The objection to religious dualism comes not only from those who subordinate all advantages to that of rational consistency but also from those who believe that it imperils purely religious values. It robs God of omnipotence (so the argument runs) and the universe of dependability. It gives no certain guarantee of the triumph of personal and spiritual values. It may put a note of challenge in religion, but it also destroys its comforting assurances. The answer to such a criticism is that the moral virtues of dualism are derived from precisely that characteristic. It is not easy to challenge to conflict and to guarantee victory at one and the same time. By dignifying personality religion runs the peril of obscuring the defects of human nature; if it makes the triumph of righteousness certain, it may incline men to take “moral holidays.” Too much emphasis upon the harmonies of the universe may make evil seem unreal. If men are given the opportunity, they will extract comfort from religion and forget the challenge implied in its faith; which simply means that they will use religion to sublimate rather than to qualify their will to live. They will accept the assurance of faith that the frustrations of the natural world are not permanent, but they will not accept the challenge of faith to overcome the corruptions of nature in their own souls. The perennial conflict between priest and prophet is given in the double function of religion. The priest dispenses comfort and the prophet makes the challenge of religion potent. The priest is more numerous than the prophet because human selfishness is as determining in religion as in other fields. Though the priest always defeats the prophet in the end, the prophet is avenged because his original experience is the reality which makes the priest’s assurance plausible. There is no way of guaranteeing the reality of God if someone does not make him real in experience, and there is no way of declaring the victory of the ideal if someone does not defeat reality in the name of the ideal in history. Religion validates itself in spiritual experience and moral triumph. Speculation and deduction contribute to religious certainty only after experience has laid the foundation for faith. It is not possible to free religion altogether of its priestly corruptions. But anything which will make it more difficult to accept the comforts of faith without accepting its challenges will increase the moral potency of religion and decrease the possibility of its corruption by those who want to use it for the purpose of insuring the dignity of human life without paying the price of moral effort for the boon.