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spuming their admonitions. Now divine authority would never do this if it knew that there were no freedom of the will in man. Nor would it be possible for God justly to reward good and evil men according to their merits if they had done nothing good or evil through free choice.
Since we find in Holy Scripture certain passages which seem to favor the doctrine of grace alone, and other passages which seem to hold that free choice can stand alone without grace, there have-been certain arrogant men who have thought that the whole efficacy of moral perfection derives entirely from free dom of choice; while in our day there are many who have completely given up on the idea that there is such a thing as free choice. In this question, therefore, it will be our purpose to show that free choice exists together with grace and actually cooperates with it in many lives--just as we discovered earlier that free choice is compatible with foreknowledge and predestination.
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We should bear in mind that just as in our discussion of this question up to this point we have not been concerned with free choice in general but only with that free choice which is indispensible to meriting salvation after one has reached the age of understanding, so now we are concerned only with that grace which is indispensible for man's salvation. Every creature exists by grace, because he has been created by grace. Besides this, there are many good things in this life which man does not need for salvation, but which God gives him by grace. Now, the harmony that we are seeking does not appear in infants who die after they have been baptized but before they have been able to use their free choice, because in them grace alone effects salvation without any exercise of free choice on their part. For it is by grace that others are given the desire to let their faith assist these infants. Therefore, we must direct our
inquiry toward those who have reached the age of understanding, because the issue deals only with them.
There is no doubt that all those in this number who are saved are saved through justice, because eternal life is promised to the just. For 'The just will live forever and their reward is with the Lord.' (Wisdom of Solomon 5:15)
Sacred authority often points out that justice is uprightness of will. It suf fices to cite only one example of this. David says, 'The Lord will not cast justice.' (Ps. But after he had said this, he asked the following off His people nor forsake His inheritance until judgment shall return to question in order to teach us what justice is: 'And who is conformed to justice?'
To this he replies, 'Everyone who is upright in heart,' which means everyone who is upright in will. For though we believe and understand by the heart even as we will by the heart--the Holy Spirit does not judge a man to have an upright heart when he believes and understands rightly but does not will rightly.
This is because such a man does not use the uprightness of faith and of under standing for that end for which they have been given to rational creatures, namely, for upright willing. No one should be said to have right understanding when he does not use this understanding to will rightly. Nor should anyone be said to have faith, except a dead faith, when he does not use this faith for the purpose for which it is given, namely to will upright deeds. For this reason we are right to understand David as identifying the upright in heart with the upright in will. But lest someone suppose Divine authority to teach that a man is just, or upright, when he keeps uprightness of will as a means to something else, we insist that justice is uprightness of will kept for its own sake. For a man who keeps uprightness only for the sake of something else really loves, not uprightness, but that object for the sake of which he is
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