Would Augusting made the argument that he could have continued to sin and carry on with the mantra of ‘give me chastity, but not yet’ and been OK?
“Would Augusting made the argument that he could have continued to sin and carry on with the mantra of ‘give me chastity, but not yet’ and been OK?”
An irrelevant question that really reveals how little the RCC understands of these things.
Good works and faith are the result of grace, and not the cause of grace or salvation. We do not say that good works are absent. We merely put them in their proper order. Nothing can be attributed to our own doing, and nothing we receive from God can ever be earned, contrary to what the Papists say. This is what we are talking about. Not whether or not one is free to sin all they like.
As Augustine says, explaining predestination:
“For they think that having received God’s commands we are of ourselves by the choice of our free will made holy and immaculate in His sight in love; and since God foresaw that this would be the case, they say, He therefore chose and predestinated us in Christ before the foundation of the world. Although the apostle says that it was not because He foreknew that we should be such, but in order that we might be such by the same election of His grace, by which He showed us favour in His beloved Son. When, therefore, He predestinated us, He foreknew His own work by which He makes us holy and immaculate. Whence the Pelagian error is rightly refuted by this testimony. But we say, say they, “that God did not foreknow anything as ours except that faith by which we begin to believe, and that He chose and predestinated us before the foundation of the world, in order that we might be holy and immaculate by His grace and by His work.” But let them also hear in this testimony the words where he says, “We have obtained a lot, being predestinated according to His purpose who works all things.” (Ephesians 1:11) He, therefore, works the beginning of our belief who works all things; because faith itself does not precede that calling of which it is said: “For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance;” (Romans 11:29) and of which it is said: “Not of works, but of Him that calls” (Romans 9:12) (although He might have said, of Him that believes); and the election which the Lord signified when He said: “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.” (John 15:16) For He chose us, not because we believed, but that we might believe, lest we should be said first to have chosen Him, and so His word be false (which be it far from us to think possible), “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.” Neither are we called because we believed, but that we may believe; and by that calling which is without repentance it is effected and carried through that we should believe. But all the many things which we have said concerning this matter need not to be repeated.” (Augustine, Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints, Chp. 38)