Disputatio de efficacia praevenientis auxilii gratiae, cum responsione et censura (1599-1600)

It is asked whether the whole efficacy of the aid of prevenient grace is from God as from its sole and total and properly efficient cause, and whether thus such an aid is said to be and is truly and completely efficacious of itself and as it is precisely from God; or rather whether that efficacy is from God and from the consent of free choice; and consequently whether it is seated in the power of free choice properly to render the aids of divine prevenient grace efficacious. Finally, whether, with an aid of prevenient grace truly and properly efficacious posited, the dissent of free choice stands together with it.

1. — SOCIETAS. — Although we think that all the things asked here have already been abundantly satisfied by us, yet in order that it may appear more clearly how greatly we desire to discern the truth, we shall attempt to answer the same things again, earnestly seeking what seems altogether most equitable: that the Dominican Fathers not refuse to say what they think concerning these things.

MAGISTER BAÑES. — The theologians of the institute of Saint Dominic of the Order of Preachers neither refuse nor have they ever refused to teach openly the ancient doctrine concerning the efficacy of prevenient grace as they received it from Saint Thomas and the holy fathers. Which doctrine needs not so great an apparatus of explanation as your opinion needs. For even in this your most recent reply, while promising perspicuity, you set forth your opinion, as I shall show, much more obscurely, so that it is necessary for us to note a great many things concerning it.

2. — SOCIETAS. — Efficacious grace can be taken in two ways. First, for that which, according to the opinion of Saint Augustine, makes the will to be converted and to operate piously; second, for that which together with the will produces conversion and our operation.

M. BAÑES. — This distinction of efficacious grace is not a distinction, but a confusion of words and of things, for each member of the division is proved to be really the same. For if in the first acceptation efficacious grace is that which makes the will to be converted and to operate piously, this it certainly effects only together with the will. Therefore no place is left for the second acceptation of efficacious grace, where it is said to be that which together with the will produces conversion and our operation. This is not to speak perspicuously.

3. — SOCIETAS. — If it be taken in the first way, we think, from the opinion of Saint Augustine and of the other fathers and scholastics, that it cannot consist in some simple entity which, by informing the will and by physically predetermining it, makes the will to be converted and to operate piously.

M. BAÑES. — Nowhere have Saint Augustine or the other fathers made mention of a simple entity of grace, nor of the informing of the will through physical predetermination. But it is the locution of certain modern scholastics: whether efficacious grace consists in a simple entity, and whether it physically predetermines the will. The former indeed is a metaphysical and useless consideration: whether efficacious grace be a simple or a composite entity; but the latter, concerning physical predetermination, is a useful consideration, as we shall make plain in what follows.

4. — SOCIETAS. — Wherefore, to explain in what it properly and formally consists, three things are to be distinguished in efficacious grace taken in this first way. The first is an intrinsic motion and a real force for moving the will.

M. BAÑES. — I would ask, for whom is the motion intrinsic: is it intimate to efficacious grace itself, or to the will? Is the locution also concerning motion as it is action, or as it is passion? If indeed you understand motion as it is action, it is certainly a real force — where I would have wished you to say, in your accustomed manner, physical and essentially intrinsic to efficacious grace itself, as it is from God for moving the will. Thus the real force and the intrinsic motion which you consider in efficacious grace as something intrinsic are the same. Where at least this one thing I accept from you: that that force of the actual motion of efficacious grace is a truly real and physical entity. But afterwards it will be examined how far this force extends concerning the free act of the will. For here you always recede when the free effect is reached, and substitute a certain moral efficiency, which in reality is not real efficacy, as I shall show a little later.

5. — SOCIETAS. — The second is the congruity by which that motion is congruous with the will and is contempered to it.

M. BAÑES. — You ought to have explained in what this congruity and contemperation consists. For if anyone shall have heard these words sincerely, he will think that you understand the sweetness of efficacious prevenient grace, premoving the will according to the mode of its nature, whether as it is will or as it is choice. But I suspect — nor do I judge rashly — that you intend something far different through that congruity and contemperation, as I shall teach in the following paragraph.

6. — SOCIETAS. — The third is the infallibility by which conversion follows upon grace congruous with the will and contempered to it. In the first, efficacious grace indeed agrees with sufficient grace, but it differs from it in the others.

M. BAÑES. — But I thus show that efficacious grace agrees with sufficient grace also in the second, because sufficient grace also is congruous and is really contempered to the will, as an intrinsic motion and a divine real force for moving the will, according to that of the Apostle, ad Rom. 2 (v. 4-5): Benignitas Dei ad paenitentiam te adducit; tu autem secundum duritiam tuam et impaenitens cor thesaurizas tibi iram.

But perhaps you will laugh at me for not understanding what you mean by that congruity. This you ought to have given explained in this reply, so as to distinguish the second from the third. But I now wish to play your part, and by that congruity of grace and contemperation with the will to understand the opportuneness of the time when the will of man, if it then had that grace, would consent and would operate piously — just as one of your leaders, whom I name for honor's sake, Francisco Suarez, openly teaches in the book of opuscula, opusculum one, book three, ch. 20, where he says: the altogether same aid of grace, given at an opportune time, is a morally greater benefit than if it were given at another time; and consequently that with equal aid as to physical activity and perfection it happens that one man is converted and another is not converted. But if these things are so, my fathers, you make no real distinction between sufficient and efficacious grace, except only according to a certain extrinsic respect — namely, because grace which of itself was sufficient then effects with the will when it is given at an opportune time. Which opportuneness, however, can come from nowhere else than from the will itself, which, constituted in such an order of things and in such circumstances, was so going to operate from innate freedom. For grace does not bring that opportuneness with it; otherwise, to whomever it were given, it would be received opportunely, and the one receiving it would operate with it.

If, therefore, what you say be attentively examined, you make no intrinsic difference between sufficient grace and efficacious grace, which will appear more openly in what follows.

7. — SOCIETAS. — For although each be an intrinsic motion and a real force for moving the will, yet to the former [namely, I understand efficacious grace: Bañes] there follows conversion and the pious operation to which it moves, since it is rejected by no hard heart — which sufficient grace does not have.

M. BAÑES. — Behold, in that which is intrinsic to prevenient grace — namely, in the account of motion and in the real force for moving the will — you say both efficacious and sufficient grace, and you place the difference only in this: that to efficacious grace you say conversion and pious operation infallibly follow — not as by a greater real and physical force or by a more vehement motion of prevenient grace itself, but you strive to derive that infallibility of the effect's following from elsewhere. In the meantime, however, you use the words of Augustine in confirmation of the infallibility of the effect's following, saying that it is rejected by no hard heart. But you have not fully explained the true cause why that grace which is called efficacious is rejected by no hard heart.

8. — SOCIETAS. — But for this infallibility, from the opinion of Saint Augustine, the entity of the motion is not enough, since it does not physically predetermine the will.

M. BAÑES. — It is marvelous how boldly you say "from the opinion of Saint Augustine," when yet Saint Augustine nowhere, as I said before, spoke thus concerning your entity of motion, nor concerning the physical predetermination of the will. You wish indeed the doctrine of Saint Augustine to be congruous with your invention, just as you assert the grace of God to be congruous with the human will and contempered to it — when yet, conversely, we shall more fittingly teach that the human will is congruous with the grace of God and contempered to it.¹ But in the meantime let us examine your congruity and contemperation of grace with the human will.

9. — SOCIETAS. — Nay, neither is the sole congruity of that same motion with the will enough, but besides there is required the foreknowledge of God, by which He certainly and infallibly foreknows such a motion to be so adapted and congruous with the will; and that, if it be premoved through it, it will furnish consent. A congruous motion, therefore, foreknown by God as going to have consent with such circumstances, is efficacious grace, and from these three its efficacy is completed.

M. BAÑES. — Now, thanks be to God, I hold your sense, and I would rather treat with you by living voice than dispute in writing. But since that cannot be done, attend, I beseech you, reverend fathers, and see whether I have penetrated your manner of asserting the efficacy of prevenient grace.

You say that this efficacy is completed from three things: namely, from the motion and the real force intrinsic to grace itself, and from the congruity and contemperation of grace itself with the human will, and finally from the precognition of God precognizing the motion and the congruity with the will — that in such circumstances the will will have consent. With this foundation laid, you attempt to satisfy the questions set before you. But with that foundation destroyed, what you build upon it will easily collapse.

First, that force and motion which you attribute to efficacious grace is not greater or stronger in it than in the grace which is called merely sufficient. For you say each to be an intrinsic motion and a real force for moving the will. Then you will also grant me that through that second — namely, through the congruity and contemperation of grace with the will — nothing intrinsic accrues to grace itself from the will to which it is congruous and adapted. It remained, therefore, that from the infallibility of the future event — namely, of the consent precognized by God — the aid of prevenient grace should receive a more efficacious force, so as to be called completely efficacious. But it is established that neither from the event itself nor from the precognition of God, as it is merely precognition, does any greater force accrue to prevenient grace itself. Therefore you assign no intrinsic real difference between sufficient and efficacious grace, but you assert the efficacy of grace to be completed only from the event. But that prevenient grace receives no real force from the mere precognition of God, you will not deny. For just as God, as you say, precognizes and comprehends that the will of this man, constituted in such circumstances and coadapted to itself with such grace, will operate well, so also He precognizes that the will of another man, forestalled by equal grace and motion and constituted in such circumstances, will not operate well. But in the second man the mere precognition of God is not the cause of the inefficacy — or, to speak more properly, of the non-efficacy — of the divine aid. Therefore neither in the first man is the divine precognition a real cause furnishing force to the prevenient aid. You assign, therefore, no real cause of the complement of the efficacy of prevenient grace besides the innate freedom and the propriety of this man who is converted — from which you derive the real difference between the one man who is converted and the other man who, though forestalled with equal grace, is not converted — except only from the propriety of the innate freedom of each. For thus you were accustomed to speak openly. Now, however, you hide that locution with certain obscure veils, though in reality you bring forward almost nothing new by which you might evade the arguments of the Thomists. I said "almost nothing," because I have now perceived that you have invented a certain moral causality on the part of God, to which you think the difference between him who, forestalled by equal grace, is converted and him who is not converted can be sufficiently reduced. But how nothing this is, I shall presently show, with the Lord's aid, after I shall have interposed your reply to the questions proposed.

10. — SOCIETAS. — Concerning the first question, it is certain that this efficacious grace is from God from an efficacious intention and an absolute purpose of converting man — for which cause Augustine often calls this grace "according to purpose." Secondly, we think that, if discourse be, as it seems to be, concerning the sole properly efficient cause, the whole efficacy of prevenient grace is from God alone and from free choice as from two properly and freely efficient causes; nevertheless that the same efficacy of prevenient grace, since it is a certain vital motion, is in some way from the will — not indeed as from a freely acting principle, but as vitally inflowing before that free consent.

M. BAÑES. — I do not wish for now to pass further, in order to weigh your reply more openly through each thing you assert. You think that, if discourse be concerning the sole properly efficient cause, the whole efficacy of prevenient grace is from God alone as from the sole and total properly efficient cause. In which assertion we would easily agree with you, if by "properly efficient cause" you understood — as perhaps you understand — the real and physical cause of that virtue and motion which intrinsically we all assert to inhere in the aid of prevenient grace. For this force is from God alone, not only as from a moral cause, but also as from a physical cause attaining that efficacious virtue. Yet when you so speak, you do not distinguish complete efficacy from incomplete. But you ought to have attended to what you say: that the whole efficacy of prevenient grace is from God alone. From which I infer that when you say "whole," you seem to assert "complete." For a whole is that which is integral and perfect with its parts. If, therefore, God is the sole and total properly efficient cause properly effecting the whole efficacy of prevenient grace, you would certainly agree with us. But I see you tending elsewhere, as will soon be established. But as to what you say — that prevenient grace, since it is a certain vital motion, must necessarily in some way exist from the will, yet not from a deliberating free choice — there is no one who denies it. For there is no divine inspiration by which the intellect of man and the will, according to their nature, are not affected toward a certain vital action. For this is proper to the aid of prevenient grace, by which, before in time, the mind of man is aroused before free consent. But now let us see where you tend.

11. — SOCIETAS. — Thirdly, we say that the aid of prevenient grace is not completely efficacious precisely of itself — that is, from the nature of the motion itself alone — nor do we think there is found a doctor older than Calvin who said prevenient grace to be efficacious of itself merely for that reason, as the most learned men who wrote against Calvin noted.

M. BAÑES. — Many things in the present paragraph 11 seem worthy of note. I pass over that insinuation by which you secretly suggest that we follow in all things the opinion of Saint Thomas and Saint Augustine. But if Calvin deduces his error from that by a bad consequence, we ought not on that account deny the antecedent. For heretics too often strive to confirm their errors from apostolic doctrine through bad consequences. Wherefore those who approve their consequences favor them more than those who grant the antecedents.

But let us now come to examining your third dictum. You say that the aid of prevenient grace is not completely efficacious, nor do you stop there, but you add certain determinations by which you pour darkness over both the reader and the judges. For in that which you append — "precisely of itself" — and attempt to explain by saying "that is, from the nature of the motion itself alone" — you greatly conceal your opinion, which cannot lie hidden from me, an older man. For if you understand that the aid of prevenient grace, precisely considered according to its created entity and nature, is not completely efficacious, you could indeed have said it is not efficacious — so far is it from being completely efficacious. But when we assert the aid of prevenient grace to be effective or completely efficacious, we consider the aid not in its metaphysical entity precisely, but as it is the instrument of the divine omnipotence, really ordered by God from an efficacious intention and an absolute purpose either of converting man or of at some time arousing and inviting man to be converted. Just as you likewise in paragraph 10 at last confess what you were accustomed to deny. Now, however, lest you seem contrary to Saint Augustine, who often calls this grace "according to purpose" — nay, and to the Apostle, ad Rom. 8 (v. 28), saying, Diligentibus Deum omnia cooperantur in bonum, his qui secundum propositum vocati sunt sancti — you now grant the absolute purpose and decree of God concerning the conversion and the good operations of those to be justified, and above all of the predestined. Concerning which repentance not only we, but also the most learned men among you, vehemently rejoice.

Now, therefore, let us come to our purpose, that you may see how far we stand from Calvin. For we never assert some created entity which, precisely considered according to its metaphysical nature, determines our free choice or predetermines it to the act of conversion to God; but we consider the aid of God as it is actually from God and from His most efficacious absolute will, by which He does really and physically whatever He wills — and not only morally — but, as omnipotent, strongly and sweetly effects the good election of man which God wills to be made and to be exercised through the free choice of man itself. And this is the true and complete efficacy which we posit, by which infallibly from an unbeliever someone becomes a believer, and from a sinner a just man. This is that grace which is rejected by no hard heart, as Saint Augustine teaches — whose words you cited in paragraph 7 to prove the difference between efficacious and sufficient grace. But why it is rejected by no hard heart, you attribute neither to grace itself, nor to God operating physically, but only to Him as morally foreknowing the future event of conversion — if that grace were given at a certain opportune time to this man — since otherwise you think the propriety of free choice in operating is not preserved. Of which you bring forward no other reason except that you do not understand how the aid of grace is concordant with free choice. But we, on the contrary, hold that it is far less intelligible how God is omnipotent, if some real good — and above all a good such as the conversion of the sinner through the act of believing, hoping and loving, all of which most please God — and yet this good be not from God as from a physically efficient cause of what He Himself loves.

This doctrine is not ours, but is Saint Augustine's in Enchiridion ch. 95: "How would God be omnipotent, if He willed to do something which He did not do, and — what is more unworthy — did not do it for this reason: because, lest what the omnipotent willed be done, the will of man impeded it?"

But concerning this real and physical efficacy — which word you have above all introduced into the schools so as to assign only a moral cause to the acts of free choice on the part of God, since otherwise you do not understand the free use of the will — we have said many things in our Commentaries on the Secunda Secundae, q. 10, third lesson, from the opinion of Saint Augustine, whom in this matter we follow above all as our leader, with Saint Thomas. And in what follows we shall further pursue its truth.

12. — SOCIETAS. — For if such a motion had of itself precisely an infallible connection with the free consent of the will, it would in no way suffer the will to use its freedom for assent.

M. BAÑES. — Behold, you again repeat "of itself precisely." But we add no such intricate determinations of words; we only simply assert that some divine motion has an infallible connection with the free consent of the will — just as the absolute will of God itself also has an infallible connection <not> with the good use of free choice, for the exercising of which God efficaciously moves free choice by making it deliberate. Nor is the use of free choice destroyed by this, but it is perfected and actuated by God, who is the first mover and the first deliberator, to whose absolute deliberation created free choice is subordinated. And those who hold the opposite wish their free choice to be exempt from the real or physical efficacy of the divine will, by whose counsel God works all things, as the Apostle says, ad Ephes. 1. We, therefore, acknowledge no other infallible connection of efficacious aid with the free consent of the will than that which is at once with the absolute will of God, which intimately moves and applies the human will to consenting freely with God. So far is it that it does not suffer the will to use its freedom; nay, it makes it use and consent and from deliberation elect to serve God — which is to reign with Him. This it is that troubles you, best fathers; and though you are wise, you cannot understand it — for you think it involves a contradiction. We too confess it to be in this life an incomprehensible mystery; but we are certain it cannot otherwise happen that man use free choice well, unless he be efficaciously and intimately premoved by God to the good use. Otherwise man would be the first deliberator of his action, or the absolute deliberation of God would not be really and infallibly efficacious of that effect which it intends — but the mere innate freedom of man would complete the efficacy of the divine aid, though yet the good use is an effect, according to Augustine, of the grace which is rejected by no hard heart.

13. — SOCIETAS. — For that reason we said above that neither the sole intrinsic motion of grace, nay, nor its congruity with the will, is enough for the effect to which it moves infallibly to follow, unless there accede the certitude of the divine wisdom, as we declared in the same place.

M. BAÑES. — Why that motion of grace is called intrinsic is never sufficiently explained by you. Is it because it is intimate to the will? Or because it is essential to grace itself actually prevenient? I would believe the second to be intended by you. Which motion indeed is nothing other than the arousing of the will conjoined with its own vital action — yet not a free one. And that this does not suffice for the effect to which it moves infallibly to follow, no one doubts. But I marvel that you deny — speaking consequently to your opinion — that it is not enough that that motion be congruous with the will and contempered to it. For that the certitude of the divine foreknowledge accede has no account of causality toward that infallibility. For as doctor Suarez says, book 3, ch. 17, De auxiliis divinae gratiae, before in reason than God foreknows such an act to be absolutely future — nay, even before in reason, in the order of the end, than God wills to apply the means or to give the aids through which such an act will be future — such an effect is understood as future through the conditioned knowledge by which is known the propriety of the free choice of this man: that if it be constituted in such circumstances, and with such aids, it will without doubt go forth into the act of consent. Therefore the foreknowledge of this future event holds itself concomitantly, not causally, toward that future event from innate freedom and from the congruity of grace — which, according to you, consists in nothing else except in this: that it is given at an opportune time. Which opportuneness is derived from nowhere else than from the propriety of this free choice comprehensively known by God — to which you attribute only the account of moral causality, for the reason that, knowing and prudent, He gave the aid of grace at that time in which He precognized that free choice from innate freedom would consent. Nor do you posit any other absolute predefinition in God, nor an absolute and efficacious purpose, except that by His industry He decided to give such aids and at such a time, when by conditioned knowledge He knew that free choice would make them congruous to itself and would adapt them as a moral and physical cause. More briefly and more clearly you would indeed have said, as I have already noted, that the aids of divine grace according to themselves are only sufficient — so that, if free choice will to use them well, they effect with it the effect intended by God as from a moral cause, not a physical one.

It is worthwhile to set before you an example by which your opinion is most aptly explained. Let there be an egregious physician who penetrates the natural complexion of his equally sick patients. Then let him compound and prepare an equal medicament according to the aphorisms of medicine, which can sufficiently furnish aid to nature itself, if it be applied at a congruous time. Yet to one of the sick he gave the medicament on the critical day (sic) or at a conjunction of the moon, when he was certain it would profit nothing; but to another equally sick man he gave it at an opportune time, in which he knew the medicament would so be adapted to nature itself that nature itself, thus aided, would physically heal itself. Of this health the physician is not the physical cause, but only the moral one, prudently applying the medicine — although with respect to compounding the medicament he could have been the physical cause. After the likeness of this example you wish God to be the savior and physician of souls. So that, just as the physician of bodily sickness is not the physical cause of health — nay, nor is the medicine itself directly the physical cause of health, but as it were removing what impedes it aids nature, which by its own natural force, thus aided, heals itself — so also the sufficient aid of divine grace becomes efficacious while it is congruous and adapted to the nature itself of the free choice of this man, which has from its propriety, if it receive such aid at an opportune time, to effect its consent not only as a moral cause but as the sole physical cause — which excludes all physical efficacy in the prevenient aid itself, nay, even in God Himself with respect to the consent of free choice. And consequently you wish it to be so free that it alone dominates its free action, as the sole cause physically determining itself to consent. But if the matter so stood, the concord of free choice with the aid of divine grace would easily be understood — or, as I might better have said, the concord and coadaptation of divine grace with the natural propriety of free choice. But because this concord which you feign seems to us contrary to the omnipotence of the divine majesty, concerning which it is written: Cor regis in manu domini sicut divisiones aquarum; quocumque voluerit, vertet illud (Prov. 21, 1), we hold this concord to be asserted far otherwise, according to the ancient doctrine of Saint Thomas and Saint Augustine and the holy fathers — nay, of the ancient councils too — nay, even according to the testimonies of the sacred writings, which you expound far otherwise than as they were explained by the fathers themselves.

We, therefore, in establishing this concord assert first that God is not only a moral cause, but one truly and really and physically attaining not only to inducing the aid of His grace into the mind of man — whether in the intellect or in the will — but proceeding further with the same force and motion even to consent intrinsically. Then, consequently, we say that the efficacious aid of divine grace adapts free choice to itself so strongly and sweetly that the good use of free choice is attributed not to innate freedom, but rather to free choice elevated and perfected by the physically efficacious aid of divine grace as it goes forth from the most efficacious absolute will of God, both morally and physically. The Apostle, ad Hebraeos, last chapter, vehemently assists this our assertion, when he says: Deus autem pacis aptet vos in omni bono ut faciatis eius voluntatem, faciens in vobis quod placeat coram se. Upon which place read Saint Thomas, and you will see how far you stand from them, and from the interlinear Gloss, which is believed to be Augustine's. But I beseech you through Jesus Christ to attend how far two words of the Apostle stand from your concord. For you say that the aid of grace is congruous with and contempered to the singular free choice of this man. But the Apostle says, Deus pacis aptet vos in omni bono — as if he said: God the reconciler and peacemaker and prince of peace and lord, adapt you — that is, your free choice — in every good, that you may do those things which He Himself wills, faciens ipse in vobis — that is, intimately making — what pleases before Him — that is, pious affection and pious work. Behold how much more piously we assert the concord of our freedom with the efficacious aid of divine grace than you. For what you attributed to the singular propriety of this free choice, thus aided at such a time, we attribute to the efficacious aid of divine grace as it is from God — who does not await the time or the hour in which we may wish to be cleansed, but Himself, most powerful, by the aid of His grace makes the opportunity, adapting to Himself not only the free choice of this or that man, but whatever one to whom such aid is granted — at whatever time it be granted — He draws to Himself by perfecting it and elevating it, that it may freely consent and concord with Him.

This is the grace which is rejected by no hard heart. This is the legitimate concord through which free choice is made freer by serving God — to serve whom is to reign — and to dominate those actions. But you wish the divine grace to serve the singular propriety of the free choice of this man, if it be given to him at an opportune time. Which opportuneness you take from no other clock than from the singular propriety of that free choice as it is the object of your middle and conditioned knowledge. This is not an invention of the holy fathers, but yours; concerning which we have said many things elsewhere. We, therefore, do not destroy free choice in the use of its proper freedom, as you think, but rather build it up and perfect it by the aid of grace, and at once make it humble, that it glory not in itself but in God, while it has no good which it does not receive from God the savior through the merits of Christ. But if with an aid really equal — nay, with a lesser one, as you confess — it happens that one man is converted and receives a greater justifying grace, and another with a greater aid is not converted — or, if he is converted, rises less grateful — a man will indeed be able to glory in himself, since he owes not all to the grace of God through Jesus Christ, but will ascribe it partly — nay, principally — to the propriety of free choice, which physically determined itself by itself alone, and strove more by its own faculty. To God you ascribe only moral causality with respect to the good use of free choice, insofar as He opportunely brought aid to this one and not to another. Indeed, if anyone thus prayed to God: Lord, give me the aid of Thy grace at an opportune time, and I of myself promise that I shall do by my own strength all that Thou commandest. Do Thou begin by arousing me with opportune prevenient aid, and I by my own strength shall confirm what Thou commandest and counselest and persuadest — as a merely moral cause — but I alone shall be the physical cause. Do Thou adapt and contemper the aid of Thy grace, to be given opportunely to me; but I alone doing what Thou commandest. This prayer savors of pride to us. But in truth, if it is as you say — that God with respect to the determination of free choice is only a moral cause, giving the aid of prevenient grace at an opportune time — is there nothing of pride in that prayer, since it would be founded in truth? But how far this is dissonant from the doctrine of the fathers and of sacred scripture we have prosecuted more broadly elsewhere. Now let these things suffice as an antidote against your reply. For that reason we shall show more briefly that it does not satisfy the truth.

14. — SOCIETAS. — Fourthly, we assert that the same prevenient aid, as it is precisely from God and from the wisdom and will of God without another freely acting cause, is completely efficacious in the genus of prevenient cause. For from God it receives its entity and its force for acting supernaturally, and the congruity which it has with the will, and finally the infallibility toward the conversion of the will, insofar as it proceeds with Him precognizing that the will, in such circumstances, will consent to such grace from the motion of grace itself.

M. BAÑES. — You posit a fourth assertion, and its reason. As to the assertion indeed I would easily agree with you — with that addition, namely, "in the genus of prevenient cause" — if you spoke of the prevention which is before in time than the consent of the will. For thus it is most true that every aid of God is efficacious and actual and complete for that effect for the effecting of which it is sent from the absolute will of God. Therefore the aid which he receives who is not converted is nevertheless efficacious and effective for the arousing of the mind and the invitation to the good, and it is a sufficient cause for condemning the man who by his own strength wills not to accept the banquet, and resists God inviting and arousing. And in this way you rightly say that the same prevenient aid, as it is precisely from God, is completely efficacious — not indeed simply, but in the genus of prevenient cause before in time than man furnishes consent. Yet when afterwards you render the reason, you show openly enough that you speak of the prevenient aid as it has complete efficacy together with the consent of free choice. And indeed, if you attributed this complete efficacy to it as it is precisely from God — not only as from a moral cause, but also as really and physically effecting the completion of the efficacy — we would agree with you too. For although we do not deny that the complete efficacy of the aid is exercised not without us consenting, yet we deny that the virtue of effecting consent with us comes from any other — as from a cause not only moral but also physical — than from God. It remains, therefore, that in that fourth assertion we agree in words only, but in the thing itself are far different. For we ascribe the force of the efficacious aid — whose effect is the good use of free choice — to God as to a truly and really and physically efficient cause. But you assign no physical cause of that real and physical complete efficacy besides the singular propriety of the free choice of this man, precognized by God as going to consent, constituted in such circumstances. In which matter God Himself holds Himself only as a moral cause, who precognized that opportuneness — although, as we shall presently see, you attribute to God physical causality with respect to the entity of the aid and the supernatural virtue which is intimately in it.

15. — SOCIETAS. — Fifthly, it is answered that the efficacy of prevenient grace is wholly had from God alone as from the cause properly and directly effecting it, and depends in its entity and supernatural force in no way upon the freedom of the will.

M. BAÑES. — Behold, you assert physical efficiency in God with respect to the whole efficacy of prevenient grace — which you most rightly deny to depend in any way upon the freedom of the human will. But indeed you would have spoken better had you said "the sufficiency of prevenient grace is wholly had from God alone as from the cause properly and directly effecting it" — so as to speak consequently to your opinion. For you intend the aid of prevenient grace preceding before in time the future connection to be the same, as it were continued — neither greater entitatively, nor in physical activity, when its efficacy is completed. And consequently I say you would have put "sufficiency" much more properly in place of "efficacy," that we not labor in equivocation. For we do not call that an efficacious aid which is merely effective, still needing a more special motion of God that free choice actually consent; but we call the aid of prevenient grace efficacious — not that which antecedently precedes in time, before man consents — rather, we call the aid of prevenient grace efficacious that which, before in nature than free choice, concurs toward the pious conversion of him who is justified. And this is the real, true and physical complete efficacy, wholly coming from the absolute will of God and the purpose of God, intimately and physically operating with free choice that which He decreed from eternity to be future; for He willed nothing from eternity which He Himself did not physically make. But that it may appear how far you are from the understanding of this pious truth, say on further.

16. — SOCIETAS. — Yet its infallible connection with future consent, which is also comprehended in complete efficacy, since according to the faith it cannot be without free choice operating from the motion of grace, must in some way be from it — at least remotely and indirectly.

M. BAÑES. — If you assigned this infallible connection to God and to His aid as to a real and physical cause, there would be no need of dispute. For we likewise confess that that infallible connection cannot have free choice for its cause — free choice which according to itself is a faculty indifferent to either alternative. But because you deny that God is the real or physical cause of that infallible connection, but say He is only its moral cause — insofar as God precognized what free choice would do, constituted in such circumstances, and by His mercy decreed to give the aid at that opportune time to one by whom He would do what God in him would not do as a directly and intimately efficient cause really effecting consent — which you call physical influence — this is what we bear with difficulty. For you wish to take away from God what is proper to Him: to work all in all — even the pious and free act of willing itself — far more perfectly than we work. For He Himself, that we may work, works; but not conversely — from our operation does He Himself work. I know that by this reason you are convinced to deny this physical causality on the part of God, since otherwise the freedom of man in the use of free choice is not preserved. But indeed — to be silent meanwhile of what, by your leave I would say, you are ignorant of: the legitimate definition of free choice, as I showed more broadly in the Apologia which was offered on the part of the Dominican Friars to the supreme Tribunal of the holy Inquisition — I shall contend with you by a like argument. For if such is the propriety of the free choice of this man who is converted, that, constituted in such circumstances, that man will so determinately operate with utmost certainty — for neither from conditioned knowledge does it receive a determinate determination and a physical force of determining itself — then, constituted in those circumstances, he does not remain indifferent to either alternative. Otherwise the foreknowledge of God would be fallible — nay, even that true conditioned knowledge would be false. Therefore, if man then does not remain indifferent, he will not operate freely, but from the necessity of his singular nature — in whose definition it is radically that he so operate certainly and determinately while he is constituted in such circumstances.

Secondly, I argue also in your manner against you. Free choice is that which, with all requisites for acting posited, can both act and not act, or act the contrary. But with all your requisites for consent posited, it is impossible for the will not to consent. Therefore it does not consent freely. I prove the minor. For you posit only three things necessary for the complete efficacy of the aid of prevenient grace: namely, 1st, the entity of the aid with its force and motion by which the mind of man is aroused; 2nd, the congruity and contemperation with free choice according to the opportuneness of time; 3rd, the infallible foreknowledge of God — from which the efficacy is completed. But with these posited, it is impossible for the will not to consent. Therefore it does not consent freely. It is confirmed. This is a necessary consequence: those three are posited, therefore the will consents. The antecedent is the cause of the consequence; and it is not in the power of man: therefore neither is the consequent. The minor you will not deny, unless you wish to sing the palinode of what you said in paragraphs 15 and 16, and before. Therefore the consequent is true.

Such arguments you often object against our opinion. But we retort the same against yours — which, when you shall have solved, deny ours. I know, however, that in solving them you must flee to the infinity of middle or conditioned knowledge. But we have no less sacred and safe a shrine to which we can flee: the infinity of the divine omnipotence. For because God has an illimited mode of being, He is not comprehended by the finite rules of other causes, nor limited in His mode of operating by maxims drawn from second causes. Thus, therefore, we say that God strongly and sweetly moves free choice to act rightly, by an aid efficacious physically and morally. For God concurs with free choice toward the entity itself of the action and toward its morality, while He inwardly actually illuminates that the good be proposed here and now, and at once inspires and moves the will to elect what is proposed. Each of us, therefore, confesses the incomprehensible mode by which the Holy Spirit is wonderful in the sanctification of men — since for each of us it is necessary, for solving the arguments of heretics, to recur to infinity. You indeed to the recently invented middle knowledge, which you judge to be as it were the key of David which alone opens the mystery of the concordance of efficacious divine aid with the free choice of man — which, if the holy fathers had obtained it, they would easily have drawn the Pelagians to their opinion, as one of yours asserts in his Concordia — and now too you trust by this way to free the Lutherans, who deny free choice, from this error. But we do not want this middle or conditioned knowledge as explained by you, because it at last grants to the choice of man as its own what belongs to God alone — namely, that the ultimate resolution of the good use of free choice be reduced to its singular propriety as to a real and physical cause — while to God it attributes only moral causality, because He gave the aid at an opportune time.

17. — SOCIETAS. — Yet in some way it must be from it — at least remotely and indirectly — not indeed as from a cause in any way inflowing into grace itself or about to operate from its own virtue, but as from a less principal cause, subordinated to God, about to effect consent from the motion of grace together with grace itself — to which, as to an effect, complete efficacy is referred, and with which it is infallibly connected.

M. BAÑES. — Many things you say here which are worthy of note. I note first that you say complete efficacy necessarily comes in some way from free choice — at least remotely and indirectly. I note secondly that you deny free choice in any way to inflow into grace itself, or to be about to operate from its own virtue. I note thirdly that afterwards, explaining that mode of dependence of completely efficacious aid upon free choice, you say it is from it as from a less principal cause, subordinated to God, and effecting consent from the motion of grace. To which consent you say fourthly that complete efficacy is referred as to an effect, and with which it is infallibly connected. Concerning these four dicta I judge thus: that they cannot agree among themselves. For the first dictum is dissonant with the third. The reason is that a cause subordinated to God, and which from the motion of grace effects consent together with grace itself, cannot be called a remote and indirect cause according to true philosophy — although it be a less principal cause. I marvel, therefore, that, though you are philosophers, you so speak, and insinuate that free choice elevated from the motion of grace is the remote and indirect cause of its own consent. For you would equally say that the intellect elevated by the light of glory is the remote and indirect cause of the beatific vision. We indeed willingly grant that our free choice, thus elevated, effects its proper consent as a proximate and direct cause — although it be a less principal and secondary cause. Then as to what you say in the fourth place — that complete efficacy is referred to consent as to an effect with which it is infallibly connected — it is obscure. For if you wish to hold that the complete force of the efficacy of the aid is present to free choice before, at least by priority of nature, completely and formally perfecting it as potent to operate, this indeed we shall easily grant. But if you intend that the complete efficacy of the aid be said and be complete not by something intrinsic essentially, but from the effect, this is what we judge to be false and what you hide with a great many words.

For we acknowledge the whole intrinsic force of the aid to come completely from God. But the effect we attribute not only to grace, but to elevated free choice as to a subordinated and prevenient cause. And by this way so far are we from destroying free choice that rather we perfect it.

But your way is rather precipitated than built up, while to its singular propriety is accommodated — by a certain moral accommodation on the part of God who knows that singular propriety and wills to give at an opportune time that equal aid — the equal aid which in another has not had an effect. Speak, I beseech you, as you were accustomed, openly, and refer it to innate freedom — and to it alone as to the ultimate real and physical root — why one man who is converted is discerned from another who is not converted, though each has received equal effective forces of auxiliar grace. Finally, by this manner of speaking concerning merely moral efficacy on the part of God and of His aid — which is reduced only to the opportuneness of time — it is not satisfied, as you intend, to human ingenuity why God confers upon this man at an opportune time the aid by which he is converted, and does not confer it at an opportune time upon another man. For if it is not given at an opportune time, that man will not be able with that aid to believe or to be converted. Nor is it in his power that that aid be given to him at an opportune time — and consequently he did not sin in not believing. Just as you too argue against our opinion, as Suarez argues in the brief resolution concerning concurrence and efficacious aid, p. 372, n. 15, 16, 17 and 18. You therefore stick in the same rut in which you think we stick.

18. — SOCIETAS. — To the second question it is answered that it is not seated in the power of free choice properly to render the aids of prevenient grace efficacious, as if our choice inflowed into them some force or efficacy.

M. BAÑES. — This dictum, as it sounds, is most true. Yet in those words — namely, "properly to render, as if to inflow force or efficacy" — you seem to insinuate that in some way free choice has the power of making the aids efficacious, according to the mode which you posited in the preceding paragraph — denying to free choice what ought to be granted. But proceed to the reply.

19. — SOCIETAS. — Or to make them to operate, since rather on the contrary the efficacious aids themselves effect that free choice operates.

M. BAÑES. — If you said — since rather on the contrary the efficacious aids themselves morally effect, not as a physical cause, that free choice operates, for the reason that they were given to it at an opportune time — you would indeed speak more conformably to your opinion. For you deny that physical efficacy inheres in the divine aids with respect to the consent of free choice. For if you granted a physical efficacy which infallibly effects that free choice operates, we would dispute in vain concerning the understanding of the efficacy of the divine aid. But if you speak of efficacy and moral efficiency when you say that the aids themselves effect that free choice operates, why do you fear to grant that free choice makes, as a physical cause, that the aid itself operates physically with it? For you will not deny free choice to be the physical cause of its own consent, and not only the moral one.

20. — SOCIETAS. — Yet it is in the power of free choice, which it has from the very motion of supernatural grace, to operate consent efficaciously.

M. BAÑES. — When, therefore, free choice efficaciously operates consent by the power which it has from the very motion of supernatural grace, it also makes grace itself operate with it not only morally but physically. But since grace does not have this physical efficiency according to itself, as it is from God alone, it must receive it from free choice — and consequently free choice is what makes grace itself operate, and not conversely: grace itself effects that free choice operates by concurring physically with it. Then free choice is also, according to you, the efficient cause completing the efficacy of prevenient grace, since it does not have completion in itself and as it is from God.

21. — SOCIETAS. — Without the order to which consent — as to an effect infallibly future from grace and free choice — the prevenient aids of grace are not efficacious.

M. BAÑES. — It is marvelous how much obscurity you affect. But I well understand where you tend. For I know that efficacious aid has an infallible order to consent as to an effect; but yet the effect itself which is consent furnishes no activity to the efficacious aid itself — which you too say in paragraph 19. Now, therefore, I would ask you whether that infallibility of future consent arises from the effect, or rather from the efficacious aid of grace, or from efficacious grace itself together with free choice. The first I do not believe you grant: that the effect itself be the cause of its own infallibility. Nor will you grant the second. Otherwise the grace which you call efficacious would always have its infallible effect in whomever it were received. Nor finally will you grant the third. For free choice does not have infallibility according to itself so as to be able to furnish it to efficacious grace, nor does efficacious grace bring it with it. It necessarily follows that that infallibility has no physical cause, but only a moral one — namely, the divine will which decreed something infallibly future which it itself was not going to operate physically. For the reason that you say the aid of grace whose physical cause is the divine will does not have according to itself an infallible physical efficacy, but only a moral one on account of the opportuneness of the time in which it is conferred upon man. And finally you are consequently proved to deny that complete efficacy has a physical completion, but only a moral one — since the infallibility which completes it is only a moral mode, having no physical cause. For neither foreknowledge nor your conditioned knowledge physically effect that infallibility and certitude of the effect.

But we posit as cause also physical: the divine will and the absolute purpose of God — conferring nevertheless the force of efficacy upon the aid and the motion of His grace — so that most certainly, from that moral and physical certitude, whatever free choice receiving such aid consents. Behold how our difference is not a question of name.

22. — SOCIETAS. — By reason of which order or respect, if anyone in the same sense in which we say that without any respect those aids are not efficacious, and with it are efficacious, shall have said so, certainly with him the question will seem to be only of name.

M. BAÑES. — We indeed assert the concomitance of that respect and order to the effect — and conversely, the concomitance of the effect itself with that order and respect — but in reality we hold otherwise concerning the efficacy itself of the aid. For you formally complete it from the infallibly foreknown effect; but we assert that, as such aid is from God, it brings with it complete efficacy for infallibly and physically moving free choice — strongly and sweetly, and according to its nature — and a free consent, which you deny, because you say it is not intelligible how free choice remains freely using its freedom. But we grant it a free use — not as perfect as God's, but as befits a free creature subordinated to the free choice of God, in whose hand is the heart of the King, to turn it whithersoever He wills.

23. — SOCIETAS. — Finally, it is seated in the freedom of free choice that the aids of prevenient grace be and be rendered properly inefficacious — not indeed because free choice detracts or can detract from them the intrinsic virtue which those aids have through and from themselves, but because it can resist it and posit an obstacle.

M. BAÑES. — At first sight you seem to deny what you assert in paragraphs 15, 16 and 17. But if anyone shall have looked within, you do not say the contrary.

For there you speak of the completion of efficacious grace, but here you speak of efficacious aid with incomplete efficacy — with the congruity of the opportuneness of time with free choice set aside, and consequently with the infallibility of future consent set aside. And concerning such aid you assert that it is in the power of free choice to render it inefficacious. You would have said better "not efficacious," and much better "not effecting" — insofar as free choice, even with it standing, wills not to operate with it. And indeed we never call such aid efficacious. For it does not come from the efficacious and absolute will of God willing man to be converted. For if it so came, just as no one can resist the absolute will of God, as is plain from the sacred writings, so it does not stand that anyone with a hard heart resists such a motion from the efficacious aid of God.

You see how we differ not only in reality, but also in the definition of efficacious aid. For you altogether deny that such an efficacious aid is possible with the freedom of man preserved; and therefore you posit another efficacy, after the likeness of the efficacy of corporeal medicine — which does not always have the effect of health, because it is not always actuated by the natural living virtue, which is the principal cause physically healing itself when aided by medicine. Thus you certainly posit this divine medicine of prevenient grace in the power of free choice, so that free choice, aided by it, heals itself — or, aided by it, wills not to be healed — though yet the medicine itself is altogether the same in itself when it is healed and when it is not healed. And you wish this indifference of the divine medicine always to be in whatever divine aid, that the freedom of man be preserved. But we believe a certain divine medicine to be so efficacious that everyone to whomsoever it is given is healed by the supreme physician God as by a physical cause physically effecting both the aid and the health — and not only operating morally because at an opportune time He gave a medicine indifferent of itself; which we judge unworthy of the divine majesty, as has already been said.

24. — SOCIETAS. — But because it can resist it and posit an obstacle. For something necessarily connoted is posited, without respect to which these aids of grace are not completely efficacious — which suffices for it to be said, not improperly, that it renders them inefficacious — that is, not having that complement of efficacy which comprehends the order to consent infallibly future from grace and free choice.

M. BAÑES. — Here you now explain sufficiently how limited an efficacy you attribute to every divine aid: that you wish it always to remain the same indifferent according to itself, but its complete efficacy toward something extrinsic necessarily connoted — with respect to which you make the aids of divine grace completely efficacious. But I marvel that thence, as it were, you infer that this suffices for free choice to be said, not improperly, to render the divine aids inefficacious — that is, not having that complement of efficacy. I ask you: if God wills that those aids have the complement of efficacy, does it ever stand with this that free choice does not consent? For if it is so that these two cannot stand together, it will be an argument against you: therefore free choice does not remain indifferent to consenting. But if they can stand together, another unfitting consequence follows: that God does not completely effect what He absolutely wills to complete. And by this way you fall into the same straits which you so greatly desire to avoid.

25. — SOCIETAS. — To the third question it is answered: With the aid of grace prevenient in every way, truly and properly efficacious, posited, the dissent of free choice can stand together with its whole intrinsic entity, virtue and motion. Yet it neither stands nor can stand together with the integral and complete account of efficacy.

M. BAÑES. — You affirm one thing and deny another. But if you attend, from the second and the first there is openly gathered that the integral and complete account of efficacy is not a mode truly and properly of the efficacious aid itself. For in that universal in which you say "with an aid efficacious truly and properly in every way," you do not include the integral and complete account of efficacy. For if you included it, your assertion would imply a contradiction. Since in the first part you assert that the dissent of free choice can stand together with an aid truly and properly efficacious in every way; but in the second part you denied that it can stand with the integral and complete account of efficacy. Therefore, from your opinion, this integral and complete account of efficacy is not a mode of an aid truly and properly efficacious, but a certain denomination from the extrinsic, connoting a respect to something extrinsic — as you also insinuated in the preceding and prosecute in the following.

26. — SOCIETAS. — Since the dissent of the will neither stands nor can stand with the order of grace to consent infallibly future from itself and from free choice; which ordering, however, we said to be comprehended in the complete account of efficacy. And this is called efficacious grace taken in the first way.

M. BAÑES. — If the order of grace to consent is intrinsic to it, then indeed, before consent arrives, that grace has such an order from God ordering that aid to consent infallibly future later in time. Then thus I argue: In that middle time free choice will be able to dissent: therefore dissent can meanwhile stand together with that order of grace to consent, however infallibly future. But if you understand it concerning the order of auxiliar grace concomitant with consent already, then indeed you do not answer the question proposed, saying that the dissent of the will neither stands nor can stand with the order of grace to present consent. For this would be to say that dissent cannot stand together with consent. Behold how you delude the interrogation with words.

Finally, where you say "and this is called efficacious grace taken in the first way," you ought to have explained what you designate by the pronoun "this." For it seems openly to refer to the grace concerning which in the immediately preceding clause you had said it cannot stand together with dissent. But if it is so, you contradict yourselves in that which above, secondly, you distinguished: that efficacious grace can be taken in two ways — and in the first way you did not comprehend grace with complete efficacy. This complete efficacy of grace, therefore, is not to be said to be taken in the first way. But perhaps you will say it was a scribe's error. But to the contrary is that you immediately subjoin in the following: "but if efficacious grace be taken in the second way," and the rest.

27. — SOCIETAS. — But if efficacious grace be taken in the second way — which together with the will produces conversion and pious operation — the aforesaid question can easily be answered.

M. BAÑES. — Since above, in paragraph 9, you have already made discourse more than enough concerning efficacious grace of complete efficacy, and in that sense attempted to answer the questions proposed, I do not know to what end you now turn again to grace taken in the second way. But indeed, as I noted in the beginning, that distinction of yours, if we press the signification of the words, was not properly a distinction. Nevertheless, in the first member of the division I know you wished to be understood: that efficacious grace is that which is effective on account of the force imparted to it by God for the conversion of the will — yet not about to effect this effect, unless there accede its congruity to the free choice of this man, with that infallibility of future consent which you have repeated so very often. And concerning it you asserted a great many things. I do not know to what end you prepare to answer the questions proposed again concerning this same grace of complete efficacy — for in paragraphs 9 and 10 you answered concerning the complete efficacy of grace.

28. — SOCIETAS. — To the first question, therefore, it is answered that the whole efficacy of prevenient grace is not from God as from the sole total and sole efficient cause, but rather is from God and from free choice as from two properly efficient causes.

M. BAÑES. — Since you intend to comprehend in efficacious grace taken in the second way the effect itself which is consent, it is certain that as to this complement of that grace it is not from God alone, but at once from free choice as from two properly efficient causes. But I marvel that you did not say "partial" — of which neither inflows into the other. Just as two men dragging a ship are partial causes, while neither inflows force into the other, but both together into the effect. This, however, is the doctrine of the leaders of your Society. I certainly do not know why you did not set it down here. For it was an opportune time to explain better the causality of free choice.

29. — SOCIETAS. — Of which free choice is subordinated to God in acting.

M. BAÑES. — You rightly added what we willingly embrace. Yet I do not know whether by this subordination you understand only the principality of causality in God — as He is a partial cause by inflowing into the effect, not into the second cause subordinated to Himself. But because you do not explain it, I am unwilling to take it in the worse part, nor to dwell in the confutation of that false doctrine which your doctor Francisco Suarez strives to introduce into the schools.

30. — SOCIETAS. — Whence such an aid is neither of itself, nor as it is precisely from God, completely efficacious with that efficacy which involves actual efficiency.

M. BAÑES. — It is marvelous that in the above paragraphs you said the integral and whole and intrinsic efficacy of grace to be precisely from God alone, and now deny it to be completely efficacious, unless it involve actual efficiency. By this way you seem to delude the mind of the questioner. For it is established that actual efficiency does not complete the intrinsic force of efficacious aid, but only from the effect, as it were a posteriori and from the extrinsic, is the aid demonstrated to have been efficacious. But the interrogation proposed to us asks concerning the whole efficacy of the aid of prevenient grace; it does not ask concerning the extrinsic completion of the effect, concerning which we do not dispute. Wherefore it was to be answered absolutely concerning the intrinsic totality and completion of the efficacy of the divine aid of grace itself. To which question ours answer affirmatively, but yours negatively. For concerning consent — which is the effect of the good use of free choice — there can be no difference among Catholics as to this: that it is not only from God, but also from our free choice. We say it is thus from free choice that even the good use itself of free choice is from the efficacious aid as it is from God intimately and really moving free choice to consent. But you in this part acknowledge only moral causality in God — insofar as at an opportune time He gave that aid when He foreknew that free choice would use that aid well — yet He does not really make it use well. Since otherwise you think the freedom of choice is not preserved. But we, on the contrary, assert that by this way it is perfected and as it were deified. For qui spiritu Dei aguntur, hi sunt filii Dei (Rom. 8, 14) and qui adhaeret Deo unus spiritus est (I Cor. 6, 17). The Lutherans, wishing to comprehend this mystery and not prevailing, turned into insanity and deny free choice. Wherefore Catholic theologians ought not approve the opinions of the Lutherans, which they make from antecedents — opinions which are at least probable among Catholic theologians. Lest meanwhile I say more, until the Apostolic See interpose its censure.

31. — SOCIETAS. — To the second. It is not seated in the natural power of free choice properly to render the aids of prevenient grace efficacious — that is, to attribute some force or efficacy to the aids themselves.

M. BAÑES. — This has now often been inculcated by you — with which, however, you wish to stand: that free choice too, although it does not render the divine aids efficacious, yet properly renders them completely efficacious, as is plain from what you say in the two preceding paragraphs.

32. — SOCIETAS. — Yet in its supernatural power, which it has from the motion of grace, it is seated to effect pious consent.

M. BAÑES. — This too we judge most true; but besides we add that from the efficacious motion of grace free choice receives not only power, but also the infallible upholding of God, that it most certainly elect to effect pious consent. In which matter you are far different from us, and from the doctrine of Saint Thomas and Saint Augustine, as we showed broadly elsewhere.

33. — SOCIETAS. — By which, just as it is constituted and rendered actually efficient, so also it is efficacious according to this second acceptation.

M. BAÑES. — You always persist in this: that no grace be so efficacious in itself and as it is from God that from it the good election of free choice infallibly follows — but you always denominate the complete efficacy of grace from the effect, and of the infallibility of that effect you assign no other truly real or physical cause (as you speak) besides free choice.

34. — SOCIETAS. — But it is seated in the natural power of free choice properly to render the aids of prevenient grace inefficacious.

M. BAÑES. — We indeed know that it is seated in the natural power of free choice to fail from the good, or to sin — the motion of prevenient grace notwithstanding, which before in time arouses and invites free choice — according to that: Vocavi et renuistis (Prov. 1, 24). But we assert some motion of prevenient grace — not by priority of time, but by priority of causality — to be so efficacious, as it is from God, that with it the dissent of free choice cannot stand together — just as it cannot stand with the absolute will of God willing here and now to convert man to Himself. This is what perturbs you, thinking that by this way the freedom of choice in its exercise is totally destroyed; concerning which enough has been said above.

35. — SOCIETAS. — Not because it can take away from them the virtue which they have through themselves.

M. BAÑES. — With those aids indeed remaining, free choice will not be able to take away from them the force which they have through themselves and as they are from God — even if we spoke of the aids which before in time prevene the good will. Nevertheless, from free choice is not totally taken the power which by nature it has of refusing, and of casting from itself those aids prevenient before in time, according to that of Proverbs 1: Vocavi et renuistis. And this is to close the eyes and to harden the heart.

But if we speak of efficacious aid as it proceeds from the absolute will of God — which is also prevenient grace by priority of causality — we deny that the dissent of the will can stand with it; because such aid brings with it the necessary consequence of the consent of free choice, which God with it wills to make through that aid.

Thus in this we differ: that you seek the complement of the efficacy of the aid wholly from the extrinsic — namely, from the propriety of free choice, and from the opportuneness of the time in which God willed to give that aid — and you grant to God Himself no physical causality with respect to the determination of free choice, but only moral; but physical determination you grant to free choice alone. Which you ought not grant even according to true philosophy, according to the discourse which Saint Thomas makes, 1a 2ae, q. 109, a. 1 ad 2, and 2 — especially to the first argument.

36. — SOCIETAS. — But because it can impede them from effecting, and consequently make them not to be efficacious with that efficacy which is conjoined with actual efficiency, concerning which we now treat.

M. BAÑES. — We too posit the efficacy of certain aids which is conjoined with actual efficiency through itself. But you assert such a conjunction to happen through accident, since you constitute physical determination in free choice alone; but in God moral, as has already been said.

37. — SOCIETAS. — To the third. With the aid of prevenient grace, truly and properly efficacious in its whole entity and intrinsic virtue, posited in the will, the dissent of the human will can stand together.

M. BAÑES. — This you have said so very often in the preceding, because you acknowledge no intrinsic efficacy in the aid of grace as it really proceeds from God, from which, by necessity of the consequence, the good election of the will infallibly follows.

38. — SOCIETAS. — Yet with the integral and complete efficacy of the prevenient aid, which involves the very efficiency of consent, the dissent of the will can neither stand together.

M. BAÑES. — It would have sufficed to say "with the complete efficacy of the prevenient aid." For you attributed its integrity above, with the totality of efficacy, as something intrinsic to God alone as to the efficient cause; but of the completion of efficacy, which consists in the use of it, you admit no physically determining cause besides free choice. When, therefore, you say that with such complete grace the dissent of the will cannot stand, it is just as if you said that with consent — which is the complement of grace — dissent cannot stand — and you delude the intent of the interrogation with words. For what prudent man could ask whether dissent could stand with consent? But the mind of the interrogation is whether there be given some aid of prevenient grace so efficacious of itself, as it proceeds from God, that with it the dissent of free choice cannot stand — to which you in the preceding many times answered negatively. For the rest, concerning our opinion and the confirming of its truth, we have said more than enough in the Apologia which was sent to the Apostolic See by the Supreme Tribunal of the Spanish Inquisition. And therefore let these things hitherto concerning the advertence about your question suffice.

(Rome, Santa Sabina, General Archive of the Order of Preachers, XIV-165.)