The work is structured as a dialogue between Augustine and his companion Evodius; it ranges over several topics, and includes an attempted proof of the existence of God.
Intended also as a refutation of Manichaeism, De libero arbitrio denied God's responsibility for sin and emphasised human freedom and accountability.
As a result, it became associated with Pelagianism, another doctrine which Augustine considered heretical; he subsequently defended the work by softening its libertarian message.
Augustine, however, was left unsatisfied by this explanation, and eventually drifted away from Manichaeism to be baptised into the Catholic Church in 387 AD.
De libero arbitrio, begun later the same year, was an attempt at a new solution to the problem of evil, one which would preserve Christian monotheism while upholding the goodness and omnipotence of God.
[1] This was one of several anti-Manichaean works authored by Augustine around this time, partially in a deliberate attempt to distance himself from his former beliefs.
[3][4] The work was loosely based on real conversations which Augustine had with his friend and correspondent Evodius, who is made the second character in the dialogue.
[5] However, the dialogue format is only inconsistently followed, and Evodius disappears from sight for much of the third volume,[6] while Augustine indulges in a series of extended monologues which anticipate the methods of his later works.
The eternal law requires that "everything be ordered in the highest degree";[10] as applied to a person's inner life as well as all else, due to the Divine Providence.
Since this is the natural order of things, it is not possible for reason to be overthrown by desire unless it voluntarily submits, in which case the sinner is worthy of punishment (ch.
Anticipating the cogito ergo sum of Descartes,[3] Augustine begins by establishing the existence of the self as a fact that cannot be logically doubted.
Evodius asks whether or not this movement of the will is natural to it, asserting that if this were the case, a person could not be held morally responsible for turning from higher goods to lower ones.
Having said that human souls are capable, with God's help, of achieving perfection, Augustine anticipates an objection concerning the untimely death of children, who are given no opportunity to accrue merit or blame.
The book ends by affirming the worthlessness of temporal pleasures in comparison with the joy of eternal communion with God.
From the year 411 onwards, Augustine became involved in a fierce dispute with the British monk Pelagius, who taught that it was possible to lead a good life and achieve salvation purely through the correct use of free will, without any direct assistance from God.
By this time, however, Augustine had come to see divine grace as central to his theology, and believed Pelagius's views to be incompatible with his own.
[16] In a later work, Retractationes, written around 427, he again insisted that certain quotes pulled by Pelagius from De libero arbitrio were being misinterpreted:[17] In these and similar statements which I made, I did not allude explicitly to the grace of God, since this was not the subject of the inquiry; thus the Pelagians suppose, or may suppose, that I was in agreement with their views.
Unless the will is freed by the grace of God from the bondage through which it has become a slave of sin ... mortal men cannot live rightly and piously.Modern scholars are unconvinced by Augustine's claim that the argument of De libero arbitrio is consistent with his later writings, finding that the work does bear strong resemblances to Pelagian doctrine.
On the other hand, there are occasional hints within it of some of the ideas about grace which would eventually come to play a much greater role in Augustinian thought.