De natura et gratia libri III, cum Apologia contra Catharinum

Having settled this point against the Lutherans, there immediately follows that we should expostulate with some Catholics, whether a man, while he is in sin, by the general influx of God alone, without the special help of grace,¹ can perform any work however honorable (which they call morally good). For a work morally good is (to accept the schools' name) that which is intended for the honorable without a natural [end] and clothed with circumstances, so that while it is not a merit of grace before God and of glory, it is nevertheless no sin, but below the natural line, [something] studious. There are five things here to be discussed in order, from whose definition it may plainly appear how far the force and natural capacity extend in acting well. This, from ch. 4, we reserved for this place to be discussed more copiously and precisely. These five are: Whether by his nature man, even one who exists in sin, can know some truth that is sufficient for acting well morally: to will and to do such a good: to love God above all things: to fulfill the divine precepts: and finally, by avoiding sins, to persevere in good. The first two we will examine in this chapter and the next, but the remaining three in ch. 22.² But first of all let this be firm and solemn for us,³ which has been sanctioned by the Church against Pelagius. Further, that from pure nature we cannot merit not only not eternal life, or our justification, but not even think anything (as Paul says) that is its cause, as a merit. This we will discuss more strictly in book 2. Where also that must be unravelled, whether by his own nature man can at least dispose himself for grace.

With this Catholic truth firmly prefixed, before Gregory of Rimini I remember having read no one who, so far as I can attain by judgment, thought of denying what is asked in the first two questions: namely that man, while he is in sin, by his own nature, apart from special succor from God, can both know, and also will and carry out some office endowed with natural honesty. And this we here establish as the first assertion.⁴ But Gregory⁵ denies both, q. 1 on dist. 26, 27, and 28 in 2 Sent. And he thinks both are against Augustine, whose innumerable testimonies he folds together in his manner, and coincide with the error of Pelagius. He adds that St Thomas was of the same opinion as himself. To whom Capreolus subscribes in the same dist. 28, judging the same of St Thomas. But I (such is my slender intelligence) as I certainly assent to this truth asserted against Gregory, so I have never suspected that either Augustine or St Thomas held the contrary judgment: besides that the rest of the company of theologians thinks with us, as Gregory himself confesses. And since St Thomas⁶ is brought in as an authority, let us begin from him. He, 1-2 q. 109, asks whether man without grace can know any truth. And he answers (as much as suffices here) in these words: The human intellect has some form, namely the intelligible light itself, which is of itself sufficient for knowing certain intelligible things: namely those into the knowledge of which we can come through sensible things: but the human intellect cannot know higher intelligible things unless it be perfected by a stronger light: as by the light of faith, or of prophecy: which is called the light of grace, insofar as it is added to nature. Thus therefore it must be said that for the knowledge of any truth whatsoever, man needs divine help, so that the intellect may be moved by God to its act: but he does not need, for knowing truth in all things, a new illumination added to the natural illumination: but in certain things, which exceed natural knowledge. Behold, without any doubt he answers that by natural light we suffice to know many true things: for example, those which we can investigate through sensible things (whence, according to Aristotle, our knowledge begins). Wherefore when he says that for the knowledge of these we need divine help, he manifestly declares this of the general help of God, as the institutor and universal governor of the nature of things: since in him we live, move, and are. Wherefore when Capreolus interprets⁷ St Thomas in this sense, that although without the habit of sanctifying grace we can know truths about morals, not however without special help, I do not know whence he could elicit this. For what St Thomas brings forward there in disputation is what man can do from his natural endowments, and what he cannot do without supernatural help: where therefore he makes no mention of sanctifying grace. And since the same opposition by which natural things are distant from supernatural things exists between general help and special help, he says that for intuiting natural truth, just as God generated in us the natural light as a form of acting, so he gives general help as a natural cause of movement. But for knowing supernatural things, just as he has illumined us with a supernatural light, namely of faith or prophecy, so for that knowledge itself he moves us with a more special help. And besides, the discourse of St Thomas⁸ is not contracted to a certain kind of knowledge, namely either practical or speculative, but he inquires in general, and answers in like manner concerning speculative and moral things: but it would be most absurd to assert that we cannot without special help know speculative truths, such as judgments about true color and other sensible things, and truths known through themselves and those which follow from them. Therefore what he understands of speculative truths, he manifestly understands also of practical truths. Namely that by general help alone we can know both. And deservedly indeed. For what, I ask, greater difficulty can be imagined in knowing practical truth than speculative? But as for Augustine,⁹ he plainly testifies of himself that he was of the opinion we assert, in book 1 of the Retractations ch. 4, where he says: I do not approve what I said in the prayer (namely in book 2 of the Soliloquies), O God, who have willed that only the clean should know the truth. For one can answer that many who are not clean know many things truly. And indeed when Augustine or any of the Fathers had left something written which seemed to favor the contrary opinion, it should rather be glossed than that manifest natural reason should be denied. Especially when no passage of sacred Scripture opposes it, but many support it. Here it must be noted that as in speculative matters,¹⁰ so also in practical matters which regard morals, some things are commensurate with the light of natural reason, but others are more sublime, for the inspection of which the light supplied to us by nature is sufficient. For as it is known through itself that the whole excels the part in quantity, so also that principle is known: Do to others what you wish to be done to you: and the things that follow from it. As, to honor parents and elders: to help the miserable, and other things of that kind. And so as those speculative things, so also these practical things are open to the natural eye of the mind, or at least knowable by natural diligence. For man naturally desires to know these things, as the Philosopher says, to which therefore nature, since they do not exceed its end, will supply us with strength. Hence in the psalm David, when he asks,¹¹ Who shows us good things? himself answers himself: The light of your countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us. Which the doctors understand of the natural light. Indeed Paul, when he accuses the philosophers¹² that, when they had known God, they did not honor him as God, plainly speaks of natural knowledge; as all expositors acknowledge in the added words, by which it is explained in what way God made himself manifest to them. For the invisible things of him, he says, from the creation of the world are understood and seen through the things that are made. For this was the acumen and office of the philosophers, to ascend by investigating causes from the things subject to the senses to the knowledge of God. And that this kind of knowledge sufficed for acting well is also most certain from the same place. Otherwise they would not be inexcusable, as Paul says. Although concerning this matter the discourse will be more exact in book 2, ch. 11.

Second assertion.— Therefore let us proceed to the second question: let this be our second assertion. That man, supported by general help alone, can will and work moral good. The reason for this is ready at hand. For any work to be morally good, it is enough that it be consonant with natural reason, and according to exact natural right, even if it is adorned by no supernatural circumstance. For indeed I seem to discern no other difference between the things named by these terms, a moral work and a meritorious work, than that the former is congruous to the natural end alone, while the latter is referred to the end which is above nature. But man can perform the former entirely from nature: since, as he is a rational animal, the scope set before him by nature is natural, namely that he should grasp by knowledge and desire by affection, and thus carry out in effect, the things consonant with reason: as we were saying in ch. 4. But someone may say¹³ that although we can do this by our own nature insofar as we are rational, where no grace or guilt had preceded, nevertheless original sin took away from us this kind of vigor. But I think this response is sufficiently refuted in ch. 11, where we explained how that transgression of the first-formed man despoiled us only of original justice with its annexed heavenly gifts: and left us in pure nature, without corruption of any natural principle. But we were injured and wounded in our natural endowments from this, that we cannot everywhere and always act according to reason, which rational nature itself urges us to do.

Here, however, is the place where Gregory¹⁴ meets us, denying that there is any work morally good before it is referred to the ultimate end, which is God. But indeed not without reason all the schools of theologians cry out against him, as he himself confesses. For either he holds this of the relation to God insofar as it is shown by natural light that he is the ultimate end of the universe: and thus of our actions: or of the relation to him in the respect that he is the supernatural end: that is, exceeding our powers. If of the former, for that¹⁵ certainly no special help is necessary. Because every good, and especially what is honorable, is by its intrinsic nature ordered to God. Since when he created things, he referred all things to himself, as was said more fully in ch. 6. And therefore when no other end is set before one acting with a sinister intention, the good itself is by its own virtue intended toward God, as far as is enough for it to be morally good. Add that the work can also be referred to God naturally by that first mode in act. Wherefore that Gregorian inference is fallacious:¹⁶ Whoever does a work for an end other than God, sins: whoever does not actually refer it to him, does it for another end, therefore sins. For the second premise is false, both because although the work is not referred except to an honorable good, it is not at a different end from God, and because it is enough if the act is referred to him as to the natural end of all good things. But if he holds it of the second relation, we entirely deny that that relation is necessary for a morally good work. Indeed this is what distinguishes it from a meritorious work. And that this was his own invention¹⁷ (I will say it with the good leave of that most learned doctor) is clear for this reason. What is in human nature and established by natural reason is not to be refuted unless sacred Scripture or the Catholic Church in some way opposes it: but sacred Scripture, with the Catholic Church as interpreter, denies to our natural works only this, that they are merits of grace and of the glory of God, defining against Pelagius that in those things which pertain to our justification mortal men are not sufficient, or to think anything as if from ourselves. As is to be seen in the Council of Milevis can. 4 and 5, and more explicitly in the Arausican can. 7, where only this is decreed, that no one by the strength of nature can think or choose any good that pertains to the salvation of eternal life without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And the same is entirely the judgment of the present Council of Trent in the first three canons: namely, that no one by the powers of human nature, or by the teaching of the law, without divine grace through Christ, can believe, hope, or love, insofar as it pertains to justification. And the reason is that if justice were from us, or (as Paul says)¹⁸ from the law, Christ would have died for us in vain. But as for the goodness of morally good works, which we affirm to be no merits before God, nor a proximate disposition to grace, but which are also common to the wicked, who think nothing of changing their mind toward God, neither Scripture nor the Church has forbidden us to believe what natural reason dictates. Since this in no way derogates from the grace of the Lord. This truth is especially confirmed by that authority of the Apostle: The Gentiles who have no law¹⁹ do naturally the things that are of the law. For having no such law (namely positive law), they are a law to themselves: who show the work of the law written in their hearts. But concerning this further below, ch. 22, and in the second book, ch. 11. Therefore special help of this kind for morally good works is intruded beyond legitimate reason. For it would have to be ascribed to a miracle,²⁰ as we were saying in ch. 4, that while to all the rest of nature's constants the power to attain their own ends is supplied by nature, to rational and free man no scope and end would be prescribed by nature, by which he could through the use of reason and freedom render the offices naturally consonant with reason. Indeed St Thomas²¹ expressly thinks otherwise. Indeed, 1 p. q. 23, introducing the treatise on predestination, he sets before us two ends of man, one which exceeds the proportion of created nature, which is eternal life: the other which is proportioned to created nature. Which a created thing, he says, can attain according to the power of its nature: to the former of which God sends us through predestination: but to the second, he says, he does not: because we can attain it through our nature. And if these men who enlist St Thomas into Gregory's opinion had considered this one passage, they would never have done so: since according to him not every morally good work pertains to predestination, because it can therefore be done by man naturally. Moreover when in 2-2 q. 10 he said that not all the works of unbelievers are sins, and when in 1-2 q. 109 he added that man without the help of grace can fulfill the precepts as to the substance of the works, he manifestly asserted morally good works without special help: since with him no work is indifferent, and those which are not evil are immediately good. And that you may understand those are done without special help is clear, because he posits no such help except for preparation and disposition for grace, as is to be seen in the same question just cited. 1-2 question 65, article 2: and more explicitly 2-2 question 23, article 7, he says that although perfect virtue cannot exist outside charity, nevertheless virtue in order to some particular good, and in respect of the ultimate end in some genus, namely insofar as it is the natural end of good, can be virtue in a qualified sense. And that he understands this naturally is still clear in the solution to the first: where he says that outside charity there is some such virtue insofar as man has some other gift of God: namely faith, or hope, or even the good of nature. Which, since he distinguishes it from supernatural gifts, he plainly holds to be from pure nature.²²

But let us dismiss St Thomas; there is besides a most urgent argument for our conclusion, obvious to common sense. Man can from his natural endowments do that which is good in its own kind, for a bad end and circumstance: therefore he will be able to do the same for the sake of the honorable. For example. Man can by natural effort walk with a sinister intention: therefore he will be able to do it for the sake of good health: and then certainly it will be morally good. Man can naturally eat and drink when it harms him, therefore he can when it benefits him. Surely one who said that I can eat an apple that is before me without special help when it is pestilential to me, but not when it is healthful, would provoke laughter by such theology. Besides, when someone is asked the truth about a matter of which he is conscious, he can naturally deny it (which is the sin of lying): why will he not be able, which is easier, to affirm it without special help? And anyone can at his pleasure throw a penny into a river: why will he not be able to give it to a poor man, without any other bad circumstance, because it is honorable? And the honor which anyone can by nature wickedly confer on the undeserving, why will he not be able to confer the same legitimately on parents and on upright men with courtesy? Nor indeed am I unaware of their response:²³ namely that such works cannot be referred to the ultimate end without special help. But this response is a begging of the question. For I would like them to answer whether man can perform such very small works without special help, not actually referring them to a higher end than for the sake of an honorable good, or to God as the end of natural good. They will certainly not deny it, unless they prefer to be ridiculous. But if they affirm it, it has already been demonstrated that they are good works: because since they are for the sake of an honorable good, indeed for the sake of God, they are consonant with reason. And therefore good in their degree and manner. And by the same dagger the response of others is stabbed through,²⁴ who say that we can naturally do a good work from its object, but not with all the circumstances. For if that supernatural circumstance is not necessary, the rest (such as when and where it is fitting) can be applied naturally. But indeed besides these natural reasons, our Redeemer seems to have taught us about this distinction of works, which are naturally good without the merit of grace: where he says, If you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Do not even the publicans do this?²⁵ And if you greet only your brethren, what more do you do? Do not even the Gentiles do this? Be therefore perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. For there he does not condemn the offices which are shown for the sake of human honorableness and natural relationships, which are common to good and bad: but says that they are imperfect virtues unless they are done from true and genuine love of God: by which the heavenly Father, being perfect, loves himself. And to this opinion perhaps the Apostle also nodded in those words: If Abraham²⁶ was justified by works, he has glory, but not before God. Where he does not condemn natural justice, but says that it is imperfect.