On First Principles 3.1.15–3.1.23

Now let us see also about the words of Ezekiel, where he says: “I will take away the heart of stone from them and put in them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my ordinances and keep my precepts.” For if God, when he wills, “takes away the heart of stone” and “gives a heart of flesh,” so that “his precepts” are observed and his commandments “kept,” it will seem that neither is it in our power to put away malice (for the “taking away of the heart of stone” seems to be nothing other than the cutting away, from whomever God wills, of the malice by which one is hardened), nor is the giving of a “heart of flesh,” so that one walks in God's “precepts” and keeps his commandments, which is nothing other than becoming obedient and not resisting the truth, and doing the works of virtue. If then God promises that he will do this, and before he himself “takes away the heart of stone” we cannot put it away from ourselves, it follows that it is not in our power to cast off malice, but in God's. And again, if it is not by our action that a “heart of flesh” comes to be in us, if it is the work of God alone, it will not be our work to live according to virtue, but in everything it will seem to be the work of God's grace. This is what those say who want to prove from the authority of Scripture that nothing is placed in our power. We shall answer them that these words must not be understood so, but in this way: suppose someone is unskilled and untaught, and, perceiving the disgrace of his ignorance, moved either by someone's exhortation or by emulation of some wise men, he hands himself over to someone by whom he trusts he can be carefully trained and competently taught. Then if this man, who had earlier grown hard in ignorance, gives himself, as we said, with full intent of mind to a master and promises to obey him in everything, the master, seeing the intent of his purpose, will fittingly promise to take away all his ignorance and to implant skill; not that he promises to do this for a disciple who refuses or resists, but for one who offers himself and binds himself over to all obedience. So too the divine word promises to those who come to it that it will take away the “heart of stone,” not from those who do not listen to it, but from those who receive the precepts of its teaching; as in the Gospels we find the sick coming to the Saviour, asking to receive health, and so at last being healed. For example, that “the blind are healed and see”: in that they entreated the Saviour and believed that they could be healed by him, it is the work of those who were healed; in that their sight is restored to them, it is the work of the Saviour. So also here the divine word promises that it will give instruction by “taking away the heart of stone,” that is, by wiping away malice, so that through this they may walk in the divine precepts and keep the commandments of the law.

After this we propose to consider also what the Saviour had said in the Gospel: “For this reason I speak in parables to those who are outside,” “that seeing they may see and not see, and hearing they may hear and not understand, lest perhaps they turn and it be forgiven them.” On this, one who argues from the opposite side will say: If those who hear more clearly will in every case be corrected and “turned,” and so “turned” as to be worthy to receive the remission of sins, and it is not in their own power to hear a clear word, but certainly in the power of the one who teaches to teach more openly and clearly; and if the one who teaches says that he does not preach the word clearly to them for this reason, “lest perhaps they hear and understand and turn” and be saved, then it will certainly not be in themselves to be saved. And if this is so, we shall have no free choice either for salvation or for perdition. And if the words “lest perhaps they turn and it be forgiven them” had not been added, an easier answer might be given: we could say that the Saviour did not wish those whom he foreknew would not be good to understand the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, and “for that reason spoke to them in parables”; but now, since “lest perhaps they turn and it be forgiven them” is added, the explanation becomes more difficult. And first we should notice what defence this passage provides against the heretics too, who are accustomed to hunt out words from the Old Testament that seem to them, as they understand them, to point to something harsh and inhuman in God the Creator, where a disposition of avenging or punishing is indicated, or whatever else they are accustomed to call it, on the ground of which they deny that there is goodness in the Creator: how is it that they do not judge the Gospels with the same mind and the same sense, and do not notice whether such things are found in the Gospels too as they judge or blame in the Old Testament? For in this chapter it is clearly shown, as they themselves say, that the Saviour does not speak clearly for this reason, that people may “not turn” and, having turned, receive the remission of sins. Certainly if this is understood according to the letter alone, it will contain nothing less than the things they accuse in the Old Testament. But if even to them the things so placed in the New Testament seem to need explanation, it follows of necessity that the things they accuse in the Old Testament should also be cleared by a similar explanation, so that it may be proved through this that what is written in both Testaments belongs to one and the same God. But let us turn, as far as we can, to the question set before us.

We said earlier, in discussing Pharaoh, that sometimes to be healed too quickly does not turn to a person's good, especially if the disease, shut in, rages more violently in the inner organs. Hence God, who knows hidden things and “knows all things before they come to be,” in his great kindness defers the healing of such people and prolongs the treatment, and, so to speak, heals them by not healing, lest a hasty health should make them incurable. It is possible, then, that in the case of those to whom, as being outside, the word of our Lord and Saviour was spoken, because he who “searches hearts and reins” saw that they were not yet fit to receive the teaching of plainer speech, he covered the faith of a deeper mystery with veiled speech, lest perhaps, being quickly turned and healed, that is, having quickly received the remission of their sins, they should easily fall back into the same disease of sins, which they had found to be healed without any difficulty. If this should happen, no one doubts that the penalty is doubled and the increase of evils heaped up, since not only are the sins that seemed to have been remitted repeated, but the court of virtue is also polluted, if deceitful and defiled minds, full of hidden malice within, trample on it. And what remedy will there ever be for such people, who after the impure and filthy foods of malice, having tasted the sweetness of virtue and taken its delight into their throats, have turned back again to the poisonous and deadly foods of wickedness? And who doubts that it is better for such people to be put off and left for the time being, so that if perhaps they at some time have their fill of malice and come to abhor the filth in which they now delight, then at last the word of God may be fittingly made known to them, so that “what is holy” may not be given “to dogs,” nor “pearls” thrown “before swine,” to “trample them under their feet,” and then “turn and tear” and attack those who had preached the word of God to them? These, then, are the ones who are said to be “outside,” without doubt by comparison with those who are said to be “inside” and to hear the word of God more clearly. Yet these who are outside also hear the word, though it is covered with parables and shadowed by proverbs. But there are others besides those outside, who are called Tyrians, who do not hear at all, although the Saviour foreknew of them that “they would long ago have repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes,” “if the mighty works done among others had been done among them”; and yet they do not hear even what those outside hear. I believe this is because their rank in malice was far lower and worse than that of those who are said to be outside, that is, not far from those inside, who deserved to hear the word, though in parables; and because perhaps their healing was being deferred to that time when it will be “more tolerable” for them “in the day of judgment” than for those among whom the mighty works that are written were done; so that then at last, relieved of the weight of their evils, they may walk more easily and tolerably along the way of salvation. But I want those who read these things to be warned of this: that in such very difficult and obscure passages we take the utmost pains, not so much to make out the solutions of the questions with full clarity (for each will do that “as the Spirit gives him to speak”), as to hold fast the rule of piety by a most careful assertion, in that we try to show that the providence of God governs all things justly and rules immortal souls by the most equitable dispensations according to the merits and causes of each. For the dispensation of human beings is not enclosed within the life of this age, but the earlier state of merits always furnishes the cause of the future state, and so, by the immortal and eternal law of equity and governance of divine providence, the immortal soul is brought to the summit of perfection. If, however, someone objects to us, because we said that the word of preaching was deliberately put off from certain worse and more wicked people, why it was preached to those in comparison with whom the Tyrians, who were certainly despised, are preferred, so that their evil was increased and their condemnation made heavier, since they heard the word who were not going to believe, it seems we must answer thus. God, who knows all minds, foreseeing the complaints against his providence, especially of those who say, “How could we believe, when we neither saw what others saw nor heard what was preached to others? So far is the fault outside us, since those to whom the word was announced and signs shown did not delay at all but, amazed by the very power of the wonders, believed”; wishing to refute the pretexts for such complaints, and to show that it is not any neglect on the part of divine providence but the choice of the human mind that is the cause of its own perdition, conferred the grace of his benefits even on the unworthy and unbelieving, so that truly “every mouth may be stopped,” and the human mind may know that all that it lacks is from itself and nothing from God; and at the same time, since the one who despised the divine benefits offered to him is condemned more heavily than the one who did not deserve to obtain or hear them at all, it may understand and recognize that it belongs to the divine mercy and to God's most equitable dispensation that he sometimes refrains from granting to some that they should see anything or hear the mysteries of divine power, lest, having seen the mighty signs and learned and heard the mysteries of his wisdom, if they should despise and neglect them, they be punished with a heavier penalty for their impiety.

Let us see now also about the saying, “It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.” For those on the other side say: If “it is not of him who wills nor of him who runs,” but the one on whom God has mercy is saved, then it is not in us to be saved. For either our nature is such that we can be saved or not be saved, or else it rests solely in the will of him who, if he wills, has mercy and saves. To them we first put this question: Is willing good things good or evil? And is running, hastening so as to reach the end of the good, praiseworthy or blameworthy? If they say it is blameworthy, they will plainly be mad; for all the saints both will good things and run toward good things, and are certainly not blameworthy. How then, if the one who is not saved is of an evil nature, does he will good things and run toward good things and yet not find good things? For they say that “a bad tree does not bear good fruit”; and willing good things is a good fruit. How then is the fruit of a bad tree good? But if they say that willing good things and running toward good things is something indifferent, that is, neither good nor evil, we shall say to them: If willing good things and running toward good things is indifferent, then what is contrary to these will also be indifferent, that is, willing evil things and running toward evil things. But it is certain that willing evil things and running toward evil things is not indifferent but plainly evil; it is established, therefore, that willing good things and running toward good things is not indifferent but good.

Having driven them back with this answer, let us now hasten to the explanation of the question itself, in which he says, “It is not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.” In the book of Psalms, in the songs of ascents, which are reported to be Solomon's, it is written thus: “Unless the Lord builds the house, they have laboured in vain who build it; unless the Lord guards the city, the one who guards it has kept watch in vain.” By these words he certainly does not indicate that we should cease from building, or from keeping watch to guard the city that is within us; but what he shows is this: that whatever is built without God, and whatever is guarded without God, is built in vain and kept to no purpose. For in all things that are well built and well kept safe, the Lord is credited as the author of the building or of the guarding. For example, if we were to see some magnificent work and the mass of a splendid building raised with fine construction, should we not rightly and deservedly say that it was built not by human strength but by divine help and power? Yet it will not be implied by this that the labour and diligence of human effort ceased and did nothing at all. Or again, if we see some city surrounded by a heavy siege of enemies, with threatening engines brought up against the walls, and pressed with rampart, weapons, fire and all the instruments of war by which destruction is prepared, and the enemy could be driven back and put to flight, we rightly and deservedly say that the deliverance of the freed city was granted by God; yet we do not mean by this that the watches of the sentries, the readiness of the young men and the vigils of the guards were lacking. So the apostle too must be understood to have spoken: since the human will alone is not sufficient for achieving salvation, nor is any mortal's running fit for attaining heavenly things and for winning “the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus,” unless this good will of ours itself, and our ready purpose, and whatever diligence there can be in us, is helped or strengthened by divine aid. And therefore the apostle said very consistently that “it is not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy”; as if we were to say of farming what is written: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.” As, then, when a crop has brought good and abundant fruit to full ripeness, no one will piously and reasonably say that the farmer made those fruits, but will confess that they were given by God; so our perfection too is not brought about while we are idle and inactive, and yet its completion will be credited not to us but to God, to whom most of the work in it belongs. So also when a ship has come through the dangers of the sea, although the matter is carried on with much labour of the sailors and with all the work of the sailor's art expended, with the zeal and diligence of the helmsman applied, with the help of favouring winds and with the signs of the stars carefully observed, if at last, battered by waves and wearied by billows, it comes safe to harbour, no one of sound mind will credit the safety of the ship to anything but the mercy of God. Not even the sailors themselves or the helmsman dare to say, “I saved the ship”; they refer everything to the mercy of God; not that they feel they contributed no skill or labour to saving the ship, but because they know that the labour was theirs, while the safety was granted to the ship by God. So too in the course of our life, labour must be spent by us and zeal and diligence applied, but the fruit of our labour, salvation, must be hoped for from God. Otherwise, if he requires nothing of our work, the commandments will certainly seem superfluous; in vain too does Paul himself blame some for having fallen away from the truth and praise others for standing in the faith, and to no purpose does he hand on precepts and ordinances to the churches; and in vain do we ourselves “will or run” toward good things. But it is certain that these things are not done in vain, and it is certain that the apostles do not give precepts in vain, and that the Lord does not give laws without cause. It remains, then, for us to declare that the heretics slander these good words in vain.

After this came the question raised by the saying, “Both to will and to accomplish are from God.” And they say: If to will is from God and to accomplish is from God, then whether we will or act well or ill, it is from God; and if this is so, we are not of free choice. To this we must answer that the apostle's word does not say that to will evil is from God, or that to will good is from God, nor that to accomplish good or evil is from God, but says in general that “to will and to accomplish are from God.” For as we have from God this very thing, that we are human beings, that we breathe, that we move, so also we have from God that we will; just as if we were to say that our moving is from God, or that each of our members serves its function and moves is from God. From this, certainly, we are not to understand that because the hand moves, for example to strike unjustly or to steal, this is from God; rather, the very fact that it moves is from God, but it is ours to turn these motions, the power of which we have from God, either to good or to evil. So also what the apostle says means this: that we receive from God the power of willing, but we use the will either in good or in evil desires. We must think in the same way about what we accomplish.

But about what the apostle said: “So then he has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills he hardens. You will say to me then: Why does he still complain? For who resists his will? But indeed, O man, who are you to answer back to God? Does the thing formed say to him who formed it, Why have you made me thus? Or has not the potter power over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honour and another for dishonour?”, someone will perhaps say: If, as “the potter from the same lump makes some vessels for honour and others for dishonour,” so God makes some for salvation and others for perdition, it is not in us either to be saved or to perish; and in this way we do not seem to be of our own choice. We must answer those who understand it so: Can it be that the apostle says things that contradict himself? And if this cannot be thought of the apostle, how will he seem, on their view, to blame justly those who committed sexual immorality in Corinth, or those who sinned “and did not repent of the impurity, sexual immorality and uncleanness they had committed”? How too does he praise those who acted well, like “the house of Onesiphorus,” saying: “The Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus, because he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chain; but when he came to Rome he sought me diligently and found me. The Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that day”? It does not befit apostolic gravity, then, to blame one who deserves blame, that is, one who has sinned, and to praise one who deserves praise for a good work, and then again, as if it were in no one's power to do anything good or evil, to say that it is the Creator's work that each one acts well or ill, since he makes one vessel for honour and another for dishonour. And how too can he add that “we must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, that each of us may receive in the body according to what he has done, whether good or evil”? For what reward for good is there for one who could not do evil, having been formed for this very thing by the Creator? Or what punishment will justly be inflicted on one who could not do good because of the very way his Maker created him? Then again, how is this assertion not contradicted by what he says elsewhere: “In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and earthenware, some for honour and some for dishonour. If then anyone cleanses himself from these, he will be a vessel for honour, sanctified and useful to the Lord, prepared for every good work”? So the one who has cleansed himself becomes a vessel for honour, while the one who has scorned to cleanse away his filth becomes a vessel for dishonour. From these sentences, I think, the cause of our deeds can in no way be referred to the Creator. For God the Creator does make vessels for honour, and he makes other vessels for dishonour; but the vessel that has cleansed itself from all uncleanness he makes a vessel for honour, while the one that has stained itself with the filth of vices he makes a vessel for dishonour. So it is concluded from this that the cause of each one's deeds comes first, and according to his merits each one is made by God a vessel either of honour or of dishonour. Each vessel, then, has furnished its maker from within itself with the causes and occasions for being formed by the Creator either for honour or for dishonour.

And if this assertion seems just, as it certainly is just and in agreement with all piety, that each vessel is prepared by God for honour or for dishonour from preceding causes, it does not seem absurd that, examining older causes in the same order and by the same line of reasoning, we should think the same in the account of souls also, and that this is why Jacob was loved even before he was born into this world, and Esau was hated while he was still held in his mother's womb. Nor will what is said, that from “the same lump” a vessel both of honour and of dishonour is made, be able to hem us in. For we say that the nature of all rational souls is one, as is signified by “the one lump of clay lying before the potter.” Since, then, the nature of all rational creatures is one, out of it God, according to the preceding causes of merits, as the potter out of one lump, has formed or created “some for honour and others for dishonour.” As for the apostle's words, which are those of one rebuking, “O man, who are you to answer back to God?”, I think he shows by them that such a rebuke is not addressed to anyone who is faithful and lives rightly and justly and has confidence before God, that is, to someone such as Moses was, of whom Scripture says, “Moses spoke, and God answered him with a voice”; and as God answered Moses, so every holy person answers God. But the one who is unbelieving, and has lost the confidence to answer before God because of the unworthiness of his life and conduct, and who asks about these things not in order to learn and make progress but in order to dispute and resist, and, to put it more plainly, who is the kind of person who could say what the apostle indicates when he says, “Why then does he still complain? For who resists his will?”, to such a one the rebuke the apostle speaks is rightly directed: “O man, who are you to answer back to God?” This rebuke, then, is addressed not to the faithful and holy but to the unbelieving and ungodly.

To those who introduce different natures of souls and drag this apostolic word into support of their doctrine, we must answer thus: If they too agree that the apostle says that from “one lump” are made both those who are for honour and those who are for dishonour, whom they call of the nature to be saved and of the lost nature, then there will no longer be different natures of souls, but one for all. And if they accept that one and the same potter without doubt signifies one Creator, there will not be different creators of those who are saved and of those who perish. Now let them choose whether they wish it to be understood of a good God who creates the evil and the lost, or of a God who is not good who creates the good and those prepared for honour; for the necessity of answering forces one of the two from them. But according to our assertion, by which we say that God makes vessels for honour or for dishonour from preceding causes, the vindication of God's justice is in no way hemmed in. For it is possible that this vessel, which from earlier causes was made for honour in this world, if it acts carelessly, may according to the merits of its conduct become a vessel for dishonour in another age; just as, again, if someone has been formed by the Creator in this life as a vessel for dishonour from preceding causes, and has amended himself and cleansed himself of all vices and filth, he can in that new age become “a vessel for honour, sanctified and useful to the Lord, prepared for every good work.” Indeed, those who were formed by God in this age to be Israelites, and lived a life unworthy of the nobility of their race and fell away from all the dignity of their family, these, in a sense, will be changed in the age to come, because of their unbelief, from vessels of honour into vessels of dishonour; and again many who in this life were counted among the Egyptian or Edomite vessels, having taken up the faith and conduct of the Israelites, when they have done the works of the Israelites and “entered the church of the Lord,” will be vessels of honour “in the revelation of the sons of God.” Hence it agrees better with the rule of piety to believe that every rational being, according to its purpose or conduct, is sometimes turned from evil to good and sometimes falls from good to evil; that some remain in good, while others advance even to better things and always climb to higher ones, until they reach the highest step of all; while others remain in evil, or, if malice has begun to spread further in them, advance to worse and are plunged into the uttermost depth of malice. Hence we must also think it possible that some who began at first with small sins should be spread out into such great malice, and come to such an advance in evils, as to be made equal in wickedness to the opposing powers; and again, if through many grievous and most severe punishments they are able at some time to come to their senses and gradually try to seek healing for their wounds, that, as malice ceases, they can be restored to good. From this we think that, since, as we have often said, the soul is immortal and eternal, it is possible that in many and endless spaces, through immeasurable and different ages, it may either descend from the highest good to the lowest evils, or be restored from the uttermost evils to the highest goods.