Letter 80: Augustine asks Paulinus and Therasia how to recognize God's will when plans must change.

To the holy brothers Paulinus and Therasia, loved by God, deservedly venerable and deeply longed for: Augustine sends greetings in the Lord. When our very dear brother Celsus pressed me for a reply, I hurried to pay the debt; and truly, I did hurry. I thought he would still be with us for several days, but once he suddenly found a ship, he told me at night that he was leaving the next day. What could I do? I could not keep him back, and since he was hastening to you, where he would be better off, I ought not to have kept him even if I could. So I snatched these few words for dictation and sending at once, while admitting that I owe you a longer letter. Once our venerable brothers and fellow bishops Theasius and Evodius return, I hope first to be satisfied in part with you through what they carry in their hearts and on their lips. We trust, in Christ's name and help, that through them you yourselves will soon come to us more richly. A few days before writing this, I had already sent another short letter through our like-minded son Fortunatianus, presbyter of the church at Thagaste, who was sailing to Rome. So now I ask what I always ask: do what you always do. Pray for us, that God may look on our lowliness and our labor, and forgive all our sins. I want, if you think it worthwhile, to talk with you by letter about the kinds of things we would discuss if we could sit together in person. You answered, with thoroughly Christian understanding and devotion, the little question I recently raised, as though I had put it to you in the sweetness of conversation face to face. But you answered it too quickly and briefly. The grace of your speech could have stayed there longer and more fully. You said that you had decided to remain happily in the place you now occupy, but that if the Lord should be pleased with something else for you, you would prefer his will to your own. I wish you had explained more clearly how we know God's will, which must be preferred to ours. Do we know it only in a case where we ought to bear something willingly because we would be compelled to bear it even unwillingly? In that case something happens that we do not want, but we correct ourselves so that we may want it, because he wants it whose supreme will we have no right to refuse and whose omnipotence we cannot escape. So another girded Peter and carried him where he did not wish to go; yet he went where he did not wish, and willingly overcame a harsh death. Or does the same hold even where we have the power not to change our judgment, although something else arises in which God's will may be appearing, calling us to change course, not because our first judgment was bad, but because it would have been right to remain in it unless God called us to another? It was not bad for Abraham to nurture and raise his son as long as he could, to the end of his life as far as lay in him. But when he was suddenly commanded to kill him, he changed a judgment that had not been bad before, but would have become bad if it had not changed after the command. I do not doubt that this is how it seems to you too. Often, however, God's true will is not made known by a voice from heaven, a prophet, a dream, or the mental rapture we call ecstasy, but by events themselves. Circumstances call us away from what we had decided and force us to recognize that God's will is different from ours. Suppose we had decided to set out on a journey, and then something arose which truth, when consulted about our duty, forbade us to abandon; or suppose we had decided to stay where we were, and news arrived which that same truth, when consulted, compelled us to follow by leaving. About this third kind of reason for changing a decision, I ask you to speak with me more fully and untangle what you think. This often disturbs us. It is hard not to omit something more necessary because we refuse to change a course on which we had first resolved to remain. The first course was not bad in itself, but it becomes bad because a better duty has arisen and is abandoned; if that duty had not arisen, remaining with the first plan would have deserved no blame, and even praise. Here it is hard not to be deceived. Here the prophetic voice is wholly right: "Who understands his faults?" So I ask you to share your thoughts with me: what you usually do in such cases, or what you have found should be done.

EPISTOLA 80 Scripta versus finem a. 404. A. festinantius respondens cupit explicari liquidius a Paolino quonam modo voluntatem Dei, nostrae praeferendam, nosse possimus (n. 1-3). SANCTIS ET DEO DILECTIS, MERITO VENERABILIBUS ET MULTUM DESIDERABILIBUS FRATRIBUS PAULINO ET THERASIAE, AUGUSTINUS, IN DOMINO SALUTEM. A. longius rescriptum pollicetur. 1. carissimus frater Celsus cum rescripta repeteret, debitum reddere festinavi; sed vere festinavi. Cum enim eum putarem adhuc aliquot dies nobiscum moraturum, repente comperta occasione navigii, mihi pridianam suam profectionem iam nocte suggessit. Quid facerem cum eum tenere non possem, et quia ad vos, cum quibus ei melius esset, properabat, nec si possem, deberem. Proinde pauca illico haec arripui dictanda atque mittenda, prolixioris epistolae me confitens debitorem, cum post reditum venerabilium fratrum nostrorum collegarum meorum Theasii et Evodii, primum vestri ex parte satiatus fuero. Uberius enim ad nos in eorum pectoribus et oribus vos esse venturos iamiamque, in Christi nomine atque adiutorio speramus. Cum haec scriberem, etiam per unanimem filium nostrum Thagastensis Ecclesiae presbyterum Fortunatianum, Romam navigaturum, aliam epistolam paucis ante diebus iam dederam. Nunc ergo quod soleo rogo, ut quod soletis faciatis. Oretis pro nobis, ut videat Deus humilitatem nostram et laborem nostrum, et dimittat omnia peccata nostra 1. Quonam modo veram voluntatem Dei nosse possimus. 2. Colloqui autem vobiscum talia cupio, si dignemini, litteris; qualia colloqui possemus, si coram vestris sensibus adessemus. Ecce illam quaestiunculam, quam nuper proposueram, tamquam si praesens praesenti inter dulces loquelas obderem, plane christiano intellectu et devotione solvisti, sed nimis cursim et breviter; posset quippe ibi aliquanto diutius et uberius habitare gratia oris tui, si cum dixisses ita te in illo, quo feliciter uteris, loco perseverare decrevisse, ut si quid de te aliud Domino placuerit, eius voluntatem praeferas tuae, idipsum aliquanto apertius explicares. Quonam modo voluntatem Dei, quae nostrae voluntati praeponenda est, noverimus: utrum tantum in ea re, quam propterea volentes perferre debemus, quia et inviti cogeremur. Ibi enim fit quidem quod nolumus: sed ideo nos corrigimus ut velimus, quia ille vult, cuius voluntatis nec excellentiam fas est recusare, nec omnipotentiam licet evitare; sicut Petrum alter cinxit et tulit quo noluerat, verumtamen quo nollet iit, et volens mortem subegit asperam 2. An et ibi ubi est potestas, non mutare sententiam, quamvis aliud occurrat, in quo potius appareat voluntas Dei ad mutandam sententiam nos vocantis, non quia nostra mala erat, sed in qua recte permaneretur, nisi ab illo in alteram vocaremur. Neque enim malum fuit Abrahae nutrire et educare filium, quoad posset, quantum in ipso esset, usque ad finem vitae suae; sed repente iussus occidere, mutavit utique non prius malam sententiam, sed quae mala esset, si post iussum mutata non esset 3: hinc quoque non dubito nihil aliud videri tibi. Saepe veram Dei voluntatem ambiguam esse. 3. Sed plerumque non voce de coelo, non per prophetam, non per revelationem vel somnii, vel excessus mentis qui dicitur ecstasis, sed rebus ipsis accidentibus, et ad aliud quam statueramus vocantibus cogimur agnoscere Dei voluntatem esse aliam quam erat nostra: tamquam si proficisci statueremus, et aliquid oriretur quod consulta de officio nostro veritas vetaret deserere, aut decernentibus ibi manere nuntiaretur aliquid, quod eadem veritate consulta nos compelleret proficisci. De hoc tertio genere causarum mutandae sententiae, quid tibi videatur peto mecum plenius et enodatius colloquaris. Saepe nos quippe conturbat, et difficile est non aliquid quod magis faciendum erat omittere, dum illud mutare nolumus in quo prius permanere statueramus, non quidem malum verum, iam ideo malum quia id quod potius agendum est occurrens deseritur; quod si non occurreret, non solum sine vituperatione, sed etiam cum laude, in illo priore perduraretur. Hic non falli difficile est; hic omnino vox prophetica praevalet: Delicta quis intellegit? 4 Hinc oro, participem me facias cogitationum tuarum, quid in talibus vel facere solcas, vel faciendum esse reperias.