OF SAINT AURELIUS AUGUSTINE

...sin. For if the testimonies of the Scriptures—by which I believe it is established that no person living here is found to be without sin, even though they make use of their free will—are as they appear: Psalm 142 "Enter not into judgment with your servant, for in your sight no one living shall be justified" original: "Pfal. 142"; in modern Bibles, this is Psalm 143:2. Augustine follows the numbering of the Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate.; and if someone were able to teach that other such passages should be understood differently than they sound, and could demonstrate that someone or some people have lived here without any sin, then the person who would not only fail to oppose such a teacher but would even congratulate him most heartily, is surely not driven by any small stings of envy. For even if there is no one, nor has been, nor will be—which I am more inclined to believe—who has achieved such perfection of purity, and yet it is defended and thought that such a person exists, has existed, or will exist, then as far as I can judge, no great or harmful error is made. It is merely a case of someone being deceived by a certain kind of goodwill, provided that the one who thinks this does not believe himself to be such a person, unless he has truly and clearly perceived himself to be so.

But we must most sharply and vehemently resist those who think that, without the help original: "adiutorio"; the standard Latin term for divine assistance or grace of God, the power of the human will can by itself either achieve righteousness original: "iustitiam"; also translated as "justice," referring to a state of being right before God or make progress toward it. But when they begin to be pressed on how they presume to assert that this happens without divine aid, they check themselves and do not dare to utter such words, for they see how impious and intolerable that claim is. Instead, they say that these things do not happen without divine aid because God created man with a free choice of the will free choice original: "libero arbitrio"; the capacity of the mind to choose its own course of action, and by giving commandments He Himself teaches how man ought to live; and in this He certainly helps, because by teaching He removes ignorance, so that man may know what he ought to avoid and what he ought to seek in his works. They argue that through this naturally implanted free will, by entering the path shown to him and by living temperately, justly, and piously, a man may merit reaching that same blessed and eternal life.

THE MANNER IN WHICH THE HUMAN

will is divinely helped to achieve

righteousness. Chapter III