Tractatus de Deo uno secundum naturam

The teaching of St Augustine on the universality of the saving will is vindicated.

« As regards Augustine, it is established by testimonies in no way ambiguous that he, even after the Pelagian heresy had become known, taught together with the other Fathers that the antecedent saving will of God is wholly universal. »

1°. Augustine constantly defends that Christ shed his blood to redeem absolutely all men. Nor did he teach this only before the rise of the heresy of Pelagius; rather, against the Pelagians he used this truth, as a principle most certain to all Christians, by which he might demonstrate that original sin had passed into all men. « One died for all; therefore all are dead, for whom Christ died (2. Cor. V. 14.) Deny therefore that Christ died even for little children, so that you may take them out of the number of the dead, that is, out of the contagion of sins... For if Christ died for them, then they too are dead » contr. Iulian. l. VI. c. 9; cf. ib. c. 4; Civ. Dei l. XX. c. 6; de Nupt. et concupisc. l. II. c. 33; Op. imperfect. l. II. c. 174. Vide Petav. de Incarn. l. XIII. c. 3; Stephan. de Champs.: de Haeres. Iansen. l. III. disp. 7. I. B. Faure ad Enchir. Aug. c. 41-47. 120.¹

2°. Augustine constantly taught that sufficient grace is at hand for all men, by which they can be saved, unless they are enemies to themselves. See Tricassin. Opusc. de necessaria ad salutem gratia omnibus data; Scipion. Maffei Hist. dogm. l. IX. §. 9.

3°. Most eloquently he professed the antecedent will of God, that absolutely all be saved; and in this sense St Augustine understood the testimony of Paul, 1. Tim. II. 4., in l. de spirit. et litt. c.33. n.57. seqq., that is, in the work in which he himself « disputed fiercely against the enemies of God's grace » (Retract. II. 37.), in the year 412, the year in which the heresy of the Pelagians was condemned at the Council of Carthage, and he himself had already written against the same men the books de peccator. merit. et remissione. « God wills that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth; yet not so as to take away from them the free will, by which, using it well or badly², they are most justly judged. Since this is so, unbelievers indeed act against the will of God,... about to experience in punishments the power of him whose mercy in gifts they despised. » We have given the whole text at th. XLVIII. n. II. See Tricassin. De praedestin. P. I. Sect. VII. §. 2. puncto 2. p. 135; Steph. de Champs l. c. cap. 13; and Ioan. B. Faure ad Cap. 52. Enchirid. August. From these authors you will also see the fiction of Jansenius refuted, by which he shamelessly contended that the passage cited contains not the opinion of St Augustine but an objection of Pelagius.

It is worth while to compare with that testimony from the book l. de sp. et litt. another from the Retractations, l. I. c. 10. n. 2. « What I said (De Genes. contra Manich. l. I. c. 3.): that light feeds the pure hearts of those who believe God and turn themselves to fulfil his precepts, that all men can, if they will; let not the new heretics the Pelagians think that it was said according to them. For it is entirely true that all men can do this, if they will; but the will is prepared by the Lord, and is so much increased by the gift of charity that they can. » It is clear in this place that Augustine, as in his disputes against the Manichaeans, so no less after the Pelagian heresy had become known and the necessity of grace for any saving work, whether to be begun or to be perfected, had been fully perceived, asserted that all men have a free power of keeping the commandments and of attaining salvation; with this difference, however, that against the Manichaeans it was not necessary for him to dispute about the origin of powers and of ability from the gift of grace, whereas against the Pelagians the whole dispute was not about the liberty of the power but about its origin from grace. Therefore, while he teaches that this power is present to all and present to no one except by the gift of grace, by that very fact he affirms that God, whose gift grace is, wills of himself and by the antecedent will of his goodness, that all keep the commandments, that all persevere, and consequently that all are saved. Add to these what he writes in Io. tract. XII. n. 12.³ « For God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. As far as in the physician lies, he comes to heal the sick. He kills himself who will not observe the physician's precepts. The Saviour came into the world: why was he called Saviour of the world, unless to save the world?... If you do not wish to be saved by him, you will be judged by yourself. » Cf. also the book de catechizand. rudibus c. 26. n. 52., written by Augustine already as a bishop (in the year 400.).

4°. In the same sense, about the extension of the antecedent saving will to all men, Augustine's most faithful disciples understood him. Whence, among the « calumnies, » among the « reproaches brought against the memory of the Catholic preacher, » among the « prodigious lies », St Prosper also lists these (ad cap. Gallorum VIII. IX; ad obiect. Vinc. I. II.): « that according to the teaching of Augustine God does not will all men to be saved, but a certain number of the predestined »; « that the Saviour was not crucified for the redemption of the whole world. » Concerning the other disciples of Augustine, and likewise concerning the definitions of the Council of Arles III in the fifth century against the errors of Lucidus, and of the Councils of Gaul and Germany in the cause of the monk Gottschalk, one should consult Petav. de Incarn. l. XIII. c. 6. sqq. and I. B. Du Chesne (Le Predestianisme, Traite historique et theologique, Paris 1734.). Cf. Propos. IV. et V. among those condemned by Alexander VIII on 7 December 1690.