Free Will and the Spirit

Sed illis acerrime ac vehementissime resistendum est, qui putant sine adiutorio Dei per se ipsam vim voluntatis humanae vel iustitiam posse perficere vel ad eam tendendo proficere et, cum urgueri coeperint, quomodo id praesumant asserere fieri sine ope divina, reprimunt se nec hanc vocem audent emittere, quoniam vident quam sit impia et non ferenda. Sed aiunt ideo ista sine ope divina non fieri, quia et hominem Deus creavit cum libero voluntatis arbitrio et dando praecepta ipse docet quemadmodum homini sit vivendum et in eo utique adiuvat, quod docendo aufert ignorantiam, ut sciat homo in operibus suis quid evitare et quid appetere debeat, quo per liberum arbitrium naturaliter insitum viam demonstratam ingrediens continenter et iuste et pie vivendo ad beatam eamdemque aeternam vitam pervenire mereatur. Nos autem dicimus humanam voluntatem sic divinitus adiuvari ad faciendam iustitiam, ut praeter quod creatus est homo cum libero arbitrio praeterque doctrinam qua ei praecipitur quemadmodum vivere debeat accipiat Spiritum Sanctum, quo fiat in animo eius delectatio dilectioque summi illius atque incommutabilis boni, quod Deus est, etiam nunc cum per fidem ambulatur, nondum per speciem, ut hac sibi velut arra data gratuiti muneris inardescat inhaerere Creatori atque inflammetur accedere ad participationem illius veri luminis, ut ex illo ei bene sit, a quo habet ut sit. Nam neque liberum arbitrium quidquam nisi ad peccandum valet, si lateat veritatis via; et cum id quod agendum et quo nitendum est coeperit non latere, nisi etiam delectet et ametur, non agitur, non suscipitur, non bene vivitur. Ut autem diligatur, caritas Dei diffunditur in cordibus nostris non per arbitrium liberum, quod surgit ex nobis, sed per Spiritum Sanctum, qui datus est nobis. Sanctus Augustinus Hipponensi, De Spiritu et Littera

But they must be resisted most fiercely and keenly who think that without the help of God the mere power of the human will can either perfect righteousness, or advance to the perfection of it, and when they begin to be hard pressed about how they presume to assert it without the Divine assistance, they restrain themselves, lest they venture to utter an opinion, because they see how impious and insufferable it will be. But they will say that such things are not done without God's help in this way: that because God created man with the freedom of will, and, having given commandments, teaches him Himself how a man should live, and so by this assists him, in that He takes away ignorance by instruction, that man might know what he should avoid and what he should desire to do, thus, by the free will naturally implanted, he enters on the way shown to him and by living righteously and piously he deserves to come to the blessedness of eternal life. We, however, say that the human will is so divinely aided in righteousness that, besides man being created with a freedom of will, and besides the teaching by which he is instructed how he should live, he receives the Holy Spirit by which there is formed in his soul a delight in and a love of that supreme and changeless good which is God, even now when he is walking by faith and not yet by sight, 1 in order that as a pledge of this free gift given he may be kindled to cling to his Maker and may burn to enter upon participation in that true light, that by it it may go well with him from Him by whom he is. For freedom of will can do nothing but sin if the way of truth is hidden, and even when what one must do and strive for begins to be no longer hidden, unless it is delighted in and loved, one neither acts, nor sets about, nor lives rightly. Indeed so that it be loved, the love of God is poured out in our hearts, not through the freedom of will which arises from ourselves, but through the Holy Spirit, which is given to us. 2 Saint Augustine of Hippo, On The Spirit and the Letter 1 2 Cor 5:7 2 Rom 5:5