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| Why God Permits Evil.
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Chapter XXIV.—Why
God Permits Evil.
“But you will meet me by saying, Even if it
has come to this through freedom of will, was the Creator ignorant that
those whom He created would fall away into evil? He ought
therefore not to have created those who, He foresaw, would deviate from
the path of righteousness. Now we tell those who ask such
questions, that the purpose of assertions of the sort made by us is to
show why the wickedness of those who as yet were not, did not prevail
over the goodness of the Creator.738
| 738 There is
considerable variety of reading in this sentence, and the precise
meaning is somewhat obscure. The general sense, however, is
sufficiently evident, that if God had refrained from creating those who
He foresaw, would fall into evil, this would have been to subject His
goodness to their evil. | For
if, wishing to fill up the number and measure of His creation, He had
been afraid of the wickedness of those who were to be, and like one who
could find no other way of remedy and cure, except only this, that He
should refrain from His purpose of creating, lest the wickedness of
those who were to be should be ascribed to Him; what else would this
show but unworthy suffering and unseemly feebleness on the part of the
Creator, who should so fear the actings of those who as yet were not,
that He refrained from His purposed creation?
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