understanding could advance no further.

[3] But it is acknowledged in the church that man cannot of himself do
good which is in itself good or of himself think truth which is in itself
truth. This acknowledgment is at one with divine providence; these are
interdependent beliefs. Lest therefore one be affirmed and the other
denied and both fail, what divine providence is must by all means be
revealed. It cannot be revealed unless the laws by which the Lord
oversees and governs the volitions and thoughts of the human being are
disclosed. The laws enable one to know the nature of providence, and only
one who knows its nature can acknowledge providence, for then he beholds
it. The laws of divine providence, hitherto hidden with angels in their
wisdom, are therefore to be revealed now.

V. IT IS A LAW OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE THAT MAN SHALL ACT FROM FREEDOM
ACCORDING TO REASON

71. As is known, man is free to think and will as he wishes, but not to
speak whatever he thinks or to do whatever he wills. The freedom meant
here, therefore, is spiritual freedom and natural freedom only as they
make one; for thinking and willing are spiritual, and speaking and acting
are natural. The two are readily distinguishable in man, for he can think
what he does not utter and will what he does not do; plainly, spiritual
and natural are discriminated in him. He can pass from the former to the
latter therefore only on a decision to do so--a decision which can be
likened to a door that must first be unfastened and opened. This door, it
is true, stands open, as it were, in those who think and will from reason
in accord with the civil laws of the land and the moral laws of society,
for they speak what they think and do what they will to do. But in those
who think and will contrary to those laws, the door stands shut, as it
were. One who watches his volitions and subsequent deeds knows that such
a decision intervenes, sometimes more than once in a single utterance or
action. This we have premised for it to be understood that by acting from
freedom according to reason is meant to think and will freely _and_
thence to speak and do freely what is according to reason.

72. Since few know, however, that the law above can be a law of divine
providence, principally because a man is also free then to think evil and
falsity (still divine providence is continually leading him to think and
will what is good and true), for clearer perception we must proceed