Summa summae S. Thomae sive compendium theologiae

§ I. — Prenotes and various opinions.

Since predestination includes an act of the will, as has been said, the ground of predestination must be inquired into just as the ground of the divine will is inquired into. Indeed, properly speaking, the question here does not concern predestination itself formally taken for the act of command, but the very intention and election by which God wills to bring one, loved in preference to another, efficaciously to glory. Election, therefore, is not taken strictly as of means, but broadly as of persons unto an end¹.

The Pelagians, since they held that free will was sufficient of itself for acting well, said that merits acquired by one's own powers were the cause of predestination. They were condemned in the Councils of Palestine, Milevis, and Orange.

The Semi-Pelagians, who, against the Pelagians, acknowledged that we cannot do good works by our own powers without the grace of God, contended nevertheless that the beginning and preparation for them — such as the pious affection of belief, desire, and the asking for help, which they did not reckon among good works — was from us: just as, they said, although a sick man cannot procure for himself medicine and health, he can nevertheless desire and ask for a physician. They said, therefore, that God had decreed to give grace to those whom he had foreseen would prepare themselves for it by these initial works, and glory to those whom he had foreseen would persevere to the end, by their own freedom, without a special gift, in the grace received. As for infants dying prematurely, in whom these beginnings are not found, they said that God had predestined or reprobated them from the foreknowledge of the good or evil works which they would have done, had they lived. This error was proscribed in the Second Council of Orange.

Certain more recent [theologians] teach that predestination is from the foreseen merits of grace; but they do not explain it in one and the same way. Some say that God, by an equal general will, wills all to be saved, and offers to all without distinction sufficient graces left to free will; but that he foreknows, through middle knowledge, who, once that grace is offered, will use it well and persevere in it by their innate freedom, and takes these in preference to others up to glory: so that, in that sign of the preparation of means for salvation, he does not love the predestined more than the reprobate, nor does he distinguish the former from the latter; but he awaits this distinguishing to be made through free will, and, once it is foreseen, he decrees glory for those who distinguish themselves, leaving the rest aside. And thus, according to this opinion, predestination to the grace common to the predestined and the reprobate is gratuitous; but predestination to glory is from foreseen merits, namely from the foreseen good use of grace. So Lessius, Molina, Becanus, and many others of the same Society.

Other defenders of middle knowledge as well, positing a general will in God to save all, and a preparation of sufficient helps for attaining that salvation, say that God, through middle knowledge, foreknows how each one would use them, if he were placed in these or those circumstances: this conditional foreknowledge being posited, out of all whom he orders to salvation by a general will, he selects some by a special love and mercy, whom he determines to place in those circumstances in which he foresaw they would use grace well and persevere in it, and to these he decrees salvation; but others he determines to place in those circumstances in which he foresaw they would not use grace well, and thus he negatively reprobates them. Hence this election and distinguishing of those to be saved from the reprobate is from the gratuitous will of God. But, since in salvation two things are connected, namely grace or merits, and glory, they say that God first decreed grace or merits, and, in view of these, glory: and thus that predestination to the grace proper to the elect and actually saving — in that manner, namely, in which it can be saving on the principles of middle knowledge — is gratuitous; but that predestination to glory is from the foreseen merits of grace. So the Congruists in general.

This twofold way of explaining predestination from foreseen merits, in our judgment, must be carefully distinguished, since, because many omit to do so, they produce much that is useless and confused. For the second way concedes something that the defenders of gratuitous predestination intend, namely that the election of those to be saved — which is the very distinguishing of the predestined from the reprobate — is from the gratuitous will of God, and not from a foreseen merit of the creature; which the first way denies. Nevertheless, this second way errs not only in this — as our most learned Goudin said with less than full care — that it says God, in a preposterous order, wills the means before the end, but also, and chiefly, in this: that the merits, in view of which it says predestination to glory takes place, are not given by God by the most powerful force of his grace, but arise from the depth of free will, which, under an indifferent help, determines itself by its own inclination to the good; and thus it always remains the case that predestination to glory supposes something on our part, by reason of which it comes about, and that the whole mercy of God toward the elect is placed in this alone: that he determines to place them in congruous circumstances. This way, moreover, of defending gratuitous predestination, on which certain theologians of the Society wrongly congratulate themselves, differs utterly from the way in which Sts. Augustine and Thomas, and the more common body of theologians, defend it.

The last opinion, therefore, which we say is that of Sts. Augustine and Thomas, more conformable to Sacred Scripture, and more common in the schools, maintains predestination as gratuitous in every respect, and says that God, out of all those whom by his antecedent will he wills to be saved, and for whom he prepares sufficient helps, takes up or chooses some, more specially loved out of pure mercy, unto glory, and thereafter prepares for them helps efficacious of themselves, by which they attain it. We shall establish this opinion, moreover, by refuting both ways of speaking of the Fathers of the Society, in the two §§ following.

§ II. — Gratuitous predestination is asserted against the opinion of Lessius and Molina.

The effect of predestination can be considered in two ways²: 1° in particular, or inadequately, and thus nothing prevents one effect from being the cause or reason of another, which we shall treat in the following §; 2° in general, or adequately, for the whole assemblage of benefits by which God efficaciously directs and orders some in preference to others to eternal life, eternal life itself being included; and it is concerning predestination taken thus adequately that we inquire here: whether it has any reason or cause on our part, as Lessius and Molina hold; or, on the contrary, whether it is purely gratuitous, as others hold. For the resolution of this,

I say: Predestination, taken for the intention or purpose which God has of efficaciously bringing some in preference to others to salvation, has no reason on our part, but is from the mere mercy of God and his gratuitous will³.

We are not here distinguishing, as you see, between predestination to grace that actually saves, or discriminating grace, and predestination to glory, as to which is prior: this we shall discuss in the following §; but we say that God, out of all those whom by his general will he wills to be saved, and for whom he prepares sufficient helps, has chosen some in preference to others to be efficaciously brought to salvation, not because he foresaw that they, out of the sufficient and indifferent helps equally prepared for both reprobate and elect alike, would by their innate freedom make good use of them and persevere in good, but from the gratuitous will and mercy by which he pursues them in preference to others.

Proof, 1°, from Scripture. The Apostle, to the Ephesians, I, 3-6 and 11, says: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ; as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in his sight in charity. Who hath predestinated us unto the adoption of children through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the purpose of his will, unto the praise of the glory of his grace... In whom we also are called by lot, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things according to the counsel of his will. From these you have: 1° that God did not choose us because we would be holy, or because he foresaw that we would be holy, but that we should be holy; 2° that he chose us according to the purpose of his will, that is, by a gratuitous will, that he might commend his grace; and therefore by lot, with respect to us, because there was in us no reason for this election. What the adversaries reply to this I shall shortly resolve. See further chapter II of the same Epistle. Likewise to Titus, III, and in many other places.

But above all others illustrious is the testimony of the same Apostle to the Romans, chapters VIII, IX and XI, where, treating expressly of gratuitous predestination, he explains it, proves it, and defends it against those who impugn it. First, in chapter VIII, 28, he defines it as the purpose of God; in chapter IX, 11, as the purpose according to election; in chapter XI, 5, as according to the election of grace, that is, gratuitous, as he also immediately adds, 6: And if by grace, it is now no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. Then he explains its various properties, namely, in chapter VIII, 28, that to those who are called according to the purpose, all things work together unto good. Likewise, in the same chapter, 30, that from that purpose there flow calling, justification, and glorification: Whom he predestinated, he says, them he also called, etc. Finally, in the same chapter, 31, he repeats the efficacy of this purpose from the omnipotence of God: If God be for us, who is against us?

Then in chapter IX, asking why so few of the Jews believed in Christ, although the promises of salvation had been made to the Jews, namely the children of Abraham, he answers that not all the carnal children of Abraham were, in the eternal counsels of God, children of the promise, or predestined, but only some, chosen gratuitously in preference to others. And he proves this gratuitous predestination by many arguments, but especially, 1°, by the example of Jacob and Esau, who, though born of the same parents and the same act of conception, the younger was chosen and the elder abandoned, not from works, but from the grace of him who calls: For when they were not yet born, he says, nor had done any good or evil (that the purpose of God according to election might stand), not of works, but of him that calleth, it was said to her: The elder shall serve the younger, as it is written: Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated; 2°, by the testimony of God himself, who said to Moses: I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will shew mercy to whom I will shew mercy. From which he infers: So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. 3°, he proves the same by an irrefragable principle; namely, that no one can give anything to God beforehand, by reason of which God would be moved to choose him, but everything that one has, one has received from God: Who, he says, chapter XI, 35 and 36, hath first given to him, and recompense shall be made him? For of him, and by him, and in him, are all things. For indeed it is for no other reason that the Pelagians, Semi-Pelagians, and the Catholic writers against whom we here contend, deny gratuitous predestination, than because they want there to be something on our part which moves God to predestine some in preference to others: the Pelagians, a good work; the Semi-Pelagians, the beginning of a good work; the Catholic writers, the good use of grace. For if all these things are from God, God does not wait for them, nor does his choosing some in preference to others depend on them; but, on the contrary, he gives them to some in preference to others because he has already chosen them beforehand. But all these things, according to the Apostle, are from God: For who hath first given to him? etc. And 1 Corinthians, IV, 7: What hast thou that thou hast not received?

But that is not all. The chief arguments which can be, and usually are, brought against gratuitous predestination, the Apostle himself proposes and resolves in chapter IX: first, that there would be injustice on God's part if, before foreseen merits, he took up one and left another; second, that a ground of excuse is left to those who perish, namely that it is not by their own fault, but by God's will, which no one resists, that they are compelled to sin and perdition. To the one arguing thus he first rebukes him for his insolence: O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Then to the first he answers with the example of the potter, who is not for that reason unjust, although out of the same lump of clay he makes one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor; so likewise neither is God, in whose hand we are, as clay in the hand of the potter, according to Ecclesiasticus, chapter XXXIII, 13, unjust, although he freely takes up some, leaving others to their own vile condition. To the second he answers that no ground of excuse is left to those who sin and perish; because God does not impel them to sin, but only permits it, and patiently endures sinners, as vessels of wrath, for the commendation of his justice and the benefit of the elect. Rightly, therefore, he concludes it all, chapter XI, 33 and 34, crying out: O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments, and how unsearchable his ways! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been his counsellor?

To these most manifest testimonies of the Apostle the adversaries make various replies; but altogether without foundation.

They answer chiefly that Genesis, XXV, 22 and following, and Malachi, I, 2 and following, from which the Apostle took the example of Jacob and Esau, is not to be understood of the persons of Jacob and Esau, but of the two peoples, namely the Israelites and the Idumeans who were to arise from them, nor of election to eternal life, but to the benefits of this life.

On the contrary. We are not disputing here about the sense which these words have in the Old Testament, but the sense which they have in the Epistle of the Apostle. Now it is certain that the Apostle expounds them spiritually of eternal things and the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, and that by Jacob he understood the predestined, or that he set him forth as a type of the predestined, and Esau as a type of the reprobate: so that, just as Jacob was gratuitously chosen, before foreseen merits, to the temporal kingdom, so also are the predestined chosen to the heavenly kingdom; and just as Esau, before foreseen demerits, was negatively reprobated from the temporal kingdom, so are the reprobate from the heavenly kingdom. And although a solid argument is not usually drawn from the mystical sense of Scripture, it is otherwise, however, if this mystical sense is expounded and admitted in Scripture itself; for then the mystical sense of the book being expounded becomes the literal sense of the book that expounds it.

Proof, from Augustine. According to St. Augustine, On the Gift of Perseverance, c. 14, n. 35, Enchiridion, c. 100, n. 26, and elsewhere, «predestination is the foreknowledge and preparation of benefits,» not of just any kind, not merely sufficient ones, but efficacious ones, namely «by which, most certainly, whoever are freed, are freed.» Consequently, by the name of predestination he does not understand predestination to some versatile grace common to the elect and the reprobate, which each one by his own choice renders efficacious or inefficacious, but predestination to efficacious grace, discriminating the elect from the reprobate and actually saving. But he constantly teaches that this predestination is gratuitous, and not from merit or any other thing foreseen on the part of the predestined, but, on the contrary, that all the merits by which the elect merit glory, especially final perseverance, are conferred upon them from that eternal predestination. Therefore. — The major is the definition of predestination handed down by Augustine himself. — The minor, indeed, he teaches so constantly and evidently everywhere, especially in the books On Rebuke and Grace, On the Gift of Perseverance, and On the Predestination of the Saints, that no one but the willingly blind could fail to see it. From the countless passages I gather these few. The book On Rebuke and Grace, chapter 7, n. 13, has it thus: «Whoever are set apart from that original damnation by this bounty of divine grace, there is no doubt that hearing of the Gospel is procured for them; and when they hear, they believe, and persevere to the end in the faith which works through love; and if at any time they go astray, being rebuked they are corrected, and some of them, even if not rebuked by men, return to the way which they had left, and some, having received grace at whatever age, are snatched away from the dangers of this life by the swiftness of death. For he who made them vessels of mercy works all these things in them, he who also chose them in his Son before the foundation of the world through the election of grace.» From these you clearly see that, according to Augustine, the predestination by which God wills to save someone in preference to another, not only does not presuppose anything on the part of the predestined, but, on the contrary, is itself the cause of all the things that lead him to salvation. The book On the Gift of Perseverance, chapter 9, n. 21: «Of two infants,» he says, «equally bound by original sin, why this one is taken up and that one left; and of two grown persons equally impious, why this one is called in such a way and that one is not so called, the judgments of God are inscrutable.» And chapter 28 of the Soliloquies⁴: «You cleanse, of us the children of men, those in whom it has pleased you to dwell: whom, from the inaccessible depths of the secret judgments of your incomprehensible wisdom, always just, though hidden, you predestined before the world without their merits, called out of the world, and magnify after the world. But you do not do this to all: which all the wise men of the earth marvel at as they waste away.» More may be seen in Epistles⁵ 105, 106, 157; sermon 11 On the Words of the Apostle⁶; and in almost the entire books On Rebuke and Grace, On the Predestination of the Saints, and On the Gift of Perseverance. And the holy Doctor defends this gratuitous predestination, not as his own opinion, but as a dogma of the faith; whence in On the Gift of Perseverance, chapter 19, n. 48, he says: «This I know, that no one could have disputed against this predestination, which we defend according to the holy Scriptures, except by erring.»

St. Augustine was followed by other Fathers: Fulgentius, Prosper, St. Gregory, St. Bernard, Isidore, Bede, Anselm, Hugh of St. Victor, and the Master of the Sentences. As for St. Thomas, there is no room for doubt, since both our conclusion and the arguments which we shall bring forward in the following § are from him, and moreover in the same article 5, ad 3, he says in the most formal terms: «Why he chose these unto glory and reprobated others, has no reason except the divine will.» See also q. 6 On Truth, a. 2; III Summa Contra Gentiles, last chapter; in I Sentences, dist. 41; on chapter IX of Romans, lect. 2 and 3; on chapter I to the Ephesians, lect. 4, and elsewhere.

This conclusion, moreover, will be proved again, and more effectively, from what we are about to say in support of the following conclusion. For if it is established, as we shall prove, that God, in the matter of predestination, begins first from the intention of giving glory, then, by force of this intention, wills to give grace and the merits proceeding from it, as the necessary means for obtaining glory; it will be established most certainly of all that no merits whatsoever, nor any good use of grace, are the cause or motive reason of predestination to glory, but rather its effect. Let it be, then,

§ III. — Gratuitous predestination is asserted against the opinion of the Congruists.

The Congruists commonly, as we noted in § I, say that, since predestination taken adequately involves two things, namely grace and glory, God in predestining begins from the intention of giving grace — special grace, that is, proper to the elect — and then, on account of the merits proceeding from that special grace, decrees glory; so that predestination to the grace proper to the elect and actually saving is gratuitous, while predestination to glory is from foreseen merits.

If the question here concerned only the order that holds between predestination to grace or merits and predestination to glory, and if it were granted, by those who hold predestination to merits to be prior, that these merits are from God through grace efficacious by its own power, and not from free will under versatile grace and indifferent concourse, this question would be of slight moment, and the Congruists would err in this alone: that, by a preposterous order, they would place the choice of the means before the intention of the end. But since they defend predestination, in the said sense, as gratuitous according to the system of middle knowledge, they hold it to be gratuitous only insofar as God gratuitously decrees to place the predestined in those circumstances in which He foresaw, through middle knowledge, that he would consent to versatile grace of his own freedom — which foreseen consent persevering, He decrees glory for him: so that, according to this manner of explaining gratuitous predestination, with middle knowledge retained, predestination to glory in itself is also from the foreseen free consent, or good use of grace, not proceeding from grace but from free will under concomitant grace. And when they say that God predestines to glory from the foreseen merits of grace, they do not mean the merits which grace by its own power efficaciously confers, itself working the very consent to grace — for this they reckon a destruction of freedom — but merits arising from the foundation of created freedom, which, the help being offered to it indifferently to either alternative, determines itself to the good at its own pleasure. Hence they stick in almost the same mire as the pure Molinists, and because they evade nearly all the arguments we have brought forward against Molina and Lessius, by interpreting them as concerning predestination to glory in its seed — that is, predestination to the special grace which is the seed of glory, or that gratuitous will of giving congruous grace to some — we undertake here to prove that predestination to glory in itself is prior to this predestination to grace; and thus that predestination to glory in itself is not from any foreseen merits whatsoever, but that these are its effect. Hence

I say: In the decree of gratuitous predestination, predestination to glory in itself is prior to predestination to grace or merits⁷. Consequently predestination to glory in itself is purely gratuitous.

Proof from a fundamental reason. Whoever acts prudently and in an orderly manner intends the end before the means. But God acts prudently and in an orderly manner, and merits are the means, glory is the end. Therefore He intends glory before merits.

Although it does not escape me that our adversaries have devised almost innumerable responses to this brief and inescapable argument, I nevertheless do not see which of its propositions can be denied with any foundation. — The major is known by the light of nature alone. For means are not sought for their own sake — otherwise they would not be means, but an end — but they are sought on account of the end, and from love of the end. Therefore the end must be loved first. Moreover, whoever wills the means either wills them for the sake of some end, or not: if the former, then he wills the end first; if the latter, then he acts by chance and at random, not knowing for what he acts, which is repugnant to one who acts prudently. Finally, it is a common axiom of theologians and philosophers that « the end is first in intention and last in execution. » — The minor is no less certain. As to the first part — namely, that God acts prudently and in an orderly manner — it is certain with that certainty by which it is certain that God exists. As to the second part — namely, that merits are the means and glory the end — it is equally certain: 1° by reason; because merits are not sought for their own sake, but for the sake of the reward, which is the wage of merits, and the last thing, upon the attainment of which merits cease; 2° from the definition of the Church in the Council of Trent, sess. VI, cap. 7, where it is said that « the final cause of our justification is the glory of God and of Christ, and eternal life. » Therefore eternal life exercises, with respect to grace and merits, the causality of a final cause; but merits belong to this way by which we tend toward that eternal life, as toward our last end. Therefore merits are the means by which we tend toward glory, as toward the end. These things are so clear that they are evident to those who have either attained the dawn of reason, or have been instructed in the first rudiments of religion. Let us see, however, to what and to how many evasions our adversaries have recourse, in order to extricate themselves from this brief snare.

Tournely answers, 1°, here, § Solv. obj. ex rationibus, by absolutely denying the major proposition of the argument, namely: « Whoever acts prudently and in an orderly manner intends the end before the means. » But on what foundation? Hear with your own ears: « The falsity of this principle, he says, is evident from the example of the predestination of the angels, which many of those who disagree with us here, » namely the Jansenists, « judge to have been made from foreseen merits. »

But on the contrary: 1° In the first place, this response does not touch us, since we maintain that the predestination of the angels is no less gratuitous than that of men in fallen nature. Hence the Parisian doctor should have denied the major only on the principles of Jansenius, and not absolutely. 2° By Tournely's own admission, predestination from foreseen merits, and this principle: « He who acts prudently intends the end before the means, » are not compatible with each other. But what does right reason dictate in a like case? That what is more certain should be retained, and what is less certain should be let go. Now, no one of sound mind, I suppose, will deny that predestination from foreseen merits — which Tournely himself acknowledges to be impugned by very many and most celebrated doctors — is less certain than the aforesaid principle is certain, inasmuch as it is an axiom commonly received, proved by the experience of the whole human race, resting on the first principles of reason, as we have proved, asserted by St. Thomas, and absolutely denied by none of our adversaries that I know of, except Tournely, but rather either distinguished or explained. Therefore predestination from foreseen merits must be let go, and the aforesaid principle must be retained. 3° Jansenius denied this principle. Granted. Is it therefore to be denied? Is Jansenius, denying it, of greater weight to the Molinist doctor than the Angelic Doctor, expressly asserting, here q. 23, a. 4, o: « Nothing is commanded to be ordered to an end, unless the will of the end already exists »? Not sufficiently confident, then, in this response, Tournely

Answers, 2°, by allowing the aforesaid principle under a twofold restriction or condition: first, that the end have only the character of an end, and not of a reward or wage; second, that it be intended absolutely and efficaciously, and not conditionally and inefficaciously. But God, he says, does not predestine men to glory under the single character of an end, but also under the character of a reward and wage; nor does He intend it absolutely and efficaciously, but inefficaciously and conditionally — namely, if men are willing to make good use of the help of grace: hence it does not follow that He intends the end, or glory, before merits.

Against the first. Glory, even as reward and crown, stands to merits as end to means; for merits are prepared for us and conferred so that through them, as through means, we may obtain glory as a crown and reward, as the last end of our justification, according to the Tridentine passage cited. But, as Tournely himself allows, and as all grant, the end, as end, is intended before merits. Feel the subterfuge of the Sorbonne doctor in a familiar example. He who stands in the contest intends the prize as reward and crown; and yet he intends it before the contest, nor does he gird himself for the contest except from love of the prize, for this reason, namely, that the prize is the end, and the contest the means. But the end is intended before the means. Likewise, the antecedent will in God of the salvation of all is a will of salvation as reward and crown, and yet it is intended thus before merits; for this antecedent will, as our adversaries grant, is not from foreseen merits.

Against the second. Predestination, according to the definition of Augustine, which Tournely accepts, is « the foreknowledge and preparation of benefits, » not of just any benefits, but of those « by which whoever are delivered are most certainly delivered, » that is, benefits leading efficaciously and with certainty to glory. But it cannot be that God should will to employ means absolutely efficacious for attaining glory, unless He wills glory itself absolutely and efficaciously. Therefore, by His predestining will, God intends glory not inefficaciously and conditionally, but efficaciously and absolutely. — Proof of the minor. 1° From absurdity. He would be reckoned, I do not say imprudent, but nearly a fool, who should employ means which he knew to be certainly efficacious for attaining some end, and yet should not will that end efficaciously and absolutely. This is evident in the case of one who should apply fire to tow, and yet not will that the tow be efficaciously burned. Proof, 2°, by reason. The intention of the end is the cause of the choice of the means. Therefore the choice of efficacious means presupposes an efficacious intention of the end. Otherwise the proportion between cause and effect would not be preserved, but the effect would exceed the power of the cause.

To these things, the Parisian doctor replies with two points: 1° He denies this principle, namely that the choice of means certainly and efficaciously conducive to the end presupposes an efficacious intention of the end. Note the reason for his denial: because, he says, « to many of the reprobate, more efficacious helps of grace are sometimes conferred than to the elect, if you except final perseverance alone; and yet God does not have, toward those reprobate, an efficacious and absolute intention of conferring glory. » Who would not marvel at this decisive refutation of the argument? The argument concerns helps certainly and efficaciously conducive to glory, and therefore including final perseverance. The response concerns helps efficacious for certain acts, but not including final perseverance, nor certainly and efficaciously leading to glory: we speak of onions, he of garlic. I am indeed weary (be it said without offense) of lingering over the refutation of these things, though some are not weary of marveling at them.

2° He admits the principle just stated, if the question concerns the choice of a help efficacious of itself, independently of the consent of the will; otherwise he denies it.

Against this, 1°, I subsume: But that the helps which God prepares for the predestined are efficacious of themselves, independently of the consent of the will, we have already proved at length against Tournely, and shall prove again elsewhere. But what he objects — that it is of faith that, whatever the power and efficacy of grace be supposed to be, the will can always dissent, which he repeats everywhere to the point of nausea, as though any Catholic had ever absolutely denied this — is utterly futile. For we grant that the will can dissent from any grace whatsoever, by antecedent power and in the divided sense, not by consequent power and in the composite sense: we grant, I say, that it can truly dissent; but we also know that God, who has the wills of men more in His power than they themselves have, can bring it about that it does not in fact dissent, and thus that this power of dissenting does not impede the efficacy of grace.

2° Let us abstract for a moment whether these helps prepared for the predestined are efficacious of themselves, or from the consent of the will. I argue thus: Either God foreknows them to be efficacious, in whatever way they are efficacious, or He does not. This latter cannot be said. If the former be said, the full force of the argument remains: namely, that it is a kind of folly to employ means which you know to be efficacious for attaining some end which you do not will to attain efficaciously; and that it is absurd for an effect — such as the choice of means with respect to the end — to exceed the power of its cause. By all these points I think abundant satisfaction has been given to the quibbles of the Molinist doctor.

Others answer, 3°, to the principle first stated, that indeed no one can intend efficacious means except from efficacious love of the end, when he intends the end for himself through means dependent on his own will alone; but if he intends the end for another through means dependent on that other's will, then he cannot intend the end efficaciously and absolutely, but inefficaciously and conditionally — namely, if that other should put the means in place. Thus, they say, one cannot will for another the prize of a contest efficaciously, except upon the foreseen victory of that other, but only inefficaciously and conditionally, if he should win; thus one cannot will the wage for a laborer efficaciously and absolutely, except upon his foreseen labor, but only inefficaciously and conditionally, if he should labor. But God intends glory for us as a crown and reward, through our merits, which He wills to proceed from our free will; for He neither compels nor necessitates us to them. Therefore He wills glory for us only inefficaciously and conditionally.

But on the contrary. This response, which almost coincides with the preceding one, rests on a false supposition, namely that our merits, however free, are not in the hand and power of God; which is entirely false. For God, according to Scripture, works all things; works both the willing and the accomplishing; in Him we live, and move, and are; from Him, and through Him, and in Him are all things. And according to Augustine, « He has a most omnipotent power of inclining human hearts to what He pleases... He has the wills of men more in His own power than they themselves have, » de Correp. et Grat., cap. 13. And, « while He crowns our merits, He crowns His own gifts, » serm. 333⁸, n. 5; lib. de Gratia et Libero arbit., cap. 6, n. 15. Nor does He therefore compel or necessitate us, but, according to the same Augustine, lib. I, cont. duas epist. Pelagian., cap. 19, n. 37, by His omnipotence « He makes the unwilling willing, and the resisting consenting; » and lib. de Grat. et Lib. arbit., cap. 16, n. 32: « He makes us to act, by supplying most efficacious powers to the will. » This being laid down, I retort the argument thus: No one can choose efficacious means for attaining an end, when these means are in his own hand and power, without first intending the end efficaciously. But our merits, which are the means to glory, are in the hand and power of God. Therefore God cannot intend for us efficacious merits toward glory, unless He first intends glory efficaciously. But the examples adduced fail in this: that it is not in the power of the one proposing the prize or the wage to give the contestant industry and victory, and the laborer the will to labor, strength, and labor.

He answers, 4°, that God wills merits, not for the sake of giving glory to the elect, but for the sake of His own glory; for the Lord has made all things for Himself, Prov., XVI, 4.

But on the contrary. The Apostle says, II Tim., IV, 8: There is laid up for me a crown of justice. Therefore glory is the end of merits. And the Council of Trent, sess. VI, cap. 7, places our glory among the ends of our justification, as has been said. Although, then, the glory of God is the general end of all His works, there are nevertheless other particular ends; for He wills, says St. Thomas⁹, that the things which are for the end be ordered to the end. He wills, therefore, this to be for the sake of that, namely merits for the sake of glory, as means for the sake of a particular end.

They answer, 5°, that the asserted principle — namely, that the end is intended before the means — is true in the case of those who will the end and the means in a certain order through several acts; but that God wills them simultaneously by one simple act.

But on the contrary. This response does not solve the difficulty, but flees from it. For the difficulty proceeds on the hypothesis that God wills the end and the means according to an order of prior and posterior, not on the part of His act, but on the part of the things willed, which have this order of prior and posterior among themselves. From which we have a foundation for conceiving that God wills one thing before another, and that His act, therefore, though really simple and one, is virtually manifold. But if this were denied in this matter of predestination, it would have to be denied in all other matters, contrary to the common sense of theologians and Fathers, indeed of Scripture itself, which in many passages could not be explained without this virtual distinction on the part of the divine act, as that passage of Judith, IX, 4: For Thou hast done the former things, and hast devised those that came after: and this was done because Thou didst will it.

They answer, 6°, that the often-cited principle is true where the question concerns physical means, which attain the end by their own power; but not so with moral means, such as merits are, which do not attain the end by their own power, but through the mediation of another whom they move to confer the end.

But on the contrary. Whether the means be physical or moral, by this very fact that they are certainly efficacious — whether by their own power or another's — it cannot be that they are intended efficaciously, except from efficacious love of the end. But merits are means certainly efficacious for obtaining glory, according to the definition of predestination given by Augustine, and that saying of the Apostle, II Tim., IV, 8: There is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord the just judge will render to me in that day.