Readings in World Christian History: 1 by Sterk Andrea & Coakley John W

Author:Sterk, Andrea & Coakley, John W. [Sterk, Andrea]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orbis Books
Published: 2013-11-19T16:00:00+00:00

42. Augustine of Hippo, On Nature and Grace

Pelagius (see text 41) had objected publicly to what he saw as Augustine's denial of free will as early as 405, and Augustine (see text 40) wrote his first work opposing what we recognize as “Pelagian” ideas in 412. But his first direct response to Pelagius was in On Nature and Grace, in 415. In the opening chapters, presented here, Augustine summarizes the issues in the controversy as he saw them and explains his theology of grace. He is responding directly to Pelagius's treatise On Nature (now lost), from which the passages italicized here are probably quotations.

Introduction

The book which you have sent to me, dearly beloved sons Timasius and James, I have read through somewhat rapidly—having set aside for a little while the books which I was reading—but with considerable attention. I saw [in this book] a man inflamed with a very ardent zeal against those who, although they ought, when they sin, to censure the human will, try instead to accuse the nature of human beings and thus to excuse themselves. He has flared up excessively against this plague, which even writers of secular literature have strongly reproved, exclaiming: “The human race wrongly brings a complaint against its own nature.” With all the strength of his intellectual talents, your author also has piled up support for precisely this judgment. I fear, nevertheless, that he will instead give support to those “who have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge; for they, not knowing the justice of God, and seeking to establish their own, have not submitted themselves to the justice of God” (Rom. 10:2-3). The Apostle makes clear the meaning of “the justice of God” in this passage by adding immediately, “For the end of the law is Christ, to justice for everyone who believes” (Rom. 10:4). Therefore, whoever understands that the justice of God lies not in the precept of the law, which incites fear, but in the help given by the grace of Christ—and it is to this grace alone that the fear of the law, as of a pedagogue (cf. Gal. 3:24), leads—he understands why he is a Christian. “For if justice is through the law, then Christ died in vain” (Gal. 2:21). However, if he did not die in vain, then only in him is the ungodly man justified, and to him who “believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is attributed for his justification” (Rom. 4:5). “For all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God and are justified freely through his blood” (Rom. 3:23, 24). But those who do not believe that they belong to the “all” who “have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God,” do not, of course, have any necessity to become Christians, for those who are healthy do not need a physician, but rather those who are ill. For this reason Christ came to call, not the just, but sinners (Matt. 9:12, 13).

2.(2) And

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