Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/15

Rh that right and wrong have in themselves no inherent quality, but are made so simply by the enactment of an external power. The quality of a line of conduct thus resides not in essentials—the intrinsic tendency of an action and its bearings upon life, but in non-essentials—the accidental fact that it is forbidden or enjoined by God. For example, Jehovah lays certain restrictions upon the man and woman in the Garden of Eden; and disregard of these restrictions is sin. He commands Abraham to commit a horrible crime, and because of his readiness to do so he is paraded before us as the father of the faithful and a model for our own imitation. For a direct statement of the position here indicated, reference may be made to No. XIII of the thirty-nine articles of the English Episcopal Church. The unmistakable meaning of this article is that a good deed, such as the gift of a cup of cold water to a thirsty wayfarer, has in itself no inherent quality of goodness. Performed in a state of grace and from faith in Jesus Christ, it is well-pleasing to God, but only on that account. Let the blessing be offered, not out of faith in Christ, but from spontaneous sympathy with suffering humanity, and what has official theology to say to the matter? "We doubt not that it has the nature of sin."

Implied in all this of course lies the further fact that morality looks Godward and not manward. Sin is sin because it is unpleasing to God, not because it is injurious to man. How disastrous the effects of such a conception as this may be, the history and literature of Christendom are at hand to show us. If such an astute thinker as Duns Scotus, insisting on the perfect freedom of the divine will, could declare that if God had prescribed murder and theft, murder and theft would not have been sins; if a high-minded moralist like Sir Thomas Browne could write, "I give no alms to satisfy the hunger of my brother, but to fulfill and accomplish the will and command of my God," it may be taken for granted that, in the average of cases, such a view of conduct could not but be degrading to those entertaining it. Out of this view sprang the belief, widespread throughout the middle ages and continuing down to our own day, that a man may clear his conscience of the burden of wrong acts by making his peace with God. Given the point of view, and this conception is strictly logical; since God is the person offended, and his pardon will make all right again. Formerly, people endeavored to compound for the sins of a lifetime by building churches, endowing monasteries, or leaving their ill-gotten wealth to the priests. In our own epoch the old belief lingers on in the orthodox doctrine of penitence and the forgiveness of sin.

Beyond all this, it is of the nature of a theological code of conduct to get the important and unimportant in action sadly