De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus et libertate

Whether the good use of free choice, proceeding from the help of grace, is the cause, reason, or condition without which there is no predestination of adults.

I. Passing over the various opinions of Henry, Javelli, and other theologians, which Master Báñez and Zumel report and refute in 1. p. q. 23. art. 5., as do the other commentators on St. Thomas, only the opinions of Ambrosius Catharinus and certain more recent theologians will be brought forward and refuted. Therefore:

The first opinion is that of Ambrosius Catharinus, who, as his disciple Sixtus of Siena reports,¹ asserted that from eternity God, in his gratuitous goodness, knew, loved, chose, and appointed all human beings, excluding no one, so that they might be ordered to eternal life while the freedom of choice remained intact, though not all in the same way.² For he distinguishes two classes of the predestined. In the first God, as Catharinus supposes, places certain persons specially predestined, specially chosen beforehand, and called beforehand, such as the Blessed Virgin, the Apostles, and a few others. These very few God predestined from eternity by an absolute decree and efficacious will, and decreed to confer so many helps of grace upon them that, while the freedom of choice remained intact, they could not fall away from eternal salvation. He says that in their case the cause of predestination is not found on the part of the foreseen good use of free choice. He proves this as follows: otherwise the scriptural passages that speak of the predestined could not be upheld, such as: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?³ and: He predestined us before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy.⁴ and: Not from works of righteousness that we had done.⁵ The second class comprises all the others who in fact are saved. He says that these too are predestined by God, but not by an absolute, unchangeable, and efficacious decree of his will; rather, they are predestined under some changeable condition of the good use of free choice—namely, if they themselves wish to act well.⁶ He proves this with many arguments, which are for the most part the same as those we shall bring forward in support of the second opinion. Sixtus of Siena followed this teaching of Ambrosius Catharinus, as he himself reports: And it, he says, I preached for ten years in many of the principal cities of Italy. But later, when I had observed that this assertion was beset by no few difficulties and constraints, and was therefore not approved by most⁷ learned and devout theologians, I judged it better to desist from preaching it than to teach what the pious judgment of the learned had rejected.⁸ More recent theologians adequately refute this opinion, which Augustine had earlier condemned among the ancient Pelagians when he said: To deny predestination, then, which we have briefly proved to be in God, is monstrous blasphemy. We must acknowledge it not only, as you are accustomed to say, in the Apostles, but also in the Patriarchs, Prophets, Martyrs, and Confessors, and in all the Saints and those who serve God worthily.⁹

II. The second opinion belongs to certain theologians. To explain and defend it, they lay down the following propositions.

First, they say that from eternity God willed all human beings and Angels, without exception, to be saved, on condition, however, that the fault did not lie with them or with our first parent. They extend this willing of God to all those who would have come into being under the established constitution of this universe, if, according to human choice, this world had followed another course with respect to the generations of human beings, and other people, numerically distinct, had been born. God, they say, also willed all these people to be saved, on the condition that they were born (as they could naturally have been).

Second, they say that although God confers upon everyone helps directed to salvation, as well as sufficient exciting and prevenient grace, nevertheless, generally speaking, he is not accustomed to confer it unless certain acts of free choice come first. They add that by his merits the Lord Christ obtained this for us and established this law with the Father: whenever we endeavored, by our natural powers, to do what lies within us, helps of grace would be at hand, by which we could accomplish it as is required for salvation.

Third, they say that the helps of prevenient grace by which the predestined actually attain eternal life are not efficacious in themselves, nor by reason of the intrinsic quality and power they possess as they come from God; rather, they are called efficacious because of the effect, which at the same time depends on the freedom of choice. From this they infer that whether the helps of prevenient and assisting grace, which are conferred on wayfarers according to the ordinary law, are efficacious or inefficacious for conversion and justification depends on the free consent and cooperation of our choice with them. Accordingly, it lies within our free power to make them efficacious by consenting, or inefficacious by withholding consent.

Fourth, they say that predestination is not certain with the certainty of the causality of its means, but only with the certainty of foreknowledge; they extend this claim even to those confirmed in grace. But this assertion will be treated in disputation 41.

Fifth, they say that predestination was not made on account of foreknowledge of the good use of free choice. That is, the good use of free choice, foreknown by God, is not the cause, reason, or condition on account of which God decreed from eternity to confer upon the predestined those means by which he foresaw that they would, through their own freedom, attain eternal life. The reason offered by the proponents of this same knowledge is that God foresaw of many people that, if they were placed in a certain order of things or given certain helps, they would, through their own freedom, use their free choice well and be saved; nevertheless, God neither placed them in that order of things nor predestined them. They add, however, that predestination was not made without foreknowledge of the good use of free choice that would occur on the hypothesis that a person were placed in such circumstances.

Sixth, they say that foreknowledge of the future good use of free choice is a condition without which the decree to confer on adults the means of salvation would not have the character of predestination, but would retain only the character of a common supernatural providence. By “foreknowledge” they mean middle knowledge, which we refuted in disputation 7.

III. This opinion is proved first from the authority of Scripture. For it is said in Romans: Those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed, etc.¹⁰ These words can more suitably be understood of no other foreknowledge than that which necessarily precedes predestination; this is middle knowledge, by which God knew what each person's free choice would do through its own freedom, on the hypothesis that the person were placed in a certain order of things and given certain helps. Likewise, Romans 11 says: God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Therefore, foreknowledge of the good use of free choice is presupposed to predestination. Moreover, 1 Peter 1 says: Peter, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, unto the sanctification of the Spirit, etc. These words imply that predestination to sanctification and glory is according to foreknowledge of the good use of free choice. Finally, in the second epistle, chapter 1, he says: Be diligent, brothers, to make your calling and election sure through good works. Therefore, the certainty of election and predestination depends on foreknowledge of good works; consequently predestination cannot exist without it. For predestination is certain with respect to the attainment of its effects.

Second. The Greek Fathers who wrote before St. Augustine unanimously taught that predestination was made according to foreknowledge of the good use of free choice. This is clear from St. Prosper's letter to Augustine, where he says: Almost all—that is, the ancient Fathers—are found to have a similar and single opinion: they accepted God's purpose and predestination according to foreknowledge, so that God made some vessels of honor and others of dishonor for this reason: he foresaw each person's end and, under the help of grace itself, foreknew what his will and action would be. Origen teaches the same in book 7 of his commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. Explaining the passage in Romans 9, Does not the potter have power, etc., he says: Jacob was chosen as a vessel of honor because he purified himself; for God, seeing his purity, made him a vessel of honor from the same mass of Adam. Chrysostom holds the same view in homily 16 on the Epistle to the Romans, as do Theodoret, Theophylact, and Oecumenius on the words of Romans 8, For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined. For all teach that election was made on the basis of foreseen merits. Among the Latin Fathers, St. Jerome in letter to Hedibia, question 10, teaches the same thing plainly enough. After saying much about reprobation and predestination, he adds: From this it is shown that not nations, but the wills of human beings, are chosen. St. Augustine likewise says in chapter 10 of On the Predestination of the Saints that predestination cannot exist without foreknowledge. Finally, St. Thomas says in 3. p. q. 1. ar. 3. ad 4. that predestination presupposes foreknowledge of future things. This must be understood of conditional foreknowledge. Therefore, such foreknowledge is presupposed to predestination.

Third. By the eternal decree of his will, God predestined us to be justified and saved in the same way in which we are in fact justified and saved in time, as St. Thomas teaches in 1. p. q. 23. ar. 5, in the argument on the contrary. But all adults are justified and saved dependently on the good use of free choice. Therefore, that they were predestined from eternity through those means by which they are justified and saved depends not only on the divine will by which God decreed to confer those means of salvation upon the predestined, but also on the free cooperation and influence of choice, foreknown by God.

Fourth. With the same helps on God's part by which one person is justified and saved, another, through his own freedom, is neither justified nor saved. Therefore, for the will to confer such helps to have formally the character of predestination depends on the free influence of created choice—that is, on God's foreknowledge that the predestined person would use those helps well. The antecedent is proved as follows: given any helps of prevenient grace, it remains open to a person to cooperate with them or not to cooperate; otherwise he would not cooperate freely. Therefore, if he cooperates, as he can, he will be saved; but if he does not cooperate, he will not be saved. It can happen that one person cooperates while another does not, even when they have the same helps. Therefore, it can happen that, with the same helps on God's part, one person is saved and predestined while another is condemned and becomes reprobate. Consequently, predestination does not exist without foreknowledge of the good use of free choice.

This opinion can be confirmed by all the arguments with which in disputation 22 we endeavored to prove that, by an absolute and efficacious decree antecedent to middle knowledge, God did not predetermine our free acts, including supernatural ones. For those same arguments seem to prove that predestination was not made antecedently to foreknowledge of the good use of free choice.

IIII. The third opinion belongs to other theologians, who assert that foreknowledge of the good use of free choice does not, in the order of reason, precede predestination—that is, the decree of the divine will by which God predestined human beings—but is simultaneous with predestination itself, so that foreknowledge neither precedes predestination nor follows it. They think this opinion is expressly taught by St. Augustine and St. Thomas. They speak expressly of the knowledge of vision, by which God foreknows future merits proceeding from the help of grace. They prove their opinion with many authoritative passages from St. Augustine, St. Thomas, and St. Prosper, who seem in general to assert that foreknowledge of merits is simultaneous with predestination. They also prove it by very many arguments, the chief of which follow.

Fifth, it is argued: if God predestined some people altogether antecedently to foreknowledge of the good use of free choice, one of three very great absurdities would follow. For such a decree of predestination would either not be entirely certain, or it could be fulfilled in execution without the cooperation of the predestined person, or it would impose absolute necessity upon that person. This is proved as follows. Given that decree, which is antecedent to foreknowledge of cooperation, either the predestined person can still fail to cooperate, or he will cooperate necessarily on the hypothesis of that same decree. If he can still fail to cooperate, then the decree could go unfulfilled and would therefore be uncertain; or, if it is certain and will be fulfilled despite this, it could be fulfilled without the cooperation of the predestined person. But if it is said that he cooperates necessarily on the hypothesis of that decree, then the decree imposes an absolute necessity of cooperation upon the predestined person. For a necessity that follows from some hypothesis which is neither the act itself nor includes in itself a relation to the exercise of that act is a necessity without qualification.

Sixth: it would follow that all human beings are predestined by God, insofar as it depends on him, or that eternal salvation is impossible for some who are living this life. It would consequently also follow that the Lord Christ did not die for all in respect of sufficiency, which is contrary to the express passages of Scripture. The consequence is proved as follows: if predestination was made, in the order of reason, antecedently to foreknowledge of the good use of free choice, then those who were not predestined before that foreknowledge will not be able to be saved. For God's predestination is necessary for attaining eternal salvation, since only the predestined are saved. Therefore either everyone is predestined before that foreknowledge, or there will be some people living as wayfarers who cannot be saved.

Seventh. God is no respecter of persons. For the Apostle Peter says in Acts 10: In truth I have found that God is no respecter of persons. But God would be a respecter of persons if he predestined some and reprobated others before foreknowledge of the good or bad use of free choice. For when two people are altogether equal and in an equal situation, to prefer one to another without any cause is respect of persons. Yet all are equal in themselves both in nature and in original sin. Thus, the conclusion follows.

V. The fourth opinion belongs to other recent Doctors, who distinguish between predestination to grace and predestination to glory. On this supposition:

First, they say that predestination to grace was made by God antecedently to foreknowledge of the good use of free choice. They say that this alone was St. Augustine's intention in teaching against the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians that God's election does not arise from merits, but solely from God's gratuitous will. For before the first help of grace, no merit can be understood to exist in nature on account of which grace might be given; otherwise grace would no longer be grace, but a reward.

Second, they say that the efficacious election to glory was made on the basis of foreseen merits proceeding from grace; and they say that St. Augustine taught this doctrine and nowhere even slightly suggested the contrary. They bring forward the following arguments in its support.

Eighth, it is argued: by his antecedent, or conditional, will, God wills to give eternal life universally to all; but he does not will this by his consequent will, which is efficacious. The antecedent will is posited in God before foreseen merits or demerits, and for that reason is equal with respect to all. But the consequent will is not in God before foreseen merits or demerits, but follows them; for that is why it is called consequent will. It is not equal with respect to all, because it is in God after his foreknowledge of their different merits. Therefore the efficacious election to glory was not made before the merits proceeding from grace were foreseen.

Ninth, it is argued from an analogy with what happens among human beings. If a king offered a prize to contestants on the condition that no one obtain it unless he proved victorious, he would surely never decree, by an absolute and efficacious will, to give the offered prize to someone, even if he loved him, before seeing him victorious. But God offers eternal life to all as a prize, to be bestowed on this condition: no one obtains this prize unless he has competed lawfully, as is clear from 2 Timothy 2: No one will be crowned unless he has competed lawfully. Therefore, before foreseen merits proceeding from grace, God did not decree to give glory to anyone.

Tenth. We must assign the same order among the objects themselves as actually exists, according to the different signs of reason in the divine decree. For since the divine will is utterly simple and its act is one and most simple, we ought not distinguish it even according to our way of understanding except in accordance with the different order that the objects willed by God have among themselves. But the object that is eternal blessedness has no order to predestined adults except with merits presupposed: for no one is worthy of eternal life unless merits have preceded. Therefore, by his absolute and efficacious decree God does not will eternal life for anyone unless merits of grace foreknown by God are presupposed. Consequently, predestination to glory is based on foreseen merits.

This is confirmed as follows. Although an efficacious intention of an end is prior to the choice of means when the means are a physical cause of attaining the end, as medicine is in relation to health, when the means are only a moral or meritorious cause of attaining the end, the efficacious intention of the end does not precede the choice of means but presupposes it. Yet merits proceeding from grace are not a physical cause of attaining glory, but only a moral cause. Therefore, in God the efficacious will to predestine to glory—which is the end of an intellectual creature—does not precede the choice of merits or foreknowledge of them, but presupposes it. They adduce other arguments from effects in confirmation of their opinion, drawn from the freedom of choice and the efficacy of merits; these present no new difficulty beyond the one touched upon in the preceding arguments.

VI. The fifth opinion maintains that God's efficacious election both to grace and to glory precedes foreseen merits in the order of reason. That is, the efficacious intention to give the predestined grace and glory proceeds from God's gratuitous will alone, without any merits foreseen. This is the common opinion of the Thomists and is explicitly taught by St. Augustine and St. Thomas, as well as by other Doctors, as will become clear below.

VII. To resolve this difficulty, we must presuppose everything we said about knowledge of future conditionals in disputation 7, where we taught that there is no middle knowledge between purely natural and purely free knowledge, because before a free decree of the divine will it is not knowable what a created will would do if placed in such circumstances. We must also presuppose what we shall say about the efficacy of the decree of the divine will and of the helps of grace in disputations 72 and 90. And, so that the truth we sincerely seek may appear more clearly, note first that, as St. Thomas teaches in 1. par. quaest. 23. artic. 2. 3. et 4. on the authority of St. Augustine in book de dono persev., chapter 14, and as we noted above in disputation 35: Predestination is the foreknowledge and preparation of God's benefits, by which all who are delivered are most certainly delivered.¹¹ The same holy Doctors commonly give this definition in other words: Predestination is the preparation of grace in the present and glory in the future. Here “grace” and “God's benefits” include not only justifying grace and the meritorious works that proceed from it, but also all the supernatural gifts and helps by which a human being is disposed and led to eternal life. As St. Thomas noted in 1. par. quaest. 23. artic. 2. ad tertium, this preparation is twofold:¹² one is in the preparer, namely in God, insofar as through his intellect and will he conceives beforehand and arranges the order of what is to be done in time, so that by it the elect may be led to eternal life. Such preparation is predestination formally. The other preparation is found in the person being prepared, who is disposed by God to attain eternal life efficaciously. This preparation, taken passively, is also called predestination by common usage, the name of the cause being taken to signify its effect. This manner of speaking is frequent in Sacred Scripture, as in 1 Thessalonians 4: This is the will of God, your sanctification. There the sanctification found and received in us is called God's will because it is its effect.

Note second that the influence of free choice by which a predestined person freely consents to God as he calls and stirs him—even when considered formally, as proceeding from free choice—is an effect of predestination, as was shown in the preceding disputation and will become clearer in disputations 96 and 97. Consequently, it is not presupposed on our part as prior to predestination itself.

VIII. Note third that something may be said to be prior to something else in three ways. First, by priority in time, as Adam was prior to the Antichrist. Second, by priority in nature, namely when it is the cause of the other; for although a cause may be in the same instant of time as its effect, it is prior in nature, as the Sun is prior in nature to its rays.¹³ Third, something is said to be prior to another in the order of reason when, according to our way of understanding, it is conceived and understood before the other, although it precedes it neither in time nor in nature. For example, the knowledge of simple understanding, by which God knows possible things, is prior in the order of reason to the knowledge of vision, because according to our way of understanding we first conceive that God knows possible things and then that he knows things actually existing. Nevertheless, the knowledge of simple understanding is not prior in God, either in time or in nature, to the knowledge of vision, because nothing in God can be the cause of anything else. The same must be said proportionally of the divine essence in relation to the Persons, their notional properties, or even the relations: in the order of reason we understand the essence before the Persons or their divine properties or relations.

Fourth, we must presuppose that although God does not understand or will one object before another, but by one and most simple act his intellect and will understand and will simultaneously from eternity whatever he wills and understands, nevertheless according to our way of understanding we must distinguish different instants and signs of reason, in which, on the part of the object, he is said to understand or will one thing before another.¹⁴ In the first sign of reason, therefore, God knows through the knowledge of simple understanding all possible creatures. In the second sign, from among all possible creatures, by his sheer gratuitous will and for the manifestation of his goodness, he decreed to create or produce the order of this universe, with all the creatures, bodily and spiritual, that belong to it; among them he placed our first parents with grace and original justice. This grace, insofar as it belonged to the state of innocence, was not an effect of Adam's predestination, nor was it conferred on him through the merits of the Lord Christ, as will become clear in disputation 40, because it was not the grace of a frail or redeemed human being, but an effect of God's supernatural providence. In the third sign, he decreed to permit the sin of our first parent for the sake of a greater good, namely, so that the divine Word might assume human flesh as its remedy. In the fourth sign, he willed the Incarnation of the Word as a remedy for sin, and predestined the Lord Christ, insofar as he is man, as the head of all the predestined and the exemplar of the Saints. In the fifth sign, he loved, chose, and predestined in the Lord Christ and through Christ all the predestined, and by an absolute and efficacious will willed for them the good of eternal life. As for the rest, he reprobated them, willing by an absolute and efficacious will not to give them this good, which is eternal life. In the sixth sign, he decreed to confer on the predestined efficacious helps of grace and good merits, through which he would in fact lead them to eternal life; but to the reprobate he decreed sufficient helps, by which they could be saved. He decreed not to give them the efficacious helps by which they would in fact be saved—in such a way that they would in fact receive those helps—but willed, for the manifestation of his justice and the splendor of his mercy in the elect, to permit the reprobate's sins and their perseverance in them until the end of life; and on account of those same sins he also decreed at last to inflict eternal punishment upon them. With these points presupposed, then, let the following be established:

IX. First proposition. Predestination, formally speaking, in the character of predestination, does not depend even as on a condition without which it could not be on the good use of free choice foreknown by God; nor does it presuppose, in the order of reason, foreknowledge of that use.¹⁵ If we are speaking of the good use proceeding from the faculty of nature alone, the authors of the first and second opinions accept the conclusion, although some assert, as was said above, that certain acts of free choice proceeding from the faculty of nature alone ordinarily precede the first prevenient grace. Nevertheless, as we shall note in disputation 56, St. Augustine very often shows against the Semi-Pelagians that God's grace, or his help, from which the first beginning of our salvation is taken, must come first, so that nothing is presupposed from the principles of nature which, once posited, would bring grace's help infallibly.

Nevertheless, the conclusion is proved universally, including insofar as it extends to the good use proceeding from the help of grace.

The first argument is drawn from the authority of the Apostle in Romans 9: When they had not yet been born or done anything good or evil, so that God's purpose according to election might stand—not from works, but from him who calls—it was said: The elder shall serve the younger; as it is written: Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. As is clear from the whole context of the passage, by these words he intends to exclude every cause of predestination that lies on our part, and every reason or condition without which it would not occur, and to trace the benefit of predestination back to God's sheer and gratuitous will. Hence St. Augustine, in q. 2. ad Simplicianum, when considering the Apostle's words just cited, notes first that the Apostle deliberately said Isaac begot both sons, Jacob and Esau, from one act of intercourse. This was to remove the suspicion that the predestination of one could be referred to the merits of his parents at the time they begot him—as if they had been in grace at the conception of one and in sin at the conception of the other—and also to remove from astrologers the opportunity to attribute their different lots to the different aspect of the stars under which they were born. Second, Augustine notes that the Apostle deliberately said, “when they had not yet been born or done anything good or evil,” lest anyone refer their predestination or reprobation to their own prior merits or demerits. Third, Augustine observes that the Apostle therefore added, “not from works, but from him who calls,” etc., to show that the predestination of one and the reprobation of the other are not to be referred to a difference in their subsequent deeds, or to their own foreseen merits or demerits, but solely to the divine will, as in the words: I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will show compassion to whom I show compassion.¹⁶ And again he says: It is not of him who wills or of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. And again: Therefore he has mercy on whom he wills, and he hardens whom he wills. And again: O man, who are you to answer back to God? Shall the thing formed say to the one who formed it, “Why have you made me thus? St. Augustine repeats and insists on these words often, to show against the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians that predestination was not made on the basis of foreseen merits, even merits grounded in grace, but from God's sheer will and grace.

X. Some respond that from this passage of the Apostle we may conclude only that predestination was not made from foreseen merits, nor according to foreseen merits, even those grounded in grace, but from God's sole and free will. They say, however, that the Apostle does not intend to teach or prove that predestination was made without foreknowledge of merits proceeding from grace, or before such foreknowledge—the foreknowledge by which God knew future merits on the hypothesis that free choice were placed in such circumstances and given such helps.

But an argument presses against this response. The Apostle intends to exclude everything that lies on our part, so that free choice may glory in God and not in itself, and may claim nothing for itself that it has not received. He therefore holds that nothing on our part is presupposed, not even as a condition without which God would not have predestined his elect. Moreover, otherwise all the arguments that the Apostle presents in the same chapter could easily be answered, and there would have been no need to appeal to the depth of the riches of God's wisdom and knowledge, or to the depth and incomprehensibility of his judgments. For one could answer that God already knew before the decree of his will predestining or reprobating them what they would do, by their innate freedom, with the helps of grace given or to be given to them, and what others would not do. Thus these people remained predestined with these helps because they were foreseen as going to use their choice well; others, however, remained reprobate with the same helps because they were not going to use their choice well. Yet the Apostle does not resort to this response, but to God's sheer and gratuitous will and to his unsearchable judgments.

Nor is the response of certain theologians valid: they assert that the Apostle resorts to God's will alone and to his unsearchable judgments because by his own gratuitous will God chose to place the predestined in an order of things and circumstances in which he foresaw they would use the helps of grace well, although he could have placed them in other circumstances in which he foresaw that, on the hypothesis that they were placed in those same circumstances, they would use those same helps badly.¹⁷ They also say that by his sheer will God decreed to place the reprobate in an order of things and circumstances in which he foresaw that, by their innate freedom, they would use their choice badly, although he could have placed those same people in other circumstances in which he foresaw that they would use their choice so well that, with divine help, they would attain eternal salvation, on the hypothesis that they were placed in those circumstances. Nor, as to this, is any condition on our part presupposed without which predestination would not occur. For God foresaw of many people that, if they were created in such circumstances, they would use exciting grace well and be saved; nevertheless, he decided neither to create them nor to place them in those same circumstances. I say that this response is invalid because Pelagius expressly conceded that free choice is created by God entirely gratuitously and without any merits, even hypothetical future ones. All the more, then, the Massilians either conceded, or would very readily have conceded, that no reason can be assigned on the part of the good use of free choice that would occur hypothetically for God's choosing, from among the infinite possible human beings who (as they asserted) would have used their choice well if God created them in such circumstances, to create these particular people or those and place them in those circumstances in which they would be saved. Rather, they would refer all of this to God's sheer and gratuitous will. The opposite is not credible, for then they would be compelled to admit that all possible human beings and Angels who would have used their choice well on the hypothesis that they were stirred and moved by such grace in such circumstances were in fact predestined by God by an absolute and efficacious will. For that reason applies equally to all possible human beings and Angels, and this could not have occurred to them. Therefore, when St. Augustine presses the Pelagians and their remnants from scriptural passages that there is no cause of predestination on the part of the good use of free choice foreknown by God, he means not only that there is no cause on account of which God decided to create a human being and place him in those circumstances in which he foresaw the person would use his choice so well as to attain eternal salvation. He also means that there is no reason or condition on the part of the hypothetical future good use of free choice on which it would depend whether the order of means to an end, preexisting in the divine mind, acquired the formal character of predestination or retained only the character of common supernatural providence. Second, the same point is shown as follows: otherwise, as the first root, we would have to refer the distinction between the predestined and the non-predestined to foreknowledge alone, and not to God's gratuitous will. Consequently, the ultimate difference found between them would have to be referred to natural freedom, from which alone, according to the opposing opinion, proceeds one person's making a free contribution by consenting to the helps of exciting grace. This is clearly proved: according to the opposing opinion, that contribution, insofar as it proceeds from free choice, is an effect neither of grace nor of predestination, as is clear from what was said in the preceding disputation. But by that contribution the predestined person is distinguished from the non-predestined. Therefore, the predestined person is distinguished from the non-predestined by something he has from his innate freedom and has not received from grace. Third, not only must it be referred to God's gratuitous will that he placed the elect in those circumstances in which he foresaw they would use their choice well by consenting to the helps of prevenient grace; it must also be referred to that same will that they be willing to consent and do consent to God as he calls them. Hence St. Prosper says in lib. 1. de vocat. Gent. c. 25.: That question which, in accord with the Apostle's mind, we acknowledge to be impenetrable is not resolved through free choice's willing and refusing; for although not willing the good is present in a human being, he does not have the willing of the good unless it is given.

XII. St. Thomas confirms this argument in q. 6. de verit. ar. 3. in corp., where he says: It cannot be said that predestination adds nothing to the certainty of providence except the certainty of foreknowledge, as if one were to say that God orders the predestined person to salvation just as he does anyone else, but knows in addition about the predestined person that he will not fail to attain salvation. For if one speaks this way, the predestined person would not be said to differ from the non-predestined on the part of the order, but only on the part of foreknowledge of the outcome; thus foreknowledge would be the cause of predestination, and predestination would not occur through the choice of the one predestining, which is contrary to the authority of Scripture and the sayings of the Saints.¹⁸ Here St. Thomas most clearly excludes the opinion we are refuting and asserts that the difference between the predestined and the non-predestined is not drawn from foreknowledge of the good use of free choice in consenting to God as he calls, but from the choice of the one predestining. Hence St. Augustine, after teaching many things in confirmation of this doctrine in tom. 3. lib. de spiritu, et littera c. 34., concludes as follows: If anyone presses us to probe that depth—to ask why one person is persuaded in such a way as to be convinced, but another is not—we have only two answers in mind for now, which I am glad to give: ‘O the depth of riches!’ and ‘Is there injustice with God?’ But if this answer displeases anyone, let him seek out wiser people, while taking care not to find people more presumptuous.

XIII. Some used to respond to the passages brought forward from Romans 9 that the Apostle succumbed to the difficulty and could not find an answer to the question and argument proposed. But St. Augustine also rejects this response in tom. 4. lib. 83. qq q. 68., in these words: Although the Apostle seems to have rebuked the curious by saying, ‘O man, who are you to answer back to God?’, they raise a question about this very matter and do not cease to be curious in the very opinion by which that curiosity was rebuked. It is indeed an impious insult to say that the Apostle failed to resolve the question and rebuked those asking because he could not explain what they asked.¹⁹ A little later he says: Some people, however, reading the Scriptures with a good and pious mind, ask what answer may be given here to those who speak evilly or slanderously. But let us cling with salutary firmness to the Apostle's authority and judge what is true: we are unworthy and weak in understanding the divine secrets within which these matters are shut away. When those who murmur and are indignant that they do not learn God's counsels begin to say, ‘Therefore he has mercy on whom he wills and hardens whom he wills. What more is sought?’, let us answer with complete confidence: ‘O man, who are you to answer back to God?’

XIV. Second, our conclusion is proved from Romans 11: The remnant has been saved according to the election of grace. And from Ephesians 1: He predestined us to adoption as sons according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace. A little later: In him we have also been called by lot, having been predestined according to his purpose.²⁰ Here we should note that predestination is called a lot because it comes to the elect not from merits, even foreseen merits, but from God's gratuitous will, which is expressed in the words according to the purpose of his will, and in Romans 8: For those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called saints according to his purpose. It does not say, “according to foreknowledge of the good use of free choice,” nor “according to foreseen merits,” but according to the purpose of his will. Nor should we accept the explanation of certain modern authors who assert that the Apostle is speaking of a human purpose, so that the meaning is that people are predestined according to the purpose of our will or free choice as it consents to God calling. St. Augustine expressly rejects this explanation in lib. 2. cont. duas epistolas Pelag. cap. 9. and lib. de corrept. et grat. c. 7., where he says: They were chosen because they were called according to a purpose—not their own, but God's, of which he says elsewhere: ‘So that God's purpose according to election might stand.’²¹ And: Not from works, but from him who calls, it was said to her: The elder shall serve the younger.²² Another relevant passage is in Matthew 11: I confess to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to little ones. Yes, Father, for so it was pleasing before you. Here he teaches that the predestination of the elect must be referred to the mere good pleasure of the divine will. Hence certain weighty authors who wrote against heretics in our own time assert that no reason can be assigned for our predestination, nor any condition without which it would not occur—not merits properly so called, nor even the proper use of free choice or of grace, or of both together, foreseen by God, even if it is called merit only by congruity and is not called a true cause but merely a condition without which the predestined person would not be predestined. Hence St. Augustine says in lib. de don. persev. c. 18.: This one thing I know: no one can argue against this predestination, which we defend according to Holy Scripture, except by falling into error.²³

Third, this is proved by the authority of St. Thomas in 1. p. q. 23. art. 5 and tertio cont. Gent. c. 163., q. 6. de verit. art. 2., super cap. 15. Io. lect. 5., ad Rom. 9. lect. 2., and ad Ephes. 1. lect. 1. In these passages he asserts that foreknowledge of merits is not the cause of predestination with respect to its entire effect. St. Thomas also intends to exclude a condition without which predestination would not occur, as is evident from the context itself.

XV. Fourth, this is proved by an argument drawn from the same St. Thomas, 1. p. q. 23. ar. 5, ad 3. To make this clear, we must presuppose what he taught in the body of the same article and in q. 20. ar. 2.: namely, that this is the difference between God's will and ours: God's will does not presuppose goodness in the things he loves and chooses, but by loving and choosing them he causes in them the goodness and suitability for the end to which they are ordered by divine providence.²⁴ Hence the Apostle says: He has made us competent ministers of a new covenant.²⁵ He placed “competent” before “ministers,” because God first gives people competence for a certain ministry and then gives them the ministry itself: by choosing them, he makes them competent ministers. Created will, by contrast, presupposes in the object it loves a true or apparent goodness caused by something else. Given this, the argument proceeds as follows. No cause, reason, or condition without which it would not occur can be assigned on the part of creatures to explain why, from among all possible Angels, God created these rather than those. Nor can a reason be assigned on the part of the elements on which it would depend that God produced this portion of water or air at the first creation in this place rather than in that one. These things are referred solely to God's sheer will. Therefore, all the more, no reason or condition without which it would not occur can be assigned on our part on which it would depend that the order of means to an end, as applied to this human being, should acquire the character of predestination. The consequence is proved as follows: just as God's will was the cause of creatures with respect to their natural existence, so too God's gratuitous will and love are the true cause and first root of predestination and of all the spiritual goods he confers on intellectual creatures for eternal salvation.

Fifth, it is proved as follows. As was shown in the preceding disputation, the good use of free choice by which a person consents to God as he calls and stirs him, even insofar as it proceeds from free choice, is an effect of predestination in the predestined. Therefore, it is not presupposed on our part as prior to predestination itself, even as a condition without which it would not occur. The consequence is clear: an effect cannot be presupposed to its cause or be required beforehand, even as a condition without which it would not occur, for its causality.

Sixth, it is proved as follows. Before predestination, the good use of created free choice, foreknown by God through the knowledge of vision, is not understood beforehand. For such knowledge follows the decree of the divine will and predestination in the order of reason. God foreknew that good use precisely because he predestined it, as St. Augustine expressly teaches in the passages cited in disputation 7, number 28. Nor is such good use presupposed as foreknown through conditional knowledge, by which it is asserted that before an actual decree of his will, even a decree conditional with respect to the object willed, God knows certainly and infallibly what a created will would do in particular on the hypothesis that God placed it in a certain order of things. For this object is not knowable even to God antecedently to an actual decree of his will, as we showed at length in that same disputation 7. Therefore, and so forth.

XVI. Second conclusion. Foreknowledge of merits is not simultaneous with predestination in the same sign of reason.²⁶ This conclusion is against the third opinion; nevertheless, it is common among the Thomists and accords with the mind of St. Augustine and St. Thomas. For St. Augustine teaches that God knows with certainty the future salvation of a human being because he predestined it. He therefore holds that predestination precedes, in the order of reason, foreknowledge of future salvation or of the cooperation of free choice. The antecedent is proved as follows. In chapter 10 of On the Predestination of the Saints, he says: By predestination he foreknew the things he himself was going to do; hence it is said, ‘He made the things that are to be.’ And in chapter 17: They were chosen, then, before the foundation of the world by that predestination in which God foreknew his future works. He says the same in chapter 19 and in lib. de don. persev., chapters 14, 18, 22, and 24.

Second: the knowledge of vision follows the decree of the divine will. Therefore, the decree itself is prior in the order of reason to such foreknowledge. Therefore, predestination is not made on the basis of a foreseen good use of free choice, foreknown by God in the same sign of reason in which predestination is understood.

Third. Calling is an effect of predestination, as is clear from the Apostle's authority in Romans 8: Those whom he predestined, these he also called, etc. Therefore predestination precedes, in the order of reason, the good use of free choice and foreknowledge of it. The consequence is clear: that good use follows the calling itself, for no one uses his choice well unless the calling of God who moves him comes first. Since, then, predestination precedes calling, it follows that it also precedes, in the order of reason, the future good use of free choice and foreknowledge of it.

XVII. Third conclusion. There is no cause on our part, nor any condition without which it would not occur, not only for predestination to grace but also for predestination to glory; rather, such predestination was made antecedently, in the order of reason, to foreseen merits.²⁷ Thus, with no foreseen merits presupposed, God had an efficacious intention to give glory to all the elect. The first part of this conclusion has been sufficiently proved by what was said in the first conclusion. The second part is against the authors of the fourth opinion, but is commonly asserted by the Thomists. Cajetan teaches it in 1. p. q. 23. art. 4., Soto in his commentary on cap. 9. ad Rom., Durandus in primo d. 41. q. 1. num. 8., Giles of Rome in the same place, article 2, Scotus in the same distinction, question 1, section “potest aliter,” Corduba in lib. 1. q. 56. opinion. 5., and Zumel in 1. p. q. 23. art. 5. disput. 1. ad primum argumentum.

It is proved first from Sacred Scripture. For Acts 13 says: All who were ordained to eternal life believed. These words plainly imply that the ordering of the elect to eternal life precedes, in the order of reason, the gifts of grace—that is, the will to give them efficacious helps by which they merit eternal life. Likewise, Luke 12 says: Do not be afraid, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom. These words express the gratuitous will by which the heavenly Father, before foreseeing merits of grace, had the will or efficacious intention to give them glory. This is confirmed by the authority of the Council of Valence, under Emperor Lothair, chapter 3, which says: We confess the predestination of the elect to life and of the wicked to death; yet in the election of those to be saved, God's mercy precedes good merit.

It is proved second by the authority of St. Augustine, lib. de corrept. et grat. cap. 7., where, speaking of God's gratuitous election, he says: They were certainly chosen by election, as was said, freely, not on account of preceding merits. And explaining what they were chosen for, he adds: They were chosen to reign with Christ. A little later he says: Them, he says, he chose to obtain his kingdom. And in chapter 13 he says: Of those, he says, I speak who are predestined to the kingdom of God. In lib. de dono persev. cap. 14., he says that many are not given the help to believe because, by God's higher judgment, they have not been separated from the mass of perdition by the predestination of grace. Here he clearly presupposes that the gifts of grace by which the elect infallibly attain eternal life, or merit it, are effects of predestination to glory. Consequently, predestination to glory precedes, in the order of reason, the will to give the merits of grace.

St. Thomas teaches the same in the body of 1. p. q. 23. art. 4. For he says that the predestination of some to eternal salvation presupposes in the order of reason that God wills their salvation, to which election and love belong. He is plainly speaking here of the efficacious willing by which God wills eternal salvation for the elect. By “eternal salvation,” St. Thomas does not mean only justifying grace, perseverance in grace, or the will to give fitting helps, as the authors of the opposing opinion interpret him; he means eternal glory, because he speaks expressly of the will of the end, which prudence presupposes when it prescribes the means. And in article 3, ad 1, he says that insofar as God does not will for some this good, which is eternal life, he is said to hate or reprobate them. He therefore holds that God is said to choose the elect insofar as he wills eternal life for them. But according to St. Thomas election arises from God's gratuitous will before foreseen merits. Therefore, according to his opinion, predestination to glory, which follows election, is prior to foreseen merits.

Third, it is proved by reason: the holy Fathers in general, and even Sacred Scripture, teach absolutely that the predestined were chosen before merits were foreseen, as is clear from the passages cited above. But people are not called simply and absolutely “chosen” unless they are chosen to glory, as is clear from Matthew 24: For the sake of the elect those days will be shortened; and 2 Timothy 2: I endure all things for the sake of the elect, so that they too may attain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with heavenly glory. Otherwise, reprobate people, while in grace, would be called simply “chosen.” Therefore election to glory was made before merits were foreseen.

Fourth, it is proved as follows: the efficacious intention of the end is prior, in the order of causality and of reason, to the choice of means, at least on the part of the object willed, since means, precisely as means, are desirable only on account of the end.²⁸ But the will to choose some for glory is an efficacious intention of the end, for glory is the end of merits. Therefore, in God the will to choose for glory is prior in the order of reason to the will to give the merits of grace. Election to glory, then, cannot be based on merits of grace.

XVIII. Fourth conclusion. Election to glory, with respect to its execution in time, is not without preceding merits of grace, or at least without the merits of Christ.²⁹ I say this on account of baptized infants, who attain glory without their own merit because the merits of the Lord Christ are applied to them through baptism under the law of grace, through circumcision under the written law, or through another remedy under the law of nature.

To understand this conclusion, we must presuppose that, as St. Augustine teaches in tract. 68. in Ioan., election is twofold: one by way of intention, the other by way of temporal execution.³⁰ The former was made from eternity; the latter takes place in time—or, to speak more precisely, its execution takes place in time—according to Matthew 13: They selected the good into their vessels. It is of this second election to glory that we assert it presupposes merits of grace. St. Augustine intends to teach only this conclusion when he says: No one is chosen unless already distinguished from the one rejected. Hence I do not see how the words, ‘God chose us before the foundation of the world,’ can be understood except of foreknowledge,³¹ namely, of merits. And speaking of Jacob, he says: He was not chosen in order to become good; rather, once he had become good, he could be chosen. In sermon 7 on the Lord's words according to Matthew he says: God chose, as the Apostle says, according to his grace and according to their righteousness. Here he suggests a twofold election to glory: one according to the order of intention, which he says was made according to grace; the other in execution, which he says was made according to their righteousness because it presupposes merits of grace, to which glory is due in justice, according to 2 Timothy 4: From now on a crown of righteousness is laid up for me. Explaining Romans 11, The remnant has been saved according to the election of grace, he says: I chose them because I saw their minds trusting in me and not in Baal.

XIX. An objection is raised: in the cited passage to Simplician, St. Augustine is expressly speaking of God's eternal election. For he cites the Apostle's testimony in Ephesians 1: He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, and says it must be understood according to foreknowledge. He is therefore not speaking of the execution of election, which takes place in time. We reply that God's eternal election can be considered in two ways. First, as the intention to give glory; second, as the arrangement of its execution—that is, the execution itself conceived beforehand in God's mind. St. Augustine speaks in this second sense, not the first. Many learned men explain in the same sense the passage of Ambrose, lib. 7. in Lucam, where he says: Those whom he foreknew would be devoted to him, he chose for eternal rewards. The Greek Fathers who say that election was made according to foreknowledge of merits should be explained in the same way and brought into agreement with St. Augustine's teaching.

Second, this is proved from Matthew 25: Come, you blessed of my Father; possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, etc. These words signify that good works done out of charity are a meritorious cause of attaining glory, as St. Thomas also expressly teaches in 1. p. q. 23. ar. 5.

XX. To the first argument, among those made at the outset in support of the second opinion, we reply that, as Cajetan teaches in his commentary on the authority cited from St. Paul, the foreknowledge of which the Apostle speaks there follows predestination itself, or the decree of the divine will. For God foreknew the future salvation of the elect because he predestined it, as St. Augustine says in the passages cited in disputation 7, no. 28, and in this disputation, no. 16.

Second, as is clear from the passages of Scripture and St. Augustine cited in the preceding disputation, no. 2, “to foreknow” often means the same as “to predestine,” “to approve,” or “to love” in Sacred Scripture;³² similarly, “not to know” means the same as “to reprobate.” This answers the passages cited from Romans 11 and 1 Peter 1. To the other authority from the second epistle of St. Peter, we reply that it proves only that the certainty of predestination, with respect to attaining its final effect, namely glory, depends on preceding merits of grace, as was said in the fourth conclusion.

To the second argument, we reply that the Greek Fathers were not opposed to St. Augustine's opinion, as St. Augustine himself suggests in lib. de dono persev. c. 14. They must be understood in accordance with what we said in the fourth conclusion. The authority of St. Jerome and of St. Augustine in chapter 10 of On the Predestination of the Saints must be explained in the same way. Or one may say that St. Augustine there speaks of the knowledge of vision or approval, which follows the decree of the divine will that predestines, as was said.

XXI. To St. Thomas's authority from the third part, we reply, following Cajetan's teaching on the same passage, that predestination presupposes foreknowledge of future things, but not of all of them. It does not presuppose foreknowledge of those future things that are constituted through predestination itself; rather, in the order of reason, predestination is presupposed to foreknowledge of these future things.³³³⁴ Therefore, predestination presupposes only foreknowledge of those future things that are not constituted through predestination itself. In this way, Christ's predestination presupposed in God, in the order of reason, foreknowledge of Adam's future sin, as a remedy for which the Word was made flesh.

To the third, we reply that the order of execution is contrary to the order of intention. For the end is intended first, yet is put into effect last. Hence, although in execution a predestined adult does not attain justifying grace and glory without the free consent of choice moved by a special help from God, nevertheless in the intention God willed glory for the elect first, in the order of reason, before he decided to confer on them the means by which they would attain this end. We reply to St. Thomas's authority that its meaning is this: just as in time he saved us not from works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy,³⁵ so also from eternity he arranged to save us according to his mercy and not on the basis of preceding merits, in that he willed to confer the first effect of predestination on the predestined entirely gratuitously. And just as in execution he grants glory to the elect on account of merits of grace, so also from eternity he arranged this execution in his decree and mind after he had willed glory for them by an absolute will as their end.

XXII. To the fourth argument, the antecedent is denied if the statement concerns all the helps of prevenient grace, both sufficient and efficacious. For, as will become clear in disputation 108, the person who is converted and saved always receives within himself a new help of efficacious grace that the other person, who persists in sin, does not receive. This efficacious help is greater and more excellent than any of the sufficient helps. To the proof of the antecedent, we reply that, once the efficacious help of prevenient grace is posited, a person necessarily cooperates with a necessity of infallibility and consequence alone, which is not incompatible with freedom, but not with absolute necessity, as was explained in disputation 25.

By this we answer the fifth argument in support of the third opinion. We say that none of the three absurdities follows from our doctrine. For the decree of predestination—that is, the decree of God who predestines—is most certain with respect to the attainment of its effect, not only by the certainty of foreknowledge but also by the certainty of the order and causality of its means, as will be clear in disputation 41.³⁶ Similarly, with respect to some effects of predestination, its execution does not take place without the free consent of our choice. But it does not follow from this that the decree imposes an absolute necessity of cooperation on free choice, only a conditional necessity, as was said. When it is objected that the necessity of an act arising from some hypothesis which is neither the act itself nor includes an order to its execution is an unqualified necessity, we reply that the divine decree, on the supposition of which the consent of free choice is necessary by a necessity of infallibility, includes an order to the execution of that same free consent as an effect that God produces through free choice. Hence foreknowledge of this future consent does not precede the decree itself, nor is it simultaneous with the decree in the same sign of reason, but follows it: for an effect is always understood as posterior to its efficient cause. How the freedom of choice is compatible with a necessity of infallibility was explained in disputation 22, nos. 40 and 41.

To the sixth, we reply that every human being, as long as he is a wayfarer, can, absolutely speaking, be saved, even if he is not predestined. Predestination is not necessary in order for someone to be able to be saved absolutely, but in order for him to be saved infallibly. See St. Thomas, 1. p. q. 23. art. 3, ad 3, where he raises and resolves the same argument.

XXIII. To the seventh, we reply that respect of persons has no place in things that are entirely gratuitous, as is clear from Matthew 20: Is it not lawful for me to do what I will? Or is your eye evil because I am good? Friend, take what is yours and go in peace.³⁷ Since eternal blessedness and grace are owed to no pure creature, God is no respecter of persons when by his gratuitous will, before foreseen merits, he chooses one person for eternal life and does not choose another, even if all are equal with respect to natural endowments.

To the eighth, we reply that consequent will is found in God antecedently to foreknowledge of merits and demerits, as was said in disputation 34.

To the ninth, we reply that a temporal king cannot efficaciously make victorious the person he loves and to whom he wishes to give a crown. Hence he cannot, by an absolute will, will the crown offered for victory to that person without presupposing the same victory. But God can efficaciously make victorious whomever he wills. Therefore, by an absolute will he can rightly will the crown of glory for the elect by way of intention before foreseeing their victory. Hence on the feast of St. Vincent the Martyr the Church sings: He himself keeps a crown prepared for you in heaven, he who made you victorious amid torments.³⁸

To the tenth, we reply that eternal blessedness, according to the divine intention, has an order to predestined adults prior to foreseen merits, though not in execution. For in execution blessedness presupposes merits, as was said in the fourth conclusion.

To the confirmation, we reply that the efficacious intention of the end is always presupposed, in the order of reason, to the choice of means, whether the means are a physical cause of attaining the end or a moral cause. For by its intrinsic character a means presupposes the goodness, or willing, of the end.