Augustine: Earlier Writings (continued)
ON FREE WILL I3I to live, will love and cherish the law which he knows awards the happy life to the good will, and an unhappy life to the evil will? Ev.—He will be entirely devoted to it for he directs his life according to its terms. Aug.—In loving it, does he love something changeable and temporal or something stable and eternal? Ev.—Something certainly eternal and unchangeable. Aug.—Those who continue in an evil will no less desire to be happy. But can they love the law which deservedly allots unhappiness to such people? Ev.—I should think not at all. Aug.— Do they love anything else? Ev.—Yes indeed, many other things. They love the things which the evil will steadfastly seeks to obtain and keep. Aug.—I suppose you mean wealth, honours, pleasures, bodily beauty, and all the other things which it is possible not to obtain though they are desired, and which may be lost against one's will. Ev.—These are the things I mean. Aug.—You do not imagine these things are eternal since you see they are involved in the flux of time. Ev.—It would be utter madness to imagine that. Aug.—It is, therefore, manifest that some men are lovers of eternal things, others of temporal things, and we have agreed that there are two laws, one eternal and the other temporal. Now assuming that you have a sense ofjustice, which of these two classes of men would you hold was obedient to the eternal law, and which to the temporal law? Ev.—The answer is obvious, I think. Those who are happy on account of their love of eternal things I hold act under obedience to the eternal law, while on unhappy men the temporal law is imposed. Aug.—You are perfectly right, so long as you hold firmly what reason has clearly demonstrated, that those who serve the temporal law cannot be set free from subjection to the eternal law. For from the eternal law are derived all just laws even when they are variable according to circumstances, as we have said. But those who with a good will cleave to the eternal law do not need the temporal law, as apparently you well understand.
Ev.—I see your point.
32. Aug.—The eternal law bids us turn our love away from temporal things, to cleanse it and turn it towards eternal things.
Ev.—It does. Aug.—What, then, does the temporal law bid us do? Is it not that men may possess the things which may be called "ours" for a season and which they eagerly covet, on condition that peace and human society be preserved so far as they can be preserved in earthly things? These are, first, the body and bodily goods, such as good health, keenness of the senses, strength, beauty, and anything else that may be necessary
for the good arts of life, which are to be more highly valued than those which are of less value and importance. Next comes liberty. Of course there is no true liberty except the liberty of the happy who cleave to the eternal law. But for the moment I mean the liberty which people think they enjoy when they have no human masters, and which slaves desire who wish to be manumitted by their human masters. Then, parents, brothers, wife, children, kinsfolk near and remote, friends, and any others who may be attached to us by any bond. Then our citizenship, which is usually reckoned from the home of our parents, together ^^dth honours and praise and popular glor)% as it is called. Finally there is money, which in one word covers all that we lawfully possess and which we have the right to dispose of by sale or gift. To explain how in all these matters the law distributes to each his due would be difficult and would take a long time, but clearly it is not necessary to our purpose. It is sufficient to see that the authority of this law in punishing does not go beyond depriving him who is punished of these things or of some of them. It employs fear as an instrument of coercion, and bends to its own ends the minds of the unhappy people to rule whom it is adapted. So long as they fear to lose these earthly goods they observe in using them a certain moderation suited to maintain in being a city such as can be composed of such men. The sin of loving these things is not punished; what is punished is the wrong done to others when their rights are infringed. Have we not accomplished a task which you thought would be infinite? For we set out to inquire how far the law which governs earthly peoples and cities may rightly punish. Ev,—I see we have accomplished our task.
33. Aug.—You see also that there would be no punishment inflicted on men either by injury done them or by legal sentence if they did not love the things that can be taken from them against their will. Ev.—I see that. Aug.—Some use these things badly, some use them well. He who uses them badly is he who lovingly cleaves to them and is completely involved in them. He subjects himself to things which he ought to make subject to himself, and sets before himself as his chief goods those things which he ought to subordinate and handle properly and so become good himself He who uses them aright shows that they are good but not in themselves. They do not make him good or better, but are made good by the use he puts them to. He is not attached to them by love, making them parts of his soul, as is done by loving them, lest when they begin to be taken from ON FREE WILL I33 him he suffer torture and decay. He wholly transcends them, and is prepared to possess and regulate them when necessary, but is even better prepared to lose them and be without them. Since this is so, you will not blame gold and silver because there are avaricious people, or food because there are gluttons, or wine because there are drunkards, or female beauty because there are fornicators and adulterers, and so on. After all you can see that a doctor may make a good use of fire, and a poisoner may make a wicked use of bread. Ev.—Very true. The things are not to be blamed, but the men who make a bad use of them. xvi, 34. Aug.—Quite right. We begin to see now, I think, the force of the eternal law; and how far the temporal law can go in punishing we have also discovered. We have made a sufficiently clear distinction between two classes of things, the eternal and the temporal, and between two classes of men, those who love and pursue eternal things and those who pursue temporal things. What each one chooses to pursue and embrace is within the power of his will to determine. Will alone can drive the mind from its seat of authority and from the right course. And it is manifest that when anyone uses anything badly it is not the thing but the man who uses it badly that is to be blamed. Now if you please, let us refer back to the question proposed at the beginning of this conversation, and see whether it has been answered. We set out to inquire what doing evil means, and all we have subsequently said has a bearing on this. Now we may give our minds to consider whether doing evil is anything else than to neglect eternal things which the mind itself perceives and enjoys and loves and cannot lose, and to pursue, as if they were great and wonderful, temporal things which are perceived by the body, the lowest part of human nature, and can never be possessed with complete certainty. For in this class, it seems to me, all evil deeds, that is sins, are to be included. I am waiting for you to tell me what you think.
35. Ev.—It is as you say. I agree that all sins are included in this one class, yiz. turning away from things which are divine and truly abiding, and turning to things which are changeable and uncertain. They are right enough in their own place, and have a certain beauty of their own. But it is the mark of a perverse and disordered mind to pursue them to the point of becoming subject to them. For rightly by divine ordinance the mind is set over them and ought to bear absolute rule over them. At the same time, it seems to me, our other question has been fully answered. For after asking what doing evil means, we set out to inquire what was the cause of evil-doing. Unless I am mistaken, reason has demonstrated that we do it by the free choice of our will. But I ask now whether our Maker ought to have given us free will seeing it is proved to be the source of our capacity to sin. If we had not had it, apparently we should not have sinned.
It is to be feared that in this way God may be held to be the author of our ill-doing. Aug.—Have no fear of that. But another time must be found to go into the question thoroughly. An end must now be put to this conversation in which I hope you realize that we have knocked at the door ofsome important and recondite matters of inquiry. When we begin to enter their inmost chambers, with God's aid, you will certainly be able to judge how great a difference there is between this disputation and those which are to follow, and how much superior they are, not only in the sagacity required for their investigation, but also in the majesty of the subjects and the bright light of truth. Only let piety attend us, that by divine providence we may be permitted to hold to and complete the course on which we have set out. Ev.—I accept your decision, and to it and to your prayer I most willingly add my own.
Book II i, I . Evodius.—Now explain to me, if it can be done, why God has given man free choice in willing, for if he had not received that freedom he would not have been able to sin. Augustine.— You hold it to be certainly known that it is God who has given man this power which you think ought not to have been given. Ev.—My impression is that we learned in the earlier book both that we have free will, and that our sinning is due to it. Aug.— too remember that that became manifest to us. But now my question was whether you know that God gave us this power which we clearly have and which is the cause of our sinning.
Ev.—No one else could have done so, I think. For we derive our origin from him, and from him we merit punishment or reward according as we sin or act rightly. Aug.—Here is another thing
I desire to know. Do you know this quite distinctly, or do you merely believe it, without knowing it, because you allow yourself to be influenced by authority? Ev.—Undoubtedly I was first brought to believe this on the ground of authority. But what can be more true than to say that every good thing is from God, that justice is entirely good, and that it is just that sinners should be punished and well-doers rewalrded. Hence it follows