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

It is asked what is to be held concerning this proposition: The free choice of man holds itself passively with respect to the reception of efficacious aid, and freely. Passively indeed, inasmuch as it receives it from God; for everything receiving as such holds itself in some way passively. Freely, however, since it can dissent from that motion, and it operates freely with it.

It is answered that the aforesaid proposition is worthy of no censure, but is rather necessary in the sense which it itself explains.

For the greater understanding of this I note that two things can be considered in efficacious aid: both that it is an aid, and that it is efficacious. Inasmuch as it is an aid, it can be considered as it is a certain inspiration forestalling our deliberation. And in this way it is established that free choice does not hold itself freely in any genus of efficient cause with respect to that inspiration; for man neither deliberates nor can deliberate the fact that he is inspired by God. Nevertheless it stands with this that that inspiration is a vital action both of the illumined intellect and of the will which is inspired, in which the inspiration itself is as it were the first motion, in which there is neither merit nor demerit, although the intellect and the will hold themselves actively, yet only physically.

The second is what is considered in efficacious aid: the efficacy itself which is actually ordered to the act of believing or to the act of contrition. And with respect to this efficacy or efficacious power, our free choice is the cause of it neither physically nor morally, but the aid itself has it as it proceeds from God.

Nevertheless it stands with this that free choice concurs to the effect of that power actively, both physically and morally: actively indeed physically, since to believe, to love, and to repent are vital actions; morally truly, since the man himself, thus aided, deliberates to act thus. Nor is it repugnant to this deliberation that he deliberates infallibly, inasmuch as God wills him and makes him act sweetly.

Hence what is said in the last part of the aforesaid proposition — "freely, however, since it can dissent from that motion, and it operates freely with it" — is to be understood as to the effect and term of the motion. For as to the physical premotion of the inspiring God according to itself, we do not hold ourselves freely, but rather in the moral genus we hold ourselves passively, although only physically do the powers themselves hold themselves actively, since they are vital actions. But as to the effect of believing and loving God, man freely uses such efficacious aid, although he operates infallibly.

Nor does what is said in the Council of Trent, sess. 6, cap. 5 et ca. 3, stand in the way, since there is found a definition against those asserting that free choice holds itself merely passively, like some empty thing. Likewise, what is said in c. 5 — that one receiving that inspiration can cast it away — is necessarily to be understood of after he has received it; for then he can reject it, refusing to operate with it. For it is certain that the sudden motions and inspirations of God are wrought in us by God before all our deliberation, according to the doctrine of the Council of Orange, canon 20: 'many good things come to be in man which man does not do.'

It is therefore not repugnant that the free choice of man, with respect to the reception of efficacious aid, should in some way hold itself passively, and at the same time also freely, under different aspects, as has been explained.

For the divine aid, however efficacious of itself as it proceeds from God, will not exercise its efficacy without our consenting. But this good consent and good use does not forestall the efficacy of the aid, but is rather forestalled by it. Nor can the difference be reduced to that good use as to a first cause. Why this man is converted and the other is not converted is to be reduced to the divine will, which distinguishes the one from the other by giving to the one what He has not given to the other, according to the most widely known doctrine of Saint Augustine in the Enchiridion, ch. 32 and ch. 91. Let them read these testimonies, so that it may be clear how far they depart from the doctrine of Saint Augustine — both those who acknowledge no other efficacy of equal aid than that proceeding from inborn freedom, and also those who, while positing a physical equality of the aid and in its absolute entity, say that it is morally and respectively greater and is a greater benefit because at an opportune time to one and not to the other, as Doctor Suarez of the Society says in the opuscule which he most recently committed to the press at Madrid in the present year 1599, De concursu, motione et auxilio Dei, book 3, ch. 20, where he also defends the doctrine of Molina. I do not know whether this book has been brought to Rome, in which he teaches very many things contrary to the doctrine of Saint Thomas and the doctrine of Saint Augustine, lest we say more for now.

(Roma, Biblioteca Angelica. Cod. 862, ff. 282-283).