¹ De spiritu et littera 30.52 (CSEL 60. 208): Liberum ergo arbitrium evacuamus per gratiam? Absit, sed magis liberum arbitrium statuimus. (Do we therefore rid ourselves of free will through grace? On the contrary, we establish free will.)

The task of translating Augustine's terminology for discussing the will has frequently become a source of disagreement among scholars. In his The Christian Philosophy of Saint Augustine (trans. Lynch, L. E. M.; New York: Random House, 1960) 323–24Google Scholar, Etienne Gilson tries to sort things out as systematically as possible. Liberum arbitrium seems generally to be reserved for describing the freedom in action that all humans, whether saintly or benighted, enjoy by virtue of acting on what they desire. Liberatus and libertas, however, seem only to apply to those whose desires are conformed to the will of God. The latter terms in particular admit degrees of freedom.

While Gilson's observations are helpful, glaring exceptions still can be expected. A case in point is the above citation, where liberum arbitrium does not have the simple meaning of the facility to act on one's desires, but instead comes closer to the usual meaning of libertas. (Augustine is probably playing on the ambiguity of his own terminology for rhetorical effect.) As a rule, it is always better to rely on context than on consistency in terminology for sorting out Augustine's reflections on the will.

² For a first-rate exposition of the theology bearing on the will and its states of freedom and bondage, see Rist, John M., “Augustine on Free Will and Predestination,” JTS n.s. 20 (1969) 420–47Google Scholar; reprinted in Markus, R. A., ed., Augustine: A Collection of Critical Essays (Garden City: Doubleday, 1972).Google Scholar For a general understanding of Augustine's theology, I am especially indebted to TeSelle, Eugene, Augustine the Theologian (London: Burns & Oates, 1972)Google Scholar; Brown, Peter, Augustine of Hippo (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967)Google Scholar; Burnaby, John, Amor Dei: A Study of the Religion of St. Augustine (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1938)Google Scholar; and O'Donovan, Oliver, The Problem of Self-Love in St. Augustine (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980).Google Scholar

³ See, e.g., De doctrina Christiana 2. 40. 60 (CCSL 32. 73–74). Augustine believed that the Christians of his day could happily mine the liberal disciplines of pagan culture for truths not necessarily intended by their pagan articulators (e.g., theological truths). The point cuts both ways. Augustine's theological reflections can be read by us in ways that go beyond his own intentions. The theology, of course, must be understood in its own terms first.

⁴ Most, but not all, varieties of compatibilism have been concerned with counterfactuals and with questions of modality in general. The exceptions are not considered here, since they have been less prominent in evaluations of Augustine.

⁵ Rist's evaluation of Augustine in his seminal article (above, n. 2) is a case in point. He assumes that Augustine preserves human freedom only if grace is resistible.

⁶ “Some Modal Confusions in Compatibilism,” American Philosophical Quarterly 18 (1981) 141–48.Google Scholar

⁷ De spiritu et littera 31.53 (CSEL 60. 209–10). Falk (143) excerpts Burnaby's, John translation in Augustine: Later Works (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1955) 237Google Scholar, as follows:

⁸ Compatibilism does not require that all agent-relative items (beliefs nd desires, for instance) be excluded from the circumstances of possibility. In deliberation I can reflect upon my own beliefs and desires as part of the situation under consideration. What compatibilism does require is that the desire associated with the outcome of the deliberation and effective in action remain outside the description of the circumstances making the action possible.

⁹ Falk, “Some Modal Confusions,” 142–43: “This point is reached when the time of possibility is so close to the time of the act that there is not enough time left to permit changing one's mind. At this point one can no longer say that one is then still able though unwilling to perform the act, because one's willingness as of that moment is a circumstance disabling one from becoming willing in the brief moments left. Deliberation also stops at this moment because to continue would be pointless. Here we do intuit an inability relevant to deliberation, and this implies that there are conditions under which what one is willing to do is a circumstance of the possibility of doing otherwise, and is in fact a disabling circumstance.”

¹⁰ Monica's action at t_b can be inferred from her state of mind at t_n only when it is assumed that no external contingencies frustrate her intention in the interim. The qualification is important, since it reminds us that Falk's thought experiment has no bearing on whether a science of human action is feasible. For decisive doubts about the latter, see Davidson, Donald, “Freedom to Act,” in Honderich, Ted, ed., Essays on Freedom of Action (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973)Google Scholar; reprinted in Davidson, , Essays on Actions and Events (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980).Google Scholar

¹¹ Falk, “Some Modal Confusions,” 143: “Even a fatalist can admit that he is simultaneously both able-and-unwilling-at-a-time to perform an act at a later time provided the circumstances-of-possibility include the impulses and assentings and habits of thought that cause one's willing.”

¹² Falk himself does not believe that modal or counterfactual approaches can generate interesting conclusions about human freedom. His excursus into the determinism debate is consequently an attempt to discredit the understanding of freedom it assumes. His strategy is as follows: (1) Assume that free will turns on the analysis of counterfactuals about actions; i.e., it is a modal issue; (2) it follows that incompatibilism is theoretically more plausible than compatibilism (the burden of his case); (3) incompatibilism is either fatalism or libertarianism. Since both fatalism and libertarianism are unacceptable to the majority of philosophers, Falk believes that he has offered a reductio of (1). While I agree with Falk that free will is not helpfully defended or denied within an exclusively modal context, I doubt whether the thesis of incompatibilism is sufficiently clear to force any issues. For similar doubts, see Strawson's, Peter brilliant piece, “Freedom and Resentment,” Proceedings of the British Academy 48 (1962) 1–25.Google Scholar

¹³ Scholarly interest in this period of Augustine's intellectual development is growing. I have availed myself of discussions in TeSelle, Augustine the Theologian, 156–82; Brown, Augustine of Hippo, 146–57; and Babcock, William S., “Augustine's Interpretation of Romans (AD 394–396),” Augustinian Studies 10 (1979) 55–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Babcock is particularly adept at detailing the transformations in Augustine's doctrine of election. I have to dissent, however, from his conclusion that by 396 “Augustine has, in effect, sacrificed both man's freedom and God's justice on the altar of the sheer gratuity of God's grace.”

¹⁴ For the Latin text and English translation of Expositio quarundam Propositionum ex Epistola ad Romanos, see Landes, Paul Fredriksen, Augustine on Romans (Chico: Scholars Press, 1982).Google Scholar Propositions 13–18, 35, 44–46, 55, and 60–61 are the most important for my argument.

¹⁵ De diversis quaestionibus ad Simplicianum 1.2.7 (CCSL 44. 31–32): Nemo enim credit qui non vocatur. Misericors autem deus vocat nullis hoc vel fidei meritis largiens, quia merita fidei sequuntur vocationem potius quam praecedunt. … Nisi ergo vocando praecedat misericordia dei, nec credere quisquam potest, ut ex hoc incipiat iustificari et accipere facultatem bene operandi. (For no one believes who is not called. Furthermore God in his mercy does not grant a calling as a reward for faith, since the merits of faith follow the calling rather than precede it. Therefore, unless the mercy of God sets the stage by means of a calling, no one is able to believe in such a way that he or she begins to be justified and to receive the power for acting well.)

¹⁶ Ad Simplicianum 1.2.16 (CCSL 44. 42). Babcock (“Augustine's Interpretation,” 66–67) offers an interesting assessment of Augustine's views on divine justice as they change from his earlier interpretations of Paul to his position in Ad Simplicianum.

¹⁷ This verse appears in the Vulgate in Matt 20:16 and 22:14. The RSV cites it only in Matt 22:14.

¹⁸ Ad Simplicianum 1.2.13 (CCSL 44.38): Illi enim electi qui congruenter vocati, illi autem qui non congruebant neque contemperabantur vocationi non electi, quia non secuti quamvis vocati. … Cuius autem miseretur, sic eum vocat, quomodo scit ei congruere, ut vocantem non respuat. (For they have been elected who have been called suitably; the ones, however, who neither suited nor obeyed their calling have not been elected, since they have not followed although they have been called. … God calls the one on whom he has mercy in the way God knows will suit that person, with the result that he or she does not reject the calling.)

¹⁹ For those who have worked through Ad Simplicianum, the judgment of Eugene Portalie is fairly typical: “If his teaching of predestination destroyed liberty, Augustine denied it already in 397, for at the very beginning of his episcopacy (fifteen years before the Pelagian controversy began) he formulated his system in a famous reply which has not been sufficiently studied or understood. Simplicianus, Ambrose's successor to the see of Milan, posed several questions to his old pupil. Among them, he asked Augustine about Chapter IX of the Epistle to the Romans. The reply, On Various Questions for Simplicianus, constitutes a true key to the Augustinian system because of its accuracy, its fullness, its clarity, and especially because of the rational explanation which it gives to the dogma. It must be reread if one wishes to grasp the depth of its thought and the significance of the formulas which, though in constant use later, are rarely explained elsewhere” (Portalie, Eugene, A Guide to the Thought of St. Augustine [trans. Bastian, Ralph J.; Chicago: Regnery, 1960] 182).Google Scholar

²⁰ For a concise description of ante legem as a stance of agency lacking the resources for self-evaluation, see Augustine's comment about his own stormy adolescence in the Conf. 2.2.2 (CCSL 27. 18).

²¹ Because of Augustine's own fascination with the threat inordinate sexual desires posed to self-integrity, there is an understandable temptation among his readers to equate all forms of concupiscence with unbridled sensual passions and biological drives. The life ante legem is then pictured as a round of debauchery and profligate indulgence, and spiritual struggle ends up as a fight against the beast within. To recognize just how distorted such a picture is, one need only call to mind some of the other varieties of concupiscence described in the Confessions—excessive attention to refinements in speech, unreasonable concern for finding favor in the eyes of friends, and inordinate attachment to the pleasures of music and theatre. In Conf. 10.35 Augustine describes what might even be called a form of intellectual concupiscence. Curiositas is an inquisitiveness having its source in a thirst for knowledge but lacking in the appropriate concern for truth. Although it is a form of concupiscence, it cannot be identified simply with the pursuit of pleasure, since curiositas may entice someone to court unpleasant experiences simply for the sake of new information (see CCSL 27. 184–86).

²² Journal of Philosophy 68 (1971) 5–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

²³ Baier, Annette, “Mind and Change of Mind,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Metaphysics 4 (1979) 157–76Google Scholar; reprinted in idem, Postures of the Mind: Essays on Mind and Morals (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985).Google Scholar

²⁴ Augustine generally associates the failure to recognize the nature of beatitudo with a failure to understand how God is related to the created world. The latter failure is in turn rooted in a myopic attention to creation. Persons ante legem become so enamored with the immediacy of the created order that their love loses its proper measure and proportion. The result is impaired judgment. See Conf. 10.6.10 (CCSL 27. 160): Homines autem possunt interrogare, ut invisibilia dei per ea, quae facta sunt, intellecta conspiciant, sed amore subduntur eis et subditi iudicare non possunt. (Humans are able to examine the created order with an eye toward discerning the unseen nature of God through creation, but their love for created things draws them away and having surrendered themselves they lose their capacity for judgment.)

²⁵ The importance of continence for self-integrity is expressed clearly and succinctly in Conf. 10.29.40 (CCSL 27. 176). Memory is the subject of most of Book 10. The sections most germane to my reading of Augustine include 10.23–26 (CCSL 27. 172–75), where he links acts of remembering with the search for God and beatitudo.

²⁶ See Conf. 8.5.10 (CCSL 27. 119): Velle meum tenebat inimicus et inde mihi catenam feceratet constrinxerat me. Quippe ex voluntate perversa facta est libido, et dum servitur libidini, facta est consuetudo, et dum consuetudini non resistitur, facta est necessitas. (The enemy was taking hold of my will, and from it he had forged my chains and constrained me. For indeed perverse desire sprang from my perverse will, and while I was serving desire, its familiarity was established, and while I failed to resist that familiarity, it was made my necessity.)

²⁷ I am indebted here to Donald Davidson's discussion of the essentially “surd” character of intentionally acting counter to one's own best judgment. See his “How Is Weakness of the Will Possible?” in Feinberg, Joel, ed., Moral Concepts (Oxford Readings in Philosophy; New York: Oxford University Press, 1970)Google Scholar; reprinted in Davidson, Essays on Actions and Events.

²⁸ TeSelle (Augustine the Theologian, 197) also draws the connection between Augustine's theological convictions in Ad Simplicianum and his description of his own conversion in Book 8 of the Confessions.

²⁹ The thesis that determination for what is good bears differently on human freedom than determination for evil has recently entered the contemporary debate on free will by way of Wolf's, Susan article, “Asymmetrical Freedom,” Journal of Philosophy 77 (1980) 151–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In good Augustinian fashion Wolf argues that the condition of freedom cannot be specified without reference to notions of truth and goodness. Consequently, she finds determination for the good acceptable for human freedom in a way that determination for evil cannot be. On the whole, her article confirms my suspicion that many of Augustine's assumptions about the nature of human freedom have validity apart from the context of his theology. His comparable views about moral responsibility, however, are wedded firmly to doctrines about grace and human fallenness. Some of the complexity of Augustine's understanding of responsibility will come out in a discussion of theological determinism but certainly not the whole picture.

³⁰ In De doctrina Christiana Augustine does make mention of “the peace of proper consuetudo,” but he never develops the idea at any length. See 1.24.25 (CCSL 32. 20).

³¹ See De civitate Dei 19.4 (CCSL 48. 665).

³² The possible conflict between a theology of grace and an ethics of character was first brought to my attention by Scott Davis.

³³ George Orwell's 1984 can be interpreted as a literary illustration of this sort of determination for evil. The “Big Brother” State parodies Augustine's God in all essentials. It pretends to omniscience through techniques of surveillance and manipulation of access to information, to omnipotence through the rigid control of thought and language, and it is wholly malevolent, exercising power solely for power's sake. Salvation comes in loving Big Brother; damnation is having any love other than for Big Brother. When the State detects deviance among its subjects, it watches carefully and learns everything there is to know about the person who has erred, waiting for that moment when it can in its omniscience and omnipotence suitably call the deviant back to conformity. Conversion finally comes in Room 101, where the situation is always structured perfectly to elicit love for Big Brother and betrayal of all other loves.

³⁴ Ad Simplicianum 1.2.15–16 (CCSL 44. 39–42). Augustine develops the idea that the hardening of sinners results from the denial of God's mercy and grace rather than from any direct intervention on God's part. In his later writings on predestination, these reflections become the basis for his distinction between God's active and permissive will.