Replies on behalf of Augustine to the Objections of the Vincentians (complete)

Preface. Certain people, forgetful of Christian and brotherly charity, are so eager to injure our reputation in one way or another that they do not see that they overturn their own by their desire to do harm. For they weave together, with whatever statements they can, monstrous lies made of certain utterly absurd blasphemies; and they carry these about publicly and privately to show them and press them on many, asserting that such things are in our understanding as are contained in this diabolical list. That these things are falsely bandied about against us to stir up ill will we could easily and sufficiently prove by subscribing a single anathema, were it not that the malice of those who think themselves burdened if anyone thinks well of us would regard the very brevity of our subscription as suspect. So, lest occasion be found for this complaint, we have thought it necessary and fitting, whether to calm the minds of the slanderers or to instruct those in whose ears something of the kind has sounded, to set out fully and clearly, as far as the Lord’s help allows, what we judge of these perverse definitions. Setting out the sixteen headings one by one, then, under each of them we shall put the words of our understanding and of the faith which we defend against the Pelagians by the authority of the apostolic see; so that those who deign to spend a little time reading these things may plainly recognize that no trace of impious and profane opinions has clung to our hearts, and may judge that the blasphemies which they see condemned by our profession ought to be punished in those who invented them. The book of answers.

First. Objection: That our Lord Jesus Christ did not suffer for the salvation and redemption of all human beings.

Answer. Against the wound of original sin, by which the nature of all human beings was corrupted and put to death in Adam, and from which the disease of all the desires has grown, the true, powerful, and unique remedy is the death of the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who, free of the debt of death and alone without sin, died for sinners and debtors to death. As regards the greatness and power of the price, then, and as regards the one cause of the human race, the blood of Christ is the redemption of the whole world. But those who pass through this world without faith in Christ and without the sacrament of regeneration are strangers to redemption. Since, then, because of the one nature of all and the one cause of all truly taken up by our Lord, all are rightly said to be redeemed, and yet not all are rescued from captivity, the property of redemption without doubt belongs to those from whom the prince of the world has been cast out, and who are no longer vessels of the devil but members of Christ. His death was not bestowed on the human race in such a way that its redemption extended also to those who were not to be regenerated; but so that what was done for all by one unique example is celebrated in each by a singular sacrament. For the cup of immortality, which was compounded of our weakness and divine power, has in itself the power to benefit all; but if it is not drunk, it does not heal.

Objection: That God does not wish to save all, even if all wish to be saved.

Answer. Since the Truth says, “If you, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him?”, how can it be that God, who saves even those of whom it cannot be said that they wish to be saved, does not wish to save some even if they wish to be saved, unless some causes exist of which, though they are unknowable to us, he nevertheless judges rightly, of whom it cannot be said that he ought to have done anything otherwise than he did? Setting aside, then, this discernment which the divine knowledge keeps within the secret of its justice, it is to be believed and professed most sincerely that God wills all human beings to be saved. For the Apostle, whose statement this is, most carefully commands, as is most devoutly observed in all the churches, that supplication be made to God for all human beings. That many of them perish is the desert of those who perish; that many are saved is the gift of the one who saves. For that the guilty is condemned is the blameless justice of God; but that the guilty is justified is the ineffable grace of God.

Objection: That God creates the greater part of the human race for this, that he may destroy it forever.

Answer. God is indeed the creator of all human beings, but no one was created by him in order to perish; for the cause of being born is one thing and the cause of perishing another. That human beings are born is the kindness of the Creator; that they perish is the desert of the transgressor. For in Adam, in whom the nature of all human beings was formed beforehand, all sinned and were bound by the same sentence that he received. From this bond, even if they lack sins of their own, they are not released unless they are reborn through the Holy Spirit in the sacrament of Christ’s death and resurrection. Most impious and ignorant, then, is he who does not distinguish the fault of nature from the author of nature, to whom whatever is to be condemned in anyone is wholly foreign. For he creates human beings that they may be human beings; and he does not withdraw his workmanship from the multiplying successions of the generations, according to the counsel of his good will, being about to restore in many what he himself made, and to punish in many what he himself did not make. For “as through the disobedience of one man the many were made sinners, so through the obedience of one man the many are made righteous.”

Objection: That the greater part of the human race is created by God for this, that it may do not God’s will but the devil’s.

Answer. It is altogether insane and against reason to say that God’s will is not done by God’s will, and that the one who condemns the devil and his servants wills that the devil be served. But the Pelagians think they consistently raise this against catholics, since they deny that Adam’s sin passed to all; for if original guilt does not bind the first birth, infants are no longer subject to the devil, nor do those need to be rescued from the power of darkness who never departed from their author. But we, who profess that all perished in Adam (for “the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost”), do not say that any human being is created in order to do the devil’s will; and we acknowledge that every human being not redeemed is the devil’s captive. For the transgression of human beings could not disturb the order of creation arranged from the ages; and the sinful creature deservedly suffers the penal dominion of him to whom, having left the true Lord, it sold itself of its own accord. This servitude is not God’s institution but his judgment, by which the fraud of the deceiving devil became, for the deceived and credulous man, the punishment of sin. From it no one is rescued except through the mediator between God and human beings, the man Christ Jesus, whose free grace is neither withheld because of the evil merits of many nor anticipated by the good merits of any.

Objection: That God is the author of our sins, in that he makes the will of human beings evil and forms a substance which by natural motion can do nothing but sin.

Answer. The emptiness of this objection too proceeds from that school in which human nature is defended as immune from Adam’s sin and unharmed; so that, because we assert that all human beings are born guilty of the transgression and liable to condemnation, and will perish unless they are reborn in Christ, we may seem to call the same one the author of guilt whom we profess to be the founder of nature. This we utterly renounce from our understanding, since we know God, just and good, as the creator of human substance and of the inner and outer senses in such a way that whatever belongs to nature is wholly from him, and whatever is against nature is wholly not from him. Sin is against nature, and from it arise death and all that belongs to death. Man clothed himself with these evils when the devil drew him, deprived of faith and obedience, away from God’s law into his own promises, and bound to himself all the shoots of his posterity through the condition of a depraved stock. Hence “if anyone is a new creature in Christ,” he is made free of the devil and subject to God, re-formed from his deformity “to the image of him who created him.” Unless this happens, he remains in him in whom all die, having no share in him in whom all are made alive. God, then, is not the author of anyone’s sin, but the creator of nature. Nature, though it had the power not to sin, sinned of its own accord and subjected itself to its deceiver by its own will. And it moves in vice not by a natural but by a captive motion, until it dies to sin and lives to God; which it cannot do without God’s grace, since the freedom which it lost by its freedom it does not recover unless Christ sets it free. “For there is no other name under heaven given to human beings by which we must be saved.”

Objection: That God forms in human beings a choice like that of the demons, which by its own motion can will nothing but evil.

Answer. The whole world indeed, as the apostle John says, lies in the evil one, and the malice of many human beings is like that of the demons. To such the Lord said, “Brood of vipers, how can you speak good things when you are evil?” and, “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do your father’s desires.” But between evil human beings and the demons there is this difference: for human beings, even very evil ones, reconciliation remains, if God has mercy; but for the demons no conversion is kept in store forever. Just as, then, God did not put into the transgressing angels the will which “did not stand in the truth,” so neither did he implant in human beings this disposition by which they would imitate the devil. For “the liar speaks from his own”; and he will not be free of lying unless the truth sets him free.

Objection: That this is the will of God, that a great part of Christians should neither wish nor be able to be saved.

Answer. If this is said of those who, deserting the piety of Christian life and faith, have passed irrevocably into profane errors or damnable morals, there is no doubt that, having such a will, they do not wish to be saved; and as long as they do not wish to be saved, they cannot be saved. But in no way is it to be believed that such people fell into this despair by God’s will, since rather “the Lord lifts up all who fall and raises up all who are cast down.” For no one is raised except by his grace, and no one is established except by his grace. It is God’s will, then, that one remain in good will; he forsakes no one before he is forsaken, and he often converts many deserters.

Objection: That God does not will that all catholics persevere in the catholic faith, but wills that a great part of them apostatize.

Answer. The impiety of this blasphemy is not unlike the preceding statement; so let what was answered to that be the answer to this too, since it differs from it in nothing.

Objection: That God wills that a great part of the saints fall from their purpose of holiness.

Answer. The madness of this definition too says nothing other than what the twofold objection before it has said. Hence one must wonder that the objector repeated a third time what it had sufficed to say once; but, as the case is, he wanted to increase the number of the charges because he could not vary their sense.

Objection: That adulteries and the seductions of consecrated virgins happen because God predestined them to fall.

Answer. A detestable and abominable opinion, which believes God to be the author of anyone’s evil will or evil action, whose predestination is never outside goodness, never outside justice. “For all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth.” The holy Godhead knows how not to institute but to condemn the adulteries of married women and the seductions of virgins, not to arrange them but to punish them. When human beings commit these evils, they serve their own desires and lusts, which they have drawn from that first stain of voluntary transgression; but when they turn away from evil and do good, “a man’s steps are directed by the Lord, and he will desire his way.” For this reason the Apostle says: “We pray to God that you do nothing evil; not that we may appear approved, but that you may do what is good.” The predestination of God, then, has neither stirred up nor persuaded nor driven the falls of those who fall, the malice of the wicked, or the lusts of sinners; but he plainly predestined his judgment, by which he will repay each one according to what he has done, whether good or evil. This judgment would not take place at all if human beings sinned by God’s will. But it will take place most manifestly; and every human being whom the discernment of divine knowledge places on the left side will be condemned, because he followed not God’s will but his own.

Objection: That when fathers commit incest with their daughters and mothers with their sons, or when slaves kill their masters, it happens because God so predestined that it should happen.

Answer. If the devil were charged with being himself the author and instigator of such crimes, I think he could in some way clear himself of this odium and convict the perpetrators of such crimes on the ground of their own will; for though he delighted in the fury of sinners, he would yet prove that he had not applied the force that produced the crimes. With what folly, then, or what madness is it defined that God’s counsel is the source of what cannot even be wholly ascribed to the devil, who in the shameful deeds of sinners is to be believed the helper of enticements, not the generator of wills? God, then, predestined none of such deeds to be done; nor did he prepare any soul that would live wickedly and shamefully for the purpose of living so; but he was not ignorant that it would be such, and he foreknew that he would judge such a one justly. And so nothing can be referred to his predestination except what pertains either to the due retribution of justice or to the undue largess of grace.

Objection: That by God’s predestination sons of God are made sons of the devil, temples of the Holy Spirit temples of demons, and members of Christ members of a harlot.

Answer. The predestination of God, though it is uncertain to us while we are amid the dangers of the present life, remains unchangeable with him who has made what is to be. He does not blind what he has enlightened, nor destroy what he has built, nor uproot what he has planted. For “the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance”; and “God’s firm foundation stands, having this seal: The Lord knows those who are his.” In no way, then, does God’s predestination cause some of the sons of God to be sons of the devil, or some of the temple of the Holy Spirit to be temples of demons, or some of the members of Christ to become members of a harlot; but rather predestination causes sons of the devil to become sons of God, temples of demons to be the temple of the Holy Spirit, and members of a harlot to be members of Christ. For he binds the strong man and plunders his goods, rescuing them from the power of darkness and transferring them from dishonour into glory. But those of whom it is said, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us,” went out by their will and fell by their will. And because they were foreknown as going to fall, they were not predestined. They would have been predestined if they were going to return and remain in holiness and truth. And so God’s predestination is for many the cause of standing, for no one the cause of falling.

Objection: That all those faithful and holy people who are predestined to eternal death, when they slip back to their own vomit, seem indeed to do this by their own fault, but the cause of the fault itself is divine predestination, which secretly withdraws good wills from them.

Answer. The same spirit of blasphemies persists, and the following impiety does not depart from the preceding lies; true reason utterly rejects it and sound doctrine condemns it without hesitation. To all who have fallen back from faith to unbelief, from holiness to shamefulness, and have not been cleansed by any amendment before the end of life, nothing else is due but eternal death. But it is wicked to ascribe the causes of such ruins to God, who, though from his eternal knowledge he has foreknown what he will repay to each according to his merits, yet by the fact that he cannot be deceived has brought on no one either the necessity or the will to sin. If, then, anyone falls away from righteousness and piety, he is carried headlong by his own choice, drawn by his own lust, deceived by his own persuasion. There the Father does nothing, the Son nothing, the Holy Spirit nothing; nor does anything of the divine will intervene in such a business, by whose work we know that many have been held back from falling, but none driven to fall.

Objection: That that great part of catholic Christians, faithful and holy, which is predestined to ruin and perdition, will not obtain perseverance in holiness even if it asks God for it, because divine predestination cannot be changed, which preordained, prepared, and fitted them to fall.

Answer. For the transgression of the law, for neglect of religion, for corruption of discipline, for desertion of the faith, for the commission of any sin whatever, there is no predestination of God at all; nor can it be that the one by whom one rises from such evils is the one by whom one falls into them. If, then, one lives in holiness, if one advances in virtue, if one remains in good pursuits, it is manifestly the gift of God, without whom no fruit of good work is acquired. But if one withdraws from these and passes over to vices and sins, God sends nothing of evil temptation into that, and he does not forsake the one who is about to withdraw before he is forsaken; and he often brings it about that the man does not forsake him, or even, if he has departed, that he returns. But why he holds back this one and does not hold back that one, it is neither possible to comprehend nor lawful to investigate; it suffices to know that standing is from him, and falling is not from him.

Objection: That all those faithful and holy people who are predestined to eternal death, after they have fallen, are so dealt with by God that they neither can nor will be freed through repentance.

Answer. This is said neither truly nor wisely. For those who have fallen from faith and holiness, just as they slipped by their will, so by their will they do not rise, and they suffer of their own accord the dominion of the lusts to which they succumbed. But if any groan over their captivity and, judging themselves, flee with changed heart to God’s mercy, they do not do this without the spirit of divine visitation. For “this is the change of the right hand of the Most High,” who gives repentance to countless fallen people, that they may come to their senses out of the snares of the devil, by whom they were held captive to his will. To no one does God take away the way of amendment, nor does he despoil anyone of the possibility of good. Rather, the one who turns away from God has himself taken from himself both the will and the power for what is good. It does not follow, then, as those who raise such objections think, that those to whom God has not given repentance he has deprived of the ability to come to their senses, and those he has not lifted up he has dashed down; for it is one thing to have driven an innocent person into crime, which is foreign to God, and another not to have given pardon to a criminal, which is due to the sinner’s desert.

Objection: That that great part of the faithful and holy which is predestined to eternal death, when it says to God in the Lord’s Prayer, “Your will be done,” asks nothing else than what is against itself, that is, that they may fall and be ruined; because God’s will is that they perish in eternal death.

Answer. The Truth does not say that this is God’s will, that the faithful and holy fall from faith and innocence and perish eternally; but the Truth says: “This is the will of the Father who sent me, that of all that he has given me I should lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.” What the Father has given to the Son, then, the Son does not lose at all. For he also says: “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and him who comes to me I will not cast out.” But if, through the generality of the calling and the abundance of God’s goodness, those who will not persevere are mixed with those who will persevere, when these fall away from piety they fall not by God’s work but by their own will; they are neither pushed to fall nor cast out to desert; yet they are foreknown, by him who cannot be deceived, as going to fall and depart. As long, then, as they say in the Lord’s Prayer, “Your will be done,” they do not ask against themselves what God will in no way and for no reason do, that is, that they fall and be ruined; for this belongs to their own wickedness, and their own freedom will bring it to completion. But plainly they ask against themselves that which without doubt belongs to the divine will: namely, that when the Son of Man comes in his majesty and sits on the throne of his glory, all nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them from one another, setting some on the right and others on the left, and those on the right will hear him saying, “Come, blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world,” and those on the left will hear, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire which my Father has prepared for the devil and his angels.” Those, then, who will not do God’s will and yet ask that God’s will be done are heard in what is to be done by God’s will, so that as imitators of the devil they are judged with the devil. For those who despised God’s will inviting them will feel God’s will avenging.