Augustine of Hippo: Selected Writings
INTRODUCTION
predestination as contrary to human responsibility or did he conceive it as only contrary to the autonomy of the human will with regard to salvation? Are we saved by God or by ourselves? He said that we are saved by God but not without ourselves. The existence of the "reprobate" shows only that without our consent God will not save us. In his late work On the Gift of Perseverance he said: "By this teaching of predestination only that most pernicious error is overthrown whereby it is said that the grace of Christ is given according to our merits."?7 The fact is that God saves even those who have no merits if they consent. The Augustinian position is strong on mercy. It allows for deathbed conversions among those who have previously led lives out of harmony with God's expressed will. His position never included any predestination to sin. In speaking of the lists of the elect as already closed, he referred to God's foreknowledge of how men will respond to His call to faith and charity. But in his work On Free Choice he argued forcefully for the compatibility between God's knowledge (called foreknowledge only from the human point of view) and human freedom. God's sovereignty signifies that it is God who offers salvation. Those who accept it and persevere are those who want salvation coming to them through the grace of Christ. Because
God does not eliminate human responsibility, there are some who do not will to be saved through the grace of Christ and they are among the reprobate. If God's sovereignty were really absolute to the point of eliminating human responsibility, then all persons would be saved since it is inconceivable that God does not wish this and Christian tradition teaches that He does.
Indeed, Augustine explicitly stated: "Who are the elect? You, if you wish."'8 And: "Are you not attracted? Pray that you may be."79 "It is prepared for others. Become like others [in wanting it] and it is prepared for you."®°
Augustine as Mystic The question of whether Augustine was a mystic is one that has led to so many opposing answers that the question cannot be considered a closed one. The most comprehensive treatment of the
77. Augustine, On the Gift of Perseverance, 17.42. 78. Homilies on Ps. 73.5. 79. Homilies on St. John's Gospel, tr. 124. 80. Homilies on Ps. 126.4.