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,