The Provocation of God and the Nature of Sin

I will take the inhabited world in my hand as a disease and as abandoned dust to wipe away; no one shall escape me or answer me.

The human race does not bring the words of its pride as an embassy to the Savior, saying, 'Arise, O Lord, descend to us, so that the human who is proud against us may not be strengthened for long.' For the devil says that 'man' is not a mortal rational animal, but that they have fallen away from divinity just as those to whom God said, 'I am; you are gods and all are sons of the Most High, but you, as men, die' (Ps 82:6).

The prophet asks like a man and inquires of God, saying, 'Why, Lord, have you stood far off?' (Ps 22:13). If the Word responds to him, what is the good of God for the repentance of sinners? For God has stood far from the sinners, His presence discerning the sin itself and driving the sinners far away according to what has been said: 'Your sins divide you between me and you' (Ps 83:15). Otherwise, God is always present to all and happens to fill all things everywhere. Therefore it has been said in the prophecies: 'I am a God approaching,' says the Lord, 'and not a God from afar.'

But for the righteous who are afflicted in the present life and oppressed by the ungodly, he says, 'As if standing far off, you abandon them, O Lord, and look down from above' (Ps 22:14). Consequently, the pride of the ungodly increases, while He burns your poor and wretched one, the God-fearing man, who zealously desires and inwardly burns the soul with zeal.

And especially those who are deprived of divine wealth and wisdom and are not precise concerning the doctrines of piety; for they do not stumble upon judgments praising the sinner for that which he desires, it being manifest that the sinner reaches out not for the heretical but for the pleasant and the passionate. Along with these, they consider wealth and human, fleeting glory to be a blessing from the same error, asserting that the wrongdoers are blessed by God; but it is necessary to examine how the blessing of God is given to the righteous.

Even if it has seemed that God stands far off and looks down from above on the afflicted because of being troubled by the pride of the ungodly...

But he does not very much rage against the proud one having stumbled and, if it is said according to the scripture, having set fire to the poor man because of the bad use of the things that were to him by God's providence. For this is shown from the following words: for it is said, 'The sinner provoked the Lord.' And the one provoking is the impious one, praising himself according to his own desires. And he provoked the Lord to such an extent as for the anger to become stretched out, that he himself has stored up for himself according to what was said, 'According to your hardness and unrepentant heart, you store up for yourself wrath in a day of wrath' (Ps 7:16).

However, even if much wrath has been stored up by him, nevertheless there will not be a search according to the abundance and greatness of it on the day of judgment because of the goodness of the judging God. For if a search according to the abundance of the wrath were to happen, the wicked would immediately be lost. Having seen this very thing, they say, regarding the goodness being shown: 'If iniquity is observed, Lord, Lord, who will endure?' (Ps 53:2). The pretext for the sinner provoking the Lord is not having him before the eyes and in the presence, since he has turned away from God. For every one sinning does this; therefore God says concerning every such one, 'They turned their backs on me, and not faces' (Ps 53:2).

Cain, having become the father of this impiety, 'Went out from the presence of the Lord God, having turned away from him' (Gen 4:16) clearly. If these things are said concerning sinful men, much more concerning the devil, having provoked God and not having him before him. For especially the following words are said concerning him: 'His ways are defiled at all times' (Ps 106:18). For whose ways are defiled at all times, except of the impious, habitually performing many, many things? And he walks impiously, not only in single acts seizing men, but also defining unprovidence.

Indeed, he has persuaded many to dogmatize the unprotected world, having first himself fallen from the right opinion concerning God's administration and judgment. This is shown from what is said to God concerning him, 'Your judgments are overthrown from his face; he shall lord it over all his enemies' (Ps 72:4), not as if he were going to do this always, but because this very thing is set forth; for it is a lie...