Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice — and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man — by choice; he has to hold his life as a value — by choice; he has to learn to sustain it — by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues — by choice. A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.

It is my will which chooses, and the choice of my will is the only edict I must respect.

A tendency that's run through your family for generations can stop with you. You're a transition person — a link between past and future. And your own change can affect many, many lives downstream.

To answer your question of why Adam and Eve were given a choice in the first place, they had to be given a choice. God had to create space for them to choose Him.

Evil is the absence of God. This means that in the space between Man and God, evil exists. And this space is necessary because God had to give us a choice. He had to give us space to choose to love and obey Him.

the Will (without any metaphysical refining) is, That by which the mind chooses any thing. The faculty of the Will, is that power, or principle of mind, by which it is capable of choosing: an act of the Will is the same as an act of choosing or choice.

A choosing of their God and their people, with a full determination and with the whole soul, is the condition of an union with them. God gives every man his choice in this matter: as Orpah and Ruth had their choice, whether they would go with Naomi into the land of Israel, or stay in the land of Moab.

Love must be chosen. It must be free, and it must be from the heart, without external motivations. But, quite frankly, it's very difficult for an all-powerful God to behave in such a way that love can occur with these qualities.

In a creation populated with free agents, God doesn't always get what he wants. Augustine and the church tradition that followed him were simply mistaken when they insisted that the will of the omnipotent is always undefeated. Because God desires a creation in which love is a reality, he allows his will to be defeated to some extent.

Our choices matter. Much hangs in the balance. Our freedom is God's risk and our dignity.

We can acknowledge that while all good things in creation come from God (James 1:17), all evil in creation comes from wills other than that of God. God allows evil to take place because he desires humans to have the potential to love, and for this they must be free. But in no sense does he will their evil.

The greatest miracle of omnipotence was in creating beings who had the potential to resist it.