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| Chapter XXXVII.—Men are possessed of free will, and endowed with the faculty of making a choice. It is not true, therefore, that some are by nature good, and others bad.
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Chapter XXXVII.—Men are possessed of
free will, and endowed with the faculty of making a choice. It is not true,
therefore, that some are by nature good, and others bad.
1. This expression [of our
Lord], “How often would I have gathered thy children together, and
thou wouldest not,”4394
set
forth the ancient law of human liberty, because God made man a free
[agent] from the beginning, possessing his own power, even as he does his
own soul, to obey the behests (ad utendum sententia) of God
voluntarily, and not by compulsion of God. For there is no coercion with
God, but a good will [towards us] is present with Him continually. And
therefore does He give good counsel to all. And in man, as well as in
angels, He has placed the power of choice (for angels are rational
beings), so that those who had yielded obedience might justly possess
what is good, given indeed by God, but preserved by themselves. On the
other hand, they who have not obeyed shall, with justice, be not found in
possession of the good, and shall receive condign punishment: for God did
kindly bestow on them what was good; but they themselves did not
diligently keep it, nor deem it something precious, but poured contempt
upon His super-eminent goodness. Rejecting therefore the good, and as it
were spuing it out, they shall all deservedly incur
the just
judgment of God, which also the Apostle Paul testifies in his Epistle to
the Romans, where he says, “But dost thou despise the riches of His
goodness, and patience, and long-suffering, being ignorant that the
goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But according to thy hardness
and impenitent heart, thou treasurest to thyself wrath against the day of
wrath, and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God.”
“But glory and honour,” he says, “to every one that
doeth good.”4395
God therefore has
given that which is good, as the apostle tells us in this Epistle, and
they who work it shall receive glory and honour, because they have done
that which is good when they had it in their power not to do it; but
those who do it not shall receive the just judgment of God, because they
did not work good when they had it in their power so to do.
2. But
if some had been made by nature bad, and others good, these latter would
not be deserving of praise for being good, for such were they created;
nor would the former be reprehensible, for thus they were made
[originally]. But since all men are of the same nature, able both to hold
fast and to do what is good; and, on the other hand, having also the
power to cast it from them and not to do it,—some do justly
receive praise even among men who are under the control of good laws (and
much more from God), and obtain deserved testimony of their choice of
good in general, and of persevering therein; but the others are blamed,
and receive a just condemnation, because of their rejection of what is
fair and good. And therefore the prophets used to exhort men to what was
good, to act justly and to work righteousness, as I have so largely
demonstrated, because it is in our power so to do, and because by
excessive negligence we might become forgetful, and thus stand in need of
that good counsel which the good God has given us to know by means of the
prophets.
3. For this reason the Lord also said, “Let your
light so shine before men, that they may see your good deeds, and glorify
your Father who is in heaven.”4396
And,
“Take heed to yourselves, lest perchance your hearts be overcharged
with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and worldly cares.”4397
And, “Let your loins be girded about,
and your lamps burning, and ye like unto men that wait for their Lord,
when He returns from the wedding, that when He cometh and knocketh, they
may open to Him. Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when He cometh,
shall find so doing.”4398
And
again, “The servant who knows his Lord’s will, and does it
not, shall be beaten with many stripes.”4399
And, “Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things
which I say?”4400
And again, “But if
the servant say in his heart, The Lord delayeth, and begin to beat his
fellow-servants, and to eat, and drink, and to be drunken, his Lord will
come in a day on which he does not expect Him, and shall cut him in
sunder, and appoint his portion with the hypocrites.”4401
All such passages demonstrate the independent will4402
of man, and at the same time the counsel which God conveys to
him, by which He exhorts us to submit ourselves to Him, and seeks to turn
us away from [the sin of] unbelief against Him, without, however, in any
way coercing us.
4. No doubt, if any one is unwilling to follow the
Gospel itself, it is in his power [to reject it], but it is not
expedient. For it is in man’s power to disobey God, and to forfeit
what is good; but [such conduct] brings no small amount of injury and
mischief. And on this account Paul says, “All things are lawful to
me, but all things are not expedient;”4403
referring both to the liberty of man, in which respect “all
things are lawful,” God exercising no compulsion in regard to him;
and [by the expression] “not expedient” pointing out that we
“should not use our liberty as a cloak of
maliciousness,”4404
for this is not
expedient. And again he says, “Speak ye every man truth with his
neighbour.”4405
And, “Let no corrupt
communication proceed out of your mouth, neither filthiness, nor foolish
talking, nor scurrility, which are not convenient, but rather giving of
thanks.”4406
And, “For ye were
sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord; walk honestly as
children of the light, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering
and wantonness, not in anger and jealousy. And such were some of you; but
ye have been washed, but ye have been sanctified in the name of our
Lord.”4407
If then it were not in our power to
do or not to do these things, what reason had the apostle, and much more
the Lord Himself, to give us counsel to do some things, and to abstain
from others? But because man is possessed of free will from the
beginning, and God is possessed of free will, in whose likeness man was
created, advice is always given to him to keep fast the good, which thing
is done by means of obedience to God.
5. And not merely in works, but also in faith, has God
preserved the will of man free and under his own control, saying,
“According to thy faith
be it unto thee;”4408
thus showing that there is a faith specially
belonging to man, since he has an opinion specially his own. And again,
“All things are possible to him that believeth;”4409
and, “Go thy way; and as thou hast
believed, so be it done unto thee.”4410
Now all
such expressions demonstrate that man is in his own power with respect to
faith. And for this reason, “he that believeth in Him has eternal
life while he who believeth not the Son hath not eternal life, but the
wrath of God shall remain upon him.”4411
In the same manner therefore the Lord, both showing His own
goodness, and indicating that man is in his own free will and his own
power, said to Jerusalem, “How often have I wished to gather thy
children together, as a hen [gathereth] her chickens under her wings, and
ye would not! Wherefore your house shall be left unto you
desolate.”4412
6. Those, again, who maintain the opposite to these
[conclusions], do themselves present the Lord as destitute of power, as
if, forsooth, He were unable to accomplish what He willed; or, on the
other hand, as being ignorant that they were by nature
“material,” as these men express it, and such as cannot
receive His immortality. “But He should not,” say they,
“have created angels of such a nature that they were capable of
transgression, nor men who immediately proved ungrateful towards Him; for
they were made rational beings, endowed with the power of examining and
judging, and were not [formed] as things irrational or of a [merely]
animal nature, which can do nothing of their own will, but are drawn by
necessity and compulsion to what is good, in which things there is one
mind and one usage, working mechanically in one groove (inflexibiles
et sine judicio), who are incapable of being anything else except
just what they had been created.” But upon this supposition,
neither would what is good be grateful to them, nor communion with God be
precious, nor would the good be very much to be sought after, which would
present itself without their own proper endeavour, care, or study, but
would be implanted of its own accord and without their concern. Thus it
would come to pass, that their being good would be of no consequence,
because they were so by nature rather than by will, and are possessors of
good spontaneously, not by choice; and for this reason they would not
understand this fact, that good is a comely thing, nor would they take
pleasure in it. For how can those who are ignorant of good enjoy it? Or
what credit is it to those who have not aimed at it? And what crown is it
to those who have not followed in pursuit of it, like those victorious in
the contest?
7. On this account, too, did the Lord assert that the
kingdom of heaven was the portion of “the violent;” and He
says, “The violent take it by force;”4413
that is, those who by strength and earnest striving are on the
watch to snatch it away on the moment. On this account also Paul the
Apostle says to the Corinthians, “Know ye not, that they who run in
a racecourse, do all indeed run, but one receiveth the prize? So run,
that ye may obtain. Every one also who engages in the contest is
temperate in all things: now these men [do it] that they may obtain a
corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. But I so run, not as
uncertainty; I fight, not as one beating the air; but I make my body
livid, and bring it into subjection, lest by any means, when preaching to
others, I may myself be rendered a castaway.”4414
This able wrestler, therefore,
exhorts us to the struggle for immortality, that we may be crowned, and
may deem the crown precious, namely, that which is acquired by our
struggle, but which does not encircle us of its own accord (sed non
ultro coalitam). And the harder we strive, so much is it the more
valuable; while so much the more valuable it is, so much the more should
we esteem it. And indeed those things are not esteemed so highly which
come spontaneously, as those which are reached by much anxious care.
Since, then, this power has been conferred upon us, both the Lord has
taught and the apostle has enjoined us the more to love God, that we may
reach this [prize] for ourselves by striving after it. For otherwise, no
doubt, this our good would be [virtually] irrational, because not the
result of trial. Moreover, the faculty of seeing would not appear to be
so desirable, unless we had known what a loss it were to be devoid of
sight; and health, too, is rendered all the more estimable by an
acquaintance with disease; light, also, by contrasting it with darkness;
and life with death. Just in the same way is the heavenly kingdom
honourable to those who have known the earthly one. But in proportion as
it is more honourable, so much the more do we prize it; and if we have
prized it more, we shall be the more glorious in the presence of God. The
Lord has therefore endured all these things on our behalf, in order that
we, having been instructed by means of them all, may be in all respects
circumspect for the time to come, and that, having been rationally taught
to love God, we may continue in His perfect love: for God has displayed
long-suffering in the case of man’s apostasy; while man has been
instructed by means of it, as also the prophet says, “Thine own
apostasy shall heal thee;”4415
God thus
determining all things beforehand for the
bringing of man to
perfection, for his edification, and for the revelation of His
dispensations, that goodness may both be made apparent, and righteousness
perfected, and that the Church may be fashioned after the image of His
Son, and that man may finally be brought to maturity at some future time,
becoming ripe through such privileges to see and comprehend God.4416
| 4416 [If we but had the original,
this would doubtless be found in all respects a noble specimen of
primitive theology.] | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
