Chapter III -- 6

We now look briefly at the providence of God:

The providence of God accompanies the freedom of the will; but his judgement considers the order of the reasonable beings (VI, 43). The providence of God is double; one part is said to preserve the constitution of the bodies and incorporeals, and the other, to push the reasonable beings from vice and from ignorance towards virtue and gnosis (VI, 59).

The Lord has pitied him to whom he has given spiritual gnosis, if ‘The righteous walks in the light and the senseless in the darkness.’ (Eccl. 2, 14.) But the Lord has pitied the senseless one also, in that it is not quickly that he torments him, or in that he pushes him from vice towards virtue (I, 72). This push ‘accompanies the freedom of the will’: The providence of God accompanies the freedom of the will; but his judgement considers the order of the logikoi (VI, 43).

previous | Table of Contents | next