Augustine: Earlier Writings
394 AUGUSTINE: EARLIER WRITINGS We come back to that difficulty, troubled not only by the obscurity of the question but also by our own abundant repetition.
11. Why was Esau rejected when he was not yet born and could neither believe him who called, nor despise his calling, nor do aught either good or evil? If it was because God foreknew that his will was to be evil in the future, why was not Jacob approved because God foreknew that his will was to be good? If you admit that anyone could have been approved or rejected for some quality he did not yet possess, but because God foreknew that he would possess it in the future, it follows that he could also have been approved for the works which God foreknew that he would perform some day, though he had as yet performed none of them. You will get no support at all for that view from the fact that they were not born when it was said, "The elder shall serve the younger." You will not be able to show from that that, because neither of them had done any works, it could be said that the call was not "of works."
12. If you pay close attention to these words, "Therefore it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that hath mercy," you will see that the apostle said that, not only because we attain what we wish by the help of God, but also with the meaning which he expresses in another passage, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:12, 13). There he clearly shows that the good will itself is wrought in us by the working of God. If he said, "It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that hath mercy," simply because a man's will is not sufficient for us to live justly and righteously unless we are aided by the mercy of God, he could have put it the other way round and said, "It is not of God that hath mercy, but of the man that willeth," because it is equally true that the mercy of God is not sufficient of itself, unless there be in addition the consent of our will. Clearly it is vain for us to will unless God have mercy. But I do not know how it could be said that it is vain for God to have mercy unless we willingly consent. If God has mercy, we also will, for the power to will is given with the mercy itself. It is God that worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
If we ask whether a good will is a gift of God, I should be surprised if anyone would venture to deny that. But because the good will does not precede calling, but calling precedes the good will, the fact that we have a good will is rightly attributed to God who calls us, and the fact that we are called cannot be