Onca yıldır hür iradem nerelerdeydi? Hangi derin ve saklı kuytudan boynumu senin boyunduruğuna geçirebileyim -ki kolaydır-
ve yükünü -ki hafiftir-
yükleneyim diye ortaya çıkıverdi.
Aziz Augustine, İtiraflar
Augustine bound the receiving of grace to membership in the visible church. He also supported, however, the doctrine that God chooses whom he will and gives them power to serve him, which makes salvation a matter between God and the individual. It was this doctrine, recovered in the Protestant Reformation, that gave the Reformers reason to deny that any church could come between the soul and its Maker.
Augustine taught that the whole human race was “in Adam” and shared his fall. Humanity became a “mass of corruption,” incapable of any good (saving) act. Every individual, from earliest infancy to old age, is contaminated by sin and deserves nothing but damnation. Since we are capable of doing nothing good of ourselves, all power to do good must be the free gift of God—that is, grace. Out of the mass of the fallen race, God chooses some to receive this grace, which comes to them from the work of Christ, and ordinarily through the church and especially through its sacraments.
St. Augustine tarihe erken dönem Hristiyanlarının görüş açısından bakmıştır; Tillamont bir 17. yüzyıl Fransızı'nın; Gibbon bir 18. yüzyıl İngilizi'nin; Mommsen bir 19. yüzyıl Almanı'nın ... Hangisinin görüşünün dogru olduğunu sormanın bir anlamı yoktur. Bunların her biri, onu benimseyen kişi için olabilecek tek şeydi.