On Nature and Grace 45–63

In saying this, he does not notice enough what he himself had said a little before: that once the multitude of the human race had arisen, Scripture could decline, because of the great number of the crowd, to put together the sins of all. For if he had noticed this enough, he would see that even in one man a crowd and multitude of light sins either could not, or, even if it could, ought not to have been written down. For those things were written in which a measure had to be kept, and by a few examples the reader was to be instructed in many necessary things. For Scripture did not wish to record, of the men of that time themselves, though still few, how many there were or who they were, that is, how many sons and daughters Adam and Eve begot and what names they gave them. (Hence some, not considering how much Scripture passes over silently, have thought that Cain lay with his mother to beget the offspring that is mentioned, supposing that those sons of Adam had no sisters because Scripture was silent about them then; afterwards, recapitulating, it brings in what it had passed over, that Adam begot sons and daughters, without showing the time they were born, their number, or their names.) So it was not to be recorded if Abel, though he is deservedly called righteous, sometimes laughed a little too immoderately, or joked in relaxation of mind, or looked at something in a way worth mentioning, or picked fruit somewhat too immoderately, or was a little overfull from too much food, or while praying thought of something that drew his attention elsewhere. And how often these and many similar things crept up on him! Or are they perhaps not sins, which we are admonished in general to guard against and restrain by the apostle's command, where he says: “Let not sin, then, reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires”? For against obeying these, in things not lawful or less becoming, we must fight in daily and perpetual conflict. For certainly from this fault the eye is sent or let loose where it ought not; and if this fault grows strong and prevails, adultery is even committed in the body, which is committed in the heart so much more quickly as thought is swifter and meets no hindrance of delays. Those who in great part curbed this sin, that is, this craving of a faulty disposition, so as not to obey its desires or present their members to it as weapons of iniquity, deserved to be called righteous, and this by the help of the grace of God. But since sin often creeps in in the lightest matters and sometimes in unguarded ones, they were both righteous and not without sin. Finally, if in righteous Abel the love of God, by which alone whoever is righteous is truly righteous, still had room to be increased, and ought to have been, whatever was lacking came from fault. And who does not lack something, until one comes to that strength of his in which all human weakness is swallowed up?

He has certainly closed this passage with a grand sentence when he says: “Let us believe, then, what we read, and let us hold it impious to assert what we do not read,” which he thinks enough to have said concerning all of them. I say on the contrary that we ought not to believe everything we read, because of what the apostle says, “Read all things; hold fast what is good”; and that it is not impious to assert something even that we have not read. For we can in good faith, as witnesses, assert something we have experienced, even if perhaps we have not read it. Here perhaps he answers: “When I said this, I was speaking of the holy Scriptures.” Oh, would that he wished to assert, I do not say nothing other than what he has read in those writings, but nothing against what he has read! Would that he listened faithfully and obediently to what is written, “Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and so it passed to all men, in whom all sinned,” and did not weaken the grace of so great a physician by refusing to confess that human nature has been corrupted! Oh, would that as a Christian he read that there is no other name under heaven but Jesus Christ in which we must be saved, and did not so defend the possibility of human nature that a man is believed able to be saved by free choice even without this name!

But perhaps he thinks the name of Christ is necessary only so that through his Gospel we may learn how we ought to live, not also so that we may be helped by his grace to live well. Let him at least confess from this that there is miserable darkness in the human mind, which knows how to tame a lion and does not know how to live. Or is free choice and the natural law enough for it to know this too? This is the “wisdom of speech” by which “the cross of Christ is made void.” But he who said, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,” since that cross cannot be made void, certainly overthrows this wisdom through the “foolishness of preaching,” by which believers are healed. For if natural possibility through free choice suffices for itself both to know how one ought to live and to live well, then “Christ died in vain”; then “the stumbling block of the cross has been made void.” Why should I not also cry out here? Indeed I will cry out and rebuke them with Christian grief: “You are severed from Christ, you who are justified in nature; you have fallen from grace!” For, “being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and wishing to establish your own, you have not submitted to the righteousness of God.” For as Christ is the end of the law, so also he is the Savior of corrupted human nature, “for righteousness to everyone who believes.”

And what of his raising the objection, said by those against whom he speaks, “For all have sinned”? It is clear, he says, that the apostle was speaking of those who existed then, that is, of the Jews and the Gentiles. But certainly the saying I have mentioned, “Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and so it passed to all men, in whom all sinned,” embraces the ancients and the more recent, and us and our descendants. He also puts forward the following testimony, to prove that when “all” is said it must not always be understood as all without exception: “‘As through the offense of one,’ he says, ‘unto all men to condemnation, so also through the righteousness of one unto all men to justification of life’; since there is no doubt,” he says, “that through the righteousness of Christ not all, but only those who wished to obey him and have been cleansed by the washing of his baptism, have been sanctified.” He certainly does not prove what he wants by this testimony. For just as it was said, “As through the offense of one unto all men to condemnation,” so that no one was left out, so also in what was said, “through the righteousness of one unto all men to justification of life,” no one is left out; not because all believe in him and are washed by his baptism, but because no one is justified unless he believes in him and is washed by his baptism. So “all” is said lest anyone should be believed able to be saved in any other way than through him. Just as, when one teacher of letters has been appointed in a city, we say most correctly, “This man teaches letters to all here,” not because all the citizens learn letters, but because no one learns unless he has taught him; so no one is justified unless Christ has justified him.

“But granted,” he says, “I will agree that it testifies that all were sinners. For it says what they were, not that they could not have been otherwise. Therefore even if all men,” he says, “could be proved sinners, it would in no way harm our definition, since we are defending not so much what men are as what they can be.” Here he rightly agrees for once, since “no one living will be justified in the sight of God”; yet he contends that the question lies not there but in the very possibility of not sinning; on which we too have no need to fight against him. For I do not care very much whether there have been here, or are, or can be, some who have had, or have, or will have perfect love of God, to which nothing is to be added (for this is the truest, fullest, and most perfect righteousness); since what I confess and defend can come about by the will of man helped by the grace of God, I ought not to argue too much about when or where or in whom it comes about. Nor do I dispute about possibility itself, since, when the will of man is healed and helped, the possibility itself comes about in the saints together with its effect, as the love of God, as fully as our nature healed and cleansed can receive it, is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. So God's cause is pleaded better (the cause he says he is pleading by defending nature) when he is acknowledged both as Creator and as Savior, than when the creature is defended as if healthy and with its strength unimpaired, and the help of the Savior is made void.

What he says is true: that God, as good as he is just, made man such that he was able to be free of the evil of sin, but only if he willed. For who does not know that he was made healthy and blameless and established with free choice and free power to live righteously? But now the question concerns the man whom robbers left half-dead on the road, who, wounded and pierced with grievous wounds, cannot climb up to the summit of righteousness as he could come down from it, and who, even if he is now in the inn, is still being treated. God, then, does not command impossible things; but by commanding he admonishes us both to do what you can and to ask for what you cannot. Let us see now from where one can and from where one cannot. He says: “What nature can do is not from the will.” I say: a man is indeed not righteous by the will, if it is by nature that he can be; but he will be able by the medicine what he cannot because of the fault.

What need is there, then, to linger on more things? Let us come further inward to the issue, which in this question at least is the only, or almost the only, one we have with these men. For just as he himself says that it does not belong to what he is now treating to ask whether there have been or are any men in this life without sin, but whether there could have been or can be, so I, even if I should agree that there have been or are, still affirm that there could not have been or can be in any way, except those justified by the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, and him crucified. For that faith healed the righteous of old which heals us too, that is, faith in the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; faith in his blood, faith in his cross, faith in his death and resurrection. Having, then, the same spirit of faith, we too believe, and therefore we also speak.

But let us notice what he answers when he raises against himself a question which is truly intolerable to Christian hearts. For he says: “‘But this is what troubles many,’ you will say, ‘that you maintain that a man can be without sin not through the grace of God.’” This is exactly what troubles us, this is what we object. He states the very point; this is what we bear with the greatest pain; because of the love we have for others and for them, we cannot endure such things being argued by Christians. Let us hear, then, how he extricates himself from the objection of this question: “O blindness of ignorance,” he says, “O sloth of an untaught mind, which thinks that this is maintained without the grace of God, when it hears that it ought to be attributed to God alone!” If we did not know what follows, and had heard only this, we would think that we had believed a false report spread about them, though some worthy brothers asserted it as witnesses. For what could be said more briefly and more truly than that the possibility of not sinning, however great it is or will be in man, must be attributed to God alone? This we say too; let us join right hands.

Are the rest to be heard? Certainly they are to be heard, and corrected or guarded against. For, he says, “when it is said that the ‘can’ itself does not belong to human choice at all, but to nature, indeed to the author of nature, that is, God, how can what is judged to belong properly to God be understood to be without the grace of God?” It has already begun to appear what he means; but lest we be deceived, he explains it more fully and clearly. “But to make this plainer,” he says, “we must discuss it a little more fully. For we say that the possibility of anything consists not so much in the power of human choice as in the necessity of nature.” He illustrates what he means with examples or comparisons too: “For instance,” he says, “I can speak. That I can speak is not mine; that I speak is mine, that is, of my own will. And because that I speak is mine, I can do both, that is, both speak and not speak. But because that I can speak is not mine, that is, not of my choice and will, I must always be able to speak; and if I should wish to be unable to speak, I still cannot be unable to speak, unless perhaps I remove that member by which the function of speaking can be fulfilled.” Many things could indeed be mentioned by which, if he wished, a man might take away from himself the possibility of speaking without removing the member by which we speak. For instance, if something happens by which the voice itself is taken away, no one will be able to speak though the members remain; for the voice is not a member of a man. This can happen by injury to some inner member, without its being removed. But lest I seem to press a word, and it be said to me contentiously, “Even to injure is to remove,” we can certainly bring this about even by the mouth being so shut and closed with some bonds that we are quite unable to open it, and it is not in our power that it be opened, though it was in our power that it be shut, while the members remain whole and sound.

But what is this to us? Let us see what he goes on to put together. “For whatever,” he says, “is bound by natural necessity is deprived of the choice and deliberation of the will.” Here too there is some question. For it is very absurd for us to say that our wishing to be happy does not belong to our will because we cannot fail to wish it at all, by some good constraint of nature; nor do we dare to say that God therefore has not will but necessity of righteousness, because he cannot will to sin.

Notice also what follows. “This,” he says, “may be perceived also of hearing, smell, or sight: that to hear, smell, and see is in our power, but to be able to hear or smell or see is not in our power, but consists in natural necessity.” Either I do not understand what he means, or he does not. For how is the possibility of seeing not in our power, if the necessity of not seeing is in our power, since blindness is in our power, by which we might take away from ourselves, if we wish, this very ability to see? And how is it in our power to see, if we wish, when even with the soundness of the nature of our body and eyes unharmed we cannot see though we wish, whether at night when the lights applied from outside are taken away, or if someone shuts us in some dark place? Likewise, if our being able or not able to hear is not in our power but in the constraint of nature, while our hearing or not hearing is of our own will, why does he not notice how many things we hear against our will, which penetrate to our sense even with our ears stopped, such as the screech of a saw nearby or the grunting of a pig? Although the stopping of the ears shows that it is not in our power not to hear with ears open, perhaps such a stopping, one that takes away our very sense, would also make it within our power not to be able to hear. And as for what he says of smell, he surely pays too little attention to what he says: that it is not in our power to be able or not able to smell, but that it is in our power, that is, in free will, to smell or not to smell; when, if we have been placed among heavy and unpleasant odors, and someone keeps us there with our hands bound, the integrity and soundness of our members being wholly preserved, we should wish not to smell and could not at all, since when we are forced to draw breath we draw in with it the odor we do not want.

As these comparisons, then, are false, so is the point for whose sake he wished to use them. For he goes on and says: “In a similar way, then, we must understand the possibility of not sinning: that not to sin is ours, but to be able not to sin is not ours.” If he were speaking of the whole and healthy nature of man, which we do not now have (“for in hope we have been saved; but hope that is seen is not hope. But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience”), even so he would not say rightly that only not sinning is ours, though sinning would be ours; for even then there would be the help of God, offering itself to those who will it, like light to healthy eyes, by whose help they see. But since he is arguing about this life, where “the corruptible body weighs down the soul, and the earthly dwelling presses down the mind that thinks many things,” I wonder with what heart he thinks that not sinning is ours even without the help of our Savior's medicine, and contends that being able not to sin belongs to nature, which is evidently so corrupted that not to see this is a sign of greater corruption.

“Because not sinning is ours,” he says, “we can sin and not sin.” What if someone else says: “Because not wishing unhappiness is ours, we can both wish it and not wish it”? And yet we cannot wish it at all. For who could in any way wish to be unhappy, even if he wishes something else from which unhappiness follows him against his will? Then, since not sinning belongs much more to God, shall we dare to say that he can both sin and not sin? Far be it from us to say that God can sin! For, as fools think, he will not therefore fail to be almighty because he can neither die nor deny himself. What is it, then, that he says, and by what rules of speech does he try to persuade us of what he will not consider? He adds further and says: “But because being able not to sin is not ours, even if we are unwilling to be able not to sin, we cannot be unable not to sin.” He said this in a twisted way, and so somewhat obscurely. But it could be said more plainly thus: “Because being able not to sin is not ours, whether we will or not, we can not sin.” For he does not say, “whether we will or not, we cannot [sin]”; for without doubt we can [sin], if we will; but he asserts that, will we or not, we have the possibility of not sinning, which he says is implanted in nature. But of a man with healthy feet it can tolerably be said, “Whether he will or not, he has the possibility of walking”; but when they are broken, even if he wills, he does not have it. The nature of which he speaks is corrupted (why is earth and ashes proud?); it is corrupted, it implores the physician: “Save me, O Lord,” it cries; “Heal my soul,” it cries. Why does he shut off these cries, so that by defending a possibility as if it were present, he hinders future health?

And see what he adds, by which he thinks he confirms that point: “Because,” he says, “no will can take away what is proved to be inseparably implanted in nature.” Where, then, does that saying come from, “so that you do not do the things you will”? Where does this come from too: “For I do not do the good that I will, but the evil that I hate, that I do”? Where is the possibility which is proved to be inseparably implanted in nature? See, men do not do the things they will; and he was certainly speaking of not sinning, not of flying, for they were men, not birds. See, a man does not do the good he wills, but does the evil he does not will; “to will is present with him, but to accomplish the good is not.” Where is the possibility which is proved to be inseparably implanted in nature? For whomever the apostle transfers to himself, if he does not say these things of himself, he certainly transfers to himself a man. But this man maintains that human nature itself has an inseparable possibility of not sinning at all. But by these words this is done, even by one who speaks unknowingly (though not unknowingly by him who suggests these things to be said even to the unwary who fear God): that the grace of Christ is made void, as though human nature were sufficient for itself for its own righteousness.

But to turn aside the ill will with which Christians, crying out for their salvation, say, “Why do you say that a man can not sin without the help of God's grace?”, he says: “The very possibility of not sinning lies not so much in the power of choice as in the necessity of nature. Whatever is placed in the necessity of nature undoubtedly belongs to the author of nature, that is, God. How then,” he says, “is what is shown to belong properly to God thought to be said apart from the grace of God?” The opinion that lay hidden has been expressed; there is no way it can be concealed. He attributes the possibility of not sinning to the grace of God for this reason: that God is the author of that nature in which he says the possibility of not sinning is inseparably implanted. So when a man wills, let him do it; because he does not will, he does not do it. For where there is an inseparable possibility, weakness of will cannot befall it, or rather the presence of will and the lack of accomplishment. If this is so, then, where does this come from: “To will is present, but to accomplish the good is not”? If the man who wrote this book were speaking of that nature of man which was first created blameless and sound, this saying might in some way be accepted; although even that nature ought not to have been said to have an inseparable possibility, that is, so to speak, one that cannot be lost, since it could be corrupted and seek a physician to heal the blind man's eyes and restore the possibility of seeing that had been lost; for a blind man, I suppose, wishes to see, but cannot. And if he wishes and cannot, the will is present, but the possibility has been lost.

See further what masses he tries to break through, if he could, to carry his opinion. For he raises a question against himself, saying: “‘But the flesh, according to the apostle, is contrary to us,’ you will say.” Then he answers: “How can the flesh be contrary to anyone who has been baptized, when according to the same apostle he is understood not to be in the flesh? For he says: ‘But you are not in the flesh.’” Good: he says that the flesh cannot be contrary to the baptized; whether this is true we shall see later. But now, since he could not entirely forget that he is a Christian, but remembered it, if faintly, he has withdrawn from his defense of nature. Where then is the inseparability of the possibility? Or perhaps those not yet baptized are not in the nature of men? Here, surely, here he could be awake, and, if he pays attention, he can. “How can it be,” he says, “that the flesh is contrary to anyone who has been baptized?” Then the flesh can be contrary to those not baptized. Let him explain how, since that nature which he defends so much is in them too. Certainly he grants that in them at least it is corrupted; if now, in the baptized, that wounded man has left the inn healthy, or is healthy in the inn to which the merciful Samaritan brought him to be cared for. And if he grants that the flesh is contrary at least to these, let him say what has happened, since both, that is, flesh and spirit, are the creation of one and the same Creator and without doubt good, because he is good; unless it is this fault, inflicted by one's own will. And for this to be healed in nature, there is need of the same one as Savior by whom nature was established as Creator. If we confess that this Savior, and that medicine of his by which “the Word was made flesh to dwell among us,” is needed by small and great, that is, from the wailing of infants to the gray hairs of the old, the whole controversy of this question between us is resolved.

Now let us see whether we read that the flesh is contrary even to the baptized. Here I ask to whom the apostle was speaking when he said: “The flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, so that you do not do the things you will.” He wrote this, I think, to the Galatians, to whom he says: “He then who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does he do it by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?” From this it appears that he was speaking to Christians, to whom God had given the Spirit, and so also to the baptized. See, the flesh is found contrary even to the baptized, and that possibility which he says is inseparably implanted in nature is not present. Where is what he says: “How can it be that the flesh is contrary to anyone who has been baptized?” However he understands the flesh (since in truth it is not its nature, which is good, but carnal vices that are called by the name of flesh in this place), still, see, the flesh is contrary even to the baptized. And how contrary? So that they do not do what they will. See, the will is present in man; where is that possibility of nature? Let us confess that grace is necessary; let us cry out: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” And let the answer be given us: “The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

For when it is most rightly said to these men, “Why do you say that a man can be without sin without the help of God's grace?”, the question then is not about that grace by which man was created, but about this one by which he is saved through Jesus Christ our Lord. For the faithful say when they pray: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” If the possibility is present, why do they pray? Or from what evil do they pray to be delivered, if not above all from the body of this death, from which nothing delivers but the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord? Not, certainly, from the substance of the body, which is good, but from carnal vices, from which a man is not delivered without the grace of the Savior, not even when he departs from the body through bodily death. And what had the apostle said above, before he said this? “I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and leading me captive in the law of sin, which is in my members.” See what fault the disobedience of the will has inflicted on human nature. Let it be allowed to pray to be healed. Why is so much presumed about the possibility of nature? It is wounded, injured, harassed, lost. It needs true confession, not false defense. Let the grace of God, then, be sought, not that by which it is established, but that by which it is restored; the grace which this man alone proclaims not to be necessary, when he is silent about it. If he had said nothing at all about the grace of God, and had not set himself this question to solve in order to remove ill will about it from himself, he could have been thought to hold what the truth holds, but not to have said it, since not everything needs to be said everywhere. He raised the question of grace; he answered what he had in his heart; the question has been settled, not as we wished, but where we were in doubt about what he thought.

Then he tries to show by many words of the apostle what is not in dispute: that the flesh is so often named by him in such a way that he wishes to be understood not the substance but the works of the flesh. What has this to do with the matter? The vices of the flesh are contrary to the will of man; nature is not accused, but a physician is sought for vices. What of his asking, “Who made the spirit for man?”, and answering himself, “Without doubt God”? And again he asks, “Who created the flesh?”, and again answers, “The same, I believe: God.” He asks a third time, “Is God, who created both, good?” He answers, “No one doubts it.” He asks further, “And is each thing that the good author created good?” And to this he answers, “It must be confessed.” Then he concludes: “If, then, both the spirit is good and the flesh is good, as made by a good author, how can it be that two good things can be contrary to each other?” I pass over saying that his whole reasoning would be thrown into confusion if someone asked him, “Who made heat and cold?” For he would answer without doubt, “God.” I will not ask many questions; let him conclude himself whether these can either be called not good or do not appear to be contrary to each other. Here perhaps he says, “These are qualities of substances, not substances.” So it is, it is true; but natural qualities, and without doubt belonging to God's creation; for substances are said to be contrary to each other not in themselves but through their qualities, as water and fire are. What if flesh and spirit are like this? We do not indeed affirm this; but we said it to show that his reasoning is not concluded by a necessary inference. For contraries can also not fight one another, but be tempered by each other and produce good health, as in the body dryness and moisture, cold and heat, by the tempering of all of which good bodily health consists. But that the flesh is contrary to the spirit, so that we do not do what we will, is a fault, not nature. Let medicinal grace be sought, and let the controversy be ended.