Did God Forsee Sin?

QUESTION: Did God foresee that some men would sin and, refusing the Savior whom He provided, would be eternally punished?

ANSWER: A few good men, such as Bishop Wm. Taylor and Prof. McCabe, say God foreknows only the foreknowable; that the future moral acts of a free agent are not knowable. This would make prophecy impossible. Theologians almost all of them believe that God foreknew that some men would make themselves forever miserable. He could have avoided the misery by refraining from creating persons and by  being satisfied with a universe of things. This would be a dull universe without a single moral intelligence to commune with. God had from eternity just such a universe. I do not blame Him for preferring a chance with all the risks involved in the creation of free agents.

— Steele's Answers p. 257.

Where is Hell?

QUESTION: Can hell be in the sun?

ANSWER: It can be anywhere there is a free moral agent persistently resisting the pressure of God's infinite and unchanging love till he has lost all capacity to respond thereto. Remorse is hell. Whether hell is a place as well as a state, I know not, and hope I never shall know. From the figurative language of Christ and his apostles nothing more with certainty can be inferred than that they meant to denote great and unending miseries.

— Steele's Answers pp. 247, 248.

From What Do Sins Originate?

QUESTION: From what cause does the act of sin in man originate?

ANSWER: The free will is the first cause of its own moral acts, just as God is the first cause of all created being. A first cause is unthinkable; we cannot mentally construe either the absolute, like a first cause, or the infinite, like a succession of causes running back without end. Man is the creator of his own character and destiny. The most important part of God's universe is left for free agents to create — moral character. When it is completed at the close of each one's probation, whether the character is good or bad, God. cannot arbitrarily interpose to change it. As the free agent has fixed it so it must remain eternally.

— Steele's Answers pp. 212.

Did God Create Evil?

QUESTION: If sin originated in heaven, did not God create it?

ANSWER: Sin is not a substance, but the bad quality of a free act in violation of known law. If a son disobeys a good father to his great grief, is it the father's sin? He could have avoided that sin in only one way, by avoiding fatherhood. God could have avoided the incoming of sin by refraining from creating any free moral agents who are first causes of their own moral acts and hence responsible and punishable.

— Steele's Answers pp. 192, 193.

On Ezekiel 47:11

QUESTION: Explain Ezek. 47:11, "But the miry places thereof and the marshes thereof shall not be healed; they shall be given to salt."

ANSWER:  The stream of water is emblematic of the life-giving power of Christianity which vitalizes all the free agents who accept it represented by fishes, but leaves in a worthless condition those who persist in rejecting it, namely, the Gospel-hardened sinners and the "many" merely nominal Christians who take Christ's name but reject his meek and lowly spirit spoken of as "Ye that work iniquity," in Matt. 7:22, 23. The permanency of their lost estate is indicated by the salt which is an emblem here of perpetual desolation, because nothing can live and grow in salt.

— Steele's Answers p. 174.

Immortality of the Soul

QUESTION: A neighbor denies "the immortality of the soul," saying that there is no such a phrase in the Bible; that after death the wicked will have a chance to repent, and if they do not repent, they will be annihilated. How is this?

ANSWER: The doctrine of the eternal existence of the wicked is found in all those passages which speak of their endless punishment in plain terms, as in Matt. 25:46, or under the imagery of "unquenchable fire" (Matt. 8:12). "Smoke of their torment ascending forever and ever" (Rev. 14:11); "the false prophet tormented day and night forever and ever" (Rev. 20:10); "eternal sin" (Mark 8:29, Revision); "eternal fire" (Matt. 25:41). There is no Scripture in proof that repentance after death is possible. The idea that God will ever annihilate a free moral agent is nowhere found in the Bible. If that is the way to secure a holy universe, God would have annihilated the devil long ago.

— Steele's Answers p. 171, 172.

The Personal Devil

QUESTION: I cannot harmonize the existence of the personal devil with the goodness and omnipotence of God. Can you help me?

ANSWER: Your difficulty arises from several erroneous conceptions: (1) That the moral government of God is an appropriate sphere for the exercise of physical omnipotence. Free agency excludes it, having no more relation to it than the eye has to a symphony and the ear has to a rainbow, and an earthquake has to the shaping of a geometrical demonstration. A free agent is the first cause of his own moral acts. God can prevent the evil choice of a free agent only by uncreating him. (2) The devil is one personality. The scriptures teach that there is a multitude of evil spirits. (3) That the evil one, or the combination of fallen spirits, is omnipotent is a great mistake. (4) That Satan is omnipresent, because temptation to sin is going on everywhere at the same moment. For aught that we know the tempters may outnumber the tempted, a legion (6,000) besieging one soul (Mark 5:1, 15), the name Satan or devil being conceptually applied to the whole number, because our minds in this way more easily and vividly wield the total of bad spirits. Davenport, the ablest theologian of all the New England Fathers, in his catechism thus answers the question, "What is the devil?"

The multitude of apostate angels which, by pride, and blasphemy against God, and malice against man, became liars and murderers, by tempting him to that sin.

Eliminating from your mind these errors there is no more difficulty in believing that evil spirits exist in the spiritual realm than that they exist in the physical realm. It is true that a man may be drawn away by his own lust; but this does not explain the temptations of Christ. He talked with wicked spirits, not with something impersonal.

— Steele's Answers pp. 165, 166.

Does God Permit Sin?

QUESTION: Can it be truthfully said that God permits sin?

ANSWER: No. Sin he abhors as being only evil. The most that can be said is that he does not prevent it. This he could have done by the non-creation of free moral agents. If he had been satisfied with things and non-moral animals and had been content to be the only personality in the universe, there would have been no sin. Having created free agents, who may commune with him and love and obey him. he cannot prevent their evil use of their freedom without uncreating them and turning them into machines. This would be an unwise use of his omnipotence, and defeat his purpose. It is no more a limitation of almightiness than it is to say that an earthquake cannot shake a demonstration of Euclid. The sphere of omnipotence is the kingdom of Nature; but in God's moral government it has no place. Even with an almighty trip hammer God could not turn a sinner into a saint against his will. If you wish to know what he can do for a self-surrendering will read Eph. 1:19. The possibility of sin is necessarily involved in the existence of free agents, each of whom is the cause uncaused, the first cause, of his own acts and the creator of his own moral character and eternal destiny.

— Steele's Answers pp. 160, 161.