For if the justice of God resembles
what we mean by justice, the bestowal of infinite happiness for finite
well-doing and infinite misery for finite ill-doing, it is in no sense
just. And, if the justice of God does not resemble what we mean by
justice, it is an abuse of language to employ the name of justice for
the attribute described by it. But, as against those who choose to argue
that there is nothing in what is known to us of the attributes of the
Deity inconsistent with a future state of rewards and punishments,
Hume's pleadings have no force. Bishop Butler's argument that, inasmuch
as the visitation of our acts by rewards and punishments takes place in
this life, rewards and punishments must be consistent with the
attributes of the Deity, and therefore may go on as long as the mind
endures, is unanswerable. Whatever exists is, by the hypothesis,
existent by the will of God; and, therefore, the pains and pleasures
which exist now may go on existing for all eternity, either increasing,
diminishing, or being endlessly varied in their intensity, as they are
now.
It is remarkable that Hume does not refer to the sentimental arguments
for the immortality of the soul which are so much in vogue at the
present day; and which are based upon our desire for a longer conscious
existence than that which nature appears to have allotted to us. Perhaps
he did not think them worth notice. For indeed it is not a little
strange, that our strong desire that a certain occurrence should happen
should be put forward as evidence that it will happen.
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