Adam and Eve, and the
serpent, and the hell of fire, but retains the "Fall," the "Sin against
God," and the "Atonement by Christ."

But in the new Atonement, as I understand, or try to understand it,
Christ is said to be God Himself, come down to win back to Himself Man,
who had estranged himself from God, or else God (as Christ) died to save
Man, not from Hell, but from Sin.

All these theories, old and new, seem to me impossible.

I will deal first, in a short way, with the new theories of the
Atonement.

If Christ died to save Man from sin, how is it that nineteen centuries
after His death the world is full of sin?

If God (the All-powerful God, who loves us better than an earthly father
loves his children) wished to forgive us the sin Adam committed ages
before we were born, why did He not forgive us without dying, or causing
His Son to die, on a cross?

If Christ is essential to a good life on earth, how is it that many who
believe in Him lead bad lives, while many of the best men and women of
this and former ages either never heard of Christ or did not follow Him?

As to the theory that Christ (or God) died to win back Man to Himself,
it does not harmonise with the facts.

Man never did estrange himself from God. All history shows that Man has
persistently and anxiously sought for God, and has served Him, according
to his light, with a blind devotion even to death and crime.

Finally, Man never did, and never could, sin against God. For Man is
what God made him; could only act as God enabled him, or constructed him
to act, and therefore was not responsible for his act, and could not sin
against God.

If God is responsible for Man's existence, God is responsible for Man's
act. Therefore Man cannot sin against God.

But I shall deal more fully with the subject of Free Will, and of the
need for Christ as our Saviour, in another part of this book.

Let us now turn to the old idea of the Fall and the Atonement.

First, as to Adam and the Fall and inherited sin. Evolution, historical
research, and scientific criticism have disposed of Adam. Adam was
a myth. Hardly any educated Christians now regard him as an historic
person.

But--no Adam, no Fall; no Fall, no Atonement; no Atonement, no Saviour.
Accepting Evolution, how can we believe in a Fall? _When_ did Man fall?
Was it before he ceased to be a monkey, or after? Was it when he was a
tree man, or later? Was it in the Stone Age, or the Bronze Age,