Book II, Chapter 23

Chapter XXIII. He corrects the second.

The second opinion can be refuted by the same means as the first; and further, by a topic from the like. A bare will cannot perform a bare act without God properly co-acting, as was taught just above; therefore neither can a virtuous will perform a virtuous act without God properly co-acting. Likewise, by 40 of the first: grace or charity will properly produce a good act; and by 42 of the same, not without God [properly] co-acting.1 Likewise, by 46 of the first, God properly produces every increase of a meritorious act of whatever kind; therefore he produces also, totally, every act. Likewise, by the fifth and eighth of this second: no one who has charity or grace, however great, can by himself resist any temptation, nor persevere finally or even for a time, without God's special help, that is, without the divine will efficaciously effecting this, as the sixth and thirteenth of this second prove; hence he cannot elicit a virtuous act either. Likewise, if God makes the habit of charity, and you alone the act, then, since the act is better than the habit (as 22 of the first and 18 of the second have more fully alleged), you make something better in yourself, and make yourself likewise better, than God himself makes; which is against what was alleged in 37 of the first book. B1 And by this same argument Augustine proves the same conclusion about the Angels, in City of God 12.9. There, having proved that the evil will of the evil Angels had no efficient cause, he adds: "If we say that there is no efficient cause even of a good will, we must take care lest the good will of the good Angels be believed to be not made, but coeternal with God. Since, then, they themselves were made, how can that will be said not to have been made? Moreover, since it was made, was it made with them, or were they without it before? But if with them, there is no doubt that it was made by him by whom they too were made. If, however, the good Angels were previously without a good will, and made it in themselves with God not cooperating, then they were made better by themselves than by him. Heaven forbid! Or, if they could not make themselves better than he had made them (than whom no one makes anything better), then surely they could not have the good will by which they were better, except by the working help of the Creator: and when their good will so acted that they turned not to themselves, who were lesser, but to him who supremely is, and, clinging to him, were more, and by sharing in him lived wisely and blessedly; what else is shown, but that any good will, being needy, would have remained in desire alone, unless he who had made a good nature capable of himself out of nothing, made it better from himself by filling it, first by making it, by rousing it to be more eager? It must therefore be confessed, with due praise of the Creator, that it does not pertain only to holy men, but can be said also of the holy Angels, that charity has been poured out in them through the Holy Spirit, who was given to them."

Likewise, since final beatitude is an act, as 18 of this second has more fully alleged, and each blessed one alone, without God, would produce his own act totally, each blessed one would give beatitude to himself by himself, and alone would beatify himself; who does not see how absurd that is to say? For then the rational creature would have its best and greatest good from itself alone; though James says, "Every best gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights": and so, by reason of the benefit received, it ought to love itself more than God, since it receives the greater benefit from itself alone. It would also seem far too irrational that I should have to do all my works finally for God's sake, and yet he should not be my ultimate end, nor bestow on me my ultimate end; nor would it befit his merciful justice that I should do and suffer so many and such great things finally for his sake, and he not pay me the final reward, which is beatitude and eternal happiness, but I myself pay it to myself; D1 when he himself says, in the last chapter of Apocalypse, "Behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to render to each one according to his works." And to this very many similar texts occur, most frequently, in Scripture. Further, if the rational creature alone made its own beatific act, it would do so freely, with freedom of contradiction:2 for it would not be necessitated by God, because this would be through its own will, which by 10 of the first could not be inefficacious; so that God would bring about that act, the opposite of which is posited;3 nor would it be necessitated by any created thing, as by the third of this second. If, then, it so freely makes its beatific act, by the same reasoning it so freely continues it: and so it could similarly, freely, give it up entirely, or for a time; therefore it would not be finally confirmed, and therefore not blessed. For the most splendid part of final beatitude is the security of being so for ever. E1 Hence blessed Augustine, in Trinity 13.7, speaking of final blessedness, says as follows:

"Whatever will be loved will be present, nor will anything be desired that is not present; everything that there ‖A1 will be, will be good, and the highest good, God himself, will be there, and will be at hand to those who love him, and what is altogether most blessed, it will be certain that it will be so for ever." And he shows the same in City of God 11.13. Otherwise the finally blessed could thus freely become wretched, and be so, against 15 of this second and against all the Catholic Doctors. Indeed, according to that opinion it seems that God could not confer beatitude immediately, nor beatify anyone in this way. For the being of beatitude is that the beatific act be produced immediately by the blessed one alone: therefore, if it were produced immediately by God, it would no longer be beatific; which is condemned and excommunicated by Stephen, Bishop of Paris,4 in these words: that happiness cannot be sent in immediately by God. Likewise, if anyone, having received charity or grace, could by himself produce a good act, he could also always distinguish himself from another who ‖A2 has received similar grace and does not produce a similar act; and such a person, by persevering in right willing, could distinguish himself from another who has similar grace but is about to fall, just as the predestined are distinguished from the reprobate; which is against that saying of the Apostle in 1 Corinthians 4, "For who distinguishes you?", as if to say: not you, but God; as is clear from the expositions of Augustine alleged above in the preceding chapter, and in chapter 25 of the first. Likewise, if man alone produced a good act, by grace freely given by God, without God properly co-acting, then, since by 43 of the first justifying grace naturally precedes contrition, an adult sinner, according to the law now current,5 with such grace infused into him, could freely be contrite; therefore also not be contrite; hence also be justified without any contrition whatever, and without any act whatever of the will; which is against the many catholic testimonies alleged in the same chapter. Likewise the Apostle says in Ephesians 2: "By grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; for it is the gift of God: not from works, lest anyone boast. For we are his handiwork, created in good works, which God prepared that we should walk in them"; therefore God properly produces our good works. For by 10 of the first the preparation of the divine will cannot be inefficacious. And if someone should suppose, as before, that the Apostle says we are God's handiwork, created in good works, only in this sense,

quia Deus fecit nos: that is, that God made us and created in us good habits, from which we alone do good works; how then would the Apostle, by this teaching of his and others like it in many of his epistles, cut off from men the occasion of pride, and the matter of presuming on their own powers and of boasting of their own merits as truly their own, and recall them to humility and to confidence in God alone, and to boasting in him alone, from the recognition of their own impotence and of the divine protection? For he would do this far too inefficaciously if it were so; yet this the Apostle chiefly intended, as his words sufficiently suggest, "that no one," he says, "may boast." And 1 Corinthians 1: "Let no flesh boast in his sight: for from him you are in Christ Jesus, C1 so that he who boasts may boast in the Lord." And below, in the same, chapter 4: "What do you have that you did not receive? Why do you boast as if you had not received?" And 2 Corinthians 3: "Such confidence we have through Christ toward God, not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves as from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God." And Romans 9: "It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy." And Philippians 2: "With fear and trembling work out your salvation: for it is God who works in you both to will and to accomplish"; or, in another reading, to work, "for good will";6 where the Gloss says: "With fear, D1 that is, with humility, not proudly: and therefore he is to be feared, because not you but God works, etc., for good will, namely his own, not for your merits." And it continues, D2 and this is from Augustine, On the Good of Perseverance 37: "We therefore will, but God works in us even the willing; and we work, but God works in us even the working: it is expedient for us both to believe and to say this, because it is pious and true, so that the confession may be humble and the whole be given to God." The same, On the Predestination of the Saints 6: "This testimony of the Apostle he spoke to restrain man's inflation; D3 'For what do you have that you did not receive?' He did not allow any of the faithful to say, 'I have what I did not receive.'" The whole elation of this response is utterly restrained by these apostolic words; and he sets out two false responses, or expositions, of this saying. The first is that this is said because man does not have perfect faith from himself, yet has its beginning, by which he first believes in Christ.

But he voids this response by the same saying: "and here, too," he says, "the answer is, 'What do you have that you did not receive?' etc." Therefore, by the same reasoning, the aforesaid response can be voided by the same saying. The second is that this can be said of faith because man received from God his natural endowments, from which he believes. But against those who respond thus he adds: "That is understood to do nothing for what they want it to prove, if it is considered why the Apostle said it. For he was concerned that no one should boast in man, since dissensions had arisen among the Corinthian Christians, so that one said, 'I am of Paul,' another, 'I of Apollos,' another, 'I of Cephas'; and from that it came about that he said, 'God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the weak things to confound the strong, and the ignoble and despised things, and the things that are not, as though they were, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh may boast before him.' ‖E1 Here certainly, against human pride, the Apostle's intention is clear enough,7 that no one boast in man, and therefore not in himself either. Finally,

when he had said, 'Let no flesh boast before him,' to show in what man ought to boast, he immediately added, 'But from him you are in Christ Jesus,' etc., so that, as it is written, 'He who boasts, let him boast in the Lord.' And it follows: "Do you not see that the Apostle does nothing except that man be humbled and God alone be exalted? For indeed, in those who are planted and watered, he says that neither the planter nor the waterer is anything, but God who gives the increase, though he attributes even this, that the one plants and the other waters, not to them but to the Lord, saying, 'to each as the Lord has given. I planted, Apollos watered.' Hence, persisting in the same intention, he came to say, 'Therefore let no one boast in man.'" The same, On Grace and Free Choice 21: "The Apostle, A1 when he had said, 'By grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves, but it is the gift of God; not from works, lest anyone be puffed up,' saw that men could surely suppose that this was said as if works were not necessary for believers, but faith alone sufficed for them; and again, that men could be puffed up over good works, as if they sufficed of themselves to do them: so he immediately added,

'For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus in good works, which God prepared that we should walk in them.' What is this, that, when commending the grace of God, he had said, 'By grace you have been saved through faith'? And why did he say it, giving the reason: 'For we are,' he says, 'his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus in good works'? How then 'not from works'? 'lest anyone be puffed up.' But hear and understand: it was said 'not from works' as if they were yours, existing in you from yourself, but as those works in which God has fashioned you, that is, formed and created you, not by that creation by which we were made men, but by that of which he spoke, by which assuredly he was already a man: 'Create a clean heart in me, O God.' Or: we are fashioned by God, that is, formed and created, in good works, which we did not prepare, but God prepared, that we may walk in them." The same, Enchiridion 78, giving the reason why the Apostle says in Romans 9, "It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy," speaks thus: "In the most lofty and salutary mystery, the whole of the holy Scriptures, and, so to speak, their countenance, to one who looks at it well, is found to admonish this,8

that he who boasts should boast in the Lord." And the same shows this at length in On the Good of Perseverance, in many chapters toward the end. Hence in chapter 69 too he says that this ought to be preached, so that whoever hears it obediently C1 may boast not in man, and therefore not in himself, but in the Lord. The same, On the Spirit and the Letter 32: "But because it can be said that those works, namely the miraculous ones, are divine, while to live justly pertains to our works, I undertook to show that this too is a divine work; and I have done this in this book perhaps more wordily than is enough, but against the enemies of God's grace even this seems to me to have been said little; and nothing delights me so much to say as where Scripture also helps me most, and what is being done is that he who boasts may boast in the Lord, and in all things we give thanks to the Lord our God, having our heart lifted up: whence from the Father of lights is every best gift and every perfect gift. For if it is not the work of God because it is done by us,9 or because we act while he gives, then neither is that a work of God, that a mountain be moved into the sea, since the Lord said that this can be done through the faith of men, and attributed it to their work, saying, 'If you have in

you faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, Be taken up and cast into the sea, and it will be done: and nothing will be impossible for you'; surely he said it to you, not to me or to the Father; and yet man does this in no way, unless he gives and works." And below, near the end: "There is therefore something in the hidden depth of God's judgments, so that even of the just every mouth be stopped in its own praise, and not be opened except in praise of God, according to that saying of the Apostle in Romans 3: 'Let every mouth be stopped, and let the whole world be made subject to God.'" And below: "Where is your boasting? It is excluded." The most glorious Doctor and martyr Cyprian thinks the same, D1 in his letter 13, entitled To Quirinus, on the discipline of the Christian Religion, chapter 4,10 the title of which chapter is this: "In nothing must we boast, since nothing is ours"; which he proves throughout that chapter, and by that often-quoted saying of the Apostle, "What do you have that you did not receive?" etc., and by many other places of Scripture. And below, in the same, chapter 10, he proves clearly that we must trust in the Lord alone, and boast in him. From these it is plainly seen that the Apostle's intention in his aforesaid teaching was this: not only that natural goods, or any habits whatever, be properly made and given by God, but also any good acts whatever;11

so that in this way all matter for self-exaltation over any of the things mentioned might be wholly rooted out of men's hearts, and he might recall them to true humility in all things. Yet this he would do less effectively if man had only habits from God and acts from himself alone, since by 22 of the first acts are better than habits. Likewise, if a son who is a soldier, having received from his father his natural endowments, his order of knighthood and his arms, fought vigorously, and so perhaps were lifted up, puffed up with pride, how would pride be uprooted in him, and humility planted, if someone said to him: "Let no soldier boast in the sight of his father; for it is from him that he is in the army, so that he who boasts may boast in his father"; and, "What do you have that you did not receive? But if you received, why do you boast as if you had not received?" and the rest

of what was recalled above? For he could reasonably reply, saying: Why should I not boast of my soldiering? I received indeed from my father my natural endowments, since no one begets himself; I received also the order, since it is granted to no one to distinguish himself with such an order; I received arms too, because, like the rest of soldiers, I was not born armed, nor am I an armorer; but the due use of these, which prevails over everything, I did not receive from another, but have from myself; vigorous military acts I did not receive from another, but have from myself; repeated victories, published by renowned fame, I did not receive from another, but have from myself: for such things therefore I shall rightly boast in myself, but in another not at all. And so too of any soldier of Jesus Christ.