The Contemporary Review, January 1883

53

When Mr. Mill says ("Three Essays on Religion," p. 224), "The argument that a miracle may be the fulfilment of a law in the same sense in which the ordinary events of Nature are fulfilments of laws, seems to indicate an imperfect conception of what is meant by a law and what constitutes a miracle," all he really means is that this argument involves a conception of law and of miracle different from his own, which is undoubtedly true. Upon this subject I remark as follows: There is a necessary will (spontaneum non liberum) and a free will(liberum non spontaneum); and these are in God on the scale of infinite perfection, as they are in man finitely. With Mr. Mill, as I have observed in a previous note, Law is taken to signify "invariable, necessary sequence;" and its test is, that given the same circumstances, the same thing will occur. But it is essential to Free Will (whether in God or man) that given the same circumstances, the same thing need not, may not, and perhaps will not, occur. However, an act may be free in causa which hic et nunc must happen; the Free Will having done that by choice which brings as a necessary consequence something else. For there are many things which would involve contradiction and so be impossible, did not certain consequences follow them. This premised, it is clear that the antithesis of Mr. Mill's "Law" is Free Will. Law and antecedent necessity to Mr. Mill are one and the same. But Law in Catholic terminology means the Will of God decreeing freely or not freely, according to the subject-matter; and is not opposed to Free-Will. It guides, it need not coerce or necessitate, though it may. Neither in one sense, is Law synonymous with Reason, for that is according to Reason, simply, which does not involve a contradiction, whether it be done freely or of necessity; and many things are possible, or non-contradictives, that Law does not prescribe. Nor again does Free-Will mean lawless in the sense of irrational; or causeless, in the sense of having no motive: "contra legem," "præter legem" is not "contra rationem," "prater rationem." The Divine Will, then, may be free, yet act according to Law, namely, its own freely-determined Law. And it may act "not according to Law," and yet act according to Reason. In this sense, then, theologians identify the Divine Will with the Divine Reason—I mean, they insist that God's Will is always according to Reason—in this sense, but, as I think, not in any other. For the Divine Will is antecedently free as regards all things which are not God; but the Divine Intellect is not free in the same way. St. Augustine always tends to view things in the concrete, not distinguishing their "rationes formales," or distinguishing them vaguely. And Ratio with him does not mean Reason merely, but living Reason or the Reasoning Being, the Soul. When St. Thomas Aquinas speaks of Lex Æterna he means the Necessary Law of Morality, concerning which God is not free, because in decreeing it, He is but decreeing that there is no Righteousness except by imitation of Him.

The root of all these difficulties and of all the confusion in speech which they have brought forth is this: the mystery of Free-Will in God, the Unchangeable and Eternal, The great truth taught in the words of the Vatican Council, "Deus, liberrimo consilio condidit universa," must ever be borne in mind. Undoubtedly, there are no afterthoughts in God. But neither is there a past in which He decreed once for all what was to be and what was not to be. He is the Eternal Now. But still all events are the fulfilment of His Will, and contribute to the working out of the scheme which He has traced for creation. Feeble is human speech to deal with such high matters, serving, at the best, but dimly to adumbrate ineffable truths. As Goethe somewhere says, "Words are good, but not the best: the best cannot be expressed in words. My point, however, is that there is, on the one hand, a connection of events with events all through creation and an intelligible sequence, while, on the other, the Free-Will of man is a determining force as regards his own spiritual actions, as is the Free-Will of God in respect of the whole creation, and that miracles are neither afterthoughts, nor irregularities, nor contradictions, but at once free and according to law. Miracles are not abnormal, unless Free-Will is a reduction of Kosmos to Chaos, and the negation of Reason altogether."

54

I say "the doctrine of the Divine goodness," because that is, as I think, what the author of "Natural Religion" means. As to the "simple, absolute benevolence"—"benevolence," indeed, is a milk-and-water expression; "God is love"—which "some men seem to think the only character of the Author of Nature," it is enough to refer to Bishop Butler's striking chapter on "The Moral Government of God," (Analogy, Part I. c. iii). I will here merely observe that although, doubtless, God's attribute is Love of the creation, He is not only Love, but Sanctity, Justice, Creative Power, Force, Providence; and whereas, considered as a Unit He is infinite, He is not infinite—I speak under correction—viewed in those aspects, abstractions, or attributes which, separately taken, are necessary for our subjective view of Him. I allow that God's power and His "benevolence" may in some cases work out different ends, as if separate entities, but still maintain—what the author of "Natural Religion" ignores—that God in His very essence is not only "Benevolence," but Sanctity, &c. also; all as One in His Oneness.

55

"Three Essays on Religion," p. 38.

56

"The Land of Gilead," p. 295.

57

Phœnicia, the Greek [Greek: phoinikê], has been by some derived from [Greek: phoinix], a palm tree.

58

Vice-Consul Jago, writing from Damascus, March, 1880, says:—"With regard to the property near the Damascus Lakes, it is on the edge of the Desert where no authority exists, and therefore exposed to Bedawîn raids." He summarizes the agricultural products of the neighbourhood of Damascus as:—"Wheat, barley, maize (white and yellow), beans, peas, lentils, kerané, gelbané, bakié, belbé, fessa, boraké (the last seven being green crops for cattle food), aniseed, sésamé, tobacco, shuma, olive, and liquorice root. The fruits are grapes, hazel, walnut, almond, pistachio, currant, mulberry, fig, apricot, peach, apple, pear, quince, plum, lemon, citron, melon, berries of various kinds, and a few oranges. The vegetables are cabbage, potatoes, artichokes, tomatoes, beans, wild truffles, cauliflower, egg-plant, celery, cress, mallow, beetroot, cucumber, radish, spinach, lettuce, onions, leeks, &c."—Report, dated Damascus, March 14, 1881. To these might be added numerous other products, such as bitumen, soda, salt, hemp, cotton, madder-root, wool, &c.

59

"The Land of Gilead," p. 19.

60

"Tent Work in Palestine," p. 355.

61

"Tent Work in Palestine," p. 361.

62

Ibid. p. 372.

63

"The Land of Gilead," p. 330.

64

Beyrout, July 11, 1876.

65

"The Land of Gilead," p. 131.

66

"Tent Work in Palestine," p. 361.

67

"The Land of Gilead," p. 146.

68

Ibid. p. 103.

69

"Land of Gilead," p. 21.

70

Ibid. p. 23.

71

"The Land of Gilead," p. 255.