On Man's Perfection in Righteousness

Contents

Reading pages: 1–20 · 21–37 · 38–44

1. 1Augustine begins to answer the Definitions ascribed to Caelestius: sin can be avoided only if damaged nature is healed by grace.
2. 2To the claim that sin must be either voluntary or not sin, Augustine answers that we pray to be freed from our necessities.
3. 3Sin is not natural, but damaged nature cannot avoid sin by choice alone without healing grace.
4. 4Sin is an act, but like limping it comes from a defect that only healing, by grace, can remove.
5. 5“Ought implies can” holds only as a lame man ought to walk straight: he can once he is healed, and for sin that healing is Christ's grace.
6. 6God commands sinlessness so that man, seeing he cannot achieve it, will seek the medicine of grace.
7. 7God wills man to be sinless, which is why he sent his sinless Son; the healing proceeds day by day until righteousness is perfect.
8. 8God wills man sinless, but full righteousness, like full health and full love, comes only when we see God face to face.
9. 9Man fell into sin by free choice, but the penalty turned freedom into necessity; true freedom is restored by the Son and ends in a happy necessity of never sinning.
10. 10God, who made man good, must also remake him good, by renewing him through grace.
11. 11All commandments sum up in love of God and neighbor, forbidding covetousness and commanding love; continence and love are God's gifts, and the law drives us to grace.
12. 12The will cannot “very easily” change itself, since Paul says the flesh opposes the spirit so that we do not do what we will; nature, good in itself, needs grace to be healed.
13. 13Man is to blame for being unable to avoid sin, because his own will brought him into that necessity.
14. 14Human nature is good and can be freed from evil, but only by grace, fully at the resurrection.
15. 15God justly does not impute sin to those who forgive and ask forgiveness; sin is any lack of due love, avoidable only by a humble will helped by grace.
16. 16Augustine grants that man can be without sin, but asks when and through whom: not in this life, where all must pray “forgive us,” and not by himself, or Christ died in vain.
17. 17The question is not whether sinlessness is commanded but whether it can be fulfilled in this body of death; its fullness is the reward of those who hunger for it here.
18. 18Our righteousness on pilgrimage is the course of fasting, almsgiving, and prayer toward perfect righteousness; because we still fall short, we rightly pray “forgive us our debts.”
19. 19The righteous run perfectly but are not yet perfect; the command to love God wholly shows the goal, reached only when desire is gone in the life to come.
20. 20Caelestius's texts commanding perfection either urge us to run well or name the goal; one walks “without spot” who runs blamelessly, cleansing daily sins by almsgiving and prayer.
21. 21The commandments are light only to love, which is poured in by the Holy Spirit; Scripture calls them not burdensome so that those who find them heavy will pray for that gift.
22. 22The texts calling the commandments light show that they are light to love, which the Spirit pours in, not to human will alone.
23. 23Against Job 14:4–5 (no one is clean from sin), Caelestius cites Job calling himself righteous, but one can be called righteous who is near perfection.
24. 24The righteous are found righteous in judgment through forgiveness and almsgiving; to be blameless is possible in this life, to be sinless belongs to Christ alone.
25. 25Job's prayer was clean because he forgave truly and so rightly asked forgiveness.
26. 26Job's sufferings were “without cause” in that they exceeded his sins and served to prove his patience.
27. 27Job kept God's ways as one who keeps fighting sin without abandoning the path; the righteous put on self-accusing judgment as armor in this war.
28. 28Job's clear conscience means that his faith rejects the sin that still dwells in him; he does good in resisting it, but cannot accomplish perfect good until desire is gone, and he confesses his sins.
29. 29Against “every man is a liar,” Caelestius cites texts calling men truthful; Augustine notes that Scripture calls men blameless but only Christ sinless.
30. 30Men are truthful only in God, not in themselves; the saints of Revelation are without lie because they confessed their sin and were forgiven.
31. 31“None does good” refers to those who do not seek God; doing good is compatible with not yet being without sin, which the righteous are progressively leaving behind.
32. 32“No one is good but God” means that created goodness is nothing compared with God's, or that God's children are good yet still in part evil until perfected.
33. 33“Who will boast of a chaste heart?” refers to the moment when the righteous King judges, before whom even unnoticed faults appear.
34. 34Texts about the pure in heart are true: the heart is cleansed by faith, discipline, almsgiving, and prayer, and what remains is forgiven by the Judge's mercy.
35. 35The church will be without spot or wrinkle only when she is glorious at the resurrection; now Christ cleanses and heals her step by step.
36. 36The upright in heart are on the way; the pure in heart have arrived; meanwhile we must forgive so that our heart does not reproach us when we pray.
37. 37Caelestius sets Job's praise against Eccl 7:20 without reconciling them.
38. 38Zechariah and Elizabeth were blameless, not sinless, since the priest offered sacrifice for his own sins; Ps 143:2 asks for mercy because no one will be found perfectly righteous in this life.
39. 391 John's texts on not sinning apply to what is born of God in us, while 1 John 1:8 applies to the remaining infirmity inherited from Adam, healed fully only at Christ's appearing.
40. 40Caelestius answers Rom 9:16 with texts on free choice, but by doing so he argues against the mercy we pray for in the Lord's Prayer.
41. 41None of Caelestius's texts on choice excludes grace: even marriage, voluntary goodness, choosing life, and willing the commandments depend on God, who gives faith.
42. 42The conditional promises of the law were given to humble the proud and lead them to grace; the righteous of old too were saved by Christ, the one mediator.
43. 43Caelestius says man can avoid sin if God wills, avoiding “if God helps”; Augustine insists that the Spirit's help heals us progressively until we see God.
44. 44Augustine concludes: no one but Christ has lived without needing forgiveness; he will not fight those who think some saints never consented to sin, but whoever denies the need to pray for grace against temptation is to be anathematized.