ere so,
he would acquire his glory always and everywhere. The decree to create is
free: God is prompted to all good; the good, and even the best, inclines
him to act; but it does not compel him, for his choice creates no
impossibility in that which is distinct from the best; it causes no
implication of contradiction in that which God refrains from doing. There
is therefore in God a freedom that is exempt not only from constraint but
also from necessity. I mean this in respect of metaphysical necessity; for
it is a moral necessity that the wisest should be bound to choose the best.
It is the same with the means which God chooses to attain his glory. And as
for vice, it has been shown in preceding pages that it is not an object of
God's decree as _means_, but as _conditio sine qua non_, and that for that
reason alone it is permitted. One is even less justified in saying that
vice is _the only means_; it would be at most one of the means, but one of
the least among innumerable others.

231. 'Another frightful consequence,' M. Bayle goes on, 'the fatality of
all things, ensues: God will not have been free to arrange events in a
different way, since the means he chose to show forth his glory was the
only means befitting his wisdom.' This so-called fatality or necessity is
only moral, as I have just shown: it does not affect freedom; on the
contrary, it assumes the best use thereof; it does not render impossible
the objects set aside by God's choice. 'What, then, will become', he adds,
'of man's free will? Will there not have been necessity and fatality for
Adam to sin? For if he had not sinned, he would have overthrown the sole
plan that God had of necessity created.' That is again a misuse of terms.
Adam sinning freely was seen of God among the ideas of the possibles, and
God decreed to admit him into existence as he saw him. This decree does not
change the nature of the objects: it does not render necessary that which
was contingent in itself, or impossible that which was possible.

[271]
232. M. Bayle goes on (p. 892): 'The subtle Scotus asserts with much
discernment that if God had no freedom of indifference no creature could
have this kind of freedom.' I agree provided it is not meant as an
indifference of equipoise, where there is no reason inclining more to one
side than the other. M. Bayle acknowledges (farther on in chapter 168, p.
1111) that what