De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus et libertate

IN WHICH IT IS EXPLAINED WHAT POWERS FREE CHOICE HAS, especially in fallen nature, without the Help of Grace for attaining supernatural good.

AFTER this, we must inquire what free choice can do by the capacity of nature, with a view to attaining grace, both habitual and actual. First, this must be inquired concerning free choice before it receives the prior helps of prevenient grace; next, this same matter must be discussed concerning free choice in the very reception of the prior helps of grace, and after it has received those same helps from God. Three things are to be considered concerning the first:

I. Whether, without the help of grace, a human being can by his own powers at least remotely dispose himself to obtain grace by asking, seeking, and knocking.

II. Whether, for one who does all that lies within him by the powers of nature alone, supernatural helps of prevenient grace are infallibly given under a certain law, by which he carries this out as is fitting for salvation; and whether otherwise they are ordinarily not given.

III. Whether, on account of the greater effort of free choice, a human being obtains greater, that is, more intense, helps of exciting and prevenient grace.

Whether, without the help of grace, a human being can dispose himself, at least remotely, to obtain grace by asking, seeking, knocking, etc.

I. It was the error of the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians to assert that the first beginning of grace proceeds from the natural faculty of our free choice, as is clear from what was said in the first and second disputations. But there is no need to dispute against this error now: we have sufficiently refuted it in disputation 49, no. 12.

The first opinion, then, is that of Durandus, on Sentences I, q. 6 of the Prologue, art. 3, and II, dist. 28, q. 5, where he teaches that by the powers of free choice a human being can dispose himself for grace, with a disposition to which grace is given not by debt but by pact and divine ordination. Among more recent theologians there are some who assert that, just as one sin is usually permitted as punishment for another sin, so on account of alms and other morally good works performed by someone existing in mortal sin, God often customarily helps one person sooner and more than another, so that he may rise from sin; and for this reason such works have not undeservedly customarily been called remote dispositions for grace.

II. This opinion is proved, first, by Durandus's argument. For although the rational soul is created by God alone, a human being nevertheless has a natural power to dispose matter for the introduction of the rational soul. Therefore, proportionally, although grace comes from God alone as its efficient cause, free choice will nevertheless be able, by its natural power, to elicit a disposition to which grace corresponds by divine pact, and not by debt.

Second. When free choice is disposed to obtain habitual grace, it does something from itself; otherwise it would be wholly passive, like some lifeless thing, if it contributed nothing from itself. But to assert this is the heresy of Luther. Therefore, it effects something from itself by which it is disposed for grace.

Third. The final disposition for grace is consent, by which free choice assents to God calling. But, once divine calling is supposed, whether free choice consents or does not consent depends on nothing other than its own innate freedom. Therefore, the same conclusion follows as before.

Fourth, the same point is proved concerning a disposition that is at least remote. Someone existing in mortal sin can perform many morally good works by the powers of nature alone, such as giving alms from natural piety, offering certain prayers to God, visiting the sick, etc. But on account of such works God very often confers the helps of prevenient grace; and if a person uses those helps well (which lies within his power), he obtains habitual grace. Therefore, by the powers of nature he can dispose himself for grace, at least remotely.

This is confirmed. As is clear from Acts of the Apostles, chapter 10, Cornelius was called to the faith of Christ on account of his prayers and alms; and in Genesis 22, on account of that remarkable obedience, the Lord said to Abraham: Because you have done this thing, and have not spared your only-begotten son for my sake, I will bless you, etc. Therefore, on account of good works one person obtains the helps of prevenient grace rather than another; therefore, by those same good works a person in some way disposes himself to obtain grace.

III. Fifth, it is argued: for it is very consonant with reason that God should help by the special help of his grace, and draw to himself, rather, one who applies himself to the aforesaid morally good works than another who, abusing his free choice, commits very many sins without fear; therefore, by those good works he in some way disposes himself for grace.

This is confirmed from that parable of Matt. 25, in which, distributing talents, he gave five to one, but two to another, and one to another, to each according to his own ability. By these words God seems to be signified as distributing the gifts of his grace according to each one's ability; therefore such ability is some disposition, at least remote, for the attainment of grace.

A second confirmation. One who has good inclinations by nature, has received a good soul, and afterward exercises himself in good works, is less distant from grace than another stained by corrupt morals; therefore he has some disposition for it.

Sixth. The angels attained grace according to the measure of their natural endowments, as St. Thomas teaches, 1 p. q. 62, art. 6. Therefore by natural virtue they in some way disposed themselves for grace; therefore man too will be able to dispose himself in the same way.

Seventh. There is greater distance and disproportion between humanity and the hypostatic union, or the being of the Word, than between good moral works and the gift of habitual grace. For between humanity and the Word there is infinite distance, which is not found between good moral works and grace; but on the part of human nature there is a congruity for the hypostatic union, as St. Thomas teaches, 3 p. q. 4, art. 1. Therefore, on the part of good moral works there is a congruity for grace; therefore they are dispositions, at least remote, to which grace corresponds as a matter of congruity, though not by debt or by merit from our free choice.

IIII. The second opinion is that of St. Augustine and St. Prosper, in the places cited below, which St. Thomas follows, 1. 2. q. 109, art. 6, and q. 24 de ver. art. 15, and 3. against Gentiles c. 149, and all Thomists: namely, that there is no disposition for grace from the faculty of nature alone. Since this opinion is most certain, for its explanation it should be noted that in this part we can speak either of habitual grace itself, or of the actual help by which free choice is moved by God to act piously. As regards habitual grace, then, let the following be stated:

First Conclusion. The ultimate disposition for grace cannot be had from the powers of nature alone; rather, the special help of God, who inwardly moves free choice and inspires good in it, is necessarily required for it.¹ So St. Thomas teaches in the cited places, and in 2 Sent. dist. 5, q. 2, art. 1, and dist. 28, art. 4, and de verit. q. 24, art. 15, quodl. 1, art. 7, and on Hebrews 12, lect. 3; Ferrariensis, 3 against Gentiles, cited chapter 149; and this is the common opinion of the ancients. It is proved by all the arguments by which, in disputation 54, conclusion 2, it was shown against the Pelagians that the special help of grace is absolutely necessary for salvation. Further, it is proved from that passage of Prov. 8, The will is prepared by the Lord: by this testimony the Council of Orange, canon 4, proves that the very desire to be cleansed from sin, by which man is prepared for grace, proceeds in us from the infusion and operation of the Holy Spirit. St. Augustine proves the same from the same testimony, in book 1 against the Two Letters of the Pelagians, chapter 8, and book 4, chapter 6, and in On the Predestination of the Saints and On the Gift of Perseverance very often. In those places he maintains that preparation for grace comes from the special help of premoving grace. St. Prosper proves the same from the same testimony, in the book On Grace and Free Choice to Rufinus, where he says: Who would doubt that free choice obeys the exhortation of the one calling when the grace of God has generated in it the inclination to believe and obey? Otherwise, it would suffice for man to be admonished, with no new will also being made in him, as it is written: The will is prepared by the Lord.

V. Nor is there any obstacle in the fact that Solomon himself says in Proverbs, chapter 16: It is man's part to prepare the soul. For he understands that it is man's part because he freely produces the consent by which he is prepared for grace; yet he effects this while presupposing the special help of God, who inspires good and moves inwardly. St. Augustine explains this passage in this way, in the cited book 2 against the Two Letters of the Pelagians, chapter 8, and in On Grace and Free Choice, chapter 5. The words of Scripture, If anyone opens to me, I will enter in,² and that passage of Isaiah 30, God waits in order to have mercy on you, are to be explained in the same way. For he does not wait for our consent that proceeds from the faculty of nature alone, as though such natural consent were a disposition for grace; rather, he waits for the consent that he himself nevertheless causes in us and together with us by the special help of prevenient grace, as will become clear in disputation 95.

Second, it is proved from Hebrews 12: Now may the God of peace fit you in every good thing to do his will, doing in you what is pleasing before him through Jesus Christ. Explaining this passage, St. Thomas says in the same place, lecture 3: A human being is fitted to do good in two ways: in one way, by acting outwardly, and thus one human being fits another by persuading or threatening; in another way, by providing something inwardly, and thus God alone fits the will, for he alone can change it, according to Proverbs 21: ‘The heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord; wherever you will, you will turn it.’ Therefore, etc.³

Third, it is proved from the Council of Trent, session 6 on justification, chapter 5, where the holy Synod teaches that sinful human beings are disposed by God's exciting and helping grace to turn themselves toward their own justification, freely assenting to that same grace. Here it says plainly enough that the final disposition for grace comes from the help of grace. We explained this passage in disputations 51 and 52; the same is clear from canons 3 and 4 of the same session and from session 14, canon 4, on the sacrament of penance.

Fourth, it is proved. The final disposition for grace is the beginning of our justification. Therefore, if it proceeds, or can proceed, from the capacity of nature alone, the beginning of our justification and salvation will come from us; yet to assert this is Pelagian, as all Catholics acknowledge.

Fifth, as will be clear in disputation 68, the final disposition for any form comes from the form itself in the order of formal or efficient causality. Therefore, the final disposition for habitual grace comes from the help of that same grace; it cannot, then, proceed from the capacity of nature alone. See the other excellent arguments for this conclusion in St. Thomas 3. contra Gentes, cap. 149, cited above. This conclusion will become still clearer from what follows.

VI. Second Conclusion. No remote disposition for grace can be had from the capacity of nature alone, whether it be asking for grace, desiring grace itself, or anything else; rather, a special help of premoving grace is necessarily required for it.⁴

This conclusion is most certain, and is gathered from the teaching of St. Augustine, Prosper, and St. Thomas in the places cited above. It is proved by the arguments made for the preceding conclusion, which also prove this one. For not only the final disposition but also the remote disposition for grace is truly some beginning of our justification and salvation, although they differ in this: the proximate disposition is a perfect beginning, whereas the remote disposition is an imperfect beginning. But no beginning of our salvation, even an imperfect one, comes from us, as St. Augustine proves in On the Predestination of the Saints, especially chapters 3 and 4, and in Against Julian the Pelagian, book 4, chapter 6, where, among other things, he says: For there, as I see, you have already begun to place merits preceding grace: asking, seeking, knocking, so that grace may be repaid as a debt for these merits, and thus grace be named in vain, as though no grace had gone before and touched the heart, so that the beatifying good might be asked of God, God might be sought, and one might knock at God's door; and the words would be written in vain: ‘His mercy will go before me.’⁵ Prosper says the same in Against the Collator, chapter 4 and following. Therefore. It is confirmed: as we said in disputation 2, among the other errors of the Semi-Pelagians was the claim that imperfect desires precede grace, along with certain imperfect beginnings of it originating from the vigilance of free choice. But remote dispositions for grace are its imperfect beginnings. Therefore.⁶

Second, it is proved. In natural things, not only the final disposition but also the remote disposition comes from the same agent as its efficient cause by whom the form is produced. For not only heat of eight degrees, by which matter is proximally disposed to receive the form of fire, comes from the generating fire as its efficient cause, but also heat of one degree, of four degrees, and so on. But habitual grace comes from God as its efficient cause, according to the Psalmist: The Lord will give grace and glory. Therefore.⁷

VII. Third, it is proved by St. Thomas's argument in 3. cont. Gent. c. 149 and on Hebrews, chapter 5, lecture 1, at the words Nor does anyone take the honor for himself, etc. Nothing disposes itself to a state higher than its nature, or brings itself to it, unless it is brought there by another, higher agent, just as air does not make itself fire but is made so by a higher power. But habitual grace is above the whole created intellectual nature. Therefore, no created nature disposes itself by its own power, even remotely, to attain grace. It is confirmed. Every action proceeding from the capacity of nature alone belongs to an order lower than grace and is disproportionate to it. Therefore, it cannot be a disposition for grace, even a remote one, for every disposition must belong to the same order as its form.

Finally, this is proved from the Council of Trent, Session 14, on the sacrament of penance, chapter 4, where, as we showed in disputations 51 and 52, the holy Synod teaches: Imperfect contrition, etc., is a gift of God and an impulse of the Holy Spirit, not yet indeed indwelling, but only moving, by which the penitent, helped, prepares a way for himself to justice. By these words the Council asserts that this remote disposition comes from God through the special help of premoving grace, and the same reasoning applies to any other remote disposition. But, in order to make clear what should be thought about the actual help of grace, let this be

VIII. Third Conclusion. The opinion that asserts that, on account of alms and other morally good works performed by someone existing in mortal sin, God confers the help of grace more on one person than another, according to the ordinary law, or helps one sooner, is contrary to St. Augustine, St. Prosper, and St. Thomas.⁸ That it is contrary to St. Augustine is clear from the passages cited for the preceding conclusion, but especially from Book II of the Questions to Simplicianus, question 2, near the end, where, explaining how hidden God's election to salvation is, he says: Certainly this election is so hidden that it cannot at all appear to us in the same lump; or, if it appears to some, I confess my weakness in this matter. For I have nothing to consider in people being chosen for saving grace, if I am allowed to examine this election by any thought, except either greater talent, or fewer sins, or both. Let us also add, if you please, honorable and useful studies. Does whoever is endowed with these things therefore seem to be chosen for grace? But when I have settled this, he who chooses the weak things of the world to confound the strong, and the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, will laugh at me; and, looking at him and blushing, I will laugh at many who are chaster than certain sinners and more eloquent than certain fishermen.⁹¹⁰¹¹ He immediately proves this with examples, saying: Have we not observed many of our faithful who walk in God's way and cannot compare in intellectual ability even with actors, let alone certain heretics? Likewise, do we not see certain men and women living blamelessly in conjugal chastity, and yet either heretics, or pagans, or even people in the true faith and the true Church so lukewarm that we are astonished to see them surpassed by harlots and actors suddenly converted, not only in wisdom and temperance but also in faith, hope, and charity? This is confirmed: for St. Augustine very often teaches that there is no reason on our part why God confers the helps of grace on this person rather than another. But especially, commenting on the words No one can come to me unless the Father has drawn him, he says: Why he draws this one and does not draw that one, do not wish to judge, if you do not wish to err.¹²¹³ He always reduces our calling to the gratuitous and sheer will of God, in accord with Matthew 11: I confess to you, Father, because you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to little ones; yes, Father, because this was pleasing before you. And Romans 9: It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. But if the opinion we oppose were true, some reason or condition on our part could already be assigned on account of which God would confer the helps of grace more on one person than another; and thus calling would not be reduced to the sheer and gratuitous will of God, and consequently neither would election.

IX. Second, this is proved from St. Prosper, who in the book Against the Collator, chapter 6, attacks Cassian because he said that the helps of grace are given by God on account of certain imperfect desires preceding grace, which flowed from the vigilance of our free choice, and on account of certain imperfect works, such as asking, seeking, knocking, etc., as is clear from his words quoted above.

They reply that Cassian is rightly reproached for this reason: he said grace is given on account of those good works as if on account of merit, and on account of works of piety having a proportion with grace, so that they would in some way lay force upon the kingdom of God. Yet the opinion stated above does not assert this. But this solution seems contrary to the very context of St. Prosper, who says in the cited chapter 6: How do you fail to see that you fall into that condemned error, since, whether you will or not, you are convicted of saying that God's grace is given according to our merits, when you affirm that some good work from human beings themselves precedes grace, on account of which they obtain grace? For the faith of one who asks, the piety of one who seeks, and the persistence of one who knocks cannot be regarded as without merit, especially since all such persons are said both to receive and to enter. From these words, and from what we said in disputation 2, it is sufficiently clear that Cassian did not state in express terms that grace is merited; on the contrary, he denied it, affirming that he posited no merit for grace itself. Faustus also affirmed this, as is clear from Book I On Free Choice, which he wrote: there he reproaches Pelagius for asserting that grace is given according to our merits, but nevertheless Prosper, from what Cassian said, rebukes and convicts him of relapsing, whether he will or not, into Pelagius's condemned error of saying that grace is given according to our merits. Maxentius makes the same argument against Cassian in his response to Pope Hormisdas's letter. This is confirmed by the words of Prosper himself in chapter 37 of the same book, where he says: Whichever way you turn, you are both bound and defeated by yourself. For if merits do not precede grace, and faith cannot exist without merits, then faith does not precede grace; and in every way, whatever it is from which merit arises, which is not possessed before grace, is had from grace.

X. Third, it is proved from St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 112, art. 3, in the body, where he asks: Whether grace is necessarily given to one who prepares himself for it. He answers that preparation, if considered insofar as it is from free choice, has no necessity for the attainment of grace, because the gift of grace exceeds every preparation of human power; but if it is considered insofar as it is from God moving, it has the necessity of infallibility, for grace infallibly follows upon it. He therefore holds that no preparation for grace, not even a remote one, can be had from the faculty of nature alone. This conclusion will become clearer from what we shall set forth in disputation 56, first conclusion. On the occasion of this controversy many Thomists dispute against Scotus whether some preparation for habitual grace merits grace itself, at least by merit of congruity; but this difficulty has its proper place in that same 1. 2. q. 114, art. 5, which must be treated below.

XI. To the first, it is answered that the rational soul is of the same natural order as the dispositions posited by man through his own power, which are presupposed for its union with matter. Hence, although it is created by God alone, man can nevertheless, by his own power, dispose matter for its introduction. Grace, however, is of a higher order than every preparation of human power; therefore no preparation from the faculty of nature alone can be a disposition for it. There is also another difference: the rational soul, in itself, has incomplete being, independent of matter; but that it be united to the body through prior natural dispositions belongs to it insofar as it is the natural form of a composite. Grace, by contrast, since it is not properly created but educed from the obediential potency of an intellectual creature, does not have being subsisting in itself, nor is it the natural form of any creature; nor can it be such, as will be clear in disputation 69. Hence a disposition for it cannot proceed from the faculty of nature alone. This answer can be confirmed and explained further: for, as St. Thomas teaches, 1 p. q. 70, art. 3, the sun and any heavenly body do not attain by their own power the union of soul with body, or the production of a living thing, because no effect exceeds the power and perfection of its cause. But a heavenly body, since it is not living, is absolutely surpassed by any living body; nevertheless, by the power of the intelligence by which it is moved, it can produce living things and dispose matter for the union of soul with body.¹⁴ We say proportionately in the present case that, since grace is of a higher order than every created substance and therefore exceeds its natural power, no preparation of a creature can in itself be a disposition for grace, except insofar as it proceeds from the motion of a higher agent through the special help of divine grace.

XII. To the second, it is answered that, as St. Thomas teaches, 1 p. q. 105, art. 4, ad 2 and 3, it can be understood in two ways that free choice does something from itself when it elicits consent. First, acting from itself can mean the same as moving from itself, that is, from an intrinsic active principle; and in this way, whenever the will acts freely, it acts from itself, that is, from an intrinsic principle, for it belongs to the nature of a free agent to act from itself in this way.¹⁵ In another way, acting from itself, or moving from itself, can be taken to exclude being moved by another extrinsic agent, or the motion of an extrinsic agent. In this sense created free choice does nothing from itself, as will be clear in disputations 96 and 97: for it does not have being from itself but from another, and it is not the absolutely first agent but only a proximate agent. And therefore it acts from its own intrinsic principle in such a way that it receives this very acting from the first agent absolutely, as from the first mover. For it does not belong to the nature of a free cause that the intrinsic principle from which the free action proceeds be its first principle, just as it does not belong to the nature of a cause that it be the first cause. St. Thomas pursues this doctrine in the same 1 p. q. 83, art. 1, ad 3, and in 2 Sentences, distinction 37, q. 2, art. 2, in the body; the subject will also return below. We therefore say in answer to the argument that, when free choice consents to God calling, it does indeed do something from itself in the first sense, that is, from an intrinsic principle; yet it does not do something from itself in the second meaning. Rather, it has consent itself from the efficacious help of prevenient grace, according to the words to the Philippians 2: For it is God who works in us both to will and to accomplish, and 1 Cor. 4: What do you have that you did not receive? etc.

XIII. To the third, it is answered that, besides sufficient calling, which gives the will the ability to consent, efficacious calling is also required for it actually to consent, by which it is made consenting. For St. Augustine establishes these two callings as distinct in On the Predestination of the Saints, chapter 16, as we shall see in disputation 71. Therefore, whether free choice consents or does not consent to God calling is placed within its power and freedom, but this belongs to it in different ways. Its not consenting, but resisting the call, comes from nowhere but its innate freedom, which, since it is from nothing, can fail.¹⁶ But its consenting is indeed from the will's innate freedom, yet this freedom is elevated and moved by the efficacious help of prevenient grace. Hence innate freedom alone cannot dispose itself for justification. And to the proposition brought forward in the argument, it is answered that, given sufficient calling, man’s consent depends on something beyond innate freedom; for this proceeds from efficacious help that moves beforehand, which, as will be clear in disputations 71 and 72, is distinct from sufficient help. Nevertheless, given efficacious help, that the will consents is from no other source than innate freedom; yet innate freedom is not the first initiator, nor the absolutely first cause, of that consent, but the second, as will become clear in disputations 89 and 98.

To the fourth, it is answered that, as was said, God does not confer grace on account of morally good works done by the capacity of nature alone, because a person existing in mortal sin is owed nothing but eternal punishment. Hence, if habitual or actual grace is given to him, it will be by God's pure mercy. To the confirmation it is answered:

XIV. Cornelius, when Peter was sent to him, was not in mortal sin but in grace.¹⁷ For Acts, chapter 10, says that he was devout and feared God with all his household, giving many alms to the people and always praying to God. Hence his prayers and alms proceeded from a special motion of the Holy Spirit; and so, on account of such works, God could grant him explicit faith in Christ, since previously he had implicit faith. The same should be said proportionately about Abraham's obedience. Yet from this it is not rightly inferred that the case is the same for morally good works done by someone existing in mortal sin through the capacity of nature alone; the reason for the difference is clear from what has been said.

To the fifth argument it is answered that, if God in his mercy should wish to help by a special help of grace someone who uses his free choice well by the capacity of nature alone, this would be very consonant with reason according to the order of divine providence, because the divine will, which is the first rule of goodness and fittingness, has so willed.¹⁸ But if by a hidden yet just judgment he should wish to give that person the help of exciting grace, but not efficacious grace, and instead leave him in his sin and damnation, this too would be very consonant with reason according to the order of that same providence. For since grace is owed to no creature, it is not in itself more consonant with reason that it be given to this person than to that one; rather, this must be grounded in God's gratuitous giving, otherwise grace would not be grace. Just so, in itself and prior to God's free will, it is not more consonant with reason or more fitting that God create these rather than those from among all possible creatures; rather, all fittingness is drawn from the free will of God, who willed to give existence to the creatures he in fact produced, and not to others. On this, see St. Thomas, Summa theologiae I, question 25, article 6.

XV. To the first confirmation it is answered with St. Thomas, Summa theologiae II–II, question 24, article 3, reply to objection 1: The power according to which God gives his gifts to each person is the disposition or preceding preparation, or the effort of the one receiving grace; but the Holy Spirit also goes before this disposition and effort, moving the human mind more or less according to his will. Hence the Apostle says to the Colossians 1: ‘Who made us worthy to share in the lot of the saints in light.’¹⁹ And to the Ephesians 4: Grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift; and 1 Corinthians 12: One and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each as he wills. Therefore, natural power or effort alone in no way disposes one for grace or for a greater increase of it, as will be made clear in disputations 57 and 62. St. Thomas develops the same answer in On Virtues in General, question 2, which is on Charity, article 7, reply to objection 9, where, explaining the same passage from Matthew, he says: What is said, ‘he gave to each according to his own power,’ is not to be referred only to the power of nature (for it is erroneous to say that the gifts of grace and glory are given according to the measure of natural endowments), but the power that is also through grace is to be understood, etc.²⁰ He teaches the same in his lecture on 1 Corinthians 12, lecture 2.

To the second confirmation it is answered that, although someone who has received a good soul, is well inclined, has fewer sins, and exercises himself in some morally good works by the capacity of nature alone is less distant from grace than another, very wicked person, nevertheless neither is positively disposed for grace, because every operation or power of nature belongs to an order lower than grace.²¹ Hence no disposition, even a negative one, is to be admitted from the powers of nature alone, such that grace infallibly follows it; for the same inconveniences follow from attributing such a negative disposition to nature rather than to grace. For this reason St. Augustine says: I attribute to your mercy the sins I have not committed. There is a parallel in natural things: it is certain that dry wood is less distant from fire, and less indisposed for the form of fire, than green wood, which has qualities more opposed to it. Yet neither is disposed for the form of fire, since every disposition comes through heat produced by fire, or by the power of fire or of some higher cause.

XVI. To the sixth it is answered that God, according to the order of his providence, mercifully and without any debt, willed to give the Angels more perfect in nature a more perfect efficacious help, so that they might turn more intensely to God and thereby obtain greater habitual grace, in order that there might be among the good Angels, according to the order of grace, a proportion like that found according to the order of nature. Thus, dispositionally, the quantity of habitual grace given to the Angels was according to the intensity of the motion of free choice, elevated by God through a special help of prevenient grace; for the Angels were justified through their own disposition.²² Yet the quantity of help was given to them freely, in keeping with the perfection of their nature, for the reasons St. Thomas assigns in the cited part I and in II–II, question 24, article 3, reply to objection 3. There, in this respect, he assigns a difference between Angels and human beings, to whom the quantity of help is not given according to the degree of perfection of their individual nature, as Augustine expressly teaches in question 2 to Simplicianus cited above.

XVII. To the seventh it is answered that the congruity by which human nature is more assumable by the Word than any other created nature is not considered according to some prior disposition in that nature, arising from its powers, by reason of which it would bear an order to the actual assumption; rather, it is considered according to an aptitude belonging to obediential potency. And this congruity, as St. Thomas teaches in the cited Third Part, question 4, article 1, is considered in two respects, namely according to its dignity and also according to its need.²³ According to its dignity, insofar as it is rational and intellectual, and consequently naturally apt to attain the divine Word himself through its own operation, by knowing and loving him; according to its need, because it needed restoration. But the disposition for habitual grace, of which we are speaking here, is not considered merely according to obediential potency, which naturally belongs to a human being, in accord with Augustine's saying: To be able to have faith belongs to human nature, where “to be able” means the natural capacity for faith, which a stone does not have. Rather, it is considered according to actual proximate or remote preparation, which, as was said, must be of the same order as grace itself.²⁴ Hence the cases are not alike.

Whether, for those who do all that is in them from the powers of nature alone, there are infallibly and by a certain law given by God helps of prevenient grace by which they carry it out as is required for salvation.

I. Some defend the affirmative part, which they explain through four statements. First statement. According to the ordinary law, God is not accustomed to give men helps of prevenient and exciting grace by which they may be disposed for salvation, except to those who use their free choice well, doing what is in them by the faculty of nature.

Second statement. For one who does all that is in him by the faculty of nature alone, helps of prevenient grace are infallibly given by a certain law which the Father established with the Son on account of the merits of his Passion. They add, however, that these helps are not given on account of prior merits of the man himself, but on account of Christ's merits.

Third statement, which explains this opinion more fully. Just as God is always at hand to free choice through his general concurrence, so that it may naturally will or refuse, as it pleases, so he is at hand to it through the help of sufficient grace, so that whenever it chooses, by its natural powers, to undertake some work among those that pertain to justification, it may carry it out as is required for salvation. They add that God, without any interruption, always stands ready at the door of the heart to help our efforts, and desires to enter. They do not, however, explain sufficiently whether that effort, proceeding from the powers of nature alone, is numerically the same act as the effort by which free choice elicits a disposition for grace—that is, whether the very same act, proceeding from the powers of nature, is perfected and elevated by prevenient grace to the supernatural order, so as to be of the kind required for salvation—although they seem to suggest this.

From these points they infer a fourth statement: namely, that the helps of prevenient and exciting grace are not absolutely necessary for man to elicit a disposition for grace as regards the substance of the act, but only for him to elicit it as is required, that is, so that the act be supernatural and suited to a supernatural end. But this is to be treated in disputation 65.

II. They prove the first statement: for, as will be clear in disputation 78, God's interior call to faith, the interior stirring of a believer to repentance through prevenient grace, and even the illuminations and helps by which those justified are aided by God both to receive greater increase of the Spirit and not to succumb to temptations, depend very greatly on the free choice of the one who is called and stirred. Therefore, according to the ordinary law, these helps are not given unless something first comes from the side of free choice. The antecedent is proved. First, because it is presupposed that a man approaches to hear the preaching of the Gospel; but he could approach intending to attend to what was being said, or intending to mock it, which was within his own power. Likewise, for him to be stirred to faith, it is presupposed that he first acquires intelligible species and cognitions, without which God would not stir him by the actual help of prevenient grace. Therefore the helps of prevenient grace depend on the free choice of the one who is called.

First confirmation. These helps often depend on ministers of the Church, without whose action God does not call men, as will be clear in disputation 77; yet this dependence detracts nothing from grace. Therefore, in the same way, the call can depend on the free choice of the one called without any injury being done to grace.

Second confirmation. The interior helps of prevenient grace consist in an illumination of the intellect and a stirring of the will, as is clear from the Council of Trent, session 6, On Justification, chapter 5, where it says: It further declares that the beginning of justification itself in adults must be taken from the prevenient grace of God through Jesus Christ, that is, from his call, by which they are called when none of their merits exist. But the call is made by God inwardly through an illumination of the intellect and a stirring of the will. Hence it adds below: So that, as God touches the heart of man through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, etc. By these words it is signified that the illumination of the intellect is prevenient grace. But this illumination of the intellect and stirring of the will, since they are formally vital actions, depend intrinsically on our vital powers, namely, on the intellect and will eliciting such operations. Therefore such helps depend in some way on the effort of our intellect and will; therefore, ordinarily speaking, without it God does not confer the helps of prevenient grace.

III. Second, an argument is made from the authority of St. Augustine, City of God, book 19, chapter 13, where he says: God gave human beings certain goods fitting for this life, that is, temporal peace in proportion to mortal life, in health, safety, and the fellowship of their kind; and whatever is necessary for preserving or recovering this peace, such as this visible light, breathable air, drinkable water, and so on. He did so by this most equitable arrangement: whoever among mortals has used such goods rightly will receive greater and better goods, namely the peace of immortality itself, and the fitting glory and honor in eternal life, to enjoy God and one's neighbor in God. But whoever uses them wrongly, that is, unjustly, will neither receive those nor lose these. By these words he seems plainly to establish the law asserted by the second statement of this opinion.

Third, an argument is made for the other statements, especially the second, and is drawn from various places in St. Thomas. For in Questions on Truth, question 14, article 11, reply to objection 1, he says: If someone brought up in the woods were to follow the guidance of natural reason in desiring good and fleeing evil, it must be held with complete certainty that God would either reveal to him through an inward inspiration what is necessary for believing, or send some preacher of the faith to him, just as he sent Peter to Cornelius in Acts 10. Here St. Thomas plainly teaches that if this person does what lies within him, following the dictate of natural reason in desiring good and fleeing evil, he will certainly be enlightened by God, which is the same as saying infallibly. But this infallibility can be grounded only in a law established by God, on account of Christ's merits, and in a decree to give the helps of prevenient grace to all who do all that lies within them. St. Thomas therefore holds that there is such a law. The same is gathered from his reply to objection 2 of the same article, where he says that although it is not in our power to know the things of faith from ourselves, nevertheless, if we do what lies within us, namely, follow the guidance of natural reason, God will not fail us in what is necessary for us. Likewise, in third contra Gentiles, chapter 159.¹ he says that God, for his part, is ready to give grace to all; only those are deprived of grace who themselves provide an impediment to grace. But one who does all that lies within him by the capacity of nature provides no impediment to grace, as is clear in itself. Therefore, according to St. Thomas's view, he will most certainly and infallibly receive the helps of prevenient grace. In Sentences, book 2, distinction 28, question 1, article 4, he says that someone can also prepare himself to have faith through what is in natural reason. Hence it is said that if someone born among barbarian nations does what lies within him, God will reveal to him what is necessary for salvation, either by inspiring him or by sending a teacher. And in Questions on Truth, question 24, article 1, reply to objection 2, he says: Although a person cannot acquire by free choice the grace that makes works meritorious, he can nevertheless prepare himself to have grace, which will not be denied him by God if he does what lies within him. And so it is not wholly outside the power of free choice to perform meritorious works, although the power of free choice by itself is not sufficient for this. Therefore.

Fourth, it is argued. In fact, God always grants sufficient help to one who does what lies within him. Therefore, he has decreed to confer it, for whatever God does, he has decreed to do. But God's decree is God's law, just as a ruler's law is the ruler's decree. Therefore, there truly is a law established by God to give the helps of prevenient grace to those who do all that lies within them. The antecedent is proved: God grants sufficient help to those who do not do what lies within them; otherwise he would fail to provide what is necessary for salvation. Therefore, all the more does he infallibly confer such help if they do all that lies within them. Otherwise, those who do not do what lies within them by the capacity of nature alone would have been provided for much better than those who do what lies within them. It would consequently follow that the admonitions by which sinners are urged to do good works are pointless, and likewise that good works done in mortal sin are pointless—something that must not be admitted.

IIII. Fifth, the aforesaid law is gathered from passages of Sacred Scripture, especially John 1: He was the true light, which enlightens every human being coming into this world; and 1 Timothy 2.² God wills all human beings to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. This would certainly be false if at some time God did not enlighten someone or give the helps of grace to one who does all that lies within him. For how does he will all human beings to be saved if he does not give the helps necessary for salvation, or even sufficient for it, to one who does all that lies within him? Therefore, there is a law concerning the giving of such helps to one who does what lies within him. Likewise, in Revelation 3 the Lord says in his own person: I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door to me, I will enter to him, dine with him, and he with me. From these words it is gathered that God stands without interruption at the door of our heart, always ready to help our efforts and desiring to enter, if a person does what lies within him.

Sixth, the opposite opinion would entail one great absurdity: namely, that some adult would necessarily be damned. Yet this must in no way be admitted, as St. Thomas teaches in the cited Questions on Truth, question 14.

V. The consequence is proved as follows. If there is no law that those who do all that is in them receive the helps of prevenient grace, it will sometimes happen that a person does all that is in him, and yet God does not confer such helps on him. But, this being supposed, such a person will necessarily be damned, because he cannot be saved without the help of grace, which nevertheless he neither has nor can have, since God does not will to give it, whatever he may do. Another inconvenience would also follow, namely, that venial sin could exist in someone who has only original sin; but this is contrary to St. Thomas, Prima Secundae, question 89, article 6. The consequence is proved. If an unbaptized child who has reached the use of reason does all that is in him by nature's capacity in order to turn himself to God, he does not sin mortally against the precept by which, according to St. Thomas, he is bound at that moment to turn to God; for no one sins if he does all that he can, since otherwise he would be bound to do the impossible. Nor does he thereby obtain remission of original sin, because sin cannot be erased without the help of grace, which, however, we suppose God does not confer on that child. The argument is then this. After that time has passed, the child can sin venially before he sins mortally; therefore, if in fact he sins venially, venial sin will be found in him along with original sin alone.

Seventh. The salvation of an adult is placed in his power as long as he lives in this world. But it would not be in his power unless there were an infallible law that those who do all they can by nature's capacity receive the helps of prevenient grace, so that their action may be such as is required for salvation. Therefore. The major premise is clear from Eccles. 15: God from the beginning established man and left him in the hand of his own counsel. He set before you water and fire; stretch out your hand to whichever you wish. Before man are life and death, good and evil; whatever he chooses will be given to him. And Psalm 118 says: My soul is always in my hands, that is, in my power. The minor premise is proved as follows: if there were no law to give the helps of prevenient grace to someone who does all that is in him by nature's capacity alone, it would not be in that person's power to have those same helps, but only in God's power; and consequently salvation, which cannot be had without the helps of grace, would be in God's power alone and not in a person's power.

This is confirmed by John 1: He gave them the power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, etc. By these words it is signified that people have been given the power to become children of God insofar as, if they strive as much as they can, God will be at hand to enable them to obtain faith and grace, and they will not be deprived of what they desire. Therefore, etc.

VI. The second opinion is opposed to the preceding one. All Thomists and the other Doctors in the places cited below defend it; and since this opinion is most certain and expresses the mind of St. Augustine and St. Thomas, let this be said for its explanation.³

First Conclusion. No law was ever established by God to give the helps of prevenient grace to those who do all that is in them by nature's capacity alone; nor did Christ our Lord merit or will that there be such a law.⁴ This is proved from St. Augustine in the passages cited in the preceding disputation, conclusions 2 and 3, and in Letter 107 to Vitalis. There he holds it certain that, when two people stand in an equal case, God enlightens one because he wills, and does not enlighten the other because it does not please him, which is shown without any contradiction in the case of little ones, as St. Augustine himself says in the same letter, arguing against the Pelagians; and the holy Doctor adds that no difference can be assigned on the parents' part. For he says: How can it be said that all people would have received that grace if those to whom it is not given did not reject it by their own will, because God wills all people to be saved, when it is not given to many little ones, and very many die without it who have no contrary will; and sometimes, although their parents desire it and hasten, and the ministers too are willing and ready, it is not given because God is unwilling, when the one for whom they were hastening to obtain it suddenly dies before it is given? Hence it is clear that those who resist this truth, so plainly manifest, do not at all understand the wording by which it is said that God wills all people to be saved, although so many are not saved—not because of their own unwillingness, but because God does not will it—which is shown without any obscurity in little ones. Moreover, in Book I of the Questions to Simplicianus, question 2, especially near the end, he teaches the same thing most clearly, as is clear from his words quoted above. There he affirms that God often leaves in unbelief people who apply themselves to morally good works by nature's capacity, and calls others to the faith who are corrupt in conduct, very wicked, and great sinners. Augustine therefore holds that no law was established by God for giving the helps of grace to those who do what is in them by nature's capacity. Likewise, in Book I Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, chapter 8, he says: For if the desire for good begins in us without God's grace, that very beginning will be a merit to which the help of grace will come as if owed; and thus God's grace will not be given freely, but what we have earned will be given. By these words he seems plainly to teach that operations preceding grace, proceeding from nature's capacity alone, upon which grace is given, are some beginning of that same grace and a kind of merit for it. He teaches this at greater length also in Book On the Predestination of the Saints, chapter 2. Therefore St. Augustine understood that there is no such law.

VII. It is confirmed by a clear argument from an effect: for St. Augustine often teaches that no reason can be assigned on man's part why God calls this one and not that one. He asserts this especially in the cited question 2, To Simplicianus, at the end, whose words are: Why, however, is it so for this one and not so for that one? Man, who are you? If you do not repay what is owed, you have something to be grateful for; if you repay it, you have nothing to complain about. From these words it is clear that, of two people who ask, knock equally, and desire by the mere faculty of nature, according to Augustine God calls one because he wills, and does not call the other because he does not will, so that he may be shown true who said: It is not of the one who wills, nor of the one who runs, but of God who shows mercy.⁵ And again: Therefore he has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills he hardens. St. Augustine therefore holds that the aforesaid law does not exist, and that God did not establish that, ordinarily speaking, one who has not first done what is in him by the faculty of nature is not called through grace, nor that help of grace is infallibly given to one who does all that is in him. Otherwise a reason could be assigned on man's part why God calls this one and not that one: namely, because this one first did all that was in him by the faculty of nature, whereas that one did not. We shall adduce other passages of Augustine that especially support this teaching in the following conclusion. Nor is it enough to answer that antecedent good works, done by the faculty of nature alone, are merely a condition without which God ordinarily does not give the help of prevenient grace, and not a reason on account of which grace is conferred. For, according to the teaching handed down by Augustine, to say that a condition sine qua non of predestination and grace is given on our part is the same as saying that a cause of predestination and grace, or a reason why a man is predestined and called to faith, is given, as was shown in disputation 37.

VIII. Second, it is proved from St. Prosper, Against the Collator, chapters 4, 5, and 6, where he attacks Cassian, who asserts: When he has seen in us some beginning of a good will, he at once illuminates, strengthens, and stirs it toward salvation, granting increase to the will that he himself either planted or saw spring up through our effort. Hence human reason cannot easily discern how the Lord grants to those who ask, is found by those who seek, and opens to those who knock, etc. By these words, as was shown in disputation 2, nos. 24 ff., Cassian asserted that if a man does what is in him by asking, knocking, seeking, etc., God will at once be present through exciting grace to illuminate the man and grant increase to the action he had seen spring up through our effort. Yet St. Prosper rebukes Cassian for placing by this assertion in nature the beginning of grace, although an imperfect one, and some merit of grace, even though Cassian did not explicitly assert that God had established a law that helps of grace be given to one who does what is in him by the faculty of nature, by asking, seeking, knocking, etc., or that they be given on account of works of nature as merit; he only said that all who by the faculty of nature do what is in them by seeking, knocking, etc., are said to receive, come, and enter, as Prosper himself reports in the same book, chapter 6. Faustus of Riez held the same as Cassian, as was said in disputation 2, nos. 13 ff. Against them, the same Prosper says in book 1 of On the Call of All Nations, chapter 9: It remains in force and is fulfilled daily, what the Lord promised Abraham without a condition and granted without a law:⁶ He therefore holds that God established no law for giving helps of grace to those who do all that is in them by the faculty of nature alone. Otherwise the promise of salvation made to the sons of Abraham would not have been absolute but conditional, namely, if they themselves had done what was in them; and the very gift of grace would not have been given without a law, if the contrary opinion were true.

IX. Third, it is proved by the authority of St. Thomas, first part of the second part, question 112, article 3, in the body, where he clearly teaches our opinion. For he says that preparation, if considered insofar as it is from free choice, has no necessity for the attainment of grace; but if considered insofar as it is from God moving, etc. He teaches the same in question 109, art. 6, ad 2, and on Romans 10, lecture 3, where he explains the maxim, For one who does what is in him, God does not deny grace, as referring to one who does what is in him insofar as he is moved by divine help. For he says: If any of them had nevertheless done what was in them, the Lord in his mercy would have provided for them by sending them a preacher of the faith, as Peter was sent to Cornelius, as told in Acts 10, and Paul to the Macedonians, as told in Acts 16. Yet this very fact, that some do what is in them by turning themselves to God, is from God, moving their hearts toward good. Lamentations 5: Turn us, O Lord, to you, and we shall be turned.

They answer that St. Thomas there speaks of habitual grace, for which not every human preparation is sufficient. But against this: the very same reasoning applies to actual helps of prevenient grace. For, since they are simply the first gifts of grace, they are given freely by God no less than habitual grace; indeed, the very character of gratuitous giving shines much more in the bestowal of the first help of grace than in the other gifts, which presuppose prior gratuitous helps, as will become clear from what we shall say in disputations 58 and 59. Moreover, the reason St. Thomas, in the cited place, says that no preparation, insofar as it comes from free choice, has necessity—that is, infallibility—for attaining grace is that the gift of grace exceeds every preparation of human power. But actual helps of prevenient grace likewise, since they are supernatural in their essence, exceed every preparation of human power and the whole order of nature. Therefore. Moreover, there is another place of St. Thomas where he expressly speaks of actual helps, namely third contra Gentiles, chapter 149, where he expressly proves by many arguments that a human being cannot merit the aforesaid help, nor even attain it by his own power. Among other things, in the first argument he says: Divine help is not given to us because we advance toward it by good works; rather, we make progress by good works because we are preceded by divine help. In the third argument he proves the same in these words: No particular agent can universally precede the action of the first and universal agent, since every action of a particular agent has its origin in a universal agent, just as among these lower things every motion is preceded by celestial motion. But the human soul is ordered under God as a particular agent under a universal one. Therefore, it is impossible for there to be any right motion in the soul that divine action does not precede.

X. Fourth, it is proved by an argument founded on Sacred Scripture. For whatever is given under a law and agreement to a person who works is given to him by a title of justice, at least imperfect justice; for a law and contract establish a claim of justice, as is clear from the parable in Matthew in which the laborers made an agreement with the master for a denarius. There the master said to one: Did you not agree with me for a day's wage of a denarius? Take what is yours, and go in peace.⁷ Therefore, if actual helps of prevenient grace are given by God under an agreement and contract to those who do all they can by the capacity of nature, they are given to them by a title of justice grounded in a divine contract and agreement. Consequently, those helps will not be gifts of grace but things owed for works; and so grace would not be grace. For Romans 11 says: But if it is by grace, then it is no longer from works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. It is confirmed by Romans 4: But to one who works, the reward is not reckoned according to grace but according to what is owed. Therefore, if there is a law that helps of grace be given to one who works by the capacity of nature and does all he can, such helps will be given to him as what is owed, not according to grace.

They answer that, although there is the aforesaid law, because it was established on account of Christ's merits and not on account of any condign worthiness, proportion, or piety found in works done by the capacity of nature, those helps are owed only in relation to Christ, who merited them for us and in view of whom, and on account of whose merits, the law was established; they are not owed in relation to those who use their free choice well by the capacity of nature alone.⁸ Just so, the justification of the ungodly, or habitual grace, which is given to those for whom Christ the Lord offered his passion in its efficacy, is owed in relation to Christ, but not in relation to those sinners themselves, since they are justified wholly freely.

But against this: for even when the Semi-Pelagians were challenged by Saints Augustine and Prosper because on their view grace was given according to our merits, they answered that goods of nature were in no way meritorious of grace, but only an occasion on which God was moved to confer the helps of prevenient grace; and so grace always remained gratuitous, as is clear from the words of Faustus and Cassian quoted in disputation 2, numbers 15, 26, and 28. Moreover, the same answer is refuted by a parallel case. If a king, at a prince's request, were to enact a law that he would give a certain city to whichever soldier in his army entered it first, surely the soldier who entered the city first would make it owed to him by a title of justice grounded in the law enacted at the prince's request; and, given the law, his deed would have some proportion to the value of that city, because the law gave it that proportion, although considered in itself and apart from the law it would have none. Therefore, the same applies in the present case, etc. Nor is the case the same as the example given about habitual grace. For when a law establishes that something will be given to someone who acts beforehand, there truly is an obligation in relation to the person who acts, so that what was promised by law is owed for that very act. But Christ did not merit that justification or habitual grace be given to a sinner as someone who acts beforehand by the capacity of nature alone; otherwise Christ would have merited that his grace not be grace. Hence the example is irrelevant.

XI. Fifth, this is proved from Romans 15: For I say that Christ Jesus was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers; but that the Gentiles should honor God for his mercy. Explaining this passage, St. Thomas says in Lecture 1 that Christ in his own person presented himself only to the Jews, for the truth of God, namely, so that the truth of God who made the promise might be confirmed. Hence he adds, ‘To confirm the promises made to the fathers,’ that is, so that by this the promises made to the fathers might be fulfilled. Hence this does not apply to the Gentiles, but they were received on account of mercy.⁹ From this the argument is drawn. Christ came to the Gentiles out of sheer mercy, because he had not been promised to them; but he came to the Jews in order to keep the truth of his promises. Therefore, by reason of truthfulness, which is a potential part of justice,, the helps of prevenient grace are in some way owed to those who do what is in them, if they were promised those helps by an established law. Therefore, this law must not be admitted.

This is confirmed, first, because, as St. Thomas teaches in 2. 2. q. 80. art. 1., in the body of the article, a legal obligation is that which someone is bound by law to render. Therefore, if God bound himself by his own law to give the helps of prevenient grace to those who do what is in them, such helps are owed to them according to law.¹⁰

This is confirmed, second, because in the same place St. Thomas teaches that truthfulness is a potential part of justice, in which a moral obligation is found. Therefore, what is rendered in order to keep the truth of promises is rendered from imperfect justice when a promise has been made by law to someone who performs an action. Therefore, there is no such law.

Finally, this is proved from Canon 6 of the Council of Orange, where the person who says, Without the grace of God, mercy is conferred on us who believe, will, desire, and knock, etc., is condemned. By these words it teaches plainly and absolutely that mercy is not given to those who believe by nature's capacity alone, who will, who knock. The expression mercy is conferred should be noted, for the Semi-Pelagians, against whom the Council speaks, said that the helps of grace were given through mercy, and not through justice or as something owed, to all who believe, will, and desire, as is clear from what Prosper reports and what we said above concerning the opinion of Faustus and Cassian.¹¹ Therefore, all the more, one cannot say that mercy in the form of prevenient grace is given by a certain law to those who will, desire, and knock by nature's capacity alone. The Council therefore holds that no such law exists.

XII. Second Conclusion. It is false, as the first statement of the first opinion asserts, that according to the ordinary law or the common manner God follows, he does not give the helps of prevenient grace unless people do what is in them by nature's capacity.¹² This is proved from what was said in the first conclusion. Moreover, otherwise, according to the ordinary law and common manner God follows, the help of grace would follow upon human humility or obedience, which is contrary to Canon 6 of the Second Council of Orange. It would also follow that, according to that same law and manner, God would wait for our will in order to confer on us the prior helps of exciting grace and so that we might will to be cleansed; this seems contrary to Canon 4 of the same Council. This is proved as follows: if, generally speaking, God gives the helps of prevenient grace only to those believing as regards the substance of the act, willing, knocking, and doing what is in them by nature's capacity, then, generally speaking, prevenient grace follows upon the human will and obedience, and, speaking regularly, God waits for our will in order to grant us the first gifts of prevenient grace. This cannot be admitted, as will be clear in disputation 95.

Second, as was shown in disputation 2, no. 21, this first statement was asserted by Cassian in Conference 13, where he says: Thus God's grace always cooperates with our free choice toward the good, and helps, protects, and defends it in all things, so that sometimes it even requires or awaits certain efforts of a good will from it, lest he seem to confer his gifts on one wholly asleep or dissolved in idle sloth, etc.¹³ Yet St. Prosper reproves Cassian for this assertion in several chapters of Against the Collator, but especially chapter 39, definition 6, where he says: As if both positions should be accepted in such a way that in some people the will precedes grace, in others grace precedes the will, and not in such a way that in everyone the will follows grace. For, according to them, if free choice is removed when it is preceded by grace, grace is removed when it is preceded by free choice. Therefore he would have reproved Cassian all the more if he had said that, generally speaking, God does not give the help of prevenient grace unless a human will comes first by doing all that is in it.

XIII. Third, if the first statement were true, it would follow that prevenient grace, generally speaking, is not simply prevenient, and that God's first calling and excitation do not first precede us, but would be prevenient while themselves preceded by the created will. This is proved as follows: it would be preceded by free choice doing what is in it by nature's capacity; therefore grace would be preceded by nature, and would not precede it.

Fourth. God goes before with the helps of grace those who use their free choice badly, and calls them while they are caught in the very act of sin; as is clear from many passages of Scripture. For he says: I was found by those who were not seeking me; I appeared openly to those who did not ask me. And again: All day long I stretched out my hands to a people who did not believe but contradicted me. And in Isa. 50: Because I came, and there was no man; I called, and there was no one who would hear. In this the mercy of God shines forth especially, because he calls to himself the sluggish and negligent, and sinners who are unworthy and ungrateful. God observes this not merely ordinarily, but always, when he calls sinners: For all have sinned and lack the glory of God:¹⁴ therefore, etc.

This is confirmed by a notable testimony of St. Augustine, found in book 1 of On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, chapter 22, where, explaining the words, Not from works, but from him who calls it was said: The elder shall serve the younger, and O the depth of riches, he says: How does it happen that a man, from early childhood, is more modest, more intelligent, more temperate, victorious over lust to a great extent, hating greed, detesting wantonness, and growing more advanced and better suited to the other virtues, is nevertheless in a place where Christian grace cannot be preached to him? For how will they call upon one in whom they have not believed? Or how will they believe him whom they have not heard? But how will they hear without a preacher? Yet another, slow in intelligence, given over to lust, covered with shameful acts and crimes, is so directed that he hears, believes, is baptized, and is snatched away—or, if he is kept here, lives commendably? Where did these two acquire such different merits? I do not mean that this one believes and the other does not, which belongs to the will proper to each, but that this one hears and the other does not hear. For this is not in man's power. Where, I ask, did they acquire such different merits? He pursues many other points there in this way, showing that no merits or demerits preceded before the soul was infused into the body, on account of which one would be born slow in intelligence and given over to lust, or be called by God, while another would not. Augustine considered this argument so effective that, a little later, he says: I do not see at all what answer those can give to this who, wishing to defend God's justice by human conjectures and ignorant of the depth of grace, have woven implausible fables. He says the same in book 1, To Simplicianus, question 2, whose words we cited above:¹⁵ therefore, according to Augustine, no law was established by God to call to faith those who do what is in them by the faculty of nature or are endowed with good morals; nor does he require them first to do what is in them in order to confer on them the helps of prevenient grace.

XIV. Finally, this opinion is proved and explained by a twofold example that St. Fulgentius uses to confirm it. The first is found in On the Incarnation and Grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, chapter 19, where he says: Just as, in carnal birth, the formation by the divine work precedes any act of will on the part of the person being born, so in spiritual birth, by which we begin to put off the old man, etc.¹⁶ He adds the second example in chapter 20 of the same book, where he says: A pattern was given beforehand in the flesh of Christ for us to recognize spiritually in our faith. For Christ, the Son of God, was conceived according to the flesh by the Holy Spirit and was born; but the Virgin could never have conceived or given birth to that flesh unless the Holy Spirit had brought about the beginning of that same flesh. So also, in the heart of man, faith can neither be conceived nor increased unless the Holy Spirit pours it out and nourishes it; for we have been reborn from the same Spirit from whom Christ was born. In confirmation of this he adduces the passage of Isa. 26: From before your face, O Lord, we have conceived and, as it were, been in labor, and have given birth to a spirit of salvation, to which the words in Galatians 4 correspond: My little children, for whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you. Behold, St. Fulgentius clearly teaches that nothing on our part precedes in the conferral of grace by which we are regenerated, just as nothing precedes in carnal generation. He therefore holds it false that, according to the ordinary law, God does not confer the helps of prevenient grace on men unless they themselves have first done what is in them.

XV. Third Conclusion. The effort by which a man elicits a supernatural disposition for grace is not the same as the effort by which he does what is in him from the powers of nature alone.¹⁷ The conclusion is most certain and is proved as follows: an effort proceeding as an elicited act from a power elevated by supernatural help is not the same in substance as a purely natural effort, as will be clear in disputation 65. But the effort that is a disposition for grace proceeds from a power elevated by supernatural help, especially if it is the ultimate disposition. Therefore it is not the same in substance as an effort proceeding from the faculty of nature alone.

Second, otherwise it would follow that a human being, from the powers of his own nature, supplies an imperfect beginning of his own salvation and a disposition for it in its substance, while only the perfection and completion of that disposition are supplied by God; thus the human being would take the first part for himself and leave the later parts to God. But this cannot be admitted, as St. Augustine shows in On the Predestination of the Saints, chapters 2 and 3, and St. Prosper in Against the Collator, chapter 3 and following. For Cassian used to say that, when God sees in us a certain beginning of good will, he immediately enlightens, strengthens, and stirs us toward salvation, as is clear from what was said at number 8.¹⁸ The answer is no good, namely, that the effort preceding grace contributes nothing to salvation because it is not supernatural or as it ought to be; for this answer was already excluded in disputation 55, number 9, and can also be refuted as follows: Cassian too asserted that this effort is not supernatural and contributes nothing to salvation unless God helps it by his grace. This is clear from St. Hilary's letter to Augustine, shortly after its beginning, where he says: For they do not think that a sick person’s wish to be healed, with fear of punishment aroused, is to be counted among any work of their cure. And below: Nor is grace denied if such a will is said to precede, a will that merely seeks a physician and is not yet itself able to do anything. For they want those testimonies, such as ‘according as he has apportioned to each the measure of faith,’ and similar ones, to mean that the one who has begun to will is helped, not that he is also given the gift of willing. Consider the phrase and is not yet itself able to do anything. It is the same as saying that the will to seek a physician has no power from itself, contributes nothing, and is not as it ought to be for salvation unless it is helped and perfected by God's grace. The same is gathered from Cassian's words reported by St. Prosper in Against the Collator, chapter 8. For, explaining Romans 9, It is not of the one who wills or runs, but of God who shows mercy, and Philippians 2, For it is God who works in us, Cassian says: In all these things both God's grace and the freedom of our free choice are declared: a human being can sometimes be moved by his own impulses to extend himself toward the desire for virtues, yet always needs the Lord's help. For no one, merely by willing, enjoys health or is freed from the disease of illness as his free choice desires. Cassian immediately adds these words: Even through the good of nature, bestowed by the Creator's gift, beginnings of good wills sometimes arise; yet, unless they are directed by God, they cannot reach the completion of the virtues. In chapters 15 and 16 of the same book, Prosper reports these words of Cassian: We infer, for reasons of piety, that we must accept both grace and free choice together, lest by taking either of them away from a human being we seem to depart from the rule of ecclesiastical faith. And explaining how God's grace relates to free choice, he adds: For when God sees that we are turning our will toward good, he meets us, directs us, and strengthens us, etc.¹⁹ Yet in the cited places St. Prosper convicts Cassian from these very statements of placing the beginning of grace in nature. The same is proved from Hilary's letter to Augustine, shortly after the beginning, where, speaking of the Massilians, he says: They want that testimony, ‘according as he has apportioned to each the measure of faith,’ and similar ones, to mean that the one who has begun to will is helped, not that he is also given the gift of willing.²⁰ See what was said above in disputation 2.

XVI. Finally, our conclusion is proved by a notable testimony of St. Augustine, Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, book 1, chapter 18, where he reports these words of Julian: The human being, he says, we defend as God's work, and hold that no one is compelled against his will by God's power either toward evil or toward good, but that by his own will he does good or evil; in a good work he is always helped by God's grace, while toward evil he is incited by the devil's suggestions.²¹ Yet in chapter 19 Augustine attacks this assertion in the words cited in disputation 1, number 11, where he reproaches Julian for saying that our will is not moved by grace toward a good work. He says: Why did you not say that a human being is stirred by God's grace toward a good work, just as you said that he is incited toward evil by the devil's suggestions? But you said that in a good work a person is always helped by God's grace, as though after he had undertaken a good work by his own will, without any grace of God, he were then helped by divine aid in the work itself, in return, that is, for the merits of a good will, so that grace owed would be repaid, not grace unowed given, and thus grace would not be grace. He says the same in other places cited in disputation 1, numbers 3 and 9. There Julian held that the very work begun by nature was helped and completed by the grace of God following after it. In Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, book 2, chapter 8, he says: These people, that is, the Pelagians, want the desire for good to begin in a human being from the human being himself, so that the grace of completion may follow upon the merit of this beginning. And below: Perhaps, then, they preserve a place for grace at least in this way: they think that without grace a human being can have a desire for an imperfect good, whereas he can have a desire for a perfect good not merely more easily through grace, but cannot have it at all except through grace. Yet even so they say that God's grace is given according to our merits. In the course of that chapter and in chapter 9, St. Augustine proves against the Pelagians that an effort or good work begun by the powers of nature alone is not made supernatural by subsequent grace; rather, the help of grace precedes those very efforts. Otherwise, it would follow that grace is given according to our merits. Nor is it enough to answer that God does not give the helps of prevenient grace on account of preceding works of nature or some prior merit, but gives them freely, even though he ordinarily does not give grace without those works. For this answer has already been refuted above.

From these things it follows, first, that Christ our Lord did not merit that the above-mentioned law be established. This is proved as follows: Christ did not merit that a law derogating from his own grace be established; but the law of which we are speaking here seems to derogate from the grace conferred on us through Christ, as can be gathered from what was said above. Therefore, etc. Second, it follows that the third statement set out above is false, namely, that God is at hand to a human being with the sufficient help of grace, so that whenever he himself wishes by his natural powers to undertake some work among those pertaining to justification, he may carry it out as salvation requires. For the same inconveniences follow from this statement as from the other three.

XVII. To the first argument the antecedent is denied. For we say that, although the effect of the actual help of prevenient grace and of the inward calling—namely, an act of our will and intellect—depends in the genus of efficient cause on those same powers when moved and aroused by God, the help itself that first precedes, as will be clear in disputations 74 and 78, does not depend actively on our free choice, but on God alone, who alone calls us inwardly and moves us beforehand, in accord with the saying: You will call me, and I will answer you.²²²³ To the first proof it is answered that approaching to hear the Gospel, with the intention either of mocking it or of attending to what is said and receiving it, is indeed within our power, but in different ways. For approaching with the intention of mocking is in us from ourselves; but approaching with the intention of attending to what is said and receiving the Gospel is not from us or from ourselves, but from the help of prevenient and preoperating grace, as is clear from Acts 16.²⁴ A certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, a worshiper of God, believed; the Lord opened her heart to attend to what was being said by Paul.²⁵ There the fact that Lydia attended to what the Apostle Paul preached is ascribed to the Holy Spirit moving her. Hence John 1 says: He was the true light, which enlightens every person coming into this world. As St. Augustine noted, in Book I On the Merits and Remission of Sins, chapter 25, this was said for this reason: no person is enlightened except by that light of truth which is God, lest anyone suppose that he is enlightened by the one from whom he hears something in order to learn. I do not mean if he happens to have some great human being as teacher, but not even if he happens to have an angel. For the word of truth is supplied from outside through the bodily ministry of the voice; nevertheless, neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but God who gives the increase. A person hears either a human being or an angel speaking, but, in order that he may perceive and know that what is said is true, his mind is sprinkled by that light within which remains eternal and shines even in darkness. By these words the holy Doctor teaches most plainly that perceiving and knowing the truth of what a preacher proposes does not proceed from nature's powers alone, but from the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, although hearing the word of God with the intention of mocking it is in us from ourselves. The reason for this is the one St. Thomas assigns.²⁶ For the first cause of the lack of grace is from us, but of the bestowal of grace, and of preparation for it, the first cause is from God, in accord with Hosea 13: Your destruction, Israel, is from you alone; your help is in me.

XVIII. To the other objection about intelligible species and cognitions, which is made in the same argument, it is answered that, just as nature itself is presupposed materially for grace, as a receptive subject perfected and elevated by grace, so, proportionally, intelligible species are presupposed in nature as it were materially; but by the help of grace they are elevated so that they may serve faith.²⁷ Hence the cognitions by which a person apprehends a believable object in order to assent to it do not have nature's capacity alone as their efficient cause, but are elicited by the intellect elevated through the special help of prevenient grace, in accord with what the Apostle says: We are not sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as if from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God.²⁸ From this testimony St. Augustine proves conclusively that a person can do none of the things pertaining to religion and piety without the help of grace, even if it is the smallest thought preceding consent and an act of faith.²⁹ But approaching to hear the Gospel with the intention of attending to what is said and receiving the truth pertains to religion and piety. Hence St. Thomas, speaking about the Pelagians' error in 2. 2. q. 6. ar. 1., in the body of the article, says: For this reason the Pelagians said that the beginning of faith is from us, insofar as it is from us that we are prepared to assent to the things of faith; but the completion of faith is from God. Certainly, if someone approached to hear the Gospel by nature's capacity alone, with the intention of receiving it, he would approach from himself, prepared to assent to the things of faith; for this is one of the most important preparations preceding an act of faith. Therefore, free choice cannot do this by nature's capacity alone.

XIX. To the first confirmation, it is answered that, as will be explained more fully in disputation 77, the external call depends on the ministers of the Church as its efficient causes,³⁰ whereas the interior call of God, which is through the inward motion of the intellect and will, although it ordinarily presupposes an external call, or the presentation of an object made through another's preaching or sacred reading, has God alone as its efficient cause, who alone can inwardly change another's will and act as its efficient mover, as St. Thomas teaches, 1. p. q. 106. ar. 2. et q. 111. art. 2.³¹ This answer is gathered from the same St. Tho. ad Heb. 13. lect. 3, on the words Now may the God of peace fit you. There he says: The human will, since it is a certain inclination of reason, is the principle of human acts, just as heaviness is the principle of the downward motion of heavy things. Hence it stands in relation to acts of reason as a natural inclination does to natural acts. A natural thing is said to be apt for that to which it has an inclination. In the same way, a man, when he has a will to do good, is said to be apt for it. God too, when he puts a good will into a man, makes him apt, that is, makes him fit. Therefore he says: May he fit you for every good thing, so that you do his will; that is, may he make you will every good thing. Prov. 11. The desire of the just is every good thing. For this is the will of God, namely, that God wills us to will; otherwise our will would not be good.³² And a little later: A man is fitted to do good in two ways. In one way, by acting outwardly; and thus one man fits another by persuasion or threats. In another way, by providing something inwardly; and thus only God fits the will, since only he can change it. Proverbior. 21. The heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord; he will incline it wherever he wills. Hence it is said, he who works in you. Phil. 2. God is the one who works in you both to will and to accomplish. What will he do? What is pleasing before him: that is, he makes you will what pleases him. These are faith, meekness, and fear of the Lord. Thus far St. Thomas.

XX. To the second confirmation, it is answered that the interior actual helps of prevenient grace, even sufficient grace, if they are absolutely the first helps, are not formally vital actions of our intellect or will, but are so causally. Hence, formally speaking, these helps do not depend on our intellect and will as their efficient causes, but are in us from God alone, as will be clear in disputations 74 and 78.

To the second argument from the authority of St. Augustine, it is answered that the passages cited above in support of the first conclusion make clear that he held that the helps of prevenient grace are not given by a law to those who do all that is in them by the powers of nature alone, but wholly gratuitously and without any dependence on those same works of nature. Nor does he teach the contrary in the passage cited from book 19 of The City of God. For when he says that temporal goods have been given to men by God on this most equitable condition, that any mortal who has used such goods rightly receive greater and better things, namely, the peace and glory of immortality, etc., he is speaking of a right use of temporal things, not one had from the powers of nature alone, but from the special help of grace. For a just man earns eternal life by the condign merit of his good works, which God promised to those who love him. For this reason the Apostle called eternal blessedness a crown of justice when he said: As for the rest, a crown of justice is laid up for me, which the Lord, the just Judge, will give me on that day:³³³⁴ namely, because, given the divine promise, it is owed in justice to the just on account of good works done from charity.

XXI. To the third. As regards the authority of St. Thomas, q. 14 de veritate, there is a first solution: the holy Doctor reduced to a better and clearer form what he taught in question 14 de veritate in 1. 2. q. 109, art. 6, ad 2, q. 112, art. 3, and book 3 against Gentiles, chapter 149. So say Driedo, Ruardus Tapper, and Cajetan, 1. 2. q. 109, art. 6, at the section beginning “Nec obstat”.³⁵

A second answer given by others is that a boy who does what lies within him in the first deliberation, by the powers of nature alone, will ordinarily be given, from God's pure mercy, a supernatural help by which he may dispose himself for grace; but this will not happen infallibly or under a law, such that, according to the common way God follows, a good effort of nature must necessarily precede grace.³⁶ Master Bañez seems to incline to this opinion in II–II, question 10, article 1, doubt 2, reply to objection 4. Many most learned Thomists give the same interpretation to St. Thomas's words. If an argument is made that “most certainly” means the same as “infallibly,” since what sometimes fails does not happen most certainly, they answer that in moral matters what happens ordinarily happens most certainly, even though it sometimes does not happen that way, just as we say that in winter there are most certainly rains. The word “most certainly” is used in this sense in 3 Kings, chapter 11, and Exodus 34, where it says: You shall not enter among them, that is, among the Moabite and Ammonite women, for they will certainly turn your hearts so that you follow their gods.³⁷ Hence St. Thomas teaches in I–II, question 105, article 4, reply to objection 6, that these words explain the moral danger of seduction. But this explanation does not seem to answer the argument made above. For let us suppose that this boy does all he can by the powers of nature alone, and God does not give him the help of grace. He will not sin mortally against the precept by which at that moment he is bound to turn himself toward God and the good of reason, because no one sins if he does all he can to fulfill a precept; otherwise he would be bound to do the impossible. Therefore, after that time has passed he may sin venially before he sins mortally. But to say that it belongs to divine providence not to permit him to sin venially before he either sins mortally or is justified by God seems arbitrary.

XXII. A third explanation is the one Master Medina develops at length in I–II, question 89, article 6: that St. Thomas there speaks of someone who does all that lies within him, not by the capacity of nature alone but by the help of prevenient grace.³⁸ Since this explanation is explicit in St. Thomas's commentary on Romans, chapter 10, lecture 3, whose words we quoted above, note, for understanding them, that the explicit knowledge of faith which is simply necessary for everyone and in every state for justification is the knowledge by which a human being believes that God exists and has providence over human affairs. St. Thomas gathers this in the same question, article 11.³⁹ body, from Hebrews 11: Whoever approaches God must believe that he exists and that he is the rewarder of those who seek him, in which the faith in the things necessary for salvation is contained implicitly. We say, therefore, that in that moral instant, and during the brief interval when the use of reason begins, together with natural enlightenment, God by a special help sufficiently moves the intellect and excites the will of the one coming to the use of reason, so that he may turn toward God as his ultimate end, known in the way that age permits. The reason is this: given that there is a precept by which at that instant the boy is bound to turn himself toward God as his ultimate end, resolving to please him in everything and to keep all the precepts of nature (for this is to follow the guidance of reason), it belongs to divine providence to give him sufficient help. For in fallen nature a human being cannot by the capacity of nature alone thus turn himself toward God or resolve with an absolute will to please him in everything, as was said in disputations 51 and 52. The Holy Doctor therefore wishes to teach that if the boy does what lies within him by the aforesaid supernatural help, God will enlighten him, either through some preacher or by an inward inspiration, so that he believes the other mysteries that it is necessary to believe explicitly in order to attain final salvation, such as the Incarnation of the Word and other things of this kind. For more is required on the part of faith to attain glory than to attain grace. This explanation is gathered from the same context, for there St. Thomas gives the example of Cornelius, to whom the Lord sent Peter in Acts 10 because he did what lay within him by giving alms, etc. Yet, as we were saying above, before he was enlightened by the Apostle Peter concerning the mysteries of the Gospel, Cornelius did not do what lay within him by the capacity of nature alone, but by a special help of prevenient grace.⁴⁰ St. Thomas acknowledges this in II–II, question 10, article 4, reply to objection 3, where he says: Concerning Cornelius, it must be known that he was not an unbeliever, for otherwise his action would not have been acceptable to God, since no one can please God without faith. He had implicit faith, however, although the truth of the Gospel had not yet been revealed. Therefore Peter was sent to him in order to instruct him more fully in the faith. From this it is clear how venial sin is not possible with original sin alone: for if the boy does what lies within him with that help, he will be justified; but if he does not, he will sin mortally.⁴¹ This explanation also agrees with St. Thomas's words in I–II, question 89, article 6, body, where he says that if that boy orders himself toward the due end at the instant when he comes to the use of reason through grace, he will obtain the remission of original sin. There he speaks of ordering oneself toward the due end through a special help; otherwise, without any help of prevenient grace, a human being would obtain habitual grace, which is most false, as Master Medina shows in the place cited above. What St. Thomas says in other places brought forward in the third argument must be interpreted and understood according to this teaching.

XXIII. But against this doctrine there is a difficult argument. For it follows that there is no adult who is negatively an unbeliever; the consequence is contrary to St. Thomas, 2. 2. q. 10. ar. 1. Therefore. The consequence is proved: according to the doctrine set out above, everyone who reaches the use of reason has sufficient help to believe; therefore, he can believe. Since, then, he is bound to believe, if he does not believe, he will sin mortally by the sin of omission against the precept of faith; and consequently he will be an unbeliever by opposition. For, as the Thomists commonly teach in 1. 2. q. 6., to impute the omission of some act as culpable, it is sufficient and required that a person be able to perform that act, be bound to perform it, and not perform it. It is answered that, in the case supposed, God immediately gives that child sufficient supernatural help to fulfill the natural precept by which he is bound to turn himself to God as author of nature, who is ready to give him sufficient help by which he can turn himself through supernatural faith and charity to God as author of grace.⁴² Hence, if he does not fulfill that natural precept, he will sin mortally—not because he has not turned to God as author of grace, but because he has not turned to him as author of nature—and consequently he will remain negatively an unbeliever, but not an unbeliever by opposition. But if, by that supernatural help, he follows the guidance of reason and does what is in him by turning himself to God, the author of nature, he will immediately be enlightened by God himself and helped to have supernatural faith and obtain justifying grace. But then grace will infallibly be given to one who does all that is in him, not by nature's powers alone, but by the prevenient help of grace.

XXIIII. To the fourth it is answered that, both to those who do what is in them and to those who do not, God confers the helps of prevenient grace when it pleases him; and sometimes, also on account of preceding sins, he does not confer those same helps on them, as will be clear below. But when he gives these helps to those doing what is in them by the powers of nature, those natural works are neither the reason why the same helps are given nor a condition without which they would regularly not be given; rather, they are concomitant and accidental. Hence God did not make a law that, if a person first does all that is in him by nature's capacity alone, God will infallibly give him the helps of grace, and otherwise will not, according to the common manner he follows in conferring those same helps. Nor did he decree to confer such helps on account of merit, even merit of congruity, or as on account of a cause or reason, or as on account of a condition sine qua non. Nor did he establish that he would confer those gifts so that a subsequent help of grace might elevate that natural effort and make it such as is required for salvation. Nor does it follow from this that admonitions are in vain or that those good moral works are performed in vain by someone existing in mortal sin. For, although in no way are they dispositions for grace, not even remote ones, nevertheless they help to avoid a new mortal sin when those good moral works are commanded, and to generate some kind of habit of moral virtue, which is produced through repeated acts; and finally, so that a reprobate may be tormented less harshly in hell, as was said from Augustine in disputation 50, no. 11.⁴³ Hence they are not in vain, nor are sinners admonished in vain to exercise themselves in them.

XXV. To the fifth it is answered that from those passages of Scripture one can gather only that, on God's part, he gives all adults sufficient helps for salvation, but not that our good works or natural efforts must precede those helps, by which a person disposes and prepares himself in order to obtain those helps infallibly.⁴⁴ But specifically concerning the Apostle's passage, God wills all people to be saved,⁴⁵ it is answered that, among the explanations given by St. Thomas in First Part, q. 19, art. 6, which we discussed at length in disputation 33, is that this is to be understood of antecedent will, which is the will of sign, and not of consequent will, which is of good pleasure and is always fulfilled. To the other passage from Revelation it is answered that when it says, If anyone hears my voice, etc.,⁴⁶ it speaks of the one who hears, opens, and responds to the calling by the help of grace, which gives the very willing and the very opening; it does not speak of one who responds by nature's capacity alone or strives to do what is in him by natural powers. Indeed, from the same passage it is clearly gathered that God's calling precedes all our effort. For he says: I stand at the door and knock, as if to say, “I do not come when called, but precede the one called by knocking.”

XXVI. To the sixth argument it is denied that the first inconvenience follows from our opinion. For, as will be clear in disputations 112 and 113, God gives all people sufficient helps for salvation; but through his own fault a person does not will to use them well. Hence, if he is damned, let him blame himself. The other inconvenience, by which it was inferred that venial sin could exist in an adult with original sin alone, is already clear from what was said in the solution to the first and third arguments.

To the seventh it is answered that, as we were saying in response to the first, ruin and salvation are indeed placed in a person's power, but in different ways: for our ruin is from us, while salvation is from God.⁴⁷ Hence, as will be clear in disputations 98 and 117, our salvation is first in the power of God alone, as the absolutely first initiator, as St. Augustine expressly teaches in Book On the Gift of Perseverance, chapter 8, as does St. Ambrose, whose words Augustine adduces in the same place. Therefore, salvation is not in a person's power as in the one who first initiates or begins, but as in one who freely consents and cooperates, on the supposition of the help of prevenient grace, as was said. Hence, before such help, a person can perform nothing that has an order to his salvation, whether as a disposition or as a condition sine qua non.

XXVII. To the confirmation, it is answered that the explanation suggested in the argument is in no way to be admitted; St. Augustine rejects and attacks it in book 4 against Julian, chapter 8, and book 2 against the Two Letters of the Pelagians, chapter 3, and in the book On the Gift of Perseverance, chapter 8, as does St. Prosper in his letter to Augustine. The legitimate sense of that passage, then, is the one St. Augustine uses, as do the other holy Fathers in common: namely, that God gave those receiving him through faith and believing the power to become sons of God through habitual grace, for faith is the first beginning of justification. Nevertheless, men do not have it from themselves that they believe, but from God's gift, as was shown in disputation 49. Here it should be observed with Cajetan that he did not say, “He gave them the power to make themselves sons of God,” but said, He gave them the power to become sons of God:⁴⁸ to indicate that man has no power from the faculty of nature by which he makes himself a son of God, but receives that power from the gift of prevenient grace.⁴⁹ Hence St. Bernard, in his treatise On Grace and Free Choice, explaining how grace and free choice concur for justification, says: What was begun by grace alone is completed by both together, so that they work together, not separately; at the same time, not in turn, through each stage of progress. Not partly grace and partly free choice, but each accomplishes the whole by an undivided work. Free choice indeed does the whole, and the whole comes from grace; but just as the whole is in free choice, so the whole comes from grace.

Whether, on account of the greater effort of free choice, a human being obtains greater, or more intense, helps of exciting and prevenient grace.

I. Those authors who teach that God has established a law to confer the helps of prevenient grace on those who do all that lies within them by the capacity of nature alone consequently said that greater or lesser helps of prevenient and exciting grace are given to them by God in proportion to the amount of the preceding effort of free choice. They do not mean that the greater effort of free choice is a meritorious cause or a reason why more perfect helps of prevenient grace are given, but only a condition without which God ordinarily would not give them. This opinion can be proved.

First, from the parable in Matthew 25 and Luke 19 about the talents and sums of money entrusted to servants for them to trade with by their own industry. The talents signify the helps of grace, and it is suggested that, through each servant's own industry and the greater or lesser effort of free choice, one servant received more talents and another fewer.

Second. God, supremely good and great, ordinarily does not grant people the helps of prevenient and exciting grace toward faith unless there is prior knowledge and consideration from another source of what the faith teaches. But when an adult acquires knowledge through another's preaching and instruction, or when he himself reads, recalls, or considers what the faith teaches, God is accustomed to insert himself through gratuitous gifts into those same acts of knowledge and elevate them so that they are supernatural and enlighten the intellect to excite the will. Therefore, when a human being makes a greater effort to produce more perfect knowledge and more intense consideration of what the faith teaches, prevenient and exciting grace will be more intense and greater. The consequence is proved: for, as is clear from the Council of Trent, prevenient and exciting grace consists in the enlightenment of the intellect that occurs through knowledge and in the excitation of the will.

Third. God's inward call depends greatly on the free choice of the one who is called: both because he could have gone or not gone to hear or read the word of God, and so acquire the knowledge into which God is accustomed to insert himself and by which he calls one to the faith; and also because, after going, he could have turned his thoughts elsewhere and failed to attend to what was being proposed for belief; and finally because he could have gone with the intention of learning and embracing what he judged to be true and good, or with the intention of mocking or attacking what was said. Therefore, in proportion to the difference in the effort of free choice of the one who is called, the inward call itself will be more or less intense.

II. Fourth, it is argued: The motions of prevenient and exciting grace are not effected by God alone, but our intellect also concurs as an efficient cause in the illuminations of grace by which it is enlightened, and our will concurs in the affections and motions of exciting grace that it receives. Therefore, the quantity of prevenient grace must be measured by the quantity of the effort of our intellect and will. The consequence is proved: as St. Thomas teaches in Summa theologiae II–II, question 24, article 3, body, the quantity of each thing depends on that thing's proper cause.

It is confirmed. The motions of prevenient grace are formally vital acts. Therefore, they depend intrinsically on an intrinsic vital principle, namely our intellect and will, not insofar as they are free but insofar as they are natural; for they concur in the motions of prevenient grace in the same way as they do in first-first motions. Therefore, prevenient grace will be more intense to the degree that the effort of the intellect and will itself is more intense.

Fifth. The motions of prevenient and exciting grace are often quite weak on account of our slight preparation and effort, and our many preceding offenses and corrupt affections. Therefore, if our effort of free choice were more intense, prevenient grace would be greater and more perfect. Therefore, on account of the greater effort of free choice, greater and more perfect helps of prevenient grace are given to a human being.

The contrary opinion is consequently taught by all the Doctors cited above, who hold that no law was established by God to confer the helps of prevenient grace on those who do all that is in them by nature's capacity alone. I judge their opinion to express the mind of St. Augustine and St. Thomas and to be true. Hence let this be said:

First Conclusion. The actual helps of prevenient grace are not measured in their perfection and intensity according to a greater or lesser quantity of the preceding effort of free choice, but according to God's entirely gratuitous and free will.¹ Thus, in the bestowal or distribution of such helps, no consideration is given to our prior efforts of free choice or to anything natural; rather, according to his will, God grants more perfect and more intense helps of prevenient grace to one person, and lesser helps to another, because it so pleases him. This conclusion is asserted everywhere by Augustine, especially in the places cited in disputation 56, most of all in Questions to Simplicianus, question 2, at the end, whose words we cited above.² St. Thomas also expressly teaches this conclusion of ours in 2. 2. q. 24. art. 3., which he proves from the Apostle, 1. ad Corinth. 12: All these things one and the same Spirit works, dividing to each as he wills. And Ephes. 4: To each one of us grace has been given according to the measure of Christ's gift. Likewise, 1. ad Corinth. 1 says: See your calling, brothers, that not many are wise according to the flesh, not many powerful; but the Lord chose the lowly things of the world to confound the strong, and the things that are not to destroy the things that are, etc. By these words he teaches plainly that God's calling is not considered or measured according to anything natural, nor according to the wisdom or power of human nature, but according to God's gratuitous will. Moreover, it is proved by reason. Prevenient grace does not depend on any natural power, but is given to whomever it is given through divine mercy alone; for grace exceeds every capacity of nature. Therefore, similarly, the quantity and perfection of that same grace are not taken from anything natural, but from the mercy alone of God who calls. This is confirmed because, as was shown in the two preceding disputations, all efforts and good moral works proceeding from nature's capacity alone have no order to grace and no proportion to it. Therefore, they cannot quantify its perfection or intensity; otherwise they would already bear an order to grace, since every disposition that quantifies a form bears some order to it. Second, it is proved as follows. Works of nature preceding prevenient grace contribute absolutely nothing to the obtaining of grace, not even as remote dispositions, as was shown in disputation 55. Therefore, prevenient grace is not given to a person on account of them; therefore, the quantity of that same grace is not measured in proportion to the intensity of free choice's effort.

III. Third. Prevenient and exciting grace has God alone as its efficient cause; for God alone calls a person to himself, and this is signified by the very name “prevenient grace” when it is first prevenient. For it is called first-prevenient because it precedes, at least in the order of nature, all efficient causality of the intellect and will, not only insofar as the will is free but also insofar as it is a nature, as will be clear in disputation 74. Therefore, the quantity and perfection of that same grace must be referred to God alone and to his mere and gratuitous will.

They reply to this that prevenient and exciting grace depends on God alone, rather than free choice, as its efficient cause. For although the movements of that same prevenient grace are vital actions of the intellect and will, strictly speaking they are not acts of free choice—not only because the illumination of the intellect can occur through thoughts into which a person falls without any deliberation or movement of free choice, or which an angel or God has impressed or aroused in him, or which another person has suggested by speech, before every movement of free choice, but also because that the thought becomes illumination and prevenient grace is due only to God's supernatural influx and to its relation to God as the illuminating cause, not to its relation to our intellect. Nevertheless, unless the intellect cooperated at the same time, that thought and illumination would not exist in reality.³ Hence such illumination, insofar as it is illumination of the intellect and prevenient grace, is not an act of free choice. But the supernatural affection of the will concerning matters of faith arises in the will purely naturally when there is illumination of the intellect and God simultaneously acts upon it through a particular concurrence. Nor is the will's cooperation with that affection within the will's free power, but it results from the will purely naturally insofar as it is a nature, not insofar as it is free choice. Yet, insofar as it is free choice, by warding off a thought or adducing reasons that attract the will to the opposite side, it can prevent the affection from arising.

IIII. Yet this solution involves many matters to be discussed. First, as will be clear in disputation 70, formally speaking, first-prevenient grace is not an undeliberated vital act, but God's motion which, in the order of causality, precedes our vital act of the supernatural order.⁴ For through the help of prevenient grace God elevates the intellect and will and moves it to elicit supernatural acts, whether they are free or deliberated, or undeliberated; for before such help our intellect and will have no proximate power or activity for eliciting supernatural acts, even undeliberated ones, or, as they say, first-first acts.

Second: for prevenient grace, by which God effects that the cognitions of our intellect, or thought of things to be believed, or even sudden movements of our will, be supernatural and of the kind required for salvation, is not an immediate influx into the acts of the intellect and will; rather, it is an immediate influx into the powers themselves, and through the powers into their acts, as is clear from what was said in disputation 18. But an immediate influx into the intellect and will cannot have the intellect and will as its efficient cause, for the intellect and will exert no influx into themselves prior to the acts they elicit. Therefore prevenient grace does not have our intellect or will as its efficient cause, even as regards its own entity. Therefore it is not more or less intense according to a greater or lesser effort of the same free choice, not only insofar as it is free but also insofar as it is nature. Third: although a thought, not only an indeliberate one but also a free one, can be prevenient grace in relation to other subsequent supernatural acts, it is nevertheless impossible for some thought to be absolutely the first prevenient grace. For since that thought is supernatural, the intellect must be moved and elevated before that thought by some supernatural help in order to elicit it; otherwise some supernatural act, namely, the thought of things to be believed, would proceed from the faculty of nature alone, contrary to what the Apostle says: We are not sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as though from ourselves; rather, our sufficiency is from God:⁵ therefore, etc.

V. Second conclusion. It must not be said that God inserts himself into cognitions or other acts of the intellect or will begun from the faculty of nature alone, or that by his supernatural influx into those same acts he sharpens them or makes them supernatural, so that in their order they are of the kind required for salvation and acquire the character of prevenient grace in relation to the supernatural free consent to an act of faith, hope, charity, or other supernatural acts.⁶ This conclusion remains partly proved from what was said in the preceding disputation, third conclusion. It is proved further. First, for this way of speaking was frequent among the Massilians, among whom Faustus says in book 1 of On Grace and Free Choice, chapter 4: Grace is everything, but he offers and presents it to all for salvation. And Cassian says: When he has seen in us some beginning of a good will, he at once illuminates, strengthens, and stirs it toward salvation, granting increase to the will that he himself either planted or saw spring up through our effort.⁷ And again he says: For when God sees us turning toward willing the good, he comes to meet us, directs, and strengthens us.⁸ At the sound of your cry, as soon as he hears it, he will answer you.⁹ And call upon me, he says, in the day of tribulation, and I will deliver you, and you will glorify me.¹⁰ Refuting these words, St. Prosper says: Who does not see that this doctrine assigns to free choice a merit by which grace is anticipated, grace that serves it by repaying what is owed, not by conferring a gift? This definition was condemned by an anathema at the Synod of the Bishops of Palestine, even by Pelagius. For in the one who¹¹ begins to will the good and desires to depart from wickedness and error, we profess that the grace of God brings this very thing about. Therefore the opinion that God, through his exciting or prevenient grace, inserts himself into acts begun by the powers of nature and sustains them, etc., is not to be admitted.

VI. This is confirmed: for St. Prosper himself attacks the Massilians in his letter to Augustine because they said that God's grace sustains one who desires the good. Indeed, St. Augustine too, in book 1 against the Two Letters of the Pelagians, chapter 19, whose words we cited in disputation 1, no. 11, for this reason also reproves Julian, because he asserted that a man, not preceded by any grace of God, begins or undertakes a good work, and afterward is helped by God in the very work already begun. From this assertion St. Augustine there infers that God's help is given on the basis of merits; for immediately after Julian's words, is helped by God in the very work already begun, he adds: namely, on account of the merits of a good will, so that grace owed is repaid, not grace unowed bestowed; and thus grace is no longer grace, but is that which Pelagius, with feigned sincerity, condemned at the judgment in Palestine: that the grace of God is given according to our merits. From this it is clear that Julian held that the good efforts of free choice, begun from the powers of nature alone, are sustained and perfected by grace inserting itself into them. Therefore this opinion is not to be admitted.

Second, it is proved: otherwise it seems to follow that a human being, by using the good of nature well, reaches saving grace with the help of initial grace. Yet St. Prosper attacks this position among the Massilians in his letter to Augustine, saying: Some of them remain so close to the Pelagian paths that, when they are compelled to confess the grace of Christ that precedes all human merits—lest grace be named in vain if it is paid in return for merits—they wish it to belong to that condition of each human being in which the grace of the Creator fashions him as one endowed with free choice and reason, when he has merited nothing beforehand because he did not even exist, so that through discerning good from evil he may direct his will toward knowledge of God and obedience to his commandments; and that he may reach the grace by which we are reborn in Christ through his natural capacity, by asking, seeking, and knocking. Thus he receives, finds, and enters because, having used the good of nature well, he has merited to reach this saving grace with the help of initial grace. Hence St. Hilary too, writing to St. Augustine and reporting the opinion of those same Massilians, says that they assert: Grace is not denied if such a will is said to precede, a will that merely seeks a physician and is not yet itself able to do anything. For they want those testimonies, such as ‘According as he has apportioned to each the measure of faith,’ and similar ones, to mean that the one who has begun to will is helped, not that he is also given the gift of willing.¹² Therefore, it must not be admitted that free choice, by the powers of nature alone, begins by seeking, asking, and knocking, and that grace afterward—or God himself through grace—inserts himself into those same acts, sharpening and fostering them so that they become supernatural. Third, it is proved because it is unintelligible how God, by a supernatural influx immediately flowing into acts begun by the powers of nature, could make them supernatural. For God cannot cause vital acts except through a vital power. Therefore, he cannot flow immediately by a supernatural influx into a thought and knowledge of the things to be believed unless he first, in the order of nature, acts upon the power and moves it to produce such supernatural acts. This is confirmed by the arguments with which it was shown in disputation 18 that God's general concurrence is an immediate influx into secondary causes, moving them beforehand and applying them so that they produce their operations.

VII. To the first argument it is answered that by “talents” are understood the gifts of grace that God distributes to each according to that person's disposition; but the Holy Spirit himself produces this disposition in them, with greater or lesser intensity, as he wills, as was said in conclusion 1.¹³ This answer is explicit in St. Thomas, II–II, question 24, article 3, reply to objection 1. But against it: for it follows that there is a process to infinity, because a disposition is required for receiving the gifts of grace, and another disposition is required for that disposition, since it too is a gift of grace, and so on to infinity. It is answered that habitual gifts of grace, because they are perfect and are not of themselves ordered to another form, require a disposition on the part of adult recipients, to whom God does not infuse these gifts without their consent. But actual gifts, because they are given in a transitory manner, do not require another disposition¹⁴; rather, through them God prepares free choice to elicit supernatural acts and a disposition for justifying grace. Hence no infinite process follows.

To the second it is answered that intelligible species are indeed ordinarily supplied by nature, but the knowledge or thought by which a human being apprehends the things of faith through those same species in order to assent to them does not come from nature alone. Rather, it comes from the motion of the Holy Spirit, who elevates the species and the intellectual power itself so that it apprehends, considers, and weighs the things of faith, and assents to them.¹⁵ Hence the very knowledge of the things to be believed, and its intensity, comes from the Holy Spirit as the first mover through the help of grace, as was said above.

VIII. To the third it is answered that it is not by the powers of nature alone but by the motion of the Holy Spirit that someone approaches to hear or read the word of God so as to obey it; and by the same motion, after approaching, he does not turn his thought to another matter but attends to what is said.¹⁶ Thus Acts 16 says of the purple-seller woman: God opened her heart to attend to the things Paul was saying, as was explained above. Likewise, it comes from the same help that someone approaches with the intention of learning and embracing what is said, as St. Augustine expressly teaches in On the Gift of Perseverance, chapter 14, when he says: But to those who obediently hear the exhortation of truth, the very gift of God has been given, namely, to hear obediently; but to those who do not hear in this way, it has not been given. And below: Hence, although the Lord was speaking to those who had the ears of the flesh open, he nevertheless said: ‘Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear,’ for he undoubtedly knew that not all had them. And the Lord himself shows from whom those who have them receive them, when he says: ‘I will give them a heart to know me and hearing ears.’ Therefore, ears for hearing are the very gift of obedience.¹⁷ By these words he plainly teaches that attending to what is said and hearing the words of God with an intention to obey is also a gift of God. Hence the Holy Spirit also distributes the intensity of these acts to each person as he wills. But if someone does not approach to hear the word of God, or if he approaches but does not attend to what is said, or approaches with the intention of mocking it, he has this from his own evil will or even from the devil's suggestion, as was said above.

IX. To the confirmation it is answered that first-prevenient grace is not formally a vital act, but is so causally; for it is a motion toward a vital act, as will be said in disputation 74. But prevenient grace that is not simply first is a vital act, having our intellect and will as its proximate efficient cause; nevertheless, its intensity and perfection must ultimately be reduced to the prior prevenient grace, which is not formally a vital act but God's motion prior to a supernatural vital act.¹⁸ By this, the fourth argument is answered.

To the fifth it is answered that, as St. Thomas teaches in 1. 2. q. 112. ar. 3. ad 2., The first cause of the defect of grace is from us, but the first cause of the bestowal of grace is from God, in accord with Hosea 13: Your destruction is from you, Israel; your help is in me alone. Hence the weakness of the movements of prevenient grace can proceed from us insofar as God, on account of preceding faults, does not grant more abundant helps of prevenient grace. But that he confers them with great abundance and intensity must be wholly ascribed to God's mere and gratuitous will and mercy, as was said.¹⁹

Consequently, it must be explained what powers free choice has in relation to supernatural good after it has received the prior helps of divine grace. Twelve matters must be discussed concerning this.

I. Whether to someone who does all that is in him through the prior helps of grace, as through sufficient help, subsequent helps are infallibly given by a certain law, such as efficacious help, by which he is infallibly converted and saved.

II. Whether to someone who does all that is in him through efficacious help, habitual or justifying grace is infallibly given by a certain law.

III. Whether through acts of charity equal to the pre-existing habit, or even through less intense acts, a person infallibly obtains, by a certain law, an increase of habitual grace, of charity, and of essential glory.

IIII. Whether on account of deadened merits a penitent infallibly obtains, by a law established by God, greater habitual grace and a right to more intense essential glory.

V. Whether, by reason of a greater effort of free choice or of its influx together with equal help of assisting grace, one person, all else being equal, obtains more intense justifying grace than another.

VI. Whether an intellect that is naturally more perfect, with an equal light of glory, produces an act of beatific vision more intense than another. And the same difficulty arises concerning other supernatural acts.

VII. Whether an act of supernatural faith and charity, or of beatific vision, insofar as it is formally a vital action, is efficiently caused by a supernatural principle as that by which the faculty acts, or by the natural faculty alone according to its innate power.

VIII. Whether acts of faith, hope, and charity are supernatural as to their substance, or only as to their manner.

IX. Whether the final disposition for habitual grace has habitual grace itself as its efficient cause, or a power elevated by special help alone.

X. Whether, without the help of grace inhering in the created will, free choice can, by the extrinsic assistance of the Holy Spirit alone, elicit a supernatural act of faith, hope, charity, or repentance by which it may dispose itself proximately or remotely for justifying grace.

XI. Whether man, in the supernatural acts that he performs from grace, is a principal cause in his own order, or only an instrument of God.

XII. Whether, by God's absolute power, there can be created an intellectual substance to which, from the powers of nature alone, it belongs to love God above all things as the author of grace and to elicit other supernatural acts.

Whether, for one who does all that lies within him by the prior helps of prevenient grace, later helps are given infallibly and under a certain law.

I. The whole difficulty of this disputation consists in this: Can a human being, through the good use of sufficient help, attain efficacious help by his own industry, using that same sufficient help well through his innate freedom and cooperating piously with it? For some defend the affirmative side, which these arguments seem to prove.

First, God does not abandon a human being unless that person first abandons God, as is stated in the Council of Trent, session 6 on justification, chapter 11. Therefore, if a human being does all he can by virtue of sufficient help, God will infallibly give him efficacious help by which he may act piously and be saved; otherwise God would truly abandon the person by denying him efficacious help before the person himself abandons God.

Second. God, for his part, is ready to give grace to all: For he wills all human beings to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.¹² Hence, as St. Thomas teaches in third contra Gentiles, chapter 159, only those are deprived of grace who provide an impediment to that same grace. But one who, after receiving from God sufficient help for salvation, does all he can through that help does not provide an impediment to efficacious grace. Therefore, he will infallibly attain it from God.

Third. By sufficient help a human being can truly turn to God, act piously, persevere to the end, and be saved; for it is called sufficient because through it a human being can do these things. But it would not be sufficient for salvation if God did not infallibly give efficacious helps by which a person who uses that same help well is saved. Therefore, efficacious help will be given infallibly to one who does all that lies within him by sufficient help. The minor premise is proved: otherwise these two things would stand together, namely, that a human being does all he can by sufficient help, and that God does not wish to give him efficacious help. If this is admitted, it evidently follows that this person, whatever he does, must perish; yet this seems foreign to God's mercy.

II. Fourth. After God in his mercy has called a sinner through sufficient grace, without any preceding good merits of ours, it is prior in the order of reason that the sinner's free choice, moved by God's exciting and sufficient grace, determine itself to consent than that God give him assisting, or efficacious, grace. For efficacious grace, insofar as it is efficacious, depends as on a condition without which it would not be on the free cooperation by which our free choice wills to consent to God as he calls and excites us. Therefore, the sinner himself, by doing all he can through sufficient help, infallibly obtains efficacious help from God³; consequently, later helps of divine grace are given infallibly and under a certain law to those who do all that lies within them by the prior helps.

It is confirmed: for this causal statement is true: Because a human being wills to consent to God as he excites and calls, he is therefore helped by God. Since free choice determines grace to concur with it and is not predetermined by grace as to its exercise, otherwise a human being would not consent when and as he wills, but when God wills, and so his freedom would be utterly lost. Therefore, the help of assisting, or efficacious, grace is given infallibly and under a certain law to those who do all that lies within them by the help of sufficient grace.

III. Fifth, the argument is made from all the arguments by which in disputation 56 we sought to prove that the helps of exciting and sufficient grace are given infallibly by God to those who do all that lies within them by the capacity of nature. For from this it is evidently inferred all the more strongly that efficacious helps of assisting grace are given infallibly by God to those who, in accordance with their innate freedom, do all that lies within them by the help of sufficient grace. For the distance and disproportion between works of nature and the prior helps of sufficient grace is greater than that between works proceeding from prior helps of sufficient grace and later helps of efficacious grace. For works of nature do not belong to the same order as grace, whereas works proceeding from sufficient help belong to the same supernatural order as efficacious help. Therefore, if the first helps of prevenient grace are given infallibly to those who do all that lies within them by the capacity of nature, it follows that efficacious help is given infallibly to those who do all they can by sufficient help.

Sixth. A person existing in grace can merit the gift of perseverance through good works and infallibly obtain it from God. For Augustine says in lib. de dono persev. c. 6: This gift of God, namely, perseverance, can be obtained by humble supplication, but once it has been given it cannot be lost. But the gift of perseverance pertains to the subsequent helps of divine grace. Therefore, subsequent helps by which a person is saved are infallibly given by God and by a certain law to someone who uses the prior helps of grace well.

This opinion nevertheless does not seem to conform to the statements of St. Augustine and St. Thomas, nor does it agree with what was said about the efficacy of divine motion in disputations 18, 19, 22, and 23, and what will be said below. For clarity on this point, it should be observed that the good use of sufficient help does not come from sufficient help alone, or from free choice elevated by sufficient help alone. For, as will be clear below, efficacious help is posited precisely to confer actual good action, so that the power which, through sufficient help alone, had been constituted in first act and made capable of performing supernatural acts may infallibly produce them. Let this therefore be:

IIII. First Conclusion. A certain sign after the fact that efficacious help was given to a person by God is that his free choice does all that it can do through sufficient help.⁴ This is proved, first, because through sufficient help a person can truly turn to God and act piously; but, in order actually to turn to God and act piously, efficacious help is necessary, as will be made clear in disputation 88. Therefore, if he does all that he can do through sufficient help, it is a sign after the fact that he had efficacious help.

Second Conclusion. No law was established by God to infallibly give subsequent helps of grace to those who do all that is in them with the prior helps and use them well through their innate freedom. This conclusion is established against certain Doctors who suppose that God indeed mercifully grants a person the first helps of exciting and sufficient grace.⁵ If his free choice, by its own innate freedom, then wills to consent with those same helps to God who excites him and to cooperate, God will also cooperate with him, and the exciting or sufficient help will have a new influx together with that same free choice into the operation, and will acquire the character of assisting grace; and thus he will infallibly obtain from God efficacious or cooperating help. But if, by that same freedom, he does not will to cooperate, then the exciting help will remain within the bounds of exciting and sufficient help for salvation and will not acquire the character of efficacious assisting help. Yet our conclusion is expressly St. Thomas's in the places cited in disputation 56. Moreover, he teaches the same in 1. 2. q. 114. art. 9., speaking about the gift of perseverance. It can also be proved first by all the arguments by which it was shown in disputation 36 that the good use of exciting grace does not proceed from innate freedom alone, but requires efficacious help, by whose power free choice cooperates. Therefore, there cannot be a law established by God to give efficacious helps to those who by their own innate freedom alone use or have used sufficient helps well.

V. Second, this is proved because, as I showed in disputation 56, no law was established by God⁶ to give the first helps of prevenient grace to those who do all that is in them by nature's capacity alone. Therefore, there is also no law established by God to give subsequent helps of efficacious grace to those who by their own innate freedom alone will to use sufficient helps well and cooperate with them. The consequence is proved as follows: there is no law to give the first helps of grace to those who do all that is in them by nature's powers because then the beginning of the prior helps of grace would be from nature and not from God's mere and gratuitous will, and it would thus follow that grace is given according to our merits. But this same inconvenience seems to follow if it is asserted that a law was established by God to infallibly give efficacious help to those who use or will to use sufficient help well by their own innate freedom alone. For then the beginning of efficacious grace would come from nature and from the innate freedom of a person willing to use sufficient help well. Therefore.

Perhaps they will answer that the reason is not the same in both cases, because in the case of the antecedent no help of grace preceded the good works of nature. Hence, if the first helps of prevenient grace were given by a certain law to one who does all that is in him by the faculty of nature, then the first beginning of grace would be absolutely from nature. But in the case of our present disputation the first beginning of efficacious grace is not established in nature, but in sufficient grace, which preceded the right use of the will and the works themselves, on account of which subsequent efficacious helps are always given by God by a certain law. Thus everything is ultimately reduced to the grace that first mercifully went before and stirred man's free choice. But there is an effective argument against this solution. For, as will be clear in disputation 68, according to the authors of the contrary opinion God does not properly effect actively through prevenient grace, but only morally, that free choice determine itself and cooperate with God who stirs it. Therefore, as to a per se efficient cause, it is reduced only to the innate freedom of choice, by which it wills to cooperate with exciting grace. Therefore, if efficacious help of assisting grace is infallibly given to those who will cooperate in this way, it follows that the works on account of which efficacious helps are given by God by a certain law are reduced to nature alone as their efficient cause, and that exciting grace, which preceded those same works, is only a condition without which free choice would not determine itself to use that same exciting grace rightly. It is like the saw, or the maker of the saw, that an artisan uses to make a bench: it is only a condition without which that use would not exist, and is not truly an efficient cause of the use itself. Therefore, if the opinion we oppose is true, the first beginning of efficacious grace would be absolutely from nature; and from exciting grace it would be the beginning of efficacious grace only with a restricting qualification, namely, as from a condition without which the good use of that same exciting grace would not exist.

VI. Third, it is proved: for, as St. Thomas teaches, 1. 2. q. 114, art. 9, the gift of perseverance, which is the most important and final efficacious help, does not fall under merit of condignity, because it depends only on divine motion, which is the principle of all merit, and consequently cannot be the terminus of merit. For it is impossible for the same thing, with respect to the same thing, to be the efficient principle of merit and the terminus of merit. Therefore efficacious helps are not infallibly and by a certain law given to those who use sufficient helps well. Otherwise they would fall under merit of condignity, if the good use of sufficient help were from a man already in grace. For a man does not always obtain through merit those things that fall only under merit of congruity, nor does he obtain them infallibly, as Thomists commonly teach in 1. 2. q. 114.⁷

VII. To the first, it is answered that, if a man is in justifying grace, God does not first abandon him by withdrawing grace itself from him unless the man himself first, by sin, abandons God in the order of nature.⁸ But if he is in mortal sin, the man himself has already abandoned God by actual or original sin before God abandons him by not giving him efficacious help. For, as St. Thomas teaches from St. Augustine, as a punishment for prior sin, at least original sin, God justly does not give the sinner efficacious help by which he would actually be converted, although he mercifully granted him sufficient help by which he can be converted.⁹ Second, it is answered that if, when the precept to turn to God is binding, the sinner, who is moved by sufficient help, does not wish to turn but wishes to persist in sin, he already commits a new actual sin, on account of which God justly does not give him efficacious help, since by the newly committed mortal sin, which is incompatible with efficacious help, he places an obstacle to that help. And if someone objects that God’s not giving efficacious help for conversion comes before the man's placing an obstacle to the same help by committing a new sin—for if God had given him efficacious help for conversion, he would not have placed an obstacle and would not have sinned, as St. Thomas teaches in 1. 2. q. 79, art. 2, in the body—the answer is that, if the lack of efficacious help is considered as a simple negation, we understand that God does not give efficacious help before the man sins; but if it is considered as a privation, or punishment for sin, we understand that the man sins, or wills to persist in sin, before God does not give efficacious help for avoiding sin. Nor is it unreasonable for the same thing, with respect to the same thing under a different aspect, to be prior and posterior, as was said above.

VIII. To the second, it is answered that although a sinner who, by sufficient help, does all that he can do before efficacious help is given to him does not place a new obstacle to efficacious grace, nevertheless he placed an obstacle through prior sin. This always remains until God mercifully removes it by his grace, as St. Thomas teaches in 3. against Gentiles, c. 160 and 161.

To the third it is answered that through sufficient help a sinner can indeed turn to God, as was said in disputation 18, but in fact he will never turn through sufficient help alone. For more is required for someone actually to turn than for him to be able to turn. Nor is it an absurdity, given that a human being has fallen into sin through his own fault and thereby merited eternal damnation, that he necessarily perish whatever he does by the powers of nature or with sufficient help alone. For that necessity is not absolute but qualified, and follows on the supposition of preceding sin. Hence, if he perishes, this is to be imputed not to God but to the human being who sinned. This answer can be confirmed by the authority of St. Jerome, book 3 of his work Against the Pelagians, where, explaining John 6, No one can come to me unless my Father, who sent me, draws him, he says: When he says, ‘No one can come to me,’ he breaks the pride of free choice; for even if someone wishes to go to Christ, unless what follows takes place, ‘unless my Father draws him,’ he desires in vain¹⁰ and strives fruitlessly. Therefore, according to Jerome, a human being strives in vain by his innate freedom, even if he endeavors to come to Christ with sufficient help alone, unless he is drawn by the Father through the efficacious help of preoperating grace.

IX. To the fourth it is answered that in the order of efficient causality it comes first that God confers efficacious help on a human being and determines him to consent to exciting grace, and only afterward that the human being determines himself through free choice and wills to consent to that same grace, as is clear from what was said above. Nor is it to be admitted that efficacious grace depends as well, as on a condition without which it would not be, on the free cooperation¹¹ of free choice, as will be clear in disputations 73 and 90.

To the confirmation it is answered: that causal statement is false: Because a human being, excited by God, wills to consent and cooperate with God as he calls, he is therefore helped by God. But this causal statement is true: Because a human being, excited by sufficient grace, is helped by God with efficacious help, he therefore cooperates, as will be clear in disputation 99.

The answer to the fifth is clear from what was said in the preceding disputation.

To the sixth it is answered that no one can merit for himself the gift of perseverance by condign merit, or perform any work such that, once it is done, this gift is granted to him infallibly and under a certain law; for, since it is the efficient principle of meriting, it cannot be the term of merit, as St. Thomas teaches in I–II, question 114, article 9. Augustine's authority is understood, however, of merit of congruity, which does not infallibly obtain what it merits, as was explained above.

Whether to one who does all that is in him by efficacious help, that is, elicits an act of charity and contrition, justifying grace is infallibly given by a certain law.

I. The reason for doubt is this: the first justifying grace is given entirely freely; therefore, there is no law that it will be infallibly given to one who, through efficacious help, performs an act of charity or contrition by which he is disposed for that same justifying grace. The consequence is proved: for, as the Apostle says, To one who works, the reward is not reckoned according to grace, but according to debt,¹ and again he says, Not from works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.²

This is confirmed because St. Prosper infers against the Collator that, according to his opinion, grace is given according to our merits, since he asserted that some good work precedes in people, on account of which they obtain grace.³ Therefore, if some good work of ours precedes the infusion of justifying grace, on account of which we infallibly and by a certain law obtain justifying grace, it follows that such grace is given according to our merits.

Second, it is argued as follows. Through an act of charity and contrition, which is the final disposition for grace, a sinner does not merit justifying grace, even by merit of congruity; for otherwise he would not be justified entirely freely, but from works, which is contrary to the Apostle who says: Justified freely by his grace.⁴ Therefore, no law was established by God to infallibly give justifying grace to a sinner who elicits an act of charity and contrition through efficacious help. The consequence is proved: if such a law and divine promise existed, a sinner would merit the infusion of justifying grace at least by merit of congruity through an act of contrition; indeed, he would merit it through imperfect justice, or by condign merit, since a divine promise to give something on account of a preceding supernatural work establishes condign merit.

II. Third, it is argued as follows. The gift of perseverance is not infallibly given by a certain law to someone who does all that is in him by means of the preceding helps of grace, because that gift is the efficient principle of merit. But habitual grace too is the efficient principle of merit, for every meritorious work proceeds from habitual grace through charity, as St. Thomas teaches in 1. 2. q. 114. ar. 4. Therefore, the same conclusion follows as before.

Fourth, it is argued that, if God had established some law to give habitual grace to a person disposing himself for it through an act of contrition, that law would be gathered from Sacred Scripture, through which alone those things depending on God's simple will are made known to us. But there is no passage in Sacred Scripture from which the aforesaid law could be gathered or proved. Therefore.

Fifth, the meritorious acts produced by a just person after receiving justifying grace are more acceptable to God than acts preceding the infusion of first justifying grace. But restoration after a fall is not infallibly given by a certain law to just people who elicit those meritorious acts after receiving grace; otherwise a just person could merit his own restoration after a fall, which is contrary to St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 114. ar. 7. Therefore, similarly, justifying grace will not be infallibly given by a certain law to one who elicits an act of contrition.

Sixth, just as a person disposes himself to obtain habitual grace and charity through an act of charity and contrition, so too he disposes himself to an increase of that same grace and charity through subsequent acts of charity or contrition. And, as the Council of Trent says, by those same acts a just person merits an increase of the habit of grace.⁵ But no law was established by God to give an increase of the habit to one who disposes himself to such an increase through his own acts. Therefore, similarly, there will be no law established by God to confer habitual grace on one who, through the help of grace, elicits an act of contrition or charity by which he disposes himself to obtain justifying grace. The minor premise is proved as follows: it often happens that a just person elicits acts of charity less intense than his pre-existing habit, never afterward produces a more fervent act, and dies; then he will not obtain an increase of the habit. Therefore.

IV. Four difficulties are involved in these arguments. First: Whether justifying grace is given infallibly by the nature of the thing to one eliciting an act of contrition and charity. Second: Whether by that same act a man merits justifying grace by merit of congruity. Third: Whether a just man can by good works merit restoration for himself after a fall. Fourth: Whether by acts less intense than the preexisting habit of grace and charity a man merits an increase of the habit, and when this increase is conferred on him. The first three difficulties are resolved here; the fourth will be reserved for the following disputation.

For the resolution of the first difficulty, let the first conclusion be stated. The habit of justifying grace and charity, and the other infused habits that accompany justifying grace, are infallibly and by a certain law infused by God into a man who elicits an act of contrition and charity from the help of grace.⁶ The conclusion is explicit in St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 112, art. 3, in the body. It is proved. First, according to the ordinary law, forms are infallibly introduced into matter once the ultimate disposition is posited; otherwise the disposition would not be ultimate. But an act of contrition and charity is the ultimate disposition for justifying grace, as St. Thomas often teaches. Therefore, according to the ordinary law, grace is infallibly introduced into the soul as soon as it first elicits an act of contrition and charity. It is proved second: as was shown above, the same contrition that is the ultimate disposition for grace and precedes it in the genus of material cause is nevertheless an effect of that same grace in the genus of formal and efficient cause. And for this reason, although it is not meritorious of grace, it is meritorious of eternal life, as St. Thomas says in 1. 2. q. 112, art. 2, ad 1. Therefore there can be no contrition that is the ultimate disposition for grace without justifying grace being infused into the man at that same instant of time. Therefore it is infallibly given to one who prepares himself through an act of contrition proceeding from the help of grace.

V. It is proved third by the reasoning of St. Thomas in the cited 1. 2. When preparation for grace is from God moving, it has necessity for that to which it is ordered by God—not necessity of coercion, but of infallibility—because God's intention cannot fail, according to what Augustine says in On the Predestination of the Saints: all who are liberated are most certainly liberated through God's benefits. Therefore, if it is God's intention in moving that the man whose heart he moves attain justifying grace, he attains it infallibly. But through an act of contrition God moves the sinner from the state of sin to justice and justification, as St. Thomas says in 1. 2. q. 113, art. 5, in the body, and he does this with an efficacious intention that the man attain the grace of justification. Therefore he attains it infallibly. All these points are confirmed from the Council of Trent, session 6, On Justification, chapter 7, where, after explaining in the preceding chapter the manner of preparation for grace, which is through an act of contrition and charity, it adds these words: Justification itself follows this disposition or preparation; it is not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the inner man through the voluntary reception of grace and gifts. Hence a person passes from being unjust to being just, and from being an enemy to being a friend, so that he may be an heir according to the hope of eternal life. The Council therefore holds that justifying grace is infallibly given to those who elicit an act of contrition and charity from the help of grace.

VI. Whether justifying grace has an infallible connection by the nature of the thing, or by divine ordination and disposition, with the act of contrition and charity that is the ultimate disposition is disputed in 1. 2. q. 112, arts. 1 and 3, and q. 113, where the justification of the ungodly is treated expressly. Master Medina answers the first objection in 1. 2. q. 112, cited art. 1, doubt 2, that an act of contrition is not by the nature of the thing a disposition for grace in the way that heat of degree eight is the ultimate disposition for the form of fire. For he says that this preparation, which a man places after being preceded by divine grace, has nothing from itself or from its merits that makes it the ultimate disposition for grace, such that grace would follow it by necessary connection; rather, it has this from divine acceptance. He gathers this from St. Paul, who says: To one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, faith is reckoned as justice according to the purpose of the grace of God;⁷ where the subject is formed faith. And he says that by God's mercy it is reckoned and accepted as justice before God. Nevertheless, let it be

VII. Second Conclusion. The act of contrition and charity, which is the final disposition for grace, has a connection with habitual grace by its own nature, and not only by divine acceptance.⁸ This conclusion is defended by other most learned Thomists and seems closer to St. Thomas's mind in I–II, question 112, article 2, body and reply to objection 1, where he teaches without qualification that the final preparation for grace is simultaneous with the infusion of grace. He holds the same more clearly in question 113, article 8, reply to objection 2. His words are: The disposition of a subject precedes the reception of a form in the order of nature; yet it follows the action of the agent, through which the subject itself is also disposed. Therefore, the motion of free choice precedes the attainment of grace in the order of nature, but follows the infusion of grace. St. Thomas therefore holds that contrition is an effect of grace. Therefore, by its own nature it is connected with habitual grace and depends on it. Therefore, it is not connected with that same grace solely by divine acceptance. It is confirmed. Contrition, by which a penitent is ultimately disposed for the infusion of habitual grace, is meritorious of eternal life, as St. Thomas teaches in I–II, question 112, article 2, reply to objection 1. Therefore, it is an effect of habitual grace, for no human operation is meritorious of eternal life unless it proceeds from habitual grace and is posterior to it at least in the order of nature. Therefore, this sort of contrition is connected with habitual grace by the nature of the thing. Otherwise, the works of a righteous person would be meritorious of eternal life only through God's extrinsic acceptance, and consequently, properly speaking, would not be meritorious by condign merit. Yet this is against the common opinion of theologians and against St. Thomas, I–II, question 114, article 3.

VIII. Hence, to the argument by which Master Medina is refuted, it is answered that from that authority of the Apostle one can gather only that a human being is justified freely, that is, without his own merits preceding the very grace of justification⁹; the Apostle does not intend to exclude a preceding disposition proceeding from free choice, excited and moved by the help of prevenient grace. Grace is owed to that disposition, not as a reward for merit, but only as a form is owed to its final disposition. Hence the Council of Trent says: Freely, we are said to be justified for this reason: because none of the things that precede justification, whether faith or works, merits the grace of justification itself. For if it is by grace, it is no longer from works; otherwise, as the same Apostle says, grace is no longer grace.¹⁰¹¹ But more must be said about this below.

Concerning the second difficulty, which is touched on in the second argument proposed at the beginning of this disputation, it should be noted that Durandus, question 6 of the prologue to book 1 of the Sentences, article 3, and in book 2 of the Sentences, distinction 28, question 1, and Scotus at the same distinction, in the single question, and in book 4 of the Sentences, distinction 14, question 2, held that a human being can dispose himself for grace through the powers of free choice with a disposition to which grace is infallibly given—not as what is owed, but under a divine agreement and ordinance. Durandus adds in Book I, distinction 17, question 2, that this disposition merits grace by merit of congruity. Other theologians of no small authority, however, although they acknowledge that a human being cannot dispose himself for grace, whether proximately or remotely, by the powers of nature alone, and that a special help of grace is necessary for this, by which free choice is moved by God, nevertheless say that a disposition of free choice elicited from that special help merits justifying grace by merit of congruity. Many serious ancient doctors follow this opinion, among them Ferrariensis, at the end of third contra Gentiles, chapter 149. The chief arguments by which they are persuaded will be brought forward and answered below, although some were touched on above in part in disputation 55. The opposite opinion is defended by very weighty Thomists and, in my judgment, is explicit in St. Thomas in the places to be cited below. To make this clear, it must be assumed from what was said in disputation 55 that a human being cannot elicit through the powers of nature alone any disposition, not only a proximate one but even a remote one, by which he prepares or disposes himself to receive the infusion of justifying grace; rather, all such dispositions proceed from the help of grace. Let the following, then, be set down as part of this disputation:

IX. Third Conclusion. Good moral works produced by the powers¹² of nature alone do not merit grace itself in any way, not even by merit of congruity.¹³ It is proved by all the arguments with which it was shown in disputations 55 and 56 that no beginning of grace, however imperfect, can proceed from the powers of nature alone. But merit of congruity by which someone merits grace is some beginning, at least an imperfect one, of that same grace. Therefore, through good moral works proceeding from the powers of nature alone, a human being does not merit grace itself even by merit of congruity. It is further proved: when councils, Supreme Pontiffs, and the holy Fathers condemned Pelagius for asserting that grace is given according to our merits, they intended to exclude from works of nature not only perfect merit, such as condign merit, but also every other imperfect merit, or merit of congruity. This is clear from what St. Augustine and St. Prosper taught against the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians in the places cited above. This conclusion will become clearer from what is to be said in the next conclusion. But against this conclusion,¹⁴ some object with St. Thomas, I–II, question 114, article 3, where, asking whether a human being established in grace can merit eternal life by condign merit, he answers that if a human being’s meritorious work is considered according to the substance of the work and insofar as it proceeds from free choice, there can be no condignity in it, because of the great inequality, but there is congruity on account of a certain equality of proportion. For it seems fitting that God reward a person who works according to his own power according to the excellence of God’s power. He says the same in the body of article 6 of the same question. Therefore, etc.

It is answered that St. Thomas is to be understood as speaking of congruity on God's part, not on the part of the work or the person working, because someone existing in mortal sin cannot by nature's powers alone produce any good act that merits grace even by congruity, as was shown above. Thus St. Thomas is to be explained in the sense in which he taught in the Third Part that human nature, by a certain congruity, is more assumable by the divine Word than any other created nature whatever.¹⁵ As was already said above. Second, it is answered that St. Thomas is not speaking there about a sinner's merit with respect to first justifying grace, but about the merit of a just person in comparison with eternal life. St. Thomas's meaning is that, if the meritorious works of a just person are considered insofar as they proceed from free choice, they do not have condignity with eternal life according to their substance, and thus do not merit it condignly, in accord with the Apostle's words in Rom. 8: The sufferings of this present time are not worthy of the future glory that will be revealed in us. Nevertheless, they are meritorious by a certain congruity; for sinners too, through good works according to their object, although performed by them with an evil intention, merit the temporal goods conferred on them by God, as St. Thomas teaches in art. 10 of the same question. But if those same good works of the just are considered insofar as they proceed from justifying grace, by this account they merit eternal life condignly, for they receive value and condignity from grace itself, on the supposition of the divine promise. This is all that St. Thomas wished to teach there. Hence the argument proves nothing against our conclusion.

X. Fourth Conclusion. Even dispositions proceeding from the help of grace, whether they are remote or proximate dispositions, do not merit first justifying grace even by congruity, speaking properly of merit of congruity. This conclusion is against Henry and the other authors cited above, although Capreolus defends it in 4. dist. 14. q. 2., in response to Henry's argument.¹⁶ Nevertheless, it seems to be St. Thomas's express position in 1. 2. q. 114. art. 5., body of the article. When asking whether a person can merit first grace for himself, he answers that the gift of grace can be considered in two ways. In one way, according to the character of a gratuitous gift, and thus it is clear that every merit is incompatible with grace; for, as the Apostle says in Rom. 11, ‘If by grace, then no longer from works.’ In another way, it can be considered according to the nature of the thing itself that is given; and thus too it cannot fall under the merit of one who does not have grace, both because it exceeds the proportion of nature and because, before grace, in the state of sin, a person has an impediment to meriting grace, namely, sin itself.¹⁷ But once someone already has grace, he cannot merit the grace he already has, because a reward is the terminus of a work, whereas grace is the principle of every good work in us, as was said above. If someone merits another gratuitous gift by the power of preceding grace, then it will not be first grace. Hence it is clear that no one can merit first grace for himself. By these words he teaches plainly that no one can merit first grace for himself, not only by condign merit but even by merit of congruity, for he absolutely denies every merit of first grace. But if the holy Doctor had understood that first grace is merited by congruity through good works or dispositions preceding that same grace, he would certainly have explained this, just as he did in art. 6 of the same question. There, when asking whether one person can merit first grace for another, he answers that no one can merit first grace for another by condign merit, except Christ alone, though one can do so by merit of congruity. Furthermore, in art. 7 of the same question, in the body of the article, he says no one can merit for himself restoration after a future fall, neither by condign merit nor by merit of congruity, and gives the reason: because the character of this merit, namely, condign merit, depends on the motion of divine grace, and this motion is interrupted by a subsequent sin. He proves the same regarding merit of congruity because the efficacy of merit of congruity is impeded by a subsequent sin. In the response to the second objection he teaches clearly enough that, for merit of congruity by which someone merits some supernatural good, it is necessary that the meritorious operation proceed from justifying grace, in which all merit is founded. But dispositions preceding justifying grace in time do not proceed from that same grace, since mortal sin is compatible with them. Likewise, the final dispositions, although mortal sin is not compatible with them and they are in the same instant of time in which justifying grace is infused, nevertheless precede that grace in the order of nature. Therefore, such dispositions do not merit justifying grace even by congruity. Finally, in the same 1. 2. q. 112. art. 2. ad 1., he says the person's preparation for grace, which is simultaneous with the infusion of grace, is indeed meritorious, but not of the grace already possessed; rather, it merits glory, which is not yet possessed. There he expressly denies that the final disposition for grace that makes one pleasing to God is meritorious of that same grace. And immediately, speaking of a preparation that precedes justifying grace in time, he says: There is another imperfect preparation for grace, which sometimes precedes the gift of grace that makes one pleasing to God; this, however, comes from God moving the person. But this does not suffice for merit when the person has not yet been justified by grace, because there can be no merit except from grace, as will be said below. He refers to art. 2. q. 114., where he teaches that no created nature has a sufficient principle for an act meritorious of some good exceeding that same nature's proportion; and he gives the reason: For the act of anything is not divinely ordered to something exceeding the proportion of the power that is the principle of the act; this comes from the divine institution of providence, that nothing act beyond its power.

XI. Further, it is proved by an argument. For all merit with respect to a supernatural reward is founded on friendship and the dignity of the meriting person, according to Genesis 4: The Lord looked upon Abel and his gifts, but upon Cain and his gifts he did not look.¹⁸ By these words it is signified that Abel's gifts were acceptable to God because the person offering them was pleasing to God, but Cain's gifts were not acceptable to God because the person offering them was not pleasing to him. And in Isa. 1 it is said: Incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and other festivals I will not endure, etc., for your hands are full of blood. Here, on account of the sins by which the Jews were stained, it is shown that their oblations, solemnities, sacrifices, and prayers were not pleasing and acceptable to God, but rather troublesome. Since, therefore, the dispositions preceding sanctifying grace, insofar as they are dispositions, do not proceed from habitual grace or from a subject pleasing to God, because under this aspect they precede justifying grace in the order of nature, it remains that they are in no way meritorious of that same grace, not only by merit of condignity but not even by merit of congruity.

As for the third difficulty, which is suggested in the fifth argument, we must consider what St. Thomas teaches in 1. 2. q. 114, art. 7, where he disputes whether a man can merit restoration for himself after a fall. It should be noted that St. Bonaventure, in 2 Sent., dist. 28, around the text of the Master; Gabriel, dist. 26, q. un., art. 3, doubt 3; Vega, q. 6 On Justification, to the sixth argument; and some more recent theologians have said that through good works proceeding from justifying grace a man can merit restoration for himself after a fall by merit of congruity. St. Thomas teaches the contrary opinion in the cited article 7, as do Albert the Great in 2, dist. 28, art. 2; Alexander of Hales, 3 p. q. 69, memb. 5, art. 2; and all Thomists, especially Master Medina in the cited 1. 2. And since this opinion is very consonant with the sacred Scriptures, I set forth the following conclusion.

XII. Fifth Conclusion. A just man can merit restoration for himself after a fall neither by merit of condignity nor by merit of congruity.¹⁹ And indeed, if we speak of merit of condignity, the conclusion is most certain and commonly accepted by all theologians. The arguments we shall immediately adduce to prove that no one can merit restoration for himself after a fall even by merit of congruity prove it all the more strongly. Our conclusion is therefore proved universally from Ezekiel 18: If the just man turns away from his justice and commits iniquity, none of the just deeds that he did will be remembered. This would certainly not be true if through the works of justice that he did the just man merited restoration after a fall, at least by merit of congruity. For even after committing mortal sin, God would remember the good works he had done earlier, in order to restore him to his former grace on account of them as merits of congruity. If it is said that those words, will not be remembered, must be restricted in comparison with eternal life, because God does not remember the good works done in the first charity in order to confer eternal life for them unless they revive through penance, there is an objection to this: the same reasoning applies even more strongly to merit in comparison with restoration after a fall, because, also in comparison with that, all the merits done in the first charity have been deadened by subsequent sin. Therefore, on whatever day a just man sins mortally, God does not remember his prior merits in order to restore the sinner after a fall on account of them.

It is proved second. It is of faith that the sinner is justified freely, as is clear from the Council of Trent cited above and from the Apostle's words: Being justified freely through his grace.²⁰ And in Rom. 11: Not from works, otherwise grace is no longer grace. Therefore the sinner himself is not justified on account of any prior merit. Since, then, good works done in the first charity precede restoration after a fall, it remains that through them a just man cannot merit that same restoration.

It is proved third. It would follow from the contrary opinion that in fact there would be in a just man some merit that would not truly be deadened by subsequent mortal sin. This consequence must not be admitted, for according to the common opinion of theologians mortal sin deadens all prior merits. Therefore. The consequence is proved: if a just man by good works merits that grace be given to him by which he is restored when he falls into mortal sin, then, while he still remains in mortal sin, the prior merit remains alive and acceptable to God, so that grace is given to the sinner on account of it. Therefore that merit was not deadened.

XIII. The authors of the contrary opinion answer that mortal sin deadens every prior merit with respect to a reward to be conferred by merit of condignity, but that it is not unreasonable for it not to be deadened with respect to a reward conferred by merit of congruity. But there is an argument against this: good works do not have the power to merit that which cannot be given to the meriting person unless he is in mortal sin. For it belongs to the nature of a reward that it be given to those who are worthy, since such a giving is an act of justice, according to the Apostle's words: As for the rest, a crown of justice is laid up for me, which the Lord, the just judge, will give me on that day.²¹ But one who is in mortal sin is worthy of no reward, but of eternal punishment. Since, then, restoration after a fall cannot be given to the meriting person unless he is in mortal sin, it remains that no man, however just, can merit restoration after a fall for himself, even by merit of condignity.

XIV. There are arguments against this conclusion by which the authors of the contrary opinion are persuaded. The first argument is this: Aristotle says in Ethics 9, chapter 3, that something is to be granted on account of an old friendship. Therefore, at least by merit of congruity, one who was in grace merits restoration after a fall.

It is answered that something should be attributed to old friendship, not as a reward for merit, even merit of congruity, but from the pure mercy and goodness of the giver.²² Hence God often, from his own mercy and generosity alone, grants grace after a fall to old friends; yet he does not always do so, because there is no law or justice that requires it.

XV. The second argument is drawn from those words of the Apostle to the Hebrews 6: For God is not unjust, so as to forget the work and labor. St. Thomas explains this passage in lecture 3 as concerning restoration after a fall and merit of congruity. For when this argument had been raised: Justice regards merit. If, then, the Lord's justice requires God not to forget if someone repents, as the gloss says, it follows that a human being's rising from sin falls under merit, and so he would merit grace, which is impossible, he answers: There are two kinds of merit: one that rests on justice, and this is condign merit; the other rests on mercy alone, and is called merit of congruity. Of this latter he says that it is just, that is, fitting, that a person who does many good things should merit. By these words he teaches plainly enough that a righteous person merits restoration after a fall for himself by merit of congruity.

It is answered that St. Thomas, in the cited place in I–II, expressly teaches that a righteous person does not merit restoration after a fall for himself through good works, even by merit of congruity. Hence we must either say that St. Thomas changed his opinion in I–II, or explain that he is speaking not of merit of congruity coming from works done in grace and deadened by a subsequent sin, but of merit proceeding from contrition itself, by which a person is proximally prepared for the infusion of grace. For such contrition can in some way be called meritorious of grace itself by merit of congruity, not properly and strictly, but in a broad sense, as was said above.²³ This explanation seems to fit the context: for in the immediately preceding words he had said that a person who falls after grace can be situated in two ways. In one way, he perseveres in evil, and then God forgets all his acts of justice; in another way, he repents, and then God remembers his preceding good works, because they are counted toward his merit. Hence the gloss says that deadened works come back to life. St. Thomas therefore wishes to say two things. One is that if a person repents after sin and afterward perseveres, through the good works done in his first charity he obtains eternal life by justice, for through repentance they come back to life. The other is that through an act of repentance and charity, by which he is disposed for grace, a person merits the infusion of grace by merit of congruity, taken in a broad sense, insofar as it implies an obligation by which a form is owed to its final disposition; but not insofar as it implies a relation to justification as a wage and reward. To the cited passage of the Apostle it is answered that it is to be understood of condign merit with respect to glory, but not of merit with respect to restoration after a fall. Its sense is that, however much God may permit righteous people to fall into mortal sin, by which their preceding merits are deadened, if they afterward rise through true repentance, he does not on that account forget those same merits; for an eternal reward is left to them, according to the Apostle's words in 2 Timothy 4: From now on a crown of righteousness is laid up for me. The Council of Trent explains the Apostle's passage in this way, session 6 on justification, chapter 16: For this reason, to people who have been justified, whether they have preserved the grace they received continually or recovered grace they lost, the Apostle's words are to be proposed: Be abundant in every good work, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.²⁴ For God is not unjust, so as to forget your work and the love you showed in his name.²⁵ And: Do not lose your confidence,²⁶ which has a great reward. And therefore eternal life is to be proposed to those who do good works to the end and hope in God, both as grace mercifully promised to the children of God through Jesus Christ and as a reward faithfully to be repaid, according to God's own promise, for good works and merits. For this is the crown of righteousness that the Apostle said was laid up for him after his contest and course, to be repaid to him by the just judge—not only to him, but also to all who love his coming.²⁷²⁸ St. Chrysostom gives the same explanation in homily 10 on the Epistle to the Hebrews, and Cajetan follows it in I–II, question 114, article 7, as does Andreas de Vega, book 13 of On Justification, chapter 10. It is common and very much in keeping with the Apostle's context.

XVI. The third argument is this. The prayer of Psalm 70, When my strength fails, do not abandon me, is acceptable to God. Therefore, it merits what it asks, at least by merit of congruity. But in it the Prophet, speaking in the name of all the righteous, asks that after falling into sin he be restored by God through grace. Therefore, by that prayer a righteous person merits restoration after a fall for himself by merit of congruity.

It is answered that in that prayer the Prophet, in the name of the righteous, asks for divine help by which they may be preserved from sin in a time of tribulation. The righteous can merit this help for themselves by merit of congruity through good works proceeding from grace. St. Augustine follows this explanation on the same psalm, as does Lyra's gloss, and it is fairly common among the Doctors. Yet it does not follow from this that a righteous person can merit restoration after a fall for himself by merit of congruity.

XVII. Second, it is answered that, if in that prayer a just person asks for restoration after a fall, as the other Doctors hold, with whom St. Thomas seems to agree in 1. 2. q. 114. art. 7. ad 1., such a prayer can be called an impetration of that same restoration after a fall, but not meritorious, even by congruity.²⁹ The reason for the distinction is what St. Thomas hints at in the same response to the first objection, and states more expressly in 2. 2. q. 83. art. 16. ad 2. For merit rests on justice and the divine promise; hence reward corresponds to it infallibly and by a certain law, unless it is deadened by a subsequent sin. But impetration does not rest on justice, but on divine mercy and liberality; hence even sinners obtain many good things from God by praying, as the same holy Doctor proves in 2. 2. q. 83. art. 16. ad 2. For this reason St. Augustine says in his commentary on John: If God did not hear sinners, the tax collector would have said in vain: ‘Lord, be merciful³⁰ to me, a sinner.’³¹³² And Chrysostom says in his commentary on Matthew: Everyone who asks receives, that is, whether he is just or a sinner.³³

The fourth argument is this. A just person merits restoration after a fall for another by congruity, as St. Thomas teaches in 1. 2. q. 114. ar. 6. Therefore, he can merit it for himself too. The consequence is proved: a person's merit is more ordered to what is to be conferred on himself than to what is to be conferred on someone else.

It is answered by denying the consequence. In the case of the antecedent, it is not necessary that the other person, for whom the just person merits restoration, fall into a new mortal sin in order to be restored and for the one meriting to receive the reward he merits by congruity.³⁴ But for a just person to merit restoration after a fall for himself, it is necessary that he fall into a new mortal sin in order for such a reward to be conferred on him. Hence the cases are not alike.

But there is an argument against this. It follows from this response that one just person cannot merit restoration after a fall for another just person, even by congruity. The consequence is proved: in this case it is impossible for such a reward to be given unless the other person, for whom he merited restoration, falls into a new mortal sin. For one who is in grace cannot be restored after a fall unless he sins mortally. It is answered, with St. Thomas in the cited art. 6, by denying the consequence. The reason is that, in the case of the consequence, for that reward to be given, it is not necessary that the one meriting fall into a new mortal sin, by reason of which the preceding merit would be interrupted and deadened. Hence that merit always remains acceptable to God, even if a mortal sin occurs on the other person's part, which is presupposed for restoration. Nevertheless, when someone merits restoration for himself, it is necessary that the one meriting himself fall into mortal sin in order for that reward to be given. Hence the cases are not alike.

XVIII. But the argument presses further. What should be said if Peter, existing in grace, merits restoration after a fall for Paul, and, before Paul is restored, Peter loses grace by sinning mortally? Will Paul afterward be restored on account of Peter's merit, at least by congruity? Certain Thomists answer that, even if Peter sins mortally before Paul is restored, that merit still remains before God. They give this reason: by Peter, the one meriting, sinning mortally, Paul does not lose the right already acquired by congruity that he has from Peter's merit already applied to him, because Peter's sin occurs accidentally. But this reason does not work when someone merits restoration for himself, since then the sin of the one meriting is presupposed per se in order for him to be restored. Many other Thomists do not like this solution, and rightly so; for it would follow from it that Peter's mortal sin does not in fact deaden all his preceding merits, since that merit of congruity by which the same Peter merited Paul's restoration after a fall would still remain. Therefore, it must be said with Medina, 1. 2. q. 114. art. 1. ad 2., that if Peter, who merited Paul's restoration by congruity, sins mortally before Paul is restored, Paul will not afterward be restored through Peter's merit, because it was interrupted and deadened by a subsequent sin. Hence, if Paul is in fact restored after a fall, his restoration will occur from God's mere mercy, without any merit of Peter, just as if Peter had never merited Paul's restoration by congruity.

XIX. The fifth argument is this. A subsequent mortal sin does not destroy the merit with respect to glory that was in good works performed in grace; otherwise the reprobate would merit nothing through good works performed when they were in grace. Therefore, neither does it destroy merit with respect to restoration after a fall. Therefore, just as the reprobate truly merit eternal life condignly through good works performed in grace, although in fact it is not afterward conferred on them because of the impediment of sin, so too a just person merits restoration after a fall, at least by congruity, through good works, although this reward is often not conferred on him because of the impediment of sin.

It is answered that, as St. Thomas teaches in the cited 1. 2. q. 114. art. 7., the reprobate, as long as they are in grace, truly merit eternal life through good works, although a subsequent sin places an impediment to their obtaining that reward.³⁵ The reason is that, from the nature of the thing, it was not necessary that the one meriting sin mortally in order to obtain that reward, because by divine help he could persevere to the end. But for a just person to obtain restoration after a fall, it is necessary that a new mortal sin occur. Hence it entails a contradiction for him to merit restoration after a fall for himself, as was said.

As for the fourth difficulty, which is suggested in the sixth argument from the outset, nothing need now be said, lest the course of this disputation be drawn out longer than is fitting; therefore we reserve its resolution for the following disputation. From what has been said, it is easy to answer all the arguments made at the outset.

XX. To the first argument, we have already said around the second conclusion that a man is justified freely, that is, without his own works meriting the grace of justification itself; but not without a prior disposition on his part, if he is an adult, a disposition to which grace is infallibly given, not as a reward for merit but as a form to its ultimate disposition.

To the confirmation, it is answered that the Semipelagians posited an infallible connection between works of nature and the attainment of grace, as was said above, and for this reason St. Prosper rightly reproved them. We, however, establish an infallible connection only between justifying grace and its ultimate disposition, proceeding from the gratuitous motion of God. Hence the whole operation is reduced to grace; and consequently it does not follow that grace is given according to our merits.

To the second argument, it is already clear from what was said in the third and fourth conclusions how dispositions, even ultimate ones, are not meritorious of justification itself either by merit of condignity or by merit of congruity, although sanctifying grace is infallibly given, and by a certain law, to one who elicits an act of contrition from special help.

XXI. To the third, it is answered that grace is the radical and habitual principle of merit, whereas the gift of perseverance in adults is the actual and proximate principle,³⁶ which is conferred on adults by way of a transient motion. Therefore, before the infusion of grace, there precedes a preparation of free choice moved by the special help of God, to which grace infallibly corresponds as a form to its ultimate disposition. But before divine motion, no preparation of free choice is presupposed, as St. Thomas teaches in 1. 2. q. 109, art. 6, ad 3, assigning two reasons for this in the same place. The first is that God is the first mover; hence, in order to move free choice, he does not need first to dispose it by another motion. The second is that there would be a process to infinity, because another motion would be necessary for that prior motion, and another would be required for that one, and so on to infinity. This is unreasonable, because no action would follow, since the infinite cannot be traversed.

To the fourth argument, it is answered that it can be gathered from the sacred Scriptures that God infallibly and by a certain law infuses justifying grace into all sinners who, by God's special help, elicit an act of charity and contrition by which they are prepared for the infusion of grace. For it is said in Zechariah 1: Turn to me, and I will turn³⁷ to you. And in Ezekiel 18: But if the wicked man does penance for all his sins that he has committed, and keeps all my precepts, and practices judgment and justice, he will live and not die. I will remember none of all the iniquities he has committed; he will live in the justice he has practiced, namely, the spiritual life that is through justifying grace. Since, then, God promises life to those doing penance in these words, it remains that the sacred Scriptures show that grace is infallibly given to those who elicit an act of contrition from the special help of God.

To the fifth argument, it is answered that the meritorious acts produced by a just man after receiving justifying grace are not dispositions for restoration after a fall. But contrition, which precedes grace in the order of nature, is the ultimate disposition for its infusion; hence the cases are not alike.

To the sixth argument, the solution will be clear from what must be said in the following disputation.

Whether through acts of charity equal to the preexisting habit, or even through less intense acts, a human being infallibly and under a certain law obtains an increase of habitual grace, charity, and essential glory.

I. Although this disputation is not very necessary for our purpose, because it will nevertheless bring some clarity to what was said in the preceding disputations, for the completion of the teaching and at the insistence of certain people, it seemed fitting to treat it here. The difficulty is this: suppose, for example, that Peter has a habit of grace and charity intensified to eight degrees, and breaks out into several acts of charity or another virtue equal to that habit or less intense than it, and never breaks out into a more intense act. Does he merit through such acts an increase of grace and charity and acceptance for a new degree of essential glory, such that, if he dies in grace, greater or more intense essential glory is infallibly given to him on account of those acts; and at what degree is such an increase conferred on him? To explain this, it should be noted that, as St. Thomas teaches in III, question 7, article 11, grace can be considered in two ways:¹ first, in the being of a habit and quality, according to the physical reality it has; second, in the being of grace, insofar as by it a righteous person is accepted for glory through meritorious good works. Likewise, charity can be considered in the being of a habit and quality, or according to the proper character of charity, that is, friendship with God himself.

II. The first opinion therefore teaches that through any act of charity, even a less intense one, the habit of grace and charity is immediately increased, not only in the being of grace and charity but also in the character of a habit. Consequently, when a meritorious act is more intense than the habit, the habit is increased according to the full extent of the act’s own intensity, and in the same proportion greater essential glory will afterward be given on account of that act. Gabriel, in book 1, distinction 17, question 4, and Major, distinction 22, single question, hold this. But this opinion has absolutely no probability, and Bañez sufficiently refutes it in II–II, question 24, article 6, doubt 2, at the section beginning “Praedicta opinio”.

The second opinion was that of the most learned Master Victoria in his Relection on the Increase of Charity. He teaches that grace is increased meritoriously through less intense acts and greater essential glory is afterward conferred on account of them, but charity is not increased. From this he infers that essential glory is not proportioned according to the quantity of the habit of charity but of grace, and that it is not necessary for grace and charity to have an equal² degree of intensity.

Yet this opinion does not seem to accord with St. Thomas's mind. For the Holy Doctor teaches repeatedly that glory is proportioned to charity and measured according to its quantity; but especially in part I, q. 12, art. 6, body, where he says that one who has more charity will see God more perfectly and be more blessed. In the same article he teaches that the light of glory by which the blessed person sees God is given according to the measure of charity; and in question 95, article 4, body, he says that the quantity of merit can be weighed in two ways: in one way, from the root of grace and charity, and such a quantity of merit corresponds to the essential reward, which consists in the vision of God. For one who acts from greater charity enjoys God more perfectly.

Moreover, this opinion is refuted. Charity is the proper and primary property of grace. Therefore, it is impossible for grace to increase while charity does not increase. The consequence is clear: the more perfect an essence is, the more perfect its property, as is clear in natural things. Further, it would follow that someone is loved more by God while he loves God less. The consequence seems contrary to Proverbs 8, I love those who love me, and John 14, If anyone loves me, he will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him. By these words it is signified that those who love God more are loved more by God. For charity is mutual friendship, as St. Thomas teaches in II–II, question 23, article 1. The consequence is proved: by grace a human being is loved by God, for grace makes a human being an object of divine love; by charity a human being loves God, for charity makes a human being a lover of God. Therefore, if someone has greater grace than charity, he is loved by God more than he loves God.

III. The third opinion is that grace and charity, even according to their proper character as grace and charity, are increased only through more intense acts. Consequently, however much less intense acts, or even acts equal to the preexisting habit, are multiplied, the habit is in no way increased, nor will a righteous person later obtain more intense essential glory on account of those acts, but only accidental glory. This is Master Bañez's opinion in the cited article 6; in its favor he cites Capreolus, Paludanus, Alexander of Hales, Peter of Bergamo, and St. Vincent Ferrer in a certain sermon for Septuagesima, and he thinks this opinion is explicit in St. Thomas. Some Thomists now follow the same opinion, which Cajetan in I–II, question 114, article 8, and Conrad in the same place also seem to teach. It should be observed, however, that later, in a certain Relection on the Increase of Charity which he published at Salamanca on the eve of Pentecost in 1589, Master Bañez explains his opinion more fully. For he acknowledges that, for less intense acts of charity or even acts equal to the habit, a greater essential reward is given afterward, but not greater essential glory. For it can happen that glory, considered as a reward, is greater than itself considered as glory, as we in fact see in the glory of Christ's soul, which, considered as a reward, is infinite because it was given to him by the rigor of justice, but, considered as glory, is finite, since it is formally something created. The chief arguments for this opinion are the following.

IIII. First, an argument is made from St. Thomas's authority in 1. Sent. dist. 17. q. 2. art. 3., in the body and response to the second objection, where he says that charity is not increased by every act of charity, nor does an increase of reward correspond to every act. In the response to the fifth, he says that an increase of substantial reward does not necessarily follow from a multitude of acts. And in 2. Sent. dist. 27. q. 1. art. 5. ad 2., he says: It is not necessary that every meritorious act merit an increase of grace, because not in every meritorious act is found the condition by which an increase of the habit follows from the act. And in 3. Sent. d. 18. q. 1. art. 2. ad 4., he has these words: The one who merits need not make progress with respect to the reward he merits, so as to make it owed to himself either simply or in some way in which it was not owed to him before. By these words he seems to signify that, for someone to be said to merit essential glory through some act, it is not required that he make a new degree of glory owed to himself; rather, it suffices that he make the same degree of glory, otherwise owed, owed to himself under a new title. Likewise, in 1. Part, q. 12, art. 6, he says that whoever has more charity has more of the light of glory and sees God more. And in q. 95. art. 4., body of the article, he says the quantity of essential reward, which consists in the enjoyment of God, is considered from the root of grace and charity; for whoever does something from greater charity enjoys God more perfectly. But the quantity of accidental reward, which is joy over a created good, is considered from the quantity of the work. Consider the expression “whoever does something from greater charity.” For it signifies that the quantity of merit in relation to essential reward is considered from the intensity of charity itself. Finally, commenting on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 3, on the words Each will receive his reward according to his own labor, he says that one who labors from greater charity, although he undergoes less labor, will receive more of the essential reward.

V. Second, if the contrary opinion were to be held for some reason, it would be chiefly on account of the definition of the Council of Trent in the passages cited below at no. 13. But those passages prove nothing against this opinion. Therefore. The minor premise is proved as follows: the Council's intention in those passages is to define against the Lutherans, who asserted that a just person does not truly merit eternal life or an increase of grace and glory through good works, but that those works are only signs of justification obtained and its fruits. But to preserve that definition it suffices to assert that through some good works a just person merits a new degree of essential glory and an increase of grace and charity, namely through more intense acts, and likewise that through less intense acts he merits the same essential glory under a new title. Therefore, etc.

This is confirmed because Christ our Lord truly merited through subsequent acts; nevertheless, he merited nothing new except what he had merited before through the first act. For since his first act was infinitely meritorious, it had as much merit as all the acts that followed, since nothing greater than the infinite is given. Therefore, similarly, true merit can be preserved in all acts of charity, even less intense ones, although no new degree of essential glory corresponds to them, but the same degree corresponds under multiple titles.

Third, an act of grace and charity contributes not only meritoriously but also physically and dispositively to the increase of the habit. For just as God does not infuse the first grace without a disposition of free choice, so too he does not increase it without a disposition of free choice. But when God infuses first grace into an adult, he infuses it according to the quantity of the disposition. Therefore, similarly, when God increases grace, he increases it according to the quantity of the disposition. Therefore, it is increased only through acts more intense than the habit itself.

VI. Fourth, if grace and charity were increased by every act of charity, even a less intense one, and essential glory likewise, it would follow that they should be increased according to the entire breadth of the meritorious act. For there is no greater reason for an increase by one degree or by two or three than by all the degrees. Accordingly, if someone having grace and charity at ten were to burst into an act at eight, grace would increase up to an intensity of eighteen, and essential glory of an intensity of eighteen would correspond to him; proportionally, the same would have to be said about all subsequent acts of charity. But this seems absurd. Therefore. The minor premise is proved: if this were true, it would follow that one just person who lived in grace for thirty years and always acted with lesser intensity would be holier without qualification and have much greater essential glory than another who lived in grace for only one year, but during that year performed works of charity with great fervor and suffered martyrdom for Christ. This is manifestly proved, for all those less intense acts multiplied over thirty years exceed in quantity the acts that the martyr performed in one year, if the opinion is true that the habit and essential reward increase through less intense acts according to the entire breadth of the act. This is confirmed by comparison with the familiar calculation: if someone gives one grain of wheat on the first day of the year, two on the second, four on the third, eight on the fourth, and continues multiplying proportionally throughout the year, at the end of the year there will be such a multiplication of grains that it will incomparably exceed the number of all grains of wheat found in the whole world. Therefore, the same will hold for the increase of merit. Thus, if on the first day of the year a just person merits as one, on the second merits as two, either by a single act or by several, on the third as four, on the fourth as eight, and so on, at the end of the year he will have grace and charity intensified by so many degrees that they cannot be numbered by all the grains of wheat in the world. Therefore, to avoid this absurdity, it must be said that grace and charity are not increased by every act of charity, but only by acts more intense than the habit.

VII. Fifth. If grace and charity were increased through less intense acts, it would follow that grace, charity, and essential glory would also be increased on account of a longer continuation of an act; and thus greater glory would correspond to an act according to the longer time for which it is continued. The consequent is false. Therefore. The inference is proved: otherwise the man who continues an intense act of charity, one in intensity, for one whole hour would be in a worse condition than another who interrupts that same act and successively produces three acts of charity, each one in intensity, during that hour. For if grace and charity are not increased on account of continuation, only a reward of one would be given to the intense act of one continued for one hour; but a reward of three would be given to the other, who interrupts the act, because he produced three acts. The falsity of the consequent is proved: otherwise it would follow that there was no proportion between the merit of an act of charity that lasts only for one instant and the reward of an act that lasts for some time. It is proved as follows: there is no proportion between an instant and time, for any time exceeds one instant infinitely, since in any time and in any part of it there are infinitely many instants. Therefore, one who produces an act of charity and continues it for some time would obtain infinitely greater essential reward than another obtains on account of that same act if it lasted for only one instant.

First confirmation. To every instant some essential reward corresponds exactly, since the merit of charity can exist in an instant. But in any period of time there are infinitely many instants. Therefore an act of charity lasting for some period of time would have an infinitely intense reward corresponding to it. Second confirmation. If someone produced two meritorious acts in two discontinuous instants of one hour, he would double his merit and merit twice as much as in one instant. Therefore, if he continues an act of charity for a whole hour, he will obtain an infinitely greater reward, if it is true that the merit of an act is increased on account of its continuation.

VIII. Sixth. When someone rises from sin through penance, his prior grace and all the good meritorious works he had done before sin, when he was in grace, truly and properly revive through penance. And yet no new degree of grace or essential glory is given for them; rather, the same degree of glory corresponding to the penance by which he rises is given only under a new title. Therefore, similarly, through multiplied acts of charity that are equal or less intense, no new degree of essential glory will be given, but the same degree under a new title, although all those acts truly are meritorious of an increase of grace and glory. The inference holds by parity of reasoning, and the antecedent is proved from the Council of Trent, session 6, On Justification, chapter 7, where it says that when a sinner turns to God through penance he receives justice: Each his own, according to the measure that the Holy Spirit distributes to each as he wills, and according to each person's proper disposition and cooperation. Therefore the penitent who turns to God receives grace and charity only according to the measure of his present disposition and cooperation, not according to the measure of his prior merits. For prior merits are not dispositions by which the penitent cooperates in his justification, since they have already preceded. Therefore the same glory corresponds to them under a new title.

The same antecedent is confirmed by the explicit authority of St. Thomas, 3 p. q. 89, art. 5, ad 3, where he says that one who rises through penance in greater charity will indeed attain essential reward according to the measure of the charity in which he is found; nevertheless he will have greater joy over the works done in the first charity than over the works he did in the second, and this pertains to accidental reward. St. Thomas therefore holds that in such a case no new essential reward is given on account of prior works made alive again through penance, but only accidental reward; nevertheless, the same degree of essential glory is given under a new title.

The same is confirmed a second time: for if a new degree of grace and glory were given to the penitent on account of deadened works, it would follow that the penitent always rises again in greater grace than he had before sin. The consequent is contrary to St. Thomas in 3 Sent., distinction 35, question 1, article 4, subquestion 3, and 3 p. q. 89, art. 2, where he proves expressly that the penitent sometimes rises again in greater grace than he previously had, sometimes in equal grace, and sometimes even in lesser grace. Therefore. The inference is proved: if through penance all the grace and merits that a man had before sin are restored to him, and besides them a new degree of grace is given on account of his present contrition, by which he rises, according to the measure of that same contrition, it clearly follows that he has greater grace than before, for he has that grace and something more.

IX. The fourth opinion, which is common among more recent Thomists, asserts that although grace and charity are not increased in the being of the habit except when a man bursts forth in a more fervent act, they are nevertheless increased in the being of grace and charity even through equal acts and likewise through less intense acts, so that in the heavenly homeland a new essential glory corresponds to them. They prove this by arguments that will be brought forward below in support of this opinion.

To resolve this difficulty, it should first be assumed that, just as God alone is the efficient cause of grace and charity, so too God alone is the efficient cause of their increase; but through our acts they are increased meritoriously and dispositionally, because through them we merit that God increase grace and charity, and through those same acts we are also disposed and prepared for their increase. Second, the distinction of St. Thomas explained at number 1 should be assumed: grace in the being of grace and in the being of a quality or habit. Third, it should be assumed³, as St. Thomas teaches in book 4, distinction 12, question 2, article 1, second subquestion, and in Questions on Truth, question 26, article 6, reply to objection 8, and question 2 on Evil, article 2, that the reward corresponding in the heavenly homeland to good works is twofold: namely, an essential reward, consisting in the beatific vision of God and joy in God himself, and an accidental reward, which is joy in good works or in any other created good. Let the following, then, be set down:

First Conclusion. Grace and charity, if considered in the being of a habit and quality, are increased by God only when a righteous person breaks out into a more fervent act. The authors of the third and fourth opinions agree on this conclusion, which St. Thomas expressly intends to teach in the places cited above, and which the arguments given in favor of Master Bañez's opinion prove conclusively.

X. Second Conclusion. Grace and charity in the being of a habit are increased through more intense acts according to the excess of the act over the preexisting habit, but not according to the act's entire range of intensity.⁴ Thus, if someone who has charity at five degrees breaks out into a fervent act at ten degrees, the habit is increased to ten, but not to fifteen. The authors of both opinions also agree on this conclusion. Its chief reason is that God increases supernatural habits as their efficient cause while preserving the proportion found in natural things, as St. Thomas expressly teaches in I–II, question 114, article 8, reply to objection 3, and II–II, question 24, article 6. But in natural things a quality is increased only according to the excess of the act, as is clear: if a heating agent at four degrees is applied to water warm to two degrees, it increases the water's heat only according to the agent's excess over the patient, namely, to four degrees. Likewise, habits that have our acts as the efficient causes of their increase are increased only according to the act's excess over the habit, as Thomists commonly teach in I–II, question 52, article 2. Therefore.

XI. But there is a difficult argument against both conclusions. Charity cannot break out into an act more fervent than itself. Therefore, someone with a habitual charity at four degrees, for example, cannot break out into a fervent act at six degrees. Therefore, if grace and charity in the being of a habit are increased only when a human being breaks out into a more fervent act, they will never be able to increase. The antecedent is proved: an effect cannot exceed the power of its cause. Therefore, the habit of charity at four degrees cannot be the efficient principle of an intense act at six degrees. It is answered that, although the habit of charity at four degrees, considered in itself, cannot be the efficient principle of the intensity of an act of charity at six degrees,⁵ nevertheless, insofar as an intense actual help of God at six degrees is joined to it, it has proportionate power to produce an intense act at six degrees as an efficient cause. This will be discussed more fully in disputation 66, number 8.

XII. Third Conclusion. Grace in the character of grace, and likewise charity in the being of charity, are increased meritoriously through acts equal to the habit, and likewise through acts less intense than the habit itself, such that a new degree of essential glory corresponds to those acts in the heavenly homeland.⁶ The conclusion is against Master Bañez and the other Doctors cited above. Yet it is taught by the more common view among Thomists; Scotus also holds it in book 1, distinction 22, question 1, and it is gathered from St. Thomas, I–II, question 114, article 8, reply to objection 3. For when he had proposed an argument about less intense acts, he answers: Through every meritorious act a human being merits an increase of grace, just as he merits its completion, namely, glory. But just as glory is not conferred immediately, but at its proper time, so too an increase of grace is not conferred immediately, but at its proper time, namely, when someone has been disposed for an increase of grace. He says the same in II–II, question 24, article 6, reply to objection 1. Therefore, unless a person introduces the impediment of sin, on account of a less intense act a new degree of glory will be given to him.

The conclusion is proved, first, from Sacred Scripture. For Ecclesiastici 16 says: Every mercy will make a place for each person according to the merit of his works. And Rom. 2 says that the Lord will repay each according to his works. And 1. ad Corinth. 3: Each will receive his reward according to his own labor. In these passages reward is promised absolutely for good works, and the promise is not restricted to intense or less intense works. Therefore, a new essential glory will also be given for newly performed less intense works. The consequence is clear, because in Sacred Scripture “reward” means essential glory as the principal reward, although the accidental reward is also included under it. This is confirmed by 2. ad Corinth. 9: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. According to the common explanation of the Doctors, the proper meaning of these words is that one who acts with lesser intensity will receive a less intense degree of glory, and for few works will obtain small degrees of glory. Hence St. Bernard, explaining this passage, says: A small withholding of seed means a great diminution of the harvest. Likewise, Psalm. 61: You will repay each according to his works. Christ our Lord confirmed these words in Matth. 16, saying: The Son of Man will come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he will repay each according to his works. And the Apostle repeats them in Rom. 2, saying: According to your hardness and impenitent heart, you store up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and of the revelation of God's just judgment, who will repay each according to his works: eternal life to those who by perseverance in good work seek glory, honor, and incorruption. In these passages it is said absolutely that God will repay each with eternal life according to his works, that is, with a reward equal to his merits, in such a way that if the merits are great and intense, the eternal life corresponding to them, which consists in the clear vision of God, will also be intense; but if the merits are less intense, the corresponding eternal life and vision of God will also be less intense. Moreover, in Matth. 10 Christ our Lord says: All the hairs of your head are numbered. That is, all your good works and all your thoughts, however slight and like hairs, are nevertheless numbered before God so that he may grant them a reward worthy of them on the day of judgment, as Ambrose explains in Book II On the Holy Spirit. His explanation is very consonant with what Christ our Lord adds in the same passage: Whoever gives a drink of cold water to one of these least ones, only in the name of a disciple, amen I say to you, will not lose his reward. The expression in the name of a disciple, or, as Mark says, in my name, should be weighed, as if he were saying expressly: this alone is required for a just person not to lose the reward of a good work, that it be done in my name, that is, for God's sake. Therefore, a greater intensity of charity in the work is not required for a just person to obtain a new degree of essential glory through it.

In addition, the Apostle says in 2. ad Corinth. 4: What is momentary and light in our tribulation works in us, beyond measure, an eternal weight of glory in sublimity. From these words the argument is drawn: there is no work performed from charity, however momentary and light, or less intense, that does not produce from itself some weight and seed of eternal glory. For God grants the degrees of glory to the elect according to the measure and weight of merits, in accord with Luc. 6: They will give into your lap a good measure, shaken together and running over. Likewise, for the reprobate, according to the measure of the offense will be the measure of the blows, as Deuteronom. 25 says, in agreement with Apoc. 18: As much as she glorified herself and lived in luxury, give her as much torment and mourning. Therefore, some weight of essential glory corresponds to any work, however less intense, if it is done from charity.

XIII. It is proved second from passages of the Councils. For in the Second Council of Orange, chapter 18, it is defined as follows: A reward is owed to good works if they are done from grace. Here it is not required that a meritorious work be more intense than the habit itself for a reward to be owed to it; only that it be done from grace. And in the Council of Trent, session 6, On Justification, chapter 10, the holy Synod teaches: Those justified grow and are more justified through observance of the commandments of God and the Church, in that justice received through the grace of Christ, with faith cooperating through good works, as it is written: He who is just, let him be justified still.⁷ And again: Do not fear to be justified until death.⁸ The holy Church asks for this increase of justice when it prays: Grant us, O Lord, an increase of faith, hope, and charity. From these words I form the argument as follows: the Council teaches that the just grow in the grace by which they were justified through good works by which they observe the commandments of God and the Church. But for observing the commandments it is not necessary that they act from an act of charity more intense than the preexisting habit. Therefore, for them to grow in grace and charity, it is not required that the act meriting that same increase be more intense than the preexisting habit; and consequently grace is increased even through less intense acts, and on account of those same acts the just man will obtain a new degree of essential glory. Further, in chapter 16 of that same session it says: For since Christ Jesus himself, as the head into the members and as the vine into the branches, continually infuses into those justified a power that always precedes, accompanies, and follows their good works, and without which they could in no way be pleasing to God or meritorious, it must be believed that nothing more is lacking to those justified for them to be judged to have fully satisfied the divine law by those works done in God, according to the state of this life, and truly to have merited the attainment of eternal life in its own time, provided that they die in grace. By these words the Council requires nothing more for a just man to merit eternal life through good works than that he act from the influx of grace and the merits of Christ, namely, through faith and charity. Therefore, beyond this, it is not required that works be more intense than preexisting charity; and consequently, through less intense works he merits an increase of essential glory, and in its own time will infallibly obtain it, if he dies in grace. And in canon 24 of that same session it is defined as follows: If anyone says that the justice received is not preserved and also increased before God through good works, but that the works themselves are only the fruits and signs of justification attained, and not also a cause of its increase, let him be anathema. And in canon 26 one who says that the just ought not to expect and hope for an eternal reward from God for the good works done in God, through God's mercy and the merit of Jesus Christ, if by doing good and keeping the divine commandments they persevere to the end is anathematized. Finally, in canon 32⁹ it is defined: If anyone says that the justified person himself does not truly merit, by the good works done by him through the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ, of whom he is a living member, an increase of grace, eternal life, and the attainment of eternal life itself (provided that he dies in grace), and also an increase of glory, let him be anathema. Here the Council defines absolutely that through good works the just man truly merits an increase of grace, eternal life, and also an increase of glory and the attainment of that same glory. The Council does not distinguish between intense and less intense meritorious works. Therefore, it must not be said that through works done from charity, without its greater intensity, a just man does not obtain greater essential glory if he dies in grace.

XIV. Authors of the opposite opinion commonly give four answers to these arguments. The first answer is that the Council of Trent intended only to define against the Lutheran heretics, who said that grace is not increased through the good works of the righteous, but that those works are only signs of the justice attained and its fruits, as is clear from canon 24 cited above.¹⁰ The heretics' proposition was universal, namely: By no good work does a righteous person merit an increase of grace. Hence, to preserve the Council's definition, since it contradicts the heretics' assertion, it is not necessary that grace and preexisting charity be increased through every good work; it is enough that they be increased through some good work or works, namely, through more intense acts. They confirm this answer: otherwise the opinion that it is not enough for merit that a work be good and performed by someone in grace, but that it must also be referred to a supernatural end through an immediately preceding act of charity, would be contrary to that definition of the Council of Trent. For in the cited places the Council does not teach that any reference to a supernatural end through an immediately preceding act of charity is necessary for merit. But this consequence must not be admitted, since there are various opinions among the Doctors about the reference necessary for merit, as Medina shows in I–II, question 114, article 4.¹¹¹² Some, including Master Soto, book 3 of On Nature and Grace, chapter 4, and Vega on the Council of Trent, teach that habitual reference is sufficient, provided that the work is morally good and done by someone in grace. Others, following Durandus and Scotus, hold that merit requires the actual ordering of works to a supernatural end through an act of charity.¹³¹⁴ Others take a middle way and think that habitual reference is not sufficient, but neither is actual reference required; rather, virtual reference proceeding from an immediately preceding act of charity is required. Master Cano and some Thomists hold this. Finally, others, including Cajetan, I, question 63, article 6, and Capreolus, book 2 of the Sentences, distinction 40, single question, article 1, say that a remote virtual reference in the power of the act of charity by which someone was justified is sufficient. St. Thomas seems to adhere to this opinion in question 2 on Evil, article 5, replies to objections 7 and 11, and in book 2 of the Sentences, distinction 40, question 1, article 5, reply to the sixth argument. Therefore, just as the words of the Council of Trent cannot prove that habitual reference is sufficient for merit or that an actual or virtual reference to God made through an act of charity is unnecessary, because the Council left this to be debated among theologians, since it was not treating the matter expressly, so too the same Council does not conclusively prove that a new degree of essential glory corresponds to acts equal to or less intense than the preexisting habit of charity and grace, because the Council likewise was not treating this difficulty but left it for theologians to debate.

XV. Yet this answer, though it seems plausible and therefore excuses the opposite opinion from every censure, does not entirely remove the force of the argument. For although the Council primarily intends to exclude that heretical error, in consequence of excluding it the Council determines an absolute proposition equivalent to a universal one: namely, that a righteous person merits an increase of grace and glory through meritorious works. Therefore, the Council's words are not to be restricted to more intense acts but are to be understood universally of every meritorious act. Nor does the objection brought forward in confirmation of the answer prove anything, for the Council is speaking of meritorious acts. The question of whether merit requires a proximate reference of charity or whether a remote one suffices falls within the scope of opinion.

XVI. The second answer is that the Council defines only that a justified person merits an increase of grace and glory through good works. This is entirely true even if we speak of less intense good works. The authors of the opposite opinion do not deny this, but expressly acknowledge it with St. Thomas, I–II, question 114, article 8, reply to objection 3, where he says that through every meritorious act a human being merits an increase of grace, just as he merits the completion of grace, which is eternal life. But just as eternal life is not immediately repaid but at its proper time, so grace too is not increased immediately but at its proper time, namely, when someone has been sufficiently disposed for an increase of grace. Yet the Council does not determine that an increase of grace or essential glory is in fact always given for every less intense act, even if a righteous person perseveres in grace to the end.

There is nevertheless a strong argument against this answer: a reward is owed by justice for merit, as was said above. Therefore, if a righteous person merits an increase of grace through every act of charity, even a less intense one, he will eventually obtain that reward even if he does not break out into a more fervent act, provided that he does not introduce the impediment of sin. Otherwise merit would be given without the reward owed by justice, and so God would be unjust, contrary to Hebrews 6: For God is not unjust, so as to forget your work and labor, etc. Although the Apostle is speaking there about deadened merits that come back to life through repentance, his argument applies all the more to meritorious works that were never deadened. It is confirmed. It is impossible for God not to fulfill his promise. But he promised an increase of grace for every meritorious work of a justified person, and likewise an increase of glory. Therefore, in fact, he grants it if the person does not introduce the impediment of sin.

XVII. A third solution was hinted at above in the second argument proposed for the third opinion:¹⁵ namely, for each meritorious work the predestined will be given new glory in the heavenly homeland in the character of essential reward, because the same glory that was previously owed on account of other equal or more intense meritorious works will be given under a new title, just as was said of the reward corresponding to Christ's merits. However, greater glory will not be given in the character of glory, that is, with respect to the physical intensity of the beatific vision.¹⁶ Master Báñez pursues this solution in the Relection cited above. But it too does not seem sufficient, because it does not properly preserve the claim that an actual increase of grace and glory is given for less intense good works, even if the just person perseveres to the end. For a form is properly said to increase only when it grows in intensity. Therefore, since the Council teaches absolutely that a just person merits through good works an increase of grace and glory and the attainment of that increase if he perseveres to the end, the Council does not seem to be satisfied unless it is said that a just person merits an increase of grace and glory in intensity through good works, even less intense ones, and that such an increase will infallibly follow if he perseveres to the end, even if he never breaks out into an act more fervent than his pre-existing habit.

XVIII. A fourth solution asserts that, to preserve rigorously the doctrine of the Council of Trent and its definition, it suffices to admit that new accidental glory corresponds to less intense good works, provided that it is asserted that, when merits are more intense than the pre-existing grace and charity, more intense essential glory corresponds to them. This solution seems to have a basis in St. Thomas, Part I, question 95, article 4, in the body of the article, whose words we cited above. But it is easily refuted by what was said above: for the Council speaks without distinction of intense and less intense meritorious works. Therefore, just as more intense essential and accidental glory corresponds to more intense good works, so too a new degree of essential glory, and not merely accidental glory, corresponds to the less intense good acts of a just person if he perseveres in grace.

XIX. Third, the conclusion is proved from the holy Fathers, who teach universally that the reward of eternal glory must be measured according to the quantity and number of merits, so that the more numerous and greater the labors someone has endured in God's service, the greater and more intense the glory he obtains. For Gregory says in the Moralia: As one surpasses another here in merit, so there one will surpass another in retribution.¹⁷ He is speaking of the retribution of essential glory, as is clear from the preceding and following words. Jerome teaches the same in his commentary on Ezechiel, chapters 4 and 18, and in Book II Against Jovinian, where he says that among the blessed there will be unequal glory according to the inequality of merits. Likewise, St. Prosper says in book 2 of On the Calling of the Gentiles, chapter 36, near the end: Through the labor of works, the persistence of prayers, and the exercises of virtues, merits increase, and those who have done good are crowned according to their good works. St. Ambrose teaches the same in On Holy Virginity, chapters 26, 27, and 44, and in sermon 59 on the words of the Lord.

Fourth, the conclusion is proved by the authority of the Scholastics. For, besides St. Thomas in the places cited above, Capreolus, the most faithful interpreter and defender of the holy Doctor's teaching in all matters, teaches in book 4, distinction 14, question 2, article 3, reply to Scotus’s first objection against the second conclusion, in accord with St. Thomas's opinion, that for every act of charity, however less intense, a special degree of essential glory is to be conferred in heaven;¹⁸ and likewise through the multiplication of these acts, although none of them is an act more intense. Many very weighty Thomists understood St. Thomas in the same way.

XX. Fifth, this is proved by reason: condign merit intrinsically includes a debt founded on the divine promise and on the very perfection and dignity of the meritorious work insofar as it proceeds from grace and the motion of the Holy Spirit, as St. Thomas teaches in I–II, question 114, article 1, and as is gathered from 2. ad Timoth. 4: A crown of justice is laid up for me, and Heb. 6: For God is not unjust, that he should forget your work. But through every act of charity, even a less intense one, a person merits an increase of grace and essential glory condignly, as the authors of the contrary opinion admit, and as is clear from the Council of Trent and St. Thomas in the places cited above. Therefore, there intervenes a debt to render the reward if the just person does not place an impediment by sin and perseveres in grace to the end; consequently, a person will infallibly obtain such a reward. Otherwise, it would have to be said that God does not keep his promises and does not pay the reward owed for meritorious works, which is false and contrary to the Apostle's saying: He remains faithful, and cannot deny himself.¹⁹ This is confirmed. God is more inclined to reward good works than to punish sins. But for each sin God will repay the reprobate with a special punishment, as is clear from the Scripture passages cited above. Therefore, for each meritorious work he will repay the elect with a special degree of glory.

XXI. Sixth: for it would follow from the contrary opinion that if Peter, for example, with an act of charity intense to degree ten, distributed all his goods among the poor and professed the strictest religious life, in which he persevered in grace for 60 years, performing many works of virtue with intensity to degree ten, and finally suffered martyrdom for Christ with that same intensity of charity, he would not obtain greater essential glory, in the aspect of essential glory, than Martin, who persevered in grace for only one hour, performed one intense work of virtue to degree ten during that hour, and died. Although this consequence is conceded by the authors of the contrary opinion, it seems greatly to detract from the merits of the just and must in no way be conceded. For by this the faithful would be deterred from many good works and labors if they should once conceive that by a thousand good acts, or even a hundred thousand, they would obtain no greater essential glory than by one act of the same intensity. Likewise, it would also follow from the same opinion that through acts of faith, hope, religion, penance, mercy, and the other moral virtues, informed by grace and commanded by charity, the just obtain no special degree of grace or essential glory beyond the one corresponding to the act of charity, by which they are ordered to a supernatural end. But this consequence is contrary to the teaching of St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 114, art. 4, where he teaches that grace is the principle of meriting first and chiefly through charity, but secondarily through the other virtues, insofar as their acts are commanded by charity. And in the solution to the second objection he adds that labor and difficulty arising from the greatness of a work pertain to an increase of merit, indicating clearly enough that, other things being equal, an act is more meritorious the more laborious and difficult it is, with the difficulty arising from the greatness of the work. He teaches the same in 2. 2. q. 182, art. 2, ad 1, where he says that an increase of merit with respect to essential reward consists chiefly in charity. He therefore holds that it also consists in the acts of the other virtues, although less chiefly.

XXII. Second confirmation, which increases the difficulty of the preceding argument by an analogy: in natural things the perfection of a material fruit is judged not only from the root of the tree but also from its branches, through which the power of the root reaches the fruits; and for this reason, through a better branch, a better fruit is produced by the power of the root. Therefore, similarly, the fruit of merit or essential reward is to be assessed not only from the root of charity, but also by reason of the other virtues through which charity produces the fruit of a meritorious work;²⁰ and consequently, other things being equal, merit and the essential glory corresponding to it will be greater in proportion to the excellence of the virtue through which charity acts. Otherwise, essential reward of eternal life would have been promised to charity alone, and charity alone would receive a reward, contrary to explicit passages of Scripture. For it is said in Matt. 10: Everyone who confesses me before men, namely, through faith, I too will confess before my Father who is in heaven. And in Heb. 10: Do not lose your confidence, which has a great reward. And in Matt. 5: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. There eternal life is also promised to many other virtues and their acts. And in Matt. 25: Come, 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; I was thirsty, and you gave me drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in; I was in prison, and you came to me. By these words Christ the Lord shows that essential glory is to be given not only on account of an act of charity but also on account of merits proceeding from the other virtues. Therefore it is increased through them.

Seventh, the same point is proved. If one who has charity at degree four performs an act intense to degree six, on account of it he will obtain greater essential glory. Therefore, if one who has charity intense to degree one hundred performs an act of charity intense to degree ninety, on account of it he will obtain new essential glory. The inference is clear, for otherwise the just man who acts less intensely would be in a better condition than one who acts intensely.

Some think that these arguments make our third conclusion so certain that the contrary opinion is very rash and erroneous in faith. Nevertheless, this censure does not seem reasonable, as is clear from what was said above.

XXIII. Fourth Conclusion. Grace in the being of grace, and likewise charity in the being of charity, are increased immediately, even through less intense acts, and are increased according to the whole range of the act above the habit.²¹ The first part is proved: as soon as a man performs a less intense meritorious act, he has a right to new essential glory. Therefore through it grace is immediately increased in the being of grace. The inference is clear, for grace's being increased in the being of grace is nothing other than the just man being accepted through it for greater glory. The second part is proved: there is no greater reason why grace should be increased in the being of grace through less intense acts by one degree rather than by two; therefore it is increased according to the whole range of the act. It is proved further: suppose a day's labor is worth three silver coins. If someone works for one day, he merits three silver coins; if he works another day, he merits another three. Therefore similarly, if someone with merit of degree four bursts forth into another meritorious act of degree four, he will remain with merit of degree eight and consequently will be accepted for essential glory of intensity eight, and so on for the other meritorious acts.

XXIV. Fifth Conclusion. The increase of grace and charity in the being of a habit that a human being merits through less intense acts will afterward be given at the first instant of glorification.²² This conclusion is gathered from St. Thomas, I–II, question 114, article 8, reply to objection 3, where he teaches that through less intense acts a human being merits an increase of grace and charity, to be conferred when, namely, he has been sufficiently disposed for an increase of grace, that is, when he has disposed himself through a more fervent act. From this the argument is drawn: in this life a righteous person never disposes himself through a more fervent act so that the increase he merited through less intense acts may be given to him. Therefore, in the other life he will be disposed by God through an act so intense that it equals the whole quantity of merit that preceded in this life, so that at last the proportion between grace and charity in the being of merit and in the being of a habit may be preserved. The consequence is clear, for otherwise meritorious less intense acts would remain without the reward they merited by justice. The antecedent is proved: when a righteous person in this life breaks out into a more fervent act, the increase of grace and charity in the being of a habit then conferred is given for that more fervent act, just as it would be given if no less intense acts had preceded. Therefore, no intensity is then added on account of the preceding less intense acts. It is confirmed: the other life is the time for receiving the adequate reward merited through preceding acts in this life. Therefore, a reward not conferred in this age must be conferred in the other. Nor does it follow from this that a human being merits in the other life. For just as then a righteous person will be disposed for the beatific vision through the light of glory without there being merit in the other life, so too through an intense act of charity the righteous person will be disposed for the intensity of the habit in the being of a habit that he merited through preceding less intense acts in this life, without there being any merit in the heavenly homeland.

XXV. But three arguments present themselves against these two conclusions. First, it would follow that in this life equality between grace and charity in the being of merit and in the being of a habit is never preserved after a righteous person has broken out into less intense acts. The consequence is proved: through less intense acts grace in the being of grace and charity in the being of merit are immediately increased, as was said above, and are increased according to the entire range of the act, but they are not immediately increased in the being of a habit. Therefore, grace in the being of grace will always be greater than grace in the being of a habit, and the same will hold for charity.

It is answered that there is no absurdity in equality and proportion between the quantity of grace in the being of a habit and in the being of grace, or merit, not always being preserved in this life;²³ it is enough that they be preserved in the heavenly homeland. There equality between the quantity of grace and the quantity of glory will also be preserved, for in the heavenly homeland all things will be complete and perfect.

XXVI. The second argument is that it belongs to the essence of grace and charity to be a habit. Therefore, if they are immediately increased in the being of grace and charity through less intense acts, they should also be immediately increased in the being of a habit. The consequence is clear, because a specific character cannot be increased without the generic character also being increased. For if whiteness is intensified, color consequently must also be intensified; but the character of a habit is generic with respect to the character of grace and charity. Therefore. It is answered that grace in the being of grace can be considered in two ways. First, in physical being, insofar as it is the ultimate physical difference contracting the habit to a given species.²⁴ Second, in the moral order, insofar as through meritorious works a person is accepted for glory by it. We therefore say that when grace is increased according to its proper specific character as grace in physical being, it must also be increased in the character of a habit; but it is not necessary that grace be increased in the being of a habit when it is increased in the being of grace in the moral order. An example is the habitual grace of Christ, which is finite in physical being, even according to the specific difference of grace, as Thomists commonly teach in III, question 7, article 11; yet according to moral dignity, insofar as it is the principle of infinite merit and infinite satisfaction, it is infinite in the being of grace on account of the suppositum acting, as St. Thomas teaches in that same article.

XXVII. The third argument is that, according to the opposite opinion, it would follow that through extrinsic acceptance alone a righteous person is accepted for the greater essential glory he merits through less intense acts.²⁵ The consequence seems contrary to the Council of Trent, session 6 on justification, chapter 7 and canon 11, where it says that sins are remitted and a human being is made worthy of eternal life through inherent righteousness²⁶, not through extrinsic favor alone or non-imputation. The consequence is proved: grace and charity are not intrinsically perfected in themselves as qualities when a righteous person breaks out into less intense acts. Therefore, if on account of those acts a human being is accepted for greater essential glory, that acceptance will be purely extrinsic in relation to that greater glory. It is answered by denying the consequence. As for the proof, it should be said that through preexisting habitual grace, insofar as it newly became the real cause of a new less intense act, a human being is accepted for the greater essential glory corresponding to that less intense act. Hence the acceptance is not purely extrinsic or through extrinsic favor alone, but through intrinsic justice, insofar as it expresses a new relation to a new meritorious act. From this the answer to the arguments made at the beginning in favor of the third opinion is clear. We say that they make that opinion probable; insofar as they are directed against our opinion, each is answered in turn.

XXVIII. To the first argument made at the beginning from St. Thomas, it is answered that the cited passages sufficiently persuade us that he held that opinion in the Sentences, although he retracted it in the Summa, in the places cited above. It should nevertheless be observed that the proposition St. Thomas grants in book 1 of the Sentences—namely, that a person does not merit an increase of charity through every act of charity—is not understood by St. Thomas absolutely, as meaning that, speaking absolutely, he does not merit that increase, but that he does not merit an increase of charity immediately to be conferred in the being of a habit, as is clear from what precedes and follows. For the holy Doctor intends to assign a difference between intense and less intense acts: through acts more intense than the habit, a person merits an increase of the habit so that it is conferred immediately;²⁷ but through acts less intense than the habit, he does not merit an increase of the habit so that it is conferred immediately. On this solution see Cajetan, I–II, response to the third objection of the same article, question 114, article 8 To the passage cited from the First Part, it is answered that St. Thomas is speaking of charity in the being of charity and merit, and his meaning is that one who has more charity in the being of charity has more of the light of glory and sees God more, as if he said more plainly: one who merited more on the way sees God more in the heavenly homeland. To the other passage from question 95, it is answered that when he says, One who does something from greater charity enjoys God more perfectly, this is understood with respect to any act. His meaning is that an act performed from greater charity is more meritorious of essential glory than an act performed from lesser charity. This is the same as saying that an act of charity more intense, whether elicited or commanded, is more meritorious than a less intense act. It does not follow from this, however, that through multiplication of acts of the same intensity, or through less intense acts, a person does not merit new essential glory. This also answers the other passage from the Epistle to the Corinthians. Finally, the response to the last argument will make St. Thomas's mind clearer.

XXIX. To the second: it is already clear from what was said in the second proof of the third conclusion how our opinion is more in conformity with the Council's doctrine and preserves its definition more properly.

To the confirmation it is answered that Christ our Lord merited through subsequent acts, under a new title, what he had already merited through the first act, because each of his acts was infinitely meritorious.²⁸ Hence he did not merit more through many acts than through one, because, insofar as the infinite is infinite, nothing can be added to it. But this reasoning does not apply to our merits, which are finite; hence the cases are not alike.

To the third it is answered that it only follows that charity and grace are not increased immediately in the being of a habit through less intense acts, but only when a person breaks out into a more fervent act, which we gladly admit with St. Thomas, as was said above. Nevertheless, they are immediately increased in the being of grace and in the moral order, because moral increase does not require an equal physical disposition; the multiplication of a meritorious act suffices.

XXX. To the fourth, we grant that grace is increased in the being of grace through less intense acts, and charity likewise in the being of charity, according to the entire breadth and intensity of the meritorious act.²⁹ To the objection it is answered that, morally speaking, the person who served God most devoutly and fervently for one year and at last suffered martyrdom is holier and will obtain greater essential glory than another who exercised himself in less intense acts of charity for twenty or forty years. First, morally speaking, the person most fervent in God's service more frequently multiplies acts of charity and performs more and more excellent good works, more intense than the other person who acts with lesser intensity. For, as Gregory says: Love accomplishes great things if it exists; but if it refuses to act, love does not exist.³⁰ And again he says: The proof of love is the manifestation of the work. Hence all the multiplication of acts performed over forty years by one who acts with lesser intensity will not equal the entire intensity of the merits of one year possessed by the person who lived most fervently. Second, although grace and charity in the being of grace and charity increase according to the entire breadth of the act, nevertheless, if one person has an intense act of charity at twenty, while another produces two intense acts of charity at ten, the first merits more through one intense act at twenty than the latter through two intense acts at ten; and perhaps it will be necessary to multiply four or six acts at ten to equal the entire merit of an intense act at twenty. The reason is that the intensity and fervor of the act are the chief and most excellent things considered here; and it is much more difficult and arduous to have one intense act at twenty than to attain merit at twenty through various intense acts at four or ten. This can be confirmed by a most manifest example. In human affairs, a prince reasonably values more and rewards more highly one most excellent act by a subject who once risked his life out of the most excellent love for the prince than many less intense and easy acts of another. Therefore, God likewise values more and rewards more highly one intense act at one hundred than ten intense acts at ten. And the wise man seems to suggest this when he said: Having been perfected in a short time, he fulfilled a long span.³¹ The meaning of these words is that a just person who serves God most fervently fulfills in a short time the number of merits of many years.

To the confirmation, it is answered that the authors of the contrary opinion are also bound to solve the argument made, for it proceeds in the same way concerning accidental reward, which they too admit is increased through less intense acts. Therefore, just as according to everyone's opinion a new accidental reward is given for each less intense act without that reward increasing by innumerable and incredible degrees, so in our opinion a new essential reward is given for each meritorious act without its increasing to some incredible and innumerable intensity. To the argument, therefore, it is answered that although an intensible and remissible form is infinitely divisible according to intensity, nevertheless it always remains of a determinate intensity, however much it is divided into more parts. This is like a span's quantity, which is determinate and yet is syncategorematically divisible to infinity, and parts can be multiplied on each day of a year according to the calculation made in the argument without any absurdity following. This is especially true in the case of grace and charity, which, since they are a certain participation in the divine nature, can be increased to infinity, as St. Thomas teaches in 2. 2. q. 24, art. 7. Hence, however much they are increased, they will never reach the greatest possible intensity by God's absolute power.

XXXI. To the fifth, it is answered that, other things being equal, the greater the continuation of an act, the greater essential glory corresponds to it.³² To the objection, it is answered that it has the same difficulty concerning accidental reward, which according to everyone's opinion is increased on account of the continuation of a meritorious act. It is therefore answered that it is impossible for an act of charity to last only for an instant, because the duration of an instant is not duration; but a thing produced in time through some action must be measured by some duration. Further, if an act of charity lasted only for an instant, it would follow that it both was and was not in the same instant.³³ For since an act of charity is a spiritual thing, it begins through its first being and ceases through its first not-being. Therefore, if it begins and ceases in the same instant, in that same instant it will be and not be. If it is said that it ceases through its ultimate being, the contrary is the case: for what ceases through its ultimate being ceases in time. For it is true to say: Now it is, and immediately after this it will not be. But what follows immediately after an instant must be time, because, as is shown in Physics 6 and 7, one instant cannot be immediately next to another. Therefore it must necessarily last for some time; and on this opinion the argument does not proceed, for there is a proportion between any part of time and time.

Second, according to the opinion of others, who admit that an act of charity can last only for an instant, the reward corresponding to the substance of the meritorious action, insofar as it is actually produced, is greater than the reward corresponding to the continuation of that same act. The reason is that continuation is a mode of the substance of a thing; but a greater reward must correspond to the substance of the thing than to its accident, unless the continuation is so great that it eventually equals or exceeds the merit corresponding to the production of the act. Hence, although other things being equal, one who continues an act of charity for some time merits more than one whose act lasts only for an instant, his merit is not twice as great unless the continuation is so great that it is equivalent to the instantaneous production of another act. For example, if that continuation lasts for a quarter of an hour, and someone produces an act of charity intense to degree ten at the first instant of that quarter and the act lasts only for an instant, he will merit glory of degree ten. But one who continues an act intense to degree ten for a quarter of an hour will merit degree twenty, for example, because the continuation for a quarter of an hour is equivalent to the production of another act; but if he continues the act for half a quarter-hour, he will merit degree fifteen, and so proportionately. For just as every part of a quarter-hour is infinitely divisible, so too every part of merit or of the reward corresponding to it is infinitely divisible, as was said. Hence, from our opinion there does not follow the absurdity intended by the argument. And by these points an answer is given to the first and second confirmations.

XXXII. To the sixth argument, it is answered that it touches on that celebrated difficulty which St. Thomas discusses in 3 p. q. 89, art. 5: how good works done in grace and charity, deadened by subsequent sin, later revive through penance, and in what measure. Since this difficulty requires a special discussion, it must be examined in the following disputation.

From what has been said in this disputation, the sixth argument made at the outset remains solved. For we say that through less intense acts of charity too, the just man infallibly obtains an increase of the habit, as was shown.

Whether, on account of deadened merits, a penitent infallibly and under an established law obtains greater habitual grace and a right to more intense essential glory.

I. Concerning this difficulty, Master Bañez, in accordance with his opinion, holds in II–II, question 24, article 6, doubt 6, that deadened works come back to life through repentance in such a way that no new essential glory distinct from the glory given for the contrition by which the penitent rises corresponds to them. Rather, the same glory corresponds to all the preceding merits under a new title, and that glory will be greater only in the character of a reward, as was explained above; although new accidental glory corresponds to those works, made living again through repentance. His chief foundation is the authority of St. Thomas brought forward in confirmation¹ of the sixth argument of the preceding disputation.

II. Scotus in book 4, distinction 16, question 2, article 2, and Ledesma in part 1 of book 4 of the Sentences, articles 2 and 5, hold the opposite opinion. All theologians who teach that grace and charity are increased in the being of grace and charity through every act of charity also consistently defend it; this opinion is more probable. To make this clear, first it should be assumed that all theologians agree that deadened works come back to life through repentance, which St. Thomas conclusively proves in the cited part III. Second, it should be assumed, as St. Thomas teaches in the cited part III, article 4, that works done in charity are said to be deadened insofar as a subsequent mortal sin prevents them from bringing a human being to eternal life.² Hence, for deadened works to come back to life through repentance is nothing other than their regaining, once the impediment of sin is removed, their efficacy to bring the person who produced them to eternal life. Third, the distinction between grace in the being of grace and grace in the being of a habit and quality should be assumed. This distinction is explicit in St. Thomas, part III, question 7, article 11. These two considerations of grace, or aspects of the same grace, are related in such a way that one can be greater than the other in the same grace. For it can happen that grace in the being of an entity is intense to five degrees, while in the being of acceptance for glory it is at one hundred degrees. This too is gathered from St. Thomas's reply to objection 3 in that place, where he says of Christ's grace that in the being of an entity it is finite and yet, according to its proper character as grace, it is infinite. Let the following, then, be set down:

III. First conclusion: In addition to the glory corresponding to the penitent's present contrition, new essential glory is given on account of the preceding merits that come back to life through repentance, and in the same proportion grace is greater in the being of grace.³ This conclusion is proved by an argument: all deadened merits truly come back to life through repentance, as was said; therefore, they regain their efficacy to bring a human being to the glory he merited through those merits. The consequence is clear, since, as was said in the second foundation, this is what it means for deadened works to come back to life. Therefore, in addition to the right to glory corresponding to the present contrition, on account of his preceding merits the penitent has a right to a further degree of essential glory. For through deadened works of charity the penitent does not merit the degree of glory corresponding to his present contrition, but a distinct one, since the meritorious works were different from the present contrition. It is confirmed: otherwise, strictly speaking, those deadened merits would not come back to life at least with respect to the essential reward, since no new essential glory would correspond to them. It is not enough to answer that the same essential glory corresponding to the contrition is given under a new title on account of the merits that come back to life through repentance. For this and other similar answers commonly given have already been refuted above, at number 14 and following.

Second, it is proved: according to the opposite opinion it would follow that if a most holy man, who had persevered in grace for many years and had many very intense acts, fell into mortal sin and afterward rose again through contrition intense to two degrees, and another most wicked man repented with contrition likewise intense to two degrees, and both died immediately, they would obtain the same essential glory. That is, the most holy man would not have greater essential glory than the other. The argument is clear: each obtains only essential glory intense to two degrees, according to the quantity of contrition. Although this consequence is admitted by the authors of the opposite opinion, it is exceedingly harsh and is refuted by Ezekiel: The wickedness of the wicked will not harm him on whatever day he turns from his wickedness,⁴ and chapter 18: If the wicked person repents, etc., I will remember none of his iniquities any longer. Surely God would then remember the preceding iniquities, and the wickedness of the wicked would harm him, if after repentance no further essential glory were given on account of preceding merits; for this would be a great harm arising from sins committed and already forgiven. Therefore, new glory corresponds to those merits.

IIII. Third, it is proved by arguing from concessions against the authors of the opposite opinion. As they themselves acknowledge, sacramental grace lost through mortal sin is restored through repentance, so that in addition to the degree of grace and glory corresponding to the present contrition, a new degree of grace and a right to greater essential glory are conferred. Therefore, the same will hold for nonsacramental grace. The consequence is clear: through mortal sin both sacramental and nonsacramental grace are lost, and likewise through repentance the merits of both kinds of grace come back to life in the same way. Therefore, the same must be said of both.

The authors of the contrary opinion reply that sacramental grace is conferred ex opere operato on one who does not place an obstacle, and likewise the right to glory that follows from sacramental grace. But nonsacramental grace is conferred only ex opere operantis, and likewise the right to glory that follows from nonsacramental grace through meritorious works. Therefore, this right, and likewise nonsacramental grace, must not exceed the quantity of the present disposition; but sacramental grace must be given beyond what corresponds to the present disposition. But there is an argument against this solution: although it is true that a sacrament initially conferred grace ex opere operato, nevertheless, once it has conferred sacramental grace, if that grace is lost through sin, it is not restored through an act of contrition except ex opere operantis. For, once the sacrament received has produced its entire effect, it no longer produces that effect ex opere operato. Therefore, with respect to the present question, the reason is altogether the same for sacramental grace and nonsacramental grace.

V. The greater difficulty concerns the degree in which works deadened by sin revive through penance: whether they rise again according to every degree of merit they had before sin, or according to the quantity of the contrition by which the penitent rises again. Certain more recent theologians answer that they always revive with respect to every intensity of merit they had before. Thus, if someone had ten intense meritorious acts at ten, sinned mortally, and afterward rose again through contrition at one and immediately died, he would obtain one degree of glory on account of his present contrition, and likewise all the essential glory he had previously merited through those ten acts, and would have glory intensified to one hundred and one. Their chief reason is this: when an impediment is removed, the effect follows as it did before, as if no impediment had been placed; but mortal sin, by which the preceding works were deadened, was only an impediment preventing those merits from bringing the person to eternal life. Therefore, once the sin is removed, those works bring the person to eternal life in the same way as if he had committed no mortal sin. They add that they do not find in St. Thomas, at least in the Summa, that he explicitly denied this anywhere. When they object to themselves the passage of St. Thomas in the Third Part, q. 89, art. 5. ad 3., where he plainly teaches the contrary opinion, as is clear from the words cited above, they turn this way and that to explain it, and finally conclude that St. Thomas's opinion on this point is difficult and obscure. But St. Thomas's opinion is neither difficult nor obscure to us; it is clear and easy. Hence, in accord with his mind and the common explanation of the Thomists, let this be said:

VI. Second conclusion. Works deadened by sin do not always revive according to every degree of merit they had before sin, but according to the quantity of the present contrition or disposition by which the penitent rises again.⁵ Thus, if someone had ten intense meritorious works at ten before sin, fell into mortal sin, and afterward rose again through contrition at one, each work rises again at one, and the penitent will remain with merit at eleven. Soto holds this conclusion in the place cited above, and it seems to be St. Thomas's express teaching in the cited Third Part, q. 89. It is proved as follows: contrition is not only a disposition for grace, but also a disposition by which deadened merits revive. Therefore, they revive according to its quantity. The consequence is clear, for, as St. Thomas teaches in art. 2 of the same question, the quantity of a form that can be intensified and diminished must be measured according to the quantity of the disposition. Soto adds, however, that through subsequent acts of contrition or charity the deadened works revive further until they are restored in full with respect to all their merit. This opinion can be confirmed by a sufficiently apt example St. Augustine uses to explain this same matter in vol. 8, on the words of Psalm. 125: Turn, O Lord, our captivity, as a torrent in the south. For the water of a torrent, hurrying by its course to the sea, is frozen by the cold of winter or the north wind, adheres to the ground, and is prevented from reaching its end; but when the south wind blows, it is thawed wholly or in part according to the warmth of the south wind, and flows as before. Proportionally, the same should be said here. Grace itself and merits are water tending toward eternal life, in accord with John 4: It will become in him a spring of water leaping up to eternal life. But this water is frozen by the cold of a subsequent mortal sin, of which Jerem. 6 says: As a cistern makes its water cold, so Israel made its wickedness cold. Thus merits are deadened and prevented from bringing a person to eternal life. But when the Holy Spirit blows, the water is thawed so that it flows again according to the quantity of fervor in which the person rises again. Hence Psalm. 147 says: He sends his crystal⁶ like morsels; who will withstand his cold? He will send his word and melt them; his spirit will blow, and the waters will flow. Let what St. Augustine says in each passage be consulted, as well as what we noted in our commentaries on Isaias, ch. 1. no. 54 and ch. 44. no. 13.

To the argument made for the contrary opinion it is answered that the contrition by which the penitent rises again is not only a remover of the impediment, but also a disposition that measures the quantity in which deadened works rise again, just as heat not only removes the hardness that prevents water from flowing, but also disposes it to be dissolved wholly or in part. By this, the sixth principal argument made in the preceding disputation remains answered.

Whether, by reason of a greater effort or influx of free choice, with equal help of assisting grace, one person obtains greater justifying grace than another.

I. Some have said that from an unequal effort and influx of free choice according to its freedom it can happen that, when God confers equal help of assisting grace on two men, one of them acts more intensely and disposes himself better for justifying grace than the other; and that, when unequal helps are conferred on those same men, they may act equally, or sometimes the one who is supported by the lesser help may act more. The arguments by which they are persuaded are these.

First, an argument is made from the parable of Matt. 25 and Luke 19 about the talents and money entrusted to servants. For he gave five talents to one, but two to another, and one to another, to each according to his own ability. By these words it is signified that, from the servant's own greater or lesser ability, industry, and effort, it came about that each servant received more or fewer talents.

Second, an argument is made from the Council of Trent, session 6, On Justification, chapter 7. Explaining whence the quantity of habitual grace by which we are justified is measured, the holy Synod says: We are truly named and are just, receiving justice in ourselves, each his own, according to the measure that the Holy Spirit distributes to each as he wills, and according to each person's proper disposition and cooperation. Therefore, according as one, by his freedom, cooperates more intensely with the divine call and the helps of prevenient grace, he obtains greater justifying grace than another.

Third. Free choice, together with God's help, is a free cause exerting causal influence on the act by which it disposes itself for justifying grace. Therefore, by its freedom it can exert greater or lesser effort and causal influence. Therefore, with equal help, one can make a greater effort than another and so obtain greater justifying grace.

II. Fourth. When two partial causes concur together for some effect, other things being equal, a more perfect and intense effect is produced the more one of them strives to produce it, as is clear in the motion of a ship drawn by two. But prevenient grace and free choice concur partially, with the partiality of a cause, for the production of a disposition for grace, like two people drawing a ship. Therefore, other things being equal on the part of prevenient grace, the one who strives more by his innate freedom produces a more intense disposition for habitual grace. The minor premise is proved: that is a partial cause in comparison with an effect which has the partnership of another cause concurring in the production of that same effect. But God has the partnership of another cause concurring in the production of the ultimate disposition for grace, for free choice also concurs in it, as is clear from the Council of Trent. Therefore both God and free choice are two partial causes of that same disposition.

This is confirmed¹: when free choice produces that disposition, it does something from itself; otherwise it would be like something lifeless, behaving merely passively, the opposite of which the Council of Trent defines in session 6, Decree on Justification, chapter 5, and canon 4. Therefore, by reason of free choice's own effort, a more intense disposition for grace arises.

Fifth. Since God does not destroy the nature of free choice but perfects it, his relation to it is such that before the reception of grace, during the very reception of grace, and after it, he leaves free choice its proper place. Therefore he is the author of all good things in such a way that industry and praise are nevertheless preserved for free choice. Otherwise man would not be worthy of praise for having disposed himself for grace. Therefore, by his own industry, one person can dispose himself for grace more intensely than another, when the helps of prevenient grace in those men are entirely equal.

It is confirmed. It can happen, and often does, that with equal helps of prevenient grace one person turns to God according to his freedom while another remains in sin; otherwise they would not act freely. Therefore, in keeping with that same freedom, it can happen that one of them turns more intensely and disposes himself better for grace than another.

Sixth. A human being and an Angel are precisely alike in relation to grace, since it is owed to neither by nature. But greater grace was given to an Angel according to the greater perfection of his natural endowments, as St. Thomas teaches in part I, question 62, article 6. Therefore, the same applies to a human being.

It is confirmed: for this reason St. Thomas teaches there that an Angel of more perfect nature obtained greater grace and glory because he turned to God more strongly and efficaciously, since an Angel acts according to the utmost of his power. Therefore, similarly, to the degree that a human being turns to God through a greater effort of his innate freedom, he obtains greater grace than another, other things being equal on the part of divine help.

Seventh. As Cajetan teaches in part III, question 10, article 4, on St. Thomas's reply to objection 2, given equal light of glory, a more perfect intellect sees God more perfectly than another with a less perfect intellect. The reason is that a more perfect intellect makes a greater effort to see with the same light. St. Thomas also seems to hold this in the same reply to objection 2, where he says that the degrees in the beatific vision are considered more according to the order of grace than according to the order of nature. By these words he seems to presuppose that they are considered also according to the order of nature, though less principally; for a comparative presupposes a positive. Therefore, by the same reasoning, given equal help of prevenient grace, one person will make a greater effort than another, dispose himself better for grace, and thus obtain greater grace.

It is confirmed: other things being equal on the part of the object and medium and on the part of the visible species, someone with more perfect and sharper sight elicits a more perfect act of seeing than another. Therefore, proportionately, the same will occur in the beatific vision and in the disposition for grace.

III. I judge the opposite opinion to be that of St. Augustine and St. Thomas in the places to be cited below, and their disciples follow it. To explain it, note that in this part we can speak of the quantity and perfection of the first habitual grace, or of its increase, and likewise of the disposition by which free choice, moved and roused by God, disposes itself to obtain that grace. If the matter is examined carefully, precisely the same reasoning applies to the increase of habitual grace as to its first infusion. For if, on account of a greater effort of free choice, greater justifying grace is infused into one person than another, the help on God's part being equal, a greater increase of that same grace could also be conferred on account of a greater effort of the same free choice. Hence the resolution of this controversy will be universal and will apply both to the first infusion of habitual grace and to its increase. Second, it should be assumed from what was said above that the helps of prevenient grace are not measured by the quantity of the preceding effort of free choice, but by the mere and gratuitous will of God, who by his hidden yet just judgment gives some greater and others lesser helps of prevenient grace.

IIII. Let the first conclusion, then, be this. The entire quantity of the intensity of the act by which a sinner is proximately prepared for habitual grace is measured according to the quantity of the efficacious help of prevenient grace.² Thus, it is impossible for someone moved by God through efficacious help intense to four degrees to produce a disposition intense to six degrees on account of a greater effort of free choice. Rather, in general, the greater or lesser effort of free choice must be considered according to the quantity of the greater or lesser help and must be equal to it. St. Thomas establishes this conclusion in II–II, question 24, article 3. For he asks there whether charity is infused according to natural capacity, and the same reasoning applies to habitual grace. In the body of the article he says: The quantity of charity does not depend on the condition of nature or the capacity of natural power, but only on the will of the Holy Spirit distributing his gifts as he wills. And in reply to objection 1 he says that the power according to which God gives his gifts to each person is the disposition or preceding preparation, that is, the effort of the one receiving grace; but the Holy Spirit also goes before this disposition or effort, moving the human mind more or less according to his will. By these words he teaches plainly enough that this effort and disposition are measured by the quantity of the motion of the Holy Spirit, who moves more or less according to his will. He teaches the same in part I, question 62, article 6, and in book 1 of the Sentences, distinction 31, question 1, article 4.

Moreover, it is proved as follows. If someone having the help of assisting grace at four were converted with an act at intensity six because of a greater effort of free choice, it would follow that the greater intensity of the disposition beyond the quantity of the help, and likewise the excess of habitual grace by those two degrees, must be attributed to free choice according to its natural capacity and not to the help of divine grace. The consequence seems contrary to 1. ad Corinth. 4: For who distinguishes you? What do you have that you did not receive? It would likewise follow that free choice could puff itself up against God and say: “Thank you, Lord, for helping me with help at four, without which I could not dispose myself for grace; but thanks to myself that I turned with an act at six, for this greater intensity must be attributed to me and my effort.” This too seems to conflict with the Apostle's authority just cited. The consequence is proved plainly: as regards that greater intensity, the act cannot have as its efficient cause the help of grace, for help at four cannot be the efficient principle of an act at six, since an effect cannot exceed the power of its cause. Therefore, one having the help of grace at four cannot produce an act intense at six; or, if he does produce it, that excess does not come from the help, but from the natural power of created free choice. Consequently, as regards that excess, by nature's powers he would distinguish himself from another who, with equal help, produced a less intense act.

V. They reply to this argument that the whole intensity and excess is from God, simultaneously and especially, through the help of prevenient grace. For the total cause of that intensity is neither the help alone nor free choice alone, but free choice together with the help. An effect can exceed the power of its partial cause, but not the power of its total cause. Hence one person's free choice does distinguish him from another, but not by something so proper to himself that it is not principally from God; rather, it is by something so proper that, under every aspect and formal character, it is principally from God through the help of prevenient grace.

But against this: free choice, by its natural capacity, has no proximate active power in relation to a supernatural act by which it is proximately prepared for its justification; it receives that power from the help of rousing and assisting grace, from which, as from the first root, proceeds its application of its own influx and consent. Therefore, free choice together with the help cannot produce a disposition for grace more intense than the help of God moving it; or, if it does, it effects this from itself and not from the help of grace. Thus the person himself distinguishes himself from another by something proper to him which, insofar as it flows from free choice, he does not receive from grace. Nor does the given solution—that it is God alone who principally distinguishes him through the help of grace—suffice. For even Faustus, who wrote contrary to the doctrine of St. Augustine, as we saw above, asserted that grace always has the leading role in works pertaining to human salvation, as is clear from what was said in disputation 2, no. 8.

Moreover, an argument is made against the same solution. If it means that God through the help of prevenient grace is the principal cause of a person eliciting a disposition intense at six, so that by the same help he properly effects as an active cause that a person is converted with an act at intensity six, then the person converted with an act at intensity six has greater prevenient help than another who is converted at four. But if it means that God is the principal cause of that intensity in the manner in which two partial causes work together to pull a ship, one being of greater power and acting more forcefully than the other, as they seem to understand,³ an objection is made: in such partial causes, the effort and influx of one do not depend for their efficient causation on the effort and influx of the other, although the effect depends on both. Rather, each cause in itself, even if it is less principal, contributes its own effort, which it does not receive from the influx and effort of the other, since one cause is not subordinated to the other in causing. Therefore, if grace and free choice are related in this way, it follows that free choice has some influx of its own into that disposition intense at six, which it does not receive from the influx and operation of prevenient grace. But by reason of that greater influx it distinguishes itself from another who is converted at four, for the latter, with the same assisting help, willed to strive only at four. Therefore, by something proper to itself proceeding from its innate freedom, it distinguishes itself from another.

VI. This is confirmed by a remarkable testimony of St. Augustine in On the Predestination of the Saints, chapter 5, where, weighing the Apostle's passage cited above, For who distinguishes you? he says: Did he perhaps first say, ‘Who distinguishes you?’ with respect to these gifts that are common to all people, and afterward add, ‘What do you have that you did not receive?’ For a puffed-up person could say against another: ‘My faith, my justice, or something else distinguishes me.’ The good Doctor, coming to meet such thoughts, says: ‘But what do you have that you did not receive—from whom, unless from the one who distinguishes you from another to whom he did not give what he gave to you?’ By these words he teaches clearly enough that a person has nothing from himself by which he is distinguished from another, even less principally, that he did not receive from the gift of grace. Therefore, according to Augustine, one who is converted more intensely receives from God some help of assisting grace more intense than another.

Our conclusion is proved second. For the holy Fathers commonly teach, against human pride, that whatever good is found in man must be referred to God alone as the first author, and not to free choice. For St. Cyprian says, in book 3 to Quirinus, chapter 11: We must glory in nothing,⁴ since nothing is ours. St. Augustine reports and confirms these words in On the Gift of Perseverance, chapter 14, saying: We live rightly if we give everything to God, not partly to him and partly to ourselves. And in the Enchiridion to Laurentius, chapter 32, explaining the Apostle's words, it is not of the one who wills or of the one who runs, but of God who shows mercy, etc., after reporting and attacking a certain explanation that we shall recall in disputation 97, no. 7, he concludes as follows: It remains that the saying, “It is not of the one who wills or of the one who runs, but of God who shows mercy,” be rightly understood for this reason: everything is to be given to God, who both prepares man's good will in order to help it and helps it once prepared. And Gregory Nazianzen, in a certain homily on Matthew 19, explaining the words, It is not of the one who wills, etc., says: Since willing itself is also from God, he most rightly assigned everything to God. And St. Anselm, in On the Concord of Predestination and Free Choice, a little after the beginning, says: Everything is to be attributed to grace, since it is not of the one who wills that he wills, nor of the one who runs that he runs, but of God who shows mercy. And St. Bernard says in the treatise On Grace and Free Choice: Not partly grace and partly free choice, but each accomplishes the whole by an undivided work. Free choice accomplishes the whole, and so does grace; but just as the whole is in free choice, so the whole is from grace. Therefore the whole effort by which free choice prepares itself for grace, and all its intensity, must be referred to the help of assisting grace. We shall adduce other passages of the holy Fathers that confirm our opinion in the answers to the arguments.

All these points are confirmed by arguments through which it will become clear in disputation 85 that grace and free choice are not partial causes of a pious operation, but total causes in their own order, one subordinated to the other. The same is confirmed by arguments through which we shall show in disputation 108 that it is impossible for all the helps of prevenient grace to be equal in two men while one is converted and the other is not. For if the one who is converted receives from God some new help not given to the one who is not converted, it follows by the same reasoning that God gave greater or more intense help to the one who is converted more intensely than was conferred on the one who acts less intensely.

It is proved third: when the mover is of infinite power, whose will no one can resist, the thing moved is moved with as much intensity as the mover moves it. Therefore, if the human will is moved so that it moves itself with intensity six, the help of assisting grace by which God efficaciously moves that same will to free consent must be intense to degree six. Therefore, it is not possible that someone have the help of assisting grace at degree four and by his innate freedom be converted to God with intensity six, or even with intensity two or three; rather, he will always be converted with intensity four, according to the measure of the help.

Second Conclusion. The entire quantity of habitual grace infused into a sinner is ultimately measured according to the quantity of divine motion, or of the help of assisting grace. This conclusion follows from the first by an evident inference: for grace is measured according to the quantity of the preparation of free choice, and that preparation itself is measured according to the quantity of the help of assisting grace, as was shown in the preceding conclusion. Therefore, from the first to the last, the quantity of habitual grace is measured by the quantity of that same help.

VII. It is proved second from the passage in Eph. 4: Grace has been given to each of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. And 1 Cor. 12: All these things one and the same Spirit works, distributing to each as he wills:⁵ therefore grace in adults is measured by the divine will and the motion of his grace, and not by some natural power. For grace exceeds every natural power and human preparation, as was said above.

VIII. To the first, it is answered with St. Thomas, II–II, question 24, article 3, reply to objection 1, that the ability according to which God gives his gifts to each is the prior disposition or preparation, or the effort of the one receiving grace. But the Holy Spirit also goes before this disposition or effort, moving it more or less according to his will, as was said above. This answer can be confirmed and explained from another Gospel parable, in which it is said that the one who received five talents from God gained five more, and the one who received two talents gained two more. For he does not say, Lord, you gave me five, and I gained eight or three, but I gained five more. Nor does he say, you gave me two and I gained one or three, but I gained two more, according to the measure of the talent given. By this it is signified that the quantity of the cooperation of free choice, through which a man gains eternal life and merits entry into the joy of his Lord, is measured according to the quantity of divine motion, which is signified by the talent given by God.

To the second it is answered that something can be called proper to someone in two ways.⁶ First, because it comes from him and is not freely given by or received from another; in this sense no disposition for grace is proper to a human being, because whatever a human being has he has received from God, as was said above. Second, something is called proper because it proceeds from an intrinsic principle and is elicited freely by this person and not by another human being. In this sense each person receives grace according to his own disposition and cooperation, which he has nevertheless received from the gift of prevenient grace that efficaciously moves free choice, as was said. The words of the Council of Trent are to be understood according to this teaching, as Bañez explains in II–II, question 24, article 3, reply to objection 1. St. Thomas develops the same teaching in his commentary on Matthew, chapter 25, and it is gathered from St. Augustine, book 1 of the Retractions,⁷ where, retracting what he had said in his exposition of certain propositions from the Epistle to the Romans, chapter 23—namely, that our believing is ours, but that our doing good is his, who gives the Holy Spirit to those who believe—he says: Both, then, are ours because of the choice of the will, and yet both have been given through the Spirit of faith and charity. And in his second sermon on the Ascension of the Lord, which is sermon 175 for the liturgical year, he says: Let us not exalt ourselves, nor presume on our own merits as though they were our own. By these words he plainly teaches that our merits are not so proper to us as to be in us from ourselves. Therefore, they are proper because they are freely effected by us. But this ours will not be ours unless God gives it.

IX. To the third it is answered that free choice moved and roused by God through a special help is indeed the free cause of the act by which it disposes itself for justifying grace; nevertheless, it is not the first cause of that act but its proximate cause, and therefore is subordinate to the motion of God himself, who is the first cause without qualification. Hence, the intensity of the act of free choice will be according to the quantity of the divine motion.

To the fourth it is answered that the help of grace and free choice are not two partial causes of the preparation for grace, but each is total in its own order, with one subordinated to the other, as will become clear in disputation 85.

To the confirmation it is answered that to act from oneself is taken in two ways. First, it means to perform something from an intrinsic principle moving itself; in this sense, when the will consents and produces a preparation for grace, it acts from itself.⁸ Second, it means to act with the exclusion of another, prior, extrinsic moving principle. In this sense the will does not act from itself, but from God's motion, according to which the very influx of the will is measured, as was said. This answer is gathered from St. Thomas, part I, question 105, article 4, replies to objections 2 and 3, as will be clear in disputation 96.

X. To the fifth it is answered that before receiving grace, in the very reception of grace, and after receiving grace, God leaves a proper place for free choice, insofar as he does not compel or necessitate it by absolute necessity, but always moves it freely according to the condition of its nature.⁹ Hence, in the work of its justification free choice does have its own praise and industry, insofar as it freely brings about a disposition for grace, namely, willing itself. Yet, just as it does not have willing from itself but receives it from the gift of grace, according to the Apostle's words in Philippians 2, For it is God who works in us both the willing and the accomplishing, so too free choice does not have that praise and industry from itself but from the gift of grace, so that whoever glories may glory in the Lord and not in himself. For Isaiah 42 says: I will not give my glory to another. Explaining these words, St. Bernard says in his sermon on the threefold glory:¹⁰ The Apostle knew that glory belongs to the Creator, who says, I will not give my glory to another; but he considered that rational nature so longs for glory that it can scarcely, or never, be restrained from this desire. Therefore, according to the wisdom given to him by God, he found the most salutary counsel, saying: Since we cannot be persuaded not to glory, at least let the one who glories glory in the Lord. St. Prosper develops this answer at great length in book Against the Collator, chapters 36, 37, and 38. There he reproves Cassian because he had said that in matters pertaining to piety something should be attributed to free choice that had not been received from the gift of grace.¹¹ For Cassian, in Conference 13, chapter 14, speaking of Job's patience, says that God's grace did not so protect him from the devil's attack as to leave no place for human power. Later, explaining Matthew 8, I have not found such faith in Israel, he adds: For it would be neither praiseworthy nor meritorious—that is, the Centurion's faith—if Christ had preferred in him what he himself had given. Otherwise he would have said, I did not give such faith in Israel. A little later, explaining Genesis 22¹², God tested Abraham, he says: For divine justice wished to test not the faith that the Lord had inspired in him, but the faith that, once called and enlightened by the Lord, he could display through the freedom of his choice. By these words he attributes something to free choice that was not given through assisting grace. St. Prosper refutes this teaching and, among other points worthy of consideration that he teaches in the cited chapter 36, says: But with a brief conclusion you confirm almost the whole of your¹³ Pelagian doctrine, by saying: For it would be neither praiseworthy nor meritorious if Christ had preferred in him what he himself had given. He repeats the same in chapters 37 and 38. But more has been said about these matters above. In reply to the confirmation, the antecedent is denied; it will be treated expressly in disputation 108.

XI. To the sixth, St. Thomas responds in Part I, question 62, article 6, reply to objection 3 that the case is not the same for a human being and an angel, and the difference consists in this: angels differ from one another in species, while human beings differ only in number.¹⁴ Difference in species is through form, but difference in number is through matter. Hence God, according to the order of his wisdom, mercifully willed to give angels greater or lesser help of grace according to the greater or lesser perfection of their nature, as was explained above. But among human beings he did not maintain this kind of proportion. Hence, both in angels and in human beings, the quantity of their conversion to God, by which they prepared themselves for grace, is taken from the quantity of divine help. For angels did not prepare themselves for grace through a natural conversion to God, but through a supernatural one, which consequently had to be measured according to the quantity of the motion of the Holy Spirit, as it is measured in us. Nevertheless, as was said, God willed to confer more intense help on angels of more perfect nature so that they might obtain greater grace and glory. But the Thomists treat this subject expressly in the cited Part I, question 62 See St. Thomas, II–II, question 24, article 3, reply to objection 3, and Cajetan there. This makes the response to the confirmation clear.

The seventh argument will be answered expressly in the next disputation.

To the confirmation the consequence is denied: the visual power is of the same order in itself as the act of vision, and by its nature has proximate active power to see any visible object; the species is required on the object's part, so that it may be united with the power. But a created intellect without the light of glory has no proximate active power in relation to the beatific vision, but only a radical power, as will be clear in the next disputation, because that vision belongs to a higher order. Hence the cases are not alike.

Whether an intellect that is naturally more perfect, with an equal light of glory¹, produces an act of beatific vision more intense than another.

I. Scotus holds the affirmative part in 4, dist. 49², question 6; Durandus in 3, dist. 14, q. 1, to the final argument; Richard in 4, dist. 49, art. 2, q. 8; John Major in the same distinction, q. 10, ad 2; Olchot in his Determinations, question 8, art. 1, to the fourth; and Cajetan is reported for the same opinion in 3 p. q. 10, art. 4. Some more recent theologians follow it and judge this opinion consonant with the principles of theology and with the truth. This opinion is proved.

First, by the authority of St. Thomas, 3 p., cited art. 4, ad 2, where he says that the degree of beatific vision is considered more according to the order of grace than according to the order of nature. He therefore holds that it is also considered according to the order of nature, although less chiefly; for the comparative more presupposes the positive.

Second, an argument is made. The intellect by its natural power truly concurs actively in beatific vision, as St. Thomas teaches in p. 2, q. 3, art. 2. Therefore it contributes something to that vision. Therefore, other things being equal, the more perfect the intellect, the more perfect will be beatific vision. If it is said that the intellect by its natural power has no proximate activity with respect to beatific vision, but participates in all of it from the light of glory, and that therefore beatific vision must be measured according to the quantity of the light of glory, the contrary is argued as follows.

Third, just as the light of glory is the whole power for seeing God, so the habit of faith is the whole proximate power for believing. For each act exceeds the faculty of nature both as to substance and as to manner, as will be clear below;³ but a better intellect, with an equal light of faith, penetrates the mysteries of faith better and sometimes produces an act more intense than the habit. Therefore, similarly, a more perfect intellect with an equal light of glory will produce a beatific vision more intense than an imperfect intellect.

Fourth. An intelligible species determines the possible intellect and its activity to a certain cognition, just as the light of glory determines the intellect to beatific vision. But a more perfect intellect understands the same object more perfectly with the same species than a less perfect intellect, just as, other things being equal, a stronger and more perfect power of sight sees better with the same visible species. Therefore.

II. Fifth. When two partial causes concur in the same numerically identical effect, the more perfect one of them flows into it more perfectly, and a more perfect effect is produced, as is clear if two luminous bodies are applied to a transparent medium: for they illuminate more perfectly the more perfect one of the luminous bodies is. But the natural power of the intellect and the light of glory concur as two partial causes in beatific vision, for it entails a contradiction that with respect to the same effect there be two particular causes and that each be total. Therefore.

Sixth. If a probable middle term concurs with a demonstrative middle term, an act of knowledge is produced more intensely in proportion to the greater efficacy of the middle term. Therefore an increase in one part of the whole cause contributes to a greater intensity of the effect, even when the effect is above the faculty of some part of such a cause. Therefore a better intellect with an equal light of glory produces a more perfect vision.

Seventh. The beatific vision, insofar as it is formally a vital act, does not proceed from the light of glory but from a natural power according to its natural power. For an act is called vital for this reason: it proceeds from a vital power. But the light of glory is not a vital power; the intellect itself is. Therefore, other things being equal, the more perfect the natural power, the more perfect an act it will produce.

St. Thomas holds the opposite opinion in part I, q. 12, art. 6, reply to objection 3, and Book 3 Against the Gentiles, chapter 58. Master Soto in book 4, distinction 49, question 3, article 2; Medina in I–II, question 3, article 2, doubt 3, reply to the fifth objection; Zumel in the cited disputation 1 of part I, conclusion 2; Master Bañez; and all Thomists hold it. It is so certain that the opposite has no probability at all. To explain it:

III. First, it should be noted that one action can be more perfect than another in two ways. First, intrinsically, because it is more perfect according to the intensity of the act itself or according to another perfection intrinsic to it, such as clarity or something of this kind.⁴ Second, extrinsically, because it is elicited by a more perfect suppositum having a nobler being. In this sense St. Thomas teaches in the Second Part, question 4, article 5, body, that after the resurrection, when the soul is united to the body, the beatific vision of any blessed person will be more perfect than it is now, when the soul is separated from the body. St. Thomas's reason is that, since operation depends on nature, the more perfect the soul is in its nature, the more perfectly it will have its proper operation, especially the operation in which happiness consists.

Second, it should be noted that in adults the quantity of the beatific vision must correspond to the quantity of merits.⁵ This foundation is of faith. For it is defined in the decree of faith of the Council of Florence, where it says: Souls that have been fully purified are immediately received into heaven and clearly behold God himself, three and one, just as he is; yet, according to the difference of merits, one more perfectly than another. This is also gathered from the Apostle, who says: He will repay each according to his works:⁶ the same is said very often in the Gospel. Let the following, then, be set down:

IIII. First conclusion: There is no absurdity in conceding that, by an extrinsic perfection derived from the greater perfection of the suppositum eliciting the beatific vision, a more perfect intellect, with equal light of glory, produces a more perfect act of beatific vision.⁷ This conclusion seems explicit in St. Thomas, the Second Part, cited above, and, as far as I can judge, this alone is what Cajetan intends to teach in the place cited above. Hence he never said that a more perfect intellect can produce a more intense act of beatific vision with equal light of glory, but rather a more perfect one, which can be explained as an extrinsic perfection.

The conclusion is proved by St. Thomas's argument. A soul united to a body has a more perfect being than a separated soul, and likewise one soul has a more perfect individual being than another. But operation follows upon being. Therefore, on the part of the suppositum eliciting it, the beatific vision of one person can be extrinsically more perfect than the beatific vision of another, even if the light of glory is equal. The same argument can be made about an Angel: for if the being of an Angel is nobler than the created being of any soul, then on this account the beatific vision of that Angel will be more perfect than the beatific vision of a human being, other things being equal on the part of the light of glory.

V. Second Conclusion. However perfect an intellect may be, even the intellect of the highest Angel, with equal light of glory it will not see God more perfectly by an intrinsic perfection of the act, derived from the intensity or clarity of the vision.⁸ It is proved.

First, let us suppose that an Angel and a human being have equal light of glory and equal merits, or that there are two human beings with equal merits, but one has the most perfect intellect in natural power while the other has a very imperfect intellect. Here is the argument. All of these, having equal merits, will be given equal light of glory in the heavenly homeland, since that light is given on account of merits. Therefore, if, with equal light, the more perfect intellect by nature sees God more intensely or clearly, it follows that this excess corresponds to nature and not to merits. Thus one would see God more perfectly than another not on account of a difference in merits, since, as we suppose, the merits were entirely equal, but on account of a difference in nature. This seems contrary to the Council of Florence cited above and contrary to the truth, for it would follow that this excess of glory was given neither by grace nor on account of Christ's merits, but proceeded from nature, contrary to Romans 6: But the grace of God is eternal life.

VI. To this argument, which greatly troubles the authors of the contrary opinion, they apply two solutions. The first solution is that, in the case supposed, an angel or human being having a more perfect natural intellect will be given less light of glory than another person of less perfect intellect, because less light of glory suffices for obtaining a reward equal to their merits. Thus, to the degree that one of them surpasses another in natural intellectual power, he will be surpassed by the other in the light of glory; and so an equal beatific vision in them will correspond to equal merits. This solution nevertheless does not seem to hold. First, the light of glory is also given to adults as a reward for merits, since it is the terminus of an operation proceeding from grace. Therefore, if unequal light of glory is given to those having equal merits, then some reward will not be given to adults according to the quantity of their merits, which is contrary to the Council of Florence cited above. Second, otherwise it would follow that, all else being equal, one who has an intellect less perfect than an angel or another person with the most perfect intellect would be in a better condition in the heavenly homeland, for he would have greater supernatural adornment there, since he would be suffused with a greater light of glory. Third, the habits and acts of charity are proportionate to the light of glory in the heavenly homeland. Therefore, if a person with a less perfect intellect is given greater light of glory, he must also be given greater charity, and thus he will love God more than another with a more perfect intellect and equal merits. For since a person with a more perfect intellect is given less light of glory, he must also be given lesser charity. Thus, among two people with equal merits, one would love God more intensely in the heavenly homeland than the other and consequently have greater beatitude, which cannot be admitted.

Having refuted this solution, they apply a second and say that, in the case supposed, equal light of glory will be given to people with equal merits, although one has the most perfect intellect, as an angel does, and the other an imperfect intellect; and their glory will likewise be equal. But this solution adds that it belongs to divine providence, precisely because God decided to lead to his beatitude human beings having unequal natural faculties of intellect and will, and to confer beatitude on them according to the quantity of each one's merits, to compensate for the inequality of their natural powers by his immediate influx, by which together with the light of glory and their powers he acts in their vision, love, and enjoyment. He will do this by acting so much more efficaciously through that influx as suffices for the effects to be equal. Thus, where merits are equal, not only will the essential rewards be equal, but also the light of glory and the habit of charity existing in the will. But this solution does not escape the proposed difficulty. For since the blessed use the light of glory according to the utmost of their power, God's actual assistance must be proportionate to the light of glory; otherwise it would be a miracle, just as it would be a miracle if, with fire having a heating power of eight, God acted only with actual help at six. Therefore, with people having equal light of glory, God acts in the beatific vision with equal actual help. Moreover, by this second solution they do not avoid the inconveniences for which they reject the first solution as insufficient, because according to it some perfection or intensity of beatitude would correspond to nature that did not proceed from grace or from Christ's merits, as is shown in this way. For a more perfect intellect, with equal light of glory, contributes more perfectly to the beatific vision than another less perfect intellect. Therefore, that greater perfection is attributed to the greater natural power of the intellect, since, as we suppose, the light of glory is equal. It also still follows that people with equal merits are given unequal rewards. For, since a just person merits eternal beatitude through good works, he consequently also merits that God act together with his intellect and the light of glory by actual help in the beatific vision. Therefore, if God acts with greater actual help together with a less perfect intellect than he does with a more perfect intellect, when the merits are equal, then one of them is given a greater influx of God as a reward than the other. Thus the rewards remain unequal, and the person with the less perfect intellect will be in the better condition.

Second, the conclusion is proved as follows. As was shown above, the light of glory is the entire proximate power for seeing God. Therefore, the beatific vision cannot be more intense than the light of glory, since otherwise the effect would exceed the power of its cause. Finally, it is proved by all the arguments with which we showed above that it cannot happen that, with equal help of assisting grace, one person acts more intensely and disposes himself for grace better than another.

VII. To the first argument it is answered, first, that it proves only the first conclusion. But insofar as it seems to proceed against the second, it is answered, second, that St. Thomas does not take the adverb more comparatively, but adversatively, as is gathered from his other passages cited above, where he teaches plainly that the quantity of the beatific vision is not considered according to the natural perfection of the intellect, but according to the light of glory. This manner of speaking is quite common, as when it is said that a virtuous life is to be pursued rather than a vicious one. Moreover, it is answered that St. Thomas only wished to signify that some extrinsic perfection of the beatific vision is taken from the greater perfection of the nature eliciting it, on the part of the acting suppositum, in the sense in which he taught in the cited I–II, question 4, article 5, body of the article, that the beatific vision will be more perfect in blessed Peter, for example, after the resurrection, when his soul is united with his body, than it is now when it is separated from his body, as was said in the first conclusion.

To the second it is answered that the intellect, insofar as it is elevated by the light of glory, contributes actively to the beatific vision; for in itself it has no proximate active power. Hence the perfection of the beatific vision must be taken from the perfection of the light of glory and not from the natural perfection of the intellect.

To the third, it is answered that a better intellect with an equal habit of faith does not penetrate what pertains per se to faith better than another with a less perfect intellect, if both use the habit to the utmost of their power.⁹ It is true that a more perfect intellect better penetrates those things that can be known by the light of nature, from knowledge of which obstacles to faith are removed. But when one with a more perfect intellect bursts forth into an act more intense than the habit itself, that greater intensity does not proceed from a greater effort of the power according to its natural power, but from an effort of that same power insofar as it is helped and moved by God through greater supernatural help. In the heavenly homeland, however, since God helps those with equal light of glory and equal merits with equal actual help, they therefore always produce an equal beatific vision.

VIII. To the fourth, the inference is denied, and the reason for the difference is this: a natural species is subordinated to the intellect, since it is as it were its instrumental form in relation to cognition.¹⁰ Therefore, a better intellect elevates the species in a more perfect way and consequently produces a more perfect cognition, just as with the same pen prepared in the same way, one writes better than another because he elevates that instrument better and more perfectly. But the divine essence in the aspect of an intelligible species, and the light of glory, are not properly subordinated to the intellect, because they do not receive their proximate power from it; rather, they communicate that power to it for seeing God clearly. Hence the cases are not alike.

To the fifth argument, it is answered that the intellect and the light of glory are not two partial causes of beatific vision, but total causes subordinated to one another.¹¹¹² For the intellect produces it as that which acts, and the light of glory as that by which it acts. Nor is it unreasonable for there to be two total causes with respect to the same effect when they are subordinated in the aforesaid way, as will be clear in disputation 85.

To the sixth, it is answered that a probable middle term does not make an act of knowledge intrinsically more intense and perfect;¹³ it only confirms that very knowledge as it were from outside and removes obstacles that could impede it, just as a natural argument brought forward for the things of faith confirms faith itself from outside. We say proportionately in the present case that the greater natural perfection of the intellect, other things being equal, does not contribute to making beatific vision intrinsically more perfect, but only extrinsically, as was said.

To the seventh, it is answered that the proximate vitality of beatific vision comes from the light of glory as the principle by which the intellect acts, as will be clear in the following disputation.

By these points the seventh argument made in the preceding disputation remains solved. For we say that, just as the entire intensity of a supernatural act is measured by the quantity of efficacious help, so likewise the entire intensity of beatific vision is measured according to the intensity of the light of glory. Nor does Cajetan or St. Thomas teach the opposite, as is clear from what was said above.

Second, it is answered that, with respect to grace, there are special passages of Scripture, authorities of Supreme Pontiffs, Councils, and holy Fathers that compel us to assert that in the work of his justification man has nothing from himself that he has not received as a gift from preoperating grace, from which he also has the fact that he consents with such or such intensity. But concerning the light of glory and beatific vision there are not so many testimonies as would prove that the perfection of beatific vision is in no way considered according to the natural perfection of the intellect. Hence it is much more false and more improbable to assert that, by reason of a greater effort of free choice, a man elicits a more intense disposition for grace, other things being equal on the part of divine help, than to assert that, with an equal light of glory, an intellect of a more perfect nature sees God more perfectly than another, less perfect intellect. There is an example of this difference in the rational soul and the angel. For although an angel is more perfect according to his nature than a rational soul, it is nevertheless more certain that the rational soul is immortal, or incorruptible, than it is certain that an angel is incorruptible.¹⁴ For there are particular definitions of the Church concerning the rational soul, which are nevertheless not about the angel. Hence one who denied the immortality of the rational soul would be a heretic, but not one who denied that an angel is immortal by its nature; he would err in philosophical principles and likewise err secondarily against the faith.

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.

I. The same difficulty arises concerning the act of faith with respect to the intellect, and the act of charity with respect to the will: namely, whether the formal vitality found in those acts has as its efficient cause the intellect's or will's natural power alone, or whether a supernatural principle must necessarily concur in the vitality of these acts, namely, the habit of faith or charity or some other supernatural principle.

There are two opinions among Thomists on this matter. The first asserts that the beatific vision, insofar as it is formally a vital act, has as its efficient cause the blessed person's intellect according to its natural power, and does not depend on the light of glory as the principle by which it is produced. It is proved:

First, otherwise it would follow that the blessed person is not the principal cause but the instrumental cause of the beatific vision, just as heated water is an instrumental cause of heating. This consequence is false. Therefore. The consequence is proved: heated water heats only instrumentally, as a bearer of the power of the principal agent, because by its own nature it has no activity for heating, but all its power comes from heat communicated to it from outside. Therefore, if the intellect by its natural endowments has no active power for seeing God, but receives all its power from the light of glory, it will be an instrumental cause with respect to the beatific vision.

II. Second. The light of glory is not simply a power but a habit. Therefore, it does not confer on the intellect the whole power needed for the beatific vision. Therefore, at least the vitality of that act comes from the intellect's natural faculty. The antecedent is proved. What the light of glory adds to an operative power is not a power but a habit; otherwise a power would be added to a power and inhere in it. But the light of glory is superadded to the intellective power for seeing God. Therefore, it is not simply a power but a habit.

It is confirmed from St. Thomas in part I, q. 12, art. 5, reply to objection 1, where he says that the light of glory is necessary for seeing the essence of God so that the intellect may become powerful for understanding, in the way in which a power becomes more powerful for acting through a habit. St. Thomas therefore holds that the intellect in itself has some active power for producing the beatific vision, at least insofar as it is vital, and that this power is made more powerful by the light of glory.

Third. The beatific vision has it formally that it is a vital act insofar as it proceeds from an intrinsic principle that lives and moves itself toward such an act, as is clear from St. Thomas in part I, q. 18, art. 1 and question 4 on Truth, article 8, body. In these places he teaches that whatever moves itself by any motion properly lives, for life, or vital action, proceeds from an intrinsic principle moving itself. But the beatific vision proceeds from an intrinsic principle that lives and moves itself insofar as it proceeds from the soul according to its natural power, or from the blessed human being, in whom life formally exists; it does not do so insofar as it proceeds from the light of glory, because the light of glory is not an intrinsic vital principle, for life is in the living soul. Therefore, insofar as it proceeds from the soul's natural power itself, it has the character of a vital act.

Fourth. The light of glory is related to the beatific vision just as the infused habit of faith is related to the supernatural act of faith. But the vitality of the act of faith proceeds from the soul, or the intellect, according to its natural power, and not from the habit of faith. Therefore, the same is true of the vitality of the beatific vision. The minor premise is proved: infused faith can exist in a sinner, in whom there is no supernatural life. Therefore, in that person the vitality of the act of faith proceeds from the natural life that the soul and intellect have in themselves.

III. Finally, it is argued as follows. The act of the beatific vision is not purely supernatural. Therefore, it is natural as regards vitality, and consequently its vitality comes from the natural power alone. The antecedent is proved: if it were purely supernatural, it could not be produced by any creature as a principal cause. For St. Thomas, Second Part, question 112, article 1, body of the article, proves from this that it entails a contradiction for any creature to be the principal cause of grace, because the gift of grace is purely supernatural and consequently exceeds every capacity of created nature.

This is confirmed: if the beatific vision is purely supernatural, then its efficient principle is purely supernatural. Therefore, the natural power of the intellect is in no way its efficient principle. The first consequence is proved: as St. Thomas teaches in the single question On the Union of the Word, article 5, body of the article, actions are specified by their principles. Therefore, a purely supernatural action is produced as by its principal cause by a purely supernatural principle, and consequently the intellect is not the principal cause of that vision.

IIII. The second opinion is that of other Thomists, who assert that not only the substance of the act of the beatific vision but also its vitality comes from the light of glory as the principle by which it is produced, so that the created intellect by the powers of nature has no proximate activity at all in relation to that act insofar as it is vital with that kind of vitality. Since this opinion is more probable, for its explanation it should be noted that there are two principles of the vitality of an act: one formal and proximate, the other radical and remote. The radical principle is nothing other than substantial life itself, which is presupposed for every vital operation; but the proximate and formal principle is the power itself through which a living thing performs a vital action. Let this therefore be:

First conclusion. The fundamental and remote vitality with respect to the beatific vision comes from the soul according to its natural power, or from the intellect and will. This conclusion is admitted by the authors of both opinions, and the arguments made at the beginning prove it.¹ Moreover, it is proved as follows: the radical vitality of an act comes from substantial life, which is presupposed as the first foundation for a vital operation; but this kind of life comes from the soul according to its natural power. Therefore.

V. Second conclusion. The entire proximate vitality with respect to the beatific vision comes from the light of glory as its formal principle; the same must be said about the vitality found in other supernatural acts of faith, hope, and charity.² This is proved, first, as follows. The vitality of the beatific vision is supernatural. Therefore, it proceeds formally from a supernatural principle. But the intellect according to its natural power does not have the character of a supernatural principle. Therefore, it proceeds proximately from the intellect only insofar as it is elevated by the light of glory. The antecedent is proved: that vitality proceeds from grace and the gift of God and is by its nature indefectible, as is clear from John 10: I give them eternal life. Therefore. It is proved, second, as follows: otherwise the beatific vision would be essentially composed of two entities of different orders, namely, natural vitality and a supernatural specific character, which is impossible, for all things belonging to the quiddity of something must be of the same order and belong to the same genus. This is confirmed: all acts of a per se infused virtue are supernatural not only as regards their manner but also as regards their substance, as the Thomists commonly teach in Second Part, question 63, which will be made clear below in disputation 65. Therefore, both their substance and their vitality come from a supernatural virtue as the principle by which they are produced. All the more, then, does the beatific vision. It is proved, third, as follows. If the intellect had some natural proximate power by which it attained the beatific vision as regards vitality, it would follow that a more perfect intellect, with equal light of glory, produced a more perfect and intense beatific vision than another intellect. But the consequence is false, as was shown in the preceding disputation. Therefore. The consequence is proved: according to the contrary opinion, the intellect according to its natural power contributes proximately some activity in relation to the beatific vision. Therefore, all else equal, the more perfect the intellect, the more perfect and intense the beatific vision will be in this respect. This is confirmed: whenever the efficient principle of an operation is more perfect, the operation is more intense if the agent uses that principle to the utmost of its power. But the blessed use their intellect and the light of glory to the utmost of their power. Therefore, a more perfect intellect produces a more intense beatific vision, all else being equal, if it produces the vitality of that act by its natural power. Therefore, this vitality comes from a supernatural principle as that by which it is produced.

VI. To the first argument, the inference is denied. To the proof, it is answered that there is not the same reason in the case of hot water with respect to heating and in the case of an intellect elevated by the light of glory with respect to beatific vision.³ For there is a twofold difference. The first is that water by its nature has no power or activity, not even a radical one, in the order of heating; indeed, the opposite action belongs to it by nature. Hence, in the order of heating, it stands only as a subject conveying the power of the principal agent, and thus concurs in it only instrumentally. But by its nature the intellect has a radical power in the order of beatific vision, although its entire proximate formal power comes from the light of glory. Hence it contributes something from itself radically in the order of that vision and consequently cannot be a mere instrument. The second difference is that water is not elevated through heat to an action within the adequate range of its own activity and proper object, but beyond that range, as a bodily sacrament is elevated to cause grace. Hence hot water produces heating only instrumentally. But the created intellect is elevated by the light of glory to beatific vision, which is contained within the adequate range of the object of our intellect. Hence the intellect is not simply an instrumental cause of beatific vision.

This answer has a foundation in St. Thomas, Book 3 Against the Gentiles, chapter 54, ad 1, where he says that the divine substance is not outside the faculty of the created intellect as something altogether foreign to it, as sound is to sight or an immaterial substance to sense. For the divine substance itself is the first intelligible and the principle of all intellectual cognition; but it is outside the faculty of the created intellect as exceeding its power, just as the excellence of sensible things is outside the faculty of the senses. Hence the Philosopher too says in the second book of the Metaphysics that our intellect is related to the most manifest things as the eye of an owl is to the light of the sun:⁴ By these words he teaches clearly enough that God, when seen clearly, is contained within the range of the object of our intellect.

VII. To the second, it is answered that the light of glory indeed has the character of a habit absolutely, but it nevertheless attains the perfection of a power, since it is the highest among all habits. For the highest of the lowest attains the lowest of the highest, and consequently it gives the intellect all its formal and proximate activity in the order of beatific vision.⁵

To the confirmation from St. Thomas, it is answered that this likeness does not hold in every respect, but in this respect: just as a habit perfects a power in the order of its object and proper operation, so the light of glory perfects the intellect in the order of beatific vision. There is nevertheless a difference: an acquired habit is a pure habit and in no way attains the perfection of a power. Consequently, it is not required for acting absolutely, but for acting more perfectly, and therefore it does not give a power all its proximate activity. But the light of glory, because it participates in something of the character of a power, gives the intellect all its proximate activity in the order of beatific vision. St. Thomas also suggested this in the cited 1 p., when he said that the light of glory is required so that the intellect be made able to see God. For he does not say that it be made more able, but that it be made able absolutely.

VIII. To the third, it is answered that beatific vision has its vitality radically insofar as it proceeds from the soul of the blessed, in which life is substantially present; but proximately it has it from the light of glory as the principle by which it is produced. To the objection, it is answered that although the light of glory is not a principle moving itself to beatific vision, it is nevertheless the proximate power and intrinsic perfection of the power that moves itself. For the intellect, as elevated by the light of glory, moves itself to that vision.

To the fourth argument, it is answered that the proximate and formal vitality of an act of faith in a sinner comes from the habit of faith as the principle by which it is produced. For although a faithful sinner does not have supernatural life absolutely, since this depends on justifying grace, he nevertheless has supernatural being in some way through habitual faith. This does give, in a certain respect, supernatural being and a certain imperfect life to the intellect, so that it produces a vital act of the supernatural order. To the objection, it is answered that supernatural faith has not only the character of an operative habit but also of a certain life-giving power. Insofar as it is an operative habit, it immediately affects the power and establishes it in first act for acting; but in the character of a certain life-giving power, it is presupposed for that vital operation.

IX. But an argument is urged against this answer.⁶ All vitality of a power must be rooted in substantial or quasi-substantial life of the same order, just as the other infused virtues depend on grace, which gives supernatural life absolutely. But the vitality of unformed faith is not rooted in supernatural life, quasi-substantial as it is through grace.⁷ Therefore it is rooted only in the natural life of the soul itself, and consequently the vitality of an act of faith will be natural vitality. It is answered,⁸ that when a vital power is perfect, it is always rooted in and flows from substantial or quasi-substantial life of the same order. But unformed faith, although it is essentially an infused virtue, is nevertheless an imperfect virtue, as is clear from what St. Thomas teaches in p. 2, q. 65, art. 4, and 2. 2. q. 6, art. 2. Hence the vitality of faith need not depend on habitual grace; rather, it depends on the habit of faith insofar as it has the character of a certain life-giving power, as was said.

To the final argument it is answered that the act of the beatific vision is purely supernatural in this sense: the entire proximate power from which it formally proceeds is supernatural. It is true that the principle elevated to that vision is natural, namely, the natural faculty of the intellect, which is made a supernatural power by the light of glory. To the objection it is answered that the case is not the same with supernatural habits and acts. First, they differ because habits are not formally vital actions but principles of vital actions; principles of supernatural operations have as their efficient cause God, rather than the human being who acts. The beatific vision, however, is formally a vital action. Hence supernatural habits cannot have a human being as their principal efficient cause, whereas supernatural acts are caused by a human being elevated through a supernatural form. The second difference is that before a supernatural act a supernatural habit can preexist in a human being, by which he is constituted in first act so as to produce the supernatural act efficiently as a principal cause. But before a supernatural habit no supernatural habit is understood to preexist in a human being by which he is constituted in first act so as to produce supernatural habits as a principal cause. The reason is that every operative habit by its nature produces an act, not another habit. Hence, from the fact that no creature can be the principal cause of a supernatural habit, it does not follow that a creature cannot be the principal cause of a supernatural act. This will have to be treated in disputation 68.

To the confirmation it is answered that it concludes only that the proximate and formal principle of the beatific vision, which is the light of glory, is purely supernatural; it does not conclude this of the radical principle elevated by the light of glory, as is clear from what was said.

By this the seventh argument made in the preceding disputation remains resolved. For we say that the beatific vision, insofar as it is a vital act with such supernatural vitality, has as its efficient cause a vital power, namely, the created intellect, insofar as it is elevated by the light of glory, without which it does not have, proximately, the character of a vital power with respect to such a supernatural operation. Hence the intrinsic perfection and intensity of the beatific vision, even insofar as it is a vital act, must be measured according to the quantity of the light of glory and not according to the greater or lesser natural perfection of the intellect.