Utrum primi homines in paradiso trina illa libertate praediti fuerint, et post peccatum.
The Three Freedoms in Paradise
Augustine introduces the question of whether Adam in paradise possessed all three freedoms—of choice, from necessity, and from misery—and begins by affirming that freedom of choice is common to all.
Now is the time to examine what we put off above: whether the first human beings in paradise possessed all three of those freedoms we named — that is, freedom of choice, freedom from necessity, and freedom from misery — or whether only two, or even just one. As for the first freedom, there's no question about it now — if we remember how clearly higher reason has taught that it belongs equally to the righteous and to sinners alike. About the two remaining freedoms, there's a real question — and not without reason: whether Adam ever had them at all, or both of them, or even just one. For if he had none of them, what did he lose? Freedom of choice, at any rate, he held unshaken as much after sinning as before — he never lost it. If therefore he lost nothing, what did it cost him to have been cast out of paradise? But if he did have any one of those freedoms, how did he lose it? It is certain that from the moment he sinned, he was neither entirely free from sin nor free from misery while he remained in the body.
Degrees of Freedom and Their Loss
Augustine distinguishes higher and lower degrees of each freedom and explains that Adam received the lower degrees, losing both when he sinned.
And yet, once someone has received any of those freedoms, by no means could they lose it. Otherwise, the person is proven not to have had the perfect state — not knowing and not being able to, according to the two things defined above — who surely could will what ought not to be willed, and could receive what was refused. Or should we say that in some sense he did have them, but could lose them because he didn't have them fully? Indeed, each of those two has a higher and a lower degree. The higher freedom of counsel is not being able to sin; the lower is being able not to sin. Likewise, the higher freedom of satisfaction is not being able to be disturbed; the lower is being able not to be disturbed. And so the human being, in the condition of their own making, received the lower degree of each freedom together with the full freedom of choice, and fell from both when they sinned. But in falling from being able not to sin to not being able not to sin, they lost the freedom of counsel entirely.
Free Choice Alone Remains
Only freedom of choice survived the Fall, and it now serves as a punishment by which man rightly lost the higher freedoms of counsel and inner peace.
And likewise the freedom of not being able to be disturbed has passed into not being able to not be disturbed, because the freedom of inner peace was wholly lost. Only the freedom of free choice remained as a punishment, through which a person truly lost the other freedoms; yet this freedom itself could not be lost. For by making oneself a slave to sin through one's own will, a person rightly lost the freedom of an unshaken purpose. Moreover, having become a debtor to death through sin, how could the freedom of inner peace still be maintained?
The Glory and Disgrace of Free Choice
Augustine reflects on how free choice, given for glory, became man's disgrace when misused, yet was the very thing that made his obedience praiseworthy.
So then, concerning the three liberties he had received, by misusing the one called freedom of choice, he stripped himself of the others. In this, however, he went wrong: when he had received it for glory, he turned it against himself into disgrace, as Scripture testifies, "When man was in honor, he did not understand; he is compared to the beasts that are foolish, and made like them" (Ps.✦1 48:13). Alone among all living beings, to man it was given to be able to sin, because of the prerogative of free choice. But it was given not so that he would therefore sin, but so that he would appear more glorious if he did not sin, since he was able to sin. For what could be more glorious to him than if it were said of him what Scripture testifies, saying, "Who is this, and we will praise him?" For this reason, then, worthy of such praise? For he did wondrous things in his own life.
Honor Kept and Lost
The praise of not transgressing was Adam's glory while innocent, lost through sin, yet the fault lies not in the Giver but in the will that misused the gift.
What an honor this is! The one who could have transgressed, it says, but did not; who could have done evil, but did it not (Ecclus. XXXI, 9, 10). This honor, then, he kept as long as he was without sin; he lost it when he sinned. But he sinned because it was open to him to do so — and from no other source, surely, than from freedom of choice, by which the possibility of sinning was inherent in him. Nor was it the fault of the Giver, but of the one who misused the gift — who turned that very faculty to the purpose of sinning, though he had received it for the glory of not sinning. For although he sinned by the power he had received, it was not because he was able to, but because he chose to. For when the devil transgressed, and his angels with him, others also fell — not because they were unable to stand, but because they refused to.
The Asymmetry of Falling and Rising
Augustine concludes that man fell by will alone but cannot rise by will alone, since the power to stand was given as a guard, not as a remedy after falling.
The fall of the one who sins, therefore, is not to be attributed to the gift of power, but to the fault of the will.2 Yet the one who has fallen does not equally have the free ability to rise again by will as he fell by will: because, although the power to stand was given to the will so that he might not fall, he does not equally have the power to rise again if he should fall.34 Nobody can climb out of a pit as easily as they can slip into one.5 Man fell into the pit of sin by will alone, but by will alone he does not have enough power to rise again, since now, even if he should wish to, he cannot help but sin.67
Read the original Latin
Nunc locus est pervidendi quod supra distulimus; utrum scilicet totas tres illas quas diximus libertates, id est, arbitrii, concilii, complaciti; vel aliis nominibus, a necessitate, a peccato, a miseria, primi homines in paradiso habuerint: an tantum duas, an unam solummodo. Et de prima quidem nulla jam quaestio est, si meminerimus quam aperte et justis eam et peccatoribus inesse aequaliter, ratio superior edocuerit. De duabus reliquis quaeritur non immerito, an unquam eas Adam habuerit, aut ambas, aut vel 612 unam. Nam si nullam habuit, quid amisit? Arbitrii utique libertatem tam post peccatum, quam ante semper tenuit inconcussam. Si ergo nil amisit, quid ei obfuit ejectum fuisse de paradiso? Quod si unam quamlibet illarum habuit, quomodo amisit? Nam certum est quia ex quo peccavit, nec a peccato prorsus, nec a miseria manens in corpore, liber fuit.
Caeterum nullatenus, quamcunque illarum semel acceperit, amittere potuit. Alioquin perfectum nec Sapere, nec Posse, juxta quod quidem duo haec superius definita sunt, habuisse convincitur; qui nimirum et velle potuit quod non debuit, et recipere quod noluit. An dicendus est aliquo quidem modo illas habuisse, sed quia non plenarie, potuisse amittere? Habet siquidem unaquaeque illarum duos gradus, superiorem et inferiorem. Superior libertas consilii est, non posse peccare: inferior, posse non peccare. Item superior libertas complaciti, non posse turbari: inferior, posse non turbari. Itaque inferiorem utriusque libertatis gradum simul cum plena libertate arbitrii homo in sui conditione accepit, et de utroque corruit cum peccavit. Corruit autem de posse non peccare in non posse non peccare, amissa ex toto consilii libertate.
Itemque de posse non turbari in non posse non turbari, amissa ex toto complaciti libertate. Sola remansit ad poenam libertas arbitrii, per quam utique caeteras amisit; ipsam tamen amittere non potuit. Per propriam quippe voluntatem servus peccati factus, merito perdidit libertatem consilii. Porro per peccatum factus debitor mortis, quomodo jam libertatem valebat retinere complaciti?
De tribus ergo libertatibus quas acceperat, abutendo illa quae dicitur arbitrii, reliquis sese privavit. In eo autem abusus est, quod illam cum accepisset ad gloriam, convertit sibi in contumeliam, juxta testimonium Scripturae dicentis: Homo cum in honore esset, non intellexit; comparatus est jumentis insipientibus, et similis factus est illis (Psal. XLVIII, 13) . Soli inter animantia datum est homini posse peccare, ob praerogativam liberi arbitrii. Datum est autem, non ut proinde peccaret, sed ut gloriosior appareret si non peccaret, cum peccare posset. Quid namque gloriosius ei esse poterat, quam si de ipso diceretur quod Scriptura perhibet, dicens: Quis est hic, et laudabimus eum? Unde ita laudandus? Fecit enim mirabilia in vita sua.
Quae? Qui potuit transgredi, inquit, et non est transgressus; facere mala et non fecit (Eccli. XXXI, 9, 10) . Hunc ergo honorem quamdiu absque peccato fuit, servavit; amisit, cum peccavit. Peccavit autem, quia liberum ei fuit: nec aliunde profecto liberum, nisi ex libertate arbitrii, de qua utique inerat ei possibilitas peccandi. Nec tamen fuit culpa dantis, sed abutentis, qui ipsam videlicet facultatem convertit in usum peccandi, quam acceperat ad gloriam non peccandi. Nam etsi peccavit ex posse quod accepit; non tamen quia potuit, sed quia voluit. Nec enim praevaricante diabolo et angelis ejus, etiam alil praevaricati sunt: non quia non potuerunt, sed quia noluerunt.
Peccantis igitur lapsus, non dono ascribendus est potestatis, sed vitio voluntatis. Lapsus tamen ex voluntate non aeque ex voluntate resurgere jam liberum habet: quia, etsi datum fuit voluntati posse stare ne caderet, non tamen resurgere si caderet. Non enim tam facile quis valet exire de fovea, quam facile in eam labi. Cecidit sola voluntate homo in foveam peccati: sed non ex voluntate sufficit ei posse resurgere, cum jam, etsi velit, non possit non peccare.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Ps.48.13 — Walk around Zion, go around her, count her towers.
Notes
- 1 ↩Psalm 48:13 (49:12 in some numberings). The quotation is a candidate allusion; final numbering resolution belongs to a later stage.
- 2 ↩ascribendus rendered 'is to be attributed' to capture the gerundive's sense of obligation/necessity.
- 3 ↩liberum rendered 'the free ability' to capture both the substantive sense of free will and the adjectival force modifying the implied capacity to rise.
- 4 ↩ne caderet rendered 'so that he might not fall' — negative purpose clause.
- 5 ↩fovea rendered 'pit' — metaphor for the state of sin.
- 6 ↩cum rendered 'since' — causal reading preferred over concessive given the explanatory context following sed.
- 7 ↩non possit non peccare rendered 'he cannot help but sin' — captures the double negative's force: the inability to avoid sinning after the fall.
De gratia et libero arbitrio (On Grace and Free Choice) companion
Grace works through practice — so practice
Bernard's conclusion frees you to show up daily without anxiety. Chosen Portion makes showing up simple and free.
Bernard's teaching that grace and human consent cooperate is enacted every time a reader freely opens their daily portion in Chosen Portion.
- One 10-minute devotional portion every day, no guesswork
- Read Bernard and other classics in modern English, portion by portion
- A consistent daily rhythm that treats effort as cooperation, not earning