THE MORAL
SYSTEM (EXCERPT)
Having
sufficiently shown that there is a distinction between moral and natural law,
and that all men recognize it and act upon the fact, even if they do not admit
it in theory, we have a question of great importance to propose.
None but
the reckless and unthinking can pass it by without giving it attention. The
candid must admit that it is one of great interest. It is this:
Will these
aspirations for the right, this innate sense of justice, to which we have
referred, ever be gratified?
That they
are not, that they cannot be gratified in the present state, scarcely needs
further notice. Is my moral nature, my sense of right and justice, satisfied to
see virtue trodden under foot? to see the libertine mocking over the grave of
blighted hopes and a broken heart? to see the priceless treasure of virtuous
purity, around which cluster the fondest hopes of earth, sported with as a mere
toy of little worth? to see honest toil sink unrequited, and hide itself in
squalid poverty and a pauper’s grave? to see the vain rolling in wealth
accumulated by fraud and oppression? to see vice exalted to the pinnacle of
fame? to hear the praises of him whose very presence is loathsome by reason of
the filthiness of his iniquities? And when words fail to express the horrors of
such and kindred evils, must I smile complacently and say, This is right? in
this my soul delights? But this is but a mere glance at the facts as they
exist, as they have existed, and are likely to exist in this present state.
Is it
possible that these aspirations, these discriminations of right and wrong, were
placed within our breasts to be mocked—to look and long in vain? Is it possible
that the Supreme One, who has so nicely arranged the material world, and
subjected it to certain laws, has placed moral balances in our hands to no
purpose? that we are to long for, but never see, a vindication of the great
principles of justice?
Is it not
rather reasonable to conclude that he has a moral Government, and that our
moral sense is evidence that we are within the limits of a moral system? Are
not our convictions of wrong proof to ourselves of our amenability to such a
system?
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H. Waggoner
The very
fact that we discriminate between moral and natural laws, as we have seen that
all men do, and that all pronounce upon the right or wrong of the actions of
mankind, is proof of the general recognition of the existence of a moral
Government. And so to look above nature, to acknowledge God as a moral
Governor, is necessary, to be true to our own natures, to the convictions
planted in every breast.
In this
great truth our aspirations find rest. Here our sense of justice takes refuge;
for a Government is a system of laws maintained, and the very idea of a moral
Government leads us to look forward to a vindication of the right principles or
laws now trampled upon. Why should we pronounce upon the merit or demerit of
human actions, if there is no accountability for those actions? Our feelings of
responsibility (the movings of conscience) are but the expectation of a great
assize, in or by which injustice, fraud, and every wrong, will be requited, and
down-trodden virtue and injured innocence be exalted and vindicated. This is,
indeed, but a legitimate deduction from the propositions established, and in
this we find a sure vindication of the divine Government in regard to the
anomalies of the present state.
It must,
however, be admitted that there are some who deny the existence of moral wrong,
and, of course, of accountability for our actions. But their denial or our
admission does not weaken our argument, for the denial is only in profession,
not in practice. The denial is based on the alleged inability of man to act
except in a given line. Man (say they) is a creature of circumstances; the
motives which impel him to action are outside of his own will; he is led of
necessity to do just as he does, and he cannot do otherwise. Therefore he is
not responsible for his actions. But we affirm that this is only their
professed belief; not their actual belief. For in practice we find them
uniformly false to their theory. They will, as readily as others, sit in judgment
upon, and condemn, the actions of their fellow-men. They will blame any for
encroaching on their rights. But it were surely the height of folly, the
grossest injustice, to blame one for doing that which he cannot avoid. And how unreasonable to
think that God bestows a moral sense, and plants within us the monitor of
conscience, to lead us to do right, and yet compels us to do wrong. We count
the man immoral and degraded who disregards the
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distinctions
of right and wrong; what contempt, then, is thrown upon the originator of the
present system by the theory which admits that these distinctions exist; that
of right they should be preserved, yet affirms that they cannot be preserved to
any extent whatever.
Admitting
the existence of a God (and we now speak to the consciences of some), what
shall we, what must we, think of a God who would frame a system wherein these
distinctions could not be preserved?
And yet
such is the case, if man has no freedom to act. We all acknowledge the
difference between right and wrong, as principles; that it is right to regard
our neighbor’s life and property; and hence, he that disregards them does
wrong. And all are conscious that the wrong we do is of ourselves; and no one
ever seeks to throw it back to any other cause until his moral sense is
perverted by selfishness and false reasoning. Akin to the above position—at
least in its unreasonableness—is the theory which admits the existence of God
the moral Governor (though this admission is not essential to the theory), and
admits that man is responsible for his actions, and admits that all violations
of law are certainly punished, and yet denies a future judgment.
This is
intimately connected with, or is the out-growth of the error that there are
penalties to natural laws; and that all penalties are inflicted immediately
upon the violation. Thus (they say), if a man puts his hand in the fire he
violates a law of his being; and he does not want to an indefinite future time
for judgment and punishment; he suffers immediately and certainly; and for the
violation there is no atonement or forgiveness. This, to some, appears to be
truth, for they advance it; to us it seems like a puerility. We repeat, the
suffering from contact with fire is not a judicial infliction to serve the ends
of justice, as penalty is; it is but a consequence of the violation of natural
law; and that it falls as certainly and as severely on the innocent as the
guilty. The innocent and unconscious babe suffers by the fire as readily, as
certainly, as the willful man. And we can go further in the illustration: the
man in cruel malice may hold the hand of the child in the fire; the child does
not offend against law, for it did not put its hand in the fire, and it
vigorously tries to withdraw it. Here the man does all the wrong, and the child
suffers all the penalty! Such is the wisdom, such the justice of this theory.
The truth is, that the
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H. Waggoner
child
suffers as a consequence of the man’s wrongdoing. He deserves punishment (the
infliction of a penalty) for the action; and if justice is ever vindicated, he
will be punished, according to his intention and his commission of a great
moral wrong.
The
admission that all sin will be punished makes necessary the admission of a
future judgment; for without that, justice will never be vindicated, and our
aspirations for the right will never be satisfied.
But one
more fallacy of this character we will notice. It is found in the oft-repeated
idea that God is so loving, so kind, that he will not mark to condemn our
aberrations from duty.
It is not
necessary to say that this is a denial
of the Scriptures in regard to the character of God. But, laying the Bible
aside, where is the evidence that God so loves his creatures that he will not
mark their faults or maintain the justice of his government? Surely it is not
learned from nature that love is the sole attribute of Deity. How came any by
the idea that the Deity must possess that degree of love supposed in the
statement? Whence do they derive their conceptions of such love, and of its
necessity in the divine character? Can any tell?
They may
reply that these conceptions are intuitive; that they are evolved from their
own consciousness; that they have an innate knowledge of the moral fitness of
things, and according to this, they clothe Deity with such attributes as their
moral sense determines to be fitting to such a Being. Our reply to this is
twofold.
1. We deny
that such ideas are developed by intuition. The intelligent skeptics of this
land and in this age do not derive their knowledge of right, and of the
abundance of love in the character of Deity, from the light of nature. They
derive this from their surroundings; from the prevalence of Christian
influences and Christian literature. To show just what man can learn from
nature and by mere intuition, we must take him entirely separated from the
influence of the Bible and Christianity. And we hazard nothing in saying that,
where Christian example and the teachings of the Bible were entirely unknown,
man never developed an exalted idea of Deity. To the contrary, where men have
trusted to the light of nature and to the power of human reason, their conceptions
of Deity were low and base, generally vile; and this was the case even where
there was considerable proficiency
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in
philosophy and the arts. Many deny the Scriptures who are indebted to them and
to their influence for very much of the knowledge of which they are proud.
2. In thus
exalting love in the divine character at the expense of other attributes, they
are only partially true to their higher nature; partially just to their own
consciousness. Our consciousness, our self-judgment of the moral fitness of
things, gives us as definite and clear conceptions of justice as of love. All
the propositions established in this argument tend to this point. We are apt to
lose sight of justice, and to exalt love.
This is
quite natural with all who have any sense of wrong (and who has not?), for we
feel the need of love or mercy, and are ever willing or anxious to screen
ourselves from justice. But in this, as before remarked, we do violence to our
moral sense, to gratify our selfish feelings. Can any one dispassionately
reason and reflect on this subject, and accept the idea of a God of even
partial justice?
The idea
is alike repugnant to reason and to reverence. God must be strictly, infinitely
just. Who would not choose to be annihilated rather than to possess immortal
existence in a universe governed or controlled by a being of almighty power,
but lacking justice?
Many professed believers in the Bible
manifest the same tendency, to exalt the love of God above his justice. It is a
great perversion of the gospel. God is infinite in every perfection. His love
cannot be more than infinite. If his justice were less than infinite he would
be an imperfect or finite being.
The gospel plan was not devised, and Christ
did not die, to exalt his love above his justice, but to make it possible to
manifest his infinite love toward the penitent sinner, without disparagement to
his infinite justice; “that he might be just, and the justifier of him who
believeth in Jesus.” Rom. 3:23-26.
Rom
3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Rom
3:24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus:
Rom
3:25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his
blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past,
through the forbearance of God;
Rom
3:26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be
just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
But this
will be examined when we come to the Biblical argument. Perhaps there never was
a time when the idea expressed by Pope, “Whatever is, is right,” was so
distorted and carried to an absurd extreme; as it is at the present. Some say
that every action, whatever its nature, is acceptable to God, because it is
performed under his overruling hand. One well-known “reformer” says that such a
thing as “sin, in the common acceptation of the term, does not exist.” It is
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H. Waggoner
affirmed
that sin cannot exist; that “there is no room in the universe for wrong to
exist.” We heard a somewhat popular speaker declare that “what men call crimes
are most valuable experiences in the march of human progress.” And these
statements are not made by wild fanatics alone; they are argued in their most
plausible forms by men, and women, also, who pass in their communities for
staid and sober people. But on examination we find that the propagators of
these theories get them up to relieve the mind of a sense of responsibility.
This class
of moral philosophers always frame their theories to throw the blame of wrong,
if any wrong exists, upon God, the Creator, and never to leave it upon
themselves! We trust the reader will pardon the relation of “a true story”
which contains an argument in itself worthy of consideration.
Two men,
machinists, working in a railroad shop, were conversing on this subject. One
contended that if he did wrong he was not responsible for the wrong, for, said
he, “I act out the disposition that was given me. If I make a locomotive and it
will not work, you do not blame the locomotive, you blame me for my faulty
workmanship. Even so, if I do not answer the end of my being, it is not my
fault. The blame attaches to my Maker, who made me what I am.”
His friend
replied: “Your illustration is just and forcible, provided you insist that your
Maker gave you no more brains than you put into a locomotive!”
The truth
is that the possession of brains and will-power brings responsibility; and this
responsibility necessarily attaches to creatures on our plane of being. If they
who deny the existence of moral wrong would reflect a moment, they could not
fail to perceive that their theory is really degrading to themselves. They are
irresponsible if they are mere machines or unreasoning animals. But if they
have the power to reason, to will, to choose, and have moral consciousness, a
sense of right and wrong, responsibility must necessarily attend the use of
these powers. And every one feels this responsibility; his conscience will not
permit him to deny it, until he has seared his conscience, and blunted his
moral sensibilities; that is to say, he has, in a greater or less degree,
brutalized himself, and degraded his manhood, either by pernicious and false
reasoning, or by an immoral life.
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And now,
looking over the whole field of argument on this subject, we ask: Is it not a
humiliating thought that a word is necessary to prove to any one that moral
wrong exists?
Must I
stop to reason with a man, a human being, with all his faculties in exercise,
to prove to him that it is wrong to steal, to murder, or to commit adultery? To
argue the subject, nay, to admit that it is a debatable question, is an insult
to the sense of mankind. The real question at issue is, How shall we dispose of
the evil which exists? or, How shall criminals be rescued from the awful
consequences of their violations of the law of Him who is infinitely just?
We do not
ask the reader, or our doubting friend, to consider the question as to whether
the guilty might not be suffered to escape by overruling or suspending justice,
or how they might stand before a finite being, or a judge who is comparatively
just. The real question is, How shall they stand before the judgment seat where
justice is maintained and vindicated on the scale of infinity? where every evil
thought and intention is counted as an overt act of iniquity and rebellion
against a righteous Government? This, and nothing less, is involved in the very
idea of a Supreme Being, an Infinite One who is a moral Governor, whose
perfections demand that He shall take cognizance of every offense against His
authority; every invasion of the rights of His subjects.
These are
solemn questions, and demand our candid consideration. If God is infinitely
just—and can he be otherwise?—if he will bring every work into judgment, and we
shall have to meet our life records there, how shall we stand in His presence?
It certainly becomes us to deal candidly with ourselves, and to understand, if
possible, those principles of justice which must prevail in a wise and
righteous government.
Sin is
everywhere, and in our own hearts. What shall be done in regard to it? We may
indeed flatter ourselves that our sins have not been very great; we may
persuade ourselves to believe that, compared to those of others, our lives have
been quite creditable. But we must remember that wrong never appears odious to
the habitual wrong-doer; therefore no one is competent to judge in his own
case.
The
decision will not be made upon our actions as they look to us, but as they look
to the Infinite Lawgiver and Judge. We will not be
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H. Waggoner
compared
with our neighbor, in the Judgment, but with the law which is holy, and just,
and good. The spirituality of that law we cannot comprehend, even as we cannot
fathom the mind of its Author. We must stand in the light of Heaven’s purity
and glory.
(Excerpt
from-) THE ATONEMENT-AN EXAMINATION OF A REMEDIAL SYSTEM IN THE LIGHT OF NATURE
AND REVELATION. (1884)
BY ELDER J. H. WAGGONER
To be
continued….
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