De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus et libertate

Whether all contingent and free acts predetermined by God occur necessarily by the necessity of infallibility, or by supposition of the predetermination of the divine will.

I. Some theologians admit in free acts a necessity from the supposition of divine foreknowledge, by which, they say, God foresaw before the predetermination of his will that, if created will were placed in this order of things, it would, by its innate freedom, perform this particular act. They do not, however, admit in those same acts a necessity from the supposition of the divine decree or of efficacious help predetermining the will to its particular good acts with all their circumstances. For they consider this necessity from supposition incompatible with created freedom as regards its use, and they are convinced by arguments advanced in the three preceding disputations, especially by the authority of Anselm cited in Disputation 22, argument 9. When they are told that necessity from the supposition of divine foreknowledge does not take freedom away from our acts—for an act of the will can be simply free and necessary in a qualified sense, namely, from the supposition of divine foreknowledge; therefore, likewise, necessity from the supposition of the divine will and predetermination will not be contrary or incompatible with created will as regards its actual use—they deny the consequence and give as the reason for the distinction that necessity from the supposition of the divine will or of prevenient help of grace is taken from something antecedent to and preceding the determination of created will; accordingly, this sort of necessity is antecedent and therefore, in keeping with Anselm's teaching cited above, overturns our freedom. Necessity from the supposition of divine foreknowledge, however, is not taken from anything antecedent but rather from something consequent upon the free determination of our will. For they think that something is not future through a free and contingent cause because God foresaw that it would be future; rather, conversely, it is foreseen by God before it happens because it is future. We treated this expressly above in Disputation 16. Therefore this necessity is called consequent and, in keeping with Anselm's teaching, does not take away freedom because it is necessity from supposition of the free act itself; for whatever exists while it exists must exist, as Aristotle says in On Interpretation I, chapter 6.

II. St Thomas expressly teaches the contrary opinion. Alongside the freedom of created choice, and without presupposing any middle or conditional foreknowledge (which, as is clear from what was said in Disputation 7, he did not admit), he admits necessity from the supposition of the absolute and efficacious decree of the divine will, of its providence and predestination, and of the efficacious help of grace that works beforehand. He now calls this necessity “necessity in the composite sense,” now “modal necessity de dicto,” now “the necessity of infallibility,” “the necessity of immutability,” “conditional necessity,” and finally “the necessity of consequence.” This is necessity in a qualified sense and does not impede freedom.¹ He teaches the same concerning necessity from the supposition of foreknowledge of future contingents, which follows such a decree of the divine will. By this distinction he resolves many arguments raised against Catholic teaching on grace and free choice, as well as on God's knowledge, will, providence, and predestination. St Augustine and the other Doctors and theologians to be cited below use the same distinction.

III. Indeed, he teaches the foregoing distinction between necessity from supposition and absolute necessity under the name of those two kinds of necessity in Question 23 of On Truth, Article 4. To prove that God wills by necessity whatever he wills, he argues in the first objection: “Everything eternal is necessary, but God wills from eternity; therefore he wills by necessity whatever he wills.”² He replies as follows: “Something is said to be necessary in two ways: in one way, absolutely; in another, from supposition. Something is said to be absolutely necessary because of the necessary relation of the terms that are posited in a proposition, as that a human being is an animal, or that every whole is greater than its part, and other such things. What is necessary from supposition, however, is not necessary in itself, but only once something else is posited, as that Socrates ran. For as far as Socrates himself is concerned, he is no more disposed to this than to its opposite; but once it is supposed that he ran, it is impossible that he did not run. Accordingly, I say that God's willing something among creatures, for example Peter's being saved, is not absolutely necessary, since the divine will does not have a necessary order toward this, as is clear from what was said. But once it is supposed that God wills or has willed it, it is impossible that he did not will it, since his will is immutable. Hence among theologians this sort of necessity is called the necessity of immutability.”³ He gives the same distinction and solution in the replies to objections 4, 8, 9, 12, and 14 of that same article, and in Summa theologiae I, Question 19, Article 3, body and ad 1.

And lest anyone say that in these passages St. Thomas admits only a necessity of the divine will in a free act that follows upon the free act’s own supposition—a necessity that the authors of the contrary opinion call consequent necessity—I cite another passage of St. Thomas, 1. p. q. 23. ar. 6., where in the second argument for proving that predestination is not certain, he argues: Given something possible, no impossibility follows. But it is possible for someone predestined, such as Peter, to sin and then be killed. If this is posited, the effect of predestination is frustrated. Therefore, and so on. To this argument, however, he answers as follows: Although it is possible, considered in itself, for someone who is predestined to die in mortal sin, this is nevertheless impossible when it is posited—namely, when it is posited that he is predestined. Hence it does not follow that predestination can fail. Behold: St. Thomas admits a necessity by supposition arising from the decree of the divine will that predestines, while preserving created free choice in its actual use. He admits the same necessity more expressly in Summa theologiae I, q. 19, art. 8, ad 1 and 3. His words must be cited and examined in no. 6. Nor is it sufficient to answer that this decree of predestination is in God only on the supposition of middle knowledge, by which he knew what would occur in particular from contingent and free causes on the hypothesis that they were placed in such an order of things and in such circumstances. For it was already shown in dispute 7 that, according to St. Thomas’s opinion, this object is not knowable before every decree of the divine will, and consequently God does not have certain and infallible knowledge of it before the actual decree of the divine will.

IV. He teaches the same distinction under the terms “necessity in the composite and divided senses” in De veritate q. 6, art. 4, ad 8, where he says that it is common. For, speaking of this proposition, “God can predestine someone who is not predestined,” he says: Although it can be conceded absolutely of anyone that God could predestine or not predestine him, nevertheless, on the supposition that he has predestined him, he cannot fail to predestine him, or vice versa, because he cannot be mutable. And so it is commonly said that this proposition—“God can predestine someone not predestined, or not predestine someone predestined”—is false in the composite sense and true in the divided sense. Therefore,⁴ all expressions that imply the composite sense are simply false. Hence it must not be conceded that an addition can be made to or a subtraction made from the number of the predestined, because addition presupposes that to which something is added, and subtraction presupposes that from which something is subtracted. For the same reason, it cannot be conceded that God can predestine more people than he does predestine, or fewer. And in the first part, q. 23, art. 6, ad 3, he says: It is not necessary to say that God can fail to predestine someone whom he has predestined, if this is taken in the composite sense, although, considered absolutely, God can predestine or not predestine. And in Summa contra gentiles I, ch. 67, at the end, explaining how what God knows must be, and resolving the arguments to the contrary, he says: In this and all similar matters, those who argue against God’s knowledge of contingents are deceived by the composition and division of propositions. Now, in St. Thomas’s teaching, it is clear that the decree of the divine will determining future things is presupposed to those things and to their being known. For this is future because God willed it to be future, if it is good, as is clear from the premises in dispute 16. Therefore, according to St. Thomas, necessity in the composite sense, which is derived from the decree of the divine will, is compatible with the freedom and contingency of future things. Finally, he intimates the same distinction when he says: Charity, on the part of the Holy Spirit moving the soul to love God, has impeccability by virtue of the Holy Spirit, who infallibly performs whatever he wills. Hence it is impossible for these two things to be true together: that the Holy Spirit wills to move someone to an act of charity, and that this person loses charity by sinning.⁵ He says the same in Summa theologiae I–II, q. 112, art. 3, in the body. Behold: he plainly teaches that it is necessary in the composite sense that a rational creature cooperate and not sin if the Holy Spirit efficaciously moves it to an act of charity. For these two things cannot be true together: that the Holy Spirit efficaciously moves it to an act of charity, and that the creature itself does not break forth into an act of charity but loses charity by sinning.

V. Under the heading of modal necessity, St. Thomas establishes the same distinction between a thing and a proposition in 1 p., q. 14, art. 13, ad 3. There, after proposing this argument against God’s knowledge—Everything known by God must be so; for everything known by us must also be so, although God’s knowledge is more certain than ours. But no future contingent must be so; therefore no future contingent is known by God—he answers: Things known by God must be necessary according to the mode in which they are subject to divine knowledge, but not absolutely, according as they are considered in their proper causes. Hence this proposition, “Everything known by God must be so,” is customarily distinguished, because it may concern a thing or a proposition. If it is understood of a thing, it is divided and false, and its sense is: “Every thing that God knows is necessary.” Or it may be understood of a proposition; in that case it is composite and true, and its sense is: “This proposition, that something known by God is so, is necessary.”⁶ And in Against the Gentiles I, ch. 67, speaking of the proposition “What is seen sitting must sit,” he says: It is clear that, understood of the proposition and taken compositionally, it is true; but understood of the thing and taken divisively, it is false. From this he derives the truth of the proposition understood of a dictum: “What God knows is going to happen must happen.” God’s knowledge of future things, however, presupposes an absolute and efficacious decree of the divine will, as was said above. Moreover, in Sentences I, dist. 38, single question, art. 5, ad 5, he says: This proposition, “Everything known by God must be so,” can concern a proposition or a thing; if it concerns a proposition, it is true, and if it concerns a thing, it is false.

VI. Under the heading of the necessity of infallibility, he establishes the same distinction in 1.2, q. 112, art. 3, in the body, where he says: If preparation for grace is considered insofar as it is from God moving, then it has necessity with respect to that to which it is ordered by God—not a necessity of coercion, but of infallibility—because God’s intention cannot fail, as Augustine says in his book On the Predestination of the Saints, that all who are delivered are delivered with the greatest certainty by God’s benefits. Hence, if it is God’s intention in moving that the person whose heart he moves obtain grace, that person infallibly obtains it, according to the words of John 6: “Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.”⁷

Under the heading of absolute and conditional necessity, he assigns the distinction in 1 p., q. 19, art. 8, ad 1. Explaining Augustine’s saying, No one is saved except the one whom God wills to be saved; therefore he must be asked to will it, because it must happen if he wills it,⁸ he says: By this word of Augustine one must understand a necessity in the things willed by God that is not absolute but conditional; for this conditional proposition must be true: “If God wills this, this must be.” And in the reply to the third argument, having proposed this argument to prove that God’s will imposes necessity on the things he wills—That which has necessity from something prior is absolutely necessary, as an animal’s dying is necessary because it is composed of contraries. But created things are related to the divine will as to something prior, from which they receive necessity, since this conditional proposition is true: “If God wills something, it is.” Every true conditional proposition is necessary. Therefore, everything God wills is absolutely necessary—he answers: Things posterior have necessity from things prior according to the mode of the prior things. Hence what comes from the divine will has the kind of necessity God wills it to have, namely, either absolute or merely conditional; therefore, not everything is absolutely necessary.⁹ This passage must be noted carefully in support of our opinion. For St. Thomas expressly admits that necessity taken from a cause antecedent to the cooperation of our will does not always oppose freedom of choice, and he virtually answers the argument based on the authority of Anselm by which the authors of the opposing opinion are persuaded. In q. 23, art. 3, ad 3, he uses the same distinction; and in Sentences I, dist. 47, art. 1, ad 2, he says: Although God’s will is immutable and invincible, it does not follow that every effect of his is necessary with absolute necessity, which a thing has from its proximate cause, but only with conditional necessity, as was also said about foreknowledge. Behold, St. Thomas teaches expressly that conditional necessity, or necessity on a supposition, arising not only from God’s foreknowledge but also from his immutable will, does not take away the freedom or contingency of things that occur in time.

VII. Finally, under the names “necessity of consequence” and “necessity of the consequent,” he assigns the same distinction in Question 24 of On Truth, Article 1. To prove that man does not have free choice, he sets out the thirteenth argument: “Whatever God foreknows must happen, since God's foreknowledge cannot be mistaken; but God foreknows all human acts; therefore they happen by necessity, and thus man does not have free choice in acting.”¹⁰ He replies as follows: “From God's foreknowledge one cannot conclude that our acts are necessary by absolute necessity, which is called necessity of the consequent, but by conditional necessity, which is called the necessity of consequence, as is clear from Boethius at the end of The Consolation of Philosophy.”¹¹ And in the cited Summa contra Gentiles I, chapter 67, he says: “Each thing is known by God just as if it were seen as present; thus what God knows will be necessary, just as it is necessary for Socrates to be sitting on the supposition that he is seen sitting. This is not absolutely necessary, or necessary by what some call necessity of the consequent, but conditionally, or by the necessity of consequence; for this conditional is true: ‘If he is seen sitting, he is sitting.’”

Nor is St Thomas alone in this teaching. All the Doctors who preceded and followed him taught it with unanimous agreement. The authors with whom we are disputing would also admit it most willingly if they were allowed to admit middle or conditional foreknowledge that precedes every decree of the divine will. Indeed, before St Thomas, St Augustine taught the same distinction in his book On the Predestination of God, and it is reported in the chapter “Vessels of Wrath,” Causa 23, q. 4, where he says: “There are two necessities: one simple, by which it is necessary that all human beings be mortal; the other conditional, as when someone knows that a person is walking: it is necessary that he is walking. For what someone knows to be so cannot be otherwise than as it is known; but this necessity does not bring simple necessity along with it. For this necessity is not made by nature itself but by the addition of a condition. No necessity compels the will of someone walking to walk, although it is necessary that he walk at the time when he is walking. In the same way, if providence sees something as present, it must be, although it has no necessity by nature. But God sees as present those future things that proceed from freedom of choice. Therefore, in relation to the divine vision, they are necessary through the disposition of divine knowledge; considered in themselves, however, they do not abandon the absolute freedom of their own nature. Accordingly, without doubt, all things that God foreknows to be future will happen; but”¹² “some of them proceed from free choice. Although they come to pass, they do not thereby lose their own nature, by which, before they came to be, they could also have failed to come to pass.” In this passage, St Augustine admits necessity from supposition together with freedom of created choice, with respect to its actual use, not only in relation to foreknowledge but also to divine providence and, consequently, to predestination, which according to his opinion presupposes an absolute and efficacious decree of the divine will. He teaches the same in the Enchiridion to Laurentius, chapter 103, whose words will be cited below from the ordinary gloss.

VIII. Gratian subscribes to St. Augustine’s teaching in the same chapter, shortly before the words of Augustine cited above, when he says: Divine predestination or foreknowledge does not, then, impose a necessity of correction or hardening, since the good are corrected by grace and the wicked perish by free choice. For things are not necessarily brought about because God’s predestination or foreknowledge cannot fail; nor are things that are going to happen necessarily predestined or foreknown. Rather, good things cannot happen without his grace, nor evil things without his knowledge. Therefore, although it is rightly said, “If these things are predestined or foreknown, they will necessarily happen,” it is not for that reason absolutely true that “the things that are predestined or foreknown will necessarily happen,” because in the latter case necessity refers to the event of things, whereas in the former it refers to the gaze of divine foreknowledge.¹³ The Gloss on the Decree agrees in the same chapter. Explaining the words “Although, therefore, rightly…,” and so on, it says: Note that all such expressions are ambiguous. “If God has foreseen something, it will necessarily happen”: if the word “necessarily” modifies the whole conditional, the expression is true, and the sense of the conditional is: “If God has foreseen something, it is necessary that it happen.” But if the word “necessarily” modifies the consequent itself, it is false. This proposition is likewise ambiguous: “It is necessary that Socrates walk when he is walking.” If understood compositionally and of the dictum, it is true; if of the thing, it is false. This proposition is likewise ambiguous: “It is necessary that what God has foreseen happen.” Of the dictum it is true; of the thing, it is false. For what God foresees is not necessary to happen. Note also that this argument is invalid: “If God has foreseen something, it will necessarily happen; therefore, if God has foreseen something, it is necessary that it happen.” For here the word “necessary” cannot modify the conditional itself, but only the consequent.¹⁴ St. Anselm taught the same in On the Harmony of Predestination and Free Choice, ch. 2, shortly after the beginning, saying: When God wills an effect to follow the will, then it is necessary that the will be free and that what it wills be.¹⁵ And in Why God Became Man II, ch. 17¹⁶, he says that it was necessary for Christ to suffer because this was written, but that it was not necessary absolutely. He thus clearly intimates that necessity by supposition from the Scriptures is compatible with the freedom with which Christ offered himself to death. Yet that necessity was derived from something antecedent to the free determination of Christ’s own human will. Therefore, the conclusion follows. We examined Anselm’s words in dispute 22, nos. 40 and 41.

IX. Likewise, the Gloss on the words of 1 Timothy 2, Who wills all men to be saved, says: He must be asked to will it; if he wills it, it must happen.¹⁷ This is Augustine’s gloss in the Enchiridion, ch. 103. Explaining it, St. Thomas says in Summa theologiae I, q. 19, art. 8, ad 1: Through Augustine’s gloss, necessity in things willed by God is to be understood as conditional, not absolute; for this conditional must be true: “If God wills this, it is necessary that this be.”¹⁸ By these words St. Augustine, the Gloss, and St. Thomas admit, even with respect to God’s efficacious will, the necessity of the consequence in free acts together with the freedom of the consequent. Hugo of St. Victor holds the same opinion in question 218 on the Epistle to the Romans. For he teaches that this conditional is true: “If God has provided for this, it must happen.” If it is objected that freedom is taken away by this necessity, he answers that the common solution is through the distinction between conjunction and separation.¹⁹ By conjunction and separation he means the distinction between what is necessary in the composite and divided senses, which he says is common and by which the argument is commonly resolved.

X. Likewise, the Master of the Sentences, speaking of foreknowledge in Sentences I, dist. 38, near the end, says: It is impossible, he says, for that which God has foreknown not to happen.²⁰ There he gives the distinction between the composite and divided senses under the names of conjunction and disjunction. And in dist. 40, speaking of predestination, he teaches the same as he did of foreknowledge, for he says: It is impossible for these two things to be true together: that someone is predestined and that he is damned. In dist. 47, at the beginning, he says: God’s will is always efficacious, so that everything he wills comes to be and nothing he does not will comes to be; and this is always fulfilled with respect to a human being, wherever that person turns. Nothing clearer could have been said in support of our opinion. Albert the Great, whose disciple St. Thomas was, teaches the same distinction in Sentences I, dist. 38, art. 4, and in the first part of his Summa, q. 61, member 5, and in both places asserts that it is found in Boethius and St. Anselm.²¹ Alexander of Hales uses the same distinction between what is necessary in the composite and divided senses in Summa I, q. 24, members 4 and 5, in the same terms and words in which St. Thomas teaches it in the places cited above; he affirms that the freedom of our choice stands together with necessity on a supposition.²² St. Bonaventure, Doctor of the Church, taught precisely the same doctrine in Sentences I, dist. 47, in an article where he asks whether God’s will of good pleasure can be impeded. In the body of that article he says: God’s absolute will must be fulfilled, but his conditional will need not be. One must observe, however, that there is a necessity of the consequence, as was said above of foreknowledge: it does not have the necessity of the consequent but of the consequence, because this follows necessarily: “God has foreknown this; therefore this will be.” Nevertheless, he does not foreknow it necessarily, because in the act of foreknowing a contingent effect is often signified. So one must understand that God’s absolute will connotes the event of a thing, and therefore there is a necessity of the consequence but not of the consequent, because it does not change the event of the thing; rather, God wills that a contingent consequent come to be. Thus, just as foreknowledge cannot fail because it necessarily infers an effect, so an absolute will cannot be impeded because it necessarily infers an effect; indeed, it must necessarily be fulfilled.²³ A little later he adds: Hence it rightly follows: “He wills this person to be saved by an absolute will; therefore he will be saved.” In the reply to the second argument, he says: To the second objection one must answer that just as the divine will, or divine willing, connotes an effect, so too it connotes the efficient causality of a particular cause. For when one says, “God wills this person to be saved,” he also wills that this person will. Hence, just as the divine will connotes that this effect comes to be, and therefore the effect necessarily follows upon it, so it connotes that the created cause concurs; therefore it necessarily follows: “If God wills this person to be saved, then this person also wills it.” Thus it never fails, just as the effect does not; and thus it is never impeded. He teaches the same in Sentences I, dist. 38, art. 2, q. 1, and dist. 40, art. 2, q. 1.

XI. After St. Thomas, all his disciples, both ancient and modern, followed the same doctrine. Among the ancients is Capreolus, in Sentences I, dist. 45, q. 1, art. 2, throughout, especially in the reply to the third argument of the article, where he approves the distinction between the necessity of the consequence and that of the consequent. He says: It stands well that what is willed by God will necessarily happen with respect to God, by the necessity of immutability, and will happen contingently absolutely speaking. It will happen necessarily with respect to God, because it is true that it will happen from God, and it cannot pass from true to false or cease to be true; this is the necessity of immutability. But it will happen contingently, absolutely speaking, because it implies no contradiction that it not happen; indeed, God could make it not happen. Therefore, the necessity of immutability stands together with the freedom of choice.²⁴ Durandus confirms the same in Sentences I, dist. 47, art. 10, at the end of the body, when he says: From this it is clear that those who say that everything happens necessarily in relation to the divine will are speaking badly. For, as was said, everything happens freely with respect to the divine will, and therefore, absolutely speaking, it can fail to happen, although, given the supposition that it is willed, it cannot fail to happen; but this is only a necessity of supposition.²⁵ Aegidius Colonna, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, uses the same distinction in Sentences I, dist. 38, final question, ad 2, and cites St. Anselm and Boethius in support of it.²⁶

XII. Ferrariensis, in Summa contra Gentiles I, chapter 85, while explaining St Thomas's fourth argument, says under “For clarity”: “From the fact that something is necessary from supposition, it does not follow that contingency must be removed from it. Thus, since from the fact that God wills something it is necessary only by supposition that it be, because these two things cannot stand together—that God wills it to happen and it does not happen—though it is not necessary absolutely, one need not remove contingency from things on account of God's will.”²⁷ In the discussion throughout that chapter he proves that it is impossible in the composite sense for God efficaciously to will that some effect follow from a contingent cause and for that effect not to follow. Conrad, in Part I–II, Question 10, Article 4, especially on St Thomas's reply to the third objection, and Question 112, Article 3, expressly asserts that it is contradictory in the composite sense for God to move a man efficaciously to do something and for the man not to do it, although it is absolutely possible for him not to do it.²⁸ Cajetan, in Part I, Question 22, Article 4, on St Thomas's reply to the first objection, says that all the Doctors affirm that future contingent acts are absolutely avoidable and can fail to be, yet are unavoidable in relation to divine providence and the efficacy of the divine will. He says that the distinction “between the composite and divided senses, and between the necessity of consequence and necessity of the consequent,” is commonly assigned by the Doctors to reconcile freedom of choice and the contingency of things with the infallibility of divine providence. Cajetan himself approves this teaching there, although he says it does not satisfy our intellect; therefore he takes his intellect captive in obedience to the faith. In this he speaks with great learning and piety.²⁹

XIII. More recent Thomists also unanimously teach and defend the same doctrine. Master Soto does so in Book 1 of On Nature and Grace, chapter 16, where he says that “God's concurrence, by which he moves the will to right action, although it is in the same instant of time as the concurrence of created will, is nevertheless prior to it in nature.”³⁰ A little later he adds: “At the moment of time when God concurs with me, I am free to refuse to act then; for while I am moved freely, I can, in the divided sense, fail to act, and then God's concurrence will cease, although in the composite sense these two things conflict with one another: that God acts toward me by that action and that I do not act.” Master Medina, in Part I–II, Question 10, Article 4, doubt 1, before the reply to the first objection, says: “Once God's concurrence is posited, it is not possible for a man not to be moved while the divine concurrence remains; nevertheless, absolutely and simply speaking, he can fail to be moved. This is just as if one were to say that it is impossible for this conjunction to be true: ‘God concurs with me and moves my will, and my will is not moved.’ But this conjunction is true: ‘God concurs with me in willing or speaking, and I can fail to will or speak.’”³¹ In the reply to the first objection he says: “Even when God's concurrence is posited, a person acts freely and can fail to act, although in the composite sense it cannot stand that God concurs and the person does not act. It is just as it cannot stand that God knew from eternity that Peter would sin and Peter does not sin; nevertheless, he can still fail to sin.”

XIV. Master Bañez, in Part I, Question 19, Article 8, doubt 1, second conclusion, says: “Contingent or free effects, if compared with God's knowledge, providence, or will, are necessary in a qualified sense, namely, from supposition. This necessity is conditional, or rather the necessity of consequence, not necessity of the consequent.”³²³³ He proves it because these inferences are valid and necessary: “God wills something to happen; therefore it will happen in the manner and at the time he wills it to happen”; “God provided for this as future; therefore it will be.” And in Question 23, Article 3, final doubt, after the tenth conclusion, he says: “Finally, one must consider how what was defined at the Council of Trent, Session 6, canon 4, agrees with Catholic teaching. It says: ‘If anyone says that man's free choice, moved and aroused by God, is purely passive, like something lifeless, and does not cooperate at all in preparing itself to receive grace, or cannot dissent if it wishes, let him be anathema.’ In this canon observe two things. First, that this cooperation of free choice is an effect of divine mercy. Second, that the proposition ‘Free choice can dissent if it wishes’ must be understood simply speaking, but not in the composite sense, as if these two things could stand together: that this efficacious help exists in a man and that the man resists by dissenting. The reason is evident: ‘Who will resist his will?’—that is, his efficacious and absolute will.”³⁴

XV. Master Zumel, Part I, Question 19, Article 8, Disputation 2, second conclusion, has nearly the same words as those we cited from Master Bañez on the same Article 8. Master Brother John Vincent Asturicensis, formerly Vicar General of the Order of Preachers and distinguished professor of Sacred Theology at the University of Salamanca, in his Relection on the Grace of Christ, Question 5, Article 3, Conclusion 3, page 430, says that “Christ's human will was simply and in the divided sense free to obey or not obey the command imposed on him. But in the composite sense and by the necessity of consequence he could not fail to fulfill all”³⁵³⁶ “the commands imposed on him and obey all the mandates laid upon him. Thus it could not stand that a command to die was imposed on Christ and that his will did not accept it and fulfill it at the appointed time.” There he affirms that this is the common teaching of the Thomists and explains how freedom of choice is compatible with it.

XVI. This same distinction is also commonly accepted in the school of Scotus. Scotus teaches it in book 1, distinction 39, single question, asserting that it belonged to Boethius, and in distinction 40, single question; all his disciples follow him.³⁷ Brother Peter Trigosius, a Capuchin, admits the same distinction in his commentaries on St. Bonaventure’s Summa of Theology I, q. 15, art. 2, doubt 1, conclusion 2, p. 459, where he says: Contingent and free effects, if compared with God’s knowledge, providence, and will, are said to be necessary in a qualified sense, or by supposition—a necessity called conditional or of the consequence—but not absolute, or of the consequent. He gives this reason: these conditionals are excellent: “God foreknew that this would happen; therefore, it will happen”; “God foresaw this as future; therefore, it will happen”; “God wills something to happen; therefore, it will happen in the way and at the time he willed it,” since it is impossible for the antecedent to be true and the consequent false. There he also presents the adversaries’ argument against this teaching, affirming that it proves nothing; he teaches the same at greater length in the same article, doubt 3, note 1, and in the answer to the first objection.

XVII. Finally, the necessity of this distinction is clearly gathered from Sacred Scripture and the Councils, for they contain many things that cannot be brought into harmony except through this distinction.³⁸ For the Council of Trent, Session 6, on Justification, canon 4, defines that free choice, moved and stirred by God, can dissent from him if it wishes; and chapter 5 says that a person can reject divine inspiration, and so forth. Sacred Scripture likewise proclaims that no one can resist God’s will, as is clear from Esther 13: There is no one who can resist your will if you have decreed to save Israel; Psalm 75: You are terrible, and who can resist you?; Isaiah 14: The Lord God has decreed, and who can weaken it?; and chapter 46: My counsel shall stand, and all my will shall be done; and chapter 47: No man shall resist me; and Romans 9: For who can resist his will? These passages, which at first sight seem opposed, are reconciled by the foregoing distinction, and in no other way. Moreover, 1 John 3³⁹ says: Everyone who is born of God does not sin; indeed, he cannot sin, because the seed of God remains in him. But other passages of Scripture report that many people who were just did sin. David sinned by killing Uriah and going to his wife while Uriah was still alive;⁴⁰ the Apostle Peter sinned by denying the Lord Christ on the night of his Passion;⁴¹ and very many others sinned who had previously been born of God through grace. These passages, which seem opposed, are also brought into harmony through the distinction set out above. What St. John says, “He who is born of God cannot sin,” is understood in the composite sense, since it implies a contradiction for these two things to be true together: that someone is born of God and exists in grace, and that he commits mortal sin. For grace and mortal sin cannot be together in the same person. What the other Scriptures report, namely, that many just people sinned and consequently were able to sin, is understood absolutely and in the divided sense. Therefore, that distinction must necessarily be admitted.

XVIII. To all these points, the authors of the contrary opinion reply that they gladly admit the distinction between what is necessary in the composite and divided senses, by which the holy Doctors and Scholastics commonly resolve the heretics’ arguments against divine providence, predestination, and the freedom of created choice. They say, however, that God does not have an absolute and efficacious decree to bring something about through a free cause earlier in the order of reason than his having explored through middle or conditional knowledge, and known certainly and infallibly, what the created will would perform individually according to its innate freedom, on the hypothesis that it were placed in such an order of things and in such circumstances. But this escape assumes something false: for, as was shown in dispute 7, even God cannot know before the actual decree of his will what created free choice would specifically do if it were placed in such circumstances.

We have already answered sufficiently the argument made at the beginning in dispute 22, nos. 40 and 41, where we explained the authority of Anselm.

XIX. To complete this disputation, one would have to discuss what it means for an act of created free choice to be necessary in the composite or divided sense, and how necessity in the composite sense must be explained and understood. This will be treated in disputation 94.⁴² In the meantime, we observe that some theologians fail in their dialectical principles when they suppose that this proposition—“A human being moved by God through efficacious help cannot dissent from the divine call in the composite sense”—means nothing other than that, while that motion is in the person, he cannot dissent but is necessarily converted; once the efficacious motion is removed, however, he can dissent and not be converted. But these authors do not reach the true composite sense. They merely join efficacious help to the created will; they do not combine efficacious help and actual resistance in the same subject at the same time. It is this combination that the proposition signifies: “Free choice moved by God through efficacious help to consent can dissent in the composite sense.”⁴³ For the proposition “What is white cannot be black in the composite sense” does not mean that while whiteness is in a person he cannot be black, but that once the whiteness has been removed he can be black. It means instead that whiteness and blackness are forms incompatible together in the same subject, so that it is impossible for something to be white and black at the same time. Hence the proposition is true. In the same way, this proposition—“Free choice moved by God through efficacious help cannot dissent in the composite sense”—does not mean that while efficacious motion is in a person he cannot dissent if he wishes, but once efficacious motion has been removed he can dissent. Rather, it means that these two things are incompatible together: that efficacious help is in free choice and that free choice dissents. Hence the proposition is true, because efficacious help and actual resistance neither are nor can be together in the same subject, although efficacious help can coexist in the same choice with a power to dissent if it wishes. This is sufficient and required for freedom, as we began to note in disputations 18 and 22, and will explain more fully below in disputations 32, 92, 93, 115, and 116.