SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 154, 16 November 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING

THE PROBLEM OF SOCIAL EVIL Sennoii preached by REV. T. 11. ROSEYEARE in St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church. "She took of the fruit unci did eat, and gave also to her husband, and be did eat."—On. 3-(i. "Where: sin abounded, grace did much more abound."—Horn. 5-20. Every serious thinking man and woman must at times have been amazed at the amount of sin and consequent suffering that is so prevalent in the world. We are repeatedly being called upon to explain why it is that such a state of affairs is allowed to exist. If God, the Creator and Ruler over all exists, then how conies it to pass than sin is in the world? It seems that either God is impotent and therefore was unable to prevent the entrance of sin into the world (in which case he could not be God, because of imperfection), or else he must be indifferent towards evil because He allows it to run its course and work untold misery and pain and sorrow, both upon the deserving and on the undeserving (in which case lie would be unholy and hence not God). We are able to judge a person's character only by his actions. "By their fruits ye shall know them." We can judge of the ability of an artist only by his work, and the matter becomes comparatively simple if the work we have seen be the only work that has been produced. In arriving at a conclusion concerning the character of God, we must infer from the world His handiwork, nor may we leave out of account the fact of sin. The difficulty becomes more intense when we take account of the fact that the problem of pain and suffering depends very largely upon the problem of sin, for if we could banish sin from the world, a great proportion of the pain and suffering would also be removed. In face of these facts we have to face the question: Why does God allow sin in the world? SOME PROPOSED SOLUTIONS. Look at some of the anti-Christian solutions of the problem. First, there is Manichaeism, or dualism, which explains that there are two ultimate powersgood and evil—which give rise to the good and evil in the world. But there cannot be two Absolutes, for that would mean that neither of them would be God, for each would be limited by the other. Monism, on the other hand, explains that the Universal Power is good and evil combined. Bin if that were so, then our faith and hope and confidence B so capricious that an Ultimate Power would be shaken. Another explanation once offered is that matter is essentially evil and incapable of reduction to perfect order. But we refuse to believe this now, holding rather that.our "bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost," that matter is the servant of the Spirit capable of infinite good. Yet, again, it is stated that evil is but good in the making—that the ''fall" is really a stage in the regular process of development in knowledge'; but this is true neither to the facts of history nor of divine revelation. It is not a fact that the oldest races were originally the most degraded or crude, and, further, our inherent sense that sin iswhat "ought not to be" is consistent with the story of the fall mentioned in Genesis. I would have you note that in the above proposed explanation there is common to them all an attempt to throw off personal responsibility arising out of free personality and to place it upon the Ultimate Power, or nature, or matter. It is the same old story over again: -The serpent beguiled me and I did eat . . . the woman gave me and I did cat."

I'ERSoX.ALrti: IMPLIES FREEDOM TO SIX. It ; s thus seen that these are unsatisfactory solutions. We now pass on to consider the Christian solution. Our t<-xt indicates that mankind chose to sin. We. are asked. "Why did God allow this?" I wish to point out that the question that we have to face is not by any means as simple as it looks. We have really to ask. Why did God make beings who were capable of choosing—that. is. of choosing right or wrong? It must be stated with all due reverence that Hod cannot work impossibilities or contradictions. It is unthinkable, for example, that there could be work where rationality is put to confusion to the extent of there being a, possibility that two and two make live: it is inconceivable that there could be a circle with all the properties of a square, that two straight lines should enclose a space; that past events shall not 7 have been; that right should be wrong or wrongright. Xor is it possible that !t rational Creator could make free personal agents who are incapable of sinning. The very fact of freedom implies freedom to sin a-; well as to do right, freedom to fall as well as to rise, freedom to become bestial and remain so. as well as to become holy. The question, then, that confronts us is: Was it better for Cod to have created us free, responsible agents capable of sinning, or mere machines, with no morality, no adoration for God, no capacity for nobility, holiness, unselfishness and such like, seeing that all acts would be reduced to mere natural effects? While, however, evil is possible, it is not necessitated. CHRISTIAXITY THE RELIC lOX OF REDEMPTION". Hut the whole story has not yet been told. "Where sin abounded grace did much more abound." It was never God's intention that man should sin. He was created for glory and communion with G'od, as was seen by his being placed in the Garden of Eden, a state of existence that could possibly have been maintained. Yet when sin entered. God did not utterly cast us off. but conceived the plan of Redemption, the unfolding of which runs side by side with the history of man and culminates in the deatli of Christ on the Cross, and now we are able to sing—"o love that will not let me go. 1 rest my weary soul on Thee; I give Thee back the life I owe, That in Thine ocean depths its How Mav richer, fuller be."