On Grace and Free Will 1–6

On account of those who so proclaim and defend man's free choice that they dare to deny, and try to take away, the grace of God by which we are called to him and set free from our evil merits, and through which we acquire the good merits by which we may come to eternal life, we have already discussed much and committed it to writing, as far as the Lord has deigned to grant us. But since there are some who so defend the grace of God that they deny man's free choice, or who think that when grace is defended free choice is denied, I have taken care, compelled by mutual love, to write something to your Charity, brother Valentinus, and to the rest of you who serve God together. For it has been reported to me about you, brothers, by some who are in your community and came to us from there, through whom we have also sent these writings, that there are dissensions among you on this matter. Therefore, dearly beloved, so that the obscurity of this question may not disturb you, I urge you first to give thanks to God for what you understand; and as for whatever the effort of your mind cannot yet reach, keep peace and love among yourselves and pray to the Lord that you may understand it; and until he himself leads you to what you do not yet understand, walk where you have been able to reach. The apostle Paul urges this: when he had said that he was not yet perfect, a little later he said, “Let as many of us as are perfect be of this mind”; that is, we are perfect in such a way that we have not yet come to the perfection that is sufficient for us. And he at once added, “And if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal this also to you; nevertheless, to what we have attained, in that let us walk.” For by walking in what we have attained we shall be able to reach also what we have not yet attained, God revealing it to us if in anything we think otherwise, provided we do not abandon what he has already revealed.

Now he has revealed to us through his holy Scriptures that there is in man free choice of the will. How he has revealed it I remind you, not by human speech but by divine. First, because the divine commandments themselves would be of no use to man unless he had free choice of the will, by which, doing them, he might come to the promised rewards. For they were given so that man might have no excuse from ignorance, as the Lord says in the Gospel about the Jews: “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.” What sin does he mean, if not that great one which he foreknew would be theirs when he was saying this, that is, the sin by which they were going to kill him? For they were not without any sin before Christ came to them in the flesh. Again the Apostle says: “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of those men who hold down the truth in unrighteousness; because what is known of God is manifest in them, for God has manifested it to them. For his invisible things, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood through the things that have been made, his eternal power also and divinity, so that they are without excuse.” How does he say “without excuse,” if not with reference to the excuse that human pride usually makes: “If I had known, I would have done it; I did not do it because I did not know”? or, “If I knew, I would do it; I do not do it because I do not know”? This excuse is taken from them when a commandment is given, or the knowledge of how not to sin is made manifest. But there are people who try to excuse themselves even by blaming God himself; to them the apostle James says: “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God.’ For God is not a tempter to evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each one is tempted by his own desire, drawn away and enticed; then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is completed, brings forth death.” Again, to those who want to excuse themselves by blaming God himself, the book of Solomon's Proverbs answers: “The folly of a man spoils his ways, but in his heart he blames God.” And the book Ecclesiasticus says: “Do not say, ‘It was because of the Lord that I fell away,’ for you should not do what he hates. Do not say, ‘He himself led me astray,’ for he has no need of a sinful man. The Lord hates every abomination, and it is not loved by those who fear him. He himself made man from the beginning and left him in the hand of his own counsel. If you will, you will keep the commandments and good faith with what pleases him. He has set before you fire and water; stretch out your hand to whichever you will. Before man are life and death, and whatever pleases him will be given to him.” Behold, we see free choice of the human will expressed most plainly. What of the fact that in so many places God commands that all his commandments be kept and done? How does he command, if there is no free choice? What of that blessed man of whom the Psalm says that his will was in the law of the Lord? Does it not show clearly enough that a man stands firm in the law of God by his own will? Then there are so many commandments that in a way address the will itself by name, such as, “Do not be overcome by evil”; and others like it, such as, “Do not be like the horse and the mule, which have no understanding”; and, “Do not reject the counsels of your mother”; and, “Do not be wise in your own eyes”; and, “Do not faint under the discipline of the Lord”; and, “Do not neglect the law”; and, “Do not hold back from doing good to the needy”; and, “Do not devise evil against your friend”; and, “Do not give heed to a deceitful woman”; and, “He would not understand so as to do well”; and, “They would not accept discipline.” What do these and countless such things in the old books of the divine oracles show, if not free choice of the human will? In the new books too, of the Gospels and the apostles, what else is shown where it is said, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth”; and, “Do not fear those who kill the body”; and, “Whoever will come after me, let him deny himself”; and, “Peace on earth to men of good will”; and what the apostle Paul says: “Let him do what he wills; he does not sin if he marries; but he who has determined in his heart, having no necessity but having power over his own will, and has determined this in his heart, to keep his virgin, does well”? Again he says, “If I do this willingly, I have a reward”; and in another place, “Be sober, righteous, and do not sin”; and again, “That as there is a readiness of mind to will, so there may also be to perform.” And to Timothy he says, “For when they have grown wanton in Christ, they want to marry”; and elsewhere, “And all who will live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution”; and to Timothy himself, “Do not neglect the grace that is in you.” And to Philemon: “That your good deed might not be as of necessity but of free will.” He also admonishes slaves themselves to serve their masters from the heart with good will. Likewise James: “Do not err, my brothers, and do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ with partiality”; and, “Do not speak evil of one another.” Likewise John in his Epistle: “Do not love the world”; and other things of this kind. Surely where it is said, “Do not do this” and “Do not do that,” and where in the divine admonitions the work of the will is required for doing or not doing something, free choice is sufficiently demonstrated. Let no one, then, blame God in his heart; let each one blame himself when he sins. Nor, when he does something according to God, let him separate this from his own will. For when he does it 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, “who will render to each according to his works.”

Those, then, who know the divine commandments are deprived of the excuse that people usually make from ignorance. But not even those who do not know the law of God will be without punishment. “For as many as have sinned without the law will also perish without the law; and as many as have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.” It does not seem to me that the Apostle said this as though he meant that those who do not know the law will suffer something worse in their sins than those who know it. For it seems worse to perish than to be judged. But since he was speaking of the Gentiles and the Jews, because the former are without the law while the latter received the law, who would dare to say that the Jews who sin under the law will not perish, when they have not believed in Christ, since it was said of them that they “will be judged by the law”? For without faith in Christ no one can be set free; and therefore they will be judged in such a way as to perish. For if the condition of those who do not know the law of God is worse than that of those who know it, how will what the Lord says in the Gospel be true: “The servant who does not know his master's will and does things worthy of stripes will be beaten with few; but the servant who knows his master's will and does things worthy of stripes will be beaten with many”? See where he shows that a man who knows sins more gravely than one who does not know. Yet one must not therefore take refuge in the darkness of ignorance, so that each may seek an excuse in it. For it is one thing not to have known, another to have been unwilling to know. For the will is blamed in him of whom it is said, “He would not understand so as to do well.” But even that ignorance which belongs not to those who are unwilling to know but to those who, as it were, simply do not know, does not excuse anyone so far that he does not burn in everlasting fire, if he did not believe because he did not hear at all what he should believe; but perhaps so far that he burns more mildly. For not without reason was it said, “Pour out your wrath on the nations that have not known you”; and what the Apostle says, “When he comes in flaming fire to take vengeance on those who do not know God.” Yet so that we may also have this very knowledge, and so that no one may say, “I did not know, I did not hear, I did not understand,” the human will is addressed when it is said, “Do not be like the horse and the mule, which have no understanding”; although he appears worse of whom it is said, “A stubborn servant will not be corrected by words; for even if he understands, he will not obey.” But when a man says, “I cannot do what is commanded, because I am overcome by my desire,” he indeed no longer has an excuse from ignorance, nor does he blame God in his heart, but recognizes his evil in himself and grieves over it; yet the Apostle says to him, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” And certainly when someone is told, “Do not be overcome,” the choice of his will is without doubt being addressed. For to will and not to will belong to one's own will.

But it is to be feared that all these divine testimonies, and whatever others there are in defence of free choice (and without doubt there are very many), may be understood in such a way as to leave no place for the help and grace of God for a godly life and good conduct, to which an eternal reward is due; and that wretched man, when he lives well and acts well, or rather seems to himself to live well and act well, may dare to glory in himself, not in the Lord, and to place his hope of living rightly in himself, so that the curse of the prophet Jeremiah follows him, who says, “Cursed is the man who has his hope in man, and makes firm the flesh of his arm, and whose heart departs from the Lord.” Understand, brothers, this prophetic testimony. Because the prophet did not say, “Cursed is the man who has his hope in himself,” it might seem to someone that “Cursed is the man who has his hope in man” was said so that no one should have hope in another man, but in himself. So, to show that he had admonished man not to have hope even in himself, after he had said, “Cursed is the man who has his hope in man,” he at once added, “and makes firm the flesh of his arm.” He used “arm” for the power of acting; by the word “flesh” human frailty is to be understood. And therefore he makes firm the flesh of his arm who thinks that a frail and feeble power, that is, a human power, is sufficient for him to act well, and does not hope for help from the Lord. That is why he added, “and whose heart departs from the Lord.” Such is the Pelagian heresy, not an ancient one, but one that arose not long ago; and after it had been disputed against for a long while, at last, of necessity, the matter came even to councils of bishops, some of whose documents, though not all, I have sent you to read. Let us, then, not have our hope of acting well in man, making firm the flesh of our arm; and let our heart not depart from the Lord, but say to him, “Be my helper; do not forsake me, nor despise me, O God my Saviour.” Accordingly, dearly beloved, as we have proved by the earlier testimonies of the holy Scriptures that there is free choice of the will in man for living well and acting rightly, so let us also see what divine testimonies there are about the grace of God, without which we can do nothing good. And first I will say something about your own profession. For this fellowship in which you live in continence would not gather you together unless you despised marital pleasure. Now when the Lord was speaking of this and the disciples said, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry,” he answered them, “Not all receive this word, but those to whom it is given.” Did not the Apostle exhort Timothy's free choice when he said, “Keep yourself continent”? And in this matter he showed the power of the will where he says, “having no necessity, but having power over his own will, to keep his virgin.” And yet “not all receive this word, but those to whom it is given.” For those to whom it is not given either do not will, or do not fulfil what they will; but those to whom it is given so will that they fulfil what they will. Therefore, that this word, which is not received by all, is received by some, is both the gift of God and free choice. About marital chastity itself too the Apostle certainly says, “Let him do what he wills; he does not sin if he marries”; and yet this too is the gift of God, as Scripture says, “By the Lord a wife is joined to a husband.” Therefore the teacher of the Gentiles, commending in his discourse both marital chastity, through which adulteries do not happen, and the more perfect continence, through which no intercourse is sought, showed that both the one and the other are the gift of God, when he wrote to the Corinthians and admonished married people not to defraud one another; for after admonishing them he added, “But I would that all men were even as I myself” (for he certainly abstained from all intercourse), and at once he added, “But each has his own gift from God, one in this way, another in that.” Do the many precepts in the law of God, that acts of sexual immorality and adulteries are not to be committed, indicate anything other than free choice? For they would not be commanded unless man had his own will by which to obey the divine precepts. And yet it is the gift of God, without which the precepts of chastity cannot be kept. Hence that man says in the book of Wisdom: “When I knew that no one can be continent unless God gives it; and this very thing was a part of wisdom, to know whose gift this was.” But so that these holy commandments of chastity are not kept, “each one is tempted by his own desire, drawn away and enticed.” If he says here, “I want to keep them, but I am overcome by my desire,” Scripture answers his free choice with what I said above: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Yet that this may be done, grace helps; and unless it helps, the law will be nothing but the power of sin. For desire is increased and receives greater strength when the law forbids, unless the Spirit of grace helps. This is what that same teacher of the Gentiles says: “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.” See why a man says, “I want to keep the commandment of the law, but I am overcome by the power of my desire.” And when his will is addressed and told, “Do not be overcome by evil,” what does it profit him unless it is done with grace coming to his aid? The Apostle himself added this next: for when he had said, “the power of sin is the law,” he at once added, “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Therefore the victory too by which sin is conquered is nothing other than the gift of God, who helps free choice in this contest. That is why the heavenly Teacher also says, “Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation.” Let each one, then, fighting against his own desire, pray that he may not enter into temptation, that is, that he may not be drawn away and enticed by it. And he does not enter into temptation if he overcomes evil desire by good will. Yet the choice of the human will is not enough unless victory is granted by the Lord to one who prays not to enter into temptation. What shows the grace of God more evidently than that what is prayed for is received? For if our Saviour had said, “Watch, that you may not enter into temptation,” he would seem only to have admonished man's will; but when he added “and pray,” he showed that God helps us not to enter into temptation. It was said to free choice, “My son, do not faint under the discipline of the Lord”; and the Lord said, “I have prayed for you, Peter, that your faith may not fail.” Man, therefore, is helped by grace, so that it is not without purpose that his will is commanded.

When God says, “Turn to me, and I will turn to you,” one of these seems to belong to our will, namely that we turn to him; but the other to his grace, namely that he too turns to us. Here the Pelagians may think they can establish their view, in which they say that grace is given according to our merits. This Pelagius himself did not dare to affirm when he was heard by bishops in the East, that is, in the province of Palestine, in which is the city of Jerusalem. For among the other things that were charged against him, this too was charged, that he said that the grace of God is given according to our merits; which is so foreign to Catholic doctrine and so hostile to the grace of Christ that, had he not anathematized this charge against him, he would himself have gone out from there anathematized. But that he anathematized it deceitfully is shown by his later books, in which he defends nothing at all but that the grace of God is given according to our merits. So they gather such passages from the Scriptures, like this one that I mentioned a little earlier, “Turn to me, and I will turn to you,” so that according to the merit of our turning to God his grace may be given, in which he too turns to us. Those who hold this do not notice that unless our very turning to God were also the gift of God, it would not be said to him, “O God of hosts, turn us”; and, “O God, you will turn and give us life”; and, “Turn us, O God of our healing”; and other such passages which it would take long to mention. For to come to Christ also, what is it but to be turned to him by believing? And yet he says, “No one can come to me unless it has been given him by my Father.” Again, what is written in the second book of Chronicles, “The Lord is with you when you are with him; and if you seek him, you will find him; but if you forsake him, he will forsake you,” indeed makes manifest the choice of the will. But those who say that the grace of God is given according to our merits take these testimonies so as to say that our merit lies in our being with God, and that his grace is given according to this merit, so that he too may be with us; again, that our merit lies in our seeking him, and that according to this merit his grace is given, so that we may find him. And what is said in the first book, “And you, Solomon my son, know God and serve him with a perfect heart and a willing soul; for the Lord searches all hearts and knows every thought of the minds; if you seek him, he will be found by you; and if you forsake him, he will cast you off for ever,” declares the choice of the will. But they place man's merit in what is said, “if you seek him,” and say that grace is given according to this merit in what is said, “he will be found by you”; and they labour with all their might to show that the grace of God is given according to our merits, that is, that grace is not grace. For to those to whom it is rendered according to merit, “the reward is not reckoned according to grace but according to debt,” as the Apostle says most plainly. There was indeed merit in the apostle Paul, but evil merit, when he persecuted the church; that is why he says, “I am not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” Since, then, he had this evil merit, good was rendered him for evil; and so he went on to add, “But by the grace of God I am what I am.” And to show free choice too, he at once added, “and his grace in me was not in vain, but I laboured more than all of them.” For he exhorts this free choice of man in others too, to whom he says, “We beseech you not to receive the grace of God in vain.” For why does he beseech them, if they so received grace that they lost their own will? Yet so that the will itself may not be thought able to do anything good without the grace of God, when he had said, “His grace in me was not in vain, but I laboured more than all of them,” he at once added, “Yet not I, but the grace of God with me”; that is, not I alone, but the grace of God with me; and therefore neither the grace of God alone, nor he himself alone, but the grace of God with him. But that he was called from heaven and converted by so great and so effective a call was the grace of God alone; for his merits were great, but evil. Then elsewhere too he says to Timothy: “Labour with the gospel according to the power of God, who saved us and called us with his holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus.” Again, recalling his merits, but evil ones, he says: “For we ourselves also were once foolish and unbelieving, going astray, serving various desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, detestable, hating one another.” What was due to such evil merits but punishment? But God rendering good for evil through grace, which is not given according to our merits, there came about what he then adds and says: “But when the kindness and love for mankind of our Saviour God shone forth, not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy he saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out most richly upon us through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that, being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

By these and similar divine testimonies it is proved that the grace of God is not given according to our merits, since we see that it has been given, and we see it given daily, not only where no good merits came before, but even where many evil merits came before. But plainly, once it has been given, our merits too begin to be good, yet through it; for if it withdraws, man falls, not raised up but cast down headlong by free choice. Therefore, even when a man has begun to have good merits, he ought not to attribute them to himself, but to God, to whom it is said in the Psalm, “Be my helper; do not forsake me.” By saying “do not forsake me,” he shows that if he is forsaken he can do nothing good of himself. Hence that man too says, “I said in my abundance, I shall never be moved.” For he had thought that the good which so abounded in him that he would not be moved was his own; but so that it might be shown to him whose that was in which he had begun to glory as if it were his own, when grace forsook him a little he was admonished and says, “Lord, in your will you gave strength to my beauty; but you turned your face from me, and I was troubled.” Therefore it is necessary for man not only that by the grace of God the ungodly should be justified, that is, from ungodly become righteous, when good things are rendered him for evil; but also, when he has already been justified by faith, that grace should walk with him and he should lean upon it, so that he does not fall. For this reason it is written in the Song of Songs about the church herself: “Who is this who comes up made white, leaning on her beloved?” For she was made white who could not be white of herself. And by whom was she made white, if not by him who says through the prophet, “Though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow”? When, then, she was made white, she deserved nothing good; but now that she has been made white she walks well, provided she leans perseveringly on him by whom she was made white. For this reason Jesus himself too, on whom she who was made white leans, said to his disciples, “Without me you can do nothing.” Let us return, then, to the apostle Paul, whom we certainly find to have obtained the grace of God, who renders good for evil, without any good merits, indeed with many evil merits; let us see what he says when his passion was now near, writing to Timothy. “For I am already being offered,” he says, “and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.” Here he certainly recalls his good merits, so that after good merits he might obtain a crown, who after evil merits obtained grace. Then notice what follows: “There remains for me,” he says, “the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will render to me on that day.” To whom would the righteous judge render a crown, if the merciful Father had not given grace? And how would this be a crown of righteousness, unless the grace that justifies the ungodly had gone before? How would these things be rendered as due, unless that was first given freely? But when the Pelagians say that the only grace not given according to our merits is that by which a man's sins are forgiven, while that which is given at the end, that is, eternal life, is rendered for our preceding merits, they must be answered. For if they so understood our merits as to recognize that they themselves too are gifts of God, this view would not be blameworthy; but since they so proclaim human merits as to say that man has them from himself, the Apostle answers most rightly, “For who makes you to differ? And what do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it?” Most truly is it said to one who thinks such things: God crowns his own gifts, not your merits, if your merits are from you yourself and not from him. For if they are such, they are evil, and God does not crown them; but if they are good, they are God's gifts; because, as the apostle James says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.” Hence John too, the Lord's forerunner, says, “A man cannot receive anything unless it has been given him from heaven”: from heaven, certainly, whence the Holy Spirit also came when Jesus ascended on high, led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men. If, then, your good merits are God's gifts, God does not crown your merits as your merits, but as his gifts.