2. Let us, then, attend to the order of these statements. God first calls, and then justifies, and He does not justify those whom He did not call; and He calls, having before the calling foreordained, and He does not call whom He did not foreordain; and the foreordaining is not the origin of His calling and justifying; for if it were the origin of all that follows they who bring in by a side wind the absurd doctrine of souls being "naturally constituted" |210 might very plausibly have claimed the victory; but the foreknowledge comes before the foreordaining, for "whom he did foreknow," says the Apostle, "he also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son." So then, God first surveyed the long series of events, and perceiving the will of certain men to be inclined to godliness, and also their efforts to attain thereto when their will was so inclined, and further, how they would wholly give themselves up to a virtuous life, He foreknew them, for He knows the present and foreknows the future; and whom He thus foreknew, He foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son. Now we know there is a Person, Who is the image of the invisible God, and it is His image which is called the image of the Son of God; and we think that this image is the human soul which the Son of God assumed, and which for its merit became the image of the image of God. And it was to this, which we think is the image of the image of the Son of God, that God foreordained those to be conformed, whom, on account of His foreknowledge of them, He did foreordain. We must not therefore suppose that the foreknowledge of God is the cause of future events; but inasmuch as these events would follow the agent's own impulses, on this account He foreknew, for He knoweth all things before they be: and inasmuch as He knoweth all things before they be, He foreknew certain individuals and foreordained them to be conformed to the image of His Son; but others He saw |211 estranged. And if any one objects, and asks whether what God foreknows might possibly not occur, we shall say it possibly might not; but granting this possibility, there is no necessity that it should occur, or not occur; and the events will not in the least be necessitated, but there is also the possibility of their not occurring. The subject of possibilities, however, belongs to the science of the skilled logician; so that if a man will cleanse the eye of his mind, he may thus be able to follow the subtle arguments, and may understand how, even in the course of ordinary events, there is nothing to prevent the possibility of a given circumstance issuing many ways, though, in fact, there will be only one out of the many, and that not necessitated; and the foreknowledge of it means that it will be, but will not of necessity be; for though it may possibly not occur, the prediction of it will not be conjecture but real foreknowledge.