the truth of this proposition follows from the supreme perfection
of God ; we can have no sound reason for persuading ourselves to
believe that God did not wish to create all the things which were
in his intellect, and to create them in the same perfection as he
had understood them.
But, it will be said, there is in things no perfection nor
imperfection ; that which is in them, and which causes them to be
called perfect or imperfect, good or bad, depends solely on the
will of God. If God had so willed, he might have brought it
about that what is now perfection should be extreme imperfection,
and vice versâ. What is such an assertion, but an open
declaration that God, who necessarily understands that which he
wishes, might bring it about by his will, that he should
understand things differently from the way in which he does
understand them? This (as we have just shown) is the height of
absurdity. Wherefore, I may turn the argument against its
employers, as follows :-All things depend on the power of God.
In order that things should be different from what they are,
God's will would necessarily have to be different. But God's
will cannot be different (as we have just most clearly
demonstrated) from God's perfection. Therefore neither can
things be different. I confess, that the theory which subjects
all things to the will of an indifferent deity, and asserts that
they are all dependent on his fiat, is less far from the truth
than the theory of those, who maintain that God acts in all
things with a view of promoting what is good. For these latter
persons seem to set up something beyond God, which does not
depend on God, but which God in acting looks to as an exemplar,
or which he aims at as a definite goal. This is only another
name for subjecting God to the dominion of destiny, an utter