Ch. 14. For God, the author of natures, not of vices, created man upright; but man, being by his own will corrupt and justly condemned, begot corrupted and condemned children. For we were all in that one man when we were all that one man, who fell into sin by the woman who had been made from him before the sin. For not yet was the particular form created and distributed to us, in which we as individuals were to live; but already the seminal nature was there from which we were to be propagated; and this being vitiated by sin, and bound by the chain of death, and justly condemned, man could not be born of man in any other state. And thus from the bad use of free will, there originated a whole series of evils, which with its train of miseries conducts the human race from its depraved origin, as from a corrupt root, on to the destruction of the second death, which has no end, those only being excepted who are freed by the grace of God.
(d) Augustine, De Correptione et Gratia, 2. (MSL, 44:917.)
Grace and Free Will.
Now the Lord not only shows us what evil we should shun, and what good we should do, which is all the letter of the law can do; but moreover He helps us that we may shun evil and do good [Psalm 37:27], which none can do without the spirit of grace; and if this be wanting, the law is present merely to make us guilty and to slay us. It is on this account that the Apostle says: “The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life” [II Cor. 3:6]. He, then, who lawfully uses the law, learns therein evil and good, and not trusting in his own strength, flees to grace, by the help of which he may shun evil and do good. But who flees to grace except when “the steps of a man are ordered by the Lord, and He wills his ways”? [Psalm 37:23.] And thus also to desire the help of grace is the beginning of grace.… It is to be confessed, therefore, that we have free choice to do both evil and good; but in doing evil every one is free from righteousness and is a servant of sin, while in doing good no one can be free, unless he have been made free by Him who said: “If the Son shall make you free, then you shall be free indeed” [John 8:36]. Neither is it thus, that when any one shall have been made free from the dominion of sin, he no longer needs the help of his Deliverer; but rather thus, that hearing from Him, “Without me ye can do nothing” [John 15:5], he himself also says to Him: “Be Thou my helper! Forsake me not!”
(e) Augustine, De Civitate Dei, XV, 1. (MSL, 41:437.)
Predestination.
Inasmuch as all men are born condemned, and of themselves have not the power to turn to grace, which alone can save them, it follows that the bestowal of grace whereby they may turn is not dependent upon the man but upon God's sovereign good pleasure. This is expressed in the doctrine of Predestination. For a discussion of the position of Augustine respecting Predestination and his other doctrines as connected with it, see J. B. Mozley, A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination, 1873, a book of great ability. Cf. also Tixeront, History of Dogmas, vol. II.
I trust that we have already done justice to these great and difficult questions regarding the beginning of the world, of [pg 441] the soul, and of the human race itself. This race we have distributed into two parts: the one consisting of those who live according to man, the other of those who live according to God. And these we have also mystically called the two cities, or the two communities of men, of which one is predestined to reign eternally with God, and the other to suffer eternal punishment with the devil.…
Each man, because born of condemned stock, is first of all born from Adam, evil and carnal, and when he has been grafted into Christ by regeneration he afterward becomes good and spiritual. So in the human race, as a whole, when these two cities began to run their course by a series of births and deaths, the citizen of this world was born first, and after him the stranger of this world, and belonging to the City of God,[168] predestined by grace, elected by grace, by grace a stranger here below, and by grace a citizen above. For so far as regards himself he is sprung from the same mass, all of which is condemned in its origin; but God like a potter (for this comparison is introduced by the Apostle judiciously and not without thought) of the same lump made one vessel to honor and another to dishonor [Rom. 9:21].