Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

212 Augustinian Doctrine CHAP. TIII.
of the determination of this will, and under this head
Augustine s language is not only less than, but is opposed
to, the common doctrine of freewill.
The doctrine of freewill is, as has been stated, that the
will has a self-determining power, which produces right
acts or wrong, according as it is exercised. On the other
hand, the opponents of the doctrine of freewill object that
this is an absurd and self-contradictory cause to assign to
human actions ; for that, if the power of acting one way or
another be the cause of the distinction in human actions,
i.e. of the good or bad act which really ensues, the
same cause can produce opposite effects. The objection
proceeds on the assumption that human actions must have
a cause ; which granted, it follows of course that such a
cause cannot be a neutral or flexible thing, as this freewill
or power of choice is described to be.
Now, there is a passage, which I have already quoted, 1
in which the doctrine of freewill, as thus stated, comes
under the notice of Augustine. The doctrine is stated in
this passage thus : that We have a power of taking either
side possibilitas utriusque partis, implanted in us by
God, as a fruitful and productive root, to produce and
bring forth according to men s different wills, and either
shine with the flower of virtue, or bristle with the thorns
of vice, according to the choice of the cultivator. This is
a plain statement of the ordinary doctrine of freewill.
There is a power of taking either side inherent in our
nature ; that power determines our wills, and according as
our wills are determined we do good or bad actions. To
this doctrine, then, thus stated, Augustine objects on the
same ground as that which has been just mentioned, viz.,
that it gives an absurd and self-contradictory cause to
human actions. Such a doctrine he says, establishes one
and the same root of the good and the bad, unam
eandemque radicem constituit bonorum et malorum. 1
That is, he says, it maintains one and the same ultimate
or original condition of the man, out of which the opposite
lives and actions of the two issue ; to maintain which is to
1 De Gratia Christi, c. 18.