John Marbeck (ca. 1510-ca.1585): God is not the Author or Proper Cause of Sin

Marbeck:

1)

PERMISSION

Of God’s permission or suffering.

We must note, that when either the Scriptures or Fathers, do seem God to be the cause of sin, this word permission is not there so to be added, as though only he suffered men to sin, and by his providence or government, wrought nothing as concerning sins. Indeed, he lets  [prevents] them not, though he can, but uses them, and shows in them his might, and not only his patience, which thing Augustine understood right well; and disputed against Julianus, he confuted that sentence, where it is said, that God suffers sin only according to patience, and proves that his might is also thereunto to be added by the words of Paul, who wrote unto the Romans: “if God by much patience has suffered vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, to show forth his anger, and to make known his might.” And undoubtedly there are many things in Holy Scipture, which cannot always be dissolved by the word of permission or patience. “For the heart of the king is said to be in the hand of the Lord, so that he inclines it, whether soever it pleases him.’” And Job testifies that it was so done as God would. But as touching sin of the first man, when yet nature was not vitiated and corrupted we grant that the cause thereof came from the will of Adam and suggestion of the Devil, and we say that God permitted it, because he might have withstood and let [prevented] it, he would not do it, but decreed to use that sin, to declare his Justice and goodness.

Pet. Mar. upon Judg, fol. 167.

Iohn Marbeck, A Book of Notes and Common Places, collected and gathered out of the works of diuers singular Witers, and brought Alphabetically in order (Imprinted at London by Thomas East, 1581), 808. [Some spelling modernized; square bracket inserts mine.]

John Brown of Haddington (1722-1787) on Divine Permission

Brown:

1)
Q. In what manner doth God hate sin?
A . With boundless hatred, as a thing most abominable to him.

Q. How then is God in scripture said to bid men sin, and to harden them in it?
A. The meaning only is, that he permits, and punishes men by sin, 2 Sam. xvi. 10.

Q. If God hate sin so much, how can he permit it?
A. His permission doth not in the least effect or encourage sin; nor would he have permitted it, but to display his holiness by occasion thereof, especially in punishing it upon Christ, and saving men from it through him.   John Brown, An Essay Towards an Easy, Plain, Practical, and Extensive Explication of the Assembly’s Shorter Catechism (New York: Robert Carter, 1846), 37. [Some Reformatting; some spelling modernized; and underlining mine.]

Q. How is God’s providence exercised about angels
A. In permitting some to sin, and lie therein; establishing the rest in holiness and happiness, and employing them in the administration of his mercy and justice.   John Brown, An Essay Towards an Easy, Plain, Practical, and Extensive Explication of the Assembly’s Shorter Catechism (New York: Robert Carter, 1846), 50. [Some Reformatting; some spelling modernized; and underlining mine.]

2)
Q. How is God’s providence peculiarly exercised about men?
A. In giving or withholding from them the ordinary means of salvation, and enabling them to improve, or suffering them to abuse these means, as he sees meet, Psal. cxlvii. 19, 20. Rom. ix. John Brown, An Essay Towards an Easy, Plain, Practical, and Extensive Explication of the Assembly’s Shorter Catechism (New York: Robert Carter, 1846), 59. [Some Reformatting; some spelling modernized; and underlining mine.]

3)
Q. How is God’s providence exercised about casual or accidental actions, as killing a man with a bow-shot at a venture, &c.?
A. In joining or disjoining the circumstances of these actions otherwise than the actors thereof intended, Exod. xxi. 13, 2 Kings xxii. 34.

Q. How is God’s providence more generally exercised about moral and reasonable actions?
A. In prescribing a law to be the rule of them, end in annexing rewards punishments to them, Exod. xx., Deut. xxviii

Q. How may moral actions be distinguished?
A Into good and evil, Deut. xxviii. 1. 15.

Q, Are no reasonable actions indifferent, that is neither good nor evil?
A. They may be indifferent in their nature; but with respect to their manner and end, they must be either good or evil, 1 Tim. i. 5, 6.

Q How is God’s providence specially exercised about good actions?
A. In stirring up to, directing in, and giving power and opportunity. for them, Phil. ii. 12. 13.

Q. How is God’s providence exercised about sinful actions?
A. In concurring to the substance of the act; and in permitting, bounding, and over-ruling to his own glory the sinfulness of it, Iso. xxxvii. 29.

Q. Doth not this way make God the author of sin?
A. No; when God so hates and punishes sin, he can never in any respect be the author of it, Zeph. iii. 6.

Q. Does God’s exciting or concurring in actions any way cheek the free will of creatures?
A. No.

Q. Whence it then that men raise an outcry against God’s providential concurrence with all, especially sinful actions, as if that and his decree put a farce upon the will of creatures?
A. It arises from their great pride and ignorance, in measuring God by themselves; for, because they could not effect the matter of a sinful action, and not its sinfulness, neither absolutely decree, nor infallibly determine another to an action, without forcing his will, they conclude that God is incapable to do it; forgetting that as the heavens are high above the earth, so are God’s ways above our ways, Isa. Iv. 9.      John Brown, An Essay Towards an Easy, Plain, Practical, and Extensive Explication of the Assembly’s Shorter Catechism (New York: Robert Carter, 1846), 59-60.  [Some Reformatting; some spelling modernized; and underlining mine.]

4)
Q. How doth tho curse of God consume men’s wealth?
A. It deprives them of prudence to keep it, blasts their endeavors to increase it, and permits others unjustly to bereave them of it, Zech. v. 4. Job xx.

Q. How doth the curse of God slay the souls of men by their wealth?
A. By permitting them to improve it as an excitement to, and instrument of spiritual idolatry, carelessness about salvation, pride, uncleanness, &c.    John Brown, An Essay Towards an Easy, Plain, Practical, and Extensive Explication of the Assembly’s Shorter Catechism (New York: Robert Carter, 1846), 258. [Some Reformatting; some spelling modernized; and underlining mine.]

5)
Q What do you mean by temptation?
A. Temptation properly signifies an enticing to sin.

Q. Does God the properly: tempt any man?
A. No; God tempts no man, but only tries them, James i. 13.

Q. What then is meant by God’s leading into temptation?
A. His laying such occasions before men, as their lusts can improve to sinful purposes; withdrawing his grace; and permitting Satan, the world, and the flesh, to seduce them into sin, Joshua vii. 21, Job i. and ii.    John Brown, An Essay Towards an Easy, Plain, Practical, and Extensive Explication of the Assembly’s Shorter Catechism (New York: Robert Carter, 1846), 352.  [Some Reformatting; some spelling modernized; and underlining mine.]

Experience Mayhew (1673-1758) on Divine Permission of Sin

Mayhew:

1) 4. From God’s permitting free Agents thus to act, the Things in this Way brought to pass, will as certainly have a Being as if God decreed to bring them about by a positive Act of his Power. For if he himself does, or decrees to do all that is necessary in order to their Futurition, giving his Creatures all the Power and Aid that is necessary thereunto, administering also the Occasions leading to such Actions or Events, when he knows that his Creatures being put into such a State, and then left to their own free Will, will assuredly act after such a Manner; he does by Consequence will or decree such Actions or Events, as they, not he, are the immediate Efficients and formal Causes of. I say, he that wills to do that on which he certainly knows such an Event will follow, does by Consequence will that Event, tho’ he himself neither does the Thing, nor is properly the Cause of another’s doing it; and tho’ the Agent by whom such an Agent is done, or such an Effect produced, be at perfect Liberty whether he will do so or not. In this Case the Event will assuredly happen, or the Effect be produced, as if the Agent acting had no Liberty; because God has determined to do, and actually does, that which he knows will be an Occasion (not Cause) of that Agent’s so acting.

The certain Futurition of any Events thus necessarily, or rather certainly, consequent on God’s permissive Decree, relating to them, does not at all infer a Want of Power or Liberty in the Agents immediately concerned in them, of not acting as they do. If God decrees to do that, on which he knows such an Event will follow, that is. That his Creature having Power so to act, will of its own Accord do so, the Consequence of this is not, that his Creature has not Power to do otherwise. I think this is as plain as any Thing can be. How should God’s Decree to suffer a free Agent to act after such a Manner, infer that Agent’s not having Power to forbear so acting?      Experience Mayhew, Grace Defended in a Most Plea For an Important Truth; Namely, That the offer of Salvation made to Sinners in the Gospel comprises in it an Offer of the Grace given in Regeneration (Boston: Printed by B. Green, and Company, for D. Henchman, in Cornhil, 1744), 187-189. [Some spelling modernized; underlining mine.] 158-159

2) As God neither will, nor ever designed to torment Men in another Life, save for their Sins, whereby they well deserve the fame; so he never is, nor intended to be, the Cause of those Sins for which he resolved to punish those who he ever knew would deserve it. If God should himself cause Men to commit Sin, it would not stand with his Justice to punish them for it. But no Man can prove, that God was ever the Author of any Sin. To affirm he ever was, is to blaspheme his holy Name. If any have let fall Expressions implying that God is the Author of Sin, they have certainly erred therein: And they who accuse Men with this (as I think, is frequent) when they are not guilty of it,, are guilty of grievously wronging them.

They who affirm. That God has from Eternity decreed to permit those Sins to be committed, which he certainly knew would be committed, if he prevented them not, and that he accordingly does permit them, do not hereby make him the Author of Sin. God’s suffering his Creatures to Sin, when it is in his Power to hinder them, is not to be the Author of Sin. Nor is God in Justice obliged to exert his Power in hindering Persons from sinning, tho’ he knows they will Sin if he does not, and that their Sinning will bring Ruin on them.

Archbishop James Ussher: The Irish Articles on Divine Permission of Sin

Ussher:

OF THE FALL OF MAN, ORIGINAL SIN, AND THE STATE OF MAN BEFORE JUSTIFICATION.

28. God is not the author of sin: howbeit, he doth not only permit, but also by his providence govern and order the same, guiding it in such sort by his infinite wisdom as it turneth to the manifestation of his own glory and to the good of his elect. 

The Second Helvetic Confession on Divine Permission of Sin

Bullinger:

Chapter 8: Of Man’s Fall, Sin and the Cause of Sin

God Is Not the Author of Sin, and How Far He Is Said to Harden. It is expressly written: Thou art not a God who delights in wickedness. Thou hatest all evildoers. Thou destroyest those who speak lies (Psa. 5:4 ff.). And again: When the devil lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44). Moreover, there is enough sinfulness and corruption in us that it is not necessary for God to infuse into us a new or still greater perversity. When, therefore, it is said in Scripture that God hardens, blinds and delivers up to a reprobate mind, it is to be understood that God does it by a just judgment as a just Judge and Avenger. Finally, as often as God in Scripture is said or seems to do something evil, it is not thereby said that man does not do evil, but that God permits it and does not prevent it, according to his just judgment, who could prevent it if he wished, or because he turns man’s evil into good, as he did in the case of Joseph’s brethren, or because he governs sins lest they break out and rage more than is appropriate. St. Augustine writes in his Enchiridion: "What happens contrary to his will occurs, in a wonderful and ineffable way, not apart from his will. For it would not happen if he did not allow it. And yet he does not allow it unwillingly but willingly. But he who is good would not permit evil to be done, unless, being omnipotent, he could bring good out of evil." Thus wrote Augustine.