Irenaeus said in the middle of the second century;
God made man free from the beginning. Now if God made some men good and some bad simply by nature, there would be nothing praiseworthy in their virtue or blameworthy in their vice,... God wants men to do good, but even the Gospel allows anyone who does not want to do good to do evil. To obey or disobey is in every man’s power...God forcing no man... The ancient law of liberty is, that God trusts men while on this earth to make their own choices while they trust Him alone to judge whether those choices have been good or bad.
Irenaeus, Contra Haereses IV, xxxvii, 1.
As Quoted in The World and the Prophets
Hugh Nibley
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