To Florus 1.94

In the work which I said above you recently sent to Rome, you revealed your meaning more boldly. In its first book, having similarly set before yourself our charge that you deny free choice, you argue as follows, you most consistent and subtle debater: “Which of us says that through the first human being's sin free choice perished from the human race? Freedom indeed perished through sin, but the freedom that existed in paradise to possess complete righteousness with immortality. Human nature therefore needs divine grace, as the Lord says in his Gospel: ‘If the Son sets you free, then you will be truly free’ (John 8:36), that is, free to live well and justly. Free choice has so far not perished in the sinner that through it people sin, especially all who sin with pleasure and love of sin and approve what they enjoy. Hence the apostle says: ‘When you were slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness’ (Romans 6:20). See, they are shown to have been unable even to serve sin except by another sort of freedom. They are free from righteousness only by freedom of choice, but are freed from sin only by the Savior's grace. For this reason that admirable teacher carefully distinguished even the words: ‘When you were slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness. What fruit did you then have in the things of which you are now ashamed? Their end is death. But now, freed from sin and made slaves of God, you have your fruit leading to sanctification and your end eternal life’ (Romans 6:20–22). He called them free from righteousness, not freed from it. But regarding sin he very carefully preferred to call them not free, lest they attribute this to themselves, but freed, referring this to the Lord's statement: ‘If the Son sets you free, then you will be truly free.’ Since the children of humanity do not live well unless they become God's children, why does this man want to attribute the power of living well to free choice? This power is given only by ‘God's grace through Jesus Christ our Lord’ (Romans 7:25), as the Gospel says: ‘To as many as received him he gave power to become God's children’” (John 1:12; Augustine, Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 1.2.4).

A little later you say again: “The power is therefore given to those who believe in him to become God's children. Unless God gives this power, none can come from free choice. For what the liberator has not freed will not be free for good. But a person has choice free for evil when a hidden or open deceiver has implanted delight in wickedness, or when that person has persuaded himself to it. Thus it is not the case, as some say we claim and as this man even dares to write, that everyone is forced into sin against his will, as it were, by the necessity of his flesh. Rather, if people are old enough to exercise the choice of their own mind, they are held in sin by their own will and plunge from sin into sin by their own will. But this will, free in evil because it delights in evil, is not free in good because it has not been freed. A human being cannot will anything good unless helped by the one who cannot will evil” (Augustine, Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 1.6–7).

In all these words of yours that I have quoted, I see grace's name so entangled with denial of free choice that the goodness of the names cannot vindicate the evil of your meaning. Rather, the dignity of the names is degraded by attachment to your doctrines. You have not made yourself honorable by these words; you have dishonored the ornaments themselves. We, however, separate what you have joined, so that the divinity of grace, disentangled from these perverse connections, will suffer no attack from our reply and will be praised with catholic seriousness rather than Manichaean flattery.

We therefore acknowledge Christ's grace in its many forms. Its first gift is that we were made from nothing. Its second is that, just as through sensation we surpass things that merely live, so through reason we surpass things that sense. Reason was impressed upon the mind to disclose the Creator's image; the granted freedom of choice belongs equally to that dignity (compare Genesis 1:26–27). To this same grace we credit the increase of benefits he never ceases to bestow on us. This grace sent the Law as a help (Isaiah 8:20, LXX wording). Its task was to awaken by many kinds of teaching, and nourish by its invitation, the light of reason that examples of wrongdoing and habitual vices were dimming. To the fullness of this grace, that is, the divine goodwill that gave things their existence, belonged the Word's becoming flesh and dwelling among us (John 1:14). For God, asking his image to return his love, made clear with what immeasurable affection he had done everything for us. Thus we might, even if late, love in return the one who, commending his love toward us (Romans 5:8), did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us (Romans 8:32), promising that if we henceforth chose to obey his will, he would make us fellow heirs with his Only Begotten (Romans 8:17).