De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus et libertate

Whether contingent and free secondary causes can withdraw themselves from, or depart from, the order assigned to them by divine providence.

I. Authors who deny that contingent and free actions are predetermined by God in particular, antecedently to foreknowledge of the created will's cooperation, consequently teach that contingent and free secondary causes can depart from the order and predetermination of divine providence. They claim that this opinion is especially apt for refuting the errors that heretics of our time, especially Luther and Calvin, have tried to introduce. The chief arguments by which they prove their opinion are nearly the same as those with which, in Disputation 22 and the two following disputations, they tried to prove that God cannot predetermine the created will toward one side while preserving its freedom, either by an extrinsic decree of his will or by some motion inhering in the created will. We judge that those arguments have already been sufficiently resolved in those same disputations. Here, however, only those arguments that seem specifically to support the proposed opinion should be presented and answered.

The first argument is this. Luther, whom Roffensis cites in article 36 of Against Luther, asserted that, with respect to divine providence, all things happen by necessity, because the created will and all other secondary causes governed by divine providence cannot withdraw themselves from its order or predetermination, or do anything other than what divine providence has established and ordered. Luther's words are: To us, looking toward things below, they appear subject to choice; but to those looking toward heavenly things, all things are necessary, because all of us and all things see, do, and suffer not as we will, but as he wills. Calvin likewise says in book 2 of On Free Choice, Against Pighius, page 236: Accordingly, we say that what seem most fortuitous happen necessarily, not by their own nature, but because God's eternal and unchanging plan reigns in governing them. Therefore, we must not grant that the created will cannot depart from the order assigned to it by divine providence.

Secondly, the created will can resist, and in fact often resists, the order of divine providence; otherwise the Psalmist would not pray: Protect me from those who resist your right hand, as the apple of the eye;¹ nor would Saint Stephen have rebuked the Jews, saying: You always resist the Holy Spirit.² Therefore the created will can withdraw itself from the order of divine governance and depart from its predetermination.

Thirdly, the created will freely carries out the order of divine providence and governance with respect to those effects that divine providence causes in things through free and contingent causes; otherwise freedom of choice would be entirely destroyed. Therefore, with respect to such effects, the same created will can carry out or fail to carry out the order of divine governance and consequently can withdraw itself from that order. The consequence is proved as follows: otherwise it would carry out the order of providence and governance by necessity and not freely.

Fourthly, if free choice were to do the opposite of what divine providence ordered and determined, it would in fact withdraw itself from its order and predetermination. Therefore, if it can do the opposite of what divine providence established, it can withdraw itself from the order of that same providence. But, as the Council of Trent teaches, free choice can in fact do the opposite of what God ordered and willed it to do through that same choice. Therefore, it can withdraw itself from the order of divine providence.³

Fifthly, no king justly punishes those who do not depart from his ordinance. Therefore, if created free choice does not depart, or cannot depart, from the order of divine providence, no one would be justly punished by God.

II. Many very weighty Thomists teach the contrary opinion. Among them is Master Báñez, Summa theologiae I, question 14, article 13, final doubt, who, speaking of the necessity of infallibility found in free and contingent acts provided for and willed by God, says: This necessity is drawn from the most efficacious power of the first cause, which so determines all secondary causes to produce their effects that no secondary cause can escape its determination. If correctly understood, this opinion is without doubt that of St. Augustine and St. Thomas, and is closely conformed to sacred Scripture. For clarity, we must assume with St. Thomas that the order of divine providence can be considered in two ways: in one way, in general, namely insofar as it proceeds from the governing cause of the whole, that is, from God; in another way, in particular, insofar as it proceeds from a particular cause that executes divine providence and government.⁴

III. Let the first conclusion, then, be this: created free choice can withdraw itself from the order of divine providence and government insofar as that order proceeds through some particular cause. This is explicitly St. Thomas's conclusion, Summa theologiae I, question 103, article 7, in the body. There he asks whether anything can happen outside the order of divine government and replies: An effect can occur outside the order of some particular cause, but not outside the order of the universal cause.⁵ He says the same in replies to the first and second objections of the same article and in the following article 8. The second, third, and fifth arguments made at the beginning prove this conclusion.

It is proved further. Many evils are found in things, especially in created free choice, which often falls into the evil of sin. But, as St. Thomas teaches, a thing is called evil because it departs from the order of some particular good. Therefore created free choice can depart from the order of some particular good and, consequently, can also depart from some particular order of divine providence.⁶

It is proved secondly: many things happen by chance among things, as everyone admits. But nothing happens by chance unless it occurs outside the order of some particular cause; for, as St. Thomas teaches, things are said to be chance events in the world in relation to particular causes, outside whose order they fall.⁷ Therefore, since contingent chance events are found among free acts, it follows that free choice can depart from the order of some particular cause.

It is proved thirdly. In natural things we find that although one particular form cannot escape or depart entirely from the universal form of being, since it would then be reduced to nothing, it can nonetheless depart from another particular form, as whiteness departs from blackness. Therefore, in the same way, although created free choice cannot depart entirely from the order of the universal cause or escape it, it can nevertheless depart from the order of divine providence considered according to some particular cause.

IIII. Second conclusion. Created free choice cannot escape entirely the order of divine providence in general, namely, insofar as it proceeds from the governing cause of the whole.⁸ This is the conclusion of St. Augustine, On the Spirit and the Letter, chapter 32, where he says: Unbelievers indeed act against God's will when they do not believe his Gospel; yet they do not thereby conquer it. Rather, they deprive themselves of a great and supreme good and entangle themselves in evils of punishment, to experience in their torments the power of him whose mercy in his gifts they despised. Thus God's will is always unconquered. It would be conquered, however, if he found nothing to do with those who despise him, or if they could somehow escape what he has decreed concerning them. For when he says, for example, “I will that all these servants of mine work in the vineyard and, after their labor, rest and feast, so that whoever among them does not wish this will always grind in the mill.” It seems, indeed, that whoever disobeys acts against his master's will; but he will conquer it only if, by also despising the mill, he escapes it—which can in no way happen under God's power. This conclusion is also explicitly St. Thomas's in the passages cited above, and the holy Doctor proves it.

First: For nothing comes about outside the order of a particular cause except from some other cause that impedes it; that cause must in turn be traced back to the first universal cause. For example, indigestion occurs outside the order of the nutritive power because of some impediment, such as the coarseness of the food, which must be traced back to some cause, and so on up to the first universal cause. Since, then, God is the first universal cause, not merely of one kind but universally of all being, it is impossible for anything to occur outside the order of divine governance. But precisely because something seems in one respect to depart from the order of divine providence, considered according to some particular cause, it must fall back into that same order according to another cause.⁹

It is proved secondly: For the order of divine providence tends wholly toward the good, but each thing in its operation and striving tends only toward the good; for no one acts while looking to evil, as Dionysius says.¹⁰ Therefore no thing can depart entirely from the order of divine providence.

Saint Thomas confirms this: For every inclination of a thing, whether natural or voluntary, is nothing other than a certain impression from the first mover, just as the inclination of an arrow toward a particular target is nothing other than a certain impression from the archer. Hence all things that are done, whether naturally or voluntarily, reach, as if of their own accord, that to which they are divinely ordered. Therefore God is said to dispose all things gently. Therefore.

Thirdly, nothing is found in the world that is wholly evil, because evil is always grounded in good, as Saint Thomas shows in the first part, question 48¹¹, article 3, and question 49, article 3. Therefore some good is found in all things.¹² But every good, whatever it may be, insofar as it is good, proceeds from the supreme good, namely God. Since, then, God by his providence orders all particular goods of which he is the cause toward himself as their ultimate end, it follows that nothing in the world departs entirely from the order of divine providence.

Fourthly, what happens outside the order of some agent happens by chance with respect to that agent; for chance is a cause acting apart from intention, as Aristotle teaches in book 2 of the Physics, texts 49 and 50, and as Saint Thomas teaches in the second part of the second part, question 64, article 8, in the body of the text, and book 3 of Against the Gentiles, chapter 5. But nothing happens by chance with respect to God, as Saint Thomas teaches in the first part, question 103, article 7, reply 2¹³, where he says: Things are called chance events in relation to particular causes, outside whose order they occur. But as far as divine providence is concerned, nothing happens by chance in the world, as Augustine says in his book of Eighty-Three Questions.¹⁴ Therefore nothing departs entirely from the order of divine providence.

Fifthly, since an effect conforms to its agent according to its form, the same reasoning must apply to efficient causes as to formal causes. But among formal causes nothing can be found that escapes the universal form of being, although something can depart from this or that particular form: something may not be a human being or a living thing, but nothing can fail to be a being, for otherwise it would be nothing. Therefore the same holds among efficient causes: although something can come about outside the order of some particular efficient cause, it cannot come about outside the order of the most universal cause, under which all particular causes are included. But divine providence is the most universal cause of all things and all causes. Therefore no cause or effect, even a free one, can depart from the order of divine providence.¹⁵

This is confirmed: what seems to depart from the divine will and providence according to one order falls back into it according to another. A sinner, for example, insofar as it lies within him, departs from the divine will by sinning; yet he enters the order of the divine will when he is punished by its justice. Therefore the created will cannot escape the order of divine providence entirely.¹⁶

V. Third conclusion. Created free choice cannot perform anything that has not first been predefined by God and disposed and ordered by his providence toward some end.¹⁷ This conclusion is opposed to the authors of the first opinion; nevertheless, recent Thomists assert it. For clarity, we must assume that the foregoing proposition can have two senses. The first is the divided sense, and then it means that created free choice does not have the power to do the opposite of what God has ordered by his will and providence to be done through created free choice. Catholics who teach this proposition do not understand it in that sense, for the true freedom we are bound to defend according to the Catholic faith necessarily requires that created will have the power both to act and not to act. For freedom of choice consists in the faculty of will and reason to do either of two things, as will be shown in disputations 115 and 116. The second sense of the proposition is the composite sense, which we explained at the end of disputation 25. It means that these two things are mutually incompatible: that something be done through free choice and that it not have been first predefined and ordered by divine providence. In this sense, we assert that created free choice cannot do anything unless it has first been predefined by God and ordered by his providence. We explained the proposition, “God cannot do anything except what he foreknew he would do,” in a similar sense in disputation 22, no. 33, with St. Thomas. Its sense is¹⁸ true, according to St. Thomas's interpretation in question 1 of On the Power of God, article 5, reply to the first objection: it cannot happen that something be produced by God and not be foreknown by God. It is proved: created free choice stands in relation to God as an instrument, which cannot act unless it is moved by the principal agent. For St. Thomas says in his commentary on Isaiah 10, on the words Will the axe boast, etc.: Here the boastful one is rebuked, because he too is like an instrument, which cannot act except through the movement of the craftsman. And in On the Governance of Rulers, little work 20, book 3, chapter 8, explaining the same passage of Isaiah, he says: The power of a ruler stands in relation to God as the power of a staff to the one striking with it, and as the power of a saw to the craftsman. Now the power of a saw or axe is plainly nothing in its work unless the craftsman moves and directs it. The same is true of the power to rule: it is nothing without God moving and governing.¹⁹ And in Summa theologiae I, question 2, article 3, in the body, he says: Secondary movers move only insofar as they are moved by the first mover, just as a staff moves only insofar as it is moved by a hand. He says the same in Physics VIII, letter B, where he says that a secondary mover cannot move without the first, just as a staff cannot move a stone unless it is moved by a person. Finally, in Summa theologiae I–II, question 109, in the body, he says: However perfect a corporeal or spiritual nature may be, it cannot proceed to its act unless it is moved by God. He repeats the same in article 9 of that question. But every motion of God is according to the order of his divine providence. Therefore, it never happens that created free choice does anything unless it was first provided for and ordered by God.

It is proved secondly by all the arguments with which it was shown in disputations 18 and 23 that secondary causes do nothing unless God first imparts to them a prior motion by which he predetermines them to act.

VI. Some object against this doctrine as follows. The heretics of our time who attack free choice, especially Calvin, often teach that the human will stands in relation to God as a stick, an axe, or a saw, which cannot act unless moved, bent, and directed by an artisan. From this they have inferred that free choice is a mere name, or a name without a reality. Calvin’s words are: That the impious are like saws in God’s hand, which he moves, turns, and directs wherever he wills, is not from Luther but from the Holy Spirit, if Pighius indeed confesses that the Spirit spoke through the Prophets. For Isaiah says of Sennacherib: Shall the saw boast against him who draws it?²⁰²¹ Elsewhere, explaining the words, As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, and so on, he says: For Christ means nothing other than that, when we are separated from him, we are dry wood that amounts to nothing, since apart from him there is no capacity in us to do good.²²

We reply that Calvin did not err by asserting that the will is moved by God to act and, in a certain respect, stands in relation to him as a saw, axe, or stick stands in relation to the one who draws or moves it.²³ For since sacred Scripture often uses this kind of comparison, it cannot be denied that the comparison holds in some respect and is apt to explain the dependence on God that created free choice has in its operation. Otherwise, one would have to say that the Holy Spirit used an inept comparison, which cannot be said without grave blasphemy. Calvin therefore erred because, from a Catholic premise, he drew by a bad inference a conclusion contrary to the faith: that free choice is a name without a reality, or a reality that is only a name, as was shown in disputation 22, no. 30, and will be shown more fully in disputations 115 and 116.

This also makes clear the reply to the first argument.

In reply to the second, we say that, as will become clear in the following disputation, a created will can and in fact does resist the order of divine providence considered with respect to a particular cause. It cannot, however, and never will, resist the order considered on the side of the efficacious will of God and universal providence, as was said.

In reply to the third, we say that divine providence disposed and ordained that free choice should freely carry out the order established by that same providence, according to the condition and nature of a created will. Hence it would be more contrary to divine providence and its governance if the will were moved by necessity, or carried out the order of divine providence and acted by necessity, which does not befit its nature, than if it were moved freely, as befits its nature, as Saint Thomas says in Summa theologiae I–II, q. 10, art. 4, reply 1.

The consequence is denied in reply to the fourth argument, and the reason for the distinction is this: God did not ordain, nor could he ordain, that free choice should do the opposite of what has been determined and predetermined by the divine will and providence. He did ordain that it should be able to do the opposite of what God willed it to do, since he ordained that it be done freely. Consequently, he disposed that it should happen in such a way that it could fail to happen if a person willed not to do it. The cases are therefore dissimilar.

A second reply is that the argument proves only that created free choice can do something outside the order of divine providence and governance considered according to some particular cause, but not outside the order of the universal cause.

In reply to the fifth, we say with Saint Thomas, Summa theologiae I, q. 103, art. 8, reply 1, that the wicked are justly punished by God because they withdraw themselves from the order considered according to a determinate good that is fitting for them according to their nature or state. All this will become clearer in the following disputation.