Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/252

 one and the same. If in the determination of the attributes of God it is added that he does not change his determinations, this false definition is evidently given in order later to fall back on it. But let us admit the impossible, for we know from the Theology about the changing of his own determinations, that the unchangeableness of God means the unchangeableness of his determinations; still, we have no proof of it, and all that is left is a miserable rascally deal.

Among the number of God’s attributes, according to the Theology, there are almightiness, completest freedom, endless goodness. The admission by God of moral evil and the punishment for it, due to the freedom of man, contradicts his goodness; and the necessity in which God is placed to arrange things in such a way as to leave the freedom of the actors inviolable contradicts his freedom and almightiness.

The theologians have themselves tied the knot which it is impossible to untie. An almighty, good God, a Creator and Provider of man, and an unfortunate, evil, and free man, such as the theologians acknowledge him to be, are two concepts which exclude each other.

“(b) Divine providence in respect to the creatures is expressed in this, that God preserves them, coöperates with them or allows them to do as they please, and directs them. When God preserves the moral beings, he preserves their existence and their powers; then he, no doubt, does not embarrass their freedom: that is self-evident. When he coöperates with them in the good, he also does not embarrass them in their freedom, because they are still left as the actors, that is, to choose and perform a certain action, and God only cooperates with them, or assists them. When he allows them to commit an evil act, he still less embarrasses their freedom, and permits this freedom to act without his aid, according to its will. Finally, in directing moral beings, divine providence prop-