Wtt|ifrlill«!>»§^^ iyj;iVii;iiHITijir»f;i <»»»»«wmi«iw»i'i mi iiinnifcmt'iMii ¦ .mi itihi # ;.# ;,^ ': <&»..¦" '.,& I^ibra-ry of * il Date "Will you go and gossip witb your house maid, or your stable-boy, when you may talk witb queens and kings V •, Copyright By L. D. M'CABE, 1878. PREFACE. T^vuring a period of thirty years' teaching I have -*->' met with many earnest .and gifted minds so confounded with the difficulties lying between human freedom and the divine foreknowledge that I was finally induced, actuated by the simple desire of relieving honest inquirers, to attempt some solution of this mystery of the ages. "The main positions of a work may be impreg nable," says Dr. Whately, "and yet it will be strange, indeed, if some illustration, or some subor dinate parts of it, will not admit of a plausible ob jection. The sophist, in such a case, joins issue on one of these incidental questions, and then comes forward with his 'Reply to the Work.' But the other arguments remaining unrefuted, the conclusion may stand as firmly as if the answerer had urged nothing by way of refutation. For unanswerable arguments may be brought against that which is, nevertheless, true, and which is established by the greater probabilities." Inspired only by a desire to contribute, so far as iv Preface. I might be able, toward the removal of the difficul ties that environ humanity and theology in connec tion with this subject, I commit this volume to the public, with an earnest prayer that it may in some degree accomplish its purpose. If it has any value I desire that it may receive the candid attention of the ologians and of all those inquiring after divine truth. It has been my aim to assume nothing that is not axiomatic to universal consciousness or admitted by theologians who accept the freedom of the will without at the same time embracing contradictory doctrines. If what I here present to the public shall be received without unreasonable prejudice, and can didly considered under the controlling influence of a profound desire for the advancement of elevated thought and of a profounder love for God's eternal truth and will, I can ask no more. Free discussion is not only the palladium of liberty, but also the necessary condition of progress. I am not ' in sympathy with those who discuss only for victory, or criticise without taking suffi cient pains to comprehend the matter in hand; nor with those who insist on objections without paying due attention to counter objections, and who merely dogmatize; for who can convince a dogmatist that is controlled absolutely by authorities and has no con fidence in his own deductions? Preface. v To any lover of sound doctrine in theology I would simply say, in the language of Job, "That which I see not teach thou me." Surely the writer's unwavering devotion to every doctrine regarded essential by all orthodox branches of the Christian Church entitles him to be heard, if heard at all, without misrepresentation ; and this may well be conceded to any one who tentatively pro poses a solution of difficulties in what is now ac knowledged to be the most perplexing subject in philosophy, namely, the conflict between freedom and necessity. After my manuscript was written, knowing from years of intimacy my friend, Rev. F. S. Hoyt, D. D., to be an accurate and varied scholar and an able theologian, I placed it in his hands for revision and criticism. When it passed into the hands of the publishers I also requested him to watch its passage through the press and guard it from mistakes and blemishes. With these requests he has most kindly and fraternally complied. I wish, therefore, here to acknowledge my great obligations to him, and, as strongly as words can, express my gratitude for his brotherly kindness and invaluable criticisms. L. D. M'CABE. Delaware, O., March 18, 1878. CONTENTS. PAGE. INTRODUCTION, 7 CHAPTER I. Preliminary Observations, 17 CHAPTER II. Prophecy Compared with Miracle, 26 CHAPTER III. The Human Will acts, under Two Laws 32 CHAPTER IV. The Four Kingdoms of God 55 CHAPTER V. The Application of these Principles 86 CHAPTER VI. The Case of Hazael Considered, 95 CHAPTER VII. The Case of Judas Iscariot Considered 99 3 4 Contents. CHAPTER VIII. FACE. Various Other Scriptures Considered, 140 CHAPTER IX. God's Estimate of Probabilities 153 CHAPTER X. Fatalistic Tendencies 170 CHAPTER XI. Where is the Necessity for Absolute Foreknowledge? 174 CHAPTER XII. Principles Admitted by all Schools of Theology, . . 192 CHAPTER XIII. Calvinistic Views of Foreknowledge 197 CHAPTER XIV. Foreknowledge Incomprehensible 214 CHAPTER XV. Views of Others, 218 CHAPTER XVI. Imperfect Views of Omniscience, 223 CHAPTER XVII. The Infinite, the Absolute, and the Unconditioned in Relation to the Divine Foreknowledge 262 Contents. 5 CHAPTER XVIII. PACE. Introduction of Moral Evil into the Universe, . . . 285 CHAPTER XIX. Foreknowledge annihilates the Distinction between Certainty and Contingency 296 CHAPTER XX. Foreknowledge incompatible with Human Freedom, . 310 CHAPTER XXI. Foreknowledge annihilates the Distinction between Freedom and the Law of Cause and Effect, . . . 322 CHAPTER XXII. All Things Will Be as They Will Be, 334 CHAPTER XXIII. "The Rights of Creature and Creator germane to the Subject," 352 CHAPTER XXIV. Foreknowledge makes God Inconsistent, 359 CHAPTER XXV. Foreknowledge would detract from Divine Benev olence, 3^4 CHAPTER XXVI. Foreknowledge would prevent Proper States of Feeling in the Infinite Mind 382 6 Contents. CHAPTER XXVII. FAGS. Divine Foreknowledge is Inconsistent with the Intel lectual Perfections of God 392 CHAPTER XXVIII. Belief in Divine Foreknowledge depresses the Ener gies of the Soul 399 CHAPTER XXIX. The Denial of Absolute Foreknowledge Tenable, . . 418 CHAPTER XXX. Concluding Observations 430 INDEX 447 INDEX OF SCRIPTURE PASSAGES 461 INTRODUCTION. SOME books have their origin in a sudden impulse, and reach the public eye after only a hasty process of reflection and composition. Even the patient Goethe said a strong word to Eckermann in favor of this very species of literature, and claimed for it a merit which works of slower growth do not possess. But his own example, and the philosophy underlying his whole life, are sufficient rejoinder to his theory. The man who spent fifty years on "Faust" was hardly the one to offer a defense of sudden growths. In contrast with the large class of rapidly produced books, we find that smaller group of works which lie far back in the life and thought of the writers, and see the light only after tedious stages of reflection. The chisel of years chips off all ornamenta tion. They come before us, often, like some of the calm thinkers in the mediaeval period, starting suddenly out of their long tarrying with their one thought, but, with all their baldness and gauntness, so intense and purposeful that their appeal is irresistible. There is a certain intensity which is born of leisurely time. The flame throws its glare on the opposite wall, but to drive out the frost there is need of the slow and steadily-burning coals. The following work belongs to the latter class. It is from the pen of a careful and collected thinker. He does not present his work for public judgment without having tested his opinions in the crucible of severe examination. 7 8 Introduction. In the "Foreknowledge of God," it will be seen that the cutting and setting are made subordinate to the stone itself. The author has been for an entire generation an honored member of the Faculty of the Ohio Wesleyan University. Fifteen years of this period he has filled the chair of Mathematics and Mechanical Philosophy, and during eighteen years he has had charge of the department of Metaphysics. There are men, now no longer young, all over the land, and even representing the American Church and Government in foreign countries, who have sat at his feet and received the double impress of his genius and his ever -fresh sympathies. The glow of his nature has passed into the life of these many hundreds, and, though still laboring with all the ardor of his lasting youth, he possesses the rich blessing that comes from a life of supreme happiness in heart and home, from thirty- three years of unbroken and congenial work in the lec ture-hall, and from constant wrestling with the great question of God's relation to the destiny of his child, Man. While the theological public are already acquainted with the author as an original and profound writer, the following work is the first to reveal the fundamental thought of his life. We find here the chief result of his long work as a thinker and student, and, as such, it will carry with it its own commendation as an embodiment of reverent dealing with one of the greatest questions which have engaged the thought of the Church ever since the third Christian century, and especially since Augustine made the remarkable declaration, that God does not know things because they are, but things""are pca^se IjOQMOwsTnem!* TherewuT"be~ readers who *Ex quo occurrit animo quiddam mi rum, sed ramen verum, quod iste raundus nobis notus esse non posset, nisi esset : Deo autem nisi notus esset, esse non posset. (August. L. C.) Introduction. 9 will differ with his conclusions, but there will be none to deny the keenness of his logic, his intimate acquaintance with the entire history of the doctrine of the divine fore knowledge, and his candor and charity in dealing with men of opposite views. In complying with the request of the author to furnish an introductory statement, the undersigned does not regard it as coming within his province to give a formal indorse ment of the conclusions of the work, but to place himself beside its readers, and to learn with them what a thought ful man has to say upon the subject of the divine fore knowledge. Our part shall be, first of all, to indicate the general position of the work in theological thought, and then to summarize the drift of the author's argument in defense of his position. The feeling of the incompatibility between absolute divine foreknowledge and human freedom is as old as theological thought. Out of this feeling have arisen vari ous and often conflicting suppositions relative to the broad question of foreknowledge. We say suppositions, and not theories, for a theory is an imaginary law that can afford a consistent explanation of all the facts involved in any subject. Chevalier Ramsey held the view that God chooses not to know future contingent events, implying that he could foreknow them if such were his preference. A large class of thinkers have held that the divine fore knowledge must be so different from any thing of the kind among men as to afford no data whatever for any argument pro or con in regard to it. Gomarus held that a given event will happen under certain favorable circum stances, and that a different event will happen under a different set of circumstances. This hypothesis of a con ditional foreknowledge was adopted by some of the elder English divines. The great controversy upon the subject Intr od uction. has been between the two leading schools of theology, the Calvinistic and Arminian. The former, as represented by Jonathan Edwards, Chalmers, and many others, admit the impossibility of infallible foreknowledge of contingent events, and boldly deny that there is any such thing as contingency in the mind of God. With them all events (are certain because all are foreordained, and are therefore (easily foreknown. But this involved the manifest contra diction of asserting that a choice infallibly foreknown as /certain to be only this, and not any other, could yet be (free, and the author thereof responsible. This palpable ^inconsistency of certainty, or more strictly of necessity, /with human freedom and responsibility is clearly shown by Dr. Whedon, the leader and best representative of Arminian thought upon this subject. He has proven that a free choice must necessarily be contingent. The hy pothesis of Socinus — that "the foreknowledge of contin- gent events being in its own nature impossible because it mTphes"lTl?oTuTaffir5tlori, it isnecessarytb" denytiiat God has any sucr7 prescience " — has never been developed into a consistent and well-sustained theory. When the author of the present work approached the subject he found no consistent theories to aid him in his meditations, but simply the convictions, feelings, and hypotheses of thoughtful men. He found little, if any, literature di rectly upon the subject, but he believed that( the assump tion of infinity in the absolute sense as parallel to the mathematical conception of the Infinite, or to the tran scendental cenceptions of the a priori philosophers, not only leads to moral contradictions, by making the whole .question of evil insoluble, but involves intellectual con tradictions] in itself, which, in many minds, result in the entire rejection of the very foundations of religion. For example, the "First Principles" of Herbert Spencer cease Intr OD UCTION. 1 1 to be a bulwark of atheism the very moment it is ad mitted that the divine may be in any degree "subject to limitation, and, therefore, may come into relations with the finite, and be conceived of as personal. The position of the author, briefly stated, and apart from the opinions of others, is : that universal prescience is incompatible with human freedom; that there can be no tenable system of theology or of moral philosophy based upon that doctrine; but that the whole Christian system may be made consistent, defensible, and satisfac tory by the denial of it; and that all the doctrines and prophecies of Scripture are plainly reconcilable with such denial. The work opens with a statement of the reasons for undertaking the present work, with the aims and objects that seemed desirable for the author to accomplish. We are then directed to instances of declared foreknowledge, as in the prophecies, which may be explained by the con straint of the human will, in suspension or contradiction or counteraction of the law of liberty, as miracle is such suspension or counteraction of the law of matter. This is confirmed by showing, from the Scriptures, that the human will does, in many instances, for the accomplish ment of God's providential purposes, act under the law' of cause and effect. These acts are foreknown because they are foreordained, and are brought to pass by a con straint of the individual instruments. These acts, how ever, involve no moral character, and entail no endless destiny. This point is also confirmed by showing that the kingdom of providence (with limitations) is the realm of foreordained, foreknown, and therefore constrained, acts. We are then furnished an illustration of these principles, as developed in the enigmatical case and character of St. Peter. This example shows that the Redeemer's foreknowl- 12 Introduction. edge and prophecy of the fall of his, at that time, foremost apostle arose from his purpose to allow Satan a little more control over him than is consistent with a fair trial, and thus, in this instance, to "suffer him to be tempted above that which he would be able to bear," without lifting up a standard against him; and all in order to teach him indispensable lessons, and fit him for greater usefulness in his new kingdom. The author next argues that the be trayal and treachery of Judas were in no way essential to the great atonement; nor was it foreknowledge until Christ discovered its incipiency in the volitions of his free will; and that to Judas there is no reference in the prophecies of the Old Testament. We are then furnished with an explanation of various prophecies as based on the divine, or upon a knowledge of the existing causes of the acts foretold. God's estimate of probabilities is a basis for accurate judgment of future contingencies in many cases, but is not a sufficient basis for universal and absolutely certain prescience. The foreknowledge of future contin gencies is, distributively, fatalistic in its tendency, and, further, is unnecessary. The notion that God's govern ment would otherwise be precarious reflects upon the divine perfections, by implying that God is not able to meet unforeseen exigencies, which even limited man can do, often organizing success out of unexpected disasters. But the Almighty must infallibly foresee every one of in numerable millions of free choices, or he will be discon certed, defeated, and his government overthrown. God acts towards all men precisely as he would 9.ct if he did not foreknow what they would choose to do. This cer tainly affords ground for the presumption that he does not. Those limit omniscience as much in affirming that, could there be such things as contingencies, omniscience could not foreknow them, as those who admit the exist- Introduction. 13 ence of contingencies, but question the ability of omni science to previse them. Those who derty all contin gency, and teach that foreordination is indispensable to foreknowledge, have no reason or right to complain that the denial of foreknowledge limits omniscience. And those who claim that God can not coerce a free act thereby clearly limit omnipotence. But neither denial is a real or superimposed limitation, but both are self-im posed, and are, therefore, not such as detract from the perfection of the attributes of God. In fact, there are many instances of self-imposed limitations, which reflect greater luster and glory upon the divine character. We now have presented the opinions of many eminent thinkers to the effect that foreknowledge is incomprehen sible, and utterly irreconcilable with human freedom. The origin of evil may be. easily and naturally explained on the hypothesis of the non-prescience of the fall, as a fixed certainty, and is not "an inscrutable mystery," as Bledsoe and others have claimed. The author then shows that a foreknown choice must be certain, and therefore unavoidable, without breaking down divine foreknowl edge and infracting the numberless subsequent plans and purposes of Jehovah, going forward, from everlasting to everlasting, and through one immensity after another. The argument then is, that foreknowledge would be det rimental to men, because the belief of it would paralyze their spiritual energies by producing the conviction that- their foreknown destiny is fixed, and unalterable by their own effortsj and embarrassing to God, by preventing proper efforts to save those who he foresees will be lost; and by producing in the divine mind most conflicting and painfully disturbing emotions. Foreknowledge would make God's attitude toward pro bationers disingenuous and inconsistent. Further, fore- 14 Introduction. knowledge would detract from the benevolence of God. Divine goodness requires the non-creation of an identical soul whose loss is' foreseen as infallibly certain, and also the removal from probation of good men whose apostasy is foreseen. If the stronger probability is against universal prescience we ought to deny it. In the concluding chapters the author shows that a belief of absolute foreknowledge depresses the energies of the soul and weakens the sense of accountability, by producing the conviction that acts and destiny, to be fore known, must be fore-fixed, and hence can not now be. avoided by any exertion of our own. This belief, there fore, discourages prayer, by making it appear to be useless; since neither my own exertions nor my prayers can make my character and destiny any different from what God foreknew'they would be from all eternity. On the other hand, disbelief in foreknowledge encourages prayer and every other good word and work, since it gives the assurance that my prayers and exertions, by God's grace, will make for me a character and destiny which I never could have attained without them, and that my character and destiny will be glorious just in proportion to the extent and intensity of my exertions. The oft-repeated statement that the foreknowledge of a choice has no influence on that choice is questioned even by those who insist upon it. This statement is false, •because all belief affects, and must affect, conduct, and the belief in foreknowledge affects the conduct, and, therefore, affects the choices of the believer in the manner above shown. The denial of absolute foreknowledge is tenable from the fact that there are no data, either in antecedent circumstances, or the character of the free agent, or the influences brought to bear upon him, for certain prescience of his free choices. For if these have I NTS 0D UCTI0N. 1 5 any causal power over his volitions, how can we account for our pungent sense of blame -worthiness for wrong actions, and how can we account for the frequent disap pointment of our expectations of good and bad men? How, indeed, could we be free upon this hypothesis, which locates the incipiency of volitions outside of the will itself? But we are conscious of freedom — the best proof of it — and that neither our character nor our envi ronment has any controlling power over our volitions, and hence they furnish no data for certain prescience of them. We are quite sure that the author is not so sanguine as to expect to silence all objections to the ground which he occupies. The conflict will still go on. The vision of the writer of " Locksley Hall" is as far from fulfill ment in theology as in this stirring life about us : " I dipt into the future far as human eye could see, Saw the vision of the world, and all ihe wonder that would be; Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furled, In the parliament of man, the federation of the world." The author, in developing his view of the Divine fore knowledge, has not been prompted by any disposition to excite controversy, nor simply to add a new theory to those which already exist, but only by a spirit of investi gation and of earnest inquiry after the truth. If he be thought by some to be venturesome, it must be remem bered that theology, which is a progressive science, has derived its chief enrichment from its bolder, but not less evangelical, devout, and humble, spirits. J. F. HURST. Drew Theological Seminary, Madison, N. J., June 18, 1878. The Foreknowledge of God. Chapter I. PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. " T know not," said the late Bishop Thomson, JL "how to reconcile God's sovereignty with man's freedom, God's justice with man's proneness to sin, or God's holiness with the introduction of moral evil into the universe. A cloud of mystery rests upon the whole horizon of our knowledge." ' ' All theory isagainst the freedom of the will, while all>_experience is in favor of it," is the testi mony of Dr. Samuel Johnson. How strange to hear DrVR. Payne Smith, the present Dean of Canter bury, say, "I am not prepared to enter upon the question what the claims of God are, when looked at from above. When looked at from God's side, they are probably unchanging, inevitable, and abso lute. But the discussion would lead me into the mazes of the controversy, how man's free will can co-exist with God's omniscience. It is very easy to show that every thing must have been predestined from the beginning, and to be irrevocably fixed. And then, if you assume the absolute immutability »7 1 8 The Foreknowledge of God. of God, you will get an argument very difficult to overthrow, by which to prove that there is no such thing as the world having the disturbing elements of sin, repentance, prayer, and punishment. The moral freedom of man is certainly incompatible with man's a priori notions of God's foreknowledge. This is a sad predicament, of course, to all those who think that beings must be as they seem to be in the eye of human reason." One of the ablest thinkers American Methodism has yet produced says: "The denial of absolute divine foreknowledge is the essential complement of the Methodist theology, without which its philo sophical incompleteness is defenseless against the logical consistency of Calvinism." "Theology," says Dr. Daniel Curry, "has very mudi to unlearn before it will be either reasonable or Scriptural." "I have thought," said Dr. Andrews, President of Denison University (Baptist), at Granville, Ohio, "all the way from the top to the bottom of this subject, and I know that the absolute foreknowledge of the future choices of free beings acting under the law of liberty is an absurdity. I ' would say emphatically that either there is no contingency in human actions or else they can not be distributively foreknown. This is as clear to me as either of the three funda mental axioms of logic: A is A; A is not non-A; A is either B or non-B." Rev. Albert Barnes wrote: "On the subject of sin and suffering in the universe I confess, for one, that I feel these more sensibly and powerfully the more I look at them and the longer I live. I do not Preliminary Observations. 19. understand these facts, and I make no advance towards understanding them. I do not know that I have a ray of light on this subject which I did not have when it was first presented to my attention. I have read to some extent what wise and good men have written; I have looked at their theories and explanations; I have endeavored to weigh their arguments; for my whole soul pants for light and relief on these questions. But I get neither, and in the distress and anguish of my own spirit I confess that I see no light whatever. I see not one ray of light to disclose to me why sin came into the world; why the earth is strewn with the dying and the dead ; and why men must suffer to all eternity. I have never seen a particle of light thrown upon these subjects that has given a moment's ease to my tortured mind, nor have I any explanation to offer, or a thought to suggest, which would be a relief to any one. When I look on a world of sinners and sufferers; upon death-bed scenes and grave-yards; on the world of woe filled with hosts to suffer forever; when I see my friends, my parents, my family, my people, my fellow pilgrims ; when I look upon a whole race involved in this sin and danger; and when I see the great mass of them wholly uncon cerned; and when I feel that God alone can save them, and yet he does not do it, I am struck dumb. It is all dark, dark to my soul, and I can not disguise it." These certainly are painful confessions to fall from the lips of those who are acknowledged to be men of great talents and great learning. Must great • 2o The Foreknowledge of God. and holy men be thus overwhelmed with these diffi culties on to the end of time? Can it be possible that God has given to us a revelation of himself, intending always to leave us in such suspense? I can not, I am free to say, discover any reason that could justify such a procedure on the part of infinite wisdom. The evil consequences that flow over the race from such conflicting views of divine revelation are rriany and very great, while all the advantages which they are claimed to confer are derived more impressively from various other considerations. If such humiliating confessions of inexplicable mystery, from princes in Israel, are ever to fall upon the itching ears of the advance guard of infidelity, can we won der at the malignity of its opposition to the religion of Jesus Christ ? "The atmosphere of doubt," says Henry Ward Beecher, "acts in a great many ways. He is but little conversant with what is going on in life; he knows little of the conversations and readings and thoughts of vigorous, enterprising men, who is not aware that there hangs over the whole subject of religion, and particularly over its dogmas, a great deal of doubt and irreverence, which in some moods reacts and goes back to the belief of childhood. There is prevailing a state of uncertainty and aber ration of faith, which requires prayerful attention." It is this state of uncertainty which is disturbing so many excellent minds, and which is so humiliating to theologians of all schools, that the writer desires, if possible, to do something to remove. Hence it is that I am humbly attempting to divest a solemn Preliminary Observations. 21 subject of unexplained difificulties, and yet to guard all the fundamental truths of the Christian religion and all the teachings of the Holy Scriptures. Theo logians of all denominations are now, in some degree, modifying their views, restating their principles and rediscussing their doctrines on points that do not involve the efficiency, the nature, or the purposes o'f the Gospel. In this way they are bringing them selves, their tenets, and their adherents into a closer agreement and into greater accord with other modei'n thinkers. It is my aim to divest Arminianism of some of the difficulties which surround and depre ciate it, and to commend it in more complete con sistency, coherency and grandeur to the theological world. The great problems of sin, of suffering and lia bility to endless punishment, of human freedom and divine foreknowledge, do perplex the most thoughtful and the staunchest of Arminians. "Explain," said an anxious inquirer to John Wesley, "how it is that God can foreknow with certainty the future choices of. a free agent." "I frankly confess I can offer no explanation," was his humiliating reply. Sitting beneath the effulgence of so great a light as that which Mr.' Wesley poured upon a darkened theological world, and yet finding that he could furnish no explanation to the most torturing problem of my existence, has deeply moved me. In my mental distress I have inquired, Is there no way to remove these great difficulties? Can not a theology be constructed that will remove such perplexities? Must we be corroelled from age to age to grope our 3 22 The Foreknowledge of God. way amid such uncertainties? And thus prompted I could not but prayerfully resolve to seek a solution of these central mysteries. But I very well knew that to refute any long assumed dogma, unanswerable objec tions to it must be presented — objections that would outweigh all those which might be suggested against the proposed substitute. A thoughtful study of the subject has convinced me that a denial of absolute divine foreknowledge would invalidate many of the objections of the infidel to Christian theology, and shed a clear light upon some of the deepest and most perplexing mysteries of that theology. A doctrine may be true, though there may be many passages of Scripture that seem at first sight to be in marked opposition thereto. For example, how many passages can be found in the writings of St. Paul that did seem to teach the doctrine of sovereign election and reprobation. Also how much study and scholarship and statement and restatement and discovery in Biblical literature, and skill in text ual exegesis and time and patience have been em ployed by many Arminians, in order to wrest those troublesome texts from the support of Calvinian tenets. They now fearlessly affirm that time has brought out all the needed explanations, so that every one of those passages has been interpreted in harmony with Arminian doctrines. Indeed, many of the Calvinistic interpreters themselves now concede that the peculiarities of Calvinism are not taught in many texts of Scripture, in which they were once deemed to be manifest to all unprejudiced readers. "Calvinism is not in this text," says Moses Stuart. Preliminary Observations. 23 "It is not in that," says Albert Barnes; and "it can not be found there," says Dr. M'Knight. But how long the exegetes were in coming to these views and admissions! And from this fact we may learn that if a new tenet be advocated, some passages of Holy Writ very probably might be adduced in opposition to it, of which it might be difficult, impromptu, to originate a satisfactory interpretation. The doctrine of the absolute foreknowledge of God has occasioned more perplexity and intellectual torture than any other in all the departments of theology. It has given to infidelity stronger ram parts on which to plant its fierce batteries against divine revelation than that wily foe has been able to find anywhere else. It has been made the excuse or the occasion for burying energy, enterprise, great endowments, and large possibilities in the grave of indifference. It has put fetters on thousands of im mortals, or floated them as mere waifs into the gulfs of debasing indulgence. It has retarded the Gos pel, taken power from the Church, brought upon her fearful eclipses, and set her down amid shad ows in the pursuit of interminable and profitless controversies. Notwithstanding the great proof of Christianity which a personal experience of religion always sup plies, almost every Christian believer fights a life-long battle with this most obtrusive and harassing dogma. How often, reacfer, has it not come with the blight of desolation over your own good intentions, your high resolves against besetting sins, your virtuous aspirations, secret prayers, and the reading of the 24 The Foreknowledge of God. Holy Scriptures! And if the theology „of_jh_e instincts, of the intuitions, and of the heart were not often more sound than the theology of the intellect, the practical evils of this doctrine would be still more manifest and injurious. "I should have been a Christian long before I was," said an intelligent young minister, "had it not been for the doctrines taught me in regard to the divine prescience." What a different world we should behold to-day had the doctrines of fatalism, of necessity, of foreordination, ' of foreknowledge, of the fallibility of the Holy Scriptures, and of the mere humanity of the world's Redeemer, never been taught by accepted and revered evangelists who have "Reasoned high Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate — Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, And found no end in wandering mazes lost." Nineteen hundred years since Jesus finished re demption and ascended to the Father, receiving gifts for the children of men. Through all these years eternal death, everlasting life, the unspeakable, con descension of the Son of God,, the rich provisions of the Gospel, and the inexpressible superiority of a holy oyer a worldly life, have all been faithfully proclaimed. But through all these years, the most erroneous and enervating doctrines have obscured the brightness and retarded the triumph of truth as it is in Jesus. For to teach the absolute contin gency and yet absolute certainty of all the future choices of free beings, or the endless punishment of foreknown sins, or election and reprobation based Preliminary Observations. 25 on the absolute decrees of God, or that a Being of boundless benevolence would create an individual soul, who he foreknew would certainly be damned and endlessly miserable, is to teach what offends the common sense of men, begets deep resentment, and drives very many into the darkness of bald infidel ity. "Think," indignantly exclaims James Mill, the father"~of JoTinSUiarFMnTr^'Minink of a being who would make a hell, who would create the race with the infallible foreknowledge that the ma- jontyJj£Xne7n\veTem li>p consigned to horrible and everlasting torment. If the infidel could bring arguments equal in number, weight, arid plausibility against divine reve lation which can be brought against absolute divine foreknowledge, no one could wonder at him if tempted to reject its divine claims. Without question or investigation, the doctrine of absolute divine foreknowledge has been assumed to be true by orthodox theologians. Nevertheless, after the most patient honest inquiry, reading, think ing, and conversing, I have not yet been able to discover any respectable proof of its validity. Chapter II. PROPHECY COMPARED WITH MIRACLE. The modes of operation which are represented in the Scriptures are not the ordinary workings of God's laws, or the ordinary methods of the divine procedure. Revelation from the infinite to the fallen, beclouded, finite mind is impossible without miracle, prophecy, and other mysteries that are unfathomable. Every thing connected with this revelation bestowed upon man is extraordinaty. Every thing about in spiration, salvation, the incarnation, miracle, atone ment, and the relations sustained by the persons of the Godhead during the period and process of hu man redemption, is, and necessarily must be, extraor dinary — departing widely from the ways and pro cedures of God which obtain under the laws that he has established for the accomplishment of his ordinary plans and economies. From all these confessedly profound matters why must we exclude the extraordinary work of proph ecy? Miracles, for example, are out of the usual course of law. They are necessarily extraordinary in their character. Without a suspension or control or counteraction of uniform, material laws, a miracle is impossible. Now, if this be undeniably true of one great branch of the evidences by which a divine revelation is to be authenticated to man, may we not 26 Prophecy compared with Miracle. 27 safely conclude that the same is true of prophecy, the other great branch of Christian evidences? If the one be in violation of established material laws, what reason have we to suppose that the other does not involve something equally extraordinary? We have, in fact, sufficient basis for the inference that in giving an extraordinary revelation there were, and must be, as marked violations of the law of freedom as there were of the laws of material nature. In the working of miracles there must be a supersedure of the laws of material forces ; so in the giving of prophecy why must there not also be a supersedure of the law of freedom ? But if God foreknows all the future choices of free beings, there is nothing on the part of God, or so far as God is concerned, extraordinary in the mys terious work of prophecy. Then all there is. in that work is according to the usual mode of divine pro cedure. There is nothing in it that exhibits to wit nessing intelligences of other worlds any thing that is extraordinary or sovereign or overruling. But why should there be something extraordinary and over ruling in one branch of the authentication of a divine revelation, and nothing extraordinary and overruling in the other? If in one we have the overruling of established laws, might we not also reasonably expect to see the same manifestations in the other? In miracles, the interferences with the laws of nature are addressed to the senses; but in foretelling future events the interference with the law of freedom is addressed to the higher faculty of reason. It is remarkable how constantly it is implied, or 28 The Foreknowledge of God. assumed, in the Scriptures, that God does not fore know the choices of free beings while acting under the law of liberty. As for example, the words of Jehovah to Moses, "lam sure the King of Egypt will not let you go." Theangelof the Lord called toAbcaham out of the heavens, and said, "Lay not thou^a_hand on the laa\ neither do thouany thing to Ynm^Jornow IJcriojy__thatthou feare^TTjodTseeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine_only son^, from me." ^Thesewordsimply that up to that point God did not absolutely know what the final decision of Abraham would be. If he did foreknow it, a seem ing falsity, or pretense, is assumed, and a deception practiced upon the reader. "Now I know that thou fearest God." Of Solomon God promised, saying, "I will be his father, and he shall be my son. But if he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of iron." "He led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whetherthou wouldst_keep his commandmen^sorTioT^-^id~TneT^ordsaid, "It repenteth me that I have made man." Moses said, "It repented the Lord that he had made man, and it grieved him at his heart." These words seem to imply a heart-felt regret on the part of God, and that he had not foreknown with certainty the fall of man. For, if he had foreknown the wickedness of man, why did he grieve after its occurrence more than before? And if he grieved equally before he made Adam, at the sight of his future sinfulness, why did he not decline his creation? If he foreknew the fall, not merely as a contingent possibility, but Prophecy compared with Miracle. 29 as an inevitable fact, then this mournful declaration makes him appear inconsistent. And then who can sympathize with him in his grief for having created man? Evidently, in this passage, God implicitly, but clearly, assumes his non-foreknowledge of the certain future- wickedness of man. And that assump tion is necessary to give consistency to the divine conduct and statements, and to establish any claim on the sympathy of an intelligent universe in his great disappointment. But when the whole transac- action is considered in. view of that assumption, a light, luminous with the most interesting suggestions, emanates from this troublesome text. But there are numerous passages in which is clearly found the assumption of the incapacity or inability of omniscience to foreknow — we use the word in its fullest, most absolute signification — the choices of beings endowed with the power of original volition and action, unless it should be through a violation of the law of human freedom. In miracles there is not the slightest intimation that the depart ure from uniform law is the usual, established, heaven-preferred way of doing things. So in proph ecy there is no intimation that foretelling the free acts of free beings is the usual mode in which God_ regaTdsand*Treats the~choices and^^determinations of fi:el?~ageiTfsin his kingdom of free grace. If we nave no rignT to""lnleTTfiatTne transmutation of water into wine is the ordinary and usual ordering of the will of the Creator, then, certainly, we have no ground to infer that the foretelling of the future acts of free beings, as subjects of grace, is the 30 The Foreknowledge of God. ordinary, usual, and established mode of the divine procedure. God in prophecy, we infer, overrides the law of liberty, just as he overrides the law of material forces in miracles. What could be more unusual, unlooked- for, extraordinary, or more in violation of all natural laws and presumptions than the Scripture doctrine of the resurrection of the identical human body? The doctrine^f^jheresmTCCtUDn, as set forth by our standard authors, involves a discrimination and dis tinct preservation of all the actualpartkks_of_the countless millions of human "bodies that shall have lived and died upon this earth. The marked charac teristics of the workings of , God in the natural world are simplicity and obviousness. But the resurrection of the human body is so unusual, wonderful, . and supernatural that it is continually set forth as not only miraculous, but most mysteriously miraculous, And why may not something of the same kind be assumed in regard to the extraordinary work of prophecy wheti there are so many analogies in favor of it, — especially if such an assumption would light us in some degree on our way to the solution of the greatest of all our difficulties in speculative divinity, and to a comprehension of the greatest mystery of all past times? A perception of the possibility and necessity of the violation of the law of human freedom^ to make prophecy quadrate with miracles— which do involve suspensions or supernatural control of natural law taken in connection with the unanswerable and logical difficulties which crowd around the great Prophecy compared with Miracle. 31 question of the divine prescience of all the future acts of free beings, is certainly calculated to awaken in every mind a strong presumption against the old assumed dogma of absolute Divine Fore knowledge. Chapter III. THE HUMAN WILL ACTS UNDER TWO LAWS. When God created man, he ^provided that a large part of his being should be under the laws which rule material forces. "His physical frame, his providential condition, his intellectual and sensi tive natures, all were subjected to the great law of cause and effect. The world would be startled did it perceive how very large is the proportion of human volitions — included in the kingdom of providence and in that of uniform law — which occur according to this law of cause and effect. But there is one part of man's nature, the will, the autocrat of the human soul, which God did not subject to that law. The law of cause and effect no more invades the freedom of the human will in the kingdom of grace than it does the divine freedom. Every event within the domain of that law is caused by some agency outside of itself. Physical causation and unconstrained voluntary action have nothing and can have nothing in common, either in reality or in conception. They differ as widely as matter differs from spirit. Human consciousness testifies to nothing more clearly than it does to the radical unlikeness be tween physical causes and volitions, and to nothing more clearly than to the self- origination and free dom of the latter. God made the human will hieh 33 S The Human Will acts under Two Laws. 33 above the law of necessity. He impressed upon it the highest attributes of a dependent moral being. In short, he gave to man entire freedom of the will, and therefore entire freedom of choice. The will is the capacity of electing, of originating from the spirit itself choices and acts. This noblest characteristic man lost in his foul revolt: as soon as he sinned his will lost its highest endowment, its complete freedom of action. If man's nature be left to itself, the necessity of sin ning ever after was the consequence of that great loss. After sinning once, man could of himself never will to be holy. Henceforth he must remain incapable, without help, of choosing the morally right. The motives that could influence him, ever after, could differ only in degree. They could no longer differ in kind. His will was thus shut up to a single kind of motives, — to motives that centered in self. All the high motives of right, holiness, uni versal order, the well-being of the universe, — all those considerations that center in God, — were for ever outside the range of its possible choice. Thus man lost his great distinguishing characteristic: the self-originating power to choose the right, influenced by motives that differed in kind as well as in degree, was forfeited. In the work of saving men it was essential that the Redeemer should free man from that dire neces sity of sinning, should lift up the human will above the range of exclusively sinful motives, and restore to it its pristine freedom. Consequently, under the remedial dispensation man is able to choose, or to 34 The Foreknowledge of God. reject, holiness and obedience to God. This was one of the wonderful achievements of the Son of God. Sin had despoiled man of this crown of glory: Jesus Christ came triumphant, and restored it. But if any accountable being pass his probation refusing to choose holiness, then among his eternal losses will be the loss of this purchased freedom to choose and to enjoy God. Satan, and all who followed him to defeat, lost this divine endowment, and are now immutable in their depravity and eternally fixed in their moral character. Their wills, like the wills of the demoni acally possessed, are now under the sway of motives that belong to the domain of sin exclusively. If they have any power of choice it is only within narrow limits, and under the influence of motives which center in self, and differing only in degree, not in essential character. To illustrate the full signification of freedom, let us use this diagram. Though spirit can not be imaged by form and outlines, ^^tr= Intellectual and it is nevertheless a j^^ sensitive holy something, an es- *