CHAPTER LXXXIV—That the Will of God is not of things in themselves Impossible

THOSE things are in themselves impossible, which involve an inconsistency, as that man should be an ass, which involves the rational being irrational. But what is inconsistent with a thing, excludes some one of the conditions requisite to it, as being an ass excludes a man’s reason. If therefore God necessarily wills the things requisite to that which by supposition He does will, it is impossible for Him to will what is inconsistent therewith.

2. God, in willing His own being, wills all other things, that He does will, in so far as they have some likeness to it. But in so far as anything is inconsistent with the notion of being as such, there cannot stand therein any likeness to the first or divine being, which is the fountain of being. God therefore cannot will anything that is inconsistent with the notion of being as such, as that anything should be at once being and not being, that affirmation and negation should be true together, or any other such essential impossibility, inconsistency, and implied contradiction.

3. What is no object of the intellect, can be no object of the will. But essential impossibilities, involving notions mutually inconsistent, are no objects of intellect, except perchance through the error of a mind that does not understand the proprieties of things, which cannot be said of God.