CHAPTER FIVE
FREE WILL

We have seen, then, that it is the misuse of our free will which has caused all the trouble in the world. It turned Lucifer into Satan, the 'harmless' painter of Austria into the Tyrant of Europe. Yet without a will of our own we cease to be capable of all that we know as humanity. The problem therefore that lay before the Almighty was how to secure that a free will should always will lovingly, even though it was possible for it to do the opposite. In other words, how to bring a free will to a voluntary fixation of purpose, so that it would never turn to evil. Evil does not exist as a separate entity; it was not created by God, but is simply the result of an attitude of our own mind. When the mind changes that attitude to one of love, evil disappears. Selfishness is, and always was, a permanent possibility of the mind, but need never have been an actuality of history at all. It is impossible to avoid temptation, not even desirable, for it is by continuous rejection of its lies that the will achieves final and unchangeable hatred of evil, and love of good.

Every argument of logic is against sin; it is obviously better to have everyone as one's friend rather than one's enemy! It is madness to provoke an Almighty God by shaking one's puny fist at Him, when one might have Him for a loving Father and Helper! There is indeed something within one, which tells the sinner to hide his sin. Only the hardened criminal boasts of it. The first sin is always concealed if possible, or excused. God has not created us so