Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/253

 erly directs them toward the aim for which they are created; and the regular use of their freedom consists in striving for the last aim of their being.” (p. 533.)

What? Was it not said that he allows them to commit evil acts? How, then, does he direct them toward their aim for which they are created, when their aim, as was said before, was their good?

“Consequently the divine direction does not in the least embarrass the moral freedom and only assists it in its striving toward its aim.

“(c) We know from experience that quite frequently we are able with our words and motions, and in various other ways, to turn our neighbours to this cr that act and to direct them without embarrassing their freedom; how much more easily the infinitely All-wise and Almighty is able to find means for directing the moral beings in such a way that their freedom shall not suffer by it?”

The periods are in the book. This whole chapter is striking in that, apparently without any visible necessity, it raises again the question of Adam’s fall, transferring it now from the sphere of history to that of actuality. One would think that the question as to whence the evil, both the moral and the physical, came, was decided in the Theology by the dogma of the fall of man. Adam was given freedom, and he fell into sin, and so all his posterity fell into sin. One would think that all was ended, and that there could be no place left for the question of freedom. But suddenly it turns out that after the fall man remains in the same condition that Adam was in, that is, capable of doing either good or evil, even after the redemption, so that again man, the creation of the good God, who is eternally providing for him, may be bad and unhappy; as it was with Adam, just so it remains in relation to men after the fall and after their redemption. Apparently the Theology needs this contradiction of the good God and the bad, unhappy and free Adam and man.