Part 38

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, or in the Age of Iron?

There never was any "Fall." Evolution proves a long slow rise.

And if there never was a Fall, why should there be any Atonement?

Christians accepting the theory of evolution have to believe that God allowed the sun to form out of the nebula, and the earth to form from the sun, that He allowed Man to develop slowly from the speck of protoplasm in the sea. That at some period of Man's gradual evolution from the brute, God found Man guilty of some sin, and cursed him. That some thousands of years later God sent His only Son down upon the earth to save Man from Hell.

But evolution shows Man to be, even now, an imperfect creature, an unfinished work, a building still undergoing alterations, an animal still evolving.

Whereas the doctrines of "the Fall" and the Atonement assume that he was from the first a finished creature, and responsible to God for his actions.

This old doctrine of the Fall, and the Curse, and the Atonement is against reason as well as against science.

The universe is boundless. We know it to contain millions of suns, and suppose it to contain millions of millions of suns. Our sun is but a speck in the universe. Our earth is but a speck in the solar system.

Are we to believe that the God who created all this boundless universe got so angry with the children of the apes that He condemned them all to Hell for two score centuries, and then could only appease His rage by sending His own Son to be nailed upon a cross? Do you believe that? Can you believe it?

No. As I said before, if the theory of evolution be true, there was nothing to atone for, and nobody to atone. Man has never sinned against God. In fact, the whole of this old Christian doctrine is a mass of error. There was no creation. There was no Fall. There was no Atonement. There was no Adam, and no Eve, and no Eden, and no Devil, and no Hell.

If God is all-powerful, He had power to make Man by nature incapable of sin. But if, having the power to make Man incapable of sin, God made Man so weak as to "fall," then it was God who sinned against Man, and not Man against God.

For if I had power to train a son of mine to righteousness, and I trained him to wickedness, should I not sin against my son?

Or if a man had power to create a child of virtue and intellect, but chose rather to create a child who was by nature a criminal or an idiot, would not that man sin against his child?

And do you believe that "our Father in Heaven, our All-powerful God, who is Love," would first create man fallible, and then punish him for falling?

And if He did so create and so punish man, could you call that just or merciful?

And if God is our "maker," who but He is responsible for our make-up?

And if He alone is responsible, how can Man have sinned against God?

I maintain that besides being unhistorical and unreasonable, the old doctrine of the Atonement is unjust and immoral.

The doctrine of the Atonement is not just nor moral, because it implies that man should not be punished or rewarded according to his own merit or demerit, but according to the merit of another.

Is it just, or is it moral, to make the good suffer for the bad?

Is it just or moral to forgive one man his sin because another is sinless? Such a doctrine--the doctrine of Salvation for Christ's sake, and after a life of crime--holds out inducements to sin.

Repentance is only good because it is the precursor of reform. But no repentance can merit pardon, nor atone for wrong. If, having done wrong, I repent, and afterwards do right, that is good. But to be sorry and not to reform is not good.

If I do wrong, my repentance will not cancel that wrong. An act performed is performed for ever.

If I cut a man's hand off, I may repent, and he may pardon me. But neither my remorse nor his forgiveness will make the hand grow again. And if the hand could grow again, the wrong I did would still have been done.

That is a stern morality, but it is moral. Your doctrine of pardon "for Christ's sake" is not moral. God acts unjustly when He pardons for Christ's sake. Christ acts unjustly when He asks that pardon be granted for his sake. If one man injures another, the prerogative of pardon should belong to the injured man. It is for him who suffers to forgive.

If your son injure your daughter, the pardon must come from her. It would not be just for you to say: "He has wronged you, and has made no atonement, but I forgive him." Nor would it be just for you to forgive him because another son of yours was willing to be punished in his stead. Nor would it be just for that other son to come forward, and say to you, and not to his injured sister, "Father, forgive him for my sake."