The name is absent

202 The First and Great Commandment

human destiny. Selfish and sinful desire may put out the
light in the man—tempting him to supplant the will of God
with his own will; and he may so come to a practical atheism
and live as though his Maker did not exist. Likewise by
superficial thinking he may persuade himself that there is
no personal God, and that man, whether he is a permanent
person or not, is the only will which is directing human
affairs.

But because God is not only power, but also wisdom and
patience and love; because He does not by power destroy
human freedom and abolish responsibility—it is a poor
return to reward the Divine beneficence with speculative
atheism, or with practical denial of the Divine will through
abuse of liberty and refusal of service. On the other hand,
man may feign an unreal humbleness, lay his sins to the
will of God through a wish for immunity and irresponsi-
bility; and by superficial thinking may come to deny his
part in life, may come to the fatalism of materialism or
pantheism. But the patience of God is as actual as His
power, and His will endures self-limitation in order that
man may possess the heritage of real freedom. The slow
coming of the Kingdom of God does not mean that the Cre-
ator has abdicated; but it involves the truth that man must
meet the peril of freely exercising choice, must freely love
and seek righteousness, must freely participate in the work-
ing out of his life-history as well as his salvation. The
power and will of God are not to be interpreted so as to
destroy the personality of man; and no necessitarian inter-
pretation of mistaken science and no fatalistic error of
philosophy are to be permitted to rob us of the liberty
our Divine Maker has given us, nor of the responsibility
of obedience. The submission of Omnipotence to resistance
from the feeble human creature, the temporary delay of the

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