It is, therefore, in the power of the wicked to sin; but that in sinning they should do this or that by that wickedness is not in their power, but in God’s, who divides the darkness and regulates it; so that hence even what they do contrary to God’s will is not fulfilled except it be God’s will. We read in the Acts of the Apostles that when the apostles had been sent away by the Jews, and had come to their own friends, and shown them what great things the priests and elders said to them, they all with one consent lifted up their voices to the Lord and said, “Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein; who, by the mouth of our father David, thy holy servant, hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the peoples imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes were gathered together against the Lord, and against His Christ. For in truth, there have assembled together in this city against Thy holy child Jesus, whom Thou hast anointed, Herod and Pilate, and the people of Israel, to do whatever Thy hand and counsel predestinated to be done…Because God’s hand and counsel predestinated such things to be done by the hostile Jews as were necessary for the gospel, for our sakes.”
-Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints 33
" Augustine's doctrine about the liberum arbitrium or free will and its inability to respond to the will of God without divine grace is mistakenely interpreted in terms of Predestination: grace is irresistible, results in conversion, and leads to perseverance.[47] Calvinist's view of Augustine's teachings rests on the assertion that God has foreordained, from eternity, those who will be saved. The number of the elect is fixed.[47] God has chosen the elect certainly and gratuitously, without any previous merit (ante merita) on their part."
Augustine of Hippo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Augustine of Hippo ( 354-430) )
It does not follow, therefore, that there is no power in our will because God foreknew what was to be the choice in our will. For, He who had this foreknowledge had some foreknowledge. Furthemore, if He who foresaw what was to be in our will foresaw, not nothing, but something, it follows that there is a power in our will, even though he foresaw it. The conclusion is that we are by no means under compulsion to abandon free choice in favor of divine foreknowledge nor need we deny-God forbid!-that God knnows the future, as a condition for holding free choice. We accept both. . . . For no one sins because God foreknew that he would sin. In fact, the very reason why a man is undoubtedly responsible for his own sin, when he sins, is because He whose foreknowledge cannot be deceived foresaw, not the man's fate or fortune or what not, but that the man himself would be responsible for his own sin. No man sins unless it is his choice to sin; and his choice not to sin, that too, God foresaw.
The City of God Bk V ch 10
Letter 214, to Valentinus
1. Two young men, Cresconius and Felix, have found their way to us, and, introducing themselves as belonging to your brotherhood, have told us that your monastery was disturbed with no small commotion, because certain among you preach grace in such a manner as to deny that the will of man is free; and maintain–a more serious matter–that in the day of judgment God will not render to every man according to his works. At the same time, they have pointed out to us, that many of you do not entertain this opinion, but allow that free will is assisted by the grace of God, so as that we may think and do aright; so that, when the Lord shall come to render unto every man according to his works, He shall find those works of ours good which God has prepared in order that we may walk in them. They who think this think rightly.
2. “I beseech you therefore, brethren,” even as the apostle besought the Corinthians, “by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you.” For, in the first place, the Lord Jesus, as it is written in the Gospel of the Apostle John, “came not to condemn the world, but that the world by Himself might be saved.” Then, afterwards, as the Apostle Paul writes, “God shall judge the world when He shall come,” as the whole Church confesses in the Creed, “to judge the quick and the dead.” Now, I would ask, if there is no grace of God, how does He save the world? And if there is no free will, how does He judge the world? That book of mine, therefore, or epistle, which the above-mentioned brethren have brought with them to you, I wish you to understand in accordance with this faith, so that you may neither deny God’s grace, nor uphold free will in such wise as to separate the latter from the grace of God, as if without this we could by any means either think or do anything according to God,–which is quite beyond our power. On this account, indeed, it is, that theLord when speaking of the fruits of righteousness said, “Without me you can do nothing.”
