It is acknowledged by everyone, then, that the divine must be believed to be not only powerful, but also just, good, wise, and everything that leads the mind toward what is higher. It follows, therefore, in the present dispensation that we must not suppose one of the things fitting for God to be manifested in what has taken place while another is absent. For none of these exalted names, separated from the others, is by itself a virtue. The good is not truly good unless it is joined with what is just, wise, and powerful; for what is unjust, unwise, or powerless is not good. Nor is power regarded as a virtue when separated from justice and wisdom; such a form of power is brutish and tyrannical.
The same applies to the remaining qualities. If wisdom were separated from justice, or justice were not considered together with power and goodness, one would more properly call such things vice; for how could what is deficient in what is higher be numbered among good things? If, then, all these must come together in our beliefs concerning God, let us examine whether the dispensation concerning humanity lacks any of the conceptions fitting for God. We certainly look in God for signs of goodness. And what clearer testimony to goodness could there be than His winning back for Himself the one who had deserted to the opposite side, while the nature firmly and unchangeably established in the good was not itself changed along with the easy mutability of human moral choice? For He would not have come to save us, as David says, unless goodness had produced such a purpose. But the goodness of the purpose would have accomplished nothing unless wisdom made love for humanity effective.
For in the case of those who are ill, there may be many who wish the sick person not to remain in misery, but only those in whom some skilled power works toward the healing of the sufferer bring their good intention for the sick to completion. Wisdom, therefore, must necessarily be joined to goodness. How, then, are wisdom and goodness seen together in what has taken place? Because the good purpose cannot be seen by itself. For how could a purpose appear unless it were made visible through what is done? The things accomplished, proceeding in a certain sequence and order, demonstrate the wisdom and skill of God's dispensation. And since, as was said earlier, wisdom becomes virtue when joined with justice, but if separated from it would not be good by itself, it is fitting in the account of the dispensation concerning humanity to consider these two together—I mean wisdom and justice.