De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus et libertate

What certain Catholic Doctors think about the natural powers of free choice and its harmony with divine foreknowledge, providence, predestination, and the efficacy of the helps of grace.

Here the account of this same harmony is presented, and the foundations on which they rely, together with the principal assertions they derive from them, are reported.

I. There are four most important foundations by which certain theologians think they have explained exactly and clearly the harmony of free choice with the gifts of grace, divine foreknowledge, providence, predestination, and reprobation; and through that account have opened an easy way by which both Pelagians and Lutherans might reach the unity of the Church and the sincerity of the Faith. They do not doubt that this same harmony would have been approved by Augustine and the other Fathers by unanimous consent, had it been presented and explained to them.

The first and most important foundation is that a certain knowledge must be posited in God, intermediate between purely natural and purely free knowledge.¹ Through it, before any decree of his will predetermining the future act, God knows what a created free choice would do by its innate freedom if it were placed in such circumstances and moved by such an excitation. For they say that three kinds of knowledge must be distinguished in God. One is purely natural knowledge, which therefore could not in any respect have been otherwise in God; through it he knew all things to which divine power extends, whether immediately or through the intervention of secondary causes: both the natures of individuals and their necessary combinations, and also contingent things—not as to whether they would or would not be future in any determinate way, but as things that could indifferently either be or not be, which necessarily belongs to them and therefore also falls under God's natural knowledge. Another is purely free knowledge, by which, after a free act of his will and without any hypothesis or condition, God knew absolutely and determinately, from all the combinations of contingent things, which would in reality be future and which would not. Finally, the third is middle knowledge, by which, from his highest and inscrutable comprehension of each free choice, God saw in his essence what it would do by its innate freedom if it were placed in this or that—or even in infinitely many—orders of things, although it could, if it wished, actually do the opposite. If one asks whether this middle knowledge should be called free or natural, they answer that it partly has the character of natural knowledge, insofar as it precedes a free act of the divine will and it was not in God's power to know something else; and partly has the character of free knowledge, insofar as its being knowledge of one thing rather than another comes from this: that free choice, on the supposition that it were created in one or another order of things, would do one rather than the other, although it could indifferently do either. Therefore it is not wrongly called middle knowledge, though some say it should be reduced to the knowledge of simple intelligence, others to the knowledge of vision, and still others call it conditional knowledge, or knowledge of conditional futures. This will be treated in Disputation 7.

They posit this middle knowledge as the chief foundation of that harmony so that from it, as if from a first root, they may derive the certainty and infallibility of divine providence and predestination with regard to the attainment of their effects. For since they teach that predestination is not certain by the order and causality of the means, and that the helps by which the predestined reach eternal life are not efficacious through the real and intrinsic power they have as coming from God, but are efficacious depending on the free cooperation of created choice with them, if such certainty were not drawn radically from middle foreknowledge, no solid foundation would remain on which the infallibility of predestination could rest. For they think that the predefinitions and predeterminations of the efficacious divine will, and the existence that future contingents have in eternity before they are brought into existence in time—on which Thomists say the aforementioned certainty must be based—are incompatible with freedom. Hence they conclude that without middle knowledge the freedom of our choice cannot remain intact.

II. From this they infer, first, that the knowledge by which God foresees, before he decides to create a will, what it would do on the supposition that it were placed in that order of things depends on the fact that the will itself, by its freedom, would do this or that, and not conversely. Consequently, they affirm that something is future not because God knows it will be future; rather, because it will be future through free choice, it is therefore known by God before it happens. This must be examined in Disputation 6. ²

Second, they infer that the certainty and infallibility of divine foreknowledge with respect to future contingents cannot be drawn from the real existence they have in eternity before they are brought into existence in time, or in any other measure proper to them. For they think that such existence in eternity takes away the freedom of choice, but their arguments will be answered in Disputations 8 and 9. ³

Third, they infer that God does not know future acts of free choice certainly and infallibly by a decree, or by an absolute and efficacious predetermination of his divine will.⁴ For they think that such predetermination, prior to foreknowledge of the future determination of free choice on the supposition that it is placed in such an order of things, greatly prejudices the freedom of choice. This will be treated in Disputations 10 and 11.

Fourth, they infer that the order of causes and means established by divine providence, once middle foreknowledge is set aside, imposes absolutely no necessity on free choice—not only no necessity of the consequent, but not even of the consequence. This will be discussed in Disputations 25, 30, 31, and 32. They teach the same about predestination: namely, that it is not certain with respect to the attainment of its effects by the certainty of the order and causality of the means, but only by the certainty of that middle foreknowledge on which, according to these same authors, the certainty of predestination depends at its root. Some of them do indeed admit that providence and predestination are certain even by the certainty of the order and causality of the means, provided this certainty presupposes the certainty grounded in middle foreknowledge. This will be discussed at greater length in Disputation 41. ⁵

They reason in the same way about the certainty of the predestination of infants. They say that predestined infants attain eternal life not through the certainty of the means and the effect of predestination, which is not in itself certainly future, but through the certainty of divine foreknowledge, by which God, in the depth of his intellect, knew with certainty to be future what is uncertain in itself and can fail to be. Therefore, they say, apart from the certainty of divine foreknowledge there is no certainty in the means or effect of the predestination of infants that they will attain eternal life. This will be treated in Disputation 41.

Fifth, they infer that the good use of free choice, foreknown by God through middle knowledge, is a condition without which the plan of the ordering of means to a supernatural end, pre-existing in the divine mind, would not have the character of predestination with respect to such a person, but would retain the common character of supernatural providence. This will be discussed in Disputations 37 and 38. ⁶

III. The second foundation is that God's general concurrence is not an immediate influx into the secondary cause, nor does it premove or apply that cause to acting; rather, it is an immediate influx with the secondary cause into its action and effect.⁷ They add that the influx into the cause, which Thomists posit so that secondary causes may be applied and moved to act, is fictitious and entirely unnecessary. They extend this teaching to God's general concurrence with free choice in works of the natural order. For they say that just as God's general concurrence with a cause acting through a transitive action—for example, fire producing heat in water—is not God's influx into the fire but into the water, where the effect is received, produced jointly by God and the fire, so God's general concurrence with a cause acting through an immanent action, such as the intellect producing understanding or the will producing an act of willing, is not an influx of God into the cause insofar as it is an agent, as if it acted after first being moved and excited by him. Rather, God acts with the cause insofar as it is an agent upon the cause itself insofar as it is a patient, receiving within itself an effect produced jointly by that cause and God through the partial influx of each. They hold the same about God's general concurrence in supernatural acts. For they assert that there is no immediate concurrence in free choice as a cause, as though, first moved by that concurrence and applied by God to acting, it elicited such acts; instead, there is God's immediate influx into the acts themselves together with free choice and prevenient grace. Their chief reason for being convinced of this is that they think these premotions and applications of secondary causes to their operations greatly prejudice the freedom of our choice. They reason in the same way about the actual help of assisting grace, insofar as it helps and cooperates: they say that there is no immediate influx into free choice as a cause, but an immediate influx together with free choice into its operation. They nevertheless admit that God's concurrence through exciting grace is an influx into free choice as a cause, and gives it strength by which, if it wills, it can perform acts that by its own natural power alone it could not produce.⁸ In this respect they assign two differences between God's general concurrence and the special concurrence of exciting grace. The first is that God's general concurrence in natural acts is not a concurrence of God in free choice as the cause of those acts, as though free choice first received a motion within itself and were thereby applied and made able to exercise causal influence upon the act; rather, it is an immediate influx together with free choice into the act. But the help of prevenient grace, insofar as it is prevenient, is God's influx into free choice: it moves and excites it, and makes it able, so that, moved in this way and already possessing within itself an efficient principle of supernatural acts, it may further produce them by its own influx at the same time. The second difference arises from the first: God's influx with free choice through general concurrence in natural acts precedes the influx of free choice into those same acts neither in time nor in nature; rather, they depend on one another, exist altogether at the same time in reality, and are joined in one and the same action and effect. Prevenient grace, however, insofar as it is prevenient, ordinarily precedes the influx of free choice into a supernatural act, either in time or in nature.

IV. From this second foundation they infer, first, that God's general concurrence is of itself indifferent, so that, according to the differing influx of the secondary cause, an action of one kind rather than another follows. Accordingly, they say that from the varying influx of free choice comes the fact that an act of willing rather than an act of rejecting follows, and that the willing is for an honorable rather than a shameful object. Consequently, they affirm that the actions of free choice, like those of any other secondary cause, do not get from God's general concurrence the fact that they are this or that particular kind of action, nor therefore that they are virtuous or vicious; rather, they get this from free choice itself. ⁹

They speak in the same way about the special help of assisting grace: they think that it is in itself indifferent, or equally disposed to concur with human free choice in works of piety if the person himself wishes to cooperate.

Second, they infer that God, before foreknowing the cooperation that free choice would give on the supposition that it were placed in such an order of things, cannot—without prejudice to the freedom of that choice—truly and efficiently, or physically, predetermine it to any operation, even a supernatural one, either by an extrinsic decree of his will or by some help inhering in free choice. For they think that such predetermination is repugnant to the freedom of choice. I speak with respect to the exercise of the act, since, as we observed above, with respect to the kind of action they admit that the concurrence of free choice is determined through the influx of assisting grace; for from that same influx the consent of free choice gets its supernatural character and the quality required for salvation. ¹⁰

Third, they infer that the free influx, or cooperation, of choice, insofar as it emanates from choice itself, is not efficiently caused by another external cause, even by God, but by choice itself freely determining itself and, according to its innate freedom, flowing jointly with God into this particular act rather than its opposite, although it could indifferently choose either if it wished. ¹¹

Fourth, they infer that the good use of free choice, considered in the way described above, is not to be counted among the effects of predestination, but is to be presupposed for predestination on our part as something God requires from us, so that our works may be free and therefore worthy of praise or blame. ¹²

Fifth, they infer that the help of grace is not efficacious of itself, or by the real power it has as coming from God; consequently, the common division among theologians of grace into efficacious and inefficacious help is to be drawn from the effect, which depends jointly on the freedom of choice, not from some real power present in efficacious help and absent from sufficient, or inefficacious, help. Accordingly, they affirm that sufficient help, whether greater or lesser in itself, is called efficacious when free choice, by its own freedom, converts with it, although it could have failed to convert, since nothing in that help prevented it. Conversely, help is called inefficacious when free choice does not convert with it, although it could have converted if it had wished. ¹³

V. Sixth, they infer that whether the helps of prevenient and assisting grace, which are conferred on wayfarers in the ordinary course, are efficacious or inefficacious for conversion¹⁴ or justification depends on the free consent and cooperation of our choice with them. Therefore it is in our free power either to make them efficacious by consenting and cooperating with them in the acts by which we are disposed for justification, or to make them inefficacious by withholding our consent and cooperation, or even by eliciting a contrary dissent.

Seventh, they infer that all the passages of Scripture and the holy Fathers in which it is asserted that God makes us act, works so that we work, turns our hearts, and the like, insofar as these things are attributed in some way to God alone, are verified only by reason of exciting grace, which moves morally or metaphorically toward consent: by alluring, inviting, or in any other way, even by inwardly persuading a person morally to do good in those circumstances in which God foreknows that the person would consent, on the supposition that he is excited in the way described above. ¹⁵

Eighth, they infer that the actual help by which God moves our will to free acts of the supernatural order is subject to the power of that same will with regard to its use, just as the habits we use are subject to it when we wish, although by divine foreknowledge the future consent of free choice is certain and infallible. ¹⁶

Ninth, they infer that after God has preceded a person with his exciting grace, he waits for the created will to consent. This will be treated expressly in Disputation 95. ¹⁷

Tenth, they infer that the created will is in some way the first root and cause of its own determination, although it cannot bring that about without God's influx and cooperation, as we shall see in Disputation 89. ¹⁸

From the same foundation they infer the third foundation, together with its attendant assertions, which we shall set out at once.

VI.

The third foundation is that God and free choice are partial causes of the same act, even a supernatural one, just as two people pulling a ship are partial causes of that ship's motion. In what sense these same authors understand this will become clear in Disputation 85, where the nature of this foundation will be treated expressly. ¹⁹

From this foundation they infer exactly the same assertions as from the preceding one, and also others that are closely connected with the third foundation. They are as follows.

First, they infer that unequal effort and influx by free choice can result in this: when God gives two people equal help of assisting grace, one of them acts more intensely and disposes himself better for justifying grace than the other; and when he gives them unequal helps, they may act equally, or sometimes the person supported by the lesser help may act more. Their reasoning is that when two partial causes concur in producing one and the same effect, the more intensely or vigorously one of them acts, the more perfect the effect they produce; and if one of them does not act, no effect follows whenever the effect itself depends intrinsically on both. This will be treated in Disputation 62. ²⁰

Second, they infer that, when two people have entirely equal helps—both external and internal—of prevenient grace, it can happen, and in fact will happen, according to the freedom of each, that one is converted, perseveres in grace, and is saved, while the other persists in sin and is condemned, because one wished to cooperate with those same helps and the other did not. This will be discussed at greater length in Disputation 108. ²¹

Third, they infer that although each of these acts of believing, hoping, and loving is a single action, it nevertheless has three parts of one complete cause, from which the whole action proceeds in such a way that it also proceeds as a whole from each of the parts, by the partiality (as they call it) of a cause, though in different ways.²² For from God acting through general concurrence alone, it proceeds as from a universal cause; and consequently from him it derives its being an assent of faith or sorrow for sins no more than its being the opposite act or an act of any other faculty. But from the influx of free choice, together with the necessary knowledge and other things needed for the act to be produced in its substance, it derives, as from a particular cause, that in its substance it is rather an assent of faith or sorrow for sins than some other, different act. From prevenient grace, however—or from God insofar as through it, as through his instrument, he acts together with free choice in the same act—it derives its being a supernatural act, specifically distinct from the purely natural act of believing or grieving over sins that free choice would elicit by its own powers alone if prevenient grace did not act together with it.

VII. Fourth, they infer that a supernatural habit of faith need not be posited on the ground that the intellect might assent easily despite its hardness, or assent discerningly despite its errors, nor that the act of assent might be certain and firm with a certainty and firmness on the part of the believer. For, they say, a heretic can assent more firmly in that way not only to the articles of faith but also to his own errors than many of the faithful assent through infused faith to Catholic truths. Rather, such a habit must be posited because, for these acts to be elicited in a way suited to a supernatural end and as required for salvation, they must be elicited either through the inspiration and particular help of the Holy Spirit or through the concurrence of a supernatural habit. ²³

From this they also infer, fifth, that free choice, with only God's general concurrence, can elicit an assent of faith as regards only the substance of the act, that is, a purely natural assent: an assent by which one assents to all the mysteries of faith as revealed by God, and does so because they have been revealed by God, so that by such assent the precept of faith is fulfilled and the sin of unbelief avoided. This will be treated in Disputation 49, especially no. 19. ²⁴

Sixth, they infer that by the natural powers of free choice alone and God's general concurrence, a person can elicit an absolute, purely natural act of love of God above all things, which is in no way sufficient for justification; and, by the same reasoning, an absolute resolution to keep all the commandments in general, especially when all occasions and difficulties are absent. This will be treated in Disputation 31. ²⁵

Seventh, they infer that with only God's general concurrence a person can, in view of divine goodness, elicit an act of natural contrition with an absolute resolution not to sin mortally again. They say the same of attrition: the faithful sinner grieves over all the sins he has committed because of the punishments of hell or the shamefulness of sin, with hope of pardon and an absolute resolution not to sin mortally again. ²⁶

Eighth, they infer that in fallen nature a person can, with only God's general concurrence, resist any temptation, however grave, at every moment of time. For they pose the question whether, so long as the judgment of reason is not overwhelmed, the same free choice retains, with only God's general concurrence, the freedom at every moment not to consent to any grave temptation and to overcome any great difficulty that must be overcome in that instant alone in order to observe the natural law. They answer affirmatively. ^{27 28}

From this, as a ninth consequence, they affirm that there is no particular morally good work that is purely natural which a person in fallen nature cannot perform with only God's general concurrence. They give this reason: if a person can do what is most difficult, such as undergo death rather than tell a lie, then all the more can he do the other things, in which the difficulty is far less. ²⁹

Tenth, they infer that with only God's general concurrence and without any other gift or help of grace, a person can perform a morally good work that is suited to his natural end and, in comparison with that end, is truly good and a work of true virtue. ³⁰

VIII. The fourth foundation is that God has established a certain law: whoever does all that lies within him by the powers of nature alone is given helps of prevenient grace by which he may carry it out as required for salvation. From this they infer the following. ³¹

First, they infer that whenever free choice, by its natural powers, tries or is ready to try all that it can do of itself, both in learning and embracing what faith teaches and in grieving for sins and seeking justification, God confers prevenient grace and helps by which it may do these things as required for salvation³²—not because that effort makes it worthy of such helps or merits them in any way, but because Christ obtained this for us by his merits. Among the laws that Christ and the eternal Father established concerning the helps and gifts Christ merited for us, to be conferred entirely gratuitously, one law—and one especially consonant with reason—was that whenever we tried by our natural powers to do what lies within us, helps of grace would be at hand to enable us to do those things as required for salvation. In this way, while we are on the way, our salvation would always lie in the hand of our free choice, and it would be our own fault if we did not turn to God.

Second, they infer that just as God is always at hand to free choice through general concurrence, so that it may naturally will or reject as it pleases, he is likewise at hand through sufficient grace whenever it wishes, by its natural powers, to undertake some work pertaining to justification, so that it may perform it as required for salvation. They say that God the Father established the aforesaid law with the Son chiefly for this reason: otherwise, they think, the assertion that man has been placed by God in the hand of his own counsel could not be maintained, nor could the assertion that salvation has been placed within the power of his choice, unless by doing all that lies within him through the powers of nature alone he could obtain the helps of prevenient grace, aided by which he would be able to attain eternal life. ³³

They infer other propositions, which for now we deliberately omit, both because they are reducible to the preceding ones and because they will be presented below when they are to be discussed.

IX. From these four foundations, together with their appended assertions, they think the agreement of free choice with divine foreknowledge, providence, and predestination, as well as with the efficacy of the helps of grace, is made intelligible and easy; and that all the arguments by which the Pelagians and their remnants tried to eliminate the necessity and efficacy of grace, while the Lutherans and Calvinists tried to eliminate freedom of choice, are easily dissolved. Both sides alike relied on the erroneous principle that the efficacy of grace cannot coexist with freedom of choice, and consequently that one of two things must be chosen: either to deny the efficacy of grace or, if it is admitted, to eliminate freedom of choice. For when the Pelagians object that, given predestination as taught by St Augustine, it follows that a predestined person must necessarily be saved and a reprobate cannot be saved but must necessarily be damned whatever he does, and that this plunges people into despair and makes prayers and exhortations useless, they appeal to middle knowledge, explained in the first foundation, and to its appended propositions. They argue that it does not follow that a predestined person must necessarily be saved or a reprobate necessarily damned unless middle knowledge is presupposed, together with the supposition that the former will cooperate with the helps of grace or the latter will dissent. Since this supposition follows upon the free concurrence of the created will, it does not eliminate but rather presupposes its free use. They answer in the same way the arguments by which the necessity of grace and its efficacy are attacked by those same Pelagians, who proclaim that they cannot coexist with the freedom we experience.

For they say that the efficacy of grace presupposes middle knowledge of the future cooperation of free choice on the hypothesis that it would be excited by such grace in such circumstances. Consequently, by that same grace our will is not predetermined to consent to the divine call, and thus remains free to consent or dissent, as will be said in Disputations 7 and 110.

X. By these same foundations they try to answer the principal arguments by which the Lutherans and Calvinists try to eliminate freedom of choice. When they argue that a person has no free choice because he can act only as God wills and when God wills, the authors reply that a person is truly free and has free choice in his acts: God never wills by an absolute and efficacious will that a person perform a particular act unless middle knowledge is presupposed, by which God foresaw that, from his innate freedom, the person would cooperate and will such an object on the hypothesis that he were placed in such circumstances and excited and moved by such helps, which do not predetermine his will to either alternative, as is clear from what was said under the first and second foundations. Therefore, if a person placed by God in those circumstances consents, he will consent freely; if he dissents, as he truly can, he will dissent freely. When heretics again attack freedom of choice on the ground of the necessity of the helps of grace—because a person, especially in fallen nature, cannot perform any work of piety or merit eternal life unless God in his mercy excites and helps him with a special help, and therefore such a work is not within his power to perform whenever he wishes but only when God wishes to help him—they reply, on the basis of what was said under the third and fourth foundations, that by the powers of nature a person can perform any good work, even of faith, hope, and charity, with respect to its substance. If a person does all that lies within him by his own powers, producing those works, or any one of them, in whatever way he can, God will, by a certain law, freely give him helps of exciting and assisting grace by which that work may be performed as required for salvation. Consequently, the same work truly lies within the free power of the person. But if he is unwilling to do what lies within him, he also freely omits that supernatural work, because he was unwilling to produce it with respect to the substance of the act.

XI. ³⁴ In the same way they answer arguments drawn from the infallibility of divine foreknowledge, providence, and predestination, by which the Lutherans and Calvinists attack the same freedom of choice, as will become clear below in the proper places. For they say that the infallibility of future contingents does not conflict with the freedom of choice by which a person can truly produce or not produce them. They give this reason: as is clear from the first proposition appended to the first foundation, something is going to happen through free choice not because God foresaw that it would happen; rather, conversely, because it was going to happen through the free determination of created choice, it is foreseen by God before it happens. Therefore God's foreknowledge imposes no necessity to act or not to act on that choice. Likewise, they say, divine providence and predestination impose no necessity on free choice to act. To defend this, they appeal to the second and third foundations stated above: namely, God's actual concurrence, by which he moves free choice to attain the end established by divine providence or predestination, is not an immediate influx into choice itself as a cause, nor does it predetermine choice to act. Rather, it is an influx that is indifferent in itself and acts immediately together with free choice upon its operation, so that God and free choice concur together in producing one and the same effect as two partial causes, in the way that two people pulling a ship concur in the ship's motion. Hence, they judge, future events that truly are contingent have no necessity other than that which is drawn from the middle knowledge established for the first foundation, or which presupposes that same middle knowledge and originates radically from it, as will be made clear in Disputations 25 and 41.

XII. This much is most certain (and the authors with whom we must dispute do not deny it): if the four aforesaid foundations do not stand, what has been built upon them must collapse, and another way must be sought and established against the Pelagians and Lutherans for reconciling free choice with grace—namely, the way founded on the omnipotence and efficacy of the divine will, which, before any foreknowledge of the future cooperation of our will, predetermines all the good free acts that occur in time, as will be made clear in Disputation 121. But if those same foundations, together with their appended assertions, are true, the account of reconciling freedom of choice with divine foreknowledge, providence, and predestination that rests on them must be considered legitimate and highly suited to refuting the errors of the Pelagians and Lutherans; through it, an easy path should be considered opened by which both sides may return to the unity of the Church and the sincerity of the faith. Whether the former way or rather this latter one securely attains the end intended by the Catholic authors of both opinions, the pious and prudent reader will readily gather from the course of this work, if he reads attentively and weighs carefully the passages of Sacred Scripture, the supreme pontiffs, the councils, and the holy Fathers, especially St Augustine, St Prosper, and St Thomas, which we shall adduce in confirmation of our teaching.