But if someone thinks he can refute our argument because, even after the remedy has been applied, human life still goes wrong through sins, let him be led to the truth by an example from familiar things.
For with a snake, if it receives a fatal blow to the head, the length of the body behind it does not immediately die together with the head. The head is dead, but the tail is still animated by its own impulse and has not lost its vital movement. In the same way, one may see evil struck at its vital point and yet still troubling life in what remains of it. But after ceasing to blame the mystery on these grounds, they make it a charge against it that faith does not extend through all human beings.
'Why, then,' they say, 'has grace not come to everyone, but although some have joined themselves to the message, no small part remains behind? Either God did not will to distribute the benefit generously to all, or He was altogether unable to do so.' Neither alternative is free from blame. For it is fitting neither that God should be unwilling toward what is good nor that He should be unable to accomplish it.
If, then, faith is something good, they ask, why does grace not come to everyone? If our own account taught that faith was allotted to human beings by the divine will in such a way that some were called while the rest had no share in the calling, there would be grounds for bringing such a charge against the mystery. But the call is offered with equal honor to all, making no distinction of worth, age, or differences among nations. For this reason, at the very beginning of the proclamation, those who served the message suddenly became able by divine inspiration to speak the languages of all nations, so that no one would be left without a share in the teaching of the good things. How, then, could anyone reasonably still blame God because the message did not prevail over everyone? For the One who has authority over the whole, because of His surpassing honor for the human being, allowed something also to remain under our authority—something of which each person alone is master.
This is moral choice: something that cannot be enslaved and is self-determining, grounded in the freedom of the mind. Therefore such a charge would more justly be transferred to those who were not brought to faith, not to the One who called them to assent. For when Peter at the beginning proclaimed the message in a crowded assembly of the Jews and three thousand received the faith at once, those who disobeyed—though more numerous than those who believed—did not blame the Apostle for the fact that they were not persuaded.
For it would not be reasonable, when grace has been set before all in common, for someone who voluntarily turns away to blame another rather than himself for his hardness.