to either endless bliss or eternal pain.

This idea differs from materialism in the matter of a governing
intelligence and on immortality but it is remarkably like it in other
ways. Like materialism it is fatalistic because it makes man the
helpless subject of resistless power. It merely puts an intelligent
force as first cause where the materialist postulates blind force.

The materialist says that all human characteristics are the gift of
nature while according to the popular belief they are the gifts of God.
In either case one class of human beings gets abilities that they have
not earned and others get defects that they do not deserve. The
intellectual man is favored without reason and the fool is handicapped
without mercy. Some come into the world with salvation assured by being
well born while others are foredoomed to failure. Predestination goes
logically with such ideas.

Happily the world has long been growing away from the once wide-spread
belief in predestination because it is too shocking to the modern sense
of justice. But is the world at the same time catching the point that if
there is but one life on earth and the soul is created at birth, then
the very essence of predestination remains, because some are created
with the wisdom to attain salvation and others are created without it?

If the soul has no pre-existence it can have no responsibility at the
time of birth. Neither can it have any merit. One is born with a sound
mind and moral insight. These qualities may lead to salvation but the
man has done nothing to earn them. Another is born with cruel and
vicious tendencies and poor intellect. He may therefore miss salvation,
but if he had no pre-existence he can have done nothing to deserve such
a start in life. If we are really here for the first time then justice
can be done only by giving us equal equipment at the start and equal
opportunities afterward.

Think for a moment of the sweeping difference between human beings at
birth. There is every degree of vice and virtue from the savage to the
saint and every mental variation from the fool to the philosopher. If
God really creates the soul at birth, then one is created wise and kind
though he did nothing to earn it. Another is created vicious and
depraved. He did nothing to deserve it. One is showered with natural
gifts to which he is not justly entitled. Another is blighted with a
stupidity he did nothing to incur; and we are asked to believe tha