s the enabling grace of God to transform the unregenerate is indication enough that free will is self-determination rather than power to contrary. This is probably the hallmark of Augustine's contribution to Christianity. On the necessity of grace and the restoration of human freedom in salvation Augustine could not be more clear. For the grace bestowed upon us through Jesus our Lord is neither the knowledge of God's law nor nature nor the mere remission of sin, but that grace which makes it possible to fulfill the Law so that our nature is set free from the dominion of sin.18 Still further, Augustine says; "Freewill is always present in us, but it is not always good . . . But the grace of God is always good and brings about a good will in a man who before was possessed of an evil will."19 He was emphatic that the ability to perform good works does not merit God's favor. For it is God alone who enables individuals to believe unto salvation. God . . . works in us, without our cooperation, the power to will, but once we begin to will, and do so in a way that brings us to act, then it is that He cooperates with us. But if He does not work in us the power to will or does not cooperate in our act of willing, we are powerless to perform good works of a salutory nature.20 Augustine understood that the same grace that saves is the same grace that sanctifies. Dependence upon God in yielding one's own will over to God was a continual process that begins at salvation and extends throughout the believer's life. Nowhere in Augustine's writings is the balance between freewill after regeneration (power to contrary) and the rule of God in the believer's life more clearly seen than in this passage where Augustine reflects upon the imago Dei being renewed. He who is thus renewed by daily advancing in the knowledge of God, in righteousness and holiness of truth, is changing in the direction of his lov...
