Theodicy Part 16

cannot save such and such a man, nor condemn such and such another, _quippe vetor fatis_, my wisdom permits it not.'

228. I answer that it is goodness which prompts G.o.d to create with the purpose of communicating himself; and this same goodness combined with wisdom prompts him to create the best: a best that includes the whole sequence, the effect and the process. It prompts him thereto without compelling him, for it does not render impossible that which it does not cause him to choose. To call that _fatum_ is taking it in a good sense, which is not contrary to freedom: _fatum_ comes from _fari_, to speak, to p.r.o.nounce; it signifies a judgement, a decree of G.o.d, the award of his wisdom. To say that one cannot do a thing, simply because one does not will it, is to misuse terms. The wise mind wills only the good: is it then a servitude when the will acts in accordance with wisdom? And can one be less a slave than to act by one's own choice in accordance with the most perfect reason? Aristotle used to say that that man is in a natural servitude (_natura servus_) who lacks guidance, who has need of being directed.

Slavery comes from without, it leads to that which offends, and especially to that which offends with reason: the force of others and our own pa.s.sions enslave us. G.o.d is never moved by anything outside himself, nor is he subject to inward pa.s.sions, and he is never led to that which can cause him offence. It appears, therefore, that M. Bayle gives odious names to the best things in the world, and turns our ideas upside-down, applying the term slavery to the state of the greatest and most perfect freedom.

229. He had also said not long before (ch. 151, p. 891): 'If virtue, or any other good at all, had been as appropriate as vice for the Creator's ends, vice would not have been given preference; it must therefore have been the only means that the Creator could have used; it was therefore employed purely of necessity. As therefore he loves his glory, not with a freedom of indifference, but by necessity, he must by necessity love all the means without which he could not manifest his glory. Now if vice, as vice, was the only means of attaining to this end, it will follow that G.o.d of necessity loves vice as vice, a thought which can only inspire us with horror; and he has revealed quite the contrary to us.' He observes at the same time that certain doctors among the Supralapsarians (like Rutherford, for example) denied that G.o.d wills sin as sin, whilst they admitted [270]

that he wills sin permissively in so far as it is punishable and pardonable. But he urges in objection, that an action is only punishable and pardonable in so far as it is vicious.

230. M. Bayle makes a false a.s.sumption in these words that we have just read, and draws from them false conclusions. It is not true that G.o.d loves his glory by necessity, if thereby it is understood that he is led by necessity to acquire his glory through his creatures. For if that were so, he would acquire his glory always and everywhere. The decree to create is free: G.o.d is prompted to all good; the good, and even the best, inclines him to act; but it does not compel him, for his choice creates no impossibility in that which is distinct from the best; it causes no implication of contradiction in that which G.o.d refrains from doing. There is therefore in G.o.d a freedom that is exempt not only from constraint but also from necessity. I mean this in respect of metaphysical necessity; for it is a moral necessity that the wisest should be bound to choose the best.

It is the same with the means which G.o.d chooses to attain his glory. And as for vice, it has been shown in preceding pages that it is not an object of G.o.d's decree as _means_, but as _conditio sine qua non_, and that for that reason alone it is permitted. One is even less justified in saying that vice is _the only means_; it would be at most one of the means, but one of the least among innumerable others.

231. 'Another frightful consequence,' M. Bayle goes on, 'the fatality of all things, ensues: G.o.d will not have been free to arrange events in a different way, since the means he chose to show forth his glory was the only means befitting his wisdom.' This so-called fatality or necessity is only moral, as I have just shown: it does not affect freedom; on the contrary, it a.s.sumes the best use thereof; it does not render impossible the objects set aside by G.o.d's choice. 'What, then, will become', he adds, 'of man's free will? Will there not have been necessity and fatality for Adam to sin? For if he had not sinned, he would have overthrown the sole plan that G.o.d had of necessity created.' That is again a misuse of terms.

Adam sinning freely was seen of G.o.d among the ideas of the possibles, and G.o.d decreed to admit him into existence as he saw him. This decree does not change the nature of the objects: it does not render necessary that which was contingent in itself, or impossible that which was possible.

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232. M. Bayle goes on (p. 892): 'The subtle Scotus a.s.serts with much discernment that if G.o.d had no freedom of indifference no creature could have this kind of freedom.' I agree provided it is not meant as an indifference of equipoise, where there is no reason inclining more to one side than the other. M. Bayle acknowledges (farther on in chapter 168, p.

1111) that what is termed indifference does not exclude prevenient inclinations and pleasures. It suffices therefore that there be no metaphysical necessity in the action which is termed free, that is to say, it suffices that a choice be made between several courses possible.

233. He goes on again in the said chapter 157, p. 893: 'If G.o.d is not determined to create the world by a free motion of his goodness, but by the interests of his glory, which he loves by necessity, and which is the only thing he loves, for it is not different from his substance; and if the love that he has for himself has compelled him to show forth his glory through the most fitting means, and if the fall of man was this same means, it is evident that this fall happened entirely by necessity and that the obedience of Eve and Adam to G.o.d's commands was impossible.' Still the same error. The love that G.o.d bears to himself is essential to him, but the love for his glory, or the will to acquire his glory, is not so by any means: the love he has for himself did not impel him by necessity to actions without; they were free; and since there were possible plans whereby the first parents should not sin, their sin was therefore not necessary.

Finally, I say in effect what M. Bayle acknowledges here, 'that G.o.d resolved to create the world by a free motion of his goodness'; and I add that this same motion prompted him to the best.

234. The same answer holds good against this statement of M. Bayle's (ch.

165, p. 1071): 'The means most appropriate for attaining an end is of necessity one alone' (that is very well said, at least for the cases where G.o.d has chosen). 'Therefore if G.o.d was prompted irresistibly to employ this means, he employed it by necessity.' (He was certainly prompted thereto, he was determined, or rather he determined himself thereto: but that which is certain is not always necessary, or altogether irresistible; the thing might have gone otherwise, but that did not happen, and with good reason.

G.o.d chose between different courses all possible: thus, metaphysically speaking, he could have chosen or done what was not the best; but he could not morally speaking have done so. Let us make use of a comparison [272]

from geometry. The best way from one point to another (leaving out of account obstacles and other considerations accidental to the medium) is one alone: it is that one which pa.s.ses by the shortest line, which is the straight line. Yet there are innumerable ways from one point to another.

There is therefore no necessity which binds me to go by the straight line; but as soon as I choose the best, I am determined to go that way, although this is only a moral necessity in the wise. That is why the following conclusions fail.) 'Therefore he could only do that which he did. Therefore that which has not happened or will never happen is absolutely impossible.'

(These conclusions fail, I say: for since there are many things which have never happened and never will happen, and which nevertheless are clearly conceivable, and imply no contradiction, how can one say they are altogether impossible? M. Bayle has refuted that himself in a pa.s.sage opposing the Spinozists, which I have already quoted here, and he has frequently acknowledged that there is nothing impossible except that which implies contradiction: now he changes style and terminology.) 'Therefore Adam's perseverance in innocence was always impossible; therefore his fall was altogether inevitable, and even antecedently to G.o.d's decree, for it implied contradiction that G.o.d should be able to will a thing opposed to his wisdom: it is, after all, the same thing to say, that it is impossible for G.o.d, as to say, G.o.d could do it, if he so willed, but he cannot will it.' (It is misusing terms in a sense to say here: one can will, one will will; 'can' here concerns the actions that one does will. Nevertheless it implies no contradiction that G.o.d should will--directly or permissively--a thing not implying contradiction, and in this sense it is permitted to say that G.o.d can will it.)

235. In a word, when one speaks of the _possibility_ of a thing it is not a question of the causes that can bring about or prevent its actual existence: otherwise one would change the nature of the terms, and render useless the distinction between the possible and the actual. This Abelard did, and Wyclif appears to have done after him, in consequence of which they fell needlessly into unsuitable and disagreeable expressions. That is why, when one asks if a thing is possible or necessary, and brings in the consideration of what G.o.d wills or chooses, one alters the issue. For G.o.d chooses among the possibles, and for that very reason he chooses [273]

freely, and is not compelled; there would be neither choice nor freedom if there were but one course possible.

236. One must also answer M. Bayle's syllogisms, so as to neglect none of the objections of a man so gifted: they occur in Chapter 151 of his _Reply to the Questions of a Provincial_ (vol. III, pp. 900, 901).

FIRST SYLLOGISM

'G.o.d can will nothing that is opposed to the necessary love which he has for his wisdom.

'Now the salvation of all men is opposed to the necessary love which G.o.d has for his wisdom.

'Therefore G.o.d cannot will the salvation of all men.'

The major is self-evident, for one can do nothing whereof the opposite is necessary. But the minor cannot be accepted, for, albeit G.o.d loves his wisdom of necessity, the actions whereto his wisdom prompts him cannot but be free, and the objects whereto his wisdom does not prompt him do not cease to be possible. Moreover, his wisdom has prompted him to will the salvation of all men, but not by a consequent and decretory will. Yet this consequent will, being only a result of free antecedent acts of will, cannot fail to be free also.

SECOND SYLLOGISM

'The work most worthy of G.o.d's wisdom involves amongst other things the sin of all men and the eternal d.a.m.nation of the majority of men.

'Now G.o.d wills of necessity the work most worthy of his wisdom.

'He wills therefore of necessity the work that involves amongst other things the sin of all men and the eternal d.a.m.nation of the majority of men.'

The major holds good, but the minor I deny. The decrees of G.o.d are always free, even though G.o.d be always prompted thereto by reasons which lie in the intention towards good: for to be morally compelled by wisdom, to be bound by the consideration of good, is to be free; it is not compulsion in the metaphysical sense. And metaphysical necessity alone, as I have observed so many times, is opposed to freedom.

238. I shall not examine the syllogisms that M. Bayle urges in objection in the following chapter (Ch. 152), against the system of the Supralapsarians, and particularly against the oration made by Theodore de Beze at the [274]

Conference of Montbeliard in the year 1586. This conference also only served to increase the acrimony of the parties. 'G.o.d created the World to his glory: his glory is not known (according to Beze), if his mercy and his justice are not declared; for this cause simply by his grace he decreed for some men life eternal, and for others by a just judgement eternal d.a.m.nation. Mercy presupposes misery, justice presupposes guilt.' (He might have added that misery also supposes guilt.) 'Nevertheless G.o.d being good, indeed goodness itself, he created man good and righteous, but unstable, and capable of sinning of his own free will. Man did not fall at random or rashly, or through causes ordained by some other G.o.d, as the Manichaeans hold, but by the providence of G.o.d; in such a way notwithstanding, that G.o.d was not involved in the fault, inasmuch as man was not constrained to sin.'

239. This system is not of the best conceived: it is not well fitted to show forth the wisdom, the goodness and the justice of G.o.d; and happily it is almost abandoned to-day. If there were not other more profound reasons capable of inducing G.o.d to permit guilt, the source of misery, there would be neither guilt nor misery in the world, for the reasons alleged here do not suffice. He would declare his mercy better in preventing misery, and he would declare his justice better in preventing guilt, in advancing virtue, in recompensing it. Besides, one does not see how he who not only causes a man to be capable of falling, but who so disposes circ.u.mstances that they contribute towards causing his fall, is not culpable, if there are no other reasons compelling him thereto. But when one considers that G.o.d, altogether good and wise, must have produced all the virtue, goodness, happiness whereof the best plan of the universe is capable, and that often an evil in some parts may serve the greater good of the whole, one readily concludes that G.o.d may have given room for unhappiness, and even permitted guilt, as he has done, without deserving to be blamed. It is the only remedy that supplies what all systems lack, however they arrange the decrees. These thoughts have already been favoured by St. Augustine, and one may say of Eve what the poet said of the hand of Mucius Scaevola:

_Si non erra.s.set, fecerat illa minus_.

240. I find that the famous English prelate who wrote an ingenious book on the origin of evil, some pa.s.sages of which were disputed by M. Bayle [275]

in the second volume of his _Reply to the Questions of a Provincial_, while disagreeing with some of the opinions that I have upheld here and appearing to resort sometimes to a despotic power, as if the will of G.o.d did not follow the rules of wisdom in relation to good or evil, but decreed arbitrarily that such and such a thing must be considered good or evil; and as if even the will of the creature, in so far as it is free, did not choose because the object appears good to him, but by a purely arbitrary determination, independent of the representation of the object; this bishop, I say, in other pa.s.sages nevertheless says things which seem more in favour of my doctrine than of what appears contrary thereto in his own.

He says that what an infinitely wise and free cause has chosen is better than what it has not chosen. Is not that recognizing that goodness is the object and the reason of his choice? In this sense one will here aptly say:

_Sic placuit superis; quaerere plura, nefas_.

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ESSAYS ON THE JUSTICE OF G.o.d AND THE FREEDOM OF MAN IN THE ORIGIN OF EVIL

PART THREE

241. Now at last I have disposed of the cause of moral evil; _physical evil_, that is, sorrows, sufferings, miseries, will be less troublesome to explain, since these are results of moral evil. _Poena est malum pa.s.sionis, quod infligitur ob malum actionis_, according to Grotius. One suffers because one has acted; one suffers evil because one does evil.

_Nostrorum causa malorum_ _Nos sumus_.

It is true that one often suffers through the evil actions of others; but when one has no part in the offence one must look upon it as a certainty that these sufferings prepare for us a greater happiness. The question of _physical evil_, that is, of the origin of sufferings, has difficulties in common with that of the origin of _metaphysical evil_, examples whereof are furnished by the monstrosities and other apparent irregularities of the universe. But one must believe that even sufferings and monstrosities are part of order; and it is well to bear in mind not only that it was better to admit these defects and these monstrosities than to violate general laws, as Father Malebranche sometimes argues, but also that these very monstrosities are in the rules, and are in conformity with general acts of will, though we be not capable of discerning this conformity. It is [277]

just as sometimes there are appearances of irregularity in mathematics which issue finally in a great order when one has finally got to the bottom of them: that is why I have already in this work observed that according to my principles all individual events, without exception, are consequences of general acts of will.

242. It should be no cause for astonishment that I endeavour to elucidate these things by comparisons taken from pure mathematics, where everything proceeds in order, and where it is possible to fathom them by a close contemplation which grants us an enjoyment, so to speak, of the vision of the ideas of G.o.d. One may propose a succession or series of numbers perfectly irregular to all appearance, where the numbers increase and diminish variably without the emergence of any order; and yet he who knows the key to the formula, and who understands the origin and the structure of this succession of numbers, will be able to give a rule which, being properly understood, will show that the series is perfectly regular, and that it even has excellent properties. One may make this still more evident in lines. A line may have twists and turns, ups and downs, points of reflexion and points of inflexion, interruptions and other variations, so that one sees neither rhyme nor reason therein, especially when taking into account only a portion of the line; and yet it may be that one can give its equation and construction, wherein a geometrician would find the reason and the fittingness of all these so-called irregularities. That is how we must look upon the irregularities const.i.tuted by monstrosities and other so-called defects in the universe.

243. In this sense one may apply that fine adage of St. Bernard (Ep. 276, Ad Eugen., III): 'Ordinatissimum est, minus interdum ordinate fieri aliquid.' It belongs to the great order that there should be some small disorder. One may even say that this small disorder is apparent only in the whole, and it is not even apparent when one considers the happiness of those who walk in the ways of order.

244. When I mention monstrosities I include numerous other apparent defects besides. We are acquainted with hardly anything but the surface of our globe; we scarce penetrate into its interior beyond a few hundred fathoms.

That which we find in this crust of the globe appears to be the effect of some great upheavals. It seems that this globe was once on fire, and that the rocks forming the base of this crust of the earth are scoria remaining from a great fusion. In their entrails are found metal and mineral [278]

products, which closely resemble those emanating from our furnaces: and the entire sea may be a kind of _oleum per deliquium_, just as tartaric oil forms in a damp place. For when the earth's surface cooled after the great conflagration the moisture that the fire had driven into the air fell back upon the earth, washed its surface and dissolved and absorbed the solid salt that was left in the cinders, finally filling up this great cavity in the surface of our globe, to form the ocean filled with salt water.

245. But, after the fire, one must conclude that earth and water made ravages no less. It may be that the crust formed by the cooling, having below it great cavities, fell in, so that we live only on ruins, as among others Thomas Burnet, Chaplain to the late King of Great Britain, aptly observed. Sundry deluges and inundations have left deposits, whereof traces and remains are found which show that the sea was in places that to-day are most remote from it. But these upheavals ceased at last, and the globe a.s.sumed the shape that we see. Moses hints at these changes in few words: the separation of light from darkness indicates the melting caused by the fire; and the separation of the moist from the dry marks the effects of inundations. But who does not see that these disorders have served to bring things to the point where they now are, that we owe to them our riches and our comforts, and that through their agency this globe became fit for cultivation by us. These disorders pa.s.sed into order. The disorders, real or apparent, that we see from afar are sunspots and comets; but we do not know what uses they supply, nor the rules prevailing therein. Time was when the planets were held to be wandering stars: now their motion is found to be regular. Peradventure it is the same with the comets: posterity will know.

246. One does not include among the disorders inequality of conditions, and M. Jacquelot is justified in asking those who would have everything equally perfect, why rocks are not crowned with leaves and flowers? why ants are not peac.o.c.ks? And if there must needs be equality everywhere, the poor man would serve notice of appeal against the rich, the servant against the master. The pipes of an organ must not be of equal size. M. Bayle will say that there is a difference between a privation of good and a disorder; between a disorder in inanimate things, which is purely metaphysical, and a disorder in rational creatures, which is composed of crime and [279]

sufferings. He is right in making a distinction between them, and I am right in combining them. G.o.d does not neglect inanimate things: they do not feel, but G.o.d feels for them. He does not neglect animals: they have not intelligence, but G.o.d has it for them. He would reproach himself for the slightest actual defect there were in the universe, even though it were perceived of none.

247. It seems M. Bayle does not approve any comparison between the disorders which may exist in inanimate things and those which trouble the peace and happiness of rational creatures; nor would he agree to our justifying the permission of vice on the pretext of the care that must be taken to avoid disturbing the laws of motion. One might thence conclude, according to him (posthumous Reply to M. Jacquelot, p. 183), 'that G.o.d created the world only to display his infinite skill in architecture and mechanics, whilst his property of goodness and love of virtue took no part in the construction of this great work. This G.o.d would pride himself only on skill; he would prefer to let the whole human kind perish rather than suffer some atoms to go faster or more slowly than general laws require.'

M. Bayle would not have made this ant.i.thesis if he had been informed on the system of general harmony which I a.s.sume, which states that the realm of efficient causes and that of final causes are parallel to each other; that G.o.d has no less the quality of the best monarch than that of the greatest architect; that matter is so disposed that the laws of motion serve as the best guidance for spirits; and that consequently it will prove that he has attained the utmost good possible, provided one reckon the metaphysical, physical and moral goods together.

248. But (M. Bayle will say) G.o.d having power to avert innumerable evils by one small miracle, why did he not employ it? He gives so much extraordinary help to fallen men; but slight help of such a kind given to Eve would have prevented her fall and rendered the temptation of the serpent ineffective.

I have sufficiently met objections of this sort with this general answer, that G.o.d ought not to make choice of another universe since he has chosen the best, and has only made use of the miracles necessary thereto. I had answered M. Bayle that miracles change the natural order of the universe.