On Nature and Grace 1–23

The book you sent, my dearest sons Timasius and James, I have read through, setting aside for a little the things I had in hand; quickly indeed, but with no small attention. And I saw a man on fire with the most ardent zeal against those who, when they ought to blame the human will for their sins, blame rather the nature of men and try to excuse themselves by it. He has blazed out too much against this pestilence, which even the authors of secular literature have severely rebuked, exclaiming: “The human race complains falsely of its nature.” This very opinion he too has pressed with all the strength of his talent. Yet I fear that he may rather lend support to those who “have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge; for, being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they have not submitted to the righteousness of God.” What the righteousness of God is of which he speaks here, he makes clear next by adding: “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” Whoever understands, then, that this righteousness of God is established not in the command of the law, by which fear is struck into us, but in the help of the grace of Christ, to which alone the fear of the law, like a schoolmaster, usefully leads, understands why he is a Christian. “For if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died in vain.” But if he did not die in vain, in him alone is the ungodly justified, whose faith, as he believes in him who justifies the ungodly, is reckoned as righteousness. “For all have sinned and lack the glory of God, being justified freely by his blood.” But those who are not thought to belong to these “all” who have sinned and lack the glory of God certainly have no need to become Christians, because “it is not the healthy who need a physician, but the sick”; hence he came “to call not the righteous, but sinners.”

And so, if the nature of the human race, begotten from the flesh of that one transgressor, can suffice for itself to fulfill the law and to perfect righteousness, it ought to be secure about its reward, that is, about eternal life, even if in some nation or at some earlier time faith in the blood of Christ was hidden from it. For God is not unjust, to defraud the righteous of the reward of righteousness if the mystery [sacramentum] of Christ's divinity and humanity, which was manifested in the flesh, has not been announced to them. “For how could they believe what they have not heard? Or how could they hear without a preacher?” “For faith comes from hearing,” as it is written, “and hearing through the word of Christ. But I say,” he says, “have they not heard? Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.” But before this began to happen, and indeed before the preaching itself reaches the ends of the whole world (since there are still remote nations, though, as is reported, very few, to whom it has not yet been preached), what is human nature to do, or what did it do, which either had not heard beforehand that this would come about or has not yet learned that it has come about, except by believing in God, who made heaven and earth, by whom it perceives by nature that it too was made, and by living rightly fulfill his will, without being imbued with any faith in the passion and resurrection of Christ? If this could be done, or can be, then I too say what the apostle said of the law: “Then Christ died in vain.” For if he said this of the law which the one nation of the Jews received, how much more justly is it said of the law of nature, which the whole human race received: “If righteousness is through nature, then Christ died in vain!” But if Christ did not die in vain, then the whole of human nature can in no way be justified and redeemed from the most just wrath of God, that is, from punishment, except through faith in, and the sacrament of, the blood of Christ.

For the nature of man was at first created blameless and without any fault; but this nature of man in which each one is born from Adam now needs a physician, because it is not healthy. All the good things, indeed, that it has in its formation, life, senses, and mind, it has from the supreme God, its creator and maker. But the fault that darkens and weakens these natural goods, so that it needs enlightening and healing, was not contracted from the blameless maker, but from original sin, which was committed by free choice. And so a nature subject to punishment belongs to most just retribution. For even if we are now a new creature in Christ, yet “we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest; but God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, made us alive together with Christ, by whose grace we have been saved.”

This grace of Christ, then, without which neither infants nor those grown in age can be saved, is not rendered for merits but given freely; that is why it is called grace. “Being justified,” he says, “freely by his blood.” So those who are not set free through it, whether because they have not yet been able to hear, or because they would not obey, or also because, when by reason of age they could not hear, they did not receive the washing of regeneration, which they could have received and by which they would have been saved, are certainly condemned justly, because they are not without sin, either what they contracted by origin or what they added by evil conduct: “for all have sinned” (whether in Adam or in themselves) “and lack the glory of God.”

The whole mass, then, owes punishment; and if the punishment of damnation that is owed were rendered to all, it would without doubt not be rendered unjustly. Those, therefore, who are set free from it by grace are called not vessels of their own merits but “vessels of mercy.” Whose mercy, but his who sent Christ Jesus into this world to save sinners, whom he foreknew and predestined and called and justified and glorified? Who, then, would be so utterly mad as not to give ineffable thanks to the mercy that sets free those whom it willed, when he could in no way rightly blame the justice that condemned absolutely all?

If we are wise according to the Scriptures in this, we are not forced to argue against Christian grace and to say things by which we try to show that human nature does not need a physician in infants, because it is healthy, and that in adults it can suffice for itself for righteousness, if it wills. These things seem to be said cleverly, but in “wisdom of speech,” by which “the cross of Christ is made void”; this is not “the wisdom that comes down from above.” I will not say what follows, lest we be thought to do injury to our friends, whose very strong and very quick minds we want to run not in a crooked path but in a straight one.

With as much zeal, then, as the author of this book you sent is fired against those who seek a defense for their sins in the weakness of human nature, with so much and with far more ardent zeal must we be fired, lest the cross of Christ be made void. And it is made void if it is said that one can by any means reach righteousness and eternal life apart from his sacrament. That this is what is done in that book, I will not say knowingly, lest I judge that he who wrote it should not even be counted a Christian, but, as I rather believe, unknowingly; with great strength, certainly; but I want it to be healthy strength, not such as madmen usually have.

First, then, he makes a distinction: that it is one thing to ask whether something can be, which concerns possibility alone, and another whether it is. No one doubts that this distinction is true; for it follows that what is could have been, but it does not follow that what can be also is. For since the Lord raised Lazarus, he was without doubt able to; but since he did not raise Judas, must we say, “He was not able to”? He was able, then, but he did not will it. For if he had willed it, he would have done this too by the same power, since “the Son gives life to whom he wills.” But see where he is heading with this true and obvious distinction, and what he is trying to achieve. “We,” he says, “are treating of possibility alone; and unless something certain is settled about it, we consider it a most serious fault, and out of order, to pass on to anything else.” He turns this over in many ways and at great length, so that no one may think he is inquiring about anything other than the possibility of not sinning. So among many things by which he does this, he also says: “I say again: I say that a man can be without sin. What do you say? That a man cannot be without sin. I do not say,” he says, “that a man is without sin, nor do you say that a man is not without sin; we are contending about ‘can’ and ‘cannot’, not about ‘is’ and ‘is not’.” Then he mentions some of the passages that are usually brought from the Scriptures against them as not belonging to this question, in which it is asked whether a man can or cannot be without sin: “For,” he says, “‘no one is clean from filth,’ and ‘there is no man who does not sin,’ and ‘there is not a righteous man on earth,’ and ‘there is none who does good,’ and other things like these,” he says, “bear on ‘is not’, not on ‘cannot’. For by examples of this kind it is shown what certain men were like at some time, not that they could not have been otherwise; and so they are rightly found to be blameworthy. For if they were such because they could not be otherwise, they are without blame.”

See what he has said. But I say that an infant born in a place where it could not be helped by the baptism of Christ, and overtaken by death, was such, that is, departed without the washing of regeneration, because it could not be otherwise. Let him then absolve it and open to it the kingdom of heaven, against the Lord's sentence. But the apostle does not absolve it, who says: “Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and so it passed to all men, in whom all sinned.” Rightly, then, by that condemnation which runs through the whole mass, it is not admitted into the kingdom of heaven, though it not only was not a Christian but could not have been one.

“But it is not condemned,” they say, “because it is said that all sinned in Adam not because of a sin contracted by the origin of birth, but because of imitation.” If, then, Adam is called the author of all the sins that followed because he was the first sinner among men, why is not Abel rather than Christ set as the head of all the righteous, since he was the first righteous man among men? But I am not speaking of an infant. A youth or an old man has died in a region where he could not hear the name of Christ. Could he have become righteous by nature and free choice, or could he not? If they say he could, see, this is to make void the cross of Christ: to contend that anyone can be justified without it by the natural law and the choice of the will. Let us say here too: “Then Christ died in vain”; for all could do this even if he had not died; and if they were unrighteous, they would be so because they willed it, not because they could not be righteous. But if he could not be justified at all without the grace of Christ, let him absolve this man too, if he dares, according to his own words: that if he was such because he could not be otherwise, he was without blame.

But he raised an objection to himself as if spoken by another, and said: “‘It can indeed be,’ you will say, ‘but by the grace of God.’” Then, as if answering, he adds: “I thank you for your kindness, that you are not content merely not to attack, or merely to admit, my assertion, which you were attacking a little while ago, but do not even shrink from approving it. For to say, ‘It can indeed, but by this or that,’ what else is it than not only to agree that it can be, but also to show how or in what manner it can be? So no one proves the possibility of a thing more than one who admits even its manner, since a manner cannot exist apart from the thing.” Having said this, he again raised an objection to himself: “‘But,’ you will say, ‘in this place you seem to deny the grace of God, since you do not mention it.’” Then he answered: “Do I deny it, who by confessing the thing must necessarily confess also that by which the thing can be brought about? Or do you, who by denying the thing undoubtedly deny also whatever it is by which the thing is brought about?” He has already forgotten that he is answering one who does not deny the thing, whose objection he had set out a little before as saying, “It can indeed be, but by the grace of God.” How then does one deny that possibility for which he labors so much, who already says to him, “It can be, but by the grace of God”? However, since, leaving aside this man who already confesses the thing, he still argues against those who deny that it is possible for a man to be without sin, what is it to us? Let him argue against whom he pleases, provided he confesses what is denied with the most wicked impiety: that without the grace of God a man cannot be without sin. He says, then: “Whether by grace, or by help, or by mercy, or whatever it is by which a man can be without sin, whoever admits the thing itself confesses it.”

I confess to you, beloved, that when I read this I was suddenly filled with joy, because he did not deny the grace of God, by which alone a man can be justified; for this is what I most detest and shudder at in the arguments of such men. But as I went on reading the rest, I began to be suspicious, first from the comparisons he gave. For he says: “Now if I say, ‘A man can argue, a bird can fly, a hare can run,’ and do not also mention the things by which these can be done, that is, a tongue, wings, feet, have I denied the means of these functions, when I have confessed the functions themselves?” He seems certainly to have mentioned things that have their power by nature; for these members, tongue, wings, and feet, were created with natures of this kind. He did not put forward anything like what we mean to be understood of grace, without which a man is not justified, where the question is of healing natures, not of establishing them. From this point, then, I began to read the rest with anxiety, and I found that my suspicion was not false.

Before I come to that, see what he said. When he was treating the question of the difference of sins, and raised the objection that some say that certain light sins, by their very number, because they often rush upon us, cannot all be avoided, he denied that they ought to be rebuked even with a light correction if they cannot be avoided at all; not noticing, surely, the Scriptures of the New Testament, where we have learned that this is the purpose of the law that rebukes: that because of the things wrongly done, one may take refuge in the grace of the merciful Lord, the schoolmaster, as it were, shutting us up in the same faith which was afterwards revealed; where both what is done badly may be forgiven, and, with the same grace helping, it may not be done. For theirs is the way of those making progress, although those making good progress are called perfect travelers. But that is the summit of the perfect, to which nothing is added, when that toward which one strives has begun to be possessed.

Now as for what is said to them, “Are you yourself without sin?”, it really does not bear on the matter in question. But when he says that it should rather be attributed to his own negligence that he is not without sin, he says it well; but let him deign also to pray to the Lord on that account, that this wicked negligence may not rule over him, the Lord whom someone besought when he said, “Direct my steps according to your word, and let no iniquity have dominion over me,” lest, while he trusts in his own diligence as if in his own strength, he reach true righteousness neither here nor there, where without doubt it is to be desired and hoped for as perfect.

And the objection made to them by some, that it is nowhere written in exactly these words that a man can be without sin, he easily refutes, because the question is not in what words any opinion is expressed. Yet perhaps it is not without reason that, while men are sometimes found in the Scriptures to be called “without blame”, no one is found who is called “without sin” except one alone, of whom it is plainly said, “him who knew no sin,” and in the place where holy priests were being discussed: “For he was tempted in all things according to the likeness, without sin”; that is, in that flesh which had “the likeness of the flesh of sin,” though it was not the flesh of sin; which likeness, however, it would not have had, unless all other human flesh were the flesh of sin. As for how that saying is to be taken, “Everyone who is born of God does not sin and cannot sin, because his seed remains in him,” since the apostle John himself, as if he were not born of God, or were speaking to those who were not yet born of God, plainly set down, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us,” I have taken care to explain, as best I could, in the books I wrote to Marcellinus on this matter. And his assertion that “cannot sin” was said as if it meant “ought not to sin” does not seem to me to be rejected. For what madman would say that one ought to sin, when it is sin precisely because it ought not to be done?

Certainly, what the apostle James says, “But no man can tame the tongue,” does not seem to me to be understood as he wished to explain it, as though it were said by way of reproach, as if it were said, “Can no man, then, tame the tongue?”, as if rebuking and saying, “You can tame wild beasts; can you not tame the tongue?”, as though it were easier to tame the tongue than wild beasts. I do not think this is the sense in this place. For if he wished this to be understood of the ease of taming the tongue, the rest would follow in comparison with beasts. But in fact what follows is: “a restless evil, full of deadly poison,” certainly more harmful than that of beasts and serpents; for that kills the flesh, but this the soul; for “the mouth that lies kills the soul.” Saint James, then, did not pronounce that sentence as if this were easier than taming beasts, or want it to be pronounced in that tone, but rather to show how great the evil of the tongue is in man, that it can be tamed by no man, though even beasts are tamed by men. Nor did he say this so that we should allow the dominion of this evil over us to remain through negligence, but so that we should ask the help of divine grace to tame the tongue. For he does not say, “No one can tame the tongue,” but “no man,” so that when it is tamed we may confess that it is done by the mercy of God, the help of God, the grace of God. Let the soul, then, try to tame the tongue, and while it tries, let it ask for help; and let the tongue pray that the tongue may be tamed, by the gift of him who said to his own: “For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.” So by the command we are admonished to do what, when we try and are not able by our own strength, we may pray for divine help to do.

Accordingly, he himself, when he had enlarged upon the evil of the tongue, saying among other things, “My brothers, these things ought not to be so,” at once, having finished what he was saying on this, pointed out by what help those things which he said ought not to be done might not be done: “Who is wise and instructed among you? Let him show from good conduct his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter zeal and contentions in your hearts, do not boast and be liars against the truth. This wisdom is not coming down from above, but is earthly, animal, devilish. For where there is zeal and contention, there is inconstancy and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first chaste, then peaceable, modest, easily persuaded, full of mercy and good fruits, without judging, without pretense.” This is the wisdom that tames the tongue, coming down from above, not springing up from the human heart. Or does anyone dare to take this too away from the grace of God, and place it with most proud vanity in the power of man? Why then is it prayed for, that it may be received, if it is from man that it is possessed? Or is this prayer too opposed, lest injury be done to free choice, which by the possibility of nature suffices for itself to fulfill all the commands of righteousness? Then let the same apostle James be opposed, who admonishes and says: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all abundantly and does not reproach, and it will be given him; but let him ask in faith, not doubting at all.” This is the faith to which the commands drive us, so that the law commands and faith obtains. For through the tongue, which no man can tame, but the wisdom coming down from above can, “we all offend in many things.” For the apostle did not pronounce this too in any other way than he pronounced that saying, “No man can tame the tongue.”

Nor would anyone likewise object against these men, as proving the impossibility of not sinning, the saying: “The wisdom of the flesh is hostile to God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor can it be. And those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” For he spoke of the wisdom of the flesh, not the wisdom coming down from above; and it is clear that by “those in the flesh” are meant not those who have not yet left the body, but those who live according to the flesh. But that is not where the question turns. What I wait to hear from this man, if I can, is this: whether those who live according to the Spirit, and for that reason, though still living here, are in a way no longer in the flesh, live according to the Spirit by the grace of God, or whether they suffice for themselves by the possibility of nature already given when they are created, and by their own will; since the fullness of the law is nothing but love, and “the love of God has been poured out in our hearts,” not through ourselves, but “through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

He also treats of sins of ignorance, and says that a man ought to be vigilant so as not to be ignorant, and that ignorance is therefore to be blamed because a man does not know through his own negligence what, if he had applied diligence, he ought to have known; yet he argues about everything rather than pray and say, “Give me understanding, and I will learn your commandments.” For it is one thing not to have cared to know, and such sins of negligence seemed to be expiated even by certain sacrifices of the law; it is another to wish to understand and not be able, and to act against the law through not understanding what it wishes to be done. Hence we are admonished to ask wisdom from God, “who gives to all abundantly,” that is, to all who ask in such a way and ask as much as, and in the way that, so great a thing ought to be asked.

He admits, however, that sins committed must be expiated by God, and that the Lord must be besought for them, namely to obtain pardon; because that power of nature and the will of man, so much praised by him, cannot, as even he admits, make undone what has been done. So by this necessity it remains that he should pray to be forgiven. But that he should be helped not to sin, he has nowhere said; I have not read it here; there is a remarkable silence altogether on this matter, although the Lord's Prayer reminds us that both must be asked: that our debts may be forgiven us and that we may not be brought into temptation; the one that the past may be expiated, the other that the future may be avoided. And although this does not happen unless the will is present, yet for it to happen the will alone is not enough; therefore prayer offered to the Lord for this is neither superfluous nor impudent. For what is more foolish than to pray that you may do what you have in your power?

Now see what bears most on the matter: how he tries to show that human nature is entirely without any fault, as it were, and, against the plainest Scriptures of God, takes delight in the “wisdom of speech” by which “the cross of Christ is made void.” But certainly the cross will not be made void; rather this wisdom will be overthrown. For when we have shown this, perhaps the mercy of God will be present, so that he himself will repent of having said these things. “First,” he says, “we must discuss the claim that nature has been weakened and changed by sin. Hence before all else, I think,” he says, “we must ask what sin is: some substance, or a name wholly lacking substance, by which is expressed not a thing, not an existence, not some body, but the act of doing something wrongly.” Then he adds: “I believe it is so. And if it is so,” he says, “how could that which lacks substance weaken or change human nature?” See, I beg you, how unknowingly he strives to overthrow the most wholesome words of the healing Scriptures: “I said: Lord, have mercy on me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against you.” What is healed, if nothing is wounded, nothing injured, nothing weakened and corrupted? And if there is something to be healed, how was it corrupted? You hear him confessing; why do you want him disputing? “Heal my soul,” he says. Ask him how what he asks to have healed was corrupted, and hear what follows: “for I have sinned against you.” Let this man question him, let him ask him what he thinks should be asked, and say: “O you who cry, ‘Heal my soul, for I have sinned against you,’ what is sin? Some substance, or a name wholly lacking substance, by which is expressed not a thing, not an existence, not some body, but only the act of doing something wrongly?” He answers: “It is as you say; sin is not any substance, but by this name only the act of doing something wrongly is expressed.” And this man replies: “Why then do you cry, ‘Heal my soul, for I have sinned against you’? How could that which lacks substance corrupt your soul?” Would not he, worn out with grief for his wound, lest he be turned from prayer by disputation, answer briefly and say, “Depart from me, I beg you”? Dispute rather, if you can, with him who said: “It is not the healthy who need a physician, but the sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners,” where he certainly called the righteous healthy and sinners sick.

Do you see where this argument is heading and where it stretches its hands? So that it may be thought altogether vain to have said: “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” For how will he save where there is no sickness? For sins, from which the Gospel says Christ's people are to be saved, are not substances, and cannot corrupt it. O brother, it is good for you to remember that you are a Christian. To believe these things might perhaps have been enough; but since you wish to dispute, and it does no harm, indeed it even helps, if the firmest faith goes before, let us not think that human nature cannot be corrupted by sin, but, believing the divine Scriptures that it has been corrupted by sin, let us inquire how this could happen. Since we have already learned that sin is not a substance, do we not notice, to say nothing of other things, that not eating is also not a substance? For one withdraws from a substance, since food is a substance. But abstaining from food is not a substance; and yet the substance of the body, if food is entirely abstained from, so languishes, is so corrupted by unsettled health, so exhausted of strength, so weakened and broken by weariness, that, if life somehow lasts, it can hardly be brought back to that food by abstaining from which it was corrupted. So sin is not a substance; but God is a substance, and the supreme substance, and the only true food of the rational creature. Withdrawing from him by disobedience, and through weakness not being able to take what it ought to have rejoiced in, hear how it says: “My heart is struck like grass and has withered, because I forgot to eat my bread.”

But notice how he still presses himself with plausible reasons against the truth of holy Scripture. The Lord Jesus, who is called Jesus for this reason, that he saves his people from their sins, the Lord Jesus, then, says: “It is not the healthy who need a physician, but the sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” Hence the apostle too says: “It is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” And this man, against the faithful saying worthy of all acceptance, says that this sickness ought not to have been contracted by sins, lest this punishment of sin should result in more sins being committed. So great a physician is sought as a helper even for infants, and this man says: “Why do you seek him? Those for whom you seek a physician are healthy. Nor was the first man himself condemned to death for this reason; for afterwards he did not sin.” As if he had heard anything afterwards about the perfection of his righteousness, except that the church commends him too as set free by the mercy of the Lord Christ. He also says that Adam's descendants were not only not weaker than he, but even fulfilled more commands, whereas he neglected to fulfill one. He sees these descendants born in a state in which Adam was certainly not made: not only incapable of a command, of which they have no sense at all, but hardly capable of the breast when they are hungry. Yet in the bosom of mother church he wishes to save them too by his grace, he who saves his people from their sins; and men contradict him, and, as if they knew how to examine the creature made through him better than he does, pronounce with an unhealthy voice that they are healthy.