To Florus 5.62

But this can be twisted in the opposite direction: ‘Nature was suited for evil. Since evil could not be voluntary if evil were necessary, the possibility of good was given so that evil could belong to the person as his own.’ This is indeed clever, but insane. Everything is assessed from its better side. Added to this is the dignity of its maker, God: he did not make a free living being for the things he would punish, but gave the possibility of opposites for the things he would reward. Nevertheless, I do not want to fight over this. I allow something to the false objection by declining to settle anything through the maker’s authority. What necessarily follows, however, is that this capacity to do good and evil must be distinguished from the actual result of either will. It is consequently proved to be the necessary cause of neither virtue nor vice.

Even if we insult honorable things by treating their contest with the wicked as grounds to attribute to this capacity neither the merit of a good will nor that of an evil one, it retains the testimony of its freedom: it is innocent because it is full of neither good nor evil—that is, voluntary good or evil. Attribute the possibility of will to nature, then, but attribute neither good nor evil will to nature. The invincible conclusion is that an evil will indeed arose in God’s work, but from possibility, not necessity. This cannot be imputed to the giver of the capacity, but to the one directing that capacity.