ESSAYS ON THE JUSTICE OF GOD AND THE FREEDOM OF MAN IN THE ORIGIN OF EVIL
PART TWO
107. Hitherto I have devoted myself to giving a full and clear exposition of this whole subject: and although I have not yet spoken of M. Bayle's objections in particular, I have endeavoured to anticipate them, and to suggest ways of answering them. But as I have taken upon myself the task of meeting them in detail, not only because there will perhaps still be passages calling for elucidation, but also because his arguments are usually full of wit and erudition, and serve to throw greater light on this controversy, it will be well to give an account of the chief objections that are dispersed through his works, and to add my answers. At the beginning I observed 'that God co-operates in moral evil, and in physical evil, and in each of them both morally and physically; and that man co-operates therein also morally and physically in a free and active way, becoming in consequence subject to blame and punishment'. I have shown also that each point has its own difficulty; but the greatest of these lies in maintaining that God co-operates morally in moral evil, that is, in sin, without being the originator of the sin, and even without being accessary thereto.
108. He does this by permitting it justly, and by directing it wisely towards the good, as I have shown in a manner that appears tolerably intelligible. But as it is here principally that M. Bayle
undertakes to discomfit those who maintain that there is nothing in faith which cannot be harmonized with reason, it is also here especially I must show that my dogmas are fortified (to make use of his own allegory) with a rampart, even of reasons, which is able to resist the fire of his strongest batteries. He has ranged them against me in chapter 144 of his Reply to the Questions of a Provincial (vol. III, p. 812), where he includes the theological doctrine in seven propositions and opposes thereto nineteen philosophic maxims, like so many large cannon capable of breaching my rampart. Let us begin with the theological propositions.
109. I. 'God,' he says, 'the Being eternal and necessary, infinitely good, holy, wise and powerful, possesses from all eternity a glory and a bliss that can never either increase or diminish.' This proposition of M. Bayle's is no less philosophical than theological. To say that God possesses a 'glory' when he is alone, that depends upon the meaning of the term. One may say, with some, that glory is the satisfaction one finds in being aware of one's own perfections; and in this sense God possesses it always. But when glory signifies that others become aware of these perfections, one may say that God acquires it only when he reveals himself to intelligent creatures; even though it be true that God thereby gains no new good, and it is rather the rational creatures who thence derive advantage, when they apprehend aright the glory of God.
110. II. 'He resolved freely upon the production of creatures, and he chose from among an infinite number of possible beings those whom it pleased him to choose, to give them existence, and to compose the universe of them, while he left all the rest in nothingness.' This proposition is also, just like the preceding one, in close conformity with that part of philosophy which is called natural theology. One must dwell a little on what is said here, that he chose the possible beings 'whom it pleased him to choose'. For it must be borne in mind that when I say, 'that pleases me', it is as though I were saying, 'I find it good'. Thus it is the ideal goodness of the object which pleases, and which makes me choose it among many others which do not please or which please less, that is to say, which contain less of that goodness which moves me. Now it is only the genuinely good that is capable of pleasing God: and consequently that which pleases God most, and which meets his choice, is the best.