God and my Neighbour Part 22

But, being tempted of the Devil, Adam sinned: he fell. G.o.d was so angry with Adam for his sin that He condemned him and all his descendants for five thousand years to a h.e.l.l of everlasting fire.

After consigning all the generations of men for five thousand years to horrible torment in h.e.l.l, G.o.d sent His Son, Jesus Christ, down on earth to die, and to go h.e.l.l for three days, as an atonement for the sin of Adam.

After Christ rose from the dead all who believed on Him and were baptised would go to Heaven. All who did not believe on Him, or were not baptised, would go to h.e.l.l, and burn for ever in a lake of fire.

That is what we were taught in our youth; and that is what millions of Christians believe to-day. That is the old religion of the Fall, of "Inherited Sin," of "Universal d.a.m.nation," and of atonement by the blood of Christ.

There is a new religion now, which shuts out Adam and Eve, and the serpent, and the h.e.l.l of fire, but retains the "Fall," the "Sin against G.o.d," and the "Atonement by Christ."

But in the new Atonement, as I understand, or try to understand it, Christ is said to be G.o.d Himself, come down to win back to Himself Man, who had estranged himself from G.o.d, or else G.o.d (as Christ) died to save Man, not from h.e.l.l, but from Sin.

All these theories, old and new, seem to me impossible.

I will deal first, in a short way, with the new theories of the Atonement.

If Christ died to save Man from sin, how is it that nineteen centuries after His death the world is full of sin?

If G.o.d (the All-powerful G.o.d, who loves us better than an earthly father loves his children) wished to forgive us the sin Adam committed ages before we were born, why did He not forgive us without dying, or causing His Son to die, on a cross?

If Christ is essential to a good life on earth, how is it that many who believe in Him lead bad lives, while many of the best men and women of this and former ages either never heard of Christ or did not follow Him?

As to the theory that Christ (or G.o.d) died to win back Man to Himself, it does not harmonise with the facts.

Man never did estrange himself from G.o.d. All history shows that Man has persistently and anxiously sought for G.o.d, and has served Him, according to his light, with a blind devotion even to death and crime.

Finally, Man never did, and never could, sin against G.o.d. For Man is what G.o.d made him; could only act as G.o.d enabled him, or constructed him to act, and therefore was not responsible for his act, and could not sin against G.o.d.

If G.o.d is responsible for Man's existence, G.o.d is responsible for Man's act. Therefore Man cannot sin against G.o.d.

But I shall deal more fully with the subject of Free Will, and of the need for Christ as our Saviour, in another part of this book.

Let us now turn to the old idea of the Fall and the Atonement.

First, as to Adam and the Fall and inherited sin. Evolution, historical research, and scientific criticism have disposed of Adam. Adam was a myth. Hardly any educated Christians now regard him as an historic person.

But--no Adam, no Fall; no Fall, no Atonement; no Atonement, no Saviour.

Accepting Evolution, how can we believe in a Fall? _When_ did Man fall?

Was it before he ceased to be a monkey, or after? Was it when he was a tree man, or later? Was it in the Stone Age, or the Bronze Age, or in the Age of Iron?

There never _was_ any "Fall." Evolution proves a long slow _rise_.

And if there never was a Fall, why should there be any Atonement?

Christians accepting the theory of evolution have to believe that G.o.d allowed the sun to form out of the nebula, and the earth to form from the sun, that He allowed Man to develop slowly from the speck of protoplasm in the sea. That at some period of Man's gradual evolution from the brute, G.o.d found Man guilty of some sin, and cursed him. That some thousands of years later G.o.d sent His only Son down upon the earth to save Man from h.e.l.l.

But evolution shows Man to be, even now, an imperfect creature, an unfinished work, a building still undergoing alterations, an animal still evolving.

Whereas the doctrines of "the Fall" and the Atonement a.s.sume that he was from the first a finished creature, and responsible to G.o.d for his actions.

This old doctrine of the Fall, and the Curse, and the Atonement is against reason as well as against science.

The universe is boundless. We know it to contain millions of suns, and suppose it to contain millions of millions of suns. Our sun is but a speck in the universe. Our earth is but a speck in the solar system.

Are we to believe that the G.o.d who created all this boundless universe got so angry with the children of the apes that He condemned them all to h.e.l.l for two score centuries, and then could only appease His rage by sending His own Son to be nailed upon a cross? Do you believe that? Can you believe it?

No. As I said before, if the theory of evolution be true, there was nothing to atone for, and n.o.body to atone. _Man has never sinned against G.o.d._ In fact, the whole of this old Christian doctrine is a ma.s.s of error. There was no creation. There was no Fall. There was no Atonement.

There was no Adam, and no Eve, and no Eden, and no Devil, and no h.e.l.l.

If G.o.d is all-powerful, He had power to make Man by nature incapable of sin. But if, having the power to make Man incapable of sin, G.o.d made Man so weak as to "fall," then it was G.o.d who sinned against Man, and not Man against G.o.d.

For if I had power to train a son of mine to righteousness, and I trained him to wickedness, should I not sin against my son?

Or if a man had power to create a child of virtue and intellect, but chose rather to create a child who was by nature a criminal or an idiot, would not that man sin against his child?

And do you believe that "our Father in Heaven, our All-powerful G.o.d, who is Love," would first create man fallible, and then punish him for falling?

And if He did so create and so punish man, could you call that just or merciful?

And if G.o.d is our "maker," who but He is responsible for our make-up?

And if He alone is responsible, how can Man have sinned against G.o.d?

I maintain that besides being unhistorical and unreasonable, the old doctrine of the Atonement is unjust and immoral.

The doctrine of the Atonement is not just nor moral, because it implies that man should not be punished or rewarded according to his own merit or demerit, but according to the merit of another.

Is it just, or is it moral, to make the good suffer for the bad?

Is it just or moral to forgive one man his sin because another is sinless? Such a doctrine--the doctrine of Salvation for Christ's sake, and after a life of crime--holds out inducements to sin.

Repentance is only good because it is the precursor of reform. But no repentance can merit pardon, nor atone for wrong. If, having done wrong, I repent, and afterwards do right, that is good. But to be sorry and not to reform is not good.

If I do wrong, my repentance will not cancel that wrong. An act performed is performed for ever.

If I cut a man's hand off, I may repent, and he may pardon me. But neither my remorse nor his forgiveness will make the hand grow again.

And if the hand could grow again, the wrong I did would still have been done.

That is a stern morality, but it is moral. Your doctrine of pardon "for Christ's sake" is not moral. G.o.d acts unjustly when He pardons for Christ's sake. Christ acts unjustly when He asks that pardon be granted for his sake. If one man injures another, the prerogative of pardon should belong to the injured man. It is for him who suffers to forgive.

If your son injure your daughter, the pardon must come from her. It would not be just for you to say: "He has wronged you, and has made no atonement, but I forgive him." Nor would it be just for you to forgive him because another son of yours was willing to be punished in his stead. Nor would it be just for that other son to come forward, and say to you, and not to his injured sister, "Father, forgive him for my sake."

He who wrongs a fellow-creature wrongs himself as well, and wrongs both for all eternity. Let this awful thought keep us just. It is more moral and more corrective than any trust in the vicarious atonement of a Saviour.

Christ's Atonement, or any other person's atonement, cannot _justly_ be accepted. For the fact that Christ is willing to suffer for another man's sin only counts to the merit of Christ, and does not in any way diminish the offence of the sinner. If I am bad, does it make my offence the less that another man is so much better?

If a just man had two servants, and one of them did wrong, and if the other offered to endure a flogging in expiation of his fault, what would the just man do?

To flog John for the fault of James would be to punish John for being better than James. To forgive James because John had been unjustly flogged would be to a.s.sert that because John was good, and because the master had acted unjustly, James the guilty deserved to be forgiven.