In his answer he does not assert, as regards the first proposition, that God forces us to evil; “the wicked,” he says, “do what they wish, perhaps even with good intentions, but God allows them to sin even in their good works.” Of this, according to him, his opponents must be aware and therefore ought not to act with so much assurance and certainty as though they were really performing good works. Everyone should rather say: “Who knows whether God’s grace is working this in me?” Then only does man acknowledge “that he can do nothing of himself”; only thus can we escape Pelagianism, which is the curse of the self-righteous. “But because they are persuaded that it is always within their power to do what they can, and therefore also to possess grace [here he is utilising some of the real weaknesses of Occamism], therefore they do nothing but sin all the time in their assurance.”[510] Luther does not here ask himself what else man is to perform in order to possess the grace of God, beyond doing what he can, humbling himself and praying for grace, as all preceding ages had taught. He is still looking for an assurance of salvation by some other method. Only at a later date does he learn, or thinks he learns, how it is to be obtained (by faith alone). Here he merely says: “It is the greatest plague to speak of the signs of possessing grace and thereby to lull man into security.” He has not yet found the assurance of the “Gracious God,” as he is to express it later. Meanwhile he proceeds, ostensibly following St. Paul, to denounce the principle “he who does what he can,” etc., like wise freewill and the possibility of fulfilling the law.