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

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.

Book One

Prooemium: division of the whole work

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

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

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

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

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

Book Two

Introduction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Book Three

Introduction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Book Four

Introduction

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

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

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

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

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

Book Five

Introduction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Book Six

Introduction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Book Seven

Introduction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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