Miscellanies 5.13.86

Now faith, even if it is a voluntary assent of the soul, is nevertheless a worker of good things and the foundation of right conduct. And if Aristotle draws a technical distinction, teaching that “making” is said also of irrational animals and of lifeless things, while “doing” belongs to humans alone, let him correct those who call God the Maker of the universe. What is done, he says, is done either as good or as necessary. Now doing wrong is not good (for no one does wrong except for the sake of something else), and nothing necessary is voluntary; doing wrong, then, is voluntary, and so it is not necessary either. The good differ from the bad most of all in their choices and their noble desires. For all wickedness of soul goes with lack of self-control, and the one who acts through passion acts through lack of self-control and wickedness. It comes over me, then, at every point to wonder at that divine saying: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the sheepfold, but climbs in by another way, that one is a thief and a robber; but he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep; to him the doorkeeper opens.” Then the Lord explains and says: “I am the door of the sheep.”