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 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.

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.

I. Some have said that such concurrence, considered in itself, is not of a different nature from the concurrence by which God concurs with merely natural acts. To explain their opinion, they distinguish three partial causes of the same supernatural acts. From these the whole act emanates as from one complete cause, in such a way that it also emanates as a whole from each of the individual parts, by what they call the partiality of a cause, though in different ways. For they say that from God, influencing through general concurrence alone, it emanates as from a universal cause, from which it therefore has no more that it is an assent of faith or sorrow for sins than that it is an opposite act or an act of any other power. But from the influx of free choice, together with the cognitions and other things necessary for producing the act as to its substance, it has, as from a particular cause, that as to the substance of the act it is rather an assent of faith or sorrow for sins than some other different act. From prevenient grace, however, or from God insofar as through it, as through his instrument, he influences together with free choice in the same act, it has that it is a supernatural act specifically distinct from the purely natural act of believing or sorrowing for sins that free choice would elicit at that time by its own powers alone if prevenient grace did not influence together with it. They prove this opinion by all the arguments with which they try to show that grace and free choice are partial causes of supernatural consent, just as two people pulling a ship cause the ship’s movement. But those arguments must be presented and resolved in disputation 85.

Moreover, they prove this as follows: acts of believing, hoping, repenting, and loving do not have from God’s general concurrence, any more than from the influx of free choice, that they are supernatural; rather, they have this from God’s influx through prevenient grace or from the influx of a supernatural habit, by which the acts of free choice are elevated so as to be proportionate to a supernatural end. Therefore general concurrence, which supernatural causes need in order to act, is not supernatural or of a different nature from the concurrence by which God concurs with other secondary causes in producing merely natural effects. The consequence is proved as follows: otherwise acts of free choice would have from God’s general concurrence that they are supernatural, and consequently all acts produced by secondary causes through the same general concurrence would be supernatural. No theologian will admit this.

Second, they argue that otherwise it would follow that the habit of charity or its concurrence would not be sufficient to produce a supernatural act of charity; the same would have to be said of the light of glory with respect to the beatific vision. The proof is that something is said to be sufficient in some genus when nothing else in that same genus is required beyond it. Therefore, if in the genus of supernatural concurrence on God’s part, besides the supernatural concurrence of the habit, another general supernatural concurrence is required, it follows that the concurrence of the habit of charity is not sufficient to produce supernatural acts.

This is confirmed. A supernatural habit and prevenient grace are posited so that the acts of free choice may be supernatural. Therefore, a general concurrence of the supernatural order is established to no purpose for this end, since it is pointless to do through more things what can be done through fewer.

II. Third, it is argued that this is the difference between acquired and infused virtues: acquired virtues provide the ability to act with ease, whereas infused virtues provide simply the ability to act. Therefore a power with a supernatural habit and God’s general concurrence, common to natural causes, will always be able to elicit a supernatural act, setting aside any other concurrence of God in the supernatural order.

Fourth. If the habit of faith preexists in the intellect, it is within the power of free choice to produce or not produce a supernatural act of faith with God’s general concurrence. Therefore another concurrence of the supernatural order is not required for this. Otherwise, even supposing the habit of faith, it would not be in the power of free choice to elicit an act of faith.

This is confirmed. On the contrary opinion, it would follow that a threefold concurrence of God is necessary for every supernatural act. But this must not be said, for it would multiply God’s concurrences without necessity. The consequence is proved as follows: first, God’s concurrence through a supernatural habit or through prevenient grace, which supplies the place of a supernatural habit, is necessary. Likewise, God’s general concurrence of the natural order is necessary, by which God, as the first and most universal cause, concurs with all secondary causes, even natural ones, in their operations. Therefore, if besides this concurrence another concurrence of the supernatural order on God’s part is necessary, it follows that God concurs with a secondary cause by a threefold concurrence in every supernatural operation.

Fifth, an argument is made from the Council of Trent, session 6, on justification, chapter 5 and canon 3, where the same point seems to be indicated. For in relation to such supernatural acts, besides grace that stirs and assists, it says that only the free influx of our free choice together with that same grace is required. Therefore, besides God’s general concurrence, by which he conserves all things in their being, no other concurrence of God in the supernatural order is required for supernatural acts.

If it is said that the help of assisting grace itself is the supernatural concurrence of God generally necessary for all supernatural acts, an argument is made against this.

Sixth, exciting grace and assisting grace are not two distinct graces. For that same grace by which God excites free choice to supernatural acts is called assisting grace if our choice wills to act with it: insofar as it precedes free choice it is called exciting grace; but insofar as it already cooperates with free choice in a supernatural act, it is called assisting and cooperating grace. Therefore, beyond exciting grace and general concurrence, no other special help of assisting grace or supernatural concurrence of God is required.

III. This opinion, however, does not convince us. Therefore one must say that God’s general concurrence by which, together with free choice and other secondary causes, he concurs in supernatural acts is supernatural and of the same order as those acts, and is not of the same character as the general concurrence by which he concurs with natural secondary causes in their operations.¹ This opinion is taught by Master Soto, On Nature and Grace 1, ch. 16, and by Andrés de Vega, On the Council of Trent 6, ch. 6, and the three following chapters. It seems to be the express teaching of St. Thomas, 1.2, q. 109, art. 9, in the body, where he says: A human being needs God’s help for living rightly in two ways. In one way, with respect to some habitual gift by which corrupt human nature is healed and, once healed, elevated to perform works meritorious of eternal life; in another way, a human being needs the help of grace in order to be moved by God to act. There, beyond a habitual gift, he teaches that actual help of divine grace is necessary. But the help of grace is not the general influx of God that is common to natural things; it is a special influx of the supernatural order, although it can be called general within that same supernatural order. Therefore [the general concurrence in supernatural acts is supernatural].

Moreover, it is proved by reason. God, insofar as he is the author of grace, is the ultimate supernatural end of all supernatural actions. Therefore, insofar as he is a supernatural author, he is their first efficient cause. Therefore he concurs in them with a general supernatural concurrence.

Second, the concurrence of the first cause must be proportionate to the form by which the secondary cause acts. But the form by which a secondary cause acts in supernatural acts is supernatural. For natural power—that is, the intellect and will, and the other natural powers—has in itself no proximate active power with respect to supernatural acts. Rather, all its power depends, as on that by which it acts, on a supernatural form, as will become clear in disputation 64. Consequently, the form by which a secondary cause acts in supernatural acts must be supernatural. Therefore, likewise, the concurrence of the first cause must be supernatural.

This is confirmed. For, as was said in disputation 18, God’s general concurrence is an immediate influx into the cause, is received in it, and is modified by God himself according to the condition of that cause, by a priority of nature before he produces the effect together with it. Therefore the same general concurrence with a supernatural secondary cause must also be supernatural. Otherwise God would not modify that same concurrence in the secondary cause or accommodate it to the condition and nature of that cause.

Third, the same point is proved specifically about God’s simultaneous concurrence. The concurrence by which God immediately produces a supernatural operation together with a supernatural secondary cause really is the operation itself insofar as it proceeds from God’s influx. But the operation is supernatural. Therefore God’s immediate influx into that same operation is supernatural.

IIII. If it is said that the operation is not supernatural insofar as it is produced by God’s concurrence or by the influx of free choice, but insofar as it is produced from the influx of a supernatural habit or exciting grace together with the human intellectual or appetitive power, there is an argument against this. Exciting grace without assisting grace does not bring about a free act or attain its supernatural character; it only moves free choice morally from the side of the object, by persuading it, inviting it, and attracting it to pursue the good presented to it by the intellect. A supernatural habit, however, only gives the power the ability to perform supernatural acts; it does not give it the actual performance of them. Therefore, in addition to the habit itself and exciting grace, one must posit on God’s side an actual concurrence of the supernatural order, by which the rational power, elevated by a supernatural habit, is moved efficaciously by God so that it actually performs a supernatural act.

Fourth, the same opinion can be proved by all the arguments by which it will become clear in disputation 88 that one who has infused habits needs, for eliciting a supernatural act, the help not only of exciting but also of assisting grace, superadded to those same infused habits.

V. To the first argument it is answered that a supernatural act of believing, for example, or loving, with all the reality and supernatural character it has, is produced by the efficient causality of free choice, a supernatural habit, and God, or his supernatural help.² It is produced by free choice elevated by the habit, as by the proximate cause or principle which acts; by the habit, as by the principle by which it acts; and by God, as by the first supernatural cause, to which free choice, elevated by a supernatural form, is essentially subordinated not only in being but also in acting. One must not admit that God and free choice are partial causes of supernatural consent. For they are truly total causes in their own order, as will become clear in disputation 85.³

To the second argument it is answered that the habit of charity is indeed sufficient for loving God above all things in the sense of being the principle by which free choice is formally constituted in first supernatural act with respect to loving God as the author of grace.⁴ For it gives the will the ability to love God. But for this potency, elevated by a supernatural habit, to be reduced to second act, a general concurrence of the supernatural order from God, or supernatural actual help, is necessarily required, as is clear from what was said above. Nor does it follow from this that all acts produced by secondary causes are supernatural. For God’s general concurrence is not supernatural with respect to every kind of operation, but only those produced by supernatural secondary causes.

To the confirmation it is answered that the supernatural concurrence of God is not posited in vain. For an act of faith or charity, and other acts of this kind, has from it as from the first cause that it exists and is supernatural; but from free choice, elevated by a supernatural habit and preceded by exciting grace, it has this as from its proximate cause, as was said above.

To the third argument it is answered that infused habits in themselves give the power simply the ability to act, but do not give it the actual performance of an act. Otherwise, one who had such habits would always act well, and once justified could not sin or lose grace, which is erroneous. Hence, in addition to the habit, actual help and concurrence of the supernatural order from God are required, by which the power elevated by the habit is moved and determined to act piously. For it is one thing to be able to act, and another actually to act; and more things are required for a person to act actually than are necessary for him to be able to act.

VI. To the fourth argument it is answered that believing itself is indeed in the power of our choice, provided that God supplies a general concurrence of the same order, without which free choice, however perfect its habit of faith, will never act. Nor does it follow that a human being lacks free choice; it follows only that he does not have free choice independently of another and is not the absolutely first free agent. For this belongs only to the free choice of God, as will be said in disputation 117.

To the confirmation it is answered that, on God’s side, a general concurrence of the supernatural order is sufficient for supernatural acts, and that concurrence eminently contains whatever perfection is found in God’s general concurrence insofar as he is the author of nature. Hence it does not follow that threefold concurrence from God is necessary for every supernatural act. See what was said about this solution in disputation 18.

To the fifth argument it is answered that, in the cited passages, the Council of Trent teaches that, in addition to exciting grace, assisting grace is necessary for conversion. Under this it includes God’s actual concurrence of the supernatural order, by which God immediately gives influx to free choice, moving it and applying it efficaciously to act piously, as was said in disputation 18 and will become clearer in disputation 23.

To the sixth it is answered that exciting and assisting grace are not the same help of grace, but distinct, as will become clear below.⁵

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.