Book III, Chapter 29

Chapter Xxix

He objects and answers.

With the deceptive answer now excluded, the one that tried to undermine the fortifications of necessity laid down from the superior causes, the clamorous assault of the Pelagians bears down from every side. Their first and sharpest weapon is this: B1 If a man is necessitated to do whatever he does, he does not sin. For according to Augustine, On Free Choice 3, 28: No one sins in what can in no way be guarded against. He says also in On Two Souls 18: To hold anyone guilty of sin because he did not do what he could not do is the height of injustice and infamy. Hence Jerome too, in his explanation of the faith to Pope Damasus, letter 32: We execrate, B2 he says, the blasphemy of those who say that something impossible was commanded to man by God, and that God's commands can be kept not by individuals but by all in common. And it goes on: We so confess free choice as to say that we always need God's help; and those err as much who say with the Manichaean that man cannot avoid sin as those who assert with Jovinian that man cannot sin. Hence also the Apostle, 1 Corinthians 10: God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will make a way out, so that you may be able to bear it. With these the Philosopher agrees, Ethics 3, 12 C1: he says that all vices, and only vices, are blamed as being in us, that is, in our power; and Metaphysics 5, 6 1: Necessity, he says, seems to be something that is not rightly blamed. Again, commands are given to men reasonably; therefore they are simply in men's power, as the authority of Jerome cited above testifies. Hence also Deuteronomy 30: This commandment, C2 which I command you this day, says Moses, is not above you, nor set far off, nor placed in heaven, so that you could say, Who of us can ascend to heaven, to bring it down to us, so that we may hear it and fulfil it in deed? Nor is it set beyond the sea, so that you could complain and say, Who of us can cross the sea and bring it back to us, so that we can hear and do what has been commanded? But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it. D1 Hence also the Philosopher, Ethics 3, 11: Whatever things are neither in us nor voluntary, no one urges us to do, just as no one advises us to do something that already exists, for example not to be heated, or to feel pain, or hunger; for we shall suffer these none the less. Again, then all merit, good and evil, would perish, and all freedom of choice, since nothing would be freely in man's power. Again, then all rebukes or praises, exhortations or dissuasions, prayers, and universally all good and bad operations ‖D2 would seem superfluous; and this too is in part the reasoning of Augustine, On Free Choice 3, 1, and of the Philosopher, Ethics 3, 11. Hence the same Philosopher also, Peri hermeneias 1, last chapter, proves that not all things are or come to be from necessity, because then there would be no need either to deliberate or to do business; for, he says, if we do this, this will be, but if we do not do this, it will not be 2: this opinion therefore overturns every polity, corrupts all morals, and undermines all honourable conduct. Again, this opinion makes men negligent toward the good and prone to evil; indeed it makes them in the end presumptuous, or in the end despairing, and so destined to perish eternally; for according to it, whatever men do or do not do, all things will come about or not come about no more and no less. Besides these, however, very many other subtleties are put forward by others. Many things, some say, happen which we can freely prevent: for, as they argue by example, this baptized infant who is finally to be damned on account of a future sin that he will commit as an adult can be killed at once in grace and saved. Again, they say, we all experience in ourselves complete freedom; therefore we all have in ourselves complete freedom. Hence Augustine, On Free Choice 3, 1: E1 I see, he says, and in a way touch and hold as true what you say, namely about the freedom of the mind.

For I perceive nothing so firmly and so intimately as that I have a will, and that I am moved by it to do something. Again, if our will were so, it would not be in our free power, and hence nothing at all would be, as Augustine says in On Free Choice 3, 1: I find absolutely nothing that I can call mine, if the will by which I will and refuse is not mine. Again, then God would be the author of sin, and so neither a just accuser nor an avenger. Again, they say: I refuse to have as my God one who drives me to evil. Again, then difficulty and ignorance would excuse sin in no one, since impossibility of avoiding it would not excuse either. Again, then before man's fall into sin there would not have been greater possibility or freedom of avoiding sin than there is now after the fall. This is against Peter [Lombard], Sentences 2, distinction 25, and against Bernard and likewise Hugh: for then man could not avoid sin except by absolute power, and neither can he now. Again, natural and fatal necessity is repugnant to merit, and so therefore is any other. Again, then there would be no greater freedom in man than in a brute: for man cannot fail to do whatever is to be done by him, except by absolute power, and in this way and no other can a brute. Again, then man could not sin, since it would be necessary for him always to will in all things as God wills him to will, and this is to will justly and rightly, as is clear from Anselm, On Free Choice 8 B1 3 and On Concord 5. Again, then there would be no greater freedom in the wayfarer than in the comprehensor finally confirmed. For the wayfarer cannot do the opposite of anything he will do, except by absolute power, and the comprehensor can do this likewise; hence neither can the former merit more than the latter; indeed he too is finally confirmed, as the other is. Again, if future things will come about by any necessity whatever, this is on account of the divine will, namely because God wills them to be; therefore the divine will, or willing, is the cause of that necessity and naturally prior to it, and therefore can be without that necessity: from the divine will with respect to future things, therefore, the necessity of future things does not necessarily follow. Again, the will is of itself free according to contradiction; therefore God can assist it in such a way that it uses freely this freedom of its own. Again, it is more perfect for God so to assist the will that it works freely than that it works necessarily; therefore this, and not the other, is to be attributed to God. Again, then no one sins by omitting what he ought, C1 since Augustine says in On Two Souls 18: To hold anyone guilty of sin because he did not do what he could not do is the height of injustice and madness. Again, then God would permit nothing except what he properly does, nor would God's permission and action differ, nor the will of permission differ from the will of good pleasure; the opposite of which all the Doctors unanimously attest. Again, then God would will and love sin, against that of Psalm 5: You are not a God who wills iniquity, and against that of Psalm 44 [45]: You have loved justice and hated iniquity. Again, many canonical authorities condemn this. C2 Hence Genesis 4: Its desire will be under you, and you shall rule over it; and Ecclesiasticus 15: God from the beginning made man and left him in the hand of his counsel, C3 and so on, as follows; and 1 Corinthians 7: He who has determined in his heart, being firm, having no necessity but having power over his own will, and has judged this in his heart, to keep his virgin, does well: and there are very many other texts like these in letter and in sense. Again, if all things came about necessarily with respect to the superior causes, this would be by antecedent necessity, against Anselm, Why God Became Man 2, 17 D1, who shows that the free acts of men and of Christ are not and were not necessary to be done by antecedent necessity, but only by consequent. Hence he says: Preceding and efficient necessity is when it is said that the heaven revolves because it is necessary that it revolve; but following necessity, which effects nothing but merely is, is when I say that you speak of necessity because you speak: when I say this, I mean that nothing can bring it about that, while you speak, you do not speak; not that anything compels you to speak: for the violence of its natural condition compels the heaven to revolve, but no necessity makes you speak. And below: By this following necessity, which effects nothing, since the faith and prophecy concerning Christ were true, that he was to die by will, not by necessity, it was necessary that it be so; by this man was made, by this he did and suffered whatever he did and suffered; by this he willed whatever he willed. For on this account necessary

…they were, because they were going to be, and they were going to be because they had been, and they had been because they had been 4; and if you wish to know the true necessity of everything he did and suffered, know that all things were from necessity because he himself willed them; but no necessity preceded his will. Hence, if they were only because he himself willed, then had he not willed, they would not have been. So then no one took his life from him, but he himself laid it down and took it up again, since he had power to lay down his life and again to take it up, as he himself says. The same author, On Concord 3, 4 and 2, says that things of free choice, before they come to be, can be changed so far as man is concerned, by free will, and in time, as the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth chapters of this work cited more fully. Boethius also, Consolation of Philosophy 5, last prose. E1 Things, he says, that proceed from free choice, before they came to be, could have failed to happen. A1 Anselm also, On Concord 2, says thus: If it is asked about the sin of the will itself, when it sins by willing, whether it is by necessity, the answer is that, as it does not will by necessity, so the sin of the will is not by necessity, nor does the same will work by necessity. A2 Robert of Lincoln 5 also, On Free Choice 10, says that Peter, being predestined, is saved not necessarily, but that it is contingently necessary that he be so saved; and he adds, But I say necessary by consequent necessity, not antecedent. Again, Bernard, On Grace and Free Choice 4 and 5, distinguishing a threefold freedom, from sin, from misery, and from necessity, says that the last belongs to free choice. A3 Hence in chapter 5 he says thus: Freedom from necessity belongs equally and indifferently to God and to every rational creature, good as well as evil. And, to say much in few words, let very many authors be adduced: nearly all the authors of logic and of philosophy, and truly all the theologians, appear to deny necessity from free acts. A4 Hence Robert, Archbishop of Canterbury, condemned at Oxford a certain error saying that Every true proposition about the future is necessary 6; and Stephen, Bishop of Paris, condemned at Paris another error, which posited that nothing is by chance, but all things come about of necessity, and that all future things that will be will be of necessity, and what will not be is impossible to be, and that nothing happens contingently when all causes are considered: an error, he says, because the concurrence of causes belongs to the definition of the casual, in the book On Consolation. Again, he condemned another in this form, that it is necessary that God do whatever is done immediately by him: an error, whether it is understood of the necessity of coercion, because it takes away freedom, or of the necessity of immutability, because it posits the impossibility of doing otherwise. Bernard also, in his tenth letter to Pope Innocent, reckons as heretical a saying of Peter Abelard, namely that God can do or omit only those things, or only in that way, or at that time, in which he does them, and not otherwise; which the same Pope also, as is clear from his rescript recited among the letters of Bernard as the fourteenth 7, as heretical

…condemned. Certain arguments, moreover, in showing the aforesaid necessity, undertake to destroy it, or rather to destroy that necessity by means of those very arguments 8; for, as they say, if the reasons of this opinion show that everything that will happen will happen by the necessity of superior causes, it can be shown likewise that everything that will happen will happen by the necessity of inferior causes, because the divine will will be fulfilled necessarily through these as through those. Again, they say, by the reasoning of this opinion its opposite can be shown, or at least the possibility of its opposite. For God can will that a creature be able to act freely without any necessity whatever; which is argued by some thus: that God wills the creature to act freely is different from that God wills the creature to act necessarily; therefore this willing can be separated from that other; and since God's will is efficacious, it is possible for a creature to act freely without any necessity whatever. Moreover, they say, if according to the reasoning of this opinion, because God wills all future things to come about, therefore they will come about of necessity, then by like reasoning, because God wills that some future things can by no means come about, it is necessary that some future things can by no means come about; therefore it is possible that some future things by no means come about, and it is necessary that all future things come about, which plainly contradict each other. Moreover, D1 whoever is ringed round with the shield of truth against these and like arrows and onslaughts of the Pelagians will not fear, even if they have brought in the noonday demon 9. The first argument, indeed, is the proper argument of Pelagius and his followers. For this argument, as Pelagius's own, Augustine recites in Retractations 1, 9 and in On Nature and Grace 67 D2 and answers it: for that book, as is clear from Retractations 1, 9 and Retractations 2, 42, was written against a certain book of Pelagius. This argument too, almost in its own form, Augustine recites from the Pelagian Caelestius, On Perfection in Righteousness 2, and in another form, though with the same perverse meaning, in many places that follow, and he answers it. The venerable Bede also, Against Julian 12, D3 recites the same subtlety from his letter to Demetrias 10, which the thirty-fifth chapter of the first book mentions, and answers it. These

…Peter [Lombard] also followed, in Sentences 2, distinction 28, reciting the same from the Pelagians and resolving it. But because this is their strongest argument, I shall treat it for a little while more laboriously. This argument can be made likewise about meriting well, as about sinning. For if no one sins in what he cannot avoid, by the same reasoning no one merits in what he cannot avoid or omit; which is false of Christ and of the confirmed Angels, according to the opinion of some, as is clear in the first chapter of this book and in the proof of its corollary, and as the second chapter of this book also shows. Moreover, everyone who now merits merits now necessarily, because according to the Philosopher's well-known saying, What is, when it is, necessarily is: which is clearer still if someone should merit in the first instant of reaching adulthood 11 or of waking, or if an Angel or a man created with what is necessary for meriting should have merited in the same instant, as was also the case with Christ according to his human nature; for otherwise he would not have advanced in merit, against all the Catholic Doctors, who expound that text of Luke 2, Jesus advanced in wisdom, in age, and in grace before God and men, in a Catholic sense. Many of these the Gloss of Thomas recites there, only Ambrose seeming to think the contrary; but Peter, Sentences 3, distinction 13, brings him back into agreement with the others 12. Gregory holds the same, On Ezekiel 1, homily 6, whom the same Peter also recites in the same book 3, distinction 18, and in both of the aforesaid distinctions Peter shows and holds the same. All this can also be had from the demonstration of the eighth corollary of the fifth chapter of this book. Again, whoever wishes to avoid this necessity in merits will hold, with Pelagius the heretic and against Catholic truth, that our merits proceed not at all from God but only from our own free choice, as is clear from blessed Augustine, On Grace and Free Choice 16 and 17, as the thirty-eighth chapter of the first book cited more fully; and this can also be established from chapters 45 and 46 of the first book and many other places. Again, no one sins except in what he cannot avoid, at least for the present, since no one sins except

…by a present sin, which, when it is, necessarily is. And if anyone should say that he could have avoided it earlier, he raises no instance and gives no answer, because even if he could earlier, he cannot now; therefore he does not avoid it, so that everyone who sins sins in what he cannot avoid. The same can be argued more evidently of one sinning in the first instant of adulthood, of cure from madness, or of waking from sleep, or even in the primary instant of his own existence: for this seems possible about sinning, since it is possible about meriting, as was shown above. Again, whoever argues thus plainly implies and supposes that any man, by his own powers, not helped by God, can overcome any temptation, avoid any sin, persevere finally from himself alone, and also merit, and act, or at least do beforehand, anything of himself. How many heresies and errors this contains, the fourth chapter of the second book with the fifth and those that follow, the thirty-eighth of the first with the forty-fifth and forty-sixth of the same, the twentieth of the second with the thirtieth of the same, and many others clearly show. But with these arguers and their argument refuted by way of instance, it now remains to solve the argument directly, whose direct solution is the demonstration of his sin. For he sins mortally and incurably in form 13, as the corollaries of the first and second chapters of this book show. Yet the eighteenth chapter of this book 14, with its corollary, will answer much more artfully, C1 more clearly, more distinctly, and more formally. To the authority of blessed Augustine, however, and to other like ones, answer can be made in many ways. First, it can be fittingly understood in this way: that no one sins in what he does not do freely, with freedom of contradiction and contingently toward either alternative, as the fourth and fifth chapters of this book show; so that, so far as concerns the power of the will considered per se, simply and absolutely, it could not do it. The same is to be said likewise of any free act, good or evil or indifferent, if the act is posited according to its very substance. C2 Secondly, and in agreement with the prior exposition, with the prior course of the argument, and with the course and letter of the text, it can be said that Augustine intends there to remove from man a natural necessity of sinning, so that no one sins in what he cannot avoid by a possibility of nature, but does it by a necessity of nature. Hence above, in the same book

…3, 26: If each one owes what he has received, and man has been so made that he necessarily sins, he owes this, that he sin: which if it is wicked to say, nature compels no one to sin. And below, 28: A wicked will, he says, is the cause of all evils; but if it were according to nature, it would surely preserve nature, and so would not be wicked; whence it is gathered that the root of all evils is not nature. The tenth chapter of this book also proves this understanding, teaching that Augustine's book On Free Choice was written against the Manichaeans, who posit in man two natural souls, a good and an evil, and say that the evil soul by necessity of nature does all evil deeds. Therefore also after the authority last recited, which says that the root of all evils is not according to nature, he immediately adds that this suffices against all who wish to accuse natures. It is fitting, then, correspondingly, to understand and expound that book by way of refutation, D1 as was just touched on and as was taught more fully above in the tenth chapter of this book. Yet thirdly, and no less in harmony with the course of the argument, the authority set out can be expounded thus: that no one sins in what can in no way be guarded against even if he wishes, but only in what befalls one unwilling and against his will; and so he removes from the sinner a violent necessity, compelling and unwilling. For this is a frequent way of speaking among ordinary people and Doctors: I can if I will, you can if you will, he can if he wills, to do this or that. For what is easier, what freer, than to do something if I will, and not to do it if I do not will? That this is Augustine's understanding appears from his words and his course of argument in On Free Choice 3, 28, where it was cited. For having shown that the will is the cause of sin, he inquires further: Is there, perhaps, some cause prior to the will itself, to which the sin may rightly be imputed? And having proved that there is not, because the will need not obey it (let it not obey, and there will be no sin) 15, he objects in the person of the questioner: Perhaps it is violent, and compels the unwilling? And he answers, teaching that it is not so

…up to the end of the chapter mentioned. According to this necessity, therefore, and the freedom opposed to it, his words must be reasonably taken and understood; otherwise they would not bear on the question proposed. Above also, 26, he says: Nature compels no one by its own power to sin, nor by another's: for not everyone sins while he suffers what he does not will; for he does not sin in what he suffers unwillingly. He also says below, 29: It is not to be wondered that a man, either through ignorance has not the free choice of will to choose what he should rightly do, or, with carnal habit resisting (which by the violence of mortal succession has in a way naturally grown strong), sees what ought rightly to be done, and wills it, and cannot fulfil it. For that is the most just punishment of sin, that one should lose what he did not wish to use well, when he could have done so without any difficulty if he wished; which he also recites with approval in On Nature and Grace 68. He writes yet further below, in the same book, 3, 31: The Creator of things shows with how great ease man could have retained, had he wished, what he was made, since his offspring could even overcome what it was born 16; and subsequently, 36, he says: The Author of the soul bestowed on it so much dignity that he even placed in its power, if it wished, to strive toward blessedness. He also, above, 3, showing ‖B1 almost definitively what it is to be in our power, says: I cannot, he says, think anything else to be in our power than what we do when we will. The same, On the Spirit and the Letter 26, wishing to inquire whether faith is placed in our power, first inquires intently and very diligently what power is, and finally, determining, and as it were making known the thing sought by definition, says thus: We call that power where the ability to do lies close to the will; whence each person is said to have in his power that which, if he wills, he does, and if he does not will, he does not. The authority of the same, City of God 5, 10, set out in the ninth chapter of this book, attests the same in agreement with these. In agreement with him also, Anselm, Why God Became Man 2, 10: All power, he says, follows the will; for when I say that I can speak or walk, 'if I will' is understood; for if will is not understood, it is not power but necessity 17. Again, Augustine, Enchiridion

…75: Nor did God unjustly refuse that some be saved, since they could be saved if they wished. The same, On Faith to Peter 57, which is also cited in Lombard's Sentences 2, distinction 39, though wrongly so ascribed, since it is in the Ecclesiastical Dogmas 18: Hold most firmly, he says, that the first men were created good and upright with free choice, by which they could, if they wished, by their own will ‖C1 sin, and that they sinned not by necessity but by their own will. The same, Hypognosticon 28, treating that of Ecclesiasticus 15: God from the beginning made man and left him in the hand of his counsel, and so on. In the hand, he says, possibility is understood; this is the first grace, by which the first man could have stood, if he had wished to keep the Lord's commands. The same, On the Joys of the Just and the Punishments of the Wicked, or On the Threefold Dwelling: If God's foreknowledge cannot be avoided, man could not have sinned otherwise than by will, no other force compelling, because God thus foreknew him as going to sin. If therefore by will, not compelled, he was led to sin, he undoubtedly could have not sinned if he wished; he deserved punishment, therefore, because he did not sin unwillingly. The same, On Rebuke and Grace 148: Man could remain in good if he wished; and below, 49 and 59, he repeats and confirms the same view. The same, On Nature and Grace 44: God made man such that he could be free of the evil of sin if he had wished. Again, Jerome on that of Ezekiel 33: If, when I say to the wicked, Wicked man, you shall surely die, you do not speak, so that he may keep himself, and so on. From this, he says, we say that a man, however wicked and unjust, if he hears the teacher's words and repents of his impiety, can be saved, and that the teacher is no less damned if he has not taught, and that in both free choice is preserved, since it is in the teacher's ‖D1 will either to be silent or to speak, and in the hearer's either to hear, and to do, and to be saved, or to scorn and perish in his scorn. The Truth himself also says, You always have the poor with you, and when you wish you can do good to them, Mark 14. Nor do the authors speak so only of men, but indeed also of God. Hence Algazel, Metaphysics 3, sentence 8: The First is powerful, which is understood thus: that he acts when he wills and does not act when he does not will; and he is said to be able to destroy the whole of being, because he will do this if he wills; therefore he is powerful over everything that is possible, in this sense, namely,

…that if he wished, he would do it. Anselm followed him, Why God Became Man 2, 10 E1, inquiring whether Christ could sin and lie; and answering in the negative, he shows what power and ability are: All power, he says, follows the will. For when I say that I can speak or walk, 'if I will' is understood, and so on, as is recited above; and he continues: We can therefore say of Christ that he could lie, if 'if he wished' is understood; and since he could not lie while willing, nor could he will to lie, it can be said no less that he was unable to lie; so then he could, and could not, lie. He also, below, 17, inquiring whether Christ could have preserved his life, answers in like manner; and above, in the first chapter of the first book, he hints at the same. Again, Augustine, Hypognosticon 61: The Most High God has power, if he wills, both to save the wicked through undeserved grace and to reserve them for the punishment of Gehenna by just judgment to come. Wherefore the Wise Man too wisely says to God, Wisdom 12: It lies in your power, whenever you will. The truth of the holy Gospel attests the same, saying, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean, Matthew 8. From all of these, as I hope, it plainly appears that the Authors and Authorities who say that men can avoid any sins whatever can be fittingly expounded in the aforesaid way, namely, that they can if they wish. Yet without doubt they cannot will this from themselves alone, or antecedently to God, but only with God, A1 and from God antecedently, as the twentieth and thirtieth chapters of the second book declare. Hence a fourth exposition of such Authors and Authorities, no less in harmony with the truth, can be drawn. For when the Authors say that man can avoid sin, it is true if God wills, if God wills to help, and with God's help joined; for otherwise ‖A2 no one can avoid sin, A3 as was shown above. Hence Augustine too, On Perfection in Righteousness 33: If anyone, he says, namely Caelestius, says, It can happen that a man not sin even in a word; it must be answered, If God wills, he can; for God wills it, therefore he can. Again he says, namely Caelestius,

If anyone says, It can happen that a man not offend even in thought; it must be answered, If God wills, he can; for God wills it, therefore he can. ‖B1 For this manner of speaking, although it seems to be Caelestius's, Augustine does not reprove but rather approves; and this opinion also, although it seems Caelestius's, Augustine does not wholly deny but rather affirms. For who would deny that man, like the blessed Virgin, can by the help of almighty God avoid any sin whatever, so that at a certain time, or never, he would stray in anything? Hence he immediately adds: See how he meant to say, if God helps, he can, to whom it is said, Be my helper, do not forsake me; not indeed for gaining bodily goods and avoiding evils, but for performing and perfecting justice; on account of which we say, Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Looking, therefore, at the course of Augustine's argument before and after, it plainly appears that he means to deny that any man, in the state of present misery, is in fact without sin, or even can be so by his own powers alone; yet he grants that man can avoid sin by God's help. Hence also above, 2, he recites the first argument of Caelestius under

this form: "The one who denies that a man can be without sin must be asked what the sin is that can be avoided, or that cannot be avoided: if it is one that cannot, it is not sin; if it is one that can be avoided, a man can be without sin ‖C1: for no rational justice allows a thing to be called sin that can in no way be avoided." And Augustine answers that sin can be avoided, if our corrupted nature is healed by the grace of God through Jesus Christ. "Let it be healed," he says, and supply: and, healed, be kept healed; as is clear from him in On Nature and Grace 26, and in the Sentences of Prosper 131, as is cited more fully in the fifth and eighth of the second book. And further on he recites the fifteenth argument of Pelagius: "If there is any sin that cannot be avoided, how is God called just, if he is believed to impute to anyone what he cannot avoid?" And he replies that sin can be avoided when the humble will is helped. He says the same in On Rebuke and Grace 71: that the condemnation of someone by an episcopal judgment can, if God so wills, turn out to a most salutary correction 19. C2 Likewise the venerable Bede 20, Against Julian 12, recites from him this heretical argument: "We ascribe iniquity to the just one, cruelty to the pious one, when we first complain that he has commanded something impossible, and then think that a man is to be damned by him for things he could not avoid." And he replies that the man speaks truly if he looks to the help of God, to whom the Catholic voice prays, saying, "Lead me on the path of your commandments"; but if he trusts in the strength of his own soul, he gainsays the truthful declaration of him who says, "Without me you can do nothing." Moreover, so that you may accept without doubt the true gloss on this authentic authority of Augustine, hear Augustine himself, Retractations 1, 9, explaining this same authority as objected to him by Pelagius: "Who, I say, sins in what can in no way be avoided? But sin is committed; therefore it can be avoided." "Pelagius used this testimony of mine in a certain book of his, in these and similar words of mine; because the grace of God was not mentioned, the Pelagians think that we held their opinion, but in vain. For it is the will by which sin is committed, and by which one lives rightly; but that will itself, unless it is freed by the grace of God from slavery to sin, and helped to overcome vices, cannot live rightly and piously among mortals." Peter [Lombard], Sentences 2, distinction 28, follows him not from afar, both in the objection and in the response. Hear also Augustine in On Nature and Grace 67, expounding and glossing most clearly this same authority, which Pelagius cited for his heresy. Pelagius says: "Again, says Augustine the Bishop in the books On Free Choice, 'Whatever this cause of the will may be, if it cannot be resisted, it is yielded to without sin; but if it can be resisted, let it not be yielded to, and there will be no sin. Or perhaps it deceives the unwary? Then let him take care not to be deceived. Or is the deception so great that it cannot be avoided at all? Then there are no sins at all: for who sins in what can in no way be avoided? But sin is committed; therefore it can be avoided.'" "I acknowledge it; the words are mine; but let him also deign to acknowledge all that was said above."

"For it is the grace of God that is at issue, which helps us as medicine through the Mediator, not the possibility of justice: so that cause, whatever it is, can be resisted; plainly it can. For we ask for help in this very matter when we say, 'Lead us not into temptation'; and we would not ask for that help if we believed that it could in no way be resisted. ‖A1 Any sin, therefore, can be avoided, but with the help of him who cannot be deceived: for that is why we say, 'Lead us not into temptation.'" To the other authority of Augustine, from On Two Souls, the things already set out immediately before reply, and the tenth of this book, and especially the second exposition, because that book is directed against the Manichaeans, as the tenth of this book said. I reply, therefore, as the second exposition and the tenth of this book teach; and I reply in this way with confidence, because Augustine, Retractations 1, 15, retracting this book On Two Souls, replies in the same way to this authority of his, which was objected ‖A2 to him by the Pelagians, and to similar passages of the same book. Hence Peter [Lombard] too, Sentences 2, distinction 28, after reciting the aforesaid authority of Augustine, says: "On hearing this, Pelagius leapt up, saying, 'Why then are infants, and those who do not have grace, without which they cannot fulfil the divine commandments, held guilty?'" And he adds Augustine's answering opinion: "On what occasion he said these things, he makes plain in the book of Retractations, replying to Pelagius. For he said it against the Manichaeans, who hold ‖B1 that there are two natures in man, one good from God, the other evil from the race of darkness, which was never good, nor can will the good; and if that were so, it would not seem that it should be imputed to it if it did not do good." The authority of Jerome must be answered in the same way: for it speaks expressly against the Manichaeans. The authority of the Apostle must be answered by the three expositions set out before. For the first exposition can be fittingly drawn from that word, "He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able." For by this he signifies that temptation is not, and will not be, stronger than the power of the will, as the third of the second book taught. The third exposition, stated above, can be had well enough from the word "you are able" and "you may be able," that is, if you wish. The fourth exposition is plainly intimated when he says that God will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able; as if he were saying, it is from God and from divine help that you are not tempted beyond what you are able, which the word that follows makes more explicit: "but he will provide," he says, "with the temptation a way out, that you may be able to endure"; as if he were saying plainly, "From his helping action and the outcome of his help you have it that you can endure temptation," as the fourth and fifth of the second book also declare. To the first authority of the Philosopher the ninth of this book replies; to the second authority of the same, the distinction concerning necessity, written in the tenth of this book, replies. For he is speaking [there] of the violent necessary: assigning the third mode of the necessary, he says: "Further, what does force, and force: this is what hinders and prohibits contrary to impulse and prior will 21; for the violent is called necessary, and therefore also sad, as Evenus too says. For every necessary thing is sad, as force is, a certain necessity, as Sophocles says, 'Force compels me to do this' 22; and necessity seems to be something not blameworthy; and rightly: for it is contrary to motion according to prior will and according to reflection."

The argument from the precepts does not oppose this opinion any more than it opposes one who says that God effects our free acts, and that God's grace is necessarily required for the keeping of the commandments. This argument, therefore, is Pelagian, heretical, to be execrated, as the twenty-eighth of the second book shows, which none the less fully ‖D1 resolves it. Hence Augustine too, on that verse of Psalm 118 [119], "The declaration of your words gives light, and gives understanding" etc., in sermon 27, speaks thus: "What is a little one, but one who is humble and weak? Do not, then, be proud; do not presume on your own power, which is nothing; and understand 23 why a good law was given by the good God that nevertheless cannot give life. For it was given to make a little one out of a great one, to show you that you do not have from yourself the strength to fulfil the law; so that, as one lacking help and in want, you might flee to grace, and cry out: 'Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am weak'; yes, Lord, do so, merciful Lord. Command what cannot be fulfilled; nay, command what cannot be fulfilled except by your grace: so that when men have been unable to fulfil it by their own strength, every mouth may be stopped, and no one may seem great to himself. For who does your commandments as they ought to be done, that is, out of faith that works through love, unless that love itself is poured out in his heart through the Holy Spirit? 'For it is not those who act by the spirit' but 'as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God'; not because they themselves do nothing, but lest they do nothing good, they are led by the Good so that they act." To the authorities of Jerome and of Deuteronomy the reply must be as was given above to the first authority of Augustine; the authority of Jerome, moreover, was expounded before. As for the authority of Deuteronomy, it must be known that the Pelagian Caelestius objects this same passage of Scripture, with many similar ones, against Augustine in On the Perfection of Justice 32, and Augustine replies as was replied earlier in the fourth exposition of his first authority, as the twenty-eighth of the second book recited more fully. The authority of the Philosopher can be expounded by the ninth of this book, but it expounds itself: "Whatever things," he says, "are neither in us nor voluntary," etc. And it is true that for what is not voluntary

no one is reasonably summoned; nor on this account does any merit perish, as the corollaries of the first and second of this book show; nor does freedom of choice, as the same corollaries make plain. For how does it follow that because God's will, which cannot be hindered but is most omnipotently efficacious, wills that a man act freely, therefore he does not act freely? Nay, this does not [follow]; the opposite plainly follows, namely that he acts freely, indeed that he acts freely necessarily, necessarily, I say, by the necessity spoken of in the twenty-seventh of this book; and this is in the end the answer of Augustine and of Anselm, as their authorities evidently testify: 3, On Free Choice; 2, On the Joys of the Just and the Punishments of the Wicked; On Concord 1 24; and many others recited more fully in the tenth of this book. This opinion, therefore, by no means destroys free choice, but founds and confirms it with inviolable stability, protects and defends it. Yet the highest and greatest freedom is in God alone, the highest, supremely and greatly free, as the fifth and tenth of this book make plain; in inferior causes, however, freedom is lesser, as the same chapters taught. As for the argument that rebukes, praises, exhortations or dissuasions, prayers, and the like ought to be reckoned superfluous, it attacks the twenty-seventh of the third book no more than the twentieth of the second or the twenty-third of the first; nor does the argument conclude, as is plainly taught in the twenty-third and twenty-fifth of the first and the twenty-eighth of the second. As for Augustine, On Free Choice 3, 1, and the Philosopher, Ethics 3, 11, they ought reasonably to be satisfied by what has been set out here and in the tenth of this book. As for the saying of the same Philosopher at the end of Peri hermeneias 1, weighing it more fairly according to the counsel of the wise man on the four cardinal virtues, "Let not the authority of the speaker move you, nor who he is, but attend to what he says": let the famous, or rather smoky, authority ‖B1 be laid aside for the present 25, so that, the more freely, the more truly you may judge what reason itself proves; and you will see openly that it does not conclude the proposition but plainly the opposite. For how does it follow: "All future things will come about of necessity; therefore there is no need to deliberate or to conduct affairs"? On the contrary, the opposite evidently follows: all future things will come about of necessity; therefore there is need, because by necessity there is need to deliberate and to conduct affairs. For many opportune counsels and affairs are future. But to come closer, even to the foundation of the matter: who ever, positing necessity in all future things, will posit it only in the ends and not in the means to these ends? For the most wise ‖C1 God, as he fixed certain ends beforehand from eternity, so also ordained certain means, as the twenty-seventh of the first book and what follows make plain. For the things that are, are ordained by God, Rom. 13, as the twenty-sixth of the first also teaches. For the wisdom of God, infinitely infinite, as the sixth of the first book taught, reaches everywhere, Wis. 7. "It reaches, therefore, from end to end mightily, and disposes all things sweetly," further on, 8. It reaches, I say, from the first end, from the term from which, and from any beginning, through all the means to the last end, and to every term to which, and disposes all things, ordering ends and means sweetly. If, therefore, the divine preordination and pre-willing, which cannot be hindered but is efficacious in every way, imposes necessity, it will impose some such necessity on the ends and on the means. If, therefore, from God's providence it is in any way necessary that men attain certain ends, it is necessary that they likewise deliberate, conduct affairs,

and proceed through the due means, as by the road to the destination, by care to health, by discipline to the doctorate, by merits to the crown, as the twenty-fifth of the first book touches on, and as the authority of blessed Gregory, Dialogues 1, 21, cited in the canon 26, plainly testifies, and the authorities of Augustine written down in the twenty-third of the first. Nevertheless, out of reverence for the Philosopher it can be said that his argument is good in logic, because it is very probable and apparent. Or otherwise and better: if all things came about by a necessity contrary to freedom and simply absolute, there would be no need to deliberate or to conduct affairs, because nothing would then be a matter for counsel, nor could there be any counsel. For counsel, according to the same, Ethics 3, 7, 8 and 9 27, is not about necessary things of this kind, but only about those that are in us, that is, in our free power. That he is speaking there of necessity contrary to freedom, and simply absolute, his course of argument and his words show plainly. For he speaks there of a necessary that excludes everything toward either alternative: but such is not the necessary according to superior causes, granted in the twenty-seventh of this book, which is compatible with contingency to either alternative and with freedom, which likewise holds in our free power, as the fifth and tenth of this book teach: but only the necessary

that opposes and destroys freedom and free power, as the same chapters make plain. Hence the Philosopher says thus: "The things that happen in consequence are these, and the like: if [it is so for] all affirmations and negations, it is necessary that this one be true, and that one false, that nothing be toward either alternative, but that all things be or come to be of necessity." Hence there will be no need either to deliberate or to conduct affairs; he adds the reason for this: since if we do this, namely whatever it may be, this will be, namely one designated future thing; but if we do not do this, supply "we do," it will be, supply the same future thing; as if he were saying, whatever we do or do not do, this future thing will come about neither more nor less; and so no future thing would be in the power of men, nor would it depend on human free acts. Hence further on he says thus: "These things are not possible: for we seem to be a principle of future things

from the fact that we deliberate and do something." Considering, therefore, the course of the Philosopher, it plainly appears that he wishes to reject the necessary that is contrary to and destructive of contingency to either alternative, of freedom, and of free power. Hence Ammonius too, expounding that chapter, says: "Many are ‖A1 led away into an opinion that destroys the contingent itself, and [into the belief] that the Philosopher argues against those who do all things from necessity and take away the contingent." For he speaks there also of necessity simply. For he says: "That what is should be, when it is, and that what is not should not be, when it is not, is necessary; but it is not necessary that everything that is should be, nor that everything that is not should not be," supply, simply; hence he adds at once: "For it is not the same for what is to be necessarily when it is, and to be simply of necessity; and likewise in what is not; and in contradiction the same account holds." His words immediately following show this same thing clearly. For he concedes such propositions in the composite sense, "It is necessary that this will be or will not be," and denies them in the divided sense. In the composite sense, however, there is necessity simply absolute, and this he concedes in that sense; so correspondingly and by way of refutation he denies the same in the divided sense, as was taught more fully in the second exposition of Boethius in the twenty-eighth of this book. Hence he says thus: "That it either is or is not is necessary for everything, and that it either will be or will not be; yet one dividing cannot say that either one is necessary: I mean that it is necessary, indeed, that a naval battle will be tomorrow or will not be, but that a naval battle will be tomorrow is not necessary, nor that it will not be; but that it will be or will not be is necessary," B1 Hence Ammonius too, expounding this word of the text, "Futuris," says thus: By this which he says, "Futuris" ("future"), he signifies that which is taken in contingent matter. For it is one thing, as he himself [uses it] in those works in which he treats of generation and corruption, mellon, B2 that is, "future," and another thing from that which is esomenon, that is, the participle of the future tense of sum, es 28; and esomenon signifies what will altogether come about, as when we say, "There will be winter or summer, or an eclipse"; mellon, that is, "future," what can come about and not come about, as "I am going to walk," "I am going to sail." He suggests, therefore, that in some other matters, indeed, there is the necessary and the impossible; but winter, summer and eclipse, according to him, as according to the other Philosophers, will come about of necessity simply and of the necessity of nature. This necessity, then, he denies here, and correspondingly affirms the opposed possibility or contingency. To one who turns over the writings of the Philosopher diligently, and more diligently turns them again, it will plainly appear that he removes a threefold necessity from free acts: namely necessity simply absolute, necessity of nature, and necessity violently compelling. Here [he removes] the first, second and third, as is clear from what has been shown here and in the tenth of this book; the second also in Metaphysics 9, as the same tenth makes plain; the third in Metaphysics 5, as is recited above; the same also in 2 and 3, 2 and 3 Eth. 29 He also writes in Posterior Analytics 2, 3, thus: "Necessity is twofold; the one according to nature and motion, as a stone [moves] of necessity up and down, but not by the same necessity; but in those things that are from intelligence, others are in no way from that which is per se in vain, such as a house or an image, nor are they from necessity, namely from this or that aforesaid." 30 Further, in answer to all the objections raised about possibility and necessity,

and to those that can be objected concerning possibles, it can be answered otherwise and perhaps better, because more briefly, and more in conformity with the customary way of speaking, and more cautiously, and no less truly. It is agreed, then, that "possible" and "can" are *D1 derived from possibility or power, just as they are also vocally named from it; but possibility and power are manifold, as the preceding chapters taught. Since, then, John's doing or not doing this or that is twofold, that is, John can do this or that, or not do it, one must consider all around whether he can do it by some power, say by his own natural power, or even by another's; whether by the power, indeed the omnipotence, of God, great and absolute: and it can be conceded simply that it is possible to be so, because by some possibility or power ‖D2 it is so, just as a particular or indefinite proposition that has some singular instance, even a sole one, that is true, is true and to be conceded simply. But as to necessity one must think otherwise. For if by some designated necessity it is necessary that this be or not be, it is not therefore to be confessed simply that it is necessary that this be or not be, just as of possibility and the possible ‖D3 it was said, especially according to the customary way of speaking of the common

Logicians, Philosophers and Theologians instructed in logical matters. For by their meaning it plainly follows: it is necessary that this be; therefore it is impossible that this not be; and it is not possible that this not be; whence it is also necessarily inferred further that by no possibility or power is it possible that this not be. It is clear, then, that speaking thus it does not follow: by some necessity it is necessary that this be; therefore it is necessary that this be 31; for then by no possibility or power could this not be; whereas by some necessity it is necessary that something be, and by some possibility or power that same thing can not be, and it is possible that it not be. If, however, it might perhaps be permitted to speak more acutely, though it might be said a little more strictly, that if by some necessity it is necessary that this be, it is necessary that this be by reason of the account of possibility and power set out before; yet it does not follow further: it is necessary that this be, therefore it is impossible that this not be, and not possible that it not be, when so generally put, but only when specially restricted; therefore by some possibility or power, namely one opposed

to some necessity, it is impossible that this not be, and not possible that this not be. Speaking commonly, therefore, as many do, I nowhere concede simply or absolutely, nor intend to concede, unless a greater authority compels me, that it is necessary for anyone to do or not do this or that, nor that it is not possible, or that he cannot do or not do this or that; rather that it is possible, and he can do or not do this or that, when such acts are pointed out in which contingency is found; and although this way of replying simply may perhaps seem the more cautious, yet another way of replying, by the definitions set out before or other better ones, is approved as more instructive. Nor does this opinion, sensibly understood, corrupt morals or virtues. For it is not opposed to freedom of choice or to merit, as the corollaries of the first and second of this book show; nay, this opinion protects, fortifies and preserves morals and virtues most strongly, because it guards them with the unassailable wall of the divine power and of the aforesaid necessity, as the thirty-fourth of the second book showed. As for the argument that this opinion makes men negligent, it proceeds thus against the twentieth and thirtieth of the second book, against foreknowledge, predestination and grace, and so against the sixth, forty-fourth, thirty-fifth and following of the first book, as against the twenty-seventh of the third. Hence Augustine too, Against Julian the Pelagian 4, 16, recites a similar argument objected to him by him: "You slander," he says, "in saying that I say that nothing of effort ought to be expected from the human will, against that Gospel saying, 'Ask, and you will receive.'" He also, in On the Gift of Perseverance 46, replying in a similar way to similar objections made to him against divine grace and predestination, says thus: "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, according to it, the predestination of the saints; just as we are not deterred from confessing the foreknowledge of God if someone should speak to the people about it in such a way as to say, 'Whether you now live rightly or not rightly, you will afterward be such as God foreknew that you would be 32: good, if he foreknew you good; or evil, if evil.' For if, on hearing this, some are turned into torpor and sloth,

and, prone to shrink from labour and to lust, go after their desires, is what has been said about the foreknowledge of God for that reason to be thought false? 33 Is it not so that if God foreknew that those men would be good, they will be good, in however great wickedness they now dwell? And if he foreknew them evil, they will be evil, in however great goodness they are now kept? There was a certain man in our monastery who, when the brothers rebuked him for doing certain things that should not be done and not doing things that should be done, used to answer: 'Whatever I now am, I shall be such as God foreknew that I would be.' This he said truly indeed, yet this truth did not help him toward the good, but he went so far toward evil that, leaving the community of the monastery, he became a dog returned to his own vomit; and yet what he will be is still uncertain." Whether, however, this opinion, once occasion is taken, will make someone negligent and wicked and finally to perish, I do not know; I fear it, and grieve if it will be so: yet I know that [it will do so to] no one except perhaps a son of perdition, so that the eternal Scripture of the eternal book of God be fulfilled, as the Savior himself said, John 17. ‖C1 And what can I do? For I cannot predestine, nor even reprobate. Yet beyond doubt I am not a better preacher or teacher than my master Christ, or the teacher of the nations, holy Paul, and his other holy Apostles as well: yet their preaching and teaching did not always profit all to salvation, nay, to some it did harm, at least by an occasion taken, not given. Hence, when Christ was preaching and teaching about the sacrament of his blessed body and blood, and on this subject, saying, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him," and "No one can come to me unless it has been given him by my Father," some 34 of his disciples who heard it said, "This saying is hard; who can listen to it?" And from this they went back, John 6. "They went back": namely from the faith, according to Chrysostom, and from life, according to Augustine, as the gloss of Thomas recites 35. The Pharisees also, hearing his preaching, were scandalized, Matt. 15; and in Mark 6 we find that many who heard him were scandalized; and in Luke 4, "They were filled with anger in the synagogue," hearing these words of Christ as he preached. And further on, 6: those same hearers, hearing Christ preach the wisdom of God,

were filled with folly, and talked with one another about what they should do to Jesus. And in John 8 they said to Christ as he taught, "You have a demon." When the Apostle too was disputing with the Athenians, some said, "What does this sower of words wish to say?" But others said, "He seems to be a proclaimer of ‖E1 new gods"; and some, indeed, mocked, Acts 17. To the same Apostle, as he spoke words of truth and sobriety, a certain madman said, "You are mad, Paul; much learning turns you to madness," Acts 26. Some also blazed out so cruelly against Christ and his disciples on account of their preaching and teaching that they put them to an end by a most harsh death. But should the instruments of truth be silenced on account of such causes or occasions? Truly, though before some, according to place and time, yet not before

all, everywhere and always, as Christ, Paul and the other Apostles taught us lucidly by their lucid examples, as was touched on above. Hence Chrysostom too, on that word of John 6 recited above, "From this many of his disciples went back," says: "This perhaps happened for our consolation, when it sometimes befalls that a man says what is true, and what he says is not grasped, and those who hear are scandalized and depart: and the man regrets having said what is true. For the man says to himself, 'I should not have spoken so.' Behold, it befell the Lord; he spoke, and lost many, and he himself is not troubled, because from the beginning he knew who were not believers. If it befalls us, we are troubled; but let us find solace in the Lord, and yet let us speak our words with caution." In agreement with him Augustine, A1 On the Gift of Perseverance, where before, namely 46, after reciting the dangers mentioned, adds: "Surely are the things that are said truly about the foreknowledge of God to be denied, or to be kept silent, on account of such souls? Even in the case of those who for that reason either do not pray or pray coldly, because, the Lord saying so, they have learned that God knows what is necessary for us before we ask it of him: will the truth of this teaching be thought to be abandoned on account of such persons, or to be deleted from the Gospel?" With these and such dangers by no means standing in the way, therefore, the truth is to be taught: and this for two reasons: first, that errors about other necessary matters may be wholesomely avoided; second, that the capable and apt may be usefully instructed. For the first reason Augustine says in On the Gift of Perseverance 46: "Surely are the things that are said truly about the foreknowledge of God to be denied or to be kept silent on account of such souls?" Then, that is, when, if they are not said, people go into other errors; but into what errors, and how great, one goes, with the necessity shown in the twenty-seventh of this book denied, is easy to see. For since that necessity evidently follows from many antecedents set out beforehand, whoever denies it must similarly, logic compelling, deny any antecedent whatever; he must therefore deny God's pre-action, co-action, help, grace, predestination, foreknowledge, efficient causation, conservation, and the rest of that kind; nay, finally, that God exists, and say most foolishly with the fool, "There is no God." For this first reason too, and the second together, Augustine in On the Gift of Perseverance 47: "Let what is true be said," he says, "above all where another question impels it to be said, and let those who can grasp it grasp it; lest perhaps, when it is kept silent on account of those who cannot grasp it, not only are they cheated of the truth, but even those who can grasp the truth by which falsehood may be avoided are caught in falsehood. For it is easy, indeed useful, that the truth be sometimes kept silent on account of the incapable. But the reason for keeping silent about the truth is one thing, the necessity of saying the truth is another. To seek out or list all the causes of keeping silent would take long; of which, however, this is also one: that we not make worse those who do not understand, while we wish to make more learned those who do understand, who, if we keep silent about something of this kind, do not indeed become more learned, but do not become worse either. But when the true matter stands so that, if we say it, the one who cannot grasp it becomes worse, and if we keep silent, the one who can grasp it, what do we think should be done? Is not the truth rather to be said, so that he who can grasp it may grasp it, than kept silent, so that not only do both fail to grasp it, but even

he who is the more intelligent is himself the worse off, who, if he heard, would grasp it? Through him, too, many more would learn: for the more capable someone is of learning, the more suited he is to teach others. Do we fear that, when we speak, someone who cannot grasp the truth will take offense, and not fear that, when we are silent, someone who can grasp the truth will be captured by falsehood? And if anyone should still press and object that many ought not to be disturbed on account of the teaching of a few, that few if any accept this teaching while far more reject it in confusion, and also that the Church stood very well in past ages without this novel teaching that disturbs so many people, let him consider, I ask, the Philosopher in Politics 3, 5 36, who says, D1 "That one man, or a few, should differ in virtue does happen; but that the many should reach the summit of every virtue is difficult." Let him attend besides, I beg, to what similar objection could have been raised against the Master and our Lord Christ, against Paul and his other disciples, our holy Doctors. For when Christ was teaching about the Sacrament of the blessed Eucharist, and about the necessity and impossibility which we have in hand, namely in the acts of human beings with respect to higher causes, saying, "The true bread is the one that came down from heaven," etc., and "All that the Father gives me will come to me, and no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him," etc., many who were foolish of heart were disturbed, so much that they murmured and quarreled with one another and said, "This saying is hard; who can listen to it?" And in the end they went away ‖E1 back; but few, namely his twelve disciples, remained, John 6. Hence also he himself testifies, "Many are called, but few are chosen," Matt. 22. Therefore he also warns us to enter by the narrow gate, "because the gate is wide and the way spacious that leads to perdition, and many are those who enter by it, whereas the gate is narrow and the way strait that leads to life, and few are those who find it," Matt. 7.

Likewise, when Paul was preaching to the Athenians, many were disturbed and mocked his new teaching; but few, namely Dionysius the Areopagite and Damaris with a few others, believed, Acts 17. In the city of the Ephesians also, as is told in Acts 18 37, a great disturbance arose on account of his sound teaching, so that the city was filled with confusion and they rushed with one mind into the theater, and when silence was asked so that an account might be given, there arose one voice of all, crying out for about two hours, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians." A like disturbance, commotion, rushing together of the people, acclamation, and shouting arose in the city of Jerusalem on account of the same teaching, as is clear from Acts 21 and the following chapters, so much that he was almost in danger; he was accused before judges and was forced to appeal to Caesar. Of the other Apostles also and the rest of God's saints you will find, only too often, that at their preaching and teaching many were scandalized and gravely disturbed, and few were wholesomely instructed; yet this did not in the least hold them back from preaching the gospel to all in common, for the reason given in the thirty-ninth part of the first book. Nor did it diminish their merit; hence that most excellent Preacher and Doctor says, in the person of all Preachers and Doctors: "We are the good odor of Christ to God, among those who are saved and among those who perish; to some an odor of death unto death, to others an odor of life unto life," 2 Cor. 2.

How, moreover, will the Church and the Catholic truth stand well without ‖B1 making the distinctions this problem requires, when believers and unbelievers, grammarians, logicians, mathematicians, natural philosophers, moralists, divines, theologians, old and young, men and women, learned and unlettered, and universally each and every one, learned and unlearned alike, tear at it every day, chew it, ruminate on it, and gnaw it? Above all when, from lack of knowledge of the solution of this problem, people fall into very many and very great errors, as was shown above, as the erroneous opinions about this problem, recited above in many chapters of this third book, also plainly demonstrate. B2 Hence Ammonius, on the end of the first book of Peri hermeneias, says: "This theorem is necessary for all parts of Philosophy: for moral philosophy entirely, and indeed for natural science and for the method of logic; and you will find the theorem extended to first philosophy as well. For the theologian too will inquire in what manner things are governed which in the world come about, before all else, by necessity and determinately, just as in perpetual things; whether there are any things that happen contingently; and you will find no men, even of altogether unlearned disposition, neglectful of meditation on this theorem." And further on: C1 "That theorem has great power for our whole life." Blessed Augustine also, in On the Gift of Perseverance 59, recites a similar objection raised against him from a similar cause. "They say," he says, "that there was no need of a disputation of this kind on an uncertain matter 38, for the hearts of so many people of less understanding to be disturbed, since the Catholic faith has been defended no less usefully, for so many years, without this definition of predestination." I also suppose, plausibly, that many accept this teaching and few reject it; and to use the words of Avicenna, Metaphysics 10, 1, recited in the twenty-ninth part of the first book: "The common crowd comes nearer and holds it, and says, 'It is true,' nor do any shun it except those who wish to seem philosophers."

Moreover, this teaching is not novel in substance but ancient, as the twenty-seventh part of this book shows through the ancient Authors; and even if it had some novelty as to a clearer and fuller manner of saying, it ought not reasonably to be censured. For Christ is not reasonably censured but praised because after the Old Testament he brought in the New, although men lived very well under the Old Testament; nor is the learned scribe censured, but praised by the Lord, who brings forth from his treasure new things and old, Matt. 13. D1 So Jerome, in the letter to Sophronius, which stands in place of a prologue prefixed to Jerome's Psalter, writes thus about those who disparaged his new translation after the old: "Most perverse men! For since they are always craving new desires, and the seas near their gullet do not suffice them, why in the study of the Scriptures alone are they content with the old flavor?" 39 Hence also the Philosopher, Metaphysics 1, last chapter, after he had corrected the opinions of the ancients about causes, D2 says thus: "These causes have all been stated before only faintly and in a certain way, but in another way not at all." For the earliest philosophy seemed to babble about everything, being as it were new and near its beginning; and he says also, in Ethics 1, 11: "It will seem to belong to everyone to carry forward and to set out part by part what has been well outlined 40, and time is a good discoverer or co-worker in such things; hence the advances in the arts have also come about: for it belongs to everyone to add what is lacking." Averroes also, on De caelo 4, comment 11: "The discourse," E1 he says, "of the later man ought to be sharper and more correct." Hence Boethius also, in book 1 of On the Discipline of Scholars, dealing with the excellence of the Mastership, says: "It is the mark of a most wretched intellect always to use what has been found and never what is yet to be found; more foolish than to trust wholly in the speeches of the Mastership" 41. For this reason the Philosopher also, Politics 1, 9 42, shows that it is more expedient for a city to be ruled by the best man than by the best laws; where he also says, "In any art, to rule by the letter is wretched": it is therefore manifest that the best polity is not one according to letters and laws:

in agreement with which Varro also says in his Sentences 43: "Choose as teacher the man who has learned more in his own matters than in those of others; he will teach nothing grand who has learned nothing from himself; and falsely are they called Masters who are reporters of what they have heard, as though they were to be listened to like someone who has gone over rumors." Hence also Vitruvius, in his book On Architecture, book seven 44, reports at notable length that King Ptolemy gathered a splendid library at Alexandria, dedicating games to the Muses and Apollo; and as for athletes, so for the victors in writings and in poetry he established fixed prizes, appointing six judges, to whom he added a seventh, namely Aristophanes, who was to read all the books in order. One day an assembly gathered for the public contest of the Poets, and the people signified whom it most approved; and when the verdict of the judges was called for, those six judges decreed the victory to the one who pleased the people; but Aristophanes alone judged that he had won who least pleased the people, and the king and the whole people were stirred. When at length Aristophanes had obtained silence, he declared that this one alone was a poet, because what he said he had invented by his own study, while the others had plundered other men's poems; and when the royal book-cases had been searched, the books inspected, and a comparison made, he convicted them of being thieves, and the king ordered that they be prosecuted for theft.

For this reason also Jesus son of Sirach is praised, because after the law and the Prophets, and the very great wisdom of Solomon, he renewed wisdom out of his own heart, Ecclesiasticus [Sirach] 50. Hence also above, at 24, Wisdom herself says: "Those who eat me will still hunger, and those who drink me will still thirst, and those who make me clear will have eternal life." Therefore the Angel also said these things to Daniel, the man of desires, who set his heart on understanding to the point of afflicting himself: "Those who are learned will shine like the splendor of the firmament, and those who instruct many unto justice, like stars to perpetual eternities. But you, Daniel, close the words and seal the book until the appointed time; many will pass over, and knowledge will be manifold." And further on: "I, Daniel," he says, "heard, and did not understand, and I said, 'My lord, what will be after these things?' and he said," namely the Angel, "'Go, Daniel, because the words are closed up and sealed until the appointed time. Many will be chosen and made white, and tried as by fire, and the wicked will act wickedly, and none of the wicked will understand, but the learned will understand.'" Hence Gregory, in the second book on Ezekiel, homily four: "It must be known," C1 he says, "that by the increase of the times the knowledge of the spiritual Fathers has grown. For Moses was taught more than Abraham, the prophets more than Moses, the Apostles more than the Prophets, in the knowledge of almighty God. I am mistaken if this very scripture does not say it: 'Many,' it says, 'will pass over, and knowledge will be manifold.'" And he proves this lucidly in what follows, concluding at last thus: "Let the measure of the reed, which is six cubits and a palm, be extended to ten cubits, and let the measure of ten cubits rise at last to thirteen, because as the world is drawn toward its end, so much the more widely is the entrance to eternal knowledge opened to us."

Furthermore, just as for one and the same man in his more tender age food and teaching that are easier and weaker, rather than more solid, are fittingly supplied, so also for the whole Church. For at the origin of its birth it had to be steeped in the milk of an easy, lucid, and sweet teaching; but now, after it has grown up in the course of time and been firmly strengthened, it is to be nourished with solid foods, especially those who have a sound taste, powerful teeth, and a strong stomach of the heart. D1 Hence the Apostle, in 1 Corinthians 3: "I, brothers, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to carnal, as to little ones in Christ; I gave you milk to drink, not food: for you were not yet able, but not even now are you able." And in Hebrews 5: "You are such as need milk, not solid food. For everyone who partakes of milk is without experience of the word of justice, for he is a little one; but solid food is the more perfect, and belongs to those who, by habit, have their senses exercised for discernment" 45. And in 1 Corinthians 2: "We speak wisdom among the perfect." Nevertheless, on account of this opinion, people ought not to be negligent as to the good, because just as God foreknew for man the end, namely eternal life, so also he foreknew the way and the means to this end, as was shown above in answering the argument of the Philosopher in Peri hermeneias 1, last chapter.

Therefore Daniel also, full of the spirit of God, surely understanding that the term of the seventy years of desolation was imminent, and the beginning of consolation for the captive people of Israel, foretold and promised through Jeremiah 29 by God, who cannot lie, did not on that account set his face the less diligently to the Lord his God, to ask and beseech in fasting and sackcloth and ashes that he would do what he had promised, as the history in Dan. 9 shows. On which Jerome says: "Jeremiah had foretold seventy years of desolation of the temple, E1 after which the people would return again to Judea, and the temple would be built there, and Jerusalem; which thing does not make Daniel negligent, but rather provokes him to ask, so that what God promised through his mercy, he might fulfil through this man's prayers." In agreement with him Gregory also, in homily 32, E2 on the Gospels, writes thus: "There was a certain very religious matron, who frequently came to the church of these martyrs, namely Processus and Martinian; and one day, when she had come to pray as was her custom, going out she found two monks standing in pilgrim's dress; she believed them pilgrims and ordered something of alms to be given them, but before her almoner 46 had approached to give them the alms, they stood nearer to her and said, 'You visit us now; we will seek you on the day of judgment, and whatever we can, we will bestow on you.' When this was said, they were taken from her sight; she, terrified, returned to prayer, and poured herself out in tears more profusely, and after this she became as much more earnest in prayer as she was more certain of the promise."

Nor is it true that, whatever men do or do not do, all things will come about neither less nor more: first, as regards the deeds or works themselves; second, as regards the ends of the works. For not only the ends or terms, such as dwellings in heaven, are predestined by God, but also the way and the ordered means, as was shown above in answering a similar argument of the Philosopher in Peri hermeneias 1, last chapter, and as the forty-fifth part of the first book also clearly teaches. Yet it is true that no one will ever do or omit anything by reason of which something future will not come about, or will come about in another way and not in precisely that way in which it will come about, nor by reason of which something not future will come about: for this involves a contradiction, as the eighteenth part of this book also shows. Hence all things that will come about, and in whatever ways they will come about, will come about in such an ordered sequence 47 as if they were to come about wholly of necessity.

As for what some argue in consequence, that they can freely prevent many future things: either they mean that they can do this from themselves alone, without God's co-acting or pre-acting 48, and then they are Pelagian heretics, as the twentieth and thirtieth parts of the second book demonstrate; or they mean that they can do it with God co-acting and pre-acting with them, and then it is not only possible but also necessary, by the necessity of higher causes, as the twenty-seventh part of this book shows. Hence, of any free impediment, whether future or not future, the necessity is similar, as it is of any free effect, future or not future: for every such future impediment is some such future effect. Again, either they mean that with God co-acting or pre-acting they can prevent something future, which is A, although the divine will stands toward A's being future, as the fourteenth part of the first book teaches, which is heretical and blasphemous, as the tenth part of the first book shows; or they mean that they can change or turn away the divine will from A, or make it not will A to be, which is likewise erroneous and against the twentieth part of the first book, the thirtieth of the second, and the eighth of this one; or that, with God acting and pre-acting, and from himself alone, not from any human act whatever, he not willing but unwilling that A be, they can prevent A's being, and so they do not press their point 49: for so it is not merely possible but necessary, in the manner stated. So too what they say they can do is rather to say that God can do it through them, as an omnipotent craftsman, through instruments that of necessity serve him; though how a second cause, such as man, can prevent an effect of the divine will might be disputed more fully. And as for what they argue about the child, they truly seem to speak as children, and to think as children 50. For how do they understand that they can kill the child, either by themselves or with the Lord, etc., as before? A similar necessity or impossibility is to be posited in the killing of the child as in any other free effects whatever. The argument about the child can likewise be made about the adult.

These men also seem to suppose that the salvation or damnation of man, the most dignified of creatures, depends on the chance movements of men, demons, or wild beasts, and almost on the casual fall of dice. They must therefore suppose the same, as a consequence, of predestination and reprobation, and of the persons and number of the citizens of heaven. The twenty-seventh of the first, with the chapters that follow it, 45 and 46, does not allow this, and the authorities of Augustine condemn it too: On the Good of Perseverance 35 and On Rebuke and Grace 27, cited in the thirty-first of the first, and On Grace and Free Choice 50, with many others cited in the thirty-ninth of the first. As for the argument from the experience of freedom, it does not give certainty in every respect. As Hippocrates says in the first of the Aphorisms, D1 51 "Experience is deceptive, judgment difficult." For beasts, madmen, fools and children seem to experience a similar freedom; yet they do not have freedom in every respect, because they lack freedom of contradiction. They are also not free from necessity with respect to superior causes, nor even with respect to inferior ones, as is clear from the eleventh of this book. Neither Augustine nor anyone else experiences himself as having a freedom exempt from subjection to God, but only a will free from unwilling coercion.

Moreover, what they next object is the argument of the Manichaeans against that saying of Christ our Master, "No one can come to me E1 unless the Father who sent me draws him," John 6. Chrysostom says there: "Here the Manichaeans leap in, saying: Then nothing is placed in our power." The same can be objected, likewise, from the twentieth and thirtieth of the second; but the ninth of this book ‖E2 answers it fully. What they also urge, that God would be the author of evil, can likewise be urged from the twentieth and thirtieth of the second; but here the thirty-fourth of the first answers it. What they also say, "I do not want as my God one who impels me to evil," can likewise be said against ‖E3 the twenty-sixth and thirtieth of the second. To them I say in turn: I do not want as our God one who is not omnipotent in acting, who does not hold a most omnipotent dominion over my weak will, who could not most omnipotently make me will and do whatever he wished, who does not

have a will universally efficacious, unfrustrable, indefectible, and necessary in causing; indeed, one whose will would not be a necessity for me, according to the sensible view written down in the twenty-seventh of this book. Nay more, with a steady and free voice I say: I do not want as my God one whose most blessed will I, a wretched sinner, can very easily thrust down from the ‖A1 citadel of his most worthy freedom, subject to the necessary yoke of the opposite servitude, and hold fast once subjected, beyond release. I do not want one whose most holy will I, a sinner, can overpower very easily, like a weak little woman, and compel to the horrible act of sin; indeed one whom I can compel, more than any little woman whatever, 52 to consent to the most foul and vile act of sin. Acting with confidence against him still, I say: I do not want as my God one whom I, a sinner, impel to will evil of necessity, or even to permit it; whom I, a wretched sinner, necessitate in my turn, as malice may please, to will or to permit evil, and who is so wretchedly subject to the servitude of so wretched a sinner.

For the adversary admits that as long as my evil act is future, so long God is most free, with the fullest freedom of contradiction, to will and permit it or not. But when it comes about from me in time and in the present, then for the first time it is necessary that the Lord will and permit that act, by a necessity opposed to his prior, eternal freedom. 53 Against such a God likewise I say further: I do not want as my God one who makes, preserves, or voluntarily permits in the whole universe of creatures any thing that is evil simply and not good. Hence the twenty-sixth of the first shows that no thing is evil simply, but that every thing is good. Therefore I say still: I do not want as my God, that is, as the highest good, one from whom, according to the statement of James, not every other good descends. Why, I ask again, do you wish to have as your God one who does not impel you to every good, at least that which is necessarily owed, and does not repel you from every evil, when he could do this most easily, as easily as he permits the opposite, and without any inconvenience or

labor of his own, and to your greatest advantage and worth? Why, moreover, 54 do you wish to have as your God one who permits so many evils, in your view, in the universe subject to his government; who does not make so many small and lesser goods better; who does not even make the whole universe better, though he could just as easily? And I ask you further: do you then wish to have as your God one who impels you to the good? If not, you profess the Pelagian heresy, as the twenty-first, twenty-third and thirtieth of the second show. If so, then in your view all the good things that will happen will happen of necessity, and so on, as was repressed against the fifteenth opinion in the twenty-second of this book.

Yet without doubt God impels no unwilling person by violence, but impels and draws all willing persons spontaneously to any of his free acts. Furthermore, on this and all similar objections concerning sin and the necessitation of sinning, or to sinning, it may perhaps be said otherwise, more subtly and more probably, that God in a manner necessitates to the act of sin as to the substance of the act itself. It does not follow, however, that he himself necessitates to sin, or to the deformity of sin, in so far as it is sin or the deformity of sin. For God, being omnipotent, could, as appears, separate the substance of the act itself, and any positive thing, from the deformity of sin, and could produce and preserve such an effect of his, really positive and good, without such defect and privative malice. This holds especially since sin, deformity, malice, or defect is not essentially the act itself *D1, nor necessarily consequent on the substance of the act itself, as appears from the twenty-sixth of the first. When God, who is good, rightly acts, pre-acts, and in a manner necessitates to such an act, good in substance and nature, malice or sin by no means follows of necessity. Whence then does it follow, if not from the free will of a deficient creature sinning spontaneously ‖D2 and voluntarily? But if I think otherwise in anything, 55 may God deign to reveal this to me too and make me soberly wise; and if in failing I should chance to sin, may he lead me back to the rule of justice.

As for the argument that difficulty and ignorance in no way excuse sin, since neither does impossibility of avoiding it, the same can be argued of merit of any kind. Yet these do excuse sin in some respect,

because they in some way remove or diminish free choice, since they either cloud cognition or weaken execution. But this impossibility of avoiding, or necessity of doing, neither diminishes nor impairs either, as the corollaries of the first, second and tenth of this book teach. As for the argument that there was not a greater possibility of avoiding sin before the fall than after, the same can be argued of avoiding merit, or of making a merit that is possible but not future. Nor does the causal reason proceed. For how does it follow: "Man cannot do A except by absolute power, nor can he do B except by absolute power; therefore he cannot do A more than B, nor the converse"? Nor does it follow, arguing likewise: "No creature can do anything except by the power of God, as the second of the first and the chapters after it have proved; therefore no creature can do one thing more than another, more easily than with more difficulty; nor can one creature, however much stronger and more powerful, do anything more than another, however much weaker and more impotent." Nor does it follow with regard to ordained power: "No creature can do anything future except by God's ordained power, as the corollary of the ninth of the first showed;

therefore no creature can do one future thing more than another, more easily than with more difficulty; nor can one creature, say a more powerful one, do more than another, however impotent." Third, again, it does not follow with regard to natural power. For it does not follow that, because no natural thing can operate naturally except through natural power, therefore no natural thing can operate naturally more in one way than in another. So before the fall, when man was wholly sound in natural gifts and very powerful in gratuitous gifts, he could do more than after he fell among robbers and into the latrine of sin, 56 where he is wounded in natural gifts and despoiled of gratuitous gifts, and so is made powerless and weak. He also has now a most powerful enemy, whom he did not have then: the corrupted body, which weighs down the soul, and the concupiscence of the flesh, which fights against the spirit. Two pestilential companions attend this enemy: excessive ignorance in discerning, and very great difficulty in carrying out. And this is the reasoning and cause of the Doctors who had been cited to the contrary: Peter (Lombard), Sentences 2, dist. 25; Hugh (of St Victor), On the Sacraments, book 1, part 6, ch. 16; Bernard, On Grace and Free Choice 12,

as their writings clearly attest. How and why natural and fatal necessity opposes merit, and this other necessity does not, the eleventh of this book teaches. As for the argument that there is no greater freedom in man than in the brute, the eleventh of this book resolves it. In man there is necessity with respect to God alone; in brutes, with respect to him and also with respect to inferior causes, or natural causes. Nor does his causal reason proceed. For it does not follow that if man cannot do the opposite 57 except by absolute power, nor can the brute, therefore man has no more freedom than the brute, as was shown above. Nor does this view render man impeccable, as the thirty-fourth of the first shows. As for the inference that there is no greater freedom in the wayfarer than in the comprehensor, who would presume to deny it? 58 For there is greater freedom in God, in the holy confirmed Angels, and in any comprehensor than in any wayfarer, as Catholics are not unaware. The authority of Augustine, Enchiridion 86, set out in the first of this book, bears witness to this, and Hugh and Peter show it too, where they were cited a little above. Nor is the causal reason

effective, as was shown above. For the wayfarer has manifold weakness, ignorance, difficulty, the flesh, the world and the devil as tempters, and not the abundance of confirming grace. The Angel has none of these evils, but the opposite goods in full, with most abundant grace confirming him in beatitude; and this is the reason for confirmation in the good, as the fifteenth of the second shows. Yet in one way the wayfarer has freedom of choice which God and the comprehensor do not have: namely, to obey the divine commands or not, to sin or not. As for what is consequently inferred from this, that the wayfarer cannot merit more than a confirmed Angel, it seems according to the view of Peter, Sentences 2, dist. 5 and 11, set out in the first of this book, that this can be conceded. But the same can be argued of the Angels who are to be fully and perfectly blessed after the final judgment; so one must answer otherwise: that no one can merit any good from God de condigno, that is, by necessity of right and inflexible rigor, but whatever good we merit from him, all of it proceeds and depends on his most freely given grace 59 and

gratuitous will, as the thirty-ninth of the first demonstrated more clearly. God can therefore, without injury to right and without prejudice to anyone, fix for Angel and man a certain term for meriting, and accept their works as meritorious up to that point, but beyond it as rewarding and consummating the preceding merits. Necessity alone in Angels fully consummated does not seem to oppose merit, as the corollaries of the first, second and tenth of this book teach; only consummated perfection does. For those who merit are on the way and in motion toward the term, but those who comprehend, and are fully consummated, are in the final term. Nor does it follow that a man who is a wayfarer is finally confirmed. For someone is not said to be finally confirmed because he necessarily follows the divine will, but for another reason, assigned ‖D1 above. But the quibble that barks back next, as a consequence, is in Logic, in Philosophy and in Theology heretical and condemned, as is clear from the forty-third of the first. Again, according to that senseless view, God could will something to be or to be going to be, and it would not be nor be going to be;

he could will something to be or to be going to be such and such, namely predestined and good, and it would not be such, nor be going to be; he could also will something not to be or not to be going to be, simply or as such, and against his will it would be or would be going to be, simply or as such. And so God, supremely blessed and omnipotent, would be rendered wretched and impotent, as the tenth of the first teaches. Further, *E1 according to that vain and false madness, God could know himself without loving himself: for in a way knowing seems prior to loving. And the heavenly Father could exist without his Son, since in a way he is prior to him, as was shown in the thirtieth of the second. Two further arguments seem to put forward a blasphemous exemption from the subjection and servitude owed to the Lord our God; yet these are answered more fully through the fifth and ninth of this book;

‖A1 answered. These same arguments also seem, with the Pelagians, to suppose that a created will can act without God properly co-acting, or at least without him naturally preceding; the twentieth of the second, with the thirtieth, rejected this. There is no doubt that it is far more perfect, indeed infinitely more perfect, that when God wills to do something through some creature, every knee should necessarily bow to him, than that he could be resisted by anyone in this way. For in this way, and not otherwise, he is omnipotent and infinitely perfect, as is more fully clear from the first of this book. As for what is argued from omission, it does not tell against the twenty-seventh of this book any more than against the twentieth or thirtieth, or the thirty-second of the second, and it does not proceed more from omission than from commission. The authority of Augustine too has been glossed above; nor does that authority of Augustine intend to destroy another authority of his, on Deuteronomy 20, or the sacred text there, which were cited in the thirty-third of the second. The arguments about permission, volition and love of sin proceed against the twentieth

of the second just as they do against the twenty-seventh of the third, and they are fully resolved by the thirty-third and thirty-fourth of the first. The authorities from Genesis and Ecclesiasticus go the same way, against the twentieth and thirtieth of the second as against the twenty-seventh of the third, and these are expounded more clearly in the twenty-eighth of the second. The authority of the Apostle denies a necessity adverse to free power, as his words show, which is also clear from the tenth of this book. He seems also to speak there of the necessity of law or right, which has its origin in a vow or some other contract, and of the opposing power. As to what is argued about antecedent necessity, one must answer by the distinction about antecedent necessity set out in the twenty-eighth of this book. Or otherwise: when Anselm denies preceding necessity from effects that are freely and contingently future, he intends to deny it from their first cause, namely the divine will, according to the eleventh and twelfth truths of the fifth of this book; and his own words plainly indicate this. For he says:

"Know that all things have been from necessity, because he himself willed it, but no necessity preceded his will." In such effects he also affirms a consequent necessity, because according to him they come about from a cause, namely the divine will, which is necessary, with consequent necessity, as is clear in the next chapter. The reason for this transferred denomination from the cause to the effects can be had from what was set out in the twenty-sixth of the second, and it involves no contradiction that the same effect, with respect to the same cause, should be thus necessary by consequent necessity and also by antecedent necessity, as is self-evident, and as the demonstration of the sixth part of the fifth of this book taught plainly. The authorities of Anselm and Boethius, who say that the things of free choice, before they come about, in man, through free will, and in time, can be changed and not come about at all, plainly mean this with respect to inferior causes, because according to them with respect to superior causes they are necessarily going to come about. Their opinion and words indicate this plainly, as the twenty-eighth of this book shows. They mean to say, therefore, that as far as concerns the nature and causality of

inferior causes, that is, of free choice, or of the whole man, or of any other temporal things, there is no necessity with respect to future contingents, but contingency and possibility to either side. But in God, who is eternal, and who has over all times and all temporal things a determinate, present, immutable and unfrustrable will with respect to all things future, there is a necessity of all future things, as the preceding chapter showed more fully. The authority of Anselm, On Concord 2, speaks of a necessity contrary to freedom and unwilling, as the word that follows plainly indicates: for he adds immediately that if he did not will spontaneously, he would not act. Robert of Lincoln (Grosseteste) denies that Peter the predestined is saved necessarily, by a necessity repugnant to contingency; but another necessity, namely one friendly to contingency, he nowhere denies, but plainly concedes. For he concedes that it is necessary that Peter be saved, not necessarily but contingently; so he must also concede, as a consequence, that it is necessary that Peter be saved contingently. How he denies antecedent necessity is clear from the preceding chapter. Bernard denies of free choice an unwilling necessity, contrary to it, but not a concordant one;

whence in chapter 3 he says: "Consent is a voluntary disposition, free of itself, since it is not compelled, not extorted; for that belongs to will, not to necessity. It neither refuses itself nor offers itself to anyone except from will; otherwise, if it can be compelled, it is unwilling, forced, not voluntary. For without will there is no consent either: 60 for there is no consent unless it is voluntary. Where there is consent, therefore, there is will; and where there is will, there is freedom, and this, I think, is what is called free choice." And below, in 4: "All things that are a man's, except the will alone, are not free: life, sense, appetite, memory, intellect, and whatever such things there are, by that very fact lie under necessity, in that they are not plainly subject to will. But the will itself, since it is impossible for it not to obey itself (for no one either does not will what he wills, or wills what he does not will), it is also impossible for it to be deprived of its own freedom. The will can indeed be changed, but only into another will, so that it never loses freedom; therefore it can no more be deprived of that than of itself. If a man could ever will nothing at all, or will something and not by will, the will

could also lack freedom. The will alone, then, since by reason of its inborn freedom it is compelled by no force and no necessity either to dissent from itself or to consent in anything beyond itself, constitutes, in respect of merit, 61 the creature just or unjust, worthy of blessedness or misery and capable of it, according as it has consented to justice or to injustice." The same writer, in 5, giving the reason of the saying cited above, says: "For how is it that the consent of the human will, turned to the good through grace, has made a man freely good, and free in the good, in that he becomes willing and is not dragged in unwilling? So, having fallen of his own accord into evil, he constitutes him in evil no less free than spontaneous, led by his own will, not compelled from elsewhere to be evil. And as the heavenly Angel, or even God himself, remains freely good, namely by will and not by any extrinsic necessity, so too the devil both fell into evil and persists in it equally freely, by his own voluntary inclination and not by an alien impulse. The freedom of will remains, therefore, 62 even where there is captivity of the mind, as full in evils as in goods." Whence in 6 he concludes one definition

of free choice thus: "It is from this freedom alone, then, by which the will is free to show itself good if it has consented to good, or evil if to evil (since it senses itself to consent to neither except by willing), that we believe free choice is named." The same writer, in the eighteenth, denies that there is a necessity of not sinning from God, and, denying a similar necessity (that is, an unwilling one) to Angels and men, he attributes to them the opposite freedom. But the other necessity, according to superior causes, spoken of beforehand in the twenty-seventh of this book, he nowhere denies, but rather affirms. Whence he says: "Moreover neither God lacks free choice, nor the Devil. For that the former cannot be evil is not a weak necessity but a firm will in the good, and a voluntary firmness; and that the latter ‖B1 cannot breathe again toward the good is made not by an alien, violent oppression, but by his own will obstinate in evil, and a voluntary obstinacy. And so free choice is now called free rather for this reason, that it makes the will equally free, whether in good or in evil, since no one should be called good, nor likewise evil, nor can be, except by willing."

By this reasoning, then, it will be said not unfittingly that the creature stands equally toward good and toward evil, in that in both directions it has an equal share, not indeed in ease of choosing, but in freedom of will. With this prerogative of divine dignity, as has been said, the Creator distinguished the rational creature uniquely. As He was His own master and it was of His own will, not of necessity, that He was good, so that creature too would in some measure be its own master in this matter. It would become evil by its own will alone, and be justly damned; or it would remain good, and be rightly saved. This is not because its own will could suffice for salvation, but because it would in no way attain salvation without its own will ‖C1 63. For no one is saved against his will. What is read in the Gospel, "No one comes to me unless my Father has drawn him," and in another place, "Compel them to enter," is no hindrance. However many the kindly Father seems to draw or compel toward salvation, He who wills all to be saved still judges no one worthy of salvation whom He has not proved willing. This is what He intends when He frightens or strikes in order to make people willing and not to save them against their will. In changing a person from evil, He transfers the will to the good; He does not take away its freedom.

Yet on the surface of the letter it seems open to cavil that he says freedom from necessity belongs equally to God and to the creature 64. Every power and perfection that belongs to both seems to belong infinitely more to God, since every creature is finite in every way, while He is infinite in every way, as the first supposition proves. As for the objection that all the Authors deny necessity of free acts, it can, I think, be sufficiently answered by the premises laid down in the twenty-ninth and the twenty-eighth and the tenth of this book 65. The Oxford article, condemned by Robert of Canterbury 66, does not oppose the aforesaid necessity. For from this necessity it does not follow that every true proposition about the future is necessary; on the contrary, its opposite is manifest. For if this proposition, "Antichrist will be born," is true and necessary with a necessity of this kind, it follows necessarily that he will at some time be born, and that afterwards it will be false forever. To understand this article more fully, one must know that some at Oxford held that no proposition about the future in contingent matter is either true or false, as can be gathered from the seventeenth of this book. From this it follows necessarily that every true proposition about the future is necessary, that is, necessarily fulfilled, such as "The sun will rise," "There will be an eclipse," and the like. So it was justly condemned. Moreover, it can be said that the article speaks of absolute and contrary necessity, not of necessity consonant with freedom, as the tenth of this book distinguishes. The Paris article, however, speaks of necessity that is not in respect of higher causes but only of lower ones, namely the heavenly bodies and natural causes, that is, of the necessity of nature or of stellar fate. For some at Paris held that the human will is subject to the necessity of the stars, that it is merely passive, and that it wills necessarily, with

all the required lower causes posited, as is clear from the thirtieth of the second and from the sixth and tenth of this book. The words of the article, duly weighed, show this same thing plainly. For the article condemns the proposition that nothing happens by chance, so that its opposite is affirmed. But in respect of God and the higher causes nothing at all happens by chance, only in respect of lower causes, by the twenty-ninth of the first. For this reason the same Stephen of Paris 67 also condemned the article asserting A1 that some things can happen by chance in respect of the first cause, and that it is false that all things are preordained by the first cause. The article, then, denies necessity in respect of those causes in respect of which it affirms chance, and that is only in respect of lower causes. The textual passage which the article cites in its own support 68 shows this plainly. For it says that a concurrence of causes belongs to the definition of the chance event, in the book On Consolation, and it is book 5, prose 1. There Boethius says A2: "It is clear that chance is defined as an unexpected event arising from converging causes, in things that are done for the sake of something else." He understood this of lower causes, not higher ones, as his words before and after it show, as is shown more fully in the twenty-ninth of the first. Those words also fortify and confirm the aforesaid necessity. For right after the definition of chance just given he adds: "That causes concur and converge is brought about by that order which proceeds by inevitable connection, and which, descending from the fountain of providence, disposes all things in their times and places." That the article speaks of necessity in respect of lower causes, namely the necessity of nature or of stellar fate, can also be seen from other articles joined with it in condemnation. For along with it another article is condemned which asserts that necessities of events are acquired from the diversity of places. Again, another is condemned which maintains that from the different signs of the heaven are signified different conditions in men, as to spiritual goods as well as temporal things. Again, another, which said that at the hour of a man's generation there is present in him, in his body and consequently in the soul (because the soul follows the body), by the order of higher causes, namely the heavenly bodies, and of lower ones, a disposition inclining him to such actions and events. This is an error unless it is understood of natural events and by way of disposition. Furthermore, another is condemned, which held that fate, which is the disposition of the universe, proceeds from divine providence not immediately but through the motion of the higher bodies, and that this fate imposes necessity not on lower things, because they have contrariety, but on higher ones; and many other similar articles are condemned there. Now the condemnation of this last article saves the aforesaid necessity. For here it is condemned that fate, proceeding from divine providence, does not impose necessity on lower things; therefore its opposite is affirmed, namely that it does impose necessity on lower things governed under divine providence. All our free acts are of this kind, as the thirty-first of the first shows. For this reason the same Stephen of Paris also condemned the article asserting that human acts are not ruled by divine providence. Nor is it likely that this Stephen, in condemning the article just mentioned, reconciled 69 another which he himself had earlier condemned, which held that for effects to be necessary in respect of the first cause it is not sufficient that the first cause itself be unimpedible,

as the twenty-seventh of this book recounted more fully. Nor does the condemnation of another Paris article *D1, and of Peter Abelard's, oppose the necessity spoken of in the twenty-seventh of this book. The twenty-seventh affirms only necessity in future things in respect of the divine will; it does not affirm whether God could or could not will and do otherwise. As for the argument, on the pattern of the reasoning for the aforesaid necessity, that all things that will happen will happen of necessity in respect of lower causes, it limps incurably in matter and in form. It limps in matter because it supposes that all things that will happen will happen through lower causes, whereas God alone will do many things through Himself; for He alone will create the things that are to be created. As for those things which will happen through lower causes, such as the matters of free choice, it errs in form. For although, in respect of the divine will, which is unfrustrable and immutable and wills determinately and distinctly, whatever is to happen through lower causes must happen through them, as the twenty-seventh of this book teaches, still in respect of the lower causes, such as man and free choice, it is not necessary that what is to happen through them happen through them. For so far as their nature and causality are concerned, there is no necessity in respect of their future free effects, but indetermination, indifference, contingency, and possibility toward either. As for the argument made next, that the opposite of this position is possible, it neither opposes nor attacks it: many things are true which are not necessary, and whose opposites are recognized as possible. But the argument does not prove that the opposite is possible, nor is it true 70. It is not true, because by the third and fourth of the first it is not possible for a creature to act without God properly co-acting, and that through His will, which cannot be frustrated, which acts prior in nature to any second cause, and does not exist in the power of any second cause, or of any or all second causes, as the ninth and tenth of the first, the thirty-second of the second, and the seventh and eighth of the third make manifest. The reasoning, moreover, does not proceed. For when it is argued that God's willing the creature to act freely is different from

God's willing the creature to act necessarily, and that therefore this willing can be separated from the other: how does he speak of freedom? If he speaks of the freedom opposed to the necessity shown in the twenty-seventh of this book, he assumes a falsehood. For God does not will, nor can He will, that a creature act so freely, as was shown above here and there, just as He neither wills nor can will that a creature be so free that it is not subject to God of necessity, or that it can act without Him. This includes a contradiction, as the twenty-second of the second and the twenty-third of the third showed against the seventeenth opinion. Just so He cannot will Himself not to be, or God not to be, or not to beget or breathe forth. Nor can He will that a creature be equal to Himself, simply omnipotent, or that three created things be equal to or fewer than two 71, or that a point or a soul be a body, and infinitely many things like these. But if he speaks of the other freedom, the one opposed to the necessity of nature, of fate, or of violence and consonant with the aforesaid necessity, he does not confront it with a valid refutation, nor does he attack it, as is clear in the tenth of this book. Moreover, when he says "different," if he speaks of an essential and real diversity he assumes a falsehood, because there is not, nor can there be, in God such a diversity of wills. All His wills are one in His essence. If, on the other hand, he speaks of diversity according to reason and the human mode of understanding, his argument does not conclude. For in the same way it could be inferred that God can understand Himself and not love Himself, that He can beget and not breathe forth, that He can make three not to be more than two. For to will that three exist is different from willing that three be more than two. Therefore this willing can be separated from the other, and so on, as the adversary argued above. In the same way it could also be shown that it is possible for God not to be, and for things past not to have been and things present not to be, which he denies. For God's willing Himself freely to be is different from God's willing Himself necessarily to be; therefore, and so on, as the false writer argued 72; and the same is clear of things past and things present. In the same way I shall prove that it is possible for a point or a soul to be a body, and for a simple unity to be any number whatever. For God's willing a point, a soul or a simple unity to be a body, or a number, is different from God's willing these not to be so; therefore, and so on, as the contradictor argues.

But the last subtlety, from ignorance of refutation 73, raves like a blind woman, strays and wanders off. For it does not argue in the same respect, nor toward the same point, or if it argues so, it assumes a falsehood, as is clear from what was said above.