. . . for Augustine no one can know that he is saved and even those
who are saved do not lead perfect lives. Not only do they need continual help, they
would be utterly unable to act for good, but even when in receipt of help their
evil and corrupted natures are continually struggling to reassert themselves.
Augustine seems to have been worried that if he allowed anyone, even with God’s
help, to reach a state of achieved perfection in this life, the help would become
unnecessary. And he is convinced by the Bible that its consistent message is
that God’s help is always necessary. So insistent is Augustine on this point
that even in the case of Mary he is very careful in his remarks about her being
without sin. The Pelagians had claimed that various Old Testament worthies had
lived sinless lives. Augustine ridicules the idea. What do you suppose these
men would say if we asked them whether they lived without sin?, he asks
Pelagius. As for Mary, says Augustine, I do not wish to query Pelagius’ claim
that she was winless ‘out of honour to the Lord’. When discussing her further
he is careful to point out that for this sinlessness to be attained, grace for
overcoming sin had to be given ‘in every particular’ (omni ex parte). It
is important to observe what Augustine says is not that she could not sin, but
that grace was given to her in every particular of life so that the
ever-present possibility of sin was overcome. It appears that Augustine’s view
of the grace accorded to her should be compared with his view of the situation
of Adam . . . it is sufficient to observe that both Adam and Mary seem, for
Augustine, to have had the possibility of sinning (posse peccare) but
that Mary was given the grace which prevented that possibility from becoming
actualized.
Mary, in Augustine’s view, is a special case. In general he seems to
have held that good men, even those who enjoy the grace of perseverance to the
end, are liable to failure in particular actions. As a result of the permanent
weakness of fallen man, a weakness which is not removed by baptism, the life
even of the saint is a series of failures and successes. Not only is the saint
able to sin, but he actually sins. Only after death is the stage reached in
which sin is impossible (non posse peccare) and freedom (libertas)
is attained. (John M. Rist, “Augustine on Free Will and Predestination,”
in Augustine: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. R. A. Markus [Modern
Studies in Philosophy; New York: Anchor Books, 1972], 225-26, emphasis in bold
added)
