CHAPTER TWO: The Knowledge of Man and Free Will (part 1 of 4)
CHAPTER TWO
The Knowledge of Man and Free Will
It is not without reason that the ancient proverb has always so strongly commended to man the knowledge of himself. For if we consider it shameful to be ignorant of the things that pertain to human life, ignorance of ourselves is far more disgraceful, since through it we miserably deceive ourselves when deliberating about everything necessary and are left altogether blind.
But the more useful this commandment is, the more diligently we must guard against misunderstanding it—as we see has happened to certain philosophers. For when they admonish man to know himself, they immediately direct him toward considering his own dignity and excellence. They set nothing before him except those things by which he may be raised up in vain confidence and swollen with pride.
The truth of God, however, commands us to seek something very different when we consider ourselves: namely, a knowledge that draws us far away from every presumption of our own strength, strips us of every ground of boasting, and brings us to humility. We must follow this rule if we wish to attain the goal of judging rightly and acting rightly.
I know how much more agreeable it is to man to be led to acknowledge his gifts and excellencies than to hear and behold his poverty, disgrace, shamefulness, and weakness. For there is nothing the human mind desires more than to be sweetened with pleasant words and flatteries. Therefore, when a man hears his good qualities praised, he is only too inclined to believe everything spoken to his advantage.
It is no wonder, then, that the greater part of the world has gone astray in this matter. For since men possess a disordered and blind love of themselves, they willingly persuade themselves that there is nothing in them worthy of contempt. Thus, without needing any other advocate, everyone embraces this vain opinion: that man is sufficient of himself to live both well and happily.
If there are some who wish to think more modestly, although they grant something to God so that they may not appear to attribute everything to themselves, they nevertheless divide matters between God and themselves in such a way that the chief portion of strength, wisdom, and righteousness remains with them. Since man is already inclined by nature to flatter himself, there is nothing that can please him more than to be tickled with empty praises. Therefore, whoever has most highly exalted the excellence of human nature has always been the most warmly welcomed.
Nevertheless, such teaching, which instructs man to rest content in himself, does nothing but deceive him—and deceives him so thoroughly that whoever gives credence to it is ruined. For what profit is it to conceive an empty confidence, so that we deliberate, plan, attempt, and undertake what we think is good, while at the same time lacking both sound understanding and the power to accomplish it? To fail, I say, from the very beginning, and yet to persist with an obstinate heart until we are utterly confounded?
Nothing else can happen to those who trust that they can accomplish anything by their own power.
Therefore, if anyone listens to teachers of this sort, who occupy us with contemplating our own righteousness and strength, he will not advance in self-knowledge but will be blinded by the most destructive ignorance. Although the truth of God agrees with the common judgment of all men in this—that the second part of our wisdom consists in the knowledge of ourselves—there is nevertheless a great difference concerning the manner in which we are to know ourselves.
According to the judgment of the flesh, a man appears to know himself very well when, trusting in his own understanding and strength, he takes courage to apply himself to his duty and, renouncing every vice, strives to do what is good and honorable. But the man who examines himself properly according to the standard of God’s judgment finds nothing that can lift up his heart with confidence. The more deeply he examines himself, the more he is cast down, until, altogether emptied of every hope in himself, he leaves himself nothing by which he might rightly order his life.
Nevertheless, we do not deny that there remains some seed of nobility in our nature which ought to incite us to pursue righteousness and integrity. For we cannot consider either our original condition or the end for which we were created without that thought serving as a spur to stir and urge us to meditate upon the immortality of God’s kingdom. But so far is this recognition from giving us reason to lift up our hearts that it ought rather to bring us to humility and modesty.
For what is that original condition? It is the one from which we have fallen. What is the end for which we were created? It is the one from which we have completely turned aside. Thus nothing remains for us except that, after considering our miserable condition, we should groan and, in groaning, long after our lost dignity.
Now when we say that man must not look upon anything in himself that would lift up his heart, we mean that there is nothing in him on account of which he ought to become proud. Therefore, if it seems good, let us divide the knowledge that man ought to possess of himself in this way.
First, he must consider the end for which he was created and the extraordinary gifts with which God endowed him, so that by this consideration he may be stirred to meditate upon the life to come and to desire to serve God.
Second, he must assess his riches—or rather, his poverty. Once he has recognized it, he must be cast down into utter confusion, as though reduced to nothing. The first consideration is intended to teach him what his duty and calling are; the second, to teach him how capable he is of performing what he ought to do. We shall treat both matters in their proper places as the order of the discussion requires.
Before entering upon a description of this miserable condition of man, however, it is necessary to know what he was when first created. For when we point out these natural vices in man, there is a danger that we may seem to attribute them to the author of nature, who is God. Impiety imagines that it has a sufficient defense under this pretext if it can claim that every vice it possesses proceeded from God. And when it is reproved, it does not hesitate to contend with God and transfer to him all the blame of which it stands accused.
Even those who profess to speak more soberly concerning God willingly seize upon the opportunity to excuse their vices by blaming nature, never considering that in doing so they dishonor God—although less openly—since, if there were any defect in our nature as it was formed by him, some portion of the reproach would fall upon him. Since, therefore, we see that the flesh seeks every possible escape by which it thinks the guilt of its vices may be transferred elsewhere, we must counteract this malice.
The calamity of the human race must therefore be treated in such a way that we cut off every evasion of our flesh and vindicate the righteousness of the Lord, not merely from accusation but also from every reproach and complaint. Yet this must be done without departing from the pure truth. So far is that truth from lending support to such absurdities that, as soon as it is rightly understood, it is sufficient to refute them.
It is certain that Adam, the father of us all, was created in the image and likeness of God. This shows that he was made a partaker of divine wisdom, righteousness, power, holiness, and truth. For we cannot possibly maintain the error of those who place this image of God in the dominion and preeminence granted to man over the animals—as though he had been made like God merely because he had been appointed their lord. The declaration that man was created in the image of God would not be repeated so often by Moses if it carried no greater significance.
Indeed, Saint Paul removes every difficulty concerning this question when he speaks in this manner:
“Be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, who is created according to God in righteousness and true holiness.”
And again:
“Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with all his deeds and have put on the new man, who has been renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him.”
We see how Paul explains the image of God: it is the conformity of our spirit to the Lord when, having been cleansed from every earthly defilement, it desires nothing but spiritual purity.
Man, therefore, having been created in the image of God, was endowed with gifts and excellencies that testified to the extraordinary generosity of his Creator toward him. For he adhered to God through participation in every good and would have lived forever had he persevered in the integrity he had received.
But he did not remain in that condition long. For by his ingratitude he quickly rendered himself unworthy of all the benefits God had bestowed upon him. Thus the heavenly image he bore was effaced; for being alienated from God by sin, he was likewise estranged from participation in every good, since such blessings can be possessed only in him. Therefore, in place of the wisdom, power, holiness, truth, and righteousness with which he had been adorned in the likeness of God, there came dreadful plagues: ignorance, weakness, impurity, vanity, and unrighteousness. He was not only enveloped in these evils personally but also entangled all his posterity in them. For all his descendants resemble him, from whom they derive their origin, and are born defiled with his pollution.
This is the hereditary corruption that the ancient fathers called original sin, using the word sin to denote the depravity of our nature, which had formerly been good and pure. Concerning this matter they engaged in great controversy with the Pelagians. For when these heretics were convicted by the clear testimonies of Scripture that sin had descended from the first man to all his posterity, they quibbled that it had descended by imitation and not by generation.
Therefore, these holy men labored to demonstrate that we are not corrupted by an evil acquired from the example of others but that we bring our perversity with us from our mother’s womb. This cannot be denied without extraordinary shamelessness. Yet no one acquainted with the writings of Saint Augustine—who has seen what sort of senseless brutes the Pelagians were and how little shame they possessed—will be surprised at their audacity in this matter.
What David confesses is undoubtedly true: that he was brought forth in iniquity and conceived by his mother in sin.
He is not accusing his parents of wrongdoing. Rather, to magnify more fully the goodness of God toward him, he recalls the perversity that was his from his very birth. Since this was not peculiar to David, it follows that the universal condition of all mankind is represented by his example. All of us, therefore, who are produced from an unclean seed, are born defiled with the infection of sin; indeed, even before we come forth into the light, we are polluted before the face of God. For “who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” as it is said in the book of Job.
—Job 14
We must hold it as settled, then, that Adam was not merely the father of human nature but also, as it were, its stock or root; and therefore, through his corruption, the human race was rightly corrupted. The apostle demonstrates this more clearly by comparing Adam with Christ:
“Just as sin entered the whole world through one man, and death through sin—and death spread to all men, because all sinned—so likewise through the grace of Christ righteousness and life are restored to us.”
What will the Pelagians prattle here—that sin was spread throughout the world merely by imitating Adam? Do we therefore receive no other benefit from the grace of Christ than that it is set before us as an example to imitate? Who could endure such blasphemy?
But since there is no doubt that the grace of Christ becomes ours by communication and that through it we possess life, it likewise follows that both righteousness and life were lost in Adam just as we recover them in Christ, and that sin and death were engendered in us through Adam just as they are abolished through Christ.
Nor, in order to understand this, is there any need to involve ourselves in that troublesome dispute which greatly tormented the ancient teachers: namely, whether the soul of the child proceeds from the substance of the father’s soul, since original sin resides in the soul. We ought to be content to know that the Lord had placed in Adam the graces and gifts he intended to confer upon human nature. Therefore, when Adam lost them, he lost them not only for himself but for us all.
Who will concern himself with the origin of the soul after understanding that Adam had received the endowments he lost not for himself alone but also for us, since God had not bestowed them upon him merely as one individual man but so that his whole posterity might enjoy them together with him? There is therefore nothing absurd in saying that, when Adam was stripped of them, human nature was deprived of them; or that, when he was defiled by sin, the infection spread to us all.
For just as nothing but rotten shoots proceed from a rotten root, carrying their rottenness into every branch and leaf they produce, so Adam’s children were polluted in their father and in turn became the source of pollution to their descendants. That is to say, the beginning of corruption was so rooted in Adam that it has flowed down, as by a perpetual current, from parents to children.
It is easy to refute the Pelagians’ objection. They say it is unreasonable that children born to believing parents should derive corruption from them, since they ought rather to be purified by their parents’ purity. To this we answer that children do not descend from the spiritual regeneration that God’s servants possess through the Holy Spirit, but from the carnal generation they possess from Adam.
It is indeed true that God sanctifies the children of believers on account of their parents, but this does not occur by virtue of their nature; it proceeds from his grace. It is therefore a spiritual blessing that does not prevent that original curse from remaining universally present in human nature.
Now, so that this may not be spoken rashly, we must define original sin. Yet it is not my intention to examine all the definitions given by those who have written concerning it. I shall merely offer one that seems to me consistent with the truth.
We shall say, then, that original sin is a hereditary corruption and perversity of our nature which, first, renders us guilty of the wrath of God and, afterward, produces in us the deeds that Scripture calls “works of the flesh.” It is properly what Saint Paul frequently calls simply sin, without adding the word original. The deeds that proceed from it—such as adulteries, fornications, thefts, hatreds, murders, and gluttonies—he accordingly calls the fruits of sin, although all such deeds are themselves also called sins in Scripture.
We must therefore consider two things distinctly. First, we are so corrupted in every part of our nature that, on account of this corruption, we are justly condemnable before God, to whom nothing is pleasing except righteousness, innocence, and purity. Nor should it be said that this guilt arises solely from another person’s fault, as though we answered for the sin of our first father while having personally deserved no punishment.
For when it is said that through Adam we have become liable to the judgment of God, this does not mean that we ourselves are innocent and, without having deserved any punishment, merely bear the consequences of his sin. Rather, because through his transgression we have all been enveloped in ruin, he is said to have brought us all under guilt. Yet we must not understand that he merely made us liable to punishment without communicating his sin to us. For the sin descended from him truly resides in us, and punishment is justly due to it.
Therefore Saint Augustine, although he sometimes calls it the sin of another in order to show more clearly that we possess it by descent, nevertheless affirms that it is the particular sin of every one of us. The apostle himself testifies that death came upon all men because all have sinned—that is, because all are enveloped in original sin and defiled by its stains.
For this reason even infants are included within this condemnation—not simply on account of another’s sin but on account of their own. For although they have not yet produced the fruits of their iniquity, they nevertheless possess its seed hidden within them. Indeed, their very nature is a seedbed of sin; therefore it cannot be anything but displeasing and abominable to God.
The second point we must consider is that this perversity is never idle within us but continually produces new fruits—namely, those works of the flesh we have just described—just as a burning furnace continually throws forth flames and sparks, and a spring pours forth its water.
Therefore, those who have defined original sin as the absence of original righteousness have, in those words, comprehended its whole substance; yet they have not sufficiently expressed its active power. For our nature is not merely empty and destitute of every good; it is so fertile in every kind of evil that it cannot remain idle.
Those who have called it concupiscence have not used an altogether unsuitable word, provided there is added what many will not concede: that every part of man, from the understanding to the will and from the soul even to the flesh, is defiled and altogether filled with this concupiscence—or, to state it more briefly, that man of himself is nothing but corruption.
Let those who dare attribute the cause of their sin to God now consider this, since men are said to be naturally sinful. They perversely contemplate God’s workmanship in its present pollution, whereas they ought instead to seek and contemplate it in the nature Adam received before he was corrupted. Our perdition therefore proceeds from the fault of our flesh and not from God, since we perished for no other reason than that we fell away from our original creation.
Nor should anyone object here that God could have provided better for our salvation if he had prevented Adam’s fall. For this objection is so audacious and presumptuous that it ought never to enter the mind of a believer. Moreover, it pertains to the predestination of God, which will be treated afterward in its proper place.
Let us therefore remember always to attribute our ruin to the corruption of our nature and not to that nature which was originally given to man, lest we accuse God as though our evil came from him.
It is true that this mortal wound of sin is lodged in our nature, but there is a great difference between saying that our nature was wounded from its beginning and saying that it was wounded afterward by something coming from elsewhere. It is certain that it was wounded by sin, which entered afterward. We therefore have no one but ourselves of whom to complain.
Scripture carefully draws attention to this. For Ecclesiastes says:
“I know that God created man upright, but he has devised many wicked inventions.”
From this it is evident that man alone must be blamed for his ruin, since by God’s grace he had received a natural uprightness but through his own folly fell into vanity.
We say that man is naturally corrupted by perversity, but that this perversity is not an original part of his nature. We deny that it belongs to his nature in order to show that it is rather an added quality that came upon man, not an essential property of his substance that had been rooted in him from the beginning. Nevertheless, we call it natural so that no one may imagine that each person acquires it through evil habit and example, since it envelops us all from our first birth.
Nor do we speak this way without authority. For the same reason, the apostle calls us all by nature children of God’s wrath. How could God be angry with the noblest of his creatures, seeing that even the lesser works he has made are pleasing to him? The answer is that he is angry with the corruption of his work rather than with the work itself.
Therefore, if man is not without cause said to be naturally abominable to God, we may rightly say that he is naturally vicious and evil. Saint Augustine does not hesitate, on account of our corrupted nature, to call those sins natural which necessarily reign in our flesh whenever the grace of God is absent from us.
By this distinction the folly of the Manichaeans is refuted. Imagining an essential perversity in man, they claimed that he had been created by someone other than God, so that they would not attribute to God any origin of evil.
Since we have seen that the dominion of sin, after subjugating the first man, brought the whole human race into bondage, it remains for us to determine whether, since falling into this captivity, we have been deprived of all liberty and freedom—or whether some portion of it remains, and, if so, how far it extends.
But so that the truth of this question may be more easily clarified, we must first establish the goal toward which our whole discussion is to be directed. We shall recognize the goal we ought to pursue by considering the dangers that lie on either side.
For when man is stripped of every good, he immediately takes from this an occasion for carelessness. Because he is told that he possesses no power in himself to do good, he makes no effort to apply himself to it, as though it had nothing at all to do with him. On the other hand, not even the smallest ability can be attributed to him without his being lifted up in vain confidence and presumption—and without robbing God of that same measure of his honor.
To avoid falling into these evils, therefore, we must maintain this balance: man must be taught that there is no good in him and that he is surrounded by misery and necessity; nevertheless, he must also understand how he ought to aspire after the good of which he is empty and the liberty of which he has been deprived. Indeed, he ought to be more sharply pricked and earnestly stirred to pursue these things than if he were made to believe that he possessed the greatest power in the world.
Everyone can see how necessary this second point is—namely, to awaken man from his negligence and sloth. Concerning the first point, however—the necessity of showing him his poverty—many raise more doubt than they should. There is no question that nothing belonging properly to man should be taken from him; that is, we must not attribute to him less than he possesses. But it is equally evident how necessary it is to strip him of false and empty glory.
For if man was not permitted to glory in himself when, through God’s beneficence, he was clothed and adorned with the highest gifts, how much more ought he now to humble himself, since through his ingratitude he has been brought down into the deepest disgrace, having lost the excellence he formerly possessed?
To make this easier to understand, I say that Scripture, when man was exalted to the highest degree of honor he could possess, attributed nothing more to him than that he had been created in the image of God. By this it signifies that he was not rich in goods belonging to himself but that his blessedness consisted in participation in God.
What remains for him now, therefore, except to acknowledge his God when he has been stripped and deprived of every glory? He failed to acknowledge God’s kindness and generosity while he abounded in the riches of his grace. Since he did not glorify God by gratefully acknowledging the blessings he had received from him, let him at least glorify him now by confessing his poverty.
Moreover, it is no less beneficial for us to renounce every claim to the praise of wisdom and power than it is necessary for maintaining the glory of God. Thus those who attribute anything to us beyond due measure not only blaspheme God but also bring us to ruin.
For what else is it, when we are taught to walk in our own strength and power, but to raise us upon the tip of a reed that cannot support us without immediately breaking and causing us to fall? Indeed, we still pay too much honor to our powers by comparing them to a reed, for everything men imagine concerning them is nothing but smoke.
It is therefore not without reason that this excellent saying is so frequently repeated by Saint Augustine:
“Those who defend free will cast it headlong into ruin rather than establish it.”
I have found it necessary to give this introduction because there are some who cannot endure having man’s power overthrown and reduced to nothing so that the power of God may be established in him. They judge this whole discussion to be not merely useless but exceedingly dangerous. Yet we shall discover it to be exceedingly profitable and, what is more, one of the foundations of true religion.
To consider man’s faculties properly, we shall begin by dividing them in the simplest manner possible. For there is no need to follow the subtle distinctions of the philosophers.
I readily confess that what Plato says has some appearance of reason: that man possesses five senses, which he calls instruments through which the common sense—as a universal receptacle—receives all external objects presented to sight, hearing, taste, smell, or touch. Then the imagination distinguishes what the common sense has conceived and apprehended; afterward reason performs its office by judging everything. Finally, above reason stands the understanding, which contemplates with a steady and settled gaze all the things that reason examines by its processes of thought.
Thus, according to him, there are three powers in the soul concerned with knowing and understanding, which are therefore called cognitive faculties: reason, understanding, and imagination. Corresponding to these are three others concerned with desire: the will, whose office is to desire what understanding and reason set before it; anger, which follows what reason and imagination present to it; and concupiscence, which lays hold of what is presented to it by the imagination.
Even if all these things are true, or at least probable, there is still no need for us to occupy ourselves with them, because there is danger that they would help us very little while greatly troubling us by their obscurity.
We might introduce other distinctions, such as that given by Aristotle: that there is one part of the soul which possesses no reason in itself but can nevertheless be guided by reason, and another part which actually participates in reason. Likewise, that there are three things from which all human actions proceed: sense, understanding, and appetite.
But we must employ a manner of speaking that can be understood by everyone, and this cannot be taken from the philosophers. For even when they intend to speak very simply, they divide the soul into two parts: understanding and appetite. Yet they divide each of these again.
They say there is a contemplative understanding, which does not proceed to action but rests solely in contemplation—the faculty Cicero denotes by the word intelligence. The other is practical understanding, which, after apprehending good or evil, moves the will either to pursue or avoid it. Under this kind is included the knowledge of how to live well.
Likewise, they divide appetite into concupiscence and will, calling it will when man’s desire submits to reason and concupiscence when it breaks forth into intemperance and casts off the yoke of restraint. In doing this, they always imagine that there is a reason in man by which he can govern himself properly.
But we, who say that human reason is depraved, cannot entirely agree with them. We must therefore adopt another division: there are two parts in our soul—the understanding and the will. The understanding exists to distinguish among all the things presented to us and to judge what ought to be approved or condemned. The office of the will is to choose and pursue what the understanding has judged to be good and, conversely, to reject and avoid what it has condemned.
We need not pause here over Aristotle’s overly subtle argument that there is properly no movement in the understanding, but that it is choice which moves man. Without becoming entangled in superfluous questions, it should be sufficient for us that the understanding is, as it were, the governor and captain of the soul; that the will depends upon its determination and desires nothing until after it has received its judgment.
Therefore Aristotle speaks truly in another passage when he says that avoidance and desire in the appetitive faculty correspond to denial and affirmation in the understanding. We shall see later how reliable the guidance of the understanding is in directing the will properly. Here we intend only to show that all the powers of the human soul may be reduced to one of these two divisions.
In this manner we include sense under the understanding, although the philosophers distinguish them, saying that sense inclines toward pleasure while understanding inclines toward honor and virtue. Moreover, instead of the term appetite, we use the more familiar word will.
Let us now consider what ability resides in each of these two faculties. The philosophers commonly agree that reason resides in the human soul and serves as a lamp to guide the understanding and as a queen to govern the will. For they imagine that reason is so filled with divine light that it can properly distinguish between good and evil, and that it possesses sufficient power to command.
By contrast, they say that sense is full of ignorance and dullness, unable to rise to the consideration of high and excellent things but always remaining fixed upon the earth. They maintain that appetite, if it submits to reason and does not allow itself to be subjugated by sense, possesses a natural inclination to seek what is good and honorable and can thus remain upon the right path. But if it gives itself over as a slave to sense, it is corrupted and depraved by it and breaks forth into dishonorable things.
They therefore say that the human understanding possesses reason within itself to guide man in living well and happily, provided that it maintains its nobility and gives scope to the virtue naturally rooted within it. At the same time, they acknowledge an inferior impulse called sense, by which man is turned aside and drawn into error and ignorance, but which reason can nevertheless subdue and gradually suppress.
They place the will midway between reason and sense, possessing the liberty either to submit to reason, if it so chooses, or to surrender itself to sense. It is true that experience has sometimes compelled them to confess how difficult it is for man to establish the reign of reason within himself, since at one moment he is enticed by pleasure, at another deceived by a false appearance of good, and at another agitated by intemperate affections, which are like cords—as Plato says—pulling and tossing him here and there.
For this reason Cicero says that we possess only a few small sparks of goodness kindled by nature in our minds, which we easily extinguish through false opinions and evil conduct. Moreover, they confess that when such diseases have once taken possession of our minds, they reign there so powerfully that they cannot easily be restrained; nor do they hesitate to compare them to unruly horses. For just as an unruly horse, having thrown its rider, kicks without restraint, so the soul, having rejected reason and surrendered itself to its concupiscences, breaks forth into complete disorder.
For the rest, they hold it as settled that both virtues and vices lie within our power. For if it were not within our choice, they say, to do either good or evil, neither would it be within our power to abstain from them. Conversely, if we are free to abstain from them, we are also free to perform them.
Now, they argue, we do by free choice everything we do, and we freely abstain from those things from which we abstain. It follows, therefore, that it lies within our power to refrain from the good or evil we perform and likewise to perform what we leave undone. Indeed, some of them have gone so far in their folly as to boast that they have life through the benefit of God but possess the ability to live well from themselves.
In summary, then, the philosophers’ position is this: the reason residing in the human understanding is sufficient to guide us properly and show us what is good to do. The will, being subject to reason, is tempted and enticed by sense to do evil; nevertheless, because it possesses freedom of choice, it cannot be prevented from following reason completely.
As for the teachers of the Christian Church, although none of them failed to acknowledge that man’s reason had been greatly impaired by sin and that his will was subject to many sinful desires, most of them nevertheless followed the philosophers more closely than was necessary.
It seems to me that two considerations moved the ancient fathers to do this. First, they feared that if they deprived man of every freedom to do good, the philosophers would ridicule their doctrine. Second, they feared that the flesh, which is already sufficiently inclined toward carelessness, would seize upon this as an occasion to despise good works. Therefore, so as to teach nothing contrary to the common opinion of mankind, they attempted partly to reconcile the doctrine of Scripture with that of the philosophers.
Yet it is evident from their words that they were chiefly concerned with the second point. Chrysostom says in one passage:
“God has placed good and evil within our power, granting us free will to choose either one. He does not draw us by compulsion but receives us if we come willingly to him.”
Again:
“He who is evil can become good if he wills, and he who is good can change and become evil. For God has given us freedom of choice in our nature and imposes no necessity upon us, but provides us with remedies to use if we see fit.”
Again:
“Just as we can do nothing good without being aided by the grace of God, so unless we contribute what lies within us, his grace will not come to our aid.”
He had previously said that everything does not depend upon God’s assistance but that we also contribute something from our own part.
Indeed, this saying is common with him:
“Let us contribute what lies within us, and God will supply the rest.”
To this corresponds what Saint Jerome says:
“It belongs to us to begin and to God to perfect; it is our duty to offer what we can and his to accomplish what we cannot.”
We certainly see that in these statements they attributed more power to man than they ought, because they believed that our sloth could not otherwise be awakened except by teaching that it is our own fault if we do not live well. We shall afterward see whether they had good reason to do this. Indeed, it will become evident—to speak frankly—that the statements we have cited are false.
Although the Greek doctors, above all others—and Saint Chrysostom especially—exceeded proper bounds in magnifying human powers, nearly all the ancient fathers, with the exception of Saint Augustine, are so inconsistent on this subject, or speak so doubtfully or obscurely, that scarcely any settled conclusion can be drawn from their writings.
Therefore, we shall not pause to report individually the opinion of each one. We shall merely touch in passing upon what various writers have said as the order of the discussion requires.
Later writers, each desiring to display some particular subtlety in defending human powers, progressively fell from bad to worse until they brought the world to the opinion that man was corrupted only in his sensual part, while his reason remained sound and his will retained freedom for the most part.
The term free will has always been used among the Latin writers. The Greeks employ an even more presumptuous term, by which they signify that man possesses power from himself.
Since everyone, even among the common people, has thus been thoroughly imbued with the opinion that we all possess free will—and since most of those who wish to be regarded as learned do not understand how far this freedom is supposed to extend—let us first consider what this term means. Afterward, from the pure doctrine of Scripture, we shall quickly determine what ability man possesses to do either good or evil.
Although this term is commonly used by everyone, very few define it. Nevertheless, Origen seems to have given the definition generally accepted in his day when he said that free will is a faculty of reason for discerning good and evil, and a faculty of the will for choosing between them.
Saint Augustine does not differ from this when he says that it is a faculty of reason and will by which good is chosen when the grace of God assists, and evil when that grace withdraws. Saint Bernard, attempting to speak more precisely, became more obscure, saying that it is a consent arising from the liberty of the will, which cannot be lost, together with an unalterable judgment of reason.
Anselm’s definition is scarcely clearer. He says that free will is the power to preserve uprightness for the sake of uprightness itself. The Master of the Sentences and the scholastic doctors therefore preferred Saint Augustine’s definition because it was easier to understand and did not exclude the grace of God, without which they well knew that the human will possesses no power.
Nevertheless, they added something of their own, thinking either to state the matter better or at least to explain more clearly what others had said. First, they agree that the term judgment should be referred to reason, whose office is to distinguish between good and evil, while the description free or liberated, which is added to it, properly belongs to the will, which may be inclined toward either side.
Since liberty therefore properly belongs to the will, Thomas Aquinas thinks this would be a good definition: free will is an elective power which, although standing midway between understanding and will, nevertheless inclines more toward the will.
We have now seen wherein the power of free will is said to consist: namely, in reason and will. It remains to determine how far it extends. Ordinarily, external matters that do not pertain to the kingdom of God are attributed to man’s counsel and choice, while true righteousness is attributed to the spiritual grace of God and the regeneration of his Spirit.
Wishing to express this, the author of the book The Calling of the Gentiles says that there are three kinds of willing. The first he calls sensual, the second natural, and the third spiritual. He makes the first two free in man but says that the third is the operation of the Holy Spirit. We shall afterward discuss whether this position is true. Our present task is merely to recount briefly the opinions of others.
From this it follows that writers, when treating free will, have not paid much attention to all the external works pertaining to bodily life but have chiefly considered obedience to the will of God. I readily confess that this second question is the principal one, but I also maintain that the other must not be neglected, and I hope to prove my judgment when we come to it.
Moreover, a distinction has been received in the theological schools in which three kinds of liberty are enumerated. The first is freedom from necessity, the second freedom from sin, and the third freedom from misery. They say that the first is so rooted in man by nature that it cannot be taken from him, while they confess that the other two were lost through sin.
I willingly accept this distinction, except that in it necessity is wrongly confused with compulsion. It will become evident in its proper place that these are two very different things.
It is therefore settled that man possesses no free will to do good unless he is aided by the grace of God—and specifically by that spiritual grace which is given through regeneration to the elect alone. Nevertheless, it is not yet clear whether man is altogether deprived of the ability to do good or whether some small and feeble remnant remains in him which can accomplish nothing without God’s grace but, when assisted by that grace, performs its own part.
The Master of the Sentences, wishing to decide this point, says that a twofold grace is necessary to render man capable of doing good. He calls the first operating grace, which causes us effectually to will the good. The other he calls cooperating grace, which follows the good will in order to assist it.
What displeases me in this division is that, while attributing to God’s grace the work of making us effectually desire the good, he implies that by nature we desire the good to some extent, although our desire has no effect. Saint Bernard speaks in nearly the same manner, saying that every good will is the work of God but that man, by his own impulse, can desire to possess a good will.
But the Master of the Sentences misunderstood Saint Augustine, whom he believed himself to be following in making this distinction.
There is, moreover, an ambiguity in the second part that troubles me, since it has produced a perverse opinion. For the scholastics have thought that he says we cooperate with the grace of God because it lies within our power either to nullify the first grace offered to us by rejecting it or to confirm it by obeying it.
The author of The Calling of the Gentiles holds the same position. He says that those who possess rational judgment are free to withdraw themselves from grace, so that their not departing from it is counted to them as virtue. Thus they may possess some merit for having done what they might have left undone had they so willed, although this cannot be accomplished without the cooperating grace of God.
I have wished to note these points in passing so that the reader may understand wherein I differ from those scholastic doctors who maintained a sounder doctrine than the Sophists who came afterward. With these later writers our disagreement is greater, because they departed much further from the purity of their predecessors.
However that may be, from this distinction we may understand what moved them to concede free will to man. For the Master of the Sentences finally declares that man is not said to possess free will because he is equally capable of thinking or doing good as he is of doing evil, but only because he is not subject to compulsion.
This liberty is not hindered even though we are evil and slaves of sin and can do nothing but evil. We see, therefore, that they confess man is not said to possess free will because he has a free choice between good and evil, but because he does what he does willingly and not by compulsion.
That statement is certainly true. But what a mockery it is to adorn so small a thing with so magnificent a title! A splendid liberty indeed—to say that man is not compelled to serve sin, but that he is held in such voluntary bondage that his will is kept captive by the chains of sin.
Certainly, I abhor all disputes about words by which the Church is troubled to no purpose. Nevertheless, I think we ought to avoid every term that carries some absurd implication, especially where there is danger of error.
For when free will is attributed to man, how many do not immediately conclude that he is master both of his judgment and of his will, able by his own power to turn himself in either direction? But someone may say that this danger can be removed, provided the people are carefully instructed concerning what the term free will means.
I say, on the contrary, that because of our natural inclination to follow falsehood and deceit, we shall more readily seize upon a single word as an occasion for error than be instructed in the truth by a lengthy explanation. Of this we have more than sufficient evidence in the case of this very term. For once it was introduced, it was received in such a way that the explanations given by the ancient writers were disregarded, and men seized upon it as an occasion for pride in themselves.
Moreover, if the authority of the fathers carries weight with us, although they continually use this term, they nevertheless show what little value they place upon it—especially Saint Augustine, who does not hesitate to call the will enslaved. It is true that in one place he contradicts those who deny that there is any free will, but he immediately makes clear what he intends when he says:
“Only let no one deny free will in such a way that he seeks thereby to excuse sin.”
On the other hand, he confesses that man’s will is not free without the Spirit of God, since it is overcome by its own sinful desires. Again, he says that after the will was conquered by the vice into which it had fallen, our nature lost its liberty. Again, that man, by making evil use of free will, lost both it and himself. Again, that free will is held captive and can accomplish nothing good.
What shall we say, moreover, when in another place he seems almost to mock this expression by saying that man indeed possesses free will, but not a will that has been set free; that it is free from righteousness and enslaved to sin? When he testifies that man’s liberty means nothing more than that he has wandered away from righteousness, having cast off its yoke in order to serve sin, is he not plainly mocking the title bestowed upon man when he is said to possess free will?
Therefore, if anyone uses this expression with a sound understanding, I shall not greatly dispute with him over it. But because I see that it cannot be used without great danger and that its abolition would, on the contrary, greatly benefit the Church, I would prefer not to use it. And if anyone asked my advice, I would tell him to abstain from it.
Some may think that I have seriously prejudiced my own case by admitting that all the ecclesiastical doctors, with the exception of Saint Augustine, spoke so doubtfully or inconsistently about this matter that no settled teaching can be drawn from them. They will interpret this as though I wished to dismiss them simply because they oppose me.
But I have sought nothing more than honestly to inform readers, for their benefit, of the true state of the matter, so that they do not expect from these writers more than they will find. For they will always remain uncertain: at one moment the fathers strip man of all power and teach him to take refuge in the grace of God alone; at another, they attribute some ability to him, or at least appear to do so.
Nevertheless, it is not difficult for me to show from certain of their statements that, whatever ambiguity may be found in their language, they either regarded human powers as altogether nothing or at least esteemed them very little, attributing all the praise for good works to the Holy Spirit.
For what else is meant by that saying of Saint Cyprian so frequently quoted by Saint Augustine?
“We must glory in nothing, because nothing good is our own.”
Certainly, it reduces man altogether to nothing in order to teach him to seek everything in God.
The same is true of what Eucherius, the ancient bishop of Lyon, says:
“Christ is the tree of life, and whoever stretches out his hand toward him shall live. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is free will, and whoever desires to taste of it shall die.”
Likewise, Saint Chrysostom says that man is not merely a sinner by nature but is altogether nothing but sin. If there is nothing good in us; if man from head to foot is nothing but sin; if it is not even lawful for him to make the attempt—what value can free will possess? How can it be lawful to divide the praise for good works between God and man?
I could produce many similar testimonies from the other fathers. But so that no one may object that I have selected only those passages that serve my purpose while omitting those that might harm my case, I refrain from extending the list.
Nevertheless, I dare affirm this: although they sometimes exceed proper measure in exalting free will, they always tend toward this end—to turn man away from confidence in his own power and teach him that all his strength resides in God alone.
Let us now proceed to consider simply and truthfully what the nature of man actually is.
I am compelled to repeat here what I touched upon at the beginning of this treatise: namely, that the man who has made the greatest progress in self-knowledge is the one who, through an understanding of his calamity, poverty, nakedness, and disgrace, has been cast down and overwhelmed.
For there is no danger that man will abase himself too greatly, provided he understands that he must recover in God what he lacks in himself. On the contrary, he cannot attribute to himself even a single grain of goodness beyond what is proper without ruining himself through vain confidence and becoming guilty of sacrilege by usurping the glory of God.
Indeed, whenever this desire enters our mind—to claim that we possess something of our own, residing in us rather than in God—we must understand that this thought is suggested by no other counselor than the one who induced our first parents to desire to become like God, knowing good and evil. If the word that exalts man in himself is a diabolical word, we must give it no place unless we wish to take counsel from our enemy.
It is certainly pleasant to imagine that we possess so much power within ourselves that we can rest content in ourselves. But Scripture contains too many declarations warning us against this vain confidence, such as the following:
“Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength.”
Again:
“God takes no pleasure in the strength of the horse, nor in the legs of a mighty man, but delights in those who fear him and acknowledge his goodness.”
Again:
“It is he who gives strength to the weary and restores him whose courage fails. He wearies and casts down those in the flower of youth; he brings the strong into decline and strengthens those who hope in him.”
—Isaiah 40
All these declarations tend toward this end: that no one should rest in even the smallest confidence in his own strength if he wishes to have God for his help, for God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble.
Let us also call to mind all these promises:
“I will pour water upon the thirsty land and rivers upon the dry ground.”
—Isaiah 44
Again:
“All you who thirst, come and draw water.”
—Isaiah 55
And there are other similar promises, all of which testify that no one is admitted to receive the blessings of God except the person who faints and fails under the awareness of his poverty.
Nor should we forget other passages, such as this one from Isaiah:
“The sun shall no longer be your light by day, nor the moon your light by night, but your God shall be your everlasting light.”
—Isaiah 60
Certainly, the Lord does not take the light of the sun or moon away from his servants. But because he wills to appear as the only glorious one in them, he drives far from them all confidence in those things that appear most excellent in our estimation.
Therefore, I have always been greatly pleased with this statement of Chrysostom, in which he says that humility is the foundation of our philosophy. I am even more pleased with the statement of Saint Augustine:
“When Demosthenes, the Greek orator, was asked what the first rule of eloquence was, he answered, ‘Delivery.’ When asked the second, he gave the same answer, and likewise concerning the third. In the same way, if you ask me concerning the principles of the Christian religion, I shall answer that the first, the second, and the third are humility.”
By humility, however, Augustine does not mean that a man who imagines he possesses some power nevertheless refrains from becoming proud. He means that a man truly recognizes himself to be such that he has no refuge except to humble himself before God, as Augustine declares elsewhere:
“Let no one flatter himself. Of himself, every man is a devil; whatever good he possesses, he has from God. For what do you possess from yourself except sin? If you wish to claim what is your own, claim sin, for righteousness belongs to God.”
Again:
“Why do we presume so greatly upon the power of our nature? It is wounded, cast down, scattered, and destroyed. It needs a true confession, not a false defense.”
Let us not therefore contend with God concerning our supposed rights, as though we were being impoverished. For just as our humility is his exaltation, so the confession of our humility always finds his mercy ready as its remedy.
Yet I do not intend that man should surrender to God anything that rightfully belongs to him, or turn his mind away from recognizing whatever ability he might truly possess, merely in order to reduce himself to humility. I require only that, laying aside all foolish selflove, pride, and ambition—affections by which he is far too greatly blinded—he should contemplate himself in the mirror of Scripture.
In order that our discussion may proceed according to the distinction we have established, by which we divided the human soul into understanding and will, we must first examine what power resides in the understanding.
To say that it is so completely blinded that no knowledge of anything whatever remains to it would contradict not only the Word of God but also ordinary experience. For we see that the human mind possesses some desire to inquire after truth, toward which it would not be so inclined unless it had first received some taste of it.
The fact that the human mind possesses a natural love of truth is therefore already some spark of light within it. The contempt for truth found in brute beasts demonstrates that they are filled with dullness and possess no perception of reason. Nevertheless, this desire, such as it is, fails before it has properly begun, because it falls away into vanity.