Whether we accept the theory that Satan is a fallen angel
or account for the existence of evil beings in some other way, we
must admit, if we accredit the Genetic narrative, that there existed
at the time of man's creation, or soon afterward, an evil intelligence. The
story of how our first progenitors were tempted by this evil one through
the instrumentality of the serpent is too familiar to demand a detailed
repetition here, and too evident from the third chapter of Genesis to need
further proof. Even in the literature of many heathen nations is found a
narrative similar to the Mosaic account of the temptation and fall. It
is probable, however, that these Gentile traditions were derived originally from
the Hebrew narrative.
God was in no way responsible for man's temptation. As we
have before seen, the alternative between good and evil was a necessity to the
free moral agency of man; for had there been no alternative and man had been
incapable of the power of choice, he would have been an automaton, a mere
machine. Man's superior intelligence made it possible for Satan to direct his
attention to the wrong and to awaken in him a desire for knowledge. The
possibility of man's temptation, like the possibility of his fall, was an
inevitable consequence of man's necessary constitution.
The possibility of temptation was not an injustice to
man, for it must be conceded that to resist temptation was within his power.
Moreover, man occupied a vantageground against temptation and sin on account of
the holiness of his nature and the privilege of association with God. This,
again, places the entire responsibility of yielding to temptation upon man.
Besides the positive advantages possessed by man, he had been warned of, and
evidently understood, the consequences of yielding to temptation and sin; for
God had said, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely
die."
THE FALL
The holiness of man did not exempt him from the
possibility of falling. That primitive man, in spite of the holiness of his
being, fell from his first moral state, is the testimony alike of human
experience and of revealed truth. As we have before noticed, the law was
consequent upon man's necessary constitution. Man's happiness and obedience were
a divine preference; therefore God was in no way responsible for the sin of our
first parents. Primitive disobedience was plainly an act of man's free choice
committed against the pleasure and the warning of God and with a full knowledge
both of the consequences of disobedience and of the reward of happiness. The
penalty of disobedience was plainly stated in the law, which, as we have before
proved, both Adam and Eve clearly understood. The reward of continued obedience
must have been clear from man's Edenic experience before the fall. In the light
of all these facts, no reasonable mind can evade the conclusion that the
responsibility for the fall rested wholly with man.
The fall of man was not, as some suppose, a divine
permission as a ground for subsequent redemption. The theory that God did so
permit the fall is clearly set forth by Dr. Miley in the following words: "
God Permitted the fall of man that he might provide a redemption for the race so
ruined, and through his infinite grace and love bring a far greater good to the
moral universe, and especially to the human race." Paul, viewing the
question, would doubtless say, "Shall we do evil that good may come? God
forbid." Dr. Miley continues as follows:
"The theory must thus appear in open contrariety to
the divine holiness. This result discredits it; for not even the love of God
must be glorified at the expense of his holiness. Nor is it within the grasp of
human thought that sin, the greatest evil, can be necessary to the greatest good
of the moral universe. It is still true that an immeasureable good will arise
from the atonement in Christ; but it is not the sense of Scripture that the fall
was any part of a providential economy for the sake of that [39]
good. The Scriptures glorify the love of God in the redemption of the world, but
ever as a love of compassion for a sinful and perishing world, not as an
anterior benevolence which must accept moral evil as the necessary condition of
its richest blessings. "
Since the doctrine that the fall was a divine permission
as a ground for subsequent redemption is contrary to the infinite holiness of
God and has no support in the Scriptures, we must discard it as a mere human
theory, and adhere to what the Scriptures most certainly teach: that the fall
resulted from the free choice of intelligent beings endowed with power to obey
or to disobey, and that no responsibility whatever attaches to God on account of
the fall.
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