“It does,” responded Mr Graham solemnly.
“Div ye alloo that, sir?” returned Malcolm aghast. “That soon’s as gien a’thing war rushin’ thegither back to the auld chaos.”
“I should not be surprised,” continued the master, apparently heedless of Malcolm’s consternation, “if the day should come when well-meaning men, excellent in the commonplace, but of dwarfed imagination, refused to believe in a God on the ground of apparent injustice in the very frame and constitution of things. Such would argue, that there might be either an omnipotent being who did not care, or a good being who could not help; but that there could not be a being both all-good and omnipotent, for such would never have suffered things to be as they are.”
“What wad the clergy say to hear ye, sir?” said Malcolm, himself almost trembling at the words of his master.
“Nothing to the purpose, I fear. They would never face the question. I know what they would do if they could,—burn me, as their spiritual ancestor, Calvin, would have done—whose shoe-latchet they are yet not worthy to unloose. But mind, my boy, you’ve not heard me speak my thought on the matter at all.”
“But wadna ’t be better to believe in twa Gods nor nane ava’?” propounded Malcolm;—“ane a’ guid, duin’ the best for ’s he cud, the ither a’ ill, but as pooerfu’ as the guid ane—an’ forever an’ aye a fecht atween them, whiles ane gettin’ the warst o’ ’t, an whiles the ither? It wad quaiet yer hert ony gait, an’ the battle o’ Armageddon wad gang on as gran’ ’s ever.”
“Two Gods there could not be,” said Mr Graham. “Of the two beings supposed, the evil one must be called devil, were he ten times the more powerful.”
“Wi’ a’ my hert!” responded Malcolm.
“But I agree with you,” the master went on, “that Manicheism is unspeakably better than atheism, and unthinkably better than believing in an unjust God. But I am not driven to such a theory.”
“Hae ye ane o’ yer ain ’at’ll fit, sir?”