Since, therefore, by the favor of Christ, we are Catholic
5. Letter 21J
Since, therefore, by the favor of Christ, we are Catholic Christians: We know that children not yet born have done nothing either good or evil in their own life, nor have they any merits of any previous life, which no individual can have as his own; that they come into the miseries of this life; that their carnal birth according to Adam involves them at the instant of nativity in the contagion of the primal death; that they are not delivered from the penalty of eternal death, which a just verdict passing from one lays upon all, unless they are born again in Christ through grace.
We know that the grace of God is given neither to children nor to adults according to their merits. We know that in adults it is given for separate acts.
We know that it is not given to all men, and, where it is given, not only is it not given as a reward for good deeds, but it is not even given as a reward for good will in those to whom it is given, as is plainly evident in the case of children.
We know that, when it is not given, it is withheld by a just judgment of God.
We know that "we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the proper things of the body, according as he hath done whether it be good or evil," 41 not according to what he would have done if he had lived longer.
We know that even children will receive either good or evil according to what they have done in the body. For they have done it, not by themselves but through those who answer for them when they are said to renounce the Devil
41 Rom. 14:10; II Cor. 5:10.
Grace and Freedom
and to believe in God. For this reason they are counted in the number of the faithful, as being referred to in the statement of the Lord when He said: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." Therefore, those who do not receive this sacrament are subject to what follows: "But he that believeth not shall be condemned." 42 Consequently even those, as I said, who die at that tender age are judged according to what they have done in the body, that is, in the time they have been in the body, when they believed or did not believe through the mouths and hearts of those who carried them when they were baptized or were not baptized, when they ate the flesh of Christ or did not eat it, when they drank His Blood or did not drink it — according to these things which they have done in the body, not according to what they would have done if they had lived longer in this world.
We know that the dead who die in the Lord are blessed, and they have no concern with what they would have done if they had lived a longer time.
We know that those who believe in the Lord from their own heart do this of their own will and free choice.
We know that we who now believe act with an upright faith when we pray to God for those who refuse to believe, that they may will to do so.
We know that when some of these do believe we are accustomed, as we ought, to thank God uprightly and sincerely for this as a blessing from Him. You recognize, I think, that among these things which I said we know I have not intended to enumerate everything which belongs to the Catholic faith but only those points which have to do with this question of the grace of God: whether this grace precedes or follows the will of man. That is, I wanted to explain more fully whether it is given to us because we will or whether God effects through it that we should will. If, then, you also, my brother, hold with us that those twelve statements of what I said we know belong to the correct Catholic faith, I give thanks to God, which certainly I could not truthfully do unless your holding them were a result of the grace of God; and if you do 42 Mark 16:16. hold them, there is not a single difference left between us on this matter.
To run over these twelve with a brief explanation, how can grace follow the merit of the human will when it is given even to infants who cannot yet will or not will? How can the merits of the will even in adults be said to precede grace, if grace, in order to be truly grace, is not given according to our merits? Pelagius himself had such fear of this statement that he did not hesitate to condemn those who say that the grace of God is given according to our merits, lest he should be condemned by Catholic judges. How can the grace of God be identified with the nature of free will or with the law and doctrine when Pelagius himself repudiated that statement, thereby admitting without question that the grace of God is given to separate acts, especially in those who enjoy the use of free will?
How is it possible to say that all men would have received it if those to whom it is not given did not reject it of their own will, since "God will have all men to be saved," 43 when there are many children to whom it is not given and many die without it, although they have no will opposed to it? Sometimes, even, their parents are in great desire and haste, with the ministers willing and ready, but as God does not will it, it is not given to them, and they die suddenly before it is given, although all haste was made for them to receive it? From this it is clear that those who resist this clear truth do not in the least understand the meaning of the saying that "God will have all men to be saved," when so many are not saved, not because they do not will it, but because God does not, which is evident without any shadow of doubt in the case of children. But, just as that saying: "In Christ all shall be made alive"44 although so many are punished with eternal death — means that all who receive eternal life receive it only in Christ, so also the saying, "God will have all men to be saved" — although He wills that so many should not be saved — means surely that all who are saved would not be so without His will, and if there is any other possible way of understand-
43 1 Tim. 2:4. 44 1 Cor. 15:22. ing those words of the Apostle, it cannot contradict this most evident truth by which we see that so many men are not saved because God does not will it, although men do.
How can the human will deserve to have grace given to it, if it is given freely to those to whom it is given, that it may be truly grace? What weight can the merits of the human will have in the matter, when those to whom this grace is not given differ by no merit, by no act of will, from those to whom it is given, but share with them the same just reason for receiving it, yet it is not given through a just judgment of God — for "there is no injustice with God"? 45 Thus those to whom it is given are to understand how freely it is given to them, when it could equally justly be withheld, since it is justly withheld from those who have the same claim to it.
How is it possible to attribute to anything but the grace of God the will not only to believe, but also to persevere to the end, when the very end of this life depends on the power of God, not of man, and God could certainly bestow on one who would not persevere the blessing of hurrying him out of the body, "lest wickedness should alter his understanding"? For man will not receive either good or evil except according to what he has done in the body, not according to what he would have done if he had lived longer. How can anyone say that the grace of God is not given to some children, but is given to others, destined to die, because God foresees the future will which they would have had if they had lived, when each one receives either good or evil, as the Apostle has defined, according to what he has done in the body, not according to what he would have done if he had remained longer in the body? How can men be judged according to the future will which, it is said, they would have had if they had been longer detained in the flesh, when Scripture says: "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord"? Undoubtedly, their happiness is neither certain nor secure if God will also judge the things they have not done, but which they would have done if they had had a more extended life. So, also, he who is carried off "lest wickedness should alter his understanding" 45 Rom. 9:14. receives no benefit, because he pays the penalty for that very wickedness from which, when it threatened him, he has probably been removed; and we should not rejoice over those who, as we know, have died in upright faith and a good life, because they may be judged according to some wicked deeds which they would perhaps have committed if they had lived. Those who have ended their life in unbelief and depraved morals should not be a subject of grief and detestation to us, because, perhaps, if they had lived they would have done penance and lived religiously, and so should be judged by this. In that the whole book On Mortality by the most blessed martyr Cyprian is to be censured and rejected, for in it his entire contention is that we know we should give thanks for the faithful who die a good death because they are taken away from the temptations of this life and will henceforth abide in assured blessedness. But since this is not false and the dead who die in the Lord certainly are blessed, there should be only mockery and execration for the erroneous opinion that men are to be judged according to their future will — which dying men will not have.
How can they say that it is a denial of the free choice of the will to admit that every man who believes in God in his heart believes only through his own free will, when those who attack the grace of God through which the will is free to choose and do good are, rather, the ones who attack the freedom of the will? How can they say that the fulfillment of the words of Scripture: "The will is prepared by the Lord," 46 is accomplished by the law of God and the doctrine of the Scriptures and not, rather, by the secret prompting of the grace of God, when we pray to God with upright faith that those who contradict that same doctrine and refuse to believe may be willing to believe?
How can God wait on the will of men that they to whom He gives grace may forestall Him, when we give Him thanks — not without good reason — for those to whom He has advanced mercy, although they did not believe in Him and persecuted His doctrine with an evil will; whom He has converted to Himself with omnipotent ease, and whom 46Prov. 8:35. from unbelievers He has made willing believers? Why give Him thanks for this if He has not done it? Why do we glorify Him in proportion to the joy we feel for those who had refused to believe but who have become believers, if the human will is not changed for the better by divine grace? The Apostle Paul says: "I was unknown by face to the Churches of Judea which are in Christ, but they had heard only that he who persecuted us in times past doth now preach the faith which once he impugned; and they magnified God in me." 47 Why did they magnify God if God, in the goodness of His grace, had not converted the heart of that man to Himself, when, as he himself admits, he had "obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful" to that faith which once he impugned? And by that word which he used, whom, if not God, does he declare to have wrought this great good? What is the meaning of "they magnified God" except "they pronounced God great in"? But how could they pronounce God great if He had not wrought that great deed of Paul's conversion, and how could He have done it but by changing his unwillingness into willingness to believe?
Assuredly, it is clear from those twelve statements — and you will not be allowed to deny that they form part of Catholic belief — that we confess the effect of them, separately and together, is to establish that the will of man is forestalled by the grace of God and that it is prepared by grace rather than rewarded in receiving it.
47 Gal. 1:22-24. '
VII
CHRIST— WORD
OF GOD AND LORD