John Tulloch · 27 of 36

§ IV.—Chapter II. General Considerations.

BEFORE entering on the special examination of the difficulties before us, it may help to clear our way, and throw some light around it, to draw attention to certain general considerations bearing on the subject.

The first of these arises from the fact, already more than once insisted upon, that phenomena of evil are truly of an exceptional character: they come before us as exceptions to general order and prevailing good. While, therefore, they appear formidable difficulties when viewed by themselves, it is not yet by themselves, but as mere spots of darkness in an otherwise fair and bright picture, that they can fairly claim to be regarded. Let them be considered, in the fullest sense, obstacles in the way of the complete theistic inference—anomalies demanding explanation; they have yet no claim to set aside that inference, in virtue of their mere existence. An indefinite array of facts bears witness to the Divine wisdom and goodness with an accumulating force of evidence which is irresistible. This evidence is entitled to hold good its place for what it is worth, notwithstanding that there is a certain amount of what appears counter-evidence. Let both go into court, and be judged according to their respective value; but it were surely a strange injustice that the mere presence of certain phenomena appearing to form negative evidence should be held, per se, to dispose of the whole array of positive evidence. It were a strange injustice to deny that any valid inference of corresponding qualities in an artist can be founded on the general excellence, the harmonious skill, displayed by his work, because it may contain what may seem to us imperfections. And yet this is really the injustice which has been perpetrated, as with a show of superior acuteness, against the inductive argument for the Divine wisdom and beneficence. It has been urged, for example, that the apparent imperfections of nature as much warrant a negative, as its order a positive, conclusion in reference to the Divine wisdom. This is imagined to be a peculiar hit of logic, which completely demolishes the theistic induction! Yet surely it is impossible to conceive a graver perversion of logic. For even admitting the fact of such imperfections in nature as are supposed, which may be entirely disputed, all that logic can demand is, that such phenomena shall not be rejected, and held as of no account in the theistic evidence. In fairness, they must receive a hearing before the conclusion is pronounced. The presumptions of an opposite character which they involve must be weighed; but that certain apparent anomalies here and there, which, the more they are examined, the less they are seen to be anomalies, must be allowed to set aside the otherwise uniform testimony of nature, is too absurdly illogical a pretension to deserve even the notice we have given it.

Even so as to those more serious aspects of misery which exist in human life. The very utmost that can be demanded is, that they be recognised as difficulties in the way of the complete theistic inference. It is certainly puzzling that the works of a good Being should be in any respect marred by unhappiness. Yet the partial unhappiness cannot for a moment be entitled to set aside the prevailing happiness. On any fair principle of evidence, we must admit the good for what it truly is—the rule of nature; and the evil for what it no less truly is—only the exception. In this, as it appears to us, the whole question at this stage is summed up, and we willingly leave the sceptic on either horn of the dilemma he may choose; namely, either to deny that happiness is the rule of creation (a denial from which his philosophic insouciance would especially shrink), or to admit pro tanto the validity of the inference founded upon the rule, and to join us in the search of whatever explanation the exceptions may admit of.

And this leads us to the only other preliminary consideration which seems to demand attention. In reviewing the phenomena of creation, we are to bear in mind that we only see part of a great plan in progress. We cannot, in the nature of the case, see more. But if we could see the whole plan in its extended development, many things that now seem to us exceptional and contradictory might lose this character altogether, and even expand into special means of advance in the ever-enlarging display of the Divine beneficence. The mystery which everywhere encompasses our finite sphere of observation, may only conceal from us the wisdom and the goodness that are really present in many phenomena where we cannot even trace them. The limitation of our faculties is thus recognised as in some manner explanatory of the difficulties that meet us in regard to our subject; and it is quite validly so held in a general sense. It has been urged, indeed, in the same hostile spirit of reasoning, already noticed, that if the limitation of our faculties is to be called into account so far, it must be admitted much farther. It ought truly to deter us from pronouncing any theistic judgment at all as to creation—an assertion which is really tantamount to saying that we ought to reject a fact because we are not able to perceive all the relations of that fact. We are not to admit that God is good, because we cannot understand the whole nature and bearing of His goodness. “We are to refuse to believe what we see and know, because there are certain things we do not see and cannot know. The finite cannot understand the infinite; therefore it must pause in mere dumb perplexity, and not say anything, nor believe anything. Reason instinctively recoils from such an assertion. It at once rejects such a mere syllogistic cavil. With a higher and truer logic, it accepts the good, although it may not comprehend all its modes of operation. Looking out from the veil which covers its limited vision, it perceives and acknowledges the lustre of beneficence all around it, and it only pauses where shadows seem to cover that lustre. We do not deny the light of the sun because shadows here and there intercept that light: nay, there are spots, we know, in the very solar brightness itself; but this does not prevent us day by day, as we pass into its presence, confessing the lustre of beauty and happiness that it sheds about our path.

We rightly allow, therefore, the theistic inference on its positive side, while we pause before those negative facts that force themselves upon us. We validly pause in the one case, and not in the other, on the broad ground that, in the one case, the immediate conclusion is correspondent to our rational instincts, and in the other it is repellent to those instincts. Truly speaking, it is only in the latter case that the region of ignorance and mystery begins. It is only the evil that is utterly unintelligible. It is only in reference to the evil that the limitation of our faculties is displayed in absolute helplessness. Rightly, therefore, on every principle of reason, we call in this limitation of our faculties as demanding a suspense of judgment in regard to the evil, and not in regard to the good. In the one case reason is satisfied: it rests in the good, as sympathetic with it, and intelligible to it. From the evil, on the contrary, it retreats, as utterly perplexing; and we say, in such a case, with a justice which commends itself to every heart, that if we knew more—if our faculties were more competent—we might understand what is now so dark. If our vision were enlarged, we might perceive that what seems so anomalous and evil is not really so. For we are but the creatures of a day; and those darkened characters which our feeble sight cannot read, may yet, to a higher sight, be luminous with Divine light. The mystery which we cannot explain, may disappear on a wider horizon of knowledge. Could we see the end from the beginning, it may be best as it is, after all. The complications which now yield us no meaning, or one at which we only gaze with awe, may expand into issues of beneficence that will gladden the angels, when the great scheme is complete, and the glory of final victory is poured backwards through all its darkened perplexities and most deeply-lying shadows.