Augustine: Earlier Writings
ON FREE WILL Iig a man has obtained tyrannical power and is prepared to make money by it. Suppose he accepts a bribe to bring in a law making it unlawful for anyone to force a woman to become his wife. The law will not be a bad law simply because the man who laid it down was unjust and corrupt. So the law which demands that hostile force be repelled by force for the purpose of protecting the citizens can be obeyed without lust. And the same may be said of all officials who are lawfully and in an orderly fashion subject to the powers that be. And yet I do not quite see how, even if the law is blameless, those who obey it can be blameless. For the law does not compel them to kill but leaves the decision to do so in their discretion. They are free not to kill anyone for the sake of things which they can lose against their will, and therefore ought not to love. In matters affecting life it may be doubtful whether the soul is or is not destroyed when the body is slain. If it can be destroyed, it is a thing of no consequence. If it cannot be destroyed there is no occasion for fear. In the matter of chastity, who doubts that virtue has its seat in the soul itself, and cannot be snatched away by any violent violator? All that he would have robbed us of, had he not been slain, was outwith our jurisdiction, so that I cannot see how it can be said to have been ours. Therefore I do not find fault with the law which permits such to be slain, but I do not know how to defend those who use the permissive power to kill.
13. Aug.—Much less do I know why you should seek a defence for men whom no law charges with guilt. Ev.—None of the actual laws, perhaps, which are found in human statutebooks. But I am not sure whether men are not bound by some more strict and secret law, at any rate if divine providence administers all things without exception. How before that law are those free from sin who are polluted by human bloodshed on account of things which they ought to despise? Mind you, I think that positive law, designed to rule a people, rightly permits these things and vindicates divine providence. The law of the state takes upon itself to vindicate all that conduces to peaceful relations between simple folk as far as it can be regulated by man. Beyond that, sins have other suitable penalties from which, it seems to me, wisdom alone can set us free.
Aug.—I approve and applaud your distinction. No doubt it is incomplete and far from perfect, and yet it shows faith and high idealism. You think that positive law which is passed to rule states makes many concessions and leaves many things unpunished which divine providence punishes. And this is right,