To Florus 3.106
When you claim we say everyone’s freedom of choice is sufficient to worship God rightly without his help, you are lying outright. Worship of God is understood in many ways: keeping the commands, condemning vices, simplicity of life, the ordering of sacred mysteries, and the depth of doctrines Christian faith embraces about the Trinity, the resurrection, and many similar matters. How could we say without distinction that free will is sufficient to worship him without God’s help, when we read the Lord saying in the Gospel: ‘I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you hid these things from the wise and discerning and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, because this was pleasing in your sight’ (Matthew 11:25–26)?
Freedom of choice could not discover on its own all these things, whether doctrines or mysteries. Natural reason, however, could teach people not to worship idols or despise God, who became known as the Creator of the world itself, as the Teacher of the Gentiles testifies (Romans 1:20). Neither we nor any sensible person, then, says what you invent. We maintain that God makes a human being with free will, helps that person through countless forms of divine grace, and leaves that person able either to keep God’s commands or to transgress them. This is where we defend free will: while God shows his kindness in so many ways—commanding, blessing, sanctifying, restraining, inviting, enlightening—each person already using reason is free either to keep or to despise God’s will.
Latin
Quod enim ais ad colendum recte Deum sine ipsius adiutorio dici a nobis sufficere unicuique libertatem arbitrii, omnino mentiris. Cum enim cultus Dei multis intellegatur modis et in custodia mandatorum et in exsecratione vitiorum et in simplicitate conversationis et in ordine mysteriorum et in profunditate dogmatum, quae de Trinitate vel de resurrectione multisque aliis similibus fides christiana consequitur, qui fieri potest, ut nos inconfuso dicamus sine adiutorio Dei liberum arbitrium sufficiens ad eius esse culturam, cum legamus in Evangelio dicentem Dominum: Confiteor tibi, Pater, Domine caeli et terrae, qui abscondisti haec a sapientibus et prudentibus et revelasti ea parvulis; ita, Pater, quoniam sic fuit beneplacitum ante te [n130] ? Cum utique ista omnia, tam quae dogmatibus quam quae mysteriis continentur, libertas arbitrii per se non potuerit invenire, quamvis, ut nec idola colerentur nec Deus, qui innotescebat mundi ipsius Conditor, sperneretur, Magistro Gentium teste docere potuerit ratio naturalis [n131] . Non ergo hoc, quod fingis, aut nos aut quisquam dicit prudentium, sed affirmamus a Deo fieri hominem liberi arbitrii eumque innumeris divinae gratiae speciebus iuvari, cui possibile sit vel servare Dei mandata vel transgredi. Et hoc est, ubi liberum arbitrium esse defendimus, ut, cum Deus tam multis modis benignitatem suam asserat, id est praecipiendo benedicendo sanctificando cohercendo provocando illuminando, unusquisque eorum, qui iam ratione utitur, liberum habeat voluntatem Dei vel servare vel spernere.