see the irrationality of your own position. Furthermore, you have
had a great deal of inherited prejudice to overcome, and a man cannot
be expected to get rid of all those at once, especially when they have
reference to the heart or feelings. You say that your God is all-good,
all-wise and all-powerful. The inevitable, logical conclusion from
that is that such a God would give his children an infinitely small
amount of evil and an infinitely large amount of good. But such is
not the case; therefore, to keep that jewel of rationalism which is
so dear to you, you must give up your belief in such a God. Just
wait a minute! I know that you are ready to give a lot of quibbling
that will satisfy some people who follow their prejudices and inherited
feelings, but I defy the whole world of logicians to show that such a
conclusion is less logical than the claim that there can be three in
one. You say that it is in the nature of things that God must give us
evil that we may enjoy good the more afterwards. But if you clear
yourself from all prejudice, you will see that this is the old method
of the ostrich of putting its head under the sand and imagining that its
entire body is protected. Nay, even worse than that, you don't even
protect your head. Any man that gives clear sweep to his reason will
see that if God must comply with certain conditions, then he is not
all-powerful If he is all-powerful, he can give us all good without
any evil, and if he is all-good it would logically follow that he
will do so. Then, again, while affirming that man is a free agent,
you at the same time claim that every effect must have a cause, or
that something cannot come out of nothing. Now, the reconciliation of
these two facts has ever defied the reason of mankind. And those that
have adopted the belief in free will have confessed that reason did
not lead them to that conclusion, but experience. On the other hand,
the logical conclusion is inevitable that man cannot be free. I know
that people have endeavored to satisfy themselves to the contrary,