De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus et libertate

Whether the ultimate disposition for habitual grace is efficiently caused by grace itself, or only from actual help, that is, from the will elevated by such help.

I. There are two celebrated opinions among the Doctors concerning this controversy. The first asserts that the ultimate disposition for grace is not efficiently produced by habitual grace itself, nor by the habit of charity or penance, but by free choice moved and elevated by actual supernatural help. Some more recent theologians follow this opinion, which Durandus favors in 4, dist. 17, q. 1, no. 8. It is proved:

First, from St. Thomas, 1. 2. q. 109, art. 6, where he says that, for a man to prepare himself to receive habitual grace, it is not necessary to posit some other habitual gift in the soul, since that would lead to infinity; rather, some gratuitous help must be presupposed. He teaches the same in 1 p. q. 62, art. 2, ad 3, where he says that for conversion, by which someone prepares himself to have grace, no habitual grace is required, but the operation of God turning the soul to himself. St. Thomas therefore holds that the ultimate disposition for grace is not efficiently caused by habitual grace itself.

Second. When someone who has a habit of grace at degree four is disposed for a habit at degree eight, that disposition at degree eight is not efficiently caused by the habit of grace and charity at degree eight. Therefore, similarly, a disposition for first grace and charity is not efficiently caused by grace and charity themselves, but from free choice elevated by the actual help of prevenient grace. The antecedent is proved: through an intense disposition at degree eight, a man merits an increase of the habit to degree eight; therefore such a disposition absolutely precedes the habit at degree eight itself. For merit is the way to the reward, and the way precedes the terminus. Therefore such a disposition cannot be caused efficiently by the habit at degree eight. The inference is clear: an efficient cause must absolutely precede its effect, for each thing acts as an efficient cause insofar as it is actual. Therefore, if a habit intense to degree eight is the efficient cause of an act at degree eight, it is absolutely prior to its act and consequently cannot be posterior to it; otherwise the same thing, in the same respect and with respect to the same thing, would be absolutely prior and posterior.

Third. It entails a contradiction for an action efficiently caused by some form to be the ultimate disposition for that same form. Therefore an action efficiently caused by habitual grace cannot be the ultimate disposition for it. The antecedent is proved: although heat at degree eight is the ultimate disposition for the form of fire, it nevertheless entails a contradiction for heating that is efficiently caused by the form of fire to be the ultimate disposition for that same form. The reason is that heating is posterior to the form of fire from which it proceeds.

Fourth. An act of an acquired virtue that is the ultimate disposition for the production of the habit cannot be efficiently caused by that same habit, as St. Thomas teaches in 1. 2. q. 51, arts. 2 and 3. Therefore, similarly, an act of an infused virtue that is the ultimate disposition for the infusion of the habit cannot be efficiently caused by that same habit.

II. Fifth. In natural things, the ultimate disposition for a substantial form is not efficiently produced by the substantial form, but by an agent. For heat at degree eight, which is the ultimate disposition for the form of fire, produces the form of fire as an efficient cause, as the instrument of the principal agent, and therefore cannot be caused efficiently by the generated fire. Otherwise the same thing with respect to the same thing would be cause and effect, prior and posterior, in the same genus of cause, which entails a contradiction. Therefore.

This is confirmed. If the ultimate disposition for the form of fire introduced into wood is caused efficiently by the form of the fire that was generated, it follows that the generated fire efficiently produces itself. The consequence plainly entails a contradiction. Therefore. The inference is proved: whoever reaches as an efficient cause the ultimate disposition for the introduction of a substantial form into matter reaches as an efficient cause the composite itself that is generated. For a man is said to generate a man because he reaches the ultimate disposition for the introduction of the rational soul into matter. Therefore, if heat at degree eight, which is the ultimate disposition for the form of fire, is efficiently produced by the form of the fire that was generated, it follows that the fire efficiently produces itself. By the same reasoning, habitual grace and charity that are infused would efficiently reach the production of themselves if one were to admit that the ultimate disposition for the infusion of grace and charity is efficiently caused by that same habitual grace and charity.

III. The second opinion teaches that the final disposition for habitual grace and an infused habit proceeds from habitual grace itself and the infused habit in the order of formal or efficient causality, although it precedes that grace in the order of material causality. Ferrariensis in Book 3 Against the Gentiles, chapter 153, Cajetan in I–II, question 113, article 8, and Soto in book 2 of On Nature and Grace, chapter 18, proposition 2, follow this opinion. Soto says that the motion of free choice does not precede grace simply in the order of nature, but with a qualification, namely, in the order of material causality; for in the order of grace as efficient cause, grace comes first. He teaches the same more fully and in book 4, distinction 14, question 1, article 6. Master Medina agrees in I–II, question 113, article 8, reply to objection 1. Since this is the explicit opinion of St. Thomas, let this be set down to explain it:

First conclusion. Properly speaking, a supernatural act of charity, and likewise an act of perfect contrition, is the final disposition for habitual grace, not only a moral but also a physical disposition.¹ The conclusion is against certain Doctors whom Medina reports in I–II, question 113, article 8, in his reply to the confirmation of argument 2, asserting that it is only a moral disposition. But it is proved: for, as is stated in the Council of Trent, session 6, decree on justification, chapters 5 and 6, a sinner is disposed for grace through acts of free choice with God's help. And canon 4 defines that through the same acts a person cooperates with God and disposes and prepares himself to obtain the grace of justification. The Council plainly speaks here of a real and physical disposition. It is further proved by an argument: as St. Thomas teaches in I–II, question 112, article 2, no perfect form can be received except in disposed matter. But habitual grace is a perfect supernatural form conferring supernatural being. Therefore, it is not received except in disposed matter. But in fallen adults there is no other final disposition for grace than an act of contrition and charity. Therefore.

IIII. Second Conclusion. The act of contrition and charity, which is the final disposition for habitual grace, proceeds from habitual grace itself and from the infused habit of penance and charity in the order of formal or efficient causality.² Thus the act of penance and the habits of grace, penance, or charity exist at the same instant of time as the act of charity and penance; but in the order of formal and efficient causality grace, charity, and habitual penance precede that same act. In the order of material or dispositive causality, however, the act of the virtue of charity and penance precedes the infusion of the habit.

First, this conclusion is proved from St. Thomas, part I, question 62, article 2, reply to objection 3, where he says that for a conversion to God, which merits beatitude, habitual grace is required, which is the principle of meriting. From these words the argument is drawn. Contrition, which is the final disposition for grace, although it does not merit the grace already possessed, is nevertheless meritorious of glory not yet possessed, as St. Thomas teaches in I–II, question 112, article 2, reply to objection 1. Therefore, according to St. Thomas, the final disposition for habitual grace proceeds from habitual grace. The answer that St. Thomas does not mean habitual grace by “grace,” but rather a gratuitous motion of God, as some explain, is no good. For in that article St. Thomas is treating the infusion of justifying grace, which is habitual grace. Therefore, he is speaking of habitual grace.

V. Moreover, that same St. Thomas, in Questions on Truth, question 28, article 8, body, teaches our opinion most expressly. For he says that the final disposition both for a natural form and for grace, although in the order of material causality it is prior in the order of nature to the form for which it disposes, in the order of formal causality is posterior in the order of nature to the form itself, because it proceeds from it. He teaches the same about heat in relation to fire and about other natural dispositions in part III, question 7, article 13, reply to objection 2, for he says: The heat that was a disposition for the form of fire is an effect flowing from the already preexisting form of fire. He says the same in question 9, article 3, reply to objection 2.

Second, it is proved by an argument: according to the opposite opinion it would follow that a justified adult outside the sacrament could obtain glory without any personal merit. The consequence is proved by supposing a case in which someone dies immediately after having contrition by which he is justified. He obtains eternal life because he departs in grace; yet, according to the opposite opinion, he obtains it without personal merit. For the act of contrition by which he was justified was not meritorious, since it did not proceed from habitual grace. Therefore, through that act of contrition he did not merit eternal life. Since, as we suppose, he afterward performed no other meritorious act, it remains that a justified adult outside the sacrament obtains eternal life without personal merit. But that this is more than false is proved from the Council of Trent, session 6 on justification, canon 32, which defines that a justified person merits glory and an increase of glory through good works. Therefore, through the contrition by which an adult is dispositively justified, he merits his own glory.

VI. Third Conclusion. The final disposition for grace is consequently also a disposition for the infused habits of charity, penance, and the other infused habits.³ It is proved: a disposition preparing for some form also disposes consequently for everything that follows upon that form in the manner of a proper property, as is clear in natural things. For the final disposition for the introduction of a rational soul is also consequently a disposition for everything that follows upon that same soul as its property. But the habit of penance and the other supernatural infused habits follow upon habitual grace in the manner of a proper property, as St. Thomas says in I–II, question 110, article 4, replies to objections 1 and 2. Therefore, contrition, which is the final disposition for grace, is consequently also the final disposition for the habit of penance, which follows upon the infusion of grace.

This is confirmed. Contrition is prior in the order of nature to habitual grace in the genus of disposition, as was proved; but habitual grace is prior in the order of nature to the habit of penance, which follows it. Therefore, from the first to the last, contrition in the genus of disposition is prior to the habit of penance. This is Soto's opinion in the cited art. 6 and Medina's in the place cited above, although Cano, part 1 of the Relection on Penance, reply to the fourth objection, holds that an act of penance cannot be a disposition for the habit of penance from which it proceeds; he is moved by the third argument made at the beginning of the question.

VII. To the first argument from the authorities of St. Thomas, it is answered that he holds our opinion, as is clear from the cited passages. Second, I answer that the first act of contrition can be considered in two ways. First, under the character of a disposition, insofar as it precedes habitual grace in the genus of material cause; under this account it is attributed to operating grace and to God moving us, and thus proceeds from a power elevated by supernatural actual help, nor is it understood, as such, to proceed from habitual grace.⁴ The cited words of St. Thomas brought forward for the contrary opinion proceed according to this consideration. Second, it can be considered insofar as it is informed by grace and is meritorious of glory, as was said; under this account it proceeds from habitual grace, in which all merit of eternal life is founded. But it follows from this that, formally speaking, the final disposition for habitual grace does not have as its efficient cause habitual grace itself, but only materially. It is answered that this is not contrary to our opinion, because we contend only that the very same act of contrition that is the final disposition for grace proceeds efficiently, as from its first root, from habitual grace itself.

VIII. To the second. Master Báñez admits that even the final disposition for an increase of the habit to eight, in the case of the argument, has as its efficient cause the habit itself intensified to eight, as in the first infusion of the habit.⁵ The reason that convinces him is this: if that greater intensity of the act is not efficiently produced by the habit but by God's help and motion, it follows that a person would not be the principal cause of that greater intensity of the act beyond the pre-existing habit, but only an instrumental cause. This is proved as follows: as is gathered from St. Thomas, I–II, question 68, article 3, reply to objection 2 and Part III, question 7, article 1, reply to objection 3, this is the difference between a principal and an instrumental cause: the principal cause acts through a habit or a form intrinsic to itself and proportionate to the effect, while an instrument acts only through the motion of an external principal agent. Therefore, if that greater intensity of the act does not proceed from the intensified habit but from God's motion, a person will be only an instrumental cause with respect to that greater intensity.

This opinion nevertheless does not seem to express the mind of St. Thomas, I–II, question 114, article 9, body of the article, where he says that what is related to an act of free choice moved by God as the principle of the act cannot fall under merit. For this reason he proves that the gift of perseverance cannot fall under merit, because it is the efficient principle of a meritorious work; otherwise, with respect to the same thing, it would simply be both the principle of merit and the terminus of merit, which entails a contradiction.⁶ Therefore, if in the case supposed an act of penance and charity at eight has as its efficient cause the habit of penance and charity at eight, it will be impossible for a person through such an intense act to merit an increase of the habit; and so the increase of an infused habit would never fall under merit, which is contrary to St. Thomas in art. 8 of the same question, as was seen in disputation 60, no. 12. This is confirmed: speaking physically, a reward cannot simply be prior to merit; but the increase of the habit to eight is the reward corresponding to an intense act at eight. Therefore, such an increase of the habit cannot, speaking simply, be prior to the act at eight, and so it cannot be its efficient cause, as Báñez wishes. The consequence is proved: as St. Thomas teaches in On Truth, question 28, article 7, what is prior in the genus of efficient or formal cause is simply prior to what precedes only in the genus of material cause. The reason is that an efficient cause acts insofar as it is actual, whereas a material cause can cause before it is understood to exist, as Soto says in book 2 of the Physics, question 3, since its causality is a way toward being. The antecedent is proved: merit is a way to reward. Therefore, it entails a contradiction that the reward simply precedes merit itself, for then the terminus would simply precede the motion or way to the terminus.

Therefore, the argument is answered in another way: in the case supposed, an intense act of charity at eight does not have as its efficient cause the habit at eight, but the pre-existing habit at four together with supernatural help intense at eight, by which the habit at four is elevated so that it can efficiently produce the intense act at eight itself, through which it is disposed for an increase of the habit. For, as was shown above, the intensity of the act must be measured from the quantity of the help or divine motion. To Master Báñez's fundamental point it is answered that, even with respect to that greater intensity, a person elevated by help is a true proximate principal cause, as will be clear in disputation 68. The reason is that the help is not extrinsic to the power, but inheres in it prior to the act in the genus of efficient cause and in the order of nature, although not in the order of time. Hence it does not follow that a person is a mere instrument with respect to that act's greater intensity beyond the pre-existing habit. Otherwise, by the same argument, it would be proved that a person is a mere instrument with respect to all supernatural acts he produces by the actual help of divine grace before the infusion of supernatural habits, such as attrition, fear of hell, and other similar acts, through which free choice is remotely disposed for justifying grace. For such acts do not proceed from any supernatural habit, but from powers elevated by supernatural actual help.

IX. From these points, with respect to the second principal argument, the antecedent is conceded and the consequent denied. The reason for the difference is that when a preexisting habit is increased through a more intense act, that act is meritorious of the increase of the habit itself and therefore cannot be efficiently caused by it. But in the first infusion of grace the ultimate disposition is not meritorious of grace itself; hence the cases are not alike.

To the third, the major premise is denied. To the proof, it is answered that when an action is successive or transient, as heating is with respect to fire, it entails a contradiction for an action proceeding from some form to be the ultimate disposition for the production of that same form;⁷ but not when the action is instantaneous and immanent, as contrition is. The reason for the difference between the two actions is that the ultimate disposition must be in the same instant in which the form is, and likewise received in the same subject, taking action as a quality or terminus. But an instantaneous and immanent action can be in the same instant in which the form is received and likewise be received in the same subject. Hence this action can dispose ultimately for the production of the form from which it proceeds, but that other action cannot.

To the fourth, the inference is denied, and the reason for the difference is that the ultimate act of an acquired virtue produces the habit itself as an efficient cause. Hence it cannot be efficiently caused by that habit; otherwise the same thing, with respect to the same thing, would be cause and effect, prior and posterior, in the same genus of cause. But by an act of an infused virtue, through which a man is ultimately disposed for the infusion of the habit, the habit itself is not efficiently produced, but only dispositionally. For, as St. Thomas teaches in I–II, question 51, article 4, reply to objection 3, supernatural habits are not produced efficiently through our acts, but only dispositionally. Hence this ultimate disposition can be caused efficiently by the habit itself.

X. But there is an objection. It follows at least that contrition, which is a part of the sacrament of penance, is not efficiently caused by habitual grace if it is infused during the reception of the sacrament.⁸ This is proved: such contrition is an instrumental efficient cause of habitual grace, as St. Thomas teaches in 4, distinction 17, question 2, article 5, subquestion 1, body, and reply to objection 1. Therefore it is absolutely prior to habitual grace. Therefore it is not efficiently caused by it. I answer with St. Thomas,⁹ question 28 de veritate, article 8, ad 2, that contrition, speaking per se,¹⁰ according to what it has insofar as it proceeds from free choice moved by the help of grace, is only the material cause of habitual grace and is absolutely posterior to it. But insofar as it is a part of the sacrament, it is elevated by God to cause sacramental grace instrumentally; and in this respect it is not efficiently caused by sacramental grace, but rather produces it, as was said. For greater understanding, it should be noted that when a man who is contrite approaches the sacrament of penance, he receives a twofold grace: one that corresponds to contrition itself, ex opere operantis; but the other is sacramental, corresponding to the power of the sacrament ex opere operato.¹¹

Hence, if he approaches with contrition at degree four, he obtains grace at degree eight. Of these degrees, four correspond to contrition, even without the sacrament; but the other four degrees correspond to the power of the sacrament. For sacramental grace is measured according to the quantity of the disposition.

XI. To the fifth, it is already clear from the passages of St. Thomas cited above how, even in natural things, the ultimate disposition is from the substantial form; nor does it follow from this that the same thing, in the same respect and with respect to the same thing, is cause and effect, prior and posterior, in the same genus of cause. For heat at degree eight, for example, insofar as it is the ultimate disposition for the form of fire, is prior to the generated fire in the genus of material cause;¹² and under this aspect it is attributed to the generator as an efficient cause. But if that same heat at degree eight is considered as a property following the nature of the generated fire and preserving it, then, in this respect, it is an effect of the generated fire and proceeds from it in the genus of formal cause.

To the confirmation, it is answered that the generated fire does not efficiently produce itself, because it does not produce as an efficient cause the ultimate disposition for the introduction of its substantial form into matter insofar as it is formally the ultimate disposition for that same form. For under this aspect it is attributed only to the generator, as was said. For it belongs to the same cause to dispose the matter to which the production of the composite is attributed. By the same reasoning, habitual grace and charity do not concur as an efficient cause, even as that by which, in the production of themselves.

But there is an objection: it follows at least that the penitent who elicits an act of contrition reaches as an efficient cause the production of habitual grace. This is proved: for he efficiently produces, as a principal cause, the ultimate disposition for the infusion of habitual grace insofar as it is the ultimate disposition, as is clear from the Council of Trent, session 6, On Justification, chapter 5, where it is stated that a sinner disposes and prepares himself for his justification through an act of charity and contrition. But whoever is the principal efficient cause of the ultimate disposition insofar as it is the ultimate disposition for the introduction of a form is also the principal cause of the form itself, or of its union with matter.

XII. It is answered that God alone is the principal efficient cause of grace, as St. Thomas teaches in I–II, question 112, article 1. Hence it cannot be conceded that a human being causes grace in himself as an efficient cause.¹³ Master Cano teaches this in book 12 of On Places, chapter 13, reply to the seventh argument. For since justification is a kind of spiritual generation, according to John 1, Those who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God, and John 3, Unless someone is born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God, just as a human being does not generate himself but is generated by another, so also, properly speaking, he does not justify himself but is justified by God as efficient cause and by grace as formal cause. He only concurs dispositionally in his own justification, as Cano shows in many passages of Scripture in the cited place. The words of 1 John 3, Everyone who has this hope sanctifies himself, do not conflict with this teaching but rather agree with it. For these words do not signify that a human being produces as an efficient cause the grace by which he is formally sanctified; rather, they show that an adult is not justified without his own act of free choice, by which, moved by God, he disposes himself for grace and consents to God as he calls. For, as Augustine says, He who made you without you will not save you without you. The first answer to the argument, then, is the one Master Medina gives in I–II, question 112, article 1, doubt 2, reply to objection 1: namely, when the final disposition has by the nature of the thing a connection with the form for which it disposes,¹⁴ then the one who is the efficient cause of the final disposition is also the efficient cause of the form that is introduced or of its union with matter. But contrition does not have by the nature of the thing a connection with justifying grace, only by divine ordinance. Hence, although the penitent is the efficient cause of contrition, it does not follow that he is the efficient cause of the grace by which he is justified.

But we do not like this answer, for, as was shown above, contrition has by the nature of the thing a connection with grace.¹⁵ Another answer to the argument, then, is that, although the final disposition for grace is efficiently produced by a human being's free choice, it does not proceed from him by virtue of his own form, but insofar as he is moved by God through a special help of grace, as St. Thomas teaches in I–II, question 109, article 6. The proposition assumed in the argument is true only of those who attain the final disposition or the introduction of a form into matter by their own power. Hence God alone is the efficient cause of the grace that follows that disposition.