In evil actions, however, he so concurs as neither to effect, assist, nor approve of them, but to permit and efficaciously direct; not by infusing wickedness, but by so determining rational creatures physically to the substance of the act in the genus of being, that they (when left to themselves failing from the law) move and determine themselves to bad actions in the genus of morals, performing them freely and voluntarily (hekousiōs). Hence the guilt rests upon them alone.

He who uses as an instrument a man freely failing, to effect what is good, is not the author of the failure. … The wicked, while they sin, are not properly instruments of God moved, that is to say, without an internal principle of motion, but metaphorically, moved in such a way that they freely move themselves.

The power of action is from God, but the viciousness of that action from our own nature. As when a clock or watch hath some fault in any of the wheels, the man that winds it up, or putting his hand upon the wheels moves them, he is the cause of the motion, but it is the flaw in it, or deficiency of something, is the cause of its erroneous motion. … Our motion is from God,—Acts 17:28, 'In him we move',—but not the disorder of that motion.

As there is a vast difference between the sun being the cause of the lightsomeness and warmth of the atmosphere, and the brightness of gold and diamonds, by its presence and positive influence; and its being the occasion of darkness and frost, in the night, by its motion, whereby it descends below the horizon. The motion of the sun is the occasion of the latter kind of events; but it is not the proper cause, efficient, or producer of them; though they are necessarily consequent on that motion, under such circumstances: no more is any action of the Divine Being the cause of the evil of men's Wills.

For two things are to be considered in evil actions: the action itself, and the ἀνομία [anomia, lawlessness] of the action. The action itself, as a natural motion, takes place by the efficacious working of God; but the anomia or wickedness takes place by the active permission of God. … for as in a horse the cause of the motion is one thing and the cause of the limping another, so it is one thing to be the cause of the action and another to be the cause of the wickedness cleaving to it.