De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus et libertate

Name: De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus et libertate
Author: Diego Álvarez

De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus et libertate, ac legitima eius cum efficacia eorundem auxiliorum concordia

First published 1610

Diego Álvarez’s twelve-book treatise on divine grace and human free choice. This edition contains Book I: the prooemium and five preliminary disputations on Pelagian and Semi-Pelagian teaching, Manichaean and Reformation positions, Catholic theologians, and the authority of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Latin from the Rome 1610 edition, with a new English translation.

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

Whether there is conjectural cognition in God: what, in particular, a created will will do if it is placed in such circumstances.

The present difficulty may concern both future things that truly will be future and conditional future things that will never occur. The controversy is this: before God determines in particular the future act of a created will, does he have conjectural cognition that the will, once placed—or if it were placed—in such circumstances, and with such an object proposed to it, will will that object? The affirmative side is proved as follows.

First. Such a constitution, disposition, and inclination of this will, together with the proposal of an object that is suitable and lovable, is a strong conjecture that the will will pursue it. But God comprehends every constitution, disposition, and inclination of any created will. Therefore, before he decrees that will’s future act, he has conjectural cognition that, if an object suitable to it is proposed in such circumstances, it will pursue that object.

Second. From what regularly happens one draws the best conjecture about what will occur in similar cases. But, generally speaking, irascible people, when provoked by injuries, burst out in a desire for vengeance. Therefore, before any decree of his will, God has conjectural cognition that such an irascible person will desire vengeance if another inflicts injuries on him.

Third. As Saint Thomas teaches, 1.p.q.14. ar. 13. in the body of the article, whoever knows a contingent effect in its cause has conjectural cognition of it. But God knows all contingent future things in their causes, as Saint Thomas teaches in the same article and as is clear from what was said in the preceding disputations. Therefore he has conjectural cognition of them.

This is confirmed. For, as Saint Thomas teaches in Summa theologiae I, q. 57, a. 3, in the body, angels have conjectural cognition of contingent future things that proceed from their causes for the most part, because they know the causes of things more universally and perfectly. It is like physicians, who see the causes more sharply and therefore make better predictions about the future state of an illness. Since, then, God knows most perfectly the nature, propensity, or inclination of all contingent causes, it follows that he has conjectural cognition of contingent future things before he determines anything about them.

On the contrary, conjectural cognition, like opinion, intrinsically includes imperfection. But God’s cognition cannot be imperfect. Therefore no conjectural cognition of any future thing is found in him.

To resolve this difficulty, we must note that cognition of something can be conjectural in two ways. First, it can be conjectural on the side of the cognition itself and in relation to the knower, who is guided by conjectures to pronounce judgment about something, as a physician judges conjecturally about a future illness from certain signs. In this way conjectural cognition of any contingent future thing cannot be found in God, both for the reason already given and because one who judges about a contingent future thing by conjectures is not altogether certain about it. Hence what is false can underlie conjectural cognition. Since God’s cognition cannot be uncertain, nor can anything false underlie it, it follows that no conjectural cognition on the side of the knower is in him—especially when the matter is considered antecedently to the decree of his will. For God knows with certainty that nothing will be future in the nature of things unless he first decrees that it be future, either by doing it himself or by permitting it to be done. But one who has conjectural cognition of something is not certain that it will not be future. For when there is complete certainty that something will not be future, all conjectures that incline the intellect to judge conjecturally that it will be future vanish.

Second, cognition can be conjectural on the side of the object known considered in itself. This occurs when someone knows the relation that causes have to effects that regularly proceed from those same causes, and at the same time knows that the human intellect, which is inclined by conjectures to judge about some future event, draws from those same causes sufficient conjectures on which to base a judgment about a future thing—even though, for some other reason, the person who has conjectural cognition only on the side of the object knows with certainty that it will not be future. In this way conjectural cognition of contingent future things, or at least of some of them, can be attributed to God. The reason is that such cognition is not simply and intrinsically conjectural, but only extrinsically so, on the side of the object known. So too God’s knowledge of contingents is not contingent except extrinsically, because the object known secondarily is contingent in itself and may consequently be impeded by the concurrence of another cause. Therefore, just as knowledge of all contingent future things is attributed to God without God’s knowledge itself being contingent, so too certain knowledge of all conjectures about a contingent future thing must be attributed to him, without God’s own cognition being conjectural.

Accordingly, conjectural cognition of any object is not to be attributed to God simply and absolutely, for this proposition signifies that the cognition is conjectural on the side of the knower. But if, with a qualification, we say that God’s cognition is conjectural—namely, on the side of the object known secondarily—we signify only that in the object known there is a conjecture of a future event in relation to an intellect that is moved by conjectures to judge about something. In this way the reply to all the arguments made above is clear.

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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.