One of the bulwarks of Armenian theology is its doctrine of the "Freedom of the Will," and Christian Scientists not infrequently meet those who refer to it as though it were the final and entirely satisfactory solution of the deepest religious problems. It is claimed that it not only explains the origin of evil, but that it makes clear evil's present utility as a necessary test-factor in the attainment of moral character, the power of contrary choice being regarded as a prerequisite of every act of moral merit. It is asserted that this freedom to choose evil is a divine endowment; that it exalts man's nature and identifies him as made in the image and likeness of God, who knows evil and could choose it himself if he would. It is maintained furthermore, that while sooner or later the free responsible sin will be committed by every man, so that a responsible depravity becomes universal by necessity, nevertheless, God, "by His unchanging right choices, will eternally make His own happiness in eternal right."
This teaching, so ably championed by Dr. Daniel Wheedon in his famous reply to Edwards, and so generally held by Christian believers, utterly breaks with itself, and so breaks down, in its failure to stand by its fundamental postulate that man is the image of God, for it is apparent that this asserted likeness becomes no likeness at all if man is sure to do that which it is conceded is practically impossible to God. It is also self-contradictory in that the moment man chooses, i.e., asserts his freedom in the exercise of a divinely bestowed capacity, that moment the sense of freedom is marred and enslavement to sin begins; and furthermore, it makes God responsible for sin, since, though man were created self-determining, so that evil is chosen in the exercise of a freedom that always embraces the possibility of the choice of good, the conditions which make his choice of evil inevitable were divinely appointed, and when these become the determining factor, man's asserted freedom is the merest fiction. This is recognized by a late exponent of the teaching (Thomas G. Carson, in "Man's Responsibility"), who declares that evil was introduced "by the hand of the Almighty himself," and this results, he says, from the fact that while God gave man the power of self-determination He so constituted him that his various endowments, while good in themselves, could but become occasions of evil.
In contrast with this view, Christian Science adheres to the fundamental teaching of Christ Jesus, that man is not a composite of Spirit and matter, of good and evil possibilities, but is indeed a child of God and therefore wholly spiritual, the present and continuous going forth of the divine nature, with which he ever remains in perfect accord. St. John clearly saw and declared the perpetuity of this relation of man to God when he wrote, "Whosoever is born of God cannot commit sin ... he cannot sin because he is born of God ... he that is begotten of God keepeth himself and that wicked one toucheth him not." These unequivocal statements support and enforce the logical and rational teaching of Christian Science that, by virtue of his nature and unchanging relation to his divine source, the true man has no more privilege or possibility of choosing evil than has God. Ideal freedom does not mean liberty to ignore or dishonor the right, but absolute conformity to the right. No one would think that a mathematician is free save as he is entirely in harmony with the law of numbers; he cannot say that three times three is seven, for the reason that in so doing he is self-contradictory; he is no longer a mathematician. As the freedom of God is manifest in his maintenance of His integrity, to the end that every least divine idea or activity shall express His perfect and eternal nature, so man is free in his unvarying conformity to divine law, the law of his being. To say that God's child, the divinely guided man in whom God willeth and worketh to do of his good pleasure, could or would choose that which God cannot choose, is a contradiction in terms. Such a choice could only be that of an asserted will which is opposed to God, and which is therefore not His image or son.
