that “with which the face of man is blackened,” the power is thus responsible which no free-will of man has made. This evil must either be an organic element in a real higher perfect unity of the world, or else free-will is no explanation or justification for its existence.
But really, the intelligent reader needs, when we get to this most familiar part of our discussion, no very lengthy repetition of the old story. His mind is doubtless made up already, and he will desire only a brief reminder of the chief points that have to do with this question and with those questions most nearly related thereto.
If, then, the doctrine of God’s Fatherhood is to be religiously useful to us, we must make up our minds whether the Father that we seek is to be the omnipotent Ruler of things, or only a limited Power, or again, something else that is not power. In the last mentioned case, he belongs to that aspect of the world which we just now purposely exclude from consideration. If the Father is a Power, then we all know the old but eternally fresh dilemma about his nature. He is either infinite or limited. If he is infinite, we find arising all the difficulties just suggested in our consideration of the hypothesis of an Infinite Reason, and one other difficulty, worse, if anything, than they all. That difficulty we shall mention soon again. But if, on the other hand, the Father is to be conceived as a limited power, if we are to accept some sort of modern Manicheanism, then no a priori disproof of the possibility of the hypothesis can be offered; since, a priori. any finite
