337.  The advantage of freedom which is in the creature without doubt exists to an eminent degree in God.  That must be understood in so far as it is genuinely an advantage and in so far as it presupposes no imperfection.  For to be able to make a mistake and go astray is a disadvantage, and to have control over the passions is in truth an advantage, but one that presupposes an imperfection, namely passion itself, of which God is [328] incapable.  Scotus was justified in saying that if God were not free and exempt from necessity, no creature would be so.  But God is incapable of being indeterminate in anything whatsoever:  he cannot be ignorant, he cannot doubt, he cannot suspend his judgement; his will is always decided, and it can only be decided by the best.  God can never have a primitive particular will, that is, independent of laws or general acts of will; such a thing would be unreasonable.  He cannot determine upon Adam, Peter, Judas or any individual without the existence of a reason for this determination; and this reason leads of necessity to some general enunciation.  The wise mind always acts according to principles; always according to rules, and never according to exceptions, save when the rules come into collision through opposing tendencies, where the strongest carries the day:  or else, either they will stop one another or some third course will emerge as a result.  In all these cases one rule serves as an exception to the other, and there are never any original exceptions with one who always acts in a regular way.

338.  If there are people who believe that election and reprobation are accomplished on God’s part by a despotic absolute power, not only without any apparent reason but actually without any reason, even a concealed one, they maintain an opinion that destroys alike the nature of things and the divine perfections.  Such an absolutely absolute decree (so to speak) would be without doubt insupportable.  But Luther and Calvin were far from such a belief:  the former hopes that the life to come will make us comprehend the just reasons of God’s choice; and the latter protests explicitly that these reasons are just and holy, although they be unknown to us.  I have already in that connexion quoted Calvin’s treatise on predestination, and here are the actual words:  ’God before the fall of Adam had reflected upon what he had to do, and that for causes concealed from us....  It is evident therefore that he had just causes for the reprobation of some of mankind, but causes to us UNKNOWN.’

339.  This truth, that all God does is reasonable and cannot be better done, strikes at the outset every man of good sense, and extorts, so to speak, his approbation.  And yet the most subtle of philosophers have a fatal propensity for offending sometimes without observing it, during the course and in the heat of disputes, against the first principles of good sense, when these are shrouded in terms that disguise them.  We have