Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] But here it is enough to show that this god is utterly perverse in the very proclamation of his solitary goodness, since they refuse to credit him with the very movements of soul which they condemn in the Creator. For if he neither rivals nor grows angry nor condemns nor troubles anyone — being, of course, no judge at all — I cannot see how any rational system of discipline can stand for him, let alone a fuller one. [2] For what sense does it make for him to lay down commandments he will not enforce, to forbid sins he will not punish, since he will never pass judgment — being, naturally, a stranger to every sense of severity and censure? For why does he forbid the admission of something he will not defend once admitted, when it would have been far more sensible for him not to have forbidden what he was not going to defend, than to fail to defend what he had forbidden? Indeed he ought to have permitted it outright, since he was going to forbid it for no reason, seeing he was not going to defend against it. [3] For even now, what is forbidden without any penalty is tacitly permitted. And surely he forbids nothing to be done except what he does not love to see done. So he is the height of stupidity if he is not offended by a deed he does not love to see done, since offense is the companion of a thwarted will. But if he is offended, he ought to grow angry; if he grows angry, he ought to take vengeance. For vengeance is the fruit of anger, and anger is owed to offense, and offense, as I said, is the companion of a thwarted will. But he does not take vengeance; therefore he is not offended either. But if he is not offended, then his will is not injured when what he did not want to happen happens — and so the sin now occurs according to his will, since what does not injure his will cannot be said to occur against it. [4] Or if it is to be a mark of divine power or goodness simply to not want a thing to happen and to forbid its happening, yet not be moved even if it does happen — then we say that the one who did not want it was already moved, and that it is idle to call him unmoved at the deed when he was moved to forbid the deed, precisely because he did not want it to happen. For by not wanting it, he forbade it. Did he not, in not wanting it to happen, thereby judge it, and for that very reason forbid it? He decided the deed should never happen at all, and declared it worthy of prohibition. [5] Therefore he already judges. If it is unworthy of a god to judge, or if it is worthy of a god to judge only to the extent that he merely refuses and forbids, without going so far as to defend against what is admitted — well then, nothing is so unworthy of a god as failing to enforce what he refused and forbade to be admitted: first, because he owes vindication, whatever his verdict or law, to his own authority and to the necessity of obedience; second, because whatever he refused to have admitted, and by refusing forbade, is necessarily his rival — and it is more unworthy for a god to spare evil than to punish it, and this is truer still of the supremely good god, who is not fully good in any other way than by being the rival of evil, so that he may exercise his love of the good through hatred of evil, and fulfill his guardianship of the good by storming evil's defenses.
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