Free Choice

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Nov 10, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 44.

NEVER in the history of the world has God arbitrarily demanded obedience. Man in Eden was a free moral agent; he might partake of the Tree of Life and live forever; he might by so doing become immortal and his life of innocent purity and righteousness measure with the life of sinless angels. Again, he might, with just the same effort, partake of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and by that single act forfeit all that lay before him, the garden home, comfort and happiness, purity and life, and the association of heavenly intelligences. Which choice he made is only too evident. But he had his choice, his own choice. The God of the universe recognized that created beings had the right to obey or to disobey, and He granted it to the first man, as well as to every man.