Augustine: Earlier Writings
ON FREE WILL 201 he cannot possibly avoid it? In that case no sin results? No one commits sin in doing what there was no means of avoiding? Yes, indeed, sin does result, and that means he is able to be on his guard.
5 1 . Nevertheless, some things are done in ignorance which are held to be wrong and worthy of correction, as we read in the divinely authoritative books. The apostle says: "I obtained mercy because I did it in ignorance" (I Tim. 1:13;. And the prophet says: "Remember not the sins of my youth and of my ignorance" (Ps. 25:7). Wrong things are done by necessity when a man wills to do right and has not the power. For thus it is written: "The good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do." Again: "To will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I fmd not" (Rom. 7:18-19). And again: "The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary' the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would" (Gal. 5:17). These are the words of men emerging from deadly damnation. If this were a description of man's nature and not of the penalty of sin, his situation would not be sinful. If man has not departed from the natural state in which he was created, and which could not be made better, he is doing what he ought even when he does evil. But now man might be good if he were difierent. Because he is what he now is, he is not good, nor is it in his power to become good, either because he does not see what he ought to be, or, seeing it, has not the power to be what he sees he ought to be. Who can doubt that his is a penal state? Every just penalty is the penalty of sin and is called punishment. If the penalty is unjust, there is no doubt that it is, in fact, penalty, but it has been imposed on man by some unjust power that lords it over him. But it is mad to have any doubt about the omnipotence or the justice of God. Therefore man's penalty is just and is recompense for sin. No unjust lord could have usurped dominion over man, as it were, without the knowledge of God. No one could have forced him in his weakness against his will either by terrorism or by actual aflliction, so that man's punishment might be held to be unjust. It remains, therefore, that his punishment is just and comes to him because he is to be condemned.
52. It is not to be wondered at that man, through ignorance, has not the freedom of will to choose to do what he ought; or that he cannot see what he ought to do or fulfil it when he will, in face of carnal custom which, in a sense, has grown as strong,
almost, as nature, because of the power of mortal succession. It is the most just penalty of sin that man should lose what he was unwilling to make a good use of, when he could have done so without difficulty if he had wished. It is just that he who, knowing what is right, does not do it should lose the capacity to to know what is right, and that he who had the power to do what is right and would not should lose the power to do it when he is wi Hing. In fact there are for eveiy sinful soul these two penal conditions, ignorance and difficulty. From ignorance springs disgraceful error, and from difficulty comes painful effort. To approve falsehood instead of truth so as to err in spite of himself, and not to be able to refrain from the works of lust because of the pain involved in breaking away from fleshly bonds: these do not belong to the nature of man as he was created. They are the penalty of man as condemned. \Vhen we speak of the freedom of the will to do right, we are speaking of the freedom wherein man was created.
xix, 53. Here comes in the question which men, who are ready to accuse anything for their sins except themselves, are wont to cast up, murmuring amongst themselves. They say: If Adam and Eve sinned, what have we miserable creatures done to deser\-e to be born in the darkness of ignorance and in the toils of difficulty, that, in the first place, we should err not knowing what we ought to do, and, in the second place, that when the precepts of justice begin to be opened out to us, wc should wish to obey them but by some necessity of carnal lust should not have the power? To them I reply: Keep quiet and stop murmuring against God. They might perhaps rightly complain if no man had ever been victorious over error and lust. And yet there is One present everywhere who, in many ways, by m.eans of the creation that serves him as its Lord, calls back him who has gone astray, teaches him who believes, comforts him who has hope, exhorts the diligent, helps him who is trying and answers prayer. You are not held guilty because you are ignorant in spite of yourself, but because you neglect to seek the knowledge you do not possess. You are not held guilty because you do not use your wounded members but because you despise him who is willing to heal them. These are your own personal sins. To no man is it given to know how to seek to his advantage what to his disadvantage he does not know. He must humbly confess his weakness, so that as he seeks and makes his confession he may come to his aid who, in aiding, knows neither error nor difficulty.