I'm with you so far! :)
For, while holding this earnestness and truth of the good God, which are indeed capable of proof from the rational creation, you will not wonder at the fact that God did not interfere to prevent the occurrence of what He wished not to happen, in order that He might keep from harm what He wished.
Here's my first step off the reservation. :) I would agree that sometimes God lets us lie in the beds we have made, but this says that God never bails us out of trouble and I just know from personal experience that this isn't the case! :)
I know he says later that for God to interpose and bail us out of anything would be to cancel the liberty of the will that God gave us. This honestly reminds me of parents who want to be friends with their young children instead of parents. Do you really see God as such a disinterested parent as Tertullian appears to see Him? From this reading, Tertullian was the uncle who let his nephews use crayons on his walls to allow them self expression. :) Is this right?
...would not Marcion then exclaim, What a frivolous, unstable, and faithless Lord, cancelling the gifts He had bestowed! Why did He allow any liberty of will, if He afterwards withdrew it? Why withdraw it after allowing it?
OH PLEASE! :) I don't know who this Marcion guy was, but it definitely sounds like Tertullian was afraid of him. Common human experience proves how pathetic this argument is, and we don't have nearly the sovereignty over our children that God has over us.
For, since He had once for all allowed (and, as we have shown, worthily allowed) to man freedom of will and mastery of himself,...
God allows man mastery of himself??? Yikes! Why doesn't this idea scare you to death? :)
Man must see, if he failed to make the most of the good gift he had received, how that he was himself guilty in respect of the law which he did not choose to keep, ...
This part I'll buy, but the rest of it... who is this guy? :)
Finally, and in an overall sense, while I would agree that man has the freedom to choose evil, I would say it doesn't start until salvation. Before that, we are dead in sin, and have no choice.
I think you are misreading Tertullian. His point is that although God foresaw that Adam would sin, he did nothing to stop him, or the serpent, because having given him Free Will, he wouldn't take it back. Man was created in the image and likeness of God. The image of God contains Free Will. Its part of our being. It has nothing to do with being a parent who wants to be a friend so lets the kids run wild. :)
Marcion, by the way, was a major league heretic. A very nasty, very dangerous fellow.
"For, since He had once for all allowed (and, as we have shown, worthily allowed) to man freedom of will and mastery of himself,...
God allows man mastery of himself??? Yikes! Why doesn't this idea scare you to death? :)"
Sort of, but what it means is that God is neither the author of nor responsible for Evil; we are. Theosis and the grace necessary to attain it are free for the taking, but many don't pick up on that. Its sort of like something a wise priest once said to me. If it were announced that he was handing out $1000.00 bills at the liturgy on Sunday, the crowds would fill the church and the streets outside. Instead he offers LIFE through Christ...the church may often be full, but the streets outside aren't.
"Finally, and in an overall sense, while I would agree that man has the freedom to choose evil, I would say it doesn't start until salvation. Before that, we are dead in sin, and have no choice."
Until we receive the grace of baptism, we are indeed dead spiritually and are quite incapable of becoming like Christ, though there are those Orthodox theologians who believe otherwise. Even after we start on the process of theosis, as I said in an earlier post, we can "miss the mark", sin. Once we attain theosis, if we attain theosis, then we have no ability to sin because we wouldn't sin, our entire essence being focused on God rather than the self. But FK, that seldom, very seldom, happens in this life.