Grace and Free Will
CHAPTER 32.
IN WHAT SENSE IT IS RIGHTLY SAID THAT, IF WE LIKE,
WE MAY KEEP GOD’S COMMANDMENTS
The Pelagians think that they know something great when they assert that “God would not command what He knew could not be done by man.” Who can be ignorant of this? But God commands some things which we cannot do, in order that we may know what we ought to ask of Him. For this is faith itself, which obtains by prayer what the law commands. Indeed, the one who said, “If you will, you shall keep the commandments,” in the same book of Ecclesiasticus afterwards said, “Who shall give a watch before my mouth, and a seal of wisdom upon my lips, so that I do not suddenly fall thereby, and that my tongue does not destroy me.”Sir 22.27 Now he had certainly heard and received these commandments: “Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking guile.”Psa 34.13 Forasmuch, then, as what he said is true: “If you will, you shall keep the commandments,” why does he want a watch to be given before his mouth, like the one who says in the Psalm, “Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth”?Psa 141.3 Why is he not satisfied with God’s commandment and his own will, since if he has the will, he shall keep the commandments? How many of God’s commandments are directed against pride! He is quite aware of them: if he will, he may keep them. Why, therefore, does he shortly afterwards say, “O God, Father and God of my life, do not give me a proud look”?Sir 23.4 The law had long ago said to him, “You shall not covet;” let him then only will and do what he is bid, because if he has the will, he shall keep the commandments. Why, therefore, does he afterwards say, “Turn away from me concupiscence”?Sir 23.5
Against luxury too, how many commandments God has enjoined! Let a man observe them; because, if he will, he may keep the commandments. But then what does that cry to God mean, “Let not the greediness of the belly nor the lust of the flesh take hold on me!”?Sir 23.6 Now, if we were to put this question to him personally, he would very rightly answer us and say, From that prayer of mine, in which I offer this particular petition to God, you may understand in what sense I said, “If you will, you may keep the commandments.”
For it is certain that we keep the commandments if we will; but because the will is prepared by the Lord, we must ask Him for such a force of will as suffices to make us act by the willing. It is certain that it is we that will, when we will; but it is He who makes us will what is good. It is said of Him (as he just now expressed it), “The will is prepared by the Lord.”Prov 8.35 It is said about the same Lord, “The steps of a man are ordered by the Lord, and his way He wills.”Psa 37.23 Of the same Lord again, it is said, “It is God who works in you, even to will!”Phil 2.13
It is certain that it is we that act, when we act; but it is He who makes us act, by applying efficacious powers to our will. He has said, “I will make you walk in my statutes, and observe my judgments, and do them.”Eze 36.27 When he says, “I will make you ...to do them,” what else does He in fact say than, “I will take away from you your heart of stone,” from which used to arise your inability to act, “and I will give you a heart of flesh,”Eze 36.26 in order that you may act? And what does this promise amount to but this: I will remove your hard heart, out of which you did not act, and I will give you an obedient heart, out of which you shall act? It is He who causes us to act, to whom the human suppliant says, “Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth.” That is to say: Make or enable me, O Lord, to set a watch before my mouth—a benefit which he had already obtained from God, who described its influence this way: “I set a watch upon my mouth.”Psa 39.1