Scotus Academicus, Tomus octavus: De Divino Gratiae Beneficio, et initium De Virtutibus Theologicis

NOTE 1. It is certain that man cannot by equal right prepare himself for sanctifying grace through the powers of nature alone; for this is clearly proved from Sacred Scripture against the Pelagians, especially in those texts in which it is asserted that God goes before us and allures and draws us to Himself by His divine motions. Thus Ps. 20: Thou hast prevented him with the blessings of sweetness. John 6: No man can come to me, except the Father, who hath sent me, draw him. 1 Cor. 1: What hast thou that thou hast not received? Hence it is evident that man of himself and by his own powers contributes nothing at all toward salvation, and consequently neither toward sanctifying grace, which is the seed of eternal life. The same thing the Councils define, especially the Council of Diospolis, in which Pelagius was compelled to confess that grace is not given according to our merits; and the Council of Orange, Can. 4 and Can. 7, as may be seen in the Preface to this Treatise; but most clearly of all the Council of Trent, Session 6, Can. 3: If anyone shall say that, without the preventingly illumination of the Holy Spirit and His aid, man can believe, hope, love, or repent as he ought, so that the grace of justification may be bestowed upon him, let him be anathema.

The same thing the Holy Fathers teach openly, most especially St. Augustine, who is wholly engaged in establishing that necessity of grace for justification in the books he published against the Pelagians; and indeed particularly chapter 21 of the first book to Boniface, where he says:

We deservedly pronounce anathema upon the Pelagians, who are so hostile to the grace of God which cometh through Jesus Christ our Lord, that they declare it to be given not gratuitously but according to our merits, as if grace were no longer grace; and who place so much in free will, into what an abyss man has been plunged, that they say man merits grace by using it well, whereas no one can use it well except through grace, which is rendered not according to debt, but is granted by God gratuitously in His mercy.

Nor does it stand in the way that Proverbs 17 says: The man's own is to prepare the soul: for, as St. Augustine most excellently says in book 2 to Boniface, chapter 9, It is man's own to prepare his soul, with the help of God touching the heart of man, through the assistance of grace; but not without any benefit of grace whatever, because from Proverbs 8: The will is prepared by the Lord. Whence there remains only this to be determined here, whether man prerrequires within himself certain physical and moral dispositions, which he himself, with the help of grace, can apply, that he may dispose himself unto grace.

NOTE 2. A twofold disposition is commonly distinguished: one on the part of the subject, the other on the part of the agent or efficient cause. The former prepares the subject for receiving a form, e.g. heat for the form of fire, the organization of the human body for the rational soul: the latter moves and determines the agent for inducing a form; and that either physically, in which way heat determines fire to inducing the form of fire in a subject ultimately disposed; or morally, in which way honest supernatural acts move God to communicating to men His supernatural gifts. It is further to be known that a form requires some disposition on the part of the subject in two ways: in one way for expelling a contrary form; in another way for preparing the subject, that it may be received in it fittingly. Now it is certain that sanctifying grace requires no disposition per se on the part of the subject, that it may be received connaturally in it: both because without such a disposition it is received in infants, and in those who are sanctified in the maternal womb, as in Jeremiah and John the Baptist; and because no such disposition can be assigned. For such a disposition would be either an act or a habit; if a habit, it would be either natural or supernatural: but a natural habit cannot be a physical disposition to a supernatural form, such as grace is; nor yet a supernatural one, otherwise, since this habit would be as disproportionate to nature as grace is, it would prerrequire another disposition of the same supernatural order, and thus one would proceed to infinity. Nor yet an act, because a physical disposition and the form ought to be in the same subject: but sanctifying grace is subjected in the will, as we have proved elsewhere: while the act of faith, which is instituted first among the dispositions to sanctifying grace, is formally in the intellect: therefore it cannot be a physical disposition for receiving sanctifying grace. This discourse therefore concerns only moral disposition, such as are acts morally good both of intellect and of will.

NOTE 3. That although before the infusion of sanctifying grace man is held to be a sinner and odious to God, nevertheless not all his works, even if they are not pleasing and acceptable to God de condigno for eternal life, are formal sins, nor worthy of divine chastisement and execration; for some can be altogether indifferent, that is, neither morally good nor morally bad; others however are at least meritorious de congruo, namely those which are elicited by the intellect and will with the help of actual grace, and which promote man, desiring to emerge from the filth of sins, toward God, and are like previous dispositions for receiving sanctifying grace. Hence the works of man still lying in sin are of a triple kind: some indeed sinful, others indifferent, others disposing unto grace; concerning which last ones alone inquiry is made here, whether man truly can dispose himself unto sanctifying grace. Which truth indeed the following will make plain:

Single Conclusion. — IT IS OF FAITH THAT AN ADULT MAN, BY HIS OWN FREE ACTS, WITH THE DIVINE AID SUFFRAGING, CAN DISPOSE HIMSELF UNTO THE GRACE OF JUSTIFICATION. Thus the Council of Trent defined, Session 6, canon 9, in these words: If anyone shall say that the impious is justified by faith alone, so as to understand that nothing else is required which cooperates toward obtaining the grace of justification, and that it is in no way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the motion of his own will, let him be anathema.

Proof first. By all those oracles of Scripture in which men are invited to their conversion in God. Thus Isaiah 1: Be converted to me, and I will save you. Zechariah 1: Be converted to me, and I will be converted to you. Joel 3: Be converted to me with all your heart, etc. But that conversion cannot take place without a motion of free will: therefore it is prerrequired here unto sanctifying grace. Hence Proverbs 16: Man's own is to prepare the soul.

Proof second. By the authority of the holy Fathers, and indeed most of all of St. Augustine, who plainly teaches in many places that man ought necessarily to cooperate with God for his own justification. Thus tract. 72 on John: Christ, he says, works salvation in the impious man, but not without the impious man. And Sermon 3 On the words of the Apostle, chapter 11, expounding these words: Whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God, says thus:

Someone says to me: therefore we are acted upon, and do not act: nay rather, both you act, and you are acted upon: and then you act well if you are acted upon by the Good: for the Spirit of God who acts upon you is a helper to those acting: the very name of helper prescribes to you that you yourself also do something: acknowledge what you ask, acknowledge what you confess, when you say: be Thou my helper, forsake me not. You invoke God assuredly as a helper: no one is aided unless something is done in him by God.

And again, expounding that word of the Apostle: We know that to them that love God all things cooperate unto good, he says: If you were not a worker, God would not be a co-worker. Hence Sermon 15 sets forth the celebrated sentence: He who made thee without thee will not justify thee without thee: He made thee unknowing; He justifies thee willing.

Theological reason also supports it: for as man is freely turned away from God through sin, so it is fitting also that he be converted freely to Him: but such conversion would not be free unless man were converted voluntarily to Him: therefore it ought to be so. — Next, in justification man is moved by God unto justice according to the condition of his nature: but man according to his own nature has it that he be possessed of free will: therefore in one who has the use of free will there is not made a motion from God unto justice without a motion of free will itself. — Finally, should anything stand in the way of man freely concurring unto justification, especially either because his liberty has been so worn away by sin that he nowise still has use of it; or because he is so moved efficaciously by actual grace unto justification as rather to be acted upon than to act: but neither can stand in the way. Not indeed the first, because by grace the will is healed, that being healed it may pursue that good which when infirm it could not pursue. Hence St. Augustine, book 1 of The Imperfect Work, says: Then is free will laudably free, when it shall have been set free by the grace of God. Nor yet the second, because, as the same St. Augustine says, Epist. 89: Free will will be so much freer as it is healthier; and healthier as it is more subject to divine mercy and grace. Hence in the book On the Spirit and the Letter, chapter 30: Do we, he says, make void free will through grace? Far be it: but we establish free will the more: for as the law through faith, so free will through grace is not made void, but established. For the law is not fulfilled except by free will; but through the law, knowledge of sin; through faith, the obtaining of grace against sin; through grace, the healing of the soul from the vice of sin; through the health of the soul, liberty of the will; through free will, love of justice; through love of justice, the doing of the law: and hence as the law is not made void, but established through faith, because faith obtains grace whereby the law may be fulfilled, so free will is not made void through grace, but established: because grace heals the will, whereby justice is freely loved.

You will say 1: Man cannot dispose himself unto sanctifying grace by that which is sinful: but all the acts of man the sinner, before sanctifying grace has been attained, are sinful; for an evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit: therefore by his own acts man cannot dispose himself unto grace. — I distinguish the major: man cannot dispose himself unto sanctifying grace by acts which are sinful both as to state and as to affection: the acts of one still lying in sin can be distinguished as of a triple kind: for some are morally evil, proceeding from an affection falling short of the right dictate of reason, and those are formally sins; others are neither morally good nor bad, but indifferent; finally the rest can be morally good, those especially by which man, illumined and helped by divine grace, desires to rise again from sins unto grace; which acts indeed can be called sinful as to state, because they are done by a man lying in sin; but not as to affection, because they do not proceed from an affection toward sinning.

You will say 2: If man could dispose himself unto sanctifying grace by his own acts, this proposition would be true: Man justifies himself by his own acts: but very many Theologians judge this proposition false: therefore also that from which it follows. — I answer, distinguishing the major: that proposition would be true in the formal and total sense, that is, that man would justify himself by producing the form or justifying grace whereby he is formally justified, I deny: it would be true in the partial dispositional sense, that is, that man, aided on his part by divine grace, would even by his own acts dispose himself unto grace, I concede. For by this reasoning no Theologian can accuse that proposition of falsehood: for similar things are read in Scripture. Thus chap. 18 of Ezekiel: He himself shall vivify his own soul. Jeremiah iv.: Wash thy heart from wickedness. 2 Corinth. 7: Let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting sanctification in the fear of the Lord. 1 John 3: Everyone who hath this hope in him sanctifies himself.

You will say 3: From the Second Council of Orange, chapter 1: That we may be cleansed from sin, God does not await our will: therefore one is not prepared unto justification by a motion of free will. — I distinguish the antecedent: God does not await the will, that His exciting and helping grace may go before it, I concede: that with the helping grace one prepares oneself unto sanctifying grace, I deny.

You will say 4: Adults are at times justified without any motion of free will; for St. Augustine narrates, book v. of Confessions, chapter 9, that a certain one of his friends, while he labored under fevers, and had long lain without sense in deadly sweat, and while he was despaired of as to the health of his mind and body, was baptized amid these straits, knowing it not, and was reborn: therefore, etc. — I distinguish the antecedent: insane adults, who never had any use of reason, are sanctified without any use of free will, I concede: for their case is the same as that of infants: adults who have at some time used reason, again I distinguish: to be justified without a motion of free will present, when they are baptized, I concede; before baptism intervenes, namely while they were of sound judgment, I deny. For even that some adult possessing reason be so baptized or absolved, it is necessary that before he fell into the mortal sickness which extinguishes reason, he have first prayed for baptism or sacramental absolution.