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The Law of God vs. the Law of Nature

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Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Mar 15, 1877

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 3, No. 12.

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The Law of God, vs. the Law of Nature.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

A short time since, I was conversing with a deistical physician upon the law of God. He acknowledged that it was all good, even perfect, except the expression in the second commandment, “I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.”
“There,” said he, “that is unjust and cruel, to punish the children for the sins of the parents. I don’t believe that God would ever do that. Hence, I don’t believe the Bible is from him.”
Said I, “Doctor, you believe that there is a God.”
“Yes.”
“You believe that he created all things?”
“Yes.”
“You believe that he made the laws which govern our physical nature?”
“Yes.”
“Being a physician, you tell me that men frequently bring upon themselves disease, as scrofula, consumption, etc., by their bad or wicked habits?”
“Yes.”
“You also tell me that the children inherit these diseases from their parents, and that this is a law of their nature?”
“Yes.”
“Did your God make this law?”
“Well, yes, I suppose that he did.”
“Is not this law the same as the one in the second commandment to which you object?”
“Why—yes, I don’t know but it is. The principle seems to be the same.”
Finding that his charge of cruelty stood as good against the God of nature as against the God of the Bible, he said no more upon this point. D. M. Canright.