Book One

Prooemium: division of the whole work

Disputatio I: Whether the Pelagians ever admitted that any inward grace, or any supernatural help from God, is divinely given for salvation or for fulfilling the precepts of the law

Disputatio IX: Whether God certainly knows future contingents before the decree of his will, as future, in their ideas.

Whether, before the decree of his will, God knows contingent future things with certainty in their Ideas, as future things.

I. Scotus in Book I, distinction 39, and all his disciples hold that contingent future things can neither be represented nor known by God through the divine Ideas, either before the decree of the divine will that predetermines future things or after it. Durandus teaches the same in Book I, distinction 35, question 2; Aureolus, as cited by Capreolus in Book I, distinction 38, in reply to the arguments against the second conclusion; Gabriel and Ockham in the same distinction, question 1, article 2; and Corduba in Book I, question 55, doubt 8. Certain theologians attribute this opinion to Saint Thomas as well. 1.p. q. 14. ar. 13. But Saint Thomas in fact holds the contrary, as will be clear below. It is proved manifestly that before the decree of the divine will the Ideas do not represent future things as future, but only as possible: for what does not exist either in itself or in its causes cannot be represented. But before every decree of the divine will, no future thing has determinate being either in itself or in its causes, as was shown above. Therefore—

This is confirmed. Otherwise, before every act of his will, God would know with certainty which things are future and which are not. For he knows all things represented through Ideas, since representation belongs to Ideas by nature. Therefore, if before the decree of the divine will future things are represented through the divine Ideas as future, it follows that before that same decree God knows future things, which is an unacceptable consequence. Otherwise future things would not depend on the decree of the divine will, contrary to Revelation 4: You created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.

II. It is proved that future things are not represented even after the decree. For whatever the divine Ideas represent, they represent naturally and necessarily, since the representation of Ideas belongs to the essential perfection of the divine intellect. Therefore they represent nothing after the decree of the divine will that they would not represent before that decree. Otherwise the representation of Ideas in God would be changeable, and some divine perfection—such as the representation of contingent future things that belongs to Ideas—would depend on a free decree of the divine will.

Saint Thomas holds the opposite opinion in 1.p.quaest.15.ar.3. ad 4, and De veritate, q. 2, a. 7, ad 6, and q. 3, a. 6. In these passages he clearly teaches that the Ideas are forms by which things are known not only according to their essence, but also according to all their accidents and the dispositions they have. Capreolus teaches the same opinion in the cited article 2, in reply to Scotus’s arguments against the first conclusion, as do Cajetan and Master Báñez in Summa theologiae I, q. 14, a. 13, and the Thomists generally. To explain it, let this be our position:

III. First conclusion. Before the decree of the divine will, the divine Ideas do not actually represent future things as future, but only as possible.¹ This is proved by the arguments made in favor of Scotus’s opinion and by the final argument we proposed: for it would follow that God knows contingent future things before an act of his divine will, the contrary of which was said above.

Second conclusion. After the decree of the divine will that predetermines future things, the divine Ideas actually represent them as future; consequently, on the supposition of the aforesaid decree, they are known by God through these Ideas.

This conclusion is proved as follows. The divine Ideas represent creatures according to the different ways in which they imitate the divine Essence. But future creatures imitate the divine Essence in a different way from possible creatures: future things imitate God according to their actual existence, which possible creatures do not share. Therefore Ideas must be posited that represent creatures as future after the decree of the divine will.

It is proved secondly. God truly produces everything he produces as an artificer, as is self-evident. Therefore he has Ideas of all those things. The consequence is clear, since every artificer has beforehand in his intellect the Ideas of the things he can produce and also of those he does produce.

It is proved thirdly. Otherwise contingent future things would not have in God an exemplary and formal cause, which is false. The consequence is proved as follows: an Idea is an exemplary cause on which the artificer looks when he works. Therefore, if there are no Ideas in God that represent contingent future things, they will have no exemplary causes in him, for there can be no other exemplary cause in God than an Idea.

IIII. To the arguments made in favor of Scotus’s opinion, we answer from Cajetan’s teaching that the representation of things as to their essence or possibility of existing belongs to the natural perfection of the divine intellect, and this representation belongs to the Ideas antecedently to the decree of the divine will. But the representation of things as to their futurity or accidental conditions does not belong naturally to the Ideas, if we speak of representation in the actual exercise of representing; rather, it presupposes the decree of the divine will. The reason is that the Ideas, like the divine Essence under the aspect of an intelligible species, necessarily represent all things that have determinate truth and being. Since, before an act of the divine will, things have determinate being as to their quiddity, essence, and possibility, they do not presuppose a decree of the divine will in this respect. Therefore, before such an act, these things are represented naturally through the Ideas. But because future things, insofar as they are future, do not have determinate being and truth before an act of the divine will, though they do have them on the supposition of the divine decree, future things as future are not represented through the Ideas before an act of the divine will, but only after such an act. Nor does it follow from this that the divine Ideas are not naturally infinite in representing: for, as we said above, the representation of future things as future, like their cognition, adds no new perfection beyond the representation of possible things. Moreover, the fact that the Ideas do not actually represent future things as future in the exercise of representing before the decree of the divine will does not arise from any imperfection in the Ideas, but from the imperfection of contingent future things, which are not representable before that same decree.

V. But an argument in favor of Scotus’s opinion still presses against this doctrine. An Idea presupposes cognition of creatures; therefore it cannot be the principle of their cognition and, consequently, cannot represent creatures. For the representation of an object precedes its cognition. The antecedent is proved as follows: an Idea has the character of a known object, for different Ideas arise in the divine mind from God’s knowing his Essence as imitable in different ways by creatures. Therefore an Idea presupposes cognition of creatures.

We answer that, according to our manner of understanding, God knows his divine Essence as imitable by creatures according to different degrees of perfection before he knows the creatures that imitate those degrees. For the divine Ideas are, as it were, an intermediary between the first and second acts of cognition. Hence, although the Ideas presuppose cognition of the divine Essence as imitable in different ways, they do not presuppose cognition of creatures that imitate the divine Essence in different ways; rather, they precede that cognition in the order of reason. In this way the sixth principal argument of the preceding disputation, together with its confirmation, remains resolved.

There was a great difficulty concerning conditional future things, namely, how they are known by God. But we have now treated this fully in Disputation 7, where we explained which conditionals are known by God and through which knowledge, and in Disputation 13 we said something about disparate conditionals whose consequent has no connection with the antecedent, even if the antecedent is actualized.

Book One

Prooemium: division of the whole work

Disputatio I: Whether the Pelagians ever admitted that any inward grace, or any supernatural help from God, is divinely given for salvation or for fulfilling the precepts of the law

Disputatio II: What grace the Semi-Pelagians admitted as necessary for salvation, and where their view agrees with or departs from the error of the Pelagians

Disputatio III: What the Manichaeans formerly held, and the Lutherans and Calvinists hold in our time, about the necessity of grace and the natural powers of our free choice

Disputatio IV: What certain Catholic Doctors hold about the natural powers of free choice and its concord with divine foreknowledge, providence, predestination, and the efficacy of the helps of grace

Disputatio V: How much authority Saint Augustine’s teaching has concerning predestination and grace, and whether it is permissible to depart from it

Book Two

Introduction

Disputatio I: Whether the knowledge of God is suitably divided into the knowledge of simple understanding and the knowledge of vision.

Disputatio II: Whether the knowledge of God is sufficiently divided into knowledge that is merely natural and knowledge that is merely free; or whether, besides both, middle knowledge must be posited in God with respect to conditional future things that depend on the human will.

Disputatio III: Whether all future things are actually present in eternity according to the proper existences they will have in their own measure.

Disputatio IV: Whether God certainly knows future contingents because of their real presence in eternity before they come to be, and whether an existence of this kind contributes anything to the certainty and infallibility of the divine knowledge.

Disputatio V: Whether God certainly and infallibly knows all future contingents in the decree, or predetermination, of his divine will.

Disputatio VI: Whether God certainly and infallibly knows future sins in some decree of his divine will.

Disputatio VII: Whether God certainly and infallibly knows future contingents in the predetermination of secondary causes, especially when the secondary causes are free.

Disputatio VIII: Whether, setting aside every predetermination of the divine will and existence in eternity, another ground for the certainty of divine knowledge can be assigned, namely, on the part of the truth of the object.

Disputatio IX: Whether God certainly knows future contingents before the decree of his will, as future, in their ideas.

Disputatio X: Whether there is in God a conjectural knowledge of what, in particular, a created will will do if placed in such circumstances.

Disputatio XI: Whether this causal proposition is true: “Because this is future, it is foreknown by God”; or, conversely: “Because God foreknows something to be future, therefore it is future.”

Disputatio XII: Whether God produces things outside himself immediately through his knowledge, that is, through his intellect; or whether, besides intellect and will, a third executive power must be posited in him, through which things are produced immediately.

Book Three

Introduction

Disputatio I: Whether God’s actual motion, which all secondary causes need in order to produce their effect or operation, is an immediate influx into the secondary cause itself; or whether instead it is only an immediate influx, together with the secondary cause, into its effect.

Disputatio II: What that prior motion is by which God moves and applies secondary causes to act.

Disputatio III: Whether God’s general concurrence, by which he helps secondary causes constituted in first act through supernatural forms to produce supernatural acts, is supernatural; or whether it is of the same order as general concurrence with merely natural acts.

Disputatio IV: Whether God’s general concurrence, especially with respect to acts that depend on created free choice, is indifferent of itself.

Disputatio V: Whether, by an absolute and efficacious decree of his will, God truly predetermines as an efficient cause all secondary causes, both natural and free, to their operations after the manner of a physical cause, while preserving their nature and freedom.

Disputatio VI: Whether, by a prior motion inhering in the created will, God moves, applies, or predetermines it after the manner of a physical cause to all its good acts in particular, while preserving its freedom.

Disputatio VII: Whether, by a prior motion, God truly premoves as an efficient cause free choice after the manner of a physical cause to the act of sin, insofar as it is an act and insofar as it is a being.

Disputatio VIII: Whether all contingent and free acts predetermined by God necessarily occur with the necessity of infallibility, or with necessity on the supposition of the predetermination of the divine will.

Disputatio IX: Whether the first root of contingency is the efficacy, or omnipotence, of the divine will.

Disputatio X: Whether any effect can be called formally contingent in relation to God’s causality, especially when it is produced immediately by him.

Book Four

Introduction

Disputatio I: Whether God has providence not only over all genera and species, but also over all individuals in particular, according to all circumstances of place, time, etc.

Disputatio II: Whether the evils of punishment are willed by an absolute and efficacious will, and predetermined in particular, through divine providence, or are only permitted.

Disputatio III: Whether the nature of divine providence includes not only the ordering of means to an end, but also the attainment of the end intended by God.

Disputatio IV: Whether contingent and free secondary causes can withdraw themselves from, or depart from, the order assigned to them by divine providence.

Disputatio V: Whether created free choice can resist almighty God, or strive against the order of divine providence.

Book Five

Introduction

Disputatio I: Whether all the explanations that St. Augustine gives of those words of the Apostle, “God wills all human beings to be saved,” are legitimate.

Disputatio II: What God's antecedent will is, what his consequent will is, and whether antecedent will formally entails some conditional act or wish in God.

Disputatio III: What predestination is, and in which act it formally consists: an act of the will, or rather an act of the intellect.

Disputatio IV: Whether the good use of the aids of grace, insofar as it proceeds from free will, is an effect of predestination.

Disputatio V: Whether the good use of free will, proceeding from the aid of grace, is a cause, reason, or necessary condition of predestination in adults.

Disputatio VI: Whether the predestination of infants depended on, and presupposed, foreknowledge of the good use of the free will of their parents or of others through whom they came to the grace of baptism.

Disputatio VII: Whether the foreseen merits of Christ are the cause of our predestination with respect to its entire effect.

Disputatio VIII: Whether the grace of the state of innocence was conferred on Adam through the merits of Christ.

Disputatio IX: Whether predestination, with respect to the attainment of its effects, is certain and infallible with the certainty of the order and causality of the means.

Disputatio X: Whether anyone, apart from divine revelation, can know with infallible certainty that he or another is among the predestined, or infer this from certain signs.

Disputatio XI: Whether, at least among the faithful, there are more elect than reprobate.

Book Six

Introduction

Disputatio I: Whether the children of Adam contract original sin through seminal propagation, such that it truly and properly has the character of guilt in them.

Disputatio II: Whether through original sin man was only deprived of original justice and supernatural gifts, or also wounded in his natural powers.

Disputatio III: What wounds man incurs through original or actual sin.

Disputatio IV: Whether free will in fallen nature, apart from the aids of grace, has the same natural powers for good that it would have had if it had been created in a state of pure nature.

Disputatio V: Whether man can, by the powers of nature alone and without the aid of grace, know every truth pertaining to the natural order.

Disputatio VI: Whether man can, by the powers of nature alone, assent to all the supernatural mysteries proposed and explained to him as revealed by God, with assent that is certain and firm on the believer’s part.

Disputatio VII: Whether, without the aid of grace, man in fallen nature can perform a moral act that is truly good in relation to the ultimate natural end and is an act of true virtue.

Disputatio VIII: Whether man in fallen nature can, by the powers of nature alone together with God’s general concurrence, elicit an absolute, purely natural act of loving God above all things, with an absolute resolve to please him in everything.

Disputatio IX: Whether free will, with general concurrence alone, can elicit attrition or contrition with respect to the substance of the act alone.

Disputatio X: Whether man can, by the natural powers of free will, restore the good connatural to him that he lost through sin.

Disputatio XI: Whether fallen man can, without the aid of grace, keep all the commandments and resist, at every moment, all the temptations he encounters, even the gravest, which must be overcome to keep the natural law.

Book Seven

Introduction

Disputatio I: Whether man can, without the aid of grace, dispose himself at least remotely to obtain grace by asking, seeking, knocking, and so forth.

Disputatio II: Whether those who do all that lies in their power by nature alone receive from God, infallibly and according to a fixed law, the aids of prevenient grace by which they carry it out as required for salvation.

Disputatio III: Whether greater effort of free choice obtains greater or more intense aids of rousing and prevenient grace.

Disputatio IV: Whether someone who does all that lies in his power with the earlier aids of prevenient grace receives subsequent aids infallibly and according to a fixed law.

Disputatio V: Whether someone who does all that lies in his power with efficacious aid, that is, who elicits an act of charity and contrition, receives justifying grace infallibly and according to a fixed law.

Disputatio VI: Whether acts of charity equal to the preexisting habit, or even less intense acts, obtain an increase of habitual grace, charity, and essential glory infallibly and according to a fixed law.

Disputatio VII: Whether deadened merits obtain for the penitent, infallibly and according to an established law, greater habitual grace and a right to more intense essential glory.

Disputatio VIII: Whether greater effort or influence of free choice, with equal aid of assisting grace, obtains for one person greater justifying grace than for another.

Disputatio IX: Whether a naturally more perfect intellect, with equal light of glory, produces a more intense act of beatific vision than another.

Disputatio X: Whether the beatific vision, insofar as it is formally a vital act, is efficiently caused by the light of glory as the principle by which it is produced, or by the intellect alone according to its innate power.

Disputatio XI: Whether acts of believing, hoping, and loving God as the author of grace are supernatural in substance and in the being of nature, or only in their manner and in the moral order.

Disputatio XII: Whether the final disposition to habitual grace proceeds by way of efficient causation from grace itself, or from actual aid alone, that is, from the will elevated by that aid.