Good Will Is Not Always from Grace, Nor Always from Us

For we should not hold that God made man such that he can never will or be capable of what is good. Otherwise he has not given him free will at all, if he has allowed him only to will or be capable of evil, and neither to will nor to be capable of good by himself. And in that case, how will that first statement of the Lord about men after the fall stand: “Look, Adam has become like one of us, knowing good and evil”? For we cannot think that before this he was such as to know nothing at all of good. Otherwise we would have to admit that he was formed like some beast without reason or sense, which is absurd enough and wholly foreign to the catholic faith. Moreover, as the wisest Solomon says, “God made man upright,” that is, to enjoy always the knowledge of good only; “but they have sought out many imaginations,” for they came, as has been said, to know good and evil. So after the fall Adam took on a knowledge of evil that he did not have before, but he did not lose the knowledge of good that he had already. Finally, the apostle’s words show very clearly that mankind did not lose the knowledge of good after the fall of Adam. He says, “For when the Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature the things of the law, these, though they do not have the law, are a law to themselves. They show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to these, and their thoughts within them either accusing or else excusing them, on the day when God will judge the secrets of men.” [a]

With the same meaning the Lord, through the prophet, rebukes the blindness of the Jews, which was unnatural but freely chosen, and which they brought on themselves by their stubbornness. He says, “Hear, you deaf; and you blind, look, so that you may see. Who is deaf but my servant? And who is blind but he to whom I have sent my messengers?” And so that no one might put this blindness of theirs down to nature rather than to their own will, he says elsewhere, “Bring out the people who are blind and have eyes, who are deaf and have ears”; and again, “Having eyes, you do not see; and having ears, you do not hear.” The Lord also says in the gospel, “Because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.” And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which says, “Hearing you will hear and will not understand, and seeing you will see and will not see. For the heart of this people has grown fat, and their ears are dull of hearing, and they have closed their eyes, so that they may not see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart, and be turned, and I should heal them.” Finally, to show that the possibility of good was in them, he says in rebuking the Pharisees, “But why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?” He certainly would not have said this to them unless he knew that by their natural judgment they could tell what was fair.

So we must take care not to credit all the merits of the saints to the Lord in such a way that we ascribe nothing but what is evil and perverse to human nature. If we do, we are refuted by the evidence of the most wise Solomon, or rather of the Lord himself, whose words these are. For when the building of the temple was finished and Solomon was praying, he spoke as follows: “And David my father wanted to build a house for the name of the Lord God of Israel. And the Lord said to David my father, ‘Since you thought in your heart to build a house for my name, you did well to have this very thing in your mind. Nevertheless, you will not build a house for my name.’” This thought and this purpose of King David, then: are we to call it good and from God, or bad and from man? If that thought was good and from God, why did he who inspired it refuse to let it be carried out? But if it is bad and from man, why does the Lord praise it? It remains, then, that we must take it as good and from man. And we can take our own thoughts today in the same way. For it was not given only to David to think what is good of himself, nor is it naturally denied to us to think or imagine anything that is good. There can be no doubt, then, that by nature there are some seeds of goodness in every soul, planted there by the kindness of the Creator. But unless they are brought to life by God’s help, they will not be able to grow toward perfection, for as the blessed apostle says, “Neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the growth.”

That freedom of the will is to some degree in a man’s own power is taught very clearly in the book called the Shepherd. There two angels are said to be attached to each one of us, that is, a good one and a bad one, and it lies in a man’s own choice which of them to follow. So the will always remains free in man, and it can either neglect the grace of God or delight in it. For the apostle would not have given the command, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” if he had not known that it could be advanced or neglected by us. But so that people would not imagine they had no need of God’s help for the work of salvation, he adds, “For it is God who works in you both to will and to do, of his good pleasure.” That is why he warns Timothy, saying, “Do not neglect the grace of God that is in you”; and again, “For this reason I urge you to stir up the grace of God that is in you.” Hence also, writing to the Corinthians, he exhorts and warns them not to show themselves unworthy of the grace of God by fruitless works, saying, “And we, helping, urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain.” For receiving saving grace did Simon no good, no doubt because he had received it in vain. He would not obey the command of blessed Peter, who said, “Repent of your wickedness, and pray to God that perhaps the thoughts of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of wickedness.”

So grace goes before the will of man, for it is said, “My God will go before me with his mercy.” And again, when God waits and for our good delays, so that he may put our desires to the test, our will goes first, for it is said, “And in the morning my prayer will come before you”; and again, “I came before the dawning of the day and cried out”; and, “My eyes have come before the morning.” For he calls and invites us when he says, “All day long I stretched out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people”; and he is invited by us when we say to him, “All day long I have stretched out my hands to you.” He waits for us, as the prophet says, “Therefore the Lord waits to have compassion on us”; and he is waited for by us when we say, “I waited patiently for the Lord, and he turned to me,” and, “I have waited for your salvation, O Lord.” He strengthens us when he says, “And I disciplined them and strengthened their arms, and they have planned evil against me”; and he urges us to strengthen ourselves when he says, “Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees.” Jesus cries out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink”; and the prophet too cries out to him, “I am worn out with crying; my throat has grown hoarse; my eyes have failed while I hope in my God.” The Lord seeks us when he says, “I sought, and there was no one; I called, and there was no one to answer”; and he himself is sought by the bride, who mourns with tears: “On my bed at night I sought him whom my soul loves. I sought him and did not find him; I called him, and he gave me no answer.”