Commentary Par VIII 106-108

As he concludes his 'lecture' on predestination, Charles makes it clear why he has had to come so close to the shoals of determinism, where, after Augustine, many Christian thinkers have come close to sinking: If God does not order the universe, it would not have any order at all.  Nature, left to its own, would produce only chaos, as King Lear discovered.  Insistence on God's control of so much of the field of human action might seem to whittle away the uses of free will to a point approaching nullity.  Yet Dante, through Beatrice (see [Par V 19-24]), has already insisted on the efficacy of God's greatest gift to humankind.