p. 100I think we disposed of the tribalism last month?—Well, in a measure.
If there is anything more to be said on behalf of the objection, say on.—I don’t know that there is anything definite to be said beyond what I said last month. Your remarks no doubt fairly met the objection, if I concede what you took for granted about man. Of course, if man is nothing more than so much living clay, Reason can have no criticism to offer on any limitation in God’s method of hewing the race into the shape He desires.
Investigation will shew you that that is the state of the case. The Bible is not responsible for the philosophical theories that represent man as an immortal being capable of what is called a disembodied existence. Clay is the very figure it uses: “We are the clay, Thou our potter; we all are the work of Thy hand” (Is. lxiv. 8). If this be the state of the case, then Paul’s question is reasonable: “Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to p. 101 make one vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour?” What is this but “tribalism?”—As I have said, granting the clay element, there is nothing to be urged against it except the sentiment of pity we cannot help feeling for the multitudes that come into existence only to perish.
That is, is go out of existence again.—Well?
Do you think that is a hardship?—From their point of view—Yes.
Do you feel it a hardship in the case of cows and sheep?—But you see they are not men.
Still, they come into existence and have some sort of pleasure while they are in existence, and then go out again. Is it a difficulty with you that there is such an endless procession of disappearing animals?—I might feel it a difficulty if they had the same keen sense of existence that we have.
Then is it the keenness of conscious sense that makes the difficulty?—I think so.
What, then, about the hundred thousand idiots and lunatics in England alone? Would you feel less difficulty about them than about a hundred thousand sane men?—You press me closely. I do not know what to think about idiots and lunatics. Doubtless the hardship would not be so great in their case.
But, now, why should the keen sense of existence which man has be a difficulty in the way of recognizing that his life is “but a vapour that appeareth for a very little while and then vanisheth away?”—I do not say it interferes with that if that be the truth. What I say is that we cannot but regard the objectless existence of multitudes, which your view seems to involve, without feelings of sadness.
p. 102 Ah, well, that in another thing. The “valley of the shadow of death,” as the present state is called, cannot but be a place of gloom and sadness. The object of my question is to shew that sentiment can be no guide in the determination of truth, and further, that the relapse of a created being into a state of non-existence is not the evil thing in itself that it is liable to appear to a living being fearing death for himself. It would be different if the death of the unsaved meant their entrance into a state of endless misery. The purpose of God is the only stable and determining standpoint of contemplation in the case. If we once fairly grasp the idea that He is the author of all secondary existence, and that He is evolving the universe on His own plan, and for His own objects, all difficulty from the human point of view must vanish.
I am disposed to admit that. But what about this anger which God is represented as shewing so often? The very nation that He chose and delivered from Egypt, it is said, He afterwards destroyed.—Yes, my good friend. I regard that as one of the most powerful evidences of the truth of the story, and a most signal illustration of the sovereign prerogative of the latter.
Taking the truth of it for granted, which I am not disposed to dispute, what have you to say about the display of anger where love only is supposed to dwell?—I deny the “supposition:” we must take God as He is revealed and not as He is “supposed” to be. I do not accept the current view that love only is the attribute of God.
But the New Testament says that God is love.—Yes, but not love only. It also says, “Our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. xii. 29).
p. 103 It is difficult to reconcile the two things.—Why? Cannot separate attributes co-exist in one character? Are you not sensible of both love and abhorrence in the composition of your mental man?
Yes, but we are speaking of God. God is not a man.—Truly so, but if it is testified that anger is with God as well as love, and if we see anger and love harmoniously blending in our own character, why should we have any difficulty in conceiving of a similiar blend in the Divine character.
There is such a difference between God and man.—Granted, but there is a sufficient resemblance to admit of this argument from one to the other. Man is made in the image of God: this is the testimony. He is the miniature resemblance of Him in his mental and moral characteristics. Therefore the argument returns: If man is capable of anger as well as love, why should it be a difficulty that God is so?
My difficulty would be as to the existence of anger in God at all.—There, my friend, you are ballooning. You are not guiding your thoughts by facts, but by imaginations. You do not mean to dictate to God what He ought to be, do you? You want to know what He is?
I wish to know the truth.
Very well, why should you raise a difficulty about the existence of anger, seeing it is testified of God and seen in man?—I don’t know why I should raise a difficulty about it; but it seems to me that love is much more rationally the attribute of Divinity.
You want to analyse your thoughts. You are allowing yourself to be governed by the mere bias of human sentiment. You must school yourself into subjection to p. 104 fact. As a matter of experience and reason, there can be no more objection to anger than to love. It is indeed a necessary complement of love. Love without the capacity of anger would be impotent. Anger in its full exercise is both the reprehension of that which is opposed to goodness, and the power to remove it. As to what is goodness, God only is the Judge, and He is consequently the only standard of righteous anger. In proportion as we learn of Him, we know what is good, and in proportion as we imitate, we give legitimate exercise to that abhorrence of evil which is His characteristic, and which in executive expression is anger. You must get rid of the idea that God’s goodness is only a sort of honeyed passivity. Far, far from this is the case, whether we judge Him by His manifestation in Nature or Revelation. In Nature, we see pain in every deviation from law; death in every interference with life’s conditions; destructive violence in every departure from equilibrium. Storm and conflagration and earthquake and massacre are as much aspects of Nature as sunshine and safety and peace. Therefore, it is not strange that there should be a rough side to the character of the Divine Power out of whom all things have proceeded. And when we see that this roughness is declared and illustrated in the attested acts of His power, and further, that this roughness is never manifested except in the destruction of that which is evil and the conservation of that which is good, there can be no difficulty to true reason in the testified fact that God is capable of being angry as well as “gracious and merciful, longsuffering, slow to anger and of great kindness.”