2713. About the government of the universe: the universe is not ruled by the Lord in agreement with human fallacies and fantasies, in which there are countless things that oppose

In perverse and inverted human minds there is this most powerful and almost exclusive tendency to draw conclusions from the way outer things are governed, thus especially from fallacies of the senses and fantasies: why does the Lord not guard against and turn people away from evils, indeed, from cruelties and other such dreadful and abominable things, when yet the hearts of all are in His hand? Why, for example, did He not bend David away from so cruelly treating the Ammonites [2 Sam. 12:31], from adultery with Bathsheba [2 Sam. 11:4], or Solomon from idolatry [1 Kings 11:4-8], and countless other such things that can occur at any moment in people's thoughts? I have been conversing with spirits on this subject yesterday and today, and those of them who are of a perverse and inverted nature stubbornly insist that the Lord either cannot, [or will not-]* among numerous other things they turn over in their minds. * Thus J. F. I. Tafel.