Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/223

between the incorruptibility of God and the perpetual corruption of man there is an invincible repugnance, and an absolute contradiction, and man must therefore remain forever separated from God.

Nor can it be said in reply that man may be redeemed, because the logical consequence of this system is precisely the impossibility of the redemption of mankind. There can be no redemption for unhappiness, unless we conceive it as a penalty attached to sin. If we suppress the sin, we also suppress the penalty; and by the suppression of the sin and the penalty unhappiness becomes irremediable.

According to this system, free will in man becomes altogether inexplicable. For if man is born, lives, and dies separated from God through an invincible necessity, what does free will in man mean, and what is it?

If there can be no transmission of sin, and of punishment, then there can exist no reason for the dogma of redemption and of human liberty, and with these all the other dogmas are also subverted. Because if man is not free, then he has not dominion over the earth; and if he has no right to exercise this sovereignty, the earth is not united to God through man; and if it is not united to God through man, it is not united to Him in any manner whatever. If man, in place of being separated from God in one form in order to return to Him in another, is absolutely separated from Him so that neither the goodness, the justice, nor the mercy of God can reach him, then all the harmonies of creation disappear, every tie is broken, disorder universally prevails, and all things are in a chaotic state. God ceases to be the Catholic, the living God. God is on high in his majesty. His creatures, in their abjection, grovel below, and neither