De natura et gratia libri III, cum Apologia contra Catharinum

After we have dispatched those six things proposed concerning original sin — namely, whether it draws itself into all, what its cause is, what it is and how it is transmitted, what is its punishment and finally its effect — it follows immediately that we examine what man, as long as he is filthy in the miserable dung of sin, can accomplish by his liberty. And the question is twofold. The first, namely: whether all the works of free will, whether in an infidel or in a relapsed Christian, are sins.¹ The second, whether without the help of grace, by the general influence of God alone, man can by his natural powers do any work that is good in its genus, or (as they say) morally good. Nor is it one question, but two and different questions. For I have never found the affirmation of the first in any Catholic. For even if I see that some brand Gregory of Rimini² with that mark, nevertheless he asserts only this, that no one without special help can perform even the least morally good work. Yet he thinks that he who is in sin, nay even he who is outside the faith, receives help of this kind, by which he may act morally well, although he is not converted: as he himself undoubtedly explains in resolving a certain new argument. But it is the Lutherans who add this also to the heap of their errors:³ as we showed in ch. 11 in the text of their dogmas. For from the fact that all the works of a sinner flow from vitiated concupiscence, which is sin in them, they condemn all the works of the delinquent as sins. Whence in the Apology of the Augustan Confession they have it thus:⁴ This also is false and insulting to Christ, that men who do the commandments of God without grace do not sin. And a little below: Men truly sin even when they do honest works without the Holy Spirit, because they do them with an impious heart: according to that: Whatever is not from faith is sin.⁵ Surely if human nature were the figment of a devil, they would not speak worse of it. What therefore undoubted truth and the unanimous mind of theologians teaches to the contrary, I will set forth.⁶ First of all, it is settled for all that no work of a sinner is a merit worthy of either the grace of God or eternal life. For he would be a Pelagian who thought otherwise. Then it is established universally concerning every one who is in sin, whether he be an infidel or a believer, that not all his works are sins: but only those which are evil in their genus, such as fornication, homicide and the other works of the flesh: or if they are good by their object, they are nevertheless defiled either by the end or by some circumstantial quality. From which it follows that between a work acceptable to God for eternal life and that which is a sin, there intervenes a morally good work, that is, one conformable to natural reason. Concerning which more broadly in the next chapter. Whence St. Thomas,⁷ 2.2 q.10, where he asks whether all the works of infidels are sins, answers that although they sin in every work which they do from infidelity (namely, while they worship their gods or obey their own law), nevertheless when they do good works, to which nature inclines, and a good of nature suffices, it is not necessary that they sin. And indeed this conclusion carries before it a manifest truth, to which the human mind adheres by natural sense. For who would think so perversely of human nature that, because any person is outside the grace of God, whatever work he does is a fresh sin, by which enmity is aggravated? For one may conjecture this from the association of men, where it is known that not every work of one who exercises enmities is done from hatred of the enemy. Therefore,⁸ when a man, laboring otherwise under some vice, eats things lawful, with no other and worse mind than that he may live: labors, that he may feed his family: has compassion on a brother: gives to the needy, obeys his parents and his elders: and if he is a public person, keeps justice, protects the commonwealth, and does any work of this kind, neither from hatred of God, nor from any crooked purpose or sinister circumstance, but when and where it is fitting — what, I ask, is there from which works of this kind are defiled so that they are sins? But you say, on account of the concupiscence of the flesh. But we have already sufficiently demonstrated that in the reborn it has no account of fault.⁹ But at least in infidels you will say there is a cause why all their works are sins. For so some say, both Catholics and other learned men, maintaining the opinion of Gregory. They say, I say, that all works which are done without special help are sins. Not indeed by a new fault, but by participation of original [sin], which stains all things. But this fiction in the first place has no place in a man already Christian, where there is no original [sin]. But neither in an infidel. Since one sin never infects another work, except when it is done from the intention of that same sin. As when someone, intending homicide, sharpens a sword, or with the intention of deceiving applies himself to letters. Since therefore original sin is not actual, how do subsequent works so pollute that they are actual sins without any other evil will? And especially those works which do not arise from the inclination of the flesh, but from the intention of good and honest things: such as we were just now recounting. Wherefore perverse is the interpretation of that passage of John, That which is born of the flesh is flesh,¹⁰ to persuade that every work of a sinner is sin: because not every such work is born of the love of the flesh. And most perverse is that, A bad tree cannot make good fruits: because by the name of tree comes the intention of the work: according to that, If thy eye be simple, thy whole body will be light. And yet it does not follow that he who is in sin does all things with a bad intention.¹¹ But those and such authorities we shall explain more fully in book 3, when disputing concerning the works of the just man. But there is added a confirmation of the same conclusion from the definition of sin. For sin is, according to Augustine, our teacher, in the work Against Faustus, said, done, or desired against the law of God. But when he who is in sin defends (for example) an orphan, for this only, that it is an honest work, he then does nothing against the law of God: why therefore will it be imputed as fault?¹² And besides, if all the works of those who lie in sin were sins, they would be new sins, and consequently merits of new punishment, and we could scarcely comprehend in mind how great a weight of punishments would hang in hell on anyone who had remained in the least mortal sin for a long time. For if he sleeps, if he wakes, if he eats, if he walks: then whatever business he carries on, it is a sin according to these men.

Second argument.— Add that reason which I formed in the fourth chapter. But man is a rational animal, who therefore by his own nature can perform a work according to reason: but by sin we are only stripped of a supernatural gift, and left naked in pure nature: we can therefore by the natural vigor of reason, with the universal influence of God, perform works which are consonant with reason: and consequently in some way good: namely, those which do not exceed the end of natural honesty. This we shall easily extort from our adversaries, if they have more deeply perceived what they themselves concede. For they confess that after the fall there remain in us powers of liberty such that we can (as Augustine says in book 3 of the Hypognosticon) cultivate fields, plant vines, converse with friends, and the like. And besides they confess a certain natural justice (which they cannot deny), which they call the justice of reason, which is placed in the use of things according to reason. Which they say was known to the philosophers. So they have it in the Augustan Confession and the other colloquies. Nay, in the Apology Melanchthon willingly gives his praises to this justice, proving the sentence of Aristotle, 5 Ethic., that neither Hesperus nor Lucifer is more beautiful than justice. And finally they say that this justice is adorned by God with corporal rewards, although it is not a merit of justification.¹³ If therefore natural virtues are worthy of some praise of that kind, and of a small temporal reward with God, why are they marked with the character of sin, if nevertheless they are done with no intention of vainglory? But as for what someone might perhaps fetch from Augustine, book 5 of The City of God,¹⁴ the example of the Romans, as those who seem to be considered worthy by Augustine for their clearly performed deeds, whose God so widely increased and amplified their secular empires — that example I think contributes very little to the matter, since I have never been able to understand Augustine as thinking that the virtues of the Romans were truly worthy of that reward. For they exercised them, as he himself confesses in the same place, to hunt for the glory of the world, and therefore they were not free from fault. But he says that God permitted them to obtain the reward which they intended: just as Christ says of the hypocrites: They have received their reward.¹⁵ For he himself uses this authority there. But more important at present is the testimony of the same Augustine, On the Spirit and the Letter, ch. 23,¹⁶ where he says: Some good works are of no profit to the impious man, without which the life of any most wicked man is most difficult to find. Behold, he confesses the good works of the impious, which nevertheless profit nothing for eternal life. Wherefore that which we cited above from ch. 3 of the same book — namely, that free will is of no avail except to sin, if the truth of the way lies hidden — must be understood concerning both lights, but in different ways. Namely, that without the natural light no morally good work can be done: nor without the light of faith can any work be meritorious of eternal life.

Testimonies of Scripture.— But come, let us weigh the testimonies of sacred Scripture, to see whether our truth can be supported from there. For the remission of sins penance is necessary, which, after the forerunner crying in the desert, Christ himself both preached and sent the apostles to preach throughout the whole world: but to stir up sorrow and true detestation of errors, the meditation of hell and the memory of that judgment full of wrath and fury contribute very much. Whence John: Brood of vipers, who will show you to flee from the wrath to come?¹⁷ And our Savior vehemently terrifies us by those dreadful signs which the sun and moon will then give: so that men will wither for fear.¹⁸ And elsewhere he says: Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul: but rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.¹⁹ Persuaded by all these things, the Lutherans too have now been compelled to concede that the terrors and fears of consciences are necessary, so that men, having emerged from sins, may flee to the divine mercy. I would therefore gladly expostulate with them whether the fear of hell and of the wrath of God, which, according to Paul, is revealed from heaven through faith,²⁰ is a sin. I do not believe they will ever grant us this. For by what fear does Christ himself induce us to fear, that anyone should call that fear a sin? But that fear is not that by which we can enter into grace with God: it is therefore some work outside grace which is free from fault. Concerning which it is truly written: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.²¹ For this word is not uttered concerning filial fear: since that is not the beginning, but the consummation of wisdom. Therefore if servile fear is the beginning of wisdom, it is not a little useful: so far is it from being a sin. Nor is it opposed by any reason that, according to the apostle John, perfect charity casts out fear.²² For he does not say that any degree of charity rejects fear, but only perfect charity. Nor does that charity cast out fear as a contrary evil, but as a weak and imperfect good. This Augustine expounded with a most beautiful comparison in the book Futoris and Feta, concerning which in book 2.²³ Finally there is the argument that we admonish those who live in the filth of sins, and indeed most wholesomely, to accustom themselves to giving alms, to assiduous prayers, and to offices of that kind. As Augustine says: If you are not drawn, pray that you may be drawn.²⁴ Which indeed I would never do, unless such works were immune from fault, even though they stand outside the grace of God. But now we are entering into the matter of the disposition for grace, concerning which these things are enough for the present, lest we disembowel it. For the rest are added in the second book. It is therefore an error to assert that all works before justification are sins, and it has been deservedly condemned in our synod of Trent, can. 7.²⁵ Its words are: If anyone shall say that all works which are done before justification, in whatever manner they are done, are truly sins, etc., let him be anathema. And can. 8: If anyone shall say that the fear of hell, by which we flee to the mercy of God grieving for sins, or abstain from sin, is a sin, or makes sinners worse, let him be anathema. Nor is there any reason why, to refute the arguments of the adversaries, we must here employ a chapter in full; for they use nearly the same arguments to persuade themselves that all works preceding grace are sins, as also all subsequent works. Wherefore when in book 3 we must treat of the value of the works of a justified man, all things will be resolved there. Hear nevertheless in the meantime, prudent reader, after those words recited in the aforesaid Apology.²⁶ But that all men sin when they do honest works without the Holy Spirit, and the divine commandments without grace — hear, I say, and weigh the nerve of the cause. Of this, they say, our sentence we have a testimony not only in the Scriptures, but also from the Fathers. For Augustine disputes most copiously against the Pelagians that grace is not given on account of our merits. And in On Nature and Grace, he says: If natural possibility through free will suffices both to know how one ought to live and to live well, then Christ died for nothing. Therefore the scandal of the cross is made void. Why should not I too (says Melanchthon) exclaim here: Nay, I will exclaim, and I will rebuke these men with Christian grief. You are voided from Christ, who are justified by nature, you have fallen from grace. For not knowing the justice of God, and wishing to establish your own, you are not subject to the justice of God. By these exclamations they bewitch their peoples. But whence, I ask, is that passage? Grace is not given according to our merits, therefore all works which are done outside grace are sins. Do you not think it enough to have banished artificial dialectic from your schools, unless you also dissemble natural dialectic? Whom have you read among us who says that grace is given according to our merits? For even if certain ones name a merit of congruity — a word which, as we shall see in book 2, neither others nor I sufficiently approve — nevertheless no one has established any account of justice in our works with respect to the grace of God. But nevertheless we establish intermediate works which, as they are in no way merits of grace, so are they not immediately sins, but good (as they say) in a certain respect, that is, good by their genus, or morally good: according to the cited sentence of Augustine, On the Spirit and the Letter, ch. 28. But what they assert from the prophecy of Isaiah, We are all made unclean, and all our justices are as a menstruous cloth,²⁷ belongs to the mentioned chapter of book 3, concerning works which are done in grace. And what they add from the Gospel of John, If anyone does not remain in me,²⁸ he shall be cast out like a branch and shall wither, belongs to the chapter on the disposition for grace. But that which seems properly to make against us here is what is in Rom.: Whatever is not from faith is sin.²⁹ Whence the adversaries conclude that all the works of one acting in sin are sins. But if this passage has any weight here, it concerns only the works of infidels. Yet St. Thomas, in the cited question 22,³⁰ expounds it concerning their works which they do from infidelity. So that "not from faith" may be as much as "against true faith from false faith." Although elsewhere he himself, and very many others, understand it to be the same as: Not from faith would be an act said against conscience: which indeed seems to be the genuine sense of that passage. For Paul premises there: But he who discerns, that is, judges (namely, that such food is not lawful), if he eats is condemned, because it is not from faith: that is, he does what he judges not to be lawful.