Asking Well Is Part of Wisdom

It belongs to understanding to see the distinctions and the drift of questions, and it is a large part of knowledge to understand how ignorant you are. That is why it is said that “if a fool asks questions, it will be counted to him as wisdom.” For although the one who asks does not know the answer to the question raised, yet because he asks wisely and learns what he does not know, this very fact will be counted as wisdom in him, since he wisely finds out what he did not know. According to this division of yours, then, it seems that in this passage the apostle mentions three things: the desire of the flesh against the spirit, and of the spirit against the flesh, whose struggle with each other appears to have this as its cause and reason: “so that,” he says, “we may not do what we would.” There remains, then, a fourth case, which you have overlooked: that we do what we would not. Now, then, we must first find out the meaning of those two desires, that is, of the flesh and of the spirit; next learn to discuss our free will, which is placed between the two; and then, last of all, see in the same way what cannot belong to our free will. [a]