De gratia Redemptoris

In this thesis the question at issue is one controverted among Catholic theologians.

It has been proved that there is grace truly and merely sufficient, and further that there is efficacious grace, to which an antecedent efficacy of operation is to be attributed. The question is how this antecedent efficacy of efficacious grace is to be explained, whence it is to be derived, or in what consists the difference between grace truly and merely sufficient, which has the efficacy of power, and efficacious grace, to which belongs the antecedent efficacy of operation. The business is to explain that threefold infallibility, namely the objective, the cognitive and the affective.

Various systems have been laid down on this matter. To satisfy its purpose a system must not only explain that threefold infallibility, but must further not offend against any truth. For the question is not only of the singular question of the efficacy of grace, but this question is intimately connected with many others. But a theological system ought to be such as to give an explanation of all those truths without offending against any. Now the truths which come into question here are: 1) God's serious universal salvific will; 2) God's special love for the predestined; 3) the existence of grace truly and merely sufficient, which so suffices that it is man's fault if the salutary act does not follow, so that on God's part the conferring of this grace truly has the character of a benefit; 4) the infallible efficacy of efficacious grace (the threefold infallibility); 5) the freedom of man under the motion of grace.

As soon as any system offends against one of these truths, it can no longer be true, even if it seems to explain many others well.

The thesis has three parts, in which the three principal systems are set out and judged.

God wills all men to be saved, unless by the salvation of all higher ends should be hindered. Since this is so, God, antecedently to the foreseen good or evil use of the created free will, has elected certain determinate men to a determinate degree of eternal glory (predestination to glory taken precisely, before foreseen merits); the rest he passed over in the same sign of reason (antecedent negative reprobation). But the predestined must merit eternal glory for themselves; and therefore God so orders their life and chooses such means for them that in death they are found in the state of grace and with that merit which corresponds to the glory previously predestined to them. In consequence of the absolute election to glory, therefore, he must give them the gift of perseverance and efficacious graces in such a way that in fact they acquire that merit for themselves. But the life of those who are antecedently negatively reprobate must be so ordered that they do not die in the state of grace; they must therefore receive graces which are finally merely sufficient¹,

The helps of efficacious grace, by which God brings the elect to their end, are nothing other than physical predeterminations to salutary acts. Now physical predetermination is an entity created and received in the creature, which is the physical cause of the act, which in a sign antecedent to its own determination determines the free creature to the placing of a determinate act, in such a way that, this created entity being posited, it is repugnant that the act not be placed, and yet it is placed freely. Without predetermination the act cannot be done; but the conferring of this entity is not in the power of the creature, but depends on the will of God alone. Since physical predetermination has been treated in the treatise De Deo uno², it may suffice to set down a few things here. “The efficacy of the help of prevenient grace and its infallible connexion with the free cooperation of the will is wholly founded on and drawn from, as from its first root, the omnipotence of God, and from the absolute and efficacious decree of his will willing that the man whom he moves be converted and act piously; nor does this efficacy in any way depend, even as on a condition without which it would not be, on the future cooperation of the created will, although the free act by which a man perseveres depends effectively on his will moved by God”³. The intrinsic predetermination of our will “is made through a previous motion received in the will, whose power and efficacy depend on the efficacy of the divine will”⁴. “What therefore we assert in the conclusion is that God, by the previous motion by which he determines the will to act, is the cause not only moral, by way of one alluring, counselling, persuading, or in any way whatever moving interiorly in a moral manner, but also by way of one perfecting, or as a cause truly and properly efficient, of the will's willing this or that good in particular”⁵. “God by an actual efficacious motion after the manner of a physical cause, that is, truly and efficiently, predetermines the will of man to free good acts, so that the will moved by God through such a help freely and infallibly determines itself to the second act to be freely produced”⁶.

Sufficient grace is conceived as follows: “From these principles, which have place in every state, the Thomists infer that a twofold grace is necessary in order to salvation, both in the state of innocence and in the state of fallen nature: the one less perfect and less powerful, which gives only the power, elevates a man and renders him apt for a supernatural act, and is called sufficient; the other more perfect and more powerful, which determines the power and confers the action, and is called efficacious; so that it never happens that this power, which sufficient grace confers, acts or obtains its principal and ultimate effect except by the help of efficacious grace, since otherwise God would cease to be the first and immediate cause of the action...”⁷.

“We say therefore that the grace which so gives a man the faculty of acting well that, if he does not act, the reason is not that he cannot but that he will not — we say, I repeat, that such grace, in its proper and natural sense and according to the common manner of speaking, is and is called sufficient, although for acting in fact the other, efficacious grace is required. To be sure, it is not sufficient in every genus and order, since another of a different genus and order is required; but it is sufficient in its own genus and order: and we say that so to speak is to speak in the proper sense and as men commonly speak. For indeed we say every day that fire is sufficient for burning, although it must further be applied to a combustible subject; that bread is sufficient for nourishing, although it must besides be chewed, swallowed and digested; that the intellect is sufficient for understanding, although it never understands unless the species of another be supplied and it be brought to bear upon its object by a further motion; that the Passion of Christ is sufficient for saving us, even though it does not always save, if its merits be not otherwise applied to us, and six hundred other things... So when we say that grace is sufficient for acting well, that phrase, in its proper sense and according to the common manner of speaking, does not mean that nothing else is required for acting in fact in any other genus whatever, but only that, without any other power of the same order, it confers on us a sufficient faculty of acting well, if we will. Wherefore it is ignorantly objected against us that we abuse terms, and that we teach a sufficient grace which does not suffice”⁸.

“This false notion of sufficient grace, then, which our adversaries invent for us — namely that it is a faculty sterile of itself, from which God at will withdraws the influx necessary to reduce it to act, so that it should always happen to be frustrated of its effect — must be corrected. For according to us sufficient grace is the evangelical seed, containing in its power that principle of the good work, and would in fact attain it, unless a man by his defective liberty halted the course of its power; as good seed committed to the earth would bear fruit, unless it were hindered by some defect of the earth. To be sure, we do not deny, but hold for certain, that in order that a man be not wanting to sufficient grace and consent to it, efficacious grace is required; but (mark this well) in order that he be wanting to it, resist it, sin, efficacious grace is not required, but his defective will suffices; and because that resistance, that sin, precedes in nature and order the privation of efficacious grace, therefore it is true to say that a man is deprived of efficacious grace because by sinning he resists sufficient grace, but not that he sins because he is deprived of efficacious grace”⁹. “By grace taken entitatively as sufficient a man is placed in the state of not sinning, but by his own defect he halts the course of this grace, and brings it about that it remains merely sufficient”¹⁰.

But that these last points may be rightly understood, it must be recalled that according to this system, in order that a man be able to place a free act of resistance against grace, he needs physical predetermination, and that God must predetermine him to the material element of formal sin¹¹. The matter, then, is to be conceived thus: God confers sufficient grace on a man; he predetermines the same man to the material element of sin, by which he resists this grace; the man formally sins; by this sin he renders the grace merely sufficient; in punishment of this sin he is deprived of efficacious grace, by which he would be predetermined to a salutary act.

From what has been said it is clear: sufficient grace and efficacious grace differ intrinsically in their entity; efficacious grace is by its internal nature conjoined with the salutary act, since it is predetermination to that act. Therefore if to two men, however much they differ from one another, the same efficacious grace is given, in both the salutary act follows; therefore any man whatever is converted with the grace with which this man is converted.

What is to be said of this opinion? How does it stand in relation to the five truths indicated above¹²?

1. As has been more fully proved in the treatise on the one God, in this opinion that universal saving will of God which the sources set forth does not remain — the will, namely, which is universal in every sign antecedent to final impenitence; the saving will ceases to be universal in that sign in which God exclusively elects some to glory¹³, 2) The predilection for the elect is preserved, but in such a way that offence is given against the universal saving will of God.

2. Merely sufficient grace does not remain truly sufficient, such as the sources set forth. According to the sources, God confers sufficient grace from a sincere will that a good act be done; on God's part all things are present so that the act can be placed; but the act does not follow because man does not will to use the help, therefore through man's fault, and on that account man is punished by God.

But such is not sufficient grace in this system. For it does not appear how the conferring of sufficient grace can proceed from a serious saving will of God. For finally efficacious grace is prepared for a man in this system because God has antecedently and independently of the use of free will absolutely elected him to glory; but to those antecedently negatively reprobate God must prepare graces that are finally not efficacious.

The same must be said as regards individual salutary acts: because God antecedently wills absolutely this determinate good act in this man, therefore he confers on him the corresponding efficacious grace, the physical predetermination to this act; consequently it seems that one must say: because he does not have such a will of a salutary act in another man, he does not give him efficacious grace, but merely sufficient grace and a physical predetermination to the act of resistance against this grace. But how, by conferring sufficient grace in this way, God wills that man use it, is difficult to understand.

Moreover, according to the sources all things are present on God's part so that a good act can be placed; but in this system sufficient grace does indeed give the power of the good act, yet that act cannot be done in fact unless efficacious grace be present; something therefore is lacking on God's part, namely the physical predetermination to the good act, without which the act cannot be done. Therefore in the text of Is 5, cited in the earlier thesis, where the Lord asks, “What is there that I ought to do more?” the answer seems simple: Thou shouldst also have given physical predetermination for bearing fruit, and without doubt we should have borne it; but because thou gavest us a “sufficient” grace and together with it a predetermination to the act of resistance against grace, therefore we have not borne fruit.

Likewise Matth 11, when the Lord reproaches the inhabitants of Corozain and Bethsaida, the sense seems altogether clear: with those helps which these received, the Tyrians and Sidonians would have done penance, if they had received them. But according to Alvarez the sense is: the Tyrians and Sidonians would have been converted “from another cause, which Christ presupposes, namely from the efficacious help which God had resolved to confer on them, if those signs had been done among them which the Lord worked in Corozain and Bethsaida”¹⁴. Rightly does Pesch say of such an exegesis: “Therefore the men of Corozain are reproached because they were not converted by those graces with which alone it is repugnant that actual conversion be combined, whereas the Tyrians and Sidonians would have been converted with another grace, with which conversion cannot be combined in act. — This answer of Alvarez seems sufficient to show that the doctrine of the Bañezians cannot be true”¹⁵.

The same holds of Matth 23, 37, where the Lord says that he indeed willed to gather the children of Jerusalem, but Jerusalem would not. In this system the sense would be: the Lord, because he willed to gather them, gave them sufficient grace and together with it a physical predetermination to the act of resistance against this grace. If that were so, it should rather be said that the Lord did not will to gather the children of Jerusalem. For if there is present a physical predetermination to the act by which grace is resisted, it is impossible for a man not to resist and not to sin; nor is it in man's power to receive this or that physical predetermination.

But in the text cited above Billuart says that “a man is deprived of efficacious grace because by sinning he resists sufficient grace”; therefore it is man's fault if he does not have efficacious grace. It seems therefore to follow that God waits for the decision of free will and makes the conferring or non-conferring of efficacious grace depend on its consent or dissent? Moreover, consent and resistance depend on the corresponding physical predetermination, whose conferring depends on God alone. And if this argument is pressed further, they take refuge from actual moral defect to original sin, which nevertheless is no longer present in the baptized, and so this refuge no longer suffices; wherefore they take refuge further in the natural defectibility of the created will, which nevertheless only states the possibility of resistance against grace, not actual resistance, nor has any character of fault¹⁶.

Finally, from the very examples which they bring forward to illustrate the sufficiency of grace, it appears that it is not truly sufficient. It must be noted that the question is not whether in some sense that grace can be called sufficient, but whether it has that sufficiency which the sources attribute to sufficient grace, namely such that the non-use of this sufficient grace, or resistance against it, has the character of fault in a man¹⁷. Fire has the power of burning, but it cannot burn anything unless it be applied to a combustible thing; food has the power of nourishing, but it cannot nourish anyone unless it be eaten, etc. In like manner by sufficient grace a man has the power to place a good act, but he cannot place that act unless efficacious grace be added¹⁸. But if a man has some power which cannot pass into act unless something be added which is not in his power, it cannot be imputed to him as a fault if the act is not placed. Thus no one has fault from the fact that he does not place the act of understanding, if the species necessary for this intellection are lacking, and if the man himself cannot procure these species for himself but must receive them from another who nevertheless does not confer them. If therefore such only is the sufficiency of sufficient grace, that the good act cannot follow unless efficacious grace come, the predetermination to the good act, and this is not in man's power, man does not commit a fault if he does not place the act: therefore there is not such a sufficiency of sufficient grace as the sources attribute to it.

4. The threefold infallibility, objective, cognitive and affective, of the connexion of efficacious grace with the salutary act is explained.

5. Freedom under the motion of grace is not preserved. For according to the Bañezians efficacious grace is the physical predetermination to a good act; but true freedom cannot be combined with physical predetermination. This has been copiously proved in the treatise De Deo uno¹⁹, where it has also been shown that the various escapes which have been devised are empty. However freedom be defined, this is certainly required, that the faculty determine itself, and therefore be undetermined antecedently to its determination. But physical predetermination is an entity created and received in the creature, whose conferring or non-conferring does not depend on the free creature, and by which the creature, antecedently to its own determination (for it is the cause of this determination), is already intrinsically and physically determined to the placing of a determinate act. Therefore in relation to this act it is no longer free.

Hence it is also that the doctrine of the councils on freedom under the motion of grace can be accommodated to this system only in a violent sense. For if the Church teaches²⁰ that a man receives grace which he can cast away; that free will cooperates with God who excites and calls, and can dissent if it will; that a man renders free obedience to God by consenting to and cooperating with the grace which he can resist²¹; without doubt the sense is: to the same grace with which a man cooperates, which therefore is efficacious, he can, if he wills, dissent, he can resist the same; but if this grace by its nature physically predetermines to one act, so that by the very nature of this grace, of this created entity received in the creature, it is metaphysically repugnant that that determinate act not be placed, a man can no longer cast away this grace, dissent from this grace or resist it. According to the Bañezians it would have to be said: a man can dissent or resist if not this grace, this physical predetermination, were present, but another, namely the physical predetermination to the act of dissent or resistance. They try indeed to escape by distinguishing: a man cannot conjoin actual dissent, the act of dissenting, with the physical predetermination, but the power of dissenting is present. But now, to be able to cast away grace, to be able to dissent from grace, to resist, according to the common manner of speaking, means to be able to conjoin the act of dissent with this grace. He who cannot conjoin actual dissent with grace, and that from the internal nature of this grace, independently and antecedently to his own election, cannot dissent from this grace or resist it, that is, he does not have the power of dissenting; for a power which does not state a power to the act is not a power.

The Bañezians nevertheless think that the doctrine of physical predetermination necessarily follows from the supreme dominion of God. But a distinction must be made: it follows from that idea of God's dominion which they have fashioned for themselves — granted; from that supreme dominion of God which according to the sources of revelation really exists — I deny it. For the supreme dominion of God is such that true freedom of the creature can be combined with it. Hence in the treatise De Deo uno²² we have said: “The dominion of God must be conceived as it really is, not as anyone might imagine it to himself. But what it really is, is best known from the sources of revelation. In these, indeed, the dominion of God never appears such as would demand the determination of the creature by a divine physical motion prior in nature to the creature's determining itself; on the contrary, they teach the freedom of the creature. Every conception, therefore, of the dominion of God which cannot be combined with the freedom of the creature is erroneous; and so that conception of God's dominion would also be erroneous from which there would logically follow a physical predetermination efficacious by its nature or from within, since this, according to what has been said, would not leave created freedom unharmed.” In these questions it is dangerous to proceed by reason alone, and reason in its inquiries and explanations must always be regulated by what revelation provides. The inmost defect of this system seems to be a defect of method. “Our adversaries a priori fashion some concept of God as supreme lord and first free being, with which the existence of created freedom conflicts; they therefore commit a like fault in method as the Occasionalists, who form that concept of God as first cause to which all created causality is repugnant, or even the Pantheists, who lay down that idea of the absolute being by which the coexistence of contingent beings is excluded”²³.

If finally it is said that the manner in which freedom is reconciled with physical predetermination is a mystery, the answer must be: 1) God has nowhere revealed this mystery, but it is a figment of this system; now we believe mysteries on God's revealing them, not on a theologian's or philosopher's opining; 2) it does not seem to be a mystery but rather a contradiction; for to be determined and undetermined in respect of the same thing in the same sign are contradictories.

Therefore, although certain things are explained in this system, yet because it seems to offend against several truths which are certainly established, it is not to be admitted; therefore the efficacy of grace is not to be explained by physical predetermination.

It defends predestination to glory taken precisely before foreseen merits. “Predestination to glory precedes predestination to grace”¹. For them he “by the good pleasure of his will decreed to confer such grace as would restrain the concupiscence remaining even in the baptized, for the struggle especially in the last period of life, so that they might finally persevere and be efficaciously brought to glory”². The rest are negatively reprobate. “Negative reprobation has its cause on the part of the reprobate, namely original sin.” To these “God, the Lord of his gifts, would not impart so great a grace” as to the predestined³.

“Sufficient grace, then, in the Thomistic sense and in ours, is that which gives the power, not the will; or if it gives the will, that is so invalid and imperfect that it does not overcome the contrary desires of the lusting flesh, unless a most ardent and most powerful charity supervene. Of this kind are the inspirations and pious desires of the soul which move the perverse soul and excite it somewhat, but do not draw it to conversion. This sufficient grace St Augustine experienced in himself a little before his conversion, and expressed it in these words in the eighth book of his Confessions, chapter 5: ‘But the new will which had begun to be in me, that I might worship thee freely and will to enjoy thee, O God, my only sure delight, was not yet able to overcome my former will, strengthened by age.’ From these it is clear that sufficient grace always produces some effect, namely a pious motion of the soul and a good will, but an invalid one, to which free will resists. It follows also that grace which in one man is sufficient is efficacious in another, whose old and fleshly will does not so conflict with the new and spiritual will as to dissipate the soul by its discord; and that the same grace is such in respect of one work, for example prayer, as is not efficacious in comparison with other works, for example the observance of all the divine commandments; and finally it is established that every grace of God, however small, is in itself sufficient for salutary works, as we have said elsewhere, that is, it does not effect salutary acts on account of the obstacle of carnal and stronger delight, although it gives the will the power to overcome it, if it will. But in order that it will, there is required in this state a holy victorious delight, which is not rejected by any hard heart: and this we say is efficacious grace. Therefore efficacious grace is that which is always conjoined with its effect, that is, charity, which gives the power and the will, and so much will as easily to overcome the will of the flesh desiring contrary things, and not only gives the power to act well, but effects the action itself...

But although we are most concordantly joined with the Thomists in the confession of sufficient and efficacious grace, and agree that free will accomplishes nothing good unless it be bent and determined to the act by victorious grace, we nevertheless dissent from them not only in explaining the nature of grace, but also in that they are unwilling to admit a graduality in the same grace, and most constantly hold that grace which is sufficient and inefficacious in one man cannot be efficacious in another, because sufficient and efficacious help differ from one another in species and in nature. But we contend that the same delight in number, which in some less blinded and hardened — for example in the Tyrians and Sidonians — would be efficacious and would draw them to penance, is inefficacious in others affected by greater blindness and hardness; nor is anything thereby derogated from efficacious grace, since if God inspires such a delight as overcomes perverse cupidity, he does this by the good pleasure and purpose of his will, and to those whom he wills efficaciously to act well he imparts such charity as is never rejected by their heart, however hard”⁴. Then it is laid down: “Proposition I. Grace is the inspiration of holy love; nor is it distinguished from actual charity... Proposition II. Efficacious grace is victorious delight, or charity, which overcomes contrary cupidity”⁵, “Proposition III. Delight is not the same in all, but now efficacious, now inefficacious, and charity and grace have their degrees, from which, without any prejudice to the absolute will of God, his wonderful economy together with the true freedom of our will can easily be discerned”⁶. “Proposition IV. This doctrine has nothing in common with the Jansenist heresy. Proof; for Jansenius... places the efficacy of grace in a victorious delight which is altogether separated from the deliberation and indifference of free will. But we say that this delight is indeed indeliberate insofar as it is inspired by God; and therefore we most firmly hold that through the first indeliberate act we merit nothing, unless the deliberate assent of free will be added, since merit cannot exist without the indifference of freedom. But this victorious delight is conjoined with deliberation in comparison with the works which are effected by the free will excited by this delight. For although this efficacious grace is antecedent, and God without us brings it about that we will, nevertheless through it the good is not proposed to us under every aspect of good, as it is proposed to the blessed through the light of glory, and therefore there remains an indifference of judgment and true freedom, which the blessed in heaven cannot have... Wherefore from this victorious delight the effect indeed follows infallibly, in that the mind embraces the good which delights it more, but it follows freely, because in this life no good so delights that some aspect of evil cannot be apprehended in it...

With equal right we disagree concerning inefficacious grace. For first we confess that any grace whatever in this state, whether small or great, is the grace of Christ. Then we maintain that there is given an inefficacious grace to which the will resists. And finally that through sufficient grace there is given us the power of fulfilling the divine commandments, and that a true and proper power, but not so strong and ready that efficacious grace is not necessary for placing the act”⁷.

In this system it is laid down that grace is efficacious of itself. “The last opinion is that of the Thomists and of all the Augustinians, who affirm that efficacious grace is so of itself, and is not made such either by the cooperation of free will or by congruous circumstances; and that it is most certainly and infallibly conjoined with its effect, not vaguely as it is comprehended in the heap of all graces, but insofar as it is an individual and peculiar premotion and inspiration conferred on men, not by a suspended and indifferent will of God, but by an absolute and most full one: so that this grace gives the power, the will and the performance, nor does it cooperate because we will, but we will because it operates”⁸.

Therefore grace is efficacious of itself, in the sign antecedent to the consent of free will; but this grace, efficacious of itself, differs from inefficacious grace only in degree; and the same grace altogether, which in one man is efficacious, can be inefficacious in another.

From these things it already appears that this doctrine is not to be admitted.

For this grace, efficacious of itself, is either conjoined with the consent by metaphysical necessity, so that dissent is metaphysically repugnant, and thus the free act is already determined in the sign antecedent to the election of free will and independently of it, and there is antecedent necessity: freedom is lacking; or between grace efficacious of itself and the consent of free will that antecedent necessity which takes away freedom does not exist, and dissent remains possible, and thus the metaphysical infallibility by which efficacious grace is conjoined with the consent of free will is not explained, unless scientia media be admitted, which nevertheless is absolutely denied in this system.

Moreover the same grace can be efficacious of itself in one man, which is inefficacious in another. If God gives this grace to some man, he knows that it is efficacious in this man, not efficacious in that one; therefore he knows that this grace in this man is greater than the man's free resistance and that it will prevail; similarly of the other man he knows that the same grace is less than the man's free resistance, and that it will not prevail. How then is that infallible knowledge explained by which God knows that another decision of the creature is metaphysically excluded? The free decision of the creature in the sign antecedent to its election would already have to be determinately true, otherwise it is not determinately knowable; but a free act is not determinately true in every sign antecedent to its futurity.

Finally, if victorious delight is absolutely necessary for a salutary act, something is lacking to non-victorious delight which is absolutely necessary for the act on the part of the operating principle; therefore non-victorious delight is not truly sufficient grace.

There are added the difficulties arising from the opinion of predestination to glory taken precisely before foreseen merits; from the claim that charity alone is grace; from the claim that a man always follows the greater delight, etc.

Therefore the efficacy of grace is not to be explained by victorious delight.

That the whole doctrine may be had in its full connexion, let us set out the matter in a similar way to what we did in the treatise De Deo uno in relation to predestination and reprobation¹. In the present order of salvation the intellectual creature is elevated to a supernatural order; as regards men there is original sin and redemption through the incarnate Word; determinate angels and men live in this order. God sincerely wills the salvation of all men, as a grace mercifully promised to the sons of God through Jesus Christ, and as a reward to be faithfully rendered to their good works and merits by the promise of God himself. This will is not absolute but conditional, namely if they cooperate faithfully with grace and die in grace. In consequence of this gratuitous conditional will of saving all, God wills gratuitously to give to all the graces necessary for them to be able to merit salvation for themselves if they will, graces truly sufficient. The preparation and conferring of grace therefore flows from the sincere universal conditional saving will, which does not cease except in consequence of foreseen final impenitence.

The orders in which all those conditions are essentially fulfilled are many and possible: the same men could be under different circumstances, receive different helps of grace, etc., without the universal conditions of the order being changed. But before God absolutely decrees one of these possible orders, he knows what would be future in the various possible orders.

God, for example, certainly knows that in a determinate possible order he will give freely to Peter, without any foreseen merit of Peter, this or that grace, because he has the conditional will of saving him, and that he will give this grace for this purpose, that Peter use it for a good salutary act: a truly sufficient grace. God knows that, if he gave this grace, Peter would freely cooperate: the grace is efficacious. Peter would thus with the help of grace dispose himself for justification. God would will to bring him to justification, to justify him. After justification God would will to give him graces, that with their help he might merit for himself an increase of sanctifying grace; he knows that Peter would cooperate and merit such an increase for himself; God on account of that merit would will to increase sanctifying grace in him according to that merit. God would further give Peter graces, that he might use them to overcome an occurring temptation, to increase his merit: a truly sufficient grace; but Peter would not cooperate, would resist grace and sin: the grace would remain merely sufficient. But God, since the saving will towards Peter was still conditional, would continue giving graces freely, that Peter might be converted and dispose himself for justification: truly sufficient graces. Peter would again cooperate (efficacious grace), would be converted and justified again in the sacrament of penance. God would always give him truly sufficient graces, Peter would from then on cooperate with them, would pray much for the gift of perseverance, God would grant it to him, Peter would die in the state of grace, in a determinate degree of grace with determinate merits acquired by free cooperation with grace. On account of those merits God after his death would will to give him a degree of glory corresponding to his merit as a just reward.

Another possible order would be concerned with the same Peter, in which God would will to give him other graces, in which Peter would cooperate more perfectly with them than in the former example, and would die in a greater degree of sanctifying grace and with greater merit, and hence God would will to give him a greater degree of glory as a reward.

A third possible order would be one in which we suppose all things to proceed in a similar way as in the first example up to Peter's sin. After this sin the saving will towards Peter would still remain, and from this will God would will to grant him helps of grace by which he could be converted and dispose himself for justification, and God would will to give them for this end, that Peter freely use them: a truly sufficient grace. But Peter would not will to cooperate, would not will to pray, and would freely remain in sin: the grace would remain merely sufficient. Yet the saving will of God towards him would still remain, and therefore God would not will to deny him helps of grace by which he could come to conversion and to justification, and would always give them, that Peter freely use them; but Peter would not will to use them, would will to remain in sins, would go on sinning and at last would die in final impenitence, in mortal sin with a determinate degree of demerits. Then the saving will of God towards him would cease, and God would will to condemn him to the just eternal punishment of hell. All the sufficient graces which God would will to give him after his sin would remain merely sufficient.

Thus many other orders concerning Peter would be possible, and God knows what would be future in those various orders, knows what graces he would give to Peter and in what circumstances, whether Peter would cooperate with them, whether the future graces would be merely sufficient or efficacious. From all the possible orders God freely chose the present one. By this absolute decree of God all those things which in the antecedent sign were conditionally future become absolutely future and in their time actual. If therefore we take the first example given above concerning Peter, in consequence of God's absolute decree these things hold: God has a conditional saving will towards Peter; from this sincere will he confers on him grace, that he use it for a salutary act (a truly sufficient grace); God knows that Peter will cooperate with this grace, that this grace is efficacious (God knows it to be true that Peter will cooperate if this grace is conferred on him; the grace is conferred; it is true that Peter will cooperate). Peter will in fact cooperate and will come to justification. After justification God will give Peter grace, that Peter acquire merits for himself; God knows that Peter will cooperate, that the grace is efficacious. Peter acquires merit for himself and God increases sanctifying grace. God further confers grace, that Peter may overcome in temptation and merit more; God knows that Peter will not cooperate, that the grace remains merely sufficient; Peter will sin. After sin the saving will towards Peter remains; from this will God will give him further graces; God knows that Peter will cooperate, that the grace is efficacious; Peter will cooperate with grace until death. Peter dies in the state of grace, and in this sign the conditional saving will of God towards Peter passes into an absolute one: God wills absolutely to give Peter eternal glory in that degree which corresponds to his merits.

In a similar way in the third example concerning Peter: after Peter has sinned, the saving will of God towards him remains; from this sincere will he gives him grace, that he be converted, place salutary acts and come again to justification; God knows that Peter will not cooperate, that the grace remains merely sufficient; Peter will sin anew. Yet the saving will of God towards him remains, and God always gives him truly sufficient graces, that he may be able to come to conversion; but God knows that Peter will not cooperate, that the graces remain merely sufficient, and so on to the end of Peter's life. Peter dies in sin, and in this sign the saving will of God towards him ceases and there is present the absolute will of condemning him for ever according to the degree of his demerits.

Why God chose the present order for him and not another, he has not revealed to us, and hence we are altogether ignorant. But it is clear that the election of the present order, if in it are verified the things said of Peter in the first example, is a special benefit towards Peter, which would not have been present if God had chosen, as he could, an order in which the conditions in relation to Peter would be such as they are in the third example. Similarly there is a special benefit towards Peter if he is compared with other men who in the present order will not be saved.

Therefore the difference of efficacious grace from sufficient grace in this doctrine does not consist in a difference in the internal entity of grace itself, so that the one by its internal nature is efficacious and the other not, but efficacious grace is that truly sufficient grace with which God knows that a man will cooperate, and merely sufficient grace is that truly sufficient grace with which God knows that a man will not cooperate.

Therefore the antecedent efficacy of the work of efficacious grace is explained by this, that God gives a man that grace which he knows to be congruous, to which the man will consent. The term “congruous” is St Augustine's, who says: “True then is it: Many are called, few are chosen. For they are chosen who are congruently called; but those who were not congruous with nor accommodated to the call are not chosen, because they did not follow, although they were called. Likewise true is it: It is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy; because, although he calls many, yet he has mercy on those whom he so calls as it is apt for them to be called, that they may follow. But false is it if anyone says: Therefore it is not of God that showeth mercy, but of man that willeth and runneth; because God has mercy on no one in vain; and whom he has mercy on, he so calls as he knows to be congruous to him, that he may not reject the caller”². That a call to which a man consents is in a special way congruous to him is clear. For rightly Suárez says: the call which is given when it is about to produce its effect “can be called most congruous, because it is most congruous to the man, for whom it is better to be called when he is about to answer, even if he be called remissly, than to be called strongly when he is not about to consent”³.

If a man consents to some grace, it is a sign that it was more apt for moving this man than another grace to which he would not consent. A man is more easily moved to consent by a grace which is more congruous to his conditions, his present state, his dispositions, inclinations, etc., than by a grace which is not so congruous. This adaptation of grace to a man's inclinations, to his manner of acting, truly inclines the man in a special way to consent, and yet does not touch his freedom: he can consent, he can dissent. This congruity of grace alone, therefore, considered in the sign antecedent to consent, does not yet found its infallible connexion with the salutary act. But God knows that this man will consent if this grace is given him, knows that this grace is congruous to this man, to which he will in fact consent; hence if this grace is truly given, it is metaphysically impossible that the man not consent.

From what has been said it is clear that the same grace which is congruous to one man, to which he will consent, can remain merely sufficient in another. Thus the grace which was merely sufficient in the inhabitants of Corozain and Bethsaida would have been congruous and efficacious in the Tyrians and Sidonians.

What is to be said of this doctrine? How does it stand in relation to the five truths indicated above?

1. The serious universal conditional saving will of God remains in this system in every sign antecedent to final impenitence, as this will is manifested in the sources.

2. The predilection for the predestined appears from this, that God freely, without respect to the merits of men, absolutely chose that order in which he knew that these determinate men would obtain eternal beatitude, although he could also have chosen another order; and in this there is a special love towards those who are truly saved, which is not towards the rest. “For that God chose that order of things, of circumstances and of helps, whether greater or smaller, in which he foresaw that they would be saved by their own liberty, who by the election of that order are by that very fact predestined, and obtain eternal life by their own liberty, rather than another out of infinite others in which the matter would have stood otherwise for the same liberty of theirs, was not from us, nor according to the quality of our merits and cooperation, but from the mere mercy of God”⁴.

The same holds of the conferring of individual efficacious graces. God knows, before he absolutely decreed the present order, that this grace in this man would be efficacious; by the very fact that he wills absolutely to give this grace, he also wills absolutely the salutary act conjoined with it. But it is a special benefit if God freely gives this grace, when he could also give a grace which he knows will remain merely sufficient.

And since God freely chose the present order and the graces which are conferred in it, he is also the one who distinguished between the just and the unjust, between the predestined and the non-predestined. A man must attribute to God not only the power of acting well but also the good action itself.

It is sometimes said that according to the doctrine of Molinism it is not God who distinguishes a man, but the man himself who distinguishes himself. But thus two questions seem to be confused which must be well distinguished. One is the question of the nature of the efficacy of the work of efficacious grace, of the difference between efficacious grace and merely sufficient grace, whether this is to be sought from the physical nature of grace itself, as the Bañezians would have it, or explained in another way; and another question, altogether different, is that of the conferring of efficacious grace in preference to sufficient grace: why this man receives efficacious grace and that one sufficient grace, why this man is predestined and that one not predestined. He who should say that the foreseen consent of a man is the reason why God confers efficacious grace on him rather than merely sufficient grace, or why God predestined this one and not that one, he would say that a man distinguishes himself. But Molinism explicitly denies this, as is clear from the words of Molina cited above. According to Molinism it is God who distinguishes.

But why God chose precisely this order, in which these men will be saved, and not another, we are plainly ignorant, as has already been said above, because God has not revealed it to us: the mystery of election and predilection. St Augustine: “Of two little ones, then, alike bound by original sin, why this one is taken up and that one left; and of two grown men who are already wicked, why this one is so called that he follows the caller, while that one is either not called or not so called: the judgments of God are unsearchable. But of two pious men, why perseverance to the end is given to this one and not given to that one: the judgments of God are more unsearchable”⁵, There therefore according to St Augustine is a mystery hidden from us, and this mystery remains perfectly in our doctrine.

3. Sufficient grace according to this doctrine is given from the serious saving will of God, that a man use it; it has therefore truly the character of a benefit. This benefit of God indeed remains without fruit, the grace remains merely sufficient, but not because something is lacking to the grace itself, but from the fault of the man who will not cooperate with it, although he could if he willed. But a benefit does not cease to be a benefit if someone will not use it; nor is anything taken from the true sufficiency of this help by the fact that a man will not cooperate with this grace⁶.

4. The threefold infallibility of the connexion of efficacious grace in the first act with the future salutary act: before a man really places the salutary act, that connexion exists; this grace being posited, the salutary act infallibly follows. For antecedently to the act itself, which is absolutely future, it is already true: if this grace were given, it would have a salutary effect; therefore if God absolutely decrees to give this grace, it is absolutely true that the consent is absolutely future (the objective infallibility of the connexion); God, before he absolutely decrees to give this grace, infallibly knows that it, if given, will be efficacious (the cognitive infallibility of the connexion); God freely wills to give this grace, which he knows to be conjoined with the salutary act, which he knows to be efficacious (the affective infallibility of the connexion). Therefore before a man consents in act, in the first act, it is already infallibly certain that this grace is efficacious, and it is metaphysically repugnant, this grace being given, that the salutary act not follow, as it is metaphysically repugnant that that not be true which God knows to be true. But this infallibility is not derived from the internal nature of grace.

5. That created freedom is preserved is clear, for there is nothing which in the sign antecedent to the use of free will physically determines the free faculty to one thing.

Therefore all the truths to be preserved are perfectly preserved in this system. But since there are those who think that perfect dominion of God does not remain in this system, it must be shown in a few words that those who so think are mistaken. God gave free will, God concurs in its acts; he gave habitual and actual gifts for supernatural acts; and by freely choosing the present order he himself also determined the absolute futurity of all acts, even those of free creatures. Thus absolutely nothing has been withdrawn from the supreme dominion of God. As God freely willed and absolutely decreed, whether by positively intending in good acts or by permitting in morally evil ones, so all things come to pass. God can move the will of man to a good act as he himself wills, and the act will infallibly be. The heart of men is perfectly in the hand of God; he can also convert rebellious wills to himself, so that they freely will what God wills them to will⁷, because he himself knew those means to which the good act is infallibly linked.

Thus in this system the supreme dominion of God is acknowledged as much greater and more perfect than if God could move the creature infallibly only through some physical predetermination. The supreme dominion which is attributed to God in Molinism is that which is manifested in the sources.

Therefore since this system explains all that is to be explained, and offends against no truth which is certainly established, it is to be admitted; therefore the efficacy of grace is to be explained by this, that God gives a man such grace as he knows to be congruous, to which the man will consent.

A form of Molinism somewhat different from what has been expounded above is that which St Bellarmine, Suárez and others defended. This is distinguished by some under the name of “Congruism” from “pure” Molinism; others indeed call Molinism simply Congruism, because it explains the efficacy of grace by this, that God wills to give that grace which he knows to be “congruous”, to which the man will consent. The difference between the two forms does not consist in a different way of explaining the efficacy of grace, nor in this, as some affirmed, that “Congruism” maintains that the conferring of grace is a special benevolence of God, while “pure Molinism” denies this special benevolence; for all Molinists maintain that the conferring of efficacious grace is a greater formal benefit than the conferring of merely sufficient grace. The difference is in this, that Bellarmine, Suárez and those who follow them maintain that predestination to glory taken precisely is before foreseen merits, and consequently hold formal predefinitions of salutary acts. Since predestination has already been treated in the treatise De Deo uno, a few things remain to be said about the predefinitions.

“Divine predefinition is the decree by which God, antecedently to the free determination of the creature, absolutely foreseen, from eternity, positively, absolutely and efficaciously decreed that some good act be done in time by the same creature, for example that Peter elicit today an act of contrition”⁸. Formal predefinition is that by which the salutary act itself is immediately intended; in consequence of this, efficacious grace is chosen as the necessary means for effecting the predefined act; efficacious grace is chosen because it is efficacious. Virtual predefinition is had if the help of grace itself is immediately intended, which is known to be infallibly conjoined with the salutary act; by the very fact that it is decreed that this grace is to be given absolutely, the salutary act itself is predefined.

Formal predefinition is a logical consequence in the doctrine of predestination to glory before foreseen merits. Because God elected this adult to such a degree of glory, therefore he wills that the man die with the merit to which such a degree of glory corresponds as a reward; therefore he wills those salutary acts by which he may arrive at such merit; therefore he wills to give those graces by which the man will infallibly place those acts. And similarly it is said of the salutary acts which a non-predestined man places in the course of his life: because God wills those acts to be placed by him, therefore he confers grace efficacious for these acts.

Since in the treatise De Deo uno we have said that predestination to glory before foreseen merits is not to be admitted, formal predefinitions also, at least universally, are not to be admitted by us. It is also difficult, if they are admitted, to explain how merely sufficient grace has formally the character of a benefit; for the conferring of such grace no longer seems to proceed in the non-predestined from the universal saving will, since this has already ceased in an earlier sign, namely in the same sign in which the predestined were exclusively elected to glory. Moreover, generally speaking, the conferring of merely sufficient grace no longer seems able to proceed from a sincere will that a man use it and that the salutary act be done. For since efficacious grace is not given except in consequence of the absolute will that the salutary act really be done, the will of giving merely sufficient help seems to be only in consequence of the negation of the formal predefinition of the salutary act, by which negation the futurity of the salutary act is already absolutely excluded.

Hence Molinism seems to be preferred, which teaches predestination to glory taken precisely after foreseen merits and the virtual predefinition of salutary acts. Thus, as has been shown above, all things are perfectly preserved which are to be preserved. This is also the form in which Molinism is most commonly defended today.