Section XCI

But how far does this will extend, and what limits does it have? Does it embrace all men, or exclude and repel some of them? This is the third undoubted judgment of the Alexandrians: that it is universal and is confined by the same limits by which the human race is circumscribed.

Indeed, 1) they recall no other origin of it than the goodness innate in God and his paternal benevolence toward his work. But neither is God’s goodness bound by limits, nor is there any man whose father God is not by creation and who does not belong to the amplitude of the divine work. Therefore, the salutary will cherishes all and extends most benignly to all.

For 2), as they add, it extends to all those to whom the designation by which God is called φιλάνθρωπος καὶ φιλόψυχος, a lover of man and a lover of souls, extends. But are there, or can there be, men who are not comprehended under that designation and who therefore are not men and lack a soul? This is so absurd that it cannot even be conceived in the mind. Such, therefore, is the salutary will of God, which of itself is referred to all men.

For 3) all are by nature a created image of God, and all represent the divine archetype in themselves. But the Alexandrians teach that no one who is the image of God and bears the divine archetype within himself is alien to the salutary will.

As many, therefore, as are men are comprehended by the benevolence of the salutary will.

An argument for this amplitude 4) may also be taken from the fact that, if we give faith to the Alexandrians, the salutary will extends no less widely than the benefits of the natural and supernatural order extend. But these extend so widely that they pass over no one at all; for God commands his sun to rise upon the good and the evil, and sent his Only-begotten that he might repair the whole progeny of Adam.

For of himself 5) God regards men ἀπροσωπολήπτως¹, without respect of persons, and deprives no one of his gifts who has not constructed destruction for himself.

Hence 6) the comparisons repeated by the Alexandrian doctors, in which they compare God with the sun and with the common father of all; and also the formulas, whether negative, by which they declare that only those perish who neglect salvation and reject the Savior, or affirmative, by which they say that salvation is καθολικὴν καὶ γενικήν, universal and general, that divine providence extends to all, and that the salvation of all is procured by God with a certain incredible affection of benevolence.

I would be content with these, were I not admonished by the supreme gravity of the matter to bring forward other suffrages of the same doctors which I have at hand, most suitable for proving the universal amplitude of the divine salutary will.