De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus et libertate
Diego Álvarez (1550–1631)
De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus et libertate, ac legitima eius cum efficacia eorundem auxiliorum concordia
First published 1610
Diego Álvarez’s twelve-book treatise on divine grace and human free choice. This edition contains Book I: the prooemium and five preliminary disputations on Pelagian and Semi-Pelagian teaching, Manichaean and Reformation positions, Catholic theologians, and the authority of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Latin from the Rome 1610 edition, with a new English translation.
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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.
Whether the foreseen merits of Christ are the cause of our predestination with respect to its entire effect.
I. Master Báñez treats this rather difficult question in 1. p. q. 23. art. 5. dub. 2., as does Zumel in the same article, disputation 2. It is also commonly discussed in 3. p. q. 19. art. 4. and quaest. 24. art. 4. Asturicensis treats it at length in q. 7. de gratia Christi, dub. 3. pag. 974. Concerning it, there is the following opinion:
The first opinion is that of many theologians, including Thomists, who assert that the grace of calling, faith, and supernatural dispositions that precede justifying grace are not conferred on us from Christ’s merits, but from God’s mere and gratuitous will. Driedo holds this in lib. de captivitate, et redemptione generis humani tract. 4. c. 2. par. 8. memb. 3., as do Ruarus in art. 6. contra Lutherum and Somnius in lib. 2. demonstrationum fidei tract. 3. cap. 19. Capreolus taught the same opinion in 3. dist. 18. q. 1., as did Ferrariensis in 4. cont. Gent. c. 55., in his reply to the seventh argument, although he restricts his opinion to remote dispositions. Consequently, these authors must concede that the foreseen merits of Christ were not the cause of our predestination with respect to its entire effect. In support of this opinion:
First, it is argued: our predestination and grace come from God's mere and gratuitous will, as was said in disputation 37. Therefore they are not a reward corresponding to Christ's merits. The consequence is clear: what is rendered as a reward for merits is owed according to justice, not given according to grace, in keeping with Romans 4: To him who works, the reward is not reckoned according to grace, but according to what is owed. And chapter 11: But if it is from works, it is no longer grace.
This is confirmed as follows. When St. Thomas in 3. p. q. 19. ar. 4. had proposed an argument to prove that the Lord Christ did not merit the grace conferred on us, he replied to it in the answer to the third objection and taught most clearly that although the Lord Christ merited that grace be given to those reborn through baptism, the very fact that a human being is granted rebirth through baptism is itself a matter of grace. From this he concludes that human salvation is from grace. He teaches the same in q. 29. de verit. ar. 7. ad ultimum. He therefore holds that the application of baptism does not come from Christ's merits; consequently, Christ's merits are not the cause of the entire effect of predestination. For the application of baptism to the predestined is an effect of their predestination.
Second: Christ did not merit, nor could he merit, his own predestination, just as he could not merit the Incarnation of the Word. Therefore, he did not merit our predestination with respect to all its effects and benefits, which God predestined and prepared for us. The consequence is clear: among these benefits are numbered Christ's predestination and Incarnation, which are the source and origin of all the supernatural benefits and goods God prepared for his elect.
This is confirmed: predestination is the preparation of God's benefits, by which all who are delivered are most certainly delivered, as was said in disputation 35. But the Lord Christ was not the meritorious cause of all the benefits God prepared for us, because he was not the meritorious cause of his own Incarnation, as was said. Therefore, he is not the cause of our predestination.
II. Third. According to our way of understanding, other human beings are understood as predestined before the Lord Christ is understood as predestined. Therefore, our predestination does not depend on Christ's merits, for what is prior does not depend on what is posterior. The antecedent is proved as follows. In the order of reason, God decreed to save the human race before he decided to send the Savior. For the salvation of human beings was the end of the Incarnation, and the intention of the end is prior by nature to the willing of those things ordered to the end. But that decree to save human beings was predestination, for predestination is the preparation of grace in the present and glory in the future, as St. Augustine and St. Thomas teach in the passages cited in disputation 35. Therefore, other human beings were predestined before the Lord Christ.
This is confirmed. In the order of reason, Adam is understood as pleasing to God before Christ is understood as predestined. Otherwise the grace Adam had in the state of innocence would have been conferred on him from Christ's merits, which is false, as will become clear in the following disputation. But that grace of Adam was an effect of his predestination, for through it he attained a certain degree of glory, just as he did through the meritorious works he had in the state of innocence. Therefore, Christ's merits were not the cause of the entire effect of Adam's predestination, and the same reasoning applies to the other predestined.
Fourth. If for some reason Christ's merits were the cause of our predestination with respect to its entire effect, it would be chiefly because he is the head of all human beings and must therefore pour into them, as into his members, all the spiritual life and motion they have. But this reason has no force. Therefore. The minor premise is proved as follows: Christ is also the head of the Angels, as St. Thomas teaches in 3. p. q. 8. ar. 4. This is manifest from Colossians 2: Who is the head of every principality and power. Yet the foreseen merits of Christ were not the cause of the predestination of the Angels, or of all its effects. For otherwise, even if Adam had not sinned, the Word would have been incarnate to complete the Angels' predestination. Also, the grace by which the Angels were predestined and attained glory was not conferred on them from Christ's merits, just as the grace conferred on our first parents in the state of innocence did not come from Christ's merits. Therefore, Christ's merits were not the cause of our predestination.
III. The second opinion is held by certain Thomists. Although they admit that the foreseen merits of Christ were the cause of our predestination with respect to its entire effect, they nevertheless deny that they were the meritorious cause of the act itself, or preordination, of the one predestining, with respect to its termination in such an object. In support of this opinion:
Fifth, it is argued from St. Thomas in first part, question 23, article eight, in the body, where he says: As to the preordination itself, predestination is in no way helped by the prayers of the Saints. For it is not by the prayers of the Saints that someone is predestined by God. And in art. 5. of the same question, in the body, he says: No one was so unsound of mind as to say that merits are the cause of divine predestination on the part of the act of the one predestining. Thus, the conclusion follows.
Sixth: no one's merits can be the cause of the very act of the one predestining because predestination, with respect to the act of the one predestining, is eternal, whereas every merit is temporal; and nothing temporal can be the cause of what is eternal. But the act of the one predestining, with respect to its termination in such a secondary object, is also eternal. Therefore, no one's merits, not even those of the Lord Christ, could be the cause of predestination with respect to the act of the one predestining as it terminates in such an object. Nevertheless, for the resolution, let the following be established.
IIII. First conclusion. The foreseen merits of the Lord Christ are the cause of all the helps and of all the grace conferred on human beings in fallen nature.1 The same must be said of all dispositions, both proximate and remote, that precede justifying grace, and of the increase of grace and all merits. For all these things are conferred on us by God from Christ's merits. This conclusion accords with the mind of St. Thomas in 3. p. quaest. 7. articulo nono, decimo, et undecimo, and quaestione octava articulo tertio. He teaches it expressly in quaestione vigesimanona de verit. articulo 1., especially in the reply to the eighth objection, where he says: The merit of Christ operates sufficiently as a certain universal cause of human salvation; but this cause must be applied to individuals through the sacraments and through formed faith, which works through love. Therefore, something besides Christ's merit is required for our salvation, although Christ's merit is its cause. He therefore holds that Christ's merit is the cause of the application of the sacraments, our faith, and all the merits and gifts required for salvation.
The conclusion is proved first from Sacred Scripture, especially Ephesians 1: Who blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that is, from Christ's merits, as Ambrose explains. And John 1 says: From his fullness we have all received. Again he says: The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. John 15 also says: As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. From this testimony the Council of Trent, session 6, chapter 16, proves that Christ pours power into just persons as the head into the members, and as the vine into the branches. It says: Christ Jesus himself, as the head into the members and as the vine into the branches, continually pours power into the justified; this power always precedes, accompanies, and follows their good works, and without it those works could in no way be pleasing to God or meritorious.
Moreover, Psalm 67 says literally of the Lord Christ: You ascended on high, took captivity captive, and received gifts among human beings. These words signify that all the gifts of grace conferred on human beings are the reward of Christ's merits, a reward he received in his members.
The conclusion is proved second by reason. The grace conferred on redeemed human beings is called Christ's grace, as is clear from the Council of Milevis, canons 3 and 4, where the grace by which we are justified is called God's grace through Jesus Christ. And the Council of Trent, session 6, chapter 5, says: The beginning of this same justification in adults must be drawn from God, through Jesus Christ, by prevenient grace. But this grace is called Christ's grace, or grace “through Jesus Christ,” because it is conferred on us through his merits. Thus, the conclusion follows.
Third, Christ's humanity is the instrument united to the divinity through which God works all the good things and supernatural gifts that he confers on redeemed human beings. Therefore, since the entire effect of our predestination is referred to God's will as its cause, it must also be referred to the humanity of the Lord Christ as an instrument, and to his foreseen merits.
V. Second conclusion. Christ's predestination is the cause of our predestination with respect to its entire effect in three kinds of cause: in the category of efficient cause, insofar as he is the mediator of our salvation;2 in the category of formal cause, insofar as we are predestined as sons of God in his image; and in the category of final cause, insofar as our salvation redounds to his glory. This conclusion is expressly taught by St. Thomas in 3. dist. 10. quaest. 3. quaestiunc. 3., where he proves it from Ephesians 1: He predestined us to adoption as his sons through Jesus Christ. The word through denotes an efficient cause, as St. Thomas says in the body of 1. p. quaest. 36. art. 3, just as when it is said that the Father works all things through the Son, in keeping with John 1: All things were made through him. Therefore, Christ's predestination is the efficient cause of our predestination with respect to its entire effect. That it is an exemplary cause, which is called an extrinsic formal cause, is proved from Romans 8: Those whom he predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son. An image is an exemplary cause, which is reduced to the formal cause. Therefore. That it is a final cause is proved as follows: our predestination is ordered to the perfection of the mystical body of Christ as to an end, in keeping with Ephesians 4: He gave others as pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the Saints, for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ. And 1 Corinthians 3: All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come; all things are yours, but you are Christ's, and Christ is God's. It is as if he said: all lower things are ordered to the human being as their end, for whose sake they were created; human beings, however, are ordered to Christ's glory, while Christ's humanity is ordered as to its ultimate end to God's glory, in keeping with the words: The Lord has made all things for himself.3
This is further proved by St. Thomas's argument in the third part, question 24, article 4. From eternity God predestined the salvation of the elect in such a way that he also predestined it to be accomplished through Christ. For under eternal predestination falls not only what is to be done in time, but also the manner and order in which it is to be accomplished. Therefore, Christ's predestination is the final cause of our predestination, completing and perfecting it.
VI. Third conclusion. Christ merited predestination for us and an efficacious election to glory—not with respect to the absolute character of the act of the one predestining, but with respect to its relational aspect, which it connotes, or with respect to its termination in certain persons and in this or that secondary object.4 Thus, the very efficacious will of God by which he ordered the predestined to eternal life had some foundation in Christ's foreseen merits; on account of those same merits, this love and predestination was freely directed to this secondary object, as we shall explain in the following conclusion. This conclusion, so understood, is against some disciples of St. Thomas, but is asserted by other Thomists and seems to be the express opinion of St. Thomas on the Apostle's words: He chose us in him before the foundation of the world.5 He says: He blessed us not on account of our merits, but from the grace of Christ; just as he chose us and freely preordained us to be separated from the mass of perdition in him, that is, through Christ. Here the preposition through denotes the meritorious cause of this same election. This also seems to be the opinion of St. Augustine in lib. de praedest. Sanct. cap. 18. Among other Thomists, Asturicensis defends it in the cited relection on the grace of Christ, pages 983 and following.
It is proved by the Apostle's authority in Ephesians 1: Who blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. But the chief spiritual blessing, from which the other blessings flow, is God's eternal election and predestination. Therefore, this is from Christ's merits foreseen by God.
This is confirmed by the authority of St. Chrysostom, homily 1 on the same epistle, where he says: Through him he blessed us; through that same one he chose us.
Second, it is proved as follows. God foreknew Christ's merits before he predestined other human beings. Therefore, they were the cause of our predestination. The antecedent is proved: Christ was the first of the predestined. Therefore, in the divine mind, in the order of reason, his predestination and merits preceded the predestination of the other people who were redeemed through Christ. The consequence is proved: God did not foreknow Christ's merits before our predestination for any other reason than as its meritorious, final, and exemplary cause.
Third, God could predestine those redeemed through Christ on account of his foreseen merits. For a cause or reason of the divine will can be assigned on the part of the object willed, as all the Thomists teach with St. Thomas in prima parte, quaestione decimanona, articulo quinto. But it belongs to the dignity and excellence of the Lord Christ and his merits that they were predestined in this way. Thus, the conclusion follows.
The greater difficulty is whether the comparative and efficacious election of this person in particular over another was made on account of Christ's merits. For some Thomists who defend our third conclusion, understood of absolute election, deny it of comparative election. Nevertheless, let the following be established:
VII. Fourth conclusion. The Lord Christ merited the comparative election of the predestined, taken formally.6 To explain this, note that the Lord Christ did not merit that certain people in particular or in general would not be loved or chosen by God, nor do we assert that in our conclusion. Rather, we say he merited that, although all people can fall away from the supernatural end by themselves, given God's permission, nevertheless certain people in particular would be designated by God in whom Christ's merits would attain their effect. Christ left the material designation of those to be chosen to the Father, just as someone might offer his goods to the commonwealth for distribution to the poor and leave the material determination of those poor people to that commonwealth's decision and choice. Asturicensis teaches this conclusion, so explained, in the place cited above, conclusion 3. It is proved by the arguments given for the preceding conclusions. For Scripture says that through the Lord Christ and in him people were foreordained by God to eternal life, as is clear from the Apostle's words already cited. But, speaking with the utmost formality, election means taking one and leaving another, for election is among several. Therefore, the Lord Christ merited the comparative election of the predestined, taken formally.
Second, the Lord Christ offered his merits so that they might efficaciously attain their effect in some people. Hence he is called the Redeemer of all with respect to sufficiency and of some with respect to efficacy, as will be clear in disputation 71. Therefore, the fact that some were chosen from among many for glory was due to Christ's foreseen merits. Therefore, he merited comparative election.
This is confirmed: in Sacred Scripture a great multitude of sons was promised as the reward of the passion and death of the Lord Christ, in whom those same merits would attain their effect. For Isaiah 53 says: If he offers his life for sin, he will see a long-lived offspring, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand—that is, through his merits and works God will fulfill his will in the election of the predestined. Again he says: Who will declare his generation? For he was cut off from the land of the living—as if to say more plainly: the multitude of sons he will acquire through his passion and death will be countless, as we noted in our commentaries on the same passage. Thus, the conclusion follows.
VIII. But the authors of the opposing opinion argue against this conclusion. The comparative election of one person over another can have no foundation in Christ's merits. Otherwise, this causal statement would have to be admitted: “Because the Lord Christ willed efficaciously to apply his merits to Peter in particular, Peter was chosen and predestined by God,” and the same of others. But this is a great inconvenience: otherwise the whole matter of the predestination and election of human beings would have to be traced first and fundamentally to the human will of Christ, not to the divine election.
Second, they argue that otherwise Christ would have merited that some people not be chosen by God. This is proved as follows: to merit comparative election is to merit that one person be chosen while another is left and abandoned.
To the first argument, we reply on the basis of the doctrine already laid down that the particular election of this person, materially speaking—that is, insofar as it is of this person—did not arise from Christ's merits, but from God's mere and gratuitous will. For although the Lord Christ, in God's foreknowledge and before our predestination is understood, applied his merits and offered them to the Father so that certain people in particular, formally speaking, might be chosen by God, in whom his Passion would attain its effect, he nevertheless left the material designation of those to be chosen to God's free will, as was said. Our predestination is also traced back to God's gratuitous will for another reason: although Christ merited that some people be chosen by God not determinately but vaguely, the Incarnation of the Word and the predestination of the Lord Christ nevertheless proceeded from God's mere and gratuitous will, without any merits foreseen, even Christ's own. For Augustine says in chapter 15 of On the Predestination of the Saints: That man, as he says, assumed by the Word, coeternal with the Father, into the unity of person, is the only-begotten Son of God. But by what did he merit this? What good of his, however small, came before it? What did he do, what did he believe, what did he ask for, to attain this unspeakable excellence?7 Therefore, once the mystery of the Incarnation and Christ's predestination are presupposed, before God determined anything in particular concerning our election and predestination, he first foresaw, in the order of reason, Christ's merits and his human will offering those merits, so that in view of them certain people, but only vaguely, might be chosen and predestined in him by God.8 In the second sign is understood God's free and gratuitous will: although he could have chosen and loved other people in particular and materially designated them to give them to Christ, he chose these people determinately. In the third sign is understood the application made by the Lord Christ of his merits. For knowing that these particular people had been chosen freely by God, he applied his merits for them with respect to their efficacy and poured out prayers that God would preserve them from evil, in keeping with what he himself says in John 17: I pray for them; I do not pray for the world, but for those whom you have given me—that is, I pray for the predestined. Hence St. Thomas, explaining Luke 22, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing, in 3. p. quaest. 21. art. 4. ad 2., says that Christ did not pray for all his crucifiers, nor even for all who were going to believe in him, but only for those who were predestined to attain eternal life through him. Christ's prayer and application of merits are understood in this third sign of reason.
To the second, we reply that for the Lord Christ to be said to have merited the comparative election of some people, it is not required that he merit the abandonment or reprobation of others. It is enough that, on account of his foreseen merits, some of the many who could fall away from eternal salvation by themselves were chosen so that they would attain that same salvation infallibly.
IX. To the first argument presented at the outset, we reply that our predestination is traced back to God's gratuitous will insofar as it was made before all our merits were foreseen; it is not, however, inconsistent that Christ's merits were foreseen before it, in the manner explained above. For the first calling is simply called gratuitous and is gratuitous because it takes place without any preceding merits of ours, although Christ merited it for us, as was said. Likewise, the same predestination is entirely gratuitous insofar as the particular designation of the predestined took place without any merits foreseen by God, even Christ's own, as is clear from what has been established.
To the confirmation from St. Thomas's authority, we reply that when he says that being reborn in Christ is a gratuitous gift, he means that it is a gratuitous gift with respect to the person who is reborn, not with respect to Christ himself.
Second, we reply that St. Thomas's words prove only that the designation of the particular person who is granted rebirth in Christ through baptism and salvation proceeded from God's mere will, without Christ's merits having been foreseen.
To the second, we reply that Christ's predestination was not an effect of our predestination;9 otherwise our predestination would be understood as prior to Christ's. Rather, it was something presupposed to it, according to the order God in fact followed in predestining human beings. Hence, from the fact that Christ did not merit his own Incarnation or predestination, it does not follow that he did not merit our predestination with respect to its entire effect. On this, see Asturicensis in the place cited above, conclusion 4.
To the confirmation, we reply that predestination is not the preparation of just any benefits of God, but of those constituted through predestination itself and belonging to the order of predestination. Christ's predestination or Incarnation is not constituted through our predestination, nor does it belong to its order; rather, as was said, it is presupposed to our predestination extrinsically. St. Augustine's definition of predestination must be understood according to this doctrine.
X. To the third, the antecedent is denied. To its proof, we say that the will to save the human race understood as prior in God to Christ's predestination was not an act of predestination of the human race itself, nor did it formally belong to our predestination; it was prior to and presupposed by our predestination. The reason is that God's will, which formally belongs to predestination, reaches particular persons together with their circumstances and the means by which they attain eternal salvation, for election concerns particulars. But the will to save the human race, insofar as it is presupposed in God to Christ's predestination, regarded only the salvation of the human race in general; it did not reach the particular salvation of this or that person as distinguished from another. Hence such a will did not formally belong to our predestination.
XI. To the confirmation, we reply that Adam is understood as pleasing to God in the state of innocence before Christ is understood as predestined in the order of reason. Nevertheless, that grace, insofar as it belonged to the state of innocence, was not an effect of Adam's predestination, but of a certain supernatural providence, as will become clear in the following disputation.
To the fourth, we reply that we do not infer from the general character of “head” alone that the whole effect of our predestination proceeds from Christ's merits, but from the relation of a head to those members whose restoration was the principal reason for Christ's coming. Hence, in the cited q. 29. de verit. art. 4. ad 5., St. Thomas infers from the end of the Incarnation—namely, that it was made principally for the deliverance of human beings from sin—that Christ's humanity is ordered to its influence upon redeemed human beings as an intended end, but not to its influence upon Angels.10 For he says: Christ is the head of the Angels not only according to his divine nature but also according to his human nature, because he enlightens them according to his human nature, as Dionysius says in chapter 7 of On the Divine Names. Hence Colossians 2 also says that he is the head of every principality and power. Nevertheless, Christ's humanity stands in a different relation to the Angels than to human beings in two respects. First, with respect to conformity of nature, through which it is of the same species as human beings but not as the Angels. Second, with respect to the end of the Incarnation, which was made principally for the deliverance of human beings from sin. Thus Christ's humanity is ordered to its influence upon human beings as an intended end, whereas its influence upon Angels is not an end of the Incarnation, but something consequent upon the Incarnation. This difficulty must be treated at greater length in the following disputation.