To Florus 3.34

But let us press the point. It has been established that injustice cannot belong to God. It has also been established that he himself commanded that parents’ sins must not harm their children. The dignity of the one giving the command itself declared unjust what he forbids. Yet, to deal more generously with you, I give you the opportunity to answer. Of the two opinions I just placed face to face—parents’ sins should be charged to children, or should not be charged to them—which do you think should be regarded as just?

If you say your own, which you want applied even at the final judgment, I ask in turn whether you regard the remaining opinion, ours, as just or unjust. You will undoubtedly pronounce it unfair. But the law’s authority commands this very position to be maintained. You see, then, that one of three alternatives necessarily remains. Either you admit that God’s law is unjust—indeed, through the law, accuse God himself of injustice—or you resort to your teachers’ language and say that the law given through Moses was not commanded by your god. Or, if you dare say neither, you must admit that inherited sin is asserted against the law’s teaching and commands. Surely we cannot believe you capable of such madness as saying that God maintains justice in his commands but injustice in his judgments—or, according to your doctrine, justice in his judgments but teaches injustice in his commands. Although we dealt with this above, it was necessary to repeat it now (Deuteronomy 24:16).