2. Likewise, if faith is about things that are not seen, how does the Lord exhort him to believe in Him whom he sees?
I respond: It must be said that there is a communication of idioms on account of the union in one hypostasis. Whence just as the same one is said to be both dead and eternal, so the same one is He in whom one must believe, because He is equal to the Father: the same one who speaks and is seen, but in the form of a servant.
54. Question II. Likewise, there is a question about what he says: I came into the world for judgment; because above in the third chapter it is said: God did not send his Son to judge the world.
The response is that he came for a judgment of discernment, but not of condemnation.
However, it can be said otherwise that there is a difference between saying I came into judgment and for judgment: to come for judgment indicates the final intention of judging—thus he did not come in the first advent. But to come into judgment means that from his coming some judgment is made upon the proud, because they are blinded by his coming, even though he does not come for this purpose.
55. Question III. Likewise, there is a question about what he says: That those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind. It seems, therefore, that blinding is from the Lord Jesus Christ. And indeed this seems to be what must be said by reason: because if blinding is a punishment, and every punishment is just, and what is just is good, and what is good is from God, then blinding is from God.
But against this: 1. God is light, just as he is also heat: therefore if it does not belong to heat to make cold, nor does it belong to light to darken, then neither does it belong to God to blind.
2. Likewise, God always desires that his image be conformed to himself: therefore if blinding deforms, it does not belong to God to blind.
The response is that blinding can be considered either according to what it is: and thus it is a privation and does not have an efficient cause, but a deficient one. But God is the deficient cause of nothing: and thus its cause is our malice, whence Wisdom 2: Their own malice blinded them. However, because blinding and hardening are punishments, they posit being according to what they are: and punishment according to what it is, is just, and thus, according to what it is, it can be from God. Further, it seems that one should say that in two ways some punishment is from God: in one way, as from the one who orders; and thus sin, which is the punishment of sin, insofar as it is punishment, is from God, and thus it is not from God according to what it is, but insofar as it is punishment.
In another way, some punishment is said to be from God according to what it is, and this either from God inflicting it: and in this way death and other punishments, through which it is possible to merit.
In another way, from God withdrawing something by our merit: and thus the tinder of sin is from God. For God ceased to give the soul grace, by which it might govern the flesh, and this by our merit: and when this grace was withdrawn, the flesh declined toward lower things.
In a third way, as from one who does not bestow according to our merits: and thus blinding and hardening. For someone is hardened in evil because he is not visited by the Lord, by just judgment; someone is blinded because he is not illuminated interiorly: so Augustine says.