Book One

Prooemium: division of the whole work

Disputatio I: Whether the Pelagians ever admitted that any inward grace, or any supernatural help from God, is divinely given for salvation or for fulfilling the precepts of the law

Disputatio VI: Whether the predestination of infants depended on, and presupposed, foreknowledge of the good use of the free will of their parents or of others through whom they came to the grace of baptism.

Whether the predestination of infants depended on foreknowledge of the good use of their parents’ free choice, or of others through whom they came to the grace of baptism, and presupposes it.

I. In this difficulty we have a twofold dispute: one with heretics, the other with Catholics. The heretics, namely the Pelagians, denied that original sin is in infants and asserted that baptism is not necessary for the remission of original sin, but for their attaining the kingdom of heaven. Consequently, they said that infants who died without baptism were predestined or reprobated on account of the good or evil deeds they would have committed had they lived.¹ St Augustine rejects this opinion as erroneous in his book On the Predestination of the Saints, chapters 12 and 13; his book On the Gift of Perseverance, chapters 9 and 10; and Letter 107 to Vitalis. For no one is judged according to what he would have done had he lived, or according to what he would have done had this or that opportunity presented itself to him, but according to what he did in the body—that is, during the time when his soul lived in the body—as is clear from 2 Corinthians 5: We must all appear before the tribunal of Christ, so that each may receive according to what he did in the body, whether good or evil: ‘he did,’ he says, not ‘he would have done.’²

And if it is objected that infants did nothing in the body deserving reward or punishment, the answer with St Augustine is that either by themselves or through others they did something deserving reward or punishment;³ for through others some were baptized, while some were not baptized but died in the sin they contracted from their first parent. Furthermore, otherwise an adult who died in grace would have to be punished with eternal punishment on account of the mortal sins he would have committed had he lived longer. Likewise, one who ended his life in mortal sin would be worthy of glory on account of the repentance he would have had, had a longer life been granted him. To assert this, however, would be most absurd.

II. Among Catholics, however, there is the opinion of certain theologians who assert that, although the predestination of infants was not made on account of the good use of the free choice of their parents or of those who baptized them, nevertheless, as from a condition without which the reason for providing them with the means of salvation would not have had the character of predestination, the predestination of infants depended on God’s foreknowledge of the free will of the person administering baptism and of the free will of the parents who gave birth to those same infants. From this they infer that the certainty that infants will attain eternal life does not come from the certainty of the means or the effect of predestination, but from the certainty of divine foreknowledge.

They prove this first. If infants had not been born of their parents, or if the person baptizing them had not intended to baptize and they had died without baptism, they would not have been predestined. Therefore, whether God’s will, by which he provided them with the means of salvation, acquires in each particular case the character of predestination with respect to infants depended, as on a condition without which it would not be, on foreknowledge of the parents’ will and of the baptizer’s proper intention.

Second: the remedy against original sin provided by God could fail to be applied to an infant, even one who was predestined, for it is applied to him freely and contingently. Likewise, he could die in his mother’s womb, and he could also attain the use of reason, later commit many sins, and be damned. Therefore, his predestination was not certain and infallible by virtue of the means or effects of predestination, but by the certainty of divine foreknowledge. Some moderate this opinion, however, asserting that this foreknowledge is not understood to precede the predestination of infants, but to be simultaneous with it in the same order of reason, as was said above concerning the predestination of adults.

III. Nevertheless, in keeping with what we said in the preceding disputation, it is answered that the predestination of infants, formally speaking and in its character as predestination, does not depend—even as on a condition without which it would not be—on foreknowledge of the will of the parents or of the person administering baptism. Nor does it depend on the concurrence of other natural causes that contribute to the generation and preservation of offspring;⁴ rather, it depends on God’s mere and gratuitous will, as was said above concerning the predestination of adults. This conclusion is defended by all the Thomists and is that of St Thomas and St Augustine in the latter’s book On the Gift of Perseverance, chapter 12, at the end. While treating this question of infants, Augustine says: For God is not compelled by fate to help these infants and not to help those, since the case of both is the same; nor shall we suppose that human affairs in the case of infants are governed not by divine providence but by fortuitous events, when their souls are rational and must either be damned or set free, since not even a sparrow falls to the earth without the will of our Father who is in heaven. Nor should it be attributed to the negligence of parents that an infant dies without baptism, as if the heavenly judgments had no part in the matter, as though those who die badly in this way had themselves chosen, by their own will, the negligent parents from whom they would be born. What shall I say, since an infant sometimes expires before it can be helped through the ministry of the one baptizing? For often, although the parents are hurrying and ministers are ready to give baptism to the infant, it is nevertheless not given because God does not will it: he did not keep that infant in this life so that it might be given.⁵

This is proved as follows: that an infant in fact receive the remedy against original sin and die before reaching the use of reason, at which he could sin mortally, is an effect of that infant’s predestination. Therefore, the predestination of an infant, in its character as predestination, does not depend on the future application of baptism or on a future premature death, nor does it presuppose foreknowledge of that application or death. The inference is clear, for an effect is not presupposed to its cause. The antecedent is proved: the means by which the predestined person effectively attains eternal life are effects of that person’s predestination, as is clear from the definition of predestination explained above. This is also gathered from St Thomas, in the passages to be cited in the following disputation, no. 1. But through the remedy applied against original sin and through premature death, an infant effectively attains eternal life. Therefore these are effects of the predestination of infants.

Second: given that God has predestined an infant, it belongs to God’s providence that the infant be born and preserved until the remedy against original sin can be applied to him. Therefore, given this supposition, it is impossible in the composite sense that this infant not be born or die before the remedy against original sin is applied to him, although, absolutely speaking and in the divided sense, it is possible that it not be applied to him.

Third: otherwise, one would have to concede that something is given on the part of created free choice on which the predestination of an infant depends, and so it would not be purely gratuitous.

They reply that the predestination of infants was nevertheless purely gratuitous, because it arose from God’s mere will that a predestined infant be placed in such an order of things⁶ and in such circumstances that God foresaw that, by the free will of the parents, he would be conceived and, through natural causes, brought to the time when the sacrament of baptism could be applied to him and would in fact be applied. But this answer has already been refuted in the preceding disputation, nos. 10 and 11.

IIII. To the first argument it is answered that, on the supposition that an infant is predestined, it is impossible in the composite sense that the remedy against original sin not be applied to him or that he not be born, although, absolutely speaking, his parents could have refrained from begetting him, and baptism likewise could have not been applied to him. Hence, although baptism was applied to him contingently with respect to the proximate cause, and consequently could have failed to be applied, nevertheless, with respect to the divine will, which infallibly brings about whatever it wills, such application of baptism, the child’s begetting, and premature death introduce a certain necessity of immutability, or of the consequence, as was said in disputation 25. By this, the second argument is answered.

With these points assumed, it must be investigated whether a cause of predestination can be assigned on the part of Christ’s merits.

Book One

Prooemium: division of the whole work

Disputatio I: Whether the Pelagians ever admitted that any inward grace, or any supernatural help from God, is divinely given for salvation or for fulfilling the precepts of the law

Disputatio II: What grace the Semi-Pelagians admitted as necessary for salvation, and where their view agrees with or departs from the error of the Pelagians

Disputatio III: What the Manichaeans formerly held, and the Lutherans and Calvinists hold in our time, about the necessity of grace and the natural powers of our free choice

Disputatio IV: What certain Catholic Doctors hold about the natural powers of free choice and its concord with divine foreknowledge, providence, predestination, and the efficacy of the helps of grace

Disputatio V: How much authority Saint Augustine’s teaching has concerning predestination and grace, and whether it is permissible to depart from it

Book Two

Introduction

Disputatio I: Whether the knowledge of God is suitably divided into the knowledge of simple understanding and the knowledge of vision.

Disputatio II: Whether the knowledge of God is sufficiently divided into knowledge that is merely natural and knowledge that is merely free; or whether, besides both, middle knowledge must be posited in God with respect to conditional future things that depend on the human will.

Disputatio III: Whether all future things are actually present in eternity according to the proper existences they will have in their own measure.

Disputatio IV: Whether God certainly knows future contingents because of their real presence in eternity before they come to be, and whether an existence of this kind contributes anything to the certainty and infallibility of the divine knowledge.

Disputatio V: Whether God certainly and infallibly knows all future contingents in the decree, or predetermination, of his divine will.

Disputatio VI: Whether God certainly and infallibly knows future sins in some decree of his divine will.

Disputatio VII: Whether God certainly and infallibly knows future contingents in the predetermination of secondary causes, especially when the secondary causes are free.

Disputatio VIII: Whether, setting aside every predetermination of the divine will and existence in eternity, another ground for the certainty of divine knowledge can be assigned, namely, on the part of the truth of the object.

Disputatio IX: Whether God certainly knows future contingents before the decree of his will, as future, in their ideas.

Disputatio X: Whether there is in God a conjectural knowledge of what, in particular, a created will will do if placed in such circumstances.

Disputatio XI: Whether this causal proposition is true: “Because this is future, it is foreknown by God”; or, conversely: “Because God foreknows something to be future, therefore it is future.”

Disputatio XII: Whether God produces things outside himself immediately through his knowledge, that is, through his intellect; or whether, besides intellect and will, a third executive power must be posited in him, through which things are produced immediately.

Book Three

Introduction

Disputatio I: Whether God’s actual motion, which all secondary causes need in order to produce their effect or operation, is an immediate influx into the secondary cause itself; or whether instead it is only an immediate influx, together with the secondary cause, into its effect.

Disputatio II: What that prior motion is by which God moves and applies secondary causes to act.

Disputatio III: Whether God’s general concurrence, by which he helps secondary causes constituted in first act through supernatural forms to produce supernatural acts, is supernatural; or whether it is of the same order as general concurrence with merely natural acts.

Disputatio IV: Whether God’s general concurrence, especially with respect to acts that depend on created free choice, is indifferent of itself.

Disputatio V: Whether, by an absolute and efficacious decree of his will, God truly predetermines as an efficient cause all secondary causes, both natural and free, to their operations after the manner of a physical cause, while preserving their nature and freedom.

Disputatio VI: Whether, by a prior motion inhering in the created will, God moves, applies, or predetermines it after the manner of a physical cause to all its good acts in particular, while preserving its freedom.

Disputatio VII: Whether, by a prior motion, God truly premoves as an efficient cause free choice after the manner of a physical cause to the act of sin, insofar as it is an act and insofar as it is a being.

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

Disputatio IX: Whether the first root of contingency is the efficacy, or omnipotence, of the divine will.

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

Book Four

Introduction

Disputatio I: Whether God has providence not only over all genera and species, but also over all individuals in particular, according to all circumstances of place, time, etc.

Disputatio II: Whether the evils of punishment are willed by an absolute and efficacious will, and predetermined in particular, through divine providence, or are only permitted.

Disputatio III: Whether the nature of divine providence includes not only the ordering of means to an end, but also the attainment of the end intended by God.

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

Disputatio V: Whether created free choice can resist almighty God, or strive against the order of divine providence.

Book Five

Introduction

Disputatio I: Whether all the explanations that St. Augustine gives of those words of the Apostle, “God wills all human beings to be saved,” are legitimate.

Disputatio II: What God's antecedent will is, what his consequent will is, and whether antecedent will formally entails some conditional act or wish in God.

Disputatio III: What predestination is, and in which act it formally consists: an act of the will, or rather an act of the intellect.

Disputatio IV: Whether the good use of the aids of grace, insofar as it proceeds from free will, is an effect of predestination.

Disputatio V: Whether the good use of free will, proceeding from the aid of grace, is a cause, reason, or necessary condition of predestination in adults.

Disputatio VI: Whether the predestination of infants depended on, and presupposed, foreknowledge of the good use of the free will of their parents or of others through whom they came to the grace of baptism.

Disputatio VII: Whether the foreseen merits of Christ are the cause of our predestination with respect to its entire effect.

Disputatio VIII: Whether the grace of the state of innocence was conferred on Adam through the merits of Christ.

Disputatio IX: Whether predestination, with respect to the attainment of its effects, is certain and infallible with the certainty of the order and causality of the means.

Disputatio X: Whether anyone, apart from divine revelation, can know with infallible certainty that he or another is among the predestined, or infer this from certain signs.

Disputatio XI: Whether, at least among the faithful, there are more elect than reprobate.

Book Six

Introduction

Disputatio I: Whether the children of Adam contract original sin through seminal propagation, such that it truly and properly has the character of guilt in them.

Disputatio II: Whether through original sin man was only deprived of original justice and supernatural gifts, or also wounded in his natural powers.

Disputatio III: What wounds man incurs through original or actual sin.

Disputatio IV: Whether free will in fallen nature, apart from the aids of grace, has the same natural powers for good that it would have had if it had been created in a state of pure nature.

Disputatio V: Whether man can, by the powers of nature alone and without the aid of grace, know every truth pertaining to the natural order.

Disputatio VI: Whether man can, by the powers of nature alone, assent to all the supernatural mysteries proposed and explained to him as revealed by God, with assent that is certain and firm on the believer’s part.

Disputatio VII: Whether, without the aid of grace, man in fallen nature can perform a moral act that is truly good in relation to the ultimate natural end and is an act of true virtue.

Disputatio VIII: Whether man in fallen nature can, by the powers of nature alone together with God’s general concurrence, elicit an absolute, purely natural act of loving God above all things, with an absolute resolve to please him in everything.

Disputatio IX: Whether free will, with general concurrence alone, can elicit attrition or contrition with respect to the substance of the act alone.

Disputatio X: Whether man can, by the natural powers of free will, restore the good connatural to him that he lost through sin.

Disputatio XI: Whether fallen man can, without the aid of grace, keep all the commandments and resist, at every moment, all the temptations he encounters, even the gravest, which must be overcome to keep the natural law.

Book Seven

Introduction

Disputatio I: Whether man can, without the aid of grace, dispose himself at least remotely to obtain grace by asking, seeking, knocking, and so forth.

Disputatio II: Whether those who do all that lies in their power by nature alone receive from God, infallibly and according to a fixed law, the aids of prevenient grace by which they carry it out as required for salvation.

Disputatio III: Whether greater effort of free choice obtains greater or more intense aids of rousing and prevenient grace.

Disputatio IV: Whether someone who does all that lies in his power with the earlier aids of prevenient grace receives subsequent aids infallibly and according to a fixed law.

Disputatio V: Whether someone who does all that lies in his power with efficacious aid, that is, who elicits an act of charity and contrition, receives justifying grace infallibly and according to a fixed law.

Disputatio VI: Whether acts of charity equal to the preexisting habit, or even less intense acts, obtain an increase of habitual grace, charity, and essential glory infallibly and according to a fixed law.

Disputatio VII: Whether deadened merits obtain for the penitent, infallibly and according to an established law, greater habitual grace and a right to more intense essential glory.

Disputatio VIII: Whether greater effort or influence of free choice, with equal aid of assisting grace, obtains for one person greater justifying grace than for another.

Disputatio IX: Whether a naturally more perfect intellect, with equal light of glory, produces a more intense act of beatific vision than another.

Disputatio X: Whether the beatific vision, insofar as it is formally a vital act, is efficiently caused by the light of glory as the principle by which it is produced, or by the intellect alone according to its innate power.

Disputatio XI: Whether acts of believing, hoping, and loving God as the author of grace are supernatural in substance and in the being of nature, or only in their manner and in the moral order.

Disputatio XII: Whether the final disposition to habitual grace proceeds by way of efficient causation from grace itself, or from actual aid alone, that is, from the will elevated by that aid.