rst man, made by God Himself, must have known every
branch of knowledge and skill, that the spirit of God must have been most
vigorous in him.(705) They therefore believed in a primeval revelation,
coeval with the first man. Our age, with its tremendous emphasis on the
historical view, sees the divine spirit manifested most clearly in the
very development and growth of all life, social, intellectual, moral and
spiritual, proceeding steadily toward the highest of all goals. With this
emphasis, however, on process, we must lay stress equally on the origin,
on the divine impulse or initiative in this historical development, the
spirit which gives direction and value to the whole.

Chapter XXXVII. Free Will and Moral Responsibility

1. Judaism has ever emphasized the freedom of the will as one of its chief
doctrines. The dignity and greatness of man depends largely upon his
freedom, his power of self-determination. He differs from the lower
animals in his independence of instinct as the dictator of his actions. He
acts from free choice and conscious design, and is able to change his mind
at any moment, at any new evidence or even through whim. He is therefore
responsible for his every act or omission, even for his every intention.
This alone renders him a moral being, a child of God; thus the moral sense
rests upon freedom of the will.(706)

2. The idea of moral freedom is expressed as early as the first pages of
the Bible, in the words which God spoke to Cain while he was planning the
murder of his brother Abel: "Whether or not, thou offerest an acceptable
gift," (New Bible translation: "If thou doest well, shall it not be lifted
up? and if thou doest not well,") "sin coucheth at the door; and unto thee
is its desire, but thou mayest rule over it."(707) Here, without any
reference to the sin of Adam in the first generation, the man of the
second generation is told that he is free to choose between good and evil,
that he alone is responsible before God for what he does or omits to do.
This certainly indicates that the moral freedom of man is not impaired by
hereditary sin, or by any evil power outside of man himself. This
principle is established in the words of Moses spoken in the name of God:
"I have set before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse;
therefore choose life, that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed."(708) In
like manner Jeremiah proclaims in God's name: "Behold I set before you the
way of