De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio

It happened once that, when I was publicly commending the grace of God towards me in that in any good work I both recognized that I had been prevented¹ and felt that I was being furthered and hoped for full attainment, by its means, one of the bystanders demanded: What then is thine own work in the matter, or what recompense or reward dost thou hope for, if so be that God doeth it all? What then, I reply, dost thou advise? Give, saith he, the glóry to God Who freely prevented thee, moved thee, originated thy good work, and live worthily for the time to come; so mayest thou prove thyself not ungrateful for benefits already received and not unworthy of receiving benefits in the future. Thou counsellest well, say I, provided only that thy counsel can be followed. But indeed easier is it to know what ought to be done than it is to do it; for one thing is it to lead the blind and another thing to carry the weary. Not every man that sheweth him the way giveth the wayfarer food for his journey. He that instructeth him so that his feet wander not doeth one thing; he that feedeth him so that he faint not by the way doeth another. Thus neither is every teacher also the giver of the good that he teacheth. Accordingly my need is twofold, namely, to be taught and to be helped to do what I am taught. Thou, as a mere man, truly givest excellent counsel to my ignorance, but, if the Apostle is to be believed, “The Spirit helpeth our infirmity,”² yea, verily, it needeth that He Who by thy mouth giveth me such counsel, Himself give me by His Spirit help whereby I may obey it. For, see, already His gift to will is present with me, but “how to perform I find not,”³ nor have I any confidence that I shall ever find the way unless it be that He Who gave me the will give me also the power to perform the same. Where, then, sayest thou, are our merits? Or where is our hope?⁴

Listen, I pray: “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us.”⁵ What? Didst thou think, perchance, that thou hadst created thine own merits,⁶ that thou canst be saved by thine own righteousness, who canst not even say that Jesus is the Lord, save in the Holy Spirit?⁷ Hast thou then forgotten Who it is that said: “Without Me ye can do nothing,”⁸ and “It is not of him that runneth, nor of him that willeth, but of God that sheweth mercy”?⁹

What, therefore, thou askest, doth free will do? I answer in a word: It is saved. Take away free will and there remaineth nothing to be saved; take away grace and there is no means whereby it can be saved. This work of salvation cannot be wrought without two factors: the one, that by which it is wrought, and the other, that for which or in which it is wrought. God is the author of salvation; free will is merely receptive thereof; none can grant it save God alone, nothing can receive it save the free will. Thus then salvation is given by God alone, and it is given only to the free will; even as it cannot be wrought¹⁰ without the consent of the receiver, so cannot it be wrought without the grace of the giver. Accordingly free will is said to co-operate with the grace which worketh salvation, when the free will consenteth, that is to say, is saved; for to consent is to be saved.¹¹ It followeth that the spirit of a brute can in no wise receive such salvation, for it lacketh the faculty of free consent whereby it may submissively obey the God that saveth it, whether by acquiescing in His commands, or by believing His promises, or by rendering thanks for His benefits. But consent of the will is one thing; natural appetite is another.¹² The latter, indeed, is common to us with the irrational animals; nor hath it the power of giving consent to the spirit,¹³ being ensnared by the attractions of the flesh. And perhaps it is this of which the Apostle speaketh under another name as “The wisdom of the flesh,” where he saith: “The wisdom of the flesh is at enmity with God; for it is not subject to the law of God, as indeed it cannot be.”¹⁴ Having then (as I have said) this appetite in common with the brutes, it is voluntary consent which distinguisheth us from the same. It is a habit of the mind, self-determining. Voluntary consent is not under compulsion, nor can it be extorted. It is an act of the will; it is not subject to necessity; it neither denieth itself nor yieldeth itself to any, save only willingly.¹⁵ Otherwise, if it can be compelled to act when it would not, it is subject to force and not voluntary. But where there is not an act of will, there is not consent, for consent cannot be other than an act of will. Where, therefore, there is consent, there is an act of will. Moreover, where there is an act of will, there is freedom. In this sense it is that I understand the term free will.