XLI. How the freedom of our will may be reconciled with the Divine
pre-ordination.
But, in place of this, we will be free from these embarrassments if
we recollect that our mind is limited, while the power of God, by
which he not only knew from all eternity what is or can be, but also
willed and pre-ordained it, is infinite. It thus happens that we
possess sufficient intelligence to know clearly and distinctly that
this power is in God, but not enough to comprehend how he leaves the
free actions of men indeterminate} and, on the other hand, we have
such consciousness of the liberty and indifference which exists in
ourselves, that there is nothing we more clearly or perfectly
comprehend: [so that the omnipotence of God ought not to keep us
from believing it]. For it would be absurd to doubt of that of which
we are fully conscious, and which we experience as existing in
ourselves, because we do not comprehend another matter which, from
its very nature, we know to be incomprehensible.
XLII. How, although we never will to err, it is nevertheless by our
will that we do err.
But now since we know that all our errors depend upon our will, and
as no one wishes to deceive himself, it may seem wonderful that
there is any error in our judgments at all.
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