On Grace and Free Will 7–14

Let us therefore consider the very merits of the apostle Paul, for which he said that the righteous judge would render him the crown of righteousness, and let us see whether his merits are his own as his own, that is, acquired for him by himself, or whether they are gifts of God. “I have fought the good fight,” he says, “I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.” First, these good works would have been nothing if good thoughts had not preceded them. Notice, then, what he says about these thoughts; for writing to the Corinthians he says, “Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God.” Next, let us examine them one by one. “I have fought the good fight,” he says. I ask by what strength he fought: whether a strength that he had from himself, or one given from above. But far be it that so great a teacher was ignorant of the law of God, whose voice is in Deuteronomy: “Do not say in your heart, ‘My strength and the might of my hand have gained me this great power’; but you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you strength to gain power.” And what does a good fight profit unless victory follows? And who gives the victory but he of whom Paul himself says, “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ”? And in another place, when he had cited the testimony from the Psalm, “For your sake we are put to death all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter,” he added and said, “But in all these things we more than conquer through him who loved us”: not, then, through ourselves, but through him who loved us. Next he said, “I have finished the course”; but he who said this says in another place, “So it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.” This sentence can in no way be turned around so as to say, “It is not of God who shows mercy, but of man who wills and runs”; for whoever dares to say this plainly shows that he contradicts the Apostle. Lastly he said, “I have kept the faith”; but he who said this says elsewhere, “I obtained mercy that I might be faithful.” For he did not say, “I obtained mercy because I was faithful,” but “that I might be faithful,” showing by this that even faith itself cannot be had except by the mercy of God, and that it is the gift of God. This he teaches most plainly, saying, “By grace you have been saved through faith; and this not of yourselves, but it is the gift of God.” For they might say, “We received grace because we believed,” as if attributing faith to themselves and grace to God; for this reason the Apostle, when he had said “through faith,” said, “and this not of yourselves, but it is the gift of God.” Again, lest they should say that they had deserved such a gift by their own works, he at once added, “Not of works, lest anyone should be lifted up.” Not that he denied or emptied good works, since he says that God renders to each according to his works; but because works come from faith, not faith from works; and therefore the works of righteousness are ours from him from whom faith itself is ours, of which it is said, “The righteous lives by faith.” But men who did not understand what the same Apostle says, “We hold that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law,” thought that he was saying that faith suffices for a man even if he lives wickedly and has no good works. Far be it that the vessel of election should think so! When he had said in one place, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision,” he at once added, “but faith which works through love.” This is the faith that separates the faithful of God from unclean demons; for they too, as the apostle James says, “believe and tremble,” but they do not do good works. They do not, then, have that faith by which the righteous lives, that is, the faith which works through love, so that God renders eternal life to him according to his works. But because the good works themselves are also ours from God, from whom we have both faith and love, for this reason the same teacher of the Gentiles has called even eternal life itself grace.

And from this there arises no small question, which must be solved by the Lord's gift. For if eternal life is rendered to good works, as Scripture most plainly says, “For God will render to each according to his works,” how is eternal life grace, since grace is not rendered to works but given freely, as the Apostle himself says, “To him who works, the reward is not reckoned according to grace but according to debt”? And again he says, “A remnant has been saved by the election of grace”; and he at once added, “But if by grace, then no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace.” How, then, is eternal life grace, when it is received from works? Or perhaps the Apostle did not call eternal life grace? On the contrary, he said it in such a way that it cannot be denied at all; and it requires not a sharp interpreter, but only an attentive listener. For when he had said, “The wages of sin is death,” he at once added, “But the grace of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” This question, then, seems to me in no way soluble unless we understand that even our good works themselves, to which eternal life is rendered, belong to the grace of God, on account of what the Lord Jesus says, “Without me you can do nothing.” And the Apostle himself, when he had said, “By grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, but it is the gift of God; not of works, lest anyone should be lifted up,” certainly saw that men might think this was said as though good works were not necessary for believers, but faith alone sufficed for them; and again that men might be lifted up about good works, as if they were sufficient of themselves to do them. So he at once added, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus in good works, which God prepared that we should walk in them.” What is this, that when he had commended the grace of God and said, “not of works, lest anyone should be lifted up,” he gave the reason why he said this: “For we are his workmanship,” he says, “created in Christ Jesus in good works”? How, then, “not of works, lest anyone should be lifted up”? But hear and understand: “not of works” was said in the sense of your works existing for you from yourself, but in the sense of those works in which God has fashioned you, that is, formed and created you. For he says this: “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus in good works”; not by that creation by which we were made human beings, but by that of which he spoke who was certainly already a man: “Create in me a clean heart, O God”; and of which the Apostle says, “If, then, there is any new creation in Christ, the old things have passed away; behold, they have become new; but all things are from God.” We are fashioned, then, that is, formed and created, in good works, which we did not prepare, but God prepared, that we should walk in them. Therefore, dearly beloved, if our good life is nothing other than the grace of God, without doubt eternal life too, which is rendered to a good life, is the grace of God; for it too is given freely, because that to which it is given was given freely. But that to which it is given is simply grace; whereas this which is given to it, since it is its reward, is grace for grace, as a wage for righteousness; so that it is true, since it is true, that God will render to each according to his works.

Perhaps you ask whether we have read “grace for grace” in the sacred books. But you have the Gospel according to John, most clear with so great a light, where John the Baptist says of the Lord Christ, “And from his fullness we have received, and grace for grace.” From his fullness, then, we have received according to our small measure, as it were our portions, so that we may live well, as God has apportioned the measure of faith; because each has his own gift from God, one in this way, another in that; and this is grace. But beyond this we shall also receive grace for grace, when eternal life is rendered to us, of which the Apostle said, “But the grace of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord,” after he had first said, “The wages of sin is death.” Rightly “wages,” because eternal death is rendered as a debt to diabolical service. Here, though he could have said, and said rightly, “But the wages of righteousness is eternal life,” he preferred to say, “But the grace of God is eternal life,” so that we might understand from this that God leads us to eternal life not for our merits but for his own compassion. Of this a man says to his own soul in the Psalm: “who crowns you with compassion and mercy.” Is not a crown rendered to good works? But because he works the good works themselves in the good, he of whom it is said, “For it is God who works in you both to will and to work, for his good will,” the Psalm therefore said, “He crowns you with compassion and mercy”: because by his compassion we do the good works to which the crown is rendered. For because he said, “For it is God who works in you both to will and to work, for his good will,” he is not therefore to be thought to have taken away free choice. If that were so, he would not have said just before, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” For when they are commanded to work, their free choice is addressed; but “with fear and trembling” for this reason, lest by attributing to themselves that they work well they should be lifted up about good works as their own. As though, then, the Apostle had been asked, “Why did you say, ‘with fear and trembling’?”, he gave the reason for these words, saying, “For it is God who works in you.” For if you fear and tremble, you are not lifted up about your good works as your own, because it is God who works in you.

Therefore, brothers, you ought indeed by free choice not to do evil and to do good; for this is what the law of God commands us in the holy books, whether old or new. But let us read, and with the Lord's help understand, the Apostle when he says, “For by the law no flesh will be justified before him; for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.” He said “knowledge,” not “destruction.” But when a man knows sin, unless grace helps him to avoid what he knows, without doubt the law works wrath. This the Apostle himself says in another place; these are his own words: “The law works wrath.” He said this because the wrath of God is greater on the transgressor who through the law knows sin and yet does it; such a man is indeed a transgressor of the law, as he also says in another place, “For where there is no law, neither is there transgression.” For this reason he says elsewhere too, “that we may serve in newness of spirit, and not in oldness of the letter,” wishing the oldness of the letter to be understood as the law; and the newness of the spirit, what is it but grace? And lest he should be thought to have accused or found fault with the law, he at once set a question before himself and said, “What then shall we say? Is the law sin? Far from it.” Then he added, “But I did not know sin except through the law”; this is what he had said, “Through the law comes the knowledge of sin.” “For I would not have known desire,” he says, “if the law had not said, ‘You shall not desire.’ But sin, taking occasion, worked in me through the commandment every kind of desire; for without the law sin was dead. And I was once alive without the law; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died; and the commandment which was for life was found to be for death to me. For sin, taking occasion through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. Did that which is good, then, become death to me? Far from it. But sin, that it might be shown to be sin, worked death in me through what is good, so that sin might become sinful beyond measure through the commandment.” And to the Galatians he says: “But knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ, we too have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh will be justified.”

What is it, then, that the utterly vain and utterly perverse Pelagians say, that the law is the grace of God by which we are helped not to sin? What is it that these wretched men say, who without any doubt contradict so great an Apostle? He says that sin received strength against man through the law, and that through the commandment, though holy and just and good, it nevertheless kills him and works death through what is good, from which he would not be set free unless the spirit gave life to him whom the letter had killed, as he says in another place, “The letter kills, but the spirit gives life.” And these unteachable men, blind against the light of God and deaf against the voice of God, say that the killing letter gives life, and contradict the life-giving spirit. Therefore, brothers, to admonish you rather with the words of the Apostle himself: we are debtors not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. “For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live.” I have said this to deter your free choice from evil by the apostolic words, and to exhort it to good; yet you ought not on that account to glory in man, that is, in yourselves, and not in the Lord, when you do not live according to the flesh but by the spirit put to death the deeds of the flesh. For lest those to whom he said this should be lifted up, thinking that they could do these great good works by their own spirit and not by God's, for this reason, when he had said, “But if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live,” he at once added, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” When, then, you put to death the deeds of the flesh by the spirit so that you may live, glorify him, praise him, give thanks to him, by whose Spirit you are led so that you may be able to do these things, so that you may show that you are sons of God. “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.”

As many, then, as are led by their own spirit, relying on their own strength, with the help of the law alone and without the help of grace, are not sons of God. Such are those of whom the same apostle says that, “being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and wishing to establish their own, they have not submitted to the righteousness of God.” He said this of the Jews, who, presuming on themselves, rejected grace, and therefore did not believe in Christ. He says that they wished to establish their own righteousness, which is the righteousness from the law: not because the law was established by them, but because they had established their own righteousness in the law which is from God, when they believed that they could fulfil that law by their own strength; “being ignorant of the righteousness of God,” not the righteousness by which God is righteous, but the righteousness that man has from God. And so that you may know that he called their righteousness the one which is from the law, and God's righteousness the one which man has from God, hear what he says in another place, when he was speaking of Christ: “For whose sake,” he says, “I have not only believed all things to be loss, but have counted them as dung, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, which is from God.” What does “not having my own righteousness, which is from the law” mean, when the law itself was not his but God's, unless that he called the righteousness his own, although it was from the law, because he thought that by his own will he could fulfil the law without the help of grace, which is through faith in Christ? Therefore, when he had said, “not having my own righteousness, which is from the law,” he went on to add, “but that which is through faith in Christ, which is from God.” This they did not know, of whom he says, “being ignorant of the righteousness of God,” that is, the righteousness which is from God (for this is given not by the killing letter but by the life-giving spirit); “and wishing to establish their own,” which he himself called the righteousness from the law when he said, “not having my own righteousness, which is from the law”: they “have not submitted to the righteousness of God,” that is, they have not submitted to the grace of God. For they were under the law, not under grace; and therefore sin had dominion over them, from which man is not set free by the law, but by grace. This is why he says elsewhere, “For sin shall not have dominion over you; for you are not under the law, but under grace”: not because the law is evil, but because those are under it whom it makes guilty by commanding, not by helping. For grace helps each one to be a doer of the law; without this grace, one who is placed under the law will be only a hearer of the law. To such, then, he says, “You who are justified by the law have fallen from grace.”

Who is so deaf to the apostolic words, who so foolish, or rather so mad, not knowing what he says, as to dare to say that the law is grace, when he who knew what he was saying cries out, “You who are justified by the law have fallen from grace”? But if the law is not grace, because it is not the law but grace that can help us to fulfil the law, will nature then be grace? For the Pelagians have dared to say this too: that grace is the nature in which we were created so as to have a rational mind by which we can understand, being made in the image of God, so that we may have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky and all the cattle that creep upon the earth. But this is not the grace which the Apostle commends through faith in Jesus Christ. For it is certain that we share this nature even with the ungodly and unbelievers; but grace through faith in Jesus Christ belongs only to those whose is the faith itself. “For not all have faith.” Then, just as he says most truly to those who, wishing to be justified in the law, have fallen from grace, “If righteousness is from the law, then Christ died in vain,” so it is most truly said also to those who think that the grace which the faith of Christ commends and receives is nature: “If righteousness is from nature, then Christ died in vain.” For the law was already here, and it did not justify; nature too was already here, and it did not justify. Therefore Christ did not die in vain, so that both the law might be fulfilled through him who said, “I did not come to destroy the law but to fulfil it,” and nature, lost through Adam, might be repaired through him who said that he had come “to seek and to save what was lost”; in whom, as one to come, the ancient fathers too who loved God had believed. They also say that the grace of God which was given through faith in Jesus Christ, which is neither the law nor nature, avails only for this, that past sins may be forgiven, not that future ones may be avoided or opposing ones overcome. But if this were true, then in the Lord's Prayer, after saying, “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors,” we would certainly not add, “and lead us not into temptation.” For the former we say so that sins may be forgiven; the latter so that they may be guarded against or overcome; and we would by no means ask this of the Father who is in heaven if we could accomplish it by the strength of the human will. I remind your Charity, and strongly urge you, to read carefully the book of blessed Cyprian which he wrote on the Lord's Prayer, and, as far as the Lord helps you, to understand it and commit it to memory. There you will see how he so addresses the free choice of those whom he builds up by his written discourse as nevertheless to show that what we are commanded in the law to fulfil must be asked for in prayer. This he would certainly do in vain if the human will were sufficient to do those things without divine help.

But when they have been refuted, shown to be not defenders of free choice but men who puff it up and cast it down headlong, because that grace which is given through Jesus Christ our Lord is neither the knowledge of the divine law, nor nature, nor only the forgiveness of sins, but itself brings it about that the law is fulfilled, that nature is set free, that sin does not have dominion: when, then, they have been refuted on these points, they turn to this, trying in whatever way they can to show that the grace of God is given according to our merits. For they say: “Even if it is not given according to the merits of good works, because it is through grace that people work well, yet it is given according to the merits of a good will; for the good will of one who prays goes before,” they say, “and before that went the will of one who believes, so that according to these merits the grace of God who hears may follow.” I have already discussed above the will of one who believes, showing that it belongs to grace to such an extent that the Apostle did not say, “I obtained mercy because I was faithful,” but said, “I obtained mercy that I might be faithful.” There are other testimonies too, among them what he says, “Think soberly, as God has apportioned to each the measure of faith”; and what I have already mentioned, “By grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, but it is the gift of God”; and what he wrote to the Ephesians, “Peace to the brothers, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”; and where he says, “For to you it has been given for Christ's sake not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him.” Both, then, belong to the grace of God, both the faith of those who believe and the endurance of those who suffer, because he said that both were given. And especially where he says, “Having the same spirit of faith.” For he does not say “knowledge of faith,” but “spirit of faith”; and he said this so that we might understand that faith is granted even when it is not asked for, so that other things may be granted to it when it asks. “For how shall they call on him,” he says, “in whom they have not believed?” Therefore the spirit of grace brings it about that we have faith, so that through faith we may obtain by praying that we can do what we are commanded. For this reason the Apostle himself constantly puts faith before the law, since we cannot do what the law commands unless through faith, by asking, we obtain that we may be able to do it. For if faith belongs only to free choice and is not given by God, why do we pray for those who will not believe, that they may believe? We would do this altogether in vain unless we believed most rightly that almighty God can turn to believing even wills that are perverse and opposed to faith. Man's free choice is indeed appealed to where it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” But unless God could also take away hardness of heart, he would not say through the prophet, “I will take away from them the heart of stone, and give them a heart of flesh.” That this was foretold of the New Testament the Apostle shows clearly enough when he says, “You are our letter, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on fleshly tablets of the heart.” Let us not think this was said so that those who ought to live spiritually should live carnally; but since stone, to which the hard heart is compared, is without feeling, to what should the understanding heart be compared but to feeling flesh? For thus it is said through the prophet Ezekiel: “And I will give them,” he says, “another heart, and I will give them a new spirit; and I will pluck out the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, so that they may walk in my precepts and keep my ordinances and do them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God, says the Lord.” Can we, then, without utter absurdity say that a good merit of a good will went before in a man, so that the heart of stone might be plucked out of him, since the heart of stone itself signifies nothing but a most hard will, wholly inflexible against God? For where a good will goes before, there is certainly no longer a heart of stone. For in another place too, through the same prophet, God shows most plainly that he does these things not on account of any good merits of theirs, but for his name's sake, where he says: “I do this, house of Israel, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations into which you went; and I will sanctify my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst; and the nations shall know that I am the Lord, says Adonai the Lord, when I am sanctified in you before their eyes. And I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all lands, and bring you into your own land; and I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be cleansed from all your uncleannesses and from all your idols, and I will cleanse you; and I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you; and the heart of stone shall be taken from your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh, and put my Spirit within you; and I will make you walk in my ordinances, and keep my judgments and do them.” Who is so blind that he does not see, who so stony that he does not feel, that this grace is not given according to the merits of a good will, when the Lord says and testifies, “I do this, house of Israel, but for the sake of my holy name”? For why did he say, “I do this, but for the sake of my holy name,” unless so that they should not think it was done on account of their good merits, as the Pelagians do not blush to say? And he shows not only that no good merits of theirs went before, but that evil merits did, by saying, “but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations.” Who does not see that it is a dreadful evil to profane the holy name of the Lord? And yet, “for the sake of my very name,” he says, “which you have profaned, I will make you good, not for your sake”; “and I will sanctify,” he says, “my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst.” He says that he sanctifies his name, which he had called holy just before. This, then, is what we pray for in the Lord's Prayer, saying, “Hallowed be your name”: that what is without doubt always holy in itself may be hallowed among men. Then follows: “And all the nations shall know that I am the Lord, says Adonai the Lord, when I am sanctified in you.” Though, then, he is always holy, he is nevertheless sanctified in those to whom he grants his grace, by taking away from them the heart of stone through which they profaned the name of the Lord.