Chapter VI.—This Liberty Vindicated in Respect of Its Original Creation; Suitable Also for Exhibiting the Goodness and the Purpose of God.  Reward and Punishment Impossible If Man Were Good or Evil Through Necessity and Not Choice.

But although we shall be understood, from our argument, to be only so affirming man’s unshackled power over his will, that what happens to him should be laid to his own charge, and not to God’s, yet that you may not object, even now, that he ought not to have been so constituted, since his liberty and power of will might turn out to be injurious, I will first of all maintain that he was rightly so constituted, that I may with the greater confidence commend both his actual constitution, and the additional fact of its being worthy of the Divine Being; the cause which led to man’s being created with such a constitution being shown to be the better one. Moreover, man thus constituted will be protected by both the goodness of God and by His purpose,450    Ratio, or, “His reason.” We have used both words, which are equally suitable to the Divine Being, as seemed most convenient. both of which are always found in concert in our God. For His purpose is no purpose without goodness; nor is His goodness goodness without a purpose, except forsooth in the case of Marcion’s god, who is purposelessly451    Irrationaliter, or, “irrationally.” good, as we have shown.452    See above, book i. chap. xxiii. p. 288. Well, then, it was proper that God should be known; it was no doubt453    Utique. a good and reasonable454    Rationale, or, “consistent with His purpose.” thing. Proper also was it that there should be something worthy of knowing God.  What could be found so worthy as the image and likeness of God? This also was undoubtedly good and reasonable. Therefore it was proper that (he who is) the image and likeness of God should be formed with a free will and a mastery of himself;455    Suæ potestatis. so that this very thing—namely, freedom of will and self-command—might be reckoned as the image and likeness of God in him. For this purpose such an essence456    Substantia. was adapted457    Accommodata. to man as suited this character,458    Status. even the afflatus of the Deity, Himself free and uncontrolled.459    Suæ potestatis. But if you will take some other view of the case,460    Sed et alias. how came it to pass461    Quale erat. that man, when in possession of the whole world, did not above all things reign in self-possession462    Animi sui possessione.—a master over others, a slave to himself?  The goodness of God, then, you can learn from His gracious gift463    Dignatione. to man, and His purpose from His disposal of all things.464    Ex dispositione. The same as the “universa disponendo” above. At present, let God’s goodness alone occupy our attention, that which gave so large a gift to man, even the liberty of his will.  God’s purpose claims some other opportunity of treatment, offering as it does instruction of like import. Now, God alone is good by nature. For He, who has that which is without beginning, has it not by creation,465    Institutione. but by nature. Man, however, who exists entirely by creation, having a beginning, along with that beginning obtained the form in which he exists; and thus he is not by nature disposed to good, but by creation, not having it as his own attribute to be good, because, (as we have said,) it is not by nature, but by creation, that he is disposed to good, according to the appointment of his good Creator, even the Author of all good. In order, therefore, that man might have a goodness of his own,466    Bonum jam suum, not bonitatem. bestowed467    Emancipatum. on him by God, and there might be henceforth in man a property, and in a certain sense a natural attribute of goodness, there was assigned to him in the constitution of his nature, as a formal witness468    Libripens. The language here is full of legal technicalities, derived from the Roman usage in conveyance of property. “Libripens quasi arbiter mancipationis” (Rigalt.). of the goodness which God bestowed upon him, freedom and power of the will, such as should cause good to be performed spontaneously by man, as a property of his own, on the ground that no less than this469    Quoniam (with a subj.) et hoc. would be required in the matter of a goodness which was to be voluntarily exercised by him, that is to say, by the liberty of his will, without either favour or servility to the constitution of his nature, so that man should be good470    Bonus consisteret. just up to this point,471    Ita demum. if he should display his goodness in accordance with his natural constitution indeed, but still as the result of his will, as a property of his nature; and, by a similar exercise of volition,472    Proinde. should show himself to be too strong473    Fortior. in defence against evil also (for even this God, of course, foresaw), being free, and master of himself; because, if he were wanting in this prerogative of self-mastery, so as to perform even good by necessity and not will, he would, in the helplessness of his servitude, become subject to the usurpation of evil, a slave as much to evil as to good. Entire freedom of will, therefore, was conferred upon him in both tendencies; so that, as master of himself, he might constantly encounter good by spontaneous observance of it, and evil by its spontaneous avoidance; because, were man even otherwise circumstanced, it was yet his bounden duty, in the judgment of God, to do justice according to the motions474    Meritis. of his will regarded, of course, as free.  But the reward neither of good nor of evil could be paid to the man who should be found to have been either good or evil through necessity and not choice. In this really lay475    Constituta est. the law which did not exclude, but rather prove, human liberty by a spontaneous rendering of obedience, or a spontaneous commission of iniquity; so patent was the liberty of man’s will for either issue. Since, therefore, both the goodness and purpose of God are476    Our author’s word invenitur (in the singular) combines the bonitas and ratio in one view. discovered in the gift to man of freedom in his will, it is not right, after ignoring the original definition of goodness and purpose which it was necessary to determine previous to any discussion of the subject, on subsequent facts to presume to say that God ought not in such a way to have formed man, because the issue was other than what was assumed to be477    The verb is subj., “deceret.” proper for God. We ought rather,478    Sed, with oportet understood. after duly considering that it behoved God so to create man, to leave this consideration unimpaired, and to survey the other aspects of the case. It is, no doubt, an easy process for persons who take offence at the fall of man, before they have looked into the facts of his creation, to impute the blame of what happened to the Creator, without any examination of His purpose. To conclude:  the goodness of God, then fully considered from the beginning of His works, will be enough to convince us that nothing evil could possibly have come forth from God; and the liberty of man will, after a second thought,479    Recogitata. [Again, a noble Theodicy.] show us that it alone is chargeable with the fault which itself committed.

CAPUT VI.

Sed quoniam ex hoc jam intelligimur, eo struentes liberam hominis potestatem arbitrii sui, ut quod ei evenit, non Deo, sed ipsi debeat exprobrari; ne et tu 0291A hinc jam opponas, non ita illum institui debuisse si libertas et potestas arbitrii exitiosa futura esset; hoc quoque prius defendam ita institui debuisse, quo fortius commendem, et ita institutum, et digne Deo institutum, potiore ostensa ea caussa quae ita fecit institui. Bonitas Dei et ratio ejus huic quoque instituto patrocinabuntur, in omnibus conspirantes apud Deum nostrum. Nec ratio enim sine bonitate ratio est, nec bonitas sine ratione bonitas, nisi forte penes deum Marcionis, inrationaliter bonum, sicut ostendimus. Oportebat Deum cognosci: bonum hoc utique et rationale. Oportebat dignum aliquid esse, quod Deum cognosceret: quid tam dignum prospici posset, quam imago Dei et similitudo? Et hoc bonum, sine dubio, et rationale. Oportebat igitur imaginem 0291B et similitudinem Dei, liberi arbitrii et suae potestatis institui, in qua hoc ipsum, imago et similitudo Dei deputaretur; arbitrii scilicet libertas et potestas: in quam rem ea substantia homini accommodata est, quae hujus status esset, adflatus Dei, utique liberi et suae potestatis. Sed et alias quale erat ut totius mundi possidens homo, non in primis animi sui possessione regnaret, aliorum dominus, sui famulus? Habes igitur et bonitatem Dei agnoscere ex dignatione, et rationem ex dispositione. Sola nunc bonitas deputetur, quae tantum homini largita sit, id est arbitrii libertatem. Aliud sibi ratio defendat in ejusmodi institutionem. Nam bonus natura Deus solus (Matth., XIX, 17). Qui enim quod est sine initio habet, non institutione habet illud, sed natura. Homo autem qui totus ex 0291C institutione est, habens initium, cum initio sortitus est formam qua esset: atque ita non natura in bonum dispositus est, sed institutione; non suum habens bonus esse, quia non natura in bonum dispositus est, sed institutione, secundum institutorem bonum, scilicet bonorum conditorem. Ut ergo bonum jam suum haberet homo, emancipatum sibi a Deo, et fieret proprietas jam boni in homine, et quodammodo natura, de institutione adscripta est illi quasi libripens emancipati a Deo boni , libertas et potestas arbitrii, quae efficeret bonum, ut proprium, 0292A jam sponte praestari ab homine; quoniam et hoc ratio bonitatis exigeret voluntarie exercendae; ex libertate scilicet arbitrii non favente institutioni , non serviente: ut ita demum bonus consisteret homo, si secundum institutionem quidem, sed ex voluntate jam bonus inveniretur, quasi de proprietate naturae: proinde ut et contra malum (nam et illud utique Deus providebat) fortior homo praetenderet , liber scilicet et suae potestatis: quia, si careret hoc jure, ut bonum quoque non voluntate obiret, sed necessitate, usurpabilis etiam malo futurus esset ex infirmitate servitii, proinde et malo sicut bono famulus. Tota ergo libertas arbitrii in utramque partem concessa est illi, ut sui dominus constanter occurreret, et bono sponte 0292B servando, et malo sponte vitando: quoniam et alias positum hominem sub judicio Dei, oportebat justum illud efficere de arbitrii sui meritis, liberi scilicet. Caeterum, nec boni nec mali merces jure pensaretur ei qui aut bonus aut malus necessitate fuisset inventus, non voluntate. In hoc et lex constituta est, non excludens, sed probans libertatem de obsequio sponte praestando, vel transgressione sponte committenda; ita in utrumque exitum libertas patuit arbitrii. Igitur, si et bonitas et ratio Dei invenitur circa libertatem arbitrii concessam homini, non oportet, omissa prima definitione bonitatis atque rationis quae ante omnem tractatum constituenda est, post factis praejudicare non ita Deum instituere debuisse quia aliter quam Deum deceret evasit; sed dispecto quia 0292C ita debuerit instituere, salvo eo quod dispectum est, caetera explorare. Caeterum facile est offendentes statim in hominis ruinam, antequam conditionem ejus inspexerint, in auctorem referre quod accidit, quia nec auctoris examinata sit ratio. Denique, et bonitas Dei a primordio operum perspecta, persuadebit nihil a deo mali evenire potuisse, et libertas hominis recogitata se potius ream ostendet , quod ipsa commisit.