The
problem became more serious when original sin, or at least the notion
that the race might justly be damned for one man's fault, was abandoned.
It became graver still when science discovered the tombs of inhabitants
of this globe who had lived during millions of earlier years, and showed
that the very law of their life and progress was struggle against evil.
Every attempt to minimise the struggle of those earlier ages has failed.
At a time when there was no possibility of "spiritual advantage" there
was acute consciousness of pain, the struggle and suffering were
prodigious. Theistic literature of the last half century, growing more
weary and more wistful in each decade, reflects the increasing
difficulty. If any man can see in this war a relief of the difficulty,
and not an appalling accentuation and illustration of it, he must be
gifted with a peculiar type of mind and emotion. It is more probable
that an increasing number will conclude that, if God is indifferent to
these things, they will be indifferent to him. Professor William James,
in his _Varieties of Religious Experience_, declared that the only gods
the men of the new generation would recognise would be gods of some use
to them.
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