172 MAN'S PRIMITIVE STATE 



was to produce a helpless sinner — held responsible 

 for being incapable of fulfilling what had become the 

 primary law of his being, can hardly have been left to 

 work out its immoral logic by Him who is the source 

 of all justice and goodness.^ 



1 See J. Orr, God's Image, pp. 187 et seq. Dr. Tennant says, 

 Origin of Sin, p. 122, "that responsibility for the possibility of moral 

 evil and for the opportunities for its realization lies with God: that 

 responsibility for the actuality of moral evil lies with man." On 

 p. 127 he adds, "In asserting the real independence of the human 

 will we remove the responsibility for actual evil from God." He 

 does not correctly state the problem, and the proof that he does not 

 is to be found in his own Preface to the 2d ed., p. xxii, b and c. He 

 there says, "6. . . . There has been a period in the history of both 

 race and individual [he would probably be willing to add, "in the 

 history of man's evolution from brute-ancestors." The purely evo- 

 lutionary view of the origin of sin, at least, so postulates], in which 

 even volitional conduct has been innocent, however far such conduct 

 differs from that later prescribed by moral sanctions and the con- 

 science. So far, sin has not emerged at all. c. A period is reached 

 during which moral sentiment is gradually evoked and moral sanc- 

 tions are gradually constructed. Acts knowing no law now begin to 

 be regarded as wrong. The performance of them henceforth con- 

 stitutes sin." 



This means that when man emerged into consciousness of moral 

 responsibility he had already become habituated to modes of action 

 which now became sinful for him. Apart from the supernatural 

 assistance hypothecated in the catholic doctrine of man's primitive 

 state, under such a handicap sin was more than possible. It was 

 inevitable. His adoption of the evolutionary view of the origin of 

 sin requires, therefore, that he should consider God to be responsible 

 for the inevitablejiess of human sin. 



On page 142 of the same work he urges an argument of Dr. Bruce 

 (Providential Order pp. 165-167), saying, "divine holiness has been 

 no barrier to intimate relations between God and man throughout 

 our sinful history; why then should we postulate either sinlessness 

 or moral completeness to begin with?" 



