A. First Opinion, Proposed and Retracted by Augustine

5. About this question Augustine once thought that although good works in the fore-knowledge of God are not the reason of predestining, yet faith is in his foreknowledge the reason for predestining - as is plain from him On the Epistle to the Romans (the one namely where he intends that because of the faith - which God foreknew - by which Jacob would believe and because of the infidelity of Esau God preferred Jacob and not Esau), and is contained in the text [of Lombard]. But Augustine retracts this in Retractions I ch.23, indicating his reason against it ‘because faith is a gift of God just as are also other good works’ (which is proved by the Apostle 1 Corinthians 7.25); hence Augustine says that ‘I would not have said that, if I had known to number faith among the gifts of the Holy Spirit’.