Augustine and the Beauty of Perseverance

It is worth noting that when Augustine speaks of the “peace that surpasses all understanding” (a peace that flows from the cross), he suggests that “we can only know it by coming to it.”[1]

Augustine through the course of his writings gives great emphasis to the grace of God in initiating our salvation, helping Christians to grow in grace, and in persevering His people.  And Augustine quite consistently and repeatedly denies that human merit has anything to do with bringing about God’s grace.  He writes: “the grace of God both for beginning and for persevering up to the end is not given according to our merits, but is given according to his most hidden and at the same time most just, most wise, and most beneficent will.”[2] . . .

In speaking of those who have come to Christ, Augustine also consistently affirms the centrality of desire, delight and affections as central.  That is, consistent with his overarching theology of the will, Augustine contends that persons ultimately do what they want.  Whereas before conversion persons do not want—ultimately—to believe, in a similar way after conversion we obey God because we want to.  Just as we believed because we wanted to, so we walk in grace because we want to.  Thus, Augustine can write:

We, on the other hand, say that the human will is helped to achieve righteousness in this   way: Besides the fact that human beings are created with free choice of the will and besides the teaching by which they are commanded how they ought to live, they receive the Holy Spirit so that there arises in their minds a delight in and a love for that highest and immutable good that is God.[3]

He continues, “unless we find delight in it and love it, we do not act, do not begin, do not live good lives. But so that we may love it, the love of God is poured out in our hearts, not by free choice which comes from ourselves, but by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5:5).”[4]

Delight is central, and if one misses this, one misses the heart of Augustine on the Christian life.  We want to do godly things for God has transformed our desires.  Augustine writes in his Against Two Letters of the Pelagians: “For the good begins to be desired when it begins to become sweet.”[5] And Augustine is clear that the desire comes from the Lord:

[A] human being would not have the desire for the good from the Lord, if it were not good, but if it is good, we have it from no one but from him who is supremely and immutably good.  For what is the desire for good but the love about which the apostle John speaks without any ambiguity when he says, Love is from God (1 Jn 4:7)?  Nor does its beginning come from us and its completion come from God; rather, if love is from God, we have the whole of it from God.[6]

Augustine continues, making the point that the sweetness itself comes from the Lord:

[T]he blessing of sweetness is the grace of God by which he brings it about in us that we find delight in and we desire, that is, that we love, what he commands us. If God does not go before us with this grace, we not only do not complete, but we do not even begin to do what he commands.  After all, if we can do nothing without him, we obviously can neither begin it nor bring it to completion. For scripture said, His mercy will go before me (Ps 59:11) so that we might begin it, and it said, His mercy will follow after me (Ps 23:6) so that we might complete it.[7]

Christians persevere because they want to persevere, even if—for Augustine—all they can ultimately do is persevere.  Augustine writes:

Now in the case of the saints who are predestined to the kingdom of God by the grace of God, the assistance of perseverance which is given is not that [granted to the first man], but that kind which brings the gift of actual perseverance.  It is not just that they cannot persevere without this gift; once they have received this gift, they can no nothing except persevere.[8]

And the will is central.  Thus, in speaking of his experience leading up to his conversion, Augustine can write, “At this point the power to act is identical with the will.”[9]

For Augustine we do not even begin to do good works unless God moves in us.  He writes:

But because we cannot do good works unless helped by his gift, as the apostle says, For it is God who produces in you both the will and the action in accord with good will (Phil 2:13), we shall not be able to rest after all our good works that we do in this life unless we have been made holy and perfect for eternity by his gift. Hence, scripture says of God himself that, after he had made all things very good, he rested on the seventh day from all the works which he made (Gen. 1:31 and 2:2).  For that day signified the future rest that he was going to give us human beings after our good works. After all, just as when          we do good works, he by whose gift we do good works is said to work within us, so when we rest, he by whose gift we rest is said to rest.[10]

Augustine holds that who someone is is determined by the nature of their loves.  We ought to love the right thing (not the wrong thing), and we ought to love the right thing in the right way.  Augustine writes:  “for he is not justly called a good man who knows what is good, but who loves it.  Is it not then obvious that we love in ourselves the very love wherewith we love whatever good we love?  For there is also a love wherewith we love that which we ought not to love: and this love is hated by him who loves that wherewith he loves what ought to be loved.”[11]

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