Nothing could be more extravagant than the role which in every country theology makes Divinity play.  If the thing was real, we would be obliged to see in it the most capricious and the most insane of beings; one would be obliged to believe that God made the world to be the theater of dishonoring wars with His creatures; that He created angels, men, demons, wicked spirits, but as adversaries, against whom He could exercise His power.  He gives them liberty to offend Him, makes them wicked enough to upset His projects, obstinate enough to never give up:  all for the pleasure of getting angry, and being appeased, of reconciling Himself, and of repairing the confusion they have made.  Had Divinity formed at once His creatures such as they ought to be in order to please Him, what trouble He might have spared Himself! or, at least, how much embarrassment He might have saved to His theologians!  According to all the religious systems of the earth, God seems to be occupied but in doing Himself injury; He does it as those charlatans do who wound themselves, in order to have occasion to show the public the value of their ointments.  We do not see, however, that so far Divinity has been able to radically cure itself of the evil which is caused by men.

LXXII.—­IT IS ABSURD TO SAY THAT EVIL DOES NOT COME FROM GOD.

God is the author of all; still we are assured that evil does not come from God.  Whence, then, does it come?  From men?  But who has made men?  It is God:  then that evil comes from God.  If He had not made men as they are, moral evil or sin would not exist in the world.  We must blame God, then, that man is so perverse.  If man has the power to do wrong or to offend God, we must conclude that God wishes to be offended; that God, who has created man, resolved that evil should be done by him:  without this, man would be an effect contrary to the cause from which he derives his being.

LXXIII.—­THE FORESIGHT ATTRIBUTED TO GOD, WOULD GIVE TO GUILTY MEN WHOM HE PUNISHES, THE RIGHT TO COMPLAIN OF HIS CRUELTY.

The faculty of foresight, or the ability to know in advance all which is to happen in the world, is attributed to God.  But this foresight can scarcely belong to His glory, nor spare Him the reproaches which men could legitimately heap upon Him.  If God had the foresight of the future, did He not foresee the fall of His creatures whom He had destined to happiness?  If He resolved in His decrees to allow this fall, there is no doubt that He desired it to take place:  otherwise it would not have happened.  If the Divine foresight of the sin of His creatures had been necessary or forced, it might be supposed that God was compelled by His justice to punish the guilty; but God, enjoying the faculty of foresight and the power to predestinate everything, would it not depend upon Himself not to impose upon men these cruel laws?