Theodicy Part 11

PART TWO

107. Hitherto I have devoted myself to giving a full and clear exposition of this whole subject: and although I have not yet spoken of M. Bayle's objections in particular, I have endeavoured to antic.i.p.ate them, and to suggest ways of answering them. But as I have taken upon myself the task of meeting them in detail, not only because there will perhaps still be pa.s.sages calling for elucidation, but also because his arguments are usually full of wit and erudition, and serve to throw greater light on this controversy, it will be well to give an account of the chief objections that are dispersed through his works, and to add my answers. At the beginning I observed 'that G.o.d co-operates in moral evil, and in physical evil, and in each of them both morally and physically; and that man co-operates therein also morally and physically in a free and active way, becoming in consequence subject to blame and punishment'. I have shown also that each point has its own difficulty; but the greatest of these lies in maintaining that G.o.d co-operates morally in moral evil, that is, in sin, without being the originator of the sin, and even without being accessary thereto.

108. He does this by _permitting_ it justly, and by _directing_ it wisely towards the good, as I have shown in a manner that appears tolerably intelligible. But as it is here princ.i.p.ally that M. Bayle undertakes [183]

to discomfit those who maintain that there is nothing in faith which cannot be harmonized with reason, it is also here especially I must show that my dogmas are fortified (to make use of his own allegory) with a rampart, even of reasons, which is able to resist the fire of his strongest batteries. He has ranged them against me in chapter 144 of his _Reply to the Questions of a Provincial_ (vol. III, p. 812), where he includes the theological doctrine in seven propositions and opposes thereto nineteen philosophic maxims, like so many large cannon capable of breaching my rampart. Let us begin with the theological propositions.

109. I. 'G.o.d,' he says, 'the Being eternal and necessary, infinitely good, holy, wise and powerful, possesses from all eternity a glory and a bliss that can never either increase or diminish.' This proposition of M. Bayle's is no less philosophical than theological. To say that G.o.d possesses a 'glory' when he is alone, that depends upon the meaning of the term. One may say, with some, that glory is the satisfaction one finds in being aware of one's own perfections; and in this sense G.o.d possesses it always. But when glory signifies that others become aware of these perfections, one may say that G.o.d acquires it only when he reveals himself to intelligent creatures; even though it be true that G.o.d thereby gains no new good, and it is rather the rational creatures who thence derive advantage, when they apprehend aright the glory of G.o.d.

110. II. 'He resolved freely upon the production of creatures, and he chose from among an infinite number of possible beings those whom it pleased him to choose, to give them existence, and to compose the universe of them, while he left all the rest in nothingness.' This proposition is also, just like the preceding one, in close conformity with that part of philosophy which is called natural theology. One must dwell a little on what is said here, that he chose the possible beings 'whom it pleased him to choose'.

For it must be borne in mind that when I say, 'that pleases me', it is as though I were saying, 'I find it good'. Thus it is the ideal goodness of the object which pleases, and which makes me choose it among many others which do not please or which please less, that is to say, which contain less of that goodness which moves me. Now it is only the genuinely good that is capable of pleasing G.o.d: and consequently that which pleases G.o.d most, and which meets his choice, is the best.

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111. III. 'Human nature having been among the Beings that he willed to produce, he created a man and a woman, and granted them amongst other favours free will, so that they had the power to obey him; but he threatened them with death if they should disobey the order that he gave them to abstain from a certain fruit.' This proposition is in part revealed, and should be admitted without difficulty, provided that _free will_ be understood properly, according to the explanation I have given.

112. IV. 'They ate thereof nevertheless, and thenceforth they were condemned, they and all their posterity, to the miseries of this life, to temporal death and eternal d.a.m.nation, and made subject to such a tendency to sin that they abandoned themselves thereto endlessly and without ceasing.' There is reason to suppose that the forbidden action by itself entailed these evil results in accordance with a natural effect, and that it was for that very reason, and not by a purely arbitrary decree, that G.o.d had forbidden it: much as one forbids knives to children. The famous Fludde or de Fluctibus, an Englishman, once wrote a book _De Vita, Morte et Resurrectione_ under the name of R. Otreb, wherein he maintained that the fruit of the forbidden tree was a poison: but we cannot enter into this detail. It suffices that G.o.d forbade a harmful thing; one must not therefore suppose that G.o.d acted here simply in the character of a legislator who enacts a purely positive law, or of a judge who imposes and inflicts a punishment by an order of his will, without any connexion between the evil of guilt and the evil of punishment. And it is not necessary to suppose that G.o.d in justifiable annoyance deliberately put a corruption in the soul and the body of man, by an extraordinary action, in order to punish him: much as the Athenians gave hemlock-juice to their criminals. M. Bayle takes the matter thus: he speaks as if the original corruption had been put in the soul of the first man by an order and operation of G.o.d. It is that which calls forth his objection (_Reply to the Questions of a Provincial_, vol. III, ch. 178, p. 1218) 'that reason would not commend the monarch who, in order to chastise a rebel, condemned him and his descendants to have a tendency towards rebellion'. But this chastis.e.m.e.nt happens naturally to the wicked, without any ordinance of a legislator, and they become addicted to evil. If drunkards begot children inclined to the same vice, by a natural consequence of what takes place in bodies, that would be a punishment of their progenitors, but it would [185]

not be a penalty of law. There is something comparable to this in the consequences of the first man's sin. For the contemplation of divine wisdom leads us to believe that the realm of nature serves that of grace; and that G.o.d as an Architect has done all in a manner befitting G.o.d considered as a Monarch. We do not sufficiently know the nature of the forbidden fruit, or that of the action, or its effects, to judge of the details of this matter: nevertheless we must do G.o.d justice so far as to believe that it comprised something other than what painters depict for us.

113. V. 'It has pleased him by his infinite mercy to deliver a very few men from this condemnation; and, leaving them exposed during this life to the corruption of sin and misery, he has given them aids which enable them to obtain the never-ending bliss of paradise.' Many in the past have doubted, as I have already observed, whether the number of the d.a.m.ned is so great as is generally supposed; and it appears that they believed in the existence of some intermediate state between eternal d.a.m.nation and perfect bliss. But we have no need of these opinions, and it is enough to keep to the ideas accepted in the Church. In this connexion it is well to observe that this proposition of M. Bayle's is conceived in accordance with the principles of sufficient grace, given to all men, and sufficing them provided that they have good will. Although M. Bayle holds the opposite opinion, he wished (as he states in the margin) to avoid the terms that would not agree with a system of decrees subsequent to the prevision of contingent events.

114. VI. 'He foresaw from eternity all that which should happen, he ordered all things and placed them each one in its own place, and he guides and controls them continually, according to his pleasure. Thus nothing is done without his permission or against his will, and he can prevent, as seems good to him, as much and as often as seems good to him, all that does not please him, and in consequence sin, which is the thing in the world that most offends him and that he most detests; and he can produce in each human soul all the thoughts that he approves.' This thesis is also purely philosophic, that is, recognizable by the light of natural reason. It is opportune also, as one has dwelt in thesis II on _that which pleases_, to dwell here upon _that which seems good_, that is, upon that which G.o.d finds good to do. He can avoid or put away as 'seems good to him' all 'that does not please him'. Nevertheless it must be borne in mind that some objects of his aversion, such as certain evils, and especially sin, which his [186]

antecedent will repelled, could only have been rejected by his consequent or decretory will, in so far as it was prompted by the rule of the best, which the All-wise must choose after having taken all into account. When one says 'that sin offends G.o.d most, and that he detests it most', these are human ways of speaking. G.o.d cannot, properly speaking, be _offended_, that is, injured, disturbed, disquieted or angered; and he _detests_ nothing of that which exists, in the sense that to detest something is to look upon it with abomination and in a way that causes us disgust, that greatly pains and distresses us; for G.o.d cannot suffer either vexation, or grief or discomfort; he is always altogether content and at ease. Yet these expressions in their true sense are justified. The supreme goodness of G.o.d causes his antecedent will to repel all evil, but moral evil more than any other: it only admits evil at all for irresistible superior reasons, and with great correctives which repair its ill effects to good advantage. It is true also that G.o.d could produce in each human soul all the thoughts that he approves: but this would be to act by miracles, more than his most perfectly conceived plan admits.

115. VII. 'He offers grace to people that he knows are destined not to accept it, and so destined by this refusal to make themselves more criminal than they would be if he had not offered them that grace; he a.s.sures them that it is his ardent wish that they accept it, and he does not give them the grace which he knows they would accept.' It is true that these people become more criminal through their refusal than if one had offered them nothing, and that G.o.d knows this. Yet it is better to permit their crime than to act in a way which would render G.o.d himself blameworthy, and provide the criminals with some justification for the complaint that it was not possible for them to do better, even though they had or might have wished it. G.o.d desires that they receive such grace from him as they are fit to receive, and that they accept it; and he desires to give them in particular that grace whose acceptance by them he foresees: but it is always by a will antecedent, detached or particular, which cannot always be carried out in the general plan of things. This thesis also is among the number of those which philosophy establishes no less than revelation, like three others of the seven that we have just stated here, the third, fourth and fifth being the only ones where revelation is necessary.

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116. Here now are the nineteen philosophic maxims which M. Bayle opposes to the seven theological propositions.

I. 'As the infinitely perfect Being finds in himself a glory and a bliss that can never either diminish or increase, his goodness alone has determined him to create this universe: neither the ambition to be praised, nor any interested motive of preserving or augmenting his bliss and his glory, has had any part therein.' This maxim is very good: praises of G.o.d do him no service, but they are of service to the men who praise him, and he desired their good. Nevertheless, when one says that _goodness_ alone determined G.o.d to create this universe, it is well to add that his GOODNESS prompted him _antecedently_ to create and to produce all possible good; but that his WISDOM made the choice and caused him to select the best _consequently_; and finally that his POWER gave him the means to carry out _actually_ the great design which he had formed.

117. II. 'The goodness of the infinitely perfect Being is infinite, and would not be infinite if one could conceive of a goodness greater than this. This characteristic of infinity is proper also to all his other perfections, to love of virtue, hatred of vice, etc., they must be the greatest one can imagine. (See M. Jurieu in the first three sections of the _Judgement on Methods_, where he argues constantly upon this principle, as upon a primary notion. See also in Wittich, _De Providentia Dei_, n. 12, these words of St. Augustine, lib. I, _De Doctrina Christiana_, c. 7: "c.u.m cogitatur Deus, ita cogitatur, ut aliquid, quo nihil melius sit atque sublimius. Et paulo post: Nec quisquam inveniri potest, qui hoc Deum credat esse, quo melius aliquid est.")'

This maxim is altogether to my liking, and I draw from it this conclusion, that G.o.d does the very best possible: otherwise the exercise of his goodness would be restricted, and that would be restricting his _goodness_ itself, if it did not prompt him to the best, if he were lacking in good will. Or again it would be restricting his _wisdom_ and his _power_, if he lacked the knowledge necessary for discerning the best and for finding the means to obtain it, or if he lacked the strength necessary for employing these means. There is, however, ambiguity in the a.s.sertion that love of virtue and hatred of vice are infinite in G.o.d: if that were absolutely and unreservedly true, in practice there would be no vice in the world. But although each one of G.o.d's perfections is infinite in itself, it is exercised only in proportion to the object and as the nature of things prompts it. Thus love of the best in the whole carries the day over [188]

all other individual inclinations or hatreds; it is the only impulse whose very exercise is absolutely infinite, nothing having power to prevent G.o.d from declaring himself for the best; and some vice being combined with the best possible plan, G.o.d permits it.

118. III. 'An infinite goodness having guided the Creator in the production of the world, all the characteristics of knowledge, skill, power and greatness that are displayed in his work are destined for the happiness of intelligent creatures. He wished to show forth his perfections only to the end that creatures of this kind should find their felicity in the knowledge, the admiration and the love of the Supreme Being.'

This maxim appears to me not sufficiently exact. I grant that the happiness of intelligent creatures is the princ.i.p.al part of G.o.d's design, for they are most like him; but nevertheless I do not see how one can prove that to be his sole aim. It is true that the realm of nature must serve the realm of grace: but, since all is connected in G.o.d's great design, we must believe that the realm of grace is also in some way adapted to that of nature, so that nature preserves the utmost order and beauty, to render the combination of the two the most perfect that can be. And there is no reason to suppose that G.o.d, for the sake of some lessening of moral evil, would reverse the whole order of nature. Each perfection or imperfection in the creature has its value, but there is none that has an infinite value. Thus the moral or physical good and evil of rational creatures does not infinitely exceed the good and evil which is simply metaphysical, namely that which lies in the perfection of the other creatures; and yet one would be bound to say this if the present maxim were strictly true. When G.o.d justified to the Prophet Jonah the pardon that he had granted to the inhabitants of Nineveh, he even touched upon the interest of the beasts who would have been involved in the ruin of this great city. No substance is absolutely contemptible or absolutely precious before G.o.d. And the abuse or the exaggerated extension of the present maxim appears to be in part the source of the difficulties that M. Bayle puts forward. It is certain that G.o.d sets greater store by a man than a lion; nevertheless it can hardly be said with certainty that G.o.d prefers a single man in all respects to the whole of lion-kind. Even should that be so, it would by no means follow that the interest of a certain number of men would prevail over the [189]

consideration of a general disorder diffused through an infinite number of creatures. This opinion would be a remnant of the old and somewhat discredited maxim, that all is made solely for man.

119. IV. 'The benefits he imparts to the creatures that are capable of felicity tend only to their happiness. He therefore does not permit that these should serve to make them unhappy, and, if the wrong use that they made of them were capable of destroying them, he would give them sure means of always using them well. Otherwise they would not be true benefits, and his goodness would be smaller than that we can conceive of in another benefactor. (I mean, in a Cause that united with its gifts the sure skill to make good use of them.)'

There already is the abuse or the ill effect of the preceding maxim. It is not strictly true (though it appear plausible) that the benefits G.o.d imparts to the creatures who are capable of felicity tend solely to their happiness. All is connected in Nature; and if a skilled artisan, an engineer, an architect, a wise politician often makes one and the same thing serve several ends, if he makes a double hit with a single throw, when that can be done conveniently, one may say that G.o.d, whose wisdom and power are perfect, does so always. That is husbanding the ground, the time, the place, the material, which make up as it were his outlay. Thus G.o.d has more than one purpose in his projects. The felicity of all rational creatures is one of the aims he has in view; but it is not his whole aim, nor even his final aim. Therefore it happens that the unhappiness of some of these creatures may come about _by concomitance_, and as a result of other greater goods: this I have already explained, and M. Bayle has to some extent acknowledged it. The goods as such, considered in themselves, are the object of the antecedent will of G.o.d. G.o.d will produce as much reason and knowledge in the universe as his plan can admit. One can conceive of a mean between an antecedent will altogether pure and primitive, and a consequent and final will. The _primitive antecedent will_ has as its object each good and each evil in itself, detached from all combination, and tends to advance the good and prevent the evil. The _mediate will_ relates to combinations, as when one attaches a good to an evil: then the will will have some tendency towards this combination when the good exceeds the evil therein. But the _final and decisive will_ results from consideration of all the goods and all the evils that enter into our deliberation, it results from a total combination. This shows[190]

that a mediate will, although it may in a sense pa.s.s as consequent in relation to a pure and primitive antecedent will, must be considered antecedent in relation to the final and decretory will. G.o.d gives reason to the human race; misfortunes arise thence by concomitance. His pure antecedent will tends towards giving reason, as a great good, and preventing the evils in question. But when it is a question of the evils that accompany this gift which G.o.d has made to us of reason, the compound, made up of the combination of reason and of these evils, will be the object of a mediate will of G.o.d, which will tend towards producing or preventing this compound, according as the good or the evil prevails therein. But even though it should prove that reason did more harm than good to men (which, however, I do not admit), whereupon the mediate will of G.o.d would discard it with all its concomitants, it might still be the case that it was more in accordance with the perfection of the universe to give reason to men, notwithstanding all the evil consequences which it might have with reference to them. Consequently, the final will or the decree of G.o.d, resulting from all the considerations he can have, would be to give it to them. And, far from being subject to blame for this, he would be blameworthy if he did not so. Thus the evil, or the mixture of goods and evils wherein the evil prevails, happens only _by concomitance_, because it is connected with greater goods that are outside this mixture. This mixture, therefore, or this compound, is not to be conceived as a grace or as a gift from G.o.d to us; but the good that is found mingled therein will nevertheless be good. Such is G.o.d's gift of reason to those who make ill use thereof. It is always a good in itself; but the combination of this good with the evils that proceed from its abuse is not a good with regard to those who in consequence thereof become unhappy. Yet it comes to be by concomitance, because it serves a greater good in relation to the universe.

And it is doubtless that which prompted G.o.d to give reason to those who have made it an instrument of their unhappiness. Or, to put it more precisely, in accordance with my system G.o.d, having found among the possible beings some rational creatures who misuse their reason, gave existence to those who are included in the best possible plan of the universe. Thus nothing prevents us from admitting that G.o.d grants goods which turn into evil by the fault of men, this often happening to men in just punishment of the misuse they had made of G.o.d's grace. Aloysius [191]

Novarinus wrote a book _De Occultis Dei Beneficiis_: one could write one _De Occultis Dei Poenis_. This saying of Claudian would be in place here with regard to some persons:

_Tolluntur in altum,_ _Ut lapsu graviore ruant_.

But to say that G.o.d should not give a good which he knows an evil will will abuse, when the general plan of things demands that he give it; or again to say that he should give certain means for preventing it, contrary to this same general order: that is to wish (as I have observed already) that G.o.d himself become blameworthy in order to prevent man from being so. To object, as people do here, that the goodness of G.o.d would be smaller than that of another benefactor who would give a more useful gift, is to overlook the fact that the goodness of a benefactor is not measured by a single benefit. It may well be that a gift from a private person is greater than one from a prince, but the gifts of this private person all taken together will be much inferior to the prince's gifts all together. Thus one can esteem fittingly the good things done by G.o.d only when one considers their whole extent by relating them to the entire universe. Moreover, one may say that the gifts given in the expectation that they will harm are the gifts of an enemy, [Greek: hechthron dora adora],

_Hostibus eveniant talia dona meis._

But that applies to when there is malice or guilt in him who gives them, as there was in that Eutrapelus of whom Horace speaks, who did good to people in order to give them the means of destroying themselves. His design was evil, but G.o.d's design cannot be better than it is. Must G.o.d spoil his system, must there be less beauty, perfection and reason in the universe, because there are people who misuse reason? The common sayings are in place here: _Abusus non tollit usum_; there is _scandalum datum et scandalum acceptum_.

120. V. 'A maleficent being is very capable of heaping magnificent gifts upon his enemies, when he knows that they will make thereof a use that will destroy them. It therefore does not beseem the infinitely good Being to give to creatures a free will, whereof, as he knows for certain, they would make a use that would render them unhappy. Therefore if he gives them free will he combines with it the art of using it always opportunely, and permits not that they neglect the practice of this art in any [192]

conjuncture; and if there were no sure means of determining the good use of this free will, he would rather take from them this faculty, than allow it to be the cause of their unhappiness. That is the more manifest, as free will is a grace which he has given them of his own choice and without their asking for it; so that he would be more answerable for the unhappiness it would bring upon them than if he had only granted it in response to their importunate prayers.'

What was said at the end of the remark on the preceding maxim ought to be repeated here, and is sufficient to counter the present maxim. Moreover, the author is still presupposing that false maxim advanced as the third, stating that the happiness of rational creatures is the sole aim of G.o.d. If that were so, perhaps neither sin nor unhappiness would ever occur, even by concomitance. G.o.d would have chosen a sequence of possibles where all these evils would be excluded. But G.o.d would fail in what is due to the universe, that is, in what he owes to himself. If there were only spirits they would be without the required connexion, without the order of time and place.

This order demands matter, movement and its laws; to adjust these to spirits in the best possible way means to return to our world. When one looks at things only in the ma.s.s, one imagines to be practicable a thousand things that cannot properly take place. To wish that G.o.d should not give free will to rational creatures is to wish that there be none of these creatures; and to wish that G.o.d should prevent them from misusing it is to wish that there be none but these creatures alone, together with what was made for them only. If G.o.d had none but these creatures in view, he would doubtless prevent them from destroying themselves. One may say in a sense, however, that G.o.d has given to these creatures the art of always making good use of their free will, for the natural light of reason is this art.

But it would be necessary always to have the will to do good, and often creatures lack the means of giving themselves the will they ought to have; often they even lack the will to use those means which indirectly give a good will. Of this I have already spoken more than once. This fault must be admitted, and one must even acknowledge that G.o.d would perhaps have been able to exempt creatures from that fault, since there is nothing to prevent, so it seems, the existence of some whose nature it would be always to have good will. But I reply that it is not necessary, and that it was not feasible for all rational creatures to have so great a perfection,[193]

and such as would bring them so close to the Divinity. It may even be that that can only be made possible by a special divine grace. But in this case, would it be proper for G.o.d to grant it to all, that is, always to act miraculously in respect of all rational creatures? Nothing would be less rational than these perpetual miracles. There are degrees among creatures: the general order requires it. And it appears quite consistent with the order of divine government that the great privilege of strengthening in the good should be granted more easily to those who had a good will when they were in a more imperfect state, in the state of struggle and of pilgrimage, _in Ecclesia militante, in statu viatorum_. The good angels themselves were not created incapable of sin. Nevertheless I would not dare to a.s.sert that there are no blessed creatures born, or such as are sinless and holy by their nature. There are perhaps people who give this privilege to the Blessed Virgin, since, moreover, the Roman Church to-day places her above the angels. But it suffices us that the universe is very great and very varied: to wish to limit it is to have little knowledge thereof. 'But', M.

Bayle goes on, 'G.o.d has given free will to creatures capable of sinning, without their having asked him for this grace. And he who gave such a gift would be more answerable for the unhappiness that it brought upon those who made use of it, than if he had granted it only in response to their importunate prayers.' But importunity in prayers makes no difference to G.o.d; he knows better than we what we need, and he only grants what serves the interest of the whole. It seems that M. Bayle here makes free will consist in the faculty for sinning; yet he acknowledges elsewhere that G.o.d and the Saints are free, without having this faculty. However that may be, I have already shown fully that G.o.d, doing what his wisdom and his goodness combined ordain, is not answerable for the evil that he permits. Even men, when they do their duty, are not answerable for consequences, whether they foresee them or not.

121. VI. 'It is as sure a means of taking a man's life to give him a silk cord that one knows certainly he will make use of freely to strangle himself, as to plant a few dagger thrusts in his body. One desires his death not less when one makes use of the first way, than when one employs the second: it even seems as though one desires it with a more malicious intention, since one tends to leave to him the whole trouble and the whole blame of his destruction.'

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Those who write treatises on Duties (De Officiis) as, for instance, Cicero, St. Ambrose, Grotius, Opalenius, Sharrok, Rachelius, Pufendorf, as well as the Casuists, teach that there are cases where one is not obliged to return to its owner a thing deposited: for example, one will not give back a dagger when one knows that he who has deposited it is about to stab someone. Let us pretend that I have in my hands the fatal draught that Meleager's mother will make use of to kill him; the magic javelin that Cephalus will unwittingly employ to kill his Procris; the horses of Theseus that will tear to pieces Hippolytus, his son: these things are demanded back from me, and I am right in refusing them, knowing the use that will be made of them. But how will it be if a competent judge orders me to restore them, when I cannot prove to him what I know of the evil consequences that rest.i.tution will have, Apollo perchance having given to me, as to Ca.s.sandra, the gift of prophecy under the condition that I shall not be believed? I should then be compelled to make rest.i.tution, having no alternative other than my own destruction: thus I cannot escape from contributing towards the evil. Another comparison: Jupiter promises Semele, the Sun Phaeton, Cupid Psyche to grant whatever favour the other shall ask.

They swear by the Styx,

_Di cujus jurare timent et fallere Numen_.

One would gladly stop, but too late, the request half heard,

_Voluit Deus ora loquentis_ _Opprimere; exierat jam vox properata sub auras_.

One would gladly draw back after the request was made, making vain remonstrances; but they press you, they say to you: 'Do you make oaths that you will not keep?' The law of the Styx is inviolable, one must needs submit to it; if one has erred in making the oath, one would err more in not keeping it; the promise must be fulfilled, however harmful it may be to him who exacts it. It would be ruinous to you if you did not fulfil it. It seems as though the moral of these fables implies that a supreme necessity may constrain one to comply with evil. G.o.d, in truth, knows no other judge that can compel him to give what may turn to evil, he is not like Jupiter who fears the Styx. But his own wisdom is the greatest judge that he can find, there is no appeal from its judgements: they are the decrees of destiny. The eternal verities, objects of his wisdom, are more [195]

inviolable than the Styx. These laws and this judge do not constrain: they are stronger, for they persuade. Wisdom only shows G.o.d the best possible exercise of his goodness: after that, the evil that occurs is an inevitable result of the best. I will add something stronger: To permit the evil, as G.o.d permits it, is the greatest goodness.

_Si mala sustulerat, non erat ille bonus._

One would need to have a bent towards perversity to say after this that it is more malicious to leave to someone the whole trouble and the whole blame of his destruction. When G.o.d does leave it to a man, it has belonged to him since before his existence; it was already in the idea of him as still merely possible, before the decree of G.o.d which makes him to exist. Can one, then, leave it or give it to another? There is the whole matter.

122. VII. 'A true benefactor gives promptly, and does not wait to give until those he loves have suffered long miseries from the privation of what he could have imparted to them at first very easily, and without causing any inconvenience to himself. If the limitation of his forces does not permit him to do good without inflicting pain or some other inconvenience, he acquiesces in this, but only regretfully, and he never employs this way of rendering service when he can render it without mingling any kind of evil in his favours. If the profit one could derive from the evils he inflicted could spring as easily from an unalloyed good as from those evils, he would take the straight road of unalloyed good, and not the indirect road that would lead from the evil to the good. If he showers riches and honours, it is not to the end that those who have enjoyed them, when they come to lose them, should be all the more deeply afflicted in proportion to their previous experience of pleasure, and that thus they should become more unhappy than the persons who have always been deprived of these advantages. A malicious being would shower good things at such a price upon the people for whom he had the most hatred.'

(Compare this pa.s.sage of Aristotle, _Rhetor._, 1. 2, c. 23, p. m. 446: [Greek: hoion ei doie an tis tini hina aphelomenos leipesei; hothen kai tout' eiretai,]

[Greek: pollois ho daimon ou kat' eunoian pheron]

[Greek: Megala didosin eutychemat', all' hina]

[Greek: tas symphoras labosin epiphanesteras.]

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Id est: Veluti si quis alicui aliquid det, ut (postea) hoc (ipsi) erepto (ipsum) afficiat dolore. Unde etiam illud est dictum:

_Bona magna multis non amicus dat Deus,_ _Insigniore ut rursus his privet malo._)

All these objections depend almost on the same sophism; they change and mutilate the fact, they only half record things: G.o.d has care for men, he loves the human race, he wishes it well, nothing so true. Yet he allows men to fall, he often allows them to perish, he gives them goods that tend towards their destruction; and when he makes someone happy, it is after many sufferings: where is his affection, where is his goodness or again where is his power? Vain objections, which suppress the main point, which ignore the fact that it is of G.o.d one speaks. It is as though one were speaking of a mother, a guardian, a tutor, whose well-nigh only care is concerned with the upbringing, the preservation, the happiness of the person in question, and who neglect their duty. G.o.d takes care of the universe, he neglects nothing, he chooses what is best on the whole. If in spite of all that someone is wicked and unhappy, it behoved him to be so.

G.o.d (so they say) could have given happiness to all, he could have given it promptly and easily, and without causing himself any inconvenience, for he can do all. But should he? Since he does not so, it is a sign that he had to act altogether differently. If we infer from this either that G.o.d only regretfully, and owing to lack of power, fails to make men happy and to give the good first of all and without admixture of evil, or else that he lacks the good will to give it unreservedly and for good and all, then we are comparing our true G.o.d with the G.o.d of Herodotus, full of envy, or with the demon of the poet whose iambics Aristotle quotes, and I have just translated into Latin, who gives good things in order that he may cause more affliction by taking them away. That would be trifling with G.o.d in perpetual anthropomorphisms, representing him as a man who must give himself up completely to one particular business, whose goodness must be chiefly exercised upon those objects alone which are known to us, and who lacks either apt.i.tude or good will. G.o.d is not lacking therein, he could do the good that we would desire; he even wishes it, taking it separately, but he must not do it in preference to other greater goods which are opposed to it. Moreover, one has no cause to complain of the fact that usually [197]