James Wetzel

432In the end, grace may prove irresistible, but love can never be forced. Augustine knew this.

There is a fine line between humility and humiliation, and when Augustine__ critics, both loyal and disloyal, fault him for morbid self-criticism, they generally mean to imply that he has crossed the line. You can have a relationship with another person only if you know something of humility; otherwise your ego gets in the way. If, however, you are humiliated instead of humbled, there is no __ou_ to enter into a relationship. Massilians and Pelagians had differing understandings of when humility before God became too much of a good thing, but they had common cause in not liking Augustine__ scruples about the human will to relate to God. If everything about the soul__ relationship to God is God__ doing, including the very desire to be in relation, where exactly does the soul surface in its redemption? The Word seems to have become a monologue.