poses, contrary to the truth, that the Counter-remonstrants
make God the cause of evil, and teach a kind of predestination in the
Mahometan manner according to which it does not matter whether one does
good or evil, and the assumption that one is predestined assures the fact.
They by no means go so far. Nevertheless it is true that there are among
them some Supralapsarians and others who find it hard to declare themselves
in clear terms upon the justice of God and the principles of piety and
morals in man. For they imagine despotism in God, and demand that man be
convinced, without reason, of the absolute certainty of his election, a
course that is liable to have dangerous consequences. But all those who
acknowledge that God produces the best plan, having chosen it from among
all possible ideas of the universe; that he there finds man inclined by the
original imperfection of creatures to misuse his free will and to plunge
into misery; that God prevents the sin and the misery in so far as the
perfection of the universe, which is an emanation from his, may permit it:
those, I say, show forth more clearly that God's intention is the one most
right and holy in the world; that the creature alone is guilty, that his
original limitation or imperfection is the source of his wickedness, that
his evil will is the sole cause of his misery; that one cannot be destined
to salvation without also being destined to the holiness of the children of
God, and that all hope of election one can have can only be founded upon
the good will infused into one's heart by the grace of God.

168. _Metaphysical considerations_ also are brought up against my
explanation of the moral cause of moral evil; but they will trouble me less
since I have dismissed the objections derived from moral reasons, which
were more impressive. These metaphysical considerations concern the nature
of the _possible_ and of the _necessary_; they go against my fundamental
assumption that God has chosen the best of all possible worlds. There are
philosophers who have maintained that there is nothing possible except that
which actually happens. These are those same people who thought or could
have thought that all is necessary unconditionally. Some were of this [229]
opinion because they admitted a brute and blind necessity in the cause of
the existence of things: and it is these I have most reason for opposing.
But there are others who are mistaken only because they misuse terms