220 ORIGINAL SIN 



divine connivance. The only road to a solution of the 

 problem lies through a larger knowledge of the nature 

 and possibihties of infinite power than we possess.^ 



But when we are told that man's present incapacity 

 to avoid sinning is not only a natural incapacity, which 

 is to be explained by the evolutionary method of his 

 creation, but represents the condition under which 

 God arranged man's original moral probation,^ the 

 mystery of evil becomes something more than a mystery. 

 It becomes what we can only regard as undeniably an 

 act of injustice on the part of God. To hold men 

 responsible for the impossible cannot be made to appear 

 righteous to an enlightened conscience, and yet that 

 same conscience bears constant witness that God does 

 hold us responsible for every sin. 



The reply that the culpability of sinners varies in 

 degree with their moral development, and that we 

 ought not to measure the guilt of our undeveloped first 



1 The problem of evil is more fully considered in the author's 

 Being and Attributes of God, ch. vii, § 5. 



2 Dr. Tennant acknowledges that his account of sin "sees in it 

 something empirically inevitable for every man": Origin of Sin, p. 

 113; and says elsewhere "that the impulses of our nature are in full 

 sway before the moral consciousness begins to dawn: " op. cit., pp. 

 96, 97; also that "the iron chains of habit have already begun to 

 be forged before the expulsive power of new affection and reverence 

 can be felt": op. cit., p. 109. Yet he maintains that this "internal 

 conflict between . . . natural desire and moral end is . . . the 

 expression of God^s purpose " (italics mine): op cit., pp. 118, 119. We 

 agree with him when he says that animal propensities "belong to 

 man as God made him": op. cit., p. 95. Our point is that, if the 

 resulting inevitableness of sin was left unremedied by grace, God 

 became the cause of sin — an impossible conclusion. 



