For if God had ordained any decrees concerning nature and her order, different from those which he has ordained--in other words, if he had willed and conceived something different concerning nature--he would perforce have had a different intellect from that which he has, and also a different will.

But if it were allowable to assign to God a different intellect and a different will, without any change in his essence or his perfection, what would there be to prevent him changing the decrees which he has made concerning created things, and nevertheless remaining perfect?
For his intellect and will concerning things created and their order are the same, in respect to his essence and perfection, however they be conceived.
Further, all the philosophers whom I have read admit that God's intellect is entirely actual, and not at all potential; as they also admit that God's intellect, and God's will, and God's essence are identical, it follows that, if God had had a different actual intellect and a different will, his essence would also have been different; and thus, as I concluded at first, if things had been brought into being by God in a different way from that which has obtained, God's intellect and will, that is (as is admitted) his essence would perforce have been different, which is absurd.
As these things could not have been brought into being by God in any but the actual way and order which has obtained; and as the truth of this proposition follows from the supreme perfection of God; we can have no sound reason for persuading ourselves to believe that God did not wish to create all the things which were in his intellect, and to create them in the same perfection as he had understood them.
But, it will be said, there is in things no perfection nor imperfection; that which is in them, and which causes them to be called perfect or imperfect, good or bad, depends solely on the will of God.

If God had so willed, he might have brought it about that what is now perfection should be extreme imperfection, and vice versa.

What is such an assertion, but an open declaration that God, who necessarily understands that which he wishes, might bring it about by his will, that he should understand things differently from the way in which he does understand them?
This (as we have just shown) is the height of absurdity.

Wherefore, I may turn the argument against its employers, as follows:--All things depend on the power of God.
In order that things should be different from what they are, God's will would necessarily have to be different.