CHAPTER TWO: The Knowledge of Man and Free Will (part 3 of 4)
Moreover, because even the good will is delayed and oppressed by the heaviness of our flesh, Paul adds that, to overcome every difficulty, our Lord gives us the constancy and power to carry it into effect.
Indeed, what Paul teaches elsewhere could not otherwise be true: that there is one God who works all things in all. In this manner, therefore, God begins and completes the good work within us. By his grace the will is stirred to love the good, inclined to desire it, and moved to seek and devote itself to it. Furthermore, this love, desire, and endeavor do not fail but continue until they attain their effect. Finally, man pursues the good and perseveres in it to the end.
God does not move our will in the manner long imagined and taught, as though it afterward remained within our choice either to submit to his movement or to resist it. Rather, he moves it with such efficacy that it must follow.
Therefore, what is frequently read in Chrysostom should not be accepted: that God draws only those who are willing to be drawn. By this he means that when God extends his hand to us, he waits to see whether we shall choose to avail ourselves of his aid.
We readily concede that while man remained upright, his condition was such that he could incline himself toward either side. But since Adam has demonstrated by his own example how poor and miserable free will is, what benefit shall we receive unless God both wills and accomplishes everything within us?
Yet although God pours the fullness of his grace upon us, we rob him of its praise by our ingratitude. For the apostle does not merely teach that the grace of willing rightly is offered to us if we choose to accept it. He teaches that God produces and forms the willing within us.
This means nothing less than that God, by his Spirit, directs, bends, and governs our heart and reigns there as in his own possession.
Nor can Christ’s declaration be understood in any other way:
“Everyone who has been taught by my Father comes to me.” —John 6:45
By this we must understand that God’s grace is of itself powerful to accomplish and bring its work to completion, as Saint Augustine maintains.
God does not distribute this grace to everyone, contrary to the common proverb that grace is denied to no one who does what lies within him. We must indeed teach that God’s goodness is offered without exception to all who seek it—but—
But since no one begins to seek God before being inspired from heaven, we must not diminish the grace of God even in this respect. Certainly, this privilege belongs to the elect alone: that, being regenerated by the Spirit of God, they are led and governed by him.
Nor ought there to be any doubt that perseverance must be regarded as a free gift of God. Yet a contrary and false opinion has become rooted in men’s hearts: that perseverance is distributed to each person according to his merit—that is, according to whether he shows himself ungrateful for the first grace or responds to it properly.
But since this opinion arose from the imagination that it lies within our power either to reject or accept the grace of God when it is presented to us, it is easily refuted, because that supposition has already been shown to be false.
Indeed, there is a twofold error here. Besides saying that by making good use of God’s first grace we merit that he should reward our good use with subsequent graces, they also add that it is not the grace of God alone that works within us, but that grace merely cooperates with us.
Concerning the first point, we must hold this conclusion: as the Lord God multiplies his graces in his servants and daily confers new gifts upon them, he finds in them material and occasion to enrich and increase them because the work he has already begun within them is pleasing to him.
To this must be referred the following declarations:
“To the one who has, more will be given.”
And again:
“Because you have shown yourself a faithful servant in little things, I will set you over greater things.”
But here we must guard against two errors. First, we must not attribute the good use of God’s grace to man as though man rendered that grace effective by his own diligence. Second, we must not say that the additional graces conferred upon the believer are rewards for his good use of the first grace, as though everything did not proceed from the free goodness of God.
I therefore confess that believers ought to expect this blessing: the better they use the graces of God, the more new and greater graces will daily be added to them. But I also maintain that this good use itself comes from God and that its reward proceeds from his free benevolence.
Saint Paul expressly declares this. After saying that it is God who works within us both to will and to accomplish, he immediately adds that God performs both according to his good pleasure, signifying by these words his free and unmerited goodness.
As for their claim that, after yielding to the first grace, we cooperate with God, I answer: if they mean that after being brought by God’s power into the obedience of righteousness, we willingly follow the guidance of his grace, I concede it. For it is entirely certain that wherever the grace of God reigns, there is such a readiness to obey.
But from where does this readiness come except from the Spirit of God, who, being consistent with himself, nourishes and strengthens within us the desire for obedience that he produced from the beginning?
If, on the contrary, they mean that man possesses from his own power the ability to cooperate with the grace of God, I say that this is a deadly error.
But they object, “What, then, does the apostle mean when he says, ‘I labored more abundantly than all the others—yet not I, but the grace of God with me’?” They say that because it might have seemed excessively arrogant for Paul to prefer himself above all the others, he qualifies his statement by giving praise to the grace of God, yet in such a way that he calls himself God’s fellow worker.
It is remarkable that so many otherwise respectable men have stumbled over this straw. For Saint Paul does not say that the grace of God worked together with him in order to make himself its partner. Rather, he attributes the entire praise of the work to grace:
“It was not I who labored, but the grace of God that was with me.”
The whole error has arisen because they relied upon the common translation, which is ambiguous. But Saint Paul’s Greek text is so clear that there can be no doubt about its meaning.
Let us now hear Saint Augustine speak, lest the Pelagians of our own day—that is, the Sophists of the Sorbonne—reproach us, as they commonly do, with having all the ancient doctors opposed to us. In this they follow their father Pelagius, who troubled Saint Augustine with the same false accusation.
Augustine treats this matter at length in the book he entitled On Rebuke and Grace. I shall briefly cite several passages in his own words.
He says that the grace of persevering in the good was given to Adam if he had willed to use it, but that it is given to us so that we may will and, by willing, overcome our sinful desires. Thus Adam possessed the ability if he had willed, but he was not given the willing by which he might exercise that ability. To us, however, both the willing and the ability are given.
He says that the first liberty was the ability not to sin, but that the liberty we now possess is much greater: the inability to sin. The Sorbonists interpret this as referring to the perfection that shall exist in the life to come, but that is a mockery, since Augustine afterward explains himself by saying that the will of believers is so governed by the Holy Spirit that they are able to do good because they will to do it, and they will to do it because God creates the willing within them.
For if, amid such great weakness, their will were left to them so that they could do good with God’s assistance if they so chose, yet God did not give them the willingness amid so many temptations, then their weak will would succumb and they could not persevere.
God therefore came to the aid of the weakness of the human will, directing it so that it could not bend this way or that and governing it so that it could not turn aside. For in this manner, although it is weak, it cannot fail.
Shortly afterward, Augustine explains how necessarily our hearts follow God’s movement when he draws them. He says that God indeed draws men according to their will and not by compulsion, but that the will itself is what God has formed within them.
We now have the principal point we are debating confirmed by the mouth of Saint Augustine: grace is not merely presented by God to be rejected or accepted according to each person’s pleasure. Rather, grace alone moves our hearts to follow its working and produces within them both the choice and the willing.
Thus every good work that follows is the fruit of grace, and grace is received by no living man except insofar as it has formed his heart unto obedience. For this reason the same doctor says elsewhere that it is the grace of God alone which performs every good work within us.
When Augustine says in another place that the will is not destroyed by grace but is changed from evil to good and, after being made good, is assisted, he means only that man is not drawn by God like a stone, without any movement of his heart, through some external force. Rather, he is moved in such a way that he obeys willingly.
Moreover, Augustine teaches that grace is specially given to the elect as a free gift when he writes to Boniface in this manner:
“We know that the grace of God is not given to all men, and that when it is given to anyone, it is not given according to the merits of his will but according to the free goodness of God. When it is denied, this is done according to the righteous judgment of God.”
In this same letter, he strongly and firmly condemns the opinion of those who believe that subsequent grace is repaid according to human merit because men, by not rejecting the first grace, have shown themselves worthy of the second.
For he requires Pelagius to confess that grace is necessary for every single work and that it is not bestowed in return for our merits, so that it may be acknowledged as pure grace.
But this question cannot be summarized more clearly than by what Augustine says in the eighth chapter of On Rebuke and Grace:
First, the human will does not obtain grace through its freedom but obtains freedom through the grace of God.
Second, through that grace the will is conformed to the good so that it may love the good and persevere in it.
Third, it is strengthened by an invincible power to resist evil.
Fourth, while governed by grace it never fails; when abandoned, it immediately falls.
Again, by the free mercy of God the will is turned toward the good and, once turned, perseveres in it.
Again, when man’s will is led toward the good and, after being directed to it, is confirmed in it, this proceeds from the will of God alone and not from any merit.
In this manner, no other free will remains to man than that which Augustine describes elsewhere: man can neither turn to God nor continue in God except by his grace, and whatever he is able to do, he is able to do only through that grace.
This grace of God is sometimes called deliverance, by which we are set free from the bondage of sin; sometimes restoration, by which, putting off the old man, we are restored to the image of God; sometimes regeneration, by which we are made new creatures; and sometimes resurrection, by which God, causing us to die to ourselves, raises us again by his power.
Nevertheless, we must observe that this deliverance is never so complete that some part of us does not remain under the yoke of sin. Our restoration is never so perfect that many traces of the earthly man do not remain. Our regeneration is never so complete that we retain nothing of the old man.
For as long as we are enclosed within this prison of our body, we continually carry with us the remnants of our flesh, which diminish our liberty accordingly.
Therefore, from the time of regeneration, the believing soul is divided into two parts, between which there is perpetual conflict. Insofar as it is ruled and governed by the Spirit of God, it possesses a desire and love for immortality which incites and leads it toward righteousness, purity, and holiness. Thus it meditates upon nothing but the blessedness of the heavenly kingdom and aspires entirely after fellowship with God.
Insofar as it still remains in its natural condition, however, being hindered by earthly mire and entangled in evil desires, it does not perceive what ought to be desired or where true blessedness lies. Being held by sin, it is turned away from God and his righteousness.
From this arises a conflict which exercises the believer throughout his entire life. By the Spirit he is lifted upward; by the flesh he is drawn downward. According to the Spirit, he ardently desires immortality; according to the flesh, he wanders into the way of death. According to the Spirit, he seeks to live righteously; according to the flesh, he is enticed toward unrighteousness. According to the Spirit, he is led toward God; according to the flesh, he is drawn backward. According to the Spirit, he despises the world; according to the flesh, he desires worldly pleasures.
This is not an empty speculation of which we possess no experience in life. It is practical doctrine which we truly experience within ourselves if we are children of God.
We see, therefore, that the flesh and the Spirit are like two combatants who pull the believing soul in opposite directions and wage battle within it. Nevertheless, the outcome of this conflict is that the Spirit prevails.
For when it is said that the flesh turns the soul away from God, draws it away from immortality, prevents it from pursuing holiness and righteousness, and distances it from the kingdom of God, we must not understand that its temptations possess such power that they overthrow and destroy the work of the Spirit or extinguish his power. May that never be!
What, then, does the flesh accomplish? When it strives to cast the believer down, it weighs him down. When it seeks to turn him from his course, it delays and hinders him. When it attempts to extinguish every love of righteousness within him, it diminishes that love to some degree. When it seeks to suppress it entirely, it causes it to bend somewhat.
Amid these difficulties, the servant of God must be so animated that, with the chief desire of his heart and his principal affection, he aspires toward God, diligently seeks and strives after him, and continually groans and sighs because the hindrance of his flesh prevents him from running his course as he ought.
This is what Saint Paul means when he says that if we are sons of God, we do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Having described the conflict, he signifies that the Spirit of God must gain the upper hand and obtain the victory.
It is now easy to see the difference between the natural and the regenerate man. The natural man is indeed pricked and prodded by his conscience so that he does not sleep altogether undisturbed in his vices. Nevertheless, he still delights in them with his whole heart, takes pleasure in them, and willingly gives them free rein, fearing nothing except the punishment he sees prepared for all sinners.
The regenerate man, adhering with the principal part of his heart to the righteousness of the law, hates and detests the sin he commits through weakness. He is displeased with it and does not consent to it. Rather, he takes pleasure and delight in the law of God and finds in it greater sweetness than in all the pleasures of the world.
Moreover, he never sins knowingly without doing so against the inclination of his renewed heart. For not only does his conscience resist the evil, but part of his affection does so as well.
Certain Anabaptists imagine some kind of frenzied licentiousness in place of the spiritual regeneration of believers. They suppose that the children of God, having been restored to a state of innocence, ought no longer to concern themselves with restraining the desires of their flesh. Instead, they should follow the Spirit as their guide, under whose direction they cannot go astray.
It would be incredible that the human mind could fall into such madness if they did not arrogantly proclaim this doctrine themselves. It is indeed a horrible monstrosity. Yet it is only right that the audacity of those who undertake to change God’s truth into a lie should be punished in this manner.
I ask them, then, whether every distinction between shamefulness and honor, righteousness and unrighteousness, good and evil, virtue and vice is to be abolished.
“That distinction,” they say, “arose from the curse of the old Adam, from which we have been delivered through Christ.”
There will therefore be no difference between sexual immorality and chastity, sincerity and deceit, truth and falsehood, equity and robbery.
“Cast away,” they say, “every empty fear and boldly follow the Spirit, who will require nothing evil, provided that we surrender ourselves to his guidance.”
Who would not be astonished at such irrational claims? Nevertheless, this is a popular and agreeable philosophy among those who, blinded by the madness of their sinful desires, have lost all common sense.
But what Christ, I ask, have they fashioned for us, and what spirit? We acknowledge one Christ and his Spirit—the Christ promised by the prophets and proclaimed in the gospel as having been revealed. Yet we hear nothing of this sort concerning him.
For the Spirit whom Scripture reveals does not favor murder, sexual immorality, drunkenness, pride, strife, greed, and fraud. Rather, he is the author of love, chastity, sobriety, modesty, peace, self-control, and truth.
He is not a spirit of fantasy or confusion, rushing thoughtlessly here and there toward either evil or good. He is full of wisdom and understanding to distinguish between good and evil.
He does not drive man into dissolute and unrestrained license. Rather, as he distinguishes good from evil, he also teaches us to pursue the one and flee the other.
But why do I exert myself so greatly to refute this brutish madness? To Christians, the Spirit of God is not some foolish notion they have fashioned in their dreams or received from others. They know him as Scripture reveals him.
There it is said that he is given to us for sanctification, so that after cleansing us from impurity and defilement, he may lead us into obedience to the righteousness of God. Such obedience cannot exist unless the sinful desires—to which these men wish to give free rein—are tamed and subdued.
Scripture further teaches that although the Spirit sanctifies us, much weakness always remains within us as long as we are enclosed in our mortal bodies. Consequently, because we are still far from perfection, we must make daily progress; and because we remain entangled in many vices, we must continually fight against them.
It follows that we must keep careful watch lest we be overtaken by the treacheries of our flesh, and that we must not rest as though no danger remained—unless we imagine ourselves to have advanced further in holiness of life than Saint Paul, who was afflicted by the messenger of Satan so that divine power might be perfected in his weakness.
Indeed, we see how he confesses that the conflict between the Spirit and the flesh of which we have spoken was present within himself. —Romans 7
I think we have sufficiently proved that man is so completely held captive under the yoke of sin that, by his own nature, he can neither desire the good in his will nor apply himself to it.
Moreover, we have distinguished between compulsion and necessity, from which it is evident that although man necessarily sins, he nevertheless sins willingly.
But because, when man is placed under the devil’s bondage, it appears that he is governed by the devil’s will rather than his own, it remains for us to explain how this occurs. Afterward we must resolve a commonly disputed question: whether anything should be attributed to God in those evil works in which Scripture indicates that his power is somehow at work.
Concerning the first matter, Saint Augustine somewhere compares man’s will to a horse that is governed according to the will of its rider. He then compares God and the devil to riders.
If God occupies the place in man’s will, like a skillful and prudent rider, he directs it properly. He urges it forward when it is too sluggish, restrains it when it is too impetuous, checks it when it rushes forward too violently, corrects its rebelliousness, and leads it into the right path.
But if the devil gains the seat, like a foolish and wicked rider, he drives the will astray across open fields, causes it to fall into ditches, makes it stumble and tumble down ravines, and accustoms it to rebellion and disobedience.
We shall content ourselves with this comparison for the present, since we possess no better one.
Therefore, when it is said that the will of the natural man is subject to the devil’s dominion and governed by him, this does not mean that it is violently compelled, against its own inclination, to obey him—as a slave might be forced to perform his duty although unwilling.
Rather, we mean that, being deceived by the devil’s frauds, it necessarily submits to his pleasure, although it does so without compulsion. For those whom our Lord does not graciously govern by his Spirit are abandoned to Satan to be led by him.
For this reason Saint Paul says that the god of this world—that is, the devil—has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they do not perceive the light of the gospel.
Elsewhere, he says that the devil reigns in all the wicked and disobedient.
The blindness of the wicked, therefore, and all the evil deeds that follow from it are called works of the devil. Nevertheless, their cause must not be sought outside the will of the wicked themselves, from which the root of evil proceeds and in which the foundation of the devil’s kingdom—namely, sin—resides.
God’s action in these same events, however, is entirely different. To understand it properly, let us consider the injury the Chaldeans inflicted upon Job: after killing his servants, they carried away all his livestock.
—Job 1
We plainly see the immediate authors of this wickedness. For when we see thieves who have committed murder or robbery, we do not hesitate to impute the fault to them and condemn them.
Yet the history also recounts that this came from the devil. We therefore see that he performed his own part in it. On the other hand, Job acknowledges that it was God’s work, saying that God had stripped him of the possessions taken from him by the Chaldeans.
How can we say that the same work was performed by God, the devil, and men without either excusing the devil because he appears to be acting together with God or declaring God to be the author of evil?
Easily—if we consider first the purpose and then the manner of acting:
God’s purpose was to exercise his servant in patience through adversity. Satan endeavored to drive him to despair. The Chaldeans sought to enrich themselves by violently seizing another man’s possessions. Such a difference of purpose clearly distinguishes the work of one from that of another.
There is no less dissimilarity in their manner of acting. The Lord abandons his servant Job to Satan to be afflicted. He then delivers to Satan the Chaldeans, whom he had appointed as ministers to accomplish this, and permits him to move and direct them.
Satan, by his poisonous incitements, stimulates the already wicked hearts of the Chaldeans to commit this iniquity. The Chaldeans, giving themselves over to evil, defile both their souls and their bodies.
It is therefore proper to say that Satan works in the reprobate, within whom he exercises his kingdom—that is, the kingdom of perversity. It may also be said that God works in them in a certain manner, since Satan, who is the instrument of his wrath, moves them here and there according to God’s will and ordinance to execute his judgments.
I am not speaking here of that universal operation of God by which all creatures are sustained and receive the power to perform whatever they do. I am speaking of his particular action, which manifests itself in each individual work.
We therefore see that there is nothing improper in attributing the same work to God, the devil, and man. But the difference in their intention and manner of acting causes God’s righteousness to appear blameless throughout, while the wickedness of the devil and man is displayed to their shame.
The ancient doctors sometimes feared to confess the truth on this point because they were afraid of giving the wicked an occasion to slander God’s works or speak irreverently of them. While I approve of such sobriety, I do not think there is any danger in simply maintaining what Scripture teaches us.
Saint Augustine himself sometimes felt this concern, as when he said that the blindness and hardening of the wicked should be attributed not to God’s operation but to his foreknowledge. Yet this subtlety cannot agree with the many expressions of Scripture that clearly demonstrate something more than God’s foreknowledge.
Likewise, the claim some make that God merely permits evil but does not send it cannot stand. Scripture frequently says that God blinds and hardens the wicked, that he turns, bends, and moves their hearts. Such forms of speech are not explained by appealing merely to foreknowledge or permission.
We therefore answer that this occurs in two ways.
First, when God’s light is withdrawn, nothing remains in us except darkness and blindness. When his Spirit is withdrawn, our hearts become hard as stone. When his guidance ceases, we can do nothing but wander astray. Therefore, it is rightly said that he blinds, hardens, and moves those from whom he removes the ability to see, obey, and do good.
The second manner, which corresponds more closely to the proper meaning of the words, is that God, in order to execute his judgments through the devil—the minister of his wrath—directs the counsels of the wicked wherever he pleases, moves their wills, and strengthens their efforts.
According to the first sense, we must understand what is said in Job:
“He removes speech from the eloquent and counsel from the aged and wise. He takes understanding from the rulers of the earth and causes them to wander where there is no path.”
—Job 12
Likewise, what Saint Paul says:
“God sends them a powerful delusion so that they believe a lie.”
And in Isaiah:
“Why, Lord, have you caused us to wander from your ways? Why have you hardened our hearts so that we do not fear you?”
—Isaiah 63
These statements signify more what God makes of men by abandoning and forsaking them than the manner in which he actively works within them.
But other testimonies go further. Concerning the hardening of Pharaoh, the Lord says:
“I will harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he will not listen to you or release the people.”
—Exodus 4, 7, and 10
Afterward, Scripture says that God confirmed and strengthened Pharaoh’s heart. Should we understand this merely to mean that God hardened him by not softening him? That is indeed true, but God did more: he delivered Pharaoh’s heart to Satan so that he might confirm him in his obstinacy. Therefore, God had previously said, “I will hold his heart firm.”
Likewise, when the people of Israel departed from Egypt, the inhabitants of the lands they entered came against them with hostile hearts. From where shall we say they received this impulse? Moses certainly says that it was the Lord who hardened their hearts. —Deuteronomy 2
The prophet, recounting the same history, says that the Lord turned their hearts to hate his people.
We cannot now say that they failed merely because they were deprived of God’s counsel. For if they were strengthened and led to this action, the Lord in some manner inclined and directed them toward it.
Moreover, whenever it pleased God to punish the transgressions of his people, how did he accomplish this through the wicked? Certainly, in such a manner that it is evident that the power and efficacy of the work proceeded from him and that the wicked were merely his instruments.
Therefore, he sometimes threatens that by whistling he will summon unbelieving nations to destroy Israel. At other times he compares them to a net, and at still others to a hammer.
But he demonstrated especially how far he was from being inactive within them when he compared Sennacherib, a wicked and perverse man, to an axe, saying that he directed and moved him by his hand to cut down according to his good pleasure.
—Isaiah 10
Saint Augustine provides a useful distinction in one place: that the wicked sin proceeds from themselves, but that in sinning they accomplish one thing rather than another proceeds from the power of God, who orders the darkness according to his pleasure.
That Satan’s agency intervenes to incite the wicked whenever God in his providence wills to bend them one way or another is sufficiently evident from one passage. For Scripture frequently says that an evil spirit from God came upon Saul or departed from him.
—1 Samuel 16, 18, and 19
It is not lawful to refer this to the Holy Spirit. We therefore see that the unclean spirit is called a spirit from God because he answers to God’s pleasure and power and serves as an instrument of his will rather than acting as an independent author.
Nevertheless, as has been said, there always remains a great difference between what God does and what the devil and the wicked do in the same work. God causes the evil instruments he holds in his hand and can bend wherever he pleases to serve his righteousness. The devil and the wicked, being evil, bring forth in their deeds the wickedness they have conceived within their perverse minds.
The remainder of what pertains to defending the majesty of God against every slander and refuting the evasions employed by blasphemers on this subject will be explained in the treatment of God’s providence. Here I have intended only to show briefly how the devil reigns within a wicked man and how God works both in the devil and in the wicked.
As for those actions that are in themselves neither good nor evil and belong more to earthly than to spiritual life, we have not yet explained what liberty man possesses in them.
Some have said that we possess free choice in such matters. They have done so, I think, not because they intended to establish this as certain, but because they did not wish to debate a matter they considered of little importance.
For my part, I confess that those who recognize that they possess no power to justify themselves understand what is necessary for salvation. Nevertheless, I do not think it should be neglected that we understand it to be a particular grace of God when it enters our mind to choose and desire what is profitable to us, and likewise when our mind and heart avoid what is harmful.
Indeed, the providence of God extends so far that it not only causes what he knows to be expedient to occur but also inclines the wills of men toward that same end.
It is true that if we judge the conduct of outward affairs according to our senses, we shall conclude that they lie within man’s choice and power. But if we listen to the many testimonies declaring that our Lord governs human hearts even in this sphere, we shall subject the human will to God’s particular movement.
Who moved the hearts of the Egyptians to lend the people of Israel their most precious possessions? They would never have been inclined to do this by themselves. It follows, therefore, that their hearts were governed more by God than by their own impulse or inclination.
Who turned Absalom’s heart so that he rejected Ahithophel’s counsel, which had ordinarily been received as though it were an oracle?
—2 Samuel 17
Who induced Rehoboam to obey the counsel of the young men? —1 Kings 12
Someone will reply that these are particular examples from which no general rule should be drawn. But I say that they are sufficient to prove what I maintain: whenever God wills to accomplish his providence, even in outward matters, he bends and turns men’s wills according to his pleasure. Their choice is never so free that God does not rule over it, whether they will it or not.
Daily experience compels us to conclude that our heart is governed more by God’s movement than by its own choice and liberty. For our reason and understanding often fail us in matters that are not particularly difficult to comprehend, and our courage fails in tasks that are easy to perform. Conversely, in matters exceedingly obscure and doubtful, we deliberate without difficulty and know how to bring them to a successful conclusion. In matters of great consequence and danger, our courage remains firm and fearless.
From where does this proceed except that God works in both cases?
Indeed, I understand Solomon’s statement in this manner:
“The Lord makes the ear hear and the eye see.”
It does not seem to me that he is speaking there merely of creation but of the particular grace God grants to men from day to day.
Moreover, when Solomon says that the Lord holds the hearts of kings in his hand like a stream of water and causes them to flow wherever he pleases, there is no doubt that under one particular class he includes all men.
For if any man’s will could be exempted from all subjection, this privilege would belong above all to a king, whose will governs others. If, therefore, the king’s will is directed by the hand of God, our own will will not be exempt from the same condition.
Saint Augustine has an excellent statement concerning this:
“Scripture, when diligently examined, shows that not only the good wills of men—which God creates in their hearts and, having created them, directs toward good works and eternal life—are within God’s power, but also all those wills that pertain to the present life. They are so completely in his power that he inclines them according to his pleasure, now in one direction and now in another—either to benefit their neighbors or to harm them when he wills to execute punishment. He does all this according to his hidden yet righteous judgment.”
Readers must remember here that man’s faculty of free will must not be measured by the outcome of events, as some ignorant people do. They imagine that they can prove the human will to be enslaved because events do not turn out according to the desires of even the greatest princes in the world, and because these rulers frequently cannot accomplish their plans.
But the power and liberty presently under discussion must be considered within man himself and not measured by outward events.
For when free will is debated, the question is not whether man is able to accomplish and execute whatever he has resolved without anything hindering him. Rather, the question is whether in all things he possesses freedom of choice in his judgment to distinguish good from evil, approving the one and rejecting the other; and likewise, whether he possesses freedom of inclination in his will to desire, seek, and pursue the good while hating and avoiding evil.
For if man possessed such freedom, he would be no less free when confined within a prison than when ruling over the whole earth.
We would now have said enough concerning the bondage of the human soul, were it not that those who seek to seduce it with a false opinion of liberty have arguments by which they oppose our position.
First, they raise certain alleged absurdities to make our doctrine appear hateful, as though it contradicted the common sense of mankind. Afterward, they employ testimonies from Scripture in an attempt to refute it. We shall answer them in that order.
They argue, then, that if sin occurs by necessity, it is no longer sin; and that if it is voluntary, it can be avoided. This was the weapon Pelagius used in fighting against Saint Augustine. Nevertheless, we do not wish their argument to be dismissed without a hearing before we have refuted it.
I deny, therefore, that sin ceases to be imputed as sin merely because it is necessary. I likewise deny that because sin is voluntary, it necessarily follows that it can be avoided.
For if anyone wishes to use this as a defense in contending with God —as though it were a sufficient excuse to say that he could not have acted otherwise—the answer is immediately ready:
“Your destruction comes from yourself, O Israel; in me alone is your salvation.”
—Hosea 13
From where does this inability which man pleads arise, except from the perversity of his nature? And from where does this perversity arise, except that man departed from his Creator?
Since all men are guilty of this fall, they must not imagine that they can excuse themselves by the necessity under which they labor to do evil, for that very necessity contains the just cause of their condemnation.
The other part of their argument is likewise invalid, insofar as they assume that everything done voluntarily is done in complete liberty. For we have already proved that many things are done willingly although the choice involved is not free.
They next argue that if virtues and vices do not proceed from free choice, it is improper for man to be either rewarded or punished. Although this argument is taken from Aristotle, I confess that Saint Chrysostom and Saint Jerome use it in some places.
Jerome, however, does not conceal the fact that it was a familiar argument among the Pelagians, whose words he reports as follows:
“If the grace of God works within us, then grace itself will be rewarded, and not we, who perform no labor.”
As for the punishments God inflicts for evil deeds, I answer that they are justly due to us because the guilt of sin resides within us. For it makes no difference whether we sin with a free or an enslaved judgment, provided that we sin from voluntary desire—especially since man is convicted as a sinner precisely because he is under the bondage of sin.
As for the reward of doing good, what absurdity is there in confessing that it is granted to us through the kindness of God rather than repaid to us for our merits?
How often Saint Augustine repeats this declaration:
“God does not crown our merits in us, but his own gifts.”
And again, the reward that comes to us is not so called because it is owed to our merits, but because it is bestowed upon the graces previously conferred upon us.
They rightly perceive that merits can no longer have any place unless good works proceed from man’s own power. But that they should regard this conclusion as so strange is itself absurd.
The apostle will deliver them from this foolish imagination if they will listen to the foundation from which he derives our blessedness and the eternal glory we await:
“Those whom God chose, he called; those whom he called, he justified; and those whom he justified, he glorified.” —Romans 8
Why, then, are believers crowned? According to the apostle, it is because through the Lord’s mercy—and not through their own diligence—they were chosen, called, and justified.
Let this foolish fear therefore be cast away: that no merit will remain unless free will is maintained. For it is absurd to flee from the conclusion toward which Scripture leads us.
“If you have received all things,” says Saint Paul, “why do you boast as though you had not received them?”
We see that he strips free will of every power in order to destroy all claim to merit. Nevertheless, because God is rich and generous in doing good, he rewards the graces he has conferred upon us as though they were virtues proceeding from ourselves, because in giving them to us he has made them ours.
They next raise an objection that appears to have been taken from Saint Chrysostom: if it were within our power to choose good or evil, then all men would have to be either good or wicked, since they all possess the same nature.
This agrees with the statement of the author of the book entitled The Calling of the Gentiles, which is attributed to Saint Ambrose: that no one would ever depart from the faith unless the grace of God left the human will changeable.
I am astonished that such great men could have gone astray in this matter. For how did Chrysostom fail to consider that it is God’s election which thus distinguishes between men?
Certainly, we ought not to be ashamed to confess what Saint Paul so firmly asserts: that all men are perverse and given over to wickedness. But we immediately add with him that God’s mercy comes to the aid of some so that not all remain in perversity.
Since we are all naturally afflicted with the same disease, none are preserved except those whom God is pleased to heal. The others, whom he abandons according to his righteous judgment, remain in their corruption until they are finally consumed.
From no other cause does it arise that some persevere to the end while others fail midway along the road. For perseverance is itself a gift of God, which he does not distribute indiscriminately to everyone but gives to whomever he pleases.
If it is asked why some persevere steadfastly while others are so changeable, no other reason will be found except that the former are sustained by God’s power so that they do not perish, while the latter do not receive the same strength because God wills to display in them an example of human instability.
They also argue that all exhortations would be pointless, admonitions useless, and reproofs ridiculous if it were not within the sinner’s power to obey them.
Because these same objections were formerly raised against Saint Augustine, he was compelled to publish the book entitled On Rebuke and Grace. Although he answers all of them fully, he reduces the question to this summary:
“O man, recognize in what is commanded what you ought to do. In being reproved for not having done it, recognize that through your own fault you lack the necessary power. In praying to God, recognize from whom you must receive what you need.”
First, we are not alone in defending this cause; Christ and all his apostles defend it with us. Let our adversaries therefore consider how they will prevail when they undertake battle against such opponents.
Although Christ declared that apart from him we can do nothing, he nevertheless did not cease to reprove those who did evil apart from him or to exhort everyone to good works.
How sharply Saint Paul reproves the Corinthians because they did not live in love! Yet afterward he prays that God would make them loving.
He testifies to the Romans that righteousness depends neither upon man’s willing nor upon his running, but upon the mercy of God. Nevertheless, he does not afterward cease to admonish, exhort, and correct them.
Why, then, do our opponents not warn the Lord against wasting his labor by unreasonably requiring from men what he alone can give them, or by reproving them for what they commit solely because his grace is absent?
Why do they not instruct Saint Paul to pardon those who do not possess within themselves either the willing or the ability to accomplish the good except through God’s mercy, which is absent when they fail?
But none of these objections has any force, since God’s doctrine rests upon the soundest reason—provided it is rightly considered.
It is true that Saint Paul shows that teaching, exhortation, and reproof possess little power in themselves to change the human heart when he says:
“The one who plants is nothing, and the one who waters is nothing, but God who gives the increase.”
Someone will ask, then, “What purpose do exhortations serve?”
I answer that if they are despised by an obstinate heart, they will serve as testimony to convict that person at the judgment of God. Indeed, even in the present life they touch and press upon the evil conscience. For although it mocks them, it cannot refute them.
But someone may object, “What, then, can the poor sinner do, since he is denied the readiness of heart required for obedience?”
I answer: how can he excuse himself when he can attribute the hardness of his heart to no one but himself?
Therefore, although the wicked would gladly ridicule God’s commandments and warnings if they could, they are confounded by their power, whether they will it or not.
But their principal usefulness must be considered in believers. Although the Lord accomplishes everything within them by his Spirit, he nevertheless uses the instrument of his Word to complete his work within them—and he uses it effectually.
Let this therefore be settled, as it ought to be: all the power of the righteous resides in the grace of God.
If someone then asks why believers are admonished concerning their duty and not simply left to the guidance of the Holy Spirit; why they are urged by exhortation, since they cannot hasten any further than the Spirit moves them; or why they are corrected when they fail, since through the weakness of their flesh they necessarily stumble—we must answer:
“O man, who are you to impose a law upon God?”
If God wills through exhortation to prepare us to receive the grace by which we obey his exhortation, what fault can you find with this order and method?
Even if exhortations served no other purpose among believers than to convict them of sin, they still ought not to be regarded as useless.
But now, since exhortations greatly profit us by kindling the heart with love for righteousness and, conversely, with hatred and displeasure toward sin—because the Holy Spirit works inwardly while employing this outward instrument for man’s salvation—who will dare reject them as superfluous?
If anyone desires a clearer answer, I shall give him the solution briefly. God works within us in two ways: inwardly by his Spirit and outwardly by his Word.
By his Spirit, illuminating our minds and forming our hearts in the love of righteousness and innocence, he regenerates man as a new creature. By his Word, he moves and incites man to desire and seek this renewal. In both, he displays the power of his hand according to the order of his administration.
When he addresses that same Word to the wicked and reprobate, although it does not bring them to repentance, he nevertheless makes it serve another purpose: that their consciences may be pressed in the present life and that they may be rendered all the more inexcusable on the day of judgment.
They labor greatly to gather a host of Scripture passages so that, if they cannot prevail by possessing better and more appropriate testimonies than we do, they may at least overwhelm us by their sheer number.
But this is like a commander assembling a great multitude of men wholly untrained for war in order to frighten his enemy. Before they are put into action, they may make an impressive display; but if they must enter battle and engage the enemy, they will be made to flee at the first blow.
In the same way, it will be easy for us to overthrow all their objections, which possess nothing but appearance and empty display. And because all the passages they allege can be reduced to certain categories, once we have arranged them accordingly, one answer will satisfy many. It will therefore be unnecessary to resolve them one by one.
They make a great shield of God’s commandments, which they suppose to be so proportioned to our strength that we are able to perform everything required in them. They therefore gather together a great number of commandments and use them to measure human powers.
They argue in this way: either God mocks us when he commands holiness, godliness, obedience, chastity, love, and gentleness and forbids impurity, idolatry, sexual immorality, anger, robbery, pride, and similar things—or he requires nothing except what lies within our power.
Now all the commandments they collect may be distinguished into three kinds. Some command man to turn to God; others simply require observance of the law; and still others command perseverance in the grace of God already received.
Let us first treat them all generally and afterward descend to the particular categories.
I confess that it has long been common to measure man’s abilities by what God commands and that this has some appearance of reason. Nevertheless, I say that it proceeds from profound ignorance.
For those who seek to demonstrate that it would be altogether absurd if obedience to the commandments were impossible for man employ a very weak argument: namely, that otherwise the law would have been given in vain—as though Saint Paul had never spoken concerning it.
For I ask you, what do the statements he gives us concerning the law mean? That the law was given to increase transgressions; that through the law
—that through the law comes the knowledge of sin; that the law produces sin; that it entered in order to multiply sin. Does this mean that the law had to correspond to our abilities in order not to have been given in vain?
Rather, in all these passages Saint Paul shows that God commanded what was beyond our power in order to convict us of our inability.
Certainly, if Scripture taught nothing more than that the law is the rule of life according to which our works must be measured, I would immediately agree with their opinion without difficulty. But since Scripture carefully explains many different uses of the law, we ought to rest upon its interpretation rather than upon our own imaginations.
As far as the present question is concerned, as soon as the law ordains what we are to do, it also teaches that the ability to obey proceeds from the grace of God. Therefore, it instructs us to seek that grace through prayer.
If we saw only bare commandments and no promise, we would have to test our powers to see whether they were sufficient to perform what is commanded. But since promises are joined to the commandments—promises declaring not only that we need God’s assistance for our support but that all our strength resides in his grace—they sufficiently demonstrate that we are not merely insufficient but altogether incapable of observing the law.
Let them therefore cease measuring our powers by the commandments of God, as though God had adjusted the rule of righteousness he intended to give according to our weakness and smallness. Rather, through the promises let us consider how poorly equipped we are, since in everything and everywhere we have such great need of his grace.
“But who,” they ask, “can be persuaded that God addressed his law to logs or stones?”
I answer that no one seeks to persuade them of this. For the wicked are not logs or stones when, being taught by the law that their sinful desires oppose God, they are rendered guilty by the testimony of their own consciences. Nor are believers logs or stones when, being warned of their weakness, they take refuge in the grace of God.
To this purpose belong the following statements of Saint Augustine:
“God commands what we cannot perform so that we may know what we ought to ask from him.”
Again:
“The usefulness of the commandments is great if free will is so understood that the grace of God is thereby honored all the more.”
Again:
“Faith obtains what the law commands.”
Indeed, God requires faith from us, yet he does not find what he requires unless he has placed it within us so that he may find it there.
Again:
“Give what you command, and command whatever you will.”
This will appear more clearly if we consider the three kinds of commandments of which we have spoken.
The Lord often requires, both in the Law and in the Prophets, that men should turn to him. Yet the Prophet answers from another direction:
“Turn me, O Lord, and I shall be turned. After you had turned me, I repented,” etc.
He also commands us to circumcise our hearts; yet through Moses he declares that this circumcision is performed by his own hand. He repeatedly requires a new heart from men; yet he testifies that he alone renews it.
What, then, will those say who allege God’s commandments in order to exalt man’s power and diminish the grace of God, by which alone, as we see, those commandments are fulfilled?
The second kind of commandment we have mentioned is straightforward: to honor God, to serve him and cleave to his will, to observe his commandments, and to follow his teaching. Yet there are countless testimonies declaring that whatever righteousness, holiness, piety, and purity we possess is a free gift proceeding from him.
As for the third kind, we have an example in the exhortation of Saint Paul and Barnabas to the believers that they should persevere in the grace of God. But elsewhere Saint Paul shows where the power to do so comes from:
“Be strong, my brethren, in the power of the Lord.”
Elsewhere he forbids us to grieve the Spirit of God, by whom we have been sealed as we await our redemption. But what he commands there, he elsewhere asks of the Lord in prayer, because it does not lie within human ability. He prays that the Lord would make the Thessalonians worthy of his calling, fulfill in them what he had purposed according to his goodness, and bring the work of faith to completion.
The more subtle and malicious among them quibble over these testimonies, claiming that none of this prevents us from joining our powers to God’s grace, so that he merely assists our weakness. They produce certain passages from the Prophets in which God appears to divide the power of our conversion between himself and us, such as this:
“Turn to me, and I will turn to you.”
We have already shown what assistance we receive from God, and there is no need to repeat it here, since our present purpose is merely to show that our opponents vainly ascribe to man the ability to fulfill the law simply because God commands us to obey it. For it is evident that God’s grace is necessary to fulfill what he commands, and that it is promised to us for this very purpose.