Adventism, Theodicy, and the Moral Government of God

“As the year 1900 opened, Ellen White was dividing her time and strength between the evangelistic interest at Maitland [in Australia] and her literary work. With this in mind on January 1, 1900, she wrote to Edson calling for her library to be sent to Australia:” {4BIO 448.1} So records Arthur White In Volume IV of his multi-volume biography of Ellen White. Arthur also includes a section of the letter that she sent to Edson regarding her library. The fragment contains a profound clue and insight as to an important theological connection in the development of the Great Controversy theme and an Adventist understanding of theodicy. This is what she wrote:

I have sent for four or five large volumes of Barnes’ notes on the Bible. I think they are in Battle Creek in my house now sold, somewhere with my books. I hope you will see that my property, if I have any, is cared for and not scattered as common property everywhere. I may never visit America again, and my best books should come to me when it is convenient.—Letter 189, 1900.

This simple, apparently mundane note reveals, once it is understood, a startling and somewhat paradoxical connection between Ellen White and a venerable Protestant heritage relating to a doctrinal framework referred to as the moral government of God. That a leader of the Adventist church would find value in the commentaries of Albert Barnes, a Calvinist/reformed scholar of the Presbyterian church, who had been tried for heresy, is a little startling, as well as paradoxical, given the Methodist background of Ellen White and the free-will, Arminian perspective of the Adventists generally.

But these two Bible students, White and Barnes, were connected by a commitment to the powerful idea and ideal that God runs a moral government. It was within this moral government framework that Ellen White developed and refined her ideas about the Great Controversy theme between Christ and Satan that many Adventist scholars view as the central and organizing motif of her writings. I also believe that it is a key to understanding the heart of theodicy for Adventists.

I will say more about the moral government of God framework later. For now I will simply note that the framework was a conception that God Himself operates in a just and moral manner that towards the beings He has created. Further, this view holds that He can be, or at least will be, seen to be moral and just by people as well as the on-looking universe.

This framework, at least in its modern conception, originated with the Arminian, free will strand of Protestantism. But such was the force of its appeal, that it also manifested itself in certain Calvinistic, reformed circles, especially in America in the late-18th and early 19th centuries. It can be found in the writings and commentaries of a Presbyterian like Albert Barnes, and this would explain why Ellen White referred to them as being among her “best books.”

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But what role did this moral government of God idea play in Ellen White’s conception of the Great Controversy, and how does it relate to Adventist theodicy? I believe that an understanding of the roots and history of this important concept of God’s moral government will give us greater insights into the heritage and richness of the Great Controversy motif, and its importance for Adventist theodicy. In many ways, the concept provides a grounding and orientation point for a number of vital Adventist doctrines including creation, a proper understanding of the atonement, and the justice and character of God. To understand this story, we need to go back to at least its early modern beginnings.

Arminius & the Roots of Free Will Theology

Most Adventists have at least hear of the Jacob Arminius, the great Dutch theologian who in the early 1600s launched a modification of Calvinist theology to allow for human free will, an unlimited atonement, and the possibility of salvation for all who might believe. Arminian theology has become synonymous with a rejection of human pre-destination, limited atonement, and God’s arbitrary sovereignty.

This identification of Arminius with free will theology is in one respect somewhat unfortunate. This identification tends to obscure the fact that other groups and individuals within the Protestant reformation also held to versions of human freedom in salvation, including Lutheran theologian Philip Melanchthon and the entire evangelical Anabaptist movement.

Emphasizing Arminius as the originator of free-will within Protestantism makes it seem as though this emphasis is some how a later, third or fourth generation addition to genuine Protestant thought. This perception is used to imply, or even declare, that it is a corruption of an earlier, purer form of Protestantism. This continues to be the view of many reformed thinkers, even up to the present day.

The truth of the matter is somewhat more complex than an either or story. It seems that both Luther, and especially Calvin, were reacting against a tendency in medieval scholasticism to underplay the severity humanity’s fall into sin and to overplay human ability to both know and do the good and the right. In his debate with Erasmus over the freedom of the will, Luther wanted to emphasize man’s absolute helplessness absent the grace of God.

Erasmus the humanist, along with the humanist renaissance project, wanted to elevate man by educating and civilizing him, allowing his full potential to be reached and unleashed. For Luther, mere educating and civilizing alone, without spiritual regeneration, created merely more sophisticated, clever pagans and savages. This was, in Luther’s view, akin to whitewashing the tombs, that inside were full of dead men’s bones.

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That Luther would de-emphasize the power and importance of human choice and ability in this context is understandable. He was struggling to move the church from a semi-pelagian, and even pelagian position, to one that understood the absolute necessity of God’s grace to allow any real improvement in the human condition. In avoiding the ditch of human righteousness, though, it seems he ran a bit into the opposite ditch of human helplessness and God’s arbitrariness.

Not all first generation reformers held to this position, though. The Anabaptist theologian Balthasar Hubmaier wrote two treatises on the Freedom of the Will, in which he carefully avoided pelagianism, embraced a fully fallen, corrupted human nature, yet still asserted that “whomever denies the freedom of the human will, denies and rejects more than half of the Holy Scriptures.”1

In Hubmaier’s view, fallen, sinful human nature that was, by God’s protection of the human spirit, able to respond to God’s word and Spirit. Further, God’s atonement was for all humanity, and not just the elect, as Calvin held. These views on free will and the general view of the atonement came to generally characterize the views of the evangelical Anabaptists, including those in Austria and the Netherlands, where Mennos Simons articulated similar views.2

Melanchthon also, was a first generation reformer who had some sympathies with an allowance for a greater freedom of the will than did Luther or certainly Calvin. Melanchthon was more willing to allow the puzzle of divine foreknowledge and human freedom to go unsolved, rather than insist that there was no free will. He was especially concerned that human sin and guilt, such as David’s sin with Bathsheba, not be attributed to God. It is likely due to Melanchthon’s influence that Lutheranism took a more moderate path in relation to pre-destination, with a general rejection of notions of double predestination.3

In their defense, though, neither Luther nor Calvin made pre-destination the central concern of their theologies. Luther was quick to say that pre-destination only had to do with the hidden God, and that Christians should focus on the choices and grace that the revealed God promised to all. Likewise, Calvin did not himself advocated what is called “double predestination,” where God creates some men to save them, and creates others with the intention of damning them.

1 Henry Clay Vedder, Balthasar Hubmaier: The Leader of the Anabaptists (New York, NY: G. Putnam’s Sons, the Knickerbocker Press, 1905), 197.2 Cornelius J. Dyck, An Introduction to Mennonite History, 3rd ed. (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1993), 142.3 Timothy Wengert, “We Will Feast Together in Heaven Forever”: The Epistolary Friendship of John Calvin and Philip Melanchthon,” in Melanchthon in Europe: His Work and Influence Beyond Wittenberg, ed. Karin Maag (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), 26-29.Work and Influence Beyond Wittenberg, ed. Kari Maag (

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The second and third generation of Calvinists, led most notably by Theodore Beza, took a peripheral doctrine of Calvin, doubled down on it by adding the pre-creation decree of damnation for the non-elect, and made it a central pillar of reformed belief around which the rest of his theology was constructed. Under this new reformed outlook, authority, power, and absolute sovereignty became the central features of God’s character, and questions about His fairness, justice, and morality were sidelined. But the new, hardline version of Calvinism raised directly concerns that the Anabaptists themselves had raised decades earlier.

In dealing with these questions, it was the Anabaptist in Southern Germany Hans Denck who had written Whether God is the Cause of Evil. In light of Beza’s modifications to predestination and God’s sovereignty, this question became all the more urgent. Jacob Arminius, who began pastoring in Amsterdam in the late 1580s, appears to have been mainly concerned with this question, as well as the practical question of anxiety and assurance in dealing with parishoners who were uncertain of their elect status before God.

We know that Arminius had contact with Mennonite Anabaptists in Holland. His own church commissioned him to publicly debate and refute some Mennonite “heretics,” and Arminius reviewed their works. He never explicitly refused to do so, but he continually delayed the project, unto the consistory realized that he would never do it. While Arminius differed with the Mennonites on baptism and the nature of the church, it seems that his views on the other Anabaptist “heresy,” that of grace, predestination, and free will was sympathetic to theirs. Arminius also had contact, possibly directly, and certainly indirectly with Melanchthon’s views on “conditional predestination.” 4

Was Arminius influenced by the Anabaptists, by Melanchthon, and/or by others in shaping his own views on grace and free will? The extent of such influence is historically contested. What we do know is that he developed an elaborate re-reading of Calvinism that allowed him to affirm almost all the existing reformed creeds on sin and salvation, yet to do so in a way that allowed for genuine human free choice in accepting salvation.

But, importantly for our purposes in examining the roots of theodicy, his reason for doing was not primarily because of a concern for human dignity, or human importance, or human freedom. Rather, his primary concern was that of the early Anabaptists—the sovereignty and glory of God. One of his main goals in reconceiving the relationship of grace, predestination and free will was to preserve God’s reputation from the infamy and slander that He had created, ordained, and authored sin and evil.

4 Carl Bangs, Arminius: A Study in the Dutch Reformation (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1985), 169-171, 193-194.

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As church historian Roger Olsen puts it, “Arminius’s strongest objection was that” unconditional predestination is “’injurious to the glory of God’ because ‘from these premises we deduce, as a further conclusion, that God really sins . . . that God is the only sinner . . . that sin is not sin.’ Arminius never tired of arguing that the strong Calvinist doctrine of predestination cannot help making God the author of sin, and if God is the author of sin, then sin is not truly sin because whatever God authors is good.”5

Both Luther and Calvin had dealt with this conundrum by positing two wills of God, a revealed will, and a hidden, secret will. The revealed will is the God seen through Christ, who loves all, and desires to save humanity. The hidden will, the hidden God—the Deus Absconditus, as Luther termed it—is the hidden, dark, mysterious being whose main and central attribute is power. It is this hidden God that foreordains and elects some to be saved, and some to be damned, and humanity cannot object, because humanity cannot understand or measure the justice and righteousness of God. There is a complete disconnect, or separation between this hidden realm of God, and the human realm of nature. Both Luther and Calvin were what historical theologians call voluntarists; that right and good is, by definition, whatever God does.6

Arminius, on the other hand, was what we would call an anti-voluntarist. He believed that God chose to do good and right, because it was good and right. Not that He was measured by an external standard, but that good and right existed as part of His very nature. In creating nature, and our natures, he imbedded these truths and standards within the stuff of the creation. While fallen, these elements still contain traces and tracks of this divine nature.

Another way of framing this is in terms of what the medieval theologian and philosopher Duns Scotus had called “univocity,” literally, “one voice.” Does God exist, as a being, in our realm of reality with the rest of beings He has created, so there is some connection between the goodness and rightness that is God, and concepts of goodness and rightness that we as humans can understand. Luther and Calvin would understand God as speaking in two voices, one revealed and open that we can comprehend, the other hidden that is completely apart from us, and that we can in no way measure.

Arminius was clear on this point of the being of God. “He is the greatest Being,” he wrote, “and the only great One; for he is able to subdue to his sway even nothing itself, that it may become capable of divine good by the communication of himself.”7 He posited a clear connection between the being of God and those beings that God created. This would allow lesser beings to understand and have actual

5 Roger E. Olson, The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition & Reform (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 467.6 Olsen, The Story of Christian Theology, 387-388 (Luther), 410-411 (Calvin).7 Jacob Arminius, Works of Jacob Arminius, Vol. 1

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knowledge of the essence of the divine Being. “In the first place he is called ‘Being itself,’” he wrote, “because he offers himself to the understanding as an object of knowledge.”

Arminius recognized that the gap between the divine Being and the created being is huge, even “infinite,” and that mere beings can never be raised to “divine equality with God.” But despite this gap and distance, and that “the human mind is finite in nature,” Arminius believed that it is “a partaker of infinity—because it apprehends Infinite Being and the Chief Truth, although it is incapable of comprehending them.”

In other words, Arminius believed that humans were capable of knowing, at least in part (apprehending, though not comprehending) God as He truly is. When Christ revealed God, He showed us true things about the actual, real, sole nature of God, and that there are not further, contrary, hidden natures behind this revealed nature. And of that nature, Arminius was very clear. “Concerning his nature; that it is worthy to received adoration, on account of its justice; that it is qualified to form a right judgment of that worship, on account of its wisdom.” 8

The Remonstrants, Hugo Grotius, and the Moral Government of God

It was in pursuit of this vindication of God’s “worthy” nature that the well known story of the Dutch Remonstrants, supporters of Arminius, unfolded in Holland. The keepers of Calvinist orthodoxy were anxious to squash these “liberal” ideas about God. Shortly after Arminius died in 1609, his followers drafted a “remonstrance” against the official orthodoxy of the state church. The five points of the remonstrance do not directly deal with larger questions of theodicy. They focus on the immediate issues in dispute in relation to predestination, grace, and choice. You may remember them from church history days as conditional election, unlimited atonement, depravity, prevenient grace, continued choice, or opposition to once-saved, always saved.

But these points, while not framed in terms of a theodicy, or defense of God’s dealings with humanity, have obvious implications for this question. Especially the notions of conditional election and unlimited atonement, which convey the view that God has made a way for all to be saved, and the choice is in their hands as to whether to respond to the grace he has given, paint a very different picture of God than the Calvinist view that Christ’s atonement was made only for an arbitrarily chosen elect.

Indeed, one of the Remonstrants, a man by the name of Hugo Grotius, saw these points, and others, that caused him to weave these points about general atonement, prevenient grace, and human freedom into a larger conception of God and his government that came to be known as the moral government of God.

8 Ibid.,

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Grotius is a well-known name in legal circles, being considered the father of international law, the law of war and peace, and Protestant conceptions of natural law. But in his day, he was equally famous for this theological writings. After being convicted and imprisoned by strict Calvinists for heresy in supporting Arminius and his belief’s about freedom of the will and conditional predestination, he escaped by hiding in a trunk that was supposedly carrying his books out of prison. But he did not escape until he had written a defense of Christianity entitled “The Truth of the Christian Religion.” It is considered the first book of modern apologetics, and explains and justifies the Bible and Christianity in comparison to other world religions.

He also wrote another book entitled “Concerning the Satisfaction of Christ,” in which he explored theories of the atonement, in light of his new conceptions regarding God’s moral relationship to human choice. He brought his legal background to bear, constructing what came to be known as the moral government theory of the atonement. Now, sometimes this is confused with the moral influence theory of the atonement, but the two are very separate ideas.

It is best understood in relation to previous views, which he was not so much displacing, as clarifying, refining, and perhaps restating. Anselm had famously argued that Christ must die in our place to satisfy the impaired honor of God. Calvin had modified this somewhat to make the necessity of Christ’s substitute come in response to the offended law and holiness of God. The death of Christ provides satisfaction to the offended holiness, law, or justice of God, as somehow mysteriously, our guilt, sin, and punishment are transferred to Christ.

Grotious did not deny God’s honor, or holiness, or justice or law. He accepted that these had indeed been breached and offended by sin. Rather, he answered the question as to why God could not forgive this breach by merely accepting the genuine sorrow and repentance of the sinner. Humans can extend forgiveness without requiring sacrifice or suffering, why cannot God? This was the question that Faustus Socinius was effectively asking, and to which Grotius responded.

God could not merely freely forgive the sinner, because it was not his role merely as an individual offended Deity that was involved, but his role as Ruler of the universe, a universe that can only function in peace and safety according to certain moral guidelines. This shift of God from offended Being, to offended ruler, means that in enforcing His law, in requiring the payment of a penalty, He is not doing it out of some personal sense of pique, or pride, or impaired glory. Rather, he is acting on behalf of the benefit of all the beings of the universe that depend on the stability, fairness, and morality of His government. In defending His honor, His character, He defends, as Rule of the Universe, the very thing that allows the universe itself to have order, stability, and security.

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Perhaps the most succinct summary of this argument is made by the apostle Paul, when he says that the reason for the cross was that “He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” Rom. 3:26

To forecast where I’m going with this, let me share a summary of this idea as reflected in Ellen White: Satan . . . represents that while the threatenings of God’s word are to serve a certain purpose in His moral government, they are never to be literally fulfilled. But in all His dealings with His creatures God has maintained the principles of righteousness by revealing sin in its true character—by demonstrating that its sure result is misery and death. The unconditional pardon of sin never has been, and never will be. Such pardon would show the abandonment of the principles of righteousness, which are the very foundation of the government of God. It would fill the unfallen universe with consternation. God has faithfully pointed out the results of sin, and if these warnings were not true, how could we be sure that His promises would be fulfilled? That so-called benevolence which would set aside justice is not benevolence but weakness. – {PP 522.2}

The Influence of Grotius in England and Early America

Now, I’m going to move through a much more extended history that I plan to explore in greater detail in some future writing. But it is apparent that Grotius exerted meaningful influence in the theological arena for quite some time. Some of the names connected with Grotius in the English-speaking world need no introduction. These include:

John Milton, when he was on a tour of Europe as a young gentleman in 1638, stayed with Hugo Grotius in Paris for a period. Milton had a strong Calvinist, Puritan background, and yet emerged as a believer in freedom of the will, unlimited atonement, and very definitely the moral government of God. His Paradise Lost, of course, was written with the specific purpose to “Justify the ways of God in the eyes of men.”

Milton’s defense and explanation of God’s ways and judgments is not a Calvinist ideal, which would have emphasized God’s sovereignty. It is, though, a very Arminian, Grotian, moral government of God way of looking at the world. John Locke also was known to possess all the main works of Hugo Grotius, and often referred to him as an authority on both legal and religious matters. His conceptions of limited government, and a state bound by principles of natural law and morality to the individual reflect very much the framework articulated by Grotius.

Grotius’ thought was brought directly to America in two very distinct ways. The first is through Methodism. Another well-known inheritor of Grotius’ teachings was John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. We know that Wesley’s parents, Samuel and Susanna, were supporters of Anglican Arminianism. Samuel’s favorite biblical commentator was Hugo Grotius, and he recommended him to John. The

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writings of Grotius came to be a great theological resource for Wesley and his friends at Oxford University.9

Through Wesley, Methodism came to inherit both Arminius’ views on prevenient grace and freedom of the will, as well as Grotius’s views on the moral government of God. Wesley did not write a systematic theology, but this gap was filled by one of his followers, Richard Watson, whose Theological Institutes appeared in 1823. In that book, the theory of the atonement rests very much on Hugo Grotius, whom he quotes frequently. But there is a new addition to it that Arminius or Grotius never mentioned, but has now become part of the explanation of the basis of the law of God’s government, namely, the Divine character.

Watson writes that “the existence of a Divine Law, obligatory upon man, is not doubted by any who admit the existence and government of God. . . . It is important to keep in view the fact of the extent and severity of the punishment denounced against all transgressions of the law of God, because this is illustrative of the character of God; both with reference to his essential holiness and to his proceedings as Governor of the Universe.”10

This introduction of the character of God, not original with Watson as we

shall see, helps answer one of the trickier conundrums of the anti-voluntarist position. If God’s will and power does not define God, but God only does those things that are good, then is God somehow obligated to a law or morality higher than Himself? Is there something greater than God? The riddle is solved if the laws He is bound by are the actual principles of His own character and nature. This also is a theme that we are familiar with from Ellen White, the law being a transcript of God’s character.

Now, before discussing the second stream of thought that brought Grotius’ ideas to America, just a slight aside to mention the practical difference that the moral government of God theory made in the lives of those who held it. It seems to be no coincidence that those that advocated freedom of human choice and the fact of God’s moral government also began to seek civil freedoms and to expect higher standards of morality from human governments.

Methodists were against slavery from near their beginnings. William Wilberforce, the great British parliamentarian who ended the British slave trade, was raised a Methodist as a young man. Later in life, after his adult conversion, he associated with non-conformist ministers, including Methodists, who opposed slavery. In the middle of his fight against the slave trade, Wilberforce received what

9 See Richard P. Heitzenrater, ed., Diary of an Oxford Methodist: Benjamin Ingham, 1733-34 (Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press, 1985), 10 Richard Watson, Theological Institutes; or a View of the Evidences, Doctrines, Morals, and Institutions of Christianity (New York, NY: J. Emory and B. Waugh, 1831), 254 (emphasis added).

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may have been the last letter that John Wesley ever wrote. In it Wesley wrote: “Unless the divine power has raised you up to be as Athanasius [against the world] in opposing that execrable villainy which is the scandal of religion, of England, and of human nature. Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? O be not weary of well doing! Go on, in the name of God and in the power of his might, till even American slavery (the vilest that ever saw the sun) shall vanish away before it.”11

American Methodists voted in 1784 to expel members who bought and sold slaves. They later yielded to political and economic pressure to accept slavery in the South. But under the reviving influences of the Second Great Awakening, they once again renewed their commitments to oppose slavery. In 1844, the American Methodist church split over the issue of slavery between north and south.

Interestingly, this anti-slavery stance came to be shared by the other branch, or prong of moral government of God influence that came into America. This branch, ironically, developed within reformed churches, and became a renewal movement within American Congregationalism and Presbyterianism. It is this strand that will bring us to an understanding of the Biblical commentator Albert Barnes, and why he was among Ellen White’s favorite authors.

In his historical introduction to an English translation of Grotius’ Satisfaction of Christ, the scholar Frank H. Foster gives a good historical overview of the movement of Grotius moral government of God thought into American Calvinism, most notably what came to be know as the New England theology. He shows that Grotius was read in New England as early as the 1650s, and a copy of his Satisfaction was in the Harvard College Library as early as 1723. Grotius was also widely quoted in writings of the Puritan Richard Baxter, who was widely read in New England.12 It would take a paper on its own to trace the manner in which the New England divines largely rejected arminianism in terms of will and predestination, but were influenced and eventually embraced notions of God’s moral government.13

This combination of predestination and God’s moral government seems on its face to be something of a paradox. It did turn out to be an unstable coalition of thought. But while it lasted, it also seems to have been these 18th century American Calvinists who introduced the importance of God’s character in defining the laws of His universe. Samuel Hopkins was one who saw this connection. An extended

11 John Wesley to William Wilberforce, February 24, 1791,” quoted in Eric Metaxas, Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery (Toronto, ON: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007), 144.12 Frank H. Foster, “Historical Introduction,” in Hugo Grotius, A Defense of the Catholic Faith concerning the Satisfaction of Christ against Faustus Socinus, trans. Frank H. Foster (Andover: Warren F. Draper, 1889), xliv.13 Ibid., xliii-lvi.

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quote of his gives a full statement of the relation of the law of God to His character, and of the importance of the enforcement of that to His justice and stability of the universe. Hopkins wrote that the law of God sets out the:

duty of man and requires of him what is perfectly right, and no more or less. . . . It is, therefore, an eternal, unalterable rule of righteousness which cannot be abrogated or altered in the least iota by an infinitely perfect, unchangeable legislator and governor, consistent with His character, his perfect rectitude and righteousness. . . . Every creature under this law is under infinite obligations to obey it without any deviation from it in the least possible instance, . . . and every instance of rebellion tends to infinite peril - to break up the divine government and bring ruin and misery on all the moral world. . . . If man cannot be redeemed and saved consistent with maintaining this law and showing the highest regard to it, God cannot be true, just, wise, or good in saving man or showing him any favor. But to pardon man and restore him to favor and happiness in this Situation . . . would be joining with the sinner to disregard and dishonor the law, and favor, justify, and encourage rebellion. This would be inconsistent with rectitude, righteousness, wisdom, and goodness . . . and would put an end to all perfect, moral government. It would dethrone the governor of the world, destroying his kingdom, and give full scope to the reign of rebellion, confusion, and misery forever. . . .14

As Foster notes, this conception of Taylor builds on Grotius, and goes beyond him, to emphasize that the government of God rests upon His character. Thus, the need to maintain “the law is made more evidence, and grounded upon a deeper thought than Grotius reached, who neglected to state the relation existing between the government and the character of God.”15 Other significant reformed names that developed the moral government view during this period include Jonathan Edwards, Jr., and Joseph Bellamy.

It is notable that this group of New England theologians who embraced and developed the moral government theology, like their Arminian cousins, were also involved in anti-slavery advocacy. Both Hopkins and Edwards, Jr., wrote major treatises opposing both slavery and the slave trade, whereas the previous generation of Puritans had not said much about slavery. Indeed, Jonathan Edwards senior had owned a slave or two. Still, the tension between a commitment to predestination and God’s moral government was pushing reformed theology to a

14 Ibid., xlviii.15 Ibid., xlix.

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point of crisis, and that moment came in the rise of New Haven theology and New School Presbyterianism in the 1820s and 30s.

The New Haven Theology and New School Presbyterianism: Charles Finney and Albert Barnes and the Matrix of Adventism

The theologian at center of this new movement was Nathaniel Taylor, Professor of theology at Yale University from 1822 to 1858. A biblically conservative and devout Congregationalist, teaching from within the reformed tradition, he followed the moral government of God theory to its logical conclusions. That is, he believed and taught that a truly moral God would provide opportunity for all to be saved.

His listeners attested to both his piety and his passion for the Moral Government of God. As one put it, “The Moral government of God was the great thought of Dr. Taylor’s intellect, and the favorite them of his instructions in theology. It occupied his mind more than any other subject . . . . This object directed all his studies. All his investigations had their starting point from this central theme.” Another former student said, “while lecturing, his voice often trembled, and at times the tears would start, especially when speaking of the moral government of God.”16

For Taylor, it was an understanding of the absolute morality and fairness of God’s government that stood against the claims of high Calvinism that only an elect had an opportunity for salvation. He came to embrace a general view of the atonement, that Christ died for all. For Taylor, this was the good news of God’s moral government. As he put it:

Let . . . the impression be made full, strong, unqualified on every guilty mind, that God in his law, and God in the invitations of his mercy, means exactly what he says. Let the full-orbed sincerity of a redeeming God, like the sun in mid-heaven, be made to pour its melting beams on the dark and guilty mind of the sinner against God. . . . If there is any one thing more than another, which would give new power to New England preaching, I cannot but think, it is to make a fuller impression of the true-hearted sincerity of God in his calls of mercy.17

Tayor regularly taught a class entitled the Moral Government of God, and these were collected and placed into a volume entitled Lectures on the Moral

16 Douglas A. Sweeney, Nathaniel Taylor, New Haven Theology, and the Legacy of Jonathan Edwards (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2003), 91.17 Nathaniel Taylor, “The Peculiar Power of the Gospel on the Human Mind,” 23-24, quoted in, Sweeney, Nathaniel Taylor, 91.

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Government of God. Many lectures that are quite vivifying in the hearing, can lose their power and punch on the printed page, and Taylor’s fall into this category. So most of us have heard of neither him nor his lectures. Yet we have heard of those whom his ideas impacted. These would be men like Charles Finney, the great evangelist of the Second Great Awakening, and of course, Albert Barnes, the great commentator, whose works Ellen White was so anxious to have with her in Australia.

Finney and Barnes were not Congregationalists, rather they were Presbyterians. Yet the latter were similar enough in theology with the Congregationalists to be influenced by their theological tides. It is acknowledged that Taylor contributed more than anyone else to the rise of “New School” Presbyterianism, an outlook that embraced a general atonement, and the free-choice of man in salvation. This new movement also contained among the most ardent anti-slavery activists in the evangelical world. Their “old school” opponents were typically men who wrote in defense of slavery.

Albert Barnes himself, put on trial for heresy because of his embrace of new school principles of unlimited atonement and freedom of the will, wrote two major works against slavery in the period leading up to the civil war. Finney was the evangelist of the moral government movement, but Barnes was the expositor/writer whose commentaries, which forcefully encapsulated the moral government theory, had wide and long lasting popular impact. It is estimated that his Notes on the New Testament, which was on my father’s shelves when I was a boy, sold more than a million copies by 1870.

In his commentary on Romans 3:26, “that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus, “ Barnes sets out clearly the moral government view of the atonement. “This verse contains the substance of the gospel, “ Barnes argues. “It refers to the fact that God had retained the integrity of his character as moral Governor; that he had shown a due regard to his law, and to the penalty of the law, by his plan of salvation. Should he forgive sinners without an atonement, justice would be sacrificed and abandoned. . . . He is, in all this great transaction, a just moral governor, as just to his law, to himself, to his Son, to the universe, when he pardons, as when he sends the incorrigible sinner down to hell.”18

So we come now, full circle, to the request by Ellen White that Barnes’ commentaries should be sent to her in Australia, as they were among her “best” books. There can be little doubt that Ellen White was heir to a moral government of God outlook, both through her Methodist roots, as well as her acquaintance with Barnes’ commentaries. Of course, this is not to deny the fruits of her own Bible study and visions, which reinforced this outlook on the government of God and its foundations of love and morality.

18 Albert Barnes, Barnes Notes on the New Testament, ed. Ingram Cobbin (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1976), 573-574.

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Once one’s eyes are opened to the conception and framework of the moral government of God, one will see it throughout the writings of Ellen White. It was the framework within which she expressed her ideas about the great controversy between Christ and Satan. And it also provided the organizing basis for a number of apparently disparate doctrines.

A couple of quotes will suffice to show her commitment to the basis idea of the centrality of God’s moral government to her system of theology.

“God’s love is represented in our day as being of such a character as would forbid His destroying the sinner. . . . In no kingdom or government is it left to the lawbreakers to say what punishment is to be executed against those who have broken the law. . . . God is a moral governor as well as a Father. He is the Lawgiver. He makes and executes His laws. Law that has no penalty is of no force. – {LDE 241.1}

The plea may be made that a loving Father would not see His children suffering the punishment of God by fire while He had the power to relieve them. But God would, for the good of His subjects and for their safety, punish the transgressor. God does not work on the plan of man. He can do infinite justice that man has no right to do before his fellow man. . . Who will say God will not do what He says He will do?—Manuscript Releases 12:207-209; Manuscript Releases 10:265 (1876). – {LDE 241.3} – LDE 240.5

“It is the sophistry of Satan that the death of Christ brought in grace to take the place of the law. The death of Jesus did not change or annul, or lessen in the slightest degree, the law of ten commandments. That precious grace offered to men through a Saviour’s blood, establishes the law of God. Since the fall of man, God’s moral government and His grace are inseparable. They go hand in hand through all dispensations.” – {AG 144.2}

In the gift of his Son as a substitute and surety for fallen man, is an everlasting testimony to the world, to the heavenly universe, and to worlds unfallen, of the sacred regard which God has for the honor of his law and the eternal stability of his own moral government. It was also an expression of his love and mercy for the fallen human race. In the plan of redemption, this Saviour was to bring glory to God by making manifest his love for the world. – {YI August 5, 1897 Par. 4} – YI August 5, 1897 Par. 4

But so what, you may ask? What difference does it make to our approach to theodicy as Adventist to see this deep historical heritage to the notion of the moral government of God?

Well, Adventist theology needs a focus, a theme. At times it is suggested that that theme is the Great Controversy between Christ and Satan, and the battle over

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his character of love. It suggests that theodicy is at the center of what Adventism is about. This is not a bad theme, indeed, it is a very good theme. But I would suggest that in this day and age, the word “love” has become ambiguous and vague. Ever since the Beatles sang “All You Need is love,” the cultural content of the word love has shifted from being a word of principle, with moral value, to a word based on feeling and emotion and largely devoid of principled elements.

Even in Ellen White’s own day, she warned of spiritism’s corruption of love. “Love is dwelt upon,” she writes, “as the chief attribute of God, but it is degraded to a weak sentimentalism, making little distinction between good and evil. God’s justice, his denunciations of sin, the requirements of His holy law, are all kept out of sight.”19 I think that our handling of this theme has been weakened by the weakening concept of love in our surrounding culture. The passive, nice, kind aspects of love have virtually swamped the sterner virtues.

Now, God’s character of love is being used to argue for acceptance of homosexuality in the church, of avoidance of difficult doctrines like the sanctuary and 1844, the rejection of the substitutionary/forensic model of the atonement, the avoidance of judgment in matters of lifestyle and doctrine, such as a literal, six-day, young life creation.

But if we understand our organizing theme as God’s government of moral love, or loving morality, then we build a greater sense of the importance of authority and righteousness to an adequate conception of love, whether it be man’s love or God’s love. Consider how this concept intersects with central doctrines of Adventism, many of which are under assault for change or significant revision.

Points for theodicy –

Atonement – Once one sees the larger aspect of the moral government of God theory, one cannot accept the notion of mere moral influence. That the death of God was somehow not legally necessary, but still conveys a moral value and attraction. No, the reason it conveys a moral attraction is because it was, indeed, legally necessary.

Without the necessity, it becomes a kind of pointless sentimental suicide, as though I could demonstrate my love to my wife by jumping in front of an oncoming truck. Such an act only becomes an expression of love if I sacrifice myself to save her, if I put myself in front of the truck to push her out of the way. Notice, the moral government model retains a moral influence aspect, both positive and negative. Here is God’s holy reaction to sin, but here is also God’s holy love for the sinner, both shown in the death of his son. At stake here is not just a revision of our

19 Ellen White, The Great Controversy, 558.

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understanding of the atonement, but the whole framework that undergirds the Adventist Great Controversy theme.

Law, Authority, & Sabbath – In the moral government of God framework, suddenly our the importance of our eschatology regarding the Sabbath becomes readily apparent. There are tendencies in various circles to suggest that the role of the Sabbath in end-time events is a kind of conditional aspect of prophecy, that perhaps the Great Controversy scenario was of 19th century relevance, but society and Satan have moved on to other concerns. But as long as the Christian world denies the authority of God in His law, as exemplified by the Sabbath command, the authority of God and his government will always be implicated. Our focus on relational elements of Sabbath cannot be allowed to obscure or do away with question of authority of God in a day. Post-modernism and anti-authority can not be allowed to define our apologetic

Eternal Hellfire – central issue of character of God – issue that conservatives and liberals seem to agree on.

Instantaneous creation versus evolution – God’s character in question in relation to method of creation . . . shows that important point is not literalism, or even necessarily the Sabbath per se. There are many Jews who embrace theistic evolution, yet observe and believe in the Sabbath. To lose creation is not necessarily to lose the Sabbath. Yet questions of atonement and God’s moral government in using death and suffering to create a “good” creation are essentially insurmountable.

Sanctuary, Judgment & Vindication - individuals are judged, but the overall point of the judgment is to justify and vindicate God’s government and Christ’s rulership. Both Daniel and Revelation speak of the judgment in terms of giving Christ authority and rulership over all peoples, languages and nations. For the individual, this becomes a judgment of identification, who are really Christ’s, rather than merit, who deserves to be saved. It is the difference between a faith-based, versus legalistic concept of judgment, and overcoming sin for that matter. It becomes a vindication of God’s ability to make man righteous, versus a judgment on man’s ability to reach a standard of perfection . . .

Ellen White put well the ultimate results of this judgment when she said, in her classic the Great Controversy, “the whole universe will have become witnesses to the nature and results of sin. And its utter extermination, which at the beginning would have brought fear to angels and dishonor to God, will now vindicate His love and establish His honor before the universe of beings who delight to do His will, and in whose heart is His law . . . . The law of God, which Satan has reproached as the yoke of bondage, will be honored as the law of liberty. A tested and proved creation will never again be turned from allegiance to Him whose character has been fully manifested before them as fathomless love and infinite wisdom.” G.C. 504.

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