On Grace and Free Will (Against the Author of the Conferences)

Contents

Reading pages: 1–6 · 7–11 · 12–14 · 15–18 · 19–22

1. 1Prosper complains that respected churchmen are attacking Augustine's defense of grace twenty years after the Pelagians were condemned, and invites them to state their improved doctrine.
2. 2Prosper introduces Cassian's Conference 13, praises its opening definition that every good thought begins from God, and shows that its ninth chapter contradicts it by letting some come to grace by their own free will.
3. 3Prosper argues that Cassian's middle position, granting grace to some and self-started good will to others, implies that grace is given according to merit and contradicts his own first definition.
4. 4Prosper rejects Cassian's claim that the desire for health comes from man and the cure from God, arguing that even the first desire to be healed is God's gift, and explains Rom 7:18 as the voice of one already under grace.
5. 5Prosper rejects Cassian's claim that both the Pelagians and Augustine's followers err, and shows that Innocent, the Eastern bishops, the African councils, and Zosimus all taught that good will begins from God's grace.
6. 6Prosper insists that the question of grace was settled against the Pelagians and that grace does not destroy free choice but makes the will good.
7. 7Prosper answers Cassian's examples of Paul and Matthew against Zacchaeus and the thief, arguing that God draws everyone who comes to Christ, by many different means.
8. 8Prosper answers Cassian's appeal to 'the rule of the church's faith' with a chain of biblical texts showing that faith and every good will are gifts of grace, which does not abolish the will but makes it good.
9. 9Prosper refutes Cassian's claims that grace meets a will already turning to good and that Adam kept the knowledge of good after the fall, arguing that all fell in Adam and lost their good freedom, which only the liberator restores.
10. 10Prosper answers Cassian's appeal to Rom 2:14 by arguing that Paul means gentiles renewed by grace, and that the natural wisdom of pagans serves earthly life but cannot justify.
11. 11Prosper charges that Cassian's warning not to refer all the saints' merits to God combines two condemned Pelagian theses: that grace is given according to merits and not for each single act.
12. 12Prosper rejects Cassian's argument that David's wish to build the temple was a good thought from man alone, arguing that every good will, though man's own, is inspired by God.
13. 13Prosper rejects Cassian's claim that seeds of the virtues remain naturally in every soul, arguing that the virtues were lost in Adam and that faith and love are gifts of God, and dismisses the appeal to the Shepherd of Hermas.
14. 14Prosper quotes Cassian on Job, who supposedly defeated the devil by his own strength, and sums up how Cassian's successive definitions have departed from his own catholic opening statement.
15. 15Prosper argues against Cassian that Job endured his sufferings by the help of God's Spirit, citing Job's own confession of his Redeemer, and links Cassian's view to the thesis condemned by the Council of Carthage.
16. 16Prosper rejects Cassian's claim that the centurion's faith would have earned no praise had it been God's gift, showing from Paul's thanksgivings that faith is both praised and given by God.
17. 17Prosper shows that Cassian, though disowning the thesis that grace is given according to merit, implies it by making the centurion's faith his own meritorious possession.
18. 18Prosper rejects Cassian's division of the faithful into those saved by grace and those merely helped after starting by their own will, and affirms that grace makes the will free for good in all.
19. 19Prosper sums up Cassian's twelve definitions on grace and free choice, accepting only the first as catholic and briefly refuting each of the others.
20. 20Prosper states as theses the doctrine he finds implied in Cassian's definitions: Adam's soul was not injured, the seeds of virtue remain, and part of the church is justified by free choice.
21. 21Prosper recalls the condemnations of Pelagianism by Innocent, Zosimus, Boniface, and Celestine, cites Celestine's letter praising Augustine, and urges Pope Xystus to drive out the hidden Pelagians.
22. 22Prosper concludes that Augustine's critics are to be borne patiently while still in communion, and prays that God may hold the first place in all our thoughts and acts.