De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus et libertate

Whether God’s general concurrence, especially with respect to acts dependent on created free choice, is in itself indifferent.

I. Some more recent theologians hold the affirmative position, asserting that God’s general concurrence is God’s eternal will by which he determines to be present in this way to all secondary causes, such that whenever secondary causes cooperate, either by natural necessity or spontaneously and freely, an influx of this sort would continually follow from the determination of the free divine will, just as if he himself were to influence them by a necessity of nature. From this they infer that God’s general concurrence is indifferent in itself, so that different actions and effects result according to the diversity of the cooperating secondary cause. Some explain this opinion by asserting that God wills not absolutely, but as it were conditionally: that this act be performed by a created will if that will itself determines to elicit it, and that, under the same condition, God wills to influence and concur in the same act, while nevertheless awaiting the influx of the created will. By the force of this divine will, they say, divine omnipotence remains applied to influence an act of the human will in such a way that, when the human will influences it, God also influences it without any new act of God’s will or any new application of his power, as it were by a certain necessity arising from his will, which is efficacious and unchangeable with respect to what and how it wills. In this way, as it were indifferently and generally, God applies and offers his power to the human will, ready to concur with it in the act that the will itself effects. From this they infer that the concurrence of secondary causes determines the general concurrence of the first cause both to the species of the act in the order of nature and to the goodness or malice it has in the moral order. For they say that, since God’s general concurrence is not God’s concurrence in the secondary cause but in the action of that cause itself, and is in itself indifferent so that, according to the diversity of the secondary cause’s influx, this action rather than another of a different species follows—for it does not determine the influx of the secondary cause, but is determined by it to a species of action—when free choice concurs with it, the varying influx of free choice brings about that willing rather than not willing follows, and that willing a virtuous rather than a base object follows. Thus the actions of free choice, as well as those of any secondary cause, do not derive from God’s general concurrence the fact that they are this or that particular kind of action, and hence neither that they are virtuous or vicious; they derive this from free choice itself.

II. They prove this opinion first as follows. This way for the first cause to concur is possible, since no repugnance or contradiction can be conceived in it, much less found. Since the divine will is omnipotent to do what and how it wills, and can will anything that involves no contradiction, it follows that God can concur with secondary causes in the way explained.

This is confirmed and illustrated by examples. The sun by its nature is, as it were, generally set forth to concur with each of the secondary causes that depend on it, according to each one’s capacity. Therefore, in the same way, God can by his will apply and offer his efficacy, or power, to the human will in the aforesaid seemingly indifferent and general manner, ready to concur with it in the act that it effects. Likewise, one person can in this way offer his help for anything another chooses. Therefore God, who is omnipotent, will be able to offer his concurrence, or help, in that manner, with its imperfections excluded.

This is confirmed secondly. Since God’s will is infinite and most efficacious, it needs no new act in order actually to concur with secondary causes in time. By the very fact that he has applied his power, it remains continually applied proximately to influencing them. Therefore this way of concurring is possible for God. On the other hand, it is most apt and suited to preserving both aspects of freedom in the human will, namely, with respect to specification and exercise, or with respect to being able to act and being able not to act. For since the power of free choice is, as it were, higher and more eminent than other natural agents, so that its use is not restricted or confined to one thing by the divine concurrence, this concurrence must be given with the same eminence, abstraction, and universality. For if it is determined to one side, the will will necessarily be bound to that side by a necessity arising not from itself but from something antecedent. This is a necessity simply speaking and repugnant to freedom, as will be clear in Disputation 23 from Saint Anselm’s teaching. Therefore, and so forth.

Second, they argue as follows. This way of concurring is not only possible and most apt for defending the use of freedom; no other way can be suited to this end. For although God can concur with secondary causes, even free ones, by physically predetermining them, that concurrence, although sufficient for our will to act, would not be sufficient for it to act freely. For this involves a contradiction: that the will act here and now both determined and undetermined, acting indifferently once all the requirements in first act are posited and yet determined by another in first act. Nor would this be to arrange the business of free choice forcefully and gently, but rather to bind it most forcefully and prevent it from remaining free for either alternative, and to draw it to consent by force rather than gentleness. Therefore it must necessarily be established and admitted that God’s general concurrence is in itself indifferent in the manner stated.

III. Third, it is argued that this manner of concurrence is in agreement with Sacred Scripture and the Fathers. Scripture indicates it when it says: God left a human being in the hand of his counsel. I have set before you fire and water; stretch out your hand toward whichever you wish.¹ And again: Your desire shall be under you, and you shall rule over it.² In these and similar passages, since the discussion concerns proximate and moral power, not only the proximate faculty of the power but also the indifferent concurrence of God inwardly, or proposed and offered in first act, is shown most clearly. For if a person truly is left in the hand of his counsel, then a person truly also has in his own hand the concurrence of God necessary for those things about which he can truly deliberate; consequently, God’s concurrence in itself is indifferent with respect to whatever a person chooses to choose by his freedom.

Fourth, an argument is made from the authority of the Scholastics, who attribute to the first cause this manner of concurring with secondary causes by a concurrence indifferent in itself. These include St. Thomas in the places to be cited in disputation 22, no. 3, to prove that by his decree God does not predetermine secondary causes, especially free and contingent ones, to acting. Moreover, in 1. p. q. 14. art. 13 he teaches simply that knowledge of future things in their cause is conjectural; hence, for it to be certain in God, he refers it to their presence in eternity. In p. 2. q. 9. art. 6. ad 3, after saying that a human being determines himself to will through reason, he adds that those who are stirred by God through grace are specially moved by him to will one determinate thing. In this place St. Thomas expressly teaches that God’s general concurrence as first cause does not consist in determining the will to one outcome; rather, God provides of himself an indifferent concurrence in relation to the adequate object of the will, which is the good. That St. Thomas is speaking of general concurrence is clear from these words: Without this universal motion a human being cannot will anything. He therefore holds that this motion, or concurrence, is offered indifferently on God’s part, while through reason and freedom the will is determined with that general concurrence to will some determinate thing. And in the First Part of the Second Part, q. 10. art. 4, he teaches that God accommodates himself to the natures of things, and therefore moves our will, which is indifferent of itself, in such a way that he does not determine it necessarily to one outcome. He repeats the same in Against the Gentiles 3, chapter 90, and q. 5. de verit. art. 5. ad 1. Finally, in q. 3. de potentia, art. 7. ad 13, he says that the determination of the act is left to the power of reason and will. Therefore, according to St. Thomas, God’s general concurrence is indifferent in itself in such a way that by its freedom a person can use it to produce this act or its opposite. He confirms this in q. 5. de verit. art. 9. ad 10 with these words: The action of the first cause is in a certain way determined to this effect by the secondary cause. And in 3. cont. Gent. chapter 66 he says: Secondary causes particularize and determine the action of the first agent. St. Thomas therefore wishes God’s general concurrence to be indifferent in itself and determined by the will itself to this or that particular action, so that the particular action is from God, but is not of this kind because it is from God; rather, it is of this kind because it is from the will or another secondary cause.

IIII. Yet we have never been able to approve this opinion, and it does not seem consonant with the perfection of divine concurrence or with the opinion of St. Augustine, St. Thomas, and the ancient Thomists. Hence, to resolve this difficulty, the following conclusions are established.

First conclusion. God’s general concurrence, by which he helps secondary causes to act, is not indifferent in itself, nor is it offered to them by God through a will indifferent of itself in the manner explained above.³ All theologians who teach that God, by a prior motion received in secondary causes, by efficient causality and efficaciously premoves or predetermines them to every action in particular, according to every account of being they have, must consequently admit this conclusion. Their testimonies will be presented in disputations 22, 23, and 24. For it is impossible for a cause to be premoved and efficaciously applied, as to the exercise of its act, to produce some particular action by a concurrence indifferent in itself.

Therefore the conclusion is proved first by an argument taken from St. Thomas, 1. p. q. 19. art. 3. ad 5. For no action follows from what is indifferent to either of two outcomes unless it is inclined or determined to one by something else, as the Commentator says, 2. phys. text 48. Therefore, if God’s general concurrence is indifferent in itself to either of two outcomes, it follows that it is determined to an effect by something else and thus has some prior cause, which is incompatible with the first cause.

This is confirmed. Because of the preceding argument, St. Thomas says in the cited article 3. ad 5: A cause that is contingent of itself must be determined to an effect by something external; but the divine will, which has necessity of itself, determines itself to what it wills, toward which it has a non-necessary relation. By these words he plainly teaches that the divine will, which is the first cause of all things, determines itself to produce all the effects it produces in time, whether immediately through itself or through secondary causes. Therefore God’s general concurrence, which is through the divine will, is not indifferent in itself, but determined, and directed to the determinate effects actually produced in time, in accordance with the nature of each secondary cause.

V. If it is said that God’s general concurrence is determined by the divine will to a particular effect after it is, in some way, limited to that effect by the influx of free choice or of another secondary cause, since through such a secondary cause it produces only such a determinate effect—

An argument is made against this. It would follow that the secondary cause determines the first cause to act and influence this act rather than another. For if the first cause applies its will and concurrence in itself indifferently to producing those acts with secondary causes to which the secondary causes themselves apply, either by natural necessity or by their free will, then the first cause does not determine itself to this particular effect and, consequently, is determined to it by the secondary cause.

It is proved secondly. A way of concurring through a will that is in itself indifferent to producing this or that effect, or its opposite, is very imperfect, since its efficacy depends on the concurrence of a secondary cause. Every dependence implies a certain imperfection and inferiority in the thing that depends, in relation to that on which it depends. Therefore such a way of concurring cannot be attributed to God or befit his will, which is infinite and the most perfect cause.

VI. They answer that these arguments are easily solved. To explain their response, they presuppose that before every free decree of his will God knows through his infinite knowledge not only what all wills can do, but also what they will do if they are brought into existence with this or that help or occasion for willing. This knowledge is usually called knowledge of contingent conditionals, and some call it middle knowledge, between knowledge of simple understanding and knowledge of vision. With this knowledge presupposed in God, they say that God distinctly and definitely assigns each thing to its ends and chooses means suited to the natures of things, the principles of which means exist in the divine intellect. Thus, when God wills a particular act to be produced by a contingent or free cause, foreseeing through middle knowledge that the same created will, from its innate freedom, will perform such an act on the hypothesis that it is placed in such an order of things or in such circumstances and that God’s general concurrence, indifferent in itself, is offered to it, he in fact places it in those same circumstances and grants it his general concurrence for that determinate act; and together with the created will he produces the same act determinately and definitely in the particular and individual case. Second, they presuppose that the determination of the first cause can signify two things. One is that application by which God applied and ordained his omnipotence to help the secondary cause and concur with it. This determination was made by the divine will alone, which could have withheld its concurrence from the secondary cause; freely it determined itself to give or offer it in the particular case, foreseeing where and when it would have an effect. They call this determination ad intra, of which the human will is in no way the cause. The other thing found in this determination is determination ad extra, namely, the determinate created action proceeding from the divine will and from God’s power cooperating with the human will.

They say, then, that as regards the ad intra determination of the divine will included in God’s general concurrence, the divine will alone by its act freely determined itself to a particular effect in the individual case, concurring with secondary causes in the way described; and as regards this determination, God’s general concurrence cannot be determined by the concurrence of a secondary cause. Nevertheless, they judge that as regards the ad extra determination, it is most true that this action of God receives its determination from the proximate cause, or the human will—not because this determination proceeds by efficient causality from that will alone, for that determination is nothing other than the exercise of such an action in such a species, and all this must be done by God, without whom nothing was made;⁴ but because the proximate cause, or the human will, by its influx determines God’s action ad extra to this species, this time, and this individual. This argues no imperfection in God, but rather the greatest perfection, both because this way of determining does not occur through some force or action upon the first cause itself, but only through cooperation with it in this action rather than another, and also because this does not arise from any need in the first cause. For if it wished, it could itself predetermine the cause to the effect, unless it wished that the act be freely performed by a human being; likewise, it could produce the act by itself, unless it wished it to be performed vitally by a human being. All this proceeds from the will of the first cause itself, which established this way of concurring and cooperating in order to preserve intact the rights of human freedom; it willed to cooperate in the action to which the human will would contribute its influx and not in another, and when the will wished, not beforehand.

VII. But this solution can be challenged at the outset, since it rests entirely on that middle knowledge, by all the arguments with which we showed in Disputation 7 that this knowledge does not exist even in God, because there truly is no such knowledge. Moreover, God’s general concurrence is not only an immediate influx with the secondary cause into its effect; it is also an influx into the cause itself, moving and applying it efficaciously to produce a particular effect in the individual case, as was shown above and will be demonstrated fully below.⁵ Therefore it is impossible for God’s concurrence ad extra to be determined to a species of action or to the production of a particular act by the concurrence of the secondary cause. It must also be added that the ad extra determination by which God, insofar as he is a universal cause, applies free choice to produce a particular action in the individual case is not really or formally the free action itself produced by that same free choice, but something prior to it, completing the secondary cause in its operative power, as was shown from the express teaching of Saint Thomas in Disputation 19. Therefore God’s general concurrence cannot be indifferent in itself. Finally, the same solution is challenged because the concurrence of the secondary cause, even insofar as it is formally that cause’s concurrence, proceeds by efficient causality from the operation of the first cause, as will be clear in Disputations 36 and 86. Otherwise something real existing in the nature of things would be withdrawn from the operation and causality of the first agent, which has often been shown to be impossible. Therefore the concurrence of the secondary cause does not determine the operation, or ad extra concurrence, of the first cause to produce a particular action in the individual case; rather, the secondary cause itself is determined by the concurrence of the first cause. The consequence is proved as follows: an effect proceeding from the operation or concurrence of some cause cannot determine that cause and its operation to produce that effect in the particular case, since the determination of a cause to act, as regards the exercise of action, is understood to precede the effect at least in the order of nature, because every effect as such is posterior in time or nature to its efficient cause. As for the claim in the solution we are challenging—namely, that the rights of human freedom cannot be preserved intact unless God’s general concurrence is indifferent in itself—how groundless this is will become clear below.⁶ For now, we say the opposite: the rights of any created free choice, since it depends intrinsically in its being and operation on the decree and operation of the first free cause, which is God, in order to pass into particular operations, require that it be applied efficaciously to them through the prior influx of that same first cause. Unless God premoves it, it will remain altogether unmoved, since it is not simply the first self-mover or the first cause of its own motion, but moves itself freely after first being moved by God.

Third, it is proved specifically that God’s general concurrence cannot be indifferent to good and evil, to an act of virtue and an act of vice. God is supremely good; therefore of himself he does not offer concurrence indifferent to good and evil. Therefore, as far as the divine operation is concerned, his general concurrence always tends determinately toward the good.

This is confirmed. If God’s general concurrence is indifferent to an act of virtue and an act of vice opposed to virtue, it follows that God, with the created will determining itself to sin, concurs in the sin itself, absolutely speaking. The consequence is proved as follows. Whoever voluntarily offers another an indifferent concurrence, open to producing a virtuous work or a sin, according as the other chooses, truly concurs in the sin if he is determined by the other’s will to bring about that same sin. Therefore, if God, for his part, offers a person general concurrence indifferent to virtue and vice, or to moral good and sin, as that person pleases, it follows that God concurs determinately in the sin in its actual exercise, once the created will determines his general concurrence to sin. But this cannot be admitted. Therefore it must be said that, for his part, God concurs determinately only in the good, while created free choice by its own malice concurs in sin, as was explained in Disputation 18 and will be discussed more fully in Disputation 24.

VIII. Fourth, the conclusion is proved from the perfection of divine providence, which requires that God will and predefine determinately all things that occur in time, order them to the end he intends, and move and apply secondary causes to determinate effects. But providence could not accomplish these things if God’s concurrence were indifferent in itself, as is self-evident. Therefore [God’s concurrence is not indifferent in itself].

This is confirmed. For, as will be clear in Disputation 30, not only the ordering of means to an end, but also the infallible attainment of the end intended by God belong to the perfection of divine providence. But if general concurrence were indifferent in itself, or if God did not efficaciously apply secondary causes to their particular operations through that concurrence, divine providence would not infallibly attain the intended end through means predefined and ordered to attain that same end. For these two things could stand together: that God grants his general concurrence for producing some effect, and that the will, by its freedom, does not wish to produce that effect or concur in it. Nor is it sufficient to appeal to middle knowledge, from which, our opponents say, all the certainty and infallibility of divine providence with respect to attaining its effect are drawn. For we have already shown that this knowledge does not exist and consequently cannot be found in God.⁷ Therefore the certainty of divine providence with respect to attaining its intended end cannot be drawn from it.

Fifth, this is proved as follows: otherwise the concurrence and determination of created free choice would be withdrawn from divine providence, and thus God would not have providence over all things in particular, but only in general. This is proved because if God’s general concurrence is indifferent in itself, and likewise God’s will offers that same concurrence to free secondary causes wherever and whenever they themselves wish by their freedom to act, and not beforehand, then by such concurrence God does not truly bring it about by efficient causality that free choice influences this particular operation here and now as an individual act. Consequently, the influx of free choice will be exempt from divine providence. For, as St. Thomas often teaches, divine providence extends only to those things to which divine causality extends.⁸ Therefore, if God does not cause the concurrence of free choice by efficient causality, he will not have providence over it, but only foreknowledge of it in particular. Thus his providence would extend only to contingent and free works in general, insofar, namely, as he gave intellectual creatures free choice, by which they could act whenever it pleased them.

Some try to dissolve this argument in several ways. But all the replies will have to be refuted below, when discussing the perfection of divine providence.⁹

IX. Second conclusion. Not only the concurrence inwardly, but also God’s concurrence outwardly, by which he premoves secondary causes to acting, cannot be determined by the concurrence of secondary causes. Rather, through that same concurrence God efficaciously applies and determines secondary causes themselves to acting. This conclusion follows from the preceding one: for nothing is determined by another unless it is indifferent before being determined. But God’s general concurrence is not indifferent in itself, as was said in the preceding conclusion. Therefore it is not determined by the concurrence of free choice. Rather, on the contrary, free choice, because it is indifferent in itself to acting or not acting, and to producing this or that act, must be inclined through God’s concurrence so that it produces some particular action. This conclusion will be treated more fully in the following three disputations.

To the first argument, it is replied that this way of acting and concurring by a concurrence indifferent in itself is not possible for God, because it seems greatly opposed to the perfection of divine providence and causality, as is clear from what has been said above.

X. To the first confirmation, it is replied that the sun is a finite and limited cause having some potentiality, and a human being likewise, since he is a creature. Therefore such a cause can be determined by the concurrence of another cause to produce this or that individual effect. But God is an infinitely perfect cause and pure act, with no potentiality mixed in. Hence his will, or concurrence, in which the intention of the will and divine power resides, cannot be determined to acting by the concurrence of free choice or of any other secondary cause.

To the second confirmation, it is replied that although the divine will needs no new act in order actually to concur in time with secondary causes to produce their effects, it is nevertheless necessarily required that from eternity he have decreed by an absolute will to produce these or those individual acts through secondary causes and to premove them to produce those same effects at this or that time. By virtue of this eternal decree his will and power remain applied to producing those same effects at a determinate time. Therefore his concurrence is not indifferent in itself, nor is this manner of concurring indifferently suited or accommodated to preserving the freedom of the human will with respect to the exercise of its operation. Rather, if God were to provide his general concurrence in this indifferent way, secondary causes, especially free ones, would produce no operations, as was said.

To the second argument, it is replied by denying that another manner of concurring accommodated to the freedom of our free choice is impossible for God. For, as will be clear in disputations 22 and 23, a manner of concurring by a prior concurrence that determines free choice to acting is possible for God and fitting to the freedom of free choice; indeed, it is necessary so that free choice may proceed to a determinate and free act. How, with this predetermination, there can also remain in the will indifference, or the power to act or not act, which belongs to the intrinsic account of free choice, will be explained expressly in disputations 22, 23, 115, and 116.¹⁰

XI. To the third argument it is answered that the way of God’s concurrence by means of a concurrence indifferent of itself is in no way in conformity with Sacred Scripture or the holy Fathers, nor does it have any foundation in them. As to the passage cited from Ecclesiasticus, ch. 15, it is answered with St. Thomas, 1.p. q.22. art.2. ad 4: in saying that God left man in the hand of his own counsel, man is not excluded from divine providence; rather, it is shown that a determinate operative power directed to one outcome is not prescribed for him, as it is for natural things, which are acted upon, as it were, being directed to an end by another, and do not act by directing themselves to an end as rational creatures do through free choice, by which they deliberate and choose. Hence he says pointedly: “In the hand of his own counsel.” But since the act of free choice itself is reduced to God as its cause, what is done through free choice must be subject to divine providence; for human providence is contained under God’s providence as a particular cause is under a universal cause. Therefore, just as the concurrence of free choice is not excluded from divine providence by the fact that man is placed in the hand of his own counsel, so too it is not excluded from divine causality and predetermination. For since it is a secondary free agent, its determination intrinsically depends on the predetermination of the first free being, who is God. Nor does freedom require that man have God’s prior concurrence in his own hand; it is enough that he have the free act in his power, the act to which God moves him by his general or special concurrence. The same must be said about the cited passage from Genesis, which signifies only that man has free choice and mastery over his act. This is preserved perfectly even if he does not have first and absolute mastery over it, independent of a higher being, as will become clear in disputation 117. A king, likewise, truly has mastery over his kingdom even if he is not its first and absolute lord, since the first dominion over all things belongs to God alone.

XII. To the fourth argument it is answered that St. Thomas expressly teaches our opinion in the cited passages and in others that we will cite in the next three disputations; nowhere does he assert or even lightly hint at the opposing opinion. As to the passage cited from 1 p., q. 14, art. 13, it is answered that there he does not say simply that knowledge of future things in a cause is conjectural, but adds the qualification “in a contingent and indifferent cause,” such as our will. For he is plainly speaking of this cause in the course of the article. But the divine will, or its decree, and likewise the general concurrence by which God moves secondary causes to act, is not a contingent cause or one liable to be impeded by the concurrence of another cause, as will become clear in disputation 27. Hence, in the decree by which from eternity he efficaciously decided to move beforehand in time the secondary causes to these or those contingent effects, he knows infallibly that they will be future, as was shown in disputation 10 from the testimonies of St. Thomas and the most efficacious arguments.

As to the other passage from 1.2, q. 9, it is answered that St. Thomas there intends to teach only that our will is determined by God alone with respect to specification toward the good in general. But with respect to this or that particular good, it is not only predetermined by God; the will itself also determines itself through deliberation and moves itself, as the proximate determiner, under the motion and predetermination of the first mover and first determiner of all things. When he adds, God sometimes moves some people specially to will something determinate that is good, as in those whom he moves through grace, he wished to signify that, beyond the general motion by which God moves and applies all natural causes and predetermines them to their operations in particular—as the holy Doctor himself explains in several places—there is a special motion through the special help of divine grace, by which God moves free choice to a supernatural good, which is truly and simply good.

As to the passage cited from 1.2, q. 10, art. 4; Against the Gentiles III, ch. 90; and q. 5, On Truth, art. 5, it is answered that these passages favor us instead. For when the holy Doctor says that free acts are not determined to one outcome by divine providence in the way things without freedom are, and when he explains that Gregory of Nyssa and Damascene, in saying that God does not predetermine what is within us, are to be understood as meaning that what is within us is not subject to divine determination as though it received necessity from it, he plainly presupposes that God predetermines our free choice to each operation in particular, but not with absolute necessity as he determines natural causes. Rather, he determines it according to the nature of that same free choice, or in the manner of freedom, because he predetermines free choice not only to act but also to act freely, in conformity with its nature, as that same holy Doctor clearly explained in 1 p., q. 19, art. 8.

As to the passage from q. 3, On the Power of God, it is answered by what was and will be said in disputation 117, where it will be explained how the consent of free choice is in its power.

As for what Thomas says in De veritate q. 5, a. 9, ad 10—namely, that the act or action of the first cause is determined by the secondary cause to this effect—we answer that Saint Thomas did not say absolutely that the influx of the first cause is determined to this effect by the concurrence of the secondary cause, but only in a certain way, to suggest that, absolutely speaking and as regards the exercise of the act, the secondary cause is determined to concur by the concurrence of the first cause, as he teaches most clearly in other passages. Nevertheless, the concurrence of the first cause is determined to this species of effect in the secondary cause itself, which receives the influx of the first cause within itself. But this determination is not made by the secondary cause itself, but by God, who modifies his general concurrence in secondary causes, as was said. Thus through this secondary cause, namely fire, he produces only fire, and through a horse he generates only a horse, and so on for each. For this reason, in the same reply ad 10, the holy Doctor said that the effect is more like the secondary cause than the first; the same answer is given to the other passage from Summa contra Gentiles III, ch. 66.

XIII. It must consequently be explained whether, through this prior motion received in secondary causes, God physically predetermines those causes antecedently to their operation to act actually, both natural and free causes. For this is the chief question that has given rise to disagreement among Catholic thinkers: some contend that the free use of created will in its actual exercise cannot cohere with this predetermination; others, on the contrary, insist that the prior motion applying the will to one side of the contradiction or contrariety must necessarily be posited so that a cause indifferent in itself may pass into a determinate act, and that this motion not only does not injure created freedom of choice but rather perfects it. Since there are two kinds of predetermination of our will, one purely extrinsic, through the efficacy of the divine will and power, which no creature can resist, and the other intrinsic, which occurs through a prior motion received in the will, whose power and efficacy depend on the efficacy of the divine will, each must be discussed in its proper order. First we must treat extrinsic predetermination, then intrinsic and inhering predetermination, for the second follows from the first. Hence, if God by an absolute and efficacious will physically predetermines our free choice to consent, antecedently to all middle knowledge, intrinsic physical predetermination must consequently be admitted, effected by God through a prior motion received in that same free choice; and if the former does not impede the use of freedom, neither does the latter.¹¹ For, as one of the authors of the opposing opinion rightly teaches, with respect to this point the same reasoning applies to physical predetermination from an extrinsic cause—that is, from an efficacious and absolute decree of the divine will—and to this inherent premotion.