Augustine: Earlier Writings (continued)
use of it. It is one thing to be a rational being, another to be a wise man. Reason makes a man able to receive the precept to which he ought to be loyal, so that he may perform what is commanded. The rational nature grasps the precept, obedience to which brings wisdom. What nature contributes to the grasping of the precept, will contributes to obedience to it. As the merit of receiving the precept, so to speak, is to have a rational nature, so the merit of receiving wisdom is obedience to the precept. As soon as a man begins to have the power to receive the precept, he begins also to have the possibility of sinning. Before he becomes wise he sins in one or other of two ways. Either he does not fit himself to receive the precept, or, receiving it, he does not obey it. The wise man sins if he turns away from wisdom. The precept does not come from him on whom it is laid, but from him who gives it; so wisdom, too, comes not from him who is illumined, but from him who gives the light. Why then should not the Creator of man be praised? Man is good, and better than the cattle because he is capable of receiving the precept; better still when he has received the precept; and still better when he has obeyed it; best of all when he is made happy by the eternal light of wisdom. Sin, or evil, consists in neglect to receive the precept or to obey it, or to hold fast the contemplation of wisdom. So we learn that, even although the first man had been created wise, it was nevertheless possible for him to be seduced. Because his sin was committed with his free will, a just penalty followed by divine law. As the apostle Paul says: "Saying they are wise they have become fools" (Rom. 1:22). It is pride that turns man away from wisdom, and folly is the consequence of turning away from wisdom. Folly is a kind of blindness, as he says: "Their foolish heart was darkened." Whence came this darkness, if not from turning away from the light of wisdom? And whence came the turning away, if not from the fact that man, whose good God is, willed to be his own good and so to substitute himself for God. Accordingly the Scriptures say: "Looking to myself, my soul is cast down" (Ps. 42:6. LXX). And again: "Taste and ye shall be as gods" (Gen. 3:5).
73. Some people are troubled by this question. Did folly cause the first man to depart from God, or did he become foolish by departing from God? If you answer that folly made him depart from wisdom, it will appear that he was foolish before he did so, so that folly is the cause of his doing so. If you reply that he became foolish by departing from wisdom, they