of such connection, the mediation of forgiveness through the death of
Christ can only appear an arbitrary, irrational, unacceptable idea.
But leaving the Atonement meanwhile out of sight, and looking only at
the situation created by sin, the question inevitably arises, What can
be done with it? Is it possible to remedy or to reverse it? It is an
abnormal and unnatural situation; can it be annulled, and the relations
of God and man put upon an ideal footing? Can God forgive sin and
restore the soul? Can we claim that He shall? And if it is possible
for Him to do so, can we tell how or on what conditions it is possible?

When the human mind is left to itself, there are only two answers which
it can give to these questions. Perhaps they are not specially
characteristic of the modern mind, but the modern mind in various moods
has given passionate expression to both of them. The first says
roundly that forgiveness is impossible. Sin is, and it abides. The
sinner can never escape from the past. His future is mortgaged to it,
and it cannot be redeemed. He can never get back the years which the
locust has eaten. His leprous flesh can never come again like the
flesh of a little child. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also
reap, and reap for ever and ever. It is not eternal punishment which
is incredible; nothing else has credibility. Let there be no illusion
about this: forgiveness is a violation, a reversal, of law, and no such
thing is conceivable in a world in which law reigns.

The answer to this is, that sin and its consequences are here conceived
as though they belonged to a purely physical world, whereas, if the
world were only physical, there could be no such thing as sin. As soon
as we realise that sin belongs to a world in which freedom is real--a
world in which reality means the personal relations subsisting between
man and God, and the experiences realised in these relations--the
question assumes a different aspect. It is not one of logic or of
physical law, but of personality, of character, of freedom. There is
at least a possibility that the sinner's relation to his sin and God's
relation to the sinner should change, and that out of these changed
relations a regenerative power should spring, making the sinner, after
all, a new creature. The question, of course, is not decided in this
sense, but it is not foreclosed.

At the opposite extreme from those who pronounce forgiveness impossible