Summa summae S. Thomae sive compendium theologiae

Here I shall set forth indifferently the arguments that militate both against grace efficacious of itself and against the decree efficacious in itself, because, as I have already noted, the cause of both is one.

The arguments are usually drawn from a fivefold source: 1° from authority; 2° from injury to liberty; 3° from the insufficiency of the help; 4° from affinity with Calvinism; 5° from injury to the divine holiness.

The objections from authority are resolved.

You will object 1° from Scripture: 1° Eccli., XV, 14, 17, it is said: God made man from the beginning, and left him in the hand of his own counsel... He hath set water and fire before thee: stretch forth thy hand to which thou wilt, etc. But if God's decrees concerning our free acts were predetermining and infallibly efficacious of themselves, man would not have been left in the hand of his own counsel, but of God's counsel, nor would there be for him any room to choose what he willed, but precisely to do what God willed. Therefore.

2° Isa., V, 3 and 4: Judge between me and my vineyard. What is there that I ought to have done further for my vineyard, that I have not done for it? Was it that I looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes? From this parable we gather that God does what is in him to do, and consequently that he gives the help by which man may work the fruits of salvation, which nevertheless he does not work. Therefore efficacious help is sometimes without effect.

3° Proverb., I, 24: I called and you refused, I stretched out my hand and there was none that regarded. Act. VII, 51: You always resist the Holy Ghost. And elsewhere likewise. But if the will of God were infallibly efficacious from its omnipotence, no one would resist it. Therefore.

4° II ad Corinth., VI, 1: We exhort you that you receive not the grace of God in vain. Now the Apostle is speaking of efficacious grace, since Augustine, in the book de Gratia et Libero arbitrio, ch. 5, n. 12, treating of Paul's most efficacious calling, makes use of this testimony. Therefore the Apostle acknowledges that efficacious grace can be without effect; for he who warns that it not be received in vain supposes that it can be so received. The same is signified at Hebr., XII, 15: Looking diligently, lest any man be wanting to the grace of God.

I answer that as to the first, by these words it is signified that man has free will, and that there is not fixed for him an operative power determined to one thing, as for natural agents, but that he has dominion over his own acts. Yet because this free [power] is created and a second cause, the action of the first free [cause] and first cause, on which man depends in his operation, is not thereby excluded¹. Hence, just as it is said, on the one hand, that man is left in the hand of his own counsel, so on the other it is said, Proverb., XXI, 1: As the divisions of waters, so the heart of the king is in the hand of God. And Ierem., XVIII, 6: As clay is in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand. Man is therefore in the hand of his own counsel and in the hand of God, not as of one drawing him violently or by necessity, but as of one giving the power, the operation, and all the things necessary for it to be done freely: and consequently for him to choose what he wills; but he chooses only what God wills him to choose.

As to the second, I deny that God did all that was in him to convert the Jews; hence he does not say: What further could I do, but: What further ought I to have done, and did not do? By which it is signified that God indeed gave the Jews what was necessary, namely sufficient graces by which they could be converted, and which, given the antecedent will of saving all, he was bound to give; but not efficacious graces, which indeed he could give, but was not bound to give, because the order of his providence did not require it.

As to the third, since Scripture likewise testifies in several places that no one resists, or even can resist, the divine will, in order to reconcile this we distinguish a twofold will in God, one antecedent, which is resisted, the other consequent, which is not resisted; and likewise a twofold grace, one sufficient, which proceeds from the antecedent will and is resisted, the other efficacious of itself, which proceeds from the consequent will and is not resisted, and which according to Scripture cannot be resisted — namely with the consequent power and in the composite sense — although it can be resisted with the antecedent power and in the divided sense, of which more below.

Moreover, as to resistance both to the divine will and to divine grace, it must be observed, with St. Thomas, in IV Sent., dist. 11, q. 1, a. 3, quaestiunc. 3, ad 2, that « resistance to some action can occur in two ways: in one way, on the part of the agent, namely when its power is weakened by a contrary agent; in the other way, on the part of the effect itself, when the effect is impeded by a contrary disposition. In every action in which the agent does not suffer, the first kind of resistance has no place, but only the second. Hence in the divine operations the difficulty is not considered according to resistance to the agent, but according to the impediment of the effect. » These most profound words of the Holy Doctor both explain and settle the present difficulty and many other very grave ones drawn from the injury to liberty through God's decree or grace efficacious of itself, and are therefore to be laid up in the depths of the mind and often recalled. No one, therefore, can in any sense resist either the absolute will of God or the motion of grace efficacious of itself with the resistance that is to the agent, as, for example, a citizen resists an enemy rushing into the city, checks his onset, delays it, breaks it, and at length conquers: for who is like God? Who hath an arm like God, says Job, XL, 4, and can wrestle with him? But since the divine will — say the same of grace — imposes no necessity on the created will, but wills that it act freely, the created will can will otherwise, and in this sense impede the effect of the divine will, which is to resist the divine will with the resistance that is according to the impediment of the effect.

As to the fourth, granted that the Apostle is speaking of efficacious grace (which could be denied), it must be understood of grace efficacious as to one thing, but sufficient as to another; for a grace that is efficacious as to one thing can be sufficient only as to some further thing: thus, for example, the grace conferring faith, hope, and inchoate love is, as to these, efficacious, but is only sufficient for perfect conversion, and in that respect in which it is sufficient it can be received in vain, because it can in fact be resisted.

You will object 2° that celebrated text, Matth., XI, 21: Woe to thee, Corozain! etc., for which see on Middle Knowledge in § VII.

You will object 3° the authorities of the Fathers: Cyril of Alexandria, book VIII in Iulian.; Chrysostom, Hom. XI in Ioann., et super Psalm. XV; Jerome, Epist. 106, ad Damasum, and Epist. 159, ad Hedibiam; Prosper, ad cap. Gallor. resp. VI; Damascene, book II Orthodoxae fidei. But all these and others mean nothing other than that man has free will; that he is not compelled but acts of his own accord, and that he is not determined necessarily to one thing after the manner of nature — in which sense St. Thomas, 1ª p., q. 23, a. 1, ad 1, explains Damascene.

You will object 4° several passages from St. Augustine and St. Thomas. But, lest we repeat the same things too often, look for them resolved on Middle Knowledge, Obj. 2, in the section cited. I will add one thing that is usually urged from St. Thomas, who, on ch. VIII ad Rom., lect. 6, says: « This calling is efficacious in the predestined, because they assent to a calling of this kind. »

I answer that St. Thomas is speaking, not in a causal sense, but in an inferential one, so that it rightly follows that grace is efficacious if we consent, yet not that our consent is the cause why grace is efficacious — as though he were saying: The predestined consent to a calling of this kind; therefore it is efficacious — in the sense in which we say that God is omnipotent because he has done all that he willed. Nor is it right to doubt the mind of the Holy Doctor, as is clear from what we related above from him.

The objections from injury to liberty are resolved.

You will object 1°, with Tournely, question de Scientia media and question 9 de Grat., a. 1: A doctrine that admits predetermining decrees and grace efficacious of itself cannot be reconciled with the Catholic dogma concerning human liberty. Therefore. — Proof of the antecedent. Faith establishes that « free will, moved and excited by God, can dissent, if it will. » So the Council of Trent, sess. VI, can. 4, and that it « can cast off God's inspiration, » ibid., ch. 5. And the council is speaking of efficacious grace, in whatever way it is efficacious, both because it speaks of the grace with which man in fact cooperates and to which he assents, and because it speaks of the grace by which Luther and Calvin said liberty was destroyed; for they said that liberty was destroyed by efficacious grace. But by a predetermining decree and by grace efficacious of itself having an infallible connection with the consent of the will, the will cannot dissent, otherwise the decree would not be predetermining, nor the grace efficacious of itself, since the will by its dissent could render it inefficacious and void. Therefore.

Before I answer, I premise, first, and suppose as certain, that God is the efficient cause of our liberty, not only potential, but also actual, that is, of the free act and the free determination of the will: 1° Because God is the first and most universal cause of all being and of the modes of being, or, as St. Thomas says, the cause that grounds the whole of being and all its differences, so that nothing exists in the nature of things that escapes his causality; and consequently neither does our actual liberty. 2° Because actual liberty is a perfection; for potency is for the sake of act, and is perfected through it: indeed it is a perfection simply simple, inasmuch as it is found in God, and if it be a question of actual liberty in the order of salvation, it is something supernatural. Now who will deny that a perfection of this kind is efficiently caused and participated from God, who is free through his essence, the source of all perfection and the author of all supernaturality? God is not, however, the efficient cause of the free determination of our will through an indifferent decree, for that is not given in order to determine the will (otherwise, according to the adversaries, it would injure liberty), but in order to concur with it once it has determined itself; for it is indifferent to concur unto consent or dissent by means of the determination of the will. Moreover, from something indifferent as such, something determinate can no more proceed than cold from hot, or white from black, so that, granted only the indifferent decree, the will, which is likewise indifferent before its determination, would remain forever idle and suspended from act. It remains, therefore, that God is the efficient cause of our actual liberty through a determining decree and a motion efficacious of itself descending from it, by which the will is shaken, as it were from sleep, out of its passive indifference and is brought from potency to act. Nothing whatever, therefore, is to be feared for human liberty from the predetermining decree and grace efficacious of itself; for a cause, by causing its effect, does not destroy it, but posits it. Compare what I said above.

If you say that it belongs to the nature of a free power to be the cause of its own motion, to move and determine itself, St. Thomas answers you that indeed « free will is the cause of its own motion, because man through free will moves himself to act. Yet it does not belong to the necessity of liberty that it be the first cause of itself as that which is free; just as it is not required, for something to be the cause of another, that it be the first cause of it. God, therefore, is the first cause moving both natural and voluntary causes, and just as, in moving natural causes, he does not take away that their acts be natural, so, in moving voluntary causes, he does not take away that their actions be voluntary, but rather brings this about in them; for he operates in each thing according to its own property². » God, therefore, moves the free power, not precisely so that it be moved and do nothing, nor does he determine it precisely so that it be determined, but he moves and determines it as the first mover, so that it, as a second mover first subordinated to him, in its own order, also moves, determines, and acts itself, and indeed freely, namely under an indifference of judgment and preserving the power to the opposite; because he operates in each thing according to its own property, and moves it not only as to the substance but also as to the mode of the act.

If you reply that a free power is mistress of its own act, but that by the very fact that it is efficaciously and infallibly determined by another, it is no longer mistress of its own act, St. Thomas answers again that « the will is said to have dominion over its own act, not through the exclusion of the first cause, but because the first cause does not act upon the will in such a way as to determine it of necessity to one thing, as it determines nature; and therefore the determination of the act is left in the power of reason and will³. » This, then, is the cause of the adversaries' hallucination, that they imagine human liberty as though it were a second God, which in its exercise and act had shaken off dependence on its Creator. How alien this is to faith and right reason, whoever attends to the rights of divinity and the condition of created being knows well. And this is already clear from what has been said, and will be clear again from what is to be said. These things having been premised.

I answer the argument: I deny the antecedent; as to the proof, I distinguish the minor: But by the predetermining decree and by grace efficacious of itself, etc. The will cannot dissent with the consequent power, the power of futurition, in the composite sense (for these are synonymous), that is, the will cannot at once join a non-act with the motion to the act, I concede the minor. Because, since the motion is simultaneous in time with the act — for it precedes it only in nature and causality — it would follow that it could at once join a non-act with the act; which is contradictory. The will cannot dissent with the antecedent power, the power of possibility, in the divided sense, that is, under that motion it does not retain the power of dissenting, I deny. Because, as we have already often said from the divine Thomas⁴ and shall say many times more (for it is an unshaken and fundamental principle), God so wills us to act that he also wills us to act freely, and so moves us to act that he also moves us to act freely; or, as it is commonly said, he moves not only as to the substance of the act, but also as to its mode, which is liberty. And since his will is most omnipotent and most efficacious, as is also his motion, it follows necessarily that we act freely, and consequently that we retain, under that motion, the power of resisting it and of casting it off. Understand always, as we explained above⁵ from St. Thomas, not according to resistance to the agent, but according to the impediment of the effect.

Thus, then, is this famous distinction of the composite and divided sense to be understood: that the composite sense composes with the act, or with what is prerequisite by nature only to the act, not the act or the opposite act; as if you say: One who is sitting can stand, it signifies, in the composite sense, that he could sit and stand at once, that is, compose sitting with standing. The divided sense divides the act, not from the power to a non-act or opposite act, but only from the non-act, or from the opposite act; as if you say: One who is sitting can stand, it signifies, in the divided sense, that one who is sitting, while sitting, retains the power of standing, yet not of composing standing together with sitting at the same time. In one word, the composite sense imports a power of simultaneity, the divided sense a simultaneity of power.

Calvin understood this distinction otherwise. According to him, the composite sense composes the act with the power to the non-act; and this is our divided sense. His divided sense, however, divides from the act the power to the non-act, so that, according to him, one premoved to act cannot not act in the composite sense, that is, the premotion standing, he does not have the power of not acting; he can in the divided sense, that is, the premotion being removed, have the power of not acting: just as, they say, one bound with chains does not have the power of running in the composite sense, that is, while the chains remain, and has the power of running in the divided sense, that is, once the chains are removed. This heretical sense, which we condemn and execrate, certain of the adversaries have not blushed at times to impose upon us, although others of the same school, among whom Annat, having become older, and Tournely himself in certain places, vindicate us from this calumny.

You will object 2°: A supposition antecedent to our determination and infallibly causing it entails necessity and takes away liberty. But both the predetermining decree and grace efficacious of itself antecede our determination and infallibly bring it about. Therefore.

I answer, from the principles laid down, I distinguish the major: A supposition antecedent to our determination and infallibly causing it as to the substance only entails necessity and takes away liberty, I concede the major; infallibly causing both the substance of the act and its mode, namely liberty, I deny the major. For it is unintelligible that a cause, as such, should destroy its own effect. Hence, distinguishing the minor according to the sense of the major, I deny the consequence. The solution is clear from what was said in the preceding solution. This answer is confirmed by the fact that this proposition of a certain Peter of Rivo, doctor of Louvain: « What follows by a necessary consequence from what is unimpedable, this is unimpedable and necessary, » was condemned at Rome by Sixtus IV, in the year 1476. So the doctors of Louvain relate in the justification of their censure, ch. 4, n. 81, and Sylvius, both in the opuscule de primo Motore, and in this part, q. 19, a. 8.

You will insist. Antecedent necessity, according to Anselm, book II Cur Deus homo, ch. 18, takes away liberty. But the predetermining decree and grace efficacious of itself entail antecedent necessity. Therefore. — Proof of the minor. According to Anselm, in the place cited, there is a twofold necessity, preceding and consequent: « There is, he says, a preceding necessity, which is the cause that a thing be, and there is a following necessity, which the thing brings about. Preceding and efficient necessity is present when it is said that the heaven revolves, because it is necessary that it revolve; but the following necessity, which effects nothing, but comes to be, is present when I say that you speak of necessity, because you are speaking. For when I say this, I signify that nothing can bring it about that, while you are speaking, you not speak, not that someone else compels you to speak. For the violence of natural condition compels the heaven to revolve, but no necessity makes you speak. » But the predetermining decree, or grace efficacious of itself, is the cause of the act, and brings with it some necessity; for it is impossible that there be a decree, and that in reality the effect not follow. Therefore the decree efficacious of itself entails antecedent necessity.

I answer that this argument, in which the adversaries make their force felt, is proposed to himself by St. Thomas here, q. 19, a. 8, under these terms: « That which has necessity from something prior is necessary absolutely. But created things are compared to the divine will as to something prior, from which they have necessity, since this conditional is true: If God wills something, it is. It follows, therefore, that everything that God wills is necessary absolutely. » Behold the very argument that the adversaries magnify, to which St. Thomas answers thus: « To the third it must be said that posterior things have necessity from prior things according to the mode of the prior things. Hence also the things that are done by the divine will have such necessity as God wills them to have, namely either absolute, or only conditional. And thus not all things are necessary absolutely. » Because, namely, as he had explained in the body of the article, God does not will all things to come about necessarily, but some contingently and freely. From this perpetual and constant doctrine of the Holy Doctor, I deny the minor of the argument; as to the proof, I distinguish the minor. The decree efficacious of itself is the cause of the act as to substance and mode, namely liberty itself, I concede the minor; it is the cause of the act as to substance only, I deny the minor and the consequence. For although it is most certain and infallible that it will be, if God has decreed it, yet it will not be necessarily because God has decreed it; but on the contrary it will be freely, because God has decreed that it be freely; and from the fact that it will most certainly be freely, it follows that it will necessarily be, because it cannot both be and not be; but, as you see, this necessity is from the supposition that it will be, and thus it is not antecedent, but consequent. Certainty and infallibility, therefore, are sought from the decree, but not necessity; for this is sought only from the supposition that it will be, which is the necessity called consequent by Anselm, or, as others say, the necessity of consequence, conditional, or hypothetical. That this is Anselm's mind is established: 1° because he did not say that the antecedent supposition takes away liberty, but antecedent necessity. Now he defines antecedent necessity as that which is the cause why a thing comes about, that is, which holds on the part of the cause and necessitates it to posit the effect; he defines consequent necessity as that which the thing has brought about, that is, which is sought from the very supposition of the object. Furthermore, no necessity compels God to decree my act, nor does his decree or grace place anything in my will by which it compels it to posit that act in such a way that I could not not posit it; but rather it brings it about that I posit it in such a way that I can also not posit it: hence it is evident that there is here no antecedent necessity, but only consequent. 2° and chiefly because St. Anselm explains himself thus, book de Concordia praescientiae et liberi arbitrii, ch. 3, where he says: « Since what God wills cannot not be, when he wills that man's will be compelled or forbidden by no necessity to will or not to will, and wills the effect to follow the will, then it is necessary that the will be free, and be what it wills. » Where you see St. Anselm proving, from the efficacy of the divine will, as we do, both that the effect intended by God through our will is most certainly to be, and yet that our will remains free, because he wills both.

By antecedent necessity, therefore, St. Anselm understands only that which is from a cause either compelling or determining necessarily to one thing, without the power to the opposite, as in natural things. Besides what has been said, this is clear both from the examples by which, in the book cited, Cur Deus homo, he explains antecedent necessity — namely the rising of the sun and the motion of the heavens, which are agreed to be natural agents determined to one thing without power to the opposite — and from the book Concord., ch. 10, where he says: « Although it be necessary that the things foreknown and predestined come to pass, yet certain things foreknown and predestined do not happen by that necessity which precedes the thing and brings it about, but by that which follows it. For God, although he predestines them, does not bring them about by compelling the will or by resisting the will (attend to these words), but by leaving it in its own power. Yet although his will makes use of its power, it does nothing that God does not do. » By these words he plainly signifies that by antecedent necessity, which precedes the thing and brings it about, he does not understand any precedence and causality whatsoever, but only that which either compels or determines necessarily to one thing, without power to the opposite.

The objections from the insufficiency of grace are resolved.

You will object, with Tournely, q. de Scientia media, a. 5; q. 7 de Grat., a. 4, and q. 9, a. 1, ibidem: From the necessity of the decree or of grace intrinsically efficacious for each individual act of piety, this consequence seems to follow, namely that sufficient grace, when deprived of such grace, is truly insufficient for the act which it never produces. This being granted, many untoward consequences result: 1° how is that grace truly sufficient? 2° how are God's commands possible for a man who does not have such intrinsically efficacious grace? 3° how is he guilty of a violated precept who lacked the premotion necessary for observing it? 4° how can he be justly reproved and condemned? Tournely does not prove the assumption, but supposes it. Proof, however. That is insufficient, beyond which something else is required for acting which is not in our power, but depends on another. But beyond the help which is called sufficient, there is required, in the opinion of the Thomists, another intrinsically efficacious help which is not in our power, but depends on God. Therefore.

It is confirmed. Let us suppose that God commands someone some act, say of love, and confers on him everything required for that act, except that efficacy of the decree or motion; something impossible is commanded to him. Therefore. — Proof of the antecedent. This act of love, without that efficacy, is something impossible in the composite sense, that is, it is impossible for this act to be posited in fact and in reality. Therefore something impossible is commanded, just as if walking were commanded to one who does not have the general concurrence for walking.

Before I answer directly, I premise that this argument attacks equally the system of congruous grace, which the Fathers of the Society now more commonly maintain. For congruous grace is so necessary for the fulfillment of the precept that with it the precept is always fulfilled and without it it is never fulfilled, nor is it in man's power to have it, since, according to its defenders, God confers it from special benevolence on those on whom he wills. Therefore whatever other grace be posited, deprived of that grace, it is insufficient.

This being granted, I ask with Tournely: 1° how is that grace truly sufficient? 2° how are God's commands possible for a man who does not have such congruous grace? 3° how is he guilty of a violated precept who lacked the congruous grace necessary for observing it? 4° how can he be justly reproved and condemned?

Nor does it help that congruous grace does not add a greater power to the sufficient, so that sufficient incongruous grace has everything that is required, on the part of the power, for positing the act. Granted: at least it adds a greater benefit without which the act will never be posited, and with which it will always be posited; hence the same difficulty returns, not only in this opinion, but in the opinion of all those who acknowledge some distinction between sufficient and efficacious help on the part of the first act: which opinion indeed I do not sufficiently see how it can safely be denied. These things being premised, I answer directly to the argument by denying Tournely's assumption and everything annexed to it; to the proof, first, I distinguish the major. That help beyond which another is required is not sufficient absolutely and in every order, let it pass; it is not sufficient in its own order, I deny. For it confers a complete and unimpeded power for acting, so that nothing is lacking on the part of the power or of the first act; hence it is sufficient in its own order, or in the character of a power. But whether it may properly and rightly be called sufficient, granted that something else is required for actually acting, is not for this place to discuss, but belongs to the treatise on Grace. For the rest, I say briefly, it is rightly called sufficient, just as fire is commonly said to be sufficient for burning, although it must further be applied in order to burn: just as bread is commonly said to be sufficient for nourishing, although it does not nourish unless it is eaten and passed into the stomach; just as the passion of Christ is said to be sufficient for salvation, although, in order actually to save, it must further be applied, and likewise in many other cases.

But, because the question here is not merely about the name, but chiefly this: whether, this sufficiency being granted on the part of the power, the precept is really so possible for one who does not have efficacious help, that he can justly be reproved and condemned if he does not keep it? I answer altogether affirmatively, not only for the reason I have just given, that through the help he has a complete and unimpeded power for observing it, and for one who is able to act and does not act, it is a sin; nor, in order that a transgression be imputed to anyone, is grace for the action always required, otherwise there would never be any transgression. But here, I say, I do not stop, but I go further and say that for one who has sufficient but not efficacious help, the precept is truly possible, and he can justly be reproved if he does not keep it; because that he lacks the efficacious is his own fault. — Hence the minor of the proof can be distinguished: Intrinsically efficacious help is not in our power, as an effect which stands under us, I concede the minor; as a cause which is present to us, I deny the minor. For God, as far as it is from himself, is ready to give it to all, nor does he deny it to anyone except on account of fault: and by this one word the argument and its confirmation are resolved.

But now indeed, what fault? Is it present, or past, or original, or actual?

St. Thomas, following Augustine, sometimes refers the denial of grace to a preceding fault, whether actual, or at least original. So 2a 2ae, q. 2, a. 5, ad 1⁶. And this, as to the preceding actual sin, can be verified of believing sinners; as to the original, of unbelievers. For the rest, because this solution suffers its own difficulties from another quarter, and an instance could immediately be raised in the first sin of the angels and of Adam, for resolving which it does not suffice, since neither in the angels nor in Adam, before the first sin, did any other sin, whether original or actual, precede: therefore

Another answer, which is more frequent in St. Thomas, and which is the adequate solution of the argument in every case, is that to one who has sufficient help, the efficacious is denied on account of a concomitant fault and a present impediment which he interposes, namely inasmuch as, since God is ready, as far as is in himself, to give to all both sufficient and efficacious grace, man, by an evil will freely breaking forth into a disordered act, resists sufficient grace, arrests its course, and places an obstacle to efficacious grace, by positing an act incompossible with it and with the act to which it would move him, were it present. «God, says the holy Doctor, III Contra gent., cap. 159, as far as is in himself, is ready to give grace to all; for he will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth, as it is said I ad Tim., II, 4. But those alone are deprived of grace who in themselves present an impediment to grace; just as, the sun illuminating the world, it is imputed as fault to him who closes his eyes, if some evil follows from this, although he cannot see unless he is anticipated by the light of the sun. » Likewise in II Sent., dist. 28, q. 1, a. 4, where he cites this from St. Anselm: « That someone does not have grace, is not from this, that God does not will to give it, but because man does not will to receive it. » Also q. 3 de Malo, a. 1, ad 8; in II Sent., dist. 37, q. 2, a. 1, and often elsewhere.

According to this doctrine, Alvares, lib. III de Auxiliis, disp. 18, n. 20, discourses thus: « Although the previous motion of God is not in the power of the created will as in an efficient cause,... it is nevertheless within the faculty of our will to impede itself so as not to have that motion. Hence, if it does not perform the act which is in the precept, it will be imputed to it as fault, because by its own fault it impeded itself so that efficacious help was not given, which was necessary in order that it might actually perform the act of virtue which is in the precept: just as, if God were to impose on a man the precept of flying, and, as far as is on his part, were to offer him wings and the help necessary in order to fly, but he himself, by his own liberty, were to answer: Lord, I neither wish to receive the wings nor to fly; he would deservedly be reputed guilty and a transgressor of the precept, even if he could not fly without wings, because by his own fault he impeded himself from having them given to him by God. »

Nothing simpler, as you see, nothing clearer than this answer: Man does not have the grace necessary for observing the precept, because he does not will to have it, or because he places an impediment to it, and therefore the transgression of the precept is justly imputed to him. Nevertheless, if Tournely is to be believed, tract. de Grat., q. 7, a. 4, concl. 3, « this answer seems so obscure and involved, that it can scarcely be understood and clearly explained, what, in the opinion of the Thomists, that good use of sufficient grace is; what that previous disposition is to which that efficacious grace most certainly follows; what finally that non-resistance is, whether something negative, or something positive. » But such is the lot of the Thomists, in Tournely's eyes, that whatever they say, even with St. Thomas as their authority, is obscure, involved, unfounded, and of no weight; but whatever the Molinists say is clear, distinct, well-founded, and of the gravest weight in number and measure. And these are the doings of a man who promises to weigh the arguments of both sides in an equal balance. The answer of St. Thomas and the Thomists is therefore not obscure and involved, but Tournely himself strives to involve and obscure it by his own answer, in which he imposes upon us, not what we say, but what he feigns us to say. For why does he run off into a good use of grace, into a previous disposition to which efficacious grace most certainly follows, into a negative or positive [sense] of non-resistance, of which we make not a word? For we do not say that efficacious grace is conferred on man because he uses the sufficient grace well, because he does not resist it, or consents to it, because he well prepares himself for the efficacious; for we know these to be the effect of efficacious grace, and not its cause: but we say that man is deprived of efficacious grace because he resists the sufficient, because he does not will to have the efficacious, because by sinning he places an impediment to it; and because Tournely does not distinguish these two things, which are widely different, he confuses everything.

The Sorbonne doctor therefore wastes his oil and his labor, while he strains every nerve to prove that non-resistance to sufficient grace is not something negative, but something positive, namely that it is itself the consent to grace, and that, in the opinion of the Thomists, for every positive good act intrinsically efficacious grace is required; for this we not only concede freely, but defend with St. Augustine and St. Thomas as for our altars and hearths. But that the Parisian theologian infers from this that the precept is impossible for one who does not have intrinsically efficacious grace, is to err by the whole breadth of heaven; for although, in order that man not resist or consent to sufficient grace, he needs efficacious grace, yet he does not need it for this, but an evil will suffices for him to resist, and by resisting to be deprived of the efficacious grace necessary for keeping the precept. And in this little distinction consists the solution of the whole knot.

And so we admit and constantly teach, with both doctors of grace, that not to resist sufficient grace, or, what is the same, to consent to it, is something positive, and that for this there is need of intrinsically efficacious grace; but that, in order to resist, to dissent from sufficient grace, one needs efficacious grace, or, in order to place an impediment to efficacious grace, that is, what is the same, in order to sin, there is need of intrinsically efficacious grace, no one of sound mind has ever dreamed. For that indeed, according to the common sense, the created will suffices, which, because it is from nothing and vitiated by the original fall, is a first deficient principle.

From these things, therefore, I conclude and advise that it must most firmly be held, that, although it is true that man consents to sufficient grace because he has the intrinsically efficacious, it is nevertheless false that he resists the sufficient because he lacks the efficacious; but, on the contrary, he lacks the efficacious because he resists the sufficient, and accordingly it is deservedly imputed to him that he lacks it, and that, it being absent, he does not fulfill the command. The cause, however, why he resists the sufficient is to be sought nowhere else, as I have already said, than in his evil will.

I insist. The privation of intrinsically efficacious grace precedes the fault and the resistance to the sufficient, and is the cause of it. Therefore, it is not that man is deprived of efficacious grace because he sins and resists the sufficient, but, on the contrary, he resists and sins because he is deprived of grace. — Proof of the antecedent. If intrinsically efficacious grace were present, there would be no resistance to the sufficient. Therefore the privation of intrinsically efficacious grace is the cause of the resistance.

I answer, we deny the antecedent absolutely, whose falsity we have already asserted from St. Thomas, and which must now again be proved more fully, because on this the hinge of the difficulty turns. It is true, then, that for man to sin, or to resist sufficient grace, and to be deprived of efficacious grace, are simultaneous in time; but, in order and by nature, the sin, or the resistance to sufficient grace, precedes, and the privation of efficacious grace follows. Let those things which we have already brought forward from St. Thomas be reread, and let attention be given to what follows: « That man lacks grace, says the holy Doctor in I Sent., dist. 40, q. 4, a. 2, happens from two [causes]: both because he himself does not will to receive it; and because God does not infuse it into him, or does not will to infuse it into him. But of these two the order is such, that the second is only on the supposition of the first. For since God wills nothing but the good, he does not will that this man lack grace, except insofar as it is good; but that this man lack grace is not good simply. Hence this, considered absolutely, is not willed by God. It is, however, good that he lack grace, if he does not will to have it, or if he negligently prepares himself for having it, because it is just, and in this way it is willed by God. It is clear, therefore, that the absolutely first cause of this defect is on the part of the man who lacks grace; but on the part of God there is no cause of this defect, except on the supposition of that which is the cause on the part of the man. » What can be said more clearly or more expressly than this, does not appear. Although, therefore, as I have said, these two things — man's sinning, and God's denying him grace — are simultaneous in time, nevertheless this order is established, that God never denies grace, except because man does not will to receive it, not indeed directly (for no one is so much his own enemy as to will directly to be deprived of grace), but indirectly, insofar as he places an act incompossible with grace and with the act to which it would move him, were it present. And this is so because God wills nothing but the good, but that man lack grace is not good simply; but that he lack it, because he does not will to have it, or negligently prepares himself for it, is good, because it is just.

To the proof of the antecedent, therefore, the antecedent being conceded, I deny the consequent. For from this, that if intrinsically efficacious grace were present, there would be no resistance to the sufficient, it indeed follows that efficacious grace is the cause of the non-resistance or the consent, but from this it does not follow that the absence of grace is the cause of the resistance; for this indeed has its cause elsewhere, namely the evil will, which is a first deficient principle, whether from the ingrained corruption by which it is prone to evil, or from its native defectibility, as it is from nothing, according to that already cited [saying] of St. Augustine, de Corrept. et Grat., c. 11, n. 31: « Free will suffices for evil, but for good it is nothing⁷, unless it is helped by the omnipotent good. »

You will urge: According to the rule of dialectic, « if the affirmation is the cause of the affirmation, the negation too will be the cause of the negation, » or, what comes to the same, « of opposites there is the same account, » as if the shining sun is the cause of the day, the non-shining sun is the cause of the non-day, or night. Therefore, if efficacious grace is the cause of the consent or of the fulfillment of the precept, the withdrawal of grace is the cause of the dissent, or of the non-fulfillment of the precept.

Behold, if I am not mistaken, the final goal of an argument drawn out even to the subtleties of dialectic; but, what perhaps you will marvel at, not even that did St. Thomas pass over, from which you will see more and more how much those who object these things to us dissent from the holy Doctor. Thus St. Thomas, in I Sent., dist. 40, q. 4, a. 2, n. 3, proposes this argument to himself: « According to the Philosopher, in the Posterior [Analytics], bk. I, text 30, he says, if the affirmation is the cause of the affirmation, the negation too is the cause of the negation. But the divine will is the cause that he himself has grace, namely because he wills it. Therefore it seems that the non-willing of God is the cause why this man does not have grace. » Behold, absolutely and in the very terms, the same argument, so that you would believe the adversaries had begged it from St. Thomas himself. But the holy Doctor answers thus: « To the third it must be said, that an effect does not follow, unless all the causes concur. But from the defect of one, there follows the negation of the effect. I say, therefore, that the cause of grace, as agent, is God himself, and as recipient is the soul itself, by way of subject and matter: and therefore, because the form induced is not the cause of the matter, nor the subject, except such a one from whose principles an accident flows, which sort of accident grace is not; therefore the soul is not called simply the cause of grace, but only the recipient, while God is the cause. Nor is it necessary that every defect fall on the part of the agent, but it can fall on the part of the recipient, and so it is in the case proposed. » The sense, therefore, of the solution of St. Thomas is, that these rules of dialectic hold only when on both sides all the principles concur in the same manner; otherwise, if one of the principles is lacking. But in the reception of grace, all the principles concur; not so in its negation. For in order that man receive grace, it is necessary that two things concur: both that God will to infuse it, and that man will to receive it; because the infusion of grace is a good, and a good is produced by all the causes concurring. But in order that man lack grace, it suffices that one be lacking, namely that man be unwilling; because, since the privation of grace is an evil, it arises from the defect of a single cause. From which it follows, that God is indeed the cause why man has grace, and acts well, but is not the cause why grace is withheld and he acts badly; and so here the said rules of dialectic do not apply. Moreover, these rules hold only when to the thing affirmed there is opposed its pure negation, as, in the example of the sun, to the day affirmed there is opposed the night, which is the mere negation of the day; but it is otherwise, if on the part of the negation something positive is involved, which has elsewhere its own proper cause, as happens in the case proposed; for the resistance, or dissent, which on the part of the negation is opposed to the consent, does not come about through a mere negation or suspension of the consent, but through a positive disordered act, whose first and entire cause is, as I have already said more than once, the evil will. Thus a master guiding the hand of a pupil, is the cause why he writes well; but if the pupil pushes away the master's hand and writes badly, the cause of the bad writing is not the absence of the master, but the unskillfulness of the pupil, and his evil will, by which he refused the master's help.

The objections from affinity with Calvinism are resolved.

You will object: « Grace efficacious of itself is a new invention of Luther and Calvin, and unheard of in the Catholic Church down to their times, opposed by the academies and the doctors of the Church, both before, and after the (Tridentine) synod was convened, and reproved by the council. » So Father Livinus de Meyer, a Belgian, a new writer from the Society, pronounces that he judges — this matter having been diligently examined, stirred up against the Thomistic School by a new, shall I say, hatred, or fury? — in the first dissertation on the mind of the Council of Trent, which first appeared under the masked name of Liberius Gratianus in the year 1709.

This calumny against the Thomists Father Bastida first fabricated, acting in the name of the Society in the Congregations de Auxiliis, which, the sacred assembly applauding, Father Lemos, acting for the Preachers, blew away. But that this accusation was wrung from the adversaries not by zeal for truth, but for recrimination, Ripalda testifies, another writer of the same Society, tom. II, disp. 413, sect. 9, n. 53: « Bannes, he says, and most of his disciples, in public disputations and in private sermons and writings, began to mark that opinion (of Molina) as Pelagian. Against this, ours, in order to avoid the mark of Pelagianism on their own opinion, objected the mark of Calvinism against the opposite (Thomistic opinion). » Not, therefore, because they believed the Thomistic opinion to be Calvinist, but, in order to avoid the mark of Pelagianism, they objected Calvinism to the Thomists.

After about forty years, Francis Annat, of the same Society, renewed the same calumny; but afterward, led by repentance, or because perhaps the character of the times required something else, he sang his recantation, and in several works by various arguments showed, which was easy for him, that the Thomists stand far removed from Calvinism and Jansenism. His fellow religious did the same: Stephen Dechamps, lib. II de haeresi Iansen., disp. 6, cap. 9; John Martinonus, in his Anti-Iansenio; most recently Father Joseph Sanfelicius, in a work dedicated to the supreme Pontiff Benedict XIII, entitled: Iansenii doctrina ex Thomisticae scholae principiis damnata, and many others. With what face, then, did Livinus de Meyer dare to rub open again this most inept calumny, his own fellows contradicting him, indeed the supreme Pontiffs forbidding it?

For the whole world of letters knows with how much zeal the supreme Pontiffs have cultivated the doctrine of intrinsically efficacious grace, and have willed it to be safe from every mark. To say nothing of the ancient Pontiffs Innocent I, Zosimus, Celestine, Gelasius, Hormisdas, who defended the doctrine of Augustine — which is the very doctrine itself of intrinsically efficacious grace, whatever the adversaries may protest — against its detractors, and held it as the doctrine of the Church. Likewise of Clement VIII and Paul V, of whom we have already spoken. It is known to all, that the supreme Pontiffs who acted in the cause of Jansenius always employed the utmost caution, that the opinion of intrinsically efficacious grace and of gratuitous predestination to glory might be kept safe.

This, among others, Clement XI performed, in the letter Pastoralis officii, given 7 September 1718. Then Benedict XIII, in the brief Demissas preces, given 6 September 1725, after he declared that the Thomists had « up to now laudably » taught the opinions on intrinsically efficacious grace and gratuitous predestination to glory, and that they « with commendable zeal gloried that they had drawn these from Sts. Augustine and Thomas, and that they were in harmony with the word of God, the decrees of the supreme Pontiffs and councils, and the sayings of the Fathers, » forbids, under canonical penalties, that anyone say that this doctrine has been proscribed by any decree of the Church, or dare « to fabricate similar calumnies. » And in the bull Pretiosus, given 7 kalends of June 1727, § 41: « Under the threat, he says, of the divine judgment, and again under canonical penalties, we command each and every one of Christ's faithful, that they in no way attack, by word or in writing, with contumely, the doctrine of the aforementioned holy Doctor and his distinguished school in the Church, especially where in that same school there is treated of divine grace efficacious of itself and from within, and of gratuitous predestination to glory without any foreseeing of merits, nor brand it as agreeing with the errors condemned by the Apostolic See, and signally by the constitution LXIV of the said Clement XI of happy memory, beginning Unigenitus, the errors of Jansenius, Quesnel, and others. »

Clement XII, in the constitution Verbo Dei scripto, given 4 kalends of September 1733, approves all the praises and privileges given by Benedict XIII to the Thomistic school, and, having recounted twelve supreme Pontiffs who praised and approved the doctrine of St. Thomas, himself also desiring « to adorn, for the public good, with due praises, the doctrine of so great a man, celebrated even in ecumenical councils, » grants to the Order of Preachers the privilege of conferring the doctoral laurel on those who « shall have heard for three years, in any schools, studios, and colleges of the same Order, the doctrine of the same holy man, as it is customarily handed down in the schools of the Order of the same Friars Preachers (N. B.). »

But since the rivals of our School did not bear so many praises and prerogatives with a sufficiently equal mind, they complained of the matter before the same Clement XII. He, in order to quell their complaints, issued another brief on 2 October 1733, which begins Apostolicae providentiae, in which he confirms and corroborates what he had said in praise and defense of the Thomistic doctrine, and adds what seemed to some to be lacking in his constitution Verbo Dei, namely by expressing that the matter concerns the doctrine of efficacious grace, according to the opinion of Sts. Augustine and Thomas, and of the Thomists; and, for whatever consolation of the complainers, he declares, « that by the praises conferred on the Thomistic school, nothing has been detracted from the other Catholic schools, » but that the mandate of Paul V must be observed, « until this Holy See shall have judged that something is to be defined and pronounced on these same controversies. »

One must be blinder than a blind man, who does not see, according to the holy Pontiffs, that the doctrine of St. Thomas and of the Thomists concerning the efficacy of divine grace and gratuitous predestination is altogether the same, and accordingly that no room remains any longer for distinguishing, as the adversaries used to do, between the doctrine of St. Thomas and that of the Thomists, and that they are open and obstinate calumniators, who blurt out that it has been condemned by the decrees of the Pontiffs and councils; concerning which read Thomismus triumphans⁸, II p., a. 2, and his Apolog., § 24. From these things you already see in what regard Livinus de Meyer and those who agree with him are to be held; but the calumny will be in the open, if we set forth succinctly

Wherein the error of Luther and Calvin on the present matter is situated.

Both heresiarchs contend that, by the sin of Adam, free will was extinguished in man. Thus Luther, art. 36, among those condemned by Leo X: « Free will, after sin, is a matter of title only, and while it does what is in itself, it sins mortally. Nay, I ought to have said simply: It is a fiction among things, or a title without a reality, because it is in no one's power to think anything of evil or of good, but all things, as the article of Wyclif condemned at Constance rightly teaches, happen by absolute necessity... There is no doubt that this name, free will, came into the Church with Satan as teacher. » And although he seems at times to have tempered this error, he nevertheless always maintained that free will does nothing, but comports itself merely passively, like some inanimate thing.

Calvin, lib. II Inst., cap. 1, to which he prefixes this title: « That man is now despoiled of freedom of will, and given over to wretched servitude, » says: « Man was endowed with free will in the first condition of his creation, which by his fall he lost. » He adds that the philosophers were ignorant of this, and that plainly « those who follow them, and still seek free will in man, play the fool. » This first principle being laid down, Calvin recognizes in man no other liberty than liberty from coercion, or spontaneity. Inst., lib. II, cap. 2, § 7: « Man, he says, is therefore said to be of free will in this way: not because he has a free choice equally of good and of evil, but because he acts evilly by will, not under compulsion. » Lib. II Contra Pighium: « If liberty is opposed to coercion, that the will is free I both confess and constantly assert, and I hold for a heretic whoever thinks otherwise; if, I say, in this sense it is called free — one which is not compelled or violently dragged by an external motion, but acts of its own accord — I make no objection. » Hence he teaches that man's will cooperates in nothing with the divine motion by assenting: not that it comports itself passively like a stone that is thrown, as Luther holds, but because it is not left to its own choice to assent or dissent, but it necessarily follows that motion, « just as, he says, a beast of burden follows, » not freely, but « spontaneously the guidance of its rider; » and for that reason it is not said to cooperate with the rider. Cap. 3 cit. lib. II Inst.

From these things it is more than evident that no greater affinity intervenes between the Thomistic doctrine and the Calvinian than between contradictories. For Calvin denies free will in fallen man, that is, the liberty of indifference by which he could bend himself to either side, and holds that there remains in him only liberty from coercion alone, or mere spontaneity. The Thomists say that in fallen man there remains free will, that is, liberty of indifference, by which he can bend himself to either side, and that he is free not only from coercion but also from necessity; they acknowledge, however, together with the Church, that free will was weakened by original sin. Calvin denies that man cooperates with the divine motion: the Thomists affirm it. Calvin denies that the will can dissent from grace: the Thomists affirm it. And these three assertions of Calvin the council condemned,

The objections from injury to the divine sanctity are resolved.

What we have said up to this point regards specially the divine will and its motion in order to the good in the work of salvation. But because, in the principles of St. Thomas and the Thomists, the decrees and premotions of God, as such, extend to every being, even to the act of sin, the adversaries argue that this is repugnant to the sanctity of God, and that it makes Him the author of sin; which is the error of Calvin condemned in the Council of Trent, sess. VI, can. 6. Therefore

You will object 1°: He is deservedly reckoned the author and cause of sin who, by a previous concurrence that is intrinsically efficacious, moves and determines to the act of sin. But God, according to the Thomists, moves and determines to the act of sin by a previous concurrence intrinsically efficacious and infallible. Therefore.

I answer 1° that this difficulty is not proper to us, but must also be resolved by our adversaries, who hold that God concurs by a simultaneous concurrence to the act of sin. For either that simultaneous concurrence to the entity of the sin prescinds from the malice, or it does not. If it prescinds, we say the same, with equal right, of the previous concurrence — nay, with greater right, since the previous concurrence attains the act of sin only mediately, namely through the mediation of the will; whereas the simultaneous concurrence, being identified with the action of the creature, attains it immediately. If it does not prescind, then God will be a cooperator in the malice, or formally in the sin, which does not seem much less impious and blasphemous than to call Him the author of the malice.

I answer 2°. I distinguish the major. He is deservedly reckoned, etc., if he does not prescind from the malice, I concede; if he prescinds from the malice, I deny: with the minor distinguished according to this sense, I deny the consequent. God, therefore, however much He physically premoves to the act of sin, nevertheless does not attain the malice, but prescinds from it, because He premoves to the act of sin by a general motion in the physical order, as the first efficient principle; and therefore He attains only that which is the effect and physical entity of it. But malice is not any being, nor does it pertain to the physical order, but is a defect, a privation, nay a mere nothing; consequently it does not arise from a principle efficient physically, but from one deficient morally, which is the created will, inasmuch as it is from nothing. This is illustrated by various examples. Thus the soul moving and premoving a crooked shin-bone is the cause of the whole motion, yet is not the cause of the defect of limping, which is referred solely to the defect, or crookedness, of the shin-bone.

And this is the constant and perpetual doctrine of St. Thomas, q. 3 de Malo, a. 2; in II Sent., dist. 37, q. 2, a. 2; 1ª 2ae, q. 79, a. 2, and elsewhere. Hence Augustine, lib. XII de Civit., cap. 7: « Let no one, he says, seek the efficient cause of an evil will; for it is not efficient, but deficient, since that is not an effecting, but a defecting. » This Livinus de Meyer had not seen, when he said that this phrase, « an efficient and deficient cause is a sham for novices. »

From these things, then, we have what I was just saying, that God, as the first and universal principle of the whole of being and of good, moves the created will to an act which is being and good; but, because the will of itself is in an undue disposition, and deviates from the order of the first mover, it twists His motion, whence an inordinate action follows. And so God, as the efficient principle in the physical order, is prior in goods, and the created will, as the deficient principle in the moral order, is prior in evils: so that certain of our own have not badly observed that, although the decree by which God from eternity determined to concur with the sinful acts both of angels and of men, and the motion by which in time He moves them to it, are in some true sense called predefinition and predetermination, because He predefines the entity of the act and premoves to it; yet in another sense they could be called postdefinition and postdetermination, because God from eternity does not predefine the entity of the act to which malice is joined, nor does He in time premove to it, except because the created will first deviates from the order of the first agent, and is in an undue disposition for receiving the divine motion from which follows the inordinate action, which otherwise would have been good and ordered.

I insist 1°. There are certain acts essentially and according to their species evil, such as hatred of God, blasphemy. But whatever is the cause of something is the cause of that which belongs to it according to the formality of its species: just as if someone is the cause of Socrates, it follows that he is the cause of man. Therefore.

I answer 1° that this instance likewise militates against the simultaneous concurrence to the act of sin.

I answer 2° that St. Thomas objects this argument to himself, q. 3 de Malo, a. 2, to which he answers thus: « To the second it must be said, that the deformity of sin does not follow upon the species of the act insofar as it is in the genus of nature: for in that respect it is caused by God; but it follows upon the species of the act insofar as it is moral, and is caused by free will. » He teaches the same thing 1ª 2ae, q. 79, a. 2, ad 3. Whence, although this predication: « Blasphemy is a sin, » is essential, this one, however: « This act (the act of blasphemy being pointed to), is a sin, » is not essential, but accidental, because it happens to a human act, insofar as it is an act, that it is a sin: just as, although blindness is essentially a privation, it nevertheless happens to the eye that it is blind.

You will object 2°: If God were to move morally to the act of sin, He would be the cause of sin. Therefore, a fortiori, if He premove physically. The consequence is clear; because physical premotion moves more forcibly than moral.

I answer 1° by retorting the argument. God concurs to the act of sin more forcibly by simultaneous concurrence than by moral motions. But, if He concurred by moral motions, He would be the cause of sin. Therefore, a fortiori, in concurring by simultaneous concurrence.

I answer 2°. I deny the consequent. To the proof, I distinguish. Physical premotion moves more forcibly intensively than moral motion, I concede; more forcibly extensively, I deny; because physical motion moves only to the formality of being and prescinds from moral malice; not so moral motion. Of this disparity there is a manifold reason. 1° Physical motion is founded on the physical activity of the agent. Therefore it attains in the effect only physical actuality.

2° It is the motion of the most universal cause. Therefore it attains in the effect only the most universal and most noble formality, which is the formality of being. 3° It is the motion of a principle that is efficient and not deficient. Therefore it attains the effect, and not the defect. 4° It is the motion of the first principle. Therefore it attains nothing which is not reducible into it as into its ultimate end; because the first principle and the ultimate end coincide, but malice is not reducible into God as into an ultimate end, since it is an aversion from Him. Since, then, moral motion enjoys none of these titles, it has no ground whence, in moving to the act of sin, it might prescind from its malice.

You will object 3°: It seems harsh, and alien from the divine goodness and justice, that God should determine from eternity, and in time premove, a man set in equilibrium toward a good or an evil action, to the evil rather than to the good; and thus punish him who sins in eternity. Therefore.

I answer 1° by retorting the argument against the Congruists. It seems harsh, and alien from the divine goodness, that God should place man, whether fallen or unfallen, in those circumstances in which He foresees that he will certainly sin, and not in those — since it is within His own liberty — in which He foresees with certainty that he will act well; and thus punish him who sins in eternity.

Nor let them say that a man placed in incongruous circumstances freely determines himself to the evil action; for this too we say of man under God's premotion, since it is not only to the substance, but also to the mode of the act. But that is not now in question. The question is only this: why God should decree from eternity to place me, and in time should place me, in those circumstances in which He certainly foresaw that I would sin, in whatever way I might sin, and not in those in which He certainly foresaw that I would not sin, since He could with equal right do either. Here the waters stick fast, nor do I see to what refuge the Congruists can flee in their opinion, except to the inscrutable judgments of God.

I answer 2°. I deny the supposition of the antecedent. For the Thomists never said, nor even dreamed, that God moves a man set in equilibrium toward a good or an evil action to the evil rather than to the good; but, on the contrary, they have constantly said and do say that it arises from the creature that it is determined rather to the action to which malice is joined than to the opposite one, and that God never determines to the material of sin, unless the creature has first in some way determined itself to the formal; because God, as universal provider, moves each thing according to its exigency and disposition, and consequently does not move to an evil action except a will that of itself is badly disposed and thus demands to be so moved; so that the undue disposition of the will objectively determines God to move to the evil act. Compare what I said above.

You will object 4°: According to the common opinion of the Thomists, the formal element of sin consists in something positive, namely, in a positive tendency toward an object dissonant with the rules of morals. Therefore, if God, through a previous influx, is the cause of every being, He will be the cause of the formal element of sin.

I answer that the opinion placing the formal element of sin in the privative is now also gaining strength among the Thomists. Those, however, who hold the first opinion, have also a way of extricating themselves from this difficulty. For they consider the positive formal element of sin itself in two ways: 1° materially, and it is the positive tendency itself, or the physical entity precisely as it is an entity; 2° formally, insofar as it is the foundation of the privation and underlies it. Under the first respect they say it is caused by God, not under the second; because, as such, it cannot be caused except by that by which the privation itself is caused. Whence they thus distinguish the antecedent. The formal element of sin consists in the positive, as it underlies the privation and has it joined to it, I concede; it consists in the positive, insofar as it is precisely physical being, the privation being set aside, I deny. Likewise they distinguish the consequent. Therefore, if God is the cause of the positive entity as it underlies the privation, He will be the cause of the malice, I concede; otherwise, I deny.

As a finishing touch, I would like it noted here — as certain writers have already observed before me — that the doctrine of intrinsically efficacious grace for supernatural acts does not depend on this opinion concerning predetermination to the material of sin; so that, if this opinion were less true, the dogma of intrinsically efficacious grace would nonetheless stand, as resting on other and firmer principles. For there are theologians who defend infallibly efficacious grace — that is, grace from the divine will, and not from the consent of the human will or the direction of middle knowledge — by means of delectation or moral motion, as the Augustinians and others. There are those who defend it by physical predetermination, which however they do not extend to natural acts, nor to the material of sin: so Steyaert, Neezen, Boudart, and, as I hear, commonly the Louvain theologians, nay even certain of the Thomists, as Alvares relates, lib. III de Auxiliis, disp. 24, n. 27. These two questions, then — whether intrinsically efficacious grace must be explained through physical predetermination; whether this predetermination must be extended to natural acts and to the material of sin — are merely philosophical, and incidental to the capital dogma of intrinsically efficacious grace. We indeed defend both as the more probable according to the principles of reason; but intrinsically efficacious grace, that is, grace infallibly efficacious from the most omnipotent will of God, independently of the consent of the creature and of middle knowledge, we defend as a theological dogma, connected with the principles of the faith and proximately definable, and in this almost all the schools agree with us, except the Molinist. The adversaries, however, are fond of, and attempt, confounding this twofold philosophical question with the dogma of efficacious grace, so as to infer from it that God becomes the author of sin, and thus render Him odious among the common people and simple women. But let them once acknowledge that grace necessary for the work of salvation is not indifferent and determinable by the human will; but, on the contrary, that the will is infallibly determined by it, that it draws its whole force and efficacy from the most omnipotent will of God, and by this force and efficacy infallibly attains its effect independently of middle knowledge: let them, I say, once admit this, and, if they please, reject physical predetermination, either absolutely, or at least as to the material of sin — we shall fight as philosophers, we shall be allied as theologians, nor shall we ever on that account stir up strife against them, as happened in the Congregations de Auxiliis. On this matter, consult the Thomismum triumph., I p., a. 4, § 1, and its Apolog., § 4.