Tractatus de Deo uno secundum naturam

By the manifold interpretation of the text 1. Tim. II. 4., Augustine never denied the universality of the antecedent saving will.

« As often as St Augustine, in his books against the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians, interprets the apostolic text 1. Tim. II. 4. of the particular saving will, so often he understands the will that actually effects salvation, or the absolute will; yet, this interpretation being added, he does not deny that in the direct sense of that testimony the antecedent and universal will is signified; but that sense of the particular saving will, to which the holy Doctor advanced for polemical reasons, is rightly said to follow from the words of the Apostle. »

I. To the interpretation of the apostolic text 1. Tim. II. 4. given by the other Fathers and by himself in the book l. de spiritu et litt., of which we spoke in the preceding thesis, Augustine added, in the course of his dispute against the Pelagians, three other explanations; indeed, as he says in Enchir. c. 103, the passage of Paul « can be understood in any other way, provided that we are not compelled to believe that Almighty God willed something to be done and it was not done. » Those three celebrated explanations, however, run thus: that we understand all who are saved to be saved by the will of God, and that no one is saved unless God wills it, Enchir. c. 103; contra Iulian. IV. n. 42. sq.; ep. 217. al. 107. ad Vital. n. 19; de Praedest. SS. n. 14; or that we understand « all men, the whole human race distributed by whatever differences, » that is, not single individuals of the kind but the kinds and conditions of individuals Enchirid. l. c., De Corrept. et grat. n. 44; lastly, that we understand God to will and to bring about that we ourselves wish all men to be saved Civ. Dei XXII. 2; de Corrept. et grat. n. 47. In all these places, moreover, Augustine clearly declares that there is indeed some universal saving will of God (for how could there not be?), but that will which he there understands and has before his eyes is not universal: for by that will whatever the Almighty wills, all of it is also actually done; whence, since many are not made saved, it must be said (by that will which is before Augustine) that those alone, and all who are actually saved, are willing to be saved.

The difficulty, then, in interpreting Augustine's teaching is not whether in these places the holy Father denies that God wills absolutely all men to be saved; for this, we concede, is denied in a certain sense. But the whole question is of which will this universality is denied by Augustine.

In Augustine's teaching a distinction is drawn between the will of God, which men resist and which is not always fulfilled, and the absolute will, which by its very effect produces its own term and which is always unconquered. This we have fully demonstrated at thesis XLVIII. Especially in the book l. de spirit. et litt., against the heresy of Pelagius, he most clearly distinguished the saving will a) as that by which God wills that all men believe and obey and be saved; and therefore he persuades all extrinsically and intrinsically, he forestalls all by mercy in his gifts, he offers to all what they may receive: yet he is not persuaded to all, not all consent, not all receive, not all commit themselves to God to be kindled and enlightened by warmth and light, because to consent to the calling of God belongs to a will prepared by grace, and it belongs to the same will, by its own powers, to resist grace, as Augustine there declares. Unbelievers do not believe with God; they « act against this will of God, » by which « God wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, not so, however, as to take away from them free will, by which those who use it well or badly are most justly judged. » This, therefore, is the antecedent and conditional will of salvation, plainly of all men, which is not always fulfilled. In the same place St Augustine distinguished b) the will of God by which he not only persuades but also, by its very effect, persuades. This will, by which the very term toward which it tends is actually effected, could indeed be universal, considered in the omnipotence of God, to whom there cannot be lacking a mode of persuading which he knows agrees with the one called, so that he is also persuaded (cf. ad Simpl. 1. I. q. 2); yet in fact it is established that this actually effectual will of salvation is not universal. « Now if anyone presses us to scrutinize that depth, why he is so persuaded that he also is persuaded, but the other is not so; two things alone occur to me meanwhile, which I am pleased to answer: O the depth of riches, and: Is there iniquity with God? Whoever dislikes this answer, let him seek out the more learned, but let him take care lest he find them more presumptuous » de spirit. et litt. n. 60¹ But in all the places cited at the outset, in which St Augustine restricts the saving will to those alone in whom the effect itself is obtained, he has before his eyes solely the will considered in the second way; but in those places he never treats of the antecedent and conditional will. It was therefore necessary to deny that this saving will of God is universal. Indeed, in Enchir. c. 103. and de Corrept. et grat. n. 44. coll. 45.diserte he expressly treats of the will « by which the Almighty cannot will in vain whatever he has willed, » and « by which God did in heaven and on earth all things whatsoever he willed, and surely did not will to do whatever he did not do. » Namely, in those two places he treats partly of the saving will considered in the whole range of graces and helps, which are in the power of the Almighty; partly, however, of the will as far as it actually effects its term. In this second way especially, or, as is commonly said, as the will is efficacious, he regards the will in the remaining places cited: cont. Iul. IV. n. 42. sq.; ep. ad Vital. n. 19; Corrept. et grat. n. 47; Praedest. SS. n. 14; Civ. Dei XXII. 2. « What is this: 'everyone who has heard from the Father and learned comes to me,' unless there is no one who hears from the Father and learns and does not come to me?... Why then does he not teach all, that they may come to Christ, except that all whom he teaches, mercy teaches; but those whom he does not teach, judgement does not teach.... The word of the cross is foolishness to those who perish, but to those who are saved it is the power of God. God teaches all these to come to Christ, for he wills all these to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For if he had wished to teach also those to whom the word of the cross is foolishness, that they might come to Christ, without doubt they too would come » Praed. SS. n. 13. 14.

Augustine had the greatest reason for considering the will of God in this way, in the matter of justification and salvation, from the proud and heretical error of the Pelagians itself. For they taught that God had conferred grace on all, namely, in their sense, a rational nature and free will; but that it was now for man to save himself by the powers of nature and the strength of the (bare) will, and not for God to save man. In this heresy, as regards the beginning and inchoation of salvation, the Semi-Pelagians agreed with them. God therefore, they said, indifferently conferred on all a good nature and an excellent free will, and he himself wills that all save themselves by the powers of nature; if any do not save themselves, this is solely because they are unwilling to strive with the powers of their good nature.² In order that the holy Doctor might overcome this heresy, it was not so much necessary for him to consider what man contributes in the matter of salvation, except as far as this was required to repel the calumnies about a denial of the liberty of the will made by Catholics; but rather it was necessary to direct the whole contention to demonstrating that the first place belongs to divine grace, so that it would be understood to be both absolutely necessary and anticipating every merit, and entirely gratuitous. Hence Augustine denies first of all that men save themselves because they themselves will it (by the powers of nature); he denies next that God wills all to be saved in such a way that he has conferred on all whatever could be conferred while the free will of man is kept safe, as the heretics asserted, in order to exclude the operation and grace of God from the way of salvation; lastly, he rejects this proposition: « men are not saved because they themselves are unwilling, » understood in the sense of the heretics: as if, namely, it were not the grace of God that makes the willing out of the unwilling and leads them to salvation; but that men would not be saved solely for this reason, that they themselves by the powers of nature do not begin or do not complete the work of salvation.

St Augustine shows that this doctrine of theirs is false by the example of infants (against Julian; ep. ad Vital., ll. cc.): « Those infants convict this sense of yours (he says, against Julian, there) by their very silence, because they neither ask, nor seek, nor knock; nay, even when they are baptized, they cry out, refuse, and struggle; and yet they receive... with far more infants not adopted into this grace by him who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. To them he cannot say: I willed (all means placed in my power), and you were unwilling. For if he had willed (absolutely), who of them, who do not yet have the power of their own will, would have resisted his most omnipotent will? » Augustine thus excludes, by this example of infants, not the will of God to confer on all adults, through grace, the possibility of salvation, a possibility so clearly asserted by him (vid. th. LI.); but he excludes the natural will of men, by which they would save themselves according to the heretical opinion of their adversaries.³

From all these things it is manifest that, as regards the thing itself, the explanations of the particular saving will handed down by Augustine in the passages cited are not an exclusion of the universal will of salvation, which the other Fathers and Augustine himself in other places most clearly asserted and vindicated from the doctrine of the Scriptures. For the Fathers, and Augustine himself in other places, treat of the will of God antecedent and conditional, which is universal; but in later places Augustine discusses the same saving will absolute and actually effecting its term, which is indeed particular.⁴ But one truth, that the will effectual in act pertains only to those who in fact are saved, does not exclude the other truth, that the antecedent saving will embraces all men.

II. It remains to say what sense Augustine thought lay under the words of the Apostle 1. Tim. II. 4. It is not in itself contradictory that he defended the antecedent saving will of God as universal, along with the other Fathers, and yet thought that in this text of the Apostle there is solely a question of the absolute and actually effectual, and so particular, will. I say that this is not in itself contradictory; it is nevertheless certain that, even in the interpretation of this testimony, Augustine did not contradict the older Greek and Latin Fathers, who all understood the passage of the antecedent will, by denying what they affirmed; but he differs from them only in this, that he explains not one immediate sense only, but several senses following from the immediate sense, and so, collating all his places, he supplies a richer and fuller interpretation.

Certainly a) St Augustine himself explains the text of Paul most clearly as concerning the antecedent and universal saving will, in 1. de spirit. et litt. n. 57. 58. b) He declares that the same passage can be understood in several ways. « It can be understood in many ways, of which I have mentioned some in other small works of ours » de Corrept. et grat. n. 44. Among these many ways, and among some which Augustine himself has mentioned, is certainly also that one explained as the antecedent and universal will, in the book de spirit. et litt.⁵ c) The manner of speaking, when he proposes any one of those three senses concerning the particular will, clearly indicates that those senses are not taken by the holy Doctor as exclusively true and as contained in the words of the Apostle; but are commended as a truth which also can be understood in the sacred text.⁶ They never propose any one of those senses as fixed and settled, but in the manner of one disputing and consulting: « we can so understand; » « it can also be understood thus; » « why then do we not so accept it? » « it can be understood in any other way, provided only that we are not compelled to believe that Almighty God willed something (by the consequent and absolute will) to be done, and it was not done. » Finally, d) from the connection of the consequent and particular saving will with the antecedent and universal will, it is understood that these interpretations of Augustine set forth a truth which follows from the immediate sense, directly expressed in the words of the Apostle. For from that will by which God, of goodness and of all consolation, wills all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, provided that men « are not enemies to themselves, and do not resist the mercy of their creator, and do not destroy themselves, » as St Augustine says (de catechizand. rudib. n. 52; in Io. tract. XII. n. 12.), there follows the absolute will of the salvation of those who « commit themselves to him to be enlightened and kindled » (de spir. et litt. n. 58.), and who obey the grace of God. Hence, considering the doctrine of the Scriptures, of the Fathers and of Augustine himself on the universality of the antecedent saving will, it can rightly be affirmed and shown with Io. B. Faure (ad Enchir. Aug. c. 103. p. 197.) that Augustine, in those very places where he has before his eyes the absolute and particular will of God, does not indeed explain but nevertheless presupposes the universal antecedent saving will. This can be shown both from the similitudes which the holy Doctor uses to declare that particular will, when he says that God wills all to be saved in the sense in which the one master in a city is said to teach all the boys of the city, and the sun is said to illuminate all; and from the third explanation, by which it is understood that God wills all to be saved, because he makes us desire and pray for the salvation of all. For a master cannot rightly be said to teach all the boys of the city, nor the sun to illuminate all, except insofar as on the part of the master and on the part of the sun there is ready all that is necessary and without which it could not be, that all the boys of the city should without exception be taught, and all men enlightened. Nor does God bid us and make us pray for all, unless because he wills to confer his graces, as far as in him lies, on all, yet according to the laws of his wisdom, so that through them all may be saved.

Thus the full explanation of the words of the Apostle, « God wills all men to be saved, » is completed by a fourfold declaration of Augustine, in this way. 1°. God wills all men to be saved, yet not so as to take away from them free will, by which those who use it well or badly are most justly judged (Sp. et litt.). Willing, however, 2°. that all be saved in this way, he bids us to will that all be saved, and works this in us by pouring out this charity in our hearts (Correpl. et gr. n. 47; Civ. Dei XXII. 2.). When, however, 3°. God foreknows others who obey grace, and so in them the condition is fulfilled through the help of his grace, he wills to confer eternal salvation on these by the very effect (Enchirid., cont. Iulian. IV., ad Vital., de Praed. SS.). With regard to others, in whom he foresees the condition not fulfilled, this effectual will of salvation is not applied; and this happens by their own fault, as those who misuse free will; although God, considering the whole range of graces, which are in the power of the Almighty, could also make these from unwilling men willing (Enchir., Correpl. et gr. n. 44. 45.). Granted, therefore, 4°, that not all men are those who are thus subject to the effectual will of salvation; yet all kinds of men are, according to the differences of conditions, talents, and ages (Enchir., Correpl. et gr. n. 44.). Cf. Ruiz de volunt. Dei disp. XIX. sect. 8. n. 14.