his correspondence between the political organization
and the theological picture betrays the sociological side of theology.
All of man's ideas are human ideas, and so his idea of his God and the
very personality and moral outlook of that God reflect the social
standards which are in force around the individual. If human justice
is cruel, God's justice is strict and unyielding. What could be more
natural than this parallelism? But as punitive justice yields to ideas
of mercy and sympathy, a change comes over man's conception of this
heavenly replica of his own sentiments and institutions. Irrational
punishment with its brutal terrors gives way to thoughts of
lovingkindness.

But it is this very evolution of human morality which brings out the
problem of evil in all its distinctness. Yahweh could command whole
tribes to be slaughtered, and no one felt the least religious
discomfort. But the man of to-day, when he allows himself to think,
revolts against such heartlessness. God must be at least as merciful
as man--and man would not do these things. Yet our experience tells us
that pain and disaster are everywhere rampant in the world. How is it
that an omnipotent and noble God permits these {162} things to be? The
line of reasoning which leads to the demand for a theodicy is simple
and direct. God is a moral agent who has this peculiarity, that he can
do what he wills and is therefore responsible for all that happens.
But tragic things happen. Why did he permit them?

The various formulations of God's relation to the world turn about this
problem. The inherent possibilities are few in number and are soon
grasped and developed. If God is a limited deity, then evil can be
assigned to something else. If God is unlimited, then whatever is, is
somehow right. Let us glance at typical developments of these two main
lines of approach.

Mr. H. G. Wells has recently startled the general public by his
advocacy of a struggling deity. It is not in accordance with Christian
tradition, he admits, but it is truer to the facts as we know them.
But he might well have told the public that this view of his was not a
new one. Long before the Christian era, the Zoroastrian Persians held
just such a theory of a struggling deity combating the evil
machinations of Ahriman. The faithful were exhorted to do all in their
power to assist Ahura Mazda in his stern fight with darkness and
contamination. This dualistic view found i