De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus et libertate
Diego Álvarez (1550–1631)
De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus et libertate, ac legitima eius cum efficacia eorundem auxiliorum concordia
First published 1610
Diego Álvarez’s twelve-book treatise on divine grace and human free choice. This edition contains Book I: the prooemium and five preliminary disputations on Pelagian and Semi-Pelagian teaching, Manichaean and Reformation positions, Catholic theologians, and the authority of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Latin from the Rome 1610 edition, with a new English translation.
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Book One
Prooemium: division of the whole work
Disputatio I: Whether the Pelagians ever admitted that any inward grace, or any supernatural help from God, is divinely given for salvation or for fulfilling the precepts of the law
Disputatio II: What grace the Semi-Pelagians admitted as necessary for salvation, and where their view agrees with or departs from the error of the Pelagians
Disputatio III: What the Manichaeans formerly held, and the Lutherans and Calvinists hold in our time, about the necessity of grace and the natural powers of our free choice
Disputatio IV: What certain Catholic Doctors hold about the natural powers of free choice and its concord with divine foreknowledge, providence, predestination, and the efficacy of the helps of grace
Disputatio V: How much authority Saint Augustine’s teaching has concerning predestination and grace, and whether it is permissible to depart from it
Book Two
Introduction
Disputatio I: Whether the knowledge of God is suitably divided into the knowledge of simple understanding and the knowledge of vision.
Disputatio II: Whether the knowledge of God is sufficiently divided into knowledge that is merely natural and knowledge that is merely free; or whether, besides both, middle knowledge must be posited in God with respect to conditional future things that depend on the human will.
Disputatio III: Whether all future things are actually present in eternity according to the proper existences they will have in their own measure.
Disputatio IV: Whether God certainly knows future contingents because of their real presence in eternity before they come to be, and whether an existence of this kind contributes anything to the certainty and infallibility of the divine knowledge.
Disputatio V: Whether God certainly and infallibly knows all future contingents in the decree, or predetermination, of his divine will.
Disputatio VI: Whether God certainly and infallibly knows future sins in some decree of his divine will.
Disputatio VII: Whether God certainly and infallibly knows future contingents in the predetermination of secondary causes, especially when the secondary causes are free.
Disputatio VIII: Whether, setting aside every predetermination of the divine will and existence in eternity, another ground for the certainty of divine knowledge can be assigned, namely, on the part of the truth of the object.
Disputatio IX: Whether God certainly knows future contingents before the decree of his will, as future, in their ideas.
Disputatio X: Whether there is in God a conjectural knowledge of what, in particular, a created will will do if placed in such circumstances.
Disputatio XI: Whether this causal proposition is true: “Because this is future, it is foreknown by God”; or, conversely: “Because God foreknows something to be future, therefore it is future.”
Disputatio XII: Whether God produces things outside himself immediately through his knowledge, that is, through his intellect; or whether, besides intellect and will, a third executive power must be posited in him, through which things are produced immediately.
Book Three
Introduction
Disputatio I: Whether God’s actual motion, which all secondary causes need in order to produce their effect or operation, is an immediate influx into the secondary cause itself; or whether instead it is only an immediate influx, together with the secondary cause, into its effect.
Disputatio II: What that prior motion is by which God moves and applies secondary causes to act.
Disputatio III: Whether God’s general concurrence, by which he helps secondary causes constituted in first act through supernatural forms to produce supernatural acts, is supernatural; or whether it is of the same order as general concurrence with merely natural acts.
Disputatio IV: Whether God’s general concurrence, especially with respect to acts that depend on created free choice, is indifferent of itself.
Disputatio V: Whether, by an absolute and efficacious decree of his will, God truly predetermines as an efficient cause all secondary causes, both natural and free, to their operations after the manner of a physical cause, while preserving their nature and freedom.
Disputatio VI: Whether, by a prior motion inhering in the created will, God moves, applies, or predetermines it after the manner of a physical cause to all its good acts in particular, while preserving its freedom.
Disputatio VII: Whether, by a prior motion, God truly premoves as an efficient cause free choice after the manner of a physical cause to the act of sin, insofar as it is an act and insofar as it is a being.
Disputatio VIII: Whether all contingent and free acts predetermined by God necessarily occur with the necessity of infallibility, or with necessity on the supposition of the predetermination of the divine will.
Disputatio IX: Whether the first root of contingency is the efficacy, or omnipotence, of the divine will.
Disputatio X: Whether any effect can be called formally contingent in relation to God’s causality, especially when it is produced immediately by him.
Book Four
Introduction
Disputatio I: Whether God has providence not only over all genera and species, but also over all individuals in particular, according to all circumstances of place, time, etc.
Disputatio II: Whether the evils of punishment are willed by an absolute and efficacious will, and predetermined in particular, through divine providence, or are only permitted.
Disputatio III: Whether the nature of divine providence includes not only the ordering of means to an end, but also the attainment of the end intended by God.
Disputatio IV: Whether contingent and free secondary causes can withdraw themselves from, or depart from, the order assigned to them by divine providence.
Disputatio V: Whether created free choice can resist almighty God, or strive against the order of divine providence.
Book Five
Introduction
Disputatio I: Whether all the explanations that St. Augustine gives of those words of the Apostle, “God wills all human beings to be saved,” are legitimate.
Disputatio II: What God's antecedent will is, what his consequent will is, and whether antecedent will formally entails some conditional act or wish in God.
Disputatio III: What predestination is, and in which act it formally consists: an act of the will, or rather an act of the intellect.
Disputatio IV: Whether the good use of the aids of grace, insofar as it proceeds from free will, is an effect of predestination.
Disputatio V: Whether the good use of free will, proceeding from the aid of grace, is a cause, reason, or necessary condition of predestination in adults.
Disputatio VI: Whether the predestination of infants depended on, and presupposed, foreknowledge of the good use of the free will of their parents or of others through whom they came to the grace of baptism.
Disputatio VII: Whether the foreseen merits of Christ are the cause of our predestination with respect to its entire effect.
Disputatio VIII: Whether the grace of the state of innocence was conferred on Adam through the merits of Christ.
Disputatio IX: Whether predestination, with respect to the attainment of its effects, is certain and infallible with the certainty of the order and causality of the means.
Disputatio X: Whether anyone, apart from divine revelation, can know with infallible certainty that he or another is among the predestined, or infer this from certain signs.
Disputatio XI: Whether, at least among the faithful, there are more elect than reprobate.
Book Six
Introduction
Disputatio I: Whether the children of Adam contract original sin through seminal propagation, such that it truly and properly has the character of guilt in them.
Disputatio II: Whether through original sin man was only deprived of original justice and supernatural gifts, or also wounded in his natural powers.
Disputatio III: What wounds man incurs through original or actual sin.
Disputatio IV: Whether free will in fallen nature, apart from the aids of grace, has the same natural powers for good that it would have had if it had been created in a state of pure nature.
Disputatio V: Whether man can, by the powers of nature alone and without the aid of grace, know every truth pertaining to the natural order.
Disputatio VI: Whether man can, by the powers of nature alone, assent to all the supernatural mysteries proposed and explained to him as revealed by God, with assent that is certain and firm on the believer’s part.
Disputatio VII: Whether, without the aid of grace, man in fallen nature can perform a moral act that is truly good in relation to the ultimate natural end and is an act of true virtue.
Disputatio VIII: Whether man in fallen nature can, by the powers of nature alone together with God’s general concurrence, elicit an absolute, purely natural act of loving God above all things, with an absolute resolve to please him in everything.
Disputatio IX: Whether free will, with general concurrence alone, can elicit attrition or contrition with respect to the substance of the act alone.
Disputatio X: Whether man can, by the natural powers of free will, restore the good connatural to him that he lost through sin.
Disputatio XI: Whether fallen man can, without the aid of grace, keep all the commandments and resist, at every moment, all the temptations he encounters, even the gravest, which must be overcome to keep the natural law.
Book Seven
Introduction
Disputatio I: Whether man can, without the aid of grace, dispose himself at least remotely to obtain grace by asking, seeking, knocking, and so forth.
Disputatio II: Whether those who do all that lies in their power by nature alone receive from God, infallibly and according to a fixed law, the aids of prevenient grace by which they carry it out as required for salvation.
Disputatio III: Whether greater effort of free choice obtains greater or more intense aids of rousing and prevenient grace.
Disputatio IV: Whether someone who does all that lies in his power with the earlier aids of prevenient grace receives subsequent aids infallibly and according to a fixed law.
Disputatio V: Whether someone who does all that lies in his power with efficacious aid, that is, who elicits an act of charity and contrition, receives justifying grace infallibly and according to a fixed law.
Disputatio VI: Whether acts of charity equal to the preexisting habit, or even less intense acts, obtain an increase of habitual grace, charity, and essential glory infallibly and according to a fixed law.
Disputatio VII: Whether deadened merits obtain for the penitent, infallibly and according to an established law, greater habitual grace and a right to more intense essential glory.
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.