Agathos: An International Review of the Humanities and Social Sciences (Nov 2016)
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.