The origin of evil, according to the Book of Genesis, consists in three successive acts of free will, all of them malevolent. The serpent tempted Eve. The serpent patently had free will either to tempt or not to tempt, for God held him morally responsible. After the debble which the serpent wrought, God said: "Upon thy belly shalt thou go and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life." Eve, moreover, was free, and though tempted, she could have obeyed God instead of flouting his warning. For this she is held responsible, and in travail she must bring forth her children. Adam, in climax, could have refused Eve's temptation, but he, too, chose evil. God, as judge, gave sentence: "In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread." These sins, moreover, were irrevocable, and an angel, with a fiery sword, forbade the culprits' return to paradise.
But let us look more closely. How free was the serpent? He was more "subtile," that is, slippery, than any beast of the field. It was his nature to be slippery. He did what snakes will do. Eve, moreover, as a woman, lately made from Adam's rib, was plainly seen by the male archivist as the weaker vessel, the more vulnerable object to temptation. There was womanliness, vanity, curiosity, and, by implication, a bit of guile. But God had so made her. Whose deviation could have interfered with what God had made? I n fact, God had made man as a climax, and Eve as a still further climax of a climax. Was not God responsible for the whole Eden fiasco? Yes, it was very frustrating, and it led to aggression, too. And God punished himself by sealing the gate of the garden. The garden, in fact, could never be used any more. This reminds us of those children who are so furious that they will not play, and their backyards and cellar doors are no longer available to the gang or to the furious protesters themselves. But the writers of the great Torah may have realized the double bind into which they had placed the Lord whose spirit had moved so sublimely upon the waters. He had given free will, and then punished man for his way of using it.
But in exactly what sense did he give free will? Again, let us look more closely. A Greek slave had been derelict in his duty, and his philosophical master had beaten him. "Unjust," said the slave, "for I did what was within my own individuality." To this the philosopher replied, "But it was likewise within my own individuality to resent your laziness. If laziness was in your nature, the fury against laziness was in my nature. If you are doing what was predestined, so am I doing what was predestined."
But let us take a broad look at various early conceptions of freedom. The idea of freedom of choice has been, through most of philosophical history, the capacity to defy nature's sublime order of predetermination. It has meant that at specific *The presidential address waa delivered at the American Psychological Association Division on the History of Psychology on Sept. 1, 1968 in San Francisco.