Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

CHAP. viir. of Freewill. 229
of the will is not original ; this very source within us is
derived from a source without us. This rise of the will
out of ourselves is no more opposed to its true causation
than the birth of man from man is
by Divine grace,
opposed to man s creation by Divine power. The will is a
middle cause between (rod and the act, as man is a middle
cause between God and the human birth. It is a cause,
but that very cause is caused ; i.e. the will is an absolutely
free mode of action, but not a true original source of action.
Such a doctrine is not fairly open to the charge commonly
brought against it, that it converts man into a machine,
for it does not
and degrades him to the level of matter;
do so. A machine has no will ; but this doctrine expressly
admits in man a will. But it allows a will as a mediate,
and not a first cause, of action.
The Augustinian doctrine of freewill having been thus
stated, it only remains to point out wherein lies its pecu
liarity, in what the true difference between it and the
ordinary doctrine of freewill consists.
The first characteristic, then,
that we observe in the
doctrine which we have been considering, is, that it com
bines freewill with necessity. The terms themselves neces
sity and necessary are not indeed in constant use in Augus
tine though he does use them ; maintaining man in a state
of nature to be under a necessity to sin peccati necessitas^
and under grace to be recalled by necessity to a
spiritual life necessitate revocari.* Not selecting them
for his own use conveying as they do to ordinary minds
the idea of force when challenged by his Pelagian
opponent to admit them, he does not refuse ; only securing
a distinction between a co-active and a creative necessity.
But though the word itself is not in constant use, other
words which signify the same thing are ; and therefore
1
Op. Imp. 1. 5. c. 61. cuta est peccantem peccavit habendi
2
Op. Imp. 1. 1. c. 93. Necessi- dura necessitas, donee tota sanetur
tatis inerat plenitude. L. 5. c. 59. infirmitas . . . ita ut sit etiam
Attende eum qui dicit, Quod nolo bene vivendi, et nunquam peccandi
malum hoc ago, et responde utrum voluntaria felixque necessitas."
necessitatem non habeat. L. 5. c. De Perfectione Justitise, c. 4.
50. Quia vero peccavit voluntas se-