Bellarmine · De Controversiis · On Grace and Free Choice · Book IV: Grace and Free Choice in Natural and Civil Works
Chapter 12: Response is made to the objections from the testimonies of St. Augustine
Our translation, from the Latin of the Opera Omnia (Paris: Vivès, 1870–74), vol. VI, De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio, Book IV. The Latin source text is public domain; this English rendering is released with the site. Scripture quotations follow Bellarmine's Vulgate citations, rendered in Douay-Rheims wording where he quotes exactly. Click “Show the Latin” for the original (raw OCR of the scan; scanning errors remain — the scan itself is the authority).
From Augustine Calvin brings forward very many testimonies against free choice; but almost all pertain to the questions on free choice in moral or supernatural actions. There are only three which pertain to this place which we now treat, and they are explained with easy labor from the things we have said above.
The first is in book 6 On Genesis to the Letter, chapter 13 [al. 15], where Augustine speaks thus: “The will of the Creator is the necessity of things.” And chapter 17: “But this is necessarily to be, which God wills; and those things are surely to be, which he has foreknown.”
The second is in the book On Grace and Free Choice, chapter 20 [al. 41]: “Scripture,” says Augustine, “if it be diligently inspected, shows that not only the good wills of men — which he himself makes out of evil ones, and, being made by him, directs into good acts and into eternal life — but also those which conserve the creature of this world, are so in the power of God that he makes them be inclined whither he will, when he will — whether to bestow benefits or to inflict punishments — by a judgment most hidden indeed, but most just.”
The third is in the Enchiridion, chapter 30: “Man, using free choice ill, lost both himself and it.”
But the response is at hand. For as to the first: St. Augustine speaks in that place of the necessity of the consequence, not of the consequent — so that the sense is that what God wills to be done will infallibly be, but freely or necessarily according as the second causes shall be. For God does not destroy natures, but wills the thing to be done in that manner which the nature of that thing demands.
As to the second: we confess that the wills of men are so in the power of God that he makes them be inclined whithersoever he will, when he will — but plainly sweetly, and in the manner in which it is fitting for God to deal with a free will. And so he does not incline it by determining it to one thing from necessity, but either by impressing some form through which it may be inclined, or by persuading inwardly in that manner which he himself sees to be most apt not to be rejected by the man. And if such is the force of human eloquence that it often bends free wills, and turns them aside to that which it desires, how much more easily will God be able — not often, but always — by internal persuasion to incline human wills whithersoever he will, since he himself perfectly knows all the propensities of the mind, the force of all arguments, and what it is that, in this place and time, moves the human mind, if it be applied?
And as to what St. Augustine writes — that man, by using free choice ill, lost both himself and it — it is understood of free choice not simply, but such as it was in the state of innocence; that is, of a choice not only free from natural necessity (of which we treat in this place), but also from misery and sin. For the first man in the state of innocence could, through free choice, never sin, and experience no misery at all. The same St. Augustine teaches this in book 1 against the Two Epistles of the Pelagians, chapter 2, in these words: “Who of us would say that by the sin of the first man free choice perished from the human race? Liberty indeed perished through sin — but that liberty which was in paradise, of having full justice with immortality. For free choice has so far not perished in the sinner, that through it above all do all sin who sin with delight.”
Show the Latin (Vives edition, OCR)
CAPUT XII. Respondetur ad objectiones ex testimoniis S. A ugustini. Ex Augustino plurima profert Calvinus te¬ stimonia contra liberum arbitrium ; sed per¬ tinent fere omnia ad quaestiones de libero arbitrio, in actionibus moralibus vel super- naturalibus. Tria tantum sunt, quae ad hunc locum, quem nunc tractamus, pertinent, et ea facili negotio ex iis, quae supra diximus, explicantur. Primum est, in lib. vi. de Genesi ad litte¬ ram cap. 13. ubi sic loquitur Augustinus : « Conditoris voluntas rerum necessitas ». Et cap. 17. « IIoc autem necessario futurum est, quod Deus vult, et ca fere futura sunt, quae ille praescivit ». Alterum est, in libro de gratia et libero arbitrio cap. 20 : « Scriptura, inquit Augu¬ stinus, si diligenter inspiciatur, ostendit non solum bonas hominum voluntates, quas ipse facit ex malis, et a se factas in actus bonos, et vitam dirigit aeternam ; verum etiam illa, quae conservant saeculi creaturam, ita esse in Dei potestate, ut eas, quo voluerit, quando voluerit, faciat inclinari, vel ad praestanda beneficia, vel ad poenas infligendas occultis¬ simo quidem judicio, sed justissimo ». Tertium est in Enchir. cap. 30 : « Libero arbitrio male utens homo, et se perdidit et ipsum » . Sed responsio in promptu est. Nam quod attinet ad primum, loquitur eo loco S. Au¬ gustinus de necessitate consequentiae non consequentis, ut sensus sit, quod Deus vult fieri, infallibiliter futurum esse, sed libere * *> O 26 LIBER IV. vel necessario pro ut causa) secundae fuerint. Non enim Deus destruit naturas, sed eo mo¬ do vult rem fieri, quem natura ejus rei po¬ stulat. Quod autem ad secundum pertinet, fate¬ mur hominum voluntates ita esse in potestate Dei, ut quocumque voluerit, quando volue¬ rit, faciat inclinari, sed plane suaviter, et quomodo Deum par est agere, cum libera voluntate. Itaque non inclinat eam ex neces¬ sitate determinando ad unum, sed vel impri¬ mendo formam aliquam per quam incline¬ tur, vel interius persuadendo eo modo, quem ipse videt aptissimum esse, ut ab ho¬ mine non respuatur. Et si ea vis est humante eloquentiae, ut 'liberas voluntates saepe fle¬ ctat, et detorqueat ad id, quod cupit, quanto facilius poterit Deus non saepe, sed semper interna suasione voluntates humanas quo¬ cumque voluerit inclinare, cum ipse perfecte noverit omnes animi propensiones, vim om¬ nium argumentorum, et quid sit, quod hoc loco et tempore humanum animum moveat, si adhibeatur? Quod autem S. Augustinus scribit, homi¬ nem male utendo libero arbitrio, et se perdi¬ disse, et ipsum ; intelligitur de libero arbi¬ trio non simpliciter, sed quale erat in statu innoccntiai, hoc est, de arbitrio non solum libero a naturali necessitate (de qua nos hoc loco tractamus) sed etiam a miseria et pec¬ cato. Poterat enim primus homo in statu in¬ nocentiae per liberum arbitrium numquam peccare, et nullam omnino miseriam expe¬ riri. Docet hoc idem S. August. in i. lib. contra duas epistolas Pelagianorum cap. 2. his verbis : « Quis nostrum dicat, quod pri¬ mi hominis peccato perierit liberum arbi¬ trium de humano genere ? libertas quidem periit per peccatum, sed illa, quae in paradi¬ so fuit, habendi plenam cum immortalitate justitiam. Nam liberum arbitrium usqUe adeo in peccatore non periit, ut per illud peccent maxime omnes, qui cum delectatio¬ ne peccant ».