This God has been taken
away.
In the third place, the story of Eden, the creation of man and then
immediately the fall of man and the resulting doctrine of total
depravity, this has been taken away. That man was made in the image of
God, and then, inside of a few days, fell into the hands of the Power
of Evil, and that since that day he has been the legitimate subject
here on this earth of the prince of this world, that is, the devil, and
that is taught both in the Old Testament and in the New, that man is
this kind of a being, this is forever gone. There is no rational,
intelligent, free belief in it left.
Then the old theory of the Bible has been taken away, that theory which
makes it a book without error or flaw, and makes us under the highest
obligation to receive all its teachings as the veritable word of God,
whether they seem to us hideous, blasphemous, immoral, degrading, or
not. This is gone.
Professor Goldwin Smith, in an article published within a year, treats
the belief, the continued holding to this old theory about the Bible,
under the head of Christianity's "Millstone." He writes from the point
of view of the old belief; but he says, if Christianity is going to be
saved, this millstone must be taken off from about its neck, and
allowed to sink into the sea.
If we hold that theory, what? Why, then, we must still believe that, in
order to help on the slaughter of his enemies on the part of a
barbarian general, God stopped the whole machinery of the universe for
hours until he got through with his killing.
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