1 1 1 :2). He foresees those who are going to be good and creates them; he foresees
436 The Literal Meaning ofGenesis comparisons either with the sins of the wicked or the penalties they pay for them. This looks like increasing the number included in the more excellent kind by simply reducing the number of good kinds of creature.
That the good can benefitfrom the punishment of the wicked is a matter of common experience
1 1, 14. "And so," they say, "there is something in the works of God, is there, which needs the evil of another to help it make progress to the good?" Have people grown so deaf and blind through heaven knows what dedication to controversy, that they can neither hear nor see how many are the people whose behavior improves on some being punished? I mean to say, is there a pagan, is there a Jew, is there a heretic who cannot prove the point daily in his own house hold? But when it comes to discussion and inquiry into the truth, people refuse to attend to their own senses, and to ask themselves what work of divine provi dence it is that winds them up to imposing discipline, so that even if those who are punished show no improvement, their example may nonetheless strike fear into the hearts of the others, and their justly deserved calamity may ensure the welfare of the rest. God, after all, is not the author, is he, of the ill-will or wicked ness of those whose just punishment he uses in the interests of others, whose interests he has decided are to be served in this way? Of course not.
But while he foreknew that they were going to be bad by their own vices, he did not for all that desist from creating them. lnstead he assigned them to the benefit of those others whom he created in this group of people that would be unable to make progress towards the good without bad people to compare them selves with; after all, if they did not exist, they could of course not be of any use to any other thing. Was it a trifling good to ensure the existence of those who would assuredly benefit that kind of person? Anyone who does not want this kind to exist is only ensuring that he does not belong to it himself.
15. Great are the works of the Lord, precisely wroughtfor all his wishes (Ps
1 1 1 :2). He foresees those who are going to be good and creates them; he foresees those who are going to be bad and creates them, bestowing himself on the good to be enjoyed by them, lavishing much of his bounty also on the bad, pardoning with mercy, taking vengeance with justice—and again taking vengeance with mercy, pardoning with justice; having nothing to fear from anyone's malice, nothing he needs from anyone's justice; not serving his own interests even with the works of the good, and serving the interests of the good even with the works of the bad.
So then, why should he not allow the man to be tempted, and by that tempta tion to be duly shown up, convicted, punished, when the proud concupiscence or