ianity inherited from Jesus and the
greater Hebrew prophets. Here, if anywhere, religion is in a position
to solve the problem of evil. There are passages in the New Testament
which breathe the same faith as that held by Deutero-Isaiah, a sort of
sublime religious optimism or will to believe. For the Hebrew prophet
of the exile, God is the creator and righteous ruler of the earth. "I
am the Lord and there is none else. I form the light and create
darkness; I make peace and _create evil_; I am the Lord that doeth all
these things." Such is monotheism of the creationalistic type in all
its vigor and challenging fervor. Yet the prophet speaks and thinks in
terms of world-movements and the fate of nations, and his thoughts
scarcely drop from this vast setting to consider the fates of
individuals. We should note further the absence of the poly-demonism
{159} of later Judaism and the evident impatience with the ancient
myths and the belief in a Satan or Spirit of Evil. Had Christianity
taken its departure from this high altitude, it would have been more
truly monotheistic, but it would not have been the child of its age,
and would not have been assimilated by the Mediterranean peoples. Let
us examine the implications of this bolder and simpler faith.

There can be little doubt that the position adopted by the second
Isaiah is the logical terminus of monotheism. If God be omnipotent, he
must be responsible for all the evil in the world as well as for the
good. In other words, this must be the best of all possible worlds.
He who is a king, and not a marionette, cannot beg off from the duties
of his station. To introduce Sin as a sort of hellish entity, as did
Saint Augustine, is to mar our conception of deity. We no longer have
that old Roman's courtier-like sycophancy, nor his nonchalance when
others are condemned by divine caprice to the eternal flames. What was
to him a means of manifesting God's greater glory is to us a crime
which would sully our ideal of goodness. The educated world of to-day
has at least come up to the level of the peasant-poet's indictment of
the Calvinism of two centuries ago.

Christianity is on the horns of a terrible dilemma. It has long
wavered between the bold attitude of Isaiah, softened by such devices
as apologetic ingenuity could invent, and the mythological dualism
current at the time of its birth. God must be totally responsible for
all physical evils, at least; or else he