If we wish particularly to assert the idea
of a generous balance against that of a dreadful autocracy we
shall instinctively be Trinitarian rather than Unitarian. If we
desire European civilization to be a raid and a rescue, we shall
insist rather that souls are in real peril than that their peril is
ultimately unreal. And if we wish to exalt the outcast and the crucified,
we shall rather wish to think that a veritable God was crucified,
rather than a mere sage or hero. Above all, if we wish to protect
the poor we shall be in favour of fixed rules and clear dogmas.
The RULES of a club are occasionally in favour of the poor member.
The drift of a club is always in favour of the rich one.

And now we come to the crucial question which truly concludes
the whole matter. A reasonable agnostic, if he has happened to agree
with me so far, may justly turn round and say, "You have found
a practical philosophy in the doctrine of the Fall; very well.
You have found a side of democracy now dangerously neglected wisely
asserted in Original Sin; all right. You have found a truth in
the doctrine of hell; I congratulate you. You are convinced that
worshippers of a personal God look outwards and are progressive;
I congratulate them. But even supposing that those doctrines
do include those truths, why cannot you take the truths and leave
the doctrines? Granted that all modern society is trusting
the rich too much because it does not allow for human weakness;
granted that orthodox ages have had a great advantage because
(believing in the Fall) they did allow for human weakness, why cannot
you simply allow for human weakness without believing in the Fall?
If you have discovered that the idea of damnation represents
a healthy idea of danger, why can you not simply take the idea
of danger and leave the idea of damnation? If you see clearly
the kernel of common-sense in the nut of Christian orthodoxy,
why cannot you simply take the kernel and leave the nut?
Why cannot you (to use that cant phrase of the newspapers which I,
as a highly scholarly agnostic, am a little ashamed of using)
why cannot you simply take what is good in Christianity, what you can
define as valuable, what you can comprehend, and leave all the rest,
all the absolute dogmas that are in their nature incomprehensible?"
This is the real question; this is the last question; and it is a
pleasure to try to answer it.

The first answer is simply to say that