On Nature and Grace

Contents

Translation in progress.

Reading pages: 1–23 · 24–44 · 45–63 · 64–80 · 81–84

1. 1Augustine answers the book Timasius and James sent him (Pelagius' On Nature), warning that its zeal for human responsibility undermines the righteousness that comes only by the grace of Christ.
2. 2Augustine argues that if nature alone could fulfill righteousness without faith in Christ, Christ would have died in vain.
3. 3Augustine teaches that human nature was created good but is now weakened by original sin and needs Christ as its physician.
4. 4Augustine teaches that the grace of Christ is given freely, not for merit, and that those not freed by it, including unbaptized infants, are justly condemned for sin.
5. 5Augustine teaches that all humanity deserves condemnation, so that those saved are vessels of God's mercy, not of their own merit.
6. 6Augustine warns that arguments making grace unnecessary for infants or adults are clever but empty the cross of Christ.
7. 7Augustine states that the book, though written with great ability, empties the cross of Christ by claiming righteousness is possible apart from his sacrament.
8. 8Augustine sets out Pelagius' distinction between whether a man can be without sin and whether he is, and Pelagius' claim that the Scripture texts on universal sin speak only of fact, not of possibility.
9. 9Augustine answers Pelagius with the case of an infant who died unbaptized, whom, he argues, Scripture does not absolve though it could not have been otherwise.
10. 10Augustine rejects the Pelagian view that Adam's sin passes by imitation, and presses the case of an adult who never heard of Christ.
11. 11Augustine reports Pelagius' reply that admitting a sinless life is possible “by the grace of God” still confirms his thesis, and insists only that Pelagius confess that without grace no one can be without sin.
12. 12Augustine explains why Pelagius' comparisons (tongue, wings, feet) made him suspect that Pelagius meant by grace only the natural endowments of creation.
13. 13Augustine answers Pelagius' claim that unavoidable light sins should not be rebuked, holding that the law's rebuke drives us to grace, which both forgives and helps.
14. 14Augustine agrees that Pelagius' sins are due to his own negligence, but urges him to pray that negligence not rule him, rather than trust his own strength.
15. 15Augustine notes that Scripture calls no one “without sin” except Christ, refers to his earlier discussion of 1 John 3:9 and 1:8, and accepts reading “cannot sin” as “ought not to sin”.
16. 16Augustine rejects Pelagius' reading of James 3:8 as a rebuke, and teaches that no man can tame the tongue without the help of God's grace, which must be sought in prayer.
17. 17Augustine argues from James 3 that the wisdom which tames the tongue comes down from above and must be asked of God in faith, so that the law commands and faith obtains.
18. 18Augustine sets aside Romans 8:7–8 as irrelevant and asks whether those who live by the Spirit do so by God's grace or by their own natural ability, since love is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
19. 19Augustine distinguishes ignorance from negligence, which Pelagius blames, from ignorance despite the wish to understand, and urges prayer for understanding.
20. 20Augustine observes that Pelagius asks God only for pardon of past sins, never for help not to sin, though the Lord's Prayer asks for both.
21. 21Augustine answers Pelagius' argument that sin, not being a substance, cannot weaken human nature, by pointing to the psalmist's prayer for healing and Christ's words about the physician.
22. 22Augustine illustrates how sin, though not a substance, corrupts nature, just as not eating, which is not a substance, ruins the body, since God is the soul's true food.
23. 23Augustine objects that Pelagius, by declaring infants healthy and Adam's descendants stronger than Adam, denies them the physician Christ.
24. 24Augustine answers Pelagius' objection that punishment should not cause further sin by showing from Romans 1 how God's giving sinners up is itself punishment that produces graver sins.
25. 25Augustine teaches that free choice sufficed for man to fall into sin, but only Christ's grace can heal and give life for his return to righteousness.
26. 26Augustine teaches that Christ, sinless, died by his own power as the price of our redemption, which the Pelagian defense of nature makes void.
27. 27Augustine answers Pelagius' claim that no evil causes good, citing the psalmist whose trouble cured his pride.
28. 28Augustine urges prayer rather than disputation with the Pelagians, and explains that Adam's easily avoidable sin was justly punished by the loss of the body's obedience, which we inherit.
29. 29Augustine argues that God's grace is needed not only to heal past sin but continually to keep the justified from sinning, as the healthy eye still needs light.
30. 30Augustine answers Pelagius' mockery of the idea that sin might guard against pride by the analogy of painful surgery that cures pain.
31. 31Augustine explains that God heals in his own order, leaving Paul his thorn to guard against pride, and that we work out salvation with fear because God works in us.
32. 32Augustine answers Pelagius' comparison of fire and sin with examples of pains, poisons, and heats that cure their like, and with Paul's delivering men to Satan to teach them.
33. 33Augustine rejects Pelagius' claim that every sin is pride, while agreeing that pride was the beginning of sin in the devil and in Adam.
34. 34Augustine answers Pelagius' dilemma that a sin is either necessary and not one's own, or voluntary and avoidable, by teaching that sin is our own though committed from a fault not yet healed.
35. 35Augustine confesses he does not know why God does not quickly heal pride, and teaches that God's mercy both goes before and follows us, so that we work together with him as he works.
36. 36Augustine teaches that God himself shows, gives, and leads us in the righteous way, so that we must walk it in fear and trust in him, which does not remove the will but proclaims grace.
37. 37Augustine rejects the charge that asserting sinlessness makes man equal to God, since even perfect righteousness will not make the creature equal to the Creator.
38. 38Augustine agrees with Pelagius that humility belongs with truth, and concludes that 1 John 1:8 is therefore simply true: we do have sin.
39. 39Augustine argues that praising nature as healthy rejects the Savior, and that God's mercy is needed not only to pardon past sins but to help us avoid future ones.
40. 40Augustine agrees with Pelagius that the sins of the saints are recorded to teach repentance and to guard against despair.
41. 41Augustine answers Pelagius' question whether the saints died with or without sin: though they did not live without sin, they could die without it through daily forgiveness sought in the Lord's Prayer.
42. 42Augustine answers Pelagius' list of sinless saints: setting aside the Virgin Mary out of honor for the Lord, all the others would have confessed with 1 John 1:8 that they had sin.
43. 43Augustine refutes Pelagius' claim that Scripture would have recorded the sins of those it praises, citing the crowd at the triumphal entry.
44. 44Augustine reports Pelagius' argument that Abel, one of only four people, must have been sinless because Scripture records no sin of his.
45. 45Augustine argues that Scripture could not record the countless light sins of even one man such as Abel, and that any lack in the love of God is a fault, so the righteous are not without sin.
46. 46Augustine answers Pelagius' rule “believe what we read” by urging him to believe what Scripture says of original sin and of salvation in Christ's name alone.
47. 47Augustine argues that if nature and free choice sufficed to know and do the good, Christ would have died in vain, and applies Galatians 5:4 to those who seek to be justified by nature.
48. 48Augustine rejects Pelagius' limiting of “all have sinned” to Paul's contemporaries and explains that “all” in Romans 5:18 means that no one is justified except through Christ.
49. 49Augustine does not dispute whether perfect love of God is possible, provided it is confessed to come only from a will healed and helped by grace.
50. 50Augustine agrees that man was created able not to sin, but applies the parable of the Good Samaritan to fallen man, who needs healing; God commands to admonish us to do what we can and pray for what we cannot.
51. 51Augustine states the one real issue: no one could ever be without sin except by the grace of God through Christ crucified, by faith in whom the righteous of old were also healed.
52. 52Augustine reports Pelagius' indignant answer that the possibility of not sinning is attributed to God alone, which on its face Augustine can accept.
53. 53Augustine reports Pelagius' argument that the ability to speak (and so not to sin) belongs to nature and God, while its use belongs to the will, and shows how even that ability can be lost.
54. 54Augustine questions Pelagius' claim that what is by natural necessity is outside the will, citing our necessary will to be happy and God's inability to will sin.
55. 55Augustine shows that Pelagius' comparisons from sight, hearing, and smell fail, since we often cannot use or refuse these senses at will.
56. 56Augustine rejects Pelagius' claim that the ability not to sin belongs to nature and its use to us, since even unfallen nature needed God's help and our present nature is corrupted.
57. 57Augustine answers Pelagius' reasoning about the “ability not to sin” implanted in nature, pointing out that corrupted nature, like broken feet, has lost that ability and cries for healing.
58. 58Augustine answers Pelagius' claim that the ability not to sin is inseparably implanted in nature by citing Galatians 5:17 and Romans 7, which show men unable to do the good they will.
59. 59Augustine shows that Pelagius calls the possibility of not sinning “grace” only because God created nature with it, and answers from Romans 7:18 that the will can be present while the ability is lost.
60. 60Augustine seizes on Pelagius' admission that the flesh is not contrary to the baptized, implying that it is contrary to the unbaptized, whose nature therefore needs the Savior.
61. 61Augustine shows from Galatians that the flesh is contrary even to the baptized, and calls for confession of the need of grace in the words of Romans 7:24–25.
62. 62Augustine insists that the grace in question is not that of creation but that of salvation through Christ, for which the faithful pray, and notes that Pelagius has now revealed his view.
63. 63Augustine answers Pelagius' argument that two good things, flesh and spirit, cannot be contrary, pointing to heat and cold and teaching that the flesh's opposition is a fault requiring medicinal grace.
64. 64Augustine turns Pelagius' reasoning against him: if the flesh is contrary to the unbaptized, his argument that two goods cannot conflict fails, and human nature needs Christ as physician.
65. 65Augustine argues from Romans 7 that the one crying “Who will deliver me?” seeks not only pardon for past sins but strength for the future, and must not be forbidden to beg Christ's mercy.
66. 66Augustine notes that even the unbaptized' plea for grace refutes the self-sufficiency of nature, and agrees that Galatians 5:17 concerns works that come from carnal lust.
67. 67Augustine explains that the baptized still feel the flesh opposing the spirit, but those led by the Spirit are not under the law of fear but under the law of liberty and love.
68. 68Augustine agrees with Pelagius that the devil flees those who resist him, but insists that resistance itself requires prayer for God's help, which the Pelagian stress on the will takes away.
69. 69Augustine asks why Pelagius, who calls the created possibility of not sinning “grace”, never says that nature is healed or helped by the grace of Christ in answer to prayer.
70. 70Augustine leaves open whether anyone has been sinless in this life, but denies that anyone can be counted a Christian who says that any progress in righteousness is possible without the grace of Christ.
71. 71Augustine begins answering the patristic testimonies Pelagius cited, holding that they neither support nor refute his case, and interprets an unnamed author's words on Christ's victory over sin and the desires of the flesh.
72. 72Augustine answers the passages of Hilary cited by Pelagius, distinguishing the struggle against concupiscence, which is doing righteousness, from its perfection, which is having no adversary at all.
73. 73Augustine notes that Job confessed his sins and that Hilary himself said no one is without sin, and appeals finally to Christ's words, “Without me you can do nothing.”
74. 74Augustine notes that Ambrose, whom Pelagius cites on Zechariah and Elizabeth, himself teaches in a hymn that the Holy Spirit must be obtained by prayer.
75. 75Augustine cites more of Ambrose's commentary on Luke to show that he taught that the will is prepared by God and that no one is spotless from birth, but only by the grace of Christ.
76. 76Augustine accepts John Chrysostom's statements that sin is an evil act from free choice, but insists the question concerns the grace by which fallen nature is healed.
77. 77Augustine interprets the sayings Pelagius attributed to the martyr Xystus as teaching that likeness to God and sonship come through the love poured out by the Holy Spirit, a power received by grace.
78. 78Augustine accepts Jerome's sayings on the pure in heart and on free choice, adding that purity of heart comes by grace and that in doing right there is the liberty of love.
79. 79Augustine teaches that love is poured out by the Holy Spirit given by the ascended Christ, and that the necessity of sinning, which comes from nature's faults, is removed by grace in answer to prayer.
80. 80Augustine owns the passage of his On Free Choice cited by Pelagius, but explains that sin is avoided only with God's help, sought in the Lord's Prayer both to prevent and to heal it.
81. 81Augustine quotes further from his On Free Choice to show that he taught that ignorance and difficulty are penalties of Adam's condemnation and that God's help must be sought, so that his words do not support Pelagius.
82. 82Augustine sets out how to exhort Christians: to faith first, then to good works and persevering prayer, confessing that any perfection comes only by the grace of Christ.
83. 83Augustine teaches that God's commandments are not impossible but move us to do what is easy and pray for what is hard, and that they become light to love, which is the fulfilling of the law.
84. 84Augustine concludes that righteousness grows with love, which at every stage is poured into our hearts not by nature or will but by the Holy Spirit, the grace of God through Christ.