Augustine: Earlier Writings (continued)
merely thirsting, did not some gentle breath of justice from on high scatter showers upon us. Human society is knit together by transactions of giving and receiving, and things are given and received sometimes as debts, sometimes not. No one can be charged with unrighteousness who exacts what is owing to him. Nor certainly can he be charged with unrighteousness who is prepared to give up what is owing to him. This decision does not lie with those who are debtors but with the creditor. This image or, as I said, trace of equity is stamped on the business transactions of men by the Supreme Equity. Now all men are a mass of sin, since, as the apostle says, "In Adam all die" (I Cor. 15:22), and to Adam the entire human race traces the origin of its sin against God. Sinful humanity must pay a debt of punishment to the supreme divine justice. Whether that debt is exacted or remitted there is no unrighteousness. It would be a mark of pride if the debtors claimed to decide to whom the debt should be remitted and from whom it should be exacted; just as those who were hired to work in the vineyard were unjustly indignant when as much was given to the others as was duly paid to themselves (Matt. 20:11 ff.). So the apostle represses the impudent questioner. "O man, who art thou that repliest against God?" A man so speaks back to God when he is displeased that God finds fault with sinners, as if God compelled any man to sin when he simply does not bestow his justifying mercy on some sinners, and for that reason is said to harden some sinners; not because he drives them to sin but because he does not have mercy upon them. He decides who are not to be offered mercy by a standard of equity which is most secret and far removed from human powers of understanding. "Inscrutable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out" (Rom. 11:33). He justly finds fault with sinners because he does not compel them to sin. Justly also he has mercy on some that they may have this calling, to be heartily penitent when God finds fault with sinners, and to turn to his grace. He finds fault, therefore, both justly and mercifully.
17. To be sure, no one resists his will. He aids whom he will and he leaves whom he will. Both he who is aided and he who is left belong to the same mass of sin. Both deserve the punishment which is exacted from the one and remitted to the other. If you are troubled by this, "O man, who art thou that repliest against God?" I think "man" has the same meaning here as in that other passage: "Are ye not men and walk according to man?" There the word denotes carnal and animal people to whom it is said, "I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual but as unto