s; even though it be true that God thereby gains no new good, and
it is rather the rational creatures who thence derive advantage, when they
apprehend aright the glory of God.

110. II. 'He resolved freely upon the production of creatures, and he chose
from among an infinite number of possible beings those whom it pleased him
to choose, to give them existence, and to compose the universe of them,
while he left all the rest in nothingness.' This proposition is also, just
like the preceding one, in close conformity with that part of philosophy
which is called natural theology. One must dwell a little on what is said
here, that he chose the possible beings 'whom it pleased him to choose'.
For it must be borne in mind that when I say, 'that pleases me', it is as
though I were saying, 'I find it good'. Thus it is the ideal goodness of
the object which pleases, and which makes me choose it among many others
which do not please or which please less, that is to say, which contain
less of that goodness which moves me. Now it is only the genuinely good
that is capable of pleasing God: and consequently that which pleases God
most, and which meets his choice, is the best.

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111. III. 'Human nature having been among the Beings that he willed to
produce, he created a man and a woman, and granted them amongst other
favours free will, so that they had the power to obey him; but he
threatened them with death if they should disobey the order that he gave
them to abstain from a certain fruit.' This proposition is in part
revealed, and should be admitted without difficulty, provided that _free
will_ be understood properly, according to the explanation I have given.

112. IV. 'They ate thereof nevertheless, and thenceforth they were
condemned, they and all their posterity, to the miseries of this life, to
temporal death and eternal damnation, and made subject to such a tendency
to sin that they abandoned themselves thereto endlessly and without
ceasing.' There is reason to suppose that the forbidden action by itself
entailed these evil results in accordance with a natural effect, and that
it was for that very reason, and not by a purely arbitrary decree, that God
had forbidden it: much as one forbids knives to children. The famous Fludde
or de Fluctibus, an Englishman, once wrote a book _De Vita, Morte et
Resurrectione_ under the name of R. Otreb, wherein he maintain