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.
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.
Whether free choice, with only general concurrence, can elicit attrition or contrition as regards only the substance of the act.
I. In the preceding disputation we briefly touched on certain matters concerning this difficulty, which seemed pertinent to a fuller clarification of the proposed question about the act of loving God. Now it must be examined more closely, so that the weakness of human free choice after the Fall may become more evident and it may turn more confidently to God's help in grieving for sins on account of God, supremely loved. There is, then, a first opinion asserting that our free choice, with only God's general concurrence, can elicit not only an act of natural attrition—that is, sorrow for sins from fear of God, together with a resolve not to sin mortally again—but also an act of natural contrition, which includes that same resolve not to sin mortally again.1 In support of it they cite several authors, among them St. Thomas in 4. Sent. dist. 17. q. 2. art. 1. quaestiunc. 1. ad 6 and in other places cited in the preceding disputation, no. 1. They prove this opinion first: if the light of faith is especially already present, by which we know God to be our creator and the countless and greatest benefits of nature and grace which he has conferred on us, even to the shedding of his own blood on the Cross; and by which we also know that everlasting happiness is proposed for the just, but everlasting fire and the utmost misery for the ungodly; and if mortal sin is so great an evil and an offense against the Divine Majesty that even one sin is enough for the person who commits it to lose supreme happiness and fall into the utmost misery unless he grieves for it and resolves to commit nothing of this kind again; then undoubtedly this thought is so powerful in arousing and moving the will that2 the free choice of one who has persuaded himself of these things and, by his own insight or by another's suggestion and exhortation, has carefully considered the matter, can, with only God's general concurrence and in view of the extreme evils into which he would otherwise fall, elicit sorrow or detestation of his crimes together with a resolve to avoid all mortal sins in the future. In this consists attrition as regards the substance of the act. In view, however, of God's goodness and benefits, it can elicit a similar detestation and resolve, in which the character of contrition consists as regards the substance of the act, though insufficient for salvation because it has not been aroused and affected by a particular impulse of the Holy Spirit.
This is confirmed: when at least the objects and occasions of sinning are absent, it is not very difficult; indeed, it presents itself as easy to elicit, as regards only the substance of the act, detestation of sin more than anything else that is detestable and an absolute resolve not to sin mortally again, of the kind sufficient for contrition and attrition. For anyone will experience this in himself if, by the light of faith, he sets before his mind and persuades himself that he will be excluded from everlasting blessedness, surrounded by countless other evils, and tormented on every side by everlasting fire unless he grieves for his past sins and resolves not to sin mortally again. It lies within the power of his free choice, with only general concurrence, to elicit in general an absolute resolve not to sin mortally again, so as to escape so great an evil. For it is natural for anyone, when faced with two hardships to be endured, at least in the absence of both, to choose the lesser and resolve to undergo it in order to avoid the greater. Therefore, at least someone illuminated by the light of faith can, with only God's general concurrence and as regards only the substance of the act, elicit an act of contrition or attrition with an absolute resolve not to sin thereafter.
They prove it second: contrition or attrition, as regards only the substance of the act, and an absolute resolve not to sin mortally thereafter, lies outside the whole latitude of the order of grace, contributes nothing to the supernatural end, and is a single act that is merely natural in itself and proper to free choice. Therefore the natural light of the intellect itself and moral and natural philosophy teach that this should not be denied to the natural powers of human free choice, with God cooperating only as the universal cause through general concurrence alone, in the way in which he cooperates with other secondary causes. Indeed, anyone who denies this is bound to prove the contrary, which must not be admitted until it has been established by sound arguments.
This is confirmed: it is not clear what benefit follows from weakening the natural powers of human free choice to such an extent that they are said to be unable, without the special help of grace, to perform the aforesaid act of contrition or attrition as regards only the substance of the act, or similar natural and simple acts.
They prove it third: assenting to the mysteries of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Eucharist, and the other revealed mysteries, which transcend the natural light, is no less difficult than grieving for sins committed, in the absence of all objects and occasions of sinning, on account of God or in order to avoid the punishments of hell, and resolving to restrain oneself from every mortal sin. But a human being can do the former as regards the substance of the act without special help, not with Christian assent but with merely natural assent, as was shown in disput. 49. Therefore, especially with a view to avoiding eternal punishments and attaining everlasting happiness and serving God, to whom he is bound by so many considerations, he can do the latter, which is so agreeable to reason and the natural light.
Finally. They prove the same thing by the third argument brought forward in the preceding disputation, no. 3.
I consider the contrary opinion true and in keeping with the mind of St. Augustine and St. Thomas. Hence let it be as follows.
II. First Conclusion. Our free choice, with only God's general concurrence, cannot elicit an act of attrition—that is, sorrow for all sins from fear of God, with an absolute resolve not to sin mortally again, together with hope of pardon. Rather, the special help of grace is absolutely necessary for such attrition. To make this conclusion clear, we must consider that the necessity of the help of grace for eliciting the aforesaid act of attrition can be understood on three grounds. First, on account of the sorrow, which is commonly conceived either from consideration of the shamefulness of sin or from fear of hell and punishments. Second, on account of the absolute resolve not to sin mortally thereafter. Third, on account of hope of pardon, or on account of faith in the punishments of hell, which is included in the aforesaid sorrow. We say, then, that the special help of grace is required for eliciting the aforesaid attrition or contrition not only on account of faith in the punishments of hell, nor only on account of the hope of pardon included in that sorrow, but also on account of that same sorrow together with an absolute resolve not to sin mortally thereafter. The authority of the Council of Trent seems to prove this conclusion, sess. 14. Decreto de Sacramento Poenitentiae, cap. 4, whose words we cited and examined in the preceding disputation, no. 11, where we also partly refuted the explanation which the authors of the opposing opinion attribute to the words of the Council of Trent.
Moreover, the same explanation can be refuted as follows: the Council teaches that attrition, which is a gift of God, disposes a sinner to obtain the grace of God in the sacrament of penance. But attrition disposes one to obtain grace in the sacrament of penance not only on account of fear of the punishments of hell or hope of pardon, but also on account of sorrow for sins itself, together with an absolute resolve not to sin thereafter. Therefore, the Council also holds that attrition is a gift of God on account of that same resolve.
It is proved further: as was shown in the preceding disputation, a human being in fallen nature cannot elicit love of God above all without the special help of grace, even as regards the substance of the act, because this love is an act proper to a sound nature, and is very difficult; hence it exceeds the capacity and power of weakened free choice, such as is the free choice of a human being in fallen nature. But sorrow for sins together with an absolute resolve never again to sin mortally is also very difficult. Therefore a sinner cannot elicit it without the help of grace, especially since rising passions of the sensitive appetite, the devil's temptations, and very many other inducements to sinning, which commonly occur in human life, impede such an absolute resolve. Therefore.
Moreover, an absolute resolve never to sin virtually includes the observance of all the commandments, at least for the time that such a resolve, or its power, lasts, just as was said of the act of charity in the preceding disputation. But a human being in fallen nature cannot keep all the commandments without the help of grace, not only throughout his entire life but even for any moment or short time, since the precept to believe, hope, or love often arises or can arise for him, and these precepts cannot be fulfilled without the help of grace, as is clear from the foregoing. Therefore, etc.
This very point is proved further: when other precepts of the natural law arise, it often happens that strong temptations of the sensitive appetite rise up, which must be overcome in order to keep those precepts. But without the help of grace, free choice cannot overcome such temptations, as will be made clear in the following disputation. Therefore it cannot, without the help of grace, keep any precept of the natural law for the time such temptations arise, and consequently it cannot have an absolute resolve not to sin thereafter.
They reply that this argument applies only to an absolute efficacious resolve, not to an absolute resolve that is nevertheless ineffective and is not afterward put into execution. But this solution has already been refuted from the preceding disputation, when we were treating absolute love of God. For it was shown that every absolute love of God is efficacious at least for the time in which it is elicited and in which its power lasts. Therefore the same must be held of an absolute resolve not to sin thereafter. Consequently, such a resolve will always be efficacious for the instant in which it is elicited and throughout the time that its power lasts.
This is confirmed: it entails a contradiction for someone to have, for some instant, an absolute resolve never to sin and nevertheless to sin mortally in that same instant. For such a resolve would be ridiculous and consequently would be called an absolute resolve not to sin in name only. Therefore a true absolute resolve not to sin is always efficacious for the same instant in which it is elicited and for all the time that its power lasts.
Second Conclusion. Free choice is even less able to elicit an act of contrition without the help of grace, that is, to grieve for sins on account of God, supremely loved, together with an absolute resolve not to sin thereafter. The arguments made for the preceding conclusion effectively prove this conclusion, and they apply all the more to contrition.
Moreover, this is proved from that definition of the Council of Trent, Session 6, On Justification, Canon 3: If anyone says that without the prevenient inspiration of the Holy Spirit and his assistance a human being can believe, hope, love, or repent as is fitting for the grace of justification to be bestowed upon him, let him be anathema. But to grieve over all sins on account of God, supremely loved, with hope of pardon and an absolute resolve never to sin, is to repent as is fitting for the grace of justification to be bestowed; for it is not possible that a sinner repent in this way and that justifying grace not be bestowed on him. Therefore such sorrow cannot be elicited by the sole powers of nature without the prevenient inspiration of the Holy Spirit and his cooperation.
Second, this is proved from passages of Scripture. For Lamentations 5 says: Convert us, O Lord, to yourself, and we shall be converted. From this testimony the Council of Trent, Session 6, On Justification, chapter 5,3 proves that contrition, by which sinners are converted to God, proceeds from prevenient grace—that is, from God's calling, by which they are called without any merits of theirs—so that those who had been turned away from God through sins may, through his grace that stirs and assists them to turn themselves toward their own justification, be disposed by freely assenting to and cooperating with that same grace. To prove this, it adduces at the end of that same chapter the authority already cited; therefore, the point stands. It is also proved from 2 Tim. 2: Lest perhaps God give them repentance for the knowledge of the truth, and they recover from the snares of the Devil. From these words St. Augustine, book 5 against Julian, chapter 3, draws the same truth, saying: However much patience he may show, unless he himself has given it,4 who will do penance? Have you forgotten that this same Doctor says: Lest perhaps God give them repentance, etc.? He seems to speak of the repentance by which one grieves over sins on account of God, supremely loved, with an absolute resolve to sin no more thereafter; for this is true repentance. Hence Augustine himself says near the end of Letter 106: The Apostle calls that very repentance, he says, a gift of God, where he says of certain people: Lest perhaps God give them repentance. And in book 2, On the Merits and Remission of Sins, chapter 18, he says: That we turn away from God is our own doing, and this is an evil will; but that we turn to God, we cannot do unless he himself stirs and assists us.
Third, it is proved by reason: for free choice in fallen nature cannot love God above all things without qualification without the help of grace, nor have an absolute resolve thereafter not to sin mortally, as is clear from what was said in the preceding disputation. Therefore it cannot elicit an act of contrition either. The inference is proved because love of God above all things and an absolute resolve thereafter not to sin mortally are necessarily included in an act of contrition, as is clear from what was said above.
Fourth, it is proved because, as will become clear in disputation 65, an act of contrition is supernatural as regards the substance of the act, just like an act of Faith, Hope, and Charity. Therefore, even as regards its substance, it cannot be elicited by free choice without the help of grace. The passages of St. Thomas cited in support of the contrary opinion were already answered in the preceding disputation.
To the first of the arguments made at the beginning, it is answered that this consideration of God's benefits, insofar as it is ordered toward obtaining the contrition or attrition explained above, cannot be had without the help of grace. For the Apostle says: We are not sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as though from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God:56 Hence attrition or contrition arising from the aforesaid thought or consideration is not elicited without the special help of grace that stirs and assists.
To the confirmation it is answered that, even in the absence of occasions for sinning, it is not merely difficult but also impossible, without the help of grace, to elicit hatred of sin above everything hateful and an absolute resolve thereafter not to sin mortally, of the kind required for contrition and attrition. Nor does any experience teach the opposite; for, as St. Gregory says, The human mind often deceives itself, and imagines that it loves what it does not love, and does not love what it loves. And to the objection about the two proposed hardships, it is answered that, when those hardships are to be avoided for some human motive that does not exceed one's own powers, it is natural to undergo the lesser in order to avoid the greater. This does not occur in the present case: for an act of contrition includes something that exceeds the powers of that same nature, by reason of an absolute resolve never to sin mortally, so as to avoid the punishments of hell. Hence it is not something natural, but truly a gratuitous gift, for free choice to elicit that act of contrition.
To the second argument it is answered that contrition, even as regards the substance of the act, exceeds the capacity of nature, just as do acts of believing, hoping, and loving God insofar as he is the author of grace, as will be clear in disputation 65. Attrition, however, with all the conditions explained above, enters the supernatural order: for it disposes at least remotely toward obtaining the grace of justification, as was said; hence it cannot be elicited by the sole powers of nature. The same must be said of an absolute resolve never to sin mortally: for in a person ordered to eternal life, such a resolve virtually includes observance of the supernatural precepts of Faith, Hope, and Charity, etc. Those precepts cannot be kept without the help of grace, as is clear from the premises.
It is answered, second, that even if one granted, without conceding, that such a resolve lies entirely outside the scope of the order of grace, free choice still could not elicit it by the sole powers of nature, any more than it could elicit an act of loving God above all things as the author of nature, because of the difficulty and perfection of the act, which weak nature therefore cannot attain unless it is stirred and assisted by grace.
To the confirmation it is answered first that the same argument could be turned against the authors of the contrary opinion. For it is not apparent what benefit follows from praising and extolling the natural powers of human free choice in fallen and weakened nature to such an extent that very difficult acts, exceeding its feeble power, are attributed to it without the help of grace. For it is already clear from what was said above how many disadvantages follow from this assertion.
Second, it is answered that many benefits follow from our affirming that the natural powers of human free choice have been so weakened by sin that it cannot elicit certain acts without the help of grace, even acts that are merely natural, such as loving God above all things as the author of nature and making an absolute resolve never to sin mortally against the natural law. The first benefit is this: free choice is thereby humbled and kept within its proper bounds, so that, recognizing its own weakness and frailty, it has recourse to God's help, as is clear from what was said above. But when these acts are attributed to free choice without the help of grace, a great occasion is given it to grow proud and exalt itself against God's grace.7 Hence St. Augustine calls the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians not defenders but promoters, squanderers, and destroyers of free choice, because they attributed to its natural powers acts exceeding the capacity of that same free choice. The second benefit is this: by this doctrine we conform ourselves to the statements of Scripture, the Councils, and the holy Fathers cited above and to be cited below, and we depart far not only from the errors of Pelagius but even from their tracks. On the other hand, we expose ourselves to no danger, but walk the middle way, affirming that free choice in fallen nature can elicit some morally good acts without the help of grace, though not all of them—namely, not those that contain grave difficulty, as was explained in disputation 50.
To the third argument it is answered that, just as free choice cannot elicit an act of contrition or attrition with an absolute resolve thereafter not to sin without the help of grace, so too it cannot, without that same help, assent to the mystery of the Trinity and all the other things as revealed by God, as was shown in disputation 49.
The solution to the fourth is clear from what was said to the third in the preceding disputation.