THE MORAL ASPECT OF AN "ACT OF GOD."
THE great earthquake at Lisbon was followed, it is said. by a wave of atheism, directly attributable to the shock that religious impulses received as a result of the appa- rently meaningless desolation arising from that disaster.— Pliny, too, noticed this same spasm of rebellion as an instant effect of the overwhelming of Pompeii.—Without inquiring too closely into cause and effect in that particular case, it may be admitted generally that a vast catastrophe beyond, or seemingly beyond, the power of human pre- vention awakens in many earnest minds serious misgivings as to the beneficence of things, and tends to shatter con- ventional faith. The appalling events that have taken place in the West Indies, involving a total loss of life approaching perhaps fifty thousand persons under conditions of agony and despair from which the heart turns in sickness, are events that hold the attention of the most callous, and turn the mind of the thinker to the foundations of his belief. To one class of minds the whole matter is dismissable in a phrase : if there be a God, He cannot be a good God to allow such things. In other words, to use a familiar logical summary of this aspect of thought, God is either not all-powerful or not wholly moral, as we understand power and morality. If He is wholly moral, then His power must be imperfect, since a moral Being would not allow, could He help it, the agonising and meaningless slaughter of the innocent; on the other hand, if He is all-powerful, it is clear that He allowed this thing to happen, and is therefore not wholly moral. It will be interesting briefly to consider this position, for if true it would appear either to justify the denial of the existence of God, or else to throw us back to the theological position of the early races that believed the Supreme Being to be a G-ocl not of love but of power, requiring propitiatory sacrifice.
The definition of terms is the first step in any argument. We are really discussing the moral aspect of an act of God. What, then, is an act of God? The rain which fertilises the earth and the wind which enables the ship to navigate the ocean," said Sir Alexander Cockburn, in a well-known case, "are as much within the term act of God' as the rainfall which causes a river to burst its banks and carry destruction over a whole district, or the cyclone that drives a ship against a rock or sends it to the bottom." He then proceeds to deal with the personal responsibility of a person who is subject to the unexpected force. " If by his default in omitting to take the necessary care loss or damage ensues, he remains responsible, though the so-called act of God may have been the immediate cause of the mischief. If the ship is unseaworthy, and hence perishes from the storm which it otherwise would have weathered; if the carrier by undue deviation or delay ex- poses himself to the danger which he otherwise would have avoided; or if by his rashness he unnecessarily encounters it, as by putting to sea in a raging storm, the loss cannot be said to be due to the act of God alone, and the carrier cannot have if he uses all the known the benefit of the exception
means to which prudent and experienced carriers ordinarily ,have recourse, he does all that can be reasonably required of him ; and if, under such circumstances, he is overpowered by storm or other natural agency, he is within the rule which gives immunity from the effects of such vie major as the act of God."
We have quoted Sir Alexander Cockburn's words at length, as they seem to have a very special bearing on this question of the morality of an act of God apparently maleficent in character. The consideration of instances shows that a disaster arising from a pure act of God is extraordinarily rare, and that as the standard of prudence rises, as the store- houses of experience expand, as the knowledge of the laws of Nature increases, even these rare instances tend to disappear. Many accidents that formerly would have been attributed to the act of God would now rightly be referred to gross personal negligence. Surely, therefore, we may have faith enough in science at least to believe that the day will come when men will no longer be afflicted by the dread of sudden and irresistible acts of Nature that cannot be foreseen, or, if foreseen cannot be prevented or forestalled. Is it, for instance,
too much to suppose, had there been in the town of St. Pierre a high standard of prudence, a large accumulation of experi- ence, and an adequate (and quite attainable) knowledge of the laws of Nature in their application to volcanic conditions, that this outburst could have been prophesied with certitude months ago, and the entire population removed to some safe place for temporary refuge ?
If this is true, the "so-called act of God" takes on a new aspect. By means of such acts, through dread of such acts, the human race is compelled to develop to the utmost its highest intellectual and its deepest moral functions. We can imagine without irreverence the Creator saying to the created : "I have given you inherent power to control and use all the forces of Nature; if you do not choose to develop that power these forces will slay you." It will scarcely be denied that it is in the contest with Nature that the highest intellectual faculties of man have been developed. It is less obvious, though equally true, that it is in that same conflict that the deepest moral faculties have been also evolved. For Nature has a way of creating new and subtle problems that require for solution not merely intellectual, but also extraordinary moral qualities. The laws of supply and demand, for instance, have created great cities and industrial districts which have in their rapid growth developed appalling social problems, such as overcrowding and chronic pauperism. These new problems involve the year-long misery, suffering, and degradation of vast multitudes, and not merely—for one may use such a word in such a comparison—the one great awful pang of an instantaneous " act of God." Such social problems are acts of God as truly as the volcanic upheavals in the West Indies, and indeed have more than once been accompanied by social volcanic horrors more fearful than those which we mourn to-day. To solve such problems, such acts of God, needs the highest human intelligence, the noblest human sympathy, love, and self-sacrifice.
If the superheat manifestations of human nature are involved in the attainment of empire over the forces that are exhibited in the working of natural laws, then it would appear to be the mere negation of reason to say that because terrible pain and loss and vicarious suffering are involved in the con- flict there can be no God, or that if there be one He is either not all-powerful or not wholly moral. It is not necessary to solve the mystery and apparent cruelty of vicarious suffering in order to justify the ways of God with man. It is by results that man is able to justify to himself the sufferings of this present world. He is appalled and horrified that the flowing fire of Mount Pelee should have fallen upon the just and upon the unjust; that innocent babes and saintly men and women should have been overwhelmed in the company of the sinners of the fated city. But with reflection the judgment modifies. We do not know, though knowing human nature we may surmise, what acts of sublime heroism, what deeds of noble repentance, may have taken place in those dreadful minutes of destruction ; but we do know that a disaster of this kind will set science to work to devise warnings and safeguards that will render life among volcanic ranges safer; and we do know that already the thrill of sympathy through the world is awakening self-sacrifice, and is drawing together in joint effort for the sufferers alien races long embittered by clashing ambitions and the sound of war. Thus, even applying the slight test of near results, we see, in this extreme case, that the passion for humanity need not hopelessly descend to the denial of God. If this is so, we may surely affirm the moral aspect of every act of God. In a word, we have no more cause to deny the existence of God because of a great and violent catastrophe than we have when a swollen stream drowns a home-going labourer on a dark night. The difference is not in kind but only in degree. Nor, again, if we can trust God's purpose in the smaller mutations of life, is there any sufficient reason to doubt it in the shock of earthquake? If we are to turn materialists, we must find a better reason than that conveyed when death is simultaneous, sudden, painful, terrific; and multitudinous.
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