Note 46 — SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAYS.

So much, then, for the case of physical evil; but Dr. Flint also treats of the case of moral evil. Let us see what this well-equipped writer can make of this old problem in the present year of grace. He says—"But it will be objected, could not God have made moral creatures who would be certain always to choose what is right, always to acquiesce in His holy will?... Well, far be it from me to deny that God could have originated a sinless moral system.... But if questioned as to why He has not done better, I feel no shame in confessing my ignorance. It seems to me that when you have resolved the problem of the origin of moral evil into the question, Why has God not originated a moral universe in which the lowest moral being would be as excellent as the archangels are? you have at once shown it to be speculatively incapable of solution [italics mine], and practically without importance[!]. The question is one which would obviously give rise to another, Why has God not created only moral beings as much superior to the archangels as they are superior to the lowest Australian aborigines? But no complete answer can be given to a question which may be followed by a series of similar questions to which there is no end. We have, besides, neither the facts nor the faculties to answer such questions."[46]