Book II, Chapter 21

CHAPTER XXI. He recites six false responses. The First says that God is said to do every act of the created will only because he makes every created will, which alone truly and properly effects its own act. The Second says that God is said to make the good act of the created will because he makes charity or grace, which effects it. The Third, that God conserves the will. The Fourth, that God makes the object and everything that moves the will. The Fifth, that he permits. The Sixth, that God properly effects every good act of the will, but absolutely no evil one. And he corrects them, both generally and jointly.

Many, however, neither daring nor able to resist altogether this truth so firm and its testimonies so strong, B1 try at least to overshadow it in many ways with certain smoky responses. They say that God does not truly and properly effect the act of the created will, but only by transference 1. For the first say that God is said to effect every act of the created will because he made every created will, which alone truly and properly effects its own act. The second hold, consistently with these, that God is said to make every good act of the created will for this reason: he makes charity or grace, from which, together with the created will alone, the good act is effected. ‖3 The third assert that God makes every act of the created will only in this sense, that he conserves every created will, which alone properly effects its own act. The fourth say it is because he makes every object that moves the created will, and the other requisites. The fifth, because he permits, when he could freely prevent. The sixth, however, feign that God properly effects every good act of the created will, but absolutely no evil one.

For the first opinion the Philosopher can be adduced, Physics 8, 32 and 33, and On the Heavens 4, 25 2. There he shows that the one who generates, or makes, the heavy and the light moves them locally, because he gives them the forms by which they are thus moved. To the same effect seem to make the authorities of Anselm, On the Fall of the Devil 20, and On Concord 6, cited above. Moreover, since God is omnipotent, D1 he can create a nature that of itself suffices to move, and likewise to act. Suppose, then, that he does so, and let all the arguments made for the contrary side fall away; therefore they do not conclude formally. And many cling stubbornly to this argument, though it is quite irrational. For the second, the same considerations count, by the topic of similarity. For the third: the one who conserves is some cause of what is conserved, and whatever is the cause of a cause is the cause of the thing caused. For the fourth: the object that moves the will in some way effects its act, as appears from On the Soul 3, in the chapter on the mover. Again Augustine, D2 on that text of Psalm 104 [105] 3, "He turned their heart so that they hated his people, and practised deceit against his servants," asks thus: "Are we really to understand or believe that God turns the heart of men to the doing of sins? Or is it no sin, or only a small sin, to hate the people of God and to practise deceit against his servants? Who would say this? Is God then the Author of these sins, so grave, he who is to be believed the Author of no sin, not even the slightest? Who is wise, and will understand these things?" And as his answer he adds: "For this is that wonderful goodness of God, by which he makes good use even of the wicked, whether Angels or men. For while they are evil of themselves [by vice], he makes good out of their evil. For before they hated his people they were not good; they were malicious and impious, such as would readily envy their own prosperous residents. In that he multiplied his people, therefore, by this benefit he turned the wicked to envy; for envy is hatred of another's happiness. So he turned their heart in this way, so that through envy they hated his people and practised deceit against his servants."

"So it was not by making their heart evil, but by doing good to his own people, that he turned their heart, evil of its own accord, to hatred. For he did not pervert an upright heart. He turned to hatred of the people a heart already perverse of its own accord, in order to make good use of that evil: not by making them evil, but by bestowing on his people goods which the evil could most easily envy, so that he used their hatred both for the exercise of his people and for the glory of his name, which is useful to us. How he used it, the things that follow teach, which are recounted in his praise." A1 4

For the fifth seems to serve that text of the Philosopher, Physics 8 and On the Heavens 4, where it is said earlier that the one who removes an impediment, or holds back, moves the elements locally 5. And Augustine says, Enchiridion 75: A2 "Nothing comes about unless the Almighty wills it to be done, either by allowing it to happen or by himself doing it" 6. Hence also Hugh, On the Sacraments, book 1, part 4, chapter 2, whom Lombard recites in Sentences 1, distinction 45, shows that the will of God is taken in Scripture in five or six ways 7. These are: for his good pleasure or disposition, for his command, prohibition, counsel, permission, and operation. For the sixth seems to serve that text of Genesis 1, A3 "God saw all the things that he had made, and they were very good." And the authority of Augustine cited above for the third opinion seems to prove the same 8. The same Augustine says in Hypognosticon 29 9: "Of himself man could bring about his fall, because he willed it; but not so of himself, that is, by his own will, was he able to rise again." A4 And quite many other authorities, of his and of many others, testify that man of himself can sin and fall, but can neither merit nor rise again without God. Hence Hosea 13: B1 "Your destruction is from you, Israel; only from me is your help."

All these responses, each and every one, are plainly refuted by all the arguments and the very many authorities already set out in the immediately preceding chapter, which can in no way admit such a gloss. Again, the authorities of Scripture and of the Doctors are to be taken in their common sense, as 45 of the first teaches 10. But many authorities of Scripture and of the Doctors cited in the immediately preceding chapter plainly maintain, altogether, that God properly effects the act of the created will. The Corollaries also of the third and fourth of the first book correct or destroy all these little responses 11. Again, if God effected the act of the created will not properly but only by transference, in any of the aforesaid ways, why would holy David, Solomon, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Paul and Christ, and the other Authors of the Old Testament and the New, have labored so much in vain? And so too blessed Cyprian, Augustine, Gregory, Prosper, Anselm, Bernard, Thomas and John, and the other ancients and moderns, who have been so zealous in proving that God effects and works in us both to will and to work. For this was doubtful or unknown to no philosopher or Catholic. It would have sufficed to say that God created or made all things, and that when any thing acts, he does not hinder it from acting but permits it. Again, no Philosopher or Catholic Doctor, but only Pelagius or a Pelagian, expounds, glosses or understands the aforesaid philosophical or theological statements in any of the aforesaid ways. Therefore any such response is suspect.

Hence Pelagius, after he had said that man can will and work by himself from the powers of free choice, as the immediately preceding chapter of this book reveals, raised against himself the Apostolic authority and replied. Augustine recounts it in book 1 of Against Pelagius and Caelestius, On the Grace of Christ and On Original Sin, 9, in this way 12. "And how," he says, "will that text of the Apostle stand: It is God who works in us both to will and to accomplish?" Then, to dispose as it were of this objection, which he saw was vehemently contrary to his teaching, he went on to add: ‖C1 "He works in us to will what is good, to will what is holy, while he kindles us, given over to earthly desires and, in the manner of dumb animals, loving only what is present, by the greatness of future glory and the promise of rewards; while by the revelation of wisdom he rouses the will, dazed, to the desire of God; while he persuades us of everything that is good." Many similar little responses of Pelagius are recited in 39 of the first.