De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus et libertate

Whether the good use of the helps of grace, insofar as it flows from free choice, is an effect of predestination.

I. The resolution of this difficulty is a preliminary to the question we shall discuss in the following disputation: namely, whether a cause, reason, or condition without which predestination would not be given is found on the part of the good use of free choice. For if the good use of free choice is an effect of predestination, it cannot be a cause, reason, or condition of predestination itself. For, as St Thomas teaches,¹ it is impossible that what falls under predestination be a cause or reason of predestination itself; otherwise, with respect to the same thing, it would be both cause and effect, prior and posterior in the same genus of cause, which is impossible. But if the good use of the helps of grace, insofar as it flows from free choice, is not an effect of predestination, it could be a cause, reason, or condition without which predestination would not be given. Therefore, those authors who teach that a condition on the part of our free choice is given, without which the reason for the order of means toward the supernatural end would not acquire the character of predestination with respect to such people, but would retain only the character of common supernatural providence, consistently defend that the good use of free choice by which it consents to God as he stirs and calls it—precisely insofar as that use flows from free choice—is not to be counted among the effects of predestination. Their arguments are as follows.

II. First: the good use of free choice is something that belongs to the part of the predestined person, and God requires from that person that, with God himself cooperating, an adult also freely consent and cooperate, so that in this way the works of the predestined may be free and meritorious of eternal life, and may be certain dispositions of the predestined, by which that person disposes himself to grace through his own freedom. Therefore, such a good use, precisely insofar as it flows from free choice, is not an effect of predestination.

This is confirmed, and the force of the argument is explained more fully. For just as in the aiming of an arrow at a target, the arrow that is aimed is one thing, and the force impressed on it by the archer, by which it is said to be aimed at the target by him, is another; so also in predestination, the one thing is that which is so destined, namely, the adult himself, endowed with his own innate freedom and placed in the hand of his own counsel; the other is the means by which he is destined by God and is said to be helped, so that by cooperating through his own free influence he may attain eternal life. Therefore, just as all the helps by which God determines to assist the predestined person and bring him to eternal life belong to God who predestines, so on the part of the predestined person lies his innate freedom of choice, or the good use of the helps of grace, insofar as it is free, or insofar as it flows from free choice as one part of a complete cause.

Second: that an act elicited by prevenient grace and by free choice is free, and for that reason capable of the character of virtue, praise, and honor, which are attributed on its account to the person freely exercising his causal influence in this way—is surely not an effect of prevenient grace, but of free choice through its influence. For prevenient grace is determined to one thing, and, precisely because it is then received in the free choice of the predestined person, by natural necessity it moves and solicits him. But free choice is what acts freely through that influence, which is proper to it by its innate freedom; and from that influence alone the act has the feature of being freely elicited by the predestined person, and on that account accrues to him as praise and honor. Therefore, the free good use, insofar as it flows from free choice, is not an effect of predestination. The consequence is proved: the free good use cannot be an effect of predestination unless it is also an effect of prevenient grace.

This is confirmed: of two people who are equally preceded by the motion of grace and moved by it, that one consents, cooperates with grace, elicits an act, and is converted, while the other does not, certainly comes solely from the innate, proper, and intrinsic freedom of each, which is common to the good and the bad, to the reprobate and the predestined. For prevenient grace, on its part, moves both equally and acts by the necessity of nature on its part. But because one of them freely chooses to employ that influence proper to his own free choice and the other does not, one is converted and the other is not. Therefore, the good use of grace, insofar as it flows from free choice, is not an effect of grace itself and, consequently, is not an effect of predestination either. Otherwise, the one who is converted would always have greater help from prevenient grace than the other, which is contrary to the hypothesis assumed.

This is confirmed a second time. Whether the helps of prevenient grace are efficacious or inefficacious for conversion depends on the proper influence of free choice. It is on account of this that one person, with equal help from prevenient grace, acts more or less intensely, and is made worthy that more sins be remitted to him with respect to punishment and that gifts be bestowed on him which are taken away from the sluggish. This proceeds from the influence proper to free choice itself, and on its account one is said to use grace more or less strenuously than another. Therefore, such good use, insofar as it flows from free choice, cannot be an effect of predestination or of grace.

III. Third: on account of this influence proper to the predestined, St Bernard said: What is lacking in us, he himself supplies—that is, God—yet he does not allow whatever little thing is ours², to be withheld.³ And on account of this same influence the Council of Trent teaches that when God touches the human heart through the illumination of the Holy Spirit,” the human being himself does something, receiving that inspiration, since he can also reject it;⁴ therefore the conclusion is the same as before.

Fourth: grace and free choice are two partial causes of supernatural consent, like two people hauling a ship. For if God, through the helps of prevenient grace, does not influence a devout operation, that operation will not exist in reality; and likewise, if created free choice, by reason of its innate freedom, does not wish to influence the same operation, that operation will not exist. Therefore a devout operation can be considered precisely insofar as it flows from free choice, as from one part of a complete cause. Therefore, under this consideration, the good use of free choice must be attributed to that same choice on account of its own and innate freedom alone, and not to grace; consequently, under the same consideration, it will not be an effect of predestination, but something prerequired for it on our part.

IIII. The contrary opinion is defended from the mind of St Augustine and St Thomas by all the Thomists, who hold that no cause, reason, or condition without which the divine predestination would not be given is found on our part; their testimonies will be adduced in the following disputation. To make this clear and bring out the point on which the difficulty rests, we must assume the points on which the authors of both opinions agree. First, they agree that God, through the helps of prevenient grace and free choice moved and stirred by God, concurs as an efficient cause in every supernatural good use of free choice. Consequently, the same good use and each of its parts are effects of predestination and grace, absolutely speaking, since nothing at all in it, whether real or formal, is not wholly from God and from grace by the totality of the effect, and wholly from free choice moved and stirred by God. The authors with whom we are disputing expressly admit this, although they assert that this good use is not an effect of predestination on that account, because free choice and human freedom cooperate in it, but because God, through predestination and the helps of grace, cooperates in that same good use. Second, they agree that the good use of the helps of grace, even insofar as it flows from created free choice, is referred to God as the author of free choice itself, who conferred on human beings that power for similar good uses; as the one on whose general concurrence every influence of free choice depends; and also as the one who, through his supernatural gifts or the helps of prevenient grace, invites and entices free choice itself to give its consent in such supernatural good uses.

V. The entire difference between the authors of the two opinions, then, consists in this: whether the good use of the helps of grace, insofar as it flows from free choice, proceeds efficiently from God who predestines, and consequently, under the aspect in which it depends on free choice, is an effect of predestination. For those who defend the first opinion deny that this same good use is an effect of predestination under that aspect.

But we, who with St Augustine and St Thomas defend that no cause, reason, or condition is given on our part without which the reason for the order of means to an end, preexisting in the divine mind, would not have the character of predestination, consequently affirm that the good use of the helps of grace, even insofar as it flows from and depends on free choice, is an effect of predestination and grace, and must be referred to God himself—not only as the author of free choice itself, who conferred that power on human beings; nor only as the one on whose general concurrence every influence of free choice depends; nor merely as the one who, through his supernatural gifts or the helps of prevenient grace, invites and entices free choice itself to give its consent, for even the Pelagians did not deny these things, as was said above;⁵ but also as the truly efficient cause which, through the help of pre-operating grace, causes free choice to influence the good use of the helps of grace itself. That is, the actual dependence and derivation of this same good use from free choice, or its consent insofar as it proceeds from free choice, must be referred to divine predestination and grace as a per se efficient cause.

VI. First, this doctrine can be proved by all the arguments with which it was shown in disputations 18, 22, and 23 that God’s general concurrence, in both the natural and supernatural orders, is an immediate influence upon secondary causes, and that it premoves and predetermines them to act in actuality, each in conformity with its own nature. For from this principle it follows evidently that the good use of the helps of grace, and every other devout operation, even insofar as it flows from free choice, is an effect of predestination and grace not only in the genus of moral causality but also of efficient causality. This can also be proved by all the testimonies of Scripture, the Supreme Pontiffs, and the holy Fathers, as well as by the theological arguments drawn from them, through which it will be made clear below that God, or efficacious help, is the adequate cause of a person’s conversion;⁶ and consequently that grace and free choice are not partial causes of supernatural consent, like two people hauling a ship. Rather, God, through the efficacious help of divine grace, causes us to act and to work, not only morally but also in the manner of a physical cause. For it follows manifestly from these points that the good use of the helps of grace, even insofar as it flows from free choice, is an effect of divine predestination. Finally, this same point can be proved by the arguments with which in the following disputation I will show that no cause, reason, or condition without which predestination would not have its character as predestination is given on our part, on which it depends.

VII. Second, this is proved by the authority of St Thomas, part one, question twenty-three, article five, in the body of the article. There he attacks the opinion of those who said that merits following the effect of predestination, are the reason for predestination, and says: They seem to have distinguished between what is from grace and what is from free choice, as though the same thing could not be from both. But it is clear that what is from grace is an effect of predestination, and this cannot be posited as the reason for predestination, since this is included under predestination. If, therefore, something else on our part is the reason for predestination, it will be beyond the effect of predestination. But what is from free choice and from predestination is not distinct, just as what is from the secondary cause and the first cause is not distinct; for divine providence produces effects through the operations of secondary causes. Hence what is through free choice is also from predestination. And in the First Part of the Second Part, question 111, article 2, reply to the second objection, he says: God does not justify us without us, because, through the motion of free choice, when we are justified we consent to God’s justice; yet that motion is not the cause of grace, but its effect. Hence the whole operation belongs to grace. By these words he teaches plainly that the cooperation of free choice is an effect of grace and divine predestination. And in question 6 on Truth, article 2, reply to the eleventh objection, he says: This very act of willing to receive grace is from divine predestination.

Third, it is proved by reason. Everything that conduces to salvation and to the predestined person’s attaining eternal life is an effect of predestination, as is clear from the definition of predestination given by Augustine: Predestination is the preparation of God’s benefits, by which all who are delivered are most certainly delivered;⁷ but the good use of the helps of grace, even insofar as it flows from free choice, is something that conduces to salvation and to the predestined person’s attaining eternal life. Therefore, under this same aspect, it is an effect of predestination. This is confirmed: through efficacious grace, which is an effect of predestination, God not only concurs in that good use of free choice by cooperating and influencing the act together with that same free choice, but also moves free choice efficiently so that it concurs in eliciting that act. Therefore, that act, even insofar as it is from free choice, is an effect of prevenient grace and, consequently, of predestination.

VIII. They reply to this argument by distinguishing the antecedent. If it is understood to mean that free choice influences and concurs through the motion of prevenient grace alone, with no further need for a proper and particular influence or concurrence of free choice itself—one that it could suspend and render the motion of grace ineffectual with that motion of grace placing no obstacle in its way—they say the antecedent must be denied. But if it is understood to mean that free choice does not influence and concur through the motion of grace alone, but that a proper and particular influence or concurrence of free choice itself is also necessary, which it freely employs with the motion of prevenient grace placing no obstacle in its way, they concede the antecedent but then deny the consequence that is inferred: therefore that act, even insofar as it is from free choice, is an effect of prevenient grace and, consequently, of predestination. They deny it if the consequence is understood of that act precisely as considered to flow from that particular and proper influence of free choice, which is also necessary; for, considered in this way, they say, it is not an effect of prevenient grace, but of free choice alone.

This answer, however, does not remove the force of the argument. We do indeed admit that, besides God’s concurrence, or prevenient grace, the free concurrence of our free choice is necessary for a devout operation: it must consent in such a way to God who calls that it could dissent if it wished, and this was defined at the Council of Trent. Nevertheless, we contend that this same influence of free choice is indeed proper to it, because it proceeds from an intrinsic principle that moves itself and moves freely; yet it is not so proper to it that, under the aspect in which it flows from free choice, free choice’s very act of concurring and consenting freely does not depend on God as an efficient cause. Consequently, this same influence of free choice cannot be considered precisely as flowing from free choice. For just as the concept of the ultimate difference cannot be considered apart from being, because the concept of being is the most universal and is intrinsically intimate to the formal character of every particular being,⁸ so that if the character of being is abstracted from the ultimate difference nothing remains, so too, because divine operation is the operation of the first and most universal cause, it is so intimate to the formal character of every cooperation or concurrence of a particular agent that a created action cannot be considered as proceeding from a particular agent without the divine operation and dependence on God as universal cause being included intimately in that same formal character. Hence, if we abstract dependence on divine operation, no concurrence of a particular cause can remain. More must be said about this in disputation 97.

Some theologians, including those who defend middle knowledge, also admit as true the opinion that all the supernatural works of the elect which effectively contribute in some way to the attainment of eternal life are effects of predestination with respect to everything found in such works, and under every relation, whether to God, to some prior grace, or to free choice. They add, however, that, formally speaking, an act is not called an effect of predestination because it proceeds from a special absolute will by which that effect or act is predefined in particular with all its circumstances, but because the means or principles necessary for it are given from an efficacious intention to save the human being; or, at any rate, because they come from such a providence of God toward the human being that he is finally brought in fact to final salvation. They also add that this very cooperation is an effect of efficacious grace, which is without doubt an effect of predestination. They explain and clarify this both in terms of moral causality—for God, by calling and by exciting helps, morally draws a person to will and cooperate, and in this way, they say, makes us will and act—and also in terms of physical causality. They prove the latter because that cooperation is something real, pertaining to devotion and very necessary for salvation. Therefore it cannot come from us without God and his grace, in keeping with the saying: Without me you can do nothing;⁹ and: What do you have that you did not receive?;¹⁰ these statements are true even with respect to real and physical efficient causality.

But this manner of speaking does not adequately explain whether the cooperation of our free choice is an effect of God and of his predestination in such a way, according to physical causality, that it not only cannot exist without God’s supernatural influence, but is also an effect of the divine operation in the genus of efficient causality. For they do not admit that God’s action precedes our cooperation in the order of causality, except if God’s action is taken to mean the action by which he produces a calling in us, by which he morally causes us to will and act. Finally, this manner of speaking is founded on the opinion, to be refuted in disputation 86, that God through efficacious grace causes us to act or cooperate only morally, but does not truly cause us efficiently, or in the manner of a physical cause. We, however, believe that God through efficacious grace truly causes us efficiently—that is, in the manner of a physical cause—to cooperate and to cooperate freely. Consequently, within the same genus of cause, we admit that the cooperation of our free choice, even insofar as it flows from free choice itself, is an effect of predestination, although it does not occur without our freely consenting.

IX. To the first argument it is answered that the good use of free choice belongs to the part of the predestined person, not indeed as something presupposed to predestination on our part, but as a free act elicited by the predestined person as its proximate cause. Yet it must be referred both to God, as the first efficient cause, and to his gratuitous predestination and grace. For this reason, that good use, informed by grace, is meritorious of eternal life, and through it an adult disposes himself for the infusion of grace or for its increase.

To the confirmation it is answered that the example favors our opinion rather than attacking it. For just as, when an arrow is aimed at a target, the arrow to be aimed is presupposed with its natural properties, but all the force and motion by which it tends toward the target come to it from the archer, or the one who aims it, so too a human being with his innate freedom and the other powers belonging to his nature is presupposed for predestination. Yet the actual motion and use of that same freedom, by which he tends toward eternal life, come to him from the one who predestines, as first mover and director. For this reason St Dionysius the Areopagite said that God is the cause of love as an archer and as one who sends forth.¹¹ Since, then, cooperation, or the good use of the helps of grace, even insofar as it flows from free choice, is something by which the predestined person is moved toward eternal life, it follows that under the same aspect it comes from the one who predestines as first mover, and consequently is also an effect of predestination and grace.

X. To the second argument it is answered that an act elicited by prevenient grace and free choice has its being free from grace itself and from created free choice, but in different ways. For from free choice it has this as from the principle that acts; from grace, as from the principle by which it acts. For grace not only causes a person to consent, but also to consent freely, since God does not destroy nature but perfects it, and attains the act together with the mode of freedom proper to it. So too, the proximate and formal vitality of a supernatural act is “that by which,” from a supernatural principle, and “that which,” from a natural power elevated by a supernatural form, as will be clear in disputation 64. Nor should it be admitted that grace determines to one thing by necessity or moves to an act by natural necessity, because it does not cause free choice to act by natural necessity, but according to its own mode of freedom—unless one is speaking of exciting prevenient grace, in which respect it moves the will insofar as the will is nature toward certain imperfect and undeliberated acts. Beyond this exciting prevenient grace, however, efficacious prevenient grace must be established, which moves and predetermines free choice to consent not by natural necessity, but according to the mode of freedom, as was said in disputations 18 and 23 and will be explained below.

To the first confirmation, it is answered by denying the antecedent: for the one who is converted always receives from God greater help of prevenient grace than the one who is not converted. I say “greater” not only in the extrinsic aspect of the benefit, because it is given in those circumstances in which God foreknows that, if free choice is premoved by it, it will give consent, but also in the real efficacy of the same help as it proceeds from God, as will become clear in disputation 108.

XI. To the second confirmation it is answered that, as will become clear in disputations 73 and 90, the efficacy of the helps of grace does not depend on our free choice cooperating with them, but comes from God alone. Likewise, the greater intensity of cooperation by free choice is not to be measured by its own innate freedom alone, but must be referred to God’s mercy and to the more intense help received by the one who acts more intensely, as will become clear in disputations 62 and 78.

To the third argument it is answered that St Bernard called the influence of free choice “our own,” not because it is in us from ourselves, but because it proceeds efficiently from our free choice as a secondary cause. Nevertheless, free choice’s influence in cooperating with God who calls has another prior efficient cause, namely God himself, who, through the efficacious help of pre-operating grace, causes free choice to influence and to consent freely, as St Bernard himself expressly teaches in his treatise on grace and free choice when he says: What was begun by grace alone is completed by both together—that is, by grace and will—so that they work in combination, not separately, together, not in turn, at every stage of progress. Not partly grace and partly free choice, but each accomplishes the whole by a single joint work. This one indeed accomplishes the whole, and the whole is from that one; but as the whole is in the one, so the whole is from the other. The Council of Trent must be understood in the same way. More will have to be said about its explanation in disputation 115, no. 12, and disputation 116, no. 10.

XII. The fourth argument, which is the principal foundation of the contrary opinion, will be answered at greater length in disputation 85, where we shall show that grace and free choice are not two partial causes of supernatural consent, like two people hauling a ship, but that each is total in its own genus. Of these, free choice is subordinated to grace, or to God moving through grace, from whom, as efficient cause, it receives its actual influence and cooperation. All these matters will be made clearer by what we shall say in the following disputation.