Tractatus de Gratia Divina Actuali

I. The first head of this doctrine occurs among the proscribed propositions of Baius, proposition 3: «Everything that the sinner or the servant of sin does is sin,» and proposition 40: «In all his acts the sinner serves the dominating concupiscence;» which propositions, however, are not found in his published books, nor is Baius said to have acknowledged them as his own, as Ripalda testifies in the introductory dissertation of his work against Baius. The second head of the doctrine is proposition 25 of Baius: «all the works of unbelievers are sins and the virtues of the philosophers are vices.» The third head of the doctrine is proposition 27 among the condemned Baian propositions. The Baianists strive to defend these propositions especially by the authority of St. Augustine.

II. Now concerning the first head of the doctrine. In this opinion the sinner is not taken reduplicatively in the act; for what is done by a sinner, insofar as he is such when he acts, is certainly sin; nor does anyone in the Church deny it. But he is taken materially, namely he who is in the state of habitual sin, whether original or personal. The reason why the Baianists affirm this is at hand. For a man of this kind lacks charity, and therefore does not act from charity; moreover, if he does not act from charity, he acts from vicious concupiscence, from which nothing but sin can come: therefore.

Now in this opinion one or other of the two following hypotheses can be supposed: either that sinners are destitute of actual grace, or that it is supplied to them; but, prescinding from the determination of either hypothesis, the proposition considered in itself is heretical and condemned by the Synod of Trent, Sess. VI. can. 7. »If anyone shall say that all works which are done before justification (and therefore while still in the state of sin), in whatever way they are done, are truly sins or merit the hatred of God, or that the more vehemently anyone strives to dispose himself for grace, the more gravely he sins, let him be anathema.« And surely it is certain that a sinful man can and ought to prepare himself and dispose himself by his own acts for justification, which acts are generally elicited in a certain successive series and can always be done in such a way that, after some interval of time running from the beginning, justification is obtained: but it is absurd that a man should dispose himself by sins to obtain the remission of sins: therefore. Wherefore, as often as the Scriptures exhort sinners to works of piety in order to obtain the mercy of God, so often do they teach that sinners can act well, and that it is false that all the works of sinners are sins. From this authority of the Scriptures you cannot extricate yourself unless you affirm that the first grace, by which the sinner begins to convert himself to God, is an inspiration of holy and perfect theological charity: which, to say the least, conflicts too much with experience, of which the Tridentine synod is also a witness, which takes its beginning from faith, fear, hope, Sess. IV. c. 5. If, however, the matter is considered generally, there can be considered in the sinner both the privation of the habitual friendship of God, and also, when someone has actually sinned and especially if he has frequently sinned the same sin, a certain habit induced from acts of relapsing into that same sin. Now the privation of the friendship of God indeed takes away the possibility of producing works meritorious of eternal life de condigno; but it does not take away the possibility of producing some morally good work. And first indeed, since it does not impede the actual helps, the sinner can through them do good and supernatural works. And even prescinding from actual helps, all the principles of an honest act remain in the sinner naturally, because by the privation of grace nature is not diminished; but we have proved that free will can naturally elicit good acts: moreover, in order that some act be not properly sin, it is not necessary that it be supernaturally good, but it is enough if it be naturally honest. Nor can the habitual aversion from God infect the act of the sinner; for this habitual aversion (unless it breaks out into act, which would then be a new sin) is nothing but the privation of a supernatural good, not however a defect of some principle or element of a naturally good act. Moreover, the habit of sinning induced by sin (which habit, however, is not generated from every sin) cannot be the reason why all the acts of the sinner are sins. First indeed because an acquired habit inclines only to certain sins, namely those from which it proceeded; then because habit does not determine the exercise of the faculty: whence it is not necessary that the faculty act according to that habit, but it can will and do diverse and opposite things. Therefore.

III. They say that the doctrine is Augustine's: that nothing good can be done without charity; for he says in De Gratia et lib. arb. c. 18: «The precepts of love, that is of charity, are so great and so many, that whatever man thinks he does well, if it is done without charity, is in no way done well.» And in de Gratia Christi c. 26: «We would not have whence to love Him, unless we received this from Him, since He first loved us. But what good would we do, unless we loved? or how do we not do good, if we love? For even if the commandment of God seems at times to be done not by those who love, but by those who fear, nevertheless where there is no love, no good work is imputed, nor is it rightly called a good work; because everything that is not from faith is sin, and faith works through love.» Hence in contr. 2. epistt. Pelagg. I. III. c. 8 he says: «free will, taken captive, avails only for sin: but for justice it can avail only when helped (namely by charity).» Moreover, by charity one is made holy and just; therefore nothing good can be done by a sinner.

I answer: To do well is, for Augustine, to do salutary works (Cf. Th. primam art. seq.): wherefore even if the power of doing anything salutary is denied to the sinner, there still remains the power of doing good natural works; whence it is not necessary that he sin. 2) That Augustine by the name of love, of charity, does not understand charity taken in the strict sense, which is the act of the theological virtue, but any love of justice and a good will, which is an effect of actual grace and can exist also in sinners. Surely Augustine is wont to speak in this way: «what is the desire of good, if not charity» (cont. duas epistt. Pelagg. I. 11. c. 9): «what is the love, which divine Scripture so greatly» praises and proclaims, if not the love of good (De Trinit. L. VIII, c. 10)as if a good will were something other than charity, which Scripture proclaims to us to be from God (De Gratia XI. c. 21) it is charity itself which is called good will (in Psal. XXXVI, Serm. 2. n. 13). And hence it is that he defines virtue (an act, indeed) in general: virtue is charity, by which that which is to be loved is loved (Epist. CLXVII, al. 29. c.4.), which definition therefore embraces every virtuous act of whatever virtue.

Therefore every good will, every love of good, every virtuous act is, for Augustine, charity; not, therefore, is only the act of the theological virtue understood by Augustine under this name. That this good will, with grace helping, can exist also in sinners is evident in itself from what has been said, and Augustine manifestly supposes it in Retract. I. I. c. 15 When the sin is such that it is at the same time also the punishment of sin, how much can the will do under the dominating concupiscence, unless perhaps, if it is pious, that it pray for help?. Therefore a pious will can exist even under the dominating concupiscence.

IV. Now with respect to the second head of the doctrine. The same twofold hypothesis as in the preceding question can be devised, namely that men still unbelieving are not destitute of supernatural actual graces, or that they lack them before those graces by which they are led to the faith of Christ. There is no reason for us to pass judgment now on this twofold hypothesis. In order that we may vindicate the second part of this thesis, we accept that hypothesis which can be the more unfavorable to us, and we say that unbelievers — not indeed positive ones, who are like the other sinners of whom we have already spoken, but negative ones, to whom the light of the Gospel has not yet been manifested — even destitute of supernatural grace, can act well, and that it is wholly false that all their works are sins.

And surely in the unbelieving man there is nature, which is a principle always physically sufficient and at times also morally sufficient for honest works of the natural order: faith is lacking and, as is supposed, all grace, through which he could elicit salutary acts; what therefore remains except that we say that unbelievers cannot indeed act salutarily, but can act naturally honestly? For the state of original sin, in which they are, does not impede them more than the state of any other personal sin, and actual concupiscence neither always urges nor imposes necessity on the will.

V. But, they say, this is the most certain and most clearly propounded doctrine of Augustine: all the works of unbelievers are sins; that it cannot be borne that any action be good without faith. And for this there is brought forward a long testimony, which is contained in the whole of chapter 3 Contra Iulianum, lib. IV, cap. 3. of book IV contra Iulianum. Among the several things which he disputes there, he has these in n. 14: «You are wont, denying that the virtues by which one lives rightly are gifts of God and attributing them to nature and the human will, not to the grace of God, to use this argument, that unbelievers sometimes have them, so attempting to make void what we say, that no one lives rightly except by faith through I. Ch. D. N.» And in n. 30, when Julian asked «If a pagan covered a naked man, is it a sin because it is not from faith?» he answers: «absolutely, inasmuch as it is not from faith, it is a sin.»

Moreover, in order that the doctrine of Augustine may be understood in this chapter and in similar places, we note these things in order. 1) That the name of sin is used by Augustine in the Pelagian question to signify not only that defect of rectitude in an action which constitutes properly so-called guilt, but also a defect of any rectitude mediately pertaining to the moral order, which ought to be in acts by divine institution and which would be there if Adam had not sinned, through which defect it comes about that acts lack that perfection which ought to be in them. This use of the appellation of sin proceeded from the Apostle himself, who calls habitual concupiscence — which is certainly not guilt, yet is a defect of a certain owed rectitude proceeding from the sin of Adam — sin (De Deo Creant. Th. XLIX.). This use of calling sin even a defect which in itself is not guilt but nevertheless opposes the perfection of justice (of which there was frequent discourse with the Pelagians), which excludes every imperfection, was familiar to the Pelagians themselves: who, when they said that man can be without sin, understood that he can be not only without guilt, but also without any disturbance of soul, without any imperfection which would oppose the perfection of justice, i.e. of consummate and most absolute justice, which they said to be possible in this life by the powers of nature. This is clear from the words of Jerome, who attacked this head of their doctrine in three dialogues. «For what other greater temerity can there be (says Jerome, epist. CXXXIII ad Ctesiphontem, num. 1. 2) than to claim for oneself, I will not say the likeness, but the equality of God, and in a brief sentence to embrace the poisons of all heretics, which have flowed from the fountain of the philosophers and especially of Pythagoras and of Zeno, the prince of the Stoics? For they assert that those things which in Greek are πάθη, we can call perturbations, can be extirpated from the minds and that no fibre or root of vices remains at all in man, by meditation and constant exercise of the virtues.» «How then, he concludes, can this stand, which is said: that man can be without sin, if he wills.» Where you see that those things which in themselves are not guilt but only a certain imperfection touching the moral order only dispositively, were called sins also by the Pelagians: although they judged it to be in the power of free will not only to restrain all those movements, but also to extirpate them radically from the soul; so that they therefore said that it came about from a certain fault of man that those defects persevere in us.

Hence the Fathers, denying that man can be without sin in this life, or at least, with Augustine, that he can be so by his own powers (De Perfectione iustitiae c. 7), objected to the Pelagians not only properly so-called faults, but also any imperfections touching the moral order even dispositively, which never cease at least entirely — concupiscence especially — in order to show that man in this life cannot attain the perfection of justice, that is, be without sin. Whence Augustine, De Perfect. iustitiae c. 8: «This is our justice in this very pilgrimage, that we tend to that perfection and fullness of justice, where in the sight of its beauty charity will already be full and perfect, now by the rectitude and perfection of the course itself, chastising our body and bringing it into subjection... since in the chastisement of the body concupiscence is bridled, which ought not to be bridled but not to exist at all, nor will it exist in that perfection of justice, where there will be no sin at all.»

VI. This being established, we say 2) that Augustine calls the works of unbelievers sins for a twofold reason: 1° with respect to all their works, because they lack salutary merit, i.e. because they lack that supernatural perfection which ought to be in them by divine institution, with which, when equipped, good works dispose men either remotely or proximately to the unique supernatural end to which they are destined; but by this aptness the works of unbelievers are destitute. In this way, moreover, Augustine takes sin improperly. The 2° reason is that which does not touch absolutely all the works of unbelievers. but only under a certain moral generality: Augustine considers, namely, the works of unbelievers according to what commonly happens, and which, as he himself supposes, almost always have an evil end; therefore Augustine calls them sins, because they are vitiated by an evil end: in this way, however, sin is taken properly by Augustine. For the same twofold reason Augustine denies that the virtues of unbelievers (the discourse is about acts, not about habits) are true virtues. What we say we can evidently demonstrate from this same c. 3. l. IV. cont. Iulianum. And with respect to 1°, Augustine, n. 19, says: «Not absurdly was virtue defined by those who said: virtue is a habit of the soul consistent with the mode and reason of nature. They spoke truly; but they did not know what is consistent with a nature to be liberated and beatified… This highest good cannot be conferred on men except through Christ… Therefore the just man lives by the faith of Christ. For from this faith he lives prudently, courageously, temperately and justly, and thereby with all these true virtues rightly and wisely, because he lives faithfully. If therefore for obtaining true beatitude, which the faith that is in Christ truly promises to us as immortal, virtues profit man nothing, in no way can they be true virtues.» Therefore Augustine understands as true virtues those which lead to supernatural beatitude. «Therefore we have true virtues, because that for which we act is true, that is, this is consistent with our nature unto salvation and true happiness,» n. 18. But Augustine speaks in the historical order, which is not the only order possible to human nature, as we have demonstrated elsewhere (De Deo Creant. l. XLII. XLII.).

With respect to proving the 2°, which we established above, these things can be brought forth from Augustine. a) When he answered (n. 30) «absolutely, (to cover a naked man) inasmuch as it is not from faith, it is a sin,» he adds, explaining it: «not because the very deed itself, which is to cover a naked man, is a sin: but that in such a work not to glory in the Lord, only the impious denies to be a sin.» Augustine therefore regards that action insofar as it is placed with an undue end, which he supposes to be had. b) The argument by which Augustine, n. 14, proves that the chastity of unbelievers is not a true virtue comes back to this: true virtue is in the soul; the soul of an unbeliever, as Scripture testifies, fornicates from God: but in a fornicating soul chastity cannot exist, or the same subject cannot at once be fornicating and chaste; therefore. Fornication indeed is here taken improperly, but it is nevertheless a positive recession from God through evil acts; for men of this kind, acting badly, by the very fact that they act badly, are said in the Scriptures to fornicate from God. Augustine, however, means to say that if, according to the divine manner of speaking (which is certainly true), a soul can truly be called fornicating, the same cannot truly be called chaste; because these things are repugnant, so that therefore either something is lacking for true chastity, inasmuch as it is not from faith, or there is some vice infecting it, because it is preserved from an evil end. c) He proves generally, n. 22, that the works of unbelievers are not good, because although some good things are done by them, they are nevertheless not done well: but the unbeliever does not do well «because he does it loving the glory of men more than that of God.»Editor's note: the print reads "fuent, bene: non autem bene infidelis facit", but the intended reading appears to be "fiunt, bene: non autem bene infidelis facit." But this act is positively evil from its end: therefore. But it must not be thought that Augustine judged this manner of acting from an evil end to be necessary for unbelievers, or that they cannot act except from an evil end: for he never asserts this, and the clear testimonies which we shall bring forth in what follows openly deny it: but what frequently happens and is true with a certain moral universality, Augustine considered. Which indeed was sufficient for him for the confutation of Julian; for Julian said to be true virtues not some only of the good actions of unbelievers, but universally all those which, having regard only to that which is done, would be according to reason — which are certainly very many and are frequently vitiated by an evil end. But when Augustine, teaching the end for which one must act, makes mention only of that end which we know by faith, this depends on the fact that he himself speaks in the hypothesis of the historical supernatural order and treats of the true virtues which are proper to Christians.

VII. Moreover, Augustine's aim in this chapter too is the refutation of a certain monstrous doctrine of Julian. For he taught that virtues are to be distinguished from vices not by their ends but by their offices: «an office, however, is what is to be done; the end, in truth, is that on account of which it is to be done.» Namely, he used to say, «for knowing whether virtues are true, only this is to be considered, what is done; nor is the cause to be sought why it is done (nn. 19, 21).» From this Julian himself inferred that there are some true virtues by which we are fruitfully good, when, namely, office and a right end come together at once: and that there are, besides, some true virtues by which we are sterilely good, when, to be sure, office is separated from a right end (nn. 19, 20, 21, 22). From which doctrine, indeed, Augustine observed so great an absurdity to follow, that «Julian would be compelled to call true justice even that of which he found avarice to be the mistress». This most absurd doctrine, which holds that a true virtue or an honest act exists with no account taken of the end on account of which it is done, and which holds that through true virtues we are sterilely good, is what Augustine impugns here. But it is clearly evident that this doctrine of Julian is not that which those defend, who will that the acts of the virtues can be exercised by the powers of nature. For neither do they will that the end ought to be prescinded from; and if they will those acts to be sterile with respect to eternal life, they do not, however, will them to be sterile for attaining the natural end, if it existed, or for attaining other natural goods. Nor do they call virtues of this kind, sterile with respect to the supernatural end, true virtues in such a way as to make them equal to Christian virtues, as Julian did, who appealed to the virtues of the pagans performed without grace, in order to prove that the virtues which Christians exercise are in the power of nature.

VIII. You will ask why any works of unbelievers are not formally sins, if, as we have said, they lack the perfection due to them. I answer that supernatural perfection is indeed due to acts, but not by a law prescribing the norm of morality, but by a law establishing the gratuitous supernatural order: but sin is that which is opposed to the norm of morality. Moreover, in order that acts be formally sins on account of some privation, it is necessary that this privation be culpable in those very ones who act; for this, however, it is required that they attend to and know that obligation of having it, and therefore know the obligation of having faith and of acting from faith; since, however, this is lacking without fault in negative unbelievers, their naturally good works indeed lack that perfection by which they would be fit for the supernatural end, but they are not faults. «The evil of an action ordered to some end, to which it does not relate in a due manner, is called sin both in voluntary and in natural things,» says St. Thomas in compend. Theolog.II. 119.

IX. But in order that what we have established concerning Augustine's opinion be beyond every doubt, we shall confirm that again, proving that Augustine truly acknowledged good and honest works in unbelievers and praised the same. Indeed, in De Spiritu et lit., c. 27. et 28., after he proposed his interpretation of the words of Paul, Rom. II: The Gentiles, who do not have the law, etc., he adds: «But if those who by nature do what is of the law are not yet to be counted in the number of those whom the grace of Christ justifies, but rather in the number of those whose certain deeds — even of the impious, who do not truly and justly worship the true God — we either read or know or hear of, which according to the rule of justice we not only cannot censure, but even rightly and justly praise (although if they be examined as to the end for which they are done, hardly any are found therefore at least sometimes which would merit the due praise and defense of justice): nevertheless, because the image of God in the human soul has not been so worn away by the stain of earthly affections that no, as it were, final lineaments have remained in it, whence it may rightly be said that even in the very impiety of their life they do or understand some things of the law; if this is what was said, The Gentiles, who do not have the law, i.e., the law of God, by nature do what is of the law, even so that difference will not be disturbed, by which the New Testament differs from the old» etc.

Again, in sermon CCCXLIX, n. 1: «Let us therefore, he says, render to your charity a sermon on charity. Charity is one thing divine, another human; human charity is one thing licit, another illicit... This, then, is my first division, that I said that charity is one thing human, another divine, and that the same human charity is divided into two, in that one is licit, another illicit. First, therefore, I speak of the human licit, which is not censured; then of the human illicit, which is condemned; thirdly, of the divine, which leads us to the kingdom.» Behold that very distinction on account of which, because we defend it, we are held to be inept theologians by the Jansenists. Augustine continues: «So that I may intimate briefly, licit is the human charity by which a wife is loved; illicit, that by which a harlot or another's wife is loved.» Consider here that the love of a wife is regarded by Augustine not materially; for in that way it also pertains to divine charity, but formally, i.e., under this motive, that she is a wife, and indeed with that motive exclusively taken, which of itself pertains to human charity; further, the love of a wife under this motive, because she is a wife, is called by Augustine licit charity, and therefore honest. Now indeed this love, although it be exercised supernaturally by the faithful with the help of grace, can nevertheless be stirred up by the powers of nature without faith. «Have, therefore, licit charity; it is human, but, as I said, licit. Not only, moreover, is it so licit that it is conceded, but so licit that, if it be lacking, it is censured: may it be lawful for you to love spouses with human charity, to love children, to love your friends, to love your fellow citizens. But you laugh that this charity can be also of the impious, that is, of pagans, of Ilarians, of heretics... etc." Human charity, therefore, if it is lacking, is censured, and the same is licit; it is, therefore, honest: further, it is found also in unbelievers; therefore. Likewise, Augustine requires for an act to be honest that end and mode of the work which can plainly be obtained by the sole guidance of nature without faith. Thus in De pecc. origin., c. 38: «Marital intercourse, which even the marriage records show to be done for the sake of begetting children, is good of itself absolutely, not in comparison with fornication; which, although on account of the body of death, which is not yet renewed by resurrection, it cannot be done without a certain bestial motion, of which human nature blushes; nevertheless the intercourse itself is not a sin, where reason uses lust for good, and is not overcome to evil.» And in serm. LI, c. 14: «Those are not led to the table except by concupiscence of the flesh, not by the need of refreshment. And so these fall into food and drink. But those who come down from the office of living do not live in order to eat, but eat in order to live. And so, if it were offered to these prudent and temperate ones that they might live without food and drink, with how great joy would they embrace this benefit?» In De peccat. mer. et remiss., L. I, c. 22, Augustine asks: «How does it come about that a man from early boyhood more modest, more talented, more temperate, to a great extent victor over his lusts, who hates avarice, detests luxury, and rises more advanced and more apt to the other virtues, and yet is in that place where Christian grace cannot be preached to him? Another, however, slow in talent, given to lusts, covered with crimes and misdeeds, is so governed that he hears, believes, is baptized, is snatched away, or, if he be detained here, lives here laudably? Where did these two contract merits so diverse — I do not say, that this one believes, that one does not believe, which is of his own will; but that this one hears what he may believe, that one does not hear: for this is not in man's power.» Augustine's aim evidently shows that here such an antithesis is set up, that in the unbeliever virtues are judged to be of such a kind, that the acts are good and in no way sins; otherwise there would be no distinction, and in no respect would the one excel the other.

Finally, he praises several works of unbelievers, as the continence of Polemon, epist. CXLIV, n. 2, and the continence of Alypius his friend, Confess. L. VI, c. 10, and of the Romans, epist. CXVIII, c. 3, from which letter, since we are addressing Romans, it will not be irksome to copy out the words. «You may bear with those, if we cannot correct them, who wish the commonwealth to stand with vices unpunished, which the first Romans established and increased with virtues, although not having true piety toward the true God, which could have led them even into the eternal city by a healthful religion (behold to what true piety, true justice looks): yet guarding a certain probity of their own kind, by which it could suffice for founding, increasing, and preserving the earthly city. For God thus showed in the most opulent and renowned empire of the Romans how much civic virtues avail even without true religion, so that it might be understood that, with this added, men become citizens of another city, whose king is truth, whose law is charity, whose measure is eternity.»

It is established, therefore, that Augustine approved several works of unbelievers as honest and as infected with no vice intrinsically; although not only in that chapter of L. IV. cont. Iulianum does he call the same sins, but also elsewhere, as in de Gestis Pelagii, c. XV: «However much the works of unbelievers may be praised, we know the true and unconquered saying of the same Apostle (Rom. XIV, 23): everything that is not from faith is sin.»¹ And in Tract. LXXXVI. in Ioan., n. 2: «You must not say: before I believed, I was already doing good works, therefore I was elected. For what is there of good work before faith, since the Apostle says: everything that is not from faith is sin?»

It remains, therefore, for us to say that the works of unbelievers are generally called sins by Augustine, and that they are denied to be true virtues, for those reasons which we indicated from the beginning.

X. As to the last part of the thesis. The falsity of this proposition — namely, that free will without the grace of God avails for nothing but sinning — ought already to be manifest from what has been demonstrated both in this Thesis and in the preceding one. Here it will be enough to unravel the arguments of the adversaries, who seek from Augustine and from the other Fathers a defense for their opinion. Thus Augustine, De Spir. et lit., c. 3, says: «Nor does free will avail for anything but sinning, if the way of truth lies hidden; and when what is to be done and whither one must strive has begun not to lie hidden, unless it also delights and is loved, it is not done, it is not undertaken, it is not lived well. But in order that it be loved, the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, not through free will, which rises from us, but through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.» And in Cont. duas epistt. pelagg., L. II, c. 5: «By the sin of Adam we do not say that free will perished from human nature, but that it avails for sinning in men subject to the devil; but for living well and piously it does not avail, unless the will of man itself has been freed by the grace of God and aided to every good of action, speech, and thought.» And the Fathers of the Council of Orange, c. 22: «No one has of his own except lying and sin. But whatever a man has of truth and of justice, it is from that fountain which we ought to thirst for in this desert, so that, sprinkled from it as it were with certain drops, we may not fail in the way.» To this belongs what Celestine has among the Auctoritates Sedis Apostolicae, c. 4: «In the transgression of Adam all men lost natural possibility (i.e., the power of doing good) and innocence, and no one can rise from the depth of that ruin through free will, unless the grace of God taking pity has raised him up.»

Nevertheless, the doctrine expressed by that Baian proposition was proscribed by the Roman See; which ought to be an argument that the testimonies of the Fathers are not to be accepted as they are accepted by the Baians. And indeed the sense of Augustine's words here is this: the free will of fallen nature, deprived of grace, can sin, because for this the natural power suffices; but it cannot produce good acts — namely, those good acts which man in Paradise before sin could produce, i.e., acts equal to the attainment of his end — because for this the grace of Christ is required. Although, in truth, it can perform naturally good acts, 1) morally this happens only rarely, namely, that an act, all circumstances being considered, especially the circumstance of the end, is even naturally good 2) and even if it be such, since nevertheless it is not an act such as it ought to be, such as namely... were the acts of Adam in Paradise before sin, and this defect is in them at length on account of the sin of Adam; all these acts, useless for eternal life, can rightly, as such, be called sins: for even by the Apostle, that defect touching the moral order which is from the sin of nature is called sin in us. This interpretation, which is required by what has been said thus far, is confirmed by the clearest doctrine of Augustine Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, lib. I, cap. 2: «But who of us would say that the free will of the first man perished from the human race? Freedom indeed perished through sin, but that which was in paradise, of having full justice with immortality, on account of which human nature needs divine grace, the Lord saying: If the Son shall have freed you, then you will be truly free; certainly free for living well and justly.» Therefore by original sin there was lost only that freedom, or the power of operating justly and holily, just as Adam operated before sin: but full justice with immortality is supernatural justice.

Therefore the freedom that was lost is not the freedom of indifference to moral good and evil simply speaking, which is opposed to necessity, but it is the freedom of the children of God, that is, the power of acting well and salutarily, which is opposed to the servitude of sin. For men, made servants of sin and of the devil through transgression, lost the freedom of the children, and cannot perform works meritorious of salvation, unless they be freed by the Son.

Augustine again teaches that this freedom was lost by Adam through sin in the Enchiridion, cap. 30: «Using free will badly, man lost both himself and it.» Namely, the free will of the first man was sound and endowed with full freedom on account of the gifts of integrity and holiness with which it was furnished; but man, freely sinning, lost the soundness of free will, that is, lost sound free will. You will say that the free will which was lost is the very natural free will, namely, the freedom of indifference; for Adam lost that very thing of which he made bad use: but he did not make bad use of sound free will, i.e., of it insofar as it was sound, nor did he make bad use of grace; for no one can use these gifts badly: but he made bad use of the freedom of indifference; therefore this is what was lost. I answer that the difficulty arises from the word perdidit, which is taken as if it meant amisit; but it must be taken otherwise: for it is said: and he lost himself; just as elsewhere (epist. ad Vitalem, CCXVII, c. II) he says that Adam lost the whole nature, saying «this is the work of the grace which the second Adam brought to us, not of the nature, which the first Adam wholly lost in himself.» Namely, in a not infrequent active sense, the word perdidit here means he destroyed, he corrupted, he afflicted, or he brought perdition upon. And therefore this is the sense: Adam, using free will badly, destroyed himself and destroyed free will, insofar as he deprived it of grace, which was its soundness — deprived it, namely, of supernatural life and power, but not of natural life, which remained whole together with human nature itself.

The opinions of the other Fathers exhibit the same doctrine as the testimonies of Augustine; whence they are to be explained in the same way. And so let this be the end of this thesis and of the article.