Annotation CCLXXVIII

”For if a law had been given which could vivify,” etc. — Galatians 3:21

Whether our liberty [free will] without grace can do good.

Augustine, in the thirteenth sermon on the words of the Apostle, expounding these [words]: “IF the help of the Holy Spirit be utterly lacking,” he says, “thou wilt be able to do nothing good: thou dost indeed act — that [help] not aiding — by free will, but ill. Thy will, which is called free, is fit for this; and, by acting ill, it becomes a damnable handmaid.” Gregory of Rimini, [in] the second [book] of the Sentences, distinction 26, hence elicits that the mind [meaning] of Augustine is, that without a peculiar [special] help of grace no work morally good according to virtue, and consonant to right reason, can be done

—from the liberty of human arbitrament. This same [thing] he confirms from his [Augustine’s] epistle to Hilary of Syracuse: where it is thus read: “FREE will, therefore, avails, if it be divinely aided — which is done by humbly seeking and doing: but, deserted by the divine help, however much it may excel in any knowledge of the law, it will in no way have the solidity of justice, but the inflation of impious pride, and a pernicious swelling.” Likewise in the little book On the Predestination of God, in which it is thus written: “THE FREE will which we have from God flows, by [its] fall, to wickedness; and, since — the help of God deserting [it] — it can [do] nothing apt for [toward] every kind of virtue, it subsists false [counterfeit] in virtue.” Martin Luther, in the compendium of his articles, article 36, presses this same sentence more sharply upon Augustine, from the sayings which are had in him [in] the third chapter of the book On the Spirit and the Letter, in these words: “FOR neither does free will avail [for] anything but for sinning, if the way of truth lie hidden: and when [that] which is to be done, and toward which [one] must strive, has begun not to lie hidden — unless it also delight and be loved, it is not done, it is not undertaken, one does not live well.” Again, the same Luther, in the disputation against Eck, says: “SAINT Augustine, in the third book against the Pelagians, chapter eight, says: ‘Free will, [being] captive, avails not but for sinning; but for justice it avails not, unless divinely freed and helped.’” But far be it that Augustine held this [in the sense] which is imposed on him by Luther. For if — that general influx of divine help being granted, by which God aids every nature — man could [do] nothing at all of good according to moral virtue, it would seem to follow that he, in his works, however evil, never sins. Because, as Augustine says, “To say that anyone is held guilty of sin because he did not do what he could not do, is [a thing] of the highest iniquity, and of insanity.” Wherefore the same doctor, in many places, manifestly demonstrates that even the worst men, without justifying grace, can avoid certain sins, and do certain good works — as it is permitted to see [in] the book On the Spirit and the Letter, chapter 28, where he says: “AS certain venial sins — without which this life is not led — do not hinder the just [man] from eternal life: so certain good works — without which the life of any of the worst men is very hardly found — profit the impious [man] nothing unto eternal salvation.” John [Fisher], bishop of Rochester, in the book which he published against the Lutheran articles, says that all the passages proposed, and [those] like these, which seem to take away from men not yet justified by grace every faculty of doing good works, are to be understood of beatifying works — that is, [works] worthy of eternal beatitude: which indeed, without gratifying [sanctifying] grace, can in no way be either begun or completed. But concerning all the other moral works, not so [it is otherwise]. For it is in the power of man — even [one] destitute of justifying grace — to perform certain moral goods: as experience itself demonstrates. And this sentence the sacrosanct Synod of Trent seems to confirm, [in] session six, canon seven, in these words: “IF anyone shall say that all works which are done before justification — in whatever way they be done — are truly sins, or merit the hatred of God; or [that] the more vehemently one

—strives to dispose himself to grace, the more gravely he sins: let him be anathema.” See above, Annotation 40 and 255 of this book.