CHAPTER XIV
affection are both will, and so there is nothing incogruous is saying that both of them will. For it is true both that the instrument wills by its own affection and that the affection wills through the instrument by which it wills
(just as 'seeing* refers both to the man who sees and also to the power of sight by which he sees). Hence, it is not absurd for us to say that the affec tions of the soul's instrument of will, are, as it were, the instruments of that instrument--for the instrument of will operates only through its affec-•' tions. So then, after the will has lost its 'instrument* for willing justice-that is, after the will has lost its uprightness--there is no way that it can will justice unless uprightness is restored to it by grace. And since the will ought not to will anything unless it can do so justly, whatever it wills with out uprightness, it wills unjustly. As for the appetites which the Apostle calls the flesh, or concupiscence, they are not evil or unjust insofar as they have being; it is only insofar as they are found in rational creatures, where they do not belong, that they are called unjust. They are not evil or unjust in brute animals, because that is where they ought to be.
CHAPTER XIV
From all that I have said one can now see that man does not always possess the justice he ought, because he has no power or means to obtain or recover justice. It is also clear now that God causes good works solely through His own goodness, since He creates the will with free choice and gives it justice, by which to work good deeds. But the evil works God causes are attributable solely to man's blame, because God would not cause them if he did not will to do them. Nonetheless, God is responsible for the fact that they occur, since
He is the One who placed in man the will which man uses without justice. But it is man's fault that his deeds are evil, because God created in man a will
10© with freedom of choice, and He bestowed justice on it, so that it would always will justly. So evil deeds are man's fault, because he deserted justice when he could have kept it. In regard to good works, God is responsible for the goodness which they have qua being, and also the goodness they have qua justice.
But in regard to evil works, God is responsible only for the goodness which is theirs insofar as they have being; He is not responsible for the evil which is theirs through the absence of the justice they ought to have, which absence is not something positive. When man does good, he is responsible for the fact that his deeds are not evil. He is responsible because when able to desert justice and do evil, he did not desert, but kept uprightness through free choice, with the aid of grace--both the grace which is first given and that which comes subsequently. And when man does evil, he is responsible for the fact that his deeds are evil, because he does them of his own accord, that is, by his own unjust will.
I think that I can now fittingly bring to a close this treatise on these three difficult questions, a treatise which I began in the hope that God would help me. If what I have said here should prove to be a sufficient answer to any who might be inquiring about these matters, I cannot take the credit my self, because it was not I, but the grace of God with me, that accomplished this work. I will say this, however. There was a time when I was inquiring about these things, that my mind was wavering back and forth in its search for the right understanding of these problems. If someone had told me then the things that I have now written in this treatise, I would have thanked him, for he would have fully satisfied me. Accordingly, I was very much pleased with what
God disclosed to me in this matter. And I thought that others would be simi larly pleased if I wrote this treatise; for what I have freely received I wish to make freely available to those who are still seeking.
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