De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus et libertate

Name: De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus et libertate
Author: Diego Álvarez

De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus et libertate, ac legitima eius cum efficacia eorundem auxiliorum concordia

First published 1610

Diego Álvarez’s twelve-book treatise on divine grace and human free choice. This edition contains Book I: the prooemium and five preliminary disputations on Pelagian and Semi-Pelagian teaching, Manichaean and Reformation positions, Catholic theologians, and the authority of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Latin from the Rome 1610 edition, with a new English translation.

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Disputatio X: Whether any effect can be called formally contingent in relation to God’s causality, especially when it is produced immediately by him.

Whether some effect can be called formally contingent in relation to God’s causality, especially when it is produced immediately by him.

I. The affirmative position is defended by Scotus in the first book of the Sentences, at the place cited in the preceding disputation, by Gabriel, and by certain other theologians. Their opinion can be proved as follows: effects produced immediately by God are not necessary; otherwise God would have produced the world by a necessity of nature. Therefore they are contingent; for there is no middle between necessary and contingent. Therefore God is their contingent cause. This is confirmed. The nonnecessary and the contingent are altogether the same, but effects produced by God are nonnecessary with respect to his causality. Therefore they are contingent, and thus God will be their contingent cause.

Second, that is called contingent which by its nature is not determined to being, but can indifferently be and not be; but effects produced immediately by God can indifferently be and not be. Therefore they are contingent, and consequently their cause will be contingent.

Cajetan, I p., q. 14, art. 13, § “As to the second, then,” and Ferrari, Against the Gentiles, bk. 3, chs. 67 and 70, hold the negative position. This is also the express teaching of St. Thomas in Sentences I, dist. 43, q. 2, art. 1, ad 4; On Evil, q. 16, art. 7, ad 15; and On Truth, q. 23, art. 1, ad 2. In these places he teaches that God is neither a necessary nor a contingent cause of things, but a free one,¹ and he assigns two reasons for this.

II. The first is that the necessary and the contingent are conditions proper to a created and limited cause; but the divine will, since it is the most universal cause of all things, is above every condition and mode of a created cause. Therefore it is not formally a contingent cause. He assigns this reason in the cited On Evil, q. 16.

The second reason is that it belongs to the essence of a contingent cause to be changeable and liable to be impeded; but the divine will is neither changeable nor liable to be impeded by another cause. Therefore it is not a formally contingent cause. He assigns this in the cited Sentences I and On Truth, q. 23.

This is confirmed. A contingent cause, precisely as contingent, intrinsically includes imperfection. Therefore it cannot formally belong to God, in whom there can be no imperfection.

Some theologians think that the question concerns a name, and say that if contingency signifies only a certain indifference that an effect has in relation to its cause, insofar as by the power of that cause it can be and can fail to be, then effects are contingent in relation to God, since this is nothing other than not being simply necessary. But if contingency, in addition to the aforesaid indifference, includes some imperfection, then in this respect God is not a contingent cause, but a free one.

Nevertheless, one must say that the question concerns the thing, not the name, unless one wishes to confuse terms and names, and to speak improperly of a free cause as contingent—a practice from which every metaphysician and theologian ought to abstain. Hence Cajetan, at the cited place, after saying that contingency imports imperfection into freedom because it posits changeability, adds: And for this reason St. Thomas, anticipating the inept terminology of the moderns in Sentences I, distinction 38, denies that God causes contingently. The reasons adduced from St. Thomas effectively prove this very point.

III. To the first argument the inference is denied, because the necessary and the contingent are not immediately opposed except in relation to created causes; but in relation to an uncreated cause there is a middle between the necessary and the contingent, namely, the free.

To the confirmation the same answer is given: for we say that the nonnecessary belongs not only to contingent causes but also to free causes:² a free cause, however, is not formally contingent unless it is changeable or liable to be impeded, as a created free cause is, as is clear from what has been said.

To the second argument it is answered that for something to be contingent with respect to a cause, it is not enough that by its nature it is not determined to one outcome; beyond this, the cause said to be contingent must be liable to fail or to be impeded:³ for a contingent effect, as such, expresses a formal relation to a cause liable to fail, just as a defective motion expresses an intrinsic relation to a deficient secondary cause. Hence, just as God cannot immediately, by himself, produce a defective motion or another defective effect unless a deficient secondary cause intervenes, to which the defect is attributed, so he cannot immediately, by himself, produce a formally contingent effect, but only through a secondary cause liable to fail—unless “contingent” is taken in its broad signification for that which can be and can fail to be, at least by the absolute power of God, according to the meaning explained in the preceding disputation, no. 3. For in this meaning every created thing can be called contingent, or contingently be, because the very act of existing does not belong to a creature intrinsically and by its nature, but through God’s gratuitous communication; for to have being by essence is a proper and quidditative predicate of God alone. Hence, when Moses asked, If they say to me, “What is his name?” what shall I say to them?⁴ the Lord answered, I am who am. Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: “He who is has sent me to you.” And if someone asks whether the act of the divine will by which it decrees to produce things outside itself can be called contingent in that broad meaning in which contingent is called that which can be and can fail to be, the answer is that in God the efficacious willing to produce creatures includes two things: an absolute element, which is the divine essence itself; and with respect to this, the aforesaid willing can in no way be called contingent, but is altogether necessary, because, as regards what is absolute, it could not fail to be in God. The other element is relational, namely, the relation of reason to the creatures to be produced; and with respect to this kind of relation, that willing could have been absent in God. For, as St. Thomas says, although the divine will has necessity of itself, nevertheless, in relation to the production of creatures, it expresses a nonnecessary relation.⁵ Yet because the divine will is altogether immutable, as one that expresses no potentiality to be and not to be—a potentiality that every created thing nevertheless imports, at least in relation to God’s absolute power—the act of the divine will must in no way be called contingent, but free in comparison with creatures, as is clear from what was said above.

End of Book Three.

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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.