Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Pseudo-Clementine Literature/The Clementine Homilies/Homily XI/Chapter 8

Chapter VIII.&#8212;Liberty and Necessity.

&#8220;But, you say, God ought to have made us at first so that we should not have thought at all of such things.&#160; You who say this do not know what is free-will, and how it is possible to be really good; that he who is good by his own choice is really good; but he who is made good by another under necessity is not really good, because he is not what he is by his own choice. &#160; Since therefore every one&#8217;s freedom constitutes the true good, and shows the true evil, God has contrived that friendship or hostility should be in each man by occasions.&#160; But no, it is said:&#160; everything that we think He makes us to think.&#160; Stop!&#160; Why do you blaspheme more and more, in saying this?&#160; For if we are under His influence in all that we think, you say that He is the cause of fornications, lusts, avarice, and all blasphemy.&#160; Cease your evil-speaking, ye who ought to speak well of Him, and to bestow all honour upon Him.&#160; And do not say that God does not claim any honour; for if He Himself claims nothing, you ought to look to what is right, and to answer with thankful voice Him who does you good in all things.