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1. We have the capacity to discern the difference between good and evil, and to choose either. That means, we are free to act according to the limits of our being. Otherwise the power which we have of discerning between good and evil would have no meaning. The sense of taste tells us what is bitter and what is sweet. If we were not free to eat what we choose, this sense of taste would have no meaning. We are free, not because we might have acted otherwise, but simply because we act.
If I have, for instance, the strength to carry a hundred pounds, then I am free to carry the whole or part of it. And if a burden is more than a hundred pounds it is beyond my power and also beyond my responsibility: then I am free from the necessity of carrying the burden, because he who has placed the burden on me will not require of me more than I can do. Therefore there is freedom in either case. And if I do not do something which is within the limits of my power, then I have to suffer for my shortcoming and indifference, because I have misused the power which has been given to me.
2. Evil and crime cannot be wiped out by punishing the criminal. If this could be done, all prisons would have to be closed. In spite of the severe punishment meted out to wrongdoers, we do not find any change. And neither is it possible to remove evil from the face of the earth until each man resolves by his own free will to wipe it out to the full extent of his capacity. Compulsion from others produces no effect. God does not catch the hand of the murderer or close the lips of the liar, because He does not interfere with man’s free will. If God did so, man would be like a machine; nor will he appreciate the Truth and find joy in acting according to it; since joy can only be the outcome of an act of free will.
3. The world which is, in a way, rebellious from God makes slaves of those who follow Christ. When by the grace of God they are set free from the bondage and control of the world’s power and enter into heavenly places, then the world itself becomes their slave, because the world recognises that they have come into relationship with that living Power who has created it. Then, instead of overcoming, it is overcome. God grants a perfect freedom for ever to those who serve Him with love of their own free will.