Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume V/On Nature and Grace/Chapter 49

Chapter 49 [XLII.]—A Man Can Be Sinless, But Only by the Help of Grace. In the Saints This Possibility Advances and Keeps Pace with the Realization.

“Well, be it so,” says he, “I agree; he testifies to the fact that all were sinners. He says, indeed, what they have been, not that they might not have been something else. Wherefore,” he adds, “if all then could be proved to be sinners, it would not by any means prejudice our own definite position, in insisting not so much on what men are, as on what they are able to be.” He is right for once to allow that no man living is justified in God&#8217;s sight. He contends, however, that this is not the question, but that the point lies in the possibility of a man&#8217;s not sinning,—on which subject it is unnecessary for us to take ground against him; for, in truth, I do not much care about expressing a definite opinion on the question, whether in the present life there ever have been, or now are, or ever can be, any persons who have had, or are having, or are to have, the love of God so perfectly as to admit of no addition to it (for nothing short of this amounts to a most true, full, and perfect righteousness). For I ought not too sharply to contend as to when, or where, or in whom is done that which I confess and maintain can be done by the will of man, aided by the grace of God. Nor do I indeed contend about the actual possibility, forasmuch as the possibility under dispute advances with the realization in the saints, their human will being healed and helped; whilst “the love of God,” as fully as our healed and cleansed nature can possibly receive it, “is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given to us.” In a better way, therefore, is God&#8217;s cause promoted (and it is to its promotion that our author professes to apply his warm defence of nature) when He is acknowledged as our Saviour no less than as our Creator, than when His succour to us as Saviour is impaired and dwarfed to nothing by the defence of the creature, as if it were sound and its resources entire.