De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus et libertate

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.

I. The meaning of the question is whether, when a secondary cause has by reason of its own form a permanent power proportionate to some effect, a prior motion of God received in that cause is also necessary in order for it actually to produce its operation; or whether a simultaneous concurrence, likewise influencing the effect together with the secondary causes themselves, is sufficient.

Some theologians think that God’s prior concurrence or influx is not necessary, but that simultaneous concurrence is sufficient. They prove this opinion as follows.

First. God’s actual motion and concurrence contribute nothing to the will by which it is helped, inclined, or strengthened for acting. Therefore it is not an influx into the will as a cause, but an influx together with it into its effect. The antecedent is proved as follows: through this motion the will is not constituted in first act, but in second act, since the motion presupposes in the will everything necessary for acting on the part of first act.

This is confirmed. Concurrences must not be multiplied without necessity. But when a secondary cause is sufficiently constituted in first act by a permanent form sufficient in its kind for it to act, God’s simultaneous concurrence is enough. Therefore another prior concurrence of God is posited as necessary to no purpose.

Second, it is argued that only instruments need to be moved and applied to acting by a prior motion of a superior agent, as is clear in the case of a saw and a paintbrush. This arises because an instrument by itself and by the power of its own form does not have power to produce the effect of the principal agent. But secondary causes have by themselves and by reason of their own form the power to produce effects proportionate to them, because they are principal causes with respect to such effects. Therefore they do not require any prior motion of God in order to act.

Third. Natural causes are determined to one outcome by their own form, just as fire is naturally determined by heat to heat things. Therefore at least they do not need a prior motion of God to produce a determinate action or a determinate effect.

Fourth. The external powers are moved by the will to their operations, as the power of sight is moved to seeing; yet through such motion the will produces nothing in the power of sight that is prior to and distinct from the act of seeing. Rather, through a certain sympathy and subordination the act of seeing follows upon the motion of the will. Therefore, similarly, because causes are subordinate to God, he can move them to their operations without causing in them anything prior to those same operations.

Fifth. God produces the effect of a secondary cause immediately, with immediacy of power and immediacy of supposit. Therefore he does not influence the cause itself by moving it, but immediately influences the effect together with it. The consequence is proved as follows: otherwise God would produce the effect through the secondary cause, mediately rather than immediately.

Sixth. If a prior influx of God into the cause were necessary for every action of the natural order, two great inadmissible consequences would follow. The first is that a created will, when it is not acting concerning objects proportionate to it and presented to it, would have no sufficient principle for willing them and could not truly act concerning them; therefore it would not be blameworthy if it did not act. This is proved as follows: when the will is not actually acting, it does not have that prior influx of God which, according to the contrary opinion, is necessary for acting, and it is not in the will’s power to have such an influx. For those things that precede every free consent of the will cannot be in its power. Therefore whenever the will does not act, it truly cannot act.

The second inadmissible consequence would be that God premoves by a prior influx and draws the will to an act of sin to which evil is intrinsically joined, such as an act of hatred of God. Thus God would make the will produce that sinful act, and consequently God would perform evil works no less than good ones. Yet this is contrary to the definition of the Council of Trent: If anyone says that it is not in a person’s power to make his ways evil, but that God works evil deeds just as he works good ones, not merely permissively but properly and per se, so that Judas’s betrayal is his own work no less than Paul’s calling: let him be anathema.¹

Seventh. By such a prior motion of God the freedom of the will is taken away as to its use. Therefore not only is God’s prior concurrence or influx unnecessary for free operations, but it is also incompatible with them. The antecedent is proved. It belongs to the account of a free cause that, with all the requirements on the part of the active principle and what precedes the act posited, it can act or not act, and act in this way or in the opposite way. But once that influx of God into the cause is posited, the will cannot fail to perform the act to which he moves it. Therefore it does not remain free as to exercise in relation to that act.

This is confirmed. Indifference, or indetermination, belongs to the account of a free power, for a free power, as such, is not determined to one outcome. But by God’s prior motion the indifference of our will is removed, since such motion efficaciously predetermines it to one outcome, as the authors of the contrary opinion admit. Therefore this kind of prior motion is not to be posited.

Eighth. It cannot be explained, or even understood, what this prior motion is or what it posits in the will. Therefore it must not be admitted. The antecedent is proved as follows: whatever exists subjectively in the will or in any other power is either a habit, a disposition, or a second act of that power. But God’s prior motion is neither a habit nor a disposition, for otherwise it would be a quality, the contrary of which St. Thomas teaches, 1. 2. q. 110. art. 2. in corp. Nor is it a second act, because a second act of the will depends on the will itself as its efficient cause, since it is its proper operation. But God’s prior influx does not depend on our will as its efficient cause, since it precedes every free concurrence of the will. For this reason it is called a prior influx into the cause. Therefore.

This is confirmed. The prior influx is caused by God alone as an efficient cause, while our will is passive. Therefore it does not depend on our will as its efficient cause. Hence it is not really identical with its operation, for the operation of the will depends on that same will as its efficient cause.

II. The Thomists commonly hold the contrary opinion, and without doubt it is expressly taught by Aristotle, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas in the places cited below. Since among secondary causes some are natural and necessary, others free and contingent, and among these some pertain to the order of nature and others to the order of grace, each of them must be treated in its proper order. With respect, then, to natural causes, let the following be stated.

III. First conclusion. For natural secondary causes to produce their operations, a prior influx of God into the causes themselves is necessary, by which they are moved and applied to acting.² I affirm that this conclusion is most certain, and I consider the contrary opinion improbable and contrary to the philosophy of Aristotle and St. Thomas, as will be clear below. The same conclusion is laid down in the Roman Catechism, issued by decree of the sacred Council of Trent and by order of Pius V, Part 1, on the first article of the Creed, no. 22. Its words are: Moreover, God not only protects and governs all things that exist by his providence, but also impels those things that are moved and act in any way, by an interior power, to movement and action, in such a way that, although he does not impede the efficacy of secondary causes, he nevertheless precedes it, since his most hidden power pertains to each thing. And, as the Wise Man testifies: “It reaches mightily from end to end and orders all things sweetly.”³ Hence the Apostle said, when he was announcing to the Athenians the God whom they worshiped without knowing him:⁴ “He is not far from each one of us; for in him we live and move and are.” Here it teaches most clearly that God moves and impels secondary causes to act not only by simultaneous but also by prior influx, and does so by an interior power—that is, by something received intimately in the secondary cause itself, by which its active power is completed and reduced to act. It gathers this teaching from St. Paul the Apostle, who says: In him we live and move and are. Aristotle teaches the same opinion in Physics 8. When explaining the subordination and dependence that proximate agents have on the first unmoved mover and on his motion, he teaches that among movers some are moved by another, as proximate movers are; another is a mover that is not moved, namely, the first mover, who is God. He immediately adds that the first mover moves more than the lower movers, and assigns two reasons for this. One is that the first mover moves the subsequent movers, whereas the subsequent movers do not move the first. The other is that the first mover can move without the subsequent movers, since it does not depend on them; but subsequent movers cannot move unless the first mover moves, because they depend on him. Aristotle’s words are these: Therefore we say that both the first and the last of the movers move, but the first does so more, for it moves the last. But the last does not move the first, and without the first the last will not move; the first, however, moves without the last, just as a stick will not move unless it is moved by a human being.⁵ He therefore holds that just as a stick will not move water unless it is moved by the hand and applied to move the water, so a secondary cause will not move or produce any effect unless it is moved by the first cause. Therefore the contrary opinion is contrary to Aristotle.

The same point is confirmed. From the commonly accepted principle that everything moved is moved by another, Aristotle, Physics 7, chapter 1 and 8, chapter 5, concludes that we must arrive at one first mover that moves all agents and is not moved by another, lest there be an infinite regress.

IIII. In reply to this argument, some theologians explain Aristotle in two ways. First, they explain him as speaking of prior motion in a broad sense, by which secondary causes are brought into being and conserved by the first cause.⁶ For by this motion secondary causes must first be moved by God so that they can move, because unless they were brought into being and conserved by the first cause, they could not move or do anything.

Second, they reply that a secondary cause is said to act as moved by the first because it is constituted as an agent in second act through the cooperation of the first cause. But both explanations are arbitrary and contrary to the context of Aristotle.

V. I argue against the first explanation as follows: as is clear from the example of a stick that Aristotle uses there, he intends to prove that what a secondary cause receives from the first is not only the being it has, nor only its conservation, but also an actual motion distinct from the permanent being of the cause itself. For a stick receives from the mover both its actual power and the actual motion by which it moves a stone. St. Thomas teaches the same, q. 3. de potentia art. 7, whose words we shall cite immediately.

Moreover, even when secondary causes are not acting, they are conserved by God in their being. Therefore the prior motion of which Aristotle speaks there is not only that by which secondary causes are brought into being or conserved in their being, but another by which they are moved to their operations. For upon the actual motion of the first agent it follows that the secondary agent moves,

VI. An argument is made against the second explanation. If that explanation means that the first agent, by its influx, constitutes the proximate cause in second act, so that it truly reduces it from first act to second by efficient causation and makes it employ its own proper influx and act, then we have what we seek. For such reduction precedes the influx of the secondary cause in the order of causality, just as a cause precedes its effect. But if it means only that the first cause concurs with the second in its operation by simultaneous concurrence, it does not preserve the claim that the secondary agent is moved to act by the first agent. For when two people pull a ship, each influencing the effect together with the other, one does not move the other, because he does not make the other exert his influence or concur; rather, both influence the effect together. Moreover, it does not seem to preserve the claim that the first agent, namely God, properly causes, as an efficient cause, every actuality and every real formality found in the secondary cause. For according to this explanation, that actual application and influx of the secondary cause, insofar as it is application and influx, does not result from the efficient causation of the first agent or from his operation. This will be treated in disputation 86.

This is also proved from the same Aristotle, On Causes, propositions 1 and 16, where he teaches that divine power is the power of all causes, because it joins secondary causes to their effects. St. Thomas teaches this too, 1. p. q. 36. ar. 3. and q. 3. de potentia, art. 7.

VII. Second, this is proved by the authority of St. Thomas, who in 1. 2. qq. 109, 110, and 111, in almost every article, teaches that, in addition to the permanent form that secondary causes have and its conservation, it is necessary that God, as universal agent, move secondary causes themselves to their operations, that is, so that they act.⁷ But especially noteworthy are the words he has in art. 1 of the same q. 109. For he says: We see in bodily things that for motion there is required not only the form itself, which is the principle of motion or action, but also the motion of the first mover. The first mover in the order of bodily things is the heavenly body. Hence, however perfect the heat of fire may be, it would not alter anything unless by the motion of a heavenly body. But it is clear that just as all bodily motions are reduced to the motion of a heavenly body as their first bodily mover, so all motions, both bodily and spiritual, are reduced to the first mover simply, who is God. Therefore, however perfect a bodily or spiritual nature is posited to be, it cannot proceed to its act unless it is moved by God.

VIII. He repeats the same in art. 9 of that same question, in the body, where he teaches generally that no created thing can proceed to any act whatsoever except by the power of divine motion. These two passages cannot be explained as speaking of simultaneous motion, since they manifestly speak of motion prior to and preceding the influx of the secondary cause. For St. Thomas says that by that motion of God the secondary cause itself receives power to act. But this active power precedes the operation of the secondary cause in the order of nature.

IX. He teaches this very point more expressly in 2. sent. d. 37. q. 2. art. 2. His words are to be cited and examined below, no. 13, and disputation 24, no. 17,⁸ and q. 3. de potentia, art. 7. in corp., where he expressly demonstrates that God works in nature and in the will when they act, and does this in several ways. First, because he gave natural things powers by which they can act. Second, insofar as he conserves the natural power in being. Third, insofar as he moves it to act; by this (he says) we do not mean the bestowal or conservation of active power, but the application of the power to action, just as a human being is the cause of a knife’s cutting by the very fact that he applies the knife’s edge to cut, moving it.⁹ He immediately proves this, adding these words: And because a lower natural agent acts only when moved, since such lower bodies are things that alter and are altered, whereas the heaven alters but is not altered, and yet is not a mover unless moved, and this does not cease until we arrive at God, it necessarily follows that God is the cause of the action of every natural thing, as mover and as that which applies its power to acting. Fourth, God is called the cause of the action of a natural thing as the principal agent is the cause of the action of an instrument. In all these four ways St. Thomas teaches that God is the cause of every action of secondary causes. In the reply to the seventh objection of the same article, he teaches that when God moves a secondary cause to act, he confers something on it by which it acts actually, and he says: That which he confers is a certain intention of the first agent, having incomplete being in the way colors are in the air and the power of an art in the artisan’s instrument.

X. Convinced by this passage of St. Thomas, one of the followers of the contrary opinion candidly admits that St. Thomas held this opinion in the cited question On Power, but nevertheless changed it in 1. p. q. 105. arts. 4 and 5. For, when treating expressly there of the same question, he does not mention the intention of the first agent, nor does he posit as necessary the incomplete being he had posited in q. 3. de potentia. But anyone who sincerely considers St. Thomas’s words will see plainly that this reply is insufficient. For in the body of the same article of q. 105, he says: The first agent moves the second to acting. And immediately he adds: God moves things to act, as it were applying the forms and powers of things to their operation, just as an artisan applies an axe to cutting.¹⁰ Here the word “as it were” is not a diminishing expression, as some wish, any more than in John’s words: We saw his glory, a glory as of the only-begotten from the Father.¹¹ Hence, in the reply to objection 3 of the same article, he says absolutely that God applies things to acting. And in the same 1. p. q. 2. art. 3. in corp. he teaches the same more clearly when he says: Second movers move only insofar as they are moved by the first mover, just as a stick moves only insofar as it is moved by the hand. He teaches the same in 3. cont. Gen. chapter 70, where he says: The operation of a lower agent must be from it not only through its own power, but through the power of higher agents; for it acts by the power of them all. And in chapter 66, argument 4, he says: The completion of the power of a second agent comes from the power of the first agent. How, then, did St. Thomas change his opinion, when in the First Part itself and in Against the Gentiles 3 he always perseveres in the same opinion?

XI. Capreolus defends this opinion with St. Thomas, in 2. d. 1. q. 2. art. 1, where he cites in support the authority of St. Thomas, q. 3. de potentia, cited above.¹² Caietan holds the same, 1. p. q. 45. art. 5. § ad Durandum, where, speaking of the proposition “Every secondary cause is God’s instrument,” he says: Second, it is said that this proposition too is true, as is clear from q. 3. de potentia, art. 7, where it is shown at length that an angel and every secondary cause act only insofar as they are acted upon by God in several ways. Nor is this unreasonable; indeed, every action of a creature must reach God’s effect, because it always reaches being, which no cause gives except by the power of the first cause, as is shown here and in the Third Book against the Gentiles, chapters 64 and 65.¹³ He confirms the same opinion in q. 115 of the same First Part, art. 6. § ad evidentiam, where he says: Lower agents never act together with the heaven unless they are also acted upon by the heaven, because they move only insofar as they are moved; and it is naturally prior for lower bodies to be acted upon and moved by the heaven than for them to act together with it. If, according to Caietan, it is prior for lower agents to be acted upon by the heaven than for them to act, then they need a prior motion in order to act. But this prior motion is an immediate influx into the cause. Therefore. Hence some cite him unjustly in support of the contrary opinion. For although in the same First Part, q. 14. art. 13. § nec sustinendus, he says that a secondary cause does not operate as moved by God by a motion prior to its own action, as water heats when heated by fire, but by a motion cooperating intrinsically in its own action—and he repeats this in q. 19. art. 8. § ad primam autem—he is not contrary to himself or to us. For in those places he intends only to teach that the first cause does not cooperate by a prior motion that reaches the effect of the secondary cause at some prior time or order of nature antecedently to the influx of that same secondary cause. This explanation is gathered from the context itself, for at the end of the same article 8 he says: The assumed proposition is not to be understood as if there were some duration of nature in whose first instant the first cause regards the effect and in the second the secondary cause; for this is a childish interpretation. Rather, it is to be understood with respect to independence and intimacy. Nevertheless, in those same places he plainly admits a prior influx of God into the secondary cause, joining the secondary cause’s power to its effect. For he says that the influx of the first cause is modified in the second and therefore, together with a contingent secondary cause, produces a contingent effect in the manner of that cause. Caietan therefore holds that the influx of the first cause is received first in the secondary cause in the order of nature and modified in it before it produces its effect together with that same secondary cause.

XII. Ferrariensis follows the same opinion, 3. cont. Gen. chapter 70, and says that it is expressly St. Thomas’s opinion in the cited q. 3. de potentia, to which all the Thomists unanimously agree. Master Cabrera follows the same opinion, 3. p. q. 17. art. 4. disp. 2. § 3. no. 113 and following, and says that it is St. Thomas’s opinion and is accepted by all philosophers.

Third, it is proved by a natural argument drawn from q. 3, On the Power of God, cited in the body of its seventh article and in the reply to the seventh argument; Cajetan also touches on it in the cited 1 p., q. 45. For secondary causes produce not only their effect and operation according to species, but also confer on the effect the ultimate actuality and being that it has. For whatever is found in an effect is produced by its efficient cause. But secondary causes cannot confer this ultimate actuality by efficient causation on their effects unless those same causes are completed in their active power through the actual motion of the first agent. ¹⁴ Therefore, they must be moved by him through a prior motion so that they may produce that ultimate actuality. The minor premise is proved as follows: every form and operative power of any created being is an act mixed with potency, and thus does not have in itself as perfect an actuality as an operation has, since an operation is a second act. Therefore, it cannot be the efficient principle of such an operation with respect to its ultimate actuality unless, by a priority of nature, it is first completed in its operative power through the actual motion of the first agent. For an efficient principle must not have less actuality than its effect, since each thing acts insofar as it is actual.

Fourth, it is proved as follows. As St. Thomas expressly shows in Against the Gentiles III, ch. 66, being is the most universal act and the proper effect of God alone. ¹⁵ Hence it is also said in the book On Causes that even an intelligence gives being only insofar as it is divine. Therefore, secondary causes, insofar as, formally speaking, they attain the being of their proper effect, are instruments of God himself. Therefore, by a priority of nature, they must be moved by him before they attain the being of any effect. The inference is clear: for an instrument to attain the effect of the principal agent, it must first be moved by that agent through a prior motion. This conclusion will become clearer from what follows.

XIII. Second conclusion. Free causes, even contingent ones, need a prior influx from God in order to produce their operations. ¹⁶ The conclusion is as certain as the preceding one and is taught by St. Thomas in the cited places and in 1 p., q. 83, art. 1, ad 3, where he says: Free choice is not sufficient for willing anything unless it is moved and helped by God. And in the reply to the third argument he says: God is the first cause moving both natural and voluntary causes. Just as by moving natural causes he does not take away that their acts are natural, so by moving voluntary causes he does not take away that their actions are voluntary; rather, he brings this about in them, for he works in each thing according to its property. And in Sentences II, dist. 37, q. 2, art. 2, ad 2, he says: God gives the agent being, ability, and action, and whatever perfection there is in the agent. In the reply to the third argument he adds: In good acts he gives the agent both things: that it act and that it act well. There he teaches plainly that God first gives influx to free choice as a cause before he gives influx together with it to its effect. For through immediate concurrence with free choice in its effect, or free operation, God does not give the agent the very act of acting; rather, together with free choice determining and contributing its influx, he brings about the free act. Since, therefore, St. Thomas says that God gives influx to the agent for the very act of acting, he holds that by his concurrence God first gives influx to the secondary cause before he gives influx together with that secondary cause to the effect of both. The arguments made for the preceding conclusion prove this conclusion all the more strongly.

Moreover, it is proved by a special argument assigned by St. Thomas, 1. p. q. 19. ar. 3. ad 5. From that which is related to either alternative indifferently, no determinate action follows unless it is moved by something else and inclined to one alternative, as the Commentator says, Physics 2, text 48. ¹⁷ For from that which is in potency and indifferent, precisely as such, no determinate act proceeds: there is no greater reason why this act should proceed than its opposite, since such potency is in itself indifferent to opposites. But a free and contingent cause is indifferent to opposites. Therefore, a determinate operation will not proceed from it unless it is moved by the first agent and determined to one particular operation.

This is confirmed by an argument of the same St. Thomas, 1.2, q. 9, art. 4, in the body, and 1. p. q. 2. ar. 3.. Everything that is sometimes an agent in act and sometimes in potency needs to be moved by some mover that is pure act. But created will is sometimes an agent in act and sometimes in potency. Therefore it needs to be moved by the first act in order to produce its operation.

XIV. Second, this is proved by another argument of Saint Thomas in Sentences II, dist. 37, q. 2, a. 2, in the body. For it seems to follow from the opposing opinion that there are several first principles. This consequence is the error of the Manicheans, as we saw in Disputation 3. Therefore. The consequence is proved as follows: it belongs to the nature of a first principle that it can act without the help of a prior agent and without its influence. Therefore, if the human will produced some action without the prior motion of a prior agent, with respect to that action the created will would be a first principle, simply the first self-mover and the first self-determining cause. The advocates of the opposing opinion try to weaken the force of this argument by saying that the created will does not have the character of a first principle with respect to its operation, because although it can operate without the prior motion of a prior agent, it does not have being from itself and cannot operate without the simultaneous concurrence of the first agent; yet that would be necessary for it to have the character of a first principle. But how ineffective this solution is will become clear in Disputation 24, no. 19; for now it is briefly refuted. For, as Saint Thomas argues in the same cited Sentences II, a. 2, although this reply would avoid the conclusion that the human will, or any secondary cause, is simply the first being, it nevertheless does not seem possible to avoid the conclusion that it would be the first agent if its action were not referred to some prior agent as its cause.

Third, this is proved by another argument, which Saint Thomas develops in the same article 2. What does not have being from itself does not have acting or any influence from itself, but receives all this from another, from whom it has being.¹⁸ Hence, by its decree on the Catholic Faith, the Council of Florence proves that the Son of God has eternally from the Father this very thing, that he breathes forth the Holy Spirit. ¹⁹ For the Son has being not from himself but from the Father, by whom he was eternally begotten.²⁰ The very Truth also testifies in the Gospel: My doctrine is not mine, but his who sent me, the Father. ²¹ And again: The Son cannot do anything of himself,²² because, that is, he is not from himself but from the Father. But the created will does not have being from itself, but from God. Therefore it does not have from itself the fact that it actually exerts influence on its operation; rather, it receives this very thing from God. Therefore God influences the will through a prior motion by which the will is moved toward its operation and applied so as to act actually.

Fourth, this is proved by a special argument that applies to every vital operation. Even by absolute power it cannot happen that God produces a created vital action except through a vital power, because such an action cannot be attained or produced by God alone, since it implies an intrinsic order to a vital power. Therefore it is impossible for God’s operation, or concurrence, to influence a vital operation together with a vital cause unless, prior in the order of nature, it influences the vital cause itself through which such a vital operation must be produced.

XV. Third conclusion. Supernatural secondary causes too, already constituted in first act through supernatural habits, must be premoved by God through an actual motion of the supernatural order so that they may produce their supernatural operations. This conclusion is also opposed to certain more recent theologians who assert that supernatural help, or concurrence, agrees with the general concurrence of the natural order in this respect: that by itself and precisely it is not in the cause, but acts with the cause in the effect. Yet our conclusion is expressly taught by Saint Thomas in Summa theologiae I–II, q. 109, aa. 1 and 9, where he clearly speaks of prior motion.²³ Saint Bonaventure holds the same opinion in Sentences II, dist. 26, q. 6, at the words “I answer,” where he explains it with an excellent example. He says that just as light not only works together with the air, illuminating these lower things, but also first acts upon the air itself because of its continuity with its source,²⁴ so too grace not only works together with free choice, but also acts upon free choice and moves it. Capreolus explicitly teaches the same in Sentences II, dist. 28, q. 1, a. 3, ad 12, where he says that this is the express opinion of Saint Augustine. It is proved by the arguments made for the preceding conclusions, which also demonstrate this one.

Furthermore, it is proved by the authority of Celestine I in his letter to the bishops of Gaul, chapter 1, where he says: Thus God works in the hearts of human beings and upon free choice itself, so that holy thought, pious counsel, and every good movement of the will are from God.²⁵ Behold, the Pontiff teaches that God influences free choice, which must be understood as referring to prior motion. By reason of this motion every good movement of a good will is from God and has its first beginning from God, not merely in the genus of moral causality, but also truly by efficient causation.

XVI. Second, it is proved by the authority of Augustine, tome 7, On Correction and Grace, ch. 2, whom Capreolus cites at the place mentioned. There St. Augustine says of the children of God, of whom the Apostle says, They are led by the Spirit of God,²⁶ as follows: Let them understand that if they are children of God, they are led by the Spirit of God so that they do what ought to be done. And when they have done it, let them give thanks to him by whom they are led; for they are led so that they may act, not so that they themselves do nothing.²⁷ Therefore, according to Augustine, by a priority of nature free choice is moved and led by God before it does anything. And in On the Grace of Christ Against Pelagius and Caelestius, ch. 25, explaining the same passage of the Apostle, he says: Surely, in order that they may do what is good, they are led by him who is good. And again, in another place, he says: Do you wish to act by yourself? Do you wish to be moved by yourself?²⁸ etc. It is not those who are led by their own spirit, but all who are led by the Spirit of God who are children of God. Someone will say to me: “Then are we led and do not act?” I answer: “On the contrary, you act and are led; and you act well then if you are led by him. For the Spirit of God, who leads you, is a helper to those who act; the very name ‘helper’ tells you in advance that you yourself also do something. Recognize what you ask for; recognize what you confess when you say: ‘Be my helper; do not abandon me.’”²⁹ You certainly call God your helper. No one is helped if nothing is done by him; for he says: “All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.” And in Hypognosticon 3, shortly after the beginning, he says: With his most merciful grace, God precedes the free will of a human being who is ignorant and does not yet seek, so that he may make that person know and seek God. By these words St. Augustine plainly teaches our opinion.

XVII. Third, it is proved as follows: otherwise the first beginning of a pious operation would come from us, and thus a human being would be the one who first began a supernatural work and his own determination to that act. The consequent seems contrary to the definition of the Second Council of Orange, as will become clear in disputation 89. For canon 25 says: We also salutarily confess and believe that in every good work we do not begin and are afterward helped by God’s mercy; rather, he himself, with no good merits preceding, inspires in us both faith and love of himself. And at the outset the Council of Sens immediately says: For one who approaches God must first, helped by the gift of divine grace, believe, and then devote himself to good works. In bringing these about, both free choice and grace operate; yet grace operates first and principally. Therefore one who supposes that a human being can act well and attain salvation without grace, or attributes the primacy of a good work to free choice and not to grace, must be considered a Pelagian. ³⁰ The inference is proved as follows: if, after the intellect and will have been constituted in first act by supernatural habits, they no longer need to be moved beforehand by God through a supernatural actual influx, then it is the will that first begins the supernatural act, because by its innate freedom it chose to use the supernatural habit. Thus it would be the first beginning of its own act and would therefore have something of its own in the business of its salvation that it had not received from grace. This is contrary to 1 Cor. 4: For who distinguishes you? What do you have that you did not receive? If it is said that this person has a pious operation from a supernatural habit, though not from the powers of nature, and thus nothing pertaining to salvation is referred to the natural faculty alone, the reply is: a supernatural habit alone does not give the will that it infallibly act, but only that it be able to act supernaturally if it wills. Likewise, God’s simultaneous influx does not cause the will to act by efficient causality, nor make it contribute its influx; it only concurs simultaneously with it in the actual operation if the will itself wishes to act. Therefore the will would have from itself, and not from grace, that it actually acts. But this will be treated more fully in Disputations 88, 96, 97, and 98, while discussing the efficacy of the helps of prevenient grace. Since, therefore, our conclusion has such weighty Doctors and such effective arguments in its favor, some are wrong to contend that this prior motion, which St. Thomas in the cited q. 3, On the Power of God, calls a certain virtue superadded to secondary causes, having incomplete being in the way colors are in the air or the power of an art in the artisan’s instrument, is plainly fictitious, supported by no reason, and needlessly multiplies things.

XVIII. Therefore, to the first argument drawn from the passages set out at the beginning, it is answered that God’s actual motion gives the will and all secondary causes the ultimate completion of first act, as St. Thomas teaches in the places cited above, especially Against the Gentiles III, ch. 66, argument 4, and q. 3, On the Power of God, art. 7, ad 7. It also confers a certain power by which they act toward being and the ultimate actuality of the effect as God’s instrument, as was explained above. When it is argued that such concurrence presupposes in the will whatever is necessary for acting on the side of first act, it is answered that it does presuppose whatever is necessary on the side of first act by way of a potency or operative power; nevertheless, it does not presuppose the application or ultimate completion of first act, but confers that on the will and on every secondary cause, as was said.³¹

The confirmation is already clear from the arguments adduced for the first and second conclusions, which show the necessity of positing a prior influx from God into the cause in addition to simultaneous influx.

To the second argument, it is replied that every secondary cause, insofar as it gives being and ultimate actuality to an effect, is God’s instrument, as was said in no. 12. Although by reason of its own form it has power, after the manner of a habit, to produce its effects, it nevertheless receives the ultimate completion and actuality of that same power from God’s prior motion, as was said.

To the third, it is replied that, as St. Thomas teaches, q. 3. de potentia, art. 7. ad 8, natural causes too presuppose that prior motion of God as necessary, for the reasons given above. For although by their form they are naturally determined to one outcome after the manner of an active power, as fire is determined to heat, nevertheless by way of actual influx they are determined by divine motion so that they actually act and are completed in their operative power, as was said. Hence the fire of the Babylonian furnace did not burn³² the three youths within it, because God did not apply it to burn them.³³

XIX. To the fourth, the consequence is denied. For, with respect to their operations in physical being, the external powers are not essentially subordinated to the will, but only in moral being, which belongs to them by an extrinsic denomination. Moreover, the will is not the first mover simply; but all secondary causes, whether natural or free, are essentially subordinated with respect to their operations in physical being to God himself, as the first agent and mover simply. Hence they must be completed in their operative power by him, as was said. Therefore the cases are dissimilar.

To the fifth argument, it is replied from Caietan’s teaching, 1. p. q. 8. art. 1. notes 2 and 3, that God operates immediately, both with immediacy of power and with immediacy of supposit, in every effect of any created cause, but in different ways. For with immediacy of power he operates immediately in every effect of a secondary cause with respect to everything found in that effect, because the power of the first agent reaches the effect more inwardly and immediately. For it is said in the Book of Causes, proposition 1, that the power of the first cause acts first upon what is caused and enters into it more forcefully. But with immediacy of supposit he produces immediately every effect of a secondary cause, not indeed with respect to everything, but with respect to some things, namely, being and the ultimate actuality found in such an effect. The reason is that, as St. Thomas teaches in the cited 1. p. and q. 3. de potentia art. 7. in corp., created being is the proper effect of God alone, just as to kindle is the proper effect of fire. Hence between the divine supposit operating and the being communicated to the effect there intervenes no other operating supposit that produces such being by its own power. Therefore God produces it immediately, with immediacy of supposit. But with respect to those things in which secondary causes also influence by the power of their own proper forms, Caietan admits that God does not act immediately with immediacy of supposit, since he acts through the supposits of secondary causes, which, as principal secondary agents, produce their own effects. This reply is grounded in St. Thomas, q. 3. de potentia art. 7. in corp. and ad 4.³⁴

XX. To the sixth argument we answer that absolutely no absurdity follows from our opinion. In reply to the first consequence drawn—that otherwise the will could not act when it lacks prior motion, and its failure to act would not be imputed to it as culpable—Saint Augustine answers fully in Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, ch. 5; Against Julian IV, ch. 8; and On Rebuke and Grace, ch. 7; and Saint Thomas in Summa theologiae II–II, q. 2, a. 5, ad 1; I–II, q. 109, a. 8, ad 1; De veritate, q. 14, a. 11, ad 2; and much more fully in Summa contra Gentiles III, chs. 159 and 160. Following his teaching, we answer that the prior influx is not necessary so that the will may be able to perform acts proportionate to it, but so that it may actually act. For being able to act is one thing, and actually acting is another. Hence, from the fact that the will does not have that prior influx from God, it does not follow that it cannot act, but only that in fact it will not act, as Ferrariensis explains very well in Summa contra Gentiles III, ch. 155; we will discuss the same point at greater length in Disputation 23, no. 32.³⁵ And when it is argued that this prior motion is not in the power of the created will, especially when the motion is supernatural and directed to a supernatural act, we answer that although this prior motion is not in the will’s power as an efficient cause, since such prior motion is effected by God alone, nevertheless, once that motion is presupposed, its terminus is in our power—namely, the free operation for which such motion is given.³⁶ It is also within the power of our will to impede itself from receiving that motion. Hence, if it does not perform an act that is commanded, this will be imputed to it as culpable, because through its own fault it impeded itself from receiving the efficacious help that was necessary for it actually to perform the act of virtue that is commanded. This is like a case in which God imposed on a person the precept to fly and, for his part, offered him wings and the help necessary to fly, while the person answered by his own free choice: “Lord, I do not wish either to receive wings or to fly.” He would rightly be held guilty and a transgressor of the precept, even if he could not fly without wings, because through his own fault he impeded himself from having them given to him by God. This is Saint Thomas’s solution in the cited Summa contra Gentiles III, ch. 159, where he shows that it is reasonable to impute as culpable to a person that he does not turn to God, although he cannot do this without the help of grace. He gives this reason: although that help is not in a person’s power but only in God’s, it is nevertheless in a person’s power to impede himself from having it conferred by God. But we will return below to this solution.³⁷ For now, see Saint Augustine, On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins II, ch. 21, where he says: The reason human beings are not helped by the grace of God lies in themselves, not in God. And in letter 105 to Sixtus he teaches that those to whom God does not give the help of grace have merited that it not be given to them. Saint Anselm also asserts this of the Devil in On the Fall of the Devil, ch. 3, where he says: This is why God did not grant the Devil grace: because he himself did not wish to receive it and was not ready. Saint Thomas cites and explains this authority in Summa theologiae I–II, q. 112, a. 3, ad 2. The solution to this argument will become clearer in Disputation 22, no. 34.

XXI. As for the other absurdity, from which it is inferred that God would be the cause of sin if he premoves to that action insofar as it is an action, we answer that Saint Augustine was presented with a similar argument by Julian concerning original sin, as Augustine himself reports in Against Julian III, ch. 9. Julian argued as follows to prove that there is no original sin: God is the cause of the creation of the soul and likewise established marriage; he is also the cause of parents begetting offspring. Therefore original sin does not follow from that begetting; otherwise sin would be attributed to God. Saint Augustine answers this argument there, and in On Free Choice II, chs. 19 and 20, where he treats this question of actual sin, and in Against Julian V, ch. 3. Saint Thomas solves the same argument in De malo, q. 3, a. 2; Summa theologiae I–II, q. 79, a. 2; and more fully in Sentences II, dist. 37, q. 2, a. 2, in the body. Following their teaching, we answer that two things are considered in that sinful action. One is the entity of that action, which it has even in the particular case. Under this aspect the action, although otherwise a sin, is referred back to God as its first author. The reason is that, since it is a being, it must by participation be referred back to the first being; otherwise God would not be the first author of every being.³⁸ Under the aspect of being, that action is not evil but good, because every being, insofar as it is a being, is good; consequently, it must be from God who premoves it.³⁹ Second, the action is considered as morally evil and defective, or insofar as it is sin. Under this aspect it is referred only to a deficient cause, namely the created will that chose to act defectively, for sin has an intrinsic order to that will. Hence, absolutely speaking, sin is not from God, either by premoving or by concurring simultaneously. For God is not the cause of sin, although he is the cause of the action that is a sin because of the evil will. Thus Saint Thomas, explaining how one must speak on this subject in the cited Sentences II, dist. 37, says: Any name that signifies deformity together with an act, whether in general or in particular, cannot be said simply to be from God. Hence one cannot say absolutely that sin is from God—for example, homicide or anything of that sort—except with this qualification: insofar as it is an act and insofar as it is a being.

XXII. Ferrari develops this solution very well in Against the Gentiles III, ch. 71, near the end, where from St. Thomas he shows that the first agent can move a cause to perform the entity of an act of sin without acting with respect to its deformity. For the deformity does not follow upon that action insofar as it is an action, but insofar as it expresses a relation to a deficient cause. St. Augustine teaches the same solution at the place mentioned above, as do Capreolus in Sentences II, dist. 37, q. 1, art. 1, conclusion 2, and art. 2, in the reply to the arguments against the second conclusion; Master Cano, On Theological Places 2, ch. 4, ad 7; Soto, On Nature and Grace 1, ch. 18, near the end, where he teaches that theologians admit God is the cause of the entity and action of sin by the kind of efficient causality by which he moves all things beforehand to their natural actions; Master Bañez, 1 p., q. 49, art. 2; and Master Medina, 1.2, q. 109, art. 2. This will be treated more fully in disputation 24. To make the solution to this argument evident, we observe that precisely the same difficulty applies to God’s simultaneous concurrence as to his prior concurrence. Hence, since the authors of the opposing opinion admit that by actual simultaneous concurrence God truly and properly causes in particular that entity and action which is sin, they are likewise bound to answer the proposed difficulty. They too satisfy it by saying that the deformity of sin follows upon the action insofar as it is from a deficient will, but not insofar as it proceeds from God together with the will contributing its influx; hence it must be attributed to the deficient will and not to God. Therefore, the answer they give to an argument concerning God’s simultaneous influx is the same answer we give when they argue against God’s prior concurrence, since the same solution applies to both. This will become clear in disputation 24, nos. 20 and 21.

As to the passage cited from the Council of Trent, it is answered that the heresy of Luther and his followers is condemned there. They asserted that God works evil deeds in us in the same way as good ones. For these heretics held that our will is purely passive with respect to sins and all other acts; or, if it contributes actively, it does so by a spontaneous motion, not a free one. Thus, speaking absolutely, they said sin is God’s work in the same way as a good act; hence they attributed to God both the entity of the sinful action and its deformity and defect, as was shown in disputation 3 and will become clear in disputation 24. How foreign this is to our opinion is evident enough from what has been said. For we, with St. Augustine, attribute to God what is his, namely, the entity of that action; and to the deficient created will we give what is proper to it, namely, the defect of that same action, and sin.

XXIII. The seventh argument together with its confirmation must be answered expressly in disputation 121, where we will explain how the efficacy of the help of grace that works beforehand does not destroy the freedom of our choice, but rather strengthens and perfects it.⁴⁰ For now we say that, as will become clear in Disputations 115 and 116, even at the instant when the will is moved by God with such a prior motion, that same will can fail to act, if it wishes, or perform the opposite act. For God’s prior motion, however efficacious in first act, and even while it is efficacious in second act, does not take away from the will the power and faculty by which it can perform the opposite act or fail to act; rather, it brings about only this: although the will can fail to perform the act to which it is moved, it nevertheless infallibly performs it, and for this reason remains free in the very exercise of the act. The reason is that although freedom is formally in the will, it is radically in the intellect and is founded on the indifference⁴¹ of judgment by which the intellect judges⁴² that the good proposed to the will does not have a necessary or natural connection with the good in general, toward which the will is naturally determined. Since, in this present state, the intellect proposes whatever good it presents to the will with the indifference of this judgment, the will therefore remains free with respect to that object as regards exercise, as St. Thomas explains very well in q. 24, On Truth, art. 1; 1 p., q. 83, art. 1; Against the Gentiles III, ch. 85, argument 4; and q. 3, On Evil, art. 3, in the body. St. Prosper teaches that the actual motion by which God brings it about that the will wills the good is compatible with the power by which the will can determine itself to the opposite act if it wishes, in On the Call of the Gentiles, book 2, chapters 27 and 28, when he says: Those whom God willed to will, did will; to those whom he gives the very willing to obey him, he gives it in such a way that he does not take away even from those who will persevere that mutability by which they can will not to.⁴³ St. Thomas confirms the same in q. 23, On Truth, art. 5, ad 3, saying: Although the nonexistence of an effect of the divine will cannot stand together with the divine will, nevertheless the power to fail to attain the effect stands together with the divine will:⁴⁴ for these are not incompatible:⁴⁵ “God wills this person to be saved,” and “this person can be damned”; nevertheless these are incompatible: “God wills this person to be saved,” and “this person is damned.” And in q. 6, On Truth, art. 3, ad 7, he says: If we speak of a predestined person according to the relation he has to another, namely, to God who predestines him, that order is not compatible with this outcome, namely, that he die in mortal sin, although it is compatible with this power. We likewise say that although these two are incompatible together—“This person is moved efficaciously by God to consent,” and “This person dissents”—nevertheless these two are compossible together: “This person is moved efficaciously by God to consent,” and “This person can dissent if he wishes,” as is clear from the Council of Trent. Hence he always remains free in exercise.⁴⁶

To the confirmation we answer that, as will be clear in Disputations 23, 25, 115, and 116, determination to one thing by necessity—which is otherwise called natural determination—is incompatible with freedom, but determination to one operation according to the mode of the will is not. God’s efficacious premotion does indeed predetermine the will to one side, not by necessity, but according to the will’s proper nature, as Saint Thomas teaches 1. p. quaest. 23. art. 1. ad 1, and in De veritate, q. 25, a. 1, ad 1; Summa contra Gentiles III, ch. 90; and Summa theologiae I–II, q. 10, a. 4, in the body. What sort of indifference belongs to the essence of freedom will be explained in Disputations 115 and 116.⁴⁷

The eighth argument asks us to explain another difficult question: namely, what that efficacious premotion is, which we said all secondary causes need in order actually to operate, and what the prior thing is that God effects in the secondary cause antecedently to its operation, whether the cause is natural or free. Since the chief difficulty concerns free and contingent causes, they must be treated especially in the present discussion.