Today’s portion of Against Heresies shows Irenaeus at full throttle. Carpocrates and his sect don’t just claim freedom from sin—they claim that doing evil might actually be necessary for salvation. They believe that each soul must experience every possible action in every kind of life, either in one incarnation or through reincarnation, to escape the material prison of the body. Nothing, they say, is evil by nature—only by opinion. The result? A theology that encourages lawlessness and pride, all under the guise of hidden “gnosis.” In Confessions, Augustine explores how memory holds even what it seems to have lost. When we forget something and try to recall it, we search our own memory—rejecting false matches until the right one returns and we say, “That’s it!” But we couldn’t even search for it unless some part of us still remembered. The process is mysterious: a dance of presence and absence that shows how deep and strange the human soul really is. Aquinas rounds out today’s trio by asking whether free will is a power. In his second article, he clarifies that free will is not a separate power from intellect and will—but it is a real power of the rational soul. It is our capacity to choose rationally and voluntarily, directed by reason and not by instinct. This power distinguishes humans from animals and defines our moral responsibility.

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