POWER OF CHOICE by R. S. Owen

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 17, 1915

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 32.

POWER OF CHOICE

By R. S. Owen

THE power of choice is the most sacred trust the Creator has conferred upon His intelligent creatures. By this gift God has made us “free moral agents.” He has placed our eternal destiny in our own hands. By it we become the builders of characters that are destined to stand forth in imposing grandeur, resplendent with the light of eternal glory, or to go down to destruction in the final collapse of sin. It is so sacred a trust that God Himself will not invade it, and He has placed it beyond the possibility of control by any outside influence.

Men may deny that we possess this marvelous gift, and may claim that we are only creatures controlled by circumstances; but since the extreme to which any power can go in trying to force one’s choice, is to put to death, therefore every martyr who has died, has proved that the power of choice rests with the individual, and beyond outside control.

Responsibility always accompanies the power of choice. Men who deny man’s power of choice, belie their own theory by punishing their children and by calling their neighbors to account for conduct. R. S. OWEN.