p. 4 | Man on Probation by L. A. Phippeny

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Mar 25, 1908

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 34, No. 13.

Man on Probation

By L. A. Phippeny

Right of Choice; Life and Death.

PROBATION is a proving, a testing. By extension, the word includes specific time for the proving or testing. Was man placed on probation at his creation? If so, for what reason, and for how long?

The idea of proving or testing implies an alternative. The question is, What will be the outcome, this or that? We test a line—Is it straight or crooked? We use a plummet—Is the house true or awry? We prove a piece of machinery—Will it perform properly the functions for which it was designed and made? or, Will it fail in some particular? The judgment is passed on accomplishment or failure. As to the question concerning man, we are aided by two facts—the record which indicates a test, and the judgment of condemnation under which man now rests. There was, then, a test. He was placed on probation.

In this test, did man have the right and power to choose for himself? This also we may quickly determine from certain facts and considerations. In the case of the test for the house and the piece of machinery, the responsibility for failure would rest largely upon the builder of the house or the maker or designer of the machine. We could not attribute responsibility to the machine that failed. The man failed. Where did condemnation rest, upon the man or upon his Maker? If upon his Maker, then the man should receive no condemnation, no punishment, and the question of his right and power to choose for himself in the matter in which he failed is forever settled in the negative. If the condemnation rested upon man, then the question as to his right and power to choose for himself rests upon the eternal character of his Maker. God is holy, just, and good. With this foundation, there can be only one answer to the last question—man did have the right and the power to choose for himself, inasmuch as condemnation rested upon him. Stating the proposition inversely: just punishment implies responsibility; just responsibility implies power; just power implies right. All of which may be another way of saying that man at his creation was a creature endowed with intelligence, reason, judgment—requisites of free-will choice.

Over what, then, was the choosing?—It was over a course of conduct that involved the retaining of a happy, righteous existence and a beautiful home forever. But could he make an intelligent choice, was there not some excuse for choosing wrongly, seeing he lacked experience? The power of intelligent choice implies an intelligent understanding of whatever propositions are under consideration, and what is involved in them. Attributing eternal justice to his Maker, it follows that man was furnished a knowledge of certain essentials of intelligent decision as to his future. It is true that he lacked experience. But a compensation for this lack was provided for in his mental and moral equipment by an inherent attribute often held in small esteem in these days. This was the attribute of faith in the word of his Creator. The man knew life, and joy, and happiness, and good; he did not know evil and its consequences. But he was made acquainted with all he could possibly know of evil without experiencing it. He had God's word for it, and his attitude toward the subject was thenceforth a matter of belief or unbelief.

The mere statement of the term "belief and unbelief" supposes choice. Hence it is but a step to the broad and firm proposition that the endowment of intelligence capable of exercising belief or unbelief carries with it the right and power of choice, free-will, free moral agency, in all time, all eternity, all places of the Creator's just dominion. And where experience is lacking, faith supplies the lack. This is true in the affairs of our secular life in the more common aspects of faith in our fellow men—true in all applications of the principle, tho not always satisfactory in results. It is strange that any one will observe and practise the principle of belief and choice in the a b c's of

every-day secular affairs, and deny it in the alphabet of spiritual affairs.

There are some things concerning which hearsay knowledge is better than experimental knowledge. How much better it would have been for Adam had he believed what God told him about life and death! How much better it would have been for Lucifer if he had believed the same thing! We know something about it by experience. God grant that we shall not pass into the full experience! There is only one needful knowledge, and that is the knowledge of God and of life. A knowledge of Him will then embrace His all-wisdom, applied whenever necessary to our lack of experience to make that experience perfect. This perfect wisdom was furnished to man in his beginnings. His only problem was to use great sufficiency and be satisfied with it in continuance, with the fulness of all good things bestowed upon him. The progression and outworking of this problem was to have been a continuing expression of belief and loyalty.

It has been said that man had no character at his creation, and that he was on probation respecting the development of character. In the sense that character is the resultant of life's experiences, it might be said that he had no character, for he certainly had no experiences of his own behind him; but he had a perfect endowment in the divine impress on character mold. His tendencies and impulses were divinely inspired, and in this sense he possessed the elements of a Godlike character. Every experience thenceforward in the pathway of righteousness would have proved this character, strengthened its tendencies and impulses in the man, and confirmed their intrinsic merit. The longer such experience, the greater the confirmation of character. Such a character as this has for its fruits eternal life. This was the object of man's creation, the glorious present and future of his contemplation. And truly it rested with him to maintain and confirm such an existence.

True, a specific test was instituted, with a definite prohibition. But it should be clearly understood that the institution of a concrete test was not an arbitrary arrangement. Some have supposed it was such, and have endeavored to belittle the record of man's beginnings by reason of this narrative. A moment's candid thought and review will reveal its essential purposes and inherent relations. The principle of choice implies at least two possible ways, two paths, two courses of conduct. In the divine economy these ways are defined as opposites in such terms as good and evil, righteousness and sin, life and death. The divine arrangement is perfect, and furnishes only the positive. God Himself is the great Positive. His provision embraced only positives for both the spiritual and physical natures of His creatures. All was good, "very good," there was no concrete negative. But the power of recognizing the possibility of negatives of positive states or qualities inheres in the rational mind, altho the individual may not have known the negative experimentally. The element of reason leads to these conclusions.

Hence the selection of some object, as the fruit of a certain tree, as an object to be avoided, was merely to illustrate concretely all negative principles. Thus was supplied a public, outward, physical opportunity for man to exercise his inherent right and power of free-will, to express his appreciation of the good things provided for him, and witness his faith in the all-wisdom of his Creator. There are some who object to a public test of loyalty to God. This is an objection raised by the sinful mind. God's ways are frank, open ways, and the elements of righteousness ever find outward expression. There is nothing hidden, nothing behind the scenes, no mask, no hypocrisy. A concrete test for unfallen beings is a concomitance of free moral agency. It is as essential as the door to the house. If one wishes to pursue this subject of the concrete test further, there may be discerned in the object selected a peculiar appropriateness, perfectly according with the fundamental principles involved.

How Long?

How long was this proving, this testing, to endure? From the principles considered, and from certain statements of the word concerning the future, there are two phases to the answer to this question: First, just so long as free moral agency is a characteristic of any intelligence, just so long will there exist the opportunity for public expression of one's choice—his faith in God. And by implication, at least, we may say there will continue the concrete object selected as an illustration of negatives. Loyalty, now and forever, is the fruit of faith, and it will be maintained only by eternal fixedness of purpose.

The second phase of the answer relates to a glorious era, or age, of peculiar powers of body and mind that awaited the family of Adam after a certain period of faithful and righteous existence. That age, with its marvelous possibilities, was to have been ushered in when the earth was fully peopled. And we are justified in believing that the time that was to have elapsed for the accomplishment of that peopling, synchronizes with the time now elapsing for accomplishing the same end under adverse conditions. A similar age now awaits the children of God—an age likewise of peculiar physical and mental powers and glories, surpassing in some particulars the age that might have been. Space forbids our referring further to these particulars. See 1 Cor. 15: 51, 52; Phil. 3: 20, 21; 1 John 3: 2; Luke 20: 27-36, etc.

Endowed with Godlike powers of intelligence, reason, and judgment, with divine wisdom for his counselor, there opened before man a vista of eternal life, happiness, sufficiency, contentment. Would he keep it? That was the question. A similar inclusive possibility, a fact soon to be realized, yet remains, to-day. Will you have a part in it? It is yours to choose.