A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter 4
4 Theirs is a Much More Serious Error, Requiring a Very Vigorous Refutation, Who Deny God’s Grace to Be Necessary PL 44, 202
They, however, must be resisted with the utmost ardor and vigor who suppose that without God’s help, the mere power of the human will in itself, can either perfect righteousness, or advance steadily towards it; and when they begin to be hard pressed about their presumption in asserting that this result can be reached without the divine assistance, they check themselves, and do not venture to utter such an opinion, because they see how impious and insufferable it is. But they allege that such attainments are not made without God’s help on this account, namely, because God both created man with the free choice of his will, and, by giving him commandments, teaches him, Himself, how man ought to live; and indeed assists him, in that He takes away his ignorance by instructing him in the knowledge of what he ought to avoid and to desire in his actions: and thus, by means of the free-will naturally implanted within him, he enters on the way which is pointed out to him, and by persevering in a just and pious course of life, deserves to attain to the blessedness of eternal life.
Sed illis acerrime ac vehementissime resistendum est, qui putant sine adjutorio Dei per se ipsam vim voluntatis humanae vel justitiam posse perficere, vel ad eam tenendo proficere: et cum urgeri coeperint, quomodo id praesumant asserere fieri sine ope divina, reprimunt se, nec hanc vocem audent emittere, quoniam vident quam sit impia, et non ferenda. Sed aiunt, ideo ista sine ope divina non fieri, quia et hominem Deus creavit cum libero voluntatis arbitrio, et dando praecepta ipse docet quemadmodum homini sit vivendum; et in eo utique adjuvat, quod docendo aufert ignorantiam, ut sciat homo in operibus suis quid evitare, et quid appetere debeat; quo per liberum arbitrium naturaliter insitum, viam demonstratam ingrediens, continenter et juste et pie vivendo ad beatam eamdemque aeternam vitam pervenire mereatur.