“Yes, are we?”
“Why, of course we are!”
“I don’t know about that. I have no friends. I wasn’t built to have friends. I believe I was intended for an Ishmael.”
“Now, drop that, Hodge!” commanded Frank, not a little shocked. “You were built for just what you choose to make yourself. If you select to become an outcast, you can do so.”
“That is what you believe. I don’t believe anything of the sort. I believe a fellow must be what he becomes. I believe everything is predestined, and, try as he may, no man can change the course that it has been destined that he must follow.”
“You are getting into a bad way, Hodge, for that is the argument of every evil-doer and criminal since the days of Cain.”
“And it’s an argument that cannot be refuted!” shouted Bart, fiercely. “I suppose that you claim God is all-wise—that He knows everything?”
“Of course.”
“Then, if He knows everything, He must know before a man is born just what that man will become, what he will do, every act he will commit. You can’t deny that. If He knows just what a man will do, then it must be that the man’s actions are foreordained. You can’t deny that. Every act that man does he was compelled to do because God knew what he would do, and he could not do differently.”
“And you would argue that a man should not attempt to make himself better and nobler because he cannot be any better if he tries? As I said before, that is the argument of bad men and criminals for centuries.”