Christianity is on the horns of a terrible dilemma. It has long wavered between the bold attitude of Isaiah, softened by such devices as apologetic ingenuity could invent, and the mythological dualism current at the time of its birth. God must be totally responsible for all physical evils, at least; or else he must be thwarted by something independent of himself, whether this be an evil spirit or matter. Now scholars have pointed out that the idea of a prolonged conflict between a {160} good and an evil power was characteristic of the Persian religion, and that this view tinged later Judaism and passed over into Christianity. Here it was met and reenforced by Neo-Platonism in the form usually called Gnosticism and Manicheism. At present, the tide has turned in favor of monotheism and against the coexistence of an evil power. We are inclined to smile at a personal devil, perhaps because superstition has made him humorous, perhaps because we know better the seat and cause of what we call evil. Science has helped to do away with the devil; but, in so doing, has it not also undermined the idea of Providence? Must not the same arrow transfix an effective God that does away with an effective Devil? The God of the past was a realistic God; he counted for everything in the governance of the universe. The God of modern theology is fast becoming an ideal of personality. When God is thought of as a tender-hearted and perfect gentleman, the question of evil takes the following form: Can we harmonize this conception with the facts of life? _Is God an agent or an ideal_? We must bear in mind the fact that God is an hypothesis characteristic of the religious view of the world, and that, like every other hypothesis, it should help to explain the facts to which it is relevant. But does it do this? Is it fruitful?