them. If theism is to stand, a place and
a meaning must be found for the evil in the world, and found in such a
way that it either relieves God of the responsibility for its existence
or its being can be shown to harmonise with his assumed character. It is
no longer possible to fall back on Paul's position that the potter is at
liberty to doom one pot to honour and the other to dishonour. The moral
responsibility for the kind of pots he turns out cannot be so easily
evaded. As Professor Sorley says, "If ethical theism is to stand, the
evil in the world cannot be referred to God in the same way as the good
is referred to him." Somehow, he must be relieved of the responsibility
for its existence, or a purpose for it must be found.

Now, curiously enough, modern theists hover between the two positions.
Professor Sorley, representing one position, says that the only way to
avoid referring evil to God is by "the postulate of human freedom."
("Moral Values and the Idea of God," p. 469.) This is also the way out
adopted by Canon Green in "The Problem of Evil," and it turns upon a
mere play on words. Thus, Canon Green says that there is one thing God
could not do. "He could not force him to be good, i.e., to choose virtue
freely, for the idea of forcing a free being to choose involves a
contradiction." And Professor Sorley says more elaborately that "things
occur in the universe which are not due to God's will, although they
must have happened with his permission ... a higher range of power and
perfection is shown in the creation of free beings than in the creation
of beings whose every thought and action are pre-determined by their
Creator," and while he admits there is limitations to man's power of
choice, he holds that there is one form of choice that is always there,
and that is the choice of good and evil. ("Moral Values and the Idea of
God," pp. 469-70.)

In all this one can see little more than verbal confusion. To commence
with Canon Green, which will also cover much that Prof. Sorley says on
the same point. When we are told man must choose virtue freely in order
that what he does shall partake of the character of morality, it is
plain that he is using the word "forced" in two senses. In the one sense
force may mean no more than a determinant. Thus we may say that our
sympathies _force_ us to act in such and such a way. Or the religious
man may say that the love of God forces him to act in such and such a
manner. Force