Theism (being the Baird Lecture of 1876) by Robert Flint

Author:Robert Flint [Flint, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-05-30T14:00:00+00:00

"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.

But, it will be objected, could not God have made moral creatures who would be certain always to choose what is right, always to acquiesce in His own holy will? and if He could do this, why did He not? Why did He create a class of moral creatures whom He could not but foresee to be certain to abuse their power of choice between obedience and disobedience to His law? Well, far be it from me to deny that God could have originated a sinless moral system. If anything I have already said be understood to imply this, it has been completely misunderstood. I have no doubt that God has actually made many moral beings who are certain never to oppose their own wills to His; or that He might, if it had so pleased Him, have created only such angels as were sure to keep their first estate. But if questioned as to why He has not done the latter, I feel no shame in confessing my ignorance. It seems to me that when you have resolved the problem of the origin of moral evil into

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