ne love is infinite. Furthermore, He cannot withdraw from
anyone because everyone's life is from Him. He appears to withdraw from
those who are evil, but it is they who withdraw, while He still in love
leads them. Thus the Lord says:

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek and you will find; knock and it
shall be opened to you . . . What man of you, if his son shall ask bread,
will give him a stone? If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good
things to your children, how much more shall your Father, who is in
heaven, give good things to those who ask Him (Mt 7:7-11),

and in another place,

He makes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the
just and unjust (Mt 5:45).

It is also known in the church that the Lord desires the salvation of all
and the death of no one. It may be seen from all this that predestination
except to heaven is contrary to divine love.

[3] Second: _Predestination other than to heaven is contrary to divine
wisdom, which is infinite._ By its divine wisdom divine love provides the
means by which every man can be saved. To say that there is any
predestination except to heaven is therefore to say that divine love
cannot provide means to salvation, when yet the means exist for all, as
was shown above, and these are of divine providence which is boundless.
The reason that there are those who are not saved is that divine love
desires man to feel the felicity and blessedness of heaven for himself,
else it would not be heaven to him, and this can be effected only as it
seems to man that he thinks and wills of himself. For without this
appearance nothing would be appropriated to him nor would he be a human
being. To this end divine providence exists, which acts by divine wisdom
out of divine love.

[4] But this does not do away with the truth that all are predestined to
heaven and no one to hell. Were the means to salvation lacking, it would;
but, as was demonstrated above, the means to salvation have been provided
for everyone, and heaven is such that all of whatever religion who live
rightly have a place in it. Man is like the earth which produces fruits
of every kind, a power the earth has as the earth. That it also produces
evil fruits does not do away with its capability of producing good
fruits; it would if it could only produce evil fruits. Or, again, man is
like an object which variegates the rays of light in it. If the object
gives only unpleasing colors, the light is