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104. Consequently, God would have willed to
preserve even the first man in that state of
salvation in which he was created and would have
brought him in due season, after the begetting of
children, to a better state without the intervention
of death--where he not only would have been unable to
sin, but would not have had even the will to sin--if
he had foreknown that man would have had a steadfast
will to continue without sin, as he had been created
to do. But since he did foreknow that man would make
bad use of his free will--that is, that he would
sin--God prearranged his own purpose so that he could
do good to man, even in man's doing evil, and so that
the good will of the Omnipotent should be nullified
by the bad will of men, but should nonetheless be
fulfilled. 105. Thus it was fitting that man should
be created, in the first place, so that he could will
both good and evil--not without reward, if he willed
the good; not without punishment, if he willed the
evil. But in the future life he will not have the
power to will evil; and yet this will not thereby
restrict his free will. Indeed, his will will be much
freer, because he will then have no power whatever to
serve sin. For we surely ought not to find fault with
such a will, nor say it is no will, or that it is not
rightly called free, when we so desire happiness that
we not only are unwilling to be miserable, but have
no power whatsoever to will it. And, just as in our
present state, our soul is unable to will unhappiness
for ourselves, so then it will be forever unable to
will iniquity. But the ordered course of God's plan
was not to be passed by, wherein he willed to show
how good the rational creature is that is able not to
sin, although one unable to sin is better.(229) So,
too, it was an inferior order of immortality--but yet
it was immortality--in which man was capable of not
dying, even if the higher order which is to be is one
in which man will be incapable of dying.(230)
106. Human nature lost the former kind of
immortality through the misuse of free will. It is to
receive the latter through grace--though it was to
have obtained it through merit, if it had not sinned.
Not even then, however, could there have been any
merit without grace. For although sin had its origin
in free will alone, still free will would not have
been sufficient to maintain justice, save as divine
aid had been afforded man, in the gift of
participation in the immutable good. Thus, for
example, the power to die when he wills it is in a
man's own hands--since there is no one who could not
kill himself by not eating (not to mention other
means). But the bare will is not sufficient for
maintaining life, if the aids of food and other means
of preservation are lacking. Similarly, man in
paradise was capable of self-destruction by
abandoning justice by an act of will; yet if the life
of justice was to be maintained, his will alone would
not have sufficed, unless He who made him had given
him aid. But, after the Fall, God's mercy was even
more abundant, for then the will itself had to be
freed from the bondage in which sin and death are the
masters. There is no way at all by which it can be
freed by itself, but only through God's grace, which
is made effectual in the faith of Christ. Thus, as it
is written, even the will by which "the will itself
is prepared by the Lord"(231) so that we may receive
the other gifts of God through which we come to the
Gift eternal--this too comes from God.
107. Accordingly, even the life eternal, which is
surely the wages of good works, is called a gift of
God by the apostle. "For the wages of sin," he says,
"is death; but the gift of God is eternal life in
Christ Jesus our Lord."(232) Now, wages for military
service are paid as a just debit, not as a gift.
Hence, he said "the wages of sin is death," to show
that death was not an unmerited punishment for sin
but a just debit. But a gift, unless it be
gratuitous, is not grace. We are, therefore, to
understand that even man's merited goods are gifts
from God, and when life eternal is given through
them, what else do we have but "grace upon grace
returned"(233)? Man was, therefore, made upright,
and in such a fashion that he could either continue
in that uprightness--though not without divine
aid--or become perverted by his own choice. Whichever
of these two man had chosen, God's will would be
done, either by man or at least concerning him.
Wherefore, since man chose to do his own will instead
of God's, God's will concerning him was done; for,
from the same mass of perdition that flowed out of
that common source, God maketh "one vessel for
honorable, another for ignoble use"(234) ; the ones
for honorable use through his mercy, the ones for
ignoble use through his judgment; lest anyone glory
in man, or--what is the same thing--in himself.
108. Now, we could not be redeemed, even through
"the one Mediator between God and man, Man himself,
Christ Jesus,"(235) if he were not also God. For when
Adam was made--being made an upright man--there was
no need for a mediator. Once sin, however, had widely
separated the human race from God, it was necessary
for a mediator, who alone was born, lived, and was
put to death without sin, to reconcile us to God, and
provide even for our bodies a resurrection to life
eternal--and all this in order that man's pride might
be exposed and healed through God's humility.
Thus it might be shown man how far he had departed
from God, when by the incarnate God he is recalled to
God; that man in his contumacy might be furnished an
example of obedience by the God-Man; that the fount
of grace might be opened up; that even the
resurrection of the body--itself promised to the
redeemed--might be previewed in the resurrection of
the Redeemer himself; that the devil might be
vanquished by that very nature he was rejoicing over
having deceived--all this, however, without giving
man ground for glory in himself, lest pride spring up
anew. And if there are other advantages accruing from
so great a mystery of the Mediator, which those who
profit from them can see or testify--even if they
cannot be described--let them be added to this list. |