and such a thought is
a caricature of God. Such a view of hell practically involves the
necessity of the personal devil that has always been associated with
it; and this is also both unreasonable and unthinkable. If such a
being exists he is either co-eternal with God--which is
unreasonable--or God created him--which is unthinkable. The idea that
there is in this universe two co-eternal antagonistic spirits in
eternal warfare with each other challenges human credulity. If the
Bible story of creation and the fall of man is true, as interpreted by
orthodox Christianity, the devil got the best of God right from the
start, and has held it ever since; and according to the current
doctrines of the plan and means of salvation, will hold it eternally.
This leads us inevitably to one of two conclusions: God is neither
Infinite, Omniscient, nor Omnipotent, else He would not have permitted
such a condition to come about, and permit Himself to be thus defeated
in his plans and purposes, and lose eternally ninety percent of the
highest product of his own creation, Man, whom He made in his own image
and likeness. If we still insist that God is Infinite, Omniscient, and
therefore knew in advance all that ever would take place, including the
fall of Adam and its consequences, Omnipotent, and therefore able to
prevent it, but did not, it only makes the matter worse.

But to take the other horn of the dilemma, that God _created_ the devil
first an angel in heaven, who afterwards led a rebellion in heaven and
had to be cast out, and that hell was then created as a place in which
to put him, but where it proved afterwards that he could not be kept,
but got out and robbed God of the noblest product of his creative
genius at the very threshold of creation, corrupting the very fountain
of human life itself, whereby he became the ultimate possessor of
nine-tenths of all the race forever, is only to make the matter still
worse than before. He certainly was not Omniscient, and therefore able
to foreknow what this newly created angel would ultimately do, else He
would not have made him; nor was He Omnipotent, else He would have
prevented it. But if it still be insisted--and unfortunately it is by
far the greater part of Christianity--that God is, nevertheless and
notwithstanding, Infinite, Omniscient and Omnipotent, and either
deliberately planned or supinely sat by and permitted these things to
take place, _then He is not_ a God of goodn