Augustine in His Own Words (continued)
Against the Pelagians 385
(2.2) First I will try and grasp the Apostle's main idea, which runs through the entire letter that I will be considering here. It is this: that no one should glory in the merits of his good deeds. The Israelites dared to glory in theirs on the grounds that they had served the Law given to them, and for that reason received the grace of the Gospel as though it were due them, as something they merited because they had observed the Law. . . . They did not understand that the grace of the Gospel, of its very nature, is not given because of good works. Otherwise, grace is no longer grace (Rom 11:6).
(2.3) . . . Grace, therefore, is from the One who calls; the good works that result are from the one who receives that grace. These good works do not produce grace; they are produced by grace. Fire, after all, does not heat in order to burn, but because it burns; a wheel does not roll well in order to be round, but because it is round. So no one does good works in order that one may receive grace, but only because one has received grace. How, after all, can one who had not been justified live justly? Or can one who has not been sanctified live in a saintly way? Or, for that matter, how can one live at all if one has not been given life? Grace justifies so that the one justified can live justly. Grace, therefore, comes first; good works, second.35
(iii) Jacob vs. Esau
In Rom 9:6–14, Paul alludes to the Old Testament story of God's election of Jacob over Esau (Gn 25:19–34). For Augustine and his contemporaries, this story became a sort of test case, challenging any commonsense understanding of divine justice—as though God took no initiative, but stood back as a dispassionate judge, either rewarding the good or punishing the bad. In the following passage, Augustine states the acute nature of the problem. Meditating on these unborn twins provides the dynamic of the rest of Augustine's essay. Jacob's case becomes a way to think through whether we contribute anything to our salvation; Esau's case becomes a way to think about why some are damned. From To Simplicianus, Book 1, Question 2:
(2.4) If Jacob, not yet born and having done nothing, was chosen without any merit, then there could be no difference at all in existence between the two by which Jacob might be chosen. Likewise, if Esau was rejected without any cause—after all, he himself was not yet born and had done nothing— how, when it says: "The elder shall serve the younger" (Rom 9:12), can Esau's rejection be called "just"? How are we to understand what follows: "Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated" (Mal 1:3; Rom 9:13)? . . . On what basis,
35. Simpl. 1.q.2.2-3 (CCL 44:24–27); my trans.