The Literal Meaning of Genesis
BOOK SEVEN 27 ated it, with the result that it would deserve the burden of toil and the penalty of suffering?
Should we say that the soul was inclined by its own will to govern a body and that in this life of the body, since it can be lived in a good or evil manner, it would have the object of its choice, the reward for goodness or the punishment for evil? This supposition would not contradict St. Paul's statement in which he says that those not yet born had done no good or evil.°* The inclination of the will for a body is not a good or evil act for which an account must be rendered before God our Judge, when each one will receive his reward, whether good or bad, according to what he has done in the body.®>
Why, then, can we not go further and suppose that the soul has come to the body by the command of God? Thus, if in the body it should choose to live its life according to God's laws, it would receive the reward of everlasting life in the company of the angels; but if it should despise His laws, it would undergo the punishment it deserved either in long-lasting pain or everlasting fire. Can it be that this theory is not acceptable because obeying the will of God is a good action, and therefore this explanation is contrary to the principle that the unborn have done neither good nor evil?
CHAPTER 26
If the soul willed to be united with the body, it had no knowledge of the future.
37. If this is so, we will admit also that the soul was not originally created so as to know its future works whether good or evil. For it is quite unbelievable that it could have tended of its own free will to life in the body if it foreknew that it would commit certain sins by which it would justly incur perpetual punishment. It is surely right in all things to praise the Creator, who®® made them all very good. And He must not be praised only for those beings to which He gave foreknowledge. He is rightly praised also because He created the beasts; and yet hu-