{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/105/1050233.htm","path":"chr/ecf/105/1050233.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/105/1050233.htm","text":"Chapter 57 [XXXIII.]\u2014Whence Comes the Will to Believe?\nBut it remains for us briefly to inquire, Whether the will by which we believe be itself the gift of God, or whether it arise from that free will which is naturally implanted in us? If we say that it is not the gift of God, we must p. 109 then incur the fear of supposing that we have discovered some answer to the apostle\u2019s reproachful appeal: \u201cWhat hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now, if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?\u201d 1043 \u2014even some such an answer as this: \u201cSee, we have the will to believe, which we did not receive. See in what we glory,\u2014even in what we did not receive!\u201d If, however, we were to say that this kind of will is nothing but the gift of God, we should then have to fear lest unbelieving and ungodly men might not unreasonably seem to have some fair excuse for their unbelief, in the fact that God has refused to give them this will. Now this that the apostle says, \u201cIt is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of His own good pleasure,\u201d 1044 belongs already to that grace which faith secures, in order that good works may be within the reach of man,\u2014even the good works which faith achieves through the love which is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost which is given to us. If we believe that we may attain this grace (and of course believe voluntarily), then the question arises whence we have this will?\u2014if from nature, why it is not at everybody\u2019s command, since the same God made all men? if from God\u2019s gift, then again, why is not the gift open to all, since \u201cHe will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth?\u201d 1045","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. V: A Treatise on the...","type":"page"}