If it is true, as John affirmed, that men are even now the sons of God, there must be a degree in which that fact can be at once perceived and made practical by human beings. The great outstanding point in the apostle's statement is that man's divine sonship is a present reality, whether or not mortals are willing to acknowledge it or to make it the guiding influence in their affairs; and there must be a way by which men may come into conscious possession of that divine manhood, here and now. Jesus made this way known in his teaching and example, and it is made plain today in Christian Science.
The popular theological doctrine that men are free moral agents, by which is generally meant, of course, that they are free to choose evil if they so desire, must also be interpreted to mean that mortals have at least equal freedom to choose good, a point that is frequently overlooked. Indeed, history confirms the conclusion that the latter choice is the only one that is safe for men to exercise. This doctrine of freedom of the will naturally carries with it the admission that there is no compulsion to obey the wrong impulse, that sin is never a necessity, that, in short, it is within one's own choosing whether he shall be good or bad. This being true, as every one knows it is, the one important thing for all men, as Mrs. Eddy tersely points out on page 481 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," is that they shall "choose good as the reality."
The theory that men are free to choose either good or evil shows that evil was and is primarily preventable, and that it occurs in human experience simply because mortals choose to have it so; hence the logical conclusion that the whole tragedy of human woe need never have been enacted, and need not continue if the human mind will but reverse its decision and confide its welfare to God alone. The evident mistake has been the supposition that evil is something real, and that the immoral freedom to accept and obey it was given by God; but even the better human sense perceives the incongruity of good bestowing upon man the power to sin. Jesus clearly implied that evil, devil, is a lie, and a lie could not be honestly chosen by one who knew the truth.
