REFUTATION OF THE OBJECTIONS COMMONLY PUT FORWARD IN DEFENSE OF FREE WILL
11. THE REPROOFS IN SCRIPTURE, THEY FURTHER OBJECT, LOSE THEIR MEANING IF THE WILL BE NOT FREE
The third class of their arguments bears a close resemblance to the two preceding. For our opponents bring forward passages wherein God reproaches his ungrateful people that it was their own fault that they did not receive every sort of good thing from his tender mercy. Of this sort are the following passages: “Amalekites and Canaanites are before you, and you shall fall by their sword because you will not obey the Lord”
[<041443>Numbers 14:43, Vg.]. “Because... I called to you and you did not
answer, I shall do to this house... as I did to Shiloh.” [<240713>
Jeremiah 7:13-14, Vg.] Again, “This... nation... did not obey the voice of the Lord their God, and did not accept discipline” [<240728>
Jeremiah 7:28, Vg.]; for this reason it is rejected by the Lord [<240729>Jeremiah 7:29]. Again, Because you have hardened your heart and have not been willing to obey the Lord, all these evils have come upon you [cf. <241915>Jeremiah 19:15].
How, they say, could such reproaches apply against those who may at once reply: We cherished prosperity, we feared adversity. If we have not obeyed the Lord, nor heeded his voice, to obtain prosperity and avoid adversity, this came about because we were not free from bondage to the domination of sin. We are therefore without reason reproached for evils that it was not in our power to escape.
But disregarding the pretext of necessity, a weak and futile defense, I ask whether they can excuse the fault. For if they are held guilty of any fault, the Lord with reason reproaches them for not feeling, because of their perversity, the benefit of his kindness. Let them therefore answer whether they can deny that the cause of their obstinacy was their own perverse will. If they find the source of evil within themselves, why do they strain after external causes so as not to seem the authors of their own
destruction? But if it is true that sinners are through their own fault both deprived of divine blessings and chastened by punishments, there is good reason why they should hearken to these reproaches from God’s mouth. It is that if they obstinately persist in vices, they may learn in calamities to accuse and loathe their own worthlessness rather than to charge God with unjust cruelty; that if they have not cast off teachableness and if they are wearied with their own sins (because of which they see themselves miserable and lost), they may return to the path and acknowledge with earnest confession this very thing, namely, that the Lord reminds them by reproof.
What use the reproofs of the prophets serve among the godly is clear from the magnificent prayer of Daniel, given in the ninth chapter [<270904>Daniel 9:4-19]. We observe an example of the first use among the Jews, to whom God commanded Jeremiah to explain the cause of their miseries. Yet these things could not have happened in any other way than as the Lord had foretold: “You shall speak all these words to them, and they will not listen to you. You shall call to them, and they will not answer you”
[<240727>Jeremiah 7:27, Vg.]. To what purpose then did they sing to the
deaf? That even against their will they might understand what they were hearing to be true: that it is wicked sacrilege to transfer to God the blame for their own misfortunes, which lay in themselves.
The enemies of God’s grace customarily pile up these innumerable proofs, derived from his commandments and from his protestations against the transgressors of the law, to give the delusion of free will. But by these few explanations you can very easily free yourself from them. In a psalm the Jews are reproached as “a wicked generation... that kept not its heart straight” [<197808>
Psalm 78:8; 77:8, Vg.]. Also, in another psalm, the prophet urges the men of his age not to “harden their hearts”
[<199508>
Psalm 95:8]. Surely this is because the blame for all stubbornness rests in the wickedness of men; but from this fact it is foolishly inferred that the heart, since the Lord has prepared it [cf. <201601>
Proverbs 16:1], can be bent alike to either side. The prophet says: “I have inclined my heart to perform thy statutes” [<19B9112>
Psalm 119:112], namely, because he had pledged himself willingly and with cheerful attitude of mind to God.
And yet he does not boast of himself as the author of his inclination, which he confesses in the same psalm to be the gift of God [<19B936>Psalm 119:36]. We ought therefore to heed Paul’s warning, when he bids
believers, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for God is at work... both to will and to accomplish” [<503512>
Philippians 2:12-13 p.]. Indeed, he assigns tasks to them to do so that they may not indulge the sluggishness of the flesh. But enjoining fear and carefulness, he so humbles them that they remember what they are bidden to do is God’s own work. By it he clearly intimates that believers act passively, so to speak, seeing that the capacity is supplied from heaven, that they may claim nothing at all for themselves. Then, while Peter urges us “to
supplement our faith with virtue” [<610105>2 Peter 1:5], he does not assign us secondary tasks as if we could do anything independently, but he is only arousing the indolence of the flesh, by which faith itself is very often choked. Paul’s statement, “Do not quench the Spirit” [<520519>
1 Thessalonians 5:19], means the same thing, because sloth continually steals upon believers unless it be corrected. Yet if anyone should conclude from this that it is in their choice to nourish the light given them, such stupidity will be easily refuted, for this very earnestness which Paul enjoins comes from God alone [<470701>2 Corinthians 7:1].
We are in fact often bidden to purge ourselves of all filthiness, even though the Spirit claims for himself alone the office of sanctifying. In fine, it is clear from John’s words that what belongs to God is transferred by
concession to us: “Whoever is born of God keeps himself” [<620518>1 John 5:18]. The proclaimers of free will seize upon this verse, as if we were preserved partly by God’s power, partly by our own. As if we did not have from heaven this very preservation of which the apostle reminds us!
Hence also Christ asks the Father to keep us from evil [<431715>John 17:15, cf. Vg.]. And we know that the pious, while they are fighting against Satan, attain victory by God’s weapons alone [cf. <490613>Ephesians 6:13 ff.]. For this reason, Peter, when he enjoined us to purify our souls in obedience to truth, soon added by way of correction “through the Spirit” [<600122>1 Peter 1:22]. In short, John briefly shows how all human powers are of no avail in spiritual combat when he teaches that “they who are born of God cannot sin, for a seed of God abides in them” [<620309>
1 John 3:9 p.]. And in another passage he gives the reason: “This is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith” [<620504>
1 John 5:4].
(Answers to arguments based on special passages and incidents in Scripture, 12-19)
12. <053011>DEUTERONOMY 30:11 FF.
Yet our opponents cite a passage from the law of Moses that seems to be strongly opposed to our explanation. For, after promulgating the law, Moses calls the people to witness in this manner: “For this commandment which I command you this day is not obscure, nor is it far off, nor is it in heaven... But it is near you... in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it” [<053011>Deuteronomy 30:11-12, 14 p.]. f189
Now if these words be understood as spoken concerning the bare precepts, I admit that they are of no slight importance for the present case. For even though it would be an easy matter to dodge the issue by contending that this has to do with man’s capacity and disposition to understand the commandments, not with his ability to observe them, nevertheless perhaps some scruple would thus also remain. But the apostle, our sure interpreter, removes our every doubt when he declares that Moses here spoke of the teaching of the gospel [<451008>Romans 10:8]. But suppose some obstinate person contends that Paul violently twisted these words to make them refer to the gospel. Although such a man’s boldness will not be lacking in impiety, yet we have a means of refuting him apart from the apostle’s
authority. For if Moses was speaking of the precepts only, he inspired in the people the vainest confidence. For what else would they have done but dash into ruin, if they had set out to keep the law by their own strength, as if it were easy for them? Where is that ready capacity to keep the law, when the only access to it lies over a fatal precipice? It is perfectly clear then that by these words Moses meant the covenant of mercy that he had promulgated along with the requirements of the law. For a few verses before he had also taught that our hearts must needs be circumcised by God’s hand for us to love him [<053006>Deuteronomy 30:6]. He therefore lodged that ability, of which he immediately thereafter speaks, not in the power of man, but in the help and protection of the Holy Spirit, who mightily carries out his work in our weakness. Nevertheless, we are not to understand this passage as referring simply to the precepts, but rather to the promises of the gospel; and they, far from establishing in us the capacity to obtain righteousness, utterly destroy it.
Paul confirms this testimony that in the gospel salvation is not offered under that hard, harsh, and impossible condition laid down for us by the law — that only those who have fulfilled all the commandments will finally attain it — but under an easy, ready, and openly accessible condition. Therefore this Scripture [Romans 10] has no value in establishing the freedom of the human will.
13. GOD’S “WAITING” UPON MEN’S ACTION IS HELD TO