115. Those in faith severed from charity who have confirmed themselves in
it by Paul's saying to the Romans that a man is justified by faith
without the works of the law (3:28) worship that saying quite like men
who worship the sun. They become like those who fix their gaze steadily
on the sun with the result that the blurred vision sees nothing in normal
light. For they fail to see what is meant in the passage by "works of the
law," namely, the rituals described by Moses in his books, called "law"
in them everywhere, and not the precepts of the Decalog. Lest it be
thought these are meant, Paul explains, saying at that point,

Do we not then make the law void through faith? Far from it, rather we
establish the law (verse 31 of the same chapter).

Those who have confirmed themselves by that saying in faith severed from
charity, looking on it as on the sun, do not see the passages in which
Paul lists the laws of faith and that these are the very works of
charity. What indeed is faith without its laws? Nor do they see the
passages in which he lists evil works, declaring that those who do them
cannot enter heaven. What blindness has been brought about by this one
passage badly understood!

116. Evils in the external man cannot be removed without man's
cooperation for the reason that it is by divine providence that whatever
a man hears, sees, thinks, wills, speaks and does shall seem to him to be
his own doing. Apart from that appearance (as was shown above, nn. 71-95
ff.) there would be no reception of divine truth on man's part, nor
determination to do what is good, nor any appropriation of love and
wisdom or of charity and faith, hence no conjunction with the Lord, no
reformation therefore or regeneration, and thus no salvation. Without
that appearance, repentance for sins would clearly be impossible and in
fact faith would; without that appearance, likewise, man is not man but
is devoid of rational life like the beasts. Let him who will, consult his
reason whether it appears otherwise than that man thinks from himself
about good and truth, spiritual as well as moral and civil; then accept
the doctrine that all good and truth are from the Lord and none from man.
Must he not then acknowledge as a consequence that man is to do good and
think truth of himself, yet always acknowledge that these are from the
Lord? And acknowledge further that man is to remove evils of himself, but
still acknowledge that he does so from th