On the Harmony of God's Foreknowledge, Predestination, and Grace with Free Choice

On the Harmony of God's Foreknowledge, Predestination, and Grace with Free Choice

ON THE HARMONY OF GOD'S FOREKNOWLEDGE,

PREDESTINATION, AND GRACE WITH FREE CHOICE

(DE CONCORDIA)

I SHALL TRY, with God's help, to set forth in writing what God sees fit to show me concerning those three questions about the apparent incompatibility between free choice and God's foreknowledge, predestination, and grace.

Question 1:

On foreknowledge and free choice 1.1 Certainly God's foreknowledge seems to be incompatible with free choice, since it is necessary that the things God foreknows are going to be, whereas things done by free choice do not result from any necessity. And if they are in fact incompatible, it is impossible that God's foreknowledge, which foresees all things, coexists1 with something's happening through free choice.

If that impossibility can be shown not to exist, however, the apparent incompatibility is completely eliminated. Let us therefore suppose that both divine foreknowledge (which seems to imply that all future things are necessary) and free choice (by which, supposedly, many things come about without any necessity) exist, and see whether it is impossible that they coexist. If it is impossible, something else that is impossible will result from it. (For what is impossible is something such that, if one assumes it, something else impossible follows.) Now if some future thing is going to be without necessity, God foreknows it, since he foreknows all future things. But what God foreknows is, necessarily, going to be just as he foreknows it. Therefore, it is necessary that some future thing is going to be without necessity. So to anyone who understands this correctly, the foreknowledge that entails necessity does not in any way appear to be incompatible with the freedom of choice that eliminates necessity: for it is necessary that what God foreknows is going to be, and God foreknows that something is going to be without any necessity.

But you will reply:"You are still not eliminating the necessity either that I sin or that I do not sin.After all, God foreknows that I will sin, or else that I will

1 coexists: simul esse. Ordinarily one would translate the Latin as "exists at the same time," but Anselm will argue that strictly speaking God's foreknowledge does not exist at any time—it is timelessly eternal.

BASIC WRITINGS

not sin, and so it is necessary that I sin, if in fact I do sin, or else it is necessary that I do not sin, if in fact I do not sin." To this I reply that you should not say,"God foreknows that I will sin or not sin, period," but rather,"God foreknows that I will sin or not sin without necessity." That way it follows that whether you sin or do not sin, either outcome will happen without necessity, since God foreknows that what will happen is going to come about without necessity. So do you see that it is not impossible for God's foreknowledge, which is the basis for our saying that the future things God foreknows are necessary, to coexist with free choice, through which many things come about without necessity? For if it is impossible, something impossible follows from it. But nothing impossible follows from this.

Perhaps you will say,"Your claim that it is necessary that I will sin or not sin without necessity, because God foreknows this, does not assuage my worries about this necessity. Necessity seems to imply compulsion or constraint. So if it is necessary that I sin through my will, I understand this as meaning that I am compelled by some hidden power to will to sin; and if I do not sin, that I am constrained from willing to sin. For that reason it seems to me that if I sin,

I sin by necessity, and if I do not sin, it is by necessity that I do not sin."

1.2 I say that it is important to realize that we often say something is necessary that is not compelled by any power, and that something is necessarily not the case that is not eliminated by any constraint. For example, we say that it is necessary for God to be immortal and that it is necessary for God not to be unjust. This is not because there is some power that compels God to be immortal or prevents him from being unjust, but because nothing can bring it about that he is not immortal or that he is unjust. And so, when I say, "It is necessary that you will sin or not sin by your will alone, just as God foreknows," this should not be taken to mean that something is preventing your will from being what it will not be or compelling your will to be what it will be. For indeed God, who foresees that something is going to be from the will alone, foreknows the very fact that the will is not compelled or constrained by any other thing, and thus that what is done by the will is done freely. Therefore, I think that if these matters are considered attentively, there is no inconsistency that would prevent God's foreknowledge from coexisting with freedom of choice.

Moreover, if one carefully considers the meaning of the word, merely by saying that something is foreknown, one is stating that it is going to be. For only what is going to be is foreknown, since only what is true can be known. So when I say that if God foreknows something, it is necessary that it is going to be, that is the same as saying that if it will be, it will be by necessity. But that necessity does not compel or constrain anything to be or not to be. It is because something is posited as existing that its existence is said to be necessary,

ON THE HARMONY . . . (DE CONCORDIA)

and because something is posited as not existing that its non-existence is said to be necessary: not because necessity compels or constrains it to be or not to be. For when I say,"If it will be, it will be by necessity," the necessity here does not precede the positing of the thing, but follows from it. The same is true of "What will be, will be by necessity." For this necessity simply means that what will be cannot at the same time not be.

But it is equally true that something was and is and will be not from necessity, and that it is necessary that everything that was was, that everything that is is, and that everything that will be will be. For a thing's being past is not the same as a past thing's being past, and a thing's being present is not the same as a present thing's being present, and a thing's being future is not the same as a future thing's being future—just as a thing's being white is not the same as a white thing's being white. After all, a board is not always necessarily white, since before it was made white, it was able not to be made white; and once it is white, it can be made not-white.And yet it is always necessary that a white board be white, since neither before it is white nor after it is white can it be made to be both white and not-white at the same time. Similarly, a thing is not by necessity present, since before it was present, it was possible that it not become present;and once it is present,it can become not-present.Yet it is necessary that a present thing always be present, since neither before it is present nor after it is present can it be both present and not-present at the same time.

In the same way, a given thing (say, an action) is not by necessity something future, since before it is, things can turn out in such a way that it is not going to be in the future.Yet it is necessary that what will be in the future will be in the future,since what is future cannot at the same time not be future.And similar things are true about what is past. A given thing is not by necessity past, since before it was, it was possible for it not to be; but it is necessary that what is past is always past, since what is past cannot at the same time not be past.

But a past thing is different in one respect from a present or future thing: it can never come about that something that is past becomes not-past,in the way that something that is present can become not-present, and something that is not by necessity future can become not-future.

And so when a future thing is said to be future, what is said is necessary, since a future thing is never not-future—as happens whenever we say of any x that it is x.2 For when we say "Every human being is a human being" or "If he is a human being, he is a human being" or "Every white thing is white" or "If it is white, it is white," what is said is necessary, since something cannot be and not be at the same time. In fact, if it is not necessary that every future thing

2 Literally,"as often as we say the same of the same."

BASIC WRITINGS

be future, some future thing is not future, which is impossible. Therefore, by necessity every future thing is future, and by necessity if something is future, it is future; for 'future' is being said of something future. But this is by subsequent necessity, which does not compel anything to be.

1.3 But when it is said that some thing is going to be in the future, the thing is not always by necessity, even though it is going to be in the future. For if I say "Tomorrow there will be a rebellion among the people," the rebellion will nevertheless not be by necessity. For before the rebellion takes place, it is possible for things to turn out such that it does not take place, even though it will in fact take place.Yet it is sometimes the case that a thing that is said to be future is by necessity: for example, if I say "Tomorrow there will be a sunrise."

Therefore, if I say with necessity that some future thing is future, this is either in the way in which tomorrow's future rebellion is by necessity future or else in the way in which tomorrow's future sunrise is by necessity future. But the rebellion, which will not be by necessity, is said to be future only by subsequent necessity, because this is a case of saying of a future thing that it is future.

For if tomorrow's rebellion is future, it is by necessity future.Tomorrow's sunrise, by contrast, is understood to be future in accordance with two necessities: both antecedent necessity,which brings it about that a thing exists (for the fact that its future existence is necessary accounts for why it will exist), and subsequent necessity, which does not compel anything to be (for the fact that it is future is what accounts for its being future by necessity). Hence, when we say that it is necessary that what God foreknows to be future is future, we are not always claiming that the thing is by necessity future, but that a future thing is by necessity future. After all, it cannot be future and not future at the same time. If we say simply "If God foreknows something," without adding 'future', the meaning is the same, since 'foreknow' implies 'future'.To foreknow is simply to know something future, and so if God foreknows something, it must be future. Therefore, it does not always follow from God's foreknowledge that a thing is by necessity future, since although God does foreknow all future things, he does not foreknow all future things by necessity; instead, he foreknows some future things on the basis of the free will of a rational creature.

Moreover, it is important to note that, just as it is not necessary for God to will what he wills, so too it is not necessary in many instances for human beings to will what they will.And just as it is necessary that whatever God wills is the case, so too it is necessary that whatever human beings will is the case— in those matters that God has made subject to human will, so that if they will something, it comes about, and if they do not will it, it does not come about.

For since what God wills cannot not be, it follows that when God wills that a human will not be compelled or constrained by any necessity to will or not to will, and that its effect follow the will, it is necessary that the human will is

ON THE HARMONY . . . (DE CONCORDIA)

free and that what it wills is the case. In such a case, therefore, it is true that a sinful deed that a human being wills to perform comes about by necessity, even though he does not will by necessity. Now if you ask whether the sin of the will itself, when it sins by willing, is by necessity, the right response is that just as the will does not will by necessity, so also there is not a sin on the part of the will by necessity. Nor does that will act by necessity—for if it did not will spontaneously,* it would not be acting—even though,as I just said above, it is necessary that what it does comes about. For given that in this case its sinning is nothing other than its willing what it ought not, the will's sin is not necessary in just the same way that its willing is not necessary. Nonetheless, it is true that if a human being wills to sin, it is necessary that he sins—but in accordance with the necessity that I said above neither compels nor constrains.

And so a free will (1) is able not to will what it wills but also (2) is unable not to will what it wills and (3) necessarily wills what it wills. For, given that it is free, (1) before it wills, it is able not to will. But (2) once it is willing, it is unable not to will; rather, (3) its willing is necessary, since it is impossible for it both to will and not to will the same thing at the same time. By contrast, since it has been granted to the will that what it wills is the case and what it does not will is not the case, the will's deed is voluntary or spontaneous, since it is brought about by a spontaneous will, and yet it is necessary in two ways: both because it is compelled by the will to come about, and because what comes about cannot at the same time not come about. But the freedom of the will is what brings about these two necessities, since before they exist, the will can avoid them. God, who knows all and only truth, sees all these things as either spontaneous or necessary; and as he sees them, so they are.

On this basis it is clear that there is no incompatibility at all between God's foreknowing all things and there being many things that are done by free will.

Things that are done by free will are such that before they are, it can turn out that they never are; and yet they are in a certain sense by necessity—a necessity that, as I have said, derives from free will.

1.4 There is another way to see that not everything God foreknows is by necessity, but rather that some things come about through the freedom of the will. For when God wills or does something—whether we say this according to the unchangeable present of eternity in which nothing is past or future, but all things are at once without any motion (as when we say, not that he has willed or is going to will, or has done or is going to do, but simply that he wills or does), or according to time (as when we say that he is going to will or is going to do what we know he has not yet done)—it cannot be denied that he knows what he wills and does, or that he foreknows what he is going to will and is going to do. So if God's knowing or foreknowing imposes necessity on all the things he knows or foreknows, it follows that there is

BASIC WRITINGS

nothing he does or wills freely, whether according to eternity or according to some time, but that he wills and does all things by necessity. Given that it is absurd even to entertain such a thought, it is not true that whatever God knows or foreknows to be is necessarily the case, or that whatever God knows or foreknows not to be is necessarily not the case. So there is nothing to prevent his knowing or foreknowing that something in our wills and actions is done or will exist through free choice, so that even though it is necessary for what he knows or foreknows to exist, there are many things that exist not by any necessity, but instead by free will, as I showed above.

Indeed, why would it be surprising that in this way something is a result of freedom and is also by necessity, given that there are many things that take on opposite descriptions when considered in different ways? After all, what could be more opposite than going toward and going away from? And yet we see that when someone goes from one place to another, the very same going is both a going toward and a going away from; he goes away from one place and goes toward another place. Similarly, suppose we observe the sun beneath a certain point of the heavens, as it hastens toward this same point while always illuminating the heavens.We see that the place from which it is drawing away is the same place to which it is approaching, and it unceasingly draws near the very place from which it is at the same time departing. It is also evident to those who understand the sun's course that if we observe the heavens, the sun always moves from west to east; but if we instead pay attention to the earth, the sun always moves from east to west.And thus the sun always moves opposite to the firmament, though it also moves with the firmament, though more slowly; and the same movement is observed in the case of all the planets. In this way, then, no inconsistency arises if (in keeping with the arguments given above) we say that something is future by necessity, given that it is future, and also that the very same thing is not compelled by any necessity to be future— except by that necessity that is brought about by free will, as I said above.

1.5 Now someone might try to use what Job says to God about human beings—"You have fixed their limits, which cannot be transgressed"3—to argue that no one has ever been able to hasten or delay the day of his death, even though we might think that someone acts by free will in a way that brings about his own death. But that is no objection to what we said above.

For because God does not err and sees nothing but truth, whether that truth comes about by freedom or by necessity, something is said to be immutably fixed with regard to him that, with regard to human beings, is subject to change up until it happens. This is also the sort of thing the Apostle Paul says

3 Job 14:5.

ON THE HARMONY . . . (DE CONCORDIA)

concerning those who "according to God's purpose"4 are "called to be saints":5 "Those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

Now those whom he predestined, he also called.And those whom he called, he also justified. Now those whom he justified, he also glorified."6 Indeed, this purpose according to which they are called to be saints is immutable in eternity, in which there is neither past nor future but only present. But in the human beings themselves it is sometimes mutable because of freedom of choice.For in eternity it is not the case that something was or will be,but only that it is; nonetheless—and without any inconsistency—in time something was or will be.And in just the same way, something that in eternity cannot be changed is proved, without any inconsistency, to be changeable in time until it exists, thanks to free will. Now although in eternity there is only a present, it is not a temporal present like ours, but an eternal present that encompasses all times. Just as every place, and those things that are in any place, are contained in the present time, so too every time, and those things that are at any time, are enclosed all at once in the eternal present. So even though the Apostle says that God "foreknew,""predestined,""called,""justified," and "glorified" his saints, none of these is earlier or later in God; rather, they are to be understood as existing all at once in the eternal present. For his eternity does have its "all at once," which contains all those things that exist together in one place or one time, as well as all those that exist in diverse places or times.

And in order to make it clear that he was not using those verbs with a temporal signification, the Apostle used past-tense verbs to describe things that are still in the future. For God has not yet in time "called,""justified," or "glorified" those whom he foreknew who have yet to be born.Thus we can see that the Apostle used past-tense verbs for lack of a verb-tense that signifies the eternal present, because things that are temporally past are completely immutable, much as the eternal present is. In fact, in this respect temporally past things are more like things in the eternal present than temporally present things are,since things in the eternal present can never not be present, just as temporally past things can never not be past, whereas all temporally present things that pass away come to be not present.

It is in this way, therefore, that Holy Scripture speaks of things that come about by free choice as necessary. It is speaking in terms of eternity, in which everything that is true, and only what is true, is unchangeably present. It is not speaking in terms of time, in which our wills and our actions do not always

4 Romans 8:28.

5 Romans 1:7.

6 Romans 8:29–30.

BASIC WRITINGS

exist—and just as, so long as they do not exist, it is not necessary that they exist, so too it is often not necessary that they ever exist. For example, I am not always writing or willing to write; and just as, while I am not writing or willing to write, it is not necessary that I write or will to write, so too it is in no way necessary that I ever write or will to write.

Now since we have discerned that a thing exists differently in time from how it exists in eternity, so that it is sometimes true that something does not exist in time that does exist in eternity, and that its existence is past in time but not past in eternity or future in time but not future in eternity, there does not seem to be any reason to deny that in the same way something can be mutable in time that is immutable in eternity. Indeed, there is no more opposition between being mutable in time and being immutable in eternity than there is between not existing at a given time and always existing in eternity, or between having existed or being yet to exist in time and not having existed or not being yet to exist in eternity. For I am not saying that something never exists in time that always exists in eternity, but merely that it does not exist at some time. For example, I am not saying that what I will do tomorrow— which always exists in eternity—does not exist at any time;I am merely denying that it exists today. And when we deny that something was or will be in eternity that was or will be in time, we are not claiming that what was or will be in time does not exist in any way in eternity.We are simply saying that it does not exist in eternity in a past or future way; rather, it exists there unceasingly in its own present way. And there does not appear to be any danger of inconsistency in these statements. In this way, then, there is no contradiction involved in saying that something is mutable in time until it exists but abides immutably in eternity—not before it exists or after it exists, but unceasingly, because nothing exists in eternity according to time. For the very fact that something exists temporally, and that before it exists it is able not to exist, exists there eternally, as I have already said. I think it is sufficiently clear from what I have said that God's foreknowledge is in no way incompatible with free choice. The power of eternity, which encloses every time and everything that exists at any time, accomplishes this.

1.6 But since we do not have free choice in all matters, it is important to investigate the extent and the nature of that freedom of choice that we believe human beings always possess, and what choice itself is. For choice is not the same thing as the freedom by which choice is called free.We talk about freedom and choice in many contexts. For example, we say that someone has the freedom either to speak or to keep silent, and that it is up to his choice which of the two he wills.And we often speak in similar ways of freedom and choice that are not always present or are not necessary for the salvation of our souls.

The only question at issue now, however, concerns that choice and that

ON THE HARMONY . . . (DE CONCORDIA)

freedom without which human beings cannot be saved, once they are able to make use of them. For many people complain bitterly because they think free choice has no influence on salvation or damnation and that the only thing that matters is the necessity arising from God's foreknowledge. Therefore, since human beings, once they have reached the age of reason, are not saved apart from their own justice, we need to examine the choice and the freedom that are under discussion here, because they are the seat of justice.We must first explain justice, and then freedom and choice.

Now any justice, be it great or small, is rectitude of will preserved for its own sake.And the freedom at issue here is the power to preserve rectitude of will for the sake of that rectitude itself. I take myself to have established these definitions by evident arguments, the former in the treatise I composed On Truth and the latter in the one I published On Freedom [of Choice]. In the latter I also showed how this freedom exists naturally and inseparably in human beings, even though they do not always employ it,and that it is so powerful that nothing can take the aforesaid rectitude, that is, justice, away from a human being who has it, so long as he wills to employ it. Now justice is not natural. Rather, in the beginning it was separable both from the angels in heaven and from human beings in paradise; and it remains separable in this life from those who have it—not, however, by necessity, but by their own wills. But since it has been established that the justice by which someone is just is the rectitude of will of which I have spoken, and that rectitude is in someone only when he wills what God wills him to will, it is evident that God cannot take that rectitude away from someone against that person's will, since God cannot will this. But neither can he will for someone who has it to abandon it unwillingly, because of some necessity, for that would mean God was willing for someone not to will what God wills for him to will, which is impossible. It follows, therefore, that God wills that an upright will be free for the purpose of willing rightly and preserving that very rectitude; and when a will has the power to do what it wills, it acts freely in doing what it does.And from this we can see quite clearly that it is possible for a will and its action to be free, consistently with God's foreknowledge, as was shown above.

Let us now offer an example of an upright (that is, a just) will, freedom of choice, and choice itself, and how an upright will is tempted to abandon rectitude, and how it preserves rectitude by free choice. Suppose someone has a settled intention to preserve truth, since he understands that it is right to love the truth. Such a person already has an upright will and rectitude of will. But the will is one thing, and the rectitude by which it is upright is another. Now suppose someone else comes up to him and threatens him with death unless he tells a lie.We see now that it is up to his choice whether he will abandon life for the sake of rectitude of will or abandon rectitude of will for the sake of life. This choice, which can also be called a judgment, is free, because the

BASIC WRITINGS

reason by which he understands rectitude teaches that this rectitude ought always to be preserved out of love for that rectitude itself, and that whatever might be offered as an inducement to abandon rectitude should be held in contempt, and because it is up to his will either to reject or to choose something in accordance with his reason's understanding. For will and reason were given to rational creatures principally for this purpose. So this person's voluntary choice to abandon rectitude is not compelled by any necessity, even though he is assaulted by the anguish of death.For although it is necessary that he give up either life or rectitude, there is no necessity that determines which he will preserve and which he will abandon. His will alone determines what he will hold on to in this case; and where only the will's selection holds sway, the power of necessity does nothing. And since there is no necessity for him to abandon the rectitude of will that he possesses, it is clear that he does not lack freedom, the power to preserve rectitude. For this power is always free.

For this is the freedom that I have said is the power to preserve rectitude of will for the sake of that rectitude itself. It is in virtue of this freedom that both the choice and the will of a rational nature are said to be free.

1.7 Given that we believe that God foreknows or knows all things, it remains for us to consider whether God's knowledge is from things or things have their being from his knowledge. For if God has his knowledge from things, it follows that things are prior to God's knowledge and thus are not from God, since they cannot be from God unless they are from his knowledge. On the other hand, if everything that exists has its being from God's knowledge, God is the culprit and instigator in all evil deeds, and therefore he does not act justly in punishing the wicked—a conclusion we cannot support.

But in fact this question can be readily answered once we realize that the good that is justice is genuinely something, whereas the evil that is injustice lacks existence altogether. I showed this quite clearly in my treatise On the Fall of the Devil and in the short work that I entitled On the Virginal Conception, and On Original Sin. For injustice is not a quality or an action or any being; it is merely the lack of the justice that ought to be present, and its only place is in the will where justice ought to be. It is in virtue of this just or unjust will that all rational natures and all their actions are called either just or unjust. Indeed, every quality and every action and whatever has any being is from God, from whom all justice and no injustice comes. So God brings about all things, whether they are brought about by a just or an unjust will—that is, both good and evil deeds. In the case of good deeds, he brings about both what they are and their being good, whereas in evil deeds he brings about what they are, but not their being evil. In every case, for a thing to be just or good is for that thing to be something; but in no case does a thing's being unjust or bad consist in its being something.After all, to be good or just is to have justice, and

ON THE HARMONY . . . (DE CONCORDIA)

having justice is something, whereas to be bad or unjust is to lack the justice that something ought to have, and lacking justice is not something. So justice is something and injustice is nothing, as I have said.

But there is another good, which is called 'advantage', the opposite of which is the evil that we call 'affliction'. This evil is in some cases nothing, as is true of blindness; but in some cases it is something, as is true of pain.When this evil is something, we do not deny that God brings it about, since he "brings about peace and creates evil,"7 as we read. For God himself creates afflictions by which he disciplines and purifies the just and punishes the unjust. So it is only with respect to the evil that is injustice, by which something is called unjust, that we are certain that evil is never something, and that in no case is a thing's being unjust its being something.And just as God does not bring about injustice, so too he does not bring it about that something is unjust. Nonetheless, he brings about all actions and all motions, since he brings about the things by which and from which and through which and in which they come about, and no thing has any power for willing or acting unless God gives it. Moreover, willing itself, which is sometimes just and sometimes unjust, is nothing other than employing the will and the power of willing that God gives. Insofar as it has being, it is good and is from God.When it exists rightly, it is good and just; when it does not exist rightly, it is bad and unjust solely in virtue of not existing rightly. Now existing rightly is something, and it is from God; not existing rightly is not something, and it is not from God. For when someone uses a sword or his tongue or the power of speaking, the sword or tongue or power of speaking is not one thing when it is used rightly but another when it is used wrongly; and in the same way, the will that we use for willing (just as we use reason for reasoning) is not one thing when someone uses it rightly and another when he uses it wrongly.When the will is just, it is neither more nor less what it essentially is than when it is unjust; and it is by the will that either a substance or an action is called just or unjust.And so in all good wills and good actions God brings about both what they essentially are and their being good, whereas in evil wills and evil actions God does not bring about their being evil, but only what they essentially are. For just as things have their essence from God alone, so too they have rectitude from God alone.

Now the absence of this rectitude of which I am speaking—the absence that is injustice—is found only in the will of a rational creature, which ought always to possess justice.Why,then,does a creature not always have the justice that it ought always to have? And how does God bring about good things entirely by his goodness but evil things entirely through the fault of human beings or 7 Isaiah 45:7.

BASIC WRITINGS

the devil? And how does a human being do good things through his free choice with the help of grace but evil through the operation of his own will alone?

And what part does God play in evil things, without being to blame for them, and what part do human beings play in good things,so that they deserve praise for them, in such a way that nevertheless the good things a human being does ought clearly to be imputed to God and the bad things to the human being?

God will, I trust, grant that the answers will become clearer when we discuss grace and free choice. For the moment I will simply say that the evil angel lacks justice because he abandoned it and then was never given it back, whereas a human being lacks it because he cast it away in his first parents and then either was never given it back or received it and then rejected it.

I believe that, with the help of God's grace, we have shown that it is not impossible for God's foreknowledge to coexist with free choice, if one carefully examines what we have said, and that no insuperable objection can be raised.

Question 2:

On predestination and free choice 2.1 So, placing our hope in the one who has guided us this far, let us now undertake to resolve the disharmony that appears to exist between predestination and free choice.As will become evident in what follows, we made a good deal of progress on this score in our earlier discussion.

Predestination seems to be the same thing as preordination or predetermination. So when God is said to predestine something, we understand this to mean that he preordains it: that is, he determines that it will happen in the future. But what God determines will happen in the future seems to happen by necessity; hence, it is necessary that whatever God predestines will happen.

Therefore, if God predestines the good and bad actions that are done, nothing is done by free choice, but everything is a result of necessity. On the other hand, if he predestines only good actions, only good actions come about by necessity, and there is free choice only with respect to bad actions—which is completely absurd. So it is not only good actions that God predestines. Now if free choice does certain good deeds by which people become just apart from predestination, God does not predestine all the good deeds that make people just; hence, neither does God predestine the just themselves, who are just through the deeds of free choice.Therefore, God did not foreknow them, since "those whom he foreknew, he also predestined."8 But it is false that God did not foreknow some good deeds or some just people. It is not therefore just any good deeds done by free choice alone that make people just, but only those that God predestines.Therefore, if God predestines all things, and whatever is predestined is by necessity, then given that nothing done by free choice comes about by necessity, it appears to follow that wherever predestination

8 Romans 8:29.

ON THE HARMONY . . . (DE CONCORDIA)

holds sway, free choice is nothing; or if we stipulate that there is free choice in some cases, predestination will disappear in those cases.

2.2 Before I answer the question, it is first important to see that predestination is not only of good things. We can also speak of predestination of bad things, in the same way that God is said to bring about the bad things that he does not in fact bring about, on the grounds that he permits them. For God is said to "harden"9 someone when he does not soften him, and to "lead him into temptation"10 when he does not set him free from temptation. So it is not inappropriate if we say in this sense that God predestines the wicked and their evil deeds when he does not rectify them and their evil deeds. But he is said to foreknow and predestine the good in a stricter sense, because in them he brings about both what they are and the fact that they are good, whereas in the evil he brings about only what they are essentially, not the fact that they are evil, as was said above.11 One should also be aware that just as foreknowledge is not said properly* to be in God,neither is predestination,since for him nothing is either before or after, but all things are present to him at once.

2.3 Let us now investigate whether certain things that will happen through free choice can be predestined.Now to be sure,there is no room to doubt whether there is some discrepancy between God's foreknowledge and his predestination. On the contrary, as God foreknows, so too does he predestine. In the question on foreknowledge, we came to recognize quite clearly that certain future things that will be done through free choice are foreknown, without any contradiction. Hence, evident truth and reason teach that certain future things that will be done through free choice are likewise predestined, without any inconsistency. For God neither foreknows nor predestines any future just person by necessity. After all, someone who does not preserve justice by free will does not have justice. So although things that are foreknown and things that are predestined necessarily take place, nonetheless some things that are predestined and foreknown do not come about by that necessity that precedes a thing and brings it about, but by the necessity that follows a thing, as we said above.Although God predestines these things, he does not bring them about by compelling or restraining the will, but by leaving the will in its own power.

But although the will does employ its own power,it does not bring about anything that God does not bring about: in the case of good things, by his grace; in the case of bad things, not by his own fault but by the fault of the will.This will become clearer when we discuss grace, as we have promised to do.

9 Exodus 4, 7–11, and 14, passim; Deuteronomy 2:30; Joshua 11:20; John 12:40; Romans 9:18.

10 Matthew 6:13; Luke 11:4.

11 In 1.7.

BASIC WRITINGS

Now there is no mistake in foreknowledge; God foreknows what is true in just the way in which it will be, whether necessary or spontaneous. In the same way, there is no change in predestination; God predestines in just the way something is in his foreknowledge.And just as what is foreknown is immutable in eternity even though in time it is subject to change before it exists, this is true too of everything included in God's predestination.

So if one attends carefully to what we have said, it is clear that predestination does not rule out free choice and free choice is not opposed to predestination, since all the considerations by which we showed that free choice is not incompatible with foreknowledge equally show that free choice is compatible with predestination. Therefore, whenever something occurs through the action of a spontaneous will,as when someone wrongs another and then is killed by him in retaliation, those who complain,"This was foreknown and predestined by God and so it was done by necessity and could not have turned out otherwise," are without justification. Indeed, neither the one who angered the other by wronging him, nor the one who took revenge, acted by necessity.

Each acted by his will alone. For neither of them would have done what he in fact did if he had not willed spontaneously.

Question 3:

On grace and free choice 3.1 It now remains to investigate grace and free choice, with the help of that same grace.This question arises because in some places Holy Scripture speaks in such a way that it seems free choice is unavailing for salvation and grace does everything, whereas in other places it speaks as if the whole of our salvation rests on our own free will. Concerning grace the Lord says,"Without me you can do nothing"12 and "No one comes to me unless my Father draws him."13 And the Apostle Paul says,"What do you have that you have not received?"14 And he says of God,"He has mercy on whom he wills,and he hardens whom he wills."15 And "It is not of the one who wills or of the one who runs, but of God who has mercy."16 And we find many other passages that seem to attribute our good works and our salvation to grace alone, apart from free choice. Also, many claim to prove by experience that human beings are never empowered with free choice of any kind. They observe that too many

12 John 15:5.

13 John 6:44.

14 1 Corinthians 4:7. Much of On the Fall of the Devil is devoted to understanding the implications of Paul's question.

15 Romans 9:18.

16 Romans 9:16.

ON THE HARMONY . . . (DE CONCORDIA)

people to count put forth an enormous effort of body and mind but make no progress at all because they are weighed down by some difficulty, or indeed impossibility—or else they do make great progress but then suddenly fall away with no hope of recovery.

On the other hand, that very same Scripture shows in the following way that we do have free choice. God says through Isaiah,"If you are willing and listen to me, you will eat the good things of the land."17 And David says, "Who is the one who wills life, who loves to see good days? Restrain your tongue from evil, and let not your lips speak deceit. Turn away from evil and do good."18

And the Lord says in the Gospel,"Come to me,all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly of heart, and you will find rest for your souls."19 And there are many, indeed countless, other passages that seem to stimulate free choice to act rightly and reproach it for failing to heed admonitions. Divine authority would by no means do this if it did not recognize some freedom of will in human beings.And there would be no basis on which God could justly repay both the good and the wicked according to their deserts if no one did anything good or wicked through free choice.

Therefore, since we find some statements in Holy Scripture that appear to speak in favor of grace alone, and others that are thought to uphold free choice alone apart from grace, there have been certain arrogant people who have thought the whole efficacy of the virtues rests in freedom of choice alone, and there are many in our own day who have given up all hope that free choice is anything at all.And so our aim in this question is to show that free choice coexists with grace and works together with it in many cases, just as we have already found that free choice is compatible with foreknowledge and predestination.

3.2 It is important to keep in mind that, as I said above, this question concerns only the free choice without which no one merits salvation once he has attained the age of reason; and similarly, it concerns only the grace without which no human being is saved.20 For every creature exists by grace, since every creature was created by grace; and by his grace God gives many good things in this life without which a human being can be saved. To be sure, in infants who die baptized before they can make use of their free choice, the compatibility that we are looking for does not appear, since in them grace

17 Isaiah 1:19.

18 Psalm 34:12–14 (33:13–15).

19 Matthew 11:28–29.

20 Reading salvatur for salvator.

BASIC WRITINGS

alone brings about their salvation without their free choice. It is, after all, by grace that others are granted the will to come to the assistance of these children by their own faith. So the compatibility of grace and free choice that we are exploring needs to be shown only in the case of those who have attained the age of reason, since our present question is applicable only to them.

Now there is no doubt that whoever among them is saved is saved on account of justice. For it is to the just that the promise of eternal life is made, since "the just will live for ever, and their reward is with the Lord."21 And sacred authority shows in many places that justice is rectitude of will. One example will suffice.When David said,"The Lord will not desert his people, and he will not abandon his heritage, until justice is transformed into judgment,"22 in order to teach us what justice is, he added this question:"And who are in accord with justice?" He replies,"All those who are upright in heart":23 that is,those who are upright in will.For although we believe and understand with our heart just as we will with our heart, the Holy Spirit does not judge someone to have an upright heart if he believes or understands rightly but does not will rightly; for such a person is not using his rectitude of faith and understanding for the purpose for which believing rightly and understanding rightly were given to the rational creature, namely, for willing rightly. For that matter, we should not even say that someone has an upright understanding if he does not will rightly in accordance with it; and we should not say that someone has anything other than a dead faith if he does not will to act rightly in accordance with his faith, since faith is given for this purpose.24 We are therefore correct to understand David as meaning "upright in will" when he says "upright in heart." But to make sure that no one thinks the divine authority calls someone just or upright when he upholds rectitude of will only for the sake of something else, we say that justice is rectitude of will preserved for its own sake. For someone who preserves rectitude of will only for the sake of something else does not love rectitude of will, but instead loves that for the sake of which he preserves rectitude of will.And for that reason he does not deserve to be called just, and such rectitude does not deserve the name of justice.

When we were discussing foreknowledge and free choice, we gave an example that showed that the rectitude I call justice can coexist with free choice.

That example allows us to understand quite readily that the same holds true in many other cases.Therefore, if we can show that no creature can attain this

21 Wisdom 5:16.

22 Psalm 94:14–15 (93:14–15).

23 Psalm 94:15 (93:15).

24 Cf. Monologion, Chapter 78.

ON THE HARMONY . . . (DE CONCORDIA)

rectitude except through grace, the harmony between grace and free choice in human salvation that we are seeking will be evident.

3.3 Now there is no doubt that a will wills rightly only because it is upright.

Vision is not acute because it sees acutely; rather, it sees acutely because it is acute.And in the same way, a will is not upright because it wills rightly; rather, it wills rightly because it is upright. And when it wills this rectitude, it undoubtedly is willing rightly. Therefore, it wills rectitude only because it is upright. But a will's being upright is the same thing as its having rectitude. So it is clear that it wills rectitude only because it has rectitude. I do not deny that an upright will wills rectitude that it does not yet have, when it wills greater rectitude than it has. But I do say that it cannot will any rectitude at all if it does not have rectitude in virtue of which it wills rectitude.

Let us now examine whether anyone who does not have this rectitude can in some way acquire it from himself. Certainly he cannot acquire it from himself except by either willing or not willing. Now no one can acquire rectitude from himself by willing, since he cannot will it if he does not have it.And no one with any sense is going to suppose that someone who does not have rectitude of will can attain it on his own by not willing.So there is no way a creature can have it from himself. But neither can a creature have it from another creature. For a creature cannot save another creature; and in the same way, a creature cannot give another creature something on the basis of which it deserves to be saved.And so it follows that no creature has this rectitude of will

I have been talking about except through God's grace. We have, however, shown that this rectitude can be preserved through free choice, as I said above.

Therefore, thanks to God's generosity, we have found that his grace for saving human beings is compatible with free choice. Thus, his grace alone can save a person whose free choice does nothing, as happens with infants; and in those who have reached understanding his grace always assists their natural free choice, which without grace is powerless to attain salvation, by giving their wills the rectitude that they preserve through free choice.

And even if God does not give grace to everyone (for "He has mercy on whom he wills and hardens whom he wills"25), he nonetheless does not give it to anyone on the basis of some preceding merit, since "Who has given first to God, so that God will repay him?"26 If, however, the will, by preserving the free choice that it has received, merits an increase of the justice it has received or power for a good will or some reward, these are all fruits of the first grace

25 Romans 9:18.

26 Romans 11:35.

BASIC WRITINGS

and "grace for grace."27 So it should all be attributed to grace, since "it is not of the one who wills" that he wills "or of the one who runs" that he runs,"but of God who has mercy."28 For these words are addressed to all but God alone:

"What do you have that you have not received? And if you have received, why do you boast as if you had not received?"29

3.4 I take myself to have shown in my treatise On Freedom of Choice how the freedom of a will that holds on to the rectitude it has received is not overwhelmed by some necessity that causes it to abandon rectitude; rather, it is assailed by some difficulty to which it yields willingly,not unwillingly.But it will be useful to say something about the ways in which grace assists free choice in preserving rectitude once it has been received, although I will not be able to list all of them, since grace helps in so many ways.

Certainly no one preserves this rectitude that has been received otherwise than by willing it.And no one can will it unless he has it. But it is quite impossible for anyone to have it otherwise than by grace. Therefore, just as no one receives rectitude unless grace comes first, no one preserves rectitude unless that same grace continues. So even though rectitude is preserved through free choice, the preserving of rectitude should not be attributed to free choice so much as it should be attributed to grace, since free choice has and preserves rectitude only through prevenient and subsequent grace. Now grace follows upon its previous gift in such a way that, whether the grace be great or small, it never ceases to give that gift unless free choice wills something else and thereby abandons the rectitude it has received. For this rectitude never ceases to be present in the will unless the will wills something else that is incompatible with rectitude. For example, someone receives the rectitude of willing sobriety and then throws it away by willing immoderate pleasure from drinking.

When he does this, it is by his own will, and therefore by his own fault, that he loses the grace he had received. Grace also helps free choice when it is under pressure to abandon the rectitude it has received. Grace helps by mitigating or altogether removing the power of the temptation that assails free choice, or by increasing the felt strength of rectitude30 itself.And finally, since all things are at God's disposal, whatever happens to a human being that helps

27 John 1:16.

28 Romans 9:16.

29 1 Corinthians 4:7.

30 "by increasing the felt strength of rectitude": augendo affectum eiusdem rectitudinis: This could mean either increasing the feeling of rectitude or increasing the love of rectitude, but the former seems to give a better parallel to "mitigating or altogether removing the power of the temptation."

ON THE HARMONY . . . (DE CONCORDIA)

free choice receive or preserve this rectitude of which I am speaking should be attributed entirely to grace.

I have said that every instance of justice is rectitude of will preserved for its own sake. From this it follows that everyone who has this rectitude has justice and is just (since everyone who has justice is just). But I do not hold that eternal life is promised to all the just; it is promised only to those who are just without any injustice. For they are the ones who are properly and without qualification called "just" and "upright in heart." Some people, after all, are just in one respect and unjust in another: for example, someone who is chaste but envious. The blessedness of the just is not promised to such people, for just as true blessedness is without any shortcoming, so too it is granted only to those who are just without any injustice. For since the blessedness that is promised to the just will be a likeness to the angels of God,31 it follows that just as there is no injustice in the good angels, so too no one with any injustice will have fellowship with them. Now it is not part of our aim here to show how a human being comes to be free from all injustice, but we do know that this is possible for a Christian through holy efforts and through God's grace.

3.5 If one gives careful consideration to what I have said, it becomes quite clear that when Holy Scripture says something in favor of grace, it is not completely setting aside free choice; nor, when it speaks in favor of free choice, is it excluding grace—as if grace alone or free choice alone were sufficient for human salvation, as those who raise this question suppose. And in fact we should understand these divine words as meaning that neither grace alone nor free choice alone accomplishes human salvation, except in the case of infants, as I have explained.

Indeed, when the Lord says, "Without me you can do nothing,"32 he does not mean "Your free choice is powerless" but "Your free choice can accomplish nothing without my grace."And the verse,"It is not of the one who wills or of the one who runs, but of God who has mercy,"33 does not say that free choice accomplishes nothing at all in the one who wills or runs;what it means is that the fact that the person wills or runs should be attributed to grace and not to free choice. (For we should understand this verse to be saying that it is not of the one who wills that he wills or of the one who runs that he runs.) Suppose someone gives clothing to a person who is naked, to whom he does not owe anything and who cannot provide himself with any garment. Even though the person who was naked has the power to use or not use the clothing he

31 Cf. Matthew 22:3, Luke 20:36.

32 John 15:5.

33 Romans 9:16.

BASIC WRITINGS

has been given, still, if he does use it, the fact that he is clothed should not be attributed to him but to the one who gave him the clothing. So we could say something like this:"It is not of the one who is clothed that he is clothed, but of the one who has mercy," that is, of the one who gave him the clothing.And this would be even more appropriate to say if the one who gave the clothing had also given the power to preserve and use the clothing—as God, when he gives a human being this much-discussed rectitude, also gives him the power to preserve and use it, since he has already given free choice for preserving and using rectitude. On the other hand, if the person who was naked, and to whom nothing was owed, were not given clothing or threw away the clothing that he had been given, his nakedness would be attributed to him alone.

Thus, when God grants willing and running to someone who was conceived and born in sin,34 to whom he owes nothing but punishment,"it is not of the one who wills or of the one who runs, but of God who has mercy"; and it is not of God, but of the one who does not receive this grace, or who receives it but then spurns it, that he persists in his hardness and sinfulness.

We should adopt the same interpretation of other passages in which Scripture speaks in favor of grace: that is, that they do not eliminate free choice.

Similarly, when God's word speaks in such a way that it appears to ascribe human salvation to free choice alone, we are not to understand that as separate from grace in any way. By way of analogy, natural intercourse does not produce offspring without a father,nor does it do so except through a mother; yet we do not understand this to deny a role to either the father or the mother in the generation of offspring. In the same way, grace and free choice are not in conflict; they come together to justify and save human beings.

3.6 Still, in relation to the passages in which Scripture seems to urge free choice to will and act rightly, one might ask why it urges human beings to act rightly—and why it blames them when they do not obey—given that no one can possess or receive such rectitude unless grace gives it. Consider how the earth, without any effort on our part, brings forth countless plants and trees that do nothing to nourish human nature, or even kill us, whereas those that are most necessary to sustain our lives require tremendous effort and someone to cultivate them, and they do not grow without seeds. In the same way, human hearts require no teaching or effort in order to sprout, effortlessly, thoughts and wills that are in no way useful for salvation or are actually harmful; but it is only through seeds of the proper sort and with diligent cultivation that they conceive and produce the thoughts and wills without which we do not make progress toward the soul's salvation. This is why the Apostle calls

34 Psalm 51:5 (50:7).

ON THE HARMONY . . . (DE CONCORDIA)

those who benefit from this work of cultivation "God's husbandry."35 The seed of this husbandry is the word of God—not, indeed, the word, but the meaning that is perceived through the word. For a mere sound, without meaning, establishes nothing in the heart.

And it is not only the meaning of the word of God that is a seed of right willing; so too is every meaning or understanding of rectitude that the human mind conceives through hearing or reading or through reason or in whatever other way. For no one can will anything but what he has first conceived in his heart. And willing to believe what ought to be believed is willing rightly.

Therefore, no one can will this unless he knows what ought to be believed.

That is why when the Apostle said, "Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved," he added,"But how will they call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how will they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? And how will there be preachers unless they are sent?"36 And shortly afterwards,"Therefore, faith is from hearing, but hearing is through the word of Christ."37 Now we should understand "faith is from hearing" to mean that faith is from what the mind conceives as a result of hearing: not that the mind's conception by itself brings about faith, but that faith cannot exist apart from that conception. Faith— one's believing what one hears—comes about when, through grace, rectitude of will is added to the conception."Hearing is through the word of Christ," that is, through the word of those who preach Christ. Now there are no preachers unless they are sent, and their being sent is a matter of grace. So the preaching itself is a grace, since what proceeds from grace is itself a grace.And the hearing is a grace, and the understanding that comes from hearing is a grace, and rectitude of will is a grace. But the sending, the preaching, the hearing, the understanding: these are all nothing unless the will wills what the mind understands.And the will cannot do this unless it has received rectitude; for it wills rightly when it wills what it ought to. Thus, what the mind conceives as a result of hearing the word is the seed sown by the preacher, and rectitude is the "growth" given by God, without whom "neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who gives the growth."38

So just as God in the beginning miraculously made grain and other things that sprang forth from the earth to nourish human beings, without a cultivator or seeds, so too did he wondrously make the hearts of the prophets and apostles, and indeed the Gospels, fertile with the seeds of salvation, without 35 1 Corinthians 3:9.

36 Romans 10:13–15.

37 Romans 10:17.

38 1 Corinthians 3:7.

BASIC WRITINGS

any human teaching.From those seeds we take whatever we sow wholesomely in "God's husbandry" for the nourishment of our souls, just as what we grow for the nourishment of our bodies comes from the first seeds of the earth. For there is nothing we preach that is useful for spiritual salvation but what the Holy Scriptures, miraculously made fertile by the Holy Spirit, have revealed or contain within themselves. Even if by reason we say something that we cannot point to explicitly in Scripture,or prove from what Scripture says,it is by Scripture that we know whether we should accept or reject it. For if it is a conclusion of straightforward reasoning and does not contradict anything in Scripture

(since just as Scripture opposes no truth, so too it gives aid to no falsehood), we accept that conclusion on the authority of Scripture precisely because

Scripture does not deny what is being said according to reason. But if Scripture is unmistakably opposed to our opinion, then even if our reasoning seems unassailable to us, we must not think it is supported by the truth in any way.

And so it is in this way that Holy Scripture contains the authority of every conclusion of reason: by either explicitly affirming it or in no way denying it.

Let us now look at some examples of how the word is a seed.When those to whom it is said,"If you are willing and listen to me,"39 hear those words, they understand and conceive what is meant by willing and listening: namely, obeying. For someone who listens but does not obey is said not to listen. But they cannot obey unless they are willing.Now to will to obey is to will rightly.

And no one can will rightly unless he has rectitude of will, which no human being has except through grace. But rectitude in willing something is given only to one who has the understanding to will and understands what he ought to will.And so we see that the words "If you are willing and listen to me" are a seed that in no way bears fruit through itself, apart from the addition of rectitude, but that rectitude itself is not given except by means of seeds.

Similarly, when God says, "Turn to me,"40 this is a seed that does not bear fruit as long as God does not turn a person's will so that it wills the turning that one thinks of when one hears the word "turn"; but without this seed no one can will to turn to God. It is also to those who have already turned that he says,"Turn to me": either so that they will turn to him all the more, or so that they will preserve their turning. But those who say,"Turn us, O God,"41 have already turned to some extent, since they have an upright will when they will to be turned. They pray in virtue of what they have already received, in 39 Isaiah 1:19, quoted above in 3.1.

40 Isaiah 45:22:"Turn to me and you will be saved, all the ends of the earth. For I am God and there is no other."

41 Psalm 85:4 (84:5):"Turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause your indignation against us to cease."

ON THE HARMONY . . . (DE CONCORDIA)

order that their turning might be increased, like those who were already believers and said,"Increase our faith."42 It is as if both were saying,"Increase in us what you have already given us; bring to completion what you have already begun." And what I have shown in these examples should be taken to apply in similar cases.

So just as the earth does not naturally produce without seeds those things that are especially necessary for the health of our body, so too the soil of the human heart does not bring forth the fruit of faith and justice without appropriate seeds.Yet just as our farmers continue to sow their fields in hope of an appreciable harvest even though God does not grant growth to every seed, so too God commands those who toil in his fields to sow his word in hope and with great earnestness, even though God does not cause all those seeds to bear fruit.We have shown, I think, that it is not pointless to urge people toward faith in Christ and toward those things that faith demands, even though they do not all respond to this encouragement.

3.7 I noted that one might also ask why those who do not accept God's word are blamed, given that they cannot accept it unless grace directs their wills. For the Lord says of the Holy Spirit,"He will convict43 the world of sin . . . because they do not believe in me."44 Although it is perhaps difficult to answer this question, I should not withhold the response that, by God's gift, I am able to make. It is important to keep in mind that an inability that derives from guilt does not excuse the one who has the inability, so long as the guilt remains. Hence, in the case of infants, in whom God requires of human nature the justice that it received in our first parents, together with the power to preserve it for all its descendants, their inability to have justice does not excuse them, since human nature fell into this inability through its own fault. Indeed, the very fact that it does not have what it cannot get back through its own power just is the inability to have justice into which human nature fell because it spontaneously abandoned what it had the power to preserve.Therefore, because human nature abandoned justice by sinning, the inability that human nature inflicted on itself by sinning is imputed to it as sin. And it is not only the inability to have justice that is imputed as sin to the unbaptized; so too is the inability to understand justice, for this too derives from sin. It is also reasonable for us to assert that the wasting away and corruption of the dignity, strength, and beauty with which human beings were first created is to be imputed to human nature as a fault. For it has thereby diminished the honor and 42 Luke 17:5. Luke records that it was the apostles who said this.

43 This is the same word translated 'blame' in the preceding sentence.

44 John 16:8–9.

BASIC WRITINGS

praise of God as far as it was able, since the wisdom of an artisan is praised and proclaimed in accordance with the dignity of his work. Therefore, as much as human nature diminished or spoiled in itself the precious work of God, for which God himself was to be glorified, so much did it dishonor God by its own fault.And this is accounted so great a sin that it is wiped out only by the death of God.

Indeed, the sacred authority bears ample witness to the fact that the very motions or appetites to which we are subject (like brute animals) on account of the sin of Adam are themselves imputed to us as sin. These are the motions that the Apostle calls "flesh" and "concupiscence,"45 and he makes it clear that he endures them against his will by saying,"What I hate, that I do"46—that is,

I desire it unwillingly. In fact, when the Lord says of the bare motion of anger, without any overt deed or word,"He who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment,"47 he shows very clearly that it is no trivial fault from which so grave a condemnation, a sentence of death, follows. It is as if he were to say, "Someone who does what human beings ought not to do, and what they would not do unless they sinned, should be cut off from human beings."

And when Paul says of those who unwillingly experience the flesh, that is, concupiscences,"There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh"48—that is, who do not consent to the flesh with their will—he is undoubtedly indicating that condemnation does follow for those who are not in Christ as often as they experience the flesh, even if they do not walk according to it. For human beings were made in such a way that they ought not to experience the flesh, just as we said of anger. So if anyone pays careful attention to what I have said, he will have no doubt that those who because of their own fault cannot accept the word of God are rightly to be blamed.

3.8 But for those to whom the grace of Christian faith has been given, just as the original injustice with which they are born is forgiven in baptism, so too all guilt for the inability and for all the corruption they have incurred on account of the sin of our first parents, by which God is dishonored, is excused.

After baptism they are not blamed for any guilt that was in them before baptism, even though the corruption and appetites that are a punishment for sin are not instantaneously removed in baptism; and no transgression is imputed to them after baptism except what they have done by their own will. From 45 Romans 7:7–8.

46 Romans 7:15.

47 Matthew 5:22.

48 Romans 8:1.

ON THE HARMONY . . . (DE CONCORDIA)

this it is evident that the corruption and evils that were a punishment for sin and remain after baptism are not sins in themselves. For indeed only injustice is a sin in itself; those things that follow from injustice are regarded as sins on account of their cause, until the injustice is forgiven.After all, if they were sins in themselves,they would be destroyed in baptism,in which all sins are washed away by the blood of Christ. Moreover, if they were properly called sins, they would be sins even in brute animals; it is a consequence of sin that our nature bears these ills and is in that way like the brute animals.

There is something else,greatly to be feared,that can be discerned in the first sin of human nature. Because a human being is a "spirit that goes forth and does not return,"49 once someone falls spontaneously (I am speaking now only of voluntary sins), he can in no way get back up unless he is lifted up by grace.

Rather,unless he is restrained by God's mercy,by his own deserts he goes from sin to sin until he sinks into a bottomless pit of sins, an unimaginable depth, to the point that even what is good comes to be hateful and deadly to him.

This is why the Lord says to the apostles,"If the world hates you, know that it hated me before you."50 And the Apostle says,"We are a lovely fragrance before God . . . to some an odor of death unto death, but to others a fragrance of life unto life."51 This is why it is said of God that "he has mercy on whom he wills and hardens whom he wills."52 But he does not have mercy equally on all those on whom he has mercy, and he does not harden equally all those whom he hardens.

3.9 But why does the punishment for sin continue for us in this life after sin itself has been wiped out? That is another question, one that does not belong to our discussion here.Yet I will say briefly that if the faithful were immediately changed into a state of incorruption upon their baptism or martyrdom, merit would be done away with, and human beings would not be saved by any merit, except for those who were first to believe and had no one to serve as an example for them. Indeed, both faith and hope would be lacking, and without them no one who has understanding can merit the kingdom of God.

For faith and hope have to do with things that are not seen.And since people would see that those who turned to Christ immediately passed over into incorruptibility, there would be no one who could so much as will to withdraw from such great happiness as he beheld.Therefore,in order that we might with greater glory attain through the merit of faith and hope the happiness that we

49 Psalm 78:39 (77:39).

50 John 15:18.

51 2 Corinthians 2:15–16.

52 Romans 9:18.

BASIC WRITINGS

desire, we remain, so long as we are in this life, in this state that is no longer imputed to us as sin, even though it came about as a result of sin.

Furthermore, we are not promised through baptism and Christian faith the happiness that Adam had in paradise before he sinned, but the happiness that he was going to have once the number of human beings had been brought to fullness: the number, that is, of those who were to be taken up in order to complete the heavenly city, which was to comprise angels and human beings, where human beings will not bear offspring, as they would have done in paradise. If those who turn to Christ passed immediately into that state of incorruption, there would be no human beings from whom that number could be filled up, since no one who saw such happiness could fail to hasten toward it.

I think this is what the Apostle is saying of those "who by faith . . . did the works of justice."53 "All of them," he writes,"having gained approval through the witness of faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not attain fulfillment."54 For if one were to ask what better thing God had provided for us, on account of which "they did not receive what was promised," I see no more fitting answer than what I said earlier: if, when they had gained approval, the happiness promised to the just had not been postponed, merit would be destroyed for those who knew this by experience and not by faith. Furthermore, the procreation of human beings by which we ourselves came to be born would have stopped, since all people would have run toward the incorruptibility they saw to be present.And so it was a great good that God provided for us when he put off the receiving of the promise by the saints who had "gained approval through the witness of faith," both so that we might be brought into being and so that faith would remain, by which we like them merit what has been promised and together with them are brought to fulfillment.

And there is another reason why the baptized and martyrs do not immediately become incorruptible. Suppose someone had planned to give great honors to his slave at some future time, but because of some fault for which the slave can in no way make recompense on his own, he gives the slave a severe beating. After the beating, at a time he has determined, he is going to throw the slave into a terrible prison where he will be subjected to intense and painful torture. If someone who has great influence with the eyes of the master makes recompense on behalf of the slave and reconciles him to the master, the blows that the guilty slave deservedly endured before recompense was made, while he was still at fault, are not wiped out. But the greater torments to which he had not yet been subjected are averted, because of the 53 Hebrews 11:33.

54 Hebrews 11:39–40.

ON THE HARMONY . . . (DE CONCORDIA)

reconciliation that has been interposed. And the honors that (had he not sinned) he was going to receive at the proper time, and that (had he not been reconciled) he was going to lack once he sinned, will now be given to him without any change, just as had been decreed from the beginning, because a complete recompense has been made. Indeed, if before the reconciliation he had been deprived of those honors in the same way that he would have been deprived of them irrecoverably after his fault if he had not been reconciled, there would have been no room for reconciliation to help him recover them.

But since he could not be deprived of an honor that he did not yet have and was not yet supposed to have, a reconciliation could intervene and prevent the deprivation—but only if the slave, while he is still recovering from the beating, vows in heart and word to be faithful to his master and to amend his own behavior, and only if he fulfills his vow.

This is how things stand between God and human beings.When human nature first sinned, the punishment inflicted on it was that it would always produce offspring of the sort we see infants are, and that after this life it would be for ever banished to hell and exiled from the kingdom of God for which it was created, unless someone were to accomplish on behalf of human nature the reconciliation that it could not make for itself. Now there was no one by whom human nature could be reconciled, except for Christ. So in all infants begotten naturally, human nature is born with sin and is under punishment for sin.When this nature accepts reconciliation, the punishment inflicted upon it before the reconciliation deservedly remains. But the torments that it was going to suffer in hell are forgiven in those whom Christ has redeemed, and they are given the kingdom of God that they were going to receive at the proper time after their sojourn in the earthly paradise—but only if they persevere to the end in the faith that they promise in their baptism.

3.10 Now some people claim that experience proves that free choice has no power, since many people put forth an enormous effort to live well but (so they say) make no progress at all because some impossibility stands in their way, or else they do make progress but then fall away with no hope of recovery. But this claim does not undermine the conclusion that we have demonstrated by reason:free choice does have power in conjunction with grace.That those who make an effort make no progress or fall away after they do make progress results, I hold, not from any impossibility but from a difficulty— sometimes a severe difficulty, but sometimes one that could be easily overcome.

It is, after all, extremely common for us to say that something is impossible for us when we cannot accomplish it without difficulty.And if each of us will attentively examine the motions of our own wills, we will recognize that we never abandon the rectitude of will received through grace except by willing something else that we cannot will at the same time as we will rectitude.

BASIC WRITINGS

Clearly, we do not do this because our power to preserve rectitude—the power that is itself freedom of choice—has failed; what fails is our will to preserve rectitude.And that will fails, not of itself, but because another will drives it out, as I have explained.

3.11 Now since this discussion particularly involves the will, I think I should say something in greater depth about the will that I believe will be helpful. Just as our bodies have limbs and the five senses, each apt for its respective uses, which we employ as instruments—for example, the hands are apt for grasping, the feet for walking, the tongue for speaking, and sight for seeing—so too our souls have within themselves certain powers that they employ as instruments for fitting uses.There is reason in the soul, which the soul employs as its instrument for reasoning, and the will, which it employs for willing.After all, neither reason nor will is the whole soul;each is something in the soul.Therefore,since each of these instruments has its nature, its dispositions, and its uses, let us distinguish in the will, which is our present concern, the instrument, its dispositions, and its uses.We can call these dispositions in the will its 'affections', since the instrument for willing is affected by its dispositions. That is why when a human soul wills something very intensely, we say that it is goaded [affecta] into willing something, or that it wills it passionately [affectuose].

'Will', in fact, appears to be said equivocally. It has three senses: the instrument for willing, the affection of the instrument, and the uses of that instrument.The instrument for willing is the power of the soul that we employ for willing, just as reason is the instrument for reasoning that we employ when we reason and sight is the instrument for seeing that we employ when we see.The affection of this instrument is that by which the instrument itself is disposed in such a way to will something (even when one is not thinking of what it wills) that if that thing comes to mind, the instrument wills it, either immediately or at the appropriate time.The instrument for willing is disposed in this way to will health, even when one is not thinking of health, so that as soon as health comes to mind, it wills health. It is also disposed in this way to will sleep, even when one is not thinking of sleep, so that when sleep comes to mind, it wills sleep at the appropriate time.After all, it is never disposed in such a way that it at some time wills illness or wills never to sleep.And in a just person, that same instrument is disposed in a similar way to will justice, even when the person is asleep, so that he wills justice as soon as he thinks of it. By contrast, the use of that instrument is what we have only when we think of the thing we will.

Now the instrument for willing, its affection, and its use are all called 'will'.

We call the instrument 'will' when we say that we turn our will toward various things: now to willing to walk, now to willing to sit, now to willing this or that. Human beings always have this instrument, although we do not always employ it. In the same way, we always have sight, which is the instrument for seeing, even when we do not employ it, as when we are sleeping.And when

ON THE HARMONY . . . (DE CONCORDIA)

we do employ it, we turn it now to seeing the sky, now to seeing the earth, now to something else.And similarly, we always have the instrument for reasoning, which is reason, which we do not always employ, and which we turn to various things when we engage in reasoning. By contrast, the affection of the instrument for willing is called 'will' when we say that someone always has the will that things be well with him. For in this case what we are calling 'will' is the affection of that instrument by which this person wills that things be well with him.We use 'will' in the same way when we say of a holy person that even when he is asleep and is not thinking about it, he unceasingly has the will to live justly. And when we say that one person has this will to a greater degree than another person, what we mean by 'will' is nothing other than the affection of the instrument for willing by which each wills to live justly. It is not, after all, the instrument itself that one person has to a greater degree and another person to a lesser degree. Now the use of this instrument is called will when someone says,"Right now I have the will to read" (that is, right now I will to read), or "Right now I have the will to write" (that is, right now I will to write). For just as to see is to use sight, which is the instrument for seeing, and its use is vision or sight (where 'sight' signifies the same as 'vision'—for 'sight' also signifies the instrument of sight)—, so too, to will is to use the will that is the instrument for willing, and its use is the will that exists only when we are thinking about what we will.

So the will that is the instrument is a single, unitary thing. That is, there is only one instrument for willing in a human being, just as there is only one reason, that is, only one instrument for reasoning. But the will by which this instrument is affected is twofold. For just as sight has multiple dispositions (a disposition to see light, a disposition to see figures by means of light, [and] a disposition to see colors [by means of figures]55), so too the instrument for willing has two dispositions that we call "affections." One of these is a disposition to will advantage; the other is a disposition to will rectitude. Indeed, the will that is the instrument wills nothing but either advantage or rectitude.

Whatever else it wills, it wills either for the sake of advantage or for the sake of rectitude;even if it is mistaken,it takes itself to be relating everything it wills to them. In virtue of the affection for willing advantage, a person always wills happiness and being happy, whereas in virtue of the affection for willing rectitude, he wills rectitude and being upright, that is, just. Now someone wills something for the sake of advantage when, for example, he wills to cultivate land or to work so that he will have that by which he can safeguard his life and health, which he judges to be advantageous. But he wills something for the sake of rectitude when, for example, he wills to work at learning so that 55 The bracketed words translate a conjectural emendation by the editor of the critical edition.

BASIC WRITINGS

he might know how to live rightly, that is, justly. By contrast, the will that is the use of this much-discussed instrument exists only when someone thinks of what he wills, as has been said. The divisions of this will are manifold, but I will not talk about them now, though perhaps I will elsewhere.56

Now 'to will' is equivocal, just like 'to see'. For we say that someone sees not only if he is employing his sight but also if he is not, but has the disposition to see; and in the same way, we say that someone wills not only if he employs the instrument for willing when thinking of what he wills but also if he is not employing it, because he has the affection, that is, the disposition, for willing.

And here is another way we can see that the will that is the instrument for willing is one thing, the will that is its affection is another, and the will that is the use of that instrument is still another. Even when a just person is asleep and not thinking of anything, he is said to have the will to live justly; when an unjust person is asleep, he is said not to have a will to live justly. The will that we say the unjust person does not have is the very same will that we say the just person has. But obviously, when we say that the unjust person who is asleep does not have the will to live justly, we are not saying that he lacks the will that I have called the instrument for willing, since all human beings always have that will, whether they are asleep or awake. Hence, since the will that is said to be in a good person is none other than that which is said not to be in a wicked one, the will that we indicate is in the good person is not the instrument, but that by which the instrument is disposed. Now there is no doubt that the will that is use is not in someone who is asleep (unless he is dreaming), so when we say that the will to live rightly is in a just person who is asleep, that does not mean the will that is use. So the will as affection is not the same as either the will as instrument or the will as use. And everyone knows that the will as instrument is not the same as the will as use, since when

I say that I do not have the will to write, no one takes this to mean that I do not have the instrument for willing. Therefore, the will as instrument is one thing, the will as affection is another, and the will as use is yet another.

Now the will as instrument moves all the other instruments that we employ spontaneously, both those that are in us (such as hands, the tongue, and sight) and those that are outside us (such as a pen and an ax), and it brings about all voluntary motions. In fact, it moves itself by means of its own affections. Hence, it can be described as an instrument that moves itself. I say that the will as instrument brings about all voluntary motions, but if we consider this attentively, it is truer to say that God brings about everything that is done by either nature or will, since God creates nature and the instrument for willing together with its affections, without which that instrument brings about nothing.

56 See The Lambeth Fragments, section 8, for more on this topic.

ON THE HARMONY . . . (DE CONCORDIA)

3.12 From these two affections, which we also call wills, derives all human merit, whether good or bad. These two wills also differ in that the one that is for willing advantage is inseparable, whereas the one that is for willing rectitude was originally, as I said above,57 separable from the angels and our first parents, and is still separable from those who remain in this present life. They also differ in that the one that is for willing advantage is not itself the thing that it wills, whereas the one that is for willing rectitude is rectitude. In fact, only someone who has rectitude wills rectitude; it is only in virtue of rectitude that anyone can will rectitude. But it is obvious that this rectitude belongs to the will that is the instrument.We indicate this when we call justice

"rectitude of will preserved for its own sake." This is also the truth of the will in which, as the Lord charges, the devil did not remain steadfast, as I explained in my treatise On Truth.58

We must now investigate the way in which, as I have said, human merits— whether for salvation or for damnation—proceed from these two wills that I call "dispositions" or "affections." Rectitude as such is not a cause of any evil, and it is the mother of all good merit. It gives aid to the spirit as it lusts against the flesh,59 and it shares in the spirit's delight in the law according to the inner human being,60 that is, according to that same spirit. Now if anything evil ever seems to proceed from rectitude, it does not in fact come from rectitude, but from something else.It is through rectitude that the apostles were "a lovely fragrance before God." That they were "an odor of death unto death" before some did not proceed from the apostles' justice, but from the wickedness of those who wished them evil.61 But the will that is for willing advantage is not always evil; it is evil only when it consents to the flesh that lusts against the spirit.62

3.13 But in order that this might be understood more clearly,we need to look into how the will came to be so vicious and so prone to evil—for we must not believe that God made the will that way in our first parents. Now although I have explained that it was on account of sin that human nature incurred corruption and appetites like those of brute animals, I have not said how such a will arose in human beings in the first place. Indeed, vicious appetites are not the same as a vicious will that consents to such appetites.

57 In 1.6.

58 See On Truth, Chapter 4.

59 Cf. Galatians 5:17.

60 Cf. Romans 7:22.

61 Cf. 2 Corinthians 2:15–16, and see above at 3.8.

62 Cf. Galatians 5:17.

BASIC WRITINGS

Therefore, I think it is worth asking how such a will came to be present in human beings. But if we pay attention to the original creation of rational nature, we will easily detect the cause of such a will. God's aim was to make rational nature both just and happy for the purpose of enjoying God himself.

Now rational nature could not be either just or happy without the will for justice and happiness. Indeed, the will for justice is itself justice. The will for happiness, by contrast, is not happiness, since not everyone who has the will for happiness has happiness. Now as everyone agrees, happiness includes a sufficient amount of appropriate advantages without any deficiency, whether we mean angelic happiness or the happiness that Adam had in paradise. For although the happiness of the angels is greater than the happiness that belonged to human beings in paradise, it cannot on that account be denied that Adam possessed happiness.A heat can be great and without any coldness, and yet there can be a greater heat; and a coldness can be great and without any heat, and yet there can be a greater coldness. In the same way, there is no reason to deny that Adam was happy in paradise and was without any deficiency, even though angelic happiness was greater. Indeed, to have something in a lesser degree than another is not always to be deficient. To be deficient is to lack something when one ought to have it, and that was not the case with Adam. For where there is deficiency, there is unhappiness. But God did not make rational nature unhappy without some antecedent fault, given that he created rational nature in order to understand and love himself. Therefore,

God made human beings happy, without any deficiency. Therefore, rational nature received, at one and the same moment, the will for happiness and happiness itself, the will for justice (that is, rectitude, which is justice itself), and free choice, without which it could not preserve justice.

Now God ordered these two wills or affections in such a way that the will that is the instrument would use the will that is justice to command and govern under the instruction of the spirit, which is also called mind and reason; and it would use the other disposition for obedience without any disadvantage. Indeed, he gave happiness to human beings (to say nothing of angels) for their advantage, whereas he gave them justice for his own honor. But he gave justice to them in such a way that they were able to abandon it, so that if they did not abandon it, but instead preserved it with perseverance, they would merit exaltation to fellowship with the angels. But if they did abandon it, they would in no way be able to recover it thereafter on their own.Not only would they not attain the happiness of the angels, but they would be deprived of the happiness they did have; and declining into the likeness of brute beasts, they would be subject like them to corruption and to the appetites that we have so often mentioned.Yet their will for happiness would remain,so that they would be justly punished with deep unhappiness by being deprived of the goods that they had lost. Therefore, they lost happiness because they abandoned justice.

ON THE HARMONY . . . (DE CONCORDIA)

Though they had received a good will,and had received it for their good,their wills now burn with the desire for advantages that they cannot fail to will.And since they cannot take possession of those true advantages they have lost, which were fitting for rational nature, their wills turn to false advantages, suited to brute animals, at the prompting of their animal appetites.And in this way, when they will such things inordinately, they either refuse rectitude when it is offered to them or they spurn it once they have received it; but when they will such things licitly, they do not do this.

So in this way the will as instrument, which was created good insofar as it has being, and just, and capable of preserving the justice it had received, became evil through free choice: not evil insofar as it has being, but insofar as it has become unjust through the absence of that justice that it spontaneously abandoned and that it ought always to have. It has also become incapable of willing the justice it abandoned. For when it does not have justice, it cannot will justice through free choice, in the way that when it does have justice, it can preserve justice through free choice. The will for advantage was also created good insofar as it is something; but it became evil, that is, unjust, because it was not subordinated to justice, apart from which it ought not to will anything. Therefore, since the will as instrument became unjust spontaneously, once it has abandoned justice it remains unjust and a servant of injustice by necessity, so far as its own power is concerned, because it cannot by itself return to justice, apart from which it is never free, since its natural freedom of choice is otiose without justice. The will has also become a servant of its own affection for the advantageous, since in the absence of justice it cannot will anything except what the affection for the advantageous wills. (I speak of both the instrument and the affection as "willing," since both the instrument and the affection are will, and both wills are appropriately described as willing. For the instrument wills in virtue of its affection, and the affection through which the instrument wills also wills. Similarly, we say both that a person sees and that sight sees: the person sees in virtue of sight, and the sight through which he sees also sees.) Hence, we can say without any absurdity that the affections of that will that I have called an instrument of the soul are, as it were, instruments of that instrument, since the will as instrument does nothing apart from its affections. Therefore, once the will as instrument loses its instrument for willing justice (in other words, once it loses rectitude), there is no way it can will justice, unless its rectitude is restored through grace. Therefore, since no one ought to will otherwise than justly, whatever the will wills apart from rectitude, it wills unjustly. By contrast, all those appetites that the Apostle calls

"flesh" and "concupiscence" are not evil or unjust insofar as they have being; they are called unjust because they are present in a rational nature where they ought not to be. In brute animals, of course, they are not evil or unjust, because they ought to be there.

BASIC WRITINGS

3.14 From what was said above we can now discern that the reason human beings do not always possess justice—which they ought to possess without interruption—is that they can in no way attain or recover it by their own power. It is also clear that God brings about good deeds solely through his own goodness, since he creates the will with free choice and gives the will the justice by which it acts, whereas he brings about evil acts solely through the fault of human beings, since he would not bring them about if human beings did not will to do them. Nonetheless, he does bring it about that evil deeds exist, since he is the creator of the will in human beings, which they employ apart from justice;and therefore it is solely the fault of human beings that their acts are evil. It is not the fault of God, who created the human will with freedom of choice and granted it justice so that it might never will otherwise than justly; it is the fault of human beings, who abandoned the justice that they had the power to preserve. So in good deeds God is responsible both for their being good through their essence and for their being good through justice, whereas in evil deeds God is responsible only for their being good through their essence, not for their being evil through the absence of the justice that ought to be in them (since that absence is not anything). Human beings, however, are responsible in good deeds for their not being evil, since they did not abandon justice and do evil even though they could have, but instead preserved justice through free choice in cooperation with prevenient and subsequent grace.63 But in evil deeds they alone are responsible for their being evil, because they do them solely by their own unjust will.

I think I can now fittingly conclude my discussion of these three difficult questions, which I undertook in hope of God's help. If I have said in it what64 ought to satisfy any inquirer, I give no credit to myself, since it was not I but God's grace with me. I will say this, however: when my mind was uneasily searching for an account of these matters as I asked these questions, if someone had given me the answers that I have written here, I would have been grateful, because he would have satisfied me. Therefore, since what I came to understand about this topic by God's revelation greatly pleased me, and I realized that it would likewise be pleasing to others if I wrote it down, I decided to give freely to those who ask for it what I have myself freely received.65

63 "In cooperation with prevenient and subsequent grace" translates dante et subsequente gratia. The difference among various translations testifies to the obscurity of the expression, but I am convinced that Anselm means to refer to the dynamic of prevenient and subsequent grace described above in 3.4.

64 Reading quid for qui.

65 Cf. Matthew 10:8:"You have received freely; give freely."

↑ Back to top