On Free Choice of the Will 2.1–2.6

E. Now, if it can be done, explain to me why God gave man free choice of the will; for certainly, if he had not received it, he could not sin. A. Is it already certain and known to you that God gave man this, which you think ought not to have been given? E. As far as I seemed to understand in the previous book, we both have free choice of the will and sin only by it. A. I too remember that this was made clear to us. But I have now asked whether you know that it was God who gave us this which we evidently have and by which we evidently sin. E. No one else, I think. For we are from him; and whether we sin or act rightly, we deserve punishment or reward from him. A. I want to know whether you know this too clearly, or whether, moved by authority, you willingly believe it even though it is not known. E. I affirm that on this matter I first believed authority. But what is truer than that every good is from God, that everything just is good, and that punishment for sinners and reward for those who act rightly is just? From this it follows that by God sinners are afflicted with misery and those who act rightly with happiness. A. I do not object; but I ask the other thing: how do you know that we are from him? For you have not explained that, but that we deserve punishment or reward from him. E. This too I see is clear from nothing else than this, that it is already established that God punishes sins. For all justice is from him. While it belongs to a certain goodness to do kindnesses to strangers, it does not belong to justice to punish strangers. Hence it is clear that we belong to him, since he is not only most kind to us in giving but also most just in punishing. Then, from what I laid down and you granted, that every good is from God, it can be understood that man too is from God. For man himself, insofar as he is man, is a good, since he can live rightly when he wills. A. Plainly, if this is so, the question you proposed is solved. For if man is a good, and could not act rightly unless he willed, he had to have a free will, without which he could not act rightly. We must not believe that God gave it for this purpose because sin is also committed through it. It is reason enough why it ought to have been given that without it man cannot live rightly. And that it was given for this purpose can be understood from this too: if anyone has used it to sin, he is punished by God. That would happen unjustly if free will had been given not only for living rightly but also for sinning. For how would a man be justly punished who had used his will for the purpose for which it was given? But now, when God punishes a sinner, what else does he seem to you to say but, “Why did you not use free will for the purpose for which I gave it to you, that is, for acting rightly?” Further, how could that good exist by which justice itself is commended, in condemning sins and honoring right deeds, if man lacked free choice of the will? For what was not done by will would be neither a sin nor a right action. And so both punishment and reward would be unjust if man did not have free will. But there had to be justice both in punishment and in reward, since this is one of the goods that are from God. God, then, had to give man free will.

E. I now grant that God gave it. But does it not seem to you, I beg you, that if it was given for acting rightly, it ought not to have been capable of being turned to sinning, like justice itself, which was given to man for living well? For can anyone live badly by means of his justice? So no one could sin by means of the will, if the will had been given for acting rightly. A. God will grant, I hope, that I may be able to answer you, or rather that you may answer yourself, with that same Truth, the supreme teacher of all, teaching you within. But I want you to tell me briefly: if you hold as certain and known what I had asked you, that God gave us free will, ought we to say that what we confess God gave ought not to have been given? For if it is uncertain whether he gave it, we rightly ask whether it was well given, so that, when we have found that it was well given, we find also that he gave it from whom all good things have been given to man; but if we find that it was not well given, we may understand that he did not give it, whom it is impious to blame. But if it is certain that he gave it, we must admit that, however it was given, it ought neither not to have been given nor to have been given otherwise than it was given. For he gave it whose act can in no way be rightly blamed. E. Although I hold this with unshaken faith, yet since I do not yet hold it by knowledge, let us inquire as if everything were uncertain. For I see that, because it is uncertain whether free will was given for acting rightly, since through it we can also sin, it becomes uncertain too whether it ought to have been given. For if it is uncertain that it was given for acting rightly, it is uncertain also that it ought to have been given; and so it will be uncertain too whether God gave it, because if it is uncertain that it ought to have been given, it is uncertain that it was given by him, of whom it is impious to believe that he gave anything that ought not to have been given. A. At least this is certain to you, that God exists. E. This too I hold unshaken, not by contemplating but by believing. A. If, then, one of those fools of whom it is written, “The fool has said in his heart, There is no God,” should say this to you, and did not want to believe with you what you believe, but to know whether what you believe is true, would you abandon the man, or would you think that he should somehow be persuaded of what you hold unshaken, especially if he wanted not to resist obstinately but earnestly to come to know it? E. That last point you made reminds me well enough what I ought to answer him. For surely, however absurd he was, he would grant me that with a deceitful and obstinate person one should not argue about anything at all, and least of all about so great a matter. Having granted this, he would first press me to believe that he asked this in good faith and that there was in him no hidden deceit or obstinacy in this matter. Then I would show him, which I think is very easy for anyone, how much fairer it would be, since he wanted another who did not know them to believe him about the hidden things of his own mind, which he himself knew, that he too should believe that God exists on the strength of the books of such great men, who left it witnessed in writing that they had lived with the Son of God; for they also wrote that they had seen things that could in no way have happened if there were no God. And he would be very foolish if he blamed me for believing them, when he wanted me to believe him. And what he could not rightly blame, he would find no reason not to want to imitate. A. If, then, as to whether God exists, you think it enough that we have judged that such great men are not rashly to be believed, why, I ask you, do you not think likewise that on those other matters too, which we set out to investigate as uncertain and wholly unknown, we should so believe the authority of the same men as to labor no more over investigating them? E. But we want to know and understand what we believe. A. You remember rightly what we cannot deny we also laid down at the beginning of the previous discussion. For unless believing were one thing and understanding another, and unless we had first to believe the great and divine thing we desired to understand, the prophet would have said in vain, “Unless you believe, you will not understand.” Our Lord himself too, both by words and by deeds, first urged those whom he called to salvation to believe. But afterwards, when he spoke of the very gift he would give to believers, he did not say, “And this is eternal life, that they believe,” but he says, “This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Then to those who already believe he says, “Seek, and you will find”; for what is believed without being known cannot be said to have been found, and no one becomes fit to find God unless he has first believed what he will afterwards know. So, obeying the Lord's commands, let us seek earnestly. For what we seek at his urging we shall find at his showing, as far as these things can be found in this life and by people such as we are. For we must believe that they are seen and grasped more clearly and perfectly by better people even while they dwell on this earth, and certainly by all the good and devout after this life; and we must hope that it will be so for us; and, despising earthly and human things, we must desire and love these things in every way.

A. Let us inquire in this order, if you please: first, how it is evident that God exists; then, whether all things whatsoever, insofar as they are good, are from him; last, whether free will is to be counted among goods. When these are found, it will be clear enough, I think, whether it was rightly given to man. So first I ask you, to begin with the most evident things, whether you yourself exist. Or are you perhaps afraid of being deceived in this question, when surely, if you did not exist, you could not be deceived at all? E. Go on rather to the rest. A. Since, then, it is evident that you exist, and this would not be evident to you unless you lived, this too is evident, that you live. Do you understand that these two things are most true? E. I understand completely. A. Then this third thing is evident too, namely that you understand. E. It is evident. A. Which of these three seems to you to excel? E. Understanding. A. Why does it seem so to you? E. Because, while there are these three, to be, to live, and to understand, a stone exists and an animal lives, yet I do not think that a stone lives or that an animal understands; but it is most certain that one who understands both exists and lives. So I do not hesitate to judge that which has all three more excellent than that which lacks two or one. For what lives certainly also exists, but it does not follow that it also understands; such, I think, is the life of an animal. And what exists does not necessarily live and understand; for I can admit that corpses exist, but no one would say that they live. And what does not live understands much less. A. We hold, then, that of these three a corpse lacks two, an animal one, a man none. E. That is true. A. We hold also that among these three the most excellent is what man has together with the other two, namely understanding, and whoever has it also exists and lives. E. We do hold it. A. Tell me now whether you know that you have those very familiar bodily senses, of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching. E. I know it. A. What do you think belongs to the sense of sight? That is, what do you think we perceive by seeing? E. Any bodily things. A. Do we also perceive hard and soft by seeing? E. No. A. What, then, belongs properly to the eyes, which we perceive through them? E. Color. A. What belongs to the ears? E. Sound. A. To smell? E. Odor. A. To taste? E. Flavor. A. To touch? E. Soft or hard, smooth or rough, and many such things. A. Well, the shapes of bodies, large, small, square, round, and anything of that kind: do we not perceive them both by touching and by seeing, so that they cannot be assigned properly either to sight or to touch, but to both? E. I understand. A. You understand, then, that the single senses have some things proper to each, which they report, and that some senses have some things in common? E. I understand this too. A. Can we, then, judge by any of these senses what belongs to each sense, and what all or some of them have in common? E. In no way; these things are judged by something within. A. Is it perhaps reason itself, which beasts lack? For, I think, it is by reason that we grasp these things and know that they are so. E. I think rather that we grasp by reason that there is a certain inner sense to which everything is referred from those five very familiar senses. For that by which a beast sees is one thing, and that by which it avoids or seeks what it perceives by seeing is another. The one sense is in the eyes; the other is within, in the soul itself, and by it animals either seek and take up with delight, or avoid and reject when offended, not only what is seen but also what is heard and what is caught by the other senses of the body. This cannot be called sight or hearing or smell or taste or touch, but something else that presides over them all in common. Although we grasp it by reason, as I said, I cannot call it reason, since it is clearly present in beasts too. A. I acknowledge this, whatever it is, and I do not hesitate to call it the inner sense. But unless what is brought to us by the senses of the body passes beyond this sense too, it cannot arrive at knowledge. For whatever we know, we hold as grasped by reason. And we know, to say nothing of the rest, that colors cannot be perceived by hearing nor voices by sight. And when we know this, we know it neither by the eyes nor by the ears, nor by that inner sense which beasts do not lack either. For we must not believe that they know that light is not perceived by the ears nor a voice by the eyes, since we distinguish these things only by rational attention and thought. E. I cannot say that I have grasped this. For what if by that inner sense, which you grant they do not lack, they also judge that colors cannot be perceived by hearing nor voices by sight? A. Do you also think they can distinguish from one another the color that is perceived, the sense that is in the eye, that inner sense in the soul, and the reason by which these are defined one by one and counted? E. In no way. A. Well, could this reason distinguish these four from one another and mark them off by definitions, unless the color were referred to it through the sense of the eyes, and that sense in turn through that inner sense which presides over it, and that inner sense through itself, if indeed nothing else stands between? E. I do not see how it could otherwise. A. Well, do you see this: that color is perceived by the sense of the eyes, but that this sense is not perceived by the same sense? For you do not also see seeing itself by the same sense by which you see color. E. Not at all. A. Try to distinguish these too. For I believe you do not deny that color is one thing, seeing color another, and again another, when no color is present, having the sense by which it could be seen if it were present. E. I distinguish these too, and grant that they differ from one another. A. Of these three, do you see anything with the eyes except color? E. Nothing else. A. Tell me, then, by what you see the other two; for you could not distinguish them without seeing them. E. I do not know what else; I know that it exists, nothing more. A. So you do not know whether it is reason itself, or that life which we call the inner sense, surpassing the senses of the body, or something else? E. I do not know. A. Yet you know this: that these things cannot be defined except by reason, and that reason does this only about what is offered to it for examination. E. That is certain. A. Whatever else, then, there is by which all that we know can be perceived, it is the servant of reason, to which it offers and reports whatever it touches, so that what is perceived can be distinguished within its own bounds and grasped not only by perceiving but also by knowing. E. So it is. A. Well, reason itself, which distinguishes its servants and what they supply from one another, and likewise recognizes what difference there is between these and itself, and affirms that it is more powerful than they: does it grasp itself by anything else than by itself, that is, by reason? Or would you know otherwise that you have reason, unless you perceived it by reason? E. Most true. A. Since, then, when we perceive color we do not likewise perceive by that same sense that we perceive; and when we hear a sound we do not also hear our hearing; and when we smell a rose, our sense of smell does not itself give off any smell to us; and when we taste, taste itself has no flavor in our mouth; and when we touch something, we cannot also touch the sense of touch itself: it is evident that these five senses cannot be perceived by any of these senses, although all bodily things are perceived by them. E. It is evident.

A. I think this too is evident, that that inner sense not only perceives what it has received from the five senses of the body, but also perceives the senses themselves. For otherwise a beast would not move itself, either seeking something or fleeing it, unless it perceived that it perceives: not so as to know, for that belongs to reason, but only so as to move; and this it does not perceive by any of those five. If this is still obscure, it will become clear if you notice what is enough as an example in one sense, such as sight. For it could in no way open its eye and move it in looking toward what it wants to see, unless it perceived that it does not see it while the eye is closed or not so moved. And if it perceives that it does not see while it does not see, it must also perceive that it sees while it sees; for since it does not move its eye when seeing with the same appetite with which it moves it when not seeing, it shows that it perceives both. But whether this life, which perceives that it perceives bodily things, also perceives itself is not so clear, except that each one, questioning himself within, finds that every living thing flees death; and since death is the contrary of life, life must also perceive itself, since it flees its contrary. If this is still not plain, let it be left aside, so that we may strive toward what we want only by certain and evident proofs. For these things are evident: that bodily things are perceived by bodily sense; that this sense cannot be perceived by the same sense; that by the inner sense both bodily things are perceived through bodily sense and bodily sense itself is perceived; and that by reason all these things, and reason itself, become known and are contained in knowledge. Or does it not seem so to you? E. It certainly does. A. Come now, answer: what was the question from which we started, toward whose solution we have long been laboring along this path?

E. As far as I remember, of those three questions which we set out a little earlier to arrange the order of this discussion, the first is now being handled: how it can be made evident that God exists, although it must be believed most tenaciously and firmly. A. You hold this rightly. But I also want you to keep carefully in mind that, when I asked you whether you knew that you exist, it appeared to us that you know not only this but also two other things. E. I hold that too. A. Now, then, see to which of these three you understand everything to belong that the senses of the body touch; that is, in what class of things you think you should place whatever our sense touches through the eyes or any other instrument of the body: in that which only exists, or in that which also lives, or in that which also understands. E. In that which only exists. A. Well, in which of these three classes do you put the sense itself? E. In that which lives. A. Which of these two, then, do you judge better: the sense itself, or what the sense touches? E. The sense, of course. A. Why? E. Because what also lives is better than what only exists. A. Well, that inner sense, which we tracked down above as being below reason and still common to us and the beasts, will you hesitate to rank it above this sense by which we touch body, and which you have already said is to be ranked above body itself? E. I would in no way hesitate. A. I want to hear from you why you do not hesitate about this either. For you will not be able to say that this inner sense is to be placed in that class of the three which also understands; it is still in the class that exists and lives, though it lacks understanding, for this sense is present in beasts too, in which there is no understanding. This being so, I ask why you rank the inner sense above this sense by which bodily things are perceived, since both are in the class that lives. You ranked the sense that touches bodies above bodies because they are in the class that only exists, while it is in the class that also lives; since the inner sense too is found in that class, tell me why you think it better. If you say it is because the one perceives the other, I do not think you will find a rule by which we can establish that everything that perceives is better than what it perceives; otherwise we might be forced to say also that everything that understands is better than what it understands. That is false; for a human being understands wisdom and is not better than wisdom itself. So see for what reason it seemed to you that the inner sense should be preferred to this sense by which we perceive bodies. E. Because I recognize that it is a kind of governor and judge of this one. For if this one fails in any way in its duty, that one demands it like a debt from a servant, as was discussed a little earlier. The sense of the eye does not see that it sees or does not see, and since it does not see this, it cannot judge what it lacks or what is enough; but the inner sense does, by which even the soul of a beast is prompted to open a closed eye and to supply what it perceives is lacking. And no one doubts that the one who judges is better than that about which he judges. A. Do you see, then, that this bodily sense too in a way judges about bodies? For pleasure and pain belong to it, when it is touched by a body gently or roughly. Just as that inner sense judges what is lacking or enough for the sense of the eyes, so the sense of the eyes itself judges what is lacking or enough in colors. Likewise, just as that inner sense judges about our hearing, whether it is too little or sufficiently attentive, so hearing itself judges about voices, which of them flows in gently or roars harshly. There is no need to go through the other senses of the body; you notice already, I think, what I mean: that inner sense judges about these bodily senses, when it approves their soundness and demands what is owed, just as the bodily senses themselves judge about bodies, accepting gentle touch in them and rejecting the contrary. E. I certainly see it, and agree that it is most true.

A. Consider now whether reason also judges about this inner sense. I do not ask now whether you doubt that reason is better than it, because I have no doubt that you judge so; though I think that not even this needs asking now, whether reason judges about that sense. For among the very things that are below it, that is, bodies, the bodily senses, and that inner sense, how one is better than another, and how much more excellent reason itself is than they, who reports this, after all, but reason itself? This it surely could in no way do unless it judged about them. E. That is evident. A. The nature that only exists, and neither lives nor understands, such as a lifeless body, is surpassed by the nature that not only exists but also lives, though it does not understand, such as the soul of beasts; and this in turn is surpassed by that which at once exists, lives, and understands, such as the rational mind in man. Do you think, then, that in us, that is, among the things that make up our nature so that we are human beings, anything can be found more excellent than this which we placed third among these three? For it is evident that we have a body, and a certain life by which the body itself is animated and made vigorous (these two we recognize in beasts too), and a third thing, as it were the head or the eye of our soul, or whatever more fitting thing can be said of reason and understanding, which the nature of beasts does not have. So see, I beg you, whether you can find anything in the nature of man more sublime than reason. E. I see absolutely nothing better. A. What if we could find something that you not only do not doubt exists but that is also more excellent than our reason itself? Will you hesitate to call it, whatever it is, God? E. I would not at once say that it is God, if I could find something better than what is best in my nature. For I do not like to call God that to which my reason is inferior, but that to which nothing is superior. A. Quite so; for he himself has given this reason of yours the power to think so piously and truly about him. But, I ask you, if you find that there is nothing above our reason except what is eternal and unchangeable, will you hesitate to call this God? For you know that bodies are changeable; and it is evident that the very life by which the body is animated is not without changeableness through its various states; and reason itself, since it now strives to reach the truth and now does not strive, and sometimes reaches it and sometimes does not, is certainly proved to be changeable. If, using no instrument of the body, neither touch nor taste nor smell nor ears nor eyes nor any sense lower than itself, but through itself, it perceives something eternal and unchangeable, and itself at the same time as inferior, it must confess that this is its God. E. I will plainly confess that to be God than which nothing is shown to be higher. A. Good. For it will be enough for me to show that there is something of this kind, which you will either confess to be God, or, if there is something above it, you will grant that this is God. So whether there is something above it or not, it will be evident that God exists, when, with his help, I have shown, as I promised, that there is something above reason. E. Show, then, what you promise.