Tractatus de Gratia Divina Actuali

I. It is certain that the Pelagians frequently complained that by Augustine's doctrine free will is destroyed, that the will does not act but is acted upon, and that fate is introduced (cf. Oper. imperf. L. I. c. 78. seg. Cont. duas epist. Pelagg. I. II. c. 5. Serm. CLVI. c. 11). It is equally certain that the Massilians objected that through Augustine's doctrine fate was introduced, as we have seen in the Synopsis of their controversy. It is finally certain that Augustine himself experienced the difficulty, and no slight one, in reconciling freedom with grace (cf. De Gratia Christi c. 47. — Cont. Iulian. L. IV. c. 8 — De Praed. SS. c. 14. — Cont. Petilianum L. II. c. 84. De Peccat. mer. et remiss. L. II, c. 18. Epistola CCXIV. et CCXV. ad Valentinum). But now, they say, if Augustine had taught that grace to which the will can resist, whose use is in the power of the free will, there would have been no place for these complaints, and there would be no difficulty in reconciling grace with freedom.

All this argumentation rests on an equivocation. In order to understand the sense of the objection of the Pelagians complaining of the destruction of freedom, we must recall and carefully weigh what we have already noted in the preceding pages (Synops. histor. n. 1.): that the Pelagians had formed in their mind such a concept of freedom that they confused the power of efficacy with the power of indifference (cf. de Deo Creante. Th. LXXX. III.). For because the will can, from its nature, will any good object proposed to it and can nill it, they concluded that the will can, by the force of its nature, do any good whatever; and if this were denied, freedom was destroyed by that very fact, because that power was destroyed. Yet it is clear that there is the greatest difference between the two. It is proper to the will to be able to will and to nill that which man is able to do when all things required for acting are in place; but that he is able to do it depends for the most part on extrinsic causes and is not placed in the nature of the will or of man alone. A man furnished with a ship can will to sail and can nill it, and this depends solely on his free will; but that he can sail, i. e. that he has a ship ready, his will alone certainly cannot bring about. Whence it is evident that this also holds with regard to natural objects. Nevertheless, if the discourse is about the natural virtues and their elicited acts, the power of efficacy is as evident as the power of indifference, and it must be said that man can, by the force of his nature, exercise every natural virtue; for the law would be in vain if the power were lacking in nature. And because the pagan philosophers knew no other virtues, they therefore asserted the power of the virtues simply to the will. But if we speak of the supernatural virtues, it is manifest that these two must be distinguished: namely, he can from his nature will or nill the supernatural good, since the power of effecting it is in him; but this power he has not from himself, but from God: just as if a man had suitable wings, he could will and not will to fly; but this power of flying would not be from the nature of man or of the will, but would be freely conferred by God. Thus Bernard excellently, de Gratia et lib. arbit. c. 8. «neque enim ad liberum arbitrium, quantum in se est, pertinet aut aliquando pertinuit posse vel sapere sed tantum velle nec potentem facit creaturam nec sapientem, sed tantum volentem.»

Thus the Pelagians erred in this, that, confusing these two, they claimed for the very nature of the free will the power of doing any good whatever, even that which leads to eternal life, which is the supernatural good, because the will is indifferent to willing or nilling it.

But if this is so, the answer to the Calvinist arguments is at hand. For, leaving aside that the opinion of him whom they attack is not aptly gathered from the objections and complaints of men who had to make use of sophisms, let this be the answer: the Pelagians complained that freedom was destroyed by Augustine, and that in his view the will is acted upon and does not act; because the Pelagians wanted the power of doing any good whatever to pertain to the nature of freedom — the power, namely, not only of indifference with all things required for acting in place, but of universal efficacy toward any good; Augustine, however, denied that the power of the salutary good is from nature, and said that it is conferred by grace. Wherefore (which is to be noted) the Pelagians inferred the destruction of freedom not from the manner in which Augustine taught grace to act, but from the necessity of grace. But in order that the Calvinists could conclude anything from the complaints of the Pelagians, it would be necessary that the complaints of the Pelagians turn upon the manner in which grace acts; since, therefore, they touch an altogether different question, they contribute nothing to our matter.

II. The complaints about the fate introduced tend to the same point, which the Pelagians deduced not from a certain manner in which grace was said by Augustine to operate, but from the asserted necessity of grace and its gratuity. For thus Augustine sets out their complaint

Cont. duas epistt. pelagg. I. II, c. 5. «Catholicos sub nomine gratiae ita fatum asserere ut dicant, quia nisi Deus invito et reluctanti (ita scilicet interpretabantur Pelagiani, vel ita loquebantur ad invidiam conflandam catholicis) homini inspiraverit boni et ipsius imperfecti (initii nempe boni) cupiditatem, nec a malo declinare nec bonum posset arripere.» Augustine explains what the Pelagians meant by these words ibid. c. 8. «Isti enim volunt in homine ab ipso homine incipere cupiditatem boni, ut huius caepti meritum etiam perficiendi gratia consequatur.» On the contrary, Augustine maintained that the first good motion is the work of grace, and therefore that men not yet willing the good, or even nilling it, are converted through grace and become willing, and that therefore the discernment of goods from evils is owed to grace, not to nature. This it is which the Pelagians disapproved of as a kind of fate — they who wanted it to be of our part at least to begin the business of salvation, so that the attainment of our salvation would depend on us freely willing; which opinion the Massilians afterwards made their own. To them Augustine replies ibidem c. 8. «Hoc nobis obiiciendum putarunt quod invito et reluctanti homini Deum dicamus inspirare non quanticumque boni, sed imperfecti cupiditatem... Verum et sic gratiam Dei dicunt secundum merita nostra dari. Si enim sine gratia Dei per nos incipit cupiditas boni, ipsum caeptum erit meritum, cui tanquam ex merito gratiae veniet adiutorium.» Therefore, again, this complaint of the Pelagians and Massilians contributes nothing to our question.

III. As for the difficulty which Augustine confesses that he experiences in reconciling freedom with grace, the Catholic theologians answer first that this serves admirably against Calvin and Jansenius. For if freedom, in order to be true, requires nothing but immunity from coercion, freedom is reconciled without any difficulty with grace determining to one; indeed there is no difficulty, nor can there be. If, therefore, Augustine thought that the freedom necessary for a good work consists in immunity from coercion alone, what difficulty did he devise in combining freedom with grace? He might perhaps have said that the matter seems difficult to others, but he himself would have denied it; for nothing is easier to explain, since it is evident that grace determining to one does not coerce the will with coercion properly so called.

We answer, secondly, that the observation we made earlier also holds for explaining the difficulty with which Augustine labored. For since freedom is conceived as the power of good and evil, and yet the power of the salutary good is only from grace, hence it is, as Augustine notes, that he who defends free will seems to deny grace, and he who defends grace seems to deny free will (De Grat. et lib. arb. c. Ic.).

This difficulty, however, Augustine solves according to that distinction which we have set out above. For he concedes that it pertains to free will that it wills or nills the good: «Noli vinci a malo, sed vince in bono malum. Et utique cui dicitur noli vinci, arbitrium voluntatis eius sine dubio convenitur. Velle enim et nolle propriae voluntatis est.» Ibid. c. 3. n. 5. But he contends that the power of willing the good is conferred through grace, ibid. c. 4. n. 6. «Sed metuendum est ne ista omnia divina testimonia (quae hactenus attulerat) et quaecumque sunt alia, quae sine dubitatione sunt plurima, in defensione liberi arbitrii sic intelligantur, ut ad vitam piam et bonam conversationem, cui merces aeterna debetur, adiutorio et gratiae Dei locus non relinquatur.»

Whence, after many things, he concludes c. 16. «Certum est nos mandata servare, si volumus; sed quia praeparatur voluntas a Domino, ab illo petendum est ut tantum velimus, quantum sufficit ut volendo faciamus. Certum est nos velle, cum volumus; sed ille facit ut velimus bonum, de quo dictum est: Praeparatur voluntas a Domino et Deus est qui operatur in nobis et velle. Certum esse nos facere, cum facimus; sed ille facit ut faciamus, praebendo vires efficacissimas voluntati, qui dixit, faciam ut in iustificationibus meis ambuletis.»

Thus Augustine reconciles both, grace and freedom, and he never employs any other solution; which is an evident argument that the difficulty of which he spoke does not arise from the manner in which grace acts — about which matter there was never a question — but arises from the necessity and gratuity of grace. Therefore neither from this difficulty can anything be gathered in favor of the Calvinist and Jansenist heresy.