Kitabı oku: «Theism», sayfa 11

LECTURE VIII

CONSIDERATION OF OBJECTIONS TO THE DIVINE WISDOM, BENEVOLENCE, AND JUSTICE

I

Conscience testifies that there is a God who is good and just; and society and history, on the whole, confirm its testimony. But there are a multitude of moral evils in the world, and these may seem to warrant an opposite inference, or at least so to counterbalance what has been adduced as evidence for the goodness and justice of God as to leave us logically unable to draw any inference regarding His moral character. We must consider, therefore, whether these evils really warrant an anti-theistic conclusion; and as they are analogous to, and closely connected with, those facts which have been argued to be defects in the physical constitution of the universe inconsistent with wisdom, or at least with perfect wisdom, in the Creator, it seems desirable to ask ourselves distinctly this general question, Are there such defects in the constitution and course of nature that it is impossible for us to believe that it is the work of a wise and holy God?

Epicurus and Lucretius imagined that the world was formed by a happy combination of atoms, acting of themselves blindly, and necessarily after innumerable futile conjunctions had taken place. Lange, the most recent historian of materialism, has revived the hypothesis, and represented the world as an instance of success which had been preceded by milliards of entire or partial failures. This is the theory of natural selection applied to account for the origin of worlds; and no one, I believe, who combines the hypotheses of natural selection and atheism can consistently entertain any other conception of the origin of worlds. But where are the milliards of mishaps which are said to have occurred? Where are the monstrous worlds which preceded those which constitute the cosmos? We must, of course, have good evidence for their existence before we can be entitled to hold Nature responsible for them; we must not charge upon her the mere dreams of her accusers. Not a trace, however, of such worlds as, according to the hypothesis, were profusely scattered through space, has been pointed out. It would be a waste of time for us to argue with men who invent worlds in order to find fault with them. We turn, therefore, to those who censure not imaginary worlds but the actual world.

Comte, following Laplace, has argued that there is no evidence of intelligence or design in the solar system, because its elements and members are not disposed in the most advantageous manner. The moon, in particular, we are assured, should have been so placed that it would revolve round the earth in the same time that the earth revolved round the sun. In that case she would appear every night, and always at the full. Storms, volcanoes, earthquakes, and deserts have been often argued to be defects which mar both the beauty and utility of creation. Changes in the polar regions, in the physical character of Africa, in the position of the Asiatic continent, and in the Pacific Ocean, have been suggested as improvements on the constitution of the world. The actual climates of various countries have been maintained to be not the most favourable to life which are possible under the existing laws of nature.⁴²

A little reflection will enable us to assign its just value to such criticism of creation. Remark, then, in the first place, that there may be abundant evidence of intelligence where there is not evidence of perfect intelligence. Although very considerable defects were clearly shown to exist in the constitution and arrangements of the physical world, there might yet be ample and unmistakable proof of the vast wisdom of its Author. Were it even true that science could show that the mechanism of the heavens, and the distribution of land and sea, heat and cold, on earth, were not in every respect the best, that would not prove that there was no intelligence, no design whatever, involved therein. The question, Did the earth and the solar system originate with intelligence? is distinct from the question, Was the intelligence in which they originated perfect? It is conceivable that the one question might have to be answered in the affirmative and the other in the negative. It is obvious that the former question ought to be considered apart from and before the latter. The theist proposes, of course, to prove in the end that there is a perfect intelligence, but he is content to establish at first that there is an intelligence. Aware that whoever admits intelligence to be the first cause of the universe may be forced also to admit that the creative intelligence is perfect, he is under no temptation himself to confound two entirely distinct questions, and he is obviously entitled to protest against so illogical a procedure in others.

Remark, in the second place, that we are plainly very incompetent critics of a system so vast as the universe. We are only able to survey a small portion of it, and the little that we perceive we imperfectly comprehend. We see but an exceedingly short way before us into the future, and can form only the vaguest and most general conception of the final goal to which creation, as a whole, is tending. This need not, and ought not, to prevent us from recognising the evident indications of intelligence which fall within our range of apprehension; but it may well cause us to hesitate before pronouncing that this or that peculiarity, which appears to us a defect, is an absolute error or evil. There is no one who would not feel it very unwise to pronounce an apparent defect, even in an elaborate human mechanism with which he was only imperfectly acquainted, an unmistakable blunder, and surely far more caution is required in a critic of the constitution of the universe; for, as Bishop Butler truly observes, "The most slight and superficial view of any human contrivance comes abundantly nearer to a thorough knowledge of it than that part which we know of the government of the world does to the general scheme and system of it." All Nature is one great whole, and each thing in it has, as I have previously had to insist, a multitude of uses and relations, with reference to all of which it must be viewed, in order that a complete and definitive judgment regarding it may be formed. Has this fact been adequately realised by those who have criticised, in the manner which has been indicated, the wisdom displayed in the system of Nature? I think not. In regard to the moon, it would seem that, even if that luminary were intended to serve no other purpose than to give light on earth, it is not the Maker of it who has blundered, but Comte and Laplace. The real consequences of their pretended improvement have been shown to be that the moon would give sixteen times less light than it does, and be in constant danger of extinction. In other words, what they have demonstrated is, that their own mathematical and mechanical knowledge was so inferior to that of the intelligence which placed the moon where it is, that they could not appreciate the correctness of its procedure in the solution of a comparatively simple astronomical problem. But even if the change which they suggested would really have rendered the moon a better lamp to the inhabitants of the earth, they were not entitled to infer that it was an error to have placed it elsewhere, unless they were warranted to assume that the moon was meant merely to be a lamp to the inhabitants of the earth. But that they were clearly not entitled to assume. To give light on earth is a use of the moon, but it is foolish to imagine that this is its sole use. It serves other known ends, such as raising the tides, and may serve many ends wholly unknown to us. So in regard to volcanoes, earthquakes, &c. Any single generation of men and beasts might well dispense, perhaps, with their existence, and yet they may be most appropriate instrumentalities for securing order and welfare in the economy of the universe as a whole. It is not by their relations to the present and local only, but by their relations to all the past and future of the entire system of things, that they are to be judged of. If Greenland were submerged, and the Asiatic and North American continents so altered that no large rivers should flow into the polar ocean, the climate of Iceland and Canada might be greatly improved. Would the world thereby, however, be made better as a whole, and throughout all its future history? He must be either a very wise man or a very foolish one who answers this question by a decided affirmation; and yet he who cannot so answer it has obviously no right to hold that the changes mentioned would really be improvements.

Could we survey the whole universe, and mark how all its several parts were related to each other and to the whole, we might intelligently determine whether or not an apparent defect in it was real; but we cannot do this with our present powers. We can readily imagine that any one thing in the world, looked at by itself or in relation to only a few other objects, might be much better than it is, but we cannot show that the general system of things would not be deranged and deteriorated thereby. Considered merely in reference to man, the relative imperfections of the world may be real advantages. A world so perfect that man could not improve it, would probably be, paradoxical as the statement may sound, one of the most imperfect worlds men could be placed in. An imperfect world, or in other words, a world which can be improved, can alone be a fitting habitation for progressive beings. Scripture does not represent nature even before the Fall as perfect and incapable of improvement, but only as "very good;" and still less does it require us to believe that the actual course of nature is perfect. The true relation of man to nature can only be realised when the latter is perceived to be imperfect, – a thing to be ruled, not to be obeyed – improved, not imitated – and yet a thing which is essentially good relatively to the wants and powers of its inhabitants. No created system, it must further be remembered, can be perfect in the sense of being the best possible. None can be so good but that a better may be imagined. What is created must be finite in its perfections, and whatever is finite can be imagined to be increased and improved. The Creator Himself – the absolutely perfect God – the Highest Good – is, as Plato and Anselm so profoundly taught, the only best possible Being. In Him alone the actual is coincident and identical with the possible, the real with the ideal. Whoever receives this truth as it ought to be received, cannot fail to see that all speculations as to a best possible world, and all judgments of the actual world based on such speculations, are vain and idle imaginations.⁴³

I may add, that when a man argues, as Comte does, that we can know nothing of final causes, nothing of the purposes which things are meant to accomplish, and yet that they might have realised their final causes, fulfilled their purposes, better than they do, he obviously takes up a very untenable and self-contradictory position. If we can have no notion of the purpose of a thing, we cannot judge whether it is fulfilling its purpose or not, whether it is fulfilling it well or ill. The denial of the possibility of knowing the ends of things is inconsistent with the assertion that things might have been constituted and arranged in a happier and more advantageous manner.

Organic nature has been still more severely criticised than the inorganic world. There have been pointed out a few fully developed organs, as, for example, the spleen, of which the uses are unknown, and a multitude of organs so imperfectly developed as to be incapable of performing any serviceable functions. Even the most elaborate organisms have been maintained to have essential defects; thus the eye has been argued by Helmholtz to be not a perfect optical instrument, and on the strength of the proof one writer at least has declared that if a human optician were to blunder as badly as the supposed author of eyes must have done, he would be hissed out of his trade. Stress has been laid on the fact that abortions and monsters are not rare. Many seemingly intelligent contrivances, we are reminded, serve mainly to inflict pain and destruction. And the inference has been drawn that the first cause of organic existences was not Divine Wisdom but mere matter and blind force.

The considerations which have already been brought forward should enable us to answer all reasonings of this kind. An organ is not to be pronounced useless because its uses have not yet been discovered. To the extent that evolutionism is true, rudimentary and obsolete organs are accounted for, and the wisdom displayed in them amply vindicated; and if evolutionism be not true, they can still be explained on the theory of types. They are stages in the realisation of the Divine conception; indications of an order which comprehends and conditions the law of use and contrivance for use; keys to the understanding of the Divine plan. Theism cannot have much to fear from the fact that all human eyes are limited in their range and finite in their perfections, or even from the fact that a great many persons have very bad eyesight. Whatever may be its imperfections, the eye, if viewed with a comprehensive regard to its manifold uses and possibilities, must be admitted by every unprejudiced judge to be incomparably superior to every other optical instrument: indeed it is the only real optical instrument; all so-called optical instruments are merely aids and supplements to it. If the eye had been absolutely perfect, its modification or evolution could only have been deterioration, artificial optical instruments would not have been needed, and all man's relations to creation must have been essentially different from what they are. Who can rationally assure us that this was to be desired? Abortions and monsters are at least exceptions. If mind were not what is ultimate in the universe – if nature worked blindly – if there were any truth in what Lange and Huxley have said of her procedure, that it is "like shooting a million or more loaded guns in a field to kill one hare," – this could not be the case; the bullets which miss would then be incalculably more numerous than those which hit, and the evidence of her failures ought to be strewn far more thickly around us than the remains of her successes; there would be, as it were, no course of nature because of the multitude of deviations, no rule in nature because of the multitude of exceptions. But what are the facts? These: the lowest organisms are as perfectly adapted to their circumstances as the highest, the earliest as the latest; there is a vast amount of death and a vast amount of life in the world, but, whatever some men may thoughtlessly assert, no man can show that there is too much of either, any real waste, if the wants of creation as a whole are to be provided for; abortions and monsters, which are the only things in nature which can be plausibly characterised as "failures," as "bullets which have fallen wide of the mark," are comparatively few and far between; and the monsters, even, are not really exceptions to law and order, are not strictly monsters. The labours of teratologists have scientifically established the grand general result that there are no monsters in nature in the sense which Empedocles imagined; none except in the sense in which a man who gets his leg broken is a monster. A monster is simply a being to whom an accident not fatal has happened in the womb. Why should an accident not occur there as well as elsewhere? Why should God not act by general laws there as well as elsewhere? Who is entitled to say that any result of His general laws is a failure; that any so-called accident was not included in His plan; that a world in which a child could not be born deformed nor a grown man have a leg broken, would be, were all things taken into account, as good as the world in which we actually live? Huxley, Lange, and those whom they represent, have failed to show us any of nature's "bullets which have missed the mark," and have not sufficiently, I think, realised how imperfect might be their own perception of nature's target. The contrivances for the infliction of pain and death displayed in the structure of animals of prey are none the less evidences of intelligence because they are not also, at least immediately or directly, evidences of beneficence. Intelligence is one thing, benevolence is another, and what conclusively disproved benevolence might conclusively prove intelligence.⁴⁴

II

Let us pass on to the contemplation of greater difficulties; to suffering, which seems to conflict with the benevolence of God – and to sin, which seems irreconcilable with His righteousness.

I cannot agree with those who think that there is no mystery in mere pain; that it is sufficiently accounted for by moral evil, and involves no separate problem. The history of suffering began on our planet long before that of sin; ages prior to the appearance of man, earth was a scene of war and mutual destruction; hunger and fear, violence and agony, disease and death, have prevailed throughout the air, the land, and ocean, ever since they were tenanted. And what connection in reason can there be between the sin of men or the sin of angels and the suffering endured or inflicted by primeval saurians? The suffering of the animals is, in fact, more mysterious than the suffering of man, just because so little of the former and so much of the latter can be traced, directly or indirectly, to sin. But every animal is made subject to suffering; every animal appetite springs out of a want; every sense and every faculty of every animal are so constituted as to be in certain circumstances sources of pain; hosts of animals are so constructed that they can only live by rending and devouring other animals; no large animal can move without crushing and killing numbers of minute yet sentient creatures. How can all this be under the government of Infinite Goodness?

The human mind may very probably be unable fully to answer this question. It can only hope truthfully to answer it even in a measure by studying the relevant facts, the actual effects and natural tendencies of suffering; general speculations are not likely to profit it much. Now, among the relevant facts, one of the most manifest is that pain serves to warn animals against what would injure or destroy them. It has a preservative use. Were animals unsusceptible of pain, they would be in continual peril. Bayle has ingeniously devised some hypotheses with a view to show that pain might have safely been dispensed with in the animal constitution, but they are obviously insufficient. It would be rash to affirm that pain is indispensable as a warning against danger, but certainly no one has shown how it could be dispensed with, or even plausibly imagined how it might be dispensed with. For anything we can see or even conceive, animal organisms could only be preserved in a world like ours by being endowed with a susceptibility to pain. For anything we know or can even imagine, the demand that there should be no pain is implicitly a demand that there should be no animal life and no world like the earth; – a most foolish and presumptuous demand. But however this may be, pain has, as a fact, plain reference to the prevention of physical injury. "Painful sensations," says Professor Le Conte, "are only watchful vedettes upon the outposts of our organism to warn us of approaching danger. Without these, the citadel of our life would be quickly surprised and taken." Now, to the whole extent that what has just been said is true, pain is not evil but good, and justifies both itself and its author. It is not an end in itself, but a means to an end, and its end is a benevolent one. The character of pain itself is such as to indicate that its author must be a benevolent being, – one who does not afflict for his own pleasure, but for his creatures' profit.

Another fact makes this still more evident. Pain is a stimulus to exertion, and it is only through exertion that the faculties are disciplined and developed. Every appetite originates in the experience of a want, and the experience of a want is a pain; but what would the animals be without their appetites and the activities to which these give rise? Would they be the magnificent and beautiful creatures so many of them are? If the hare had no fear, would it be as swift as it is? If the lion had no hunger, would it be as strong as it is? If man had nothing to struggle with, would he be as enterprising, as ingenious, as variously skilled and educated as he is? Pain tends to the perfection of the animals. It has, that is to say, a good end; an end which justifies its use; one which would do so even if perfection should not be conducive to happiness. Perfection, it seems to me, is a worthy aim in itself, and the pain which naturally tends to it is no real evil, and needs no apology. I fail to see that the nearest approximation to the ideal of animal life is the existence of a well-fed hog, which does not need to exert itself, and is not designed for the slaughter. Whatever pain is needed to make the animals so exercise their faculties as to improve and develop their natures, has been wisely and rightly allotted to them. We assign a low aim to Providence when we affirm that it looks merely to the happiness even of the animals. It would be no disproof of benevolence in the Creator if pain in the creatures tended simply to perfection and not to happiness; while it must be regarded as a proof of His benevolence if the means which lead to perfection lead also to happiness. And this they do. The pain which gives rise to exertion and the pain which is involved in exertion are, as a rule, amply rewarded even with pleasure. Perhaps susceptibility to pain is a necessary condition of susceptibility to pleasure; perhaps the bodily organism could not be capable of pleasure and insensible to pain; but whether this be the case or not, it is a plain and certain matter of fact that the activities which pain originates are the chief sources of enjoyment throughout the animal creation. This fact entitles us to hold that pain itself is an evidence of the benevolence of God. The perfecting power of suffering is seen in its highest form not in the brute, but in man; not in its effects on the body, but in its influence on the mind. It is of incalculable use in correcting and disciplining the spirit. It serves to soften the hard of heart, to subdue the proud, to produce fortitude and patience, to expand the sympathies, to exercise the religious affections, to refine, strengthen, and elevate the entire disposition. To come out pure gold, the character must pass through the furnace of affliction. And no one who has borne suffering aright has ever complained that he had been called on to endure too much of it. On the contrary, all the noblest of our race have learned from experience to count suffering not an evil but a privilege, and to rejoice in it as working out in them, through its purifying and perfecting power, an eternal weight of glory.

In the measure that the theory of evolution can be established, the wisdom and benevolence displayed in pain would seem to receive confirmation. So far as that theory can be proved, want, the struggle for existence, the sufferings which flow from it, and death itself, must, it would appear, be regarded as means to the formation, improvement, and adornment of species and races. The afflictions which befall individuals will in this case be scientifically demonstrated to have a reference not merely to their own good, but to the welfare of their kind in all future time. The truth that nothing lives or dies to itself would thus receive remarkable verification. But although it should never receive this verification, although a strictly scientific proof of it shall never be forthcoming, there is already sufficient evidence for it of an obvious and unambiguous kind. Every being, and the animated certainly not less than the inanimate, is adjusted, as I have previously had occasion to show, to every other. "All are but parts of one stupendous whole." This is a truth which throws a kindly and cheering light on many an otherwise dark and depressing fact. Turn it even towards death. Can death itself, when seen in the light of it, be denied to be an evidence of benevolence? I think not. The law of animal generation makes necessary the law of animal death, if the largest amount of animal happiness is to be secured. If there had been less death there must have been also less life, and what life there was must have been poorer and meaner. Death is a condition of the prolificness of nature, the multiplicity of species, the succession of generations, the coexistence of the young and the old; and these things, it cannot reasonably be doubted, add immensely to the sum of animal happiness.

Such considerations as have now been indicated are sufficient to show that suffering is a means to ends which only a benevolent Being can be conceived of as designing. They show that pain and death are not what they would have been if a malevolent Being had contrived them; that they are characterised by peculiarities which only love and mercy can explain. We do not need for any practical spiritual purpose to know more than this. An objector may still ask, Could not God have attained all good ends without employing any painful means? He may still confront us with the Epicurean dilemma: "The Deity is either willing to take away all evil, but is not able to do so, in which case He is not omnipotent; or He is able to remove the evil, but is not willing, in which case He is not benevolent; or He is neither willing nor able, which is a denial of the Divine perfections; or He is both able and willing to do away with the evil, and yet it exists." But only superficial and immature minds will attach much weight to questionings and reasonings of this kind. A slight tincture of inductive science will suffice to make any man aware that speculations as to what God can or can not do, as to what the universe might or might not have been, belong to a very different region from investigations into the tendencies of real facts and processes. It would seem as if, with our present faculties, these speculations could lead us to no reliable conclusions. We clearly perceive that pain and death serve many good ends; but we should require a knowledge of God and of the universe far beyond that which we possess, to be able to state, even as an intelligent conjecture, that these evils could be wisely dispensed with, or that there is anything in them in the least inconsistent either with the power or the benevolence of God.⁴⁵

A large amount of human suffering is accounted for by its connection with human sin. Whatever so-called physical evil is needed to prevent moral evil, or to punish it, or to cure it, or to discipline in moral good, is not really evil. Any earthly suffering which saves us from sin is to be classed among benefits. There is nothing to perplex either mind or heart in the circumstance that sin causes a profound and widespread unhappiness. It is strange that it should sometimes apparently produce so little misery; only a dull conscience, I think, will be surprised that it produces so much. It is merely in so far as physical evil is dissociated from moral evil that its existence is a problem and a perplexity. But the very existence of moral evil is a most painful mystery. The absence of physical evil while moral evil was present would be inconsistent with a moral government of the world; whereas if moral evil were removed no real difficulty would be left. Physical evil may be a relative good, which God can easily be conceived of as causing and approving; moral evil is an unconditional evil, and cannot be the work of any morally perfect being.

Have we any reason, however, to suppose that sin is willed by God in the sense either of being caused or approved by Him? All the sin we know of on earth is willed by man, and all the sin which Scripture tells us of as existing elsewhere is said to be willed by evil spirits; neither nature nor Scripture informs us that there is any moral evil willed by God. In other words, there are no facts which refer us to God as the author of evil. In the absence of facts, we can, it is true, form conjectures, and give expression to them in such questions as, How could God make beings capable of sinning? Why did He not prevent them sinning? Wherefore has He permitted sin to endure so long and spread so widely? But thoughtful searchers for truth, at least after a certain age, cannot feel much interested in, or much perplexed by, questions like these. They will be quite willing to leave the discussion of them to debating societies. They will resolutely refuse to assign the same value to conjectures as to facts.

Sin is not God's work. Moral order may exist without moral disorder, but moral disorder can only exist as rebellion against moral order. The very notion of moral evil implies a moral good which it contravenes, and a moral law by which it is condemned. It can never be thought of as other than a something grafted on nature, by which nature is perverted and depraved. It is not natural, but unnatural; not primary and original, but secondary and derivative; not the law, but the violation of the law.

 
"The primal Will, innately good, hath never
Swerved, or from its own perfect self declined."
 

Between this Will and sin there are ever interposed created wills, which are conscious of their power to choose good or evil, obedience or disobedience to God's law. God bestows on His creatures only good gifts, but one of the best of all these gifts includes in its very nature ability to abuse and pervert itself and all things else. Freewill needs no vindication, for it is the primary and indispensable condition of moral agency. Without it there might be a certain animal goodness, but there could be no true virtue. A virtuous being is one which chooses of its own accord to do what is right. The notion of a moral creature being governed and guided without the concurrence and approval of its own will is a contradiction. If God desired to have moral creatures in His universe He could only have them by endowing them with freewill, which is the power to accept or reject His own will. The determination to create moral beings was a determination to create beings who should be the causes of their own actions, and who might set aside His own law. It was a determination to limit His own will to that extent and in that manner. Hence, when He created moral beings, and these beings, in the free exercise of their power, violated His law, sin entered into the world, but not through His will. It resulted from the exercise of an original good gift which He had bestowed on certain of His creatures, who could abuse that gift, but were not necessitated to abuse it. Their abuse of it was their own action, and the action consisted not in conforming to, but in contravening, God's will. Thus, God's character is not stained by the sins which His creatures have committed.