Book II, Chapter 32

CHAPTER XXXII. That in every non-action common to God and the creature, it is naturally prior that God does not act there than that the creature does not; and that it is because God does not perform a certain action through the creature that the creature does not perform it, and not the converse.

Having shown that in every action common to God and the creature God acts naturally prior to the creature, it remains to show next that in every non-action common to God and the creature, God's not acting there is naturally prior to the creature's not acting. That is, because God does not perform a certain action through the creature, therefore the creature does not perform it, and not the converse. This follows plainly from the thirtieth of this 1. Take two movers ordered according to prior and posterior. The first can by itself alone move the second without possibility of hindrance, while the second cannot move except as an instrument moved antecedently by the first. Then the first is by nature prior in moving to the second; and because the first moves, therefore it moves the second, and not the converse. So also, similarly, in not moving, as is evident in the arm, the staff and the ball, and in the celestial mover, the heaven and the air; and reason makes this plain as well. For privation is not properly an effect but a defect; hence it does not properly have an efficient cause but a deficient one. This deficient cause can be nothing other than a superior cause failing to act, which, if it acted, would cause the state by which the privation would be removed. As, then, the positing of a prior cause is the cause of the positing of its posterior effect, so also the removal of the cause is the cause of the removal of the effect. For as the presence of the sun is the cause of day, so its absence is the cause of night; and likewise the presence of the helmsman is the cause of the ship's safety, and his absence the cause of its loss, as the Philosopher, Physics 2 D1, 30, and Metaphysics 5, 2 2, and Anselm, On the Virginal Conception 5, attest. Hence the Philosopher, Metaphysics 5, 16, distinguishing prior and posterior things, says: "Others are according to power. For what exceeds in power is prior, and what is more powerful. Such is that after whose prior will the other must follow, and the other is posterior; so that when that one does not move, the other is not moved, and when it moves, the other is moved; and the prior will 3 is the principle." Here also is the text which Averroes has: "And 'before' is said according to power or strength, as we say 'before' in matters of lordship. For a lord is so called because he is superior in power; 'before' is also said of what is stronger; and such too is that which compels another to follow its will; so that if what is before is not moved, what is after will not be moved, and if it is moved, it will be moved; and will is the principle here." E1 On this Averroes says: "More worthy is that which compels what is after, so that the will of the latter follows the will of the former; so that if what is prior does not move, what is posterior will not be moved; and the beginning, in the sense in which 'before' and 'after' are said here, is will, namely because the will of the weaker follows the will of the stronger." And this he meant

when he said, "And will is the beginning"; and here Albert, Thomas, Forandus 4 and all the expositors agree in the same sense. Hence Augustine too, on that verse of Psalm 148 [Ps 148:13], A1 "His confession is above heaven and earth," says: "Attend. Heaven and earth he himself made, he himself rules; by his nod they are governed; he himself carries across the times and the moments, he himself renews; through him are all things. Therefore these things praise him, whether in rest or in motion, whether from the earth below or from heaven above, whether in age or in renewal. When you see these things and rejoice, and are lifted up to the Maker, and gaze upon his invisible things, understood through the things that have been made, his confession is in heaven and on earth." The same is likewise confirmed by the Philosopher, Posterior Analytics 1, 12 5, A2 where he looks for a negative middle term, proximate and demonstrative of a negative conclusion; for example, why the wall does not breathe. He shows that it cannot be said "because it is not an animal," since then being an animal would be the proximate cause of breathing, and so every animal would breathe. For if negation is the cause of its not being, affirmation is the cause of its being. Just as being without the measure of hot and cold is the cause of not being healed, so being with the measure of the same is the cause of healing; and similarly, if affirmation is the cause of being, negation is the cause of non-being. Robert of Lincoln 6, expounding that passage, plainly holds the same; so too Thomas and the other expositors.

Likewise, if the creature's not acting were the cause why God does not act, and the creature's acting the cause why God acts, then the creature's acting would also be prior by nature to the first agent, and the second cause's moving prior by nature to the first, against the thirtieth of this, plainly. Likewise the following are to be judged parallel: the prior agent's not acting on the posterior patient, and the posterior patient's not being acted on by the prior agent; and the prior agent's not acting through the posterior agent, and the posterior agent's not acting through the prior agent. But of the first two, the first is the cause of the second and naturally prior to it; therefore the same holds likewise of the remaining two. For who could doubt, even slightly, that because the active does not act on the passive, therefore the passive is not acted upon, and not the converse; just as, because the active acts, therefore the passive is acted upon, and not the converse; just as acting too is the cause of being acted upon, and is itself naturally antecedent? Who does not know that, because God did not make some one angel who could have been made but whom He did not make, that angel was not made, and not the converse? And because He did not make another star in heaven, therefore it was not made, and not the converse? And because He did not make an angel more perfect in natural things, therefore there is none more perfect, and not the converse? And because He did not make the heaven greater, therefore it is not greater, and not the converse? Likewise the first cause of any true negation is in God, as the tenth part and the eleventh part of the thirteenth of the first show. Of a negation, however, that is not necessary but contingent, the cause seems to be in God: His not willing it to be so, or not making it be so; just as the cause in God of like affirmations is God's willing and making it be so, as the ninth of the first demonstrates. So whatever is not done by a second cause, God wills not to be done; and He does not will it positively, that is, He has an unwillingness 7 that it be done by that cause, as the twenty-second of the first and its corollaries teach;

and this not causally, nor antecedently from the second cause, as the twentieth of the first shows. Prior, therefore, naturally and causally, is God's positive unwillingness (and hence His not willing and not making the second cause act) than the second cause's not acting. Likewise, by the same twentieth: no positive thing posterior to the divine will is the cause of that will; and it would seem much more unworthy for any privation to be the cause of the divine will. Therefore the second cause's not acting is not the cause why God wills it not to act and does not will positively to act, nor why He does not act; it is the other way round. Likewise, by the second of the first: if God withdrew His hand, by which He sustains all things, they would be turned into nothing; and this causally, on account of the withdrawal of divine conservation. For because God would not conserve beings, therefore they would not be; but not because they would not be, therefore God would not conserve them. So it was before the production of things: because God did not produce things, therefore they did not exist, and not conversely. So it would still be, had He still produced nothing; and so it now is of many non-beings, not produced, which He could have produced. Whence also Avicenna, Metaphysics 1, 9: "The notion of being comes from a cause which is the cause of being, D1 and the notion of non-being comes from a cause which is the privation of the notion of the cause of being" 8. With this Augustine also agrees, City of God 12, 17: "God," he says, "by one and the same eternal and unchangeable will, brought it about that the things He founded should not exist before, for as long as they did not exist, and that they should exist afterwards, when they began to be." And the Apostle says, "who calls the things that are not as though they were," E1 Rom 4, although this too is expounded otherwise. The Prophet also says, "He called a famine upon the earth," Psalm 104 [105]. On this Augustine, having first set out one exposition, adds: "Or, what is more credible, 'He called a famine': is it to be understood, 'He said that there be a famine'? So that to call is to name, to name is to say, to say is to command. For he called a famine who calls the things that are not as though they were." E2 Whence also Anselm, On the Fall of the Devil 1: God is said to make non-being what is not, since, though He can, He does not make it be; and if you consider the things that are, when they pass over to non-being, does He not Himself make them not be? For not only is there no other essence except by His making it, but what has been made cannot in any measure remain unless the same One preserves it. When He Himself ceases to preserve what He made, what was returns to non-being, which it does not have from Him (namely non-being), but because He ceases to make it be. Observe how plainly he testifies that non-being does not properly have an efficient cause, but rather a deficient one. That is, it has a making and preserving cause failing to make and to preserve, that is, not making a possible thing be made, or not preserving a thing made, as was touched on above.

Corollary

The corollary of this chapter is not found in the Catalogue. 9

From these things it seems, not improbably, to be inferred that God's not giving knowledge, grace or perseverance, or any gift of His, to a creature capable of it, is the cause why the creature does not receive it and does not have it. Because God does not give, therefore the creature does not receive, and not the converse. This corollary does not deny that God sometimes does not give grace or other gifts on account of the fault of those who do not receive. It affirms that the proper cause, and the cause per se, of non-reception is non-giving, not the converse. This corollary, moreover, seems manifestly to follow from what has already been established; and it appears that it can be shown, just as the principal conclusion can. Who, indeed, does not know that all knowledge is given by God, as is clear from the sixth of the first and from the twenty-third of this second? This holds especially of prophetic knowledge and the manifold revelations of hidden things, to which no one can attain by way of natural talent, but only by divine revelation. Why, then, do not all have all these kinds of knowledge, unless because He does not give, through whom is given the word of wisdom and of knowledge, dividing to each as He wills? So too Elisha: "The Lord," he says, "has hidden it from me, and has not told me," 4 B1 Kings [2 Kings] 4, thereby giving the cause of his ignorance. And who, reading the books of the Prophets and not neglecting them, would not readily see that the prophets did not always have divine revelations, nor the spirit of prophecy; and hence that they did not always have prophetic visions, but only when it pleased the Revealer? What, then, is the cause of this non-reception, except non-giving, as Gregory too seems to attest, Homily 1 on Ezekiel? And if you say that someone's sloth or sin is the cause why God does not give him such prophetic knowledge, surely God could, if He wished, give him such knowledge, sin and sloth notwithstanding. God also at times shows prophetic revelations to the wicked and does not show them to the holiest men. To the same most holy prophets, too, He at times shows such visions and at times hides them. And to wicked angels, and to the first parents before sin, and to the holy angels who are confirmed, because they have never sinned nor ever will sin, God did not give prophecy of every kind, as is clear from the sixteenth of this. What, then, is the cause of this non-reception, if not to be reckoned non-giving? Moreover, if the angels and the first parents, according to the opinion of some, were created

outside grace, and remained such without fault for some short while, the cause why they then did not receive or have grace was that God did not give it, not the converse, as no one is unaware; and so too now, similarly. Likewise the following are to be judged parallel: not giving grace and not receiving grace, and not giving so much grace and not receiving so much. But it is certain that God's not giving to the angel in the beginning, or to the baptized infant, so much grace (namely one, the greatest, of which he was capable), which He did not give him, was the cause why he did not receive it, and not the converse. Likewise this seems evident of infants: for by what semblance of reason can it be said that the infant does not receive grace, therefore God does not give it, and not rather the converse? Likewise, concerning adults, let it be supposed, in accordance with what was set out about grace and repentance in the first of this 10, that of two sinners wholly equal before this instant, who, as far as lay in them, would have been equal in this instant, God confers His grace gratis on one, and on the other not at all. Then the cause why this one does not receive is that God does not give. For if He gave, or wished to give, to this one, he would receive just as the other does. And if you say that one earlier merited, or at least disposed himself, or does so now, and the other not at all, and so this one receives grace and that one not at all, you are not keeping the position set out, which posited parity in all respects. Moreover, according to what was shown beforehand about grace in the first book, no one merits first grace by previous disposition, nor by any other action whatever. Since, moreover, these two are equal in all respects except for that disposition or merit, and since by the thirtieth of this no one can elicit any merit, disposition or action whatever unless God wills beforehand and acts beforehand, and since by the tenth of the first, if God wills beforehand that anyone do anything, he will necessarily do it: the cause, then, why this one so merits and has disposed himself toward grace is that God antecedently wills and does this. If God so willed concerning the other, he would likewise do it, and cannot do otherwise. The cause, then, why that one does not so merit and dispose himself is that God does not will this, nor bring it about in him. Hence this too will likewise be the cause why that one does not receive grace, especially since according to you God does not confer grace without such preceding merit or disposition. And if you say again that God offers grace to anyone and wills that he receive it, not however absolutely, but under this condition, if he consents spontaneously, A1 you will again be corrected by the corollary of the thirtieth of this. Moreover, you seem to suppose that a man can consent to the offer of grace from himself alone, or at least from himself antecedently with God, against the thirty-eighth of the first, and the twentieth and thirtieth of this second. Likewise, in accordance with what has been said against the former response, let two sinners equal in all respects be posited, to whom God offers grace equally. Since, according to you, it is not necessary that everyone receive the grace offered him, let it be posited that one ‖A2 receives it, the other not at all. He who receives grace, then, consents, and the cause of this is that God, by willing and willing beforehand, works and works beforehand consent in him, and he cannot consent otherwise, as the thirtieth of this shows:

and he who does not receive grace does not consent. Nor can he, unless God, by willing beforehand, works this beforehand in him; nor can he himself make God will beforehand and work beforehand this in him, nor resist God willing beforehand and wishing to work beforehand, by the tenth of the first book. The cause why he does not consent, then, is that God does not will to anticipate him, nor anticipates him by working; for if God willed this, this one would consent just as that one does. Otherwise perhaps you will say that God offers grace gratis to anyone, B1 provided only that he opens his hand, opens his lap, opens the ark of his heart that receives grace; so that he who receives, receives because God gives, but he who does not receive does not receive because he does not open; and thus God does not give because this man does not receive the grace that is offered. It is as if I hold out a gift to you and you take it: I do not give because you take, but the converse; and if I hold something out to another and he does not take it, it is not because I do not give that he does not take, but I do not give because he does not take. This response, however, will be rebuked like the preceding one, and by the thirty-eighth chapter of the first book. Moreover, when God offers grace to anyone, what does He finally intend concerning that person's reception of grace? For either He intends and wills that he receive it, or not. If He intends and wills that he receive it, by the tenth of the first it always happens so, and you cannot say that God intends this conditionally, as the premises against the preceding response make plain. If God neither intends nor wills this, although He knows well that, unless He intends and wills it (and this antecedently and independently of human action or passion), He offers it in vain and mockingly: for who offers anything reasonably to someone in need without granting the other things necessary, without which the one offering knows well that the needy person cannot receive that thing, nor can have those other things from himself alone or antecedently from himself, nor from anyone else, except from the offerer himself, who gives all things freely and begins them gratuitously? A wonderful mercy that would be which in no way relieved the misery of the wretched, but rather aggravated it, while mockingly holding out such things to him and not giving them. Indeed, by the twenty-second of the first and its corollary, if God does not intend or will this, He intends and wills its opposite, in which case greater mockery and duplicity would be seen. Or let this be argued

in this way: God, when He offers grace to someone, either wills to give it to him, or does not will to give it to him, etc., as above. Likewise, in the example proposed: if you were to offer me something, and knew well that I could not, by myself alone, nor by anyone else's help, open my hand, clenched against receiving, nor begin to open it, nor do anything, except by you beginning everything and continually carrying it through; and you knew that it is not in my power what you might will concerning me, and that whatever you willed would at once come about; and you did not will, indeed refused, to do anything or to help toward the opening of my hand: would you not be the cause why I do not open my hand and receive your gift? So also your not giving would be the cause why I do not receive. This is also confirmed. To give, as the jurists say, is ‖D1 to make receive 11; so to give implies not only offering but also receiving. How then do you say that reception is not the cause of giving? Indeed it is not the cause of the offer, but it is a cause of the giving, as the offer also is. For just as the offer, so also the acceptance precedes the giving, naturally and causally, and effects and completes it: for unless I accept, it does not become mine. Moreover, if giving implies these two, offering and receiving, a defect of giving, or non-giving, can arise either from a defect of the offer or from a defect of the reception. He, then, who when he is able does not do either of the two things necessarily required for giving, and without which neither can come about, is the cause why it is not given. If, then, you offer me something, and are able to make me receive, and I cannot receive otherwise, the cause why I do not take it is that you do not make me take. To make this clearer still, suppose that you are a wise Teacher and I a foolish pupil; that you are bound, by the command of my Father, our common Lord, to provide me teaching; and that I am such as to be under your power. If you effectively offer me instruction, I will accept it; if not, not at all. If, then, you neither offer nor give me instruction, and I do not accept it, will not the Lord hold you to be the cause why I do not take the discipline? I judge that He will, by just judgment. E1 Still, perhaps you will not cease to respond by saying that God offers grace to everyone, and that some do not put an obstacle in the way of grace but rather remove it, and so receive the grace offered them. Others, however, put an obstacle in the way of grace and do not positively remove it, and so they do not at all receive it 12: as with the lighting and not lighting of a house by the sun through an open and a closed window. For this response, it seems, one must reasonably ask

what the obstacle is. It seems to be something set against grace or standing in its way, namely mortal sin opposed to saving grace, or non-consent, or dissent, the non-opening or closing of the human heart when God's grace is offered. And whatever be called the obstacle, this response can be rebuked, like the preceding ones. No one can remove this obstacle but God, or through God Himself removing it beforehand; and if He Himself wills to remove it, it is removed irresistibly, as the tenth of the first teaches. The same is shown by what was shown earlier about grace and repentance, together with that same tenth of the first. Whence the Lord Himself says: "I will have mercy on whom I will, and I will be merciful to whomever it pleases me," A1 Exod 33. And again: "I will take away the heart of stone," etc., Ezek 36. The gloss: that is, all hardness, and the unbelieving heart. And the Apostle: "He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens," Rom 9. And Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints 9 13, treating that verse of John 6, "Everyone who has heard from the Father and has learned, comes to me," says: "This school, in which God is heard and teaches, is very far removed from the senses of the flesh. We see many come to the Son, because we see many believe in Christ; but where and how they have heard and learned this from the Father, we do not see. Undoubtedly that grace is secret; but who could doubt that it is grace? This grace, then, which is secretly bestowed on human hearts by a worthy generosity, is rejected by no hard heart. It is bestowed precisely so that hardness of heart may first be taken away. Since, therefore, the Father is heard within and teaches so that one may come to the Son, He takes away the heart of stone and gives a heart of flesh, as He promised, the Prophet foretelling it. For thus He makes the sons of promise, and the vessels of mercy which He prepared for glory." B1 And the tenth goes on: "But why does He not teach all to come to Christ, unless because all whom He teaches He teaches in mercy? Those whom He does not teach He does not teach because He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens." And if you say that the obstacle is some positive act opposed to grace, such as actual contradiction, rebellion or contempt, and that it cannot be removed except by non-action, or the privation of such an act, which is not from God, or not antecedently from God, but from man, you can still be rebuked as before. Moreover, then everyone not having such a contrary act would receive grace, which is false of infants, of fools, and of adults, sane, sleeping or waking, who have good moral acts, or indifferent ones, or ones only venially bad, such as one established in grace can have. Likewise, how do you say that such an act cannot be removed except by non-action, or the mere privation of acting? For it can be removed by a contrary positive act: contempt by obedience, hatred by love, and so with the others. How easily, then, could God, if He willed, remove such an obstacle, or act? Such an obstacle, moreover, arises by the thirtieth of this, and is posited antecedently by God. How then does God will to confer grace on one in whom He prepares an obstacle repelling grace? Or if God does not give grace on account of the resisting obstacle, and God Himself knowingly and antecedently causes this obstacle, how is not God Himself the cause of the non-reception of saving grace? To this Corollary, too, the whole course of each Testament seems to bear witness,

and the abundant authority of the Doctors. For who, having so much as looked at the outer rind of sacred Scripture or of the Doctors, does not know that God established all things originally by their measures, numbers and weights, as is also briefly touched on in the forty-sixth of the first? Why, then, just as He antecedently and originally set and provided the number of the elect, as the forty-sixth of the first and the fifth of this bear witness, did He not likewise also finally set the number of those who will believe and persevere, so that it is just so great, and not greater, nor less? Who, then, is the primary cause of this negation? Is it not He who numbers the multitude of the stars (the multitude, that is, of those to be saved) 14, just as He is the cause why there are not more material stars in heaven, as He is also the cause why the heaven is not greater? What, again, is the cause why these are the units of the number of the elect, and not as many others in their place, if not He who calls them all by name? Just as He is the cause why these material stars are not other stars created, and this world is not another, with these creatures and not others. And who would doubt that, as God foresaw and established a fixed number of the stars, so also of the sand of the sea, by which the reprobate are figured, as the twenty-seventh of the first and what follows make clear? For even after the final judgment He will will the number of the damned to be exactly so large, and

not by a new volition, nor caused by later things, as the twenty-third and the twentieth of the first teach. What theologian, unless he is a comrade of Pelagius, does not know that the first cause of reprobation, and of the divine willing by which He reprobates some eternally, lies on the side of God the reprobator, not on the side of the angel or man reprobated, as is clear from the forty-fifth of the first? If, however, not receiving grace and perseverance were the cause of not giving, it would be the other way round 15. Hence Augustine, Gregory and other Doctors frequently hint, and say, that one should not seek or assign a cause of the not-drawing by God, of the not-hearing, not-obeying, not-persevering, and the like, on the part of the one not drawn and so forth; as many of the points premised on grace, on repentance and on perseverance make plain. For Augustine, indeed, in the first E1 part on John, homily 26 16, says: "Whom He draws, and whom He does not draw, why He draws that one and does not draw that one, do not wish to judge, if you do not wish to err." Yet if for this reason

the Father were to draw no one, because that person is not drawn, one could reasonably ask why, since the reason could also be truthfully given. Likewise it is read in Exodus 4 that the Lord said to Moses, A1 "Who made the mouth of man, or who fashioned the mute and the deaf, the seeing and the blind? Was it not I?" The gloss on the word "mute" says: "In the mouth, or in the spirit"; so the rest too are to be expounded similarly. Where there is also another gloss, namely Augustine's: "There are," he says, "those who slander God, A2 or rather the Scripture of the Old Testament, because God said that He made the mute." What then do they say of Christ, who says openly, "I came that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind"? Who, unless ignorant, would believe that anything can befall a man in respect of bodily defects that God does not will? But that He justly wills the whole, no one doubts. With this Moses too agrees, Deut 29: "You," he says, A3 "have seen all that the Lord did before you in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and all his servants and to all that land: the great trials which your eyes have seen, those signs and mighty wonders; and He has not given you an understanding heart, and seeing eyes, and ears that can hear, to this present day." The gloss: "an understanding heart," that is, the will to do what you understand, B1 and "seeing eyes," namely those of the heart; "to hear," that is, to obey. Isaiah too is not out of harmony with these words: "Blind the heart of this people, and make its ears heavy, and shut its eyes, lest perhaps it see with its eyes, and hear with its ears, and understand with its heart, and be converted, and I heal it," Isa 6. Christ teaches a similar thought, as is evident in Matt 13, Mark 4 and Luke 8. Hence also John 12: B2 "Though He had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in Him, so that the word of the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled, which the Lord said 17: 'Who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?' For this reason they could not believe, because Isaiah said again: 'He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, that they may not see with their eyes and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I heal them.'" Augustine, treating this in the first part on John, homily 53, writes thus: "As for what He added, B3 'and be converted, and I heal them,' whether 'not' is to be supplied, that is, 'that they not be converted,' the sentence above being connected with it,

…where it was said that they may not see with their eyes and understand with the heart. For here too it was surely said that they may not understand; and this very conversion is of the grace of him to whom it is said, "God of hosts, convert us." Or perhaps this too is to be understood as done from the mercy of the heavenly medicine. Since they were of a perverse and proud will and wished to establish their own justice, they were abandoned to this end, that they might be blinded; blinded to this end, that they might stumble on the stone of stumbling, and their face be filled with ignominy, and so, humbled, they might seek the name of the Lord, and not their own name, by which the proud man is puffed up, but the justice of God, by which the impious man is justified. For this turned to good for many of them, who, pricked in conscience by their crime, afterwards believed in Christ, and for whom he himself had prayed, saying, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do." The same Augustine, in his Questions on the Gospel, C1 as the gloss of Thomas on Matthew 13 reports,18 where the same authority of Isaiah is cited, speaks thus: "They have closed their eyes, lest at any time they see with their eyes"; that is, they themselves were the cause why God closed their eyes.

For another Evangelist says, "He blinded their eyes," but the question is whether it was that they might never see, or rather that, lest even so they should at some time see, being displeased with their blindness and grieving over themselves, and from this humbled and moved to confess their sins and to seek God devoutly.19 For Mark puts it thus: "Lest at any time they be converted and their sins be forgiven"; here it is understood that they had deserved by their sins not to understand, and yet that this very thing was done to them mercifully, so that they might come to know their sins and, converted, deserve pardon. But John says of this passage, "Therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah said again: He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, that they may not see with their eyes and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I heal them." This seems to oppose that interpretation and to force us to take what is said here, "lest at any time they see with their eyes," not as "lest even so they at some time see with their eyes," but altogether as "that they may not see"; since he says plainly, "Thus, that they may not see with their eyes." And when he says, "Therefore they could not believe," he shows well enough that the blinding was not done in order that, moved by it and grieving that they did not understand, they might at some time be converted through penitence. For they could not do this unless they first believed,

so that by believing they might be converted, by conversion ‖E1 be healed, and by health understand; but rather that they were blinded so that they should not believe. For he says most plainly, "Therefore they could not believe." If that is so, who would not rise to the defense of the Jews and proclaim that they were without fault in not believing? For they could not believe, because he blinded their eyes. But since God ought rather to be understood as without fault, we are compelled to confess that by certain other sins they had deserved to be blinded in such a way that, with that blindness, they were at that time unable to believe. For these are John's words: "They could not believe, because Isaiah said again: He has blinded their eyes." We therefore labor in vain to understand that they were blinded so that they might be converted, when they could not be converted because they did not believe; and could not believe, because they were blinded. Or may we perhaps say, not absurdly, that some of the Jews were curable, but so imperiled by the swelling of their pride that it was expedient for them first not to believe; and that they were blinded to this end, that they might not understand the Lord as he spoke parables, and, not understanding them, would not

believe in him; and, not believing, would crucify him together with the rest of the desperate; and so after his resurrection they would be converted, when, now humbled by the guilt of the Lord's death, they would love the more him by whom they rejoiced that so great a crime had been forgiven them, since so great a pride of theirs had to be cast down by such a humiliation? Anyone might think this said incongruously, if he had not read plainly in the Acts of the Apostles that it so happened. What John says, then, "Therefore they could not believe, because he blinded their eyes that they might not see," is not at variance with that opinion by which we understand that they were blinded in order that they might ‖A1 be converted. That is, the Lord's sayings were hidden from them through the obscurities of parables, so that after his resurrection they might come to their senses with a more salutary penitence. Blinded by the obscurity of his speech, they did not understand the Lord's words, and not understanding them did not believe in him, and not believing in him crucified him; and so after the resurrection, terrified by the miracles that were done in his name, they were pricked by the guilt of a greater crime and prostrated themselves to penitence; then, having received forgiveness, they were converted to

penitence by a most ardent love. For some, however, that blindness did not avail for conversion. B1 The same Augustine says in On the Gift of Perseverance 41: "In the mass of perdition were left the Tyrians and Sidonians, who could have believed if they had seen Christ's wondrous signs; but since it was not given them to believe, even that from which they might believe was denied them. From this it appears that certain persons have in their very native endowment a divine natural gift of understanding by which they are moved to faith, if they either hear words suited to their minds or behold signs; and yet, if by God's higher judgment they have not been set apart from the mass of perdition by the predestination of grace, neither are those divine sayings or deeds applied to them, through which they could believe if they heard or saw such things. In the same mass of perdition the Jews also were left, who could not believe though mighty works so great and so clear were done in their sight. For why could they not believe? The Gospel did not keep silent, saying: 'Though he had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in him, that the word of Isaiah the Prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke: Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord

been revealed?' And therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah said again: 'He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, that they may not see with their eyes nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I heal them.' The eyes of the Tyrians and Sidonians, then, were not so blinded, nor their heart so hardened, since they would have believed if they had seen such signs as these saw; but it did not profit them that they were able to believe, because they were not predestined by him whose judgments are unsearchable and whose ways are past finding out; nor would it have harmed these that they could not believe, if they had been so predestined that God would enlighten them in their blindness and would be willing to take the heart of stone from the hardened." I know that many understand and expound the words of the Lord, of Moses and of Isaiah set out above, and similar ones, quite differently; and that is no obstacle. For Sacred Scripture, from its manifold fruitfulness, brings forth a manifold understanding. Yet no Catholic, I think, will admit other or alien expositions in such a way as to reject the exposition of the chief Evangelist, who was instructed by the Preacher of truth himself,

indeed of the most holy Gospel itself, and of the most learned Augustine. Therefore the Lord himself said, D1 "I will harden the heart of Pharaoh, and he will not let the people go" (Exodus 4); and further on, in 9: "And the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not listen to them, as the Lord had spoken." What does it signify, when it is said that the Lord hardens a man's heart, if not that the authority, superiority and causality of the hardening of the human heart lie with him and not with the man, even though it comes about on account of the man's antecedent sin? And what is it for the Lord to harden a man's heart, if not not to soften it when he could, not to give the oil of piety, not to have mercy on the wretched sinner, or to be unwilling, or not willing, to do these things, as very many expositions of the Doctors attest? D2 Hence Gregory, Moralia 11, chapter 5, on that text of Job 6, "If he shuts a man in, there is no one to open,"20 says: "God is said to harden through justice, when a reprobate heart is not softened through grace." D3 Augustine agrees with him in On the Predestination and Grace of God, which is the fifth among his sermons, 7: "What is 'I will harden,' he says, but 'I will not soften'?" And Peter says in the first book of the Sentences, distinction 41, 1, that God's reprobation is a refusal to have mercy, and God's hardening is a not having mercy, in such a way that nothing is inflicted by him by which the man is made worse, but only that by which he would be made better is not bestowed.

Block continues at 616E:

[The previous block ends mid-sentence at "does not"; the sentence continues:] …God's hardening is a not having mercy, in such a way that nothing is inflicted by him by which the man is made worse, but only that by which he would be made better is not bestowed. Because, therefore, God does not soften a man's heart, it is not softened, and not the other way round. For this reason the Apostle too, in Romans 9, treating this passage of Scripture and showing that predestination or election and reprobation are not from the works of men but from the divine will, concludes after the disputation set out: "Therefore he has mercy on whom he wills, and hardens whom he wills"; and consequently he restrains men by a powerful disputation from presuming to inquire or dispute about such matters. But if God hardened someone because he himself was hardened, that is, did not soften a man because he himself was not softened, there would be a cause that could reasonably be sought and rendered. Why then would the Apostle say, "whom he wills he hardens"? For he would rather have said ‖E1 "whoever wills to be hardened," or "whoever does not will to be softened," or "whoever is not softened, he hardens."

Therefore blessed Augustine, in On the Predestination and Grace of God 17, says: "Did not Nebuchadnezzar, scourged after countless impieties, repent, and receive again the kingdom he had lost? A1 But Pharaoh was made harder by the very scourges of God, and perished. Let him give me an account of this, who with a heart wise in matters too high passes judgment on the divine counsel: why the medicine compounded by one physician has availed some to destruction, others to health, unless it is because the good odor of Christ is to some an odor of life unto life, to others an odor of death unto death? As to nature, both were men; as to dignity, both kings; as to cause, both holding God's people captive; as to punishment, both mercifully admonished by scourges. What then made their ends different, except that the one, feeling God's hand, groaned in remembrance of his own iniquity, while the other fought with free choice against the most merciful truth of God? Whoever

answers here that for the one the divine help was present so that he might be changed, for the other it was lacking so that he was hardened, and contends that this is unjust, [should consider this]. On this account the Apostle, fixing the ends of the things themselves in the will of God, said, 'He has mercy on whom he wills, and hardens whom he wills,' the Lord also saying, 'Without me you can do nothing.' Let him understand that all things are either accomplished with the Lord's help or permitted by his forsaking, yet in such a way that he knows that nothing whatever is admitted against his will." And it continues in 18: "But we are brought back to little children, brought back to twins. It is too little, what I have said; we are brought back to those not yet born, who were sown in the same union and were to be brought forth to the light in the same moment. The greatness of the question confounds the minds of men who dispute too proudly about the will of God, as a differing and diverse judgment of the divine will appears in them. Raise your voice now with all your strength, O unjust accuser of the just one, and tell me what good that one deserved, what evil this one committed. And I answer you: not I, but Paul the Apostle: Neither of them deserved anything, and the potter of clay has power from the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, another unto contempt.

"You are going to say, why? What is the cause of this judgment, so confused a diversity? Again let him refute you on this presumption, and say, 'O man, who are you, to answer back to God?' Above all because, when the argument is turned back to that comparison with human acts, it replies that a creditor cannot be charged with injustice who has chosen to make such a judgment between two debtors as to forgive one and to exact from the other what both owe. And if that is so, with what impudence will man, the clay, sit in judgment on God, the potter, not only saying, 'Why have you made me thus?' but even probing with damnable curiosity into others, and saying, 'Why from the same lump have you made one thus and another thus?' Suppose the human race, which is agreed to have been created first from nothing, were born without the debt of death and without the origin of sin, and yet the almighty Creator wished to condemn some of them to eternal destruction: who would say to the almighty Creator, 'Why have you done so?' For he who had given being to those who were not had power over the end for which they should be,

nor would the rest say, 'Why does the divine judgment differ when the merits of all are equal?' Because the potter has power from the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, another unto contempt. But now, since just punishment is rendered to the damned, and undeserved grace is given to the saved, who is so forgetful of the human condition as to search into the secrets of the divine mind, so that, when he himself has deservedly incurred the punishment, the question is raised why another has received a grace that was not owed to him?" On this, however, it must be known that hardening can be taken in two ways. In one way it stands for reprobation, that is, for active hardening, that is, for the divine will being unwilling or not willing to soften, or willing not to soften; and so understood it has no higher and prior cause to be assigned on the side of men, as is clear from the twentieth and the forty-fifth of the first book, and I think the Apostle speaks in this way in Romans, where he was cited, as the course of his argument plainly shows. In the other way, hardening is taken for reprobation passively, that is, for the effect of reprobation, namely the effect of the aforesaid divine will, that is, for the lack of the conferring, or for the very non-conferring, of softening grace; and in this way it is said, though improperly, to have a cause on the part of the man hardened, namely a preceding guilt,

which guilt, however, is not the very non-reception of grace, but another prior to it, as is clear of Pharaoh and others, when they are actually hardened: for a man is a sinner before God is the avenger. And so the Doctors for the most part speak, saying that God delivers out of mercy, but hardens according to judgment; and judgment appears to be according to the works of the one judged. Hence Peter too, Sentences 1, distinction 42, says: "As the effect of predestination is the setting-on of grace, so the effect of reprobation is hardening." The same Peter also says above, distinction 41, 1, that there is some merit of hardening, but none of mercy; and he adds: "He has mercy, therefore, according to grace, which is given freely; but he hardens according to judgment, which is rendered to merits." From this we are given to understand that, as God's reprobation is a refusal to have mercy, so God's hardening is a not having mercy, in such a way that nothing is inflicted by him by which the man is made worse, but only that by which he would be made better is not bestowed. It must be noted further that sometimes

it is read ‖A1 that the Lord hardens a man's heart, which must be understood in the manner or manners stated; sometimes, however, that the man himself hardens his own heart, his neck, and the like, which can be understood in two ways: either because this is done on account of his prior guilt, as the passages cited attest, or because he is hard of his own accord, not unwillingly nor under compulsion. Sometimes, however, it is simply read that his heart was hardened, which can be explained in either way. Further, of Rehoboam it is read: "The king did not yield to the people, because the Lord had turned against him,21 to raise up his word, which he had spoken by the hand of Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam," 3 A2 Kings 12; and of Amaziah: "Amaziah would not listen, because it was the Lord's will that he be delivered into the hands of enemies on account of the gods of Edom." A3 Hence Augustine too, in On Grace and Free Choice 46: "Who would not tremble at the divine judgments, by which God does in the hearts even of evil men whatever he wills, rendering to them nonetheless according to their merits?

For Rehoboam, son of Solomon, rejected the salutary counsel of the elders, which they had given him, that he should not deal harshly with the people, and rather yielded to the words of his servants, answering threateningly those to whom he ought to have answered gently. Whence this, but from his own will? But from this the ten tribes of Israel departed from him and set up another king for themselves, Jeroboam, that the will of God, who was angry, might be done, which he had also foretold would be. What does Scripture say? 'And the king did not listen to the people, for the turn of events was from the Lord,22 to establish his word, which he spoke by the hand of Ahijah the Shilonite concerning Jeroboam son of Naboth.' So it was done, and that through the will of man, yet so that the turn was from the Lord." The same Augustine says further on, in 47: "What of the fact that the man of God said to King Amaziah, 'The army of Israel will not go with you; for the Lord is not with Israel, with all the sons of Ephraim; for if you think to prevail among them, God will put you to flight before your enemies'? Then Scripture adds: 'And Amaziah did not listen, for it was from God that he should be delivered to evil, because they had sought the gods of Edom.' Behold, God, wishing to avenge the sin of idolatry, was working in

his heart, against whom he was justly angry, that he should not listen to the salutary warning, but, despising it, should go to war, where he would fall with his army." Again, what else does it signify, "Not all receive this word, C1 but those to whom it is given; let him who can receive it receive it" (Matthew 19), and "But their eyes were held, that they might not recognize him" (Luke, last chapter), and "You do not believe, because you are not of my sheep" (John 10)? C2 Indeed the very Truth seems to canonize that Philosophical rule already touched on, "If affirmation is the cause of affirmation, negation is the cause of negation," when he says, "He who is of God hears the words of God; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God." C3 (John 8). So too Chrysostom, as cited in the gloss of Thomas on that text of John 10 set out above, says: "He shows why they do not believe, adding: 'But you do not believe, because you are not of my sheep.'" C4 On this word Augustine, On John, first part, homily 48: "They are sheep by believing, by following the shepherd, by entering through the door. How then did he say to these, 'You are not of my sheep'? Because he saw that they were predestined to everlasting destruction, not bought with the price of his blood to

eternal life. The same Augustine, above in homily 42, expounding that text of John 8 set out above, says: "Since he had foreknown who were to believe, he called them 'of God,' because by the adoption of regeneration they would be born again of God. To these it applies: 'He who is of God hears the words of God.' But what follows, 'Therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God,' was said to those who were not only corrupt by sin (for this evil was common to all), but also foreknown as not going to believe with that faith by which alone they could be freed from the bond of sins. Hence he foresaw that those to whom he spoke such things would remain in this, that they were of the devil, that is, would die in their sins and impiety, in which they were like him, and would not come to the generation in which they would be sons of God, that is, born of God, by whom as men they were created." The Lord spoke according to this predestination. Yet this can also be understood and expounded otherwise, of anyone existing in grace, or so existing of God, as long as he is such; and of anyone lacking grace, and so not existing of God, as long as he is such, according to what was set out above in

38 and the following chapters of the first book. Hence the Savior says: "Why do you not know my speech? Because you cannot hear my word" (John 8), that is, as long as you are evil. So too Chrysostom, as the gloss of Thomas reports there, says: "First, then, we must seek the power that would give ear to the divine word, so that we may thereafter stand strong to perceive the whole discourse of Jesus; for as long as one has not been healed in his hearing by the Word who says to the deaf man, 'Be opened,' he cannot perceive by hearing." Nevertheless there is one word of God which all predestined persons, and each one, hear, or will hear at some time, and no reprobate will ever hear that word. E1 This word, as Augustine shows by a long disputation in homily 45 on John, is: "He who perseveres to the end will be saved." It is plain, then, according to the opinion of the truth, with Augustine as witness, that as being of the sheep of Christ, and

of God, according to predestination, that is, being predestined, is the cause of believing and of hearing the voice of Christ to salvation, so not being so is the cause of not so acting. But not to be predestined is originally from God, because the reprobate are not so from works, as the forty-fifth of the first book attests. The same opinion is attested by the authorities of the same Augustine, in On the Predestination of the Saints 10 and On the Gift of Perseverance 41, cited above; and he also shows, nearly throughout On Rebuke and Grace, that all men ought to be rebuked and moved charitably, A1 though rebuke profits only the predestined and does not profit the non-predestined. There, too, in chapter 68, after a long disputation, he concludes thus: "Let men therefore suffer themselves to be rebuked when they sin, and let them not argue from rebuke against grace, nor from grace against rebuke, because just punishment is owed to sins; to this belongs just rebuke, which is applied as medicine, even if the health of the sick man is uncertain; so that if the one who is rebuked belongs to the number of the predestined,

rebuke may be a salutary medicine for him; but if he does not belong, rebuke may be a penal torment for him. Under this uncertainty, therefore, it is to be applied out of charity, since its outcome is unknown." The Savior also seems to have taught this opinion to those able to grasp it, when he answered the Jews murmuring against his discourse on the bread of life: "Do not murmur among yourselves; no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. It is written in the Prophets, And they shall all be taught of God; everyone who has heard from the Father and learned comes to me" (John 6). B1 Here he seems to intimate23 that, because those were not drawn nor taught, because they did not hear nor learn, therefore they did not come to him by believing. So too further on: "There are some of you," he says, "who do not believe; for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who believed, and who it was who would betray him; and he said, Therefore I said to you that no one can come to me unless it is given him by my Father." If you do not believe me as I expound, believe Augustine, homily 26 on John, who says: B2 "To the murmuring Jesus answered, 'Do not murmur among yourselves,' as if saying: I know why you do not hunger, and why you do not understand this bread, nor seek it. 'Do not murmur among yourselves; no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.' Note both the why and the cause. And a great commendation of grace

follows: 'No one comes unless drawn.' Whom he draws and whom he does not draw, why he draws this one and does not draw that one, do not wish to judge, if you do not wish to err." Do not, I say, wish to judge by a cause taken from the side of the one drawn, or not drawn, antecedent to the divine will that draws or moves, according to what was set out above in 20 and 35 and the following chapters of the first book. If, however, a person's not being drawn by God were the cause why God did not draw him, it could reasonably be asked why God draws that one, and reasonably, because causally, it could be answered, because he himself is not drawn.24 Similarly, of like cases, it could be asked, and similarly answered. And further on: "For it is written in the Prophets, And they shall all be taught of God. Why did I say this, O Jews? The Father has not taught you; how can you recognize me?" And further on, in homily 27, expounding that text, "For Jesus knew from the beginning," etc., he says thus: "After he had distinguished

believers from non-believers, he expressed the cause why they do not believe: Therefore I said to you that no one can come to me unless it is given him by my Father." D1 The same Augustine confirms this exposition in On the Predestination of the Saints 9 and 10, as is recited above; and in 10, speaking of the teaching of the Father, he asks and answers thus: "Why, then, does he not teach all, that they may come to Christ, unless because all whom he teaches, he teaches by mercy; but those whom he does not teach, he does not teach in God;25 since he has mercy on whom he wills, and hardens whom he wills?" And further on: "Why, they say, does he not teach all? If we say, because those whom he does not teach are unwilling to learn, we shall be answered: and where is that which is said to him, 'O God, turn and you will give us life'? Or if God does not make the willing out of the unwilling, why does the Church pray, according to the Lord's command, for its persecutors?" Behold, Augustine rejects the position which says that the Father does not teach someone because he is unwilling to learn: and could he not likewise, indeed more evidently, reject the opinion which says that the Father does not teach someone because he is not taught?

And it continues: when, therefore, the Gospel is preached, some believe and some do not believe; but those who believe the preacher sounding outwardly hear and learn inwardly from the Father; those who do not believe hear outwardly, but inwardly neither hear nor learn. That is, to some it is given to believe, to others it is not given; because, he says, "No one comes to me, unless the Father who sent me has drawn him." This is said more openly afterwards. For a little later, when he was speaking about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, and some even of his disciples said, "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?", Jesus, knowing within himself that his disciples were murmuring about this, said to them, "Does this scandalize you?" And a little after: "The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some among you who do not believe." And soon the Evangelist adds: "For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed, and who it was that would betray him; and he said, 'For this reason I told you that no one can come to me, unless it has been given him by my Father.'" To be drawn to Christ by the Father, then, and to hear and learn from the Father in order to come to Christ, is nothing other than to receive from the Father the gift by which one believes in Christ. For he who said, "No one may come to me, unless it has been given him by my Father,"26 was distinguishing not those who hear the Gospel from those who do not hear, but those who believe from those who do not believe. Faith, therefore, both begun and perfected, is a gift of God. That this gift is given to some and not given to others, no one doubts at all who does not wish to fight against the plainest sacred writings. Why it is not given to all ought not to trouble the believer, who believes that all went from one man into a condemnation beyond doubt most just, so that there would be no just reproach of God even if no one were freed from it. Hence it is clear that it is a great grace that very many are freed; and in those who are not freed they should recognize what was owed to themselves, so that whoever boasts may boast not in his own merits, which he sees to be equal to those of the damned, but in the Lord. But why he should free this man rather than that one: his judgments are unsearchable.

Unsearchable, and his ways beyond tracing.27 For here too we do better to hear and to say, "O man, who are you to answer back to God?" than to dare to say, as though we knew, what he wished to be hidden, who yet could not will anything unjust. Therefore it is not because someone is not drawn, not taught, not freed, does not receive this gift, that God for that reason does not draw him, does not teach him, does not free him and does not give; B1 it is rather the other way round. Hence Augustine too says in On the Good of Perseverance, 64: "Those who linger in delight in damnable sins, if they are predestined, have not yet risen for the reason that the help of the one who has mercy has not yet raised them up";28 although in the presence of the weak he does not wish this view to be preached in this way, but in another. The blessed Ambrose, B2 in book 9 on Luke, seems plainly to testify to the same, speaking thus: "Those whom Jesus looks upon, weep. Peter denied him the first time and did not weep, because the Lord had not looked upon him; he denied him the second time and did not weep, because the Lord had not yet looked upon him; he denied him a third time, Jesus looked upon him, and he wept most bitterly. Nor can it be said that the Lord looked upon him with bodily eyes, visibly admonishing him; and so what is written, 'The Lord looked upon him,' was done within, in the mind, in the will," as is more fully recited in the forty-third of the first part. Moreover Augustine also, in Against Julian, book 4, section 16,29 addresses Julian thus: "You say that it is opened to those who knock by him who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, so that, that is, we should understand, as you teach us, that all are not saved and do not come to the knowledge of the truth for this reason, that they themselves will not ask, though God wills to give; they will not seek, though God wills to show; they will not knock, though God wills to open." According to Augustine's judgment, then, this was the error of Julian the Pelagian, whom he also refutes there in due course. And below, treating that saying of John quoted above, "No one can come to me unless the Father, etc.," he says: "Those who already use the choice of the will cannot will, unless it is by the will and aid of him by whom the will is prepared."

And it continues, section 17: "Here, if you say to me, 'Why then does he not convert the wills of all who are unwilling?', I will answer: Why does he not, by the washing of regeneration, adopt all the infants who are about to die, in whom he finds as yet no wills, and therefore none contrary? If you see that this is deeper than can be found out by you, let both questions be profound for each of us: why, in the greater and in the lesser cases alike, God wills to help one and does not will to help another." Behold, according to the judgment of Augustine: just as God's willing to help is the cause of the help, so his not willing to help is the cause of the non-help. It is not that, because someone is not helped by God, God for that reason does not will to help him or does not help him; it is the other way round. D1 Otherwise it would be perfectly plain, not profound. And below, speaking in the same place of two similar persons, one of whom is condemned according to judgment and the other freed according to mercy, he says: "Why does he condemn this one rather than free him, or free that one rather than condemn him? Who are we that we should answer God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, 'Why have you made me thus?' Or has the potter of clay no power, out of the same lump of vitiated and condemned origin, to make one vessel for honor according to mercy and another for dishonor according to judgment?" The same, in book 11 On Genesis according to the Letter, section 14, objecting and answering, says: "'He could,' they say, 'turn even their will to the good, since he is omnipotent.' He could plainly. Why then did he not do so? Because he did not wish to. Why he did not wish it is with him; we must not be wiser than we ought to be." Augustine professes the same view in many of his books, in very many places. The same, it seems, should be held likewise of perseverance: that someone does not receive or does not have perseverance for the reason that God does not give it to him, albeit perhaps in punishment of his earlier sin, and not the other way round. This follows from what has been laid down, and can be shown likewise from it. E1 The Prophet too seems clearly to testify to this view: "Let not the foot of pride come to me," and so on; "There the workers of iniquity have fallen; they are cast out, and could not stand" (Ps 35 [36]).

Expounding which, Augustine says: "First, he who did not stand in the truth; then those parents whom God sent out of paradise. Hence that humble man who says he is not worthy to loosen the strap of the sandal is not cast out, but stands and hears him, and rejoices with joy because of the voice of the bridegroom, not because of his own, lest the foot of pride come to him and he be driven out, and be unable to stand." Hence also a certain disciple and teacher, predestined and persevering, says: "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would certainly have remained with us; but that it might be manifest that not all are of us" (1 Jn 2 [19]). A1 He wishes to show that just as being of the number of the elect according to divine predestination is the cause of remaining and persevering finally, and not being so is the cause of not remaining so (that is, just as God's willing and election, preparing from eternity and conferring in time grace and perseverance on anyone, is the cause of persevering finally), so the non-willing and non-election, or the reprobation, of God, which is its opposite, is the cause of not persevering finally. Otherwise, indeed, God's non-election or reprobation would not originate and arise causally from the one who calls, but from the works and merits of the one reprobated, which was refuted in the forty-fifth of the first part. A2 Hence Augustine too, arguing in On the Good of Perseverance, 17, says: "Why did he not give to some, who had worshipped him in good faith, perseverance to the end? Why, do you think, if not because he does not lie who says, 'They went out from us, but they were not of us'? For if they had been of us, they would certainly have remained with us. To men it seems that all who appear good, the faithful, ought to have received perseverance to the end; but God judged it better to mix with the fixed number of his saints some who would not persevere, so that those for whom security in the temptation of this life is not expedient may be unable to be secure. For he checks many from ruinous elation; as the Apostle says, 'Therefore let him who seems to stand take heed lest he fall.' And below, section 19: Of two pious men, why is perseverance to the end given to this one and not given to that? The judgments of God are unsearchable. Yet this ought to be most certain to the faithful: that this one is of the predestined and that one is not. For 'if they had been of us,' says one of the predestined, who had drunk this secret from the breast of the Lord, 'they would certainly have remained with us.' What is this, I ask: 'They were not of us; for even if they had been, they would certainly have remained with us'?

Surely they were created by God, born of Adam, made of earth, and had received souls of one and the same nature from him who said, 'I have made every breath'? Surely, finally, both had been called, and had followed the one who called? Both justified from being ungodly, and both renewed through the washing of regeneration? But if he who knew this were to hear it, he could doubtless answer and say what he was saying: 'These things are true; in all these respects they were of us; but according to another kind of distinction they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would certainly have remained with us.' But what is this distinction? The books of God lie open; let us not turn away our gaze. Divine Scripture cries out; let us lend our ear. 'They were not of us,' because they had not been called according to purpose; they had not been chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world; they had not followed into their lot;30 they had not been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things." And below, section 45, he recites some who object in this way: "But they say, as you write, that no one can be roused by the spur of correction if it is said in the assembly of the Church with many listening: 'So stands the settled judgment of God's will in predestination that some of you, from unbelief, having received the will to obey, will come to the faith, or having received perseverance will remain in the faith; but the rest of you, who linger in delight in sins, have not yet risen, because the help of merciful grace has not yet raised you. Nevertheless, if there are any of you not yet called, whom his grace has predestined to be chosen, you will receive the grace by which you will wish to be chosen and will be chosen; and if any of you obey, if you are predestined to be rejected, the strength to obey will be withdrawn, so that you cease to obey'"; or, according to another reading, "if any of you obey, if you are not predestined to be received," and so on, as above, which must be understood as a punishment for an earlier fault. Replying in the following chapters, he withdraws none of this concerning predestination, but asserts that all of it is true. Hence in chapter 46 he says: "When these things are said, they ought not so to deter us from confessing the true grace of God, that is, the grace which is not given according to our merits, and from confessing the predestination of the saints in accordance with it, as we are not deterred from confessing the foreknowledge of God if someone speaks to the people about that foreknowledge in such a way as to say: 'Whether you now live rightly or not rightly, you will afterwards be such as God foreknew you would be, good if good, or evil if evil.' For if some, on hearing this, turn to torpor and sluggishness, and more readily go from labor to lust and after their own desires, ‖E1 is it therefore to be thought false that what was said about God's foreknowledge is true?" And in 47: "Let the truth therefore be told, above all where another question impels that it be told." And in 64 he teaches the above concerning predestination, and in particular that saying, "if any of you obey, if you are not predestined to be received, or if you are predestined to be rejected, the strength to obey will be withdrawn, so that you cease to obey." Though it is true, he says, that no one should preach to a multitude of weak persons under this form of words, speaking in the second person and directing his address to them, but should speak under another, in the third person, so that nonetheless nothing is taken from the judgment.

The same in On Correction and Grace, 24: "Those," he says, "who are not going to persevere, and so will lapse from the Christian faith and conversion, and whom the end of this life will find such, doubtless are not to be reckoned among the number of these even in that time in which they live well and piously. For they have not been set apart from that mass of perdition by God's foreknowledge and predestination, and therefore were not called according to purpose, and so were not elected." Where, in section 25, he adds: "If I am asked here why God did not give perseverance to those to whom he gave the love by which they lived as Christians, I answer that I do not know. For not arrogantly, but acknowledging my own small measure, I hear the Apostle saying, 'O man, who are you to answer back to God?', and so on, and 'O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways beyond tracing!'" The same, in On the Refutation of the Sixteen Chapters Falsely Imputed to Him,31 reply 14, says: "Why he holds back this man so that he does not fall away, and does not hold back that man, it is neither possible to comprehend nor lawful to trace." Many authorities of Augustine, and of Gregory in the fourteenth of this book, cited above, clearly witness to this last view too; all of them can be understood according to the expositions given above: namely, that on the part of the one who does not persevere, no sufficient cause of his not persevering is to be assigned, because it is not his fault. For of two persons dear to God, pious, equal, and equally tempted, God keeps the one who stands, by the fifth of this book, and does not keep the one who falls from falling. But why this one rather than that? What? Did this one, who is now sinning for the first time, sin earlier, so that he deserved to fall into this his first sin?32 Again, of two dear to God, equal, equally tempted, and sinning equally, God raises up and takes up the one and makes him persevere finally, and leaves the other. Indeed, without wrong to anyone, he can raise up and make persevere finally the one who has sinned more, and leave uncorrected the one who has sinned less. How, then, is fault the sufficient cause of non-perseverance? It is also clear from the thirty-ninth of the first part that good or bad merit is not properly the cause of reward or of actual punishment, although these are rendered on account of merits, as was shown there. Therefore not receiving perseverance is not the cause, or the sufficient and preceding cause, of God's not giving it; for if it were the cause, it would be sufficient and preceding; it seems, therefore, that the contrary is the case. Further, for a fuller understanding of the Doctors who say that there is no cause why God gives perseverance to one of two equal pious persons and not to the other, it must be observed that this has a double sense. One is that there is no sufficient cause on the part of the men themselves; and this is true, just as no cause of predestination and reprobation is to be posited on the part of men, as the foregoing have taught. The other is that there is no sufficient cause on the part of God; and this can be understood in two ways. In one way, quite generally, and so it is false, for the divine will is the sufficient cause of both. In the other way, specifically: that in God there is no cause or reason antecedent to his will which would determine it rather and preponderantly to give perseverance to this one and not to give it to that one. And this sense I judge to be true, as the twentieth and twenty-first of the first part clearly make manifest.