1245 (IV.59) TO POLYCHRONIOS
Since you ask me in your letter: For what reason was it that “God gave them over to an intelligence without judgement” [Rom. 1:28-29] ? I will answer: If you read the next bit, you will understand and you will have no more uncertainty. In fact it reads: “Filled with every kind of injustice”; so, after indicating vice in general, he then goes in detail through the species of vices. So if He has given over people who were, not about to be filled with vice, but already filled with it, he’d have been talking nonsense.
If this isn’t clear to you, although actually it is clear, I will try to give a clearer interpretation of this.
(Paul) did not say: “When they were given over…, they were filled…”, nor: “They were given over… in order to be filled…”, but: ‘(already) filled, he gave over them’, i.e.: he abandoned those who deprived themselves of his help, as a general abandons soldiers who, disobeying his orders, are beaten by their own fault, by depriving themselves of his power. Because those who, of themselves, allowed themselves to be filled with every kind of vice, he rightly gave them over and abandoned: he did not make them “an intelligence without judgement”, but he let them run off.
Our bibles render “an intelligence without judgement” as “a depraved mind”. God does not throw us into depravity; He lets us run into it, if we are determined to do so. A further snippet makes up the next letter:
1246 (V.26) TO THE SAME
Just as the quality of the site of a city is closely related to the quality of the climate [of the location], in the same way for hearts, a good disposition to virtue helps the divine alliance along.
In other words, if you are naturally virtuous, this will help lead you into a relationship with Christ. Well, maybe; but I’m not at all sure that the apostles would have agreed. Won’t the naturally virtuous tend to be proud, like the Pharisee? Pride obstructs the recognition of sin, and so prevents repentance and conversion at all.