Summa summae S. Thomae sive compendium theologiae

On the occasion of what we said in the preceding article about the antecedent and consequent will of God, three very grave difficulties arise here, which are connected with one another: first, whether God wills all men to be saved; second, whether by force of that will Christ died for all; third, whether by force of the same will God offers or confers on all sufficient means to salvation: which we shall endeavor to resolve in three articles, the first in this present article.

[The Semi-Pelagians erred concerning the will of God regarding the salvation of all in this, that they posited in God a general and equal will to save all men, if they should will it — a willing which he expected from their own will — such that he did not will the salvation of the predestined more specially than that of the reprobate: consequently, that Christ too died with an equally general will for all; likewise, that equal helps are conferred on all, namely helps that are indifferent and subject to their free will. Thus report Prosper, both in his Epist. ad S. Augustinum, and in the poem de Ingratis, and Fulgentius, lib. de Incarnat. et Gratia, c. 26.

Calvin, lib. III Instit., c. 24, n. 16 and elsewhere, on the contrary denies that there is in God a will to save the reprobate. A few had gone before him who were called Predestinarians. Jansenius seems to have followed him, who, lib. III de Gratia Christi, c. 20, acknowledges in God only an antecedent will to save all before original sin, not with that sin supposed.]

I say, 1°: God, even after the fall of Adam, wills, by an antecedent will — not an idle one, but an active one — that absolutely all men be saved. This is against Calvin and Jansenius.

Proof 1°, from that celebrated testimony of the Apostle, I Tim., II, 1-6: I entreat therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be made for all men, for kings and all who are in a high position... For this is good and acceptable before God our Savior, who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a redemption for all. But the Apostle is speaking of men after the fall of Adam, and of all of them taken distributively. Therefore.

Proof of the minor 1°: According to the Apostle, God wills all those to be saved for whom he wills supplications and prayers to be made, as is clear from the text. But he wills supplications and prayers to be made for each and every man, and these were in the state of fallen nature — indeed they were princes and emperors, entangled not only in original sin but in the gravest crimes, as Nero, under whose reign Paul suffered martyrdom; whence the Church, on the day of the Parasceve, prays for all, no one excepted. Therefore. 2° The Apostle says that Christ is the Mediator, and that he gave redemption for those whom God wills to be saved. But the mediation and redemption of Christ presupposes the sin of Adam, and it is a dogma of faith that Christ is the Redeemer of each and every man, as we shall prove in the following article. Therefore. Finally, the Apostle did not say he willed, but he wills all, which denotes a present will concerning all men actually existing.

Proof 2°, from Augustine, in whom Jansenius places the greatest confidence. The Holy Doctor, lib. de Spiritu et littera, cap. 33, says: «God indeed wills all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, yet not in such a way that he takes from them free will, by the good or evil use of which they are most justly judged.» This will be established still further from what is to be said in the two following articles. Likewise, St. Prosper, the most faithful disciple of Augustine, in answering the second Vincentian objection, proves the same thing, as we do, from the aforementioned testimony of the Apostle.

Proof 3°. The opinion of Jansenius empties out Christian hope, whose foundation is the will of God for the salvation of all. For what sort of hope of his own salvation can someone have, who does not firmly believe that God wills him to be saved? Likewise, it is against the common sense of the schools and of the faithful.

But that this antecedent will to save all men is not a metaphorical will, a mere will of sign, but a sincere will of good pleasure, existing properly and formally, is clear from the preceding article.

I say, 2°: The antecedent will of God is conditioned — not in this sense, that God wills to make all saved, if they themselves will it by a volition which he awaits from their free will, as Tournely holds along with the Molinists: that is, the antecedent will to save all is not so efficacious on God's part that it depends on man alone, by consenting to grace, to render it efficacious in every respect for actually attaining salvation; — but it is said to be conditioned in this sense, that he wills all to be saved, if higher ends do not stand in the way, e.g., the general good of the universe, the order of providence, the mutability of free choice, the splendor of mercy, the beauty of justice: «For if every man were to be freed, it would certainly lie hidden what is owed to sin through justice,» says St. Augustine, Epist. 194¹, ad Sixtum, n. 5.

St. Thomas expresses this conclusion in these words: «The antecedent will can be called conditioned, and yet this is not an imperfection on the part of the divine will, but on the part of the thing willed, which is not taken with all the circumstances that are required for the right order to salvation².» As if he were saying: The antecedent will of God for the salvation of all is conditioned, because he wills it, if various circumstances do not stand in the way, to which the universal provider must attend for the right and fitting order to salvation.

Proof 1°, from Augustine, lib. IV Contra Iulianum, c. 8, and Enchirid., c. 97, where he teaches that many are not saved, not because they themselves are unwilling, but because God is unwilling: which is shown without any controversy in the case of infants. He explains this more fully in de Dono perseverantiae, c. 12.

Proof 2°, from reason. It is God himself who works the willing, or the consent, of man, according to that saying of the Apostle to the Philip., II, 13: He works in us both to will and to accomplish, according to good will; and that saying of Augustine, de Dono persev., c. 13: «We indeed will, but God works in us both the willing..., according to good will.» Therefore it is contradictory for him to will our salvation under the condition of a volition which he awaits from us, that is, for it to depend on us to render his will efficacious.

(Proof 3°. This opinion does not seem to withdraw sufficiently from the error of the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians, who likewise said that God wills all men to be saved, «provided, however, that they themselves be willing to consent to God calling them,» and thus that the divine will can be frustrated and impeded by created will, as Augustine testifies in Enchirid., cap. 103. But this the Molinists openly assert, namely that God so wills all men to be saved, if they are willing, that this will of God — as far as it is of itself efficacious — can be frustrated and impeded by created will; and thus it happens daily in the case of the reprobate, who are for that reason not saved, because they are unwilling, notwithstanding the will of God, as far as it is of itself efficacious, to save them.)

You will object against the first conclusion, with Jansenius: The principal foundation of our conclusion is the words of the Apostle, I Tim., II, 4: God wills all men to be saved. But these words, according to Augustine, ought not to be understood of each and every man. Therefore. — Proof of the minor. As often as the Holy Doctor turns over these words of the Apostle, he interprets them in an accommodated sense — either of all who are saved; or of the classes of individuals, not of the individuals of the classes; or in a causal sense, insofar as he makes the just will the salvation of all. Therefore.

I answer. Granting the major, I deny the minor. For Augustine's interpretations do not conflict with ours, which is that of Damascene and St. Thomas, nor do they exclude it; because they proceed in a different sense. Augustine's interpretations proceed concerning the consequent will, and ours proceeds concerning the antecedent will.

Whoever, however, interprets the words of the Apostle concerning the consequent will must, with Augustine, understand them in an accommodated sense; but those who interpret them, with Damascene and St. Thomas, concerning the antecedent will, must understand them in a distributive sense. Now Augustine interprets the words of the Apostle concerning the consequent will, not according to his own opinion — for elsewhere he understands them concerning the antecedent will, as is clear from the proofs of the conclusion — but on the hypothesis of the Semi-Pelagians, who understood them concerning the consequent will.

Against the second conclusion, Honoratus Tournely here, § Quarta probatio, weaves a long series of the Fathers who say that God wills to save all men, if they themselves are willing. But what follows from that? This too we profess with open mouth, this all Catholics acknowledge, nor has anyone ever dreamed that God wills to save the unwilling and reluctant. Undoubtedly, then, God wills all to be saved if they are willing, but not by a volition which he awaits and begs from them, as the Molinists say — as though the divine will depended on the human will in order to be efficacious, and it rested on men alone that it be fulfilled — but he wills all to be saved if they are willing, by a volition which he himself works in them, by the most powerful force of his grace: «Not because we ought not to will, says Augustine, Epist. 217³, n. 12, but because he works the willing in us.» And lib. I ad Bonifac., c. 19: «God knows how to work within, in the very hearts of men, not so that men (which cannot happen) believe while unwilling, but so that they become willing from having been unwilling.»