SECT. 11. Freewill is not ‘a negative, intermediate power of the will.’
But perhaps Diatribe is dreaming that there is something between being able to will good, and not being able to will good, which is the mere power of willing — distinct from any regard to good or evil. Thus, we are to evade the rocks by a sort of logical subtlety. We affirm that in the will of man, there is a certain power of willing, which cannot indeed incline to good without grace; and yet, even without grace, it does not directly will only evil. It is a pure and simple power of willing, which may be turned by grace upwards to good, and by sin downwards to evil. But what then becomes of that saying, ‘having lost its liberty, it is compelled to serve sin?’ Where, then, is that ‘desire and endeavour’ which is left? Where is that power of applying itself to those things which belong to eternal salvation? For that power of applying itself to salvation cannot be a mere abstract power of willing, unless salvation itself is called nothing.
Then again, desire and endeavour cannot be a mere power of willing, since desire must lean and endeavour somewhere, and cannot be carried towards nothing, or remain quiescent. In short, wherever Diatribe is pleased to turn herself, she cannot escape contradictions and conflicting expressions — so that, even Freewill herself is not so much a captive, as Diatribe who defends her. She so entangles herself in her attempts to give liberty to the will, that she gets bound with indissoluble chains, in company with her freedmaid.
Then again, it is a mere fiction of logic, that there is this middle faculty of mere willing in man; nor can it be proved by those who assert it. Ignorance of things, and servile regard for words, has given birth to this fancy, as if the will must straightway be in substance, what we set it out to be in words. The Sophists have numberless figments of this sort. The truth is rather what Christ says: “He that is not with me is against me.” He does not say, ‘He that is not with me, nor against me, but in the middle.’ For, if God is in us, then Satan is absent, and only to will good is present with us. If God is absent, then Satan is present, and there is no will in us but towards evil. Neither God, nor Satan, allows a mere abstract power to will in us — but as you have rightly said, having lost our liberty, we are compelled to serve sin; that is, we will sin and wickedness; we speak sin and wickedness; we act sin and wickedness. See into what a corner Diatribe has been driven without knowing it, by invincible and most mighty Truth. Truth has made her wisdom folly, and compelled her, when meaning to speak against us, to speak for us, and against herself. Freewill does this when she attempts anything good; for then, by opposing evil, she most of all does evil, and opposes good. Thus, Diatribe is as much a speaker as Freewill is an actor. Indeed, the whole Diatribe itself is nothing but an excellent performance of Freewill, condemning by defending, and defending by condemning 312 — that is, she is twice a fool, while she would be thought wise.
SECT. 12. The approvable opinion compared with the other two.
The first opinion, then, as compared with itself, is such as to deny that man can will anything good; and yet it maintains that desire is somehow left to man, but this desire is not his. Let us now compare it with the other two.
‘The second is harsher, which judges that Freewill has no power except to commit sin,’ This, however, is Augustine’s opinion, expressed in many other places, especially in his treatise on the Letter and Spirit (the fourth or fifth chapter, if I am not mistaken), where he uses these very words.
‘That third opinion is the harshest of all, which maintains that Freewill is an empty name, and that all we do is necessarily under the bondage of sin.’ Diatribe wages war with these two. Here I admit that probably I may not be German enough, or Latinist enough, to enunciate the subject matter perspicuously. But I call God to witness that I meant to say nothing else (and nothing else is to be understood) by the expressions used in these last two opinions, than what is asserted in the first opinion. Nor did Augustine, I think, mean anything else; nor do I understand anything else by his words, than what the first opinion asserts. So that, in my view, the three opinions recited by Diatribe are only that one sentiment which I have promulgated. For when it has been conceded and settled that Freewill, having lost her freedom, is compelled into the service of sin, and has no power to will anything good, I can conceive nothing else from these expressions, except that Freewill is a bare word, the substance expressed by that word having been lost. Lost liberty, my art of grammar calls no liberty at all; and to attribute the name ‘liberty’ to that which has no liberty, is to attribute a bare name to it. If I wander from the truth here, let whoever can, recall me from my wanderings; if my words are obscure and ambiguous, let whoever can, make them plain and confirm them. I cannot call lost health, health; and if I were to ascribe such a property to a sick man, what have I given him but a bare name?
But away with such monstrous expressions! For, who can bear that abuse of language by which we affirm that man has Freewill, and yet, in the same breath, assert that he has lost his liberty, and is compelled into the service of sin, and can will nothing good. Such expressions are at variance with common sense, and absolutely destroy the use of speech. Diatribe is to be accused, rather than we: she blurts out her own words as if she were asleep, and gives no heed to what is spoken by others. She does not consider, I say, what it means, and what force it has, to declare that man has lost his liberty, and is compelled to serve sin, and has no power to do anything good. For if she were awake and observant, she would clearly see that the meaning of these three opinions, which she differentiates and opposes to one another, is one and the same thing. For the man who has lost his liberty, who is compelled to serve sin, and who cannot will good — what can be inferred more correctly concerning this man, than that he does nothing but sin, or will evil? Even the Sophists would establish this conclusion by their learned syllogisms. So that Madam Diatribe is very unfortunate in entering the fray with these two last pillions,313 while she approves the first, which is the same thing. Again, her manner is to condemn herself, and approve my sentiments, in one and the same article.
SECT. 13. Ecclesiasticus 15.14-18 resumed and expounded.
Let us now return to the passage in Ecclesiasticus; comparing that first opinion which you declare to be approvable, with it also, as we have now done with the other two. The opinion says, ‘Freewill cannot will good.’ The passage from Ecclesiasticus is cited to prove that ‘Freewill is nothing, and can do nothing,’ The opinion which is to be confirmed by Ecclesiasticus, then, declares one thing, and yet that passage is alleged to confirm another. It is like a man going to prove that Christ is Messiah, adduces a passage which proves that Pontius Pilate was Governor of Syria; or something else which is as wide from it as the extreme notes of the double octave. 314
Just such is your proof of Freewill here — not to mention what I have dispatched already, that nothing here is clearly and certainly affirmed, or proved, as to what Freewill is, and what it can do. But it is worthwhile to examine this whole passage.
In the first place, he says, ‘God made man in the beginning.’ Here he speaks of the creation of man; and up to here, he says nothing either about Freewill, or about precepts.
It follows, ‘and left him in the hand of his own counsel,’ What do we have here? Is Freewill erected here? Not even here is there any mention of the precepts for which Freewill is required; nor do we read a syllable on this subject in the history of the creation of man. If anything is meant, therefore, by the words ‘in the hand of his counsel,’ it must rather be what we read in the first and second chapters of Genesis: ‘Man was appointed lord of the things which were made, so as to have a free dominion over them ,’ as Moses says, “Let us make man, and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea,” etc. Nor can anything else be proved from these words. For in that state, man had power to deal with the creatures according to his own will, they being made his subjects. And he calls this man’s counsel, in opposition to God’s counsel. But after this, when he declared man to have been thus constituted the ruler, and to be left in the hand of his own counsel, he goes on:
“He added his own commands
