Summa summae S. Thomae sive compendium theologiae

I suppose, 1°, that God has from eternity predefined all our free acts, not only virtually and mediately, by decreeing to furnish concurrence to them, as Molina and Lessius hold, but immediately in themselves¹, yet differently for good and for evil acts: positively as to entity and goodness in the case of good acts, positively as to entity but only permissively as to malice in the case of evil acts, as will be explained below.

Besides the Scriptures and the Fathers, the reason is that God does nothing in time which he has not from eternity foreknown and foreordained that he would do²; for God does something in time precisely because he wills it, and he does not begin to will in time. But God does all things, even our free acts. Isa., XXVI, 12: He worketh all our works in us. To the Philipp., II, 13: He worketh in us to will and to accomplish. To the Rom., XI, 36: Of him, and by him, and in him, are all things. Therefore.

I suppose, 2°, that the absolute decrees of the divine will are infallible; for it would be impious to say that God absolutely willed and decreed that something should come to be, and that it should not come to be.

But the difficulty is — and it is the chief one — from what source the infallibility and efficacy of the divine predefinitions or decrees is to be derived: whether from the consent of the will foreseen through middle knowledge, as the Molinists hold; or from the most powerful will of God and the dominion which he has over our wills, as the other theologians commonly hold.

This question is intimately connected with, indeed almost the same as, that most famous question of intrinsically efficacious grace; for in the manner in which God decrees from eternity, so he acts in time. Hence, if the infallibility of the divine decrees is from his most omnipotent and efficacious will and from the dominion which he has over our wills, and not from the consent of the will foreseen through middle knowledge, then so too is the grace by which he executes in time what he decreed from eternity. Hence what we shall say here likewise serves as an argument for intrinsically efficacious grace.

I say: The infallible efficacy of the divine decrees concerning our free acts, especially the good ones, is from the most omnipotent will of God and the supreme dominion which he has over the wills of men, and not from a foreseen consent; or, as others put it, the divine decrees concerning our free acts are of themselves and from within efficacious, not in themselves indifferent. So hold nearly all theologians, except the defenders of middle knowledge. For although not all explain in the same way the execution of this infallibility in time — some contending for physical causality, others for moral, others for congruity, others for delight, others for sympathy — all nevertheless refer it to the power and efficacy of the divine will, and not to something on our part conditionally foreseen, before God decreed to give it to us.

Proof from Scripture. 1° Esther, XIII, 9 and 11: Mardochai, praying God to turn the heart of King Assuerus, who was hostile to the Jews, says: Lord, almighty King, for all things are placed in thy power, and there is none that can resist thy will, if thou determine to save Israel.... Thou art Lord of all, and there is none that can resist thy majesty. And in chapter XIV, 12 and 13, Queen Esther prays thus: O Lord, King of gods, and of all power..., turn his heart to the hatred of our enemy. And in chapter XV, 11, it is added: And God turned the spirit of the king to mildness. By these words the infallibility and efficacy of the divine decree or will of God is evidently referred to his omnipotence, and not to a foreseen consent of Assuerus. Hence Augustine, book I ad Bonif.³, c. 20 n. 38, weighing these words, says: «The heart of the king.... he turns by a most hidden and most efficacious power, and transferred it from indignation to mildness.»

2° Proverb., XXI, 1: the heart of the king in the hand of God is compared to the divisions of waters in the hand of a gardener: As the divisions of waters, so the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord: whithersoever he will he shall turn it. Eccli., XXXIII, 13 and 14: man in the hand of the Lord is compared to clay in the hand of the potter: As the clay is in the potter's hand, to fashion it and order it: all his ways are according to his ordering: so man is in the hand of him that made him. Isa., X, 5, 15: he is compared to an axe, a rod, a staff in the hand of a man who uses them as he wills; by which comparisons it is made manifest that God, by the force of his power and dominion, disposes of the wills of men, and does not wait upon them or presuppose what they will.

3° According to Scripture, God brings it about that we do. Ezech., XXXVI, 27: I will cause you to walk in my commandments. He brings it about that we will. To the Philip., II, 13: He worketh in us both to will and to accomplish, according to his good will. He makes the unwilling willing, by taking away the hardness and resistance of the will, and by giving obedience or consent. Ezech., XI, 19 and XXXVI, 26: I will take away from you the heart of stone, and will give you a heart of flesh. Hence Augustine, de Praedest. sanct., c. 8, n. 13: «This grace, which by divine largess is secretly bestowed on human hearts, is rejected by no hard heart. It is bestowed precisely for this, that the hardness of the heart may first be taken away.» But God cannot infallibly bring this about through a decree of concurring indifferently to willing or not willing, to consent or dissent, or through a decree that waits for or presupposes consent and the removal of hardness, since he himself both gives the consent and removes the hardness. Add that through a decree of concurrence, God does not decree that we act, but to act with us when we act; nor that we will, but to will with us when we shall have willed.

4° According to the Apostle, the discrimination in the work of salvation is to be traced to God's part, and not to man's part. But in the system of indifferent decrees, man discriminates himself from another in the work of salvation. Therefore. This argument, deduced at sufficient length, consult in § 3 on Middle Knowledge, together with the responses of the adversaries.

Proof from Augustine. 1° The Holy Doctor, in the book de Corrept. et Gratia, ch. 14, n. 45, speaks thus: «It is not to be doubted that human wills cannot resist the will of God, who hath done all things whatsoever he would in heaven and in earth,... so that he himself does what he wills; since indeed, concerning the very wills of men, he does what he wills, when he wills it... Without doubt possessing a most omnipotent power of inclining human hearts whithersoever it pleases him.» You see that Augustine does not derive the infallibility of the divine will from foreknowledge of a future consent, but from the most omnipotent power and supreme dominion which he has over our wills.

2° Augustine, in the same place, explaining how God inclines wills and does with them what he wills, says: «He acted within, he held their hearts, he moved their hearts, and drew them by their own wills, which he himself works in them. If, then, when God wills to set up kings on earth, he has the wills of men more in his power than they themselves have, who else brings it about that correction is wholesome, and that amendment takes place in the heart of the one corrected?»

Augustine says two things here: first, that God inclines the wills of men by working within them. Therefore not by force of an indifferent decree, nor through simultaneous concurrence, nor through moral motions: not by force of an indifferent decree, because that waits for or presupposes the action of the will; not through simultaneous concurrence, because that does not work within the will, but co-acts with it toward the effect, when the will itself operates; nor through moral motions, because a moral motion does not act within the will, but moves only objectively and extrinsically through the proposal of the object made by the intellect, and moves no more than the very goodness of the object entices — which, being limited, does not have that most omnipotent power of inclining hearts of which Augustine speaks above.

The other thing the Holy Doctor says is that God inclines our wills inasmuch as he has the wills of men more in his power than they themselves have. But from the dominion which man has over his own will, he determines himself efficaciously, and — which is the crucial point — with his liberty preserved intact. Therefore, a fortiori, God, from the greater dominion which he has over the wills of men, determines them efficaciously, with their liberty preserved intact: otherwise how would he have the wills of men more in his power than they themselves have? And hence, on Augustine's showing, the principal and almost sole foundation of the opposite opinion, taken from an injury to liberty, collapses utterly.

3° Augustine, in the book de Gratia et Libero arbitrio, ch. 16, n. 32, explaining those words of the Apostle, It is God who worketh in us to will and to accomplish, says: «It is certain that we will, when we will; but he brings it about that we will the good... It is certain that we act, when we act; but he brings it about that we act, by supplying the will with most efficacious powers... When he says, I will bring it about that you do, what else does he say but, I will take away from you the heart of stone, on account of which you were not acting, and I will give you a heart of flesh, on account of which you will act? And what is this but: I will take away the hard heart, on account of which you were not acting, and I will give an obedient heart, on account of which you will act?» Therefore, according to Augustine, God not only acts when we will and act, which he supplies through simultaneous concurrence; but he brings it about that we will and act, not through mere moral motions, which do not change the will itself but only entice it through the proposal of the object, but by supplying the will with most efficacious powers, by which the hard heart, that is, its resistance, is overcome, and the obedient heart, that is, the very consent, is given and caused. Therefore the will of God is not infallibly efficacious from that foreseen consent, but by its own power, since indeed it causes that consent by a most efficacious force, and does not wait for or presuppose it as caused by another.

Proof from St. Thomas. The Holy Doctor, q. 6 de Malo, sole article, ad 3: «God, he says, moves the will immutably, on account of the efficacy of the moving power, which cannot fail.» What could be clearer? He adds: «But on account of the nature of the will that is moved, which stands indifferently to diverse things, no necessity is induced, but liberty remains.» And Quodlib. 12, a. 3: «Predestination has its certainty from the side of the divine will, which nothing can resist.» What again could be more express? See also 1ª 2ae, q. 112, a. 3, o; q. 10, a. 4, ad 3; 2ª 2ae, q. 24, a. 11, o, and elsewhere.

Moreover, it is the constant doctrine of the Holy Doctor everywhere that the infallibility of the divine will, and its reconciliation with our liberty, is to be traced to its most efficacious force. Thus here, q. 19, a. 8: «Since the divine will, he says, is most efficacious, it follows not only that those things come to be which God wills to come to be, but also that they come to be in the manner in which God wills them to come to be. Now God wills some things to come to be necessarily, others contingently.» And ad 2: «From this very fact that nothing resists the divine will, it follows not only that those things come to be which God wills to come to be, but that they come to be contingently or necessarily, according as he wills them so to come to be.» And 1ª 2ae, q. 10, a. 4, where he teaches that God does not move the will necessarily, because he moves each thing according to its own disposition, he first objects to himself this argument: «Every agent which cannot be resisted moves of necessity. But God, since he is of infinite power, cannot be resisted... Therefore God moves the will of necessity.» Behold the very argument which the Molinists everywhere use to prove that God cannot move or determine the will without prejudice to liberty. But St. Thomas answers them thus: «To the first it must be said that the divine will extends not only to the effecting of something through the thing it moves, but also to its coming to be in the manner that suits that thing's own nature. And therefore it would be more repugnant to the divine motion if the will were moved of necessity, which does not suit its nature, than if it were moved freely, as suits its nature.» Likewise here q. 22, a. 4; q. 23, a. 6; q. 83, a. 1, ad 3; III Contra gent., ch. 94; Opusc. II⁴, c. 140, and elsewhere.

Proof by an argument virtually manifold. It is an absolute and constant truth that every good which is in us, and especially our consent to a good work, is properly from God as the one willing and causing it. This is proved by almost all the authorities, both of the Scriptures and of the Councils and the Fathers, which we have adduced up to now; it is also proved by the prayers of the Church, by which we ask of God not only the good work, but also the consent and determination of our will toward it, or, as the Church prays, that he compel rebellious wills to himself⁵, or, as Augustine says, book IV ad Bonif., c. 9, «that from unwilling they may become willing, and from resisting, consenting;» for no one asks from another except what is to be granted or brought about by that other. This is again proved by the promises of God. «For he promised, says Augustine, de Praedest. sanctor., ch. 10, n. 19, what he himself was going to do, not what men were going to do;» now he sometimes promises our consent to the good, as when he promises Abraham the faith of the nations, Rom., IV, 11. Finally, the same truth is proved by natural reason itself, by which we acknowledge God to be the author of all goods, the first being in which all other beings participate, the first mover by whom all things are moved, the first and most universal cause which nothing can escape. But this absolute and primordial truth, known by the light of faith and reason, so establishes our position that it utterly overturns the contrary one. For if God wills and causes the determination and consent of our will, then his will regarding it is not indifferent but determined, nor is it infallibly efficacious by denomination from that foreseen consent, but of itself and from within; because it does not wait for or presuppose that consent as caused by another, but causes it by its own power.

It is confirmed, this minor, by setting forth the adversaries' manner of speaking. For they say that God is indifferently ready to concur with us, whether unto consent or unto dissent; but that he explores through middle knowledge how we are going to use this indifferent concurrence and to which side we are going to be determined, and sees that in certain circumstances we are going to use it for good, in others for evil. Then, if he wills that a good act come to be, from that intention he decrees to set us in those circumstances in which he foresaw we would consent, and thus by this second decree he decrees the act infallibly, not from the efficacy of his own operation, as is evident, but from the foreknowledge of his own cooperation. It is plain, therefore, according to this manner of speaking, that God does not cause our consent, but awaits it from us; that he himself is not the one determining us, but is determined by us; that we begin, and he follows; and that his concurrence lies subject to human liberty; that he is not the first being, the first mover, the first and most universal cause; that something existing in the nature of things, namely our free consent, or our free determination, escapes his causality; that man discriminates himself by his own resources in the work of salvation. These and other absurdities, deduced at greater length, seek in § 2 and especially § 5 on Middle Knowledge.

There is nothing the adversaries do not attempt, in order to avert the odium of so many and so great absurdities, and to persuade us, if they can, that even on their own view our free consent is from God.

They answer, therefore, 1°, that our consent is caused by God through moral motions.

But on the contrary: 1° There must be preserved in God the note of a properly efficient cause with regard to our free consent⁶. But moral motion does not pertain to the efficient cause, but to the final and objective.

2° Moral grace, properly speaking, does not determine the will, but only entices it so that it may determine itself, so that, given any moral grace whatsoever, the will always remains indifferent and undetermined; because, as I have already said, it does not act within the will by changing it and making a willing person out of an unwilling one, but only proposes to it an object enticing it to love. But no object, except God clearly seen, infallibly seizes and determines our will⁷; because, since no object, except God clearly seen, is proposed as good from every side, there always remains an indifference of judgment on the part of the intellect, and consequently an indetermination on the part of the will, which therefore needs to be determined from elsewhere.

3° God is the cause of our consent to the good by a stronger title than an angel or a man. But an angel and a man concur to our consent to the good through moral motions. Therefore these do not suffice in the case of God.

4° Granted that God truly and properly causes the free determination of our will through moral motions, he does this, without doubt, because he wills it; for he does nothing except by willing it. Therefore his will regarding our free consent is not indifferent but determined, nor infallibly efficacious from that foreseen consent, but from his own power and force; because, as is supposed, he causes it and does not wait for or presuppose it as to be caused by another. And this is now enough for us. For we are not here asking by what means God in time executes his omnipotent will, whether through physical or moral motions (that belongs to philosophy or to the treatise on Grace); but whether the divine will regarding our free acts is determined and infallibly efficacious from his own omnipotence: which is what we have here.

They answer, 2°, that our free consent is also efficiently from God through simultaneous concurrence.

But on the contrary: 1° Simultaneous concurrence is offered indifferently to consent or dissent. Therefore it is not determinative of the will to consent rather than to dissent.

2° Simultaneous concurrence does not flow into the will so as to determine it, but only into the effect; for the divine and human will, according to the adversaries, are two partial causes, like two men drawing a ship, of whom one does not flow into the other: otherwise it would no longer be a partial cause, but a total one. God, therefore, acts through simultaneous concurrence when we act, but does not bring it about that we act; nor is he the cause of our consent as it is free and as it proceeds from our will — under which aspect, nevertheless, it is something real and something of chief importance in the business of salvation, as we have said.

3° If God, through simultaneous concurrence, is the cause of our consent to the good, he will likewise be the cause of our consent to evil; because he concurs in the same way to each.

4° If the free determination of our will is from God because he cooperates with us, by equal right the cooperation of God can be said to be from us, because we too ourselves cooperate, and he cannot bring about our free act without us.

5° Finally, if God, through simultaneous concurrence, causes the free determination of our will, then it is no longer merely simultaneous, but also previous; because every cause is prior to its effect, at least in nature and causality.

They answer, 3°, the Congruists, that our consent and every good which is in us is from God, inasmuch as God, out of special benevolence and out of the intention of bringing about a good work in us, sets us in those circumstances in which he foresaw, through middle knowledge, that we would, out of our innate liberty, consent to the indifferent concurrence offered, whereas he could have set us in those circumstances in which he had foreknown that we would not consent.

But on the contrary: 1° It is most evidently plain that, even according to this manner of speaking, God does not cause our determination. For it says, no differently than the preceding views, that God first offers an indifferent concurrence, and waits for and explores our consent. Therefore he does not cause it. Nor does it matter that, this consent being foreseen by him as conditionally future from us — namely, if he should concur in such circumstances — he absolutely decrees, from the intention of obtaining this consent, to concur in these circumstances; for from this it follows only that he wills the consent to be posited by us, but not that he himself posits or causes it. And this is confirmed: hence, 2°, whoever posits the circumstances, by that alone does precisely nothing more than what the circumstances do. But circumstances do not cause our determination, that is, do not bring it about that we will, as is evident of itself and as the adversaries themselves confess. 3° It would follow that God would likewise be the cause of our dissent, when he sets us in those circumstances in which he foresaw we would not consent. 4° According to this manner of speaking, no more than according to the preceding ones, does the infallibility of the divine decrees arise from the omnipotence of God, but from his foreknowledge — against the authorities of the Scriptures related above; nor does God do with the wills of men what he wills, but what he foreknew that they themselves would will; nor does he dispose of them as a gardener disposes of waters, a potter of clay, a craftsman of an axe, since he cannot, with liberty preserved, bring it about that the will consent in those circumstances in which he foresaw it would not consent, nor that it not consent in those circumstances in which he foresaw it would consent. All of which is against the authorities related before, and the express texts of Augustine.

Tournely seeks another way out, art. 5 on Middle Knowledge, § Expenduntur. And he thinks he eludes the force of all these arguments from authority and from reason, by saying that God gives to will and to accomplish, takes away the heart of stone, gives a heart of flesh and a new spirit, brings it about that we walk in his commandments, inclines the heart whithersoever he wills, as a gardener divides the waters wherever he wills — in a word, that he causes our determination and consent to the good: «When, he says, out of the infinite helps of grace which he has in his power, he selects and bestows those by which he foresees that the stubbornness of the human will is to be softened and utterly broken: which is certainly a singular benefit of the power and kindness of God.»

But on the contrary. Tournely does not depart from the path once entered upon. If what he says is less than true, it at least paints a false face and deceives a good many readers. For you would believe, while he speaks thus, that he acknowledges in God graces which, from his omnipotent will, efficaciously incline and determine the human will to the good, by which he consequently foresees infallibly that the will or the will's stubbornness is to be softened and broken. For this is what Tournely's phrases seem to import. Not in the least. The Molinist doctor intends nothing else than that God, after he has foreknown through middle knowledge by which graces the human will, from its own liberty, is going to consent, decrees to give those graces to it; and thus he infallibly foresees that its stubbornness is to be softened and broken: not that those graces by their own force infallibly soften and break it (for no grace of this kind is acknowledged in the system of middle knowledge); but because, before he absolutely decreed to give it, he saw that the will, from its own innate liberty, would allow itself to be softened and broken by them, that is, that it would will to consent to them rather than to dissent. Hence, according to Tournely and all the defenders of middle knowledge, it is not preserved that God gives the willing or the consenting; that he takes away the heart of stone, that is, the resistance; that he gives the heart of flesh, that is, the obedience; that he inclines and determines the heart, etc.: but only that he knows this infallibly, because he foresaw this whole thing as conditionally future from the innate liberty of the human will.

But why do the adversaries seek so many circumlocutions and subterfuges? Why do we linger so long in exposing and resolving them? — when elsewhere they crudely and nakedly admit what here they seem to deny, or which at least they strive to wrap in darkness, lest the flaw and reproach of their doctrine should appear. For they say, indeed they proclaim with open mouth, and lay down as the foundation of their whole system, that it is the property of a free power to determine itself, and that it cannot, with its liberty preserved, be determined by anything extrinsic, not even by God himself; hence they deny predetermining decrees, intrinsically efficacious graces, physical premotions, and perpetually urge against us the decrees, as they suppose, of the Council of Trent, namely that the will can, even in the composite and consequent sense, resist any grace whatsoever and cast it off. Let it stand, then, unconquered, that according to the adversaries God is not the cause of our determination, and although in words they seem to dissemble this, when we object to them the frightful consequences of this doctrine, that they in fact hold it so, and are thus compelled to swallow all the absurdities which we have deduced in the present proof, and more fully on middle knowledge: namely, that something escapes the causality of God; that he himself is not the first and most universal cause, the first mover, the first being; that he is not omnipotent, the creator of all things visible and invisible; that his concurrence is subjected to human liberty; that we begin the good work, and he follows; that we ought not to ask of him that he convert us, that he compel our rebellious wills to himself, that he take away the heart of stone and give a heart of flesh, nor give him thanks for these things; that man discriminates himself by his own resources in the work of salvation; that God does not have supreme dominion over the wills of men, nor can he himself turn them whithersoever he wills, etc.

Proof of the second conclusion by reason. An indifferent decree of concurring to either alternative must be determined by something to this rather than to the opposite — for instance, to consent rather than to dissent, to an act of love rather than to an act of hatred; for it cannot concur to a determinate act while remaining in its indifference to either alternative. Now I ask the adversaries: by what, on their view, is that indifferent decree, or the concurrence indifferently offered, determined to this act rather than to the opposite? Here they stick fast. For it cannot be said that it is determined by God, since God shows himself indifferently ready to concur to either alternative; — nor by something that is in the will prior to its determining itself, since the whole will, before its determination, is indifferent, and if, before it determines itself, God were to offer it a concurrence determinate and restricted precisely to this act, he would injure its liberty, according to the adversaries; — nor, finally, by the actual determination of the will itself: 1° because this is openly to concede that the created will is the first determinant, the first cause on which God depends and by which he is determined in concurring; which, though it truly seems to us to follow from the adversaries' opinion as a very great absurdity, they nevertheless shrink from openly confessing. 2° The created will is determined through its own act, as they themselves teach, and the act of the will is identified with the concurrence of God, as they also concede; for an act cannot be conceived as issuing from the will and not from God, and this precisely through concurrence. Hence I infer, 1°: therefore the determination of the will is no more determinative of the concurrence, than the concurrence is determinative of the will. I infer, 2°: therefore God cannot foresee that the creature will determine itself without his own determinate concurrence, and thus, by seeing the conditionally future determination of the creature, he sees that he himself will determinately concur, before he wills to concur determinately; which is contradictory. And when they represent God as decreeing thus: I will concur determinately, if the creature shall have determined itself, the sense is: I will concur, if I concur; because, as has been said, the will cannot determine itself without the concurrence with which it is identified. Moreover, if the determination of the created will is the cause determining the divine concurrence, then the determination of the will is conceived prior to the concurrence. But how can it be conceived as prior, if it is identified with it?

Finally, indifferent decrees seem to be shattered by a Vatican thunderbolt. For Innocent XI, in the year 1679, on the 23rd of November, condemned this proposition: «God bestows on us his omnipotence, that we may use it, as someone bestows on another a country house or a book.» And this one: «God subjects his omnipotence to us, that we may use it at our pleasure.» For we do not see a sufficient distinction between these propositions and that one, which is the adversaries' own, and in the terms of James Platel, in his Synopsis, c. 4, § 2, n. 166, the decree of concurring in first act «exhibits the power of God, indifferently toward either alternative, to the free cause, leaving to it the full power of determining, at its pleasure, both itself and the power of God already made subject to it in second act, toward whichever part of the contrariety or contradiction it pleases.» For what is this other than God subjecting to us his power as to its use, namely that we may use it at our pleasure, just as a servant is said to subject himself to his lord, when he shows himself ready for whatever the lord shall will?

We forbear from further proofs, because what we have said against middle knowledge serves equally as an argument against indifferent decrees, since indifferent decrees cannot stand without middle knowledge.