On the Reasons of the Holy Spirit, Book II

Although God is the last and first cause of the universe, and He made all things for His own sake—that is, for His own praise and glory—yet because a praiser would be lacking to Him if all things were not made for the sake of the user and the praise, the world would undoubtedly lack praise if it did not consist for the sake of man. It follows from this, necessarily, that this visible temple of nature was made for the sake of man, so that through free will, which is the most excellent thing in all of nature, man—by the necessity of using his acts—might praise, acknowledge, love, and celebrate the Giver alone, and thus, burning with perpetual vow and love, be united to God, or by acting otherwise, suffer eternal punishment. Thence comes that human thirst naturally implanted, that they wish their industry, knowledge, things, and love to extend most widely, so that the praise might return to them by recovery, which the wise ought to refer to God the Giver. The wicked also ought to do so, but they are wicked for this reason: that they do not refer to Him that one thing which they most owe. Above, I taught in many places that it is far more serious than all heresies to teach that one thing: that man cannot act freely even toward salvation. For this denies that there is equity in God, and attributes supreme imprudence to Him. For since He is never absent from man—by inspiring, exciting, and freely offering grace—and has given to these [the] documents of reason, of synteresis the innate spark of conscience, of the law, of the Gospel, and the support of human reasons and doctrines, all these would exist in nature in vain unless, through their means, it were possible for man to follow [the path of] acting well, not only politically, but religiously and most saintly. Furthermore, man would be neither good nor bad, nor created for any end, if he were to act well or badly out of necessity, and consequently the world would have been made in vain, and in the highest degree it would be denied