it seems to me, against the strongest and most spirited objections. I have
not concealed them: but there are some we shall merely touch upon, because
they are too odious. The Remonstrants and M. Bayle (_Reply to the Questions
of a Provincial_, vol. III, ch. 152, end page 919) quote St. Augustine,
saying, '_crudelem esse misericordiam velle aliquem miserum esse ut eius
miserearis_': in the same sense is cited Seneca _De Benef._, L. 6, c. 36,
37. I confess that one would have some reason to urge that against those
who believed that God has no other cause for permitting sin than the [227]
design to have something wherewith to exercise punitive justice against the
majority of men, and his mercy towards a small number of elect. But it must
be considered that God had reasons for his permission of sin, more worthy
of him and more profound in relation to us. Someone has dared to compare
God's course of action with that of a Caligula, who has his edicts written
in so small a hand and has them placarded in so high a place that it is not
possible to read them; with that of a mother who neglects her daughter's
honour in order to attain her own selfish ends; with that of Queen
Catherine de Medicis, who is said to have abetted the love-affairs of her
ladies in order to learn of the intrigues of the great; and even with that
of Tiberius, who arranged, through the extraordinary services of the
executioner, that the law forbidding the subjection of a virgin to capital
punishment should no longer apply to the case of Sejanus's daughter. This
last comparison was proposed by Peter Bertius, then an Armenian, but
finally a member of the Roman communion. And a scandalous comparison has
been made between God and Tiberius, which is related at length by Andreas
Caroli in his _Memorabilia Ecclesiastica_ of the last century, as M. Bayle
observes. Bertius used it against the Gomarists. I think that arguments of
this kind are only valid against those who maintain that justice is an
arbitrary thing in relation to God; or that he has a despotic power which
can go so far as being able to condemn innocents; or, in short, that good
is not the motive of his actions.
167. At that same time an ingenious satire was composed against the
Gomarists, entitled _Fur praedestinatus, de gepredestineerdedief_, wherein
there is introduced a thief condemned to be hanged, who attributes to God
all the evil he has done; who believes himself predestined to salvation
notwithstanding his wicked actions; who imagines that this belief is
sufficient for him, and who defeats by arguments _ad hominem_ a
Counter-remonstrant minister called to prepare him for death: but this
thief is finally converted by an old pastor who had been dismissed for his
Arminianism, whom the gaoler, in pity for the criminal and for the weakness
of the minister, had brought to him secretly. Replies were made to this
lampoon, but replies to satires never please as much as the satires
themselves. M. Bayle (_Reply to the Questions of a Provincial_, vol. III,
ch. 154, p. 938) says that this book was printed in England in the [228]
time of Cromwell, and he appears not to have been informed that it was only
a translation of the much older original Flemish. He adds that Dr. George
Kendal wrote a confutation of it at Oxford in the year 1657, under the
title of _Fur pro Tribunali_, and that the dialogue is there inserted. This
dialogue presupposes, contrary to the truth, that the Counter-remonstrants
make God the cause of evil, and teach a kind of predestination in the
Mahometan manner according to which it does not matter whether one does
good or evil, and the assumption that one is predestined assures the fact.
They by no means go so far. Nevertheless it is true that there are among
them some Supralapsarians and others who find it hard to declare themselves
in clear terms upon the justice of God and the principles of piety and
morals in man. For they imagine despotism in God, and demand that man be
convinced, without reason, of the absolute certainty of his election, a
course that is liable to have dangerous consequences. But all those who
acknowledge that God produces the best plan, having chosen it from among
all possible ideas of the universe; that he there finds man inclined by the
original imperfection of creatures to misuse his free will and to plunge
into misery; that God prevents the sin and the misery in so far as the
perfection of the universe, which is an emanation from his, may permit it:
those, I say, show forth more clearly that God's intention is the one most
right and holy in the world; that the creature alone is guilty, that his
original limitation or imperfection is the source of his wickedness, that
his evil will is the sole cause of his misery; that one cannot be destined
to salvation without also being destined to the holiness of the children of
God, and that all hope of election one can have can only be founded upon
the good will infused into one's heart by the grace of God.
168. _Metaphysical considerations_ also are brought up against my
explanation of the moral cause of moral evil; but they will trouble me less
since I have dismissed the objections derived from moral reasons, which
were more impressive. These metaphysical considerations concern the nature
of the _possible_ and of the _necessary_; they go against my fundamental
assumption that God has chosen the best of all possible worlds. There are
philosophers who have maintained that there is nothing possible except that
which actually happens. These are those same people who thought or could
have thought that all is necessary unconditionally. Some were of this [229]
opinion because they admitted a brute and blind necessity in the cause of
the existence of things: and it is these I have most reason for opposing.
But there are others who are mistaken only because they misuse terms. They
confuse moral necessity with metaphysical necessity: they imagine that
since God cannot help acting for the best he is thus deprived of freedom,
and things are endued with that necessity which philosophers and
theologians endeavour to avoid. With these writers my dispute is only one
of words, provided they admit in very deed that God chooses and does the
best. But there are others who go further, they think that God could have
done better. This is an opinion which must be rejected: for although it
does not altogether deprive God of wisdom and goodness, as do the advocates
of blind necessity, it sets bounds thereto, thus derogating from God's
supreme perfection.
169. The question of the _possibility of things that do not happen_ has
already been examined by the ancients. It appears that Epicurus, to
preserve freedom and to avoid an absolute necessity, maintained, after
Aristotle, that contingent futurities were not susceptible of determinate
truth. For if it was true yesterday that I should write to-day, it could
therefore not fail to happen, it was already necessary; and, for the same
reason, it was from all eternity. Thus all that which happens is necessary,
and it is impossible for anything different to come to pass. But since that
is not so it would follow, according to him, that contingent futurities
have no determinate truth. To uphold this opinion, Epicurus went so far as
to deny the first and the greatest principle of the truths of reason, he
denied that every assertion was either true or false. Here is the way they
confounded him: 'You deny that it was true yesterday that I should write
to-day; it was therefore false.' The good man, not being able to admit this
conclusion, was obliged to say that it was neither true nor false. After
that, he needs no refutation, and Chrysippus might have spared himself the
trouble he took to prove the great principle of contradictories, following
the account by Cicero in his book _De Fato_: 'Contendit omnes nervos
Chrysippus ut persuadeat omne [Greek: Axiôma] aut verum esse aut falsum. Ut
enim Epicurus veretur ne si hoc concesserit, concedendum sit, fato fieri
quaecunque fiant; si enim alterum ex aeternitate verum sit, esse id etiam
certum; si certum, etiam necessarium; ita et necessitatem et fatum
confirmari putat; sic Chrysippus metuit ne non, si non obtinuerit omne[230]
quod enuncietur aut verum esse aut falsum, omnia fato fieri possint ex
causis aeternis rerum futurarum.' M. Bayle observes (_Dictionary_, article
'Epicurus', let. T, p. 1141) 'that neither of these two great philosophers
[Epicurus and Chrysippus] understood that the truth of this maxim, every
proposition is true or false, is independent of what is called _fatum_: it
could not therefore serve as proof of the existence of the _fatum_, as
Chrysippus maintained and as Epicurus feared. Chrysippus could not have
conceded, without damaging his own position, that there are propositions
which are neither true nor false. But he gained nothing by asserting the
contrary: for, whether there be free causes or not, it is equally true that
this proposition, The Grand Mogul will go hunting to-morrow, is true or
false. Men rightly regarded as ridiculous this speech of Tiresias: All that
I shall say will happen or not, for great Apollo confers on me the faculty
of prophesying. If, assuming the impossible, there were no God, it would
yet be certain that everything the greatest fool in the world should
predict would happen or would not happen. That is what neither Chrysippus
nor Epicurus has taken into consideration.' Cicero, lib. I, _De Nat.
Deorum_, with regard to the evasions of the Epicureans expressed the sound
opinion (as M. Bayle observes towards the end of the same page) that it
would be much less shameful to admit that one cannot answer one's opponent,
than to have recourse to such answers. Yet we shall see that M. Bayle
himself confused the certain with the necessary, when he maintained that
the choice of the best rendered things necessary.
170. Let us come now to the possibility of things that do not happen, and I
will give the very words of M. Bayle, albeit they are somewhat discursive.
This is what he says on the matter in his _Dictionary_ (article
'Chrysippus', let. S, p. 929): 'The celebrated dispute on things possible
and things impossible owed its origin to the doctrine of the Stoics
concerning fate. The question was to know whether, among the things which
have never been and never will be, there are some possible; or whether all
that is not, all that has never been, all that will never be, was
impossible. A famous dialectician of the Megaric Sect, named Diodorus, gave
a negative answer to the first of these two questions and an affirmative to
the second; but Chrysippus vehemently opposed him. Here are two passages of
Cicero (epist. 4, lib. 9, _Ad Familiar._): "[Greek: peri dynatôn] me scito
[Greek: kata Diodôron krinein]. Quapropter si venturus es, scito [231]
necesse esse te venire. Sin autem non es, [Greek: tôn adynatôn] est te
venire. Nunc vide utra te [Greek: krisis] magis delectet, [Greek:
Chrysippeia] ne, an haec; quam noster Diodorus [a Stoic who for a long time
had lived in Cicero's house] non concoquebat." This is quoted from a letter
that Cicero wrote to Varro. He sets forth more comprehensively the whole
state of the question, in the little book _De Fato_. I am going to quote a
few pieces (Cic., _De Fato_, p. m. 65): "Vigila, Chrysippe, ne tuam causam,
in qua tibi cum Diodoro valente Dialectico magna luctatio est, deseras ...
omne ergo quod falsum dicitur in futuro, id fieri non potest. At hoc,
Chrysippe, minime vis, maximeque tibi de hoc ipso cum Diodoro certamen est.
Ille enim id solum fieri posse dicit, quod aut sit verum, aut futurum sit
verum; et quicquid futurum sit, id dicit fieri necesse esse; et quicquid
non sit futurum, id negat fieri posse. Tu etiam quae non sint futura, posse
fieri dicis, ut frangi hanc gemmam, etiamsi id nunquam futurum sit: neque
necesse fuisse Cypselum regnare Corinthi, quamquam id millesimo ante anno
Apollinis Oraculo editum esset.... Placet Diodoro, id solum fieri posse,
quod aut verum sit, aut verum futurum sit: qui locus attingit hanc
quaestionem, nihil fieri, quod non necesse fuerit; et quicquid fieri
possit, id aut esse jam, aut futurum esse: nec magis commutari ex veris in
falsa ea posse quae futura sunt, quam ea quae facta sunt: sed in factis
immutabilitatem apparere; in futuris quibusdam, quia non apparent, ne
inesse quidem videri: ut in eo qui mortifero morbo urgeatur, verum sit, hic
morietur hoc morbo: at hoc idem si vere dicatur in eo, in quo tanta vis
morbi non appareat, nihilominus futurum sit. Ita fit ut commutatio ex vero
in falsum, ne in futuro quidem ulla fieri possit." Cicero makes it clear
enough that Chrysippus often found himself in difficulties in this dispute,
and that is no matter for astonishment: for the course he had chosen was
not bound up with his dogma of fate, and, if he had known how, or had
dared, to reason consistently, he would readily have adopted the whole
hypothesis of Diodorus. We have seen already that the freedom he assigned
to the soul, and his comparison of the cylinder, did not preclude the
possibility that in reality all the acts of the human will were unavoidable
consequences of fate. Hence it follows that everything which does not
happen is impossible, and that there is nothing possible but that which
actually comes to pass. Plutarch (_De Stoicor. Repugn._, pp. 1053, 1054)
discomfits him completely, on that point as well as on the dispute [232]
with Diodorus, and maintains that his opinion on possibility is altogether
contrary to the doctrine of _fatum_. Observe that the most eminent Stoics
had written on this matter without following the same path. Arrian (in
_Epict._, lib. 2, c. 29, p. m. 166) named four of them, who are Chrysippus,
Cleanthes, Archidemus and Antipater. He evinces great scorn for this
dispute; and M. Menage need not have cited him as a writer who had spoken
in commendation of the work of Chrysippus [Greek: peri dynatôn] ("citatur
honorifice apud Arrianum", Menag. in _Laert._, I, 7, 341) for assuredly
these words, "[Greek: gegraphe de kai Chrysippos thaumastôs], etc., de his
rebus mira scripsit Chrysippus", etc., are not in that connexion a eulogy.
That is shown by the passages immediately before and after it. Dionysius of
Halicarnassus (_De Collocat. Verbor._, c. 17, p. m. 11) mentions two
treatises by Chrysippus, wherein, under a title that promised something
different, much of the logicians' territory had been explored. The work was
entitled "[Greek: peri tês syntaxeôs tôn tou logou merôn], de partium
orationis collocatione", and treated only of propositions true and false,
possible and impossible, contingent and equivocal, etc., matter that our
Schoolmen have pounded down and reduced to its essence. Take note that
Chrysippus recognized that past things were necessarily true, which
Cleanthes had not been willing to admit. (Arrian, _ubi supra_, p. m. 165.)
"[Greek: Ou pan de parelêlythos alêthes anankaion esti, kathaper hoi peri
Kleanthên pheresthai dokousi]. Non omne praeteritum ex necessitate verum
est, ut illi qui Cleanthem sequuntur sentiunt." We have already seen (p.
562, col. 2) that Abélard is alleged to have taught a doctrine which
resembles that of Diodorus. I think that the Stoics pledged themselves to
give a wider range to possible things than to future things, for the
purpose of mitigating the odious and frightful conclusions which were drawn
from their dogma of fatality.'
It is sufficiently evident that Cicero when writing to Varro the words that
have just been quoted (lib. 9, Ep. 4, _Ad Familiar._) had not enough
comprehension of the effect of Diodorus's opinion, since he found it
preferable. He presents tolerably well in his book _De Fato_ the opinions
of those writers, but it is a pity that he has not always added the reasons
which they employed. Plutarch in his treatise on the contradictions of the
Stoics and M. Bayle are both surprised that Chrysippus was not of the same
opinion as Diodorus, since he favours fatality. But Chrysippus and even his
master Cleanthes were on that point more reasonable than is supposed. [233]
That will be seen as we proceed. It is open to question whether the past is
more necessary than the future. Cleanthes held the opinion that it is. The
objection is raised that it is necessary _ex hypothesi_ for the future to
happen, as it is necessary _ex hypothesi_ for the past to have happened.
But there is this difference, that it is not possible to act on the past
state, that would be a contradiction; but it is possible to produce some
effect on the future. Yet the hypothetical necessity of both is the same:
the one cannot be changed, the other will not be; and once that is past, it
will not be possible for it to be changed either.
171. The famous Pierre Abélard expressed an opinion resembling that of
Diodorus in the statement that God can do only that which he does. It was
the third of the fourteen propositions taken from his works which were
censured at the Council of Sens. It had been taken from the third book of
his _Introduction to Theology_, where he treats especially of the power of
God. The reason he gave for his statement was that God can do only that
which he wills. Now God cannot will to do anything other than that which he
does, because, of necessity, he must will whatever is fitting. Hence it
follows that all that which he does not, is not fitting, that he cannot
will to do it, and consequently that he cannot do it. Abélard admits
himself that this opinion is peculiar to him, that hardly anyone shares in
it, that it seems contrary to the doctrine of the saints and to reason and
derogatory to the greatness of God. It appears that this author was a
little too much inclined to speak and to think differently from others: for
in reality this was only a dispute about words: he was changing the use of
terms. Power and will are different faculties, whose objects also are
different; it is confusing them to say that God can do only that which he
wills. On the contrary, among various possibles, he wills only that which
he finds the best. For all possibles are regarded as objects of power, but
actual and existing things are regarded as the objects of his decretory
will. Abélard himself acknowledged it. He raises this objection for
himself: a reprobate can be saved; but he can only be saved if God saves
him. God can therefore save him, and consequently do something that he does
not. Abélard answers that it may indeed be said that this man can be saved
in respect of the possibility of human nature, which is capable of
salvation: but that it may not be said that God can save him in respect of
God himself, because it is impossible that God should do that which he[234]
must not do. But Abélard admits that it may very well be said in a sense,
speaking absolutely and setting aside the assumption of reprobation, that
such an one who is reprobate can be saved, and that thus often that which
God does not can be done. He could therefore have spoken like the rest, who
mean nothing different when they say that God can save this man, and that
he can do that which he does not.
172. The so-called necessity of Wyclif, which was condemned by the Council
of Constance, seems to arise simply from this same misunderstanding. I
think that men of talent do wrong to truth and to themselves when, without
reason, they bring into use new and displeasing expressions. In our own
time the celebrated Mr. Hobbes supported this same opinion, that what does
not happen is impossible. He proves it by the statement that all the
conditions requisite for a thing that shall not exist (_omnia rei non
futurae requisita_) are never found together, and that the thing cannot
exist otherwise. But who does not see that that only proves a hypothetical
impossibility? It is true that a thing cannot exist when a requisite
condition for it is lacking. But as we claim to be able to say that the
thing can exist although it does not exist, we claim in the same way to be
able to say that the requisite conditions can exist although they do not
exist. Thus Mr. Hobbes's argument leaves the matter where it is. The
opinion which was held concerning Mr. Hobbes, that he taught an absolute
necessity of all things, brought upon him much discredit, and would have
done him harm even had it been his only error.
173. Spinoza went further: he appears to have explicitly taught a blind
necessity, having denied to the Author of Things understanding and will,
and assuming that good and perfection relate to us only, and not to him. It
is true that Spinoza's opinion on this subject is somewhat obscure: for he
grants God thought, after having divested him of understanding,
_cogitationem, non intellectum concedit Deo_. There are even passages where
he relents on the question of necessity. Nevertheless, as far as one can
understand him, he acknowledges no goodness in God, properly speaking, and
he teaches that all things exist through the necessity of the divine
nature, without any act of choice by God. We will not waste time here in
refuting an opinion so bad, and indeed so inexplicable. My own opinion is
founded on the nature of the possibles, that is, of things that imply [235]
no contradiction. I do not think that a Spinozist will say that all the
romances one can imagine exist actually now, or have existed, or will still
exist in some place in the universe. Yet one cannot deny that romances such
as those of Mademoiselle de Scudéry, or as _Octavia_, are possible. Let us
therefore bring up against him these words of M. Bayle, which please me
well, on page 390, 'It is to-day', he says, 'a great embarrassment for the
Spinozists to see that, according to their hypothesis, it was as impossible
from all eternity that Spinoza, for instance, should not die at The Hague,
as it is impossible for two and two to make six. They are well aware that
it is a necessary conclusion from their doctrine, and a conclusion which
disheartens, affrights, and stirs the mind to revolt, because of the
absurdity it involves, diametrically opposed to common sense. They are not
well pleased that one should know they are subverting a maxim so universal
and so evident as this one: All that which implies contradiction is
impossible, and all that which implies no contradiction is possible.'
174. One may say of M. Bayle, 'ubi bene, nemo melius', although one cannot
say of him what was said of Origen, 'ubi male, nemo pejus'. I will only add
that what has just been indicated as a maxim is in fact the definition of
the _possible_ and the _impossible_. M. Bayle, however, adds here towards
the end a remark which somewhat spoils his eminently reasonable statement.
'Now what contradiction would there be if Spinoza had died in Leyden? Would
Nature then have been less perfect, less wise, less powerful?' He confuses
here what is impossible because it implies contradiction with what cannot
happen because it is not meet to be chosen. It is true that there would
have been no contradiction in the supposition that Spinoza died in Leyden
and not at The Hague; there would have been nothing so possible: the matter
was therefore indifferent in respect of the power of God. But one must not
suppose that any event, however small it be, can be regarded as indifferent
in respect of his wisdom and his goodness. Jesus Christ has said divinely
well that everything is numbered, even to the hairs of our head. Thus the
wisdom of God did not permit that this event whereof M. Bayle speaks should
happen otherwise than it happened, not as if by itself it would have been
more deserving of choice, but on account of its connexion with that entire
sequence of the universe which deserved to be given preference. To say that
what has already happened was of no interest to the wisdom of God, and[236]
thence to infer that it is therefore not necessary, is to make a false
assumption and argue incorrectly to a true conclusion. It is confusing what
is necessary by moral necessity, that is, according to the principle of
Wisdom and Goodness, with what is so by metaphysical and brute necessity,
which occurs when the contrary implies contradiction. Spinoza, moreover,
sought a metaphysical necessity in events. He did not think that God was
determined by his goodness and by his perfection (which this author treated
as chimeras in relation to the universe), but by the necessity of his
nature; just as the semicircle is bound to enclose only right angles,
without either knowing or willing this. For Euclid demonstrated that all
angles enclosed between two straight lines drawn from the extremities of
the diameter towards a point on the circumference of the circle are of
necessity right angles, and that the contrary implies contradiction.
175. There are people who have gone to the other extreme: under the pretext
of freeing the divine nature from the yoke of necessity they wished to
regard it as altogether indifferent, with an indifference of equipoise.
They did not take into account that just as metaphysical necessity is
preposterous in relation to God's actions _ad extra_, so moral necessity is
worthy of him. It is a happy necessity which obliges wisdom to do good,
whereas indifference with regard to good and evil would indicate a lack of
goodness or of wisdom. And besides, the indifference which would keep the
will in a perfect equipoise would itself be a chimera, as has been already
shown: it would offend against the great principle of the determinant
reason.
176. Those who believe that God established good and evil by an arbitrary
decree are adopting that strange idea of mere indifference, and other
absurdities still stranger. They deprive God of the designation _good_: for
what cause could one have to praise him for what he does, if in doing
something quite different he would have done equally well? And I have very
often been surprised that divers Supralapsarian theologians, as for
instance Samuel Rutherford, a Professor of Theology in Scotland, who wrote
when the controversies with the Remonstrants were at their height, could
have been deluded by so strange an idea. Rutherford (in his _Exercitationes
Apologeticae pro Gratia_) says positively that nothing is unjust or morally
bad in God's eyes before he has forbidden it: thus without this prohibition
it would be a matter of indifference whether one murdered or saved a [237]
man, loved God or hated him, praised or blasphemed him. Nothing is so
unreasonable as that. One may teach that God established good and evil by a
positive law, or one may assert that there was something good and just
before his decree, but that he is not required to conform to it, and that
nothing prevents him from acting unjustly and from perhaps condemning
innocence: but it all comes to the same thing, offering almost equal
dishonour to God. For if justice was established arbitrarily and without
any cause, if God came upon it by a kind of hazard, as when one draws lots,
his goodness and his wisdom are not manifested in it, and there is nothing
at all to attach him to it. If it is by a purely arbitrary decree, without
any reason, that he has established or created what we call justice and
goodness, then he can annul them or change their nature. Thus one would
have no reason to assume that he will observe them always, as it would be
possible to say he will observe them on the assumption that they are
founded on reasons. The same would hold good more or less if his justice
were different from ours, if (for example) it were written in his code that
it is just to make the innocent eternally unhappy. According to these
principles also, nothing would compel God to keep his word or would assure
us of its fulfilment. For why should the law of justice, which states that
reasonable promises must be kept, be more inviolable for him than any other
laws?
177. All these three dogmas, albeit a little different from one another,
namely, (1) that the nature of justice is arbitrary, (2) that it is fixed,
but it is not certain that God will observe it, and finally (3) that the
justice we know is not that which he observes, destroy the confidence in
God that gives us tranquillity, and the love of God that makes our
happiness. There is nothing to prevent such a God from behaving as a tyrant
and an enemy of honest folk, and from taking pleasure in that which we call
evil. Why should he not, then, just as well be the evil principle of the
Manichaeans as the single good principle of the orthodox? At least he would
be neutral and, as it were, suspended between the two, or even sometimes
the one and sometimes the other. That would be as if someone were to say
that Oromasdes and Arimanius reign in turns, according to which of the two
is the stronger or the more adroit. It is like the saying of a certain
Moghul woman. She, so it seems, having heard it said that formerly under
Genghis Khan and his successors her nation had had dominion over most [238]
of the North and East, told the Muscovites recently, when M. Isbrand went
to China on behalf of the Czar, through the country of those Tartars, that
the god of the Moghuls had been driven from Heaven, but that one day he
would take his own place again. The true God is always the same: natural
religion itself demands that he be essentially as good and wise as he is
powerful. It is scarcely more contrary to reason and piety to say that God
acts without cognition, than to maintain that he has cognition which does
not find the eternal rules of goodness and of justice among its objects, or
again to say that he has a will such as heeds not these rules.
178. Some theologians who have written of God's right over creatures appear
to have conceded to him an unrestricted right, an arbitrary and despotic
power. They thought that would be placing divinity on the most exalted
level that may be imagined for it, and that it would abase the creature
before the Creator to such an extent that the Creator is bound by no laws
of any kind with respect to the creature. There are passages from Twiss,
Rutherford and some other Supralapsarians which imply that God cannot sin
whatever he may do, because he is subject to no law. M. Bayle himself
considers that this doctrine is monstrous and contrary to the holiness of
God (_Dictionary_, v. 'Paulicians', p. 2332 _in initio_); but I suppose
that the intention of some of these writers was less bad than it seems to
be. Apparently they meant by the term right, [Greek: anypeuthynian], a
state wherein one is responsible to none for one's actions. But they will
not have denied that God owes to himself what goodness and justice demand
of him. On that matter one may see M. Amyraut's _Apology for Calvin_: it is
true that Calvin appears orthodox on this subject, and that he is by no
means one of the extreme Supralapsarians.
179. Thus, when M. Bayle says somewhere that St. Paul extricates himself
from predestination only through the consideration of God's absolute right,
and the incomprehensibility of his ways, it is implied that, if one
understood them, one would find them consistent with justice, God not being
able to use his power otherwise. St. Paul himself says that it is a
_depth_, but a depth of wisdom (_altitudo sapientiae_), and _justice_ is
included in _the goodness of the All-wise_. I find that M. Bayle speaks
very well elsewhere on the application of our notions of goodness to the
actions of God (_Reply to the Questions of a Provincial_, ch. 81, p. 139):
'One must not assert here', he says, 'that the goodness of the [239]
infinite Being is not subject to the same rules as the goodness of the
creature. For if there is in God an attribute that can be called goodness,
the marks of goodness in general must apply to him. Now when we reduce
goodness to the most general abstraction, we find therein the will to do
good. Divide and subdivide into as many kinds as you shall please this
general goodness, into infinite goodness, finite goodness, kingly goodness,
goodness of a father, goodness of a husband, goodness of a master, you will
find in each, as an inseparable attribute, the will to do good.'
180. I find also that M. Bayle combats admirably the opinion of those who
assert that goodness and justice depend solely upon the arbitrary choice of
God; who suppose, moreover, that if God had been determined by the goodness
of things themselves to act, he would be entirely subjected to necessity in
his actions, a state incompatible with freedom. That is confusing
metaphysical necessity with moral necessity. Here is what M. Bayle says in
objection to this error (_Reply_, ch. 89, p. 203): 'The consequence of this
doctrine will be, that before God resolved upon creating the world he saw
nothing better in virtue than in vice, and that his ideas did not show him
that virtue was more worthy of his love than vice. That leaves no
distinction between natural right and positive right; there will no longer
be anything unalterable or inevitable in morals; it will have been just as
possible for God to command people to be vicious as to command them to be
virtuous; and one will have no certainty that the moral laws will not one
day be abrogated, as the ceremonial laws of the Jews were. This, in a word,
leads us straight to the belief that God was the free author, not only of
goodness and of virtue, but also of truth and of the essence of things.
That is what certain of the Cartesians assert, and I confess that their
opinion (see the Continuation of _Divers Thoughts on the Comet_, p. 554)
might be of some avail in certain circumstances. Yet it is open to dispute
for so many reasons, and subject to consequences so troublesome (see
chapter 152 of the same Continuation) that there are scarcely any extremes
it were not better to suffer rather than plunge into that one. It opens the
door to the most exaggerated Pyrrhonism: for it leads to the assertion that
this proposition, three and three make six, is only true where and during
the time when it pleases God; that it is perhaps false in some parts of the
universe; and that perhaps it will be so among men in the coming year.[240]
All that depends on the free will of God could have been limited to certain
places and certain times, like the Judaic ceremonies. This conclusion will
be extended to all the laws of the Decalogue, if the actions they command
are in their nature divested of all goodness to the same degree as the
actions they forbid.'
181. To say that God, having resolved to create man just as he is, could
not but have required of him piety, sobriety, justice and chastity, because
it is impossible that the disorders capable of overthrowing or disturbing
his work can please him, that is to revert in effect to the common opinion.
Virtues are virtues only because they serve perfection or prevent the
imperfection of those who are virtuous, or even of those who have to do
with them. And they have that power by their nature and by the nature of
rational creatures, before God decrees to create them. To hold a different
opinion would be as if someone were to say that the rules of proportion and
harmony are arbitrary with regard to musicians because they occur in music
only when one has resolved to sing or to play some instrument. But that is
exactly what is meant by being essential to good music: for those rules
belong to it already in the ideal state, even when none yet thinks of
singing, since it is known that they must of necessity belong to it as soon
as one shall sing. In the same way virtues belong to the ideal state of the
rational creature before God decrees to create it; and it is for that very
reason we maintain that virtues are good by their nature.
182. M. Bayle has inserted a special chapter in his Continuation of _Divers
Thoughts on the Comet_ (it is chapter 152) where he shows 'that the
Christian Doctors teach that there are things which are just antecedently
to God's decrees'. Some theologians of the Augsburg Confession censured
some of the Reformed who appeared to be of a different opinion; and this
error was regarded as if it were a consequence of the absolute decree,
which doctrine seems to exempt the will of God from any kind of reason,
_ubi stat pro ratione voluntas_. But, as I have observed already on various
occasions, Calvin himself acknowledged that the decrees of God are in
conformity with justice and wisdom, although the reasons that might prove
this conformity in detail are unknown to us. Thus, according to him, the
rules of goodness and of justice are anterior to the decrees of God. M.
Bayle, in the same place, quotes a passage from the celebrated M. Turretin
which draws a distinction between natural divine laws and positive [241]
divine laws. Moral laws are of the first kind and ceremonial of the second.
Samuel Desmarests, a celebrated theologian formerly at Groningen, and Herr
Strinesius, who is still at Frankfort on the Oder, advocated this same
distinction; and I think that it is the opinion most widely accepted even
among the Reformed. Thomas Aquinas and all the Thomists were of the same
opinion, with the bulk of the Schoolmen and the theologians of the Roman
Church. The Casuists also held to that idea: I count Grotius among the most
eminent of them, and he was followed in this point by his commentators.
Herr Pufendorf appeared to be of a different opinion, which he insisted on
maintaining in the face of censure from some theologians; but he need not
be taken into account, not having advanced far enough in subjects of this
kind. He makes a vigorous protest against the absolute decree, in his
_Fecialis divinus_, and yet he approves what is worst in the opinions of
the champions of this decree, and without which this decree (as others of
the Reformed explain) becomes endurable. Aristotle was very orthodox on
this matter of justice, and the Schoolmen followed him: they distinguish,
just as Cicero and the Jurists do, between perpetual right, which is
binding on all and everywhere, and positive right, which is only for
certain times and certain peoples. I once read with enjoyment the
_Euthyphro_ of Plato, who makes Socrates uphold the truth on that point,
and M. Bayle has called attention to the same passage.
183. M. Bayle himself upholds this truth with considerable force in a
certain passage, which it will be well to quote here in its entirety, long
as it is (vol. II of the Continuation of _Divers Thoughts on the Comet_,
ch. 152, p. 771 _seqq._): 'According to the teaching of countless writers
of importance', he says, 'there is in nature and in the essence of certain
things a moral good or evil that precedes the divine decree. They prove
this doctrine principally through the frightful consequences that attend
the opposite dogma. Thus from the proposition that to do wrong to no man
would be a good action, not in itself but by an arbitrary dispensation of
God's will, it would follow that God could have given to man a law directly
opposed at all points to the commandments of the Decalogue. That is
horrifying. But here is a more direct proof, one derived from metaphysics.
One thing is certain, that the existence of God is not an effect of his
will. He exists not because he wills his existence, but through the [242]
necessity of his infinite nature. His power and his knowledge exist through
the same necessity. He is all-powerful, he knows all things, not because he
wills it thus, but because these are attributes necessarily identified with
him. The dominion of his will relates only to the exercise of his power, he
gives effect outside himself only to that which he wills, and he leaves all
the rest in the state of mere possibility. Thence it comes that this
dominion extends only over the existence of creatures, and not over their
essential being. God was able to create matter, a man, a circle, or leave
them in nothingness, but he was not able to produce them without giving
them their essential properties. He had of necessity to make man a rational
animal and to give the round shape to a circle, since, according to his
eternal ideas, independent of the free decrees of his will, the essence of
man lay in the properties of being animal and rational, and since the
essence of the circle lay in having a circumference equally distant from
the centre as to all its parts. This is what has caused the Christian
philosophers to acknowledge that the essences of things are eternal, and
that there are propositions of eternal truth; consequently that the
essences of things and the truth of the first principles are immutable.
That is to be understood not only of theoretical but also of practical
first principles, and of all the propositions that contain the true
definition of creatures. These essences and these truths emanate from the
same necessity of nature as the knowledge of God. Since therefore it is by
the nature of things that God exists, that he is all-powerful, and that he
has perfect knowledge of all things, it is also by the nature of things
that matter, the triangle, man and certain actions of man, etc., have such
and such properties essentially. God saw from all eternity and in all
necessity the essential relations of numbers, and the identity of the
subject and predicate in the propositions that contain the essence of each
thing. He saw likewise that the term just is included in these
propositions: to esteem what is estimable, be grateful to one's benefactor,
fulfil the conditions of a contract, and so on, with many others relating
to morals. One is therefore justified in saying that the precepts of
natural law assume the reasonableness and justice of that which is
enjoined, and that it would be man's duty to practise what they contain
even though God should have been so indulgent as to ordain nothing in that
respect. Pray observe that in going back with our visionary thoughts to
that ideal moment when God has yet decreed nothing, we find in the [243]
ideas of God the principles of morals under terms that imply an obligation.
We understand these maxims as certain, and derived from the eternal and
immutable order: it beseems the rational creature to conform to reason; a
rational creature conforming to reason is to be commended, but not
conforming thereto is blameworthy. You would not dare to deny that these
truths impose upon man a duty in relation to all acts which are in
conformity with strict reason, such as these: one must esteem all that is
estimable; render good for good; do wrong to no man; honour one's father;
render to every man that which is his due, etc. Now since by the very
nature of things, and before the divine laws, the truths of morality impose
upon man certain duties, Thomas Aquinas and Grotius were justified in
saying that if there were no God we should nevertheless be obliged to
conform to natural law. Others have said that even supposing all rational
beings in existence were to perish, true propositions would remain true.
Cajetan maintained that if he remained alone in the universe, all other
things without any exception having been destroyed, the knowledge that he
had of the nature of a rose would nevertheless subsist.'
184. The late Jacob Thomasius, a celebrated Professor at Leipzig, made the
apt observation in his elucidations of the philosophic rules of Daniel
Stahl, a Jena professor, that it is not advisable to go altogether beyond
God, and that one must not say, with some Scotists, that the eternal
verities would exist even though there were no understanding, not even that
of God. For it is, in my judgement, the divine understanding which gives
reality to the eternal verities, albeit God's will have no part therein.
All reality must be founded on something existent. It is true that an
atheist may be a geometrician: but if there were no God, geometry would
have no object. And without God, not only would there be nothing existent,
but there would be nothing possible. That, however, does not hinder those
who do not see the connexion of all things one with another and with God
from being able to understand certain sciences, without knowing their first
source, which is in God. Aristotle, although he also scarcely knew that
source, nevertheless said something of the same kind which was very
apposite. He acknowledged that the principles of individual forms of
knowledge depend on a superior knowledge which gives the reason for them;
and this superior knowledge must have being, and consequently God, the[244]
source of being, for its object. Herr Dreier of Königsberg has aptly
observed that the true metaphysics which Aristotle sought, and which he
called [Greek: tên zêtoumenên], his _desideratum_, was theology.
185. Yet the same M. Bayle, who says so much that is admirable in order to
prove that the rules of goodness and justice, and the eternal verities in
general, exist by their nature, and not by an arbitrary choice of God, has
spoken very hesitatingly about them in another passage (Continuation of
_Divers Thoughts on the Comet_, vol. II, ch. 114, towards the end). After
having given an account of the opinion of M. Descartes and a section of his
followers, who maintain that God is the free cause of truths and of
essences, he adds (p. 554): 'I have done all that I could to gain true
understanding of this dogma and to find the solution of the difficulties
surrounding it. I confess to you quite simply that I still cannot properly
fathom it. That does not discourage me; I suppose, as other philosophers in
other cases have supposed, that time will unfold the meaning of this noble
paradox. I wish that Father Malebranche had thought fit to defend it, but
he took other measures.' Is it possible that the enjoyment of doubt can
have such influence upon a gifted man as to make him wish and hope for the
power to believe that two contradictories never exist together for the sole
reason that God forbade them to, and, moreover, that God could have issued
them an order to ensure that they always walked together? There is indeed a
noble paradox! Father Malebranche showed great wisdom in taking other
measures.
186. I cannot even imagine that M. Descartes can have been quite seriously
of this opinion, although he had adherents who found this easy to believe,
and would in all simplicity follow him where he only made pretence to go.
It was apparently one of his tricks, one of his philosophic feints: he
prepared for himself some loophole, as when for instance he discovered a
trick for denying the movement of the earth, while he was a Copernican in
the strictest sense. I suspect that he had in mind here another
extraordinary manner of speaking, of his own invention, which was to say
that affirmations and negations, and acts of inner judgement in general,
are operations of the will. Through this artifice the eternal verities,
which until the time of Descartes had been named an object of the divine
understanding, suddenly became an object of God's will. Now the acts of his
will are free, therefore God is the free cause of the verities. That [245]
is the outcome of the matter. _Spectatum admissi._ A slight change in the
meaning of terms has caused all this commotion. But if the affirmations of
necessary truths were actions of the will of the most perfect mind, these
actions would be anything but free, for there is nothing to choose. It
seems that M. Descartes did not declare himself sufficiently on the nature
of freedom, and that his conception of it was somewhat unusual: for he
extended it so far that he even held the affirmations of necessary truths
to be free in God. That was preserving only the name of freedom.
187. M. Bayle, who with others conceives this to be a freedom of
indifference, that God had had to establish (for instance) the truths of
numbers, and to ordain that three times three made nine, whereas he could
have commanded them to make ten, imagines in this strange opinion,
supposing it were possible to defend it, some kind of advantage gained
against the Stratonists. Strato was one of the leaders of the School of
Aristotle, and the successor of Theophrastus; he maintained (according to
Cicero's account) that this world had been formed such as it is by Nature
or by a necessary cause devoid of cognition. I admit that that might be so,
if God had so preformed matter as to cause such an effect by the laws of
motion alone. But without God there would not even have been any reason for
existence, and still less for any particular existence of things: thus
Strato's system is not to be feared.
188. Nevertheless M. Bayle is in difficulties over this: he will not admit
plastic natures devoid of cognition, which Mr. Cudworth and others had
introduced, for fear that the modern Stratonists, that is, the Spinozists,
take advantage of it. This has involved him in disputes with M. le Clerc.
Under the influence of this error, that a non-intelligent cause can produce
nothing where contrivance appears, he is far from conceding to me that
_preformation_ which produces naturally the organs of animals, and _the
system of a harmony pre-established by God_ in bodies, to make them respond
in accordance with their own laws to the thoughts and the wills of souls.
But it ought to have been taken into account that this non-intelligent
cause, which produces such beautiful things in the grains and seeds of
plants and animals, and effects the actions of bodies as the will ordains
them, was formed by the hand of God: and God is infinitely more skilful
than a watchmaker, who himself makes machines and automata that are [246]
capable of producing as wonderful effects as if they possessed
intelligence.
189. Now to come to M. Bayle's apprehensions concerning the Stratonists, in
case one should admit truths that are not dependent upon the will of God:
he seems to fear lest they may take advantage against us of the perfect
regularity of the eternal verities. Since this regularity springs only from
the nature and necessity of things, without being directed by any
cognition, M. Bayle fears that one might with Strato thence infer that the
world also could have become regular through a blind necessity. But it is
easy to answer that. In the region of the eternal verities are found all
the possibles, and consequently the regular as well as the irregular: there
must be a reason accounting for the preference for order and regularity,
and this reason can only be found in understanding. Moreover these very
truths can have no existence without an understanding to take cognizance of
them; for they would not exist if there were no divine understanding
wherein they are realized, so to speak. Hence Strato does not attain his
end, which is to exclude cognition from that which enters into the origin
of things.
190. The difficulty that M. Bayle has imagined in connexion with Strato
seems a little too subtle and far-fetched. That is termed: _timere, ubi non
est timor_. He makes another difficulty, which has just as slight a
foundation, namely, that God would be subjected to a kind of _fatum_. Here
are his words (p. 555): 'If they are propositions of eternal truth, which
are such by their nature and not by God's institution, if they are not true
by a free decree of his will, but if on the contrary he has recognized them
as true of necessity, because such was their nature, there is a kind of
_fatum_ to which he is subjected; there is an absolutely insurmountable
natural necessity. Thence comes also the result that the divine
understanding in the infinity of its ideas has always and at the outset hit
upon their perfect conformity with their objects, without the guidance of
any cognition; for it would be a contradiction to say that any exemplary
cause had served as a plan for the acts of God's understanding. One would
never that way find eternal ideas or any first intelligence. One must say,
then, that a nature which exists of necessity always finds its way, without
any need for it to be shown. How then shall we overcome the obstinacy of a
Stratonist?'
191. But again it is easy to answer. This so-called _fatum_, which [247]
binds even the Divinity, is nothing but God's own nature, his own
understanding, which furnishes the rules for his wisdom and his goodness;
it is a happy necessity, without which he would be neither good nor wise.
Is it to be desired that God should not be bound to be perfect and happy?
Is our condition, which renders us liable to fail, worth envying? And
should we not be well pleased to exchange it for sinlessness, if that
depended upon us? One must be indeed weary of life to desire the freedom to
destroy oneself and to pity the Divinity for not having that freedom. M.
Bayle himself reasons thus elsewhere against those who laud to the skies an
extravagant freedom which they assume in the will, when they would make the
will independent of reason.
192. Moreover, M. Bayle wonders 'that the divine understanding in the
infinity of its ideas always and at the outset hits upon their perfect
conformity with their objects, without the guidance of any cognition'. This
objection is null and void. Every distinct idea is, through its
distinctness, in conformity with its object, and in God there are distinct
ideas only. At first, moreover, the object exists nowhere; but when it
comes into existence, it will be formed according to this idea. Besides, M.
Bayle knows very well that the divine understanding has no need of time for
seeing the connexion of things. All trains of reasoning are in God in a
transcendent form, and they preserve an order amongst them in his
understanding, as well as in ours: but with him it is only an order and a
_priority of nature_, whereas with us there is a _priority of time_. It is
therefore not to be wondered at that he who penetrates all things at one
stroke should always strike true at the outset; and it must not be said
that he succeeds without the guidance of any cognition. On the contrary, it
is because his knowledge is perfect that his voluntary actions are also
perfect.
193. Up to now I have shown that the Will of God is not independent of the
rules of Wisdom, although indeed it is a matter for surprise that one
should have been constrained to argue about it, and to do battle for a
truth so great and so well established. But it is hardly less surprising
that there should be people who believe that God only half observes these
rules, and does not choose the best, although his wisdom causes him to
recognize it; and, in a word, that there should be writers who hold that
God could have done better. That is more or less the error of the famous
Alfonso, King of Castile, who was elected King of the Romans by [248]
certain Electors, and originated the astronomical tables that bear his
name. This prince is reported to have said that if God in making the world
had consulted him he would have given God good advice. Apparently the
Ptolemaic system, which prevailed at that time, was displeasing to him. He
believed therefore that something better planned could have been made, and
he was right. But if he had known the system of Copernicus, with the
discoveries of Kepler, now extended by knowledge of the gravity of the
planets, he would indeed have confessed that the contrivance of the true
system is marvellous. We see, therefore, that here the question concerned
the more or less only; Alfonso maintained that better could have been done,
and his opinion was censured by everyone.
194. Yet philosophers and theologians dare to support dogmatically such a
belief; and I have many times wondered that gifted and pious persons should
have been capable of setting bounds to the goodness and the perfection of
God. For to assert that he knows what is best, that he can do it and that
he does it not, is to avow that it rested with his will only to make the
world better than it is; but that is what one calls lacking goodness. It is
acting against that axiom already quoted: _Minus bonum habet rationem
mali_. If some adduce experience to prove that God could have done better,
they set themselves up as ridiculous critics of his works. To such will be
given the answer given to all those who criticize God's course of action,
and who from this same assumption, that is, the alleged defects of the
world, would infer that there is an evil God, or at least a God neutral
between good and evil. And if we hold the same opinion as King Alfonso, we
shall, I say, receive this answer: You have known the world only since the
day before yesterday, you see scarce farther than your nose, and you carp
at the world. Wait until you know more of the world and consider therein
especially the parts which present a complete whole (as do organic bodies);
and you will find there a contrivance and a beauty transcending all
imagination. Let us thence draw conclusions as to the wisdom and the
goodness of the author of things, even in things that we know not. We find
in the universe some things which are not pleasing to us; but let us be
aware that it is not made for us alone. It is nevertheless made for us if
we are wise: it will serve us if we use it for our service; we shall be
happy in it if we wish to be.
[249]
195. Someone will say that it is impossible to produce the best, because
there is no perfect creature, and that it is always possible to produce one
which would be more perfect. I answer that what can be said of a creature
or of a particular substance, which can always be surpassed by another, is
not to be applied to the universe, which, since it must extend through all
future eternity, is an infinity. Moreover, there is an infinite number of
creatures in the smallest particle of matter, because of the actual
division of the _continuum_ to infinity. And infinity, that is to say, the
accumulation of an infinite number of substances, is, properly speaking,
not a whole any more than the infinite number itself, whereof one cannot
say whether it is even or uneven. That is just what serves to confute those
who make of the world a God, or who think of God as the Soul of the world;
for the world or the universe cannot be regarded as an animal or as a
substance.
196. It is therefore not a question of a creature, but of the universe; and
the adversary will be obliged to maintain that one possible universe may be
better than the other, to infinity; but there he would be mistaken, and it
is that which he cannot prove. If this opinion were true, it would follow
that God had not produced any universe at all: for he is incapable of
acting without reason, and that would be even acting against reason. It is
as if one were to suppose that God had decreed to make a material sphere,
with no reason for making it of any particular size. This decree would be
useless, it would carry with it that which would prevent its effect. It
would be quite another matter if God decreed to draw from a given point one
straight line to another given straight line, without any determination of
the angle, either in the decree or in its circumstances. For in this case
the determination would spring from the nature of the thing, the line would
be perpendicular, and the angle would be right, since that is all that is
determined and distinguishable. It is thus one must think of the creation
of the best of all possible universes, all the more since God not only
decrees to create a universe, but decrees also to create the best of all.
For God decrees nothing without knowledge, and he makes no separate
decrees, which would be nothing but antecedent acts of will: and these we
have sufficiently explained, distinguishing them from genuine decrees.
197. M. Diroys, whom I knew in Rome, theologian to Cardinal d'Estrées,
wrote a book entitled _Proofs and Assumptions in Favour of_ _the [250]
Christian Religion_, published in Paris in the year 1683. M. Bayle (_Reply
to the Questions of a Provincial_, vol. III, ch. 165, p. 1058) recounts
this objection brought up by M. Diroys: 'There is one more difficulty', he
says, 'which it is no less important to meet than those given earlier,
since it causes more trouble to those who judge goods and evils by
considerations founded on the purest and most lofty maxims. This is that
God being the supreme wisdom and goodness, it seems to them that he ought
to do all things as wise and virtuous persons would wish them to be done,
following the rules of wisdom and of goodness which God has imprinted in
them, and as they would be obliged themselves to do these things if they
depended upon them. Thus, seeing that the affairs of the world do not go so
well as, in their opinion, they might go, and as they would go if they
interfered themselves, they conclude that God, who is infinitely better and
wiser than they, or rather wisdom and goodness itself, does not concern
himself with these affairs.'
198. M. Diroys makes some apt remarks concerning this, which I will not
repeat, since I have sufficiently answered the objection in more than one
passage, and that has been the chief end of all my discourse. But he makes
one assertion with which I cannot agree. He claims that the objection
proves too much. One must again quote his own words with M. Bayle, p. 1059:
'If it does not behove the supreme Wisdom and Goodness to fail to do what
is best and most perfect, it follows that all Beings are eternally,
immutably and essentially as perfect and as good as they can be, since
nothing can change except by passing either from a state less good to a
better, or from a better to a less good. Now that cannot happen if it does
not behove God to fail to do that which is best and most perfect, when he
can do it. It will therefore be necessary that all beings be eternally and
essentially filled with a knowledge and a virtue as perfect as God can give
them. Now all that which is eternally and essentially as perfect as God can
make it proceeds essentially from him; in a word, is eternally and
essentially good as he is, and consequently it is God, as he is. That is
the bearing of this maxim, that it is repugnant to supreme justice and
goodness not to make things as good and perfect as they can be. For it is
essential to essential wisdom and goodness to banish all that is repugnant
to it altogether. One must therefore assert as a primary truth concerning
the conduct of God in relation to creatures that there is nothing repugnant
to this goodness and this wisdom in making things less perfect than [251]
they could be, or in permitting the goods that it has produced either
completely to cease to be or to change and deteriorate. For it causes no
offence to God that there should be other Beings than he, that is beings
who can be not what they are, and do not what they do or do what they do
not.'
199. M. Bayle calls this answer paltry, but I find his counter-objection
involved. M. Bayle will have those who are for the two principles to take
their stand chiefly on the assumption of the supreme freedom of God: for if
he were compelled to produce all that which he can, he would produce also
sins and sorrows. Thus the Dualists could from the existence of evil
conclude nothing contrary to the oneness of the principle, if this
principle were as much inclined to evil as to good. There M. Bayle carries
the notion of freedom too far: for even though God be supremely free, it
does not follow that he maintains an indifference of equipoise: and even
though he be inclined to act, it does not follow that he is compelled by
this inclination to produce all that which he can. He will produce only
that which he wills, for his inclination prompts him to good. I admit the
supreme freedom of God, but I do not confuse it with indifference of
equipoise, as if he could act without reason. M. Diroys therefore imagines
that the Dualists, in their insistence that the single good principle
produce no evil, ask too much; for by the same reason, according to M.
Diroys, they ought also to ask that he should produce the greatest good,
the less good being a kind of evil. I hold that the Dualists are wrong in
respect of the first point, and that they would be right in respect of the
second, where M. Diroys blames them without cause; or rather that one can
reconcile the evil, or the less good, in some parts with the best in the
whole. If the Dualists demanded that God should do the best, they would not
be demanding too much. They are mistaken rather in claiming that the best
in the whole should be free from evil in the parts, and that therefore what
God has made is not the best.
200. But M. Diroys maintains that if God always produces the best he will
produce other Gods; otherwise each substance that he produced would not be
the best nor the most perfect. But he is mistaken, through not taking into
account the order and connexion of things. If each substance taken
separately were perfect, all would be alike; which is neither fitting nor
possible. If they were Gods, it would not have been possible to [252]
produce them. The best system of things will therefore not contain Gods; it
will always be a system of bodies (that is, things arranged according to
time and place) and of souls which represent and are aware of bodies, and
in accordance with which bodies are in great measure directed. So, as the
design of a building may be the best of all in respect of its purpose, of
expense and of circumstances; and as an arrangement of some figured
representations of bodies which is given to you may be the best that one
can find, it is easy to imagine likewise that a structure of the universe
may be the best of all, without becoming a god. The connexion and order of
things brings it about that the body of every animal and of every plant is
composed of other animals and of other plants, or of other living and
organic beings; consequently there is subordination, and one body, one
substance serves the other: thus their perfection cannot be equal.
201. M. Bayle thinks (p. 1063) that M. Diroys has confused two different
propositions. According to the one, God must do all things as wise and
virtuous persons would wish that they should be done, by the rules of
wisdom and of goodness that God has imprinted in them, and as they would be
obliged themselves to do them if those things depended upon them. The other
is that it is not consistent with supreme wisdom and goodness to fail to do
what is best and most perfect. M. Diroys (in M. Bayle's opinion) sets up
the first proposition as an objection for himself, and replies to the
second. But therein he is justified, as it seems to me. For these two
propositions are connected, the second is a result of the first: to do less
good than one could is to be lacking in wisdom or in goodness. To be the
best, and to be desired by those who are most virtuous and wise, comes to
the same thing. And it may be said that, if we could understand the
structure and the economy of the universe, we should find that it is made
and directed as the wisest and most virtuous could wish it, since God
cannot fail to do thus. This necessity nevertheless is only of a moral
nature: and I admit that if God were forced by a metaphysical necessity to
produce that which he makes, he would produce all the possibles, or
nothing; and in this sense M. Bayle's conclusion would be fully correct.
But as all the possibles are not compatible together in one and the same
world-sequence, for that very reason all the possibles cannot be produced,
and it must be said that God is not forced, metaphysically speaking, [253]
into the creation of this world. One may say that as soon as God has
decreed to create something there is a struggle between all the possibles,
all of them laying claim to existence, and that those which, being united,
produce most reality, most perfection, most significance carry the day. It
is true that all this struggle can only be ideal, that is to say, it can
only be a conflict of reasons in the most perfect understanding, which
cannot fail to act in the most perfect way, and consequently to choose the
best. Yet God is bound by a moral necessity, to make things in such a
manner that there can be nothing better: otherwise not only would others
have cause to criticize what he makes, but, more than that, he would not
himself be satisfied with his work, he would blame himself for its
imperfection; and that conflicts with the supreme felicity of the divine
nature. This perpetual sense of his own fault or imperfection would be to
him an inevitable source of grief, as M. Bayle says on another occasion
(p.953).
202. M. Diroys' argument contains a false assumption, in his statement that
nothing can change except by passing from a state less good to a better or
from a better to a less good; and that thus, if God makes the best, what he
has produced cannot be changed: it would be an eternal substance, a god.
But I do not see why a thing cannot change its kind in relation to good or
evil, without changing its degree. In the transition from enjoyment of
music to enjoyment of painting, or _vice versa_ from the pleasure of the
eyes to that of the ears, the degree of enjoyment may remain the same, the
latter gaining no advantage over the former save that of novelty. If the
quadrature of the circle should come to pass or (what is the same thing)
the circulature of the square, that is, if the circle were changed into a
square of the same size, or the square into a circle, it would be difficult
to say, on the whole, without having regard to some special use, whether
one would have gained or lost. Thus the best may be changed into another
which neither yields to it nor surpasses it: but there will always be an
order among them, and that the best order possible. Taking the whole
sequence of things, the best has no equal; but one part of the sequence may
be equalled by another part of the same sequence. Besides it might be said
that the whole sequence of things to infinity may be the best possible,
although what exists all through the universe in each portion of time be
not the best. It might be therefore that the universe became even [254]
better and better, if the nature of things were such that it was not
permitted to attain to the best all at once. But these are problems of
which it is hard for us to judge.
203. M. Bayle says (p. 1064) that the question whether God could have made
things more perfect than he made them is also very difficult, and that the
reasons for and against are very strong. But it is, so it seems to me, as
if one were to question whether God's actions are consistent with the most
perfect wisdom and the greatest goodness. It is a very strange thing, that
by changing the terms a little one throws doubt upon what is, if properly
understood, as clear as anything can be. The reasons to the contrary have
no force, being founded only on the semblance of defects; and M. Bayle's
objection, which tends to prove that the law of the best would impose upon
God a true metaphysical necessity, is only an illusion that springs from
the misuse of terms. M. Bayle formerly held a different opinion, when he
commended that of Father Malebranche, which was akin to mine on this
subject. But M. Arnauld having written in opposition to Father Malebranche,
M. Bayle altered his opinion; and I suppose that his tendency towards
doubt, which increased in him with the years, was conducive to that result.
M. Arnauld was doubtless a great man, and his authority has great weight:
he made sundry good observations in his writings against Father
Malebranche, but he was not justified in contesting those of his statements
that were akin to mine on the rule of the best.
204. The excellent author of _The Search for Truth_, having passed from
philosophy to theology, published finally an admirable treatise on Nature
and Grace. Here he showed in his way (as M. Bayle explained in his _Divers
Thoughts on the Comet_, ch. 234) that the events which spring from the
enforcement of general laws are not the object of a particular will of God.
It is true that when one wills a thing one wills also in a sense everything
that is necessarily attached to it, and in consequence God cannot will
general laws without also willing in a sense all the particular effects
that must of necessity be derived from them. But it is always true that
these particular events are not willed for their own sake, and that is what
is meant by the expression that they are not willed by a _particular_ and
direct _will_. There is no doubt that when God resolved to act outside
himself, he made choice of a manner of action which should be worthy [255]
of the supremely perfect Being, that is, which should be infinitely simple
and uniform, but yet of an infinite productivity. One may even suppose that
this manner of action by _general acts of will_ appeared to him
preferable--although there must thence result some superfluous events (and
even bad if they are taken separately, that is my own addition)--to another
manner more composed and more regular; such is Father Malebranche's
opinion. Nothing is more appropriate than this assumption (according to the
opinion of M. Bayle, when he wrote his _Divers Thoughts on the Comet_) to
solve a thousand difficulties which are brought up against divine
providence: 'To ask God', he says, 'why he has made things which serve to
render men more wicked, that would be to ask why God has carried out his
plan (which can only be of infinite beauty) by the simplest and most
uniform methods, and why, by a complexity of decrees that would unceasingly
cut across one another, he has not prevented the wrong use of man's free
will.' He adds 'that miracles being particular acts of will must have an
end worthy of God'.
205. On these foundations he makes some good reflexions (ch. 231)
concerning the injustice of those who complain of the prosperity of the
wicked. 'I shall have no scruples', he says, 'about saying that all those
who are surprised at the prosperity of the wicked have pondered very little
upon the nature of God, and that they have reduced the obligations of a
cause which directs all things, to the scope of a providence altogether
subordinate; and that is small-minded. What then! Should God, after having
made free causes and necessary causes, in a mixture infinitely well fitted
to show forth the wonders of his infinite wisdom, have established laws
consistent with the nature of free causes, but so lacking in firmness that
the slightest trouble that came upon a man would overthrow them entirely,
to the ruin of human freedom? A mere city governor will become an object of
ridicule if he changes his regulations and orders as often as someone is
pleased to murmur against him. And shall God, whose laws concern a good so
universal that all of the world that is visible to us perchance enters into
it as no more than a trifling accessary, be bound to depart from his laws,
because they to-day displease the one and to-morrow the other? Or again
because a superstitious person, deeming wrongly that a monstrosity presages
something deadly, proceeds from his error to a criminal sacrifice? Or
because a good soul, who yet does not value virtue highly enough to [256]
believe that to have none is punishment enough in itself, is shocked that a
wicked man should become rich and enjoy vigorous health? Can one form any
falser notions of a universal providence? Everyone agrees that this law of
nature, the strong prevails over the weak, has been very wisely laid down,
and that it would be absurd to maintain that when a stone falls on a
fragile vase which is the delight of its owner, God should depart from this
law in order to spare that owner vexation. Should one then not confess that
it is just as absurd to maintain that God must depart from the same law to
prevent a wicked man from growing rich at the expense of a good man? The
more the wicked man sets himself above the promptings of conscience and of
honour, the more does he exceed the good man in strength, so that if he
comes to grips with the good man he must, according to the course of
nature, ruin him. If, moreover, they are both engaged in the business of
finance, the wicked man must, according to the same course of nature, grow
richer than the good man, just as a fierce fire consumes more wood than a
fire of straw. Those who would wish sickness for a wicked man are sometimes
as unfair as those who would wish that a stone falling on a glass should
not break it: for his organs being arranged as they are, neither the food
that he takes nor the air that he breathes can, according to natural laws,
be detrimental to his health. Therefore those who complain about his health
complain of God's failure to violate the laws which he has established. And
in this they are all the more unfair because, through combinations and
concatenations which were in the power of God alone, it happens often
enough that the course of nature brings about the punishment of sin.'
206. It is a thousand pities that M. Bayle so soon quitted the way he had
so auspiciously begun, of reasoning on behalf of providence: for his work
would have been fruitful, and in saying fine things he would have said good
things as well. I agree with Father Malebranche that God does things in the
way most worthy of him. But I go a little further than he, with regard to
'general and particular acts of will'. As God can do nothing without
reasons, even when he acts miraculously, it follows that he has no will
about individual events but what results from some general truth or will.
Thus I would say that God never has a _particular will_ such as this Father
implies, that is to say, _a particular primitive will_.
[257]
207. I think even that miracles have nothing to distinguish them from other
events in this regard: for reasons of an order superior to that of Nature
prompt God to perform them. Thus I would not say, with this Father, that
God departs from general laws whenever order requires it: he departs from
one law only for another law more applicable, and what order requires
cannot fail to be in conformity with the rule of order, which is one of the
general laws. The distinguishing mark of miracles (taken in the strictest
sense) is that they cannot be accounted for by the natures of created
things. That is why, should God make a general law causing bodies to be
attracted the one to the other, he could only achieve its operation by
perpetual miracles. And likewise, if God willed that the organs of human
bodies should conform to the will of the soul, according to the _system of
occasional causes_, this law also would come into operation only through
perpetual miracles.
208. Thus one must suppose that, among the general rules which are not
absolutely necessary, God chooses those which are the most natural, which
it is easiest to explain, and which also are of greatest service for the
explanation of other things. That is doubtless the conclusion most
excellent and most pleasing; and even though the System of Pre-established
Harmony were not necessary otherwise, because it banishes superfluous
miracles, God would have chosen it as being the most harmonious. The ways
of God are those most simple and uniform: for he chooses rules that least
restrict one another. They are also the most _productive_ in proportion to
the _simplicity of ways and means_. It is as if one said that a certain
house was the best that could have been constructed at a certain cost. One
may, indeed, reduce these two conditions, simplicity and productivity, to a
single advantage, which is to produce as much perfection as is possible:
thus Father Malebranche's system in this point amounts to the same as mine.
Even if the effect were assumed to be greater, but the process less simple,
I think one might say that, when all is said and done, the effect itself
would be less great, taking into account not only the final effect but also
the mediate effect. For the wisest mind so acts, as far as it is possible,
that the _means_ are also in a sense _ends_, that is, they are desirable
not only on account of what they do, but on account of what they are. The
more intricate processes take up too much ground, too much space, too much
place, too much time that might have been better employed.
[258]
209. Now since everything resolves itself into this greatest perfection, we
return to my law of the best. For perfection includes not only the _moral
good_ and the _physical good_ of intelligent creatures, but also the good
which is purely _metaphysical_, and concerns also creatures devoid of
reason. It follows that the evil that is in rational creatures happens only
by concomitance, not by antecedent will but by a consequent will, as being
involved in the best possible plan; and the metaphysical good which
includes everything makes it necessary sometimes to admit physical evil and
moral evil, as I have already explained more than once. It so happens that
the ancient Stoics were not far removed from this system. M. Bayle remarked
upon this himself in his _Dictionary_ in the article on 'Chrysippus', rem.
T. It is of importance to give his own words, in order sometimes to face
him with his own objections and to bring him back to the fine sentiments
that he had formerly pronounced: 'Chrysippus', he says (p. 930), 'in his
work on Providence examined amongst other questions this one: Did the
nature of things, or the providence that made the world and the human kind,
make also the diseases to which men are subject? He answers that the chief
design of Nature was not to make them sickly, that would not be in keeping
with the cause of all good; but Nature, in preparing and producing many
great things excellently ordered and of great usefulness, found that some
drawbacks came as a result, and thus these were not in conformity with the
original design and purpose; they came about as a sequel to the work, they
existed only as consequences. For the formation of the human body,
Chrysippus said, the finest idea as well as the very utility of the work
demanded that the head should be composed of a tissue of thin, fine bones;
but because of that it was bound to have the disadvantage of not being able
to resist blows. Nature made health, and at the same time it was necessary
by a kind of concomitance that the source of diseases should be opened up.
The same thing applies with regard to virtue; the direct action of Nature,
which brought it forth, produced by a counter stroke the brood of vices. I
have not translated literally, for which reason I give here the actual
Latin of Aulus Gellius, for the benefit of those who understand that
language (Aul. Gellius, lib. 6, cap. 1): "Idem Chrysippus in eod. lib.
(quarto, [Greek: peri pronoias]) tractat consideratque, dignumque esse id
quaeri putat, [Greek: ei hai tôn anthrôpôn nosoi kata physin gignontai]. Id
est, naturane ipsa rerum, vel providentia quae compagem hanc mundi et [259]
genus hominum fecit, morbos quoque et debilitates et aegritudines corporum,
quas patiuntur homines, fecerit. Existimat autem non fuisse hoc principale
naturae consilium, ut faceret homines morbis obnoxios. Nunquam enim hoc
convenisse naturae auctori parentique rerum omnium bonarum. Sed quum multa,
inquit, atque magna gigneret, pareretque aptissima et utilissima, alia
quoque simul agnata sunt incommoda iis ipsis, quae faciebat, cohaerentia:
eaque non per naturam, sed per sequelas quasdam necessarias facta dicit,
quod ipse appellat [Greek: kata parakolouthêsin]. Sicut, inquit, quum
corpora hominum natura fingeret, ratio subtilior et utilitas ipsa operis
postulavit ut tenuissimis minutisque ossiculis caput compingeret. Sed hanc
utilitatem rei majoris alia quaedam incommoditas extrinsecus consecuta est,
ut fieret caput tenuiter munitum et ictibus offensionibusque parvis
fragile. Proinde morbi quoque et aegritudines partae sunt, dum salus
paritur. Sic Hercle, inquit, dum virtus hominibus per consilium naturae
gignitur, vitia ibidem per affinitatem contrariam nata sunt." I do not
think that a pagan could have said anything more reasonable, considering
his ignorance of the first man's fall, the knowledge of which has only
reached us through revelation, and which indeed is the true cause of our
miseries. If we had sundry like extracts from the works of Chrysippus, or
rather if we had his works, we should have a more favourable idea than we
have of the beauty of his genius.'
210. Let us now see the reverse of the medal in the altered M. Bayle. After
having quoted in his _Reply to the Questions of a Provincial_ (vol. III,
ch. 155, p. 962) these words of M. Jacquelot, which are much to my liking:
'To change the order of the universe is something of infinitely greater
consequence than the prosperity of a good man,' he adds: 'This thought has
something dazzling about it: Father Malebranche has placed it in the best
possible light; and he has persuaded some of his readers that a system
which is simple and very productive is more consistent with God's wisdom
than a system more composite and less productive in proportion, but more
capable of averting irregularities. M. Bayle was one of those who believed
that Father Malebranche in that way gave a wonderful solution.' (It is M.
Bayle himself speaking.) 'But it is almost impossible to be satisfied with
it after having read M. Arnauld's books against this system, and after
having contemplated the vast and boundless idea of the supremely [260]
perfect Being. This idea shows us that nothing is easier for God than to
follow a plan which is simple, productive, regular and opportune for all
creatures simultaneously.'
211. While I was in France I showed to M. Arnauld a dialogue I had composed
in Latin on the cause of evil and the justice of God; it was not only
before his disputes with Father Malebranche, but even before the book on
_The Search for Truth_ appeared. That principle which I uphold here, namely
that sin had been permitted because it had been involved in the best plan
for the universe, was already applied there; and M. Arnauld did not seem to
be startled by it. But the slight contentions which he has since had with
Father Malebranche have given him cause to examine this subject with closer
attention, and to be more severe in his judgement thereof. Yet I am not
altogether pleased with M. Bayle's manner of expression here on this
subject, and I am not of the opinion 'that a more composite and less
productive plan might be more capable of averting irregularities'. Rules
are the expression of general will: the more one observes rules, the more
regularity there is; simplicity and productivity are the aim of rules. I
shall be met with the objection that a uniform system will be free from
irregularities. I answer that it would be an irregularity to be too
uniform, that would offend against the rules of harmony. _Et citharoedus
Ridetur chorda qui semper oberrat eadem_. I believe therefore that God can
follow a simple, productive, regular plan; but I do not believe that the
best and the most regular is always opportune for all creatures
simultaneously; and I judge _a posteriori_, for the plan chosen by God is
not so. I have, however, also shown this _a priori_ in examples taken from
mathematics, and I will presently give another here. An Origenist who
maintains that all rational creatures become happy in the end will be still
easier to satisfy. He will say, in imitation of St. Paul's saying about the
sufferings of this life, that those which are finite are not worthy to be
compared with eternal bliss.
212. What is deceptive in this subject, as I have already observed, is that
one feels an inclination to believe that what is the best in the whole is
also the best possible in each part. One reasons thus in geometry, when it
is a question _de maximis et minimis_. If the road from A to B that one
proposes to take is the shortest possible, and if this road passes by C,
then the road from A to C, part of the first, must also be the shortest
possible. But the inference from _quantity_ to _quality_ is not always[261]
right, any more than that which is drawn from equals to similars. For
_equals_ are those whose quantity is the same, and _similars_ are those not
differing according to qualities. The late Herr Sturm, a famous
mathematician in Altorf, while in Holland in his youth published there a
small book under the title of _Euclides Catholicus_. Here he endeavoured to
give exact and general rules in subjects not mathematical, being encouraged
in the task by the late Herr Erhard Weigel, who had been his tutor. In this
book he transfers to similars what Euclid had said of equals, and he
formulates this axiom: _Si similibus addas similia, tota sunt similia_. But
so many limitations were necessary to justify this new rule, that it would
have been better, in my opinion, to enounce it at the outset with a
reservation, by saying, _Si similibus similia addas similiter, tota sunt
similia_. Moreover, geometricians often require _non tantum similia, sed et
similiter posita_.
213. This difference between quantity and quality appears also in our case.
The part of the shortest way between two extreme points is also the
shortest way between the extreme points of this part; but the part of the
best Whole is not of necessity the best that one could have made of this
part. For the part of a beautiful thing is not always beautiful, since it
can be extracted from the whole, or marked out within the whole, in an
irregular manner. If goodness and beauty always lay in something absolute
and uniform, such as extension, matter, gold, water, and other bodies
assumed to be homogeneous or similar, one must say that the part of the
good and the beautiful would be beautiful and good like the whole, since it
would always have resemblance to the whole: but this is not the case in
things that have mutual relations. An example taken from geometry will be
appropriate to explain my idea.
214. There is a kind of geometry which Herr Jung of Hamburg, one of the
most admirable men of his time, called 'empiric'. It makes use of
conclusive experiments and proves various propositions of Euclid, but
especially those which concern the equality of two figures, by cutting the
one in pieces, and putting the pieces together again to make the other. In
this manner, by cutting carefully in parts the squares on the two sides of
the right-angled triangle, and arranging these parts carefully, one makes
from them the square on the hypotenuse; that is demonstrating empirically
the 47th proposition of the first book of Euclid. Now supposing that some
of these pieces taken from the two smaller squares are lost, something[262]
will be lacking in the large square that is to be formed from them; and
this defective combination, far from pleasing, will be disagreeably ugly.
If then the pieces that remained, composing the faulty combination, were
taken separately without any regard to the large square to whose formation
they ought to contribute, one would group them together quite differently
to make a tolerably good combination. But as soon as the lost pieces are
retrieved and the gap in the faulty combination is filled, there will ensue
a beautiful and regular thing, the complete large square: this perfect
combination will be far more beautiful than the tolerably good combination
which had been made from the pieces one had not mislaid alone. The perfect
combination corresponds to the universe in its entirety, and the faulty
combination that is a part of the perfect one corresponds to some part of
the universe, where we find defects which the Author of things has allowed,
because otherwise, if he had wished to re-shape this faulty part and make
thereof a tolerably good combination, the whole would not then have been so
beautiful. For the parts of the faulty combination, grouped better to make
a tolerably good combination, could not have been used properly to form the
whole and perfect combination. Thomas Aquinas had an inkling of these
things when he said: _ad prudentem gubernatorem pertinet, negligere aliquem
defectum bonitatis in parte, ut faciat augmentum bonitatis in toto_ (Thom.,
_Contra Gentiles_, lib. 2, c. 71). Thomas Gatacre, in his Notes on the book
of Marcus Aurelius (lib. 5, cap. 8, with M. Bayle), cites also passages
from authors who say that the evil of the parts is often the good of the
whole.
215. Let us return to M. Bayle's illustrations. He imagines a prince (p.
963) who is having a city built, and who, in bad taste, aims rather at airs
of magnificence therein, and a bold and unusual style of architecture, than
at the provision of conveniences of all kinds for the inhabitants. But if
this prince has true magnanimity he will prefer the convenient to the
magnificent architecture. That is M. Bayle's judgement. I consider,
however, that there are cases where one will justifiably prefer beauty of
construction in a palace to the convenience of a few domestics. But I admit
that the construction would be bad, however beautiful it might be, if it
were a cause of diseases to the inhabitants; provided it was possible to
make one that would be better, taking into account beauty, convenience and
health all together. It may be, indeed, that one cannot have all these[263]
advantages at once. Thus, supposing one wished to build on the northern and
more bracing side of the mountain, if the castle were then bound to be of
an unendurable construction, one would prefer to make it face southward.
216. M. Bayle raises the further objection, that it is true that our
legislators can never invent regulations such as are convenient for all
individuals, 'Nulla lex satis commoda omnibus est; id modo quaeritur, si
majori parti et in summam prodest. (Cato apud Livium, L. 34, circa init.)'
But the reason is that the limited condition of their knowledge compels
them to cling to laws which, when all is taken into account, are more
advantageous than harmful. Nothing of all that can apply to God, who is as
infinite in power and understanding as in goodness and true greatness. I
answer that since God chooses the best possible, one cannot tax him with
any limitation of his perfections; and in the universe not only does the
good exceed the evil, but also the evil serves to augment the good.
217. He observes also that the Stoics derived a blasphemy from this
principle, saying that evils must be endured with patience, or that they
were necessary, not only to the well-being and completeness of the
universe, but also to the felicity, perfection and conservation of God, who
directs it. The Emperor Marcus Aurelius gave expression to that in the
eighth chapter of the fifth book of his _Meditations_. 'Duplici ratione',
he says, 'diligas oportet, quidquid evenerit tibi; altera quod tibi natum
et tibi coordinatum et ad te quodammodo affectum est; altera quod universi
gubernatori prosperitatis et consummationis atque adeo permansionis ipsius
procurandae ([Greek: tês euodias kai tês synteleias kai tês symmonês
autês]) ex parte causa est.' This precept is not the most reasonable of
those stated by that great emperor. A _diligas oportet_ ([Greek: stergein
chrê]) is of no avail; a thing does not become pleasing just because it is
necessary, and because it is destined for or attached to someone: and what
for me would be an evil would not cease to be such because it would be my
master's good, unless this good reflected back on me. One good thing among
others in the universe is that the general good becomes in reality the
individual good of those who love the Author of all good. But the principal
error of this emperor and of the Stoics was their assumption that the good
of the universe must please God himself, because they imagined God as the
soul of the world. This error has nothing in common with my dogma, [264]
according to which God is _Intelligentia extramundana_, as Martianus
Capella calls him, or rather _supramundana_. Further, he acts to do good,
and not to receive it. _Melius est dare quam accipere_; his bliss is ever
perfect and can receive no increase, either from within or from without.
218. I come now to the principal objection M. Bayle, after M. Arnauld,
brings up against me. It is complicated: they maintain that God would be
under compulsion, that he would act of necessity, if he were bound to
create the best; or at least that he would have been lacking in power if he
could not have found a better expedient for excluding sins and other evils.
That is in effect denying that this universe is the best, and that God is
bound to insist upon the best. I have met this objection adequately in more
than one passage: I have proved that God cannot fail to produce the best;
and from that assumption it follows that the evils we experience could not
have been reasonably excluded from the universe, since they are there. Let
us see, however, what these two excellent men bring up, or rather let us
see what M. Bayle's objection is, for he professes to have profited by the
arguments of M. Arnauld.
219. 'Would it be possible', he says, _Reply to the Questions of a
Provincial_, vol. III, ch. 158, p. 890, 'that a nature whose goodness,
holiness, wisdom, knowledge and power are infinite, who loves virtue
supremely, and hates vice supremely, as our clear and distinct idea of him
shows us, and as well-nigh every page of Scripture assures us, could have
found in virtue no means fitting and suited for his ends? Would it be
possible that vice alone had offered him this means? One would have thought
on the contrary that nothing beseemed this nature more than to establish
virtue in his work to the exclusion of all vice.' M. Bayle here exaggerates
things. I agree that some vice was connected with the best plan of the
universe, but I do not agree with him that God could not find in virtue any
means suited for his ends. This objection would have been valid if there
were no virtue, if vice took its place everywhere. He will say it suffices
that vice prevails and that virtue is trifling in comparison. But I am far
from agreeing with him there, and I think that in reality, properly
speaking, there is incomparably more moral good than moral evil in rational
creatures; and of these we have knowledge of but few.
220. This evil is not even so great in men as it is declared to be. It[265]
is only people of a malicious disposition or those who have become somewhat
misanthropic through misfortunes, like Lucian's Timon, who find wickedness
everywhere, and who poison the best actions by the interpretations they
give to them. I speak of those who do it in all seriousness, to draw thence
evil conclusions, by which their conduct is tainted; for there are some who
only do it to show off their own acumen. People have found that fault in
Tacitus, and that again is the criticism M. Descartes (in one of his
letters) makes of Mr. Hobbes's book _De Cive_, of which only a few copies
had at that time been printed for distribution among friends, but to which
some notes by the author were added in the second edition which we have.
For although M. Descartes acknowledges that this book is by a man of
talent, he observes therein some very dangerous principles and maxims, in
the assumption there made that all men are wicked, or the provision of them
with motives for being so. The late Herr Jacob Thomasius said in his
admirable _Tables of Practical Philosophy_ that the [Greek: prôton
pseudos], the primary cause of errors in this book by Mr. Hobbes, was that
he took _statum legalem pro naturali_, that is to say that the corrupt
state served him as a gauge and rule, whereas it is the state most
befitting human nature which Aristotle had had in view. For according to
Aristotle, that is termed _natural_ which conforms most closely to the
perfection of the nature of the thing; but Mr. Hobbes applies the term
_natural state_ to that which has least art, perhaps not taking into
account that human nature in its perfection carries art with it. But the
question of name, that is to say, of what may be called natural, would not
be of great importance were it not that Aristotle and Hobbes fastened upon
it the notion of natural right, each one following his own signification. I
have said here already that I found in the book on the Falsity of human
Virtues the same defect as M. Descartes found in Mr. Hobbes's _De Cive_.
221. But even if we assume that vice exceeds virtue in the human kind, as
it is assumed the number of the damned exceeds that of the elect, it by no
means follows that vice and misery exceed virtue and happiness in the
universe: one should rather believe the opposite, because the City of God
must be the most perfect of all possible states, since it was formed and is
perpetually governed by the greatest and best of all Monarchs. This answer
confirms the observation I made earlier, when speaking of the conformity of
faith with reason, namely, that one of the greatest sources of fallacy[266]
in the objections is the confusion of the apparent with the real. And here
by the apparent I mean not simply such as would result from an exact
discussion of facts, but that which has been derived from the small extent
of our experiences. It would be senseless to try to bring up appearances so
imperfect, and having such slight foundation, in opposition to the proofs
of reason and the revelations of faith.
222. Finally, I have already observed that love of virtue and hatred of
vice, which tend in an undefined way to bring virtue into existence and to
prevent the existence of vice, are only antecedent acts of will, such as is
the will to bring about the happiness of all men and to save them from
misery. These acts of antecedent will make up only a portion of all the
antecedent will of God taken together, whose result forms the consequent
will, or the decree to create the best. Through this decree it is that love
for virtue and for the happiness of rational creatures, which is undefined
in itself and goes as far as is possible, receives some slight limitations,
on account of the heed that must be paid to good in general. Thus one must
understand that God loves virtue supremely and hates vice supremely, and
that nevertheless some vice is to be permitted.
223. M. Arnauld and M. Bayle appear to maintain that this method of
explaining things and of establishing a best among all the plans for the
universe, one such as may not be surpassed by any other, sets a limit to
God's power. 'Have you considered', says M. Arnauld to Father Malebranche
(in his _Reflexions on the New System of Nature and Grace_, vol. II, p.
385), 'that in making such assumptions you take it upon yourself to subvert
the first article of the creed, whereby we make profession of believing in
God the Father Almighty?' He had said already (p. 362): 'Can one maintain,
without trying to blind oneself, that a course of action which could not
fail to have this grievous result, namely, that the majority of men perish,
bears the stamp of God's goodness more than a different course of action,
which would have caused, if God had followed it, the salvation of all men?'
And, as M. Jacquelot does not differ from the principles I have just laid
down, M. Bayle raises like objections in his case (_Reply to the Questions
of a Provincial_, vol. III, ch. 151, p. 900): 'If one adopts such
explanations', he says, 'one sees oneself constrained to renounce the most
obvious notions on the nature of the supremely perfect Being. These teach
us that all things not implying contradiction are possible for him, [267]
that consequently it is possible for him to save people whom he does not
save: for what contradiction would result supposing the number of the elect
were greater than it is? They teach us besides that, since he is supremely
happy, he has no will which he cannot carry out. How, then, shall we
understand that he wills to save all men and that he cannot do so? We
sought some light to help us out of the perplexities we feel in comparing
the idea of God with the state of the human kind, and lo! we are given
elucidations that cast us into darkness more dense.'
224. All these obstacles vanish before the exposition I have just given. I
agree with M. Bayle's principle, and it is also mine, that everything
implying no contradiction is possible. But as for me, holding as I do that
God did the best that was possible, or that he could not have done better
than he has done, deeming also that to pass any other judgement upon his
work in its entirety would be to wrong his goodness or his wisdom, I must
say that to make something which surpasses in goodness the best itself,
that indeed would imply contradiction. That would be as if someone
maintained that God could draw from one point to another a line shorter
than the straight line, and accused those who deny this of subverting the
article of faith whereby we believe in God the Father Almighty.
225. The infinity of possibles, however great it may be, is no greater than
that of the wisdom of God, who knows all possibles. One may even say that
if this wisdom does not exceed the possibles extensively, since the objects
of the understanding cannot go beyond the possible, which in a sense is
alone intelligible, it exceeds them intensively, by reason of the
infinitely infinite combinations it makes thereof, and its many
deliberations concerning them. The wisdom of God, not content with
embracing all the possibles, penetrates them, compares them, weighs them
one against the other, to estimate their degrees of perfection or
imperfection, the strong and the weak, the good and the evil. It goes even
beyond the finite combinations, it makes of them an infinity of infinites,
that is to say, an infinity of possible sequences of the universe, each of
which contains an infinity of creatures. By this means the divine Wisdom
distributes all the possibles it had already contemplated separately, into
so many universal systems which it further compares the one with the other.
The result of all these comparisons and deliberations is the choice of the
best from among all these possible systems, which wisdom makes in [268]
order to satisfy goodness completely; and such is precisely the plan of the
universe as it is. Moreover, all these operations of the divine
understanding, although they have among them an order and a priority of
nature, always take place together, no priority of time existing among
them.
226. The careful consideration of these things will, I hope, induce a
different idea of the greatness of the divine perfections, and especially
of the wisdom and goodness of God, from any that can exist in the minds of
those who make God act at random, without cause or reason. And I do not see
how they could avoid falling into an opinion so strange, unless they
acknowledged that there are reasons for God's choice, and that these
reasons are derived from his goodness: whence it follows of necessity that
what was chosen had the advantage of goodness over what was not chosen, and
consequently that it is the best of all the possibles. The best cannot be
surpassed in goodness, and it is no restriction of the power of God to say
that he cannot do the impossible. Is it possible, said M. Bayle, that there
is no better plan than that one which God carried out? One answers that it
is very possible and indeed necessary, namely that there is none: otherwise
God would have preferred it.
227. It seems to me that I have proved sufficiently that among all the
possible plans of the universe there is one better than all the rest, and
that God has not failed to choose it. But M. Bayle claims to infer thence
that God is therefore not free. This is how he speaks on that question
(_ubi supra_, ch. 151, p. 899): 'I thought to argue with a man who assumed
as I do that the goodness and the power of God are infinite, as well as his
wisdom; and now I see that in reality this man assumes that God's goodness
and power are enclosed within rather narrow bounds.' As to that, the
objection has already been met: I set no bounds to God's power, since I
recognize that it extends _ad maximum, ad omnia_, to all that implies no
contradiction; and I set none to his goodness, since it attains to the
best, _ad optimum_. But M. Bayle goes on: 'There is therefore no freedom in
God; he is compelled by his wisdom to create, and then to create precisely
such a work, and finally to create it precisely in such ways. These are
three servitudes which form a more than Stoic _fatum_, and which render
impossible all that is not within their sphere. It seems that, according to
this system, God could have said, even before shaping his decrees: I [269]
cannot save such and such a man, nor condemn such and such another, _quippe
vetor fatis_, my wisdom permits it not.'
228. I answer that it is goodness which prompts God to create with the
purpose of communicating himself; and this same goodness combined with
wisdom prompts him to create the best: a best that includes the whole
sequence, the effect and the process. It prompts him thereto without
compelling him, for it does not render impossible that which it does not
cause him to choose. To call that _fatum_ is taking it in a good sense,
which is not contrary to freedom: _fatum_ comes from _fari_, to speak, to
pronounce; it signifies a judgement, a decree of God, the award of his
wisdom. To say that one cannot do a thing, simply because one does not will
it, is to misuse terms. The wise mind wills only the good: is it then a
servitude when the will acts in accordance with wisdom? And can one be less
a slave than to act by one's own choice in accordance with the most perfect
reason? Aristotle used to say that that man is in a natural servitude
(_natura servus_) who lacks guidance, who has need of being directed.
Slavery comes from without, it leads to that which offends, and especially
to that which offends with reason: the force of others and our own passions
enslave us. God is never moved by anything outside himself, nor is he
subject to inward passions, and he is never led to that which can cause him
offence. It appears, therefore, that M. Bayle gives odious names to the
best things in the world, and turns our ideas upside-down, applying the
term slavery to the state of the greatest and most perfect freedom.
229. He had also said not long before (ch. 151, p. 891): 'If virtue, or any
other good at all, had been as appropriate as vice for the Creator's ends,
vice would not have been given preference; it must therefore have been the
only means that the Creator could have used; it was therefore employed
purely of necessity. As therefore he loves his glory, not with a freedom of
indifference, but by necessity, he must by necessity love all the means
without which he could not manifest his glory. Now if vice, as vice, was
the only means of attaining to this end, it will follow that God of
necessity loves vice as vice, a thought which can only inspire us with
horror; and he has revealed quite the contrary to us.' He observes at the
same time that certain doctors among the Supralapsarians (like Rutherford,
for example) denied that God wills sin as sin, whilst they admitted [270]
that he wills sin permissively in so far as it is punishable and
pardonable. But he urges in objection, that an action is only punishable
and pardonable in so far as it is vicious.
230. M. Bayle makes a false assumption in these words that we have just
read, and draws from them false conclusions. It is not true that God loves
his glory by necessity, if thereby it is understood that he is led by
necessity to acquire his glory through his creatures. For if that were so,
he would acquire his glory always and everywhere. The decree to create is
free: God is prompted to all good; the good, and even the best, inclines
him to act; but it does not compel him, for his choice creates no
impossibility in that which is distinct from the best; it causes no
implication of contradiction in that which God refrains from doing. There
is therefore in God a freedom that is exempt not only from constraint but
also from necessity. I mean this in respect of metaphysical necessity; for
it is a moral necessity that the wisest should be bound to choose the best.
It is the same with the means which God chooses to attain his glory. And as
for vice, it has been shown in preceding pages that it is not an object of
God's decree as _means_, but as _conditio sine qua non_, and that for that
reason alone it is permitted. One is even less justified in saying that
vice is _the only means_; it would be at most one of the means, but one of
the least among innumerable others.
231. 'Another frightful consequence,' M. Bayle goes on, 'the fatality of
all things, ensues: God will not have been free to arrange events in a
different way, since the means he chose to show forth his glory was the
only means befitting his wisdom.' This so-called fatality or necessity is
only moral, as I have just shown: it does not affect freedom; on the
contrary, it assumes the best use thereof; it does not render impossible
the objects set aside by God's choice. 'What, then, will become', he adds,
'of man's free will? Will there not have been necessity and fatality for
Adam to sin? For if he had not sinned, he would have overthrown the sole
plan that God had of necessity created.' That is again a misuse of terms.
Adam sinning freely was seen of God among the ideas of the possibles, and
God decreed to admit him into existence as he saw him. This decree does not
change the nature of the objects: it does not render necessary that which
was contingent in itself, or impossible that which was possible.
[271]
232. M. Bayle goes on (p. 892): 'The subtle Scotus asserts with much
discernment that if God had no freedom of indifference no creature could
have this kind of freedom.' I agree provided it is not meant as an
indifference of equipoise, where there is no reason inclining more to one
side than the other. M. Bayle acknowledges (farther on in chapter 168, p.
1111) that what is termed indifference does not exclude prevenient
inclinations and pleasures. It suffices therefore that there be no
metaphysical necessity in the action which is termed free, that is to say,
it suffices that a choice be made between several courses possible.
233. He goes on again in the said chapter 157, p. 893: 'If God is not
determined to create the world by a free motion of his goodness, but by the
interests of his glory, which he loves by necessity, and which is the only
thing he loves, for it is not different from his substance; and if the love
that he has for himself has compelled him to show forth his glory through
the most fitting means, and if the fall of man was this same means, it is
evident that this fall happened entirely by necessity and that the
obedience of Eve and Adam to God's commands was impossible.' Still the same
error. The love that God bears to himself is essential to him, but the love
for his glory, or the will to acquire his glory, is not so by any means:
the love he has for himself did not impel him by necessity to actions
without; they were free; and since there were possible plans whereby the
first parents should not sin, their sin was therefore not necessary.
Finally, I say in effect what M. Bayle acknowledges here, 'that God
resolved to create the world by a free motion of his goodness'; and I add
that this same motion prompted him to the best.
234. The same answer holds good against this statement of M. Bayle's (ch.
165, p. 1071): 'The means most appropriate for attaining an end is of
necessity one alone' (that is very well said, at least for the cases where
God has chosen). 'Therefore if God was prompted irresistibly to employ this
means, he employed it by necessity.' (He was certainly prompted thereto, he
was determined, or rather he determined himself thereto: but that which is
certain is not always necessary, or altogether irresistible; the thing
might have gone otherwise, but that did not happen, and with good reason.
God chose between different courses all possible: thus, metaphysically
speaking, he could have chosen or done what was not the best; but he could
not morally speaking have done so. Let us make use of a comparison [272]
from geometry. The best way from one point to another (leaving out of
account obstacles and other considerations accidental to the medium) is one
alone: it is that one which passes by the shortest line, which is the
straight line. Yet there are innumerable ways from one point to another.
There is therefore no necessity which binds me to go by the straight line;
but as soon as I choose the best, I am determined to go that way, although
this is only a moral necessity in the wise. That is why the following
conclusions fail.) 'Therefore he could only do that which he did. Therefore
that which has not happened or will never happen is absolutely impossible.'
(These conclusions fail, I say: for since there are many things which have
never happened and never will happen, and which nevertheless are clearly
conceivable, and imply no contradiction, how can one say they are
altogether impossible? M. Bayle has refuted that himself in a passage
opposing the Spinozists, which I have already quoted here, and he has
frequently acknowledged that there is nothing impossible except that which
implies contradiction: now he changes style and terminology.) 'Therefore
Adam's perseverance in innocence was always impossible; therefore his fall
was altogether inevitable, and even antecedently to God's decree, for it
implied contradiction that God should be able to will a thing opposed to
his wisdom: it is, after all, the same thing to say, that it is impossible
for God, as to say, God could do it, if he so willed, but he cannot will
it.' (It is misusing terms in a sense to say here: one can will, one will
will; 'can' here concerns the actions that one does will. Nevertheless it
implies no contradiction that God should will--directly or permissively--a
thing not implying contradiction, and in this sense it is permitted to say
that God can will it.)
235. In a word, when one speaks of the _possibility_ of a thing it is not a
question of the causes that can bring about or prevent its actual
existence: otherwise one would change the nature of the terms, and render
useless the distinction between the possible and the actual. This Abelard
did, and Wyclif appears to have done after him, in consequence of which
they fell needlessly into unsuitable and disagreeable expressions. That is
why, when one asks if a thing is possible or necessary, and brings in the
consideration of what God wills or chooses, one alters the issue. For God
chooses among the possibles, and for that very reason he chooses [273]
freely, and is not compelled; there would be neither choice nor freedom if
there were but one course possible.
236. One must also answer M. Bayle's syllogisms, so as to neglect none of
the objections of a man so gifted: they occur in Chapter 151 of his _Reply
to the Questions of a Provincial_ (vol. III, pp. 900, 901).