CHAPTER VIII. THE AUGUSTINIAN THEORY CONTRARY TO THE MORAL SENSE OF

MANKIND.

Having presented evidence that both Catholics and Protestants of Europe and America unite in holding the Augustinian theory of the origin of evil, and also that theologians themselves find it indefensible, the next aim will be to present a portion of the evidence to show that this system is at war with the moral feelings and common sense of mankind.

There are remains of the writings of those who were the opposers of this theory in the time of Augustine, which show the strong emotions called forth at that remote period by the introduction of this doctrine.

The following is from one of the theologians of that day, addressed to the author of the theory:

Julian to Augustine.

“The children, you say, do not bear the blame of their own, but of another’s sins. What sort of sin can that be? What an unfeeling wretch, cruel, forgetful of God and of righteousness, an inhuman barbarian, is he who would make such innocent creatures as little children bear the consequences of transgressions which they never committed, and never could commit? God, you answer. What god? For there are gods many and lords many; but we worship but one God and one Lord Jesus Christ. What God dost thou make the malefactor? Here, most holy priest and most learned orator, thou fabricatest something more mournful and frightful than the brimstone in the valley of Amsanctus. God himself, say you, who commendeth his love towards us, who even spared not his own Son, but hath given him up for us all, he so determines—he is himself the persecutor of those that are born. He himself consigns to eternal fire for an evil will, the children who, as he knows, can have neither a good nor an evil will.”

The following is from the celebrated Dr. Watts, whose sacred lyrics endear his name to the Christian world:

Dr. Watts.

“This natural propagation of sinful inclinations from a common parent, by a law of creation, seems difficult to be reconciled with the goodness and justice of God. It seems exceeding hard to suppose that such a righteous and holy God, the Creator, who is also a being of such infinite goodness, should, by a powerful law and order of creation, which is now called nature, appoint young, intelligent creatures to come into being in such unhappy and degenerate circumstances, liable to such intense pains and miseries, and under such powerful tendencies and propensities to evil, by the mere _law of propagation_, as should almost unavoidably expose them to ten thousand actual sins, and all this before they have any personal sin or guilt to deserve it.

“If it could be well made out that the whole race of mankind are partakers of sinful inclinations, and evil passions, and biases to vice, and also are exposed to many sharp actual sufferings and to death, merely and only by the original divine law of propagation from their parents who had sinned; and, if the justice and goodness of God could be vindicated _in making and maintaining such a dreadful law or order of propagation_ through six thousand years, we have no need of further inquiries, but might here be at rest. But, if the scheme be so injurious to the goodness and equity of God as it seems to be, then we are constrained to seek a little further for a satisfactory account of this universal degeneracy and misery of mankind.”

The following was written by an American divine at the time of the commencement of the conflict in this country between the Old and New School Calvinists. At that time this theory of a depraved nature was accompanied, even in pulpit teachings, by the assumption of man’s total inability to do any thing to gain salvation, and that Christ died, not for all men, but only for “the elect.”

Dr. Whelpley.

“The idea that all the numerous millions of Adam’s posterity deserve the ineffable and endless torments of hell for a single act of his, before any one of them existed, is repugnant to that reason that God has given us, and is subversive of all possible conceptions of justice. I hesitate not to say, that no scheme of religion ever propagated amongst men contains a more monstrous, a more horrible tenet. The atrocity of this doctrine is beyond comparison. The visions of the Koran, the fictions of Sadder, the fables of the Zendavesta, all give place to this; Rabbinical legends, Brahminical vagaries, all vanish before it.”

“The whole of their doctrine, then, amounts to this: that a man is in the first place condemned, incapacitated, and eternally reprobated for the sin of Adam; in the next place, that he is condemned over again for not doing what he is totally and in all respects unable to do; and in the third place that he is condemned, doubly and trebly condemned, for not believing in a Saviour who never died for him, and with whom he has no more to do than a fallen angel.”

The elder President Adams at first designed to enter the clerical profession, but was deterred by doctrinal difficulties, of which he thus writes:

John Adams.

“If one man, or being, out of pure generosity, and without any expectation of return, is about to confer any favor or emolument upon another, he has a right and is at liberty to choose in what manner and by what means to confer it. He may confer the favor by his own hand or by the hand of a servant; and the obligation to gratitude is equally strong upon the benefited being. The _mode_ of bestowing does not diminish the kindness, provided the commodity or good is brought to us equally perfect and without our expense. But, on the other hand, if one being is the original cause of pain, sorrow, or suffering to another, voluntarily and without provocation, it is injurious to that other, whatever _means_ he might employ, and whatever circumstances the conveyance of the injury might be attended with. Thus we are equally obliged to the Supreme Being for the information he has given us of our duty, whether by the constitution of our minds or bodies, or by a supernatural revelation. For an instance of the latter, let us take original sin. Some say that Adam’s sin was enough to damn the whole human race, without any actual crimes committed by any of them. Now this guilt is brought upon them, not by their own rashness and indiscretion, not by their own wickedness and vice, but by the Supreme Being. This guilt brought upon us is a real injury and misfortune, because it renders us worse than not to be; and therefore making us guilty on account of Adam’s delegation, or representing all of us, is not in the least diminishing the injury and injustice, but only changing the _mode_ of conveyance.”

The celebrated Dr. Channing was educated a Calvinist. The following exhibits his views on this subject, after embracing Unitarianism:

Dr. Channing.

He says of such views:

“They take from us our Father in heaven, and substitute a stern and unjust Lord. Our filial love and reverence rise up against them. We say, touch any thing but the perfections of God. Cast no stain on that spotless purity and loveliness. We can endure any errors but those which subvert or unsettle the conviction of God’s paternal goodness. Urge not upon us a system which makes existence a curse, and wraps the universe in gloom. If I and my beloved friends and my whole race have come from the hands of our Creator wholly depraved, irresistibly propense to all evil and averse to all good—if only a portion are chosen to escape from this miserable state, and if the rest are to be consigned, by the Being who gave us our depraved and wretched nature, to endless torments in inextinguishable flames—then do I think that nothing remains but to mourn in anguish of heart; then existence is a curse, and the Creator is——. O, my merciful Father! I can not speak of thee in the language which this system would suggest. No! thou hast been too kind to me to deserve this reproach from my lips. Thou hast created me to be happy; thou callest me to virtue and piety, because in these consists my felicity; and thou wilt demand nothing from me but what thou givest me ability to perform!”

The following is from the pen of a celebrated writer educated in the Baptist denomination, who finally became a Universalist:

John Foster.

“I acknowledge my inability (I would say it reverently) to admit this belief together with a belief in the divine goodness—the belief that ‘God is love,’ that his tender mercies are over all his works. Goodness, benevolence, charity, as ascribed in supreme perfection to him, can not mean a quality foreign to all human conceptions of goodness. It must be something analogous in principle to what himself has defined and required as goodness in his moral creatures, that, in adoring the divine goodness, we may not be worshiping an ‘unknown God.’ But, if so, how would all our ideas be confounded while contemplating him bringing, of his own sovereign will, a race of creatures into existence in such a condition that they certainly will and must—must by their nature and circumstances—go wrong and be miserable, unless prevented by especial grace, which is the privilege of only a small portion of them, and at the same time affixing on their delinquency a doom of which it is infinitely beyond the highest archangel’s faculty to apprehend a thousandth part of the horror.

“It amazes me to imagine how thoughtful and benevolent men, believing that doctrine, can endure the sight of the present world and the history of the past. To behold successive, innumerable crowds carried on in the mighty impulse of a depraved nature, which they are impotent to reverse, and to which it is not the will of God, in his sovereignty, to apply the only adequate power, the withholding of which consigns them inevitably to their doom; to see them passing through a short term of moral existence (absurdly sometimes denominated a _probation_) under all the world’s pernicious influences, with the addition of the malign and deadly one of the great tempter and destroyer, to confirm and augment the inherent depravity, on their speedy passage to everlasting woe;—I repeat, I am, without pretending to any extraordinary depth of feeling, amazed to conceive what they contrive to do with their sensibility, and in what manner they maintain a firm assurance of the divine goodness and justice.”

The following is the experience of the author of the Conflict of Ages:

Dr. Edward Beecher.

“If any one would know the full worth of the privilege of living under, worshiping, loving and adoring a God of honor, righteousness and love, let him, after years of joyful Christian experience and soul‐satisfying communion with God, at last come to a point where his lovely character, for a time, vanishes from his eyes, and nothing can be rationally seen but a God selfish, dishonorable, unfeeling. No such person can ever believe that God _is_ such; but he may be so situated as to be unable _rationally_ to see him in any other light. All the common modes of defending the doctrine of native depravity may have been examined and pronounced insufficient, and the question may urgently press itself upon the mind, Is not the present system a _malevolent_ one? and of it no defense may appear.

“Who can describe the gloom of him who looks on such a prospect? How dark to him appears the history of man! He looks with pity on the children that pass him in the street. The more violent manifestations of their depravity seem to be the unfoldings of a corrupt nature given to them by God before any knowledge, choice or consent of their own. Mercy now seems to be no mercy, and he who once delighted to speak of the love of Christ is obliged to close his lips in silence; for the original wrong of giving man such a nature seems so great that no subsequent acts can atone for the deed. In this state of mind, he who once delighted to pray, kneels and rises again, because he can not sincerely worship the only God whom he sees. His distress is not on his own account. He feels that God has redeemed and regenerated him; but this gives him no relief. He feels as if he could not be bribed by the offer of all the honors of the universe to pretend to worship or praise a God whose character he can not defend. He feels that he should infinitely prefer once more to see a God whom he could honorably adore, and a universe radiant with his glory, and then to sink into non‐existence, rather than to have all the honors of the universe for ever heaped upon him by a God whose character he could not sincerely and honestly defend. Never before has he so deeply felt a longing after a God of a spotless character. Never has he so deeply felt that the whole light and joy of the universe are in him, and that when his character is darkened all worlds are filled with gloom.”

The following is from the Rev. Albert Barnes, a leading New School Calvinistic divine, and the author of a very popular Commentary on the Bible:

“That the immortal mind should be allowed to jeopard its infinite welfare, and that trifles should be allowed to draw it away from God and virtue and heaven; that any should suffer for ever—lingering on in hopeless despair amidst infinite torments, without the possibility of alleviation and without end; that since God _can_ save men and _will_ save a part, he has not purposed to save _all_; that on the supposition that the atonement is ample, and that the blood of Christ can cleanse from all and every sin, it is not in fact applied to all; that, in a word, a God who claims to be worthy of the confidence of the universe, and to be a being of infinite benevolence, should make such a world as this, full of sinners and sufferers, and then, when an atonement has been made, he did not save _all_ the race, and put an end to sin and woe for ever;—these and kindred difficulties meet the mind when we think on this great subject. And they meet us whenever we endeavor to urge our fellow‐sinners to be reconciled to God. On this ground they hesitate. These are _real_ and not imaginary difficulties. They are probably felt by every mind that has ever reflected on the subject; and they are unexplained, unmitigated, unremoved.”

“I have never known a particle of light thrown on these subjects that has given a moment’s ease to my tortured mind; nor have I an explanation to offer, or a thought to suggest, that would be of relief to you. I trust other men, as they profess to do—understand this better than I do, and that they have not the anguish of spirit which I have; but I confess, when I look on a world of sinners and of sufferers, upon death‐beds and grave‐yards, upon the world of woe filled with hosts to suffer for ever; when I see my friends, my parents, my family, my people, my fellow‐citizens; when I look upon a whole race, all involved in this sin and danger, and when I see the great mass of them wholly unconcerned, and when I feel that God only can save them and yet that he does not do it—I am struck dumb. It is all _dark, dark, dark_ to my soul, and I can not disguise it.”

This is but a brief specimen of the shuddering protest which has arisen in all ages and from all sects, against this stern and awful dogma, and which has poured its most powerful records from the shivering hearts of theologians themselves.(3)