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GOD Human freedom operated unhindered before the Fall: that is one reason for the gravity of Adam’s sin But when Adam fell, his sin brought with it not only liability to death, disease, and pain, but in addition massive moral debilitation We children of Adam inherit not only mortality but also sinfulness Corrupt humans tainted with original sin have no freedom to live well without help: each temptation, as it comes, we may be free to resist, but our resistance cannot be prolonged from day to day We need God’s grace not only to gain heaven but to avoid a life of continual sin (DCG 7) The grace that enables human beings to avoid sin is allotted to some people rather than others not on the basis of any merit of theirs, whether actual or foreseen It is awarded simply by the inscrutable good pleasure of God No one can be saved without being predestined The choice of those who are to be saved, and implicitly also of those who are to be damned, was made by God long before they had come into existence or done any deeds good or bad The relation between divine predestination and human virtue and vice was a topic that occupied Augustine’s last years A British ascetic named Pelagius, who came Wrst to Rome, and then after its sack to Africa, preached a view of human freedom quite in conXict with Augustine’s The sin of Adam, he taught, had not damaged his heirs except by setting them a bad example; human beings, throughout their history, retained full freedom of the will Death was not a punishment for sin but a natural necessity, and even pagans who had lived virtuously enjoyed a happy afterlife Christians had received the special grace of baptism, which entitled them to the superior happiness of heaven Such special graces were allotted by God to those he foresaw would deserve them Augustine secured the condemnation of Pelagius at a council at Carthage in 418 (DB 101–8) but that was not the end of the matter Devout ascetics in monasteries in Africa and France complained that if Augustine’s account of freedom was correct, then exhortation and rebuke were vain and the whole monastic discipline was pointless Why should an abbot rebuke an erring monk? If the monk was predestined to be better, then God would make him so; if not, the monk would continue in sin no matter what the abbot said In response, Augustine insisted that not only the initial call to Christianity, the Wrst stirring of faith, was a matter of sheer grace; so too was the perseverance in virtue of the most devout Christian approaching death (DCG 7; DDP) 282
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