What is man's relation to God? Does he bear the same relation to his Creator that he did when God created man in His own image and likeness, or has that relationship changed? If so, what has changed it? Has man fallen from his high estate? Has he lost his God-given heritage? Can he regain that which has been lost? Will he ever become perfect as his Father in heaven is perfect?
Questions more vital than these have never been asked. They have to do with the present, as well as the future of man's well-being. Man's present success, or lack of success, in working out his salvation depends very largely, if not entirely, upon the way in which these questions have been answered for him, or in which he has answered them for himself. The answer to these questions determines his present status and also his hope of the future. His effort to gain higher and more harmonious plane of existence in this world, is proportionate to his hope of success. If he hopes for little, his effort will be feeble, but if he hopes for much, he will strive accordingly.
The fundamental error of mortal existence is the belief that man has conscious being separate and apart from God; that he possesses an intelligence which is not God and a life which is not God, and by means of this intelligence and life he is able to will and to do of his own good pleasure. To his sense he seems to revolve in an orbit of his own and to exist independently of his Creator. His sense of being seems so completely separated from God that he sometimes doubts whether there is a God.
