THREE AUGUSTINIAN PRINCIPLES REGARDING THE AGREEMENT OF GRACE WITH FREEDOM

Abstract

Augustine never retracts his theories on freedom and on the plenitude of man to choose or to self-determine. He does not reproach to Pelagians to ask the power to choose, he even proclaims with them that, without this power, the responsibility would be canceled. God cannot command a constrained will, and the fact that he commands shows that man’s will is free. God has endowed me with free will; if I have sinned, I am the one who sinned (si peccavi, ego peccavi). Christ’s real disciple is the one that approaches Christ not for understanding what he wants, but to want what he understands.

Keywords

• grace
• freedom
• will
• faith
• sin