Augustine on Initium Fidei
A Case Study of the Coexistence of Operative Grace and Free Decision of the Will
The development of Augustine’s interpretation of initium fidei
Augustine’s responses to the monks at Hadrumetum provoked further disturbances among their confreres in Southern Gaul. Augustine’s assertions on the insuperable grace were sharply criticized and the issue of initium fidei became the central point of the controversy with these monks in Provence, the Massilians. In response to their objections, Augustine composed his final works: the De praedestinatione sanctorum and the De dono perseuerantiae.
What was at stake here is the source of the first step our soul takes towards its salvation or beatitude. Is it a gratuitous gift from God preceding any kind of merit or a recompense for the good merits that originate from human agents themselves? The Massilians maintained that the ability to believe remains in post-lapsarian agents, though damaged by the Fall of Adam. This goodness of nature, however weak it may be, initiates their conversion to the Christian truth, though it should be augmented and strengthened by divine grace. In this effort to defend human agency in our will to believe Augustine detected, however, a latent danger of the Pelagian error that “the grace of God is given in accord with our merit”. In his responses, Augustine conceded that the same danger was also contained in his own earlier account of faith contained in the Pauline exegeses written before 396. Nevertheless, the old Augustine reminded his contemporary readers that he had corrected this error and identified the beginning of faith as a gift of God in Ad Simplicianum of 396.
The work Ad Simplicianum proves to be a turning point in Augustine’s position on the initium fidei, which is the summit or culmination of his early Pauline exegeses. The first explicit reference to the term initium fidei occurs in his comments on Gal 4:19 in Expositio Epistulae ad Galatas of 394/5. However, as Gerhard Ring observes, Augustine did not associate the term initium fidei with the problem of whether faith is a merit or grace in his early reflections on faith.
Without referring to the special term of initium fidei, the issue under discussion is first explicitly addressed, along with his doctrine of predestination, in Expositio quarundam propositionum ex epistula ad Romanos of 393/4. In his comments on the case of Jacob and Esau in Rom 9:11-13, Augustine claimed that election (electio) is in accord with merit (meritum). God’s discriminating love of Jacob is based on his foreknowledge of the Jacob’s future faith. God does not select (elegere) according to our good works, which pertain exclusively to divine grace through the gift of charity, but according to faith. Here, faith is openly regarded as the only merit of human agents, which enables us as believers to receive the gift of God so as to perform good works. Certainly, Augustine noticed that the free decision of human beings to accept the Christian faith is impossible without the call (uocatio) from God’s mercy. Nevertheless, the ultimate decision to adhere to the uocatio, i.e. the initium fidei is left to human beings, in particular to the faculty of liberum arbitrium. Accordingly, divine assistance is restricted to a gracious calling and the ability to perform or to accomplish our decision of faith. In this context, the former simply paves the way to faith without working directly on the faculty of willing, while the latter follows on our free decision as a reward. Human agency presents itself in its full control over our consent to the uocatio of the divine agent. It helps create the impression that in Augustine’s earlier writings, the genuine freedom of the will resides in its ability to do otherwise, that is, to refuse the suggestion from the uocatio.
A similar account of the beginning of faith can be found as well in De diuersis quaestionibus octoginta tribus 68 composed during the same period. Augustine stressed again that believing (credere) is the sole merit that human beings obtain by their own efforts in the progress to salvation. Before actually attaining this faith by the decision of the will, they have been called and urged to faith by the death of Christ, which is a grace preceding any merit. On the other hand, this will to believe does not suffice for attaining peace of mind unless God shows further mercy on us because of our preceding good will. In line with the earlier account, the merit (meritum) of faith is located between the prevenient grace of calling and the subsequent grace of good works. However, this questio is an exegesis of the verse in Rom 9:20, “O man, who are you to answer back to God?” Due to the difference of context, Augustine paid more attention to the function of divine grace in the calling before conversion and its effect on the act of willing:
And since no one can will unless urged on and called, whether inside (intrinsecus) where no one sees, or outside (extrinsecus) through the sound of the spoken word or through some visible signs, it follows that God produces (operari) in us even the willing itself (uelle ipsum)… Accordingly neither should those who came give themselves the credit, for they came by invitation, nor should those who did not want to come blame it on another, but only on themselves, for they had been invited to come of their free will. Therefore, before merit, the calling works on (operari) the will (uoluntas). For this reason, even if (et si) someone called takes the credit for coming, he cannot take the credit for being called. And as for him who is called and does not come, just as his calling was not a deserved reward, so his neglecting to come when called lays the foundation for a deserved punishment.