It does not appear to me, Monsieur, that, in speaking thus, I have confused necessitatem ex hypothesi and absolute necessity, for I was all the time speaking only against the necessity ex hypothesi; what I find strange is, that all human events should be quite as necessary by a necessity ex hypothesi after this first supposition that God wished to create Adam, as it is necessary by the same necessity for there to be in the world a nature capable of thinking simply because he has wished to create me.

You say in this connection various things about God which do not seem to me sufficient to solve my difficulty.

1. "That a distinction has always been made between what God is free to do absolutely and what he is obliged to do by virtue of certain resolutions already made." This position is valid.

2. "That it is little consonant with the dignity of God to conceive of him (under the pretext of safeguarding his freedom) in the way that the Socinians do, as a man who forms his resolutions according to the circumstances." Such an opinion is very foolish, I grant you.

3. "That the purposes of God, which are all interrelated must not be isolated. Therefore, the purpose of God to create a particular Adam must not be looked at detached from all the others which he has regarding the children of Adam and of the whole human race." To this also I agree, but I cannot yet see how these can serve to solve my difficulty.

For 1. I confess, in good faith, not to have understood that, by the individual concept of each person (for example of Adam), which you say involves, once for all, all that will ever happen to him, you meant this person in so far as he is in the divine understanding instead of simply what he is in himself. For it seems to me that it is not customary to consider the specific concept of a sphere in relation to that which is its representation in the divine understanding but in relation to what it is in itself. I thought it was thus with the individual concept of each person or of everything.

2. It is enough, however, for me to know what you intend, so that I can conform to it, and inquire if that overcomes all the difficulty which I mentioned above. It does not seem to me that it does.

I agree that the knowledge which God had of Adam when he resolved to create him involved what happened to him and what has happened, or will happen, to his posterity; and therefore if we understand in this sense the individual concept, Adam, what you say about it is very true.

I grant also that the purpose which he had in creating Adam was not detached from that which he had regarding what would happen to him and in regard to all his posterity.

But it seems to me, that after all this there still remains the question (and this is where my difficulty lies) whether the relationship between those objects (I mean Adam on the one hand and what will happen to him and to his posterity on the other), is such through itself, independently of all the free decrees of God; or, whether it has been dependent. That is to say, whether it is only in consequence of the free decrees by which God has foreordained all that will happen to Adam and to his posterity that God has known all that will happen to Adam and to his posterity; or whether there is, independent of these decrees, between Adam on the one hand, and what has happened and will happen to him and his posterity on the other, an intrinsic and necessary connection. Unless you mean the latter I do not see how it can be true when you say, "that the individual concept of each person involves once for all, all that which will ever happen to him," even if we understand this concept in its relation to God.

It seems, moreover, that it is this latter which you do not accept. For I believe you to suppose that, according to our way of conceiving, possible things are possible before any free decree of God, whence it follows that what is involved in the concept of possible things is involved independently of all God's free decrees. Now you say "that God has found among possible things a possible Adam, accompanied by certain individual circumstances, who, among other predicates, possesses also that of having in time a certain posterity." There is, therefore, according to you a connection intrinsic, so to speak, and independent of all the free decrees of God; a connection between this possible Adam and all the separate persons of his posterity and not the persons alone, but in general all that must happen to them. It is this, Monsieur, I speak plainly, that is incomprehensible to me. For your meaning seems to be that the possible Adam whom God has chosen preferably to other possible Adams, had a connection with the very same posterity as the created Adam. In either case it is, as far as I can judge, the same Adam considered now as possible and now as created. If this is your meaning then here is my difficulty.

How many men there are who have come into the world only through the perfectly free decrees of God, such as Isaac, Samson, Samuel and many others! Now the fact that God has known them conjointly with Adam is not owing to their having been involved independently of the decrees of God in the individual concept of the possible Adam. It is, therefore, not true that all the individual personages of the posterity of Adam have been involved in the individual concept of the possible Adam since they would then have been thus involved independently of God's decrees.

The same can be said of an infinite number of human events which have occurred by the express and particular commands of God, for instance, the Jewish and Christian Religions, and, above all, the Incarnation of the Word of God. I do not see how it can be said that all these are involved in the individual concept of the possible Adam. Whatever is considered as possible must have all that is conceived of under this idea of possibility independently of the Divine decrees.