10777. The reason why the designs of bad people meet with success is that proper order requires all people to use their reason when they do what they do, and also to act in freedom. Therefore unless a person were left to act in accord with his reason and in freedom, and so unless the designs carried out with the aid of reason and in freedom met with success, no one would ever be in a proper state of mind to receive eternal life. For this life is instilled when people are in freedom and their reason is enlightened. Goodness cannot be forced on anyone, because nothing remains fixed if it has been forced on a person; it is not his. The only things that become a person's own are those done in freedom; for things done in freedom are those that spring from the will, and the will is the person's true self. Therefore unless a person is kept in freedom to do even what is bad he cannot be provided with good from the Lord.