good will to produce meritorious works of love. Although all our good works
are outgrowths of grace, our salvation requires merit as well as grace. This
is possible because the initial gift of grace, called “operative grace,” works a
change in our hearts, turning our wills toward the good.
Augustine taught that grace and free will were compatible, but not everyone
agrees that his doctrine of grace really is compatible with an adequate
concept of free will. He insists that this is not coercion, for it does not
mean overcoming the unwilling but inwardly causing the unwilling to
become willing. Hence on Augustine’s view, God can cause us to will freely
in a different way than we had before. This view of free will is deemed
inadequate by those who think a truly free will is one that is ultimately in its
own control.
Augustine’s notorious doctrine of predestination grows out of his doctrine of
grace. Since the initial gift of grace does not depend in any way on our good
will or merits, it is up to God who receives it. It is therefore God’s choice that
ultimately differentiates between the saved and
the damned; this idea is known as the doctrine
of “election.” Augustine argues that this divine
choice or “election” treats people unequally
but not unjustly, because no one gets worse
than they deserve (since all are born deserving
damnation), and some get undeserved mercy.
This divine choice is not made in response to
unfolding events but is, like all God’s choices,
an eternal and unchanging plan that he carries
out when the time comes. The name for this unchanging plan of God
concerning how he will distribute the gifts of grace is predestination. Why
God chooses to save one person rather than another is, by Augustine’s own
account, an unsearchable and frightening mystery.
Augustine’s view of grace is supported by his view of evil as a kind of
nonbeing; evil is a form of privation like darkness, lack, absence, or disorder.
He ¿ gures that since God created all things, whatever exists is good. Since
nothing God creates is evil, evil must not be a created thing, and therefore
not a thing at all, but a lack of something. This does not mean evil is unreal,
Grace causes the will
to fall in love with
what makes us truly,
eternally happy—our
one true love.