It’s just that if he holds that way, then his approach regarding the “bread of shame” idea (which others already preceded him in) — the one he gets so worked up about — becomes even more bizarre. Ever since I heard it as a child, I was just horrified; I felt like they were making me into an idiot,

and when I grew up I tried to justify it: that indeed the Creator cannot make us receive free bread and feel the same feeling as bread that was earned, because that is apparently a logical impossibility. But that same Ramchal cuts off the strange branch of “bread of shame” that he is so enthusiastic about.
But according to the passage quoted below, his whole “bread of shame” position — indeed this entire line of thought in Da’at Tevunot — now seems like a complete game, of a Creator who is as if bored,

(138 Openings of Wisdom, Opening 30):

“…..And the explanation of this matter is that we do not say: since the Infinite One, blessed be He, created the world in this order in which He created it — this is what He could create, and not in another way. That is, by way of example, we might say that so many worlds were made because the first world is such a great light that created beings cannot receive it. And similarly with other such things, where people say: it had to be this way because it could not be otherwise.

We do not say that the Infinite One, blessed be He, was compelled to act this way, Heaven forbid, for the Infinite One, blessed be He, must be understood as omnipotent in every kind of ability that thought can grasp, and even what it cannot grasp. In short — no limit and no contingent circumstance at all can be applied to the Infinite One, blessed be He; rather, He is the Master of everything. And this nature that we see with our own eyes in all the perceptible things within it — He made it this way in these perceptible things. But He is not limited under any order or law whatsoever!

Rather, whenever we say — it is impossible otherwise — what we mean is that according to the way of gradation, it is impossible that way.
And this is true: according to the way of gradation, it is impossible, for example, to bring forth lower creatures directly from Adam Kadmon and have them receive its light; for once the nature of gradation is made according to what we understand of it, it is impossible for a lowly creature to receive the light of the supreme Keter.

But all this is only after we know that the Infinite One, blessed be He, wanted gradation. But if the Infinite One, blessed be He, had not wanted this, He could have done it as He wished.
It follows, then, that the beginning of understanding providence depends on gradation, which is the first principle that the Infinite One, blessed be He, willed, and according to this will the realm was made. You can see that the contraction itself is according to this premise. For otherwise, the Infinite One, blessed be He, could without any contraction have acted according to His will with regard to all the lowest created beings. On the contrary, the contraction is the first root of this premise, for since He wanted to contract Himself in order to bring forth beings, He thereby wanted to set the light in proportion to the result that would emerge from it. Therefore He removed its infinity from this, and then the realm that emerged came forth — which is the way of providence by means of gradation. And if He had not contracted His light, He would have given existence to created beings from some other place, for He would have created them without any matter of gradation.”

Do you agree or not?