De gratia Redemptoris

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.