray, the smoke of the burning victim must ascend from the central altar. The Apostle Paul has summed up the invariable history in the words (Hebrews 9:22), "And without shedding of blood is no remission." But this awful rite, the death and burning of an innocent and living creature, could typify but one truth, substitution. Compared with the milder ritual of the new dispensation, bloody sacrifice was more expensive and inconvenient, yet God regularly required it. It is manifest that his object was to keep this great truth, penal substitution, prominent before the minds of sinful men, because, like our opponents, they are so prone to forget it. But our opponents here advance two cavils which they think are very decisive. They cry: the best civil magistrates sometimes pardon crime without satisfaction, and their moral credit is thereby enhanced with their subjects instead of being lowered. Why may it not be all the more so with the God of love? The reply is very simple. Because those cases of pardon, in which alone human rulers can properly set aside a verdict without penal satisfaction for guilt, are cases which can never possibly occur under God’s jurisdiction. They must fall under one of these heads: where either the evidence of guilt has been afterwards found inconclusive, or it is uncertain whether the condemned man acted with criminal intention, or where unforseen circumstances are about to change the operation of the sentence of the law into something more severe or destructive than was justly intended. But these cases arise because all human rulers are fallible; in the administration of an omniscient, infallible God, they never can occur. But every wise man knows that these are the only cases in which it is safe and right for human magistrates to exercise the pardoning power. Again, it is objected that this God enjoins on us the forgiveness of injuries without retribution as at once the loveliest, the most Godlike Christian grace. Therefore this dogma must be false, which represents God as always unforgiving until his vengeance is satisfied. They brandish before us the Lord’s prayer. They proclaim the words of Paul, requiring us to forgive our enemies "even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven us." Out of their own mouths we easily refute them. For Paul teaches, in this their textus palmaries, that God does not forgive his enemies after the fashion they claim, but for Christ’s sake. Which is to say that God’s forgiveness of his enemies is grounded in Christ’s satisfaction for their guilt, and it implies that those enemies of God who reject Christ’s satisfaction are not forgiven by God. The forgiveness required of us is to be after the pattern of God’s forgiveness (as he, etc.). Now, how does God forgive his enemies? Upon condition of repentance and faith; not otherwise. And Christ, in teaching Peter, shows that our forgiveness is not required to go beyond God’s. If thy brother "trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him." (Luke 17:4.) But what if the offender says, "I do not repent." Christ answers (in another place), don’t seek revenge, but let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican. But the weakness and folly of this cavil is best revealed by this question: In what relation do we stand to our trespassers in this forgiveness of injuries? In the relation of fellows, equals, sinners toward God like them, and fallible creatures. In what relation does God stand to his trespassers? In that of sovereign owner, and also in that of infallible chief-justice and magistrate. That makes all the difference. "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord." The visiting of due retribution upon guilt is the exclusive prerogative of God; because his sovereignty, his power, his purity, his infallible wisdom and justice qualify him for that task. And therefore we who are disqualified are not to meddle with it. Is it not fatuous to infer that because God says we are unfit, and therefore must not meddle with his prerogative, therefore he must not exercise it himself? Even the poorest human magistrate sees this difference perfectly. Let us suppose that a thief duly convicted should reason with him to set aside a just verdict in this way: "Squire, you are a charitable Christian; last year when I and my family were in distress your charity gave me relief. This verdict puts us in distress again; the same charity should again release us." We presume the plainest squire would know how to say: "Thou fool, then I was acting toward thee as a private person and neighbor. I took what was mine own to succor thy distress; now I sit in the judgment seat; I represent the delegated rights of the law, of eternal justice and of God; these are not my own to give away in charity. I am sacredly sworn to uphold them. Would it be charity in me to commit theft and perjury to extend succor to you in this present distress, where you deserve none?" Our opponents are fond of charging that this our doctrine of God’s distributive justice is harsh, barbaric, bloody; that ours is "the theology of the shambles." Our just retort is, theirs is the theology of dishonesty. None could declare more loudly than they that for a ruler to rob an obedient subject of the reward pledged to his merit would be false, dishonest, unprincipled. We have proved along with the Scripture that the bond which connects just retribution with guilt is morally the same. Do they insist upon inventing a dishonest divine ruler? The Psalmist says, that they who invent an imaginary god "are like unto him." So are they which "worship him." Were we as severe, we might justly say to our readers, You had better not entrust your social rights, even to people who worship a god not governed by principle. We now reach a point where we place our opponents in a fatal dilemma. They say there cannot be any substitutionary punishment of guilt, that it would be an immoral legal action. Very well; then they and all their adherents are self-condemned to an inevitable and everlasting hell! For they certainly are sinners; and God’s doctrine is that in his final judgment all sin is unpardonable Sinners may be pardoned but the guilt never. For this, satisfaction must be made, if not through a substitute, then by the sinner himself. If, then, substitution is absurd and unrighteous, then we testify solemnly to these gentlemen that the sole result of their boasted philosophy will be, as surely as God is God, to seal them all, self-condemned, to perdition. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 7: 01.06. WITNESS OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS & EXPERIENCE ======================================================================== The Witness of Human Consciousness and Experience These all confirm the proposition that, under a right moral government, punishment, either personal or vicarious, must follow guilt invariably. This is what is meant by that fear of death which is present, both instinctive and rational, in every human consciousness. Some men die calmly under the delusions of agnosticism, universalism, or utter weariness of life. Some, like the skeptic, David Hume, effect before company a cheerful indifference which they are far from feeling. But the average, the natural, and the reasonable state of the human spirit which is not sustained by a conscious justification through Christ’s vicarious righteousness is to dread death, because it expects penal evil in another life. Why this dread and expectation? "The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law!" And this is the final judgment of the guilty conscience against itself in that most honest hour, when the approach of "death, that most potent, wise, and eloquent teacher," has dissipated the deceitful illusions of life and compelled the soul to face the truth. Reference has been made to the sacrifices required in the Old Testament. Reason and Scripture both declare that these were types, and that this is the principle which they teach by emblem: expiation must be made for guilt in order that pardon may take place. But as the meaning of pardon is that it releases the culprit himself from punishment, this needed expiation is to be made by a substitute. The lamb, the kid, the bullock are themselves "clean beasts," innocent of guilt, but they die in place of the guilty worshipper, in order that he may pray and be pardoned; thus teaching the substitution of one innocent for the guilty, more clearly than any words. It is noticeable, moreover, that all pagan religions employ bloody sacrifice, either animal or human, and in the same sense. When idolaters pray, they feel that their gods must be propitiated. Why this? Because deep down in their consciousness they have the judgment, it may be surd and distorted, that, for the guilty, satisfaction must be made to their gods in order that they may be propitiated. The essential fact is, that this obstinate conviction inheres in the minds of all pagans and polytheists of all races and ages. Whence does it come? Will our opponents answer that this is nothing but the persistence of a traditional superstition derived from the ignorant and senseless usage of the first parents of the race? This provokes two questions in reply. Whence did these first parents get the usage; and was it in fact the dictate of a senseless superstition, or of a command from God? Reason and Scripture say the latter. The second question is harder: How comes it that such a tradition should persist through hundreds of ages, where similar traditions asserting the truths of God’s unity, spirituality, and infinite perfections have been lost, although so much more obvious to right reason than the religious value of animal sacrifice? The tradition would have been lost long ago from pagan minds were it not sustained by the echo of their own moral intuitions. We do not advance considerations drawn from the policy of God’s rectoral relations to man as our foremost or most weighty arguments; but they have their inferior place. When a superior being assumes the office of judge and ruler over men, he enters into moral relations with them; and, if he is perfect in wisdom and justice, he will infallibly administer his judicial functions on that plan which is most promotive of the proper ends of his government. Now, our opponents say that those ends are remedial and deterrent. But experience proves that the execution of penalties should be regular and invariable in order to secure these results. The least uncertainty in the sequence of punishment upon transgression will raise in the mind of the man under temptation a doubt and a hope whether he, in this instance, may not sin and. yet escape. This doubt weighs with the tempted mind much more than it is worth. The sinner’s hope magnifies his chances of escape. Thus the ends of justice, and even of benevolent policy, require of this Divine Ruler invariable regularity in punishing. This, in the end, must prove the most humane as well as the most impartial. If he allows some guilty persons to escape when others are punished, he loses that moral respect from his subjects which is so necessary to good government. Tolerated transgressions are as mischievous as they are illegal; they are contagious; they strongly threaten the welfare of the law-abiding. The ruler who is uncertain in attaching just penalties to the guilty raises this question, so damaging to his authority, in the minds of his subjects: What right has he thus to jeopardize our welfare, duly earned by obedience and guaranteed to us by the covenant of his own law, in order to favor the very law-breakers who deserve no favor? Is this either just, wise, or benevolent? So powerful is this inferior argument, drawn from the interests of the subjects of his moral government; but we can never grant that these are its highest end God’s own glory presents an end unspeakably more worthy; and it needs no exposition to show that for that highest end absolute regularity, equity, and impartiality are necessary. If penalty follows the transgressions of some, it must follow the transgressions of all. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" ======================================================================== CHAPTER 8: 01.07. OUR OPPONENTS' SELF CONTRADICTION ======================================================================== Our Opponents’ Self Contradiction They insist that God’s remission of sin must be unconditional, the result of simple goodness, and yet none of them, not even the Socinians, dare to promise sinners forgiveness except upon condition of their repentance and reformation. Now, we also hold that these are necessary and meet for the state of the pardoned sinner, but not conditions precedent, not procuring causes of their pardon; they are, in fact, after-consequences and fruits of that blessing. Christ’s vicarious sacrifice has already provided its meritorious cause. While our opponents deny this, they yet strictly require repentance and reform, making them forerunners and procurers of pardon. They are thus compelled to teach that the forgiveness of sin is not and cannot be unconditional; and after so stoutly denying that satisfaction to justice is prerequisite to God’s mercy upon the guilty, they have to fabricate a species of satisfaction out of these two actions of the guilty man himself. It is true their substitutes are unsuitable; but by this invention they seem to admit that satisfaction for guilt is necessary for the divine honor. This self-contradiction is indeed fated; the common sense and conscience of all men who think predestinated it. There are no professed Christians on earth who assert so loudly the blessed doctrine that God pardons sin. But what is pardon? Its most common and express name in Scripture is remission; that is, aphesis. Now, what is remitted or removed? Not strictly the pardoned man’s sin or sinfulness in the sense of his own personal attribute of evilness or opposition to God’s holy law; but his guilt, that is to say, his obligation to punishment therefor. Plainly, when Scripture speaks briefly of the aphesis of sins, it uses a metonymy, meaning by sins, literally, their guilt; for the consciousness of every pardoned man in the world tells him that his personal attribute of sinfulness has not yet been removed; he tells God this in every confession, Thanksgiving, and petition for further grace which his thankful and believing heart offers to his God. Is he lying to him? Let the reader then pardon us for repeating this fundamental distinction, so simple and plain, yet so obstinately overlooked, between sinfulness, the attribute, and guilt, the penal obligation. And let us reaffirm what both Scripture and conscience assert of every pardoned man on earth, that while his guilt is wholly removed, sinfulness remains in him for a time. Now, then, whoever says that God pardons sin has therein said that God actually makes this separation between the attribute and the obligation, which our opponents say cannot be made at all, because the two are inseparable. They conflict with all the Scripture in asserting that neither Christ nor any other person can be substituted under another’s guilt; and their main argument is, as we shall see, that guilt is inseparable from the personal sinfulness which incurred it. But if this were true, all pardon of sinners remaining more or less sinful would be absolutely impossible; and as our opponents and we are all sinners, the only thing left for us is to make up our minds to go together to inevitable perdition, like the lost angels, who have no substitute. Our adversaries seem to think that it is more reasonable our obligations should be transferred nowhere else than to somewhere else. If the Redeemer did not suffer for our sins, that is, for the guilt of them, he must have suffered for something, and that a very grand object. Our opponents, of all men, are bound to teach this; for they say God’s whole essence is love, by which they mean benevolence; therefore causeless sufferings in his children must be more obnoxious to his feelings than any other thing in the world. Moreover, since Jesus is perfect in the Father’s eyes, his causeless sufferings must have been most obnoxious to him of all; they were, moreover, terrible and extraordinary in severity, worse than were ever endured by any innocent child of God. Therefore they must have had an object, and that of the grandest importance. What was it? Our adversaries are not agreed between themselves in their answer. One set say that God’s object was to give conclusive weight to Jesus’ testimony for this truth, namely, that God certainly pardons sin on the ground of the sinner’s repentance and reform; for when a man dies a martyr for his teaching, men are obliged to believe that it was true. Another set say that the object of Jesus’ innocent sufferings and death was designed to add moral weight to his example as our pattern, especially in practicing the virtues of truth, moral courage, patience, and fortitude under calamity. Still another set hold that the object was to soften and melt our hearts by sympathy with his sufferings; and yet another, that God’s object in the sacrifice of Christ was to make a dramatic display of his opposition to sin, even while pardoning the sinner, and so to prevent men’s presuming too much upon his kindness. When we are taught that these are ends designed and secured through Christ’s death, we respond, yes, they are secondary ends; but in order that they may be such, they must be grounded in the great truth that he suffered legally and righteously for the guilt of sin imputed to him. Take away that foundation, and these purposes of Christ’s sufferings become inexplicable and worse than futile. We can reasonably assert all these as secondary results of the divine sacrifice; in the scheme of our opponents they are contradictions and folly. First, the martyr’s willing death does not prove the truth of his creed, but only his sincerity in it, perhaps even his stubborn pride in it, unless we know that he possesses infallible and divine wisdom; second, Did God’s providence permit and order the calamities and death of Jesus? If the Father took no providential note of or concern in the destiny of such a Son, at once the most admirable and the most important figure in human history, there is not a shadow left of proof that there is any providence over persons as insignificant as we are. This conclusion is to us practical atheism. If Providence did ordain the sufferings of Jesus, while he bore no guilt, then the case which we have is this: That God punished, or intentionally permitted the punishment of the one man of purest and sublimest virtue who ever appeared on earth with miseries more dire than he ever visited upon a Cain or a Judas. What lesson of patience or fortitude under suffering does this contain for us? It would be only a lesson of hatred against the government we live under, and of horror and despair. And last: the gratuitous sufferings of Jesus would remain a dramatic exhibition of God’s hatred of innocence and virtue rather than of vice. But if the great truth be posited that a just ground was laid by Christ’s voluntary substitution under the guilt of a world for these penal sufferings, and that by them God’s purity, adorable justice, and infinite love for the unworthy are gloriously manifested together, then all these moral and didactic effects of Christ’s sacrifice most truly result. From these deadly paradoxes there are but two evasions. One is to say that God’s providence had nothing to do with the calamities and the murder of Jesus; the other, that earthly miseries and death are not penalties for sin. The latter is the evasion of the old Pelagians when pressed by Augustine with the inexorable fact that infants, whom they pronounced sinless, meet with the same bodily evils and death with adult sinners. Let us see at what cost either of these evasions must be adopted. It has already been pointed out that, if Providence intervenes anywhere in human affairs, it certainly did so in the life and destiny of Jesus, because his is the most illustrious and important figure that has ever appeared among mankind, and because his career has already had more influence on human history than anything else ever done on earth. And this is a just argument ad hominem, because all these rationalists adopt this theory of providence: that God concerns himself therein with cardinal and influential events, but not with the ordinary current of effects arising out of common second causes. Therefore, he who denies a providence over the destiny of Jesus must logically deny providence everywhere; and that, we repeat, is practical atheism; moreover, it is virtual infidelity. He who takes that position should flout the authority of all Scripture, because God’s concern in the sufferings and death of Jesus is taught as expressly and as widely as any proposition in the Bible. There is no way to get rid of it except by trampling the authority of Scripture under foot. In Psalms 22:1-31, it is, beyond all doubt, the Messiah who speaks through the mouth of David. (Psalms 22:1, Psalms 22:15): "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (the very words of Jesus on the cross), and "thou hast brought me into the dust of death." Isaiah 53:6 "The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." Luke 24:46 It is Jesus himself who said to his apostles, "Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead." John 19:11 "Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above." Acts 2:23 Christ was "delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God." Romans 8:32 God "spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all." It is equally contrary to Scripture to say that any human sufferings and death are other than penal. Genesis 2:17 "For in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." Genesis 17:1, Genesis 3:19 "Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife,..... cursed is the ground for thy sake...... For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." Romans 5:12 "Death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned"; and Romans 6:23 "The wages of sin is death." The very benevolence of God, on which our opponents boast so much, proves that all human miseries and death must be just penalties for sin, and cannot be otherwise explained; for it is proved that they are permitted and disposed by God according to his purpose. Did he not do this at the prompting of his own justice, his infinite benevolence would forbid his doing it at all. Surely there cannot be a sharper self-contradiction than that of the men who say, in one breath, that God’s perfect justice makes it impossible that he should inflict vicarious sufferings for guilt upon the voluntary substitute who is innocent; and in the next breath, that God is capable of indicting similar penal evils upon multitudes of others, without reference to their guilt. This, then, is the word which common sense and honesty would speak to all our opponents: You say that you know intuitively and necessarily that there cannot be penal substitution of the innocent for the guilty under God’s just government. Then cease to call yourselves Christians of any phase, degree, or sect; repudiate the Bible at once and wholly. Let the world know where you stand as simple infidels, like Chubb, Toland, Tom Paine, Voltaire, and Ingersoll. Consistency leaves you no other position, no middle ground; for the Bible is too deeply committed to the doctrine which you disdain, to be any rule of faith at all, if you are right. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 9: 01.08. THE ETHICAL OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED ======================================================================== The Ethical Objections Considered The grand and cardinal objection against Christ’s substitution is the philosophic one. It has, therefore, been reserved for separate and special discussion. As already stated, its claim, as a moral intuition, that a just government, human or divine, cannot transfer one man’s guilt to another who is innocent, under any possible conditions, because punishment loses its moral significance, and becomes cruelty and wickedness as soon as it is transferred from the sinning person to another. Their position cannot be stated more clearly and boldly than in the following words, quoted from one of their leading professors of philosophy: "The first fundamental principle of ethics is that nobody can be righteous for anybody else. Righteousness is a thing that has to spring from the inmost personality of the person, and nobody can ever be a substitute either for my wickedness or my goodness. Hence, if we believe the teachings of reasonable ethics, we have got to learn to interpret the symbol of the cross in some other way than that old fashioned one..... We are convinced that, for better or worse, enlightened mankind has, in matters of belief, taken a final leave of mere traditions and of blank authority of miraculism in every form. It is accordingly clear to them that henceforth the only safety for human practice lies in founding it in philosophic criticism that shall be luminous, unrelenting, penetrating to the bottom." Or, otherwise stated: When a man comes and tells me, for instance, that Christ died on the cross for my sins, that he offered up a sacrifice for my sins, and that by virtue of this alone God imparts to me the righteousness of Jesus, if I exercise a mystic sentiment of faith, as it is called, I want to know how literally I am to take that; for if I am to take it literally, then I, as a philosophical thinker, have to say, point blank, it is not true. The reader must understand what our opponent’s position is, that whatever be the Bible’s testimony for Christ’s penal substitution, it cannot be true, because they know it to be false by an immediate, self-evident, necessary intuition, which is to say that they set their philosophy above all the authority claimed for God’s word. To those who know the history of philosophy and the picture it presents of the uncertainty of human metaphysics, this towering self-confidence would appear ludicrous were not the results so tragical. If the philosophy, which they worship, has settled anything, it has agreed that these should be the traits of an intuitive judgment; it should be primary (resting upon no prior premises), self-evident, necessary, and universal. Should it not have given some pause to their philosophic dogmatism to remember that most Christians for several thousand years sincerely believed what these dogmatists pronounce self-evidently false? How was it that not only the most devout Christians, but the greatest thinkers and philosophers of all ages -- a Lactantius, an Augustine, an Anselm, an Aquinas, a Luther, a Calvin, a Pascal, a Claude, a Turretin, a Butler, a Newton, a Chalmers, an Edwards, a Wesley, an Alexander, a Thornwell -- saw no difficulty in this proposition which our Socinianizers find so unspeakably absurd? There is modesty with a vengeance! One would think, to hear them, that intuitions had only been invented, like the telegraph and telephone, in the nineteenth century. Again, how comes it that our new philosophers were not aware that this despised old Bible asserted precisely their proposition, that no one can have righteousness or wickedness for anybody but himself, three thousand years before they were born? The old prophet said, "If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself: but if thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it." Perhaps our opponents should have given the Bible, notwithstanding its offensive traits of inspiration and "miraculism," this much of credit, as not to be so silly and stupid as to contradict itself by then proceeding to teach penal substitution. It does teach both propositions; and had these readers been less overweaning, and better acquainted with its contents, they would have seen at least a probable solution in this thought, that the predications in the two propositions are different, so that they do not contradict each other. And this will be found the real solution. Obviously, their cavil leads us into the midst of that famous Protestant contention, whether inspiration be entitled to make us admit what is to our minds a necessary self-contradiction, or whether the unquestionable presence of such a proposition in a writing claiming inspiration would not be good internal evidence against it? Men who tread with such arrogance the narrow boundary line between logic and theology ought at least to know the answer which true theology gives to these questions. To the first we answer unhesitatingly, No; to the latter, Yes. This ground has been too thoroughly trodden in the long controversy between true theology and popery for the answer to be unknown to real scholars. These have not forgotten the famous apothegm in which John Locke summed up the Protestant position: that some propositions are agreeable to our reason, some are above it, and some contradict it. The first two kinds logical and rational men accept upon sufficient evidence; it is the last kind, only which they necessarily reject. The Protestant argument is short and clear. In order that any mind may have true and consistent intelligence, there must be in it at least some primary and regulative principia of judgment. In order for a permanent rivulet, there must be a headspring. Second, most certainly that God, whose bosom is the eternal home of truth and intelligence, who implanted these principia in us when he created our spirits in his own image and likeness, will not tell us anything which directly breaks and uproots these principles of thought. This, if attempted, could not be effectuated without uprooting our very intelligence, and thus rendering us incapable of receiving any rational inculcations. But after this simple statement, it is very plain that we are not entitled to deny any proposition claiming to be taught by God, because it seems to conflict with any favorite judgment of our own, unless we are entitled to be certain that our judgment really is one of these necessary principles of thought. And the history of human opinion warns us to be very modest and cautious here, for several reasons. We ought to know how prone our natural egotism makes us all to claim for our cherished opinions this self-evident authority, when in reality they are but deductions of our own, shaped by our prejudices and defective habits of thought. We ought to remember that, in the history of philosophy, several propositions have been long and almost universally held to be primary, self-evident truths, which a later and more correct philosophy showed to be not primary and even false. For instance, in the Middle Ages the whole world of physicists held it to be an axiom, that "nature abhors a vacuum." Nobody now believes that this is either an axiom or a truth. The Italian, Torricelli, exploded it by a question: Then how comes it that in the pump-stock nature does not abhor a vacuum above thirty-three feet? It is related that when Sir Isaac Newton published his Principia, his great German contemporary, Leibnitz, objected, claiming it as an axiom that no one body can communicate energy to another body unless substantively present with it. So that Newton’s induction of the attraction of gravitation, by which the mass of the sun pulls the earth and the moon at a distance of ninety-five millions of miles, must be an error. And that he added, "I don’t see how Sir Isaac is to keep his planets moving in their orbits unless he can get an angel to go behind and push all the time." Who now feels Leibnitz’s difficulty? It was with good reason, therefore, that while the great Protestant logicians refused to bind the human intellect by the "implicit faith" of the popes, they guarded their doctrine in this manner. The self-contradiction asserted must appear between the obvious meanings of two express texts of Scripture, or between such an expressed text and an unquestionable, necessary principium of thought, before we are entitled to reject the professed Scripture on this ground of self-contradiction. For, if the conflict exists only between an expressed text and one of our logical deductions, or between it and some gloss which we put upon another text, we have no right to say that there is self-contradiction. The error may be in our logic or in our gloss, not in the Scripture. Now do our Socinianizers practice any such wholesome caution in condemning the Bible doctrine of penal substitution as absurd? They may exclaim, "Yes, it is an ethical intuition that one man cannot justly be made responsible for another man’s righteousness or sin;" yet the slightest close analysis will show that they are making a very shallow confusion of their pet proposition with another which is different. There is an intuition, universally held by thinking and just men, for which they mistake their opinion. The true predication is this: The consequences of righteousness or sin may not be transferred to another, unless he is in some way reasonably responsible therefor. Now, in order to identify this proposition (which everybody accepts} with theirs, they must assert that there is no way in which a moral agent can become reasonably responsible except solely by personally doing himself the moral or immoral actions in question. Is that self-evidently true? Is it at all true? Manifestly not. They have heedlessly begged the whole question. Every good jurist, yea, every man of common sense, knows that there are other ways in which moral responsibility may attach besides the personal doing of the responsible acts, as by the voluntary assumption of the responsibility for the sake of some valuable consideration. Here is another class of instances. The law justly holds "accessories before the fact" to a murder guilty of death. Here the law claims two victims for one murder, the life of the assassin and the life of the man who bribed him. Yea, if twelve men combine to hire him, there would be thirteen, each guilty of death for one and the same murder, while only one single hand perpetrated it. How comes this to be just? Because the twelve voluntarily associated themselves in the responsibility of an immoral act, which neither of them personally executed. Again, does the just law punish the accessory for the sin of suborning a murderer, or for murder itself? The correct answer is, for both: for his sin of subornation, because it was his own personal act and was evil, and for the murder, because he voluntarily associated himself in the responsibility of it. Society presents other instances supporting our principle still more clearly. There are social disabilities which inflict real pain and calamity. which are deserved by men’s vices, and which follow them by regular moral law, and are therefore penal, a part of God’s temporal punishment for transgression. Not seldom society visits a part of these penal consequences upon persons who did not individually transgress, but who are nearly connected with the actual transgressor. There are, for example, two citizens of high moral and social rank, each of whom has a marriageable daughter who is refined and beloved. One is sought in marriage by a John Doe, the other by a Richard Roe. Both these young men are personally reputable, industrious, and intelligent. The one parent says to John Doe, you cannot have my daughter; because a man whose father is now serving his long term in the penitentiary for a bad felony cannot be a son in my family, and husband to my pure daughter. The other parent gives the same refusal, and justifies it by reminding Richard Roe that he is filius nullius. The young men sorrowfully protest, and urge that these misfortunes were not their own faults; but each parent persists in declaring: I have nothing against you personally, but you cannot marry my daughter, become a son to her mother and a brother to my other children. But society fully justifies their decision, and there is not one of our opponents who would not concur. Here, then, is the partial transfer of penal responsibility where the consent of the second party is not even asked, yet the judgment may be just. Not seldom society presents counterpart cases which are settled upon the same principle. As a benefit is the antithesis of an injury, so gratitude, recognizing the benefactor’s moral title, is the counterpart to just resentment, recognizing the aggressor’s moral title to punishment. Sometimes the children of a benefactor share with their father the fruits of the gratitude in the heart of the beneficiary; and all just men regard this as proper. Thus, Barzillai the Gileadite had displayed a splendid loyalty, at the risk of his hoary head, to King David, when in seemingly hopeless defeat. After his triumph over the conspirators, David expresses his gratitude and wishes to recompense Barzillai for his most opportune assistance by honors and enjoyments at court. The patriarch replies that he is now too old to enjoy such rewards, but he asks them for his son Chimham. Now, the history does not say that this youth had personally rendered any service to the king; he was, probably, a boy under military age. But the claim of recompense for him rested solely upon the father’s services, which David had just recognized. Did David demur? Did he resort to any of this spurious ethical philosophy to argue that he owed Chimham nothing? Not he! He was too much the gentleman, a gallant and honest soldier. So he answers without a moment’s hesitation, "Chimham shall go with me." It is a curious sequel to this history, and in strange correspondence with the tenacious traditions of the Orient, that many generations afterwards, there was at Bethlehem, the birthplace of David, a building still known as the caravansary of Chimham. It would seem that a part of the reward for his father’s loyalty was a piece of property taken from David’s private patrimony. Here, then, we have an unquestionable instance of the very thing which all our Socinianizers denounce as unphilosophical, contra-ethical, and absurd: one man rewarded for what another man did. Our opponents, therefore, in their cavil, conflict with the common sense of mankind and with the usages and laws of all families, tribes, and commonwealths. What has so blinded them? We apprehend that they are misled very much by these three sophistical inferences. First, they observe that the principles of imputation and penal substitution are more rarely employed (they erroneously say never) in the ordinary civic laws of the civilized Christian nations. It is true that the use of these principles is much limited by the diminution of barbarism. So they jump to the conclusion that enlightened men have found out they are all wrong. Now, we explained in Chapter III. that the true reason why penal substitution is not much employed by us in this age is that the magistrates cannot usually find a man who can fulfill the conditions requisite for the proper application of the principle, and not because we have found out it is essentially wrong. The grand importance of this point justices its repetition. We expressly granted, that wherever there is man or angel under a just government, human or divine, who is personally innocent, rectus in curia, and entitled to his franchise of immunity by his own satisfactory obedience to law, the just imputation of the guilt of another can never be made to that creature WITHOUT HIS OWN VOLUNTARY CONSENT. But usually no such human creature can be found; and if found, he has no right to give that consent as to any capital guilt, and that is the reason human legislators and jurists cannot resort to the principle in their usual administration. But in Jesus of Nazareth, the God-man, such a person was found for once, rectus in curia, above all law, having autocracy of his own life (John 10:18), and freely willing to give it to redeem the guilt of human sinners. In the second place, these mistaken men are misled by the "vain philosophy" of the utilitarians; they persuade themselves that God’s penal administration is nothing more than a benevolent expediency. Deluded by this ethical heresy, they insist on confounding retributive justice with mere revenge. They will not see this vital and holy truth, that such justice is not malice, nor anger, but essential moral principle, the very same in essence with that which prompts a holy God to reward merit, and as absolutely determined to invariable action by God’s essential perfections and immutability as is his milder phase of the same attribute which rewards merit with blessedness. After thus stripping God of an essential attribute, what wonder if they misunderstand his moral administration? Their third source of error is equally shallow and influential with them. Being, in fact, little acquainted with the Bible, its exposition, its logic, and its theology, they fail to make the simple, but vital, distinction between righteousness and sinfulness as personal moral attributes of rational agents on the one hand [entitled to reward and guilt (obligatio ad poenam)] and their relations to the will of the Law-giver on the other hand. Then their common sense tells them, as it tells everybody else, that essential attributes, being subjective personal qualities, are not transferable from the person whom they really qualify to another person. And so they jump to the non-sequitur that therefore guilt is equally untransferable, and its imputation an immoral legal fiction. We need no other specimen convicting them of this confusion, than the words of the learned professor already quoted: "The first fundamental principle of ethics is that nobody can be righteous for anybody else. Righteousness is a thing that must spring from the inmost personality of the person, and nobody can ever be a substitute either for my wickedness or for my goodness." Just so; if by righteousness, wickedness, and goodness, he means a moral agent’s subjective qualities, of course even a Calvinist says the same. But after he fallaciously substitutes two different concepts of title to reward and guilt, which are not qualities but relations, his inference is worthless. We have overwhelmingly evinced this by many appeals to the customs and common sense of mankind. The professor himself would promptly discard it in any practical case affecting his own rights. In syllogistic form the process of thought would be this enthymeme: personal subjective qualities are untransferable therefore a personal relation conditioned on actions which these qualities have determined, must be equally untransferable. Manifestly the suppressed premise must be the universal proposition: that all such relations are as inalienable, or as incapable of being substituted as such subjective qualities. But who is absurd enough to believe that? Is there any such canon in logic or science? None! No true logician ever dreamed of it. If we return to the familiar science of algebra, for instance, nearly every process contradicts the proposition; for the constant method of procedure is by substitution the substitution of new but equivalent values in place of those which first stood in our equations to which new values the relations of equality division or multiplicity are logically transferred. Nor does the fact, that in the cases under discussion the relations to be transferred are conditioned on moral actions, make them an exception. On a utilitarian theory of the philosophy of punishments, there may be an appearance of such ground of exception. But that theory is worthless. Let us take the true theory, that the just punishment of guilt is dictated primarily by God’s essential attribute of distributive justice, not by expediency; that the remedial and deterrent effects of punishments among human sinners who are still under a dispensation of hope are secondary and subordinate in God’s purpose; and that in his punishment of reprobate men and angels, these have no place at all, but God’s whole purpose is moral equalization in his government by the due requital of sin (just as by the due requital of righteousness) to the glory of his own holiness and honor. Then there remains no reason why this purpose of retribution, pure and simple, may not be as completely gained from a substitute as from the sinner, provided a voluntary substitute be found who is able to fulfill the other proper conditions. Such a substitute is our Messiah. The reasonableness and righteousness of this plan of vicarious redemption may be very shortly proved by pressing this plain question: Whom does it injure? God, the lawgiver, is not injured, for the plan is his own, and he gains in this way a nobler satisfaction to the penal claims of law and to his own holiness, truth, and justice, than he would gain by the punishment of the puny creatures themselves. The Messiah is not injured, because he gave his own free consent, and because the plan will result in the infinite enhancement of his own glory. Certainly, ransomed sinners are not injured, because they gain infinite blessedness, and the plan works moral influences upon them incomparably more noble and blessed. The unsaved are not injured, for in bearing their due punishment personally they receive exactly what they deserve and precisely what they obstinately preferred to redemption in Christ. None of the innocent subjects of God’s moral judgment on earth or in all the heavens are injured, because this vicarious redemption of believing men originated a grand system of moral influences far sweeter, more noble, more pure, and more efficacious than those which they would have felt without it. But how can there be injustice when nobody is injured’? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 10: 01.09. WHAT SCRIPTURE SAYS OF SUBSTITUTION ======================================================================== What Scripture says of Substitution Much of our argument has been run into the field of rational discussion, because our opponents are rationalists, and they, by their attacks on God’s truth, have made it necessary to follow them to their own ground. But the reader must not infer from this that we think that human philosophy is the superior, and Scripture the inferior source of evidence. Our comparative view of the sources of authority -- a view taught by a long acquaintance with the contradictions, mutations, and vagaries of the most boastful human philosophies -- may be truly expressed in the apostle’s words: "Let God be true, but every man a liar." What saith the Scripture? When that is carefully and honestly ascertained, it should be the end of controversy. Therefore, the main thing which we have to allege in support of our thesis is this: that the doctrine of Christ’s substitution under our penal obligations, and the imputation of his satisfaction for guilt to be the ground of our justification, is, either implicitly or expressly, taught throughout the Scriptures. It is so intertwined as an essential part of the whole warp and woof of the fabric that it can only be gotten out of it by tearing it into shreds. This we shall now evince; First, By a brief array of the scriptural assertions of substitution; and, Second, By showing how many other heads of doctrine which are cardinal in the Bible system are vitiated or impugned when that doctrine is rejected. Decisive proof-texts are so numerous that all cannot be recited; all that can be here done is to classify the several groups of texts, giving sufficient examples under each group to show how they apply. This is also thoroughly trodden ground in Christian theology. All of its great teachers discuss the doctrine with sufficiency, and several of them with triumphant and exhaustive demonstration. Among these we will commend a purely biblical discussion, now too much out of fashion, Magee on The Atonement. He who will follow the Scripture citations and searching criticisms and expositions of this old book will be compelled to say that the doctrine of Christ’s penal substitution, whether reasonable or not, is certainly taught in "Holy Writ." We find our first argument in the meaning of the Old Testament sacrifices. These were first instituted by God in the family of Adam, before the gate of the lost Eden. They were continued by God’s authority under every dispensation until the resurrection of Christ. Moses gave perfect regularity and definiteness to the ordinances of bloody sacrifice in the Pentateuch, which he did by divine appointment. Ancient believers knew that "the blood of bulls and of goats could not take away sin" by any virtue of its own. What, then, did the sacrifices mean? They were emblems and types, teaching to men’s bodily senses this great theological truth, that "without shedding of blood is no remission," and its consequence, that remission is provided for through a substitute of divine appointment; for fallen man is "a prisoner of hope," not of despair. Next, the antitype to this ever-repeated emblem is Jesus. "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29; 1 Corinthians 3:1; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Hebrews 8:3; Hebrews 9:11-14.) Now let us add the indisputable fact that these bloody sacrifices were intended by God to symbolize the substitution of an innocent victim in place of the guilty offerer; the transfer of his guilt to the substitute; satisfaction for it by the vicarious death, and the consequent forgiveness of the sinner. (Leviticus 1:4; Leviticus 14:21; Leviticus 17:11, ed passim.) The very actions of the worshipper and the priest bespoke these truths as strongly as the words. The guilty worshipper laid his hands upon the head of the victim while he confessed his trespasses. Thereupon the knife of the priest descended upon its throat, the life-blood was sprinkled upon the altar and upon the body of the worshipper, and the most vital parts of the animal -- representing its living body in those cases where it was not a holocaust -- were committed to the pure flames, pungent emblem of divine justice. Now, when the types so clearly signified substitution and imputation, how can the great antitype mean less? Can it be possible that the shadow had more solidity than the substantial body which cast it before? But the great truth is expressly taught in Scripture, in the following various forms and in many places, of which we cite only a few: Christ died "For us," "for the ungodly." (Romans 5:6, Romans 5:8; 1 Peter 3:18, huper adikon), and for our sins. Socinians say, "True, he died, in a general sense, for us, inasmuch as his death is a part of the agency for our rescue; he did die to do us good, not for himself only." The answer is, that in nearly every case the context proves it a vicarious dying for our guilt. Romans 5:9 "We are justified by his blood." 1 Peter 3:18 "The just for the unjust." Then, also, he is said to be antilutron for many. This preposition (anti) properly signifies substitution, see Matthew 26:28, for instance. "Himself bore our sins;" "He bare the sins of many," and other equivalent expressions are applied to him. (1 Peter 2:24; Hebrews 9:28; Isaiah 53:6.) The verb used by Peter is bastadzein, whose idiomatic meaning is to bear or carry upon one’s person. And these words are abundantly defined in our sense by Old Testament usage. (Compare Numbers 9:13.) An evasion is again attempted by pointing to Matthew 8:17, and saying that there this bearing of man’s sorrows was not an enduring of them in his person, but a bearing of them away, a removal of them. We reply that the evangelist refers to Isaiah 53:4, not to Isaiah 53:6. And Peter says: "He bare our sins in his own body on the tree." The language is unique. Another unmistakable class of texts is those in which he is said to be made sin for us, while we are made righteous in him. (See 1 Corinthians 1:30; 2 Corinthians 5:21.) A still more indisputable place is where he is said to be made a curse for us. (Galatians 3:13.) The orthodox meaning, considering the context, is unavoidable. Again, he is said in many places to be our Redeemer, i. e., Ransomer, and his death, or his blood, is our ransom (antilutron). (Matthew 20:28; 1 Peter 1:19; 1 Timothy 2:6; 1 Corinthians 6:20.) It is vain to reply that God is said to redeem his people in many places, when the only meaning is that he delivers them; and that Moses is called the redeemer of Israel out of Egypt, who certainly did not do this by a vicarious penalty. In these cases, either the word employed or the context proves that the deliverance was only a metaphysical redemption, not like Christ’s, a ransoming by actual price paid. Christ’s death is a proper ransom, because the very price is mentioned. In Bible times the person ransomed was either a criminal or a military captive, by the rules of ancient war legally bound to slavery. The ransom price was a sum of money or other valuables, paid to the master in satisfaction for his claim of service from the captive. This is the sense in which Christ’s righteousness is our ransom. It has been shown in a previous chapter at what deadly price our opponents seek to escape the patent argument, that if Christ did not suffer for imputed guilt, since he was himself perfectly righteous, he must have been punished for no guilt at all. But this argument should be carried further. Even if we granted that the natural ills of life and bodily death are not necessarily penal, but come to all alike in the course of events, the peculiar features of Christ’s death would be unexplained. He suffers what no other good man sharing the regular course of nature ever experienced, the spiritual miseries of Divine desertion, of Satanic buffetings, let loose against him, and of all the horrors of apprehended wrath which could be felt without personal remorse. (Luke 22:53; Matthew 26:38, and Matthew 27:46.) See how manfully Christ approaches his martyrdom, and how sadly he sinks under it when it comes. Had he borne nothing more than natural evil, he would have been inferior to the merely human heroes; and instead of recognizing the exclamation of Rousseau as just, "Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus Christ as a God," we must give the palm of superior fortitude to the Grecian sage. Christ’s crushing agonies must be accounted for by his bearing the wrath of God for the sins of the world. The second head of our biblical argument is inferential in structure, yet scarcely weaker. When once Christ’s proper substitution is denied, consistency forces men to pervert or deny most of the other doctrines which are characteristic of the gospel. Since these doctrines are also categorically taught in Scripture, that proposition must be false which necessitates their perversion. First, then, our assailants attack the divine essence by seeking to expunge one of God’s immutable attributes, distributive justice. They have to tamper with all those Scriptures, whether literal or figurative, which ascribe that attribute unequivocally to God; and before they have gotten all of these texts out of the way, they have to employ methods of exposition so unfaithful and licentious as to leave Scripture practically worthless as a rule of faith. They give us a God of expediency, instead of a God of righteous and eternal principles. They either have to deny God’s providence towards his holy son Jesus, or else to represent him as exercising that providence in a way which leaves him an object of mistrust and terror rather than of reverence and faith. They must wrest the true account of God’s penal administration in this world and the next, so as to leave it incompatible with his omniscience and omnipotence, and even with that benevolence which they would make his sole essential attribute. Their doctrine concerning justice and punishment constrains them, if they are consistent, to reject the whole history of Scripture concerning Satan and his angels. Indeed, the most of them avowedly do this. The Bible says most explicitly, that Satan and his angels are condemned for the guilt of rebellion, falsehood, malice, and soul-murder, and that they are to be punished forever. Plainly, men must either give up the theory that God’s holiness in punishing can only be defended by representing his penalties as only a benevolent remedial expediency, or they must get rid of this whole history. Some do so by declaring it fabulous, which of course assails the veracity of prophets and apostles, and of Christ; others, by representing all mentions of Satan and demons as mere impersonations of mischievous principles, a scheme of interpretation which may equally as well resolve the whole Scripture history into allegory. Of course, the everlasting punishment of reprobate men must also be discarded. We must all be universalists. For, however guilty the criminals, there can be no everlasting punishments which are manifestly not remedial, but only kill with the second death, and are not intended or expected to reform the sufferers, since they are to remain forever reprobate and grow worse and worse. Everlasting punishments cannot be explained as simply deterrent, because after the economy of redemption shall be closed at the judgment day, and all pardoned men and holy angels shall have entered into the "marriage supper of the Lamb," and shall be eternally guarded against evil example and temptation by the encircling walls of heaven, there will be nobody to deter. That is to say, nobody but the reprobate themselves, and they will not be deterred from continued rebellion by their own sufferings, or by the example of their fellows’ miseries. But if God know this perfectly well, he cannot be charged with the policy of inflicting so much wretchedness for an object which he foresees to be futile. The doctrine of original sin must be cast overboard. We must all become Pelagians also. For if the imputation of believers’ guilt to Christ is an ethical absurdity, the imputation of Adam’s guilt to our race must be worse, inasmuch as the consent of the race to this arrangement was not first obtained. Then we are left without any explanation why little children suffer the temporal penalties of sin before they are capable of intentional transgression and personal responsibility. All of that tremendous and tragical question is left without solution, to torture the hearts of sympathizing and bereaved parents. Have these precious little ones no providence over them, and do they suffer and die under the remorseless grind of a physical machine, as cruel as it is unknowing, which these people call "nature"? And while we stand watching their infant agonies, conscious of our impotence to stay the omnipotent machine, must we believe that there is no heavenly Father who concerns himself with their sufferings? Or must we believe that he punishes where he sees no guilt? If there is no imputation, there can be no federal theology, no representative covenant of works or covenant of grace. The awful question, how birth-sin comes to infest the race of man, is left without any possible solution. The cardinal doctrine of justification must be corrupted in a similar manner. None assert more clearly than our opponents, that if the imputation of our sins to Christ be absurd, then the imputation of his righteousness to us must be equally so. Thus the inquirer, having lost all claim to the righteousness of Christ as the meritorious ground of this pardon and acceptance, must seek an answer to the question, On what ground am I justified? For the sake of what am I to receive this precious title to immunity and reward, which I myself do not deserve, if it cannot be for the sake of an imputed righteousness? Is this act of grace on God’s part a moral act at all? Would not this receive the negative if God’s act has no moral ground? Then something must be sought for, possessing moral quality, which the believer does for himself. What is it? Pelagians and Socinians answer that the ground of both pardon and adoption is the merit of the Christian’s own penitence, new obedience, and reformed life. Those who are not willing so flatly to contradict Scripture tell us that it is the believer’s faith; that this being a moral act of the soul is graciously taken as a substituted righteousness for the life of obedience which he has not rendered. So he is justified not only by his faith, but on account of his faith. On either plan the true justification of the gospel is lost. The doctrine of indwelling sin and sanctification must also be perverted in order to bring them into line with the new doctrine. Combine these positions Christ’s righteousness is indeed perfect, but cannot be imputed to us. God’s law is perfect and requires a perfect obedience from us; otherwise our defects would still condemn us. But is the obedience of the most penitent and reformed Christian actually perfect? Must not perfection exclude even those defects and slips in duty which the best men in the world confess in themselves? Then the definition of perfection must be lowered. A perfect God and a perfect law call for a perfect life. Then the Pelagian dogma must be adopted, that the life which is prevalently right is perfectly right, that righteousness and sin consist only in right or wrong acts of will, and that the believer who has unquestionable sincerity of purpose is, under this gospel law, the perfect man. Thus the remains of indwelling sin and concupiscence must be pronounced not peccatum verum, but only fomes peccati, incurring no real guilt. Thus is the purity of God’s law degraded, and a debased standard of obedience set up, which always leads to an actual life still more debased than itself. Such is the havoc which is wrought in the whole system of belief of the man who has rejected Christ’s substitution, if he thinks consistently. The instructive fact is, that this error actually has led to all these perversions of doctrine in the creeds of sects which assert it. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 11: 01.10. THE TESTIMONY OF CHRISTENDOM ======================================================================== The Testimony of Christendom The consensus of the Christian churches in their doctrinal standards does not amount to true inspiration; and we hold no rule of faith to be infallible and of divine authority except God’s own word. But this general concert of beliefs among the various denominations of God’s children carries great probable weight for those points of doctrine whereon the agreement exists: "In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established." The standards of a church are usually the mental work of its most learned and revered members, who have made most careful study of the Scriptures. Where so many good and competent men concur, notwithstanding the different points of view from which, and habits of thought with which, they inspect and construe God’s word, there is the highest probability that their harmonious construction is the correct one. Our assailants should remember that when they talk of their "advanced thought," their "intellectual progress," their "sloughing off of the old dogma," as superstitious and antiquated rubbish, they are disdaining the combined scholarship of the greatest and best men and of the most profound learning of all the centuries since Athanasius, and of all the nations and churches of Christendom. Such arrogance is the surest sign of heedlessness and superficiality. The two ancient communions of the "Roman Catholics" and "Orthodox Greek" Christians are great and imposing for their antiquity, their learning, and their numbers. We believe that their creeds involve numerous great and fatal errors, chiefly the accretions of human traditions and priestcraft before and during the Dark Ages; but the Articles in which they still declare Christ’s vicarious substitution for human guilt are the most respectable and least corrupted parts of their Confessions of Faith which come down to them from the creeds of earlier and purer ages. The force of their testimony is in this: that even these corrupt churches agree exactly with all the Protestant creeds concerning this ancient and vital doctrine. Hear, then, the Roman Church, in the "Dogmatic Degrees of the Council of Trent," Session sixth, Degree of Justification, Romans 2:1-29 "Him God proposed as a propitiation through faith in his blood for our sins," etc. And Romans 7:1-25 "Our Lord Jesus Christ.... merited justification for us by his most holy passion on the wood of the cross, and made satisfaction for us unto God the Father." Hear also the witness of the Russo-Greek church, which now contains the vast majority of the so- called "Orthodox Greek Christians." The Larger Catechism of the Oriental Grecian and Russian Church, Article IV., Question 208; "His voluntary suffering and death on the cross for us, being of infinite value and merit, as the death of one sinless, God and man in one person, is both a perfect satisfaction to the justice of God, which had condemned us for sin to death, and a fund of infinite merit, which has obtained him the right, without prejudice to justice, to give us sinners pardon of our sins, and grace to have victory over sin and death." We now pass to the great Protestant confessions, citing, first, the Lutheran Augsburg Confession, Article III.: Christ "truly suffered, was crucified, dead and buried, that he might reconcile the Father unto us, and might be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for all actual sins of men." Again, Article IV.: "Their sins forgiven for Christ’s sake, who by his death hath satisfied for our sins." The Formula Concordia, the latest and most conclusive confession of the Lutheran body, speaks thus, Article III., Section 1: Christ, "in his sole merit, most absolute obedience which he rendered unto the Father even unto death, as God and man, merited for us the remission of all our sins and eternal life." The same is the witness of the great group of the Reformed Protestant churches. The Heidelburg Catechism, Second Part, Question 12, Answer: "God wills that his justice be satisfied; therefore must we make full satisfaction to the same, either by ourselves or by another." And Question 16: "Why must ’Christ’ be a true and sinless man?" Answer: "Because the justice of God requires that the same human nature which has sinned should make satisfaction for sin; but no man, being himself a sinner, could satisfy for others." The Confession of the French Reformed Church, Article XVIII.: "We, therefore, reject all other means of justification before God, and without claiming any virtue or merit, we rest simply on the obedience of Jesus Christ, which is imputed to us as much to bear all our sins as to make us find grace and favor in the sight of God." The Belgic Confession (Dort, 1561), Article XX.: "We believe that God, who is perfectly merciful and also perfectly just, sent his Son to assume that nature in which the disobedience was committed, to make satisfaction in the same, and to bear the punishment of sin by his most bitter passion and death." First Scotch Presbyterian Confession (1566), Article IX.: Christ "offered himself a voluntary sacrifice unto his Father for us;... he being the innocent Lamb of God was damned in the presence of an earthly judge, that we should be absolved before the tribunal seat of our God." The Thirty-nine Articles, the doctrinal confession of all Episcopalians throughout the world in the empires of Britain and the United States. Article II.: Christ "truly suffered, was crucified, dead and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men." The Confessions of the Waldenses, A. D. 1655, Section XIV.: God "gave his own Son to save us by his most perfect obedience (especially that obedience which he manifested in suffering the cursed death of the cross), and also by his victory over the devil, sin, and death." Section XV.:... Christ "made a full expiation for our sins by his most perfect sacrifice." The Westminster Confession (1647) gives us the present creed of all the Presbyterian churches in the English speaking world, Scotch and Scotch-Irish, colonial, Canadian, and American. It is also the doctrinal creed of these great bodies, the Evangelical Baptist, and orthodox Congregationalists in Britain and America, being expressly adopted by some of them and closely copied by others, as the "Saybrook Platform" of New England. In this great creed, Chapter VIII., Section V., is this witness: "The Lord Jesus, by his perfect obedience and sacrifice of himself, which he through the eternal Spirit once offered up unto God, hath fully satisfied the justice of his Father, and purchased not only reconciliation, but an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven, for all those whom the Father hath given unto him." "Methodist Articles of Religion" (1784) are the responsible creed of the vast Wesleyan bodies of Britain and America. Many of these propositions are adopted verbatim from the "Thirty-nine Articles." This is true of Article II. which contains an identical assertion, in the same words, of the doctrine of Christ’s penal substitution. The Catechism of the "Evangelical Union" teaches these doctrinal views, in which all the churches concur which are represented in the "Evangelical Alliance." This document omits the peculiar, distinctive doctrines in which these churches differ from each other. It was the work of Dr. Philip Schaff, D.D., LL. D., 1862, Lesson XXVIII., Question 4: "What did he (Christ) suffer there? " "He suffered unutterable pains in body and soul, and bore the guilt of the whole world." Such is the tremendous array of the most responsible and deliberate testimonies of all the churches of Christendom, save one little exception, the Socinian, in support of our doctrine concerning the penal substitution of Christ. This testimony was not formulated in the gloom of the ninth or tenth century: but between the sixteenth and nineteenth, after the great renaissance, after the splendid tide of Greek and Hebrew scholarship had reached its flood in large part, after the full development of the scholastic and modern philosophies, synchronously with or after the Augustan age of theological science and exegetical learning, just during the epoch of the grandest and most beneficial development of human culture which the world has hitherto witnessed, concurrently with the splendid birth and growth of those physical sciences which have created anew our civilization. In this our boast we have not claimed the guidance of that Holy Spirit which Christ promised to bestow continuously upon his visible church, and which its pastors sought in prayer and supposed they were enjoying in these their most solemn witnessings for their Master. As our opponents usually repudiate this spiritual guidance for themselves, and prefer that of human philosophy, they will, of course, pay no respect to this higher claim. We only ask our readers to judge betwixt us, what is the modesty of that pretension which affects to thrust aside all these conclusions of the best ages as silly, antiquated, and self-evident rubbish. Is the irony of Job too caustic for this case? "Surely ye are the people, and wisdom will die with you." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 12: 01.11. CONCLUSION ======================================================================== Conclusion Reviewing now the course of this discussion, we gather the following results: The scriptural objections against the fundamental Christian concept were found to be entirely invalid and irrelevant. We found this concept justified by the common sense and practical judgment of all men, and all ages, including our own, in their social relations, and still applied, in some cases, by the jurisprudence of the most modern Christian nations. We found the true reason of the limited application of these concepts by human magistrates, not in the essential injustice of the principle, but rather in the fact that men, under ordinary civil jurisdiction, cannot fulfill the conditions necessary for their proper application. We found God claiming for himself the just right to punish imputed guilt under certain conditions, and we perceive in his providence frequent instances of such judgments. We examined the philosophic cavil against this concept of substitution whence our opponents claim a necessary intuition against it, and we found their claim groundless, their postulate irrelevant, and their philosophy to be the false and degrading theory of the utilitarian ethics. We traced their sophism to its proximate source in a quite heedless and superficial neglect of the distinction between sinfulness and guilt; a distinction so plain that the most common minds act upon it in their own secular moral judgments. We showed that the Scriptures, claiming divine inspiration, beyond all honest question, mean to teach penal substitution and imputation; and that their denial necessitates the rejection of the most cardinal propositions clearly taught in these Scriptures. So that dissentients have no option except avowed infidelity or acquiescence in our doctrine. We arrayed the consensus of Christendom, showing that not only the popish and Greek communions, but all the Protestant, with one small exception, with all their best learning and logic, hold to our proposition as a necessary, constituent part of their common system of doctrine. This, then, is our conclusion concerning the bitter death of the holy Messiah as given in the inspired words of Isaiah 53:5-6 "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." Is this an astonishing doctrine? Is the conception above the range of human imagination. So let it be. It may be that only the divine wisdom was adequate to excogitate it, and only the infinite divine love was capable of applying it for the salvation of enemies. We thank God that it is not a deduction or invention of man’s philosophy, but a revelation from omniscience. But after God has authorized us to think this thought, we find in it nothing but supreme reason, justice, holiness, and benignity. These high revelations of the necessity of satisfaction for sin, grounded in the immutability of God’s distributive justice, complete, and exalt our conception of him and his government. When we discard the ethics of expediency, place the disciplinary results of chastisement in their subordinate rank amidst God’s purposes, and when we recognize the truth that his supreme end in punishing is the impartial satisfaction of eternal justice, all reasonable difficulties concerning the transfer of guilt and penalty, the proper conditions being present, vanish away. Towards guilty but pardoned men God does pursue in the infliction of pains a remedial and disciplinary purpose; but when he comes to deal in justice with men and angels who are finally reprobate, these ends are absent; the only one which remains is the retributive one. To secure this end, the punishment of a substitute may be as truly relevant as of the guilty principal, provided the adequate substitute be found, and his own free consent obviates all charge of injustice against him personally; for now law is satisfied, guilt is duly punished, though the guilty man be pardoned. The penal debt is paid, as truly and fairly paid as is the bond of the insolvent debtor when his independent surety brings to the creditor the full tale of money. But let us suppose that the wisdom and power of God the Father and the infinite majesty and love of the Son combine to effect a substitution by which impartial justice and law are more gloriously satisfied than by the condign punishment of the guilty themselves. Then is a result obtained unspeakably more honorable, not only to justice, but to the divine love and every other attribute. God is revealed full-orbed in his righteousness, no longer wrenched out of true moral symmetry by man’s poor utilitarian ethics. Impartial justice appears even more adorable than in the punishment of the personally guilty. When God pours out his retributive justice upon the guilt of men and angels who have insulted him, caviling creatures, in their blindness and enmity, might charge that he was indulging, at least in part, a personal resentment inflamed by their outrages; but when they see him visit this justice upon his only begotten Son, infinitely holy in his eyes, notwithstanding his eternal and divine love, men and devils are obliged to admit that this is the action of nothing but pure, impersonal equity, as absolutely free from the taint of malice as it is majestic and awful. When we see that while, on the one hand, immutable righteousness restrains the Father from setting aside his penal law at the prompting of mere pity, infinite love makes him incapable of consenting to the deserved perdition of sinners, and makes him willing to sacrifice the object worthier and dearer in his eyes than all the worlds rather than endure the spectacle of this immense woe; we gain a revelation of God’s love more glorious and tender than any other doctrine can teach. Our opponents charge that we obscure the delightful attribute of benevolence in God in order to exaggerate the awful attribute of vengeance. In truth we do just the opposite. It is our doctrine as taught by the gospel, which reveals depths and heights of the divine tenderness and love, which neither men nor angels could have otherwise imagined. The Socinian says that God’s love is such an attribute as prompts him to forgive sin at the expense at once of the order of his great kingdom and of the glory of his own consistency. A very deep pity this! but a pity equally weak and unwise. The gospel teaches us that there is in God a pity infinitely deep, and equally wise and holy. Let us suppose a human brother most gracious and virtuous who should speak thus; "I cannot sacrifice principle and honor to save my erring younger brother; but I am willing to sacrifice myself. I cannot lie to save him, but I will die to save him." This declaration would excite in every just mind glowing admiration. Such an elder brother would be a feeble type, in his combined integrity and pitying love, of the God-man; and he answers us that in these exalted affections he represents exactly the attributes of the whole Trinity. God’s permission of evil among his creatures has ever been the insoluble mystery of theology, as it has ever been the grand topic of infidel cavils. Here has been through all the centuries the chief battle-ground of the Christian apologists against atheists and agnostics. It is from the apparent impossibility of reconciling God’s voluntary permission of evil with his own attributes that all systems of dualism, such as those of Magians and Manicheans, have taken their pretext. If the Christian pleads that whenever a rational creature abuses his free agency by turning to sin, natural evil or misery must follow by an inevitable law of sequence as much natural as it is judicial, and that therefore it is the willfully erring creature, and not God, who is responsible for all the misery in the universe. Infidels are not satisfied. They rejoin: then if your God is omniscient he foreknew all the wretched results of this law; if he recognized it as a necessary natural law grounded in the very nature of free agents, and not proceeding primarily from his own retributive purpose and sentence, then he must have foreseen that it was necessary to protect his universe from moral evil or sin in order to save it from natural evil or misery, the unavoidable sequel of sin. Now, if he is what the Christians describe, he must have created all his rational creatures in moral purity and innocency. Why did he not take the pains to keep them all innocent, and thus to save them from the misery? They say that he is an absolute sovereign, that he is omniscient, that he is omnipotent, and that he is also infinitely benevolent. If he has all these attributes, then he was able effectually to keep all his rational creatures holy; if he is infinitely benevolent, he must have felt a controlling motive to do so. It was vain for a Bledsoe, they argue, to attempt the evasion of this deadly point by saying, that the will of a moral free agent cannot be effectually controlled from without consistently with his free agency; for this is precisely what the Christian has no right to say. He teaches that it is proper for men to pray to God to regenerate and sanctify their sinful fellow-men. If prayer is answered, God is doing this very thing, controlling their sinful free agency from without. Again, the Christian says that there is an everlasting heaven, inhabited by elect angels and men, who are to remain forever holy and happy. Since these are still finite, the certain perpetuity of holy choice in them must be the effect of God’s grace. It must be true, then, that he who is able to keep a Gabriel or a human saint forever holy in heaven, and who is able to convert a wicked Saul of Tarsus, could also have preserved a Satan and an Adam from apostasy without injuring their free-agency. Or if a Leibnitz offers us his ingenious optimism as a solution, teaching that God chose this present universe, notwithstanding the sin and misery which are in it, as, on the whole, the best possible universe; the assailants remain unsatisfied. They rejoin, that if God is absolutely sovereign, omniscient, and omnipotent, he is able to construct a universe containing everything that is holy and good in the actual universe, without any of the evils; so that this mixed universe is not the best possible one for him. And here the argument pauses, leaving the mystery of God’s permission of evil, palliated indeed by our collateral arguments, but still unsolved. The triumphant refutation of the caviler is our doctrine of redemption through Christ’s substitution, and nowhere else. These are the essential points of our defense of God’s providence: First, The restoration of Adam’s apostate race was in no sense necessary to God’s personal interest, glory, or selfish welfare. He is all-sufficient unto himself. He was infinitely blessed end happy in himself before Adam’s race existed. When it fell, he could have vindicated his own glory, as he did in the case of Satan and his angels, by the condign punishment of all men. He could have created another world and another race, fairer than ours, to fill the chasm made by our fall. Second, The price which he paid in order to avoid this just result of sin in our fallen race was the death of the God-man. Since the co-equal Son was incarnate in him, he was a person dearer and greater in God’s eyes than any world, or all the worlds together. Being infinite, God-Messiah bulks more largely in the dimensions of his being than all the creatures aggregated. He was more worthy and lovely in the Father’s view than any holy creature, "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." This great fact may not open to us the deep secret of the permission of evil -- perhaps no finite mind could fully comprehend it were its revelation attempted -- but the glorious sacrifice of love does prove that no defect of divine benevolence can have had part in this secret. Had there been in God’s heart the least lack of infinite mercy, had there been a single fibre of indifference to the misery of his creatures, Christ would never have been given to die for the guilt of men. The Messiah is our complete theodicy! But he cannot be such to the Socinian or the Arian, who denies his infinite Godhead, nor to any who deny his righteous vicarious substitution. In a word, God’s moral government, in its ultimate conclusion, must be as absolute and perfect as his own nature; for, being supreme and almighty, he is irresponsible save to his own perfections. Therefore, if he is a being of infinite perfections, his government must be one of righteous final results. It will be an exact representation of himself, for he makes it just what he pleases. If there is moral defect in the final adjustment, it can only be accounted for by defect in God. It must be an absolute result, because the free act of an infinite being. The God whom we adore, to whom we peacefully entrust our everlasting all, "is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 13: 02.00.1. SYSTEMATIC AND POLEMIC THEOLOGY ======================================================================== SYLLABUS AND NOTES THE COURSE OF SYSTEMATIC AND POLEMIC THEOLOGY TAUGHT IN UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, VIRGINIA. BY R. L. DABNEY, D. D., LL.D. ST. LOUIS: PRESBYTERIAN PUBLISHING COMPANY OF ST. LOUIS, 207 North Eighth Street. 1878. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 14: 02.00.2. NOTE TO THE READER ======================================================================== Note to the Reader (Accompanying the First Edition.) Ad Lectorem.—Our preceptor in Theology having given to the classes the course of lectures which he had delivered to previous ones, to be used by us in any manner we found most convenient for our assistance in this study, we have printed them in this form for private circulation among ourselves and our predecessors and successors in the Seminary. Our reasons for doing so are the following: We found these lectures useful, so far as we had proceeded, in assisting our comprehension of the textbooks. As Dr. Dabney announced a change in the method of his instruction, in which he would cease to deliver the lectures orally, from his chair; and placed them in manuscript format at the disposal of the students, we desired to continue to avail ourselves of their assistance. To provide ourselves with copies, and to extend their use to subsequent fellow–students, the most convenient and obvious mode was to print them. This has been done at the expense of the students of 1878; and a small number of copies, beyond our own need, has been struck off. A few explanations may be necessary for the understanding of the method of study, of which these notes form a part. The system consists of recitations on lessons from textbooks, chiefly the Confession of Faith and Turrettin’s Elenctic Theology, oral instructions and explanations of the Professor, the preparation and reading of Theses by the students upon the topics under discussion, and finally, review recitations upon the whole. The design is to combine, as far as may be, the assistance of the living teacher with the cultivation of the powers of memory, comparison, judgment, reasoning and expression, by the researches of the students themselves, and to fix the knowledge acquired by repeated views of it. When a "head" of divinity is approached, the first step which our professor takes, is to propound to us, upon the black–board, a short, comprehensive syllabus of its discussion, in the form of questions; the whole prefaced by a suitable lesson in the textbook. Our first business is to master and recite this lesson. Having hence gotten, from our standard author, a trustworthy outline of the discussion, we proceed next to investigate the same subject, as time allows, in other writers, both friendly and hostile, preliminary to the composition of a thesis. It is to guide this research, that the syllabus, with its numerous references to books, has been given us. These have been carefully selected by the Professor, so as to direct to the ablest and most thorough accessible authors, who defend and impugn the truth. The references may, in many cases, be far more numerous than any Seminary student can possibly read, at the time, with the duties of the other departments upon his hands. To guide his selection, therefore, the most important authority is named first, under each question, [it may be from our textbook or from some other], then the next in value, and last, those others which the student may consult with profit at his greater leisure. The syllabus with its references we find one of the most valuable features of our course; it guides not only our first investigations, but those of subsequent years, when the exigencies of our pastoral work may require us to return and make a wider research into the same subject. It directs our inquiries intelligently, and rescues us from the drudgery of wading through masses of literary rubbish to find the opinions of the really influential minds, by giving us some of the experience of one older than ourselves, whose duty it has been to examine many books upon theology and its kindred sciences. After the results of our own research have been presented, it has been Dr. Dabney’s usage to declare his own view of the whole subject; and these lectures form the mass of what is printed below. They take the form therefore of resumes of the discussion already seen in the books; oftentimes, reciting in plainer or fresher shape even the arguments of the textbook itself, when the previous examination has revealed the fact that the class have had difficulty in grasping them, and often reproducing the views to which the other references of the syllabus had already directed us. It needs hardly to be added, that the Professor of course made no pretense of originality, save in the mode of connecting, harmonizing, or refuting some of the statements passed in review. Indeed, it seemed ever to be his aim to show us how to get for ourselves, in advance of his help, all the things to which in his final lecture he assisted us. These lectures henceforth in the hands of the classes, will take the place of a subordinate textbook, along with the others; and the time formerly devoted to their oral delivery will be applied to giving us the fruits of other researches in advance of the existing course. It only remains that we indicate the order of subjects. This is chiefly that observed in the Confession of Faith. But the course begins with Natural Theology, which is then followed by a brief review of the doctrines of psychology and ethics, which are most involved in the study of theology. This being done, the lectures proceed to revealed theology, assuming, as a postulate established by another department in the Seminary, the inspiration and infallibility of the Scriptures. The form in which the lectures are presented to our comrades is dictated by the necessity of having them issued from the press weekly, in order to meet our immediate wants in the progress of the course. It need only be said in conclusion that this printing is done by Dr. Dabney’s consent. —COMMITTEE OF PRINTING ======================================================================== CHAPTER 15: 02.00.3. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION ======================================================================== Preface to the Second Edition The Ad Lectorem, prefixed by the Students to the first edition which they printed, sufficiently explains the origin and nature of this course of Theology. The experience of several years in teaching it, has disclosed at once its utility and its defects. Much labor has been devoted to the removal of the latter, and to additional research upon every important point of discussion. The syllabus has been enriched with a great number of references. Two hundred and sixty pages of new matter have been added. The book is attended with full Table of Contents and Index; fitting it for reference. A multitude of typographical errors have been removed; and the larger type and better material, it is trusted, will concur to make the book not only more sightly, but more durable and useful. The main design, next to the establishment of Divine Truth, has been to furnish students in divinity, pastors, and intelligent lay–Christians, a view of the whole field of Christian theology, without swelling the work to a size too unwieldy and costly for the purposes of instruction. Every head of divinity has received at least brief attention. The discussion is usually compact. The reader is requested to bear in mind, that the work is only styled "Syllabus and Notes" of a course in theology. The full expansion or exhaustive illustration of topics has not been promised. Therefore, unless the reader has already a knowledge of these topics derived from copious previous study, he should not expect to master these discussions by a cursory reading. He is candidly advised that many parts will remain but partially appreciated, unless he shall find himself willing either to read enough of the authorities referred to in the Syllabus, to place him at the proper point of view; or else to ponder the outline of the arguments by the efforts of mature and vigorous thought for himself, and thus fill out the full body of discussion. The work is now humbly offered again to the people of God, in the hope that it may assist to establish them in the old and orthodox doctrines which have been the power and glory of the Reformed Churches. —Union Theological Seminary, Va., Aug. 15th, 1878 ======================================================================== CHAPTER 16: 02.00.4. PREPARED BY BIBLESUPPORT.COM ======================================================================== e-Sword Module Prepared by BibleSupport.com Download thousands of free e-Sword modules, find answers to e-Sword problems, access e-Sword user forums, and fellowship with other e-Sword users. BibleSupport.com is also home to the only e-Sword User’s Guide, the most comprehensive documentation available for e-Sword. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 17: 02.01. SECTION ONE—DEFENDING THE FAITH ======================================================================== Section One—Defending the Faith ======================================================================== CHAPTER 18: 02.02. CHAPTER 1: THE EXISTENCE OF GOD ======================================================================== Chapter 1: The Existence of God Syllabus for Lecture 1 & 2: What is Theology; and what its Divisions? Prove that there is a Science of Natural Theology. Turrettin, Loc. i, Qu. 2-3. Thornwell, Collected Works, Vol. i. Lecture I, pp. 25-36. What two Lines of Argument to prove the Existence of a God? What the a priori arguments? Are they valid? Stillingfleet, Origines Sacree, book. iii, ch. i. Thornwell, Lecture ii, p. 51, etc. Dr. Samuel Clarke. Discourse of the Being and Attributes of God, c. l-12. Chalmers’ Nat. Theol., Lecture iii. Dick. Lecture xvi. Cudworth’s Intellect System. State the Arguments of Clarke. Of Howe. Are they sound? Are they a priori? Dr. S. Clarke, as above. J. Howe’s Living Temple, ch. 2, & 9 to end. Locke’s Essay on the Human Understanding. book. iv. ch. 10. State the Argument of Breckinridge’s Theology. Is it valid? "Knowledge of God Objective," book. i, ch 5. Review of Breck. Theol. in Central Presbyterian, March to April, 1858. Give an outline of the Argument from Design. Paley, Nat. Theol. ch. i, 2. Xenophon’s Memorabilia, lib. I, ch. v. Cicero De Natura Deorum, lib. ii Sect. 2-8. Turrettin, Loc. iii, Qu. I. Theological Treatises generally. Show in a few instances how the Argument from Design is drawn from Animal Organisms, from Man’s Mental and Emotional Structure, and from the Adaptation of Matter to our Mental Faculties. See Paley, Nat. Theol. book. iv, ch. iii, 16. Chalmers’ Nat. Theol. book. iv, ch. i, 2-5. Can the being of God be argued from the existence of Conscience? Turrettin, Loc. iii, Qu. I, Section14 15. Hodge, Syst. Theol. part i, ch. ii, as Alexander’s Moral Science ch. xii. Chalmers’ Nat. Theol. book. iii, ch. 2. Charnock Attributes, Discourse i, Sect. 3. Kant, Critique of the Practical Reason. Thornwell, Lecture ii. What the value of the Argument from the Consensus Populorum? Turrettin, Loc. iii, Qu. i, Sections 16-18. Dick, Lecture xvii. Cicero de Nat. Deorum lib. i. Charnock, Discourse i, Section 1. Refute the evasion of Hume: That the Universe is a Singular Effect. Alexander’s Moral Science, ch. xxviii. Chalmer’s Nat. Theol. book. i, ch. 4. Watson’s Theo. Institutes, pt ii, ch. i. Hodge, pt. i, ch. ii. Sect. 4. Reign of Law, Duke of Argyle, ch. iii. Can the Universe be accounted for without a Creator, as an infinite series of Temporal Effects? Alexander’s Moral Science, ch. xxviii. Turrettin, as above, Sections 6-7. Dr. S. Clarke’s Discourse Section 2. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 1st Antinomy. Refute the Pantheistic Scheme of the Universe. Thornwell, Lecture ix. Alex. Moral Science, ch. xxviii. Dr. S. Clarke’s Discourse, etc. Section 3, 7, 9, etc. Chalmers’ Nat Theol., book. i, ch. v. Hodge, pt. i, ch. iii Sect. 5, Thornwell, "Personality of God," in Works, vol. i, p. 490. What Is Theology? It is justly said: Every science should begin by defining its terms, in order to shun verbal fallacies. The word Theology, ( qeou logo"), has undergone peculiar mutations in the history of science. The Greeks often used it for their theories of theogony and cosmogony. Aristotle uses it in a more general form, as equivalent to all metaphysics; dividing theoretical philosophy into physical, mathematical, and theological. Many of the early Christian fathers used it in the restricted sense of the doctrine of Christ’s divinity: (SCIL.I wannh" oqeologo"), But now it has come: to be used commonly, to describe the whole science of God’s being and nature, and relations to the creature. The name is appropriate: "Science of God." Thomas Aquinas: "Theologia a Theo docetur, Deum docet, ad Deum ducit," God its author, its subject, its end. Its Divisions. The distribution of Theology into didactic, polemic, and practical, is sufficiently known. Now, all didactic inculcation of truth is indirect refutation of the opposite error. Polemic Theology has been defined as direct refutation of error. The advantage of this has been supposed to be, that the way for easiest and most thorough refutation is to systematize the error, with reference to its first principle, or prwton yeudo". But the attempt to form a science of polemics, different from Didactic Theology fails; because error never has true method. Confusion is its characteristic. The system of discussion, formed on its false method, cannot be scientific. Hence, separate treatises on polemics have usually slidden into the methods of didactics; or they have been confused. Again: Indirect refutation is more effectual than direct. There is therefore, in this course, no separate polemic; but what is said against errors is divided between the historical and didactic. Is There A Natural Theology? Theology is divided into natural and revealed, according to the sources of our knowledge of it; from natural reason; from revelation. What is science? Knowledge demonstrated and methodized. That there is a science of Natural Theology, of at least some certain and connected propositions, although limited, and insufficient for salvation at best, is well argued from Scripture, e. g., (Psalms 19:1-7. Acts 14:15; or Acts 17:23; Romans 1:19; Romans 2:14, etc.); and from the fact that nearly all heathens have religious ideas and rites of worship. Not that religious ideas are innate: but the capacity to establish some such ideas, from natural data, is innate. Consider further: Is not this implied in man’s capacity to receive a revealed theology? Does revelation demonstrate God’s existence; or assume it? Does it rest the first truths on pure dogmatism, or on evidence which man apprehends? The latter; and then man is assumed to have some natural capacity for such apprehension. But if nature reflects any light concerning God, (as Scripture asserts), then man is capable of deriving some theology from nature. Why Denied? Some old divines were wont to deny that there was any science of Natural Theology, and to say that without revelation, man would not naturally learn its first truth. They attribute the grains of truth, mixed with the various polytheisms to the remnants of tradition descending from Noah’s family. They urge that some secluded tribes, Hottentots, Australians, have no religious ideas; that some men are sincere atheists after reflection; and that there is the wildest variety, yea contradiction, between the different schools of heathens. These divines seem to fear lest, by granting a Natural Theology, they should grant too much to natural reason; a fear ungrounded and extreme. They are in danger of a worse consequence; reducing man’s capacity for receiving divine verities so low, that the rational skeptic will be able to turn upon them and say: "Then by so inept a creature, the guarantees of a true revelation cannot be certainly apprehended." Proofs. To reply more in detail; I grant much influence to primeval traditions, (a subject of great interest learnedly discussed in Theo. Gale’s Court of the Gentiles). But that so inconstant a cause is able to perpetuate in men these fixed convictions of the invisible, shows in man a natural religious capacity. That there have been atheistic persons and tribes, is inconclusive. Some tribes deduce no science of geometry, statics, or even numbers; but this does not prove man non-logical. Some profess to disbelieve axioms, as Hume that of causation; but this is far from proving man incapable of a natural science of induction. Besides, the atheism of these tribes is doubtful; savages are shrewd, suspicious, and fond of befooling inquisitive strangers by assumed stupidity. And last: the differences of Natural theology among polytheists are a diversity in unity; all involve the prime truths; a single first cause, responsibility, guilt, a future life, future rewards and punishments. Existence of God: How Known? 2. The first truth of theology is the existence of God. The first question which meets us is: How man learns the existence of God? Dr. Charles Hodge states and argues that the knowledge of it is "innate." This assertion he explains by saying that it is "intuitive." [Systematic Theology, part 1 chapter 1]. It must be understood, however, that he also employs this term in a sense of his own. With him, any truth is intuitive, which is immediately perceived by the mind. He dissents from the customary definition of philosophers, [as Sir W. Hamilton] which requires simplicity, or primariness, as the trait of an intuitive judgment, He explains himself by saying, that to Newton, all the theorems of Euclid’s first book were as immediately seen as the axioms; and therefore, to him, intuitions. We shall see, in a subsequent lecture, the dangers of this view. I hold, with the current of philosophers, that an intuitive truth is [a] one that is seen true without any premise, [b] so seen by all minds which comprehend its terms, [c] necessarily seen. Strictly, it cannot be said, that any intuitive truth is innate. The power of perceiving it is innate. The explanation of the case of Newton and of similar ones, is easy: To his vigorous mind, the step from an intuitive premise to a near conclusion, was so prompt and easy as to attract no attention. Yet, the step was taken. When Dr. Hodge calls men’s knowledge that there is a God "innate," i. e., "intuitive," his mistake is in confounding a single, short, clear step of deduction, made by common sense, with an intuition. He, very properly, exalts the ethical evidence into the chief place. But the amount of it is this: "The sentiment of responsibility (which is immediate) is intuitive." This implies an Obligator. True. But what is the evolution of this implication, save (e short, easy, and obvious step of) reasoning? Divines and Christian philosophers, in the attempt to explain the belief in a God, which all men have, as a rational process, have resolved it into the one or the other of two modes of argument, the a priori and a posteriori. The latter infers a God by reasoning backwards from effects to cause. The former should accordingly mean reasoning downwards from cause to effect; the meaning attached to the phrase by Aristotle and his followers. But now the term a priori reasoning is used, in this connection, to denote a conclusion gained without the aid of experience, from the primary judgments, and especially, the attempt to infer the truth of a notion, directly from its nature or condition in the mind. A Priori Argument. What, and By Whom Urged? It appears to be common among recent writers (as Dick, Chalmers’ Natural Theology), to charge Dr. Samuel Clarke as the chief asserter of the a priori argument among Englishmen. This is erroneous. It may be more correctly said to have been first intimated by Epicurus (whose atomic theory excluded the a posteriori argument;) as appears from a curious passage in Cicero, de natura Deorum, Lib. I. c. 16. It was more accurately stated by the celebrated Des Cartes in his meditations; and naturalized to the English mind rather by Bishop Stillingfleet than by Dr. Clarke. The student may find a very distinct statement of it in the Origines Sacrae of the former, book III, chapter 1, § 14: while Dr. Clarke, § 8 of his Discourse, expressly says that the personal intelligence of God must be proved a posteriori, and not a priori. But Des Cartes having founded his psychology on the two positions: 1st. Cogito; ergo sum; and 2nd. The Ego is spirit, not matter; proceeds to ask: Among all the ideas in the consciousness, how shall the true be distinguished from the false, seeing all are obviously not consistent? As to primary ideas, his answer is; by the clearness with which they commend themselves to our consciousness as immediate truths. Now, among our ideas, no other is so clear and unique as that of a first Cause, eternal and infinite. Hence we may immediately accept it as consciously true. Moreover, that we have this idea of a God, proves there must be a God; because were there none, the rise of His idea in our thought could not be accounted for; just as the idea of triangles implies the existence of some triangle. Now the a priori argument of Stillingfleet is but a specific application of DesCartes’ method. We find, says he, that in thinking of a God we must think Him as eternal, self-existent, and necessarily existent. But since we indisputably do think a God, it is impossible but that God is. Since necessary existence is unavoidably involved in our idea of a God, therefore His existence must necessarily be granted. Its Defect. Now surely this process is not necessarily inconclusive, because it is a priori; there are processes, in which we validly determine the truth of a notion by simple inspection of its contents and conditions. But the defect of Stillingfleet’s reasoning is, that it does not give the correct account of our thought. If the student will inspect the two propositions, which form an enthymeme, he will see that the conclusion depends on this assumption, as its major premise; That we can have no idea in our consciousness, for which there is not an answering objective reality. (This is, obviously, the assumed major; because without it the ethymeme can only contain the conclusion, that God, if there is one, necessarily exists.) But that major premise is, notoriously, not universally true. Argument of Dr. S. Clarke. Now, instead of saying that Dr. Clarke’s method, in the Discourse of the Being, etc., of God, is the a priori, it is more correct to say (with Hamilton’s Reid) that it is an a posteriori argument, or with Kant, Cosmological, inferring the existence of God from His effects; but disfigured at one or two points by useless Cartesian elements. His first position is: Since something now exists, something has existed from eternity. This, you will find, is the starting point of the argument, with all reasoners; and it is solid. For, if at any time in the past eternity, there had been absolutely nothing, since nothing cannot be a cause of existence, time and space must have remained forever blank of existence. Hence, 2d., argues Dr. Clarke: there has been, from eternity, some immutable and independent Being: because an eternal succession of dependent beings, without independent first cause, is impossible. 3rd. This Being; as independent eternally, must be self-existent, that is, necessarily existing. For its eternal independence shows that the spring, or causative source of its existence, could not be outside of itself; it is therefore within itself forever. But the only true idea of such self-existence is, that the idea of its non-existence would be an express contradiction. And here, Dr. Clarke very needlessly adds: our notion that the existence is necessary, proves that it cannot but exist. He reasons also: our conceptions of infinite time and infinite space are necessary: we cannot but think them. But they are not substance: they are only modes of substance. Unless some substance exists of which they are modes, they cannot exist, and so, would not be thought. Hence, there must be an infinite and eternal substance. 4th. The substance of this Being is not comprehensible by us: but this does not make the evidence of its existence less certain. For, 5th. Several of its attributes are demonstrable; as that it must be, 6th, Infinite and omnipresent; 7th, that it must be One, and 8th, that it must be intelligent and free, etc.. The conclusion is that this Being must be Creator and God, unless the universe can itself fulfill the conditions of eternity, necessary self-existence, infinitude, and intelligence and free choice. This is Pantheism: which he shows cannot be true. Valid, Because A Posteriori. His argument as a whole is mainly valid, because it is in the main a posteriori: it appeals to the intuitive judgment of cause, to infer from finite effects an infinite first cause. The Cartesian features attached to the ad proposition are an excrescence; but we may remove them, and leave the chain adamantine. We will prune them away, not for the reasons urged by Dr. Chalmers, which are in several particulars as invalid as Dr. Clarke; but for the reason already explained on pages 8 and 9. I only add, it seems to argue that time and space can only be conceived by us as modes of substance; and therefore infinite and eternal substance must exist. The truth here is: that we cannot conceive of finite substance or events, without placing it in time and space; a different proposition from Dr. Clarke’s. Howe’s Demonstration. I think we have the metaphysical argument for the being of a God, stated in a method free from these objections, by the great Puritan divine, John Howe. He flourished about 1650, A. D., and prior to Dr. Clarke. See his Living Temple, chapter 2. He begins hence: 1. Since we now exist, something has existed from eternity. 2. Hence, at least, some uncaused Being, for the eternal has nothing prior to it. 3. Hence some independent Being. 4. Hence that Being exists necessarily; for its independent, eternal, inward spring of existence cannot be conceived as possibly at any time inoperative. 5. This Being must be self-active; active, because, if other beings did not spring from its action, they must all be eternal, and so independent, and necessary, which things are impossible for beings variously organized and changeable; and self-active, because in eternity nothing was before Him to prompt His action. 6. This Being is living; for self-prompted activity is our very idea of life. 7. He is of boundless intelligence, power, freedom, etc. What Needed To Complete It? This argument is in all parts well knit. But it is obviously a posteriori; for all depends from a simple deduction, from a universe of effects, back to their cause; and in the same way are inferred the properties of that cause. The only place where the argument needs completion, is at the fifth step. So far forth, the proof is perfect, that some eternal, uncaused, necessary Being exists. But how do we prove that this One created all other Beings? The answer is: these others must all be either eternal or temporal. May it be, all are eternal and one? then all are uncaused, independent, self-existent, and necessary. This, we shall see, is Pantheism. If the rest are temporal, then they were all caused, but by what? Either by the one uncaused, eternal Being; or by other similar temporal beings generating them. But the latter is the theory of an infinite, independent series of finite organisms, each one dependent. When, therefore, we shall have stopped these two breaches, by refuting Pantheism and the hypothesis of infinite series, the demonstration will be perfect. Cavil of Kant. Kant has selected this cosmological argument, as one of his "antinomies," illustrating the invalidity of the a priori reason, when applied to empirical things. His objection to its validity seems to amount to this: That the proposition "Nothing can exist without a cause out of itself," cannot be absolute: For if it were, then a cause must be assigned for the First Cause himself. But let us give the intuition in more accurate form: "Nothing can begin to exist, without a cause out of itself." Kant’s cavil has now disappeared, as a moment’s consideration will show. The necessary step of the reason from the created things up to a creator, is now correctly explained. "Every effect must have a cause." True. An effect is an existence or phenomenon which has a beginning. Such, obviously, is each created thing. Therefore, it must have proceeded from a cause which had no beginning, i. e., a God. Moreover: I cannot too early utter my protest against Kant’s theory, that our regulative, intuitive principles of reason are merely suggestive, (while imperative,) and have no objective validity. Were this true, our whole intelligence would be a delusion. On the other hand, every law of thought is also a law of existence and of reality. Knowledge of this fact is original with every mind when it begins to think, is as intuitive as any other principle of theological reason, and is an absolutely necessary condition of all other knowledge. Moreover: the whole train of man’s a posteriori knowledge is a continual demonstration of this principle, proving its trustworthiness by the perfect correspondence between our subjective intuitions and empirical truths. Platonic Scheme. Now Platonism held that all substance is uncaused and eternal as to its being. All finite, rational spirits, said this theology, are emanations of To ON, the eternal intelligence; and all matter has been from eternity, as inert, passive chaotic Ulh. Platonism referred all organization, all fashioning (the only creation it admitted), all change, however either directly or indirectly, to the intelligent First Cause. This scheme does not seem very easily refuted by natural reason. Let it be urged that the very notion of the First Cause implies its singleness; and, more solidly, that the unity of plan and working seen in nature, points to only one, single, ultimate cause; Plato could reply that he made only one First Cause, To ON, for ulh is inert, and only the recipient of causation. Let that rule be urged, which Hamilton calls his "law of parsimony," that hypotheses must include nothing more than is necessary to account for effects: Plato could say: No: the reason as much demands the supposition of a material pre-existing, as of an almighty Workman; for even omnipotence cannot work, with nothing to work on. Indeed, so far as I know, all human systems, Plato’s "Enicurus" Zeno’s "Pythagoras the Peripatetic" had this common feature; that it is self-evident, substance cannot rise out of nihil into esse; that ex nihilo nihil fit. And we shall see how obstinate is the tendency of philosophy to relapse to this maxim in the instances of Spinoza’s Pantheism, and Kant’s and Hamilton’s theory of causation. Indeed it may be doubted whether the human mind, unaided by revelation, would ever have advanced farther than this. It was from an accurate knowledge of the history of philosophy, that the apostle declared, (Hebrews 11:3) the doctrine of an almighty creation out of nothing is one of pure faith. Can the Platonic Doctrine of the Eternity of All Substances Be Refuted By Reason? Dr. Clarke does indeed attempt a rational argument that the eternity of matter is impossible The eternal must be necessary; therefore an eternal cause must necessarily be. So, that which can possibly be thought as existing and yet not necessary, cannot be eternal. Such is his logic. I think inspection will show you a double defect. The first enthymeme is not conclusive; and the second, even if the first were true, would be only inferring the converse; which is not necessarily conclusive. Howe states a more plausible argument, at which Dr. Clarke also glances. Were matter eternal, it must needs be necessary. But then it must be ubiquitous, homogeneous, immutable, like God’s substance; because this inward eternal necessity of being cannot but act always and everywhere alike. Whereas, we see matter diverse, changing and only in parts of space. I doubt whether this is solid; or whether from the mere postulate of necessary existence, we can infer anything more than Spinoza does: that eternal matter can possibly exist in no other organisms and sequences of change, than those in which it actually exists. Our surest refutation of this feature of Platonism is God’s word. This heathen theology is certainly nearest of any to the Christian, here, and less repugnant than any other to the human reason and God’s honor. Dr. Breckinridge. Dr. R. J. Breckinridge, (vol. I, p. 56. etc.) constructs what he assures us is an argument of his own, for the being of a God. A brief inspection of it will illustrate the subject. 1. Because something now is—at least the mind that reasons—therefore something eternal Isaiah 2:1-22. All known substance is matter or spirit. 3. Hence only three possible alternatives; either, (a.) some matter is eternal; and the source of all spirit and all other matter, Or, (b.) some being composed of matter and spirit is the eternal one, and the source of all other matter and spirit. Or, (c.) some spirit is eternal, and produced all other spirit and matter. The third hypothesis must be the true one: not the second because we are matter and spirit combined, and, consciously, cannot create; and moreover the first Cause must be single. Not the first, because matter is inferior to mind; and the inferior does not produce the superior. Its Defects. The objections to this structure begin at the second part, where the author leaves the established form of Howe and Clarke. First: the argument cannot apply, in the mind of a pure idealist, or of a materialist. Second: it is not rigidly demonstrated that there can be no substance but matter and spirit; all that can be done is to say, negatively, that no other is known to us. Third: the three alternative propositions do not exhaust the case; the Pantheist and the Peripatetic, of eternal organization, show us that others are conceivable, as obviously does the Platonic. Fourth: that we, combined of matter and spirit, consciously cannot create, is short of proof that some higher being, hence constituted, cannot. Christ could create, if He pleased; He is hence constituted. Last: it is unfortunate that an argument, which aims to be so expert mental, should have the analogy of our natural experience so much against it. For we only witness human spirits producing effects, when incorporate. As soon as they are disembodied, (at death,) they totally cease to be observed causes of any effects. Teleological Argument. The teleological argument for the being and attributes of a God has been so well stated by Paley, in his Natural Theology, that though as old as Job and Socrates, it is usually mentioned as Paley’s argument. I refer you especially to his first three chapters. Beginning from the instance of a peasant finding a watch on a common, and although not knowing how it came there, concluding that some intelligent agent constructed it; he applies the same argument, with great beauty and power, to show that man and the universe have a Maker. For we see everywhere intelligent arrangement; as the eye for seeing, the ear for hearing, etc. Nor is the peasant’s reasoning to a watchmaker weakened, because he never saw one at work, or even heard of one; nor because a part of the structure is not understood; nor because some of the adjustments are seen to be imperfect; nor, if you showed the peasant, in the watch, a set of wheels for reproducing its kind, would he be satisfied that there was no watchmaker: for he would see that this reproductive mechanism could not produce the intelligent arrangements. Nor would he be satisfied with a "law of nature," or a "physical principle of order," as the sole cause. Are the Two, Rival Lines of Proof? It is a fact, somewhat curious, that the metaphysical and the teleological arguments have each had their exclusive advocates in modern times. The applauders of Paley join Dr. Thomas Brown in scouting the former as shadowy and inconclusive. The supporters of the metaphysical divines depreciate Paley, as leading us to nothing above a mere Demiurgis. In truth, both lines of reasoning are valid; and each needs the other. Dr. Brown, for instance, in carrying Paley’s argument to its higher conclusions, must tacitly borrow some of the very metaphysics which he professes to disdain. Otherwise it remains incomplete, and leads to no more than a sort Artifex Mundi, whose existence runs back merely to a date prior to human experience, and whose being, power and wisdom are demonstrated to extend only as far as man’s inquiries have gone. But that He is eternal, immutable, independent, immense, infinite in power or wisdom; it can never assure us. True, in viewing the argument, your mind did leap to the conclusion that the artifices of nature’s contrivances is the Being of "eternal power and godhead," but it was only because you passed, almost unconsciously, perhaps, through that metaphysical deduction, of which Howe gives us the exact description. Howe’s is the comprehensive, Paley’s the partial (but very lucid) display of the a posteriori argument. Paley’s premise; that every contrivance must have an intelligent contriver, is but an instance under the more general one, that every effect must have a cause. The inadequacy of Paley’s argument may be illustrated in this: that he seems to think the peasant’s discovery of a stone, instead of a watch, could not have led his mind to the same conclusion, whereas a pebble as really, though not so impressively, suggests a cause, as an organized thing. For even the pebble should make us think either that it is such as can have the ground of its existence in its present form in itself; and so, can be eternal, self-existent, and necessary; or else, that it had a Producer, who does possess these attributes. Its Value. But, on the other hand, this argument from contrivance has great value, for these reasons. It is plain and popular. It enables us to evince the unity of the first cause through the unity of purpose and convergence of the consequences of creation. It aids us in showing the personality of God, as a being of intelligence and will; and it greatly strengthens the assault we shall be enabled to make on Pantheism, by showing, unless there is a personal and divine first Cause prior to the universe, this must itself be, not only uncaused, eternal, independent, necessarily existent, but endued with intelligence. Instances of Contrivances To An End. A single instance of intelligent contrivance in the works of creation would prove an intelligent Creator. Yet, it is well to multiply these proofs, even largely: for they give us then a wider foundation of deduction, stronger views of the extent of the creative wisdom and power; and better evidence of God’s unity. From Organs of Animals. Hence, as instances, showing how the argument is constructed: If the design is to produce the physical part of the sensation of vision; the eye is obviously an optical instrument, contrived with lenses to refract, expedients for obtaining an achromatic spectrum, adjustments for distance and quantity of light, and protection of the eye, by situation, bony socket, brow, lids, lubricating fluids; and in birds, the nictitating membrane. Different creatures also have eyes adapted to their lives and media of vision; as birds, cats, owls, fishes. So, the ear is an auditory apparatus, with a concha to converge the sound-waves, a tube, a tympanum to transmit vibration, the three bones ( malleus, stipes and incus) in instable equilibrium, to convey it to the sensorium, etc. From Spiritual Structure of Man. The world of spirit is just as full of evident contrivances. See (e. g.) the laws of habit and imitation, exactly adjusted to educate and to form the character; and the faculties of memory, association, taste, etc. The evidences of contrivance are, if possible, still more beautiful in our emotional structure; e. g., in the instincts of parental love, sympathy, resentment and its natural limits, sexual love, and its natural check, modesty; and above all, conscience, with its self-approval and remorse. All these are adjusted to obvious ends. In Compensating Arrangements. We see marks of more recondite design, in the natural compensation for necessary defects. The elephant’s short neck is made up by a lithe proboscis. Birds’ heads cannot carry teeth: but they have a gizzard. Insects with fixed heads, have a number of eyes to see around them. Brutes have less reason, but more instinct; and so on goes the argument. In Adaptations. The adaptations of one department of nature to another show at once contrivance, selecting will and unity of mind. Hence, the media and the organs of sense are made for each other. The forms and colors of natural objects are so related to taste; the degree of fertility imparted to the earth, to man’s necessity for labor; the stability of physical law, to the necessary judgments of the reason thereabout. So all nature, material and spiritual, animal, vegetable, inorganic, on our planet, in the starry skies, are full of wise contrivance. Argument From Conscience. The moral phenomena of conscience present a twofold evidence for the being of a God, worthy of fuller illustration than space allows. This faculty is a most ingenious spiritual contrivance, adjusted to a beneficent end: viz., the promotion of virtuous acts, and repression of wicked. As such, it proves a contriver, just as any organic adjustment does. But second: we shall find, later in the course, that our moral judgments are intuitive, primitive, and necessary; the most inevitable functions of the reason. Now, the idea of our acts which have rightness is unavoidably attended with the judgment that they are obligatory. Obligation must imply an obligor. This is not always any known creature: hence, we arrive at the Creator. Again, our conscience of wrong-doing unavoidably suggests fear but fear implies an avenger. The secret sinner, the imperial sinner above all creature-power, shares this dread. Now, one may object, that this process is not valid, unless we hold God’s mere will the sole source of moral distinctions: which we do not teach, since an atheist is reasonably compelled to hold them. But the objection is not just. The primitive law of the reason must be accepted as valid to us, whatever its source. For parallel: The intuitive belief in causation is found on inspection, to contain the proposition, "There is a first Cause." But in order for the validity of this proposition, it is not necessary for us to say that this intuition is God’s arbitrary implantation. It is intrinsically true to the nature of things; and the argument to a first Cause therefore only the more valid. This moral argument to the being of a God, as it is immediate and strictly logical, is doubtless far the most practical. Its force is seen in this, that theoretical atheists, in danger and death, usually at the awakening of remorse, acknowledge God. 3. Argument From Universal Consent. You find the argument from the Consensus Populorum, much elaborated by your authorities. I conclude that it gives a strong probable evidence for the being of a God, hence: The truth is abstract; its belief would not have been so nearly universal, nor so obviously essential to man’s social existence, did not a valid ground for it exist in man’s laws of thought. For it can be accounted for neither by fear, policy, nor self-interest. 4. Objected That Contrivance Betrays Limitation. From the affirmative argument, we return to evasions. An objection is urged, that the argument from design, if valid, proves only a creature of limited powers. For contrivance is the expedient of weakness. For instance, one constructs a derrick, because, unlike Samson, he is too weak to lift an impossible load. If the Creator has eternal power and godhead, why did He not go straight to His ends, without means, as in Psalms 33:9? I answer, design proves a designer, though in part unintelligible. 2nd. It would not be unworthy of the Almighty to choose this manner of working, in order to leave His signature on it for man to read. 3rd. Chiefly: Had God employed no means to ends, he must have remained the only agent; there would have been no organized nature; but only the one supernatural agent. Hume Objects That the World Is A Singular Effect. Hume strives to undermine the argument from the creation to a Creator, by urging that, since only experience teaches us the uniformity of the tie between effect and cause, it is unwarranted to apply it farther than experience goes with us. But no one has had any experience of a world-maker, as we have of making implements in the arts. The universe, if an effect at all, is one wholly singular: the only one anybody has known, and from the earliest human experience, substantially as it is now. Hence the empirical induction to its first Cause is unauthorized. Dr. Alexander’s Answer. Note first: this is from the same mint with his argument against miracles. Creation is simply the first miracle; the same objection is in substance brought; viz: no testimony can be weighty enough to prove, against universal experience, that a miracle has occurred. Next, Dr. Alexander, to rebut, resorts to an illustration; a country boy who had seen only ploughs and horse-carts, is shown a steam-frigate; yet he immediately infers a mechanic for it. The fact will be so; but it will not give us the whole analysis. True, the frigate is greatly larger and more complicated than a horse cart; (as the universe is than any human machine). But still, Hume might urge that the boy would see a thousand empirical marks, cognizable to his experiences, (timber with marks of the plane on it, as on his plough-beam, the cable as evidently twisted of hemp, as his plough-lines; the huge anchor with as evident dints of the hammer, as his plough-share,) which taught him that the wonderful ship was also a produced mechanism. Astonishing as it is to him, compared with the plough, it is experimentally seen to be not natural, like the universe, Chalmers’ Answer. Chalmers, in a chapter full of contradictions, seems to grant that experience alone teaches us the law of causation, and asserts that still the universe is not "a singular effect." To show this, he supposes, with Paley, the peasant from a watch inferring a watch-maker: and then by a series of abstractions, he shows that the logical basis of the inference is not anything peculiar to that watch, as that it is a gold, or a silver, a large, a small, or a good watch, or a machine to measure time at all; but simply the fact that it is a manifest contrivance for an end. The effect then, is no longer singular; yet the inference to some adequate agent holds. To this ingenious process, Hume would object that it is experience alone which guides in making those successive abstractions, by which we separate the accidental from the essential effect and cause. This, Chalmers himself admits. Hence, as we have no experience of world-making, no such abstraction is here allowable, to reduce the world to the class of common effects. Besides; has Hume admitted that it is an effect at all? In fine, he might urge this difference, that the world is native, while the watch, the plough, the ship bears, to the most unsophisticated observer, empirical marks of being made, and not native. True Answer. Let us not then refute Hume from his own premises; for they are false. It is not experience which teaches us that every effect has its cause, but the a priori reason. (This Chalmers first asserts, and then unwisely surrenders.) Neither child nor man believes that maxim to be true in the hundredth case, because he has experienced its truth in ninety-nine; he instinctively believed it in the first case. It is not a true canon of inductive logic, that the tie of cause and effect can be asserted only so far as experience proves its presence. If it were, would induction ever teach us anything we did not know before? Would there be any inductive science? Away with the nonsense! Grant that the world is a "singular effect." It is a phenomenon, it could not be without a cause of its being, either extrinsic, or intrinsic. And this we know, not by experience, but by one of those primitive judgments of the reason, which alone make experience intelligible and valid. Can the Present Universe Be the Result of Infinite Series of Organisms? But may not this universe have the ground of its being in itself? This is another evasion of the atheists. Grant, they say, that nothing cannot produce something. Theists go outside the universe to seek its cause; and when they suppose they have found it in a God, they are unavoidably driven to represent Him as uncaused from without, eternal, self-existent, and necessary. Now it is a simpler hypothesis, just to suppose that the universe which we see, is the uncaused, eternal, self-existent, necessary Being. Why may we not adopt it? Seeing we must run back to the mystery of some uncaused, eternal being, why may we not accept the obvious teaching of nature and experience and conclude that this is it? Since the organisms which adorn this universe are all temporal, and since the earth and other stars move in temporal cycles, we shall then have to suppose that the infinite past eternity, through which this self-existent universe has existed, was made up of an infinite succession of these organisms and cycles, each previous one producing the. next: as the infinite future eternity which will be. But what is absurd in such a hypothesis? Metaphysical Answers. Now I will not reply, with Dr. Clarke and others, that if the universe is eternal, it must be necessary; and this necessity must make its substance homogeneous and unchangeable throughout infinite time and space. It might be plausibly retorted, that this tendency to regular, finite organisms, which we see, was the very necessity of nature inherent in matter. Nor does it seem to me solid to say, with Robert Hall in his sermon, Turrettin, and others, that an eternal series of finite durations is impossible; because if each particular part had a beginning, while the series had none, we should have the series existing before its first member; the chain stretching farther back than its farthest link. The very supposition was, that the series had no first member. Is a past eternity any more impossible to be made up of the addition of an infinite number of finite parts, than an abstract infinite future? Surely not. Now there is to be just such an infinite future: namely, your and my immortality, which, although it may not be measured by solar days and years, will undoubtedly be composed of parts of successive time infinitely multiplied. But to this future eternity, it would be exactly parallel to object, that we make each link in it have an end, while the whole is endless; which would involve the same absurdity, of a chain extended forward after the last link was ended. The answer again is: that according to the supposition, there is no last link, the number thereof being infinite. In a word, what mathematician does not know that infinitude may be generated by the addition of finites repeated an infinite number of times? Turretin’s Argument From Unequal Infinites. Turrettin, among many ingenious arguments, advances another which seems more respectable It is in substance this: If this universe has no Creator, then its past duration must be a proper and absolute infinity. But created things move or succeed each other in finite times. See, for instance, the heavenly bodies: The sun revolves on its axis daily; around its orbit, annually. If this state of things has been eternal, there must have been an infinite number of days, and also an infinite number of years. But since it requires three hundred and sixty-five days to a year, we have here two temporal infinities, both proper and absolute, yet one three hundred and sixty-five times as large as the other! Now, the mathematicians tell us, that proper infinities may be unequal; that an infinite plane, for instance, may be conceived as constituted of infinite straight lines infinitely numerous; and an infinite solid, of an infinite number of such planes, superposed the one on the other. But it is at least questionable, whether the evasion is valid against Turrettin’s argument. For these differing infinities are in different dimensions. of length, breadth and thickness. Can there be, in the same dimension, two lines, each infinite in length, and yet the one three hundred and sixty-five as great as the other, in length? Turrettin attempts to reply to the answer drawn from the eternity a parte post, against the metaphysical argument. The atheist asks us: Since (as theists say) a finite soul is to be immortal, there will be a specimen of a temporal infinity formed of finite times infinitely repeated: Why may there not have been a similar infinite duration a parte ante? Because, says our Textbook: That which was, but is past, cannot be fairly compared with a future which will never be past. Again: a thing destined never to end may have a beginning; but it is impossible to believe that a thing which actually has ended, never had a beginning. Because, the fact that the thing came to an end proves that its cause was outside of itself. The last remark introduces us to a solid argument, and it is solid, because it brings us out of the shadowy region of infinity to the solid ground of causation. It is but another way of stating the grand, the unanswerable refutation of this atheistic theory: a series composed only of contingent parts must be, as a whole, contingent. But the contingent cannot be eternal, because it is not self-existent. This argument is explicated in the following points: (1.) Take any line of generative organisms, for instance: (oak trees bearing acorns, and those acorns rearing oaks, e. g.) the being of each individual in the series demands an adequate cause. When we push the inquiry back one step, and ask the cause of the parent which (seemingly) caused it, we find precisely the same difficulty unanswered. Whatever distance we run back along the line, we clearly see no approach is made towards finding the adequate cause of the series, or of the earliest individual considered. Hence it is wholly unreasonable to suppose that the introduction of infinitude into the series helps to give us an adequate cause. We only impose on ourselves with an undefined idea. Paley’s illustration here is as just as beautiful. Two straight parallel lines pursued, ever so far, make no approximation; they will never meet, though infinitely extended. (2.) An adequate cause existing at the time the phenomenon arises, must be assigned for every effect. For a cause not present at the rise of the effect, is no cause. Now then; when a given oak was sprouted, all the previous oaks and acorns of its line, save one or two, had perished. Was this acorn, even with its parent oak, the adequate cause of the whole structure of the young tree, including the ingenious contrivances thereof? Surely not. But the previous dead oaks and acorns are no cause; for they are not there. An absent cause is no cause. The original cause of this oak is not in the series at all. (3.) Even if we permit ourselves to be dazzled with the notion that somehow the infinitude of the series can account for its self-productive power; this maxim is obvious: that in a series of transmitted causes, the whole power of the cause must be successively in each member of the series. For each one could only transmit what power it received from its immediate predecessor; and if at any stage, any portion of the causative power were lost, all subsequent stages must be without it. But evidently no one generation of acorns ever had power or intelligence to create the subtle contrivances of vegetable life in their progeny; and to suppose that all did, is but multiplying the absurdity. (4) This question should be treated according to the atheist’s point of view, scientifically: Science always accepts testimony in preference to hypothesis. Now there is a testimony, that of the Mosaic Scripture, as supported by universal tradition, which says that all series of organisms began in the creative act of an intelligent first Cause. The atheist may object, that men, as creatures themselves, have no right of their own knowledge, to utter such traditionary testimony; for they could not be present before the organisms existed to witness how they were brought into existence. The only pretext for such tradition would be that some prior superhuman Being, who did witness man’s production, revealed to him how he was produced: but whether any such prior Being existed, is the very thing in debate, and so may not be taken for granted. True; but the existence of the testimony must be granted; for it is a fact that it exists, and it must be accounted for. And the question is, whether the only good account is not, that the universe did have an intelligent Cause, and that this Cause taught primeval man regarding his origination. Otherwise, not only is the universe left unaccounted for, but the universal tradition. (5) Science exalts experience above hypothesis even more than testimony. Now, the whole state of the world bears the appearance of recency. The recent discovery of new continents, the great progress of new arts since the historic era began, and the partial population of the earth by man, all belie the eternity of the human race. But stronger still, geology proves the creation, in time, of race after race of animals, and the comparatively recent origin of man, by her fossil records. These show the absolute beginning of genera. And the attempt to account for them by the development theory (Chambers or Darwin) is utterly repudiated by even the better irreligious philosophers; for if there is anything that Natural History has established, it is that organic life is separated from inorganic forces, mechanical, chemical, electrical or other, by inexorable bounds; and that genera may begin or end, but never transmute themselves into other genera. Pantheism. As I pointed out, there are but two hypotheses by which the demonstration of an eternal, intelligent, personal first Cause can be evaded. The one has just been discussed; the other is the pantheistic. No separate first Cause of the universe need be assigned, it says, because the universe is God. The first Cause and the whole creation are supposed to be one substance, world-god, possessing all the attributes of both. As extremes often meet, pantheism leads to the same practical results with atheism. Aristotle, perhaps the most sagacious of pagan thinkers, was willing to postulate the eternity, a parte ante, of the series of organisms. But he, none the less, taught the existence of a God who, though in a sense an Anima Mundi, was yet an intelligent and active infinite Cause. Peripatetic Pantheism. The ancient form of pantheism, probably Aristotelian in its source, admitted that matter, dead, senseless, divisible, cannot be the proper seat of intelligence and choice, which are indivisible; and that the universe is full of marks of intelligent design, so that an Anita Mundi, an intelligent Principle, must be admitted in the universe. Yes, I reply, it must, and that personal. Because it obviously has intelligence, choice, and will; and how can personality be better defined? Nor can it inhabit the universe as a soul its body, not being limited to it in time or space, nor bearing that relation to it. Not in time; because, being eternal, it existed a whole past eternity before it; for we have proved the latter temporal. Not in space; for we have seen this Intelligence eternal ages not holding its ubi in space by means of body; and there is not a single reason for supposing that it is now limited to the part of space which bodies occupy. It is not connected with matter by any tie of animality; because immensely the larger part of matter is inanimate. Pantheism of Spinoza. Modern pantheism appears either in the hypothesis of Spinoza, the Jew, or in that of the later German idealists. Both see that even the material universe teems with intelligent contrivances: and more, that the nobler part, that known by consciousness, and so, most immediately known, is a world of thought and feeling in human breasts. Hence intelligence and will must be accounted for, as well as matter. Now, Spinoza’s first position is: There can be no real substance, except it be self-existent, and so, eternal. That is; it is incredible that any true substance can pass from nihil into esse. 2nd. All the self-existent must be one; this is unavoidable from the unity of its characteristic attribute. 3rd. The one real substance must therefore be eternal, infinite, and necessarily existent. 4th. all other seeming beings are not real substance, but modes of existence of this sole being. 5th. All possible attributes, however seemingly diverse, must be modes, nearer or remote, of this Being; and it is necessary therefore to get rid of the prejudice, that modes of thought and will and modes of extension cannot be referred to the same substance This is the true account of the universe. All material bodies (so called) are but different modes of extension, in which the necessary substance projects himself; and all personal spirits (so called) are but modes of thought and will, in which the same being pulsates. Now you see that the whole structure rests on two unproved and preposterous assumptions: that real substance cannot be except it be self-existent; and that the self-existent can be but one. The human mind is incapable of demonstrating either. Pantheism of the Modern Idealist. Says the modern idealist: Let the mind take nothing for granted, except the demonstrated; and it will find that it really knows nothing save its consciousnesses. Of what is it conscious? Only of its own subjective states. Men fancy that these must be referred to a subject called mind, spirit, self; as the substance of which they are states. So they fancy that they find objective sources for their sensations, and objective limits to their volitions; but if it fancies it knows either, it is only by a subjective consciousness. These, after all, are its only real possessions. Thus, it has no right to assert either substantive self or objective matter; it only knows, in fact, a series of self-consciousnesses. Therefore, our thinking and willing constitute our being. Thus, too, the whole ostensibly apparent and objective world is only evinced from non-existence as it is thought by us. The total residuum then, is an impersonal power of thought, only existing as it exerts its self-consciousness in the various beings of the universe, (if there is a universe) and in God. Its subjective consciousnesses constitute spiritual substance (so-called,) self, fellowman, God; and its objective, the seeming objective material bodies of the universe. Refutation. 1. Intuition Must Be Accepted As Valid. Against both these forms of pantheism, I present the following outline of a refutation. (1.) If the mind may not trust the intuition which refers all attributes and affections to their substances, and which gives real objective sources for sensations, it may not believe in its intuitive self-consciousness, nor in that intuition of cause for every phenomenon, on which Spinoza founds the belief in his One Substance. Falsus in uno; Falsus in omnibus. There is an end of all thinking. That the intuitions above asserted, are necessary and primary, I prove by this: that every man, including the idealist, unavoidably makes them. Consciousness Implies My Personality. (2.) We are each one conscious of our personality. You cannot pronounce the words "self," Ego, self-consciousness; but that you have implied it. Hence, if we think according to our own subjective law, we cannot think another intelligence and will, without imputing to it a personality. Least of all, the supreme intelligence and will. To deny this is to claim to be more perfect than God. But worse yet; if I am not a person, my nature is a lie, and thinking is at an end. If I am a person, and as the pantheist says, I am God, and God is I, then he is a person; and the pantheistic system is still self-contradicted. Extension and Thought Cannot Be Referred To A Common Substance. (3.) Modes of extension and modes of thought and will cannot be attributes of one substance. Matter is divisible: neither consciousness, nor thought, nor feeling is; therefore the substance which thinks is indivisible. Matter is extended; has form; has relative bulk and weight. All these properties are impossible to be thought of any function of spirit, as relevant to them. Who can conceive of a thought triturated into many parts, as a stone into grains of sand; of a resentment split into halves; of a conception which is so many fractions of an inch longer or thicker than another; of an emotion triangular or circular, of the top and bottom of a volition? If Spinoza True, To Pan Cannot Vary. (4.) If there is but one substance To Pan, the eternal, self existent, necessary; then it must be homogeneous and indivisible. This is at least a just argumentum ad hominem for Spinoza. Did he not infer the necessary unity of all real substance, from the force of its one characteristic attribute, self and necessary existence? Now, this immanent necessity, which is so imperative as to exclude plurality; must it not also exclude diversity; or at least contrariety? How then can this one, unchangeable substance exist at the same time in different and even contradictory states; motion and rest; heat and cold; attraction and repulsion? How can it, in its modes of thought and will, at the same time love in one man, and hate in another, the same object? How believe and disbelieve the same thing? No Evil Nor Good. (5.) On this scheme, there can be no responsibility, moral good or evil, guilt, reward, righteous penalty, or moral government of the world. All states of feeling, and all volitions are those of To Pan. Satan’s wrong volitions are but God willing, and his transgressions, God acting. By what pretext can the Divine Will be held up as a moral standard? Anything which a creature wills, is God’s will. Fatalistic. (6.) And this because, next, pantheism is a scheme of stark necessity. Necessity of this kind is inconsistent with responsibility. But again; it contradicts our consciousness of free agency. We know, by our consciousness, that in many things we act freely, we do what we do, because we choose; we are conscious that our souls determine themselves. But if Pantheism were true, every volition, as well as every other event, would be ruled by an iron fate. So avowed stoicism, the pantheism of the Old World: so admits Spinoza. And consistently; for To Pan, impersonal, developing itself according to an immanent, eternal necessity, must inevitably pass through all those modifications of thought and extension, which this necessity dictates, and no others; and the acts of God are as fated as ours. God Would Have All Sin and Woe. (7.) I retort upon the pantheist that picture which he so much delights to unfold in fanciful and glowing guise. Pantheism, says he, by deifying nature, clothes everything which is sweet or grand with the immediate glory of divinity, and ennobles us by placing us perpetually in literal contact with God. Do we look without on the beauties of the landscape? Its loveliness is but one beam of the multiform smile upon His face. The glory of the sun is the flash of His eye. The heavings of the restless sea are but the throbs of the divine bosom, and the innumerable stars are but the sparkles of His eternal brightness. And when we look within us, we recognize in every emotion which ennobles or warms our breasts, the aspirations, the loves, the gratitudes which bless our being, the pulses of God’s own heart beating through us. Nay, but, say I, are the manifestations of the universal Being, all lovely and good? If pantheism is true, must we not equally regard all that is abhorrent in nature, the rending thunder, and the rushing tornado, the desolating earthquake and volcanos, the frantic sea lashing helpless navies into wreck, as the throes of disorder or ruin in God? And when we picture the scenes of sin and woe, which darken humanity, the remorse of the villain’s privacy, the orgies of crime and cruelty hidden beneath the veil of night, the despairing deathbeds, the horrors of battle fields, the wails of nations growing pale before the pestilence, the din of burning and ravaged cities, and all the world of eternal despair itself, we see in the whole but the agony and crime of the divine Substance. Would it then be best called Devil or God? Since suffering and sin are so prevalent in this world, we may call it Pan-diabolism, with more propriety than pantheism. Nor is it any relief to this abhorrent conclusion, to say that pain and evil are necessitated, and are only seeming evils. Consciousness declares them real. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 19: 02.03. CHAPTER 2: EVOLUTION ======================================================================== Chapter 2: Evolution Syllabus for Lecture 3: State the Evolution Theory of man’s origin, in its recent form; and show its Relation to the Argument for God’s existence. Show the Defects in the pretended Argument for this Descent of man by Evolution. Does the Theory weaken the Teleological Argument for the Existence of Personal God? See "Origin of Species" and "Descent of Man," by Dr. Charles Darwin, "Lay Sermons," by Dr. Thos. Huxley, "Physical Basis of Life," by Dr. Stirling, Lectures (Posthumous) of Prof. Louis Agassiz, "What is Darwinism?" by Dr. Hodge, "Reign of Law," by the Duke of Argyle. Relation of Evolution To Teleological Argument. In the previous Lecture, I concluded the brief examination of the atheistic theory, accounting for the Universe as an eternal series, with these words: "Genera may begin or end, but never transmute themselves into other genera." We found the fatal objections to the scheme of a self-existent, infinite series uncaused from without, in these facts: That no immediate antecedent was adequate cause for its immediate successor: And that the previous links in the series could not be cause; because totally absent from the rise of the sequent effect. Hence, in that the utter fallacy was detected, which seeks to impose on our minds by the vague infinitude of the series as a whole. We were taught that no series made up solely of effects, each contingent, can, as a whole, be self-existent. Thus that evasion of the atheist quickly perished. Obviously, if there is any expedient for resuscitating it, this must be found in the attempt to prove that the law, "Like produces Like," is not the whole explanation of the series. We have demonstrated that, by that law, it is impossible the series can be self-existent. The best hope of Atheism is, then, to attempt to prove that the Like does not produce merely the Like; that the series contains within itself a power of differentiating its effects, at least slightly. Hence materialists and atheists have been led in our day, either by deliberate design, or by a species of logical instinct, to attempt the construction of an "evolution theory." The examination of this attempt becomes necessary in order to complete the argument for God’s existence, on this, the last conceivable point of attack. No Novelty. The evolution hypothesis is, indeed, no novelty. It is, after all its pretended modern experiments, but a revival of the "atomic theory" of the Greek atheist, Democritus, adopted by the Epicurean school. Its application to the descent of man from some lower animal, has often been attempted, as by Lord Monboddo, who almost exactly anticipated Dr. Chas. Darwin’s conclusion. In the eyes of some modern Physicists, however, it has received new plausibility from the more intelligent speculations of the Naturalist La Marck, and the "Vestiges of Creation" ascribed to Mr. Robert Chambers. But it appears in its fullest form, in the ingenious works of Dr. Chas. Darwin, "Origin of Species," and "Descent of Man." I therefore take this as the object of our inquiry. Natural Selection and Survival. This Naturalist thinks that he has found the law of reproduction, in animated nature, that "Like produces Like," modified by the two laws of "natural selection" and a "survival of the fittest." By the former, nature herself, acting unintelligently, tends in all her reproductive processes, to select those copulations which are most adapted to each other by the latter, she ordains, equally without intelligence, that the fittest, or ablest progeny shall survive at the expense of the inferior. These supposed laws he illustrates by the race-varieties (certainly very striking) which have been produced in genera and species whose original unity is admitted by all, through the art of the bird-fancier and stock-rearer, in breeding. The result of these laws, modifying the great law of reproduction, would be a slight differentiation of successors from predecessors, in any series in animated nature. This difference at one step might be almost infinitesimal. This conatus of Nature towards evolution, being totally blind, and moving at haphazard, might result in nothing through a myriad of experiments, or instances, and only evolve something in advance of the antecedents, in the ten thousandth case; yet, if we postulate a time sufficiently vast, during which the law has been blindly working, the result may be the evolution of man, the highest animal, from the lowest form of protoplasmic life. Scheme Atheistic. 1. The tendency of this scheme is atheistic. Some of its advocates may disclaim the consequence, and declare their recognition of a God and Creator, we hope, sincerely. But the undoubted tendency of the speculation, will be to lead its candid adherents, where Dr. Leopold Buchner has placed himself, to blank materialism and atheism. For the scheme is an attempt to evolve what theists call the creation without a Creator; and as we shall see, the bearing of the hypothesis is towards an utter obliteration of the teleological argument. 2nd. In assigning man a brute origin, it encourages common men to regard themselves as still brutes. Have brutes any religion? 3rd. The scheme ignores all substantive distinction between spirit and matter, by evolving the former out of the functions of mere animality. But if there be no soul in man there is, practically, no religion for him. Selection Implies Mind. 2. The favorite law of "natural selection" communicates a sophistical idea in its mere terminology, and in its scope. Selection is an attribute of free agency, and implies the intelligent choice of the one who selects. Yet, "Nature" selects for the evolutionist, and Nature is a blind force, influenced by the arbitrary winds of chance, and has no intelligence. Rather, the evolutionist’s "Nature" acts (or works) in a way contrary to the denotative meaning inherent in the notion of selection; nature acts without distinction or discernment, haphazardly as it were. Now, whenever we apply the idea of selection, or any other which expresses free agency, to such effects: we know that we are speaking inaccurately and by a mere trope. How much more specious is it to ascribe the force of a permanent and regular law, selecting effects, to that which is but chance? This is but giving us metaphor, in place of induction. It is farther noted by Agassiz, that the principle of life, or cause in animated nature, notoriously and frequently produces the same results under diverse conditions of action; and diverse results again, under the same conditions. These facts prove that it is not the species of variable cause painted by Darwin, and does not differentiate its effects by his supposed law of natural selection. 3. We have seen that the vastness of the time needed for the evolution of man from the lowest animated form, by these laws of natural selection, working blindly and effecting at any one movement the most minute differentiations, is not only conceded, but claimed by evolutionists. Then, since the blind cause probably has made ten thousand nugatory experiments for every one that was an advance, the fossil remains of all the experiments, of the myriads of genera of failures, as well as the few genera that were successes, should be found in more immense bulk. And especially fossil Natural History should present us with the full history of both sides of the blind process; with the remains of the degraded genera, as well as the "fittest" and "surviving genera." The fossil history of the former ought to be ten thousand times the fullest! But in the presence of such a history, how preposterous would a theory of evolution appear? For, the very essence of this theory is the idea of a continual advancement and improvement in nature. The evolution theory is inconsistent with the wide geographical diffusion of species, and especially of the higher species. If these are the results of the "survival of the fittest," under local conditions of existence and propagation, is it not unaccountable that these, and especially man, the highest species of all, should always have been found under the most diverse and general conditions, in contrasted climates? But if we pass to the lower species, such as the mollusks and crustaceans, the difficulty is as great, because they have no adequate means of locomotion to migrate from the spots where the local conditions of their development existed. No Improvement By Selection, Save Under A Rational Providence. 4. But next; where improved race varieties have actually been developed, it may well be questioned whether the selections of the progenitors have ever been "natural," in the sense of the evolutionist. The marked instances of which Darwin makes so much use, are the result of the breeder’s art: (as the Durham cattle) that is, of a rational providence. And when we surrender any individuals of the varieties to the dominion of "nature," the uniform tendency is to degradation. What more miserable specimens of cattle and swine are ever seen; what individuals less calculated for "survival" in the struggle for existence, than the neglected progeny of the marvelously developed English livestock, when left to take their chances with the indigenous stock of ill-cultivated districts? Again, many Naturalists tell us that when any incidental cause has been applied to a given species, producing variations in some individuals and their progeny, the difference is larger at first, and becomes more and more minute afterwards. The inference seems irresistible, that such variations must have fixed and narrow limits. Naturalists are familiar with the tendency of all varieties, artificially produced by the union of differing progenitors, to revert back to the type of one or other of their ancestors. Hence, all breeders of livestock recognize the tendency of their improved breeds to "fly to pieces"; and they know that nothing but the most artful vigilance in selecting parents prevents this result. Without this watchful control, the peculiarities of one or the other original varieties would re-appear in the progeny, so exaggerated, as to break up the improved type, and give them instead, a heterogeneous crowd, the individuals varying violently from each other and from the desired type, and probably inferior to either of the original varieties compounded. Strongest Do Not Naturally Survive. Is the "survival of the fittest" a "natural" fact? I answer; No. The natural tendency of the violences of the strongest is on the whole, to increase the hardship of the conditions under which the whole species and each individual must gain subsistence. What better instance of this law needs to be sought, than in the human species; where we always see the savage anarchy, produced by the violence of the stronger, reduce the whole tribe to poverty and destitution? Why else is it, that savages are poorer and worse provided for than civilized men? Couple this law with another: that the most pampered individuals in any species, are not the most prolific; and we shall see that the natural tendency of animal life is, in the general, to the survival of the inferior. Hence the average wild Pampa horse, or "mustang" pony, is far inferior to the Andalusian steed, from which he is descended. We find an emphatic confirmation of the conclusion which Hugh Miller drew from the "testimony of the rocks," that the natural tendency of the fossil genera has been to degradation and not to development. Well does Dr. Sterling remark here: "Natural conjecture is always equivocal, insecure and many-sided. It may be said that ancient warfare, for instance, giving victory always to the personally ablest and bravest, must have resulted in the improvement of the race. Or, that the weakest being left at home, the improvement was balanced by deterioration. Or, that the ablest were necessarily most exposed to danger. And so—according to ingenuity usque ad infinitum. Trustworthy conclusions are not possible to this method." Argument From Hybrids. 5. I have not yet seen any reason for surrendering the rule, hitherto held by Naturalists, that in the animal world, hybrids, if true hybrids, are infertile. The familiar instance is that of the mule. The genera asinus and equus can propagate an offspring, but that mule offspring can propagate nothing. If there are any exceptions to this law, they are completely consistent with the rule that hybrids cannot perpetuate their hybrid kind. If they have any progeny, it is either absolutely infertile; or it has itself reverted back to one of the original types. It is strange that Dr. Huxley should himself appeal to this as a valid law; when its validity is destructive of his own conclusions. In his "Lay Sermons," p. 295, when it suits his purpose to assert that natural variation has, in a given case, established a true species which is new, he appeals to the fact which is claimed: that this new species propagated its kind; which proved it a true and permanent species. Which is to say, that hybrids cannot propagate their kind; for it is by this law it is known that they do not form permanent species. But now, if new varieties really arose from natural selection, to the extent claimed by evolutionists, must they not fall under the hybrid class too decisively, ever to propagate their type permanently? Evolution Cannot Account For Mind. 6. This process imagined by Dr. Darwin, if it existed, would be purely an animal one. He makes it a result of physical laws merely. Then, if there were a development by such a law, it should be the animal instincts and bodily organs, which are developed in the higher species. But it is not so. Man is the highest, and when he is compared with other mammalia, he is a feebler beast. The young infant has far less instinct and locomotion than the young fowl. The man has less instinct, less animal capacity, less strength, blunter senses, than the eagle, or the elephant, and less longevity than the goose. That which makes him a nobler creature is his superior intelligence with the adaptation thereto of his inferior animal instincts. He rules other animals and is "Lord of Creation" by his mind. 7. This, then, must also be explained by Dr. Darwin, as an evolution from instinct and animal appetites; just as he accounts for the evolution of the human hand, from the forepaw of an ape; so all the wonders of consciousness, intellect, taste, conscience, religious belief, are to be explained as the animal outgrowth of gregarious instincts, and habitudes cultivated through them. To any one who has the first correct idea of construing the facts of consciousness, this is simply monstrous. It of course denies the existence of any substance that thinks, distinct from animated matter. It ignores the distinction between the instinctive and the rational motive in human actions; hence making free agency, moral responsibility, and ethical science impossible. The impossibility of this genesis is peculiarly plain in this: that it must suppose all these psychological acts and habits gradually super induced. There is first, in some earlier generation of men, a protoplasmic responsibility, free agency, reason, conscience, which are half, or one quarter animal instinct still, and the rest mental! Whereas, every man who ever interpreted his own acts of soul to himself, knows intuitively, that this is the characteristic of them all; that they are contrasted with the merely animal acts, in all their stages and in all their degrees of weakness or strength. A feeble conscience is no nearer appetite, in its intrinsic quality, than the conscience of a Washington or a Lee. In a word: Consciousness has her facts, as truly as physicks. These facts show that man belongs to a certain genus spiritually, more even than corporeally. And that genus is consciously separated by a great gulf, from all mere animal nature. It cannot be developed Hence. Theory Not Proved at Best. 8. The utmost which can possibly be made of the evolution theory, is that it may be a hypothesis possibly true, even after all the arguments of its friends are granted to be valid. In fact, the scheme is far short of this. The careful reader of these works will find, amidst extensive knowledge of curious facts, and abundance of fanciful ingenuity, many, yawning chasms between asserted facts and inductions; and many a substitution of the "must be" for the "may be." But when we waive this, we still find the theory unverified, and incapable of verification. One need desire no juster statement of the necessity of actual verification, in order to mature a hypothesis into a demonstration, than is given and happily illustrated by Dr. Huxley. "Lay Sermons," pp. 85, 6. Until either actual experiment or actual observation has verified the expectation of the hypothesis; and verified it in such away as to make it clear to the mind, that the expected result followed the antecedent as propter hoc and not a mere post hoc; that hypothesis, however plausible, and seemingly satisfying, is not demonstrated. But has Dr. Darwin’s theory been verified in any actual case? Has any one seen the marsupial ape breed the man, in fact? The author of the scheme himself knows that verification is, in the nature of the case, impossible. The dates at which he supposes the evolutions took place, precede the earliest rational experience of man, according to his own scheme, by vast ages. The differentiations which gradually wrought it were, according to him, too slight and gradual to be contained in the memory of one dispensation of man’s history. The connecting links of the process are forever lost. Hence the utmost which these Naturalists could possibly make of their hypothesis, were all their assumptions granted, would be the concession that it contained a curious possibility. Dangerous To Morals. These speculations are mischievous in that they present to minds already degraded, and in love with their own degradation, a pretext for their materialism, godlessness and sensuality. The scheme can never prevail generally among mankind. The self-respect, the conscience, and the consciousness of men will usually present a sufficient protest and refutation. The world will not permanently tolerate the libel and absurdity, that this wondrous creature, man, "so noble in reason, so infinite in faculties, in form and moving so express and admirable, in action so like an angel, in apprehension so like a God," is but the descendant, at long removes, of a mollusk or a tadpole! Circumstantial Evidence Refuted By Parole. The worthlessness of mere plausibilities concerning the origin of the universe, is yet plainer when set in contrast with that inspired testimony upon the subject, to which Revealed Theology will soon introduce us. Hypothetical evidence, even at its best estate, comes under the class of circumstantial evidence. Judicial science, stimulated to accuracy and fidelity by the prime interests of society in the rights and the life of its members, has correctly ascertained the relation between circumstantial proof and competent parole testimony. In order to rebut the word of such a witness, the circumstantial evidence must be an exclusive demonstration: it must not only satisfy the reason that the criminal act might have been committed in the supposed way, by the supposed persons; but that it was impossible, it could have been committed in any other way. In the absence of parole testimony, every enlightened judge would instruct his jury, that the defense is entitled to try the hypothesis of the accuser by this test: If any other hypothesis can be invented that is even purely imaginary, to which the facts granted in the circumstantial evidence can be reconciled by the defense, that is proof of invalidity in the accusing hypothesis. Let us suppose a crime committed without known eyewitnesses. The prosecutors examine every attendant circumstance minutely, and study them profoundly. They construct of them a supposition that the crime was committed in secret by A. They show that this supposition of his guilt satisfies every fact, so far as known. They reason with such ingenuity, that every mind tends to the conviction that A. must be verily guilty. But now there comes forward an honest man, who declares that he was eyewitness of the crime; and, that, of his certain knowledge, it was done by B., and not by A. On inquiry, it appears that B. was, at that time, naturally capable of the act. Then, unless the prosecutors can attack the credibility of this witness, before his word their case utterly breaks down. The ingenuity, the plausibility of their argument, is now naught. They had shown that, so far as known facts had gone, the act might have been done by A. But the witness proves that in fact it was done by B. The plausibility of the hypothesis and the ingenuity of the lawyers are no less: but they are utterly superseded by direct testimony of an eyewitness. I take this pains to illustrate to you this principle of evidence, because it is usually so utterly ignored by Naturalists, and so neglected even by Theologians. I assert that the analogy is perfect between the case supposed and the pretended evolution argument. Does Revelation bring in the testimony of the divine Eyewitness, because actual Agent, of the genesis of the universe? Is Revelation sustained as a credible witness by its literary, its internal, its moral, its prophetical, its miraculous evidences? Then even though the evolution hypothesis were scientifically probable, in the light of all known and physical facts and laws, it must yield before this competent witness. Does that theory claim that, naturally speaking, organisms might have been hence produced? God, the Agent, tells us that, in point of fact, they were otherwise produced. As Omnipotence is an agency confessedly competent to any effect whatsoever, if the witness is credible, the debate is ended. Is Our Teleological Argument Lost? I shall conclude this Lecture by adverting to a consequence which many of Dr. Darwin’s followers draw from his scheme; which is really the most important feature connected with it. Dr. Huxley declares that the "Origin of Species" gives the death-blow to that great teleological argument for the existence of God, which has commanded the assent of all the common sense and all the true philosophy of the human race. He quotes Prof. Kolliker, of Germany, as saying that though Darwin retains the teleological conception, it is shown by his own researches to be a mistaken one. Says the German savant, "Varieties arise irrespectively of the notion of purpose of utility, according to the general laws of nature; and may be either useful or hurtful, or indifferent." It must be admitted these men interpret the bearings of the evolution theory aright; [and that it does bear against the impregnable evidences of design in God’s creation; is a clear proof of its falsehood]. According to this scheme physical causation is blind; but it hits a lucky adaptation here and there, without knowing or meaning it, by mere chance, and in virtue of such an infinity of haphazard trials that it is impossible to miss all the time. Such is the immediate, though blind, result of Nature’s tendency to ceaseless variations of structure. Now, when (rarely) she happens to hit a favorable variation, the better adaptation of that organism to the conditions of existence enables it to survive and to propagate its type more numerously, where others perish. Where now is the proof of intelligence and design in such a fortuitous adaptation? Mr. Herbert Spencer argues that it is mere "anthropomorphism," for us to undertake to interpret nature teleological. When we adapt anything to an end, we, of course, design and contrive. But when we therefore assume that the Great Unknowable works by such thoughts, we are as absurd as though the watch [in the well-known illustration of Dr. Paley] becoming somewhat endowed with consciousness, should conclude that the consciousness of its Unknown Cause must consist of a set of ticking and motions of springs and cogs, because such only are its own functions. Some of these writers dwell much upon the supposed error of our mixing the question of "final causes" with that of efficient causes, in our investigation of nature. They claim that Lord Bacon, in his De Augmentis, sustains this condemnation. This is erroneous. He does disapprove the mixing of the question of final cause with the search after the physical cause. He points out that the former belongs to Metaphysics, the latter to Physics. Let the question be, for instance: "Why do hairs grow around the eyebrows?" There are two meanings in this "Why." If it asks the final cause, the answer is: "For the protection of the precious and tender organ beneath the brow." If it asks the physical cause, Lord Bacon’s answer is: that a follicular structure of that patch of skin "breedeth a pilous growth." He clearly asserts, in his Metaphysic, that inquiries after the final cause are proper; and he was emphatically a believer in the teleological argument, as was Newton, with every other great mind of those ages. Is Our Argument Suspicious Because Anthropomorphic? Let us clear the way for the exposure of the sophisms stated above, by looking at Spencer’s objection to the anthropomorphism of our Natural Theology. He would have us believe that it is all vicious, because founded on the groundless postulate that our thought and contrivance are the model for the mind of God. He would illustrate this, as we saw, by supposing the watch, in Paley’s illustration, "to have a consciousness," etc. This simile betrays his sophistry at once. The supposition is impossible! If the watch could have a consciousness, it would not be a material machine, but a rational spirit: and then there would be no absurdity whatever in its likening its own rational consciousness to that of its rational cause. When complaint is made that all our Natural Theology is "anthropomorphic," what is this but a complaint that our knowledge is human? If I am to have any knowledge, it must be my knowledge: that is, the knowledge of me, a man; and so, knowledge, according to the forms of human intelligence. All knowledge must then be anthropomorphic, in order to be human knowledge. To complain of any branch of man’s knowledge on this score, is to demand that he shall know nothing! This, indeed, is verified by Mr. Herbert Spencer, who teaches, on the above ground, that God is only to be conceived of and honored as "The Unknowable"; and who forbids us to ascribe any definite attribute, or offer any specific service to Him, lest we should insult Him by making Him altogether such an one as ourselves. I may remark, in passing, that this is equally preposterous in logic, and practically atheistic. The mind only knows substance from properties: if the essentia of an object of thought be absolutely unknown, its esse will certainly be more unknown. And how can one be more completely "without God in the world," than he who only knows of a divine Being, to whom he dares not ascribe any attribute, towards whom he dares not entertain any definite feeling, and to whom he dares not offer any service? But why should our knowledge of a higher spiritual being be suspected, as untrustworthy, because it is anthropomorphic? It can only be, because it is suspected that this knowledge is transformed, in becoming ours. But now, let it be supposed that the great First Cause created our spirits "in his likeness, after his image," and the ground of suspicion is removed. Then it follows that in thinking "anthropomorphically," we are thinking like God: because God formed us to think like himself. Our conceptions of the divine will then be only limited, not transformed, in passing into our kindred, but finite, minds: they remain valid, as far as they reach. But it may be said: This is the very question: whether a Creator did form our spirits after the likeness of His own? The theists must not assume it at the onset as proved. Very true; and their opponents shall not be allowed to assume the opposite as proved—they shall not "beg the question" any more than we do. But when our inquiries in Natural Theology lead us to the conclusion that in this respect "we are God’s offspring," then He is no longer the "Unknown God." And especially when Revealed Theology presents us the Eawn tou qeou oratou in the "man Christ Jesus," the difficulty is completely solved. Chance Cannot Evolve Design. To support the teleological argument farther against this philosophy of blind chance, I remark, first: that it is in no sense less unreasonable than the old pagan theory, which referred all the skillful adjustments of creation to a "fortuitious concourse of atoms." This is indeed the same wretched philosophy: revamped and refurbished, which excited the sarcasm and scorn of Socrates, and was contemptuously discarded by the educated pagan mind. It is impossible to persuade the common sense of mankind, that blind chance, whose sole attribute is chaotic disorder, is the source of the admirable order of this universal kosmo". Something does not come out of nothing. Our opponents would ask us; since blind chance may, amidst its infinite multitudes of experiments, happen upon any result whatsoever, why may it not sometimes happen upon some results wearing the aspect of orderly adaptation? My answer is, that the question puts the case falsely. Sometimes! No! Always. The fact to be accounted for is; that Nature’s results always have an orderly adaptation. I press again this crushing question: How is it that in every one of Nature’s results, in every organ of every organized creature which is extant, either in living or in fossil natural History, if the structure is comprehended by us, we see some orderly adaptation? Where are Nature’s failures? Where the vast remains of the infinity of her haphazard, orderless results? On the evolution theory, they should be a myriad times as numerous as those which possessed orderly adaptation. But in fact, none are found, save a few which are apparent exceptions, because, and only because, we have not yet knowledge enough to comprehend them. Through every grade of fossil life, if we are able at all to understand the creature whose remains we inspect, we perceive an admirable adjustment to the conditions of its existence. This is as true of the least developed, as of the most perfect. The genus may be now totally extinct: because the appropriate conditions of its existence have wholly passed away in the progress of changes upon the earth’s surface; but while those conditions existed, they were beautifully appropriate to the genus. So, if there is any structure in any existing creature, whose orderly adaptation to an end is not seen, it is only because we do not yet understand enough. Such is the conclusion of true science. Anatomists before Dr. Harvey saw the valvular membranes in the arteries and veins, opening opposite ways. That great man assumed, in the spirit of true science, that they must have their orderly adaptation; and this postulate led him to the grand discovery of the circulation of the blood. Such is the postulate of true, modest science still, as to every structure: it is the pole-star of sound induction. And once more: Contrivance to an end is not limited to organic life reproducing after its kind—the department where the evolutionist finds his pretext of "natural selection." The permanent inorganic masses also disclose the teleological argument, just as clearly as the organic. Sun, moon and stars do not propagate any day! Contrivance is as obvious in the planetary motions and the tides of ocean, as in the eye of the animal. "The undevout Astronomer is mad." Commodore Maury, in his immortal works, has shown us as beautiful a system of adaptations in the wastes of the atmosphere and its currents, as the Natural Historian finds in the realms of life. Who Designed the Susceptibility To Evolve? Second: I remark that if the theory of the evolutionist were all conceded, the argument from designed adaptation would not be abolished, but only removed one step backward. If we are mistaken in believing that God made every living creature that moveth after its kind: if the higher kinds were in fact all developed from the lowest; then the question recurs: Who planned and adjusted these wondrous powers of development? Who endowed the cell-organs of the first living protoplasm with all this fitness for evolution into the numerous and varied wonders of animal life and function, so diversified, yet all orderly adaptations? There is a wonder of creative wisdom and power, at least equal to that of the Mosaic genesis. That this point is justly taken, appears hence: Those philosophers who concede (as I conceive, very unphilosophically and unnecessarily) the theory of "creation by law," do not deem that they have thereby weakened the teleological argument in the least. It appears again, in the language of evolutionists themselves: When they unfold what they suppose to be the results of this system, they utter the words "beautiful contrivance of nature, ""wise adjustment" and such like, involuntarily. This is the testimony of their own reason, uttered in spite of a perverse and shallow theory. In fine; when we examine any of these pretended results of fortuity, we always find that the chance-accident was only the occasion, and not the efficient cause, of that result. Says one of the evolutionists: a hurricane may transplant a tree so as to secure its growth. The wind may happen to drop a sapling, which the torrent had torn up, with its roots downward, (they forming the heavier end) into a chasm in the earth, which the same hurricane makes by uprooting a forest tree. But I ask: Who ordains the atmospheric laws which move hurricanes! Who regulated the law of gravity? Who endued the roots of that sapling, as its twigs are not endued, with the power of drawing nutriment from the moist earth? Did the blind hurricane do all this? Whenever they attempt to account for a result by natural selection, they tacitly avail themselves of a selected adaptation which is, in every case, a priori to the physical results. Who conferred that prior adaptation and power? "If they had not ploughed with our heifer, they had not found out our riddle." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 20: 02.04. CHAPTER 3: DIVINE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD ======================================================================== Chapter 3: Divine Attributes of God Syllabus for Lectures 4 & 5: How much can Reason infer of the Attributes of God, His Eternity? How? Turrettin, Loc. iii, Qu. 10. Dick, Lecture 17. Dr. S. Clarke, Sect.1, 2, 5. Charnock on Attr. Vol. I, Discourse v. His Unity? How? Turrettin, Qu. 3. Paley, Nat. Theology. Dr. Dick Lecture 18. Dr. S. Clarke, Sect. 7. Maury, Physical Geography of Sea, p. 71. His Spirituality and simplicity? How? Turrettin, Qu. 7. Dick, Lect. 17. Dr. S. Clarke, Sect. 8. Rev. Ro. Hall, Sermon I, Vol. 3rd. Thornwell, Lecture 6th, pp. 162-166. Lecture 7th, pp. 186, etc. His Immensity and Infinitude? How? Turrettin, Qu. 8 & 9. Dick, Lecture 19. Dr. S. Clarke, Sect. 6. Charnock, Vol. I, Discourse 7th. Thornwell, His Immutability? Turrettin, Qu. II. Thomwell, Lecture 8, Sect. 5. Dick, Lecture 20th. Dr. S. Clarke, Sect. 2. Charnock, Vol. i, Discourse 6th. Can Reason infer God’s Omnipotence? How? Turrettin, Loc. iii, Qu. 21. Dr. S. Clarke, Prop. 10th. Dick, Lecture 23. Charnock, Discourse x. His Omniscience? How? Turrettin, Qu. 12. Dr. S. Clarke, Prop. 8 and 11. Dick, Lecture al, 22. Charnock, Discourse 8, Sect. 2. His Righteousness? How? Turrettin, Qu. 19. Dr. S. Clarke, Prop. 12th. Dick, Lecture 25. Chalmers’ Nat. Theology, bk iii, ch. 2. Hodge’s Theology, pt. i, ch. 5, Sect. 12. His Goodness? How? Turrettin, Qu. 20. Dr. S. Clarke, as above. Leibnitz, Theodicee Abregee. Chalmers’ Nat. Theology, bk. iv, ch. 2. Hodge, pt. i, ch, v, a 13. Charnock, Discourse 12. Does Reason show that man bears Moral Relations to God? What are they? And what the Natural Duties deduced? Butler’s Analogy, pt. i, ch. 2 to 5. Howe’s Living Temple, pt. i, ch. 6th. Dr. S. Clarke’s Discourse. Vol. ii, Prop. 1 to 4 Turrettin, qu. 22. Traditionary Knowledge Not To Be Separated From Rational, Here. It is exceedingly hard for us to return an exact answer to the question, How much reason can infer of the attributes of God? Shall we say: "So much as the wisest pagans, like Plato, discovered of them"? It still remains doubtful how much unacknowledged aid he may not have received from Hebrew sources. Many think that Plato received much through Pythagoras and his Egyptian and Mesopotamian researches. Or if we seek to find how far our own minds can go on this subject, without drawing upon the Scriptures, we are not sure of the answer; because when results have been given to us, it is much easier to discover the logical tie between them and their premises, than to detect unaided both proofs and results. Euclid having told us that the square of the hypothenuse equals the squares of the two remaining sides of every right angled triangle, it becomes much easier to hunt up a synthetic argument to prove it, than it would have been to detect this great relation by analysis. But when we approach Natural Theology we cannot forget the attributes which the Scriptures ascribe to God. 1. God’s Eternity. Regarding the Being of God’s existence, some attributes are clear to us. The first and most obvious of these attributes is that He has no beginning, and no end. By God’s eternity divines also intend a third thing: His existence without succession. These three propositions express their definition of His eternity: existence not related to time. For the first: His being never had a beginning: for had there ever been a time when the First Cause was not, nothing could ever have existed. So natural reason indicates that His being will never end, by this, that all pagans and philosophers make their gods immortal. The account of this conclusion seems to be, that it follows from God’s independence, self-existence, and necessary existence. These show that there can be no cause to make God’s being end. The immortality of the First Cause then is certain, unless we ascribe to it the power and wish of self-annihilation. But neither of these is possible. What should ever prompt God’s will to such a volition? His simplicity of substance (to be separately proved anon) does not permit the act; for the only kind of destruction of which the universe has any experience, is by disintegration. The necessity of God’s existence proves it can never end. The ground of His existence, intrinsic in Himself, is such that it cannot but be operative; witness the fact that, had it been, at any moment of the past infinite duration, inoperative, God and the universe would have been, from that moment, forever impossible. Is It Unsuccessive? But that God’s existence is without succession, does not seem so clear to natural reason. It is urged by Turrettin that "God is immense. But if His existence were measured by parts of duration, it would not be incommensurable." This is illogical. Do not the schoolmen themselves say, that essentia and esse are not the same? To measure the continuance of God’s esse by successive parts of time, is not to measure His essence thereby. A similar distinction shows the weakness of Turrettin’s second argument: "That because simple and immutable, He cannot exist in succession, for the flux of being from past to present and present to future would be change, and even change of composition." I reply it is God’s substance which is simple and immutable; that its subsistence should be a continuance in sucession does not imply a change in substance. Nor is it correct metaphysics to say that a subsistence in succession is compounded, namely of the essence and the successive momenta of time through which it is transmitted. (See here, Kant.) Nor is Dr Dick’s argument even so plausible: That God’s being in a past eternity must be unsuccessive, because an infinite past, composed of successive parts, is impossible; and whatever God’s mode of subsistence was, that it is, and will be. An infinite future made up of a succession of infinitely numerous finite parts is possible, as Dick admits; and so an infinite past thus constituted is equally as possible. Neither is comprehensible to our minds. If Turrettin or Charnock only meant that God’s existence is not a succession marked off by in His essence or states, their reasonings would prove it. But if it is meant that the divine consciousness of its own existence has no relation to successive duration, I think it unproved, and incapable of proof to us. Is not the whole plausibility of the notionthe following: that divines, following that analysis of our idea of our own duration into the succession of our own consciousnesses, (which Locke made so popular in his war against innate ideas,) infer: Since all God’s thoughts and acts are ever equally present with Him, He can have no succession of His consciousnesses; and so, no relation to successive time. But the analysis is false (see Lecture viii,) and would not prove the conclusion as to God, if correct. Though the creature’s consciousnesses constituted an unsuccessive unit act, as God’s do, it would not prove that the consciousness of the former was unrelated to duration. But 2d. In all the acts and changes of creatures, the relation of succession is actual and true. Now, although God’s knowledge of these as it is subjective to Himself, is unsuccessive, yet it is doubtless correct, i.e., true to the objective facts. But these have actual succession. So that the idea of successive duration must be in God’s thinking. Has He not all the ideas we have; and infinitely more? But if God in thinking the objective, ever thinks successive duration, can we be sure that His own consciousness of His own subsistence is unrelated to succession in time? The thing is too high for us. The attempt to debate it will only produce one of those "antinomies" which emerge, when we strive to comprehend the incomprehensible. 2. Unity of God. Does reason show the First Cause to be one or plural? If the first cause is single, then why is there such a strong tendency toward ploytheism? This may be explained in part by the craving of the common mind for concrete ideas. We may add the causes stated by Turrettin: That man’s sense of weakness and exposure prompts him to lean upon superior strength: That gratitude and admiration persuade him to deify human heroes and benefactors at their deaths: And that the copiousness and variety of God’s agencies have suggested to the incautious a plurality of agents. Hodge (Theol. P. 1, Ch. 3.) seems to regard Pantheism as the chief source of polytheism. He believes that pantheistic conceptions of the universe have been more persistent and prevalent in all ages than any other. "Polytheism has its, origin in nature worship:........and nature worships rests on the assumption that nature is God." But I am persuaded a more powerful impulse to polytheism arises from the co-action of two natural principles in the absence of a knowledge of God in Christ. One is the sense of weakness and dependence, craving a superior power on whom to lean. The other is the shrinking of conscious guilt from infinite holiness and power. We desire the benefits of knowing God, but shrink from the personal accountability such knowledge implies. The creature needs a God: the sinner fears a God. The expedient "solution" which results is the invention of intermediate and mediating divinities, more able than man to succour, yet less awful than the infinite God. Such is notably the account of the invention of saint worship, in that system of baptized polytheism known as Romanism. And here we see the divine adaptation of Christianity; in that it gives us Christ, very man, our brother: and very God, our Redeemer. Reason does pronounce God one. But here again, I repudiate weak supports. Argues Turrettin: If there are more than one, all equal, neither is God: if unequal, only the highest is God. This idea of exclusive supremacy is doubtless essential to religious trust; Has it, so far, been shown essential to the conception of a First Cause? Were there two or more independent eternal beings, neither of them would be an infallible object of trust. But has it been proved as yet, that we are entitled to expect such a one? Again, Dr. S. Clarke urges: The First Cause exists necessarily: but (a.) This necessity must operate forever, and everywhere alike, and, (b,) This absolute sameness must make oneness. Does not this savour of Spinozism? Search and see. As to the former proposition: all that we can infer from necessary existence is, that it cannot but be just what it is. What it is, whether singular, dual, plural; that is just the question. As to the 2d proposition, sameness of operation does not necessarily imply oneness of effect. Have two successive nails from the same machine, necessarily numerical identity? Others argue again: We must ascribe to God every conceivable perfection, because, if not, another more perfect might be conceived; and then he would be the God. I reply, yes, if he existed. It is no reasoning to make the capacity of our imaginations the test of the substantive existence of objective things. Again, it is argued more justly, that if we can show that the eternal self-existent Cause must be absolute and infinite in essence, then His exclusive unity follows, for that which is infinite is all-embracing as to that essence. Covering, so to speak, all that kind of being, it leaves no room for anything of its kind coordinate with itself. Just as after defining a universe, we cannot place any creature outside of it: so, if God is infinite, there can be but one. Whether He is infinite we shall inquire. Argued From Interdependence of All His Effects. The valid and practical argument, however, for God’s unity is the convergency of design and interdependency of all His works. All dualists, indeed, from Zoroaster to Manes, find their pretexts in the numerous cross-effects in nature, seeming to show cross-purposes: for example, one set of causes produces a fruitful crop: when it is just about to gladden the reaper, it is beaten into the mire by hail, through another set of atmospheric causes. Everywhere poisons are set against food, evil against good, death against life. Are there not two antagonist wills in Nature? Now it is a poor reply, especially to the mind aroused by the vast and solemn question of the origin of evil, or to the heart wrung by irresistible calamity, to say with Paley, that we see similarity of contrivance in all nature. Two hostile kings may wage internecine war, by precisely the same means and appliances. The true answer is, that, question nature as we may, through all her kingdoms, animal, inorganic, celestial, from the minutest disclosures of the microscope, up to the grandest revelations of the telescope, second causes are all inter-dependent; and the designs convergent so far as comprehended, so that each effect depends, more or less directly, on all the others. Reconsider, then, the first instance: The genial showers and suns gave, and the hail destroyed, the grain. But look deeper: They are all parts of one and the same meteorologic system. The same cause exhaled the vapour which made the genial rain and the ruthless hail. Nay, more; the pneumatic currents which precipitated the hail, were constituent parts of a system which, at the same moment, were doing somewhere a work of blessing. Nature is one machine, moved by one mind. Should you see a great mill, at one place delivering its meal to the suffering poor, and at another crushing a sportive child between its iron wheels: it would be hasty to say, "Surely, these must be deeds of opposite agents." For, on searching, you find that there is but one water-wheel, and not a single smaller part which does not inosculate, nearly or remotely, with that. This instance suggests also, that dualism is an inapplicable hypothesis. IsOrmusd stronger than Ahriman? Then he will be victor. Are both equal in power? Then the one would not allow the other to work with his machinery; and the true result, instead of being a mixture of cross-effects, would be a sort of "dead lock" of the wheels of nature. 3. God A Spirit. We only know substance by its properties; but our reason intuitively compels us to refer the properties known to a subjectum, a substratum of true being, or substantia. We therefore know, first, spiritual substance, as that which is conscious, thinks, feels, and wills; and then material substance, as that which is unconscious, thoughtless, lifeless, inert. To all the latter we are compelled to give some of the attributes of extension; to the former it is impossible to ascribe any of them. Now, therefore, if this first Cause is to be referred to any class of substance known to us, it must be to one of these two. Should it be conceived that there is a third class, unknown to us, to which the first Cause may possibly belong, it would follow, supposing we had been compelled to refer the first Cause to the class of spirits, (as we shall see anon that we must,) that to this third class must also belong all creature spirits as species to a genus. For we know the attributes, those of thought and will, common between God and them; it would be the differentia, which would be unknown. Is the first Cause, then, to be referred to the class, spirits? Yes; because we find it possessed, in the highest possible degree, of every one of the attributes by which we recognize spirit. It thinks; as we know by two signs. It produced us, who think; and there cannot be more in the effect than was in the cause. It has filled the universe with contrivances, the results of thought. It chooses; for this selection of contrivances implies choice. And again, from what source do creatures derive the power of choice, if not from it? It is the first Cause of life; but this is obviously an attribute of spirit, because we find full life nowhere, except we see signs of spirit along with it. The first Cause is the source of force and of motion. But matter shows us, in no form, any power to originate motion. Inertia is its normal condition. We shall find God’s power and presence penetrating and inhabiting all material bodies; but matter has a displacing power, as to all other matter. That which is impenetrable obviously is not ubiquitous. But may not God be like us, matter and spirit in one person? I answer, No. Because this would be to be organized; but organization can neither be eternal, nor immutable. Again, if He is material, why is it that He is never cognizable to any sense? We know that He is all about us always, yet never visible, audible nor palpable. And last, He would no longer be penetrable to all other matter, nor ubiquitous. Simplicity of God’s Substance. Divines are accustomed to assert of the divine substance an absolute simplicity. If by this it is meant that He is uncompounded, that His substance is ineffably homogeneous, that it does not exist by assemblage of atoms, and is not discerptible, it is true. For all this is clear from His true spirituality and eternity. We must conceive of spiritual substance as existing because all the acts, states, and consciousnesses of spirits, demand a simple, uncompounded substance. The same view is probably drawn from His eternity and independence. For the only sort of construction or creation, of which we see anything in our experience, is that made by some aggregation of parts, or composition of substance; and the only kind of death we know is by disintegration. Hence, that which has neither beginning nor end is uncompounded. But that God is more simple than finite spirits in this, that in Him substance and attribute are one and the same, as they are not in them, I know nothing. The argument is, that as God is immutably what He is, without succession, His essence does not like ours pass from mode to mode of being, and from act to act, but is always all modes, and exerting all acts; His modes and His acts are Himself. God’s thought is God. He is not active, but activity. I reply, that if this means more than is true of a man’s soul, viz: that its thought is no entity, save the soul thinking; that its thought, as abstracted from the soul that thinks it, is only an abstraction and not a thing; it is undoubtedly false. For then we should have reached the pantheistic notion, that God has no other being than the infinite series of His own consciousnesses and Nor would we be far off from the other result of this fell theory; that all that is, is God. For he who has identified God’s acts hence with His being, will next identify the effects thereof, the existence of the creatures therewith. 4. God Is Immense. Infinitude means the absolutely limitless character of God’s essence. Immensity the absolutely limitless being of His substance. His being, as eternal, is in no sense circumscribed by time; as immense, in no wise circumscribed by space. But let us not conceive of this as a repletion of infinite space by diffusion of particles: like, e. g., an elastic gas released in vacuo. The scholastic formula was, "The whole substance, in its whole essence, is simultaneously present in every point of infinite space, yet without multiplication of itself." This is unintelligible; (but so is His immensity) it may assist to exclude the idea of material extension. God’s omnipresence is His similar presence in all the space of the universe. Now, to me, it is no proof of His immensity to say, the necessity of His nature must operate everywhere, because absolute from all limitation. The inference does not hold. Nor to say that our minds impel us to ascribe all perfection to God; whereas exclusion from any space would be a limitation; for this is not conclusive of existences without us. Nor to say, that God must be everywhere, because His action and knowledge are everywhere, and these are but His essence acting and knowing. Were the latter true, it would only prove God’somnipresence. But so far as reason apprehends His immensity, it seems to my mind to be a deduction from His omnipresence. The latter we deduce from His simultaneous action and knowledge, everywhere and perpetually, throughout His universe. Now, let us not say that God is nothing else than His acts. Let us not rely on the dogma of the mediaeval physicks: "That substance cannot act save where it is present." But God, being the first Cause, is the source of all force. He is also pure spirit. Now we may admit that the sun (by its attraction of gravitation) may act upon parts of the solar system removed from it by many millions of miles; and that, without resorting to the hypothesis of an elastic ether by which to propagate its impulse. It may be asked: if the sun’s action throughout the solar system fails to prove His presence throughout it, how does God’s universal action prove His omnipresence? The answer is in the facts above stated. There is no force originally inherent in matter. The power which is deposited in it, must come from the first Cause, and must work under His perpetual superintendence. His, not theirs, is the recollection, intelligence, and purpose which guide. Now, as we are conscious that our intelligence only acts where it is present, and where it perceives, this view of Providence necessarily impels us to impute omnipresence to this universal cause. For the power of the cause must be where the effect is. But now, having traced His being up to the extent of the universe, which is to us practically immense, why limit it there? Can the mind avoid the inference that it extends farther? If we stood on the boundary of the universe, and some angel should tell us that this was "the edge of the divine substance," would it not strike us as contradictory? Such a Spirit, already seen to be omnipresent, has no bounding outline. Again, we see God doing and regulating so many things over so vast an area, and with such absolute sovereignty, that we must believe His resources and power are absolute within the universe. But it is practically boundless to us. To succeed always inside of it, God must command such a multitude of relations, that we are practically impelled to the conclusion, that there are no relations, and nothing to be related, outside His universe. But if His power is exclusive of all other, in all infinite space, we can scarcely avoid the conclusion that His substance is in all space. God Is Infinite. By passing from one to another of God’s attributes, and discovering their boundless character, we shall at last establish the infinitude of His essence or nature. It is an induction from the several parts. 5. By GOD’S IMMUTABILITY we mean that He is incapable of change. As to His attributes, His nature, his purposes, He remains the same from eternity to eternity. Creation and other acts of God in time, imply no change in Him; for the purpose to do these acts at that given time was always in Him, just as when He effected them. This attribute follows from His necessary existence; which is such that He cannot be any other than just what He is. It follows from his self-existence and independence; there being none to change Him. It follows from His simplicity: for how can change take place, when there is no composition to be changed? It follows from His perfection; for being infinite, He cannot change for the better; and will not change for the worse. Scarcely any attribute is more clearly manifested to the reason then God’s immutability. God Is All Powerful. When we enquire after God’s power we mean here, not his potestas, or exousia, authority, but His potentia or dunamis. When we say: He can do all things, we do not mean that He can suffer, or be changed, or be hurt; for the passive capacity of these things is not power, but weakness or defect. We ascribe to God no passive power. When we say that God’s power is omnipotence, we mean that its object is only the possible, not the absolutely impossible. Here, however, we must again define, that by the absolutely impossible, we do not mean the physically impossible. For we see God do many things above nature, [fusi";] that is above what material, or human, or angelic nature can effect. But we mean the doing of that which implies an inevitable contradiction. Some, such as the Lutherans of the older school, say it is a depreciation of God’s omnipotence, to limit it by the inevitable self-contradiction: [that He is able to confer actual ubiquity on Christ’s material body.] But we object: Popularly, God’s omnipotence may be defined as His ability to do all things. Now of two incompatibles, both cannot become entities together; for, by the terms of the case, the entity of the one destroys that of the other. But if they are not, and cannot be both things, the power of doing all things does not embrace the doing of incompatibles. But and, more conclusively; if even omnipotence could effect both of two contradictories, then the self-contradictory would become the true; which is impossible for man to believe. Hence, 3rd., the assertion would infringe the foundation principle of all truth, the law of non-contradiction, which affirmsthat a thing cannot be one thing, and not another thing, in the same sense, and at the same time.. We may add, 4th, that power is that which produces an effect; and every effect is a change. Therefore the absolutely changeless is not subject to power; whether that power is finite or infinite. Here is an application of my remark, which no reflecting person will dispute: The event which has actually happened at some past time, is, as such, irrevocable. Even omnipotence has no relevancy towards recalling it. So, when a given effect is in place, the contradictory effect is as absolutely precluded from the same time and place. There is no room for change; and therefore, no room for power. But between these limits, we believe God is omnipotent: That is, His power is absolute as to all being. In proof, note: He obviously has great power; He has enough to produce all the effects in the universe. Cause implies power: He is the universal first Cause. 2d. His power is at least equal to the aggregate of all the forces in the universe, of every kind; because all sprang from Him at first. A mechanic constructs a machine far stronger than himself; it is because he borrows the forces of nature. There was no source from which God could borrow. He must needs produce all those forces of nature Himself; and He sustains them. 3rd. God is one, and all the rest is produced by Him; so, since all the forces that exist, except His own, depend on Him, they cannot limit His force. It is absolutely unlimited, save by its own nature. And now, the exhibition of it already made in creation is so vast and varied, embracing (probably) the very existence of matter, and certainly its whole organization, the very existence of finite spirits, and all their attributes, end the government of the whole, that this power is practically to us immense. 4th. We have found God immutable. Whatever He once did, He can do again. He is as able to go on making universes such as this indefinitely, as to make this. 5th. He does not exist by succession; and He is able to make two or more at once, as well as successively. It is hard to conceive how power can be more infinite than this. God’s Power Immediate. Once more, God’s power must be conceived of as primarily immediate; i. e., His simple volition is its effectuation; and no means interpose between the will and the effect. Our wills operate on the whole external world through our members; and they, often, through implements, still more external. But God has no members; so that we must conceive of His will as producing its effects on the objects thereof as immediately as our wills do on our bodily members. Moreover the first exertion of God’s power must have been immediate; for at first nothing existed to be means. God’s immutability assures us that the power of so acting is not lost to Him. The attribution of such immediate power to God does not deny that He also acts through "second causes." 2. Wisdom Distinguished From Knowledge. None who believe in God have ever denied to Him knowledge and wisdom. Wisdom is the employment of things known, with judicious reference to proper ends. Now God is Spirit: but to think, to know, to choose are the very powers of spirits. The universe is full of beautiful contrivances. These exhibit knowledge, wisdom, and choice, coextensive with the entirety of the whole. God’s Knowledge of Two Kinds. But I had best pause and explain the usual distinctions made in God’s knowledge. His scientia visonis, or Libras, is His knowledge of whatever has existence before His view; that is, of all that is, has been, or is decreed to be. His scientia intelligentiae, or simplex(uncompounded with any volition) is His infinite conception of all the possible, which He does not purpose to effectuate. Others add a scientia media, which they suppose to be His knowledge of contingent effects including chiefly the future free and responsible acts of free agents. They call it mediate, because they suppose God foreknows these acts only inferentially, by means of His knowledge of their characters and circumstances. But Calvinists regard all this as God’s scientia visionis. Let us see whether, in all these directions, God’s knowledge is not without limit. Proved From God’s Will. First, I begin from the simple fact that He is spiritual and omnipotent First Cause. All being save His own is the offspring of His will. Grant a God, and the doctrine of a providence is almost self-evident to the reason. This refers not only phenomena of specific creation, but all phenomena, to God’s will. If any thing or event has actuality, it is because He has willed it. But now, can volition be conceived, in a rational spirit, except as conditioned on cognition a priori to itself? 1st, a knowledge is implied in God, a priori to and coextensive with His whole purpose. But because this purpose (that of universal almighty First Cause) includes the whole that has been, is, and shall be; and since volition does not obscure, but fix the cognition which is the object thereof, God has a scientia visionis, embracing all the actual. 2nd. Will implies selection: there must be more in the a priori cognition than is in the volition. Hence God’s scientia simplex or knowledge of the possible, is wider than his scientia visionis. This view will be found to have settled the question between us and Arminians, whether God purposes the acts of free agents because He has foreseen their certain futurition, or whether their futurition is certain because He has purposed them. Look and see. Knowledge and Wisdom Seen In His Works. But more popularly; all God’s works reveal marks of His knowledge, thought and wisdom. But these works are so vast, so varied, so full of contrivance, they disclose to us a knowledge practically boundless. His infinite power implies omniscience, for "knowledge is power." Certain success implies full knowledge of means and effects. We saw God is omnipresent; but He is spirit. Therefore, He knows all that is present to Him; for it is the nature of spirit to know. A parallel argument arises from God’s providence; (which reason unavoidably infers.) The ends which are subserved show as much knowledge and wisdom as the structure of the beings used—so that we see evidence of complete knowledge of all second causes, including reasonable agents and their acts. For so intimate is the connection of cause with cause, that perfect knowledge of the whole alone can certify results from any. Here also we learn, God’s knowledge of past and future is as perfect as of present things; for the completion of far-reaching plans, surely evolved from their remote causes, implies the retention by God of all the past, and the clear anticipation of all the future. Nay, what ground of certain futurition is there, save that God purposes it? His omnipotence here shows that He has a complete foreknowledge; because that which is to be is no other than what He purposes. God’s immutability proves also His perfect knowledge of past, present, and future. Did He discover new things, these might become bases for new purposes, or occasions of new volitions, and God would no longer be the same in will. God’s omniscience is implied also in all His moral attributes; for if He does not perform His acts understandingly, He is not praiseworthy in them. Last, our consciences reveal an intuition of God’s infinite knowledge; for our fears recognize Him as seeing our most secret, as well as our public acts. His unfading knowledge of the past is especially pointed out by conscience; for whenever she remembers, she takes it for granted that God does. Hence we find God’s scientia visionis is a perfect knowledge, past, present, and future, of all beings and all their actions, including those of moral agents. 2. Scientia Simplex Inferred. How do we infer His knowledge of the possible? A reasonable being must first conceive, in order to produce. He cannot make, save as He first has his own idea, to make by. God then, before He began to make the universe, must have had in His mind a conception, in all its details, of whatever He was to effectuate. Let me, in passing, call your attention to a difference between the human and the divine imagination, which is suggested here. You are all familiar with the assertion of the psychologists, that our imaginations cannot create elements of conception, but only new combinations. The original elements, which this faculty reconstructs into new images, must first be given to the mind from without, through sense-perception. Hence, in human conception, the thing must be before the thought; but in God’s, the thought must have been before the thing, for the obvious reason, that the thing could only come into existence by virtue of God’s conception a priori to any objective perception. It is therefore demonstrable, that the divine mind has this power, which is impossible to the human imagination. Such is the difference between the independent, infinite, and the dependent, finite spirit. But even in this contrast, we see that the imagination is one of man’s noblest faculties, and most godlike. But, to return: All that is now in esse, must have been thought by God, while only in posse, and before it existed. How long before? As God changes not, it must have been from eternity. There then was a knowledge of the possible. But was that which is now actual, the only possible before God’s thought? Sovereignty implies selection; and this, two or more things to chose among. And unless God had before Him the ideas of all possible universes, He may not have chosen the one which, had He known more, would have pleased Him best; His power was limited. In conclusion, the infallibility of all God’s knowledge is implied in His power. Ordinarily, he chooses to work only through regular second causes. But causes and effects are so linked that any uncertainty in one jeopardizes all the subsequent. But we see that God is possessed of some way of effectuating all His will. Therefore He infallibly knows all causes; but each effect is in turn a cause. God’s Knowledge All Primitive. We must also believe that God knows all things intuitively and not deductively. A deduction is a discovery To discover something implies previous imperfection of knowledge. God’s knowledge, moreover, is not successive as ours is, but simultaneous. Inference implies succession; for conclusion comes after premise. 3. Rectitude. God’s righteousness, as discoverable by reason, means, generally, His rectitude, and not His distributive justice. Is He a moral being? Is His will regulated by right? Reason answers, yes; by justice, by faithfulness, by goodness, by holiness. Rectitude of God Proven By Bishop Butler. First, because this character is manifest in the order of nature which He has established. This argument cannot be better stated than in the method of Bishop Butler. 1. God is Governor over man; as appears from the fact that in a multitude of cases, He rewards our conduct with pleasures and pains. For the order of Nature, whether maintained by God’s present providence, or impressed on it at first only, is God’s doing; its rewards are His rewarding. 2. The character of proper rewards, and especially punishments, appears clearly in these traits. They follow acts, though pleasant in the doing. They sometimes tarry long, and at last fall violently. After men have gone certain lengths, repentance and reform are vain, etc. 3. The reward and penalties of society go to confirm the conclusion, because they are of God’s ordaining. Second; This God’s rule is moral; because the conduct which earns well-being is virtuous; and ill-being, sinful. True remedial processes, such as repentance, reform, have their peculiar pains; but these are chargeable rather to the sin, than the remedy. True again; the wicked sometimes prosper; but natural reason cannot but regard this as an exception, which future awards will right. Further: Society (which is God’s ordinance,) usually rewards virtue and punishes vice. Love of approbation is instinctive; but God hence teaches men most generally to approve the right. And last: How clear the course of Nature makes God’s approval of the right appear, is seen in this; that all virtuous societies tend to self-perpetuation in the long run, and all vicious ones to self-extinction. Third: Life is full of instances of probation, as seed-time for harvest, youth for old age, which indicates that man is placed under a moral probation here. God’s Rectitude Argued From Conscience. But a most powerful argument for God’s rectitude is that presented by the existence of conscience in man. Its teachings are universal. Do some deny its intuitive authority, asserting it to be only a result of habit or policy? It is found to be a universal result; and this proves that God has laid in us some intentional foundation for the result. Now, whatever, the differences of moral opinion, the peculiar trait of conscience is that it always enjoins that which seems to the person right. It may be disregarded; but the man must think, if he thinks at all, that in doing so, he has done wrong. The act it condemns may give pleasure; but the wickedness of the act, if felt at all, can only give pain. Conscience is the imperative faculty. Now if God had not conceived the moral distinction, He could not have imprinted it on us. But is His will governed by it? Does he not, from eternity, know extension as an object of thought, an attribute of matter; and sin, as a quality of the rebel creature? Yet He Himself is neither extended, nor evil. The reply is: since God has, from eternity, had the idea of moral distinction, from what source is it derived, save from His own perfection? In what being is it illustrated, if not in Himself? But more, conscience is God’s imperative in the human soul. This is its peculiarity among rational judgments. But since God implanted conscience, its imperative is the direct expression of His will, that man shall act righteously. But when we say, that every known expression of a being’s will is for the right, this is virtually to say that he wills always righteously. The King’s character is disclosed in the character of his edicts. God’s truth and faithfulness are evinced by the same arguments; and by these, in addition. The structure of our senses and intelligence, and the adaptation of external nature thereto, are His handiwork. Now, when our senses and understanding are legitimately used, their informations are always found, so far as we have opportunity to test them, correspondent to reality. One sense affirms the correctness of another. Senses confirm reasonings, and vice versa. Last, unless we can postulate truth in God, there is no truth anywhere. For our laws of perception and thought being His imprint, if His truth cannot be relied on, their truth cannot, and universal skepticism is the result. 4. God’s Benevolence. "The world is full of the goodness of the Lord." I only aim to classify the evidences that God is benevolent. And 1st, generally: since God is the original Cause of all things, all the happiness amidst His works is of His doing; and therefore proves His benevolence. But more definitely; the natures of all orders of sentient beings, if not violated, are constructed, in the main, to secure their appropriate well-being. For instance the insect, the fish, the bird, the ox, the Man 1:3 rd. Many things occur in the special providence of God which show Him benevolent; such as providing remedial medicines, etc., for pain, and special interpositions in danger. 4th. God might, compatibly with justice, have satisfied Himself with so adapting external nature to man’s senses and mind as to make it minister to his being and intelligence, and secure the true end of his existence, without, in so doing, making it pleasant to his senses. Our food and drink might have nourished us, our senses of sight and hearing might have informed us, without making food sweet, light beautiful, and sounds melodious to us. And yet appetite might have impelled us to use our senses and take our food. Such, in a word, is God’s goodness, that He turns aside to strew incidental enjoyment. The more unessential these are to His main end, the stronger the argument. 5th. God has made all the beneficent emotions, love sympathy, benevolence, forgiveness, delightful in their exercise; and all the malevolent ones, as resentment, envy, revenge, painful to their subjects; hence teaching us that He would have us propagate happiness and diminish pain. Last: Conscience, which is God’s imperative, enjoins benevolence on us as one duty, whenever compatible with others. Benevolence is therefore God’s will; and doubtless, He who wills us to be so, is benevolent Himself. No Pagan theist ever has doubted God’s providence. You may refer me to the noted case of the Epicureans; they were practical atheists. Their notion that it was derogatory to the blessedness and majesty of the gods to be wearied with terrestrial affairs, betrays in one word a false conception of the divine perfections. Fatigue, confusion, worry, are the result of weakness and limitation. To infinite knowledge and power the fullest activities are infinitely easy, and so, pleasurable. Common sense argues from the perfection of God, that He does uphold and direct all things by His Providence. His wisdom and power enable Him to it. His goodness and justice certainly impel Him to it; for it would be neither benevolent nor just, having brought sentient beings into existence, to neglect their welfare, rights and guilt. God’s wisdom will certainly prosecute those suitable ends for which He made the universe, by superintending it. To have made it without an object; or, having one, to overlook that object wholly after the world was already made, would neither of them argue a wise being. The manifest dependence of the creature confirms the argument. Existence of Evil. How Explained. But there stands out the great fact of the existence of much suffering in the universe of God; and reason asks: "If God is almighty, all-wise, sovereign, why, if benevolent, did He admit any suffering in His world? Has He not chosen it because He is pleased with it per se?" It is no answer to say: God makes the suffering the means of good, and so chooses it, not for its own sake, but for its results. If He is omnipotent and all-wise, He could have produced the same quantum of good by other means, leaving out the suffering. Is it replied: No, that the virtues of sympathy, forgiveness, patience, submission, could have had no existence unless suffering existed? I reply that then their absence would have been no blemish or lack in the creature’s character. It is only because there is suffering, that sympathy therewith is valuable. Suppose it be said again: "All physical evil is the just penalty of moral evil," and so necessitated by God’s justice? The great difficulty is only pushed one step farther back. For, while it is true, sin being admitted, punishment ought to follow, the question returns: Why did the Almighty permit sin, unless He be defective in holiness as in benevolence? It is no theodicee to say that God cannot always exclude sin, without infringing free agency; for I prove, despite all Pelagians, from Celestius downwards, that God can do it, by His pledge to render elect angels and men indefectible for ever. Does God then choose sin? This is the mighty question, where a theodicee has been so often attempted in vain. The most plausible theory is that of the optimist; that God saw this actual universe, though involving evil, is on the whole the most beneficent universe, which was possible in the nature of things. For they argue, in support of that proposition: God being infinitely good and wise, cannot will to bring out of posse into esse, a universe which is on the whole, less beneficent than any possible universe. The obvious objections to this Beltistic scheme are two. It assumes without warrant, that the greatest natural good of creation is God’s highest end in creating and governing the universe. We shall see, later in this course, how this assumption discloses itself as a grave error; and in the hands of the followers of Leibnitz and the optimists, vitiates their whole theory of morals and their doctrine of atonement. The other objection is, that it limits the power of God. Being infinite, He could have made a universe including a quantum of happiness equal to that in our universe, and exclusive of our evils. Optimist Theory Modified. But there is a more legitimate and defensible hypothesis. It is not competent to us to say that the beneficence of result is, or ought to be, God’s chief ultimate end in creation and providence. It is one of His worthy ends; this is all we should assert. But may we not assume that doubtless there is a set of ends, (no man may presume to say what all the parts of that collective end are,) which God eternally sees to be the properest ends of His creation and providence? I think we safely may. Doubtless those ends are just such as they ought to be, with reference to all God’s perfections; and the proper inference from those perfections is, that He is producing just such a universe, in its structure and management, as will, on the whole, most perfectly subserve that set of ends. In this sense, and no other, I am an optimist. But now, let us make this all-important remark: When the question is raised, whether a God of infinite power can be benevolent in permitting natural, and holy in permitting moral evil, in His universe, the burden of proving the negative rests on the doubter. We who hold the affirmative are entitled to the presumption, because the contrivances of creation and providence are beneficent so far as we comprehend them. Even the physical and moral evils in the universe are obviously so overruled, as to bring good out of evil. (Here is the proper value in the argument, of the instances urged by the optimist: that suffering makes occasion for fortitude and sympathy, etc., etc.; and that even man’s apostacy made way for the glories of Redemption.) The conclusion from all these beautiful instances is, that so far as finite minds can follow them, even the evils tend towards the good. Hence, the presumptive probability is in favor of a solution of the mystery, consistent with the infinite perfections of God. To sustain that presumption against the impugner, we have only to make the hypothesis, that for reasons we cannot see, God saw it was not possible to separate the existing evils from that system which, as a whole, satisfied His own properest ends. Now let the skeptic disprove that hypothesis! To do so, he must have omniscience. Do you say, I cannot demonstrate it? Very true; for neither am I omniscient. But I have proved that the reasonable presumption is in favor of the hypothesis; that it may be true, although we cannot explain how it comes to be true. Man’s Duties To God. IF we admit the existence and moral perfections of God, no one will dispute that man is related to Him in the moral realm. This relation is apparent simply from the fact that man is a moral being who has been constituted by God, man’s Creator and providential Ruler. Human accountability to God may also be inferred from the marks of a probation, and the existence of a moral standard appearing in the course of nature. And our moral relation to God is emphatically pronounced by the native supremacy of conscience, commanding us to obey. Rational Deists as well as Natural Theologians have attempted to deduce the duties men owes his Creator. Usually, these duties usually are categorized into four general rules, the first: Reverent and grateful Love, 2. Obedience, 3. Penitence, and 4. Worship. The rule of obedience, is, of course, in natural religion, the law of nature in the conscience. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 21: 02.05. CHAPTER 4: MATERIALISM ======================================================================== Chapter 4: Materialism Syllabus for Lecture 6: What use is attempted, of the physical doctrine of the "Correlation of Forces," by recent Materialists? State and refute the theory which seeks to identify animal life with vegetable, in protoplasm. Show the connection between Materialism and Atheism; and the moral results of the latter. See Hodge’s Systematic Theology, Vol. I, pp. 246 to 299. Turrettin Locus V. Qu. 14th. Lay Sermons of Dr. Th. Huxley. Dr. Stirling on "Physical Basis of Life." Dr. Thomas Brown, Lectures, 96th. Soul’s Immateriality Involves Immortality. Dr. Thomas Brown, in his Lectures, very properly remarks that the question of man’s immortality is involved with that of the immateriality of his soul. There is, indeed, a small class of materialists, who might hold man’s immortality, without contradicting themselves. It is that which, like Thomas Jefferson, believed that the soul, while distinct from the body, and an independent, personal substance and monad, is some refined species of matter. They are willing to recognize only one kind of substance. But modern materialists usually deny that there is any such separate substance as soul. They regard its functions, whether of intelligence, feeling, or volition, as all results of some organization of matter. They consequently believe, that when dissolution separates the body into its elements, what men call the soul is as absolutely obliterated, as is the color or fragrance or form of a rose, when its substance has molded into dust. We utterly deny both forms of materialism. My purpose at this time is to consider a class of arguments, now again current, which may be called the physical arguments, upon the nature of life and spirit. The psychological arguments, if I may so term them, will be presented afterwards. Does Correlation of Forces Prove Soul A Force Only? We have seen how evolutionists seek to identify human, with animal life; by supposing man to have been slowly evolved even from the lowest form of animated creatures. If the success of this be granted, then only one more step will remain. This will be to identify animal, with vegetable life. Hence, all evidence of any separate substance of life, ( anima) will be removed. This last step, Dr. Huxley, for instance, undertakes to supply, in his Physical Basis of Life. Before we proceed to state this theory, however, the way must be prepared, by exposing the use attempted to be made of the modern physical doctrine of the "correlation of forces." Sound reflection would seem to indicate, that when a given physical force appears, it does not rise ex nihilo, and does not suffer annihilation when it seems to end. It is transmuted into some other form of force. Thus, in the boiler of a steam engine, so many degrees of caloric absorbed into a given volume of water, evolve so many pounds’ weight of lifting force. In like manner, it is now supposed that light, heat, electricity, chemical affinity, are all correlated. If we knew enough of physics, it is supposed we should find, that one of these forces might always be measured in terms of the others. When one of them seems to disappear, it is because it is transmuted into some other. The doctrine, in this sense, is held by many Christian physicists: and in this form, Theology has nothing to do with it either for denial or affirmation. But recent materialists catch at it for an anti-theological use. They would have us infer from it, that all physical causes are identical. Then, say they, this analogy should lead us to conclude the same of what have hitherto been called vital causes; that in short, there is but one cause in Nature, and that is of the nature of force; while all effects are accordingly of the nature of material motion. Thus, the converging lines of science, say they, point to a central Force, as the only God, which the rational man will accept. All the universe is the one substance (if it be a substance) matter. And all effects are forms of material motion, molecular or in masses. All Forces Not Proved To Be Correlated. It is obvious that this is at best, but a vague speculation. I deny that its basis in physical science has been solidly settled, even could we grant that the use made of that basis was not utterly licentious. Has the force of gravity been yet correlated with heat, light and electricity? It seems fatal to such an idea, that a mass still has the same gravity, while its calorific and electrical conditions are most violently changed! It may well be doubted, whether the force of mechanical adhesion between the atoms of homogeneous solids, is identical with chemical affinity, or with electricity, or heat. The latter diminishes the atomic adhesion of solid iron, or gold, reducing it to a liquid? But at the same time it increases the cohesion of clay. Again, that this hypothesis in its extreme form, is by no means proved, appears from the ease with which a counter-hypothesis may be advanced, which physicists are not able absolutely to exclude. Let it be supposed that material forces are permanent properties of the different kinds of matter in which they severally inhere. Let it be supposed that these forces are truly distinct from each other, and intrinsically ever present, in the sense of being always ready to act. Then, all that is needed to cause the action of a given force, is to release it from the counteraction of some other force; which has hitherto counterpoised it, hence producing for the time, a non-action which appeared to be rest. Then, every physical effect would be the result of a concurrence of two or more forces; and each force would forever maintain intrinsically, its distinct integrity. This hypothesis has very plausible supports in a number of physical facts; and it is in strict accordance with the metaphysics of causation. But, not to intrude into physics: we might grant the identity of these forces of dead matter, and yet deny that they are correlated to vitality. No one has ever succeeded in transmuting any of them into vital causation, nor in measuring vitality in the terms of any of these forces. To say that all thought and volition are attended by muscular contractions, and oscillations of the nerve-matter of the brain, is very far from showing that they constitute them. Let it be proved that the nerve force in a human muscle is electrical. Let it be observed that surprise, shame, fear, or muscular exertion, stimulate the animal heat, and that the caloric in a blush upon the cheek of youth is as literally caloric as that in the boiler of a steam engine. To what does all this come? Who or what uses these modifications of organs? The living spirit. This muscular action is quiescent at one time, active at another, at the bidding of spirit. The eyes and ears may carry to that spirit the objective sensations which are the occasions of emotion; but the emotion is always from within. Let the state of the firing spirit be changed: and the occasional cause has no more power to raise the glow of hot blood, or to nerve the arm, than in a stone. As a Christian writer has well replied: the attempt to identify vital, or spiritual causation with material forces would tee exploded by this one instance. Let opprobrious words be addressed to a plain Briton in the French language: and no pulse is quickened, no nerve becomes tense. Now translate the insult into English: at once his cheek burns, and his arm is nerved to strike. Why this? The French words were as audible as the English, they vibrated to the same degree upon the auditory nerves. But to the spirit of the Briton, there was no meaning. A mere idea has made all this difference. The cause is solely in a mental modification, of which the material phenomenon was merely occasion. Tyndal himself confesses that this argument of the materialists is naught: that though they had proved all they profess to prove, there is an unbridged chasm between force and life. Vital Cause Heterogeneous. For, in the next place, physical force and vital causation are heterogeneous. The former, in all its phases, is unintelligent, involuntary, measurable by weight and velocity, and quantity of matter affected, producing motion, mechanical or molecular, and tending to equilibrium. All animal life has some species of spontaneity. Spirit, as a cause, has the unique attribute of freeagency, the opposite of inertia, self-active, directive. Mind and its modifications cannot be measured in any physical terms or quantities; and therefore they cannot be correlated. Volition controls or directs force; it is not transmuted into it. If we descend to the lowest forms of animal vitality, we still find a gulf between it and dead matter, which science never has passed over. No man has ever educed life, without the use of a germinal vital cause. This vital cause, again, resists the material forces. When it departs, caloric and chemical affinities resume their sway over the matter of the body lately living, as over any similar matter; but as long as the vital cause is present, it is directly antagonistic to them. Is There A Physical Basis of Life? Huxley, who himself admits that there is no genesis of life from died matter, yet very inconsistently attempts to find a physical basis of life, common to animals and plants, in a substance whose molecules are chemically organized, which he calls protoplasm.He asserts that this, however varied, always exhibits a threefold unity, of faculty, of form and of substance. First, the faculties are alike in all; contractility, alimentation, and reproduction. All vegetable things are sensitive plants, if we knew them, and the difference of these functions in the lowest plant and highest animal, is only one of degree! Secondly, Protoplasm is everywhere identical in molecular form. And, thirdly, its substance is always oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon. The fate, then, of all protoplasm is death: that is, dissolution into its four elements; and its origin is the chemical union of the same. Does the compound display properties very different from the elements? So has water properties very unlike the mixture of two volumes of oxygen and hydrogen gas. Yet, the electric spark flashed through them awakens the chemical affinity, which makes water. So, a little speck of pre-existing protoplasm causes these dead elements to arrange themselves into new protoplasm. There is, then, no more cause to assume in the living organism, a new and mysterious cause, above that of chemical affinity, and to name it vitality! than in the other case, an imaginary property of "aquosity." And, as a certain chemical aggregation of the four elements is protoplasm, the basis of all life; so the higher vital functions, including those of mind, must be explained by the same force, acting in a more complicated way. No Basis of Life Except the Cell. For the facts which explode this theory, we are, of course, dependent on physiologists. The most experienced of them, then, declare that the most rudimental vitalized organism which the microscope discloses, is not Dr. Huxley’s protoplasm, but a living tissue cell, with its vital power of nutrition and reproduction. That all protoplasm, or living protein, is not alike in form, nor in constituent elements; and so marked is this, that microscopists know the different sources of these varieties of protein, by their appearance. That different vitalities construct different forms of protein out of the same elements. That some forms are utterly incapable of being nourished by some other forms; which should not be the case, were all protoplasm the same. That while vegetable vitality can assimilate dead matter, animal vitality can only assimilate matter which has been prepared for it by vegetable (or animal) vitality. And, that all protoplasm is not endowed with contractility; so that the pretended basis for animal motion does not exist in it. Life Not Explained By Chemical Affinity. The seemingly plausible point in this chemical theory of life is the attempted parallel between the production of water and of protoplasm. Asks Huxley: "Why postulate an imaginary cause, ‘vitality,’ in this case, rather than ‘aquosity,’ over and above chemical affinity, in the other?" The answer is that this analogy is false, both as to the causes and the effects, in the two cases. In the production of water from the two gases, the occasion is the electrical spark; the real, efficient cause is the affinity of the oxygen for the hydrogen. In the reproduction of living tissue, the efficient cause is a portion of preexisting living tissue, present, of the same kind. The proof is, that if this be absent all the chemical affinities and electrical currents in the world are vain. The elements of a living tissue are held together, not by chemical affinities, but by a cause heterogeneous thereto, yea, adverse; the departure of which is the signal for those affinities to begin their action; which action is to break up the tissue. As to the effects in the two cases: In the production of water, the electric spark is the occasion for releasing the action of an affinity, which produces a compound substance. In the case of the living organism, there is an effect additional to composition: This is life. Here, I repeat, is an effect wholly in excess of the other case, which affinity cannot imitate. Protoplasm dead, and subject to the decomposing action of affinities (as water is of the metals) is the true analogue of water. Has No Verification. But this theory has another defect, the fatal nature of which Huxley himself has pointed out: the defect of actual verification. No man has ever communicated life to dead, compounded matter. Let the materialist make a living animal in his chemical laboratory; then only will his hypothesis begin to rise out of the region of mere dreams. There are, in fact, four spheres or worlds of creature existence, the inorganic, or mineral, the vegetable, the animal and the human, or spiritual. Notwithstanding analogies between them (which are just what reason expects between the different works of the same divine Architect) they are separated by inexorable bounds. No man has ever changed mineral matter into a vegetable structure, without the agency of a preexistent living germ; nor vegetable matter into animal, without a similar animal germ; nor animal into spiritual, save by the agency of the birth of a rational soul. The scientific, as much as the theological conclusion, is: That there is in vegetable structures, a distinct, permanent cause, additional to those which combine mineral bodies; that there is another in the animal, distinct from the mineral and vegetable; and still another in the spiritual, distinct from the other three. The inference is a posteriori, and bears the test of every canon of sound induction. All Life Shows Design. This suggests our next point of reply. There is, in living tissue, a something more than the physical causes which organize it: Design. We have diverse and ingenious organs, wonderfully designed for their different essential functions. Now, design is a thought! Yea, more; intentional adaptation discloses a personal volition. Suppose that molecular and chemical affinities could make "protoplasm," can they educe design, thought, wisdom, choice? Dr. Stirling admirably illustrates this licentious assumption of Huxley, (referring still to Paley’s illustration of a newly found watch): "Protoplasm breaks up into carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen? True. The watch breaks up similarly into brass, steel, gold and glass. The loose materials of the watch [even its chemical materials, if you will] replace its weight quite as accurately as the constituents, carbon, etc., replace the weight of the ‘protoplasm.’ But neither these nor those replace the vanished idea, which was the important element. Mr. Huxley saw no break in the series of steps in molecular complication; but, though not molecular, it is difficult to understand what more striking, what more absolute break could be desired, than the break into an idea. It is of that break alone that we think in the watch; and it is of that break alone that we should think, in the protoplasm, which, far more cunningly, far more rationally, constructs a heart, or an eye, or an ear. That is the break of breaks; and explain it as we may, we shall never explain it by molecules." Here, then, is a fatal chasm in the materialistic scheme. It not only supposes, falsely, that chemical affinities, cohesion, can account for living substance; but that the force of this "protoplasm," unintelligent, blind, involuntary, has exerted thought, wisdom and rational choice in selecting ends and adapted means. Even if the powers claimed for "protoplasm" were granted, still a Creator, to give us the first protoplasm with which to start, would be as essential as ever. For the scientific fact still remains, that only living structures reproduce living structures. Scheme Materialistic. Finally, see these words of Huxley: "But I bid you beware that, in accepting these conclusions" (as to "protoplasm") "you are placing your feet on the first rung of a ladder which, in most people’s estimation, is the reverse of Jacob’s, and leads to the antipodes of heaven. It may seem a small thing to admit, that the dull, vital actions of a fungus or a foraminifer are the properties" (meaning chemical and molecular) "of their protoplasm, and are the direct results of the nature of the matter of which they are composed. But if, as I have endeavored to prove to you, their protoplasm is identical with, and most readily converted into, that of any animal, I can discover no logical halting place between the admission that such is the case, and the concession that all vital action may, with equal propriety, be said to be the result of the molecular forces of the protoplasm which; displays it. And if so, it must be true, in the same sense, and to the same extent, that the thoughts to which I am now giving utterance, and your thoughts regarding them, are expressions of molecular in that matter of life, which is the source of other vital phenomena" (Lay Sermons p. 38). This pretended reasoning I present to you as a specimen of the absurd and licentious methods by which the attempt is made to overthrow at once the almost universal convictions off rational men, and the declarations of God’s word. The conclusions I utterly deny, even if the premises were granted. If it were proved (which is not) that vegetable life was no more than the result of adhesion and chemical affinity, this would come wholly short of the identification of animal life with vegetable. If rudimental animal life were identified with chemical action, this would be utterly short of proving that mental action is identical with the other two. The chasm between animal and spiritual action, is as impassable as ever. As we have seen, the unconscious, vegetable organism contains, in its adaptation to its end, a mark of thought about it, which cannot be overlooked. But now, the intelligent being has thought in it also; making a double and an insuperable difficulty to the materialist. For thought and rational choice cannot possibly be referred to a substance extended, inert, passive and involuntary. These functions of spirit are heterogeneous with all other forces, not measured by them, and not capable of transmutation into them. But we are now upon the threshold of the psychological argument against materialism. The tendency of Dr. Darwin’s speculations is to obliterate the distinction between man and the brutes; man is thus virtually also made into a beast. Yet, Huxley takes it further. Huxley would have us end by reducing both beast and man to the level of the clod. Why is it that any mind possessed even of the culture necessary for the construction of these theories, does not resent the unspeakable degradation which they inflict upon mankind? Men would not outrage and rebel against their own natures to this extremity without some ulterior motive. That motive probably is to be emancipated from moral obligation to God, and to escape those immortal responsibilities which remorse foreshadows. It seems a fine thing to the sinful mind to have no omniscient Master, to be released from the stern restraints of law, to be obliged to no answer hereafter for conscious guilt. For if there is no spirit in man, there is no valid evidence to us that there is a Spirit anywhere in the universe. God and immortality are both blotted out together. But let us see whether even the sinner has any motive of self-interest to say in his heart: "There is no God"; whether atheism is not at least as horrible as hell. Has No Hope But Annihilation. The best hope of materialism is annihilation. This is a destiny terrible to man, even as he is, conscious of guilt, and afraid of his own future. Does the materialist plead that, if this fate ends all happiness, it is at least an effectual shield against all misery? I reply, that the destruction of man’s being is a true evil to him, just to the extent that he ever experienced or hoped any good from his own existence. How strong is the love of life? Just so real and so great is the evil of extinction. Secondly, but for guilt and fear, a future immortality would be hailed by any living man as an infinite boon. And of this, annihilation would rob us. How base and vile is that theory of existence, which compels a rational free agent to embrace the hope of an infinite loss, solely as a refuge from his own folly and fault? The vastness of the robbery of self can be poorly cloaked by the miserable fact, that the soul has so played the fool and traitor to its own rights that it has compelled itself to seek the infinite loss of annihilation, rather than an alternative still worse! The Theory Miserable. But materialism and atheism do not make you sure of annihilation. A conscious identity continued through so many stages and changes, may continue in spite of death. Some materialists have devoutly believed in immortality. But if man is immortal, and has no God, this itself is eternal despair. Nor can any materialistic theory expel from the soul those immortal realities, sin, guilt, accountability, remorse, misery: for they are more immediately testified by our intuitions, than any physical fact possibly can be, which men attempt to employ as a datum for this soulless philosophy. At least, when death comes, that "most wise, mighty, and eloquent orator" dispels the vain clouds of materialism, and holds the sinner face to face with these realities, compelling him to know them as solid as his own conscious existence. But now, if his theory is true there is no remedy for these miseries of the soul. There is no God omnipotent to cleanse and deliver. There is no Redeemer in whom dwell the divine wisdom, power, love and truth, for man’s rescue. The blessed Bible, the only book which ever even professed to tell fallen man of an adequate salvation, is discredited. Providence and grace are banished out of the existence of helpless, sinful man. There is no object to whom we can address prayer in our extremity. In place of a personal God and father in Christ, the fountain and exemplar of all love and beneficence, to whom we can cry in prayer, on whom we may lean in our weakness and anguish, who is able and willing to heal depravity and wash away guilt, who is suited to be our adequate portion through an eternal existence, we are left face to face with this infinite nature, material, impersonal, reasonless, heartless. There is no supreme, rational or righteous government; and when the noblest sentiments of the soul are crushed by wrongs so intolerable, that their perpetual triumph is felt to be an alternative as hateful as death, there is not, nor shall there ever be, to all eternity, any appeal to compensating justice! But our only master and ruler is an irresistible, blind machine, revolving forever by the law of a mechanical necessity; and the corn between its upper and nether millstones, is this multitude of living, palpitating human hearts, instinct with their priceless hopes, and fears, and affections, and sensibilities, writhing and bleeding forever under the remorseless grind. The picture is as black as hell itself! He who is "without God in the world" is "without hope." Atheism is despair. The Scheme Short-Lived. Materialism and atheism will never win a permanent victory over the human mind. The most they can do is to betray a multitude of unstable souls to their own perdition by flattering them with future impunity in sin; and to visit upon Christendom occasional spasms of anarchy and crime. With masses of men, the latter result will always compel these schemes to work their own speedy cure. For, on their basis, there can be no moral distinction, no right, no wrong, no rational, obligatory motive, no rational end save immediate, selfish and animal good, and no rational restraints on human wickedness. The consistent working of materialism would turn all men into beasts of prey, and earth into pandemonium. The partial establishment of the doctrine immediately produces mischiefs so intolerable, that human society refuses to endure them. Besides this, the soul of man is incapable of persistent materialism and atheism, because of the inevitable action of those original, constitutive laws of thought and feeling, which qualify it as a rational spirit. These regulative laws of thought cannot be abolished by any conclusions which result from themselves, for the same reason that streams cannot change their own fountains. The sentiment of religion is omnipotent in the end. We may rest in assurance of its triumph, even without appealing to the work of the Holy Spirit, whom Christianity promises as the omnipotent attendant of the truth. While irreligious men explore the facts of natural history for fancied proofs of a creation by evolution which omits a Creator, the heralds of Christ will continue to lay their hands upon the heart strings of immortal men, and find there always the forces to overwhelm unbelief. Does the materialist say that the divine deals only with things spiritual? But spiritual consciousness are more stable than all his material masses; than his primitive granite. Centuries from now, (if man shall continue in his present state so long) when these current theories of unbelief shall have been consigned to that limbus, where Polytheism, the Ptolemaic astronomy, Alchemy and Judicial Astrology lie condemned, Christianity will hold on its beneficent way. The Atheist the Enemy of His Kind. There is an argument ad hominem, by which this discussion might be closed with strict justice. If materialism is true, then the pretended philosopher who teaches it is a beast; and all we are beasts. Brute animals are not amenable to moral law; and if they were, it is no murder to kill a beast. But beasts act very consistently upon certain instincts of self-interest. Even they learn something by experience. But this teaches us that the propagator of atheistic ideas is doing intolerable mischief; for just so far as they have prevailed, they have let loose a flood of misery. Now, then, the teacher of those ideas is venomous. The consistent thing for the rest of us animals to do, who are not beasts of prey, is, to kill him as soon as he shows his head; just as the deer cut the rattlesnake in pieces whenever they see him, with the lightning thrusts of their sharp hoofs. Why is not this conclusion perfectly just? The only logic which restrains it, is that Christianity which says: "Thou shalt not kill," which the atheist flouts. The only reason we do not treat atheists in this way is precisely because we are not atheists. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 22: 02.06. CHAPTER 5: IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL AND DEFECTS OF NATURAL RELIGION ======================================================================== Chapter 5: Immortality of the Soul and Defects of Natural Religion Syllabus for Lecture 7: Show the testimony of Consciousness, Reason and Conscience to the soul’s spirituality. Butler’s Analogy, pt. I, ch. 1, 2. Turrettin, Locus v. Qu. 14. Hodge, Theol. Vol. I, ch. iii, Sect. 4, E. Dr. S. Clarke’s Disc. Vol. ii, prop. 4. Dr. Thomas Brown, Lectures 96, 97. Breckinridge’s Theol. Vol. I, p. 58-70. Chalmers’ Nat. Theol. bk. iii, ch. 3. Does Natural Theology show the immortality of the soul? See same authorities. Does Reason hold out any sure prospect of the pardon of our sins? Butler’s Analogy, pt. ii, ch. 5. University Lectures on Evidences: Dr. Van Zandt, pp. 43 to 51. Dr. S. Clarke as above, prop. vi. Can Natural Theology be sufficient for man’s religious welfare? How much evidence in the answer for the inspiration of the Bible? Turrettin, Locus i, Qu. 4. Univ. Lecture by Van Zandt. Chalmers’ Nat. Theology, bk. v, ch. I. Dr. S. Clarke, as above, Props. v to viii. Leland’s "Necessity of Revelation," at large. Psychological Argument For Spirit. In advancing to the solemn question of our immortality, I would remind you of the opening remark of the last lecture: That practically this question is involved in that of the soul’s spirituality. The attempts made to infer that the soul is not a spirit, from certain physical theories, I there endeavored to overthrow. The argument from psychological facts given us in our own consciousness, now remains; and this is obviously the legitimate, the conclusive one. For, let the supposition that man has a separate, immaterial spirit, be once brought into the debate; and of course, sensuous evidences of its truth or falsehood are equally out of the question, by the very definition of spirit as substance that is simple, monadic, unextended, indivisible, devoid of all sensible attributes. The spiritualdata of consciousness are the only ones which can possibly give conclusive evidence, for or against the proposition. When the physicist argues that "science" (meaning thereby exclusively the science of sensible phenomena) "tells him nothing of spirit," I reply, of course it does not. But if he uses that admission, to argue there is no spirit, he is precisely as preposterous, as though he should wish to decide the question whether a given crystal vase contains atmosphere, by remarking that his eyesight does not detect any color in the space included in the vase. Of course it does not; when the very definition of atmosphere is, of a gas absolutely transparent and colorless in limited masses. Other faculties than eyesight must decide the question of fact. So other faculties than the senses must decide whether there is a spirit in man; when the very claim of our hypothesis is, that this spiritual substance is wholly super-sensuous. The only quarrel we have with the physicists for saying "their science tells them of no spirit," is against the apparent intimation that the science of sensible things is the only science! Let Physics observe their proper modesty, as only one branch of valid science; and let her recognize her elder sisters of the super-sensuous sphere, and we are content she shall announce that result. Consciousness Is Only of Spirit. The great evidence of the soul’s spirituality will be found when inspected, intuitive. Man only knows by his own ideas, recognized in consciousness. The very consciousness of these implies a being, a substance which is conscious. So that man’s knowledge of himself, as conscious, thinking substance is a priori to, though implicitly present in, all his other thinking: That is to say; he knows his own thinking Self first, and only by knowing it, knows any other thing. In other words: Every sound mind must accept this self-evident fact; my having any idea, sensitive or other, implies the Ego that has it. I can only have perception of the objective, by assuming a priori, the reality of the subjective. I cannot construe to myself any mental state without postulating real being, a subjectum, to which the state may be referred. But this thinking Self is impressed from without with certain states, called sensations, which we are as inevitably impelled to refer to objective substance, to the non Ego. Now in comparing this conviction of the Ego and non-Ego, a certain contrast between their attributes inevitably arises. The first conviction arises out of a thoughtful inspection of the contents of consciousness, is the singleness of the mind. It learns the qualities of the objective (or, the external stimulus) by different sensations, but all sensations are inevitably referred to the same knowing subject. The Self who knows by touching, is always identical with that which knows by tasting, smelling, seeing, and hearing. The Self who knows by sensations is identical with that which reflects upon its sensations. The Self which conceives an object of emotion, is the same that feels towards that object. In the midst of the conscious diversity of all these states of mind, there remains the inexorable consciousness of the singleness of the mind affected by them. But the objective always exists before us in plurality. And of A Monad. Next, we learn from sense-perception that all the objective is compounded. The simplest material substance is constituted by an aggregation of parts, and may be conceived as divided. The lightest has some weight; the smallest has some extension; all have some figure. But our consciousness tells us intuitively, that the thing in us which thinks, feels, wills, is absolutely simple. Not only does this intuition refer all our mental states and acts to one and the same thinking subject, notwithstanding their wide diversity. But we know that they coexist in that subject, without plurality or partition. We are conscious that the agent which conceives, is the same agent which, upon occasion of that concept, is affected with passion. That which hates one object and loves its opposite, is the same agent, notwithstanding the diversity of these states. Moreover, every affection and act of a mind has an absolute unity. It is impossible even to refer any attribute of extension to it in conception. He who endeavors to imagine to himself a concept that is colored or ponderous (as it is a mental act) an affection that is triangular as distinguished from another that is circular, a judgment that has its top and its bottom, a volition which may be divided by a knife or wedge into halves and quarters, feels inevitably that it is unspeakable folly. All the attributes of extension are absolutely irrelevant to the mind and its acts and states. And especially is this thought fatal to the conclusion, that mental affections may be functions of organized bodies of matter; namely: that whereas we know all our mental affections have an absolute unity, we are taught by our senses, that all qualities and affections of organisms are aggregates of similar affections or qualities of parts. The whiteness of a wall is the whiteness of a multitude of separate points in the wall. The magnetism of a metal rod is the aggregate of the magnetisms of a multitude of molecules of metal. The properties may be literally subdivided with the masses. The materialistic conception receives a most complete and exact refutation, when we recall the multitude of distinct things in consciousness. If the soul is material, then it has some dimensions; less, at all events than the superficies of our bodies. Recall now, for instance, the countless multitude of ideas marked in our unconscious memory. How are they all distinguishably made on a surface of no more breadth? Remember, that if materialism is true, the viewing of these ideas in conception, is a sensuous perception. How many distinct lines on an inch’s surface can sense perceive? That is settled with a geometrical exactness! How then are these countless marks preserved on a surface of sixty inches; or possibly, of a fraction of one inch? Contrasted Attributes Imply Contrasted Substances. Now the law of our reason compels us to refer this absolute contrast of attributes to a real difference of substance. While we name the Ego, spirit, we must call the objective something else, matter. Man can not think at all, without virtually predicating his thinking on the recognition of a substance that thinks, essentially different from the objective, a spiritual monad. We can only know matter, by having known mind. It is impossible, my Brethren, for me to impress you too strongly with the impregnable strength of this position against the materialist. It is our "Gibraltar." The man who thinks consistently, must always be more certain that there is mind, than that there is matter. Because any valid act of intelligence must imply an intelligent subject. And the recognition of the Ego which knows, is a priori, and in order to perception of an object known by it. If then the existence of mind is uncertain, the existence of anything objective is inevitably more uncertain. Does sense-perception seem to the materialist to give him the most palpable knowledge of the matter external to him? But he has only been enabled to construe that perception at all, so as to make it a datum of valid knowledge, by first crediting the intuition of consciousness, which reveals the perceiving Agent distinct from the object revealed. How unfair, how unscientific is this attempt to use intuition in its less direct, and refuse it in its more direct, testimonies! If she is to be trusted in her interpretation of the objective sensation, she is, of course, still more to be trusted in her subjective self-consciousness. Substance Only Cognized By Admitting Spirit. Pure idealism is less unphilosophical than materialism. Whereas the former outrages one class of valid intuitions; the latter outrages two. The stress of the argument which I have just explained, is disclosed in a curious way, by the multitudinous confessions of the modern materialists. Huxley, for instance, after abolishing spirit, finds himself in such difficulty, that he feels compelled to spiritualize matter! His materialism is resolved into a species of idealism, which he ineptly attempts to connect with the metaphysics of Des Cartes. First we are taught that there is no such substance as spirit; but its supposed functions are merely phenomena of Force, the only cause which materialism can recognize in nature. And then, to deliver us from the absurdities of this metaphysic, we are taught that there is no such substance as matter; but this is only an ideal possibility of force! Therefore we find that reason was destroyed to exalt the validity of sense-perception exclusively; and now sense-perception is destroyed in turn, leaving us Nihilism. Free Agency Refutes Materialism. Materialism contradicts our intuition of our own free agency. Experience shows us two rival classes of effects, the corporeal being one, thought, feeling and volition the other. Now it is impossible to think an effect without an adequate cause. But when the reason begins to represent to itself these causes, it perceives an inevitable difference. The corporeal effects are necessary; the spiritual are free. The one class is the result of blind force; the other is an expression of free agency. Here are two heterogeneous causes, matter and spirit, acting the one by force, the other by free agency. Responsibility Refutes It. Materialism contradicts the testimony of our moral consciousness. It teaches that matter, if a cause, is an involuntary and unintelligent cause. But we know that we are responsible; which unavoidably implies a rational spontaneity in acting. To hold a blind, material force to a moral responsibility is preposterous. But this conviction of responsibility in conscience is universal, radical, unavoidable, and intuitive. It is impossible for a man to discharge his mind of it. He cannot think the acknowledged wrong equal to the right, and the admitted wrong-doer irresponsible for his wrong, like a rolling stone, a wave, or a flame. These facts of consciousness compel us to admit a substance heterogeneous from matter. Had man no spirit, there would be nothing to be accountable. Had he no God, there would be none to whom to be accountable. If either were true, our very nature would be a lie, and knowledge impossible. Feeble attempts are made by modern materialists to meet these arguments, by saying first: That consciousness is not to be trusted. Consciousness, say they, is incomplete. She gives no account of the subjective acts and states of infancy; and no correct account of those of the mentally diseased. She tells us nothing usually of the large latent stores of memory. She is absolutely silent as to any interaction of the nerve-system and the spirit; of which, if there is spirit, there must be a great deal. Consciousness Is Trustworthy. But to what does all this amount? Consciousness does not tell us all things, and sometimes tells us wrong? If this were granted, still the stubborn proposition would remain, that if we cannot trust consciousness, we can have no ideas. The faculty which they would exalt against her, is sensation. Do the senses tell us all things? Are they never deceived? Does sense give any perceptions, save as it is mediated to the understanding by consciousness? Enough of such special pleadings! That consciousness reveals nothing direct of the interaction of spirit and nerve organs is precisely because spirit and matter are causes so heterogeneous—so that this fact contains one of the most conclusive proofs against materialism. If our conscious intelligence were only a function of nerve structures, then indeed it might be very natural that the function of intelligence should include, and should represent to us intellectually, every link of the action of the material nerve-force. But because conscious intelligence is not a material, organic function, but is the free action of spirit, a cause and substance wholly heterogeneous from matter, therefore it is, that just at the connecting step between nerve action in the sensorium and the idea in the intelligence, and between the volition in the rational agent and contraction in the voluntary nerve matter, there is naturally a chasm of mystery; a relation which the omniscient spirit was able to institute; but which sense cannot detect because the interaction is no longer merely material; which conscious intelligence does not construe to itself because it is not merely spiritual. Consciousness Cannot Be the Brain. Again it is said: "Grant that there must be an entity within us, to be the subject of consciousness, why may not that be the Brain?" One answer has been given above: That while the properties and functions of brain matter are material, qualified by attributes of extension; those of consciousness are spiritual, simple, monadic. Another answer is, that consciousness testifies that my own brain is, like other matter, objective to that in me which thinks. How do I know that I have a brain? By the valid analogy of the testimony of anatomists, as to the skulls of all other living men like me. But that testimony is the witnessing of a sense-perception, which that anatomist had when he opened those other skulls—of an objective knowledge. I only know my brain, as objective to that which is the knowing agent. If I have any valid opinion about the brain, it is that this organ isthe instrument by which I think, not the Ego who thinks. Materialists have objected that material affections have this oneness to our conception; as a musical tone, the numerous series of successive vibrations of a chord divisible into parts. I reply, that the oneness is only in the perception of it. Only as it becomes our mental affection, does it assume unity. As we trace the effect from the vibration of the chord to that of the air, the tympanum, the bony series, the aqueous humor, the fimbrated nerve, the series is still one of successive parts. It is only when we pass from the material organ to the mind, that the phenomenon is no longer a series of pulses, but a unified sensation. This very case proves most strongly the unifying power which belongs to the mind alone. So, when an extended object produces a sensation, though the object perceived is divisible, the perception thereof, as a mental act, is indivisible. The Soul Immortal. Now, the soul being another substance than the body, it is seen at once, that the body’s dissolution does not necessarily imply that of the soul. Indeed, let us look beyond first impressions, and we shall see that the presumption is the other way. The fact that we have already passed from one to another stage of existence, from foetus to infant, to child, to man, implies that another stage may await us; unless there be some such evidence of the soul’s dependence on the body for existence (as well as for contact with the external world) as will destroy that presumption. But there is no such dependence; as appears from our experience in amputations, flux of bodily particles, emaciation under disease, etc. In none of these cases is the loss of the spirit proportioned to the bodily loss. This independence is proved by the fact, that in sensation even, the bodily organ is merely the soul’s instrument. The eye, for example, is but its optic glass: that in sleep the soul may be active, while the body is passive; and chiefly, that all the higher processes of soul, memory, conception, imagination, reasoning, are wholly independent of the body. Even if the grossest representationist scheme of perception and thought (that, for instance, of Hartly, or of Hobbes) were adopted, making the phantasmata or species derived through the senses, the object of perception, still the question returns, How does the soul get its conception of general notions: of time, of space, of God, of self? Herein surely, it is independent of the body. Argument True, Though Cerebral Action Attend All Thought. It has been objected to this great argument of Bp. Butler, in recent days, and with great clamor, that the discoveries of modern cerebral physiology discredit it. It is claimed that anatomists have now ascertained, that certain molecular actions in the brain attend what were before supposed to be abstract and independent acts of mind (or, as the materialist would say, constitute those acts) as regularly as other molecular actions attend the sensuous functions of the mind. The student will see this point thoroughly anticipated, two hundred years before it was raised, by Turrettin, in the question cited in the Syllabus. Suppose it true, that a certain excitement of brain-matter attends the abstract processes of the mind and the acts of its original spontaneity. Is it any the less certain that in these cases, the excitement of nerve matter is consequence, and the exertion of the spirit’s spontaneity is cause? Surely not. Just so surely as, in objective perception, the presentation of the new sense-idea in the intelligence follows the excitement of the nerve matter, in the order of causation; so surely, in the case of spontaneous thought, feeling and volition, the spiritual action precedes the action of the nerve matter (if there is such action) in the order of causation. So that, in the sense of Bp. Butler’s argument, these acts of soul are independent of bodily action still. The clamor which has been made by materialists here, is a good instance of modern ignorance or oblivion of the history of opinion. Suppose the recent doctrine of the physiological "cerebration of ideas" be proved universal as to all the soul’s acts what have we, more than the hypothesis of Hartley, which made sensations "vibrations," and concepts "vibratiuncles," in a nervous substance? No competent philosopher of the past regarded that hypothesis, whether granted or refuted, as affording any sufficient account of the facts of consciousness. But the very attempt to employ the hypothesis in this manner has been the laughing-stock of science. Does Mental Disease Imply the Soul’s Mortality? Here again, materialists have objected, that the cases of mental imbecility in infancy and senility, and of mania or lunacy seem to show a strict dependence of soul on body, if not an identity. In senility, is not the mind, like the body, tottering to its extinction? If our theory of monadic spirit were true, would mental disease be possible? I reply, that strictly speaking, spirit is not essentially or organically diseased. It is the bodily organ of its action, which is deranged, or weakened. Bear in mind, that though there are undoubted processes of thought independent of the body, sensations form the larger portion of our subjects of thought and volition. Now, remember that the soul is subject to the law of habit; and we shall easily see that where, through the disease of the bodily organs, the larger number of the objects of its action are distorted, the balance of its working may be disturbed, and yet the soul’s substance undiseased. That this is the correct explanation is confirmed by what happens in dreams; the mind’s action is abnormal; it is because the absence of sensations has changed the balance of its working. Let the body awake, and the ordinary current of sensations flow aright, and the mind is at once itself. Again, in lunacy and senility, ideas gained by the mind before the bodily disease or decline took place, are usually recalled and used by the mind correctly; while more recent ones are either distorted, or wholly evanescent. Finally, while it is inconsistent to ascribe an organic disease to that which is not organized, a functional derangement does not seem wholly out of the question. Only Death Known Is Dissolution. The Soul Simple. It appears then, that the thinking monad is independent of the body for its existence. Impressive as are the changes of bodily dissolution, they contain no philosophic ground for denying the conclusion drawn from the experience of the soul’s existence through so many moments and so many changes. But the phenomenon of death itself suggests a powerful analogy to show that the soul will not die. What is death? It is but separation of parts. When we examine all the seemingly destructive processes of nature, combustion, decomposition, we find no atom of matter annihilated; they only change their collocations. There is no proof that God ever destroys an atom. The soul is a spiritual atom; why suppose it is destroyed? The only death is dissolution; the soul cannot dissolve. this is my conception of its immortality; not a self or necessary existence, but the absence of all intrinsic ground of decay, and of all purpose in its Maker to extinguish its being. Would Not Animals Be Therefore Shown Immortal? But, objects the materialist: The same reasoning would prove the immortality of animals and beasts. They have processes of memory, association and volition, from which the same conclusion of the presence in them of simple, spiritual substance, would follow. They might argue from their consciousness of mental states the same necessary distinction between the subject and object. They also have a species of spontaneity. I reply, that this is an objection ad ignorantiam. Why would it be neccessarily absurd if it were proven to be a fact that animals and beasts have spirits? ? It might contradict many prejudices; but I see not what principle of established truth. If it is no just logic to say, that our premises may or may not contain conclusions of an unknown nature; when the question is, whether they do not contain this known and unavoidable conclusion, the spirituality of man. The nature of the mental processes of the higher mammals, especially, is very mysterious. It seems most probable that their spirits differ from man’s chiefly in these two traits: the absence of all moral ideas and sentiments, and the inability to construe the contents of their own consciousness rationally. And these two are the most essential to a rational personality. The moral arguments for immortality then, which are the most conclusive in man’s case, and those from the indefinite perfectibility of his mental powers, are all lacking in the case of the animal. What God chooses to do with this principle in the animal, which is the seat of instinct, appetite, perception, memory, passion, and perhaps of judgment, when the body dies, Natural Theology is unable to tell us. Only when we come to Revelation, do we learn that "the spirit of the brute goeth downward, while the spirit of man goeth upward." Ignorance here is no argument against the results of positive knowledge elsewhere. Equal Rewards Require A Future Existence. The well known argument for a future existence from God’s righteousness, compared with the imperfect distribution of awards here, need not be elaborated. All your books state it. It is conclusive. An objection has, indeed, been urged: That if the awards are so unequal, no evidence remains of God’s perfect rectitude; and so the former premise is lost. I reply: The course of temporal providence is neither the only, nor chief proof of God’s rectitude. Conscience demonstrates that attribute, without the light of observation. Further: while the awards are not exact, they approximate exactness here, showing that it is God’s nature to be, finally, strictly just. And last, the inequalities of awards are explained consistently with God’s rectitude by this: that they give scope for man’s fortitude and sympathy, and for God’s long suffering. Conscience. Conscience, apprehending God’s justice, gives us a different and an instinctive proof of a future existence. Remorse for sins does by no means verge towards its termination, as death approaches; but recruits its fury. If the soul could apprehend this life as its only existence, at the conscious approach of death, remorse would relax its grasp; and at the expiring breath, would release the criminal, as having paid the debt of justice. We find in the dying conscience an inevitable and universal recognition of its immortality. Does Hope Prove It? The ancient, and some modern, moralists, attached much importance to man’s longing for existence, horror of extinction, and hopes in the future. I cannot but feel, with Dr. Brown, that these lack weight. Is not this horror of extinction resolvable into that love of life which we share with the animals? Hope does, indeed, ever fly before us, to the end. But it is not as much a hope of sensual or worldly good, as of spiritual? But should we infer from these premises, that a brute’s or a man’s animal existence will be perpetual, we should err. Man’s Spiritual Capacities Formed For Immortality. I find a more solid argument in man’s capacity to know and serve God, and in his capacity of indefinite mental and moral improvement. God’s motive for creating, must have been from Himself; because, when He began, nothing else existed from which He might draw it. He must, therefore, have sought, in creation, to satisfy and glorify His own perfections. Natural Theology tells us of no rational creatures, save men. Should there ever be a time when there are no rational creatures in the universe, there would be no recipients of God’s spiritual goodness, and none to comprehend His glory. To have no eyes to behold the light, is virtually to quench it. Can we then believe that the only creature capable of knowing and enjoying Him shall perish so soon—perish, as to the majority of our race, before they understand Him at all? But again, man, unlike all other sentient creatures, is capable of indefinite improvement. The ox, the elephant, the horse, soon reaches the narrow limits of its intelligence; and these, the same fixed by the common instincts of its race, for its progenitors. The first bee built its cells as artistically as those of this "enlightened century." But man can make almost indefinite advancements. And when he has taken all the strides between a Newton or a Washington, and a naked Australian, there is no reason, save the narrow bounds of his mortal life, to limit his farther progress. Further: it is precisely in his mental and moral powers, that the room for growth exists. His muscular strength soon reaches that standard beyond which there is no usual increase. His senses are educated up to a certain penetration; there the vast and the minute arrest them. But memory, reason, conscience, affections, habits, may be cultivated to indefinite grades of superiority. Let us now view man’s terrestrial pursuits, his vanity, his disappointments, his follies, and the futilities in which the existence of most men is consumed. How utterly trivial! How unworthy of the grand endowment! If this life were all, well might we exclaim, with the Hebrew poet, "Wherefore hast Thou made all men in vain?" We see that God is unspeakably wise in all His comprehended works; we must conclude that He has not expended so much for naught; that these seeds of immortality will inherit their suitable growth. I see a man setting scions in his nursery a few inches apart; but I learn that they are trees which will require forty feet for their ultimate growth. If the man knows what he is about, I conclude that he intends to transplant them. Reason Divines No Bodily Resurrection. For these various reasons, then, we may look across the gulf of death with the confident expectation of a future spiritual existence. I say spiritual; for the resurrection of the body is a doctrine of pure revelation, for which natural reason presents us only the faintest analogies, if any. It is the glory of the Bible, that it alone reveals the immortality of man, of the whole united person, which lives, hopes, fears, sins, and dies here. But in proving the immortality of the soul, a sufficient basis is laid for the larger part of the moral forces which bring our responsibility to bear aright. The essential point is to evince the proper identity of the being who acts here, and is rewarded hereafter. It is mental, and not personal identity, which lays this essential basis for responsibility. It is the spirit which understands, feels, and chooses, which recognizes identity in its consciousness. Hence, it is the spirit which is responsible. Future Existence Must Be Endless, and Under Responsibility. Now, if existence is continued beyond the grave, there is nothing to check the conclusion that it will be continued forever. Suppose a soul just emerged from the impressive revolution of bodily death? then it must repeat all the reasoning we have considered, and with redoubled force, that after so many changes are survived, a fortiori, all others will be. But if man’s conscious existence is continuous and endless, few will care or dare to deny that his moral relations to God are so, likewise. For they proceed directly from the mere original relation of creature to Creator. The startling evidences that this life is somehow a probation for that endless existence, the youth of that immortal manhood, have been stated by Bishop Butler with unrivaled justness. No more is needed by the student than to study him. Does Reason See Hope of Pardon? No. Conscience convinces every man that he is a sinner, and that God is just. Does natural reason infer any adequate proofs that God will, on any terms, be merciful; or is His righteousness as imperative as that conscience, which is His vicegerent within us? This is the question of most vital interest to us in natural religion. We are pointed to the abounding evidences of God’s benevolence, and told that mercy is but benevolence towards the guilty. But, alas! Nature is almost equally full of evidences of His severity. Again, we are pointed to that hopeful feature in the order of His providence, which is but another expression for the regular ordering of His will, where we see remedial processes offered to man, for evading the natural consequences of his errors and faults. Does man surfeit himself? Nature offers a healing medicine, and arrests the death which his intemperance has provoked. Does the prodigal incur the penalty of want? Repentance and industry may repair his broken fortunes. So, alleviations seem to be provided on every hand, to interpose mercifully between man’s sins and their natural penalties. May we not accept these as showing that there is some way in which God’s mercy will arrest our final retribution? This expectation may have that slight force which will prepare us to embrace with confidence the satisfaction of Christ, when it is revealed to us in the gospel. But I assert that, without revelation, all these slight hints of a possible way of mercy are too much counterbalanced by the appearances of severity, to ground any hope or comfort in the guilty breast. What is the testimony of Conscience? Does she accept any of the throes of repentance, or the natural evils inflicted on faults, as a sufficient atonement? On the contrary, after the longest series of temporal calamities, the approach of death only sharpens her lash. The last act of culminating remorse, as the trembling criminal is dismissed from his sufferings here, is to remit him to a just and more fearful doom beyond the grave. And what say conscience and experience of the atoning virtue of our repentance and reformations? They only repair the consequences of our faults in part. The sense of guilt remains: yea, it is the very nature of repentance to renew its confession of demerit with every sigh and tear of contrition. And the genuineness of the sorrow for sin has no efficacy whatever to recall the consequences of the wrong act, and make them as though they had never been. But, above all, every palliation of natural penalty, every remedial process offered to our reach by nature, or ministered by the self-sacrifice of friends, is but temporary. For, after all, death comes to every man, to the most penitent, the most genuinely reformed, the restored sinner most fenced in by the mediatorial love of his fellows, as certainly as to the most reckless profligate; and death is the terrible sum of all natural penalties. This one, universal fact, undoes everything which more hopeful analogies had begun, and compels us to admit that the utmost reason can infer of God’s mercy is, that it admits a suspension of doom. Is Natural Theology Sufficient? Now, I have strenuously contended that there is some science of Natural Theology. We have seen that it teaches us clearly our own spirituality and future existence, the existence and several of the attributes of God, His righteousness and goodness and our responsibility to Him, His providential control over all His works, and our endless relation to the sanctions of His moral attributes. But man needs more than this for his soul’s well-being; and we assert that Natural Theology is fatally defective in the essential points. We might evince this practically by pointing to the customary state of all gentile nations, to the darkness of their understanding and absurdities of their beliefs, the monstrous perversions of their religious worship, and the blackness of their general morals, their evil conscience during their lives, and their death-beds either apathetic or despairing. If it be said that I have chosen unfavorable examples, then I might argue the point practically again, by pointing to the brightest specimens of pagan philosophy. We see that with all the germs of truth mixed with their creeds, there were many errors, that their virtues lacked symmetry and completeness, and their own confessions of uncertainty and darkness were usually emphatic in proportion to their wisdom. Cannot Atone, Nor Regenerate. But to specify. One fatal defect of Natural Theology has been already illustrated. Man knows himself a sinner in the hands of righteous Omnipotence, and has no assurance whatever of any plan of mercy. An equally fatal defect might be evinced, (far more clearly than divines have usually done) in its lack of regenerating agency. If we knew nothing of the sad story of Adam’s probation and fall, just reasoning would yet teach us, that man is a morally depraved being. The great fact stands out, that his will is invincibly arrayed against the mandates of his own conscience, on at least some points. Every man’s will exhibits this tendency in some respects, with a certainty as infallible as any law of nature. Now such a tendency of will cannot be revolutionized by any system of moral suasion; for the conclusive reason that the efficacy of all objective things to act as inducements, depends on the state of the will, and therefore cannot revolutionize it. The effect cannot renew its own cause. But Natural Theology offers no moral force higher than moral suasion. Can then the creature who remains an everlasting sinner, possess everlasting well-being? Lacks Authority. Another striking defect of Natural Theology is its lack of authority over the conscience. One would think that where the inferences of natural reason appeared conclusive, bringing the knowledge of a God to the understanding, this God would be recognized as speaking in all her distinct assertions; and the conscience and heart would bow to him as implicitly as when He is revealed in His word. But practically it is not so. Men are but too ready to hold revealed truth in unrighteousness; and Natural Theology has ever shown a still greater lack of authority, even over hearts. which avowed her truth. Perhaps the reason of this is, that every mind has indistinctly and half consciously recognized this profound metaphysical defect, which underlies nearly all her reasoning. How do we first know spirit? By our own consciousness, presenting to us the thinking Ego. How do we know thought, volition, power? As we are first conscious of it in ourselves. What is our first cognition of the right and the wrong? It is in the mandates of our consciences. And the way we conceive of the infinite Spirit, with His thought, will, power, rectitude, is by projecting upon Him our self-derived conception of this essence and these attributes, freed from the limitations which belong to ourselves. Seeing, then, that God and His character are to so great an extent but ourselves objectified, elevated above our conscious defects, and made absolute from our conscious limits, how can we ever know that the correspondence of the objective reality, with this conception of it, is accurate? It is as though our self-consciousness were the mirror, in which alone we can see the spectrum of the great Invisible reflected. How shall we ever tell to what degree it may be magnified, distorted, colored, by the imperfection of the reflecting surface, seeing Natural Theology can never enable us to turn around and inspect the great original, eye to eye? That something is there, a something vast, grand and real, our laws of thought forbid us to doubt; and that it has a general outline like the reflected image, we may not doubt; for else, what was it that cast the mighty spectrum upon the disc of our reason? But reason can never clear up the vagueness and uncertainty of outline and detail, nor verify His true features. Now, when Revealed Theology comes, it enables us to make this verification; and especially when we see "God manifest in the flesh," "the brightness of the Father’s glory, and express image of His person." Why Then Study Natural Theology? It may be asked, if Natural Theology cannot save, why study it? I answer first, it teaches some truths; and no truth is valueless. Secondly, when Revelation comes, Natural Theology gives satisfaction to the mind, by showing us two independent lines of proof for sundry great propositions? Thirdly, it excites the craving of the soul for a Revelation. Fourth, when that comes, it assists us to verify it, because it meets the very wants which Natural Theology has discovered. A Revelation May Be Expected. Finally, if Revelation is absolutely necessary for salvation, there is the strongest probability that God has given one. This appears from God’s goodness and wisdom. It is proved, secondly, by the admissions of the Deistical argument, which always assumes the burden of proof in the proposition: "Revelation is not necessary." It appears, thirdly, from the general expectation and desire of a communication from the skies among Pagans. Finally, when we see (as will be demonstrated at another place) that the enjoyment of infallible communications from the infinite Mind is the natural condition of life to all reasonable spirits, the argument will become conclusive, that God surely has given a message to man. Now, no other book save the Bible presents even a plausible claim to be that Revelation. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 23: 02.07. CHAPTER 6: SOURCES OF OUR THINKING ======================================================================== Chapter 6: Sources of Our Thinking Syllabus for Lectures 8, 9 & 10: Has man any "Innate Ideas"? Locke’s Essay, bk. i, ch. 2. Morell, Hist. Mod. Phil., pp. 76 to 95, (Carter’s Ed.) Cousin, Du Vrai, Lecons Ire et 2me. Dugald Stuart on the Mind, chaps. i, iii, iv. Must all thinking proceed from Intuitive Beliefs? Why? Why are they, if unproved, received as valid? What the answer to the Skeptical Conclusion of Montaigne or Hume? Morell, pp. 252-254. Jouffroy, Intr. to Ethics, vol. i, Lectures 8-10. Cousin D. Vrai, Lecons 3me et 4eme. What are the tests of Intuitive Beliefs? Show that our belief in our own Consciousness; In our Spiritual Existence, In our Identity, In the reality of the External World; and in Established Axioms, belong to this class. Cousin, as above. Sensualistic Phil. of 19th Cent., ch. 1. Mills’ Logic, bk. Prove, especially, that our belief in Causation and power is Intuitive. Same authorities. Mill, bk. ii, ch. 5, and bk. iii, ch. 5 & 21. Dr. Thomas Brown, Lect. 7. Morell, pp. 186, 187, 254, 332, etc. Chalmers’ Nat. Thelogy, bk. i, ch. 4th. Thornwell vol. i, p. 499, etc. Show the relation between this doctrine, and Nat. Theology and all science, Sect. 7. Lecture 9: Is the Intuitional Reason a different faculty from, and of higher authority than, the Logical Understanding? Locke’s Essay, bk. iv, ch. ii Sect. 7. Mosheim Eccles. Hist., Cent. 17th, Sec. i, p. 24. Morell, p. 125, pp. 161-168. To ascertain the origin of moral distinctions in our minds, state and refute the Selfish System of Morals, as held by Hobbes, and others. Jouffroy’s Introduc. to Ethics, Lecture 2. Dr. Thos. Brown, Lectures 78, 79. Cousin, Le Vrai etc., Lecon 12th. Morell, pp. 71-75. State and refute the utilitarian theory (as held by Hume and Bentham). "Crimes of Philanthropy," in the Land We Love, Dec., 1866. Jouffroy, Lectures 13, 14 Brown, Lectures 77, 78. Cousin, Le Vrai, etc., Lecon 13th Morell, p. 215, etc. Thornwell, Discourses on Truth, i, ii. Bishop Butler’s Sermons, 11-14. Jonathan Edward’s Essay on the Nature of Virtue, ch. 1, 2. State and refute Paley’s form of the Selfish System. Pale’s Moral Phil., pp. 24-60. (8 vo. Ed.) Jeffrey, ch. 15. Brown, Lecture 79, So. Alex. Moral Science, ch. i, ii, iii. Cousin, Du Vrai du Beau et du Bien, as above. State and discuss the Sentimental Theory of Dr. Adam Smith. Jouffroy, Lectures 16-18. Brown, Lectures 80-81. Turrettin, Loc. xi, Qu. i. Lecture 10: What is the true theory of the moral Distinction and Obligation? Compare it with that of Jouffroy. Is the moral Distinction seen by the Reason, or by a distinct faculty? Bp. Butler’s Sermons, viz: Preface and Sermon on Romans 12:4-5. Cousin le vrai, Le beau, Le bien, Lecon 14. Alexander’s Moral Science, chs. 2-7 inclus., and ch. 10. Jouffroy, Introduc. to Ethics, Lectures 1-3. Thornwell, Discourses on Truth, i, ii. Explain the moral emotion involved with the moral judgment, and in connection criticize the schemes of Hutcheson and Brown. Cousin as above. Alex. Mor. Sc., ch. 6-11. Dr. Thos. Brown, Lectures 81, 82. Jouffroy Elect. 19, 20. State the true doctrine of the supremacy and authority of conscience. Butler’s Sermon on Romans 2:14. Alexander, chs. 8, 9. What qualities are necessary to moral agency and responsibility? Alexander, chs. 13, 14. Dr. Thos. Brown, Lecture 73. Is It Necessary To Study the Mind’s Powers, Before All Else? Many think, with Locke, that the inquiry into the powers of the human mind should precede all other science, because one should know his instrument before he uses it. But what instrument of knowing is man to employ in the examination of his own mind? Only his own mind. It follows, then, that the mind’s native laws of thinking must be, to some extent at least, taken upon trust, at the outset, no matter where we begin. This is the less to be regretted, because the correct use of the mind’s powers depends on nature, and not on our success in analyzing them. Men syllogized before Aristotle, and generalized before Bacon. I have therefore not felt obliged to begin with these inquiries into the sources of our thinking; but have given you a short sketch of Natural Theology to familiarize your minds to your work. Why Then, Before Theology? You may ask: Since every science must employ the mental powers, and yet the teacher of Chemistry, Mathematics, Mechanics, does not find it necessary to preface his instructions with inquiries into the laws and facts of psychology, why should the divine do it? One answer is that thoroughness in theology is much more important. Another is, experience shows that theological speculation is much more intimately concerned with a correct psychology than physical. The great English mathematicians, of the school of Newton, have usually held just views of philosophy; the French of the school of La Place have usually been sensualistic ideologues of the lowest school. In mathematics and astronomy, they have agreed well enough; in theology, they have been as wide apart as Christianity and atheism. This is because theology and ethics are little concerned with physical observations: much with abstract ideas and judgments. For these reasons it is necessary for the divine to attain correct views of the great facts of mental science; while yet we do not stake the validity of theological truths on the validity of any mere psychological arguments. My purpose is to give by no means a complete synopsis, even, of mental science; but to settle for you correct opinions concerning those fundamental facts and laws of spirit, upon which theological questions most turn. Question of Innate Ideas. Of these I take up first the question: Has the mind any innate ideas? The right answer is, No; but it has innate powers, which a priori dictate certain laws of thought and sensibility, whenever we gain ideas by sensitive experience. Locke, famous for exploding the doctrine of innate ideas, goes too far; teaching that we derive all our ideas (he defines an idea, whatever we have in our minds as the object of thought) from sensation. This he holds is a passive process; and all that the processes of reflection (the active ones) can do, is to recall, group, compare, combine, or abstract these materials. Before sensation, the mind is a tabula rasa, without impress in itself, passively awaiting whatever may be projected on it from without. To show that no ideas are innate, he takes up two classes, hitherto considered most clearly such, abstract ideas of space, time, identity, and infinity, etc., and axioms; assuming that if these can be explained as derived ideas, and not innate, there are none such. He teaches, then, that we only get the idea of space, by seeing two bodies separated thereby; of time, by deriving it from the succession of mental impressions; of identity, as remembered consciousness. Axioms, he holds to be clearly truths of derivation, because untutored minds do not believe them, as they would were they intuitive, until they see them from concrete, experimental cases, by sensation. Fatal Consequenses of A Sensualistic Psychology. Consider how far this kind of vicious analysis may lead, as in the hands of Condillac, Comte, and Mill, to sensationalism, and last, to materialism and atheism. If no first truth is of higher source than an inference of experience, then none can be safely postulated beyond experience. Therefore, the argument for a God, the belief of all the supernatural, is invalid. Witness Hume’s evasion, that the world is a "singular effect." How can sensation show us a God? Another equally logical, although a most heterogeneous consequence, is the Pyrrhonism of Bishop Berkeley. And another must be the adoption of some artificial scheme of ethics, resolving the highest law of conscience into a deduction of self-interest, or some such wretched theory. For if there is nothing in the mind, save what comes by sense (Nihil inintellectu quod non prius in sensu), from what source come the notions of right and obligation? True Statement. The great error of the analysis of Locke was in mistaking the occasional cause, sensation, for the efficient cause of abstract ideas, which is the reason itself For example: We first develop the idea of space, when we see bodies in space; but the idea of space is implied a priori, in the very perception of that which is extended, not learned derivatively from it. True, our most natural conception of time is of that measured in our successive consciousness. But the word, "succession" once spoken, time is already conceived. That is to say, the reason, on perceiving a thing extended, intuitively places it in space; and event, in time; the sense furnishing the occasion, the reason furnishing the abstract notion, or form, for the concrete perception. So in the other cases. To the attempt to derive axioms, we answer that the sensitive experience of some instance is the occasion, but the intuition of the reason the efficient, of these primitive and necessary judgments. For since our experiences of their truth are few and partial, how can experience tell us that they are universally true? To the objection, that they do not universally and necessarily command the assent of untutored minds, I fearlessly rejoin that this is only true in cases where the language of their enunciation is not understood. But of this, more anon. Whence New Abstract Notions? To show the student how shallow is the analysis which traces the whole of our thinking to sense, I ask: When the "reflective" processes of comparison, e. g., have given us perception of a relation between two sensible objects (as of a ratio between two dimensions), is not this relation a new idea? From what source does it come? The Mind Active, and Endued With Attributes. In a word, you may find the simplest, and also the highest and most general refutation of this sensualistic philosophy in this fact: The mind is an intelligent agent. Has it any attributes? Any cognizable, permanent essentia? Surely. Now, then, must not those essential qualities imply powers? And will any one say that they are only passive powers, and yet the mind is an agent? Surely not. Then the mind, although not furnished with innate ideas, must have some innate powers of determining its own acts of intelligence. It is related that when Locke’s Essay on the Human Understanding was first reported to his great contemporary, Leibnitz, some one remarked that Locke’s system of psychology was built on a literal acceptation of the old scholastic maxim, Nihil in intellectu, quad non prius in sensu. Leibnitz answered: Ita; Nisi Intellectus Ipse! These words contain the key to the whole discussion. All Our Beliefs Cannot Be Proved. There is a plausible temptation to deny this, and to treat all our notions and beliefs as derived. It arises from the feeling that it is more philosophical to take nothing upon trust: to require proof of everything. But does not a derived truth imply something to derive from? If therefore primitive judgments are treated as derived, the problem is only removed one step backward to this question: What are the truths from which we deduce these conclusions? Are they primary or derived? To prove every postulate is therefore impossible; because the first proof implies some premise from which to prove. Unless then, some things are seen to be true intuitively, there can be no reasoning. And these unproved truths are the foundations of all that we prove. Metaphysical Skepticism. Its Grounds. The question then arises, If these primary beliefs are unproved, how can we know that any of our thinking is true? I have now introduced you to the very center of the skeptical objections of the school of Montaigne and Hume, against the certainty of all human knowledge. Let us also view the other, less radical grounds. They argue, then: First. That knowledge must be uncertain as long as it is incomplete; because the discovery of the unknown related parts may change our view of those supposed to be known. And that men in all ages have believed differently with equal confidence. Second. That perception only shows us qualities, and not substances, so that we have only the mind’s inference, unproved and undemonstrable, for the existence and essence of the latter. Third. That our organs of sense, the instruments of all perceptions, are perpetually changing their atomic structure; that they often deceive us; that the significance which we give to sensations depends on habits, knowledge and education; and that as to memory, we must take the correctness of her reproductions wholly upon trust. Fourth. That our general and abstract ideas, such as those of causation, space, identity, substance, etc., have not even the uncertain evidence of sensation; but are given by the mind’s own a priori forms of thought; so that we have no proof for them, save that nature teaches us to think so. Finally. The sweeping objection is, that man only knows his own subjective states; to the outside of that charmed circle he can never pass, to compare those states with objective reality. But as there is no ground for our assuming the validity of this objective perception, except that it is nature to make it, we have only to suppose a different structure given to our minds, to make all seem false, which now seems true. Refutation of Skepticism. Such are the sweeping objections. To the first three of the special ones, there is one general and perfectly valid answer. It is not proved that all the teachings of sensation, memory, reason, are untrustworthy, because they are sometimes misinterpreted, or because men differ about them sometimes. For the mind knows that it is furnished with criteria for verifying seeming perceptions, recollections, inferences, which criteria give certain results, when applicable, and when faithfully applied. If there are no such, how did the skeptic find out the falsehood of so many of the seeming dicta of these faculties? As to the first and radical plea, that primitive judgments must be, from their very nature, unproved, and that man can never know anything besides his own subjective states, I freely grant that a direct logical refutation is out of the question, from the very terms of it. But a valid indirect one lies in these facts: First. That the skeptic, just as much and as necessarily, holds these primary beliefs as we do. Being implied in the validity of all other beliefs, they must be accepted as true, or all thinking must cease; we are no longer intelligent beings. But the skeptic will think: his argument against us is thinking (erroneous). Second. We cannot conceive how an intelligent being could be formed at all, against whose primary beliefs the same objections would not lie; and most against Gods! Third. The fact that primitive beliefs are unproved is the very glory of their certainty, and not their weakness. They admit no proof, only because they are so immediate. The perversity of the skeptic is just that of the man who, when in perfect contact with a tree or post, should declare it impossible to ascertain whether it was near or distant, because indeed he was so near that no measuring rule could be introduced, to measure the distance! Fourth. Chiefly we apply the argumentum ad hominem of Pascal. If no knowledge can be certain, then the skeptic must not affirm his unbelief; for this, if admitted, would be a true proposition. The very mental processes exhibited in these objections imply many of the primary beliefs, against the validity of which the skeptic objects. If nothing can be proved, what right has he to go about proving that nothing can be proved? Finally: Truth is intrinsic, and not a mere consequence of our mental structure. Which Are Primative Judgments? The tests of an intuitive or primary truth established by the best writers are three. First. They are primary: (what Hamilton calls, ambiguously, incomprehensible, not capable of being comprehended under some more general and primary judgment, and of being explained thereby). They are primary because they are not derived or inferred from any other truth, prior in order of proof to them; but are seen to be true without any dependence on a premise. Second. They are necessary—i. e., the mind not only sees they are true, but must be true; sees that the negation of them would lead to a direct contradiction. Third. They are universal—i. e., the mind is obliged to believe them as much true in every relevant case, as in the first; and all people that are sane, when the terms of their enunciation are comprehended with entire fairness, and dispassionately considered, are absolutely certain, the world over, to accept them as true. Now, our adversaries, the sensationalists, would freely admit that if the mind has any judgments which would stand these three tests, they are indeed immediate intuitions. The most practical way, therefore, to discuss their validity, will be to do it in application to special classes of supposed intuitions. Axioms Are Such. Are the propositions called axiomatic truths, immediate intuitions; or are they derived truths. Sensationalists say the latter; because they are not primary truths; but deductions of our experience; for they say, as we have seen Locke write, no one has them till he learns them by experimental, sensational trial, and observation; and the announcement of them, instead of receiving from the untutored mind that immediate assent we claim, would, in many cases, excite only a vacant stare. We have already shown that the concrete case is only the occasion, not the source, of the axiomatic judgment. And as to the latter objection, the mind hitherto uninformed fails to assent to them, only because he does not understand the terms of, or comprehend the relations connected with, the proposition. Grant that the presenting of a concrete, experimental case is at first necessary to enable this mind to comprehend terms and relations; still we claim (the decisive fact) that once they are comprehended, the acceptance of the proposition is inevitable. How preposterous is this objection, that because the mind did not see, while the medium was obstructed, therefore the object is not visible? One might, with equal justice, say that my child had no faculty of immediate eyesight, because he would not be willing to affirm which of "two pigs in a poke" was the bigger! I argue again under this head, that several axioms are incapable of being experimentally inferred; because they never can be brought under the purview of the senses; e.g. "Divergent straight lines will never meet if produced to infinity." No one will ever inspect with his sight or touch an infinite line! But, says Mill, one forms a mental diagram of an infinite pair of lines; and by inspection of them, learns the truth. On this queer subterfuge, we might remark that it is more refreshing to us than consistent for them, that sensationalists should admit that the abstract ideas of the mind can be subjects of experimental reasoning. We had been told all along that true science dealt only with phenomena. It is also news to us that sensationalism can grant the mind any power of conceiving infinite lines! What are those, but those naughty things, absolute ideas, with which the mind ought not to have any lawful business, because they are not given to her by sensation? But chiefly, Mill’s evasion is worthless in the presence of this question what guides and compels the mind in the formation of the infinite part of this mental diagram, so as to ensure its correspondence with the sensible part? Not sense, surely; for that is the part of the mental diagram, which no eye can ever see. It is just this a priori power of judgment, which Mill denies. My argument stands. Once more I argue on this head, that axioms cannot be experimentally derived; because they are universal truths: but each man’s experience is partial. The first time a child ever divides an apple, he at once apprehends that the whole is larger than either of its parts. At this one illustration of it, he as much believes it of all the divided apples of the universe, as though he had spent an age in dividing millions of apples for experiment. How can a universal truth come from a single case? If experience were the source of the belief, the greatest multitude of cases one could try, would never be enough to demonstrate a universal proposition; for the proportion of similar cases possible in the universe, and still untried, would be infinitely preponderant still. Experience of the past can, of itself, never determine the future. The sensationalist is inconsistent. He says axioms are learned from experience by sense; and there are no primary judgments of the pure reason. Aye! But how does the mind learn that sensational experience is true? that perceptions have any validity? Only by a primary judgment! Here then is the axiomatic truth that what sense gives us experimentally is true. This, surely, is not derived! Indeed, the attempt to construct a system of cognitions with a denial of primary ideas and judgments, will be found in every case as preposterous as the attempt to hang a chain upon nothing. For Axioms Are Necessary Truths. When we ask whether axiomatic truths will meet the second test, that of necessity, sensationalists say: "What is a necessary truth?" Does one answer, with Whewell, that it is one the negation of which is inconceivable; then this is no test of primary truths, no test of truths at all; because our capacity for conceiving things to be possible or otherwise, depends on our mental habits, associations, and acquirements, notoriously: e.g. The Guinea negro king could not conceive it possible that water could be solidified by cold in the higher latitudes. This will be found to be a mere verbal sophism, deriving its whole plausibility from the unlucky use of a vague term by the friends of the true theory. A truth is not necessary, because we negatively are not able to conceive the actual existence of the opposite thereof; but a truth is necessary when we positively are able to apprehend that the negation thereof includes an inevitable contradiction. It is not that we cannot see how the opposite comes to be true, but it is that we are able to see that that the opposite cannot possibly be true. Let any man consult his consciousness: is not the proposition, "a whole is greater than its parts," seen by the reason in a light of necessity, totally different from this: "The natives of Guinea are generally black, of England generally white"? Yet the latter is as true as the former! They Are Universal. Last, on this head, sensationalists ring many changes on the assertion that axiomatic beliefs are not held by all men alike; that there is debate what are axioms, and the widest differences, and that some things long held to be necessary truths (e.g. Ex nihilo nihil fit; nature abhors a vacuum; a body cannot act without a medium on another with which it is not present), are now found not only to be not axioms, but not true at all. I reply, all this proves that the human mind is an imperfect instrument, as to its primary judgments; not that it has none. The same mode of objecting would prove, with equal fairness (or unfairness), that derived truths have no inferential validity; for the differences about them have been still wider. Man is often incautious in his thinking, unconsciously blinded by hypothesis, habit and prejudice; and therefore he has sometimes (not so very often after all) failed to apply the tests of axiomatic truth carefully. Still the fact remains, that there are first truths, absolutely universal in their acceptance, on which every sane mind in the world acts, and always has acted from Adam’s day, with unflinching confidence. On that fact I stand. Our Own Spiritual Existance Intuitively Seen. The remarks made in introducing my discussion of the immateriality of the soul, have already indicated the grounds on which we claim our belief in our own spiritual existence as an intuition. In the proposition Cogito, ergo sum, Des Cartes meant to indicate what is undoubtedly true, that the very consciousness of thinking implies an intuitive perception of an existing substance that thinks. But what better definition of spirit, as a something instinctively contrasted with matter, than that it is substance which thinks? Identity Intuitively Seen. Locke made our very belief of our own identity, a derived notion, the simple result of our remembered consciousness. It may be very true that a second consciousness succeeding a first, may be the occasion of the rise of our notion of identity. But it cannot be the cause, for the identity of the thinking being who has the two consciousness is implied a priori in those states. The word self cannot be comprehended by our thought without comprehending in it the notion of identity. And it has been well remarked that our belief in our identity cannot be a deduction, because it must be implied beforehand, in our very capacity to perceive any relation between premises and conclusion. If the comprehension of the former is not felt to be the act of the same thinking subject who comprehends the latter, then of course there is no possibility of a logical dependence being perceived between them. Reality of Objective Intuitively Seen. Once more, we assert against Berkeley, and all other idealists, that our reference of our sensations to an external world as their cause, and that a world of substances to which the mind refers the qualities which alone sensation perceives, is a valid intuition. It is primary; witness the notable failures of all the attempts to analyze it into something more primary, from Aristotle to Reid. It is necessary; for the pure idealist can no more rid himself of the practical belief that this was an objective reality, and not a mere subjective notion of a pain, which caused him to feel that he had butted his head against a post. And it is universal. All minds learn it. And if we analyze the mental part of our sensation, we shall find that perception is, in its very nature, a perception of a relation between sensitive mind and outward matter. Grant to the idealist even the assertion that the mind immediately knows only its own subjective states; yet, when it is conscious of the subjective part of what we call a perception, it still knows by its consciousness, that there was an effect which it did not induce upon itself. Surely this subjectivity must include a consciousness of its own volitions. So, of the absence of a volition of its own. Then, as the mind intuitively and necessarily knows that no effect can be without a cause, it must refer this phenomenon, the subjective act of perception, consciously uncaused from within, to some real thing without. Cause For Every Effect Intuitively Believed. But the intuition which has been most debated, and is of most fundamental importance to theologians is our notion of causation. The doctrine of common sense here is, that when the mind sees an effect, it intuitively refers it to some cause, as producing its occurrence. Moreover, the antecedent something which made it to be, is intuitively apprehended as having a power to produce its occurrence; otherwise it would not have occurred. For the mind is impelled by its own nature to think, that if there had not been a something adequate to make the occurrence to be, it would not have been. Nothing can only result in nothing: and a thing cannot produce its own occurrence; for then it must act before it is. Hence, also, this immediate deduction that this power will always produce the same result, when applied under the same circumstances. The occasion of the rise of this notion of power is, no doubt, as Morell has said, with many authors, our consciousness of our own volitions. Now, the sensational psychologists, at the head of whom stands Hume in this particular, deny all this; and say that our belief that similar causes will produce like effects, is only a probable induction of our experience; (so Mill, adding that this probability rises to a practical certainty, as one inductionconcurs with another), that the mind merely presumes the sequence will be repeated again, because it has been presented so often; that since the mind is entitled to no idea, save what perception gives her, and the senses perceive only the two terms of the sequence, without tie of power between them, the notion of this tie is baseless; and power in causation is naught. Dr. Thomas Brown, while he asserts the intuitive origin of our expectation, that like will produce like, and even argues it with great acuteness, still falls into the latter error, denying that the mind has any ground for a notion of power other than "immediate, invariable antecedence"; for this is all perception gives us. Of No Force To Say: Power Not Precieved. Now, our first remark, in defending the correct doctrine, is, that this argument is of no force to any except pure sensationalists. When perception furnishes the occasion, a sequence, the reason, by its innate power, furnishes the notion of cause in it. Perception does not show us souls, not even our own; but reason compels us to supply the notion of soul as the subject of perceptions and all other states. Perception does not show us substance in matter, but only a bundle of properties; reason compels us to supply the notion of substance. And such an argument is peculiarly inconsistent in the mouth of Brown, who asserts that our belief in the recurrence of causative sequences is intuitive; for it is impossible for the reason to evade the question: What except power in the antecedent can make the sequence immediate and invariable? The something that makes it so, is just our notion of the power. The Belief Not Derived From Association. Having so far rebutted objections to the true view, we return to show that the opposite one is unreasonable and absurd. The heterodox metaphysicians deny that we intuitively apprehend the fact, that every effect must have its proper cause, and vice versa:and the most plausible ground of denial is to say that this presumption grows in our minds by the operation of the associating faculty. It is a law of our minds that they are apt to repeat those sequences of thought, which they have had before in the same juxtaposition; and so the habit grows up, of thinking of the same consequent when we see the same antecedent; and we naturally learn to expect to see it. But I will show that the belief in cause is not the consequence, but the ground and origin of the association. For instance; man knows perfectly well that certain sequences which recur before him perpetually and regularly, as of light on darkness are not causative; while he believes that certain others, as of light on the sun’s rising, are causative. Now if the associative habit had produced the notion of causation, it would have done it alike in both cases; for both sequences recurred with exactly the same uniformity. Nor From Experience. I remark, farther, that no experiences of the fact that a given antecedent had produced a given consequent so far as observed, could logically produce the conviction that it would, and must do so everywhere, and in all the future, if it were not sustained by an intuitive recognition of cause and effect in the sequence. The experience of the past only proves the past; there is no logical tie which entitles us to project it on the future, if we deny the intuitive one. How many experiences of a regular sequence entitle us to carry our expectations into the future? One hundred? Five hundred? What then is the difference between case four hundred ninety-nine and case five hundred, that the latter alone, when added to the previous past experiences, authorizes us to say that now case five hundred one, still in the future, must eventuate so and so? There is no reasonable answer. In truth, experience of a mere sequence, by itself, generates no confidence whatever in its future recurrence with causative certainty. You may ask, does not a mere empirical induction ( inductio simplicis enumerationis, Bacon), the mere recurrence of an observed sequence, beget in our minds even a probable expectation of its recurrence in the future? I answer, yes, in certain sorts of cases; but this probable expectation proceeds from this: We know intuitively that the consequent in this sequence must have some producing cause: whether we have rightly detected it among the seeming antecedents, is not yet proved; and Hence two facts are inferred: this seeming, visible antecedent may be the cause, seeing it has so frequently preceded; and if it be indeed the cause, then we are certain it will always be followed by the effect. But we have not yet convinced ourselves that some unseen antecedent may not intervene in each case observed; and, therefore, our expectation that the seeming antecedent will continue to be followed by the effect, is only probable. It is, therefore, not the number of instances experienced, in which the sequence occurred, which begets our expectation that the sequence must recur in the future; but it is the probability the mind sees, that the seeming antecedent may be the true one, which begets that expectation. And if that probability rises to a certainty in one or two cases of the observed sequence, it may be as strong as after ten thousand cases. Illustration of the Above. This was ingeniously (perhaps unintentionally) illustrated by some of the performances of the calculating machine constructed by the famous Babbage. The machinery could be so adjusted that it would exhibit a series of numbers in an aperture of the dial plate, having a given ratio, up to millions. And then without any new adjustment by the maker, it would change the ratio and begin a new series, which it would again continue with perfect regularity until the spectators were weary of watching. Now, if a regular empirical induction, however long continued, could demonstrate anything, it would have done it here. But just when the observer had convinced himself that the first ratio expressed the necessary law of the machine, Presto! a change; and a different one supersedes it, without visible cause. One Instance Cannot Form A Habit of Association. The argument that it is not a habit of experience which brings forth belief in the regular connection between cause and effect may now be introduced, since we may illustrate that this belief easily arises in full strength after only one experiment or trial. The child thrusts his finger in flame; the result is acute pain. He is just as certain from that moment that the same act will produce the same feeling, as after ten thousand trials. It is because his mind compels him to think the primitive judgment, "effect follows cause"; and the singleness of the antecedent enables him to decide that this antecedent is the cause. Take another case: A school boy, utterly ignorant of the explosive qualities of gunpowder, shuts himself in a room with a portion for his boyish experiments. After finding it passive under many experiments, he at length applies fire, and there is an immediate explosion. But at the moment the tongs also fell on it; and thus it may not be yet obvious which of the two simultaneously foregoing incidents was cause. He resolves to clear up this doubt by another trial, in which the tongs shall not fall. He applies fire, excluding this time all other antecedent changes, and the explosion follows again. And now, this boy is just as certain that fire will inevitably explode any gunpowder, that is precisely like this, provided the conditions be precisely similar, as a million of experiments could make him. He has ascertained the tie of cause. In truth, as Dr. Chalmers well says, experience is so far from begetting this belief in the regular efficacy of causation, that its effect is, on the contrary, to limit and correct that belief. A little child strikes his spoon on the table; the effect is noise. At first he expects to be able to produce the same effect by striking it on the bed or carpet, and is vexed at the failure. Experience corrects his expectation; not by adding anything to his intuitive judgment of like cause, like effect; but by teaching him that in this case, the cause of noise was complex, not single, as he had before supposed, being the impact of the spoon and the elasticity of the thing struck. Kant’s Argument. The subtle and yet simple reasoning, by which Kant (Critiqueof Pure Reason. bk. ii, chs. 2 & 3) shows the absurdity of resolving cause and effect into mere sequence, is worthy of your attention here. He suggests two instances: In one I look successively at the different parts of a large house. I perceive first, for instance, its front, and then its end. But do I ever think for a moment that the being of the end is successive upon the being of the front? Never. I know they are simultaneous. In another case, I see a vessel in the river just opposite to me; and next, I see it below me. The perceptions are no more successive than those of the front and end of the house. But now, can I ever think that the being of the vessel in the two positions is concurrently arising? It is impossible. Why? The only answer is that the law of the reason has, by intuition, seen effect and dependency, in the last pair of successive perceptions, which were not in the first pair. The same vessel has moved; motion is an effect; its cause must precede it. And this suggests the other member of his argument; In a causative sequence, the interval of time is wholly inappreciable to the senses; the cause A and the effect B seem to come together. Now, why is it that the mind always refuses to conceive the matter so as to think B leads A, and will only think that A leads B? Why do you not think that the loud sound of the blow caused the impact of the hammer, just as often as you do the impact caused the sound? Surely there is a law of the reason regulating this! Now that factor which determines the order of the sequence is power. Example. Last, it is only because our judgment of cause is a priori and intuitive, that any process of induction, practical or scientific, can be valid or demonstrative. Bacon shows, what even J. S. Mill admits, that a merely empirical induction can never give certain expectation of future recurrence. To reach this, some canon of induction must be applied which will discriminate the post hoc from the propter hoc. Does not Mill himself teach the necessity of such canons? Inspect any instance of their application to observed sequences, and you will find that each step proceeds upon the intuitive law of cause, as its postulate. Each step is a syllogism, in which the intuitive truth gives the major premise. Let us take a simple case falling under what Mill calls his Method by Agreement. (The student will find my assertion true of either of the others.) The school boy with his parcel of gunpowder, for example, is searching among the antecedents for the true cause of the phenomenon of explosion, which we will call D. That cause is not detected at first, because he cannot be certain that he procures its occurrence with only a single antecedent. First he constructs an experiment, in which he contrives to exclude all antecedents save two, A and B. The result D follows; but it is not determined whether A or B, or the two jointly, caused it. He contrives a second experiment, in which B is excluded; but another antecedent event C happens along with A, and again D follows. Now we can get the truth. We reason therefore: "In the first experiment the cause of D must have been either A or B. or the two combined." But why? Because the effect D must have had some immediate, present cause. [But we know that no other immediate antecedent effects were present, save A and B.] This is our a priori intuition. Well, in the second experiment, either A or C, or the two combined, must have caused D. Why? The same intuition gives the only answer. But we proved, in the first experiment, C had nothing to do with producing D; and in the second, B. had nothing to do with producing D; because C was absent in the first, and B in the second. Then A was the true cause all the time. Why? Why may not B have been the cause, that time when it was present? Because every effect has its own cause, which is regular, every time it is produced. The premise is still the intuition: "Like causes produce like effects." That Which Is Necessary Prior Premise Cannot Be Deduction. It is therefore apparent that this intuitive belief is essential beforehand, in order for it to enable us to convert an experimental induction into a demonstrated general law. Could anything more clearly prove that the original intuition itself cannot have been an experimental induction? It passes human wit to see how a logical process can prove its own premise, when the premise is what proves the process. Yet this absurdity Mill gravely attempts to explain. His solution is, that we may trust the law of cause as a general premise, because it is "an empirical law, coextensive with all human experience." May we conclude, then, that a man is entitled to argue from the law of cause as a valid general premise, only after he has acquired "all human experience?" This simple question dissolves the sophism into thin air. It is experimentally certain that this is not the way in which the mind comes by the belief of the law; because no man, to the day of his death, acquires all human experience but only a part, which, relatively to the whole, is exceedingly minute; and because every man believes the law of cause to be universal, when he begins to acquire experience. The just doctrine, therefore, is that experimental instances are only the occasions upon which the mind’s own intuitive power furnishes the self-evident law. What Is Inductive Proof? This argument, young gentlemen, has, I think, also given you an illustration of the justice of Archbishop Whateley’s logical doctrine, that inductive argument is, after all, but a branch of the syllogistic. The answers made to the questions, What is inductive argument? are, as you know, confused and contradictory. Some logicians and many physicists seem to think that the colligation of similar cases of sequences in considerable numbers, is inductive demonstration. Whereas, I have cited to you Lord Bacon. declaring that if the induction proceed no farther than this, it is wholly short of a demonstration, and can but raise a presumption of the existence of a law of sequence, which is liable to be overthrown by contrary instances. It is this mistake, which accounts for the present loose condition of much that claims to be physical science; where an almost limitless license of framing hypotheses which have probability, prevails, claiming the precious name of "science," for what are, by Bacon’s just rule, but guesses. Many other logicians, seeing the obvious defect of such a definition of inductive demonstration, and yet supposing that they are obliged to find an essential difference between inductive and syllogistic logic, invent I know not what untenable definitions of the former. It is, in fact, only that branch of syllogistic reasoning, which has the intuition, "Like causes, like effects," as its major premise, and which seeks as its conclusion the discrimination of the post hoc from the propter hoc, in seeking the true causative laws of events in nature. You may, if you please, use the word "Inductio " to express the colligation of similar instances of sequence. But inductive demonstration is another matter; a far higher matter, which must come after. It is the logical application of some establishedcanon, which will infallibly detect the immediate causative antecedent of an effect, amidst the apparent antecedents. Its value is in this: that when once that discovery is clearly made, even in one instance of sequence, we have a particular law of nature, a principle, which is a constant and permanent guide of our knowledge and practice. But why does that discovery become the detection of a law of nature? Because we know that the great truth reigns in nature: "Like causes, like effects"—in other words, because the reason has evolved to itself the intuitive idea of efficient power in causes. I have shown you, that the valid application of those canons is, in each step a syllogism; a syllogism, of which the great primary law of causation is first premise. Law of Cause Is Key of Nature. This exposition shows you that this great law is the very key of nature. It is, to change the metaphor, the cornerstone of all the sciences of nature, material and physical. Hence, if its primary and intuitive character is essential to its validity, as I have argued, in vindicating this thesis we have been defending the very being of all the natural sciences, as well as the citadel of natural theology. It follows, then, that the sensualistic school of metaphysics is as blighting to the interests of true physical science, as of the divine science. The inductive method, in the hands of physicists who grounded it substantially in the metaphysics of common sense, the metaphysics of Turrettin, of Dr. Clarke or of Reid, gave us the splendid results of the Newtonian era. That method, in the hands of Auguste Comte, J. Stuart Mill, and other sensationalists, is giving us the modern corruptions and license of Darwinism and Materialism. The unhallowed touch of this school poisons, not only theology, which they would rather poison, but the sciences of matter, which they claim as their special care. True Doctrine of Cause at Basis of Natural Theology. Few words are needed to show the intimate relations between the true doctrine of causation and theology. It is on his heresy about causation, that Hume grounds his famous argument against miracles. It is on the same error he grounds his objection to the teleological argument for God’s existence, that the world is a "singular effect." You saw that the argument just named for God’s existence is founded expressly on this great law of cause. Final Cause. I think we are now prepared to appreciate justly the clamor of the sensationalists against our postulating final causes. I assert that it is only by postulating them, that we can have any foundation whatever for any inductive science. We have seen, that the sole problem of all inductive demonstration is, to discover, among the apparent antecedents in any given sequences of changes, that one, which is efficient cause. Essential To All Regular Natural Law. For that being infallibly ascertained, we have a Law of Nature. But how so? How is it that a relation as certain in one, or a few cases, maybe assumed as a natural law? Because our reasons tell us that we are authorized to expect that antecedent which is the true efficient in a given sequence of changes, will be, and must be efficient to produce the same sequence, every time that sequence recurs under precisely the same conditions, throughout the realm of nature, in all ages and places. (And that belief is a priori and intuitive; else, as we saw, experience could never make it valid; and the demonstrations of regular law in nature would be impossible—i. e., science would be impossible.) But on what condition can that belief be valid to the mind? If there is nothing truly answering to the a priori idea of power in the antecedent; if all the mind is entitled to postulate is mere, invariable sequence; and if that efficient Power is to be excluded, because not given by sense perception; is that belief valid? Obviously not. Again: If Cause is only material necessity, only a relation in blind, senseless, unknowing, involuntary matter, in matter infinitely variable and mutable, is there any possible foundation for their universal and invariable relations in given sequences? Is any intellect authorized a priori, to expect it. Obviously not. It is only when we assume that there is a Creator to the created, that there is an intellect and will; and that, an immutable one, establishing and governing these sequences of physical change; that the mind can find any valid basis for an expectation of law in them. And that is to say: There is a basis of law in them because, and only because, this ruling intelligence and will has some end in view. We may not know which end; but we know there is some end, or there would be no Law, his constancy to which is the ground, and the explanation, of the invariability. But that is the doctrine of Final Cause! Take it away; and the inductive logic has no basis under it. You will remember the line "The undevout Astronomer is mad"—In the same sense we may assert, that the logic of the atheistic physicist is mad. Do we not find, in the prevalence of Positivist and Sensualistic philosophy, in our day, the natural explanation of the deplorable license which now corrupts and deforms so much of those Natural Sciences, which, in the hands of sound, theistic physicists like Newton, Davy, Brewster, have run so splendid and beneficent a course? Transcendentalists Claim Primative Judgments Licentiously. SEVERAL analysts of the laws of thought, such as Hobbes and Locke, set out with the fascinating idea of accepting nothing upon trust, and bringing everything to the test of experimental proof. The miserable sensationalism and materialism to which this led in the hands of Priestly in England, and Condillac in France, taught men to reflect, that unless some primary judgments are allowed to start from, there can be no beginning at all: so that some truths must have a prior authority than that of proof. By what faculty, then, are they perceived? Transcendentalists, from Spinoza to the modern, have all answered, by the intuitive reason: whose sight is direct intellection, whose conclusions are super-logical, and not, therefore, amenable to logical refutation. The frightful license of dogmatizing to which these schools have proceeded, shows the motive; it is to enjoy an emancipation from the logical obligations of proving dogmas. Do we say to them, Your assertions do not seem to us true, and we disprove them here and there: they reply, "Ah, that is by your plodding, logical understanding; intuitions of the pure reason are not amenable to it; and if you do not see that our opinion is necessarily true, in spite of objections, it is only because the reason is less developed in you." So the quarrel now stands. It seems to me obvious, therefore, that the next adjustment and improvement, which the science of mind must receive, should be an adjustment of the relations between intuitions and valid deductions. How Resisted. Now, we might practically bring the transcendentalist to reason by saying, first, that they always claim the validity of the logical understanding, when they find it convenient to use it. (The very evasion above stated is a deduction, by one step, from false premises!) Thus, consistency requires them to bow to it everywhere. Secondly, we might apply the established tests of a true intuition to their pretended ones, primariness, truth, and universality, and show that, when they profess by the pure reason to see dogmas which contradict or transcend the common sense of mankind, they are but making wild hypotheses. But thirdly, I am convinced the radical overthrow of their system will be seen to be, at length, in this position: that the mind sees the truth of a valid deduction by the same faculty, and with equal authority, as an axiom or other first truth—i. e., when major end minor premise have a conclusive relation, and that relation is fairly comprehended, the reason sees the conclusion as immediately, as necessarily, as intuitively, as authoritatively, as when it sees a primary truth. All Judgments Intuitive and Necessary, If Valid. To my mind, the simple and sufficient proof of this view of the logical function is in these questions. What is the human intelligence, but a function of seeing truth? As the eye only sees by looking, and all looking is direct and immediate sense intuition, how else can the mind see, than by looking—i. e., by rational intuition? Whether the object of bodily sight be immediate or reflective, an object or its spectrum, it is still equally true that the eye only sees by looking—looking immediately; in the latter case the spectrum only is its immediate object. So the mind only sees by looking; and all its looking is intuition; if not immediate, it is not its own; it is naught. One of the earliest, Locke, inconsistently concurs with one of the latest, McGuffey, of the great English-speaking psychologists, in asserting the view I adopted before consulting either. Locke’s proof of it seems to me perfectly valid. He argues ( loco citato,) that if the mind’s perception of a valid relation between a proposition and its next premise were not immediate, then there must be, between the two, some proposition to mediate our view of it. But between a proposition and its next premise, there can be no other interposed. Objections Solved. But to this view many sound philosophers, even, would probably object strenuously. That the first great mark of intuitive authority, primariness, was lacking; that the position is utterly overthrown by the wide and various differences of opinion on subjects of deduction; while in first truths, there must be universal agreement; and that it is inconsistent with the fact that many derived conclusions claim no more than a probable evidence. To the first, I reply, the action of the reason in seeing a deduced truth, is not indeed a primary judgment; but the fact that the truth is seen only by relation to premises, does not make the intellection less immediate and necessary. Just so, truly as the first truth is seen to be necessarily true, so the deduced truth is seen to be necessarily true, the premises being as they are. Several of our intuitions are intuitions of relations. Why should it be thought so strange that these intellections by relations should be intuitive? To the second, propositions called axioms have not always commanded universal agreement; and we are obliged to explain this fact by misapprehension of terms, or ignorance of relations included in the propositions. Well, the same explanation accounts consistently for the differences men have in their deductions; and the more numerous differences in this class of propositions are accounted for by the facts, that while the axioms are few, deductions are countless; and in anyone there are more terms, because more propositions liable to misconception. But I do assert that, in a valid syllogism, if the major and minor are known to be true, and the terms are all fairly comprehended, the belief of the conclusion by the hearer is as inevitable, as necessary, as universal as when an axiom is stated. Thirdly, though in many deductions the evidence is but probable, the fact that there is probable evidence, may be as necessarily admitted, as in an intuitive and positive truth. Source of Our Moral Judgments. We now approach, young gentlemen, that great class of our judgments which are of supreme importance in theology, as in practical life—the class known as our moral judgments. Every sane man is conscious of acts of soul, which pronounce certain rational agents right or wrong in certain acts. With these right or wrong acts our souls unavoidably conjoin certain notions and feelings of obligation, merit, demerit, approbation or disapprobation, and desert of reward or penalty. It is this peculiar class of mental states which constitutes the subject of the science of ethics, or morals. All questions as to the nature and validity of moral judgments run into the radical question, as to their origin. Are they the results of a fundamental and intuitive law of reason? Or are they artificial or factitious of some other natural principles developed into a form only apparently peculiar, by habit, association, or training? In answering this all-important question, I shall pursue this method, to set aside the various false analyses, until we reach the true one. The Selfish System. The Selfish System, presenting itself in many varied forms from Hobbes (natural desire of enjoyment only motive) through Mandeville (the desire of being applauded is the moral motive) down to Paley, has always this characteristic: it resolves our idea of virtue into self-interest. Its most refined form, perhaps, is that which says, since acts of benevolence, sympathy, justice, are found to be attended with an immediate inward pleasure (self-approbation), that pleasure is the motive of our moral acts. We discuss several phases together. Refuted. 1st. By Intuitive Beliefs of Right and Free Agency. I remark, that on the selfish system, the notion of right, duty, obligation, free agency, could never have arisen in the mind, and have no relevancy or meaning. Let man frame the proposition.: "That which furthers self-interest is right"; the very employment of the word right betrays the fact that the mind recognizes a standard other than that of self-interest. And any analysis of the notion shows that it is utterly violated and falsified, when made identical with self-interest. Hobbes says, each man’s natural right is to pursue his own natural self-interest supremely. But according to his own showing, this "right" in A implies no corresponding duty in him, and no obligation in his neighbor, B, to respect it, and no recognition on the part of any other. Anybody has a "right" to prevent A from having his "right." Strange right this! If interest is the whole motive, then, when the question arises, whether I shall do, or omit a certain action, you cannot consistently expect me to consider anything but this: whether or not the doing of it will promote my own advantage, and that, in the form I happen to prefer. If I say, "This result will most gratify me," the argument is at an end; my proposed act is, for me, right; there is no longer any standard of uniform moral distinction. The same remark shows that the judgment of obligation to a given act is then baseless. Attempt to apply any of those arguments, by which Epicureanism attempts to interpose an "ought not" between a man and any natural indulgence (as this: "This sensual pleasure will indeed promote animal, but hinder intellectual pleasure, which is higher. And since pleasure is the rational chief good, you should prefer the more to the less"); the reply is: "Animal joys are to me larger than intellectual"; and the ground of obligation is gone. If no indulgence is less or more virtuous than any other, then no possible argument of obligation can be constructed, in the face of an existing preference, for refraining from any. If the sensualistic psychology is true, from which the selfish schemes proceed, then desire for natural good, which they make the only moral motive, is a passive affection of the soul. It is no more voluntary, when the object of desire is presented, than is pain when you are struck, or a chill when you are deluged with cold water. Where, now, is that free agency which, we intuitively feel, is rudimental to all moral action and responsibility? Man is no longer self-directed by subjective, rational motives, but drawn hither and thither like a puppet, by external forces. But if not a free, he cannot be a moral agent. Of course, also, there is no longer any basis for any judgment of merit or demerit in acts, or any moral obligation to punishment. Penalties become the mere expedients of the stronger for protecting their own selfishness. And as this is as true of the future, all religious sanctions are at an end! 2nd. From Precedence of Intuitive Desire To Calculation. This theory teaches that this selfish pleasure apprehended by the mind, in acquiring an object, must always be the motive for seeking it. The analysis is false; desire must be instinctive; otherwise man could not have his first volition till after the volition had put him on the way of experiencing the pleasant result of the fruition! Many desires are obviously instinctive; e. g., curiosity. Now, since the self-pleasing cannot be the original element of the desire, it cannot be proved that this is our element of rightness, in classifying our desires. See now, how this analysis would assign the effect as the cause of its own cause. A does a disinterested act. The consciousness of having done disinterestedly gives A an inward pleasure. This after-pleasure, proceeding from the consciousness that the act was unselfish, prompted to the act! Hence the effect caused its own cause! The absurdity of the scheme is further proved by this: If the fact that a disinterested act results in inward satisfaction to him who did it, proves that act selfish; then the fact that a selfish act usually results in inward pain to him who perpetrates it, proves that act to have been a disinterested one in motive. 3rd. From Intuitive Difference of Advantage and Merit. If the selfish theory of action were true, the adaptation of another person’s conduct to confer personal advantage on us, should be synonymous with merit in our eyes. The villain who shared with us the reward of his misdeeds, to bribe us to aid or applaud him, would evoke the same sentiment of gratitude, as the mother who blessed us with her virtuous self-sacrifice; and there would be no generic difference between the hollow flattery of the courtier for the monster on whose bounty he fattened, and the approbation of the virtuous for patriotism or benevolence. 4th. From Vividness of Unsophisticated Moral Sentiments. If our notion of good acts is nothing but a generalization of the idea of acts promotive of our self-interest, he who has most experimental knowledge of human affairs (i. e., he who is most hackneyed in this world’s ways), must have the clearest and strongest apprehensions of moral distinctions; because he would most clearly apprehend this tendency of actions. He who was wholly inexperienced, could have no moral distinctions. Is this so? Do we not find the most unsophisticated have the most vivid moral sympathies? The ignorant child in the nursery more than the hackneyed man of experience? 5th. From Consciousness. No Merit Where Self Reigns. But the crowning absurdity of the theory appears here; that our consciousness always teaches us, that the pleasure we have in well-doing depends wholly upon our feeling that the virtuous act had no reference to self; and the moment we feel that self-pleasing was our prime motive, we feel that our moral pleasure therein is wholly marred. Indeed, the best and the sufficient argument against this miserable theory would, perhaps, be the instinctive loathing and denial uttered against it by every man’s soul, who is rightly constituted. The honest man knows, by his immediate consciousness, that when he does right, selfishness is not his motive; and that if it were, he would be utterly self-condemned. As Cousin nervously remarks: Our consciousness tells us, that the approbation we feel for disinterested virtue is wholly disinterested, and it is impossible for us to feel it unless we feel that the agent for whom we feel it was disinterested in this act. A thousand things in the acts, the language, and the consciousness of men are utterly irreconcilable with this hateful analysis, and show it to be as unphilosophical as degrading. Our crowning objection is found in its effect on our view of the divine character. That which is man’s finite virtue must be conceived infinite, as constituting the virtue of God (if there is a God). His holiness must be only sovereign self-interest! Utilitarian Ethics. I group together three theories of the nature of virtue, which really amount to the same; that of David Hume, who taught that an act is apprehended by us as virtuous because it is seen to be useful to mankind; that of Jeremy Bentham, who taught that whatever conduct is conducive to the greatest good of the greatest number, is right; and that of some New England divines and philosophers, who teach that virtue consists in benevolence. The latter is practically synonymous with the two former. For the practical expression of benevolence is beneficence. This theory of virtue is a natural off-shoot of Jonathan Edwards’ theory of virtue. This great and good man would probably be shocked to have his speculation, as to "the nature of true virtue," classed with those of the infidel, utilitarian school. But the historical development of it since his death, proves the justice of the charge. It is, moreover, so interesting an exposition of the unavoidable tendencies of the "Benevolence Theory," and has so important relations to existing errors in theology, that I must ask you to pause a moment to consider Edwards’ view. Edwards’ Theory of Virtue. As is suggested by the Rev. Ro. Hall, Edwards was probably impelled to this piece of false analysis by his love of simplifying. His desire was to unify the ultimate principles of the rational spirit, as much as possible. Hence, instead of regarding virtuous acts and states of soul as an ultimate and independent category, he teaches that they all most essentially consist in "Benevolence to Being in General," meaning, of course, rational being, or, "love to being in general." And this love, which is the essence of all virtue, he expressly defines as the love of benevolence only, as distinct from the love of moral complacency. This is essential to his system; for, as he himself argues, the love of moral complacency must imply moral beauty in its object. The perception of moral beauty generates the love which is moral complacency. If the love which constitutes moral beauty were that moral complacency, Edwards argues that we should make a thing its own parent. Of this, more anon. He then proceeds: "The first object of virtuous benevolence is Being, simply considered"; and concludes: "Being in general is its object." That to which its ultimate propensity tends is "the highest good of being in general." From this conclusion, Edwards draws this corollary: There may be a benevolence towards a particular Being, which is virtuous, because that particular Being is a part of the aggregate, general being; but the affection is virtuous, only provided it consists with the "highest good of being in general." Again, that being who has the greatest quantum of existence must attract the largest share of this benevolence. Hence, we must love God more than all creatures, because He is infinite in the dimensions of His existence; and we ought, among creatures, to love a great and good man proportionately more than one less able and full of being. The grounds of proof on which Edwards seems to rest his conclusion are these: That every judgment of beauty, of every kind, is analyzable into a perception of order and harmony; but the most beautiful and lofty of all rational harmonies is this concent or benevolence of an intelligent Being. to all like Being: That the Scriptures say "God is love"; and "Love is the fulfilling of the whole law" between man and his neighbor: And that this theory explains so well the superior claims of God to our love, over creatures’ claims to our love. Leads To Utilitarian Ethics. The transition between this plausible, but most sophistic speculation, and the utilitarian scheme, and ethics of expediency, which underlie the New England Theology, of our day, is found in the writings of Dr. Samuel Hopkins (and "the younger Edwards"). In their hands, "Love to Being in General," became simply the affection of benevolence; and the theory became this: That benevolence is all virtue, and all virtue is benevolence. I have already disclosed the affinity of this theory to the utilitarian, by the simple remark, that beneficence is the practical expression of benevolence. Therefore, when he who has defined virtue as benevolence, comes to treat of virtue as a practical principle, he makes nothing else of it than Jeremy Bentham’s "greatest good of the greatest number." We shall detect Dr. Hopkins adopting this, and even the most thoroughly selfish theory of virtue, in carrying out his benevolent scheme, with an amusing candor, simplicity and inconsistency. Refuted. Proceeding to the refutation of Edwards’ scheme, I begin with his Scriptures. The same logic which infers it from the expression, "God is love," would infer from the text, "God is light," that He is nothing but pure intelligence; and from the text, "Our God is a consuming fire," that He is nothing but vindicatory justice. All Scriptures must be interpreted consistently. Neither can we overstrain the declarations of our Saviour and the apostle, that "love fulfills the whole law" between man and man, into the theory that benevolence is the whole essence of virtue. The proposition of the Scripture contains a beautiful practical fact: that the virtue of love (which, in Scripture nomenclature, includes far more than benevolence) prompts to all other virtues. I exclude the overstrained inference by simply referring to the other passages of Scripture, which expressly name other distinguishable virtues in addition to love. "Now abideth faith, hope, love: these three: but the greatest of these is love."—1 Cor. 13:13. "Add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love"2 Peter 1:5-6. When the Scriptures declare love to God the great Commandment, they mean a very different thing from Edwards’ benevolence to Being; "a propensity to its highest good." The supreme object of holy love in the Scriptures is always God’s holiness. The affection is as distinct from mere benevolence, as adoration from kindness. The love of the Scriptures, in which all man’s holiness centers, is the attraction of the whole soul, in all its active principles, towards all that is pure and venerable, and righteous and true, as well as good, in the divine character. Moral Beauty Unique. To Edwards’ speculative grounds, I reply, first, grounding of moral virtue in a harmony or order perceived, is utterly invalid as a support of his theory, unless he holds that esthetic beauty, logical propriety and moral praiseworthiness, are all generically the same beauty, only differing in degree. For if not, the order and harmony whose perception gives the feeling of virtuousness are a different kind; and Edwards, as much as I, is bound to answer the question: In what does moral beauty differ from the aesthetic and the logical? I can answer consistently: In conformity to a peculiar, original intuition, that of conscience. Indeed, the fact that every sane mind intuitively perceives that difference, is, of itself, a sufficient refutation of Edwards’ and of every other false analysis of the moral sentiment. Edwards’ Paradox. We have seen that Edwards regards the love of benevolence, not the love of moral complacency as the primary essence of virtue: and I showed you the argument which led him to this consistent conclusion. The love of complacency, then, is love to a rational agent on account of his love of benevolence; and the former is not primarily of the essence of virtue. That is, it is not virtuous to love virtue! It is true that on a subsequent page, he retracts this absurdity; availing himself virtually of a theory of sympathy between the virtuous (or benevolent) agent and the approving spectator, to argue what he had before disproved. This is but the anticipation of the vicious analysis of Adam Smith. By a parallel process, Edwards’ principles should lead him to conclude that disinterested gratitude is not virtuous. Said he, "the first benevolence cannot be gratitude." True, for this first benevolence must regard its object simply as being, not as beneficent. Therefore, for me to love a being because he has been a benefactor to me, is not virtue! Edwards, in a subsequent chapter, resolves gratitude into self-love. but he is not thereby designing to depreciate the affection of gratitude, for in the same chapter he analyses the judgments and emotions of conscience into the same self-love! Makes An Abstraction the Object of Virtue. We have seen that Edwards makes the essence of virtue to be "love to being in general." Another fatal objection to this is, that it assigns us as the object of every virtuous affection, a mere abstraction, a general idea. Whereas, if consciousness tells you anything clearly of your moral sentiments, it is that their objects must be personal. Only a person can oblige us to a duty. Only a person can be the object of a right. Pantheism, as we saw, abolishes morality by obliterating the personality of God. Edwards’ speculation would do it as effectually, in another way. Again, says Edwards, love to a particular being is compatible with the definition of virtue as consisting in "love to being in general," provided the particular affection is consistent with the highest good of being in general. But I object again; this proviso is one which cannot be practically ascertained by ordinary moral agents, in one of ten thousand cases in which they are called to act morally towards a particular object. The motive of the peasant-mother may be virtuous, when she forsakes the industrial avocation which she was pursuing, promotive of the public good, to nurse her own sick and dying child, provided she has successfully calculated the preponderance of the resultant general benefit of the nursing over the industry! I object farther, that this theory might lead a man to the breach of a nearer, and therefore more obligatory duty, for the sake of one remoter, and therefore less obligatory. The son would be bound to rescue a great and gifted stranger from fire or water, in preference to his own father, because the great man presented to his love a greater quantum of existence. I object also in to Edwards’ theory in that it might be impossible to explain how it is our duty to honor a dead man for his virtues. He is beyond the reach of our benevolence; he can be neither benefited nor pleased by our plaudits. And especially is it impossible, on this theory, to include God directly in our virtuous affections. Remember, the essence of all virtue with him is that simple love of benevolence, whose propension is to promote the highest good of being in general. But God is infinitely blessed; His good cannot be promoted by creatures. Does this not obviously exempt Him from our benevolence? Edwards answers this laboriously, by pleading that our homage can promote God’s declarative glory; the Scriptures exhort us to love, adore and praise Him. This is true, but the Scriptures ground these duties of love and adoration expressly upon God’s moral perfections. It is these, not existence, which constitute Him the object of our moral homage This fact alone overthrows Edwards’ whole speculation. The Moral Judgment Assumed. All benevolence-schemes tacitly assume the validity of the a priori moral intuition, with which they propose to dispense. For, suppose an advocate of the sensual selfish system to demand of their advocates: "Why is it my duty to make the greatest good of the greatest number my chief end, instead of my own personal good?" The respondent could find no answer, without resorting to the original distinction of advantage from right, and the obligation to the latter. The Scheme Selfish. The most mischievous part of Edwards’ scheme I conceive to be, his derivation of the judgments and emotions of conscience itself, from general self-love. As that direct and simple love of benevolence, which is the pure essence of virtue, is concent and harmony with general being, as being; so self-love, according to Edwards, is a propension towards the concent and harmony or unity of one’s own being. The former principle tends to unite the individual with general Being. The consciousness of an affection tending to break that benevolent unison, disunites the man’s own being within itself. Self-love then produces the judgment and pain of remorse; for this pain is nothing but the sense of the breach of that self-unity, which is self-love’s main object. Hence it follows that the sentiments of conscience, (like gratitude) are only of secondary rank in ethics! By this ill-starred logical jugglery is that imperial faculty degraded, whose intuitions and affections are the very spring-head of all the ethical acts of the human soul, and made an inferior consequence of the virtuous principle; a consequence of its defect, a modification of self-love. It would follow, of course, that the perfect man might be too virtuous to have any conscience at all. It is simpler reasoning still, to conclude as many of Edwards’ followers have done, from his premises; that, as simple benevolence is virtue, self-love is sin. And hence would come about that marvelous interpretation, which is one of the most recent triumphs of the New England theology; when in expounding Genesis 3:22, it tells us that Adam and Eve acquired a knowledge of moral distinctions only by their fall. For, conscience is a development of the principle of self-love, as Edwards teaches; and self-love is the essence of sin, as the moderns say: from which it follows, that man acquires his moral nature only by his immorality. Sin and Self-Love Yet Not Identical. These fatuous absurdities Edwards was too shrewd to adopt. He does not teach, as his premises should have taught him, that selflove is sin. Indeed, in a part of his treatise, he adopts the correct analysis of Bp. Butler, as to this affection. Inform yourselves of that analysis in his sermons, from the 11th with to the 14th. He there teaches us, with his customary profound simplicity, the true testimony of our consciousness; That benevolence and self-love are in fact distinguishable, but not opposite affections of the soul (as is so often popularly assumed); That instead of being universally opposed, they often cooperate as motives to the same act; That the act hence elicited may be either virtuous or vicious, according to its conditions; That both benevolence and self-love are so far in the same moral categories, that notoriously, some acts of simple selflove, (as when a man directly seeks his own calculated but lawful, or obligatory personal good) and many acts of benevolence are virtuous; and that many acts of self-love (as when a man prefers his own mischievous animal pleasure), and many acts of disinterestedness (as when a man deliberately injures himself for the sake of revenge), are vicious. From these clear statements it follows obviously, that the benevolent cannot be exalted into the universal essence of virtue, nor the selfish into that of sin. What Has Suggested These Benevolence Schemes? These theories derive all the plausibility of their sophistries from three facts. It has been so often said, that "Honesty is the best policy," that men come to think the goodness of the policy is what makes it honest; To promote utility, or, in other words, to do acts of beneficence to mankind, is, in a multitude of cases, right and praiseworthy; The duties of benevolence are duties, and a very extensive class thereof; but not, therefore, exhaustive of all duties. Once more, in the business of legislation, the expedient is very much the guide; and crimes are punished chiefly in proportion to their tendency to injure the well-doing of society. This might easily deceive one who, like Bentham, was far more of a legislator than philosopher, to suppose that he had found, in the beneficence of acts, the essential element of their virtue. He forgets that human laws propose as their proximate end only the protection of human well-being in this world; and not the accurate final apportionment of merits. This is God’s function alone. 1st. It Is Selfish In Fact. The utilitarian schemes of ethics profess to stand in contrast to the selfish, because they propose not the selfish good of the agent, but the well-being of mankind, as the element and test of virtue. But they would really involve, as Jouffroy argues, the vice of the selfish systems, if consistently carried out to their last result. For when the question is raised, "Why do men come to regard the utile as the right?" the answer must be, because well-being (natural enjoyment) is the most proper end of man. But it must follow that desire of natural good is man’s most proper motive of action. The moral motive, then, is as effectually left out of the analysis as by Hobbes himself; and the same absurd psychology is assumed, which makes desire for natural good the result of experienced good, whereas the desire must act first, or the good would never have come to be experienced. But more; if desire for natural good is man’s most proper motive of action, it must follow, that his own personal good must always be the most proper end of moral action; because this must always be the nearest, most immediate object of the natural desire. These schemes make aggregate humanity the supreme object of moral action; the true God. But the individual agent is a part of that aggregate; a part of his own God! And as he is the most attainable part—the only part for whose natural welfare he can labor effectually—I see not how the practical conclusion is to be avoided; that he is his own most proper supreme end. Hence we are led back to the vilest results of the selfish system; and such, experience teaches us; is the practical tendency. While the utilitarian schemes profess great beneficence, they make their votaries supremely politic and selfish. 2nd. Utility Not the Conscious Rule of Obligation. But farther; the scheme does not correctly state the facts of our consciousness. The mind does not feel that obligation to an act is always its mere utility or beneficence, nor that the merit of the agent arises out of the advantage his act effects. How often, for instance, do questions arise, as to the obligation of speaking truth; where, if utility were the element of obligation, none would be felt; yet the mind would feel most guilty, had falsehood been uttered in the case. Again; were utility the element of virtue, the rightness or wrongness of an act would only be apprehended so far as experience had given us knowledge as to the beneficence or mischievousness of its effects. Is this so? Does not the conscience lash us for secret sins which leave no loss of reputation, health, or capacity behind them; and lash us all the more promptly and keenly, as we are inexperienced of crime and its wretched consequences? Farther; were this theory true, all truly useful things should affect us with similar sentiments of moral approbation, a convenient bureau, or good milch cow, as truly as a faithful friend, or a benevolent rescuer. Does Hume attempt to escape by saying that it is the rational and voluntary useful act which affects us with the sentiment of approbation? Then, we reply, he has given up the case; for evidently the morality of the act is not in its utility, but in its rational motive. Once more; if utility is the sole element of virtue, then the degree of utility should also be the measure of virtuous merit. We should always feel those acts to be most meritorious which were most conducive to natural good. But do we? e.g. Which ennobles Daniel most in our eyes: the heroism which refused to bow his conscience to an impious prohibition of his king, when the penalty was the lions’ den, or the diligence which dispensed order and prosperity over one hundred and twenty provinces? And the extravagant conclusions of Godwin must be accepted—that duties must be graded by us in proportion to the public importance of the person who was their object; so that it might be the son’s duty to see his own father drown, in order to save some more valuable life, who is a stranger to him. 3rd. If So, We Might "Do Evil That Good May Come." Were the utilitarian scheme true, it might be in some cases utterly impossible to convince a man that it was immoral to "do evil that good might come." If the consequences of the evil act, so far as foreseen by his mind, seemed beneficial, it would be right to do it. Nor could the claims of retributive justice in many cases be substantiated; the criminal who gave, by his penitence, sufficient guarantee that he would offend no more, could not be made, without immorality, to pay his debt of guilt. And above all, eternal retributions would be utterly indefensible in a God of infinite wisdom and power. How can they advantage the universe, including the sufferers, as much as their pardon and thorough conversion would benefit them, without injuring the rest? 4th. Paley’s Scheme. Paley’s type of the Selfish System may be said to be equally perspicuous and false. That such a fourth. Paley’s scheme specimen of impotency and sophism in philosophy should come from a mind capable of so much justice and perspicuity of reasoning, as he has exhibited in the experimental field of Natural Theology, is one of the most curious facts in the history of opinion. I shall first attempt to rebut the objections which he insinuates against the originality of moral perceptions, and then criticize his own theory. Attacks Originality of Moral Judgments. He first proposes to test the question, whether such distinctions are originally and intuitively perceived, by supposing a case of what we call odious filial treachery, stated to a mind perfectly untutored by human associations, example, and teaching; and asking us whether he would immediately feel its vileness, with us. We answer, of course, No. But to show how absurdly preposterous the test is, we need not, with Dr. Alexander, dwell on the complexity of the moral problem involved. The simple answer is, that such a mind would not have the moral sentiment, because he would not comprehend the relations out of which the violated obligations grew, nor the very words used, to state them. In no proper sense could the untutored mind be said to see the case. Now, what a paltry trick is it, to argue that a mind has not a power of comparison, because it cannot compare objects which it does not behold at all? Attributes Them To Association. Paley insinuates (none of his objections to moral intuitions are stated boldly) that our notions of the moral may all be accounted for by association and imitation. Hence, "having noticed that certain actions produced, or tended to produce, good consequences, whenever those actions are spoken of, they suggest, by the law of association, the pleasing idea of the good they are wont to produce. What association begins, imitation strengthens; this habit of connecting a feeling of pleasure with classes of acts is confirmed by similar habits of thought and feeling around us, and we dub it the sentiment of moral approbation." (Borrowed from Hume.) Now, this analysis is shown to be worthless in this one word. The law of association does not transmute, but only reproduces, the mental states connected by it. How, then, can the feeling of pleasure, which begins from a perceived tendency in a class of acts to promote nature good, be changed by association into the pleasure of moral approbation? They are distinct enough at first. Again, how, on this scheme, could men ever come to have pain of conscience at sins which are naturally pleasurable, and attended with no more direct natural ill? And how could the fact ever be explained, that we often have the sentiment of remorse for doing something in compliance with general associations and imitation? Objects, That They Are Not Referable To Any Simpler Type. Another class of objections is drawn from the facts that man has no innate ideas of the abstract element of moral right; and that moralists, though asserting the instinctive origin of moral perceptions, have never been able to point to any one type, or simple abstract element (as veracity, etc.), into which all moral acts might be resolved. After our criticism of Locke, no farther answer will be needed to the first objection. The second, when examined, will be found to be a bald begging of the question. The question is, whether the rightness of acts is an original perception of the human reason. Now, if it be, it will of course follow that it cannot be referred to some more general type of perception. Can this general idea, a truth, be analyzed? Why not? Because it is already simple and primary. Who dreams of arguing now that the human reason has no original capacity of perceiving truth in propositions, because it has no more general and abstract type, into which the sorts of truth in different classes of propositions may be referred? So, of the idea of rightness. And Variable. Paley also borrows the common argument of objectors, from the wide variety, and even contrariety of moral opinions in different ages and nations. In one nation, filial duty is supposed to consist in nursing an aged parent; in another land, in eating him, etc. The answers are, that no one ever pretended any human faculty was perfect in its actings, however original. Habit and association, example, passion, have great influence in perverting any faculty. Next, as justly remarked by Dr. Alexander, many of the supposed cases of contrariety of moral judgments are fully explained by the fact, that the dictate of conscience, right in the general, is perverted by some error or ignorance of the understanding. The Christian mother feels it her duty to cherish the life of her infant; the Hindu to drown hers in Holy Ganges! True. Yet both act on the dictate of conscience—that a mother should seek the highest good of her infant. The Hindu has been taught by her false creed, to believe that she does this by transferring it in childhood to heaven. Once more, it is a most erroneous conclusion to infer that, because men perform, in some countries, what are here regarded as odious vices, with seeming indifference and publicity, therefore their moral sentiments about them do not agree with ours. An educated Hindu will lie for a penny, and, when detected, laugh at it as smart. A Hottentot woman will seem shameless in her lewdness. Yet we are informed that the Hindu reverences and admires the truthfulness of a Christianized Briton; and that the poor Hottentot scorns the unchaste European missionary, just as any female here would. The amount of the case is, that conscience may be greatly stupefied or drowned by evil circumstances; but her general dictates, so far as heard, are infallibly uniform. Paley’s Definition of Duty Paley, having succeeded, to his own satisfaction, in proving that there is no sufficient evidence of moral intuitions existing in the human soul, gives his own definition. "Virtue is doing good to mankind, according to the will of God, for the sake of everlasting happiness." And moral obligation, he defines, as nothing else than a forcible motive arising out of a command of another. That this scheme should ever have seemed plausible to Christians, can only be accounted for by the fact that we intuitively feel, when a God is properly apprehended, that His will is a perfect rule of right; and that it is moral to do all His commands. But when we raise the question, why? the answer is, because His will, like His character, is holy. To do His will, then, is not obligatory merely because an Almighty has commanded it; but He has commanded it because it is obligatory. The distinction of right and wrong is intrinsic. Objections. The System Is A Selfish One. The objections to Paley’s system are patent. He himself raises the question, wherein virtue, on his definition, differs from a prudent self-love in temporal things. His answer is, the latter has regard only to this life; the former considers also future immortal well-being. Brown well observes of this, that it is but a more odious refinement upon the selfish system; defiling man’s very piety, by making it a selfish trafficing for personal advantage with God, and fostering a more gigantic moral egotism, inasmuch as immortality is longer than mortal life. All the objections leveled against the selfish system by me, apply, therefore, justly here. This scheme of Paley is equally false to our consciousness, which tells us that when we act, in all relative duties, with least reference to self, then we are most praiseworthy. Force May Justify Sin. But we may add, more especially, that on Paley’s scheme of obligation, it is hard to see how he could deny that there may be, in some cases, as real a moral obligation to do wrong, as to do right. A company of violent men overpower me, and command me, on pain of instant death, to burn down my neighbor’s dwelling. Here is "a forcible motive arising from the command of another." Why does it not constitute a moral obligation to the crime? Paley would reply, because God commands me not to burn it, on pain of eternal death; and this obligation destroys the other, because the motive is vastly more forcible. It seems, then, that in God’s case, it is His might which makes His right. No Obligation Without Revelation. And No Virtue In God. Once more. On Paley’s scheme, there could be no morality nor moral obligation, where there is no revelation from God; because neither the rule, nor motive, nor obligation of virtue exists. They do not exist indeed, Paley might reply, in the form of a revealed theology; but they are there in the teachings and evidences of Natural Theology. "The heathen which have not the law are a law unto themselves, their consciences," etc. But if there are no authoritative intuitions given by God to man’s soul, of moral distinctions, then Natural Theology has no sufficient argument whatever to prove that God is a moral being, or that He wills us to perform moral acts. Look and see. And, finally, what can God’s morality be; since there is no will of a higher being to regulate His acts, and no being greater than He to hold out the motive of eternal rewards for obeying! 5th. Dr. A. Smith’s Theory. The ingenious scheme of Dr. Adam Smith, Theory of Mor. Sents, may be seen very perspicuously unfolded in Jouffroy. This scheme is by no means so mischievous and degrading as that of Hobbes, Hume or Paley. But it is incorrect. Its fundamental defect is, that in each step it assumes the prior existence of the moral sentiment, in order to account for it. For instance, it says: We feel approbation for an act, when we experience a sympathetic emotion with the sentiments in the agent which prompted it. But sympathy only reproduces the same emotion; it does not transmute it; so that unless the producing sentiment in the agent were moral, it could not, by sympathy, generate a moral sentiment in us. It supposes conscience comes hence: We imagine an ideal man contemplating our act, conceive the kind of sentiments he feels for us, and then sympathize therewith. But how do we determine the sentiments of this ideal man looking at our act? He is but a projection of our own moral sentiments. So, in each step, Dr. S. has to assume the phenomenon, as already produced; for the production of which he would account. Another fatal objection to Dr. Smith’s scheme is, that the sympathetic affection in the beholder is always fainter than the direct sentiment in the object beheld. But conscience visits upon us stronger affections than are awakened by beholding the moral acts of another, and approving or blaming them. The sentiments of conscience should, according to Dr. Smith, be feebler; for they are the reflection of a reflection. Moral Judgments Are Intuitive. ARE moral distinctions intrinsic; and are they intuitively perceived? We have now passed in review all the several theories which answer, no; and found them untenable. Alone, we derive a strong probability that the affirmative is the true answer. For example, consider all the chemists who endeavor in vain to analyze a given material substance into some other known one, yet fail. It is, therefore, assumed to be simple and original. We must assume this of the moral sentiment; or else it is unintelligible how mankind ever became possessed of the moral idea. For every original and simple idea, whether sensitive or rational, with which our souls are furnished, we find an appropriate original power; and without this the idea could never have been entertained by man. Had man no eyes, he would have never had ideas of light and colors; no ear, he could never have had the idea of melody; no taste, he would forever have lacked the idea of beauty. So, if the idea of rightness in acts is not identical with that of truth, nor utility, nor benevolence, nor self-love, nor love of applause, nor sympathetic harmony; nor any other original sentiment; it must be received directly by an original moral power in the soul. To this, in the second place, consciousness testifies: the man who calmly and fully investigates his own mental processes, will perceive that his view and feeling of the rightness of some acts arise immediately in his mind; without any medium, except the comprehension of the real relations of the act; that their rise is unavoidable; and that their failure to rise would be immediately and necessarily apprehended by all, as a fundamental defect of his soul. There is, indeed, a great diversity in the estimation of the more complex details of moral questions. And man’s intuition of those distinctions is often disturbed by three causes, well stated by Dr. Brown—complexity of elements, habits of association, and prevalent passion. But, allowing for these, there is just the universal and immediate agreement in all sane human minds, which we expect to find in the acceptance of necessary first truths. In the fundamental and simple ideas of morals, men are agreed. And in the case of any other intuitions, we have to make precisely the same allowance, and to expect the same disturbing causes. These, with the remarks I made in refutation of Paley’s subjections, I think suffice to sustain the true theory on that point. Illustrated From Logical Judgments. I hold, then, that as there is, in some propositions (not in all—some are truisms, many are meaningless, and some so unknown as to be neither affirmed nor denied), the element of truth or falsehood, original, simple, incapable of analysis or definition in simpler terms, and ascertainable by the mind’s intellection; so there is in actions, of the class called moral, an intrinsic quality of rightness or wrongness, equally simple, original, and incapable of analysis; and, like simple truth, perceived immediately by the inspection of the reason. This quality is intrinsic; they are not right merely because God has commanded, or because He has formed souls to think so, or because He has established any relation of utility, beneficence, or self-interest therewith. But God has commanded them, and formed these relations to them, because they are right. Just as a proposition is not true because our minds are so constructed as to apprehend it such; but our minds were made by God to see it so, because it is true. Some Moral Judgments Are Likewise Deductive. But understand me, do not assert that all moral distinctions in particular acts are intuitively seen, or necessarily seen. As in propositions, some have primary, and some deductive truth; some are seen to be true without premises, and some by the help of premises; so, in acts having moral qualities, the rightness or wrongness of some is seen immediately, and of some deductively. In the latter, the moral relation of the agent is not immediately seen, but the moral judgment is mediated only by the knowledge of some other truths. If these truths are not known, then the moral quality of the act is not obvious. From this simple remark it very clearly follows, that if the mind’s belief touching these truths, which are premises to the moral judgment, be erroneous, the moral judgment will also err. Just as in logic, so here, false premises, legitimately used, will lead to false conclusions. And here is the explanation of the discrepancies in moral judgments, which have so confused Ethics. But there are several writers of eminence, who, while they substantially, yea nobly, uphold the originality and excellence of man’s moral distinctions, err, as we think, in the details of their analysis. A moment’s inquiry into their several departures from my theory, will best serve to define and establish it. The Moral Distinction Seen By the Reason. First. Seeing that the moral distinction is intrinsic; what is the faculty of the soul by which it is apprehended? (Bear in mind a faculty is not a limb of mind, hut only a name we give to one phase or sort of its processes.) Does it apprehend it by its reason; or by a distinct moral faculty? Says Dr. Hutcheson, an English writer: By a distinct, though rational perceptive faculty, which he names, the moral sense; and describes as an internal sense—i. e., a class of processes perceptive, and also exhibiting sensibility. Says Dr. Alexander, The perceptive part of our moral processes, is simply a judgment of the reason. It is but an intellection of the understanding, like any other judgment of relations, except that it immediately awakens a peculiar emotion, viz: the moral. Now, it might be plausibly said that the reason is concerned only with the judgment of truth; and we have strenuously repudiated the analysis which reduces the moral distinction to mere truth. But it should rather be said, that the proper field of the reason is the judgment of relations; truth existing in propositions is only one class. There seems no ground to suppose that the moral judgment, so far as merely intellective of the distinction, is other than a simple judgment of the reason; because, so far as we know, wherever reason is, there, and there only, are moral judgments. Second. If the faculties were two, the one, we might rationally expect, might sometimes convict the other of inaccuracy, as the memory does the reason, and vice versa. Third. The identity of the two processes seems strongly indicated by the fact, that if the reason is misled by any falsehood of view, the moral sentiment is infallibly perverted to just the same extent. The moral motive is always a rational one. Some rational perception of the truth of a proposition predicating relation, is necessary, as the occasion of its acting, and the object of a moral judgment. The reason why brutes have not moral ideas, is that they have not reason. In short, I see nothing gained by supposing an inward perceptive faculty called moral sense, other than the reason itself. Next we notice the question: at what stage of its perceptions of the relations of acts, does the reason see the moral distinction? In each separate case immediately, as soon as the soul is enough developed to apprehend the relations of the particular act? No, answers Jouffroy, but only after a final generalization is accomplished by the reason. Jouffroy’s Scheme. His theory is: First. That in the merely animal stage of existence, the infant acts from direct, uncalculating instinct alone. The rational idea of its own natural good is the consequence, not origin, of the experienced pleasure following from the gratification of instinct. Second. Experience presents the occasions upon which the reason gives the general idea of personal good; and the motives of self-calculation begin to act. Third. The child also observes similar instincts, resulting in its fellowmen in natural enjoyment to them; and as it forms the general idea of its own natural good (satisfaction of the whole circle of instincts to greatest attainable degree) as its most proper personal end; reason presents the general truth, that a similar personal end exists for this, that, the other, and every fellowman. Here, then, arises a still more general idea; the greatest attainable natural good of all beings generally; the "absolute good," or "universal order"; and as soon as this is reached, the reason intuitively pronounces it the moral good; to live for this, is now seen to be man’s proper end; and rightness in acts is their rational tendency to that end. This is rather a subtle and ingenious generalization of the result of our moral judgments, than a correct account of their origin. This generalization, as made by the opening mind, might suggest the notion of symmetry, or utility as belonging to the "absolute order," but surely that of obligatoriness is an independent element of rational perception! If the idea of rightness and obligation had never connected itself in the opening mind with any specific act having a tendency to man’s natural good, how comes the mind to apprehend the universal order as the obligatory moral end, when once the reason forms that abstraction? It seems to me that the element of moral judgment must be presupposed, to account for the result. Again; the supposed process is inconsistent with a correct idea of the generalizing process. The process does not transmute but only colligates the facts which it ranks together. The general attributes which the mind apprehends as constituting the connotation of the general term, are precisely the attributes which it saw to be common in all the special cases grouped together. So that, if a moral order had not been already apprehended by the reason in the specific acts, the mere apprehension of the universal order would not produce the conviction of its morality. Experience would strengthen the moral idea. But usually the most unhackneyed have it most vividly. But it is right to say, that Jouffroy, notwithstanding this peculiarity of his theory, deserves the admiration of his readers, for the beauty of his analyses, and the general elevation of his views. Sentimental Scheme of Dr. Thomas Brown. The ethical lectures of Dr. Thomas Brown, of Edinburgh, are marked by great acuteness, and nobility of general tone; and he has rendered gallant service in refuting the more erroneous theories. He makes moral distinctions original and authoritative, and yet allows the reason only a secondary function in them. The whole result of this analysis is this: when certain actions (an action is nothing more than the agent acting) are presented, there arises immediately an emotion, called, for want of a more vivid term, moral approbation, without any previous condition of self-calculation, judgment of relation in the reason, and so on. This immediate emotion constitutes our whole feeling of the rightness, obligation, meritoriousness, of the agent. As experience gathers up and recollects the successive acts which affect us with the moral emotion, reason makes the generalization of them into a class; and therefore, derivatively forms the general idea of virtue. Man’s moral capacity, therefore, is, strictly, not a power of intellection, but a sensibility. The reason only generalizes into a class, those acts which have the immediate power of affecting this sensibility in the same way. And Brown’s system deserves yet more than Adam Smith’s, which he so ably refutes, to be called the Sentimental System. The moral sentiment is with him strictly an instinctive emotion. Now, it does not seem to me a valid objection, to say with Jouffroy, that hence, the moral emotion is made one among the set of our natural instincts: and there no longer appears any reason why it should be more dominant over the others out of its own domain, than they over it (e.g., more than taste, or resentment, or appetite). For the very nature of this moral instinct, Brown might reply, is, that it claims all other susceptibilities which have moral quality, are in its own domain. Objection. 1st. Soul Always Sees, In Order To Feel. 2nd. No Virtue Without Rational, Impersonal Motive. 3rd. There Would Be No Uniform Standard. The truer objections are, that this notion does not square with the analogies of the soul. In every case, our emotions arise out of an intellection. This is true, in a lower sense, even of our animal instincts. It is perception which awakens appetites. It is the conception of an intent to injure, which gives the signal to our resentment, even when it arises towards an agent nonmoral. And in all the more intellectual emotions, as of taste, love, moral complacency, the view of the understanding, and that alone, evokes the emotion in a normal way. The soul feels, because it has seen. How else could reason rule our emotions? Surely this is one of our most important distinctions from brutes, that our emotions are not mere instincts, but rational affections. Note, especially too, that if our moral sentiments had no element of judgment at their root, the fact would be inexplicable, that they never, like all other instinctive emotions, come in collision with reason. Again, Dr. B. has very properly shown, in overthrowing the selfish systems of human action, that our instincts are not prompted by self-interest. He seems, therefore, to think that when he makes the moral emotion an instinctive sensibility, he has done all that is needed to make it disinterested. But an action is not, therefore, morally disinterested, because it is not self-interested. Then would our very animal appetites, even in infancy, be virtues! The truth is, in instinctive volitions, the motive is personal to the agent; but not consciously so. In selfish volitions the motive is personal to the agent; and he knows it. Only when the motive is impersonal, and he knows it, is there disinterestedness, or virtue. Last, if Brown’s theory were correct, moral good would only be relative to each man’s sensibility; and there would be no uniform standard. An act might be good to one, bad to another, just as it presented itself to his sensibility; as truly as in the sense of the natural good, one man calls oysters good, and another considers oysters bad. Whereas the true doctrine is, that moral distinctions are as intrinsic in certain acts, as truth is in certain propositions and eternal and immutable. Even God sees, and calls the right to be right, because it so, not vice versa. Dr. Brown foresees this, and attempting to rebut it, is guilty of peculiar absurdity. Why says he, does it give any more intrinsic basis for moral distinctions in the acts (or agents acting) themselves, to suppose that our cognizance of them is by a rational judgment, than to say, with him, that it is in the way they naturally affect a sensibility in us? The capacity of having the intuitive judgment is itself but a sort of rational sensibility to be affected in a given way; and, in either case, we have no ground for any belief of an intrinsic permanence of the relation or quality perceived, but that our Maker made us to be affected so! Hence, he betrays the whole basis of morals and truth, to a sweeping skepticism. Does not intuition compel us to believe that reason is affected with such and such judgments, because the grounds of them are actual and intrinsic in the objects? Dr. Brown goes to the absurd length of saying, that the supposed relations ascertained by reason herself, are not intrinsic, and exist nowhere, except in the perceiving reason, e.g., the relation of square of hypotenuse. Says he, were there nowhere a perceiving mind comprehending this relation, the relation would have no existence, no matter how many right-angled triangles existed! Is not this absolute skepticism? Is it not equivalent to saying that none of the perceptions of reason (i. e., human beliefs), have any objective validity? There need be no stronger refutation of his theory, than that he should acknowledge himself driven by it to such an admission. The Moral State Complex Illustrated By Taste. The correct view, no doubt, is this: that our simplest moral states consist of two elements: a judgment of the understanding, or rational perception of the moral quality in the act; and an immediate, peculiar emotion, called approbation, arising thereupon, giving more or less warmth to the judgment. In our moral estimates of more complex cases, just as in our intellectual study of derived truths, the process may be more inferential, and more complex. It has been often, and justly remarked, that the Parallel between the rational aesthetic functions of the soul, and its moral functions, is extremely instructive. Psychology teaches us that rational taste (for instance, the pleasure of literary beauty in reading a fine passage), consists of a judgment, or cluster of judgments, and a peculiar emotion immediately supervening thereon. The sentiment of taste is, then, complex, consisting of an action of the intelligence and a motion of the sensibility. The former is cause; the latter is consequence. After the excitement of the sensibility has wholly waned, the judgment which aroused it remains fixed and unchanged. Now, it is this way with our moral sentiments. A rational judgment of the intrinsic righteousness or wrongness of the act immediately produces an emotion of approbation, or disapprobation, which is original and peculiar. The whole vividness of the sentiment may pass away; but the rational judgment will remain as permanent as any judgment of truth in propositions. The great distinction between the Aesthetic and ethical actions of the soul, is that the latter carries the practical and sacred perception of obligation. Conscience, What? Obligation, What? Conscience, as I conceive, is but the faculty of the soul just described, acting With reference to our own moral acts, conceived as future, done, or remembered as done When we conceive the wrongness of an act as done by ourselves, that judgment and emotion take the form of self-blame, or remorse; wherein the emotion is made more pungent than in other cases of disapprobation, by our instinctive and our self-calculating self-love, one or both. So of the contrasted case. And the merit of an action, looked at as past, is no other than this judgment and feeling of its rightness, which intuitively connects the idea of title to reward with the agent, i. e., our ideas of merit and demerit are intuitions arising immediately upon the conception of the rightness or wrongness of the acts; connecting natural good or evil with moral good or evil, by an immediate tie. Our ideas of desert of reward or punishment, therefore, are not identical with our sentiments of the rightness or wrongness of acts, as Dr. Brown asserts, but are intuitively consequent thereon. Dr. B. also asserts, as also Dr. Alexander, that our notion of obligation is no other than our intuitive judgment of rightness in acts, regarded as prospective. Therefore, it is useless and foolish to raise the question: "Why am I obliged, morally, to do that which is right?" It is as though one should debate why he should believe an axiom. This is substantially correct. But when they say, whatever is right, is obligatory, and vice versa, there is evidently a partial error. For there is a limited class of acts, of which the rightness is not proportioned to the obligation to perform them; but on the contrary, the less obligation, the more admirable is the virtue of doing them gratuitously. Such are some acts of generosity to unworthy enemies: and especially God’s to rebel man. That God was under no obligation to give His Son to die for them, is the very reason His grace in doing so is so admirable! Obligation, therefore, is not always the correlative of rightness in the act, but it is, always, the correlative of a right in the object. This is the distinction which has been overlooked—i. e., a multitude of our acts have a personal object, God, self, a man, or mankind, one or more; and the conscience in many cases apprehends, not only that the act would be right, but that such are the relations of ourselves to the object, that he has a right, a moral title to have it done, in such sense that not only the doing of the opposite to him, but the withholding of the act itself, would be wrong. In every such case, the notion of obligation arises. And that, stronger or weaker, whether the object’s right be perfect or imperfect. Imperative of Conscience Is Intuitive. The most important thing, however, for us to observe, is that every sane mind intuitively recognizes this moral obligation. The judgment and emotion we call conscience carries this peculiarity over all other states of reason or instinct, that it contains the imperative element. It utters a command, the rightness of which the understanding is necessitated to admit. Other motives, rational or instinctive, may often (alas!) overcome it in force; but none of them can dispute its authority. It is as impossible for the mind, after having given the preference to other motives, to think its choice therein right, as it is to think any other intuition untrue. Conscience is the Maker’s imperative in the soul. Must Conscience, Misguided, Be Obeyed? Hence it must follow that the dictate of conscience must always be obeyed; or sin ensues. But conscience is not infallible, as guided by man’s fallible understanding it is clear from both experience and reason, that her fiat may be misdirected. In that case, is the act innocent, or wrong? If you say the latter, you seem involved in a glaring paradox; that to obey would be wrong; and yet to disobey would be wrong. How can both be true? If you say the former, other absurdities would follow. First. Truth would seem to be of no consequence in order to right; and the conscience might just as well be left uninformed, as informed, so far as one man is personally concerned therein. Second. Each man’s view of duty would be valid for him; so that there might be as many clashing views of duty, as men, and each valid in itself; so that we should reach such absurdities as these: A has a right to a given object which B has an equal right to prevent his having; so that B has a moral right to do to A what is to him a moral wrong! Third. Many of the most odious acts in the world, reprobated by all posterity, as the persecutions of a Saul, or a Dominic, would be justified, because the perpetrators believed they were doing God service. Solution. The solution of this seeming paradox is in this fact: that God has not given man a conscience which is capable of misleading him. when lawfully and innocently used. In other words, while lack of knowledge necessary to perceive our whole duty may often occur (in which case it is always innocent to postpone acting), positive error of moral judgment only arises from guilty haste or heedlessness, or indolence, or from sinful passion or prejudice. When, therefore, a man sincerely believes it right in his conscience to do what is intrinsically wrong, the wrongness is not in the fact that he obeyed conscience (for this abstractly is right), but in the fact that he had before, and at the time, perverted conscience by sinful means. What Constitutes Moral Agency? We intuitively apprehend that all agents are not blind subjects of moral approbation or disapprobation. Hence, the question must be settled: what are the elements essential to moral responsibility! This can be settled no otherwise than by an appeal to our intuitions. For instance, we may take an act of the form which would have moral quality, if done by a moral agent—e.g., inflicting causeless bodily pain; and attributing it to successive sorts of agents, from lower to higher, ascertain what the elements are, which confer responsibility. As we walk through a grove, a dead branch falls on our heads; we feel that resentment would be absurd, much more disapprobation, the thing is dead. We walk near our horse, he wantonly kicks or bites. There is a certain type of anger; but it is not moral disapprobation; we feel still, that this would be absurd. Here, there is sensibility and will in the agent: but no conscience or reason. We walk with our friend; he treads on our corns and produces intolerable pain; but it is obviously unintentional. We pass through a lunatic asylum; a maniac tries to kill us. Here is sensibility, free will, intention; but reason is dethroned. In neither of these cases should we have moral disapprobation. A stronger man takes hold of our friend, and by brute force makes him strike us; there is no anger towards our friend, he is under coaction. We learn from these various instances, that free agency, intention, and rationality are all necessary, to constitute a man a responsible moral agent. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 24: 02.08. CHAPTER 7: FREE AGENCY AND THE WILL ======================================================================== Chapter 7: Free Agency and the Will Syllabus for Lecture 11: Are man’s actions under a fatal necessity? Alexander’s Moral Science, chs. 15, 16. Cousin, e vrai c.f., Lecon 14. Jouffroy, Lectures. 4, 5. Morell, Hist. Mod. Phil. on Hobbes and Sensationalism, p. 74, c.f., p. 299, c.f. What constitutes Free Agency? State the theory of Indifferency of the Will and Power of Contrary Choice. State, on the other hand, the theory of Certainty and Efficiency of Motives. Turrettin, Loc. x, Qu. i, Qu. iii, Sect. 1-4. Alexander, chs. 16, 18, 19. Edwards on the Will, Introduc. and pt. i, Morell, p. 299 c.f. Reid’s Philosophy of Mind. McCosh, Gov. Divine and Moral, p. 273, c.f. Watson’s Theolog. Institutes, Vol. ii. p. 304, p. 435 c.f. Sustain the true doctrine, and answer objections. Turrettin, Loc. x, Qu. 2. Edwards on the Will, pt. iii. Alexander, as above. Bledsoe on the Will and Theodicy, pt. i. Aristotle, Nicomachian Ethics, bk. vi p. 23. Dr. Wm. Cunningham, Hist. Theology, chs. 20, Sect. 1, 2, 3. Anselm. Man A Free Agent, Denied By Two Parties. But is man a free agent? Many have denied it. These may be ranked under two classes Theological Fatalists and Sensualistic Necessitarians. The former argue from the doctrine of God’s foreknowledge and providence; the latter from the certainty, or, as it has unluckily been termed, necessity of the Will. Say the one party; God has foreknown and foreordained all that is done by rational man, as well as by irrational elements, and His almighty providence infallibly effectuates it all. Therefore man’s will is only seemingly free; he must be a machine; compelled by God (for if God had no efficacious means to compel He could not certainly have foreknown) to do what God purposed from eternity; and, therefore, man never had any real choice; he is the slave of this divine fate. Say the other party, headed by Hobbes: man’s volitions are all effects: following with a physical necessity upon the movement of the preponderant desires. But what are his desires? The soul intrinsically is passive; the attributes are nothing but certain susceptibilities of being affected in certain ways, by impressions from without. There is nothing, no thought, no feeling in the mind, except what sensation produced there; indeed all inward states are but modified sensations. Thus, desire is but the reflex of the perception of a desirable object; resentment but the reaction from impact. Man’s emotions, then, are the physical results of outward impressions, and his volitions the necessary effects of his emotions. Man’s whole volitions, therefore, are causatively determined from without. While he supposes himself free, he is the slave of circumstances; of fate, if those circumstances arise by chance. Replies To Them. Now, in answer to all this, it would be enough to say, that our consciousness contradicts it. There can be no higher evidencethan that of consciousness. Every man feels conscious that wherever he has power to do what he wills, he acts freely. And the validity of this uniform, immediate testimony of consciousness, as Cousin well remarks, on this subject, must, in a sense, supersede all other evidence of our free agency; because all possible premises of such arguments must depend on the testimony of consciousness. But still, it is correct to argue, that man must be a free agent; because this is inevitably involved in his responsibility. Conscience tells us we are responsible for our moral acts. Reason pronounces, intuitively, that responsibility would be absurd were we not free agents. It may be well added, that when you approach revealed theology, you find the Scriptures (which so frequently assert God’s decree and providence), assert and imply with equal frequency, man’s free agency. The king of Babylon (Isaiah 14:1-32) fulfills God’s purpose in capturing the sinful Jews; but he also fulfills the purpose of his own heart. But we can do more than rebut the Fatalist’s views by the testimony of our consciousness; we can expose their sophistry. God’s mode of effectuating His purposes as to the acts of free agents, is not by compelling their acts or wills, contrary to their preferences and dispositions; either secretly or openly; but by operating through their dispositions. And as to the latter argument, from the certainty of the will; we repudiate the whole philosophy of sensationalism, from which it arises. True, volitions are effects; but not effects of the objects upon which they go forth. The perception of these is but the occasion of their rise, not the cause. When desire attaches itself upon any external object, terminating in volition, the whole activity and power are in the mind, not in the object. The true immediate cause of volition is the mind’s own previous view and feeling; and, this, again, is the result of the mind’s spontaneity, as guided by its own prevalent attributes and habitudes. Freedom and Necessity Defined. Semi-Pelagianism and Calvinists. What constitutes man a free agent? One party claims the self-determining power of the will, and another claims that the self-determining power of the soul makes man a free agent. The first party tends to view the will as influenced by external criteria; the second party tends the view the will as influenced by the motives of one’s own soul. The one asserts that our acts of volition are uncaused phenomena, that the will remains in equilibrio, after all the preliminary conditions of judgment in the understanding, and emotion of the native dispositions are fulfilled, and that the act of choice is self-determined by the will, and not by the preliminary states of soul tending thereto; so that volitions are in every case, more or less contingent. The other party repudiates, indeed, the old sensational creed, of a physical tie between the external objects which are the occasions of our judgments and feelings; and attributes all action Of will to the soul’s own spontaneity as its efficient source. But it asserts that this spontaneity, like all other forces in the universe, acts according to law; that this law is the connection between the soul’s own states and its own choices, the former being as much of its own spontaneity as the latter; that therefore volitions are not uncaused, but always follow the actual state of judgment and feeling (single or complex), at the time being; and that this connection is not contingent, but efficient and certain. And this certainty is all that they mean by moral necessity. Will Determined By Subjective Motives. Arguments. The latter is evidently the true doctrine, because A. our consciousness says so. Every man feels that when he acts, as a thinking being, he has a motive for acting so; and that if he had not had, he would not have done it. The man is conscious that he determines himself, else, he would not be free; but he is equally conscious that it is himself judging and desiring, which determines himself choosing, B. otherwise there would be no such thing as a recognition of character, or permanent principles. For there would be no efficient influence of the man’s own principles over his actions (and it is by his actions alone we would know his principles), and his principles might be of a given character, and his actions of a different, or of no character. Consequently there would be no certain result from human influence over man’s character and actions, in education and moral government. We might educate the principles, and still fail to educate the actions and habits. The fact which we all experience every day would be impossible, that we can cause our fellowmen to put forth certain volitions, that we can often do it with a foreseen certainty, and still we feel that those acts are free and responsible, D. otherwise man might be neither a reasonable nor a moral being. Not reasonable, because his acts might be wholly uncontrolled at last by his whole understanding; not moral, because the merit of an act depends on its motive, and his acts would be motiveless. The self-determined volition has its freedom essentially in this, according to its advocates; that it is caused by no motive. Hence, no acts are free and virtuous, except those which a man does without having any reason for them. Is this good sense? Does not the virtuousness of a man’s acts depend upon the kind of reason which moved to them? E. In the choice of one’s summum bonum, the will is certainly not contingent. Can a rational being choose his own misery, apprehended as such, and eschew his own happiness, for their own sakes? Yet that choice is free, and if certainty is compatible with free agency in this the most important case, why not in any other? F. God, angels, saints in glory, and the human nature of Jesus Christ, must be certainly determined to right volitions by the holiness of their own natures, and in all but the first case by the indwelling grace and the determinate purpose of God. So, on the other hand, devils, lost souls, and those who on earth have sinned away their day of grace, must be certainly determined to be evil, by their own decisive evil natures and habits: yet their choice is free in both cases. If the will were contingent, there could be no scientia media, and we should be compelled to the low and profane ground of the Socinian; that God does not certainly foreknow all things and in the nature of things, cannot. For the definition of scientia media is, that it is that contingent knowledge of what free agents will do in certain foreseen circumstances, arising out of God’s infinite insight into their dispositions. But if the will may decide in the teeth of that foreseen disposition, there can be no certain knowledge how it will decide. Nor is the evasion suggested by modern Arminians (vice, Mansel’s Lim. of Relig. Thought) of any force; that it is incompetent for our finite understandings to say that God cannot have this scientia media, because we cannot see how He is to have it. For the thing is not merely among the incomprehensible, but the impossible. If a thing is certainly foreseen, it must be certain to occur, or else the foreknowledge of its certain occurrence is false. But if it is certain to occur, it must be because there will be an antecedent, certainly, or efficiently connected with the event, as cause. It is, therefore, in the knowledge of this causal connection, that God would find his scientia media, if this branch of His knowledge were mediate. To sum up in a word, the inutility of this evasion, this Semi-Pelagian theory begins by imputing to God an inferential knowledge of man’s free acts, and then, in denying the certain influence of motives takes away the only ground of inference. H. Finally, God would have no efficient means of governing free agents; things would be perpetually emerging through their contingent acts, unforeseen by God, and across His purposes; and His government would be, like man’s, one of sorry expedients to patch up His failures. Nor could He bestow any certain answer to prayer, either for our own protection against temptation and wrong choice, or the evil acts of other free agents. All the predictions of Scripture concerning events in which the free moral acts of rational agents enter as second causes, are arguments against the contingency of the will. But we see striking instances in Joseph, the Assyrians, Cyrus, and especially the Jews who rejected their Lord. From this point of view, the celebrated argument of Edwards for the certainty of the will from God’s foreknowledge of creatures’ free acts, is obvious. The solution of the cavils attempted against it is this position: That the principle, "No event without a cause," which is, to us, a universal and necessary first truth, is also a truth to the divine mind. When God certainly foresees an act, he foresees it as coming certainly out of its cause. Hence, I repeat, if the foresight is certain, the causation must be efficient. Certainty of the Will Proved By God’s Sovereignty. I have indicated, both when speaking of fatalism and of the impossibility of a scientia media concerning a contingent will, the argument for the certainty of the will contained in the fact of God’s sovereignty. If He is universal First Cause, then nothing is uncaused. Such is the argument; as simple as it is comprehensive. It cannot be taught that volitions are uncaused, unless you make all free agents a species of gods, independent of Jehovah’s control. In other words, if His providence extends to the acts of free agents, their volitions cannot be uncaused; for providence includes control, and control implies power. The argument from God’s sovereignty is, indeed, so conclusive, that the difficulty, with thinking minds, is not to admit it, but to avoid being led by it to an extreme. The difficulty rather is, to see how, in the presence of this universal, absolute sovereignty, man can retain a true spontaneity. I began by defining that, while the will of man is not self-determining, his soul is. I believe that a free, rational Person does properly originate effects; that he is a true fountain of spontaneity, determining his own powers, from within, to new effects. This is a most glorious part of that image of God, in which he is created. This is free agency! Now, how can this fact be reconciled with what we have seen of God as absolute First Cause? The demonstration may be closed by the famous Reductio ad absurdum, which Edwards has borrowed from the scholastics. If the will is not determined to choice by motives, but determines itself, then the will must determine itself thereto by an act of choice; for this is the will’s only function. That is, the will must choose to choose. Now, this prior choice must be held by our opponents to be self-determined. Then it must be determined by the will’s act of choice—i. e., the will must choose to choose to choose. Thus we have a ridiculous and endless regressus. I now return to consider the objections usually advanced against our doctrine. The most formidable is that which shall be first introduced; the supposed incompatibility of God’s sovereignty as universal First Cause, with man’s freedom. Yet Man Under Providence Is Free. The reconciliation may and does transcend our comprehension, and yet be neither unreasonable nor incredible. The point where the creature’s volition interpenetrates within the immense circle of the divine will, is beyond human view. When we remember that the wisdom, power and resources of God are infinite, it is not hard to see that there may be a way by which our spontaneity is directed, omnipotently, and yet without infringement of its reality. The sufficient proof is that we, finite creatures, can often efficaciously direct the free will of our fellows, without infringing it. Does any one say that still, in every such case, the agent, if free as to us, has power to do the opposite of what we induce him to do? True, he has physical power. But yet the causative efficacy of our means is certain; witness the fact that we were able certainly to predict our success. A perfect certainty, such as results from God’s infinitely wise and powerful providence over the creature’s will, is all that we mean by moral necessity. We assert no other kind of necessity over the free will. More mature reflection shows us, that so far are God’s sovereignty and providence from infringing man’s free agency, they are its necessary conditions. Consider: What would the power of choice be worth to one if there were no stability in the laws of nature, or no uniformity in its powers? No natural means of effectuating volitions would have any certainty, from such choice would be impotent, and motives would cease to have any reasonable weight. Could you intelligently elect to sow, if there were no ordinance of nature insuring seed time and harvest? But now, what shall give that stability to nature? A mechanical, physical necessity? That results in nothing but fatalism. The only other answer is: it must be the intelligent purpose of an almighty, personal God. The leading objections echoed by Arminians against the certainty of the will, is, that if man is not free from all constraint, whether of motive or coaction, it is unjust in God to hold him subject to blame, or to command to those acts against which His will is certainly determined, or to punishments for failure. We reply, practically, that men are held blamable and punishable for acts to which their wills are certainly determined, both among men and before God, and all consciences approve. This is indisputable, in the case of those who are overmastered by a malignant emotion, as in Genesis 37:4, of devils and lost souls, and of those who have sinned away their day of grace. The Arminian rejoins (Watson, vol. 2, p. 438), such transgressors, notwithstanding their inability of will, are justly held responsible for all subsequent failures in duty, because they sinned away the contingency of their own wills, by their own personal, free act, after they became intelligent agents. But as man is born in this inability of will, through an arrangement with a federal head, to which he had no opportunity to dissent, it would be unjust in God to hold him responsible, unless He had restored the contingency of will to them lost in Adam, by the common sufficient grace bestowed through Christ. But the distinction is worthless: first, because, then, God would have been under an obligation in righteousness, to furnish a plan of redemption; but the Scriptures represent His act therein as purely gracious. Second. Because, then, all the guilt of the subsequent sins of those who had thrown away the contingency of their own wills, would have inherited in the acts alone by which they lost it. True, that act would have been an enormously guilty one, the man would have therein committed moral suicide. But it would also be true that the man was thereafter morally dead, and the dead cannot work. Third. The Arminian should, by parity of reason, conclude, that in any will certainly determined to holiness, the acts are not meritorious, unless that determination resulted from the being’s own voluntary self-culture, and formation of good dispositions and habits. Therefore God’s will, which has been from eternity certainly determined to good, does nothing meritorious! But the more analytical answer to this class of objections is that the certainty of disobedience in the sinner’s will is no excuse for him, because it proceeds from a voluntary cause—i. e., moral disposition. As the volition is only the man willing, the motive is the man feeling; it is the man’s self. There is no lack of the requisite capacities, if the man would use those capacities aright. Now, a man cannot plead the existence of an obstacle as his excuse, which consists purely in his own spontaneous emission of opposition. That This Makes Us Machines. Now the objections most confidently urged, are, first, that our view makes man a machine, an intelligent one, indeed; but a machine in which choice follows motive by a physical tie. And I would agree, to some extent, albeit using an inappropriate illustration, that man is in one sense a machine in that his spontaneous force of action has its regular laws. However, and this is the essential point, I would not agree that man is a machine in his motivations; the power of human motivation is not external to man, but is in himself. That Man Acts Against His Own Judgment. First. It is objected that our scheme fails to account for all choices where the man acts against his own better judgment and prevalent feelings; or; in other words, that while the dictate of the understanding as to the truly preferable, is one way, the will acts the other way; e. g., the drunkard breaks his own anxiously made resolutions of temperance, and drinks. I reply, no, still the man has chosen according to what was the prevalent view of his judgment and feelings, as a whole, at the time. That drunkard does judge sobriety the preferable part in the end, and on the whole; but as to the question of this present glass of drink (the only immediate object of volition), his understanding is misinformed by strong propensity and the delusive hope of subsequent reform, combining the advantages of present indulgence with future impunity; so that its judgment is, that the preferable good will be this one glass, rather than present, immediate self-denial. That Repentance Implies Power of Contrary Choice. First. It is objected that our repentance for having chosen wrong always implies the feeling that we might have chosen otherwise, had we pleased. I reply, yes, but not unless that choice had been preceded at the time by a different view of the preferable. The thing for which the man blames himself is, that he had not those different feelings and views. Second. It is objected that our theory could never account for a man’s choosing between two alternative objects, equally accessible and desirable, inasmuch as the desire for either is equal, and the will has no self-determining power. The answer is, that the equality of objects by no means implies the equality of subjective desires. For the mind is never in precisely the same state of feeling to any external object or objects, for two minutes together, but ever ebbing and flowing more or less. In this case, although the objects remain equal, the mind will easily make a difference, perhaps an imaginary one. And further, the two objects being equal, the inertia of will towards choosing a given one of them, may be infinitesimally small; so that an infinitesimally small preponderance of subjective motive may suffice to overcome it. Remember, there is already a subjective motive in the general, to choose some one of them. A favorite instance supposed is that of a rich man, who has in his palm two or three golden guineas, telling a beggar that he may take any one. But they are exactly equal in value. Now, the beggar has a very positive motive to take some one of them, in his desire for the value to him of a guinea. The least imaginative impulse within his mind is enough to decide a supposed difference which is infinitesimal. Motive, What? the Inducement Not Motive. Most important light is thrown upon the subject, by the proper answer to the question, what is motive? The will not being, as we have seen, self-moved, what is it which precedes the volition, and is the true cause? I reply, by distinguishing between motive and inducement. The inducement is that external object, towards which the desire tends, in rising to choice. Hence, the gold seen by the thief is the inducement to his volition to steal. But the perception of the gold is not his motive to that volition. His motive is the cupidity of his own soul, projecting itself upon the gold. And this cupidity (as in most instances of motive), is a complex of certain conceptions of the intellect, and concupiscence of the heart; conceptions of various utilities of the gold, and concupiscence towards the pleasures which it could procure. The inducement is objective; the motive is subjective. The inducement is merely the occasion, the motive is the true cause of the resulting volition. The object which is the inducement projects no force into the thief’s soul. On the contrary, it is the passive object of a force of soul projected upon it. The moral power is wholly from within outwards. The action is wholly that of the thief’s soul, the inducement is only acted on. The proof of this all important view is in this case. The same purse of gold is seen, in the same circumstances of opportunity and privacy, by two men; the second is induced by it to steal, on the first, it had no such power. Why the difference? The difference must be subjective in the two men, because objectively, the two cases are identical. Your good sense leads you to explain the different results by the differing characters of the two men. You say: "It is because the first man was honest, the second covetous." That is to say, the causative efficiency which dictated the two volitions was, in each case, from within the two men’s souls, not from the gold. Besides, the objects of sense are inert, dead, senseless, and devoid of will. It is simply foolish to conceive of them as emitting a moral activity. The thief is the only agent in the case. Sensualistic View of Necessity False. This plain view sheds a flood of light the doctrine of the will. A volition has always a cause, which is the (subjective) motive. This cause is efficient, Otherwise the effect volition, would not follow. But the motive is subjective; i. e., it is the agent judging and desiring, just as truly as the volition is the agent choosing. And this subjective desire, causative of the choice, is a function of the agent’s activity, not of his passivity. The desire is as much of the agent’s spontaneity (self-action) as is the choosing. In this way we may correct the monstrous view of those who deduce a doctrine of the necessity of the will from a sensualistic psychology.. If volition is efficiently caused by desire, and if desire is but the passive reflex of objective perception, then, indeed, man is a mere machine. His seeming free agency is wholly deceptive; and his choice is dictated from without. Then, indeed, the outcry of the semi-Pelagian against such a necessity is just. But inducement is not motive; desire is an activity, and not a passivity of our souls. Our own subjective judgments and appetencies cause our volitions. Inducement Receives Its Influence From the Subjective Disposition. On the other hand, it is equally plain, that the adaptation of any object to be an inducement to volition, depends on some subjective attribute of appetency (or a condition of latent desire or ardor) in the agent. This state of appetency is a priori to the inducement, not created by it, but conferring on the object its whole fitness to be an inducement. In other words, when we seek to propagate a volition, by holding out an inducement as occasion, or means, we always presuppose in the agent whom we address, some active propensity. No one attempts to allure a hungry horse with bacon, or a hungry man with hay. Why! Common sense recognizes in each animal an a priori state of appetite, which has already determined to which of them the bacon shall be inducement and to which the hay. The same thing is true of the spiritual desires, love of applause, of power, of justice, and so on. Hence, it follows, that inducement has no power whatever to revolutionize the subjective states of appetency natural to an agent. The effect cannot determine its own cause. From this point of view may also be seen the justice of that philosophy of common sense, with which we set out; when we remarked that every one regarded a man’s free acts as indices of an abiding or permanent character. This is only because the abiding appetencies of soul decide which objects shall be, and which shall not, be inducements to choice. Freedom What? The student will perceive that I have not used the phrase, "freedom of the will." I exclude it, because, persuaded that it is inaccurate, and that it has occasioned much confusion and error. Freedom is properly predicated of a person, not of a faculty. This was seen by Locke, who says, B. 2, ch. 21, sec. 10, " Liberty is not an idea belonging to volition, or preferring, but to the person having the power." This is so obviously true, as to need no argument. I have preferred therefore to use the phrase, at once popular and exact: "free agency," and "free agent." Turrettin (Loc. x, Qu. 1) sees this objection to the traditional term, "Liberum arbitrium, " and hesitates about its use. But, after carefully defining it, he concedes to custom that it may be cautiously used, in the stipulated sense of the freedom of the Agent who wills. It would have been safer to change it. I have also preferred to state and argue the old question as to the nature of free agency, in the common form it has borne in the history of theology, before I embarrassed the student with any of the attempted modifications of the doctrine. Locke, following the sensualistic definition, says that "liberty is the idea of a power in any agent to do or forbear any particular action, according to the determination or thought of the mind." But more profound analysts, as Reid and Cousin, saw that it consists in more than the sensualist would represent, mere privilege to execute outwardly what we have willed. My consciousness insists, that I am also a free Agent in having that volition. There, is the essential feature of choice; there, the rational preference first exhibits itself. The rational psychologists, consequently, assert the great, central truth, that the soul is self-determining. They see clearly that the soul, and not the objective inducement, is the true cause of its own acts of choice; and that thereforeman is justly responsible. But in order to sustain this central point, they vacillate towards the old semi-Pelagian absurdity, that not only the man, but the separate faculty of will, is self-determined. They fail to grasp the real facts as to the nature and the power of subjective motive, the exercise of another set of faculties in the soul. Edwards saw more perspicaciously. Motive, What? Teaching that motive efficaciously determines the will, he defined motive, as all that which, together moves the will to choice. It is always a complex of some view or judgment of the understanding, and some movement of appetency or repulsion as to an object. These two elements must be, at least virtually and implicitly, in the precedaneous state of soul, or choice, volition, would not result. The intelligence has seen some object in the category of the true (or at least has thought it saw it hence), and the appetency has moved towards it as in the category of the desirable; else, no deliberate, affirmative volition had occurred. The mere presence and perception of the object is the occasion; the soul’s own judgment and appetency form the cause of the act of choice. Desire Is Not Passive. But what is appetency? If we conformed it with passion, with mere impression on natural sensibilities, we again fall into the fatal errors of the sensualist. Sir Wm. Hamilton has done yeoman’s service to truth, by illustrating the difference (while he has claimed more than due credit for originating the distinction). He separates the passive powers of "sensibility," from the active powers of"conation." This is but the old (and correct) Calvinistic classification of the powers of the soul under "understanding," "affections," and "will." Here, be it noted, the word "will" is taken, as in some places of our Confession, in a much wider sense than the specific faculty of choice. "Will" here includes all the active powers of the soul, and is synonymous with Sir Wm. Hamilton’s "conative" powers. When we say, then, that man’s soul is self-determining we mean that, in the specific formation of choice, the soul choosing is determined by a complex of previous functions of the same soul seeing and desiring. In this sense the soul is free. But, as has been stated, no cause in the universe acts lawlessly. "Order is heaven’s first law." Disposition the All-Important Fact. And the regulative law of souls, when causing volitions, is found in their dispositions. This all-important fact in free agency, is what the scholastic divines called Habitus (not Consuetudo). It is the same notion popularly expressed by the word character. We know that man has such habitus, or disposition, which is more abiding than any access, or one series of acts of any one desire. For we deem that in a knave, for instance, evil disposition is present while he is eating, or laughing, or asleep, or while thinking of anything else than his knavish plans. If we will reflect, we shall see that we intuitively ascribe disposition, of some sort, to every rational free agent: indeed we cannot think such an object without it. God, angel, demon, man, each is invariably conceived as having some abiding disposition, good or bad. It is in this that we find the regulative principle of the free agency of all volition rises according to subjective motive. Subjective motive arises (freely) according to ruling subjective disposition. Disposition also is spontaneous—its very nature is to act freely. Here then, we have the two ultimate factors of free agency; spontaneity, disposition, here we are at the end of all possible analysis. It is as vain to ask: "Why am I inclined in this way?" as to seek a prior root of my spontaneity. The fact of my responsibility as a free agent does not turn on the answer to the question: it turns on this: that the disposition, which is actually my own will, regulates the rise freely of just the subjective motives I entertain. Let the student ponder my main argument (on pages 122-124) and he will see that in no other way is the free agency of either God, angel, or sinner, to be construed by us. Mccosh’s View of the Will. Dr. McCosh (Div. and Moral Gov. as cited in the syllabus.) wrests the true doctrine in some degree. He calls the will the "optative faculty" correctly distinguishing desire from sensibility (which he terms emotion). But he erroneously confounds appetency and volition together as the same functions of one power. That this is not correct, is evinced by one short question: May not the soul have two competing appetencies, and choose between them? We must hold fast, with the great body of philosophers, to the fact, that the power of decision, or choice, is unique, and not to be confounded even with subjective desires. It is the executive faculty. Dr. McCosh concedes that motive (as defined by Edwards) efficaciously decides the will; but he then asserts, with Coleridge, that the will determines motives. Conceding this, he has virtually surrendered his doctrine to the Arminian, and gotten around to a literal self-determination of the will. He seems to have been misled by an inaccurate glimpse of the truth I stated on p. 102, that the disposition determines a prioriwhich sorts of objects shall be inducements to it. There is a two-fold confusion of this profound and important truth. Disposition is not the will; but a regulative principle of the appetencies, or "optative" functions, through them controlling the will. And, second, it is wholly another thing to say, that this disposition decides which objects shall be inducements, the occasions only of volitions: and to say with Dr. McCosh, that the will chooses among the soul’s own subjective motives, the verae causae of the very acts of choice! Watts’ View. Dr. Isaac Watts, as is often stated, attempted to modify the doctrine of the will, by supposing that we had inverted the order of cause and effect. He deemed that we do not choose an object because we have desired it; but that we desire it because we have chosen it. In other words, he thought desire the result and not the forerunner of choice. This scheme obviously leaves the question unanswered: How do volitions arise? And by seeming to leave them without cause, he favors the erroneous scheme of the Arminian. It is enough to say, that no man’s consciousness properly examined, will bear out this position. Do we not often have desires where, in consequence of other causes in the mind, we form no volition at all? This question will be seen decisive. Bledsoe’s View. Dr. Albert Taylor Bledsoe in his Reply to Edwards, Theodicy, and other essays, attempts to modify the Arminian theory, without surrendering it. He is too perspicacious to say, with the crowd of semi-Pelagians, that volitions are uncaused results in the mental world; he knows too well the universality of the great, necessary intuition, ex nihilo nihil. But denying that motives, even subjective, are cause of acts of choice, he says the mind is the immediate cause of them. He seems here to approach very near the orthodox view. Even Dr. Alexander could say, while denying the self-determination of the will, that he was ready to admit the self-determination of the mind. But this concession of Dr. Bledsoe does not bring him to the correct ground. It leaves the question unexplained, in what way the mind is determined from within to choice. It refuses to accept the efficient influence of subjective motive. It still asserts that any volition may be contingent as to its use, hence embodying the essential features of Arminianism. And above all, it fails to see or admit the most fundamental fact of all; that original disposition which regulates each being’s desires and volitions. The applications which this author makes of his modified doctrine betray still its essential Arminianism. In conclusion, it is only necessary at this place to say in one word, that the disposition which is found in every natural man, as to God and godliness, is depravity. Hence his will, according to the theory expounded above, is, in the Scriptural sense, in bondage to sin, while he remains properly a free and responsible agent. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 25: 02.09. CHAPTER 8: RESPONSIBILITY AND PROVINCE OF REASON ======================================================================== Chapter 8: Responsibility and Province of Reason Syllabus for Lecture 12: Are dispositions and desires, which are a priori to volition, a moral character? Turrettin, Loc. ix, Qu. 2. Dick, Lecture 105, on 10th Com. Dr. Julius Muller, Christian Doctrine of Sin. Hodge, Theology, pt. ii, ch. 5. Alexander’s Moral Science, chs. 20, 22, 23, 27. Edwards on the Will, pt. iv, Sect. i. Is man responsible for his beliefs? Alexander’s Moral Science, ch. 9, Lecture on Evidences, Univ. of Va., Lecture 1. Review of the above by Dr. C. R. Vaughan, Southern Lit. Messenger, 1851. What is the proper province of reason in revealed theology? Turrettin, Loc. I, Vol. i, Qus. 8, 9, 10. Thornwell’s Lect. Vol. i, Lecture 1. Hodge’s Outlines, ch. 2. Hodge’s Syst. Theology, pt. i, ch. 3, Milner’s. Is Concupiscence Sin? Wide difference of opinion has long prevailed, as to man’s responsibility for the dispositions, habits and desires tending to moral volitions. Pelagians and semi-Pelagians say, that since responsibility cannot be more extended than freedom of the will, no praise or blame can be attached to dispositions, which they hold to be involuntary. And they say that Calvinists cannot dispute the latter statement, because they make dispositions causes of volition, and hence going before. Hence, also, is the Pelagian definition of sin and holiness, as consisting only of right or wrong acts of soul. The evangelical Arminian is usually found holding the middle ground, that only those dispositions, habits and desires have a moral responsibility attached to them, which have resulted from a series of acts of free will. But we hold that man is praise–or blame–worthy for his dispositions, principles and habits, as well as for his volitions; and that his responsibility depends on the nature, and not on the origin, of the disposition which he spontaneously and intelligently entertains. First. We make our appeal here to consciousness, which causes us shame and self-reproach for evil propensities not ripened into volitions, and tells us that we would feel equal resentment for evil dispositions towards us and our rights, though never formed into the overt intention of injury. Second. Our minds intuitively judge that the moral character of an act resides in its motives. Witness the process of investigation in the charge for crime before a jury. Indeed, the act of volition, nakedly considered, is a merely natural effect, and has no more moral character than the muscular motions which follow it. For the volition which extends the hand with alms to an enemy, or with a bribe to one to commit a sin, is the same physical volition: we must go back of it, to the motive by which it was caused, to settle its moral character. That element is not in the naked volition; says the Pelagian, it is not in the motives prior to volition; then it is nowhere! Third. The notion is inconsistent with our established idea about character. Here is a man who is said to have a dishonest character. It only becomes cognizable to us by his acts. He must, then, have performed a series of acts, having the common quality of dishonesty. Now, nothing comes from nothing; there must be some cause for. that sameness of character; and that cause is the prevalent disposition to steal, separate from, and prior to, each thievish act. For the bad cause cannot be in the will itself; this would be peculiarly objectionable to the Pelagian. This, then, is what is meant when this man is said to have a bad character. Has the word bad here, no proper meaning? Does the family of daughters, the separate acts, bear no relationship to their mother? Fourth. On the Pelagian scheme, the wickedness of sins of omission would be inexplicable. For in them, there is often no volition at all; and therein consists their wickedness. A man passing by the water sees an innocent child drowning; the idea of rescue is suggested to his mind; but he comes to no choice does nothing, and while he hesitates, the child sinks to rise no more. Is he innocent? Our conscience declares that he is not. Now, we can consistently explain wherein he is not, viz. in the state of his selfish and indolent feelings. But the opposite party have no explanation. There has literally been no volition; on their theory they should say, what every sound conscience rejects, that the neglect has been attended with no guilt. Fifth. A similar argument is presented by instances of impulsive and unpremeditated acts, done before we have a moment for reflection. We properly approve or blame them, according as they are generous or malignant. But there has been no intelligent, deliberate choice; if we confine our view exclusively to the act of soul itself, it appears as purely irrational as the impulses of mere animal instinct. The moral quality of these acts must be found, then, in the dispositions and principles which prompted them. Instances. Such are the reasoning, drawn from the conscience and consciousness of all men. The conclusion cannot be restricted in the way proposed by the Arminian. For, if original or congenital dispositions have no moral quality, because not created by a series of acts of intelligent free will, then, first, God could never have any moral credit, His holy disposition having been not only original and eternal, but necessary. Second. Nor could the holy man, Adam, or the holy angels have been approvable, though perfectly innocent, because their holy dispositions were infused into them by their creator. This contradicts both conscience and Scripture. Third. When mankind see an inherited trait influencing the conduct, like the traditionary bravery of the Briton, or the congenital vengefulness of the American Indian, if they apprehend that the agents are not lunatic, and are exercising a sane spontaneity as qualified by these natural traits, they approve or blame them. This shows that in the judgment of common sense, the responsibility turns only on the question, what the disposition is, and not, from what source the disposition arrives.. Finally, on this view, it would be impossible that the free agent could ever construct a righteous disposition, or habitus, by his own free acts. For all are agreed in that rule of practical law, which judges the moral complexion of the act according to the agent’s intention. But a soul as yet devoid of positively righteous principles would harbor no positively moral intentions. Therefore, the first act of choice which the philosophers look to, for beginning the right moral habitude, would have no moral quality, not being dictated by a moral motive. Then it could contribute nothing to the habit as a moral one. This very plain demonstration decides the whole matter, by showing that, on either the Pelagian or Arminian scheme, a dependent being could never have a positively righteous character or action at all. But, Objected "That the Involuntary Cannot Be Sin." Our opponents argue that the involuntary cannot be sin, and they suppose that they have entrenched themselves in the plainest of moral intuitions. The objection, however, is a sophism that is based on the ambiguous use of the word "involuntary." There are at least two subtle meanings to the word which must not be confused. Man’s moral dispositions are involuntary in the sense that they do not immediately result from volitions as their next cause. But this is not the sense in which our intuitions assert the necessity of the voluntary to our responsibility. There is an entirely different sense, in which we say an act is involuntary, when it occurs against the choice of the will. Hence, the fall of the man over the precipice was involuntary, when he was striving to cleave to the edge of the stone. This is the sense in which we say that, self-evidently, the man was not blamable for his fall. The other meaning, sophistically confounded with this, raises the question whether the state or disposition is spontaneous. If it acts spontaneously, not because a stronger agent forces the man to harbor or to indulge it against his choice, then, in the sense necessary to free agency, disposition is voluntary; that is to say, it is spontaneous; it is as truly a function of self-love as volition itself. The evidence is very near and plain. Does any external compulsion cause us to feel our dispositions? No. From their very nature it cannot be: a compelled tendency would not be our disposition, but a violence put upon it. The main question may be submitted to a very practical test. Would a disposition to a wicked act subsist, even as not consented to or formed into a purpose, in a perfectly holy soul, like that of Gabriel, for one instant? It would die in its very incipiency. The attempt to inject concupiscence would be like an attempt to strike sparks from the flint and steel, in a perfect vacuum. The fire would expire in being born. But if the holiness of the nature hence excluded the birth, this clearly shows that the very birth of wrong desire or tendency is wrong. Answer To Objection That Soul’s Essence Cannot Be Depraved. Another objection is, that our theory of the immorality of evil dispositions would imply that the soul’s essence is altered; or that depravity is a change in the substance of the soul: which would make God the author of sin, and man an unfortunate, sentient puppet. For, say they, there is nothing but the soul and its acts; and if you deny that all morality resides in acts, some of it must reside in the essence of the soul itself. The sophism of this argument would be sufficiently exposed by asking, what is a moral act. If you make it anything more than a mere notional object of thought, an imagination about which we think, is it any thing besides the soul acting, well, in the same sense, our moral dispositions are but our souls feeling. I reply again, and yet more decisively, that immoral quality is only negative—i. e., H amartia esti h anomia. It is the lack of conformity to God’s will, which constitutes sin. The negative absence of this principle of active conformity is all that is necessary to predicate. Hence, the idea of depravity’s being a substantial change is seen to be out of the question. We might farther reply to the challenge, whether there is anything before us, save the soul and its acts. Yes, There is the soul’s essence, distinguishable from its substance, there is its disposition, there are its liabilities, its affections, its desires. The terms of the cavil are no more than a verbal quibble. What true philosopher ever questioned the existence of qualities, qualifying a spiritual agent, yet not implying either decomposition or change of its simple substance? Then it is possible that it may be qualified morally. Man Responsible For His Beliefs. The question whether man is responsible for his belief, is nearly connected with the one just discussed. Many modern writers have urged that he is not, because belief is the necessary and involuntary result of evidence seen by the mind. Further, it is urged; if the doctrine that man is responsible for his belief be held, then the horrible doctrine of persecution will follow; for erroneous beliefs being often very mischievous, if also criminal, it would follow that they ought to be punished by society. To the first, I reply, that while the admission of demonstrative proofs, when weighed by the mind is necessary, and involuntary, the voluntary powers have a great deal to do with the question whether they shall be weighed fairly or not. Inattention, prejudice against the truth or the advocate, heedlessness guilty and wicked habits of perverting the soul’s faculties; all these are voluntary; and I fearlessly assert, that no erroneous belief on any important moral question can arise in a sane mind, except through the operation of one or more of these causes. In this, then, is the guilt of false beliefs on moral subjects. To the second objection, I reply that it does not follow, because a man is responsible for his beliefs, he is responsible to his fellowman. There are abundant reasons for denying the latter, which it would be easy to show, if I were going into the subject of freedom of thought. Because Nature and Providence Rule On the affirmative side, I remark, first, that all the analogies of nature show us a Providence holding man responsible for his beliefs. If prejudice, passion, haste, inattention, prevents a man from attaching due weight to testimony or other evidence, as to the poison of a given substance, he experiences its effects just as though he had taken it of set purpose. So of all other things. Because All Wrong Beliefs Have A Criminal Cause. Second: Conscience clearly condemns many acts, based immediately on certain beliefs, which were sincerely held at the time of acting. Now, if the belief had been innocent, the act necessarily dictated thereby could not have been blameworthy. Witness Paul, confessing the sin of his persecutions. Indeed, since belief on moral subjects ought to, and must dictate conduct, if man is allowed to be a rational free agent, each man’s own belief must be his own guide; and thusan act might be right to one man, and wrong to another, at the same time. A would have a right (because he believed so) to a thing which B had a right to; and so B would have a moral right to do A what would be to him a moral wrong? And farther; since whatever a man sincerely believed, would be right to him, truth would cease to be of any essential importance. This consequence is monstrous. Hence we must hold men responsible for their moral beliefs. God could not otherwise govern a world of rational free agents; for since the free dictates of each agent’s soul must be, to him, the guide of his conduct, God could not justly condemn him for committing the crime which he supposed at the time to be a right act, after he had been acquitted of all responsibility for the opinion which unavoidably dictated the act. But is every one rash enough to justify all the crimes committed in this world under the influence of moral error heartily held at the time? Then the vilest crimes which have scourged the world, from the retaliatory murders of savages (dictated by stress of tribal honor) to the persecution of God’s saints (by inquisitors who verily thought they were doing God service) are made perfectly innocent. Paradox Resolved. It may be well to say a few more words to relieve the seeming paradox in this truth. To this separate element of the act, that it was conformed to the man’s opinion of the right at the time; as that element is abstracted in thought from all other features of the concrete sin; we do not suppose any criminality to attach. But we are bound to go back to the prior question: How came a being endowed with reason and conscience, actually to believe the wrong to be right? Could this result have been innocently brought about? To say this, would be to accuse God his Maker. I can apprehend how God’s finite handiwork, a rational soul, may remain ignorant of many truths known to larger intelligences; but I cannot admit that it can be betrayed into positive error by the normal, legitimate exercise of its powers. There is then, always a prior account of the mental perversion: The conditions of the erroneous result have been sinful indolence in looking at evidence, or unrighteous self-interest, or criminal prejudice against the truth or its advocate, or some other combination of evil affections. To these, specifically, attaches the guilt of the erroneous mental result. We see then that belief is not the involuntary result of evidence apprehended, in any practical moral case. The will (taking that word in its wider sense of the active, optative powers) has a great deal to do with the result, by inclining or disposing the mind to give proper heed to the attainable evidence. So much weight has this fact, that the profound Des Cartes, who almost deserves to be called the founder of modern philosophy, actually ranked belief as a. function of will, rather than of understanding! Here then I place myself: when an action of soul is spontaneous, it may be, to that extent, justly held responsible. Province of Reason In Revealed Religion. The question with which we close this brief review of the nature of man’s primary judgments, has ever I been of fundamental importance in the Church: "What is the legitimate province of Reason, in revealed theology?" The pretended warfare between reason and faith has been waged by all those who wished to make a pretext for believing unreasonably and wickedly. On the one hand, it is possible so to exalt the authority of the Church, or of theology, (as is done by Rome,) as to violate the very capacity of reason to which religion appeals. On the other, it is exceedingly easy to give too much play to it, and admit hence the virus of Rationalism in some of its forms. Rationalism, What? All the different forms of rationalism, which admit a revelation as true or desirable at all, may be grouped under two classes. First. Those who hold the PROTON PSEUDOS of the Socinians; that man is to hold nothing credible in religion which he cannot comprehend. Second. Those who, like the modern German rationalists, make the interpretations of Scripture square with the teachings of human philosophy, instead of making their philosophy square with the plain meaning of revelation. Under the latter class must be ranked all those who, like Hugh Miller, in his Testimony of the Rocks, hold that the interpretation of the Pentateuch, concerning cosmogony, must be molded supremely by the demands of geological theories, instead of being settled independently by its own laws of fair exegesis. Here, also, belong those who, like A. Barnes, say that the Bible must not be allowed to mean what would legitimate American slavery, because he holds that his ethical arguments prove it cannot be right: Et id omne genus. Comprehension Not the Measure of Truth. The absurdity of the first class will be shown, more fully, when we come to deal with the Socinian theology. It is enough to say now, that reason herself repudiates such a boast as preposterous. She does not truly comprehend all of anything, not the whole nature and physiology of the blade of grass which man presses with his foot, nor the modus of that union of body and soul which consciousness compels us to admit. Every line of knowledge which we follow, leads us to the circumference of darkness, where it is lost to our comprehension; and the more man knows, the more frequently is he compelled to stop humbly at that limit, and acknowledge his lack of comprehension. So that the most truly wise man is he who knows and believes most things which he does not comprehend. That our comprehension is not the measure of truth appears, again, hence: Truth is one and immutable. But the amount of comprehension any given man has, is dependent on his cultivation and knowledge. There was once a time when it would have been wholly incomprehensible to a "field hand," how a message could be sent along a wire by galvanism. It was not incomprehensible to Dr. Joseph Henry, who actually instructed Morse, the nominal inventor, how it might be done. On this Socinian scheme, then, truth would be contradictory for different minds. One man’s valid code of truth would properly be, to a less cultivated man, in large part falsehood and absurdity. But this is preposterous. Does This Countenance Implicit Faith? But does not the Protestant assert, against the Papist, that faith, in order to be of any worth, must be intelligent? Do not we scout the "implicit faith" of the Papist? Answer. There is a distinction which fully solves this question, and which is simple and important. Every judgment in the form of a belief is expressed in a proposition. This, grammatically, consists of subject, predicate, and copula (or connection). Now, the condition of rational belief is that the mind shall intelligently see some valid supporting evidence for the copula. If, without this, it announces belief, it is acting unreasonably. But it is wholly another thing to comprehend the whole nature of the predication; and this latter is not at all necessary to a rational faith. The farmer presents me on the palm of his hand, a sound grain of corn, and a pebble. He says: "This is dead, but that is alive." May I not with him, rationally believe in the vitality of the grain? Yes, because we have some intelligent view of the experimental evidence which supports the affirmation. But suppose now I pass to the predication, "alive," and demand of the farmer that he shall give me a full definition of the nature of vegetable vitality? The greatest physicist cannot do this. Neither he nor I comprehend the nature of vegetable vitality. We know by its effects, that there is such a force, but it is a mysterious force. Let the student then hold fast to this simple law: In order to rational belief there must be some intelligent view of evidence sustaining the copula; but there may be no comprehension of the nature of the predicate. Now, if these things are just and true in all natural knowledge, how much more true in the things of the infinite God? The attempt of the Socinian to make a god altogether comprehensible, has resulted in a plan attended inevitably with more and worse incomprehensibilities, yes, impossibilities, than they reject. On Rationalist Scheme, No Revealed Rule of Faith. To the second class of rationalists we may reasonably assert that the sort of revelation they admit is in fact practically no revelation at all. That is, it is no authoritative standard of belief to any soul, on any point on which it may happen to have any opinion derived from other sources than the Bible. For each man’s speculative conclusions are, to him, his philosophy; and if one man is entitled to square his Bible to his philosophy, the other must be equally so. Further, it is well known that the deductions of all philosophies are fallible. The utter inconsistency of Rationalism, with any honest adoption of a Revelation, is apparent in the following illustration: It is the boast of Rationalists, that human science is progressive, that our generation is far in advance of our fathers. May not our children be as far in advance of us? Things now held as scientific truth, will probably be excluded; things not now dreamed of, will probably be discovered and explained. When that time comes, it must follow on the Rationalists’ scheme, that the interpretation of the Scriptures shall receive new modifications from these new lights of reason. Propositions which we now hold as the meaning of Scripture, will then be shown by the lights of human science to be false! What is it reasonable that we should do, at this time, with those places of Scripture? Will any one say, "Reserve your opinion on them, until the light comes?" Alas! There is now no means for us to know whereabouts in the Bible they are! No, we must attempt to construe the whole Scripture as best we may. Will any one say that our construction is true to us, but will be false to our more scientific children? Hardly. If, therefore, the Bible is a revelation from the infallible God, reason herself clearly asserts that where the plain teachings of Scripture clash with such deductions, the latter are to be presumed to be wrong; and unless revelation carries that amount of authority, it is practically worthless. Rationalism is the wolf of infidelity under the sheep’s clothing of faith. It follows, then, that reason is not to be the measure, nor the ground, of the beliefs of revealed theology. But Revelation Does Not Violate Reason. But on the other hand, first, the laws of thought which necessarily rule in the human soul, were established by the same God who gave the Bible. Hence, if there is a revelation from Him, and if these laws of thought are legitimately used, there must be full harmony between reason and Scripture. But man knows that he is not infallible: he knows that he almost always employs his powers of thought with imperfect accuracy. On the other hand, if revelation is admitted, its very idea implies infallible truth and authority. Hence, it is clearly reasonable that opinion must always hold itself ready to stand corrected by revelation. 2nd. Necessary Laws of Thought Must Be Respected By It. The Scriptures always address us as rational creatures, and presuppose the authority of our native, fundamental laws of thought. If we think at all, we must do it according to those laws Therefore, to require us to violate or ignore them fundamentally, would be to degrade us to unreasoning animals; we should then be as incapable of religion as they. 3rd. Authenticity of Revelation Not Self-Evident. The claim which the Scriptures address to us, to be the one, authentic and authoritative revelation from one God, is addressed to our reason. This is clear from the simple fact, that there are presented to the human race more than one professed revelation; and that they cannot demand authoritative witnesses to their own authority prior to its admission. It appears also from this, that man is required not only to obey, but to believe and love the Bible. Now he cannot do this except upon evidence. The evidences of inspiration must, therefore, present themselves to man’s reason; to reason to be employed impartially, humbly, and in the fear of God. He who says he believes, when he sees no proof, is but pretending, or talking without meaning. 4th. Revelation Cannot Authorize Self-Contradictions. Limitations of This Admission. Among these evidences, we must reasonably entertain this question, whether anything asserted in revelation is inevitably contradictory with reason or some other things asserted in revelation. For if a book clearly contained such things, it would be proof it was not from God; because God, who first created our laws of reason, will not contradict Himself by teaching incompatibles in His works and word. And again, in demanding faith (always a sincere and intelligent faith), of us in such contradictories, He would be requiring of us an impossibility. If I see that a thing is impossible to be true, it is impossible for me to believe it. Yet here, we must guard this concession against abuse; asserting first, that the reason which is entitled to this judgment of contradiction concerning the Scriptures, shall be only a right, humble, and holy reason, acting in the fear and love of God; and not a reason unsanctified, hostile, and blind. Second. The supposed contradiction must be contained in the immediate and unquestioned language of the Scripture itself, and not merely deduced therefrom by some supposed inference. Third. The truth supposed to be overthrown by it shall be also an express statement of God’s word, or some necessary, axiomatic truth, universally held by mankind. For if one should object against the Bible, that some inference he had drawn from its words was irreconcilable with some similar inference, or some supposed deduction of his human logic, we should always be entitled to reply, that his powers of thought being confessedly inaccurate, it was always more probable he had inferred erroneously, than that Scripture had spoken inconsistently. 5th. Reason and Human Knowledge Ancillary To Revelation. Reason is also to be employed to interpret and illustrate the Scriptures. To do this, the whole range of man’s natural knowledge may be taxed. The interpretation is never to presume to make reason the measure of belief, but the mere handmaid of Scripture. And the mode of interpretation is to be by comparing Scripture with Scripture according to the legitimate laws of language. The Scripture must be its own canon of hermeneutics, and that, independent of all other supposed rival sciences. For otherwise, as has been shown above, it would cease to carry a practical authority over the human mind as a rule of faith. A Bible which must wait to hear what philosophy may be pleased to permit it to say, and which must change its dicta as often as philosophy chooses to change, would be no Bible for any sensible man. Faith Rests On Evidence, Not Dictation. Now, the prelatic or sacerdotal system of Church authority stands opposed to this Protestant theory of private judgment. Prelatists claim for the reasonableness of their slavish system, this analogy; that the child, in all its primary education, has to accept things on trust as he is told. Human knowledge, say they, begins in dogma, not in reasoning. So should divine. The reply is, that this is a false analogy, in two vital respects. The secular knowledge which begins absolutely in dogma, is only that of signs, not of things and ultimate truths. The child must indeed learn from dogma, that a certain rafter-shaped mark inscribed on the paper is the accepted sign of the vowel sound A. The things of God are not mere signs, but essential truths. Second, the reception of divine truth is not an infantile, but an adult work. We are required to do it in the exercise of a mature intelligence and to be infants only in guilelessness. Distinguish This System From Rationalism. Prelatists and papists are fond of charging that the theory of private judgment amounts simply to rationalism. For, say they, "to make revelation wait on reason for the recognition of credentials, virtually gives to the revealed dogma only the force of reason. ‘The stream can rise no higher than its fountain.’ On the Protestant scheme, revelation receives no more authority than reason may confer." The only plausibility of such objections is in the words of a false trope. Revelation it is said, "submits its credentials to the reason," according to us Protestants. Suppose I prefer to say (the correct trope), we hold that revelation imposes its credentials upon the healthy reason. In fact, as when the eye looks at the sun, there are activities of the organ towards the result of vision, such as adjusting the axes of the two balls, directing them, refracting the rays, and so on, and yet, the light is not from the eye, but from the sun; so in apprehending the validity of the Bible’s credentials, the light is from the revelation; not from the mind. Its activities about the apprehension of the evidence, are only receptive, not productive. But the simple key to the answer is, that the question that we bring to the human reason, "Is this book God speaking?" is one, single question, perfectly defined, and properly within the reach of reason. The other question, which the Rationalist wished to make reason answer, is: "What are the things proper for God to say about Himself and religion?" There is, in fact, a multitude of questions, and mostly wholly above the reach of reason. We may illustrate the difference by the case of an ambassador. The court to which he comes is competent to entertain the question of his credentials. This is implied in the expectation that this court is to treat with him. The matter of credentials is one definite question, to be settled by one or two plain criteria, such as a signature, and the imprint of a seal. But what may be the secret will of his sovereign, is a very different set of questions. To dictate one’s surmises here, and especially to annex the sovereign’s authority to them, is impertinent folly. But the messages of the plenipotentiary carry all the force of the recognized signature and seal. Moreover, we must remember that man’s state is probationary. There is an intrinsic difference between truth and error, right reasoning and sophism, and the purpose of God in revelation is (necessarily) not to supplant reason, but to put man on his probation for its right use. No Strife of Reason With Faith. Finally, let the student, from the first, discard all the false and mischievous ideas generated by the slang of the "contest between reason and faith"—of the propriety of having "reason conquer, faith, or faith conquer reason." There is no such contest. The highest reason is to believe implicitly what God’s word says, as soon as it is clearly ascertained to be God’s word. The dictate of reason herself, is to believe; because she sees the evidences to be reasonable. I need only add, that I hold the Scriptures to be, in all its parts, of plenary inspiration; and we shall therefore assume this, as proved by the inquiries of another department. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 26: 02.10. CHAPTER 9: ARMINIAN THEORY OF REDEMPTION—PART 1 ======================================================================== Chapter 9: Arminian Theory of Redemption—Part 1 Syllabus for Lecture 48: Give a connected view of the Arminian Five Points. Art. of Synod of Dort. Whitby’s Five Points. Hill’s Divinity, bk. iv., ch. 8. Stapfer’s Pol. Theol., Vol. iv., ch. 17, Sect. 12-35. Disprove the doctrine of Common Sufficient Grace. Turrettin, Loc. xv., Qu. 3. Hill, bk. iv., ch. 9, sect. I. Ridgley, Qu. 44. Watson’s Theol. Inst., ch. 24, 25. Is the grace of God in regeneration invincible? And is the will of man in regeneration, active or passive? Turrettin, Loc. xv., Qu. 5, 6. Hill, bk. iv., ch. 9. Knapp, sect. 130, 132. Can any Pagans be saved, without the instrumentality of the Scriptures? Turrettin, Loc. I., Qu. 4, and Loc. x., Qu. 5. Ridgley, Qu. 60. Annual Sermon for Presb. Board For. Miss., June, 1858. Sources of the Arminian Theology. The subjects which are now brought under discussion introduce us to the very center of the points which are debated between us and Arminians. I propose, therefore, for their farther illustration, and because no better occasion offers, to consider here their scheme. The sources of Arminian Theology would be best found in the apology of Episcopius, Limborch’s Christian Theology, and Knapp’s Christian Theology. Among the English may be consulted, as a low Arminian, Daniel Whitby’s Five Points; as high Arminians, Wesley’s Doctrinal Tracts, and Watson’s Theological Institutes. For refutation of Arminianism, see Stapfer, Vol. 4; Turrettin; Hill, bk. 4, ch. 9. I. A connected view of the Arminian tenets. Five Points of Remonstrants Ambiguous. The five points handed in by the Arminians to the States General of Holland, in their celebrated Remonstrance, were so covertly worded as scarcely to disclose their true sentiments. The assertions concerning original Sin and Free will, were seemingly such as Calvinists could accept. The doctrine of common grace was but obscurely hinted, and the perseverance of Saints was only doubted. But their system soon developed itself into semi-Pelagianism, well polished and knit together. Discarding the order of the five points, I will exhibit the theory in its logical connection. Logical Source In Doctrine of Indifferency of the Will. View of Original Sin. 1. Its starting point is the doctrine of indifference of the will, and a denial of total depravity, as held by Calvinists. According to the universal consent of Pelagians and Socinians, this self determination of the will is held necessary to proper free agency and responsibility. Take Whitby as a type of the grosser Arminians. He thinks Adam was created liable, but not subject, to bodily death, and his immunity in Paradise was secured by his access to the Tree of Life. His sin made death and its attendant pains inevitable, and this his posterity inherit, according to the natural law, that like begets like. This has produced a set of circumstances, making all men so liable to sin, that, practically none escape. But this results from no moral necessity or certainty of the will. Man has natural desires for natural good, but this concupiscentia is not sin till formed into a positive volition. But the sense of guilt and fear drives man from God, the pressure of earthly ills tends to earthly mindedness; man’s pains make him querulous, envious, inordinate in desire, and above all, a general evil example misleads. So that all are, in fact, precipitated into sin, in virtue of untoward circumstances inherited from Adam. This is the only sense in which Adam is our federal head. This relation is not only illustrated by, but similar to that which exists between a bad parent and an unfortunate offspring now—in instance of the same natural law. Wesleyan View of Original Sin. But Wesley and Watson repudiate this as too low, and teach a fall in Adam prior to its reparation by common grace, going as far as moderate Calvinists. Watson, for instance, (Vol. ii, p. 53) says that imputation is considered by theologians as mediate and immediate. Mediate imputation he says, is "our mortality of body and corruption of moral nature in virtue of our derivation from Adam." Immediate means "that Adam’s sin is accounted ours in the sight of God, by virtue of our federal relation." This, the student will perceive, is a very different distinction from that drawn by the Reformed divines. Watson then repudiates the first statement as defective, and the latter as extreme. Here he evidently misunderstands us for he proceeds to say, with Dr. Watts, that Adam did act as a public person, our federal head, and that the penal consequences of our sin (not the sin itself), are accounted to us, consisting of bodily ills and death, privation of God’s indwelling (which results in positive depravity), and eternal death. In this sense, says he, "we may safely contend for the imputation of Adam’s sin." But in defending against Pelagians, the justice of this arrangement of God, he says it must be viewed in connection with that purpose of redemption towards the human race, which coexisted in the divine mind, by which God purposed to purchase and bestow common grace on every fallen man hence repairing his loss in Adam. (The fatal objection to such a justification is that then God would have been under obligations to provide man a Savior, and Christ’s mission would not have been of pure grace). 2. Common Sufficient Grace. 2. This leads us to their next point. God having intended all along to repair the fall, and having immediately thereafter given a promise to our first parents, has ever since communicated to all mankind a common precedaneous sufficient grace, purchased for all by Christ’s work. This is not sufficient to effect a complete redemption, but to enable, both naturally and morally, to fulfill the conditions for securing redeeming grace. This common grace consists in the indifference of man’s will remaining, notwithstanding his fall, the lights of natural conscience, good impulses enabling unregenerate men to do works of social virtue, the outward call of mercy made, as some Arminians suppose, even to heathens through reason, and some lower forms of universal spiritual influence. The essential idea and argument of the Arminian is that God could not punish man justly for unbelief unless He conferred on him both natural and moral ability to believe or not. They quote such Scripture as Psalms 81:13; Isaiah 5:4; Luke 19:42; Revelation 3:20; Romans 2:14; John 1:9. So here we have, by a different track, the old conclusion of the semi-Pelagian. Man, then, decides the whole remaining difference, as to believing or not believing, by his use of this precedent grace, according to his own free will. God’s purpose to produce different results in different men is wholly conditioned on the use which, He foresees, they will make of their common grace. To those who improve it, God stands pledged to give the crowning graces of regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification. To the heathen, even, who use their light aright (unfavorable circumstances may make such instances rare), Christ will give gospel light and redeeming grace, in some inscrutable way. Grace In Regeneration Vincible. 3. Hence, the operations of grace are at every stage vincible by man’s will; to be otherwise, they must violate the conditions of moral agency. Even after regeneration, grace may be so resisted by free will, as to be dethroned from the soul, which then again becomes unrenewed. Redemption General. 4. The redeeming work of Christ equally for all and every man of the human race, to make his sins pardonable on the condition of faith, to purchase a common sufficient grace actually enjoyed by all, and the efficient graces of a complete redemption suspended on the proper improvement of common grace by free will. Christ’s intention and provision are, therefore, the same to all. But as justice requires that the pardoned rebel shall believe and repent, to those who, of their own choice, refuse this, the provision remains forever ineffective. Justification. 5. In the doctrine of justification, again, the lower and higher Arminians differ somewhat. Both define justification as consisting simply of pardon. According to the lower, this justification is only purchased by Christ in this, that He procured from God the admission of a lower Covenant, admitting faith and the Evangelical obedience flowing out of it, as a righteousness, in place of the perfect obedience of the Covenant of works. According to the higher, our faith (without the works its fruits) is imputed to us for righteousness, according, as they suppose, to Romans 4:5. Both deny the proper imputation of Christ’s active (as distinguished from His passive) obedience, and deny any imputation, except of the believer’s own faith; although the higher Arminians, in making this denial, seem to misunderstand imputation as a transference of moral character. 6. Personal Election Conditional. Hence, it will be easily seen that their conception of election must be the following. The only absolute and unconditional decree which God has made from eternity concerning man’s salvation, is His resolve that unbelievers shall perish. This is not a predestination of individuals, but the fixing of a General Principle. God does, indeed, (as they explain Romans 9:1-33; Romans 10:1-21; Romans 11:1-36), providentially and sovereignly elect races to the enjoyment of certain privileges, but this is not an election to salvation, for free will may in any or each man of the race, abuse the privileges, and be lost. So far as God has an external purpose toward individuals, it is founded on His foresight, which He had from eternity, of the use they would make of their common grace. Some, He foresaw, would believe and repent, and therefore elected them to justification. Others, He foresaw, would not only believe and repent, but also persevere to the end, and these He elected to salvation. A thoroughly-knit system, if its premises are granted. II. The refutation of the Arminian theory must be deferred, on some points, till we pass to other heads of divinity, as Justification and Final Perseverance. On the extent of the atonement enough has already been said. On the remaining points we shall now attempt to treat. Common Sufficient Grace Refuted. In opposition to the assertion of a common sufficient grace, we remark, first, that there is no sufficient evidence of it in Scripture. The passages quoted above do, indeed, prove that God has done for all men under the gospel all that is needed to effect their salvation, if their own wills are not depraved. But they only express the fact that God’s general benevolence would save all to whom the gospel comes, if they would repent, and that the obstacles to that salvation are now only in the sinners. But whether it is God’s secret purpose to overcome that internal obstacle in their own perverse wills, these texts do not say. It will be found, on examination, that they all refer merely to the external call, which we have proved comes short of the effectual call, or that they are addressed to persons who, though shortcoming, or even backsliding, are regarded as God’s children already. Look and see. 2. Doctrine False, In Fact. The doctrine is false in fact; for how can grace be sufficient, where the essential outward call, even, is lacking (Romans 10:14)? God declares, in Scripture, He has given up many to evil (Acts 14:16; Romans 1:21; Romans 1:28; Romans 9:18). Again, the doctrine is contradicted by the whole doctrine of God, concerning the final desertion of those who have grieved away the Holy Spirit (see Hosea 4:17; Genesis 6:3; Hebrews 6:1-6). Here is a class so deserted of grace, that their damnation becomes a certainty. Are they, therefore, no longer free, responsible and blamable? Three, if we take the Arminian description of common sufficient grace, then many who have its elements most largely, an enlightened conscience, frequent compunctions, competent religious knowledge, amiability, and natural virtues, good impulses and resolutions, are lost; and some, who seem before to have very little of these, are saved. How is this? Again, the doctrine does not commend itself to experience, for this tells us that, among men, good intentions are more rare than good opportunities. We see that some men have vastly more opportunity vouchsafed them by God’s providence than others. It would be strange if, contrary to the fact just stated, all those who have less opportunity should have better intentions than opportunities. 4. Common Grace, If Sufficient, Saves. We have sometimes illustrated the Wesleyan doctrine of common sufficient grace hence, "All men lie in the ‘slough of despond’ in consequence of the fall. There is a platform, say Arminians, elevated an inch or two above the surface of this slough, but yet firm, to which men must struggle in the exercise of their common sufficient grace alone, the platform of repentance and faith. Now, it is true, that from this platform man could no more climb to heaven without divine grace, than his feet could scale the moon. But God’s grace is pledged to lift up to heaven all those who will so employ their free agency, as to climb to that platform, and stay there." Now, we say, with the Arminian, that a common sufficient grace, which does not work faith and repentance, is in no sense sufficient; for until these graces are exercised, nothing is done (Hebrews 11:6; John 3:36). But he who has these graces, we further assert, has made the whole passage from death to life. That platform is the platform of eternal life. The whole difference between elect and non-elect is already constituted (see John 3:36; 1 John 5:1; Acts 13:48; 2 Corinthians 5:17, with Ephesians 3:17). If then there is sufficient grace, it is none other than the grace which effectuates redemption, and the Arminian should say, if consistent with his false premises, not that God by it puts it in every man’s free will to fulfill the conditions on which further saving communications depend, but that He puts it in every man s free will to save himself. 5. Or Else, It Is Either Not Common, or Not Sufficient. If the doctrine is true, it is every man’s own uninfluenced choice, and not the purpose of God, which determines his eternal destiny. Either the common grace effects its saving work in those who truly believe, in virtue of some essential addition made to its influences by God, or it does not. If the former, then it was not "common," nor "sufficient," in those who failed to receive that addition. If the latter, then the whole difference in its success must have been made by the man’s own free will resisting less—i. e.,, the essential opposition to grace in some souls, differs from that in others. But see Romans 3:12; Romans 3:27; Ecclesiastes 8:1-17; Ephesians 2:8-9; 1 Corinthians 4:7; Romans 9:16; and the whole tenor of that multitude of texts in which believers ascribe their redemption, not to their own superior docility or penitence, but to distinguishing grace. To attain the proper point of view for the rational refutation of the doctrine of "common" sufficient grace, it is only necessary to ask this question. What is the nature of the obstacle grace is needed to remove? Scripture answers in substance, that it is inability of will, which has its rudiments in an ungodly habitus of soul. That is to say, the thing grace has to remove is the soul’s own evil disposition. Now, the idea that any cause, natural or supernatural, half rectifies this, so as to bring this disposition to an equipoise, is absurd. It is the nature of disposition to be disposed, this is almost a truism. It is impossible to think a moral agent devoid of any and all disposition. If God did produce in a sinful soul, for one instant, the state which common sufficient grace is supposed to realize, it would be an absurd tertium quid, in a state of moral neutrality. As we argued against the Pelagian, that state, if possible, would be immoral, in that it implied an indifferent equipoise as to positive obligations. And the initial volition arising out of that state would not be morally right, because they would not spring out of positive right motives, and such acts, being worthless, could not foster any holy principles or habits. The dream of common grace is suggested obviously, by the Pelagian confusion of inability of will with compulsion. The inventor has his mind full of some evil necessity which places an external obstruction between the sinner and salvation, hence this dream of an aid, sufficient but not efficacious, which lifts away the obstruction, and yet leaves the sinner undetermined, though free, to embrace Christ. Remember that the obstruction is in the will, and the dream perishes. The aid which removes it can be nothing short of that which determines the will to Christ. The peculiar inconsistency of the Wesleyan is seen in this, that, when the Pelagian advances this idea of Adam’s creation in a state of moral neutrality, the Wesleyan (see Wesley’s Orig. sin. or Watson, ch. 18th), refutes it by the same irrefutable logic with the Calvinists. He proves the very state of soul to be preposterous and impossible. Yet, when he comes to effectual calling, he imagines a common grace which results, at least for a time, in the same impossible state of the soul! It is a reversion to Pelagius. Grace In Regeneration Invincible. The views of regeneration which Calvinists present, in calling the grace of God therein invincible, and in denying the synergismsunergeia of man’s will therein, necessarily flow from their view of original sin. We do not deny that the common call is successfully resisted by all non-elect gospel sinners; it is because God never communicates renewing grace, as He never intended in His secret purpose. Nor do we deny that the elect, while under preliminary conviction, struggle against grace, with as much obstinacy as they dare; this is ensured by their depraved nature. But on all those whom God purposes to save, He exerts a power, renewing and persuading the will, so as infallibly to ensure their final and voluntary submission to Christ. Hence we prefer the word invincible to irresistible. This doctrine we prove, by all those texts which speak of God’s power in regeneration as a new creation, birth, resurrection; for the idea of successful resistance to these processes, on the part of the dead matter, or corpse, or faetus, is preposterous. Conviction may be resisted, regeneration is invincible. We prove it again from all those passages which exalt the divine and mighty power exerted in the work (see Ephesians 1:19-20; Psalms 110:3). Another emphatic proof is found in this, that otherwise, God could not be sure of the conversion of all those He purposed to convert; yea, not of a single one of them; and Christ would have no assurance that He should ever "see of the travail of His soul" in a single case! For, in order for God to be sure of the result, He must put forth power adequate to overcome all opposing resistance. But see all those passages, in which the security and immutability of God’s purposes of grace are asserted (Romans 9:21; Romans 9:23; Ephesians 1:4; John 15:16; Ephesians 2:10). Mere Foreknowledge Inadequate. Here, the Arminian rejoins, that God’s scientia media, or foreknowledge of the contingent acts of free agents (arising not from His purpose of control over those acts, but from His infinite insight into their character, and the way it will act under foreseen circumstances), enables Him to foreknow certainly who will improve their common grace, and that some will. His eternal purposes are not crossed, therefore, they say, because He only purposed from eternity to save those latter. The fatal answer is that if the acts of free agents are certainly foreseen, even with this scientia media, they are no longer contingent, but certain, and worse than this, Man’s will being in bondage, all the foreknowledge which God has, from His infinite insight into human character, will be only a foreknowledge of obdurate acts of resistance on man’s part, as long as that will is unsubdued. God’s foreknowledge, in that case, would have been a foreknowledge that every son of Adam would resist and be lost. The only foreknowledge God could have, of any cases of submission, was one founded on His own decisive purpose to make some submit, by invincible grace. Grace Does Not Destroy Free Agency. The Arminian objects again that our doctrine represents man as dragged reluctantly into a state of grace, like an angry wild beast into a cage, whereas, freedom of will, and hearty concurrence are essential elements of all service acceptable to God. The answer is that the sinner’s will is the very subject of this invincible grace. God so renews it that it neither can resist nor longer wishes to resist. But this objection virtually reappears in the next part of the question. The Soul Passive In Its Quickening. Proof. Calvinists are accustomed also to say in opposition to all synergistic views, that the will of man is not active, but only passive in regeneration. In this proposition, it is only meant that man’s will is the subject, and not the agent, nor one of the agents of the distinctive change. In that renovating, which revolutionizes the active powers of the soul, it is acted on and not agent. Yet, activity is the inalienable attribute of an intelligent being, and in the process of conversion, which begins instantaneously with regeneration, the soul is active in all its exercises towards sin, holiness, God, its Savior, the law. This doctrine is proved by the natural condition of the active powers of the soul. Man’s propensities are wholly and certainly directed to some form of ungodliness, and to impenitency. How, then, can the will, prompted by these propensities, persuade itself to anything spiritually good and penitent? It is expecting a cause to operate in a direction just the opposite to its nature; as well expect gravity to raise masses flung into the air, when its nature is to bring them down. And this is agreeable to the whole Bible representation. Does the foetus procure its own birth?, the dead body its own resurrection?, the matter of creation its own organization? See, especially, John 2:13. Yet this will, hence renewed, chooses God, and acts holiness, freely, just as Lazarus, when resuscitated, put forth the activities of a living man. The objections of the Arminian may all be summed up in this, that sinners are commanded not only to put forth all the actings of the renewed nature, such as believing, turning from sin, loving God, but are commanded to perform the very act of giving their hearts to God, which seems to contain the very article of regeneration (see Proverbs 23:26; Isaiah 1:16; Ezekiel 18:31; Deuteronomy 10:16). Objection Answered. The answer is, first, that God’s precepts are no test of the extent of our ability of will, but only of our duty. When our Creator has given to us capacities to know and love Him, and the thing which prevents is our depraved wills, this is no reason why He should or ought to cease demanding that which is His due. If the moral opposition of nature into which God’s creatures may sink themselves by their own fault, were a reason why He should cease to urge His natural rights on them, He would soon have no right left. Again, the will of man, when renovated by grace, needs a rule by which to put forth its renewed activity, just as the eye, relieved of its darkness by the surgeon needs light to see. Hence, we provide light for the renovated eye; not that light alone could make the blind eye see. And hence, God applies His precepts to the renovated will, in order that it may have a law by which to act out its newly bestowed, spiritual free agency. But third, and chiefly, these objections are all removed by making a sound distinction between regeneration and conversion. In the latter the soul is active, and the acts required by all the above passages, are the soul’s (now regenerate) turning to God. Bible Promises No Salvation To Heathen. The salvability of any heathen without the gospel is introduced here, because the question illustrates these views concerning the extent of the grace of redemption, and the discussions between us and the Arminians. We must hold that Revelation gives us no evidence that Pagans can find salvation, without Scriptural means. They are sinners. The means in their reach appear to contain no salvation. a). One argument is this, all of them are self convicted of some sin (against the light of nature), "Without the shedding of blood is no remission." But the gospel is the only proposal of atonement to man. b). Paganism provides nothing to meet the other great want of human nature, an agency for moral renovation. Is any man more spiritually minded than decent children of the Church are, because he is a Pagan? Do they need the new birth less than our own beloved offspring? Then it must be at least as true of the heathen that except they be born again, they shall not see the kingdom. But their religions present no agencies for regeneration. They do not even know the Word. So far are their theologies from any sanctifying influence, their morals are immoral, their deities criminals, and the heaven to which they aspire a pandemonium of sensual sin immortalized. God No More Unjust To Them Than To Non-Elect Under the Gospel. Now, the Arminians reject this conclusion, thinking God cannot justly condemn any man who is not furnished with such means of knowing and loving Him, as put his destiny in every sense within his own choice. These means the heathen do not fully possess, where their ignorance is invincible. The principle asserted is that God cannot justly hold any man responsible, who is not blessed with both "natural and moral ability." I answer that our doctrine concerning the heathen puts them in the same condition with those unhappy men in Christian lands who have the outward word, but experience no effectual calling of the Spirit. God requires the latter to obey that Law and Gospel, of which they enjoy the clearer lights; and the obstacle which ensures their failure to obey is, indeed, not any physical constraint, but an inability of will. Of the heathen, God would require no more than perfect obedience to the light of nature, and it is the same inability of will which ensures their failure to do this. Hence, as you see, the doctrine of a common sufficient grace, and of the salvability of the heathens, are parts of the same system. So, the consistent Calvinist is able to justify God in the condemnation of adult heathens, according to the principles of Paul. Romans 2:12. On the awful question, whether all heathens, except those to whom the Church carries the gospel, are certainly lost, it does not become us to speak. One thing is certain, that "there is none other Name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." (Acts 4:12) Guilt must be expiated, and depravity must be cleansed, before the Pagan (or the nominal Christian) can see God. Whether God makes Christ savingly known to some, by means unknown to the Church, we need not determine. We are sure that the soul which "feels after Him if haply he may find Him," will not be cast off of God, because it happens to be outside of Christendom. But are there such? This question it is not ours to answer. We only know, that God in the Scriptures always enjoins on His Church that energy and effort in spreading the gospel, which would be appropriate, were there no other instrumentality but ours. Here is the measure of our duty concerning foreign missions. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 27: 02.11. CHAPTER 10: ARMINIAN THEORY OF REDEMPTION—PART 2 ======================================================================== Chapter 10: Arminian Theory of Redemption—Part 2 Syllabus for Lecture 49: Are God’s decrees of personal election conditional or unconditional? Turretin, Loc. iv, Qu. 3, 1-7. Qu. II. 10-24. Loc. xv, Qu. 2, 3. Hill, bk, iv, ch. 7, 10. Dick, Lecture 35. Knapp, Chr. Theol., 32. and Note. Watson’s Theol. Inst., ch. 26. Show the relations between the orthodox views of effectual calling and election, and the true theory of the will and free agency. (a). That the natural will is certainly determined to carnality, and yet free agency exists therein. (b). That the renewed will after it is sovereignly renewed to godliness, and efficaciously preserved therein, is yet more free. And therefore, responsibility exists in both states. See Lecture II, above on the Will. Turrettin, Loc. x, Qu. 4. Southern Presbn. Rev. Oct. 1876, July and Oct., 1877. Articles on Theory of Volition. Alexander’s "Moral Science," chs. 16 to 18. Hill, bk. iv. ch. 9; 3. Edwards on the Will, pt. i., ch. 3, and pt. iii. Watson’s Theol. Inst., ch. 28; 3. Anselm. Cur Deus Homo., pt. i., ch. 24. 1. Conditional Decrees Are Implied In Synergism. The favorite Arminian dogma that God’s will concerning the salvation of individuals is conditioned on His simple foresight of their improvement of their common grace, in genuine faith, repentance, and holy obedience, is necessary to the coherency of their system. If grace is invincible, and all true faith are its fruits, then God’s purpose as to working them must be absolute in this sense. If grace is only synergistic, and the sinner’s free will alone decides the question of resisting it, or cooperating with it, then, of course, the sovereignty of decision, in this matter, is in the creature, and not in God, and He must be guided in His purpose by what it is foreseen the creature will choose to do. Hence we reach, by a corollary from the Arminian doctrine of "Calling," that which in time is first, the nature of the Divine purpose about it. The student is here referred to the Lecture on the Decree. But as the subject is so illustrative of the two theories of redemption, the Arminian and the orthodox, I shall not hesitate to discuss the same thing again, and to reproduce some of the same ideas. The Result May Be Conditioned, and Not the Decree. Let me begin by reminding you of that plain distinction, by the neglect of which Arminians get all the plausibility of their view. It is one thing to say that, in the Divine will, the result purposed is conditioned on the presence of its means, another thing to say that, God’s purpose about it is also conditioned or dependent on the presence of its means. The former is true, the latter false. And this because the presence of the means is itself efficaciously included in this same Divine purpose. Hence, a believer’s salvation is doubtless dependent on his repentance in the sense that, if he does not repent, he will not be saved. But God’s purpose to save him is not dependent on his choosing to repent; for one of the things which God’s purpose efficaciously determines is, that this believer shall have grace to repent. Remember, also, that when we say God’s election is not dependent on the believer’s foreseen faith, we do not represent the Divine purpose as a motiveless caprice. It is a resolve founded most rationally, doubtless, on the best of reasons–only, the superior faith and penitence of that man were not, a priori among them, because had not God already determined, from some better reasons unknown to us, that man would never have had any faith or repentance to foresee. And this is a perfect demonstration, as well as a Scriptural one. The Arminian opinion makes an effect the cause of its own cause. And that our faith, are effects of our calling and election (see Romans 8:29; Ephesians 1:4-5; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; 1 Corinthians 4:7; John 15:16). Providence Makes Sovereign Distinctions In Men’s Outward Opportunities. Especially of Infants. (b). But to this I may add the same idea in substance, which I used against Common Sufficient Grace. That, in fact, differences are made, in the temperaments and characters, opportunities and privileges of individuals and nations, which practically result in the death of some in sin. Hence, what practical opportunity, humanly speaking, had the man born in Tahiti, in the 18th century, for redemption through Christ? Now the Arminian himself admits an election of races or nations to such privilege, which is sovereign. Does not this imply a similar disposal of the fate of individuals? Can an infinite understanding fail to comprehend the individuals, in disposing of the destiny of the mass? But, under this head especially, I remark, the time of every man’s death is decided by a sovereign Providence. But by determining this sovereignly, God very often practically decides the man’s eternal destiny. Much more obvious is this in the case of infants. According to Arminians, all that die in infancy are saved. So, then, God’s purpose to end their mortal life in infancy is His purpose to save them. But this purpose cannot be formed from any foresight of their faith or repentance, because they have none to foresee, being saved without them. If Foreseen, Faith Must Be Certain. (c). God’s foresight of believers faith and repentance implies the certainty, or "moral necessity" of these acts, just as much as a sovereign decree. For that which is certainly foreseen must be certain. The only evasion from this is the absurdity of Adam Clarke, that God chooses not to foreknow certain things, or the impiety of the Socinians, that He cannot foreknow some things. On both, we may remark, that if this faith and repentance are not actually foreknown, they cannot be the bases of any resolve on God’s part. Immutable Decree Cannot Be Conditioned On A Mutable Cause. Scripture. (d) That any purposes of God should depend on the acts of a creature having an indeterminate, contingent will, such as the Arminian describes, is incompatible with their immutability and eternity. But all His decrees are such (see Psalms 33:1-22; 2 Timothy 2:11; 2 Timothy 2:19; Ephesians 4:4; Isa, 10:10). In a word, this doctrine places the sovereignty in the creature, instead of God, and makes Him wait on His own servant. It is disparaging to God. Last, his very purpose of individual election to salvation is often declared to be uncaused by any foreseen good in us (see Matthew 11:26; Romans 9:11-16; Romans 11:5-6; etc). Texts Seeming To Express A Conditioned Purpose. But Arminians cite many passages, in which they assert, God’s resolve as to what He shall do to men is conditioned on their good or bad conduct. They are such as 1 Samuel 13:13; Psalms 80:13-14; Luke 7:30; Ezekiel 18:21; Luke 19:42. Our opponents here make an obvious confusion of things, which should be distinguished. When God perceptively reveals a connection between two alternative lines of conduct, and their respective results, as established by His law or promise, he does not at all reveal anything thereby, as to what He purposes with reference to permitting or procuring the exercise of that conduct by man. Of course, it does not imply that His purpose on this point is contingent to Him, or that the consequent results were uncertain to Him. We have seen that many of the results decreed by God were dependent on means which man employed, but that God’s resolve was not dependent, because it secretly embraced their performance of those instrumental acts also. But the proof that the Arminians misconstrue those Scripture instances, is this, that the Bible itself contains many instances of these conditional threats and promises, and expressions of compassion, where yet the result of them is expressly foretold. If expressly predicted, they must have been predetermined. See, then, Isaiah 1:19-20, compared with 7:20. And, more striking yet, Acts 27:23-25, with 31. Evasion Attempted From Romans 9:11. Romans 9:11-18, is absolutely conclusive against conditional election. The only evasion by which the Arminian can escape its force, is that this passage teaches only a national election of Israel and Edom, represented in their patriarchs, Jacob and Esau, to the outward privileges of the Gospel. We reply, as before, that Jacob and Esau certainly represented themselves also, so that here are two cases of unconditional predestination. But Paul’s scope shows that the idea is false, for that scope is to explain, how, on his doctrine of justification by grace, many members of Israel were lost, notwithstanding equal outward privileges. And in answering this question, the Apostle evidently dismisses the corporate or collective, in order to consider the individual relation to God’s plan and purpose. See Romans 9:8; Romans 9:15; Romans 9:24. That the election was not merely to privilege, is clearly proved by the allusion of verse 8, compared with verses 4, 21, 24. Calvinistic View Agreeable To the True Nature of the Will. 2. I am now to show that the Calvinistic scheme is consistent, and the Arminian inconsistent, with the philosophical theory of the will and free agency. Let me here refer you to Lecture xi., where the true doctrine of the will is stated and defended, and request you, if your mastery of the views there given is not perfect, to return and make it so before proceeding. While I shall not repeat the arguments, the definition of the true doctrine is so important (and has so often been imperfectly made by Calvinists) that I shall take the liberty to restate it. True Theory of the Will Stated. The Arminian says that free agency consists in the self-determining power of the will, as a distinct faculty in the soul. The Calvinist says, it consists in the self-determining power of the soul. An Arminian says an agent is only free when he has power to choose, as the will may determine itself either way, irrespective of the stronger motive. The Calvinist says that an agent is free when he has power to act as his own will chooses. The Arminian says that in order to be free, the agent must be exempt from the efficient influence of his own motives; the Calvinist, that he must be exempt from co-action, or external constraint; The Arminian says, that in order to be free, the agent must always be capable of having a volition uncaused. The Calvinist says that if an agent has a volition uncaused, he cannot possibly be free therein, because that volition would be wholly irrational; the agent would therein be simply a brute. Every free, rational, responsible volition is such, precisely because it is caused i. e., by the agent’s own motives; the rational agent is morally judged for his volitions according to their motives, or causes. Motive What? But when we ask, "What is the motive of a rational volition?" we must make that distinction which all Arminians and many Calvinists heedlessly overlook, between motive and inducement. The object offered to the soul as an inducement to choose is not the cause, the motive of the choice, but only the occasion. The true efficient cause is something of the soul’s own, something subjective, namely, the soul’s own appetite according to his prevalent, subjective disposition. The volition is not efficaciously caused by the inducement or object which appeals, but by the disposition which is appealed to. Hence, the causative spring of a free agent’s action is within, not without him, according to the testimony of our consciousness. (The theory which makes the objective inducement the true cause of volition, is from that old, mischievous, sensualistic psychology, which has always been such a curse to theology). But then, this inward or subjective spring of action is not lawless; it is not indeterminate; if it were, the agent would have neither rationality nor character; and its action would be absolutely blind and brutish. This subjective spring has a law of its own activity—that is to say, its self-action is of a determinate character (of one sort or another). And that character is what is meant by the radical habitus , or natural disposition of the agent. And this subjective disposition is what gives uniform qualify to that series of acts, by which common sense estimates the character of an agent. (And this, as we saw, was a sufficient proof of our doctrine; that otherwise, the exhibition of determinate character by a free agent, would be impossible). God is an excellent Agent, because He has holy original disposition. Satan is a wicked agent, because he has an unholy disposition, etc. Disposition What? Now, this habitus or disposition of soul is not by any means always absolutely simple; it is a complex of certain active principles, with mental habitudes proceeding therefrom, and modified by outward circumstances. With reference to some sorts of outward inducements, these active principles may act with less uniformity and determinateness; with reference to others, with more. Here, modifying outward influences may change the direction of the principles. The avaricious man is sometimes prompted to generous volitions, for instance. But our common sense recognizes this truth: that the more, original and primary of those active principles constituting a being’s disposition or habitus, are perfectly determinate and uniform in their action. For instance, no being, when happiness and suffering are the alternatives, is ever prompted by his own disposition, to choose the suffering for its own sake; no being is ever prompted, applause or reproach being equally in its reach, to prefer the reproach to the applause for its own sake. And last, this disposition, while never the effect of specific acts of volition (being always a priori thereto, and cause of them) is spontaneous; that is, in exercising the disposition, both in consideration and choice, the being is self-prompted. When arguing against the Pelagian sophism, that man could not be responsible for his disposition, because it is "involuntary," I showed you the ambiguity wrapped up in that word. Of course, anything which, like disposition, precedes volition, cannot be voluntary in the sense of proceeding out of a volition; what goes before of course does not follow after the same thing. But the question is, "whether disposition is self-prompted." There is a true sense in which we intuitively know that a man ought not to be made responsible for what is "involuntary," viz., for what happens against his will. But does any man’s own disposition subsist against his will? If it did, it would not be his own. There is here a fact of common sense, which is very strangely overlooked; that a man may most freely prefer what is natural to him, and in that sense his prior to his volition choosing it. Let a simple instance serve. Here is a young gentleman to whom nature has given beautiful and silky black hair. He, himself, thinks it very pretty, and altogether prefers it. Does he not thereby give us as clear, and as free an expression of his taste in hair, as though he had selected a black wig? So, were he to purchase hair dye to change his comely locks to a "carroty red," we should regard him as evincing very bad taste. But I ask, if we saw another whom nature had endowed with "carroty red hair," glorying in it with pride and preference, we should doubtless esteem him guilty of precisely the same bad taste, and precisely as free therein as the other. But the color of his hair was determined by nature, not by his original selection. Now, my question is, must we not judge the moral preference just as free in the parallel case, as the aesthetic? I presume that every reflecting mind will give an affirmative answer. If, for instance, a wicked man made you the victim of his extortion, or his malice, you would not think it any palliation to be told by him that he was naturally covetous or malignant, nor would you be satisfied by the plea, that this evil disposition was not at first introduced into his soul by his personal act of soul; while yet he confessed that he was entirely content with it and cherished it with a thorough preference. In fine, whether the moral agent is free in entertaining his connate disposition, may be determined by a very plain test. Does any other agent compel him to feel it, or does he feel it of himself? The obvious answer discloses this fact; that disposition is the most intimate function of our self-hood, and this, whether connate or self-induced. This Theory Obvious. Calvinism In Harmony With It. Is not this now the psychology of common sense and consciousness? Its mere statement is sufficiently evincive of its truth. But you have seen a number of arguments by which it is demonstrated, and the rival theory reduced to absurdity. Now, our assertion is, that the Calvinistic doctrine of effectual calling is agreeable to these facts of our free agency, and the Arminian inconsistent with them. Grace Cannot Produce An Equilibrium Between Holiness and Sin. (a.) First, the equilibrium of will, to which Arminians suppose the gospel restores all sinners, through common sufficient grace, would be an unnatural and absurd state of soul, if it existed. You will remember that the Wesleyans (the Arminian school which we meet) admit that man lost equilibrium of will in the fall; but say that it is restored through Christ; and that this state is necessary to make man truly free and responsible in choosing the Savior. But we have shown that such a state is impossible for an active agent, and irrational. So far as it existed, it would only show the creature’s action irrational, like that of the beasts. Hence, the evangelical choice arising in such a state would be as motiveless, as reasonless, and therefore, as devoid of right moral character, as the act of a man walking in his sleep. And, to retort the Arminian’s favorite conclusion, all the so-called gracious states of penitence, etc., growing out of that choice, must be devoid of right moral quality. How can those exercises of soul have that quality? Only as they are voluntary, and prompted by right moral motives. But as we have seen, motive is subjective; so that the action of soul cannot acquire right moral quality until it is prompted by right moral disposition. Hence, if that common sufficient grace were anything at all, it would be the grace of moral renovation; all who had it would be regenerate. The Natural Will Decisively Bent To Carnality. (b.) Second: We have seen that the notion of a moral agent without determinate, subjective moral character, of some sort, is absurd. Tire radical, ruling habitus has some decisive bent of its own, some way or other. Is not this simply to say that disposition is disposed. The question of fact then arises, which is the bent or determinate direction, which man’s natural disposition has, touching spiritual things? Is it for, or against? Or, as a question of fact, is the disposition of mankind naturally, and uniformly either way? Or, are some men one way disposed by nature, and some the other, as to this object? The answer is, that they are all naturally disposed, in the main, the same way, and that, against the spiritual claims of Christ and God. What are these claims? That the sinner shall choose the holy will of God over his own, and His favor over sensual, earthly, and sinful joys in all their forms. Nothing less than this is evangelical repentance and obedience. Now note, we do not say that no men ever choose any formal act of obedience by nature. Nor, that no man ever desires (what he conceives to be) future blessedness by nature. Nor, that every natural man is as much bent on all forms of rebellion, as every other. But we assert, as a matter of fact, that all naturally prefer self-will to God’s holy will, and earthly, sensual, and sinful joys (in some forms) to God’s favor and communion; that this is the original, fundamental, spontaneous disposition of all; and that in all essential alternatives between self and God, the disposition is, in the natural man, absolutely determinate and certain. If this is true, then the unconverted man without sovereign grace is equally certain to choose carnally, and equally a free agent in choosing so. Proved By Consciousness and Experience. But that such is the determinate disposition of every natural man, is obvious both from experience and from Scripture. Every renewed man, in reviewing his own purposes, is conscious that, before regeneration, self-will was, as against God, absolutely dominant in all his feelings and purposes; of which no stronger test can be imagined than this conscious fact; that the very best religious impulses to which his soul could be spurred by remorse or alarm, were but modifications of self-will, (self-righteousness.) Every true Christian looks back to the time when he was absolutely incompetent to find, or even to imagine, any spontaneous good or joy in anything except carnality; and the only apprehension it was possible for him to have of God’s service, in looking forward to the time when, he supposed, the fear of hell would compel him, to undertake it, was of a constraint and a sacrifice. So, when we look without, while we see a good many in the state of nature, partially practicing many secular virtues, and even rendering to God some self-righteous regards, we see none preferring God’s will and favor to self-will and earth. All regard such a choice as an evilper se; all shrink from it obstinately; all do so under inducements to embrace it which reasonably ought to be immense and overwhelming. The experimental evidence, that this carnality is the original and determinate law of their disposition, is as complete as that which shows the desire of happiness is a law of their disposition. And all this remains true of sinners under the gospel, of sinners enlightened, of sinners convicted and awakened by the Holy Spirit in His common operations; which is a complete, practical proof that there is not any such sufficient grace, common to all, as brings their wills into equilibrium about evangelical good. For those are just the elements which the Arminians name, as making up that grace, and we see that where they are, still there is no equilibrium, but the old, spontaneous, native bent, obstinately dominant still. Proved By Scripture. The decisiveness of that disposition is also asserted in Scripture in the strongest possible terms. All men are the "servants of sin," (John 8:34; Romans 6:20; 2 Peter 2:19). They are "sold under sin" (Romans 7:14). They are "in the bond of iniquity" (Acts 8:23). They are "dead in sins" (Ephesians 2:1). They are "blind"; yea, "blindness" itself (Ephesians 4:18). Their "hearts are stony" (Ezekiel 36:26). They are "impotent" for evangelical good (2 Corinthians 3:5); (John 15:5; Romans 5:6; Matthew 7:18; Matthew 12:34; John 6:44). "The carnal mind is enmity, and cannot be subject to the law of God" (Romans 8:7). Surely these, with the multitude of similar testimonies, are enough to prove against all ingenious glosses, that our view of man’s disposition is true. But if man’s free agency is misdirected by such active principles as these, original, uniform, absolutely decisive, it is folly to suppose that the mighty revolution to holiness can originate in that free agency; it must originate without, in almighty grace. Inability Does Not Supersede Responsibility. Nor is it hard for the mind which has comprehended this philosophy of common sense and experience, to solve the current Arminian objection, that the man in such a state of will cannot be responsible or blameworthy for his continued impenitency. This "inability of will" does not supersede either free agency or responsibility. Inability Defined. There is here an obvious distinction from that external co-action, which the reason and conscience of every man recognizes as a different state, which would supersede responsibility. The Calvinists of the school of Jonathan Edwards make frequent use of the terms, "moral inability,""natural inability," to express that plain, old distinction. Turrettin teaches us that they are not new. In his Locus x., que. 4, section 39, 40, you will find some very sensible remarks, which show that this pair of terms is utterly ambiguous and inappropriate, however good the meaning of the Calvinists who used them. I never employ them. That state which they attempt to describe as "moral inability," our Confession more accurately calls, loss of all "ability of will." (Ch. ix., Section 3). It should be remarked here, that in this phrase, and in many similar ones of our Confession, the word "will" is used in a sense more comprehensive than the specific faculty of choosing. It means the "conative powers," (so called by Hamilton,) including with that specific function, the whole active power of soul. The "inability," then, which we impute to the natural man, and which does not supersede responsibility, while it does make his voluntary continuance in impenitence absolutely certain, and his turning of himself to true holiness impossible, is a very distinct thing from that physical co-action, and that natural lack of essential faculties, either of which would be inconsistent with moral obligation. It is hence defined in Hodge’s outlines: "Ability consists in the power of the agent to change his own subjective state, to make himself prefer what he does not prefer, and to act in a given case in opposition to the co-existent desires and preferences of the agent’s own heart." I will close with a statement of the distinction which I uttered under very responsible circumstances. "All intelligent Calvinists understand very well, that ‘inability’ consists not in the extinction of any of the powers which constituted man the creature he was before Adam’s fall, and which made his essence as a religious being; but in the thorough moral perversion of them all. The soul’s essence is not destroyed by the fall; if it were, in any part, man’s responsibility would be to that extent modified. But all his faculties and susceptibilities now have a decisive and uniform, a native and universal, a perpetual and total moral perversion, by reason of the utter revolt of his will from God and holiness, to self-will and sin; such that it is impossible for him, in his own free will, to choose spiritual good for its own sake." Regeneration Does Not Violate, But Perfects Free Agency. (c) Regeneration, correspondingly, does not constrain. Regeneration does a man to will against his dispositions, but it does not violate, but renews the dispositions themselves. It reflects free agency verses the morbid and perverse bias of the will. It rectifies the action of all faculties and affections, previously perverted by that bias. God’s people are "willing in the day of His power" (Psalms 110:3). "He worketh in them both to will and to do of His good pleasure" (Php 2:13). In that believers now form holy volitions at the prompting of their own subjective principles, unconstrained by force, they are precisely as free as when, before, they spontaneously formed sinful volitions at the prompting of their opposite evil principles. But in that the action of intellect and desire and conscience is now rectified, purified, ennobled, by the divine renovation, the believer is more free than he was before. "He cannot sin because the living and incorruptible seed" of which he is born again "liveth and abideth in him." Hence, regeneration, though almighty, does not infringe free agency, but perfects it. Objection Solved. The standing Arminian objection is, that man cannot be praise–or blame–worthy, for what does not proceed from his own free will. Hence, if he does not primarily choose a new heart, but it is wrought in him by another, he has no more moral credit, either for the change or its consequences, than for the native color of his hair. This objection is, as you have seen, of a Pelagian source. By the same argument Adam could have had no concreated righteousness; but we saw that the denial of it to him was absurd. By the same reasoning God Himself could have no moral credit for His holy volitions; for He never chose a righteousness, having been eternally and necessarily righteous. We might reply, also, that the new and holy state is chosen by the regenerate man, for his will is as free and self–moved, when renovated, in preferring his own renovation, as it ever was in sinners. This Because the Spirit Moulds Disposition a priori to the Will. To sum up, then, the quickening touch of the Holy Spirit operates, not to contravene any of the free actings of the will, but to mold dispositions which lie back of it. Second, all the subsequent right volitions of the regenerate soul are in view of inducements rationally presented to it. The Spirit acts, not across man’s nature, but according to its better law. Third, the propensities by which the renewed volitions are determined are now noble, not ignoble, harmonious, not confused and hostile; and rational, not unreasonable. Man is most truly free when he has his soul most freely subjected to God’s holy will. See those illustrious passages in John 8:36; 2 Corinthians 3:17; Romans 8:21. Since this blessed work is like the free agency which it reinstates, one wholly unique among the actions of God, and essentially different from all physical effects, it cannot receive any adequate illustration. Any parallel attempted, from either material or animal causes, would be incomplete. If, for instance, I were to say that the carnal man "in the bonds of iniquity," is like a wretch, who is hindered from walking in the paths of his duty and safety by some incubusthat crushes his strength, I should use a false analogy for the incubus is external; carnality is internal; an evil state qualifying the will itself. But this erroneous parallel may serve us so far; the fortunate subject of effectual calling has no more occasion to complain of violence done to his free agency, than that wretch would, when a deliverer came and rolled the abhorred load off his body, restoring his limbs to the blessed freedom of motion, which might carry him away from the death that threatened to trim. You must learn to think of the almighty grace put forth in effectual calling, as reparative only, not volative. Augustine calls it a Delectatio victrix. It is a secret, omnipotent, silent, beneficent work of God, as gentle, yet powerful, as that which restored the vital spark to the corpse of Lazarus. Such are all God’s beneficent actions, from the launching of the worlds in their orbits, to the germination of the seed in the soil. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 28: 02.12. CHAPTER 11: FAITH ======================================================================== Chapter 11: Faith Syllabus for Lecture 50: How many kinds of faith are mentioned in the Bible? Show that temporary and saving faith differ in nature. See, on whole, Conf. of Faith, ch. 14. Shorter Cat., Qu. 86. Larger Cat. Qu. 72. Turrettin. Loc. xv., Qu. 7, Qu. 15, sections 1-10. Ridgley, Qu. 72. Dick, Lecture 68. Knapp, section 122. What is the immediate object of saving faith? Turrettin, Loc. xv. Qu. 12, section 7–11. Dick, as above. Hill, bk. v., ch. 1, near the end. Knapp, section 123. Is faith implicit, or intelligent? Turrettin, Qu. 9, 10. Knapp, section 122. Hill, bk. v., ch. 1. What are the elements which make up saving Faith? Is it a duty and unbelief a sin? Does faith precede regeneration? Turrettin, Loc. xv., Qu. 8. Mill as above, A. Fuller, "Strictures on Sandeman," Letters 2, 3, 7. Alexander’s Relig. Experience, ch. 6. Chalmer’s Inst. Of Theol Vol. ii, ch. 6. Ridgley, Qu. 72, 73. Watson’s Theol. Inst., ch. 23, section 3. Knapp, section 122, 124. Is Christian love a formal principle of faith? Council of Trent, Session vi, ch. 7. Calvin, Inst., bk. iii., ch. 2, section 8 to 10. Turrettin, Qu. 13. Is assurance of belief, or assurance of hope, either, or both, of the essence of saving faith? Council of Trent; Can. de Justif., 12 to 16. Calvin, as above, section 7 to 14. Dick, as above. Turrettin, Qu. 17. Conf. of Faith, ch. 18. Ridgley, Qu. 72, 73. Watson’s Theol. Inst., ch. 24, section ii. Dorner’s Hist. Prot. Theol. Vol. i., section i., ch. 4 section a. Louis Le Blanc, Sieur de Beaulieu, Treatise on Faith, in reply to Bossuet’s Variations of Popery. Why is this faith suitable to be the instrument of justification? Ridgley, Qu. 73. Turrettin, Loc. xvi., Qu. 7, section 19. 1. Faith of Four Kinds. Temporary Faith Not of the Kind of Saving. After noting those cases, as 1 Timothy 1:19, where faith is evidently used for its object, we may say that the Scriptures mention four kinds—historical, temporary, saving and miraculous. As the only difference among theologians in this list respects the question, whether temporary and saving faith are generically different, we shall only enlarge on this. Arminians regard them as the same, in all except their issue. This we deny. Because: (a) The efficient cause of saving faith is effectual calling, proceeding from God’s immutable election; (Titus 2:1; Acts 13:48) that of temporary faith is the common call. (b) The subject of saving faith is a "good heart"; a regenerate soul; that of temporary faith is a stony soul. See Matthew 13:5-6, with 8; John 3:36, or 1 John 5:1, with Acts 8:13; Acts 8:23. (c) The firmness and substance of the two differ essentially. Matthew 13:21; 1 Peter 1:23. (d) Their objects are different; saving faith embracing Christ as He is offered in the gospel, a Savior from sin to holiness; and temporary faith embracing only the impunity and enjoyments of the Christian. (e) Their results are different, the one bearing all the fruits of sanctification, comfort and perseverance; the other bearing no fruit unto perfection. See the parable of the sower again. 2. Christ the Special Object of Faith. The special object of saving faith is Christ the Redeemer, and the promises of grace in Him. By this, we do not mean that any true believer will willfully and knowingly reject any of the other propositions of God’s word. For the same habit of faith, or disposition of holy assent and obedience to God’s authority, which causes the embracing of gospel propositions, will cause the embracing of all others, as fast as their evidence becomes known. But we mean that in justifying faith, Christ and His grace is the object immediately before the believer’s mind; and that if he have a saving knowledge of this, but be ignorant of all the rest of the gospel, he may still be saved by believing this. The evidences are, that the gospel is so often spoken of as the object of faith; [but this is about Christ]; e. g., Mark 16:15-16; Ephesians 1:13; Mark 1:15; Romans 1:16-17; et passim. That believing on Christ is so often mentioned as the sole condition, and that, to men who must probably have been ignorant of many heads of divinity; e. g., Acts 16:31; John 3:18; John 6:40; Romans 10:9, etc. The same thing may be argued from the experiences of Bible saints) who represent themselves as fixing their eyes specially on Christ. 1 Timothy 1:15, etc., and from the two sacraments of faith, which point immediately to Jesus Christ. Still, this special faith is, in its habitus , a principle of hearty consent to all God’s holy truth, as fast as it is apprehended as His. Faith embraces Christ substantially in all His offices. This must be urged, as of prime practical importance. Owen has in one place very incautiously said, that saving faith in its first movement embraces Christ only in His priestly, or propitiatory work. This teaching is far too common, at least by implication, in our pulpits. Its result is "temporary" faith, which embraces Christ for impunity only, instead of deliverance from sin. Our Catechism defines faith, as embracing Christ "as He is offered to us in the gospel." Our Confession (chap. xiv., section 2), says: "the principle acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification and eternal life." How Christ is offered to us in the gospel, may be seen in Matthew 1:21; 1 Corinthians 1:30; Ephesians 5:25-27; Titus 2:14. The tendency of human selfishness is ever to degrade Christ’s sacrifice into a mere expedient for bestowing impunity. The pastor can never be too explicit in teaching that this is a travesty of the gospel; and that no one rises above the faith of the stony ground hearer, until he desires and embraces Christ as a deliverer from depravity and sin, as well as hell. 3. Faith Must Be Explicit. The papists represent faith as an implicit exercise of the mind, in which the believer accepts the doctrines, not because of his own clear understanding of their evidence, but because of the pious and submissive temper of mind towards the Church; her authority being, to Romanists, the ground of faith. Faith accordingly may be compatible with ignorance, both of the other evidence, (besides the Church’s assertion), and of the very propositions themselves; so that a man may embrace with his faith, doctrines, when he not only does not see evidence for them, but does not know what they are! Indeed, says Aquinas, since agaph; is the formative principle of faith, the less a man’s acceptance of the Catholic doctrine proceeds from intelligence, and the more from the impulse of right dispositions, the more praiseworthy it is. This description of faith is evidently the only one consistent with a denial of private judgment. Proofs of Romanists Invalid. Protestants, on the other hand, hold that faith must be explicit and intelligent, or it cannot be proper faith; that the propositions embraced must be known; and the evidence therefore comprehended intelligently. They grant to Aquinas, that faith derives its moral quality from the holiness of principles and voluntary moral dispositions actuating the exercise; but his conclusion in favor of an unintelligent faith is absurd, because voluntary moral dispositions can only act legitimately, through an intelligent knowledge of their objects. The right intelligence is in order to the right feeling. Protestants again distinguish between a comprehension of the evidence, and a full comprehension of the proposition. The former is the rational ground of belief, not the latter. The affirmations of many propositions, not only in theology, but in other sciences, are rationally believed, because their evidences are intelligently seen, when the predications themselves are not fully or even at all comprehended. This distinction answers at once all the objections made by Papists to an explicit faith, from the case of this Patriarch, who believed a gospel promise only vaguely stated and of us, who believe mysteries we cannot explain. Nor is it of any force to say many Protestants could not give an intelligent view of any one sufficient argument for a given point in their creed. We grant that many professed Protestants have only a spurious faith. Again, a humble mind cannot always state in language intelligently, what he understands intelligently. Affirmative Arguments. For an explicit faith, hence defined, we argue: 1. That it is the only sort possible, according to the Laws of the mind. A man cannot believe, except by seeing evidence. As well talk of perception of objects of sight occurring in one, without using one’s own eyes. But, say Papists, the Catholic’s implicit faith is not hence totally blind, but rests on the testimony of the Church. His mind, influenced by agaph, intelligently embraced this as plenary and infallible. Now, may not a man have a conviction in such case, implicit even of unknown propositions; e. g., you Protestants have your authoritative rule of faith, your Scripture. Once adopt this, and you accept its unknown contents as true; of which there are to you some, until your study of Scripture exegesis is exhaustive. Ans. Very true. But the Romanist has no right to resort to this case as a parallel because he does not permit private judgment to exercise itself in rationally weighing the proofs of the Church’s authority, any more than of the Bible’s authority. He cannot, because then, the individual must exercise his private judgment upon the Scripture; the argument for the Church’s authority being dependent thereon, in essential branches. 2. The Bible agrees to this, by directing us to read and understand in order to believe; to search the Scriptures. See John 5:39; Romans 10:17; Psalms 119:34; Proverbs 16:22; Acts 28:27; John 17:3; 1 Corinthians 11:29; John 6:45. 3. We are commanded to be "able to give to every man that asketh of us, a reason of the hope that is in us" (1 Peter 3:15). And faith is everywhere spoken of as an intelligent exercise; while religious ignorance is rebuked as sin. 4. Is Faith Simple or Complex? But we now approach an inquiry concerning faith, on which our own divines are more divided. Is faith a perfectly simple exercise of the soul, by its single faculty of intellect; or is it a complex act of both intellect and active moral powers, when stripped of all antecedent or consequent elements, which do not properly belong to it? The older divines, with the confession, evidently make it a complex act of soul, consisting of an intellectual, and a voluntary element. Turrettin, indeed, discriminates seven elements in the direct and reflex actings of faith: 1. Cognition; 2. Intellectual assent; 3. Trust; 4. Fleeing for refuge; 5. Embracing; and (reflex) 6. Self-consciousness of true actings of faith, with 7. Consolation and assurance of hope. The two latter should rather be named the ulterior consequences of saving faith, than a substantive part thereof. The first is rather a previous condition of faith, and the third, fourth and fifth seem to me either identical, or, at most, phases of the different actings of the will toward gospel truth. Of the old, established definition, I have seen no sounder exponent than A. Fuller. Now, Drs. A. Alexander and Chalmers, among others, teach that saving faith is nothing but a simple belief of propositions; and they seem to regard it as necessary to suppose the act as capable of being analyzed into a perfectly simple one, because it is everywhere spoken of in Scripture as a single one. Dr. Alexander also argues, with great acuteness and beauty of analysis, that since the soul is an absolute unit always, and its faculties are not departments of it, but only different modes it has of acting, the enlightening of the mind in regeneration and the moral renovation of will, must be one simple act of the Holy Spirit and one effect, not two. And hence, there is no ground to suppose that faith, which is the first characteristic acting of the new born, and result of new birth, is complex. Moreover, he argues, since the will always follows the latest dictate of the understanding, it is unnecessary to attribute to faith any other character than a conviction of truth in the intellect, to explain its practical effects in turning the soul from sin to Christ. The Question To Be Settled By Scripture. Now, in examining this subject, let us remember that the resort must be to the Bible alone, to learn what it means by pisti". And this Bible was not written for metaphysicians, but for the popular mind; and its statements about exercises of the soul are not intended to be analytical, but practical. This being admitted, and/or Alexander’s definition of the soul and its faculties being adopted as evidently the true one, it appears to me that the fact the Scriptures every where enjoin faith as a single act of the soul (by the doing of which one exercise, without any other, the soul is brought into Christ), does not at all prove it may not be a complex act, performed by the soul through two of its modes of action. Dr. Chalmers, Dr. Alexander, and every other divine often speak of acts as single, which they would yet analyze into two elements, and those not of the same faculties; e. g., the exercise of repentance or moral approval by the soul, consisting (in some order) of a judgment and an emotion. The Heart Guides the Head In Moral Choice. In explaining the defect of the other argument of Dr. Alexander, I would remind the student of the distinctions made in defending the doctrine of the immediate agency of the Spirit of regeneration. True, the regenerating touch which enlightens the understanding and renews the will, is one, and not two, separate, or successive exertions of power. True, the will does follow the last dictate of the understanding, on all subjects. But let us go one step farther back: How comes the understanding by its notions, in those cases where the subjects thereof are the objects of its natural active propensities? As we showed, in all these cases, the notion or opinion of the understanding is but the echo and the result of the taste or preference of the propensity. Therefore, the change of opinion can only be brought about by changing the taste or preference. Now, inasmuch as all the leading gospel truths are objects of native and immediate moral propensity, the renovation of those propensities procures the enlightening of the understanding, rather than the contrary. So in faith, the distinctive exercise of the renewed soul (renewed as a soul, and not only as one faculty thereof,) it is more correct to regard the element of active moral propensity (now towards Christ and away from sin) as source, and the new state of opinion concerning gospel truth, as result. But now, the understanding apprehends these objects of natural moral propensity, according to truth, because of the correct actings of the propensity towards them; and according to the soul’s customary law, this apprehension according to truth, is followed by right volitions; the first of which, the embracing of Christ for salvation, is in the Scriptural, practical account of faith, included as a part of the complete act. If that which the Bible represents as a single, may yet be a complex act of the soul, exerting itself in two capacities (which I have proved), then it is no argument to say the embracing of Christ by the will is no part of saving faith proper, but only a consequence; because it is a natural consequence of the law that the will follows the last dictate of the mind. Grant it. Yet why may not that very act of will, hence produced, be the very thing the Bible means by saving faith? (According to the Confession.) Then, to settle this, let us resort to the Bible itself. Be it remembered that, having distinguished the two elements of belief and embracing, it is simply a question of fact, whether the Scriptures mean to include the latter as a part of that exercise, by which the sinner is justified, or a result of it. Then, The Object of Faith Not An Opinion, But A Good. 1. The very object proposed to faith implies that it must be an act as well as a notion; for that object is not merely truth but good, both natural and moral good. We often determine the character of the soul’s actings by that of their object. Now, the exercise provoked or occasioned by an object of appetency, must be active. Here, we may remark, there is strong evidence for our view in this, that the Scriptures often speak of faith as trust (see Psalms 2:12; Psalms 17:7; et passim ; Matthew 12:21; Ephesians 1:12, etc). Chalmers most strangely remarks that still faith does not seem to be anything more than simple belief because when we analyze trust in a promise, we find it to consist of a belief in a proposition accompanied by appetency for the good propounded; and the belief is but belief. I reply yes, but the trust is not mere belief only. Our argument is in the fact that the Scriptures say faith is trust, and trust is faith. Chalmers’ is a strangely bald sophism. Faith Always Active In Scripture. 2. The Scriptures describe faith by almost every imaginable active figure. It is a "looking," (Isaiah 45:22) a "receiving," (John 1:12-13) an "eating" of Him, (John 6:54), a "coming," (John 5:40), an "embracing," (Hebrews 11:13,) a "fleeing unto, and laying hold of," (Hebrews 6:18,) etc. Here it may be added, that every one of the illustrations of faith in Hebrews 11:1-40(whose first verse some quote as against me) come up to the Apostle’s description in the 13th verse, containing an active element of trust and choice, as well as the mental one of belief. 3. The manner in which faith and repentance are coupled together in Scripture plainly shows that, as faith is implicitly present in repentance, so repentance is implicitly in faith. But if so, this gives to faith an active character. (Mark 1:15; Matthew 21:32; 2 Timothy 2:25). Unbelief A Sin. 4. The Scriptures represent faith, not only as a privilege, but a duty, and unbelief as a sin (1 John 3:23; John 16:9). Now, it seems clear that nothing is a sin, in which there is no voluntary element. The mere notion of the understanding arises upon the sight of evidence involuntary; and there is no moral desert or ill-desert about it, any more than in being hurt when hit. And the reason why we are responsible for our belief on moral subjects is, that there is always an active, or voluntary element, about such belief. The nature thereof is explained by what has been said above on the order of causation between our disposition or propensities, and our opinions concerning their objects. Historical Faith Differs How? 5. If we make faith nothing but simple belief, we are unable to give a satisfactory account of the difference between historical and saving faith. Chalmers, in the summary of his 6th chapter as good as acknowledges this. But surely that must be a defective theory, which makes it impossible to see a difference, where yet, it admits, a substantial difference exists! Some would get out of the difficulty by denying that, in strictness of speech, there is any historical faith where there is not saving faith—i. e., by denying that such persons truly believe, even with the understanding. Many candid sinners will declare that their consciousness contradicts this. Says Dr. Alexander, the historical faith does not differ in that it believes different propositions; but in that it believes them with a different and inferior grasp of conviction, I would ask, first, whether this statement does not give countenance to that radical Arminian error, which makes saving differ from temporary faith, only in degree, and not in kind? And I would remark, next: This is a singular desertion of a part of the strength of his own position, (although we believe that position includes only a part of the truth.) It Does Not Accept the Same Propositions. It is certainly true that historical faith does not believe all the propositions embraced by saving faith, nor the most important of them. Cat. que. 86. It believes, in a sense, that Christ is a Savior, but does it believe that all its best works are sins; that it is a helpless captive to ungodliness; that sin is, at this time, a thing utterly undesirable in itself for that person; and that it is at this moment, a thing altogether to be preferred, to be subdued unto holiness and obedience in Jesus Christ? No, indeed; the true creed of historical faith is that "I am a great sinner, but not utter; that I shall initiate a rebellion against ungodliness successfully some day, when the ‘convenient season’ comes, and I get my own consent. That the Christian’s impunity and inheritance will be a capital thing, when I come to die; but that at present, some form of sin and worldliness is the sweeter, and the Christian’s peculiar sanctity the more repulsive, thing for me." Now, the only way to revolutionize these opinions, is to revolutionize the active, spiritual tastes, of whose verdicts they are the echo—to produce, in a word, spiritual tastes equally active in the opposite direction. We have hence shown that historical faith does not embrace the same propositions as saving; and that the difference is not merely one of stronger mental conviction. But we have shown that the difference is one of contrasted moral activities, dictating opposite opinions as to present spiritual good; and hence procuring action of the will to embrace that good in Christ (see also, 2 Thessalonians 2:10; Romans 10:9-10). Faith the Fruit of Regeneration. It is very clear, that if this account of faith is correct, it can only be an exercise of a regenerate heart. The moral affections which dictate the opinions as to moral good and evil, according to truth and hence procure action are spiritual affections. To this agree the Scriptures (see Romans 8:7; 1 Corinthians 2:14; Ephesians 1:19-20; Ephesians 2:8; Ezekiel 36:26-27; Php 1:29; Galatians 5:22; Titus 1:1; Hebrews 12:2). To this representation there are three objections urged: Objections. 1. "That of the Sandemanian, that by giving faith an active and holy character, we virtually bring back justification by human merit." 2. "That by supposing regeneration (the very germ of redemption) bestowed on the sinner before justification, we make God reconciled to him before He is reconciled." 3. "That we tell the sinner to go to Christ by faith in order to be made holy, while yet he must be made holy in order to go." Answers. The answer to the 1st, is that we define faith as a holy exercise of the soul; but we do not attribute its instrumentality to justify, to its holiness, but to the fact that it embraces Christ’s justifying righteousness. It is neither strange nor unreasonable, that a thing should have two or more attributes, and yet be adapted by one special attribute among them, to a given instrumentality. The diamond is transparent, but it is its hardness which fits it for cutting glass. True faith is obediential, it involves the will; it has moral quality, but its receptive nature is what fits it to be the organ of our justification. Hence it does not follow that we introduce justification by our own moral merit. To the 2nd, I answer, it owes its whole plausibility to assuming that we make a difference in the order of time between regeneration and justification by faith. But we do not. In this sense, the sinner is justified when he is regenerated, and regenerated when justified. Again, God has purposes of mercy towards His elect considered as unregenerate. For were they not elected as such? In the Covenant of Redemption, Christ’s vicarious engagement for them did not persuade the Father to be merciful to them. On the contrary, it only enabled His original mercy, from which the gift of Christ Himself proceeded, to go forth compatibly with His holiness. Hence, at the application of Redemption, God justifies in the righteousness of Another, in order that He may consistently bless, with regeneration and all other graces; and He regenerates, in order that the sinner may be enabled to embrace that righteousness. In time they are simultaneous; in source, both are gracious, but in the order of production, the sinner is enabled to believe by being regenerated, not vice versa. Sinner Dependent On Grace. To the 3rd, I reply, that this is but to re-affirm the sinner’s inability, which is real, and not God’s fault, but his own. True, in the essential revolution from death to life, and curse to blessing, the sinner is dependent on Sovereign grace; (it is the virulence of sin that make him so,) and there is no use in trying to blink the fact. It is every way best for the sinner to find it out; for hence the thoroughness of legal conviction is completed, and self-dependence is slain. Let not the guide of souls try to palliate the inexorable fact, by telling him that he cannot regenerate himself and so adapt himself to believe; but that he can use means, etc., etc. For if the awakened sinner is perspicacious, he will answer, (logically), "Yes; and all my using means and instrumentalities, you tell me, will be adding sin to sin; for I shall use them with wholly carnal motives." If not perspicacious, he will thrust these means between himself and Christ; and be in imminent risk of damnation by endeavoring to make a Savior of them. No, let the pastor only reply to the anxious soul in the words of Paul, (Acts 16:31) "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved," while he also refuses to retract the truth, that "no man cometh unto Christ, except the Father draw him." The healing of the withered arm is here a parallel. Matthew 12:10-13. Had that afflicted man possessed the spirit of this cavil, he would have objected to the command, "Stretch forth thy hand"; that it must first be miraculously healed. But he had, instead, the spirit of faith; and He who gave the command, gave also the strength to obey. In the act of obeying he was miraculously enabled. If the sinner recalcitrate against the gospel paradox, the triumphant answer will be that the root of the reason why he cannot embrace Christ in his own strength is, that his own spontaneous preference is for self-will and ungodliness. So that if he fails in coming to Christ, why does he murmur? He has followed precisely his own secret preference, in staying away. If the minister feels responsible and anxious for the successful issue of the case entrusted hence to his tuition, let him remember: (a) That after all, it is sovereign grace that must regenerate, and not the separate efficiency of any views of truth, however correct; and that he is not responsible to God for persuading the sinner to Christ, which is God’s own work; and (b) That God does in fact make the "sinner’s extremity His own opportunity"; and where we see Him hence slaying carnal self by this thorough law work, it is because He intends thereby to prepare the way for His sovereign regenerating work. Let not the minister, therefore, become disbelieving, and resort to foolish, carnal expedients; let him singly repeat the gospel condition; and then "stand still and see the salvation of God." This difficulty is presented in its most interesting form, by the question, whether an anxious sinner conscious of an unrenewed state, may begin to pray with an expectation of answer. Some professed Calvinists have been so embarrassed, as to give a very unscriptural answer. They have argued that "without faith it is impossible to please God"; and as faith is a result of regeneration, it is the unrenewed sinner’s duty to abstain from praying, until conscious of the saving change. But Scripture commands sinners to pray. See Acts 8:22; Romans 10:13. Man’s logic is vain, against God’s express word. Again, it is wrong to command any one to abstain from prayer (or any other duty) because he is in a state of unbelief, because it is wrong for him to be in that state. It is preposterous reasoning, which makes a man’s own sin an exemption for him. Do we then, in commanding the unbeliever to begin praying, tell him to offer an unbelieving prayer. By no means. We intend that he shall so begin, that by God’s grace that prayer, begun in the impotency of nature, shall instantly transform itself into the first breathing of a living faith. We say to him, begin praying, "and be no more faithless, but believing." It is most instructive to notice how Christ Himself encourages the anxious sinner to pretermit the obstacle of this seeming paradox. The parables by which He inculcates prayer are evidently constructed with a view to encourage the awakened soul to waive the question whether it is renewed or not. In Matthew 7:11, the tenderness of parents for their hungry children is the example by which He emboldens us. But in applying it, He actually breaks the symmetry of His own comparison, in order to widen the promise for the encouragement of sinners. We at first expect Him to conclude hence: "If ye then, though evil, know how to give good things to your children, how much more shall your Father in heaven give His Holy Spirit to His children." But no, He concludes: "to them that ask Him"; hence graciously authorizing us to waive the question whether we have become His children. So, in Luke 18:14, the parable of the publican shows us a man who ventured to pray in the profound and humble conviction of his unrenewed state, and he obtained justification; while the confident professor of godliness was rejected. These instructions authorize the pastor to invite every sinner to the mercy seat, provided only he is hearty in his petition; and to direct him to the free mercy which comes "to seek and save that which is lost." Yet it is certainly true, that the prayer of abiding unbelief will not be accepted. But prayer is God’s own appointed means for giving expression to the implanted faith, and hence passing out of the unbelieving into the believing state. 5. Fides Formata. Distinction. Rome teaches that historical faith is the substance of saving, fides informis , which becomes true faith by receiving its form, love (hence fides formata). Her doctrine of Justification is accordant, viz., a change of moral, as well as legal state, consisting not only in pardon and acceptance of person, but in the in-working of holy love in the character. Now, in this error, as in most mischievous ones, we find a certain perverted element of truth, (without which errors would not usually have life enough to be current.) For faith, as an act of the soul, has moral character; and that character, holy. But the sophism of Rome is two-fold: (a.) Her fides informis , or historical faith, is not generically the same act of the soul at all as saving faith; being an embracing of different propositions, or at least of far different apprehensions of the gospel propositions, being the acts of different faculties of the soul; (historical faith, characteristically of the head; saving faith, essentially of the heart. Romans 10:10); and being prompted by different motives, so far as the former has motive. For the former is prompted by self-love, the latter by love of holiness and hatred of sin. (b.) Faith does not justify in virtue of its rightness, but in virtue of its receptivity. Whatever right moral quality it has, has no relevancy whatever to be, of itself, a justifying righteousness; and is excluded from the justifying instrumentality of faith; (Romans 4:4-5; Romans 11:6). But faith justifies by its instrumentality of laying hold of Christ’s righteousness, in which aspect it does not contribute, but receives, the moral merit. (c.) Love cannot be the "Form of faith," because they are coordinate graces. See 1 Corinthians 13:13. Rome virtually concedes this fatal point, by pleading that love may be metaphorically the form of faith. To the modern mind a conclusive general objection remains, this Peripatetic mode of conception and definition, by matter and form, is wholly irrelevant to a spiritual exercise or function; it is only accurate when applied to concrete objects. The solution of Rome’s favorite proof texts is easy; e. g., in 1 Corinthians 13:2, the faith is that of miracles. In Galatians 5:6, faith is the instrument energizing love, and not vice versa. In James 2:26, works (loving ones of course), are not the causes, but after–signs of faith’s vitality, as breath is of the body’s (1 Corinthians 6:11; Titus 3:5; Ephesians 1:13; Luke 15:22, etc.), refer to the sanctification following upon justification. 6. Assurance Distinguished. By Assurance of faith, we mean the certain and undoubting conviction that Christ is all He professes to be, and will do all He promises. It is of the essence of saving faith, as all agree (see Hebrews 10:22; Hebrews 11:6; James 1:6-7; 1 Timothy 2:8; Jeremiah 29:13). And it is evident that nothing less than full conviction of the trustworthiness of the gospel would give ground to that entire trust, or envoke the hearty pursuit of Christ, which are requisite for salvation. The assurance of grace and salvation is the assured conviction (with the peace and joy proceeding therefrom) that the individual believer has had his sins pardoned, and his soul saved. Rome stoutly denies that this is a part of faith, or a legitimate reflex act, or consequence thereof, (except in the case of revealed assurance.) Her motive is, to retain anxious souls under the clutch of her priest-craft and tyranny. The Reformers generally seem to have been driven by their hatred of this odious doctrine, to the other extreme, and make assurance of hope of the essence of faith. Hence, Calvin says, in substance: "My faith is a divine and spiritual belief that God has pardoned and accepted me." The sober view of the moderns (see Conf., ch. 18) is, that this assurance is the natural and proper reflex act, or consequence of true faith, and should usually follow, through self-examination and experience; but that itch notch the essence of faith. 1st. Because, then, another proposition would be the object of faith. Not whosoever believeth shall be saved; but "I am saved." The latter is a deduction, in which the former is major premise. 2nd. The humble and modest soul would be inextricably embarrassed in coming to Christ. It would say "I must believe that I am saved, in order to be saved. But I feel myself a lost sinner, in need of salvation." 3rd. God could not justly punish the nonelect for not believing what would not have been true if they had believed it. 4th. The experience of God’s people in all ages contradicts it. (Psalms 73:13; Psalms 31:22; Psalms 77:2; Psalms 77:9-10). 5th. The command to go on to the attainment of assurance, as a higher grace, addressed to believers, shows that a true believer may lack it. 7. Faith Suitable Organ of Justification. God has chosen faith for the peculiar, organic function of instrumentally uniting the soul to Christ, so as to partake of His righteousness and spiritual life. Why? This question should be answered with modesty. One reason, we may suppose, is, that human glorying may be extinguished by attaching man’s whole salvation instrumentally to an act of the soul, whose organic aspect is merely receptive, and has no procuring righteousness whatever (Romans 3:27). Another reason is, that belief is, throughout all the acts of the soul, the preliminary and condition of acting (see 1 John 5:4-5). Everything man does is because he believes something. Faith, in its widest sense, is the mainspring of man’s whole activity. Every volition arises from a belief, and none can arise without it. Hence, in selecting faith, instead of some other gracious exercise, which may be the fruit of regeneration, as the organic instrument of justification, God has proceeded on a profound knowledge of man’s nature, and in strict conformity thereto. A third reason may perhaps be found in the fact that faith works by love; that it purifies the soul; and is the victory which overcomes worldliness. See Confession of Faith, ch. xiv., section ii., especially its first propositions. Since faith is the principle of sanctification, in a sinner’s heart, it was eminently worthy of a God of holiness, to select it as a term of justification. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 29: 02.13. SECTION TWO—BASIC DOCTRINES OF THE FAITH ======================================================================== Section Two—Basic Doctrines of the Faith ======================================================================== CHAPTER 30: 02.14. CHAPTER 12: REVEALED THEOLOGY: GOD AND HIS ATTRIBUTES ======================================================================== Chapter 12: Revealed Theology: God and His Attributes PART ONE Syllabus for Lectures 13 & 14: Give the derivation and meaning of the names applied to God in the Scriptures. Turrettin, Loc. iii, Qu. 4. Breckinridge’s Theology, Vol. i, p. 199. Concordances and Lexicons. What is the meaning of the term, God’s attributes, and what the most common classifications of them? Turrettin, Loc. iii, Qu. 5, c.f. Dick, Lecture 21. Breckinridge, Vol. i, p. 260, c.f. Hodge, Syst. Theol. Vol. i, pp. 369–372. Thornwell, Lecture 6, pp. 162, 166, and 167, c.f. What are the scriptural evidences of God’s unity, spirituality, and simplicity? Turrettin, Loc. iii, Qu. 3, 7. Dick, Lectures 17–18. What are the Bible proofs of God’s immensity? Turrettin, Loc. iii, Qu. 9. Dick, Lecture 19. What the Scriptural proof of God’s eternity? Turrettin, Loc. iii, Qu. 10. Dick, Lecture 17. Prove from Scripture that God is immutable. Turrettin, Loc. iii, Qu. 2. Dick, Lecture 20. See on whole, "Charnock on the Attributes." Lecture 14: What is the Scriptural account of God’s knowledge and wisdom? What is the meaning of His simple, His free, His mediate knowledge? Does God’s free knowledge extend to the future acts of free agents? Renew of Breckinridge’s Theology by the author. Turrettin, Loc. iii, Qus. 12, 13. Dick, Lectures 21, 22. Watson’s Theo. Inst., pt. ii, chs. 4, 28, Sect. 3. Dr. Chr. Knapp, Sect. xxii. Do the Scriptures teach God to be a voluntary being? What limitation, if any, on His will? Prove that He is omnipotent. Does God govern free agents omnipotently? Turrettin, Loc. iii, Qus. 14, 21, 22. Dick, Lecture 23. Watson, Theo. Inst. pt. ii, chs. 28, Sect. 3, 4. Knapp, Sect. xxi. What is the distinction between God’s decretive anal preceptive will, Is it just? Between His antecedent and consequent will? Are His volitions ever conditioned on anything out of Himself 7? Turrettin, Loc. iii, Qus. 15, 16, 17. Knapp, Sect. xxv and xxvi. Is God’s will the sole source of moral distinctions? Turrettin, Loc iii, Qu. 18. Infallibility of Scriptures Assumed. In approaching the department of Revealed Theology, the first question is concerning the inspiration of the Scriptures. This having been settled, we may proceed to assume them as inspired and infallible. Our business now is merely to ascertain and collect their teachings, to systematize them, and to show their relation to each other. The task of the student of Revealed Theology, is, therefore, in the first place, mainly exegetical. Having discovered the teachings of revelation by sound exposition, and having arranged them, he is to add nothing, except what follows "by good and necessary consequence." Consequently, there is no study in which the truth is more important, that "with the lowly is wisdom." God’s Names Reveal Him. The New Testament, and still more, the Old, presents us with an interesting subject of study, in the names and titles of God, which they employ to give our feeble mind a conception of His manifold perfections. The names hw:hoyÒ H;y lae yn:doa} H’/laÔ µyIholaÔ yd’v’and t/ab;x] hw:ohy in the Hebrew, and Kurio", Uyisto", Pantokrator in the Greek, give, of themselves, an extensive description of His nature. For they are all, according to the genius of the ancient languages, significant of some quality, and are when rightly interpreted, proof texts to sustain several divine attributes. hw:ohyÒ Jehovah with its abbreviation, Hy: , which most frequently appears in the doxology, Hy: Wll]h’ has ever been esteemed by the Church the most distinctive and sacred, because the incommunicable name of God. The student is familiar with the somewhat superstitious reverence with which the later Hebrews regard it, never pronouncing it aloud, but substituting it in reading the Scriptures, by the word yn:doa. There seems little doubt that the sacred name presents the same radicals with hy