he Curse, or the Atonement.

If Man cannot sin against God, and if God is responsible for all Man's
acts, the Old Testament is not true, the New Testament is not true, the
Christian religion is not true.

And if you consider the numerous crimes and blunders of the Christian
Church, you will always find that they grew out of the theory of
Free Will, and the doctrines of Man's sin against God, and Man's
responsibility and "wickedness."

St. Paul said, "As in Adam all men fell, so in Christ are all made
whole." If Adam did not fall St. Paul was mistaken.

Christ is reported to have prayed on the cross, "Father, forgive them,
for they know not what they do."

That looks as if Jesus knew that the men were not responsible for their
acts, and did not know any better. But if they knew not what they did,
why should God be asked to _forgive_ them?

But let us go over the Determinist theory again, for it is most
important.

_If God is responsible for Man's existence, God is responsible for Man's
acts_.

The Christians say Man sinned, and they talk about his freedom of
choice. But they say God made Man, as He made all things.

Now, if God is all-knowing, He knew before He made Man what Man would
do. He knew that Man could do nothing but what God had enabled him to
do. That he could do nothing but what he was foreordained by God to do.

If God is all-powerful, He need not have made Man at all. Or He could
have made a man who would be strong enough to resist temptation. Or He
could have made a man who was incapable of evil.

If the All-powerful God made a man, knowing that man would succumb to
the test to which God meant to subject him, surely God could not justly
blame the man for being no better than God had made him.

If God had never made Man, then Man never could have succumbed to
temptation. God made Man of His own divine choice, and made him to His
own divine desire.

How, then, could God blame Man for anything Man did?

God was responsible for Man's _existence_, for God made him. If God had
not made him, Man could never have been, and could never have acted.
Therefore all that Man did was the result of God's creation of Man.

All man's acts were the effects of which his creation was the cause: and
God was responsible for the cause, and therefore God was responsible for
the effects.

Man did not make himself. Man could not, before he existed, have asked
God to make him. Man could not advise nor control God