De natura et gratia libri III, cum Apologia contra Catharinum

Just as we have done concerning the natural state of man, and concerning the other supernatural state of original justice, so also concerning this third state of fallen man it must be examined, namely how far his natural powers suffice of themselves for cultivating the virtues, as long as he wanders outside the grace of God. But to lay a path for this disputation, it is worthwhile to build beforehand the topic of man's free choice. For the Lutherans¹ present this business to us too. Indeed they count among the other effects or defects of original sin this also, that through Adam's fall man lost free choice both for the good of grace and for evil. Luther's words are in article 36 to Leo: Free choice after sin is a thing of title only, and while it does what is in it, it sins mortally. But the refutation of this second member pertains to book 2, chapter 1, where we will dispute concerning the disposition to grace. But he adds: Nay, I should simply have said: Free choice is a fiction in things, or a title without a thing. Because it is in no one's hand to think anything evil or good, but all things (as the article of Wycliffe condemned at Constance rightly teaches) happen by absolute necessity. See the monstrous image of the man trying to scrape away the liberty of choice from human nature. Except that afterward, somewhat corrected, proceeding to erase and abolish even the title itself and the name of liberty, he entitled his book On the Servile Will. This frenetic wisdom his followers also first began to defend: as is clear in Philip's Commonplaces,² where, reporting the words of the master, he adds: And I deny that there is any power in man which can seriously oppose the affections. Therefore the Christian will know that nothing is less in his power than his own heart. So Philip. Wherefore they asserted that God works both evil and good in us without our choice, with us doing nothing but merely suffering. For Luther adds in the same article 36: How can a man prepare himself for good, when it is not in his power to make his ways evil? For God also works evil works in the impious. And in the annotations on the Epistle to the Romans, Philip says: It is certain that all things are done by God, whether good or evil, not only by permitting, but principally and effectively. Therefore just as we confess that Paul's vocation was God's own work, so also David's adultery, and Manlius' savagery, and even Judas' betrayal. And Martin Bucer³ on that saying of Paul to the Romans, God handed the nations over to the desires of their heart, and to a reprobate sense, boldly teaches the same. But these portents of words, that liberty is a title without a thing, who could favor except those who did not deserve even to have the title of rational men? Therefore after they were bound in this place by the most evident sacred testimonies and the monuments of the holy Fathers, they began now to explain themselves somewhat more closely toward the catholic truth. Namely, that we have free choice in those things which are subject to natural reason and sense, such as to plant vines, build houses, etc. Which Luther in the same article 36 had denied. And this is what they mean in the imperial book,⁴ where they say that in fallen nature we retain freedom from coercion. But in the works of grace they altogether deny free choice. Not only because without the special help of God we can do nothing (for this is the catholic confession), but because he himself does the whole, with us merely passively receiving. For they say that we are justified by faith alone. Which Luther, art. 1 of his assertions, says is infused by God alone.⁵ Nor indeed is the vastness and calumny of these men to be concealed here. To bewitch their rude common people and to hide that they are bound, they impose on us that we defend free choice in such a way as to fall into the Pelagians: saying that by natural power we can through free choice love God above all things, insofar as it is enough for the grace of justification. Which no theologian for a thousand years ever dreamed. Of this the present holy Synod gives most evident testimony,⁶ which throughout the whole sixth session establishes nothing else than that we are justified through Christ not by any merits of ours but freely. But concerning this in book 2.

Now, to return to liberty, this question is twofold.⁷ Namely, because liberty must be considered and weighed in two things. First in natural works: such as to speak and to be silent, to sit and to walk, to cultivate fields, plant vines, be busy and at leisure. But this member is disputed and established only against those who say that all things happen from the necessity of God's foreknowledge. Of whom was Wycliffe, and his follower Luther. But of this error the Lutherans now seem to desert their leader. And therefore, since it pertains to the matter of predestination, we have thought this part to be passed over here.

Concerning this we have said abundantly on the Epistle to the Romans, chapter 9. The other order, in which a certain liberty also has a place, is that of the works of grace. Which liberty (as we shall see in book 2 and also book 3) the Lutherans always strive to deny:⁸ saying that the works of free choice contribute nothing to our justification, nor does it depend on our assent and cooperation. Whence against the kingdom of free choice they play comedies: in which they teach that man, when he is justified, is like an inanimate instrument or a brute beast. Nay, there are even among Catholics those whom we have heard asserting this dogma with the living voice and defending it while we cried out against it. Namely, that God draws us to himself by a certain force and necessity, so that in our conversion we are merely passive and receptive. For which reason the sacrosanct Synod in session 6⁹ pronounced, whose decree we intend here to explain, how holy it is. Therefore I can gather the errors concerning free choice to six or seven. The first was of the Manichaeans,¹⁰ who posited no free power in man for either side, but two souls in man, one rational created from a good principle, which by necessity does the things that are good and honorable; the other evil, sensual, from another evil first principle, which by equal necessity perpetrates evil. Against this the most ancient Fathers, both Greek and Latin, and especially Augustine, wrote much. For its sake he particularly published the book On Free Choice, where he discusses abundantly that the cause of sinning does not arise in us from some necessary principle, but from our own will, which has free election in good and evil. The second was the heresy of one named Bardesanes,¹¹ according to the same Augustine in the book On Heresies, chapter 35, who said that all human things are to be ascribed to fate. Concerning these errors nothing pertains to the present design. The third was of one named Abelard,¹² which after some centuries Wycliffe stirred up, and (as we were just saying) plausibly received and approved, namely that all things come by the necessity of divine foreknowledge. Which we have placed in another place. The fourth was the madness of Jovinian,¹³ among others, that a baptized man could no longer sin, as is in Augustine and Jerome. Of this there is no place to speak here either, although the Synod has just now condemned it in session 6, canon 23. The fifth was the blasphemy of Pelagius,¹⁴ who raised free choice beyond its just limits, preaching that the nature of free choice suffices for us to avoid every evil and to do good, which would be worthy of the merit of God's friendship, and therefore of eternal inheritance. Which impiety we will refute in book 2, chapters 3 and 4. Against him properly Augustine, among very many other works, wrote the book to Timasius On Nature and Grace: disputing copiously that free choice is so to be established that nevertheless we confess the helping grace of God to be necessary. The sixth is the error contrary to this,¹⁵ of those who defer so much to grace that they altogether destroy free choice. And against these he sent to Valentine and his monks another book On Grace and Free Choice, with two further letters, where he establishes the grace of God so certainly that he nevertheless shows that liberty is no less in us, by which we freely assent to the nod of God and cooperate with him, and use his grace and favor. And this is the argument we treat here. The seventh was an error against the same monks,¹⁶ not far from what has just been said. Namely, that since it is by the grace of God alone that we can avoid sins, we are as it were carried away by a certain force and fall, and therefore sinners are not to be reproved, but God is to be prayed for them. To restrain this error he added the book On Rebuke and Grace: and we are here at chapter 17, distinction 1. Therefore we do not establish here a full disputation concerning free choice, which lies very widely open.¹⁷ Let Augustine be consulted on this in On Grace and Free Choice, and the Hypognosticon book 3, where he concludes that one who denies free choice is not a Catholic: according to the Palestinian decree against Pelagius, which the same Augustine reports in his letter to Paulinus, and which was confirmed in the Council of Constance. Which article besides John Driedo discussed most copiously and learnedly in his book On Grace and Free Choice. But we intend here only to establish this conclusion.¹⁸ Although we cannot by ourselves begin the grace of God without his peculiar help, nevertheless liberty is in us to some extent in respect of this divine benefit. First, because God draws no one to himself by coercion or necessity, but it is in our power to reject his grace. As the holy Synod of Trent¹⁹ determined in session 6, chapter 5, and canon 4. And besides, because whenever we give our assent and wish to cooperate with God, it never stands with him that he should not help us with his most present favor, since he continually knocks at the door of our heart that we may be converted. To this conclusion the first argument²⁰ comes to our aid from human nature and condition, as Origen wisely discusses in book 3 On First Principles. For man is by his own nature a rational animal, excelling brute animals in this, that he has a reasoning intellect for either side, and by the same reason a will which is determined to neither, but free for either: since each cognitive power has its own appetite accommodated to its condition. And for this reason, when other animals have no dominion over themselves, but are moved by instinct to the scope and end fixed for them by nature, man has liberty and choice so to act or not, toward the end he sets before himself: as we said in chapter 3, explaining that this is the light of God's countenance sealed upon man, and his impressed image, by which, made master of his actions,²¹ he might rule over the other living things. Since therefore for man to be converted to God is to be moved to his end, it follows that just as God moves natural things to their several ends naturally, according to their nature, so he moves man according to his nature, freely. But the adversaries answer²² that all this was complete in the first man, whom God made upright from the beginning, that is, distinguished by original justice, as was related in chapter 2: but by his own fault, when he lost justice, he at the same time lost free choice for good. Which Augustine openly and without any enigma affirms in the Enchiridion, chapter 30,²³ in these words: Man, using free choice badly, lost both himself and it. For just as one who kills himself certainly kills himself by living, but by killing himself does not live, nor can he raise himself after he has killed himself: so when sin was committed by free choice, with sin as victor, free choice was also lost: for by whatever a man is conquered, to that he is also enslaved. Certainly that sentence is the Apostle Peter's, namely in the second epistle, chapter 2,²⁴ where he says: By whatever a man is overcome, to that he is also a slave. And Augustine adds many words, by which he shows that man after the fall is not free to do just things unless he is freed from sin through Christ. For that is his voice, he says: If the Son has freed you,²⁵ you will be truly free. He gathers almost similar things to this sentence in the Hypognosticon book 3, where he says that free choice, having the possibility of doing what it wills, was in the first-formed man. But by willing evil he rightly lost the power of good: who by the power of good could have conquered the will of evil. And in On the Spirit and the Letter, chapter 3, he says: Free choice without grace avails only for sinning. By which word especially Luther, in the place cited above, proves that free choice is a title without a thing. But for understanding these things and what can be adjoined to this form, a division of this name "liberty" must be premised, whose equivocation is disclosed by the dialecticians' rule from different contraries. For liberty is said both from the verb "it pleases" and from "I free." The first species is opposed to coercion²⁶ and necessity; the other to servitude. Ignorance of this has deceived very many in this place. The first signification is more frequent in sacred Scripture than to need witnesses. But the second is also used nevertheless. For we are freed from the servitude of sin through Christ, or from fault in this life through grace: according to that saying, When you were slaves²⁷ of sin, you became free for justice: or wholly from the contest and trouble of the flesh, in the future age²⁸ through glory: according to that saying, Because even creation itself will be freed from the servitude of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the sons of God. From this distinction we gather a threefold liberty: namely natural, which is immunity from necessity, so that one chooses what pleases him; and the second, the liberty of grace; and finally the third, of glory. Theologians in 2 Sent. d. 25 distinguish liberty under other words: namely from necessity, from sin, from misery: all of which were in the state of innocence. But the first, because it is natural, remains after sin: but we lost the other two. We recover them through Christ: the second indeed in this life, but the third in the future. Augustine therefore, when he joined hands with the Pelagians,²⁹ who arrogated to free choice full power of meriting justice, was beating that down. But he did not persist in the sense that man after the fall lost liberty:³⁰ but that he was so made a slave of sin (as Peter says) that he could not rise by himself. And in this only was he likened to a dead man. Yet he did not wish the likeness to consist in every way: so that just as a dead man is restored to life with nothing of his cooperating, so a sinner should be recalled to grace. For God does not draw us to himself like sheep (as the holy Synod of Trent³¹ says) or an inanimate instrument: but by enlightening, directing, alluring, knocking, and urging. Whence Augustine does not cite in this sense, here or anywhere, If the Son has freed you, you will be truly free: as if there were no natural liberty in a sinner to assent to and cooperate with the motion of God if he wishes: but in that, after he has been freed from the servitude of sin, he now has the help of God, so that he can do what he wishes, which he previously lacked. Whence in book 1 Against the Two Letters of the Pelagians, chapter 2, he says: But who of us says that free choice perished from the human race by the sin of the first man? Liberty indeed perished through sin: but that liberty which was in paradise, of having full justice together with immortality, for which human nature needs divine grace: the Lord saying, If the Son has freed you, then you will be truly free. Therefore Augustine thinks that free choice in this sense was lost to man after the fall, because he has no possibility of recovering salvation except with the help of grace: nay, he cannot even will to dispose himself unless God first drives him. Yet not that it is not free for him to assent. See how very open is the sentence in the book On the Dogmas of the Church,³² which is believed to be compiled by Augustine and was always of the highest authority in the Church. The discourse is in chapter 21 concerning the liberty of choice in man's first condition, by which he could have persevered if he had wished. But it is added: But after he fell by the seduction of the serpent through Eve, he lost the good of nature, and equally the vigor of choice: yet not election, lest what he avoided should not be his, nor should it be forgiven by merit, because he had not washed it away by choice. Therefore the liberty of choice remains for seeking salvation, that is, the rational will: but with God first admonishing and inviting to salvation, so that it may either choose, or follow, or act the occasion of salvation: that is, by the inspiration of God. And below: Therefore just as we believe that we have the beginning of our salvation by God's mercy and inspiration, so we freely confess that the choice of our nature follows divine inspiration. Wherefore it was an imposture and a trick most familiar to Luther, when in art. 36 he cited Augustine against the two letters of the Pelagians,³³ that God converts the unwilling and resisting. When he expressly says the contrary in chapter 19, namely that no one comes unless he wills: nor can it be that the unwilling believe: but he himself makes it in the hearts of men that from unwilling they become willing. And in the Enchiridion, chapter 32: He prevents the unwilling that he may will. And his same cunning and iniquity was to cite the truncated words of Augustine in On the Spirit and the Letter. For he does not say precisely that free choice avails nothing except for sinning: but he adds, If the way of truth lies hidden. As if to say, by itself it cannot, but by the help of the light-bearing faith that sends us into the way. Which he sets forth more fully in On Rebuke and Grace, chapter 21, in these words: Free choice is sufficient for evil: but for good it is little, unless it is helped by almighty God. Grace therefore does not take away free choice, but helps it:³⁴ nay, it is therefore helped because it is not taken away. As the same Augustine says in his letter to Hilary, which is 89. But how clearly and evidently this was the sentence of Augustine will be shown a little later.

Therefore, to return to the established conclusion, the second argument is this:³⁵ No creature is capable of divine grace or glory except the intellectual angel and rational man: but we cannot devise another cause for this than that each was made to the image of God and is possessed of liberty, by which he has it in his power to reject and accept the divine favor, and to do and cast off commands, and to choose what he prefers, whether for his glory or for his disgrace. Therefore man's conversion is free and voluntary for him. On this matter Bernard says thus in his little work On Free Choice:³⁶ Take away free choice, and there will be nothing to be saved. Take away grace, and there will be nothing by which it is saved. This work cannot be accomplished without two: one by whom it is done, the other to whom or in whom it is done. God is the author of salvation, free choice only its capacity. But lest those who think that free choice has itself merely passively in justification exult over this last word, let them hear what he immediately adds. What therefore is given by God alone, and to free choice alone, cannot be without the consent of the receiver, any more than without the grace of the giver. And so free choice is said to cooperate with grace working salvation while it consents, that is, while it is saved. Therefore the irrational spirit does not receive salvation at all, because the voluntary consent is lacking to it, by which it might placidly obey God saving it: whether by acquiescing to him commanding, or by believing him promising, or by giving thanks to him bestowing. Thus far Bernard. And Augustine in the first letter to Valentine, which is 46, says: No obedience can exist without free choice. And therefore since we are so often commanded in Scripture not only to keep the commandments but also to be converted to God, from sacred Scripture itself free choice is clearly proved and demonstrated. Which he treats more fully in On Grace and Free Choice, chapter 2. Where he says that the chief argument for establishing free choice is taken from this, that the divine commandments themselves would not profit man unless he had free choice of will, by which doing them he might arrive at the promised rewards. And below: How does he command, if there is no free choice? What of that blessed man of whom the Psalm³⁷ says that his will was in the law of the Lord? Does it not sufficiently indicate that man stands in the law of God by his own will?

From these things the third argument is made:³⁸ The justification of man is the same as his conversion to God: but conversion is a good work and worthy of praise: if however it were not spontaneous, it would be of no praise: therefore it is free. For on account of those things which happen to us against our will, we are neither praised nor blamed. Whence Paul:³⁹ If I do this willingly, I have a reward. And Augustine⁴⁰ in the place just cited: When a man does something willingly, then it is to be called a good work, then the reward of a good work is to be hoped for from him of whom it is said,⁴¹ Who will render to each according to his works. Whence (as we shall show in book 2) conversion is a meritorious work, not indeed of the first grace, but nevertheless of glory. To this sentence are added these words of Jerome to Damasus:⁴² God gave man free choice, so that each one might live not by the command of God, but by his own obedience: that is, not by necessity, but by will. So that virtue might have a place, and we might differ from the other living things, while it is permitted us, after the example of God, to do what we wish. Wherefore Augustine⁴³ in the first letter to Valentine accuses those who, commending the grace of God, would deny man's free choice, as those who, with free choice denied, would immediately have taken away the account of reward:⁴⁴ because God will render to each on the day of judgment according to his works. If, he says, it is not the grace of God, how does he save the world? And if there is no free choice, how does he judge the world? But this must especially be noted against the Lutherans, for whom, with free choice thrust out, it immediately follows that our works are of no merit.

The fourth,⁴⁵ unless it is wearisome to hear, is a most valid argument, and one which reason draws from sacred Scripture. If God so justified us through his grace that nothing of our assent and choice were needed, when he is always at the door and knocks:⁴⁶ what cause would remain why he should not convert all? But if you refer the matter perhaps to the eternal causes of predestination, because he has mercy on whom he wills, and hardens whom he wills: you will not have satisfied the question. For that is the supreme and remote cause: namely, why he destined this one to glory, but not that one (of whose effect Augustine says: Why he draws this one and not that one, do not doubt, if you do not wish to err), but nevertheless a proximate cause is further required, by which he destined each one to be received into the kingdom. For just as among infants this one obtains salvation because he has been reborn of water and the Holy Spirit, but that one not at all, because he departed this life without baptism: so in adults a proximate cause must be given why, when God is equally most ready to convert two, and his most present mercy breathes upon both, he draws this one and not that one.⁴⁷ Which truly cannot be given except that one offers assent and cooperation, but the other does not. For just as he predestined to convert a little child through baptism without his consent, so an adult through his own cooperation. But for the reason why he pours greater grace into this one than into that one, you can certainly devise no other than that one converted himself with greater effort and impulse of love than the other. For who would say that all sinners are reconciled to equal friendship? Namely, that a tepid penitent receives as much grace as the Magdalene, to whom many sins were forgiven because she loved much.⁴⁸ Nay, if you look at the matter more deeply, since God desires his Church so earnestly to be of that beauty and holiness which befitted the most beloved bride of Christ, redeemed by his blood, and has so providently instructed her with laws, teachings, examples, and sacraments, and is so present to help us: indeed he, the sun of justice, never ceases to irradiate the hearts of princes, what can be the cause why she is not restored, except that he awaits our assent and work? As is openly in the same place of the Apocalypse: For behold, he says, I stand at the door and knock: if anyone hears my voice and opens the door for me, I will enter to him, and I will dine with him, and he with me. He indeed is the one who opens our hearts: but because it is free for us both to resist and to give assent, therefore he says: If anyone hears and opens. And in John, where he says, No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him:⁴⁹⁵⁰ he immediately adds, Everyone who has heard from the Father and learned comes to me: namely, because it is in each one's will, with God drawing, to come to him. The same liberty is expressed where it is read: If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.⁵¹ And, If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny⁵² himself. And, Let the one who can receive it receive it:⁵³ let the one who cannot depart. And what I will add besides in the next chapter. Whence Augustine in the second letter to Valentine, which is 47, expounding that saying, Make straight paths for your feet:⁵⁴ for he himself⁵⁵ will make your paths straight, has most well meditated that we make straight paths for our feet on account of the liberty of our own will: yet God makes the same paths straight by his grace. Wherefore when we ask, God of hosts, convert us:⁵⁶ we in turn hear, Be converted to me with your whole heart.⁵⁷ Namely, because the works which concur with the grace of God in justification are both his and ours. His indeed, as moving: ours, as those who are freely moved. Hence that illustrious sentence of Augustine in his exposition of Psalm 144: He who created you without you will not justify you without you.⁵⁸ For from creating men, he says, God exacted nothing: for what would he exact from those who did not yet exist? But from men to be reformed and justified he everywhere exacts in the Scriptures that they believe, recover their senses, do penance, return to the heart, pray, so that they may receive remission of sins and grace. In short, the Gospel is most open: where John says, He gave them power to become sons of God:⁵⁹ that is, he imposed necessity on no one, but brought help to all, so that as many as wished freely to receive him, believing in his name, might become sons of God. For which cause perhaps it is added, Who were born not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Namely, that it might be expressed that the birth from God is not like that which is from man, say through nature, but through will. Nor is this power and liberty announced in the Gospel concerning Adam, adorned with justice, nor certainly concerning those who were already just: but concerning those who were in sin. Since he says, He gave them power to become sons of God. For, as the philosopher says,⁶⁰ we can do what we can do through friends. And especially through a friend who comes to our aid so willingly and readily. Finally Augustine seems to explain this excellently in one word, in book 1 of Retractations, chapter 22, where he says: For it is in man's power to change his will for the better. Behold, he calls liberty power. But because by itself it is not sufficient, he adds: But that power is nothing unless it is given by him of whom it was said: He gave them power to become sons of God. And in the Hypognosticon book 3: In every holy work the will of God is first, the free choice second: that is, God works, man cooperates. And at last he concludes that free choice is so certainly to be confessed that one who denies it is not a Catholic. And that he understands this in the works of grace is manifest. For this is the ninth condemnation of Pelagius,⁶¹ as Augustine reports to Paulinus, that there is no free choice if it needs the help of God. Where the discourse was concerning the help of grace for justification. And for that reason it is clear that our liberty was there sanctioned in the very act of our justification as adults. We have therefore explained the reason for the decree of our holy Synod in session 6,⁶² by which it is held that we do not receive the benefit of reconciliation as an inanimate instrument, but freely assenting and cooperating, so that we can reject the inspiration: as is held in chapter 5. And among the canons, canon 4. And in canon 5 the word of Luther is condemned: namely, that free choice is a thing of title only.