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).

FIRST SYLLOGISM

’God can will nothing that is opposed to the necessary love which he has for his wisdom.

’Now the salvation of all men is opposed to the necessary love which God has for his wisdom.

‘Therefore God cannot will the salvation of all men.’

The major is self-evident, for one can do nothing whereof the opposite is necessary.  But the minor cannot be accepted, for, albeit God loves his wisdom of necessity, the actions whereto his wisdom prompts him cannot but be free, and the objects whereto his wisdom does not prompt him do not cease to be possible.  Moreover, his wisdom has prompted him to will the salvation of all men, but not by a consequent and decretory will.  Yet this consequent will, being only a result of free antecedent acts of will, cannot fail to be free also.