171.  The famous Pierre Abelard 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.  Abelard 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.  Abelard 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.  Abelard 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 Abelard 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