To Florus 3.106

When you claim we say everyone’s freedom of choice is sufficient to worship God rightly without his help, you are lying outright. Worship of God is understood in many ways: keeping the commands, condemning vices, simplicity of life, the ordering of sacred mysteries, and the depth of doctrines Christian faith embraces about the Trinity, the resurrection, and many similar matters. How could we say without distinction that free will is sufficient to worship him without God’s help, when we read the Lord saying in the Gospel: ‘I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you hid these things from the wise and discerning and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, because this was pleasing in your sight’ (Matthew 11:25–26)?

Freedom of choice could not discover on its own all these things, whether doctrines or mysteries. Natural reason, however, could teach people not to worship idols or despise God, who became known as the Creator of the world itself, as the Teacher of the Gentiles testifies (Romans 1:20). Neither we nor any sensible person, then, says what you invent. We maintain that God makes a human being with free will, helps that person through countless forms of divine grace, and leaves that person able either to keep God’s commands or to transgress them. This is where we defend free will: while God shows his kindness in so many ways—commanding, blessing, sanctifying, restraining, inviting, enlightening—each person already using reason is free either to keep or to despise God’s will.