Page:The New View of Hell.djvu/79



HAT the reasonableness and truth of the New doctrine of hell may be more apparent, and the sharp contrast between it and the Old be more clearly seen—as well as its consistency with the perfect wisdom and love of God, something more must be said about that essential element of our humanity—freedom.

We have seen that the Old doctrine is based upon the literal teaching of Scripture wholly divorced from its living spirit; and that it is in harmony with the sensuous conceptions and sensuous philosophy of a by-gone Age; while the New is eminently spiritual, in strict accord with the spirit of the Word, and with the highest spiritual conceptions of the most enlightened minds of this New Age. The Old makes hell a place, and the casting into it a purely arbitrary and willful act of Omnipotence; the New declares it to be a certain state of life which each individual forms or develops for himself through the voluntary abuse of his own freedom and rationality.

Every one, therefore, who goes to hell, goes there as