AUGUSTINE
96
AUGUSTINE
foi-ineis of the sixteenth centuiy, but even to-day,
by Protestant critics the most opposed to the cruel
predestinationism of Calvin and Luther, who father
that doctrine on St. Augustine. A technical study
would be out of place here; it will be sufficient to
enunciate the most salient thoughts, to enable the
reader to find his bearings.
(1) It is regarded as incontestable to-day that the system of Augustine was complete in his mind from the year 397 — that is, from the beginning of his episcopate, when he wrote his answers to the "Qu^s- tiones Diversfe" of Simplician. It is to this book that Augustine, in his last years, refers the Semipelagians for the explanation of his real thought. This im- portant fact, to which for a long time no attention was paid, has been recognized by Neander and es- tablished by Gangaut, and also by recent critics, such as Loofs, Reuter, Turmel, Jules Martin (see also Cunningham, St. Austin, 1886, pp. 80 and 175). It will not, therefore, be possible to deny the authority of these texts on the pretext that Augustine in his old age adopted a system more antagonistic to liberty.
(2) The system of Pelagiiis can to-day be better understood than heretofore. Pelagius doubtless de- nied original sin, and the immortality and integrity of Adam; in a word, the whole supernatural order. But the parent idea of his system, which was of stoic origin, was nothing el.se than the complete "emanci- pation" of human liberty with regard to God, and its limitless power for good and for evil. It depended on man to attain by himself, without the grace of God, a stoic impeccability and even insensibility, or the absolute control of his passions. It was scarcely suspected, even up to our time, what frightful rigorism resulted from this exaggeration of the powers of liberty. Since perfection was possible, it was of obligation. There was no longer any distinction be- tween precepts and counsels. Whatever was good was a duty. There was no longer any distinction be- tween mortal and venial sin. Every useless word merited hell, and even excluded from the Church the children of God. All this has been established by hitherto unedited documents which Caspar! has pub- lished (Briefe, Abhandlungen, und Predigten, Chris- tiania, 1890).
(3) The system of St. Augustine in opposition to this rests on three fundamental principles: (a) God is absolute Master, by His grace, of all the determina- tions of the will; (b) man remains free, under the action of grace; (c) the reconciliation of these two truths rests on the manner of the Divine government.
(a) The first principle, viz., that of the absolute sovereignty of God over the will, in opposition to the emancipation of Pelagius, has not always been \m- derstood in its entire significance. We think that numberless texts of the holy Doctor signify that not only does every meritorious act require supernatural grace, but also that every act of virtue, even of infidels, should be ascribed to a gift of God, not in- deed to a supernatural grace (as Baius and the Jansenists pretend), but to a specially efficacious providence which has prepared this good movement of the will (Retractations, I, ix, n. 6). It is not, as theologians very wisely remark, that the will cannot accomplish that act of natural virtue, but it is a fact that without this providential benefit it would not. Many misunderstandings have arisen because this principle has not been comprehended, and in jiarticular the great medieval theology, which adopted it and made it the basis of its system of liberty, has not been justly appreciated. But many have been afraid of these affirmations which are so sweeping, because they have not grasped the nature of God's gift, which leaves freedom intact. The fact has been too much lost sight of that Augustine distinguishes very explicitly two orders of grace: the grace of natural virtues (the simple gift of Providence, which
prepares efficacious motives for the will); and grace
for salutary and supernatural acts, given with the
first preludes of faith. The latter is the grace of thr
sons, gratia filiorum; the former is the grace of all
men, a grace which even strangers and infidels (Jilii
concubinarum, as St. Augustine says) can receive (De
Patientid, xxvii, n. 28).
(b) The second principle, the affirmation of libertj' even under the action of efficacious grace, has always been safeguarded, and there is not one of his anti- Pelagian works even of the latest, which does not. positively proclaim a complete power of choice in man; "not but what it does not depend on the free choice of the will to embrace the faith or reject it, but in the elect this will is prepared by God" (De Priedest. SS., n. 10). The great Doctor did not re- proach the Pelagians with requiring a power to choose between good and evil; in fact he proclaims with them that without that power there is no re- sponsibility, no merit, no demerit; but he reproaches them with exaggerating tais power. Julian of Eclanum, denying the sway of concupiscence, con- ceives free will as a balance in perfect equilibrimn. Augustine protests: this absolute equilibrium existed in Adam; it was destroyed after original sin; the will has to struggle and react against an inclination to evil, but it remains mistress of its choice (Opus imperfectum contra Julianum, III, cxvii). Thus, when he says that we have lost freedom in conse- quence of the sin of Adam, he is careful to explain that this lost freedom is not the liberty of choosing between good and evil, because without it we could not help sinning, but the perfect liberty which was calm and without struggle, and which was enjoyed by Adam in virtue of his original integrity.
But is there not between these two principles an irremediable antinomy? On the one hand, there is affirmed an absolute and unreserved power in God of directing the choice of our will, of converting every hardened sinner, or of letting every created will harden itself; and on the other hand, it is affirmed that the rejection or acceptance of grace or of tempta- tion depends on our free will. Is not this a contra- diction? Very many modern critics, among whom are Loofs and Harnack, have considered these two affirmations as irreconcilable. But it is because, according to them, Augustinian grace is an irresistible impulse given by God, just as in the absence of it every temptation inevitably overcomes the will. But in reality all antinomy disappears if we lune the key of the system; and this key is found in the third principle: the Augustinian explanation of the Divine government of wills, a theory so original, so profound, and yet absolutely unknown to the most perspicacious critics, Harnack, Loofs, and the rest.
Here are the main lines of this theory: The will never decides without a motive, without the attrac- tion of some good which it perceives in the object. Now, although the will may be free in presence of every motive, still, as a matter of fact it takes dif- ferent resolutions according to the different motives presented to it. In that is the whole secret of the influence exercised, for instance, by eloquence (the orator can do no more than present motives), by meditation, or by good reading. What a power over the will would not a man possess who could, at his own pleasure, at any moment, and in the most striking manner, present this or the other motive of action? — But such is God's privilege. St. Au- gustine has remarked that man is not the master of his first thoughts: he can exert an influence on the course of his reflexions, but he himself cannot de- termine the objects, the images, and, consequently, the motives which present themselves to his mind. Now, as chance is only a word, it is God who deter- mines at His pleasure these first perceptions of men.
