Invoking divine decree as an argument is a false and untenable (1) plea, as all people of reason and religion throughout the world agree. The person who invokes it will not accept the same argument from another when the latter uses it with respect to (2) an injustice he has committed against him, or has failed (3) to discharge the rights he owes him. Rather, he demands from him (4) what he is owed and punishes him for transgressing against him.

It (5) is merely akin to the sophistical fallacies that arise in matters of knowledge. Just as you know necessarily that such fallacies are unsound—even though they often occur to many people (6), to the point that a person may doubt his own existence and other matters known by necessity (7)—so too does this arise in the sphere of action, until a person imagines that it affords a specious ground (8) for setting aside obligatory truthfulness and justice and other duties, and for permitting falsehood, injustice, and the like. Yet hearts know by necessity that this is a false contention. That is why, upon careful examination, no one accepts it from anyone else (9).

No one resorts to it except when he knows of no valid justification for what he has done. If he knows that what he did was the proper course, that it was what he had been commanded to do (10), and that it ought to be done, he does not invoke divine decree. Likewise, if he knows that he was not required to do what he failed to do (11), or that doing it would serve no proper interest, or that he was not commanded to do it, he does not invoke divine decree. Rather, it is when he follows his own desire without knowledge that he invokes divine decree.