THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES WHICH RELATE TO THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF SIN
§ 79. Divine attributes relating to the consciousness of sin, even if only through the fact that redemption is conditioned by sin, can only be established if at the same time we regard God as the Author of sin. 1. To begin with, it is certain that we can arrive at ideas of divine attributes only by combining the content of our self-consciousness with the absolute divine causality that corresponds to our feeling of absolute dependence. That in this manner we trace the annulment of sin by redemption to the divine causality is a fact that we may premise as given universally in the Christian consciousness. But divine attributes that were there conceived as operative would of course be operative primarily in redemption, and it is only through redemption that they would be related to sin. Now, if in relation to sin there are divine activities other than those concerned in its removal, the existence of sin must in some sense be due to the divine causality, and that causality must be determined in a special way with respect to sin’s existence. We have already1 discussed the fact that, in general, sin as an act, besides having always a basis in the natural order (this term being taken here as connoting the historical as well), also comes under the co-operative agency of God; but this points only to the creative and preservative omnipotence of God. If, nevertheless, because sin does exist and in so far as it exists, we feel bound to posit a special divine activity bearing upon it, we must not forget that in thus considering the consciousness of sin per se, we are moving in the region of the abstract, and should therefore err were we to look for divine activities bearing upon sin purely by itself. On the other hand, as regards sin in its relation to redemption, we must—if this section is to have any subject-matter at all—be able somehow to show that sin does actually exist in virtue of certain special divine activities; and what is more, we must do so, keeping in mind the fact that we have already ruled out as inadmissible any distinction in the divine causality between causing and permitting, or between creating and preserving.
- Our task, accordingly, is to answer the question whether and how far God can be regarded as the author of sin—sin too as such (not merely, that is, as regards the material element in sinful action)—yet always of sin as linked with redemption. If an affirmative answer can be given, there will then be divine attributes in virtue of which sin is ordained by God—not indeed sin in itself, but in so far as redemption likewise is due to Him. These attributes then will have as their counterpart those which we shall have to look for under the like condition in the second division of this Part—those, namely, in virtue of which God is the Author of redemption, not in itself, however, but in so far as sin too is due to Him. The conceptions of the divine attributes to be formulated here will accordingly, on the one hand, be posited only on the assumption of their being interwoven with those that come to us from an examination of the consciousness of grace; for we assume it beforehand to be out of the question that the two sets of conceptions could in reality be so distinct as the mutual opposition of the two elements of our Christian consciousness, when considered thus abstractly, suggests. On the other hand, the divine attributes in question are to be conceived of as attaching to the divine omnipotence only as this has been described as the eternally omnipresent, for this is the most general expression of that feeling of absolute dependence which is regarded here as forming the basis of this first aspect of the antithesis.
§ 80. As in our self-consciousness sin and grace are opposed to each other, God cannot be thought of as the Author of sin in the same sense as that in which He is the Author of redemption. But as we never have a consciousness of grace without a consciousness of sin, we must also assert that the existence of sin alongside of grace is ordained for us by God.
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If to the power of the God-consciousness in our souls, just because we are conscious of it as not due to our own agency, we give the name ‘grace’ and (abstracting from the universal divine co-operation without which sin itself were impossible) ascribe to it a special divine impartation; and if, again, the content of a moment which lacks the determining activity of the God-consciousness, just because we are conscious of it as an act of our own cut off from that divine impartation, is termed ‘sin’—this of itself justifies the first part of our proposition. The universal co-operation of God is the same in either domain, but in the case of sin there is lacking that specific divine impartation which gives to every approach to salvation the character of grace. It might, of course, be said that as the disappearance of sin is uniformly proportionate to the inflow of grace, the relation between the two resembles that between two species of animals one of which preys upon the other, the two continuing in that relationship as ordained for both by one and the same divine will. This, however, would be tantamount to denying the specific divine impartation in question, and to affirming that redemption is effected solely by the spontaneous efforts of man, so that in the sphere of grace the human factor would be related to the divine co-operation precisely as in that of sin. But while such a view need not be regarded as in itself unchristian, since it might still leave room for the influence of the specific activity of the Redeemer, it nevertheless would not be the doctrine recognized by the Church and therefore expressive of the Church’s corporate feeling. Accordingly, if the antithesis in our self-consciousness really implies a special divine impartation, the question what divine activity in turn underlies the fact of sin as such, i.e. as that which evokes redemption, can be answered only by saying that no evidence exists of any such activity.
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No less true, however, is the second half of our proposition. We are conscious of the said communicated power of being determined by the God-consciousness always and only as co-existing with an incapacity of our own that reveals itself as a co-determining factor, and we also know that, while the power overcomes the resistance, it nevertheless leaves it still there. Hence we can conceive of the divine will that imparts the power only as at the same time having in it something which entails that sin even in the process of disappearing should continue to exist side by side with grace.2 For if the divine will without any such latent strain were wholly directed against sin, the latter of necessity would vanish altogether and at once. Now, the second part of our proposition rests wholly upon the assumption that everywhere human evil exists only as attached to good, and sin only as attached to grace. Were it possible to speak of a type of sin absolutely unconnected with redemption, we should certainly not have to assume a divine activity directed to the existence of such sin. But if it is the case that the state of hardening is, strictly, not a human state at all,3 no such type of sin really exists either within the narrower sphere of Christianity, where everyone is brought into some kind of connexion with redemption, or outside that sphere, where even the most impotent and vitiated God-consciousness belongs to a corporate life that at the same time comprises a morally higher element which finds expression in precept and law; and, as a matter of fact, every such corporate life, imperfect and sinful as it may be, has yet, in virtue of its presentiments and aspirations, an inward link with redemption. Least of all, however, can we imagine that sin could have a place in the creative dispensation of God apart from redemption, since in the divine will bearing upon the existence of the whole human race the two are ordained to stand in relationship to each other. For the mere fact that the emergence of sin preceded the advent of redemption in no sense implies that sin was ordained and willed purely for itself; on the contrary, the very statement that the Redeemer appeared when the fulness of the time was come4 makes it quite clear that from the beginning everything had been set in relation to His appearing. And if we add the fact that the sin which persists outside direct connexion with redemption never ceases to generate more sin, and that redemption often begins to operate only after sin has attained to a certain degree, we need have no misgiving in saying that God is also the Author of sin—of sin, however, only as related to redemption.
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The antinomy in these two statements, both of which are expressions of our religious consciousness, is all the more difficult to resolve because it is not in two different relations that they are severally predicated; on the contrary, both are postulated in respect of one and the same relation, namely, as we trace the potency of the God-consciousness to a special divine impartation. It is true both statements are derived solely from the consciousness of the Christian who has been brought into the actual fellowship of redemption, and in this narrower field the antinomy appears easy of solution if we say that, as sin is in fact present and continues to exist prior to redemption, and as the divine impartation can operate only in the forms of human life, we must infer that in the narrower sphere sin can be overcome even by divine grace only in a time-process. We cannot, however, claim to have dealt successfully with our problem unless we also bring the presence of sin in the human race as a whole into connexion with our God-consciousness. Precisely because the narrower sphere is in process of constant expansion—and that, moreover, in virtue (under God) of the labours of the forgiven—we cannot but have that outer field constantly in view. In this reference, accordingly, our race-consciousness finds expression solely in the antithesis between the Kingdom of God and the world, and this again represents in the most general way both the antithesis of sin and grace and their co-existence; so that in this necessary universalization of our consciousness we meet again with the same antinomy, which accordingly must be solved for the universalized consciousness as well.
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Now every attempt to solve the antinomy by accepting one statement and rejecting the other leads inevitably to a result incompatible with the character of Christianity, drawing us, in fact, into either the Pelagian or the Manichæan heresy. We fall into the latter when we put the first half of our proposition in such a way as entirely to exclude the second. Thus if sin is in no sense grounded in a divine volition and is nevertheless held to be a real act, we must assume another will so far completely independent of the divine will as to be itself the ultimate ground of all sin as such. Nor will it matter greatly whether this will is the human will itself or another; for, if we still assume, what is certainly given in our self-consciousness, the co-existence of sin and grace in the same individual, that state of things can be regarded only as a conflict of these two antithetic wills, which means that every activity of the flesh would be an overcoming of the divine will—a view implying in any case that the divine omnipotence is circumscribed, and therefore abrogated, and that the feeling of absolute dependence is proclaimed an illusion. Or, again, were we, contrary to all inward experience, to advance the opposed and clearly fanatical statement that the influx of divine grace involves the complete disappearance of sin proper, only a semblance of it being left behind, then wherever real sin still existed the divine omnipotence would still be excluded from the entire sphere of free action as such, and the two spheres—that of the divine will and that of its antithesis—would stand opposed to each other, even externally, in the most rigorous fashion.