The idealistic philosophy, which regards time and space as merely subjective forms of our human thinking and as not conditioning the thought of God, may possibly afford some additional aid in the consideration of this problem. If matter be only the expression of God’s mind and will, having no existence apart from his intelligence and volition, the question of place ceases to have significance. Heaven is in that case simply the state in which God manifests himself in his grace, and hell is the state in which a moral being finds himself in opposition to God, and God in opposition to him. Christ can manifest himself to his followers in all parts of the earth and to all the inhabitants of heaven at one and the same time (_John 14:21_; _Mat. 28:20_; _Rev. 1:7_). Angels in like manner, being purely spiritual beings, may be free from the laws of space and time, and may not be limited to any fixed locality. We prefer therefore to leave the question of place undecided, and to accept the existence and working of angels both good and evil as a matter of faith, without professing to understand their relations to space. For the rationalistic view, see Strauss, Glaubenslehre, 1:670-675. _Per contra_, see Van Oosterzee, Christian Dogmatics, 1:308-317; Martensen, Christian Dogmatics, 127-136. 2. To the doctrine of evil angels in particular. It is objected that: (_a_) The idea of the fall of angels is self-contradictory, since a fall determined by pride presupposes pride—that is, a fall before the fall.—We reply that the objection confounds the occasion of sin with the sin itself. The outward motive to disobedience is not disobedience. The fall took place only when that outward motive was chosen by free will. When the motive of independence was selfishly adopted, only then did the innocent desire for knowledge and power become pride and sin. How an evil volition could originate in spirits created pure is an insoluble problem. Our faith in God’s holiness, however, compels us to attribute the origin of this evil volition, not to the Creator, but to the creature. There can be no sinful propensity before there is sin. The reason of the _first_ sin can not be sin itself. This would be to make sin a necessary development; to deny the holiness of God the Creator; to leave the ground of theism for pantheism. (_b_) It is irrational to suppose that Satan should have been able to change his whole nature by a single act, so that he thenceforth willed only evil.—But we reply that the circumstances of that decision are unknown to us; while the power of single acts permanently to change character is matter of observation among men.