De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio

It is the will alone therefore which, seeing that by reason of its innate freedom it is compelled by no necessity either to disagree with itself or to consent in any matter in spite of itself, rightly maketh a man, as being under no compulsion to be either righteous or unrighteous, fittingly capable of blessedness or of misery; provided, that is to say, that it hath given its consent whether to righteousness or to unrighteousness. Accordingly I think that this free consent of the will, upon which (as aforesaid) every act of judgement is founded, is not unsuitably wont to be called, as we have already defined it, free choice, the word "free" having reference to the will, and the word "choice" to the reason. Yet is it not necessarily free with that liberty of which the Apostle speaketh: "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."¹ This is that freedom from sin of which he saith elsewhere: "When ye were the servants of sin ye were free from righteousness. . . . But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life."² But who is there in the sinful flesh that can claim for himself freedom from sin? Of this liberty free choice can, I think, by no means rightly be said to be possessed.³ There is also a freedom from misery of which the Apostle speaketh likewise: "The creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God."⁴ But doth any man claim to possess such freedom in this our mortal state? Therefore we rightly refuse to call the will free in respect of this freedom. But there is a freedom which, I think, is more proper to the will, and of which we can speak as freedom from necessity, on the ground that what is necessary seemeth to be the contrary of what is free, in the sense that what is done of necessity is not freely done; and the converse.

Seeing therefore that, as may have occurred to us, there is set before us a threefold freedom, that from sin, that from misery, and that from necessity; the last of these is bestowed upon us in the state of nature, the first is restored to us by grace, and the second is reserved for us in the fatherland.⁵ Let us then call that which is first in order of development the freedom of nature, that which is second, the freedom of grace, and that which is third, the freedom of life or of glory. By the first were we created with freedom of will to choose as we will, creatures ennobled for the service of God; by the second are we restored to innocence, newly created in Christ; by the third are we raised to the state of glory, creatures perfected in the Spirit. Thus the first freedom hath great honour, the second hath more abundant virtue, the last hath super-abundant delight.

It is indeed in virtue of the first that we rule the brutes; in virtue of the second that we subdue the flesh; in virtue of the third that we overcome death; or, let us say, just as in the gift of the first freedom God put under our feet sheep and oxen and the beasts of the field, so also by means of the second freedom He in like manner casteth down and crusheth beneath our feet those spiritual beasts of this world,⁶ of which it is said: “ Deliver not to the beasts the souls that confess to Thee.”⁷ Finally, in the third state of freedom, when He shall have fully subdued us to ourselves by means of victory over corruption and over death, when, that is to say, the last enemy, death, shall have been destroyed, then shall we pass unto the glorious freedom of the sons of God, the freedom wherewith Christ shall make us free when He shall deliver us over as His kingdom to God, even the Father.⁸ It was of this freedom, as also of that which we have called freedom from sin, that, as I think, He spake, when He said unto the Jews: “ If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”⁹ He would signify that free choice needeth a liberator; but plainly not a liberator from necessity of which, by the very fact that it is the function of the will,¹⁰ it could know nothing; but a liberator from sin, into which it freely and of itself had fallen, and at the same time from the penalty of sin, which it had heedlessly incurred and was unwillingly bearing, from neither of which could it at all be set free, save only by means of Him Who alone of men was made free among the dead;¹¹ free, that is to say, from sin, yet living in the midst of sinners.

For He alone among the sons of Adam claimeth for Himself freedom from sin, “Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth.”¹² Moreover from misery also, which is the penalty of sin, was He, potentially though not actually, none the less free. No man indeed took away His life; He laid it down of Himself.¹³ Finally, as the prophet beareth witness: “He was offered because He willed so to be”;¹⁴ even as also, when He willed, He was “born of a woman, made under the law, that He might redeem them that were under the law.”¹⁵ Thus was He Himself also subject to the law of misery; but this was because He so willed, in order that, free among the miserable and sinners, He might break the yoke of misery and sin from off the necks of His brethren.¹⁶ Accordingly He possessed in full these three kinds of freedom, the first (that from necessity) in virtue both of His divine and of His human natures,¹⁷ and the rest in virtue of His divine power. Whether, or in what manner, and to what extent, the first man possessed in Paradise these two last-mentioned kinds of freedom we shall see later.