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 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.

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

I. The first opinion is held by those who assert that in God there must be posited a power immediately executing, or producing, creatures, fundamentally, or eminently formally, distinct from his intellect and will. Durandus teaches this in 1. d. 38, as does Master Zumel, 1. p. q. 25. art. 1. conclusion 3. In favor of this opinion they argue as follows.

First, from the authority of St. Thomas, 1. p. q. 19. art. 4. ad 4, where he says: Knowledge is the cause of the same effect as that which directs it, and the will as that which commands it; but power is the cause that executes it, for power signifies the immediate principle of operation. He teaches this more expressly in q. 25. art. 1. ad 4, first reply, where he says: Power is not posited in God as something distinct in reality from knowledge and will, but only according to reason, insofar as power signifies the account of a principle that executes what the will commands and knowledge directs; these three belong to God according to the same thing. Here he plainly teaches that God’s executive power is distinguished from intellect and will by reason. Therefore he is speaking of a distinction of reason founded in reality, not merely a distinction formed by reasoning; otherwise he would posit no greater difference between executive power and intellect than there is between intellect and intellect itself. For intellect can also be distinguished from itself by reasoning alone.

Second, it is argued that in us executive power is really distinct from intellect and will; therefore, in God it is distinct fundamentally, or by a distinction of reason founded in reality. The consequence is clear: we attribute intellect and will to God under different concepts precisely because they are really distinct in us, and thus in God they are distinguished by a distinction of reason founded in reality.

Third, it is argued that in God executive power has an immediate object distinct from that of his intellect and will. For the immediate object of the divine intellect and will is the divine essence itself; but the immediate objects of executive power are creatures that can be made. Therefore. The consequence is clear, since powers, like habits, are distinguished by acts, and acts by their immediate object.

II. The second opinion is held by others who assert that neither God’s intellect nor his knowledge is an executive power immediately producing creatures; rather, only the act of the divine will immediately produces them. The following argument supports this opinion.

Fourth, it is argued that Scripture attributes the production and creation of things to God’s will, as is clear in Psalm 134: The Lord did all things whatsoever he willed in heaven and on earth. And Revelation 4: You made all things, and by your will they were created. Hence Augustine says in On the Mirror: God created all things by his will alone. Therefore.

This is confirmed. If every other active principle were set aside and only the act of God’s efficacious will were posited—by which he wills that things exist at this or that time—the things are produced by that very fact, since God’s will is most efficacious. Therefore, through the act of the will alone, God immediately executes what his knowledge has known to be future.

III. The third opinion, more common among the Thomists and more probable, and therefore the one we must defend, consists in the following conclusions.

First conclusion. Besides intellect and will, no third executive power eminently and formally distinct from his will and intellect is to be posited in God for the production of things.¹ Caietan holds this conclusion as more probable, 1. p. q. 25. art. 1 and q. 54. art. 3; St. Thomas expressly teaches it in the same q. 25. art. 1. ad 4, second reply, by which he corrected the first. For there he says: Divine knowledge or will itself, insofar as it is an efficient principle, has the account of power. The same is gathered from the cited q. 54 and q. 57. art. 2. in corp., where he posits in angels no other power than intellect and will. Therefore a fortiori the same must be said of God, since God is most simple.

Moreover, this is proved by the reasoning of the same St. Thomas, Quodlibet 6. q. 2. art. 2. Every natural power must be according to the mode of the nature whose power it is; but the divine nature is purely intellectual. Therefore all its power is purely intellectual. Therefore it must be either intellect or will. The consequence is clear, because only intellect and will belong to a purely intellectual nature, as Augustine says, On the Trinity 21, chapter 2.²

IIII. Second conclusion. In God, immediate executive power is not the will alone, but is the intellect, or practical knowledge, as moved by the will. This conclusion is opposed to the second opinion, but conforms to the teaching of St. Thomas.

First, this is proved from the authority of the Apostle, who says: He works all things according to the counsel of his will.³ As the Gloss noted, “counsel,” which pertains to the intellect, is placed first; then “of his will” is added, signifying that the divine intellect, or his knowledge as determined by the will, is the cause of things. Likewise, Genesis 1 says: God said, “Let there be light,” and light was made. And Psalm 148: He spoke, and they were made; he commanded, and they were created. Here the immediate production of things is attributed to God’s intellect and its command. But command is essentially an act of the intellect as moved by the will, as St. Thomas teaches, p. 2. q. 17. art. 1. Therefore.

This is confirmed. As St. Thomas teaches, On Evil, q. 15. art. 1. ad 14 and 15, angels move the heavenly and lower bodies by their command, and he adds: They move them by command alone. Therefore, similarly, God produces things by command alone, which is an act of the intellect as moved by the will. Likewise, in Opusculum 11, art. 3, he says: The motive power of an angel is his intellect. Therefore, similarly, God’s operative power is his intellect.

Finally, this is proved by the arguments made in disputation 16, no. 3: the mode of causing through intellect and art is most perfect; therefore it must belong to the most perfect cause, such as God.

To the first argument, the first reply is that St. Thomas defends both opinions disputatively, but in the end inclines to ours, as is clear from what has been said. Hence in the cited First Part, q. 25⁴ he corrected the first reply by the second, which is truer, as Caietan noted there.

A second reply is that when St. Thomas says that executive power in God is distinguished by reason from his knowledge, he means speculative knowledge, for this is not an executive cause but a directing one. Rather, practical knowledge and art immediately execute what speculative knowledge directs and toward which the will moves them.

To the second argument, the consequence is denied. The reason for the difference is that human nature is not purely intellectual. Hence in a human being there is an executive power distinct from intellect and will. But the divine and angelic natures are purely intellectual; hence the cases are dissimilar.

To the third argument, it is replied that even in God the immediate object of practical knowledge as such is not God himself, but the things operable or producible by God himself.

To the fourth argument, made for the second opinion, it is replied that the production of things is also attributed to the divine intellect in other passages of Scripture, as was said; for this point St. Thomas should be consulted in the places cited. Therefore the production of things is attributed to the divine will as that which moves and determines God’s knowledge to the exercise of the work; but it is attributed to the intellect as that which immediately executes what the will moves it to do. The case is similar with a priest consecrating the Eucharist: the consecration is produced by the efficient causation of the character that is in the intellect, though the motion of the will is presupposed. Similarly, an act of faith is produced by the intellect as an efficient cause, though the motion of the will is presupposed. In a proportionate way, therefore, we say that the divine intellect, or practical knowledge, immediately executes the production of things, with the determination of the divine will presupposed. The authority of St. Augustine cited in the argument must be explained according to this teaching.

To the confirmation, it is replied that, since nothing is willed unless it is foreknown, it is impossible for God’s will to will to produce something unless his intellect shows the end and his art, or practical knowledge, imposes the conceived form. Hence the production of things is not to be attributed to the divine will alone, but also to the intellect, as determined by the will to produce them.

End of Book Two.

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.