087. V. Divine Permission Of The Fall.
V. Divine Permission Of The Fall.
Moral evil is the common lot of man, whatever its origin. Its existence is a question of profound perplexity. A denial of the Scripture account of its origin in the Adamic fall neither voids its reality nor in the least mitigates its perplexity. We shall long wait for a theodicy. We do not think such an attainment possible in our present state. The divine permission of the Adamic fall was not in any sense An expression of consent or the granting of a license. The deed of sin by which man fell was definitely forbidden, and under the weightiest sanctions. Hence the meaning of the divine permission must be simply that God did not sovereignly and effectively interpose for the prevention of the fall. It has often been said that he could not have so interposed consistently with the moral freedom of man. There is truth in this, but not such truth as fully resolves the question. Other questions are thus raised respecting the creation and probationary trial of personal beings endowed with responsible moral agency. If God could not consistently interfere with the free action of primitive man, so as to prevent the fall, could he rightfully constitute man a free moral agent and place him on a probationary trial? These are the questions which first of all concern the divine permission of the fall. If there be for us any present light, it must come with the answer to these questions.
1. The Creation of Moral Beings Permissible.—A being personally constituted and endowed with free moral agency must be under law to God, and responsible for his conduct. On the truth of theism and the reality of absolute moral principles, this must be so. Even God could not release such a being from moral duty and responsibility. Yet the creation of such a being must be permissible in God. To deny this permissibility is to restrict the creative agency of God to the spheres of material and impersonal existences. Or, if the highest grade might reach the capacity of rational intelligence, there must be no supreme endowment of a moral nature. Only in such a being is the true likeness of God reached; and yet in no creative fiat must he say, “in our image, after our likeness.” Only a most arrogant and daring mind could prescribe such limitations for God, or deny him the rightful privilege of creating moral beings capable of a worshipful recognition of himself.
2. Permissiblity of a Probationary Economy.—Probation is a temporal, testing economy. There is a law of duty, with the sanction of rewards. For disobedience there must be at least a withholding of some attainable good; for obedience, the bestowment of some blessing. The state of probation may be longer or shorter, with less or greater trial. No exact limit of duration or measure of trial is intrinsic to such an economy. The essential fact of probation under a testing law of duty is moral responsibility. Such was the essential fact of the Adamic probation. If we declare that probation inconsistent with the divine providence, it will be most difficult, impossible indeed, to reconcile any known facts of moral responsibility with such a providence. We should thus deny the permissibility of a moral system under the providence of God. Yet there is such a system, and the moral consciousness of the race is witness to its reality. We are under a law of moral duty and responsibility. We cannot deny the consistency of this law with the providence of God. Therefore we must admit the permissibility of the Adamic probation.
3. Permissibility of the Fall.—With the reality of moral obligation and responsibility, the punishment of sin must be just. If the punishment is just, the permission of the sin cannot be unjust. We cannot say less respecting the primary Adamic sin. We have previously pointed out how favorable the primitive probation was to obedience. If justice or even goodness required the divine prevention of sin in such a state, no state is conceivable in which it might be permitted. Then all sin must be prevented; and such a requirement must forbid the creation of personal beings endowed with free moral agency. There can be no such requirement. It is entirely consistent with the providence of God that spiritual good us well as secular good should be conditioned on proper conduct in man. The providential means of subsistence are conditioned on a proper industry and prudence. If through idleness and improvidence any come to want, they have no right to impeach this economy. Plentiful industry and beggarly laziness are under the same providential economy. If that economy is just to the one it cannot be unjust to the other. The obedient who reap the rich harvest of spiritual good and the disobedient who suffer the penalty of sin are under the same moral economy. If that economy is right to the one it cannot be wrong to the other. If the moral economy be righteous there can be no requirement of providence sovereignly to prevent the sin which may forfeit its blessings.
4. The Event Changes Not the Economy.—If Adam had rendered obedience to the law of his probation, retained his innocence and rich inheritance, and risen to the fuller reward of his fidelity, even the most querulous could hardly object to the economy under which he was placed. That he sinned and fell alters not in the least the character of that economy. If good in the standing and the perpetuated blessedness, it could not in itself be other in the falling and the forfeiture of blessedness.
5. Redemption and the Permission of the Fall.—We have omitted some facts usually set forth for the vindication of providence in the permission of the fall. Among all these facts the chief on is this: God permitted the fall of man that he might provide a redemption for the race so ruined, and through its infinite grace and love bring a far greater good to the moral universe, and especially to the human race. Mr. Wesley strongly supported this view, and thought it quite sufficient to clear the question of the fall of all perplexity, so far as it concerned the divine wisdom and goodness.[467] The argument is that through the atonement in Christ, rendered necessary by the fall, mankind has gained a higher capacity for holiness and happiness in the present life, and also for eternal blessedness. This higher capacity arises with the broader spheres of religious faith and love which the atonement opens. By this revelation of the divine goodness both faith and love may reach a measure not otherwise attainable. Also the sufferings which came with the fall provided a necessary condition for the graces of patience, meekness, gentleness, long-suffering, which contribute so much to the highest Christian life. In a like manner there is for us a higher blessedness in heaven.
[467]
There is some truth in the facts so presented, but not enough for the conclusion so confidently asserted. Besides, there are other facts which deeply concern the main question that are entirely overlooked. It is not to be questioned that the gift of the Son for our redemption is the highest manifestation of the divine goodness, and therefore the fullest warrant of faith and the intensest motive of love. But is it not equally true that through the fall we have suffered loss in our capacity for both faith and love? There is in our fallen nature an alienation from God, and so strong that often the weightiest motives of his love are persistently resisted. Further, if it be true that all who accept the grace of salvation are raised to a measure of love and blessedness not attainable in an unfallen state, it is equally true that the fall is the occasion of final ruin to many. The point we make is, that, if this question is to be brought into rational treatment, account must be taken of all these facts. When this is done it cannot seem so clear that the fall is the occasion of an infinite gain to the race.
Any such attempt, not only to vindicate the divine justice, but even to glorify the divine love in the permission of the perplexing fall, must proceed on the assumption of its possible prevention consistently with the freedom of man. On such an assumption, the fall itself must have been completely within the disposition of the divine providence; and, if still permissible for the sake of a greater good to the race, why might it not have been procured for the same end? The theory must thus appear in open contrariety to the divine holiness. This result discredits it; for not even the love of God must be glorified at the expense of his holiness. Nor is it within the grasp of human thought that sin, the greatest evil, can be necessary to the greatest good of the moral universe. It is still true that an immeasurable good will arise from the atonement in Christ; but it is not the sense of Scripture that the fall was any part of a providential economy for the sake of that good. The Scriptures glorify the love of God in the redemption of the world, but ever as a love of compassion for a sinful and perishing world, not as an anterior benevolence which must accept moral evil as the necessary condition of its richest blessings. We may surely say that the providential perpetuation of the fallen race without the redemptive mediation of Christ could not be reconciled with the righteousness of God, and so far we have in redemption an element of theodicy, but we have therein no rational account of the divine permission of the fall.
6. Question of the Fall of Angels.—The fact of such a fall is clearly the sense of Scripture (John 8:44; 2 Peter 2:4; Jude 1:6.); but there are no details which give us any insight into the nature of their temptation or the manner of their entering into it. So far, the fall of angels stands in much greater obscurity than the fall of man. Yet for the possibility of a fall some facts are obvious. The primary state of such angels must have been probationary. There must have been for them a state of trial under a testing law of duty, and also some form of susceptibility to temptation. It may have been very different from that in primitive man, but must have been equally a reality, for otherwise there could have been no fall. Whatever the nature of this susceptibility, it must have been such that it could be consistent with primitive holiness, for, as the immediate creation of God, all angels must have begun their moral life with a holy nature. They must have been endowed with the power of obedience to the requirements of the divine will, for otherwise they could have had no proper moral trial, nor could their penal doom be a just retribution. So far we must find in the fall of angels the same principles which we found in the fall of man. There is one distinction which should be noted. The fall of primitive man was in a profound sense the fall of the race. There was no such race-connection of angels. Each angel that fell must have fallen by his own personal sin. It is entirely consistent with this fact, and the most rational view of the case, that some one led in a revolt from God and by some mode of temptation induced the following of others.