 Epicurus believes that both the Principle of Bivalence and causal determinism are false; the Stoics believe that both are true, and that their truth does not render us powerless or make what will happen inevitable. In fact, the Stoics think that every event is both causally determined and fated. The Stoics believe that God is wise, good, perfectly happy, and creator of the world (DL 7.147, LS 54A). But God is not an immaterial entity separate from the world who created it ex nihilo—instead, god is the world. and his mind pervades and organizes all things (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 1.39, LS 54B; Alexander, On Mixture 225, 1–2, LS 54H). Because God is good, he wishes to benefit everything (Clement, The teacher 1.8.63 1–2, LS 60I). So God’s providential will is to make the world the best he can. God is extremely powerful but not omnipotent, as he works within the limits of what is physically possible, like a craftsman skillfully building something with the materials at hand. The way God realizes his providential will is through setting up the causal order of the world to bring it about. Fate is an everlasting “ordering and sequence of causes” which brings about every single thing that has happened, is happening, and is going to happen. This is “not the ‘fate’ of superstition, but that of physics” (Cicero, On Divination 1.125–6, LS 55L). So for example, if God has it as part of his providential plan that I will recover from cancer, God will fate my recovery by building that future event into the overall organization of the cosmos from its foundation, so that the fated recovery will necessarily arise as the series of causes unspools itself over time.