Saint Augustine quote

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My point still stands on Augustine. According to you guys, he is a Calvinist. How can someone be capable of only sin if he has free will. Free will is the CHOOSING of the evil, which means you can choose the good.

The only explanation is that Augustine means that the pull of temptation is such that you infallibly WILL choose the evil, but you don’t have too. Same with grace,.

I’ll reread Clement XI and get back to you
 
hicetnunc said:
Thanks for that; but what you quoted back at me was not supposedly out of context, but actually of out context. Thanks too for the link to the post from another forum user, which I do not think supports your original contention: “I would add to the above that in Augustine’s era, there was no Sacrament of Confession either” which is certainly not correct. That’s all I wanted to address.

Many thanks for the discussion points.
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My thanks as well. I can see that the statement in my original comment–“that in Augustine’s era there was no Sacrament of Confession”–could and should have been made a whole lot clearer. I guess I knew what I meant but didn’t communicate it so well.

Thanks for the interesting discussion. Pax.
 
Thomas_White said:
What Augustine means is that while Creation is good, man, though his fallen state, is only able (or free) to make choices that result in sin. This is through the misuse of what is good and is man’s condition when he is in the fallen state. But yes, Augustine believed that it is through the power of grace that man can again choose what is good and is thereby restored.

The quote from Enchiridion is quite long. But I would summarize it as saying that as the result of the fall, man’s free will was corrupted. It is then only through the power of grace that man is again able to freely choose what is good.
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How Adam could perform sin if the creation was good? How he could be free?
 
Bahman said:
How Adam could perform sin if the creation was good? How he could be free?
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First, please understand that I am only trying to explain Augustine’s argument and not maintaining that it is necessarily correct.

As I understand it, Augustine is saying that while Creation is good, Adam was originally free to misuse the good in ways that are evil, or would have an evil outcome, through the choice of his own free will. This, Augustine argues, resulted in Adam’s sin. It was not pre-determined, however. Adam had free will and it enabled him to make both good and bad choices, and he chose to misuse it. Adam, as the “prototype” man, thereby corrupted free will. This was the fall.

It was Original Sin, and it became the natural state of all men who would follow Adam. Absent the power of grace, man, in his corrupted state, could only make bad choices, or more correctly, could only choose vice. It does not mean he necessarily would make them but that when it came to a choice he would err as a result of his corrupted nature and free will. Man had lost the power of moral discernment. This was punitive and imposed by God as a result of Adam’s sin. This does concern sins of the flesh generally, but the concept is wider.

Why does it follow that Adam, and his descendants in their natural condition, could only chose vice? I think what Augustine is saying is that these bad choices are not made by free will at all. Man, as punishment for Adam’s sin, lost that original capacity. His very nature was corrupted, and hence it would follow he was only free to err. It is the necessary result of any choice since to err is his very nature, and he cannot do otherwise. But Original Sin is absolved by baptism, and free will is thereby restored through the power of grace.

Nevertheless, true free will was lost. Man by his nature remains weak and is given to sin, and he is only able to chose the good through the power of grace. This is how I understand Augustine’s argument. Augustine views the nature of man as fundamentally flawed, and the weakness is primarily that of the flesh. Absent moral discernment, concupisence, as Augustine often terms it, compels man to err absent the power of grace. This weakness of the flesh is called “fomes peccati” in Catholic theology, which is the selfish human desire for an object, person or experience. In Augustine’s view, as in Catholic theology, it is an innate tendency in human beings. The flesh is weak and prone to do what is proscribed.
 
Human experience doesn’t seem to show that people have free will for God only after baptism. A lot of people don’t feel anything from baptism. That is not to say there is no grace given, but if people only have free will to do good after baptism people should have a noticeable effect, one too that is not placebo.

Anyway, can we get the citation from Augustine on this via internet? I want to know if he is saying something Calvinistic, or if he is saying someone CAN do good before the fall, but infallibly WON’T
 
It is my understanding that prior to the Fall, human nature was naturally capable of choosing good, but now we are only capable of choosing good with the help of grace.
 
Clement XI condemned the following
  1. When God does not soften a heart by the interior unction of His grace, exterior exhortations and graces are of no service except to harden it the more.
  2. Without the grace of the Liberator, the sinner is not free except to do evil.
  3. The will, which grace does not anticipate, has no light except for straying, no eagerness except to put itself in danger, no strength except to wound itself, and is capable of all evil and incapable of all good.
  4. Without grace we can love nothing except to our own condemnation.
  5. without grace knowledge produces nothing but presumption, vanity, and opposition to God Himself, instead of the affections of adoration, gratitude, and love.
  6. The grace of Christ alone renders a man fit for the sacrifice of faith; without this there is nothing but impurity, nothing but unworthiness.
  7. There are but two loves, from which all our volitions and actions arise: love of God, which does all things because of God and which God rewards; and the love with which we love ourselves and the world, which does not refer to God what ought to be referred to Him, and therefore becomes evil.
  8. What else can we be except darkness, except aberration, and except sin, without the light of faith, without Christ, and without charity?
  9. As there is no sin without love of ourselves, so there is no good work without love of God.
  10. In vain we cry out to God: My Father, if it is not the spirit of charity which cries out.
  11. All other means of salvation are contained in faith as in their own germ and seed; but this faith does not exist apart from love and confidence.
  12. Only charity in the Christian way makes (Christian actions) through a relation to God and to Jesus Christ.
  13. God crowns nothing except charity; he who runs through any other incentive or any other motive, runs in vain.
  14. God rewards nothing but charity; for charity alone honors God.
  15. All fails a sinner, when hope fails him; and there is no hope in God, when there is no love of God.
  16. Neither God nor religion exists where there is no charity.
  17. The prayer of the impious is a new sin; and what God grants to them is a new judgment against them.
  18. Good is never done under the condemnation of the law, because one sins either by doing evil or by avoiding it only through fear.
  19. One is separated from the chosen people, whose figure was the Jewish people, and whose head is Jesus Christ, both by not living according to the Gospel and by not believing in the Gospel.
 
Ugenitus of course has to be understand precisely. I just posted the ones that interested me the most yesterday.
  1. Good is never done under the condemnation of the law, because one sins either by doing evil or by avoiding it only through fear.
This seems to say no acts of trying to do the law are possible. I think Augustine would say they are sins but maybe lesser sins then those who outright went against the law or didn’t do anything through fear instead of love
  1. One is separated from the chosen people, whose figure was the Jewish people, and whose head is Jesus Christ, both by not living according to the Gospel and by not believing in the Gospel.
I think this one is condemned because it was thought that Jesus was the head of the Church in the sense that people didn’t have free will. Everything was either Jesus Himself acting, or it was sin. “by not living according to the Gospels” means by the heretics a lack of perfection. Only perfection was good.
 
Maybe Augustine can be understood in the sense that all striving for morality before actual grace is sinful, but some acts less sinful than others; and likewise that some acts are good, like affection for the sound of wind or something. So man is not COMPLETELY bad in that sense. That’s how I’m understanding Augustine on this now.
  1. without grace knowledge produces nothing but presumption, vanity, and opposition to God Himself, instead of the affections of adoration, gratitude, and love.
“presumption, vanity, and opposition” to the max. Again, maybe Augustine would allow some degrees on evil before grace
 
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