Augustine: Earlier Writings
ON FREE WILL IO3 as if it were in question. It is one thing to inquire into the origin of evil, and another to seek the means of returning to man's original good estate or even to a better one.
3. Wherefore, do not let the Pelagians exult as if I had been pleading their cause, because in these books I said much in favour of free will, which was necessary for the purpose I had in view in that discussion. For the Pelagians are a new brand of heretics who assert the freedom of the will in such a way as to leave no room for the grace of God, since they say it is given to us according to our merits. I have said, it is true, in the First Book, that evil-doing is punished by God. And I added; "It would not be justly punished unless it were done voluntarily." Again when I was showing that a good will is so great a good that it should deservedly be preferred to all material and external goods, I said: "You see now, I beheve, that it lies with our will whether we enjoy or lack so great and so true a good. For what is more in the power of the will than the will itself?"
[He quotes a large number of similar passages to the effect that man can live aright if he will, concluding with this from Book
III. xviii. 50] "Who commits sin by an act which he could by no means avoid? If sin has been committed, therefore it could have been avoided." Pelagius has made use of this quotation in one of his books; and when I had written a book in reply to his I chose as its title De Natura et Gratia,
4. In these and similar words of mine no mention is made of the grace of God, because it was not under discussion. Hence the Pelagians think, or may think, that I once held their opinion. But that is a vain thought. Certainly, will is that by which a man sins or lives righteously, as I argued in these words. But mortals cannot live righteously and piously unless the will itself is liberated by the grace of God from the servitude to sin into which it has fallen, and is aided to overcome its vices. Unless this divine liberating gift preceded the good will, it would be the reward of its merits and would not be grace, which is grace precisely because it is freely given. This point I have sufficiently urged in other works of mine in refutation of these recent heretics who are enemies of this grace. And yet even in these books On Free Will which were written not at all against them, for they did not yet exist, but against the Manichees, I have not been completely silent about the grace of God, which in their horrible impiety they are endeavouring to abo Hsh. In the Second Book I said that not only great goods but even the least goods cannot be had save from him from whom are all