A man who sincerely desires to walk in righteousness need have no fear of the devil.
Such a law, for instance, is faith, which, in its simple universal meaning, is man's certainty that in the universe is found everything he may desire for his up building and advancement, and that the eternal relations of universal forces will prevail for his good.
Another such fundamental law to which man must conform, is that of repentance, which in its larger sense, is merely faith made active.
It is only when man so wills that he hears fully the voice of God; and it is only when a man so wills that he hears the message of the devil. The doctrine that a request must initiate the gift is as true in the relationship that my be established between man and the devil as between man and God.
He is not a force that can work harm, unless man places himself under the subjection of evil; but, if the devil be allowed a hearing, he may become the master of the man, and lead him downward on the road of retrogression.
The spirit of man accepted the earth-plan in detail, and if he remembered every step that led to this acceptance, and every detail of the Plan itself, there would not be much reason for the exercise of will in adhering to it.
If you don’t have free will, well then all of your investigation of free will is pre-determined, so you’re done, and any ‘decision’ you make isn’t actually yours to make. Conversely, if you do have free will, but agonize about not having it, you’re wasting your time...
Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.
To be sure, a human being is a finite thing, and his freedom is restricted. It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions.
In the concentration camps, for example, in this living laboratory and on this testing ground, we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions.