‘But,’ thou wilt say, ‘if it is in my power to change my purpose, I shall make void providence, since I shall perchance change something which comes within its foreknowledge.’ My answer is: Thou canst indeed turn aside thy purpose; but since the truth of providence is ever at hand to see that thou canst, and whether thou dost, and whither thou turnest thyself, thou canst not avoid the Divine foreknowledge, even as thou canst not escape the sight of a present spectator, although of thy free will thou turn thyself to various actions. Wilt thou, then, say: ‘Shall the Divine knowledge be changed at my discretion, so that, when I will this or that, providence changes its knowledge correspondingly?’ ”

“Surely not.”