Book V - Snyder Bible

126
created: but according as their will leads them, and the judgment
of their mind inclines them, they effect either good or
evil; and therefore He hath proposed rewards to those who do
well, and penalties to those who do evil.
You say, therefore, if Yahweh wishes anything to be, it is;
and if He does not wish it, it is not. But if I were to answer that
what He wishes is, and what He wishes not is not, you would
say that then He wishes the evil things to be which are done in
the world, since everything that He wishes is, and everything
that He wishes not is not. But if I had answered that it is not so
that what Yahweh wishes is, and what He wishes not is not,
then you would retort upon me that Yahweh must then be
powerless, if He cannot do what He wills; and you would be all
the more petulant, as thinking that you had got a victory,
though had said nothing to the point. Therefore you are ignorant,
O Simon, yea very ignorant, how the will of Yahweh acts
in each individual case. For some things, as we have said, He
has so willed to be, that they cannot be otherwise than as they
are ordained by Him; and to these He has assigned neither
rewards nor punishments; but those which He has willed to be
so that they have it in their power to do what they will, He has
assigned to them according to their actions and their wills, to
earn either rewards or punishments. Since, therefore, as I
have informed you, all things that are moved are divided into
two parts, according to the distinction that I formerly stated,
everything that Yahweh wills is, and everything that He wills
not is not.
Chapter XXVI: No Goodness without Liberty
such that we should be good, and that we should not have it in
absurd question. For if He had made us of an unchangeable
nature and incapable of being moved away from good, we
should not be really good, because we could not be aught else;