The Theodicy of Bondage of the Will in Novel Form

Why aren't I still a Presbyterian? Three reasons, or rather three books, each of which I picked up used or damaged, at a discount. The relevance of two would be obvious: Luther's Three Treatises and the Small Catechism, in the 1943 version with the glorious woodcuts. The third is perhaps a bit more obscure: a copy of the Library of America edition of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novels: Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Minister's Wooing, and Old Town Folks. Mrs. Stowe has fallen on hard times lately. So much of modern Christendom is trying to forget the sentimental Victorian era and move back to the earthy Reformers and/or the hieratic Fathers. Mrs. Stowe has exactly the wrong demographic to appeal to confessional Christians today: a Yankee, a reformer, and a believer in progress (although exactly of what sort is something often misunderstood).

Now there is much that can be said against Mrs. Stowe's works. Her sentimentality is sometimes different from ours, and hence (unlike ours) occasionally looks ridiculous to us. She recycles characters -- although somehow, I personally can't hold it against her, since the characters remain wonderfully alive and the same even under different names: It was perhaps simply excessive timidity that made her rename The Minister's Wooing's Aaron Burr as Oldtown Folks's Ellery Davenport -- had she simply kept the name the same, it would have been a bravura performance of art over creeping empiricism.

But more importantly, she was the magus of my secret knowledge, the one that made the cross the center, not the sovereign God. I had never (and still have never) actually met anyone who has read her New England novels (The Minister's Wooing, Oldtown Folks, and Poganuc People). But they had long propelled out of the whole problematique of five-point Calvinism, not by the unconvincing expedient of disproving it, but by the living experience of what it meant in life.

Let me explain.

Mrs. Stowe grew under Jonathan Edward's revivalist restatement of Calvinist theology. One must have a conscious conversion experience, or else one will not be saved. Yet God has determined sovereignly who will and who will not have such an experience. The sign of a true conversion experience is precisely that it led one to exults in God's purely sovereign decision to save and damn who He pleases, entirely apart from any reference to one's own self's fate. Her novels were animated by aim of transcending this upbringing: transcending it, by showing her love for her Puritan heritage, and her conviction that it was in many points a dreadful mistake.

She never read much, if anything, of Luther. In the end she, like many others leaving revivalist low-church Protestantism, followed the fata morgana of Episcopalianism, which disguised, rather than cured the symptoms. Obsessional confessionals will have great glee in pointing out her incorrect division of Law and Gospel.

But she knew, she'd been to the mountaintop -- the mountaintop that is the valley of the shadow of death. She'd been baptized in the waters of suffering, the suffering that no one in the Lutheran Witness, For the Life of the World, or the Lutheran blogosphere wants to talk about: to lose a loved one and not know where he was going. And in that knowledge she learned from Scripture not to turn to God's sovereign decrees, nor yet to employ the clever lawyers of theology to bedazzle the jury with free will, and free agency, and predestination not being double, and God wanting a free response, all to acquit God and say, "Hey, I'm sorry you feel bad, but according to cosmic liability law God's just not responsible."

Instead she turned to Jesus on the cross, and to God the Father's suffering in giving up His Son for us.

I haven't cited much from Mrs. Stowe's novels here (here's one), I guess because somehow it has enough meaning to me that it would only want to share her with those who also know what she knew. This particular post has been in the works for about a half year. But it is, I believe, a rather fitting topic for Holy Saturday.

I would ask you first to please read this citation from Jonathan Edwards's, which begins, From my childhood up, my mind had been full of objections against the doctrine of God's sovereignty, in choosing whom he would to eternal life; and rejecting whom he pleased; leaving them eternally to perish, and be everlastingly tormented in hell. It used to appear like a horrible doctrine to me...

Please read the whole thing here and the comment from Valerie that follows. Jonathan Edwards was the mentor of Dr. Samuel Hopkins, a New England preacher and theologian who drew out and spread the implications of Edwards' doctrine for the spiritual life of his parishioners, demanding that they learn to love God especially and primarily for his sovereign decrees of reprobation and election.

Mrs. Stowe saw those advancing triumphantly like Valerie. And she saw that the knowledge of God in those who had been through this Puritan crisis was much realer than those who settled for "Arminianism" (which was really in colonial New England a way of saying moralism and justification through the law). But she also saw those under "religious gloom" -- a recognized category in old New England of those who heard every Sunday about God's sovereign decrees, but never could come to say they love them and Him for them.

In Minister's Wooing, Mrs. Marvyn has received news that her son James, long considered a young "heathen" in the community, has died in a shipwreck. James's all but fiancee Mary has heard the news too and comes to comfort Mrs. Marvyn whom she has heard is taking the news very badly:

When Mrs. Marvyn had drawn Mary with her into her room, she seemed like a person almost in frenzy. She shut and bolted the door, drew her to the foot of the bed, and, throwing her arms round her, rested her hot and throbbing forehead on her shoulder. She pressed her thin hand over her eyes, and then, suddenly drawing back, looked her in the face as one resolved to speak something long suppressed. Her soft brown eyes had a flash of despairing wildness in them, like that of a hunted animal turning in its death struggle on its pursuer.

"Mary," she said, "I can't help it -- don't mind what I say, but I must speak or die! Mary, I cannot, will not be resigned! -- it is all hard, unjust, cruel! -- to all eternity I will say so! To me there is no goodness, no justice, no mercy in anything! Life seems to me the most tremendous doom that can be inflicted on a helpless being! What had we done, that it should be sent upon us? Why were we made to love so, to hope so -- our hearts so full of feeling, and all the laws of Nature marching over us -- never stopping for our agony? Why we can suffer so in this life that we had better never have been born!

"But, Mary, think what a moment life is! think of those awful ages of eternity! and then think of all God's power and knowledge used on the lost to make them suffer! think that all but the merest fragment of mankind have gone into this -- are in it now! The number of the elect is so small we can scarce count them for anything! Think what noble minds, what warm, generous hearts, what splendid natures are wrecked and thrown away by thousands and tens of thousands! How we love each other! how our hearts weave into each other! how more than glad we should be to die for each other! -- And all this ends -- O God, how must it end? -- Mary, it isn't my sorrow only! What right have I to mourn? Is my son any better than any other mother's son? Thousands of thousands, whose mothers loved them as I love mine, are gone there! -- Oh, my wedding day! Why did they rejoice? Brides should wear mourning -- the bells should toll for every wedding; every family is built over this awful pit of despair, and only one in a thousand escape!"

Pale, aghast, horror-stricken, Mary stood dumb, as one who in the dark and storm sees by the sudden glare of lightning a chasm yawning under foot. It was amazement and dimness of anguish -- the dreadful words struck on the very center where her soul rested. She felt as if the point of a wedge were being driven between her life and her life's life -- between her and her God. She clasped her hands instinctively on her bosom, as if to hold there some cherished image, and said, in a piercing voice of supplication, "My God! my God! oh, where art Thou?"

Mrs. Marvyn walked up and down the room with a vivid spot of red in each cheek, and a baleful fire in her eyes, talking in rapid soliloquy, scarcely regarding her listener, absorbed in her own enkindled thoughts.

"Dr. Hopkins says that this is all best -- better than it would have been in any other possible way -- that God chose it because it was for a greater final good -- that He not only chose it, but took means to make it certain -- that He ordains every sin, and does all that is necessary to make it certain -- that He creates the vessels of wrath and fits them for destruction, and that He has an infinite knowledge by which He can do it without violating their free agency. So much the worse! What a use of infinite knowledge! What if men should do so? What if a father should take means to make it certain that his poor little child should be an abandoned wretch, without violating his free agency? So much the worse, I say! -- They say that He does this so that He may show to all eternity, by their example, the evil nature of sin, and its consequences! This is all that the greater part of the human race have been used for yet; and it is all right, because an overplus of infinite happiness is yet to be wrought out by it! -- It is not right! No possible amount of good to ever so many can make it right to deprave ever so few -- happiness and misery cannot be measured so! I never can think it right -- never! -- Yet they say our salvation depends on our loving God -- loving Him better than ourselves -- loving Him better than our dearest friends. It is impossible! -- it is contrary to the laws of my nature! I can never love God! I can never praise Him! -- I am lost! lost! lost! And what is worse, I cannot redeem my friends! Oh, I could suffer forever --how willingly! -- If I could save him! -- But oh, eternity, eternity! Frightful, unspeakable woe! No end! -- no bottom! -- no shore! -- no hope! -- O God! O God!"

Mrs. Marvyn's eyes grew wilder -- she walked the floor, wringing her hands -- and her words, mingled with shrieks and moans, became whirling and confused, as when in autumn a storm drives the leaves in dizzy mazes.

Mary was alarmed -- the ecstacy of despair was just verging on insanity. She rushed out and called Mr. Marvyn.

"Oh! come in! do! quick! -- I'm afraid her mind is going!" she said.

"It is what I feared," he said, rising from where he sat reading his great Bible, with an air of heartbroken dejection. "Since she heard this news, she has not slept nor shed a tear. The Lord hath covered us with a cloud in the day of His fierce anger."

He came into the room, and tried to take his wife into his arms. She pushed him violently back, her eyes glistening with a fierce light. "Leave me alone!" she said -- "I am a lost spirit!"

These words were uttered in a shriek that went through Mary's heart like an arrow.

At this moment, Candace, who had been anxiously listening at the door for an hour past, suddenly burst into the room.

"Lor' bress ye, Squire Marvyn, we won't hab her goin' on dis yer way," she said. "Do talk gospel to her, can't ye? -- ef you can't, I will."

"Come, ye poor little lamb," she said, walking straight up to Mrs. Marvyn, "come to ole Candace!" -- and with that she gathered the pale form to her bosom, and sat down and began to rock her, as if she had been a babe. "Honey, darlin', ye a'n't right -- dar's a drefful mistkate somewhar," she said. "Why, de Lord a'n't like what ye tink -- He loves ye, honey! Why jes' feel how I loves ye -- poor ole black Candace -- an' I a'n't better'n Him as made me! Who was it wore de crown o' thorns, lamb? -- who was it sweat great drops o' blood? -- who was it said, 'Father, forgive dem'? Say, honey! -- wasn't it de Lord dat made ye? -- Dar, dar, now ye'r' cryin'! -- cry away, and ease yer poor little heart! He died for Mass'r Jim -- loved him and died for him -- jes' give up his sweet precious body and soul for him on de cross! Laws, jes' leave him in Jesus's hands! Why, honey, dar's de very print o' de nails in His hands now!"

The flood gates were rent; and healing sobs and tears shook the frail form, as a faded lily shakes under the soft rains of summer. All in the room wept together. (The Minister's Wooing, chapter 23).

. . .

After the first interview with Mrs. Marvyn, the subject which had so agitated them was not renewed. She had risen at last from her sick-bed, as thin and shadowy as a faded moon after sunrise. Candace often shook her head mournfully, as her eyes followed her about her daily tasks. Once only, with Mary, she alluded to the conversation which had passed between them; -- it was one day when they were together, spinning, in the north upper room that looked out upon the sea. It was a glorious day. A ship was coming in under full sail, with white gleaming wings. Mrs. Marvyn watched it a few moments -- the gay creature, so full of exultant life -- and then smothered down an inward groan, and Mary thought she heard her saying, "Thy will be done!"

"Mary," she said, gently, "I hope you will forget all I said to you that dreadful day. It had to be said, or I should have died. Mary, I beging to think that it is not best to stretch out our minds with reasonings where we are so limited, where we can know so little. I am quite sure there must be dreadful mistakes somewhere.

"It seems to me irreverent and shocking that a child should oppose a father, or a creature its Creator. I never should have done it, only that, where direct questionings are presented to the judgment, one cannot help judging. If one is required to praise a being as just and good, one must judge of his actions by some standard of right -- and we have no standard but such as our Creator has placed in us. I have been told it was my duty to attend to these subjects, and I have tried to -- and the result has been that the facts presented seem wholly irreconcilable with any notions of justice or mercy that I am able to form. If these be the facts, I can only say that my nature is made entirely opposed to them. If I followed the standard of right they present, and acted according to my small mortal powers on the same principles, I should be a very bad person. Any father, who should make such use of power his children as they say the Deity does with regard to us, would be looked upon as a monster by our very imperfect moral sense. Yet I cannot say that the facts are not so. When I heard the Doctor's sermons on 'Sin a Necessary Means of the Greatest Good,' I could not extricate myself from the reasoning.

"I have thought, in desperate moments, of giving up the Bible itself. But what do I gain? Do I not see the same difficulty in Nature? I see everywhere a Being whose main ends seem to be beneficent, but whose good purposes are worked out at terrible expense of suffering, and apparently by the total sacrifice of myriads of sensitive creatures. I see unflinching order, general good-will, but no sympathy, no mercy. Storms, earthquakes, volcanoes, sickness, death, go on without regarding us. Everywhere I see the most hopeless, unrelieved suffering -- and for aught I see, it may be eternal. Immortality is a dreadful chance, and I would rather never have been -- The Doctor's dreadful system is, I confess, much like the laws of Nature -- about what one might reason out from them.

"There is but one thing remaining, and that is, as Candace said, the cross of Christ. If God so loved us, -- if He died for us -- greater love hath no man than this. It seems to me that love is shown here in the two highest forms possible to our comprehension. We see a Being who gives himself for us -- and more than that, harder than that, a Being who consents to the suffering of a dearer than self. Mary, I feel that I must love more, to give up one of my children to suffer, than to consent to suffer myself. There is a world of comfort to me in the words, 'He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?' These words speak to my heart. I can interpret them by my own nature, and I rest on them. If there is a fathomless mystery of sin and sorrow, there is a deeper mystery of God's love. So, Mary, I try Candace's way -- I look at Christ -- I pray to Him. If he that hath seen Him hath seen the Father, it is enough. I rest there -- I wait. What I know not now I shall now hereafter."

Mary kept all things and pondered them in her heart. She could speak to no one -- not to her mother, nor to her spiritual guide; for had she not passed to a region beyond theirs? As well might those on the hither side of mortality instruct the soul gone beyond the veil as souls outside a great affliction guide those who are struggling in it. That is a mighty baptism, and only Christ can go down with us into those waters (The Minister's Wooing, chapter 24).

"More than that, harder than that, a Being who consents to the suffering of a dearer than self" -- In the old creeds, patripassianism is a heresy. True, God the Father did not die on the cross. But if it took sentimental, romantic, pietistic Christianity to bring to our attention to just this form of "patri-passianism," that is, "the Father-suffering-ism," then glory be to romanticism and pietism. When one separates the revealed miracle of Christ's universal atonement from the natural religious truth of predestination as Luther (see here and here) and Stowe did, it is the great risk that Christ becomes, as in Gnosticism, something apart from and opposed to His Father. But when the Father's suffering on Good Friday is remembered, we know that however it may seem, this terrible juggernaut of nature rolling over creation is not the Father's will either.

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all.