Tractatus de Gratia Divina Actuali

I. We supposed in the preceding theses that powers are conferred on man by actual grace, as the very definition of this same grace teaches; now we ask whether this is true and of what kind these powers are. This thesis is not exclusive; for we shall teach in the following Thesis that grace also confers powers of another order.

It is certain that actual grace exercises a moral causality with respect to the human will. For it calls, stirs, draws, and allures the will to the good: indeed, because it is itself the calling, stirring, etc., it obtains this moral causality after the manner of a form: but God, who is the author of the calling, stirring, etc., namely He who calls, stirs, etc., is under this respect the efficiently moral cause of the acts of those who are done because of that calling, stirring, etc. However, this moral causality of grace must be distinguished, at least in concept (whether it is really distinct we shall discuss at the end of the thesis), from those moral powers which in the thesis we say are conferred on the will by grace. For the moral power of grace is called that power by which it comes about that it is more or less easy to overcome the difficulties arising from the inclination innate in us to those things whose love is not conformable to reason; insofar as because of certain thoughts and affections toward the good implanted in us by God we are able to overcome those difficulties, whether because the inclination to the good is increased, or because the inclination to evil is diminished. This power is therefore called moral, because it is situated in a certain knowledge, delight, inclination, etc., by which, as such, not a physical but a moral faculty for the act is obtained, for the reason that a certain difficulty is removed and facility is procured, while even without it there exists in us the physical power for the act.

But now it is manifest that actual grace provides such powers to the will. For it is itself the knowledge opportune for acting honestly, it is itself the delight, the sweetness of the good, the affection of soul and the inclination to acting honestly, it is itself the love and complacency in the good, the ardor of charity and the inclination toward the good; but when these exist, the proneness to evil is at least diminished and facility to the good is added or increased: therefore the soul formally equipped with these obtains moral powers for the good. Certainly experience teaches us that when we experience difficulty in acting honestly, this proceeds from the fact that we feel a certain inclination, more or less vehement, to dishonest things, which if some supervening light of truth and affection and sweetness of the honest should occupy the soul, immediately the difficulty vanishes, at least in great part, and we feel ourselves eager for performing every arduous honest deed: but this is done through actual graces: therefore.

III. But it will not be inopportune to discuss something about the force and necessity of indeliberate acts in the natural order itself, so that the analogous character of grace may be understood more fully.

a) Do such indeliberate movements of the will, then, always exist in us before deliberate acts? If we consult experience first, it is certain that most frequently from the knowledge of the intellect indeliberate movements are stirred up in the will, which are an affection toward that which is proposed as good or an aversion from that which is proposed as evil, and it is frequently certain that both movements are stirred up at the same time in the will, according as the objects proposed together are diverse, or the diverse respect which is considered by the intellect in one object. But the eliciting cause of these movements is not free; because the exercise of liberty is not yet present, but it is a necessary cause; the will elicits these movements, namely, insofar as it is nature. But a necessary cause in the same circumstances always acts in the same way: therefore such movements always exist in those circumstances. But the circumstances in which experience shows those indeliberate movements to exist are either the mere knowledge of some thing going before, or at most the knowledge of a thing which in some respect regards us and can procure for us some good or evil. Therefore, as often as such knowledge goes before, such spontaneous movements must exist.

b) But if the question be raised why these acts exist, we first answer that this is the nature of the human will, that when it passes from potency to act it proceeds gradually, as it were by steps, and therefore before deliberate acts it bursts forth into such imperfect spontaneous acts, which are a certain way and disposition to those deliberate acts. We answer secondly that the final cause of these indeliberate movements, or that which nature itself intends through them (which indeed is that which naturally follows from them), is the preparation of the will for deliberate acts, whether it be a preparation necessary simply that a deliberate act may exist, or necessary in a certain respect, namely, that the deliberate act may exist in a sweet and easy manner. We certainly experience this in ourselves, that unless something pleases us under some respect, we do not choose it. And indeed the will, even when it acts most orderly, seeks its own good, for the good is proper to each one; therefore it is necessary that the intellect propose that which is to be chosen also as a good of the will. But now, whether because from this proposition of the intellect that spontaneous complacency of the will follows necessarily, or because it is required that the will choose (for one or the other must be the case, since these acts exist, as we have seen, with natural necessity), it will always be true that these acts are the natural element of the disposition and preparation of the will for deliberate acts.

Nevertheless, just as some knowledge is indeed required for the exercise of liberty, but it is not necessary that that be chosen which is apprehended with clearer and more certain knowledge, so although some spontaneous complacency be required, it is nevertheless not necessary that the will, which is mistress of its own act, follow the more vehement one: although this not infrequently happens.

c) But concerning the necessity of this spontaneous affection or complacency excited in the will from the knowledge that goes before, Augustine speaks in L. I. ad Simplician. 9. II, n. 21: «Who, he says, would embrace in his mind something that does not delight him?» and in the following n. «the will itself, unless something occurs that delights and invites the mind, can in no way be moved: but that this should occur is not in man's power.»

From these considerations moreover it follows that when the spontaneous affection toward something is weak and, on the contrary, vehement toward another, it is difficult and rarely happens that the will is freely borne toward the former.

IV. This grace, insofar as it bestows sweetness and facility on the will, is healing grace, insofar as this is understood as that grace which heals the wound, namely of concupiscence, whose necessity arises from the loosened rein of concupiscence; for a certain impotence of acting honestly has been introduced because of the relaxed concupiscence in us from the sin of the first parent. This impotence, with respect to individual acts, is diminished or removed by healing or medicinal grace, about which Augustine speaks so frequently. In this matter, lest you be deceived, note that this grace is in the present order supernatural, and besides this office of healing the wound of concupiscence it also performs another, about which in the following Th. But in the state of integrity, in place of this grace insofar as it is medicinal against the movements of concupiscence, there was the habitual gift of integrity, which was itself also gratuitous.

V. Briefly now the question is to be settled which above we left in the middle: namely, whether the moral causality of grace is the same as the moral power which it confers. We answer, however, that in reality they are the same. For moral causality belongs formally to grace, insofar as it is formally a calling, a stirring, and the like: but this calling, stirring, etc. is in reality nothing other than knowledge, persuasion, delight, complacency, sweetness, etc., which are all vital acts; moreover, the will equipped with these is formally made morally more powerful for acting: therefore. But they differ in concept; because the moral causality of grace is regarded insofar as grace is from God provoking man to the good, while the powers are regarded insofar as grace itself, existing formally in the faculty, makes it expedite for acting.

VI. But what we have taught about the moral powers conferred by actual grace is not so universally and exclusively to be taken, as if we wished to say that there are no moral powers for acting honestly without actual grace, or that any actual grace by itself alone confers powers sufficient for the perfection of the work: but we have affirmed only that actual grace, when it is conferred, provides moral powers, and indeed any actual grace confers some moral powers toward something.

APPENDIX.

The perfection of the indeliberate movements, which God excites in the soul to obtain some consent of the will, can be so great that the opposite dissent of the will becomes morally impossible.

I. We call morally impossible that which, although it is physically possible, is nevertheless extremely difficult for our nature and therefore, considering the common manner of acting of men, either never or almost never happens. Now with these principles laid down which we stated in the preceding Thesis, it is manifest that when knowledge either represents two opposite objects, or one object both under the respect of the eligible and under the respect of the non-eligible, it can happen that the indeliberate movement of the will toward one object or toward one respect of the object is most vehement, and the indeliberate movement toward the opposite is very slight. In this hypothesis, however, it is morally impossible, i.e. extremely difficult, that the will choose that toward which there exists a very slight indeliberate movement. But by not choosing that, it will choose that toward which it is borne most vehemently; for the will constituted in first act necessarily does something, liberty existing toward either alternative. But God can excite indeliberate movements toward some eligible good in such a way that they are most vehement and the movements toward the opposite are very slight: therefore. The physical possibility nevertheless remains, because that very slight movement toward the opposite is sufficient for the will, because of its own indifference, to embrace it, but the moral possibility is lacking.

Indeed Ripalda, De Ente Supern. D. CIX. Sect. 2. says that this is the common opinion of the Theologians and that he knows no one who denies it. He brings forth, however, from authority, to prove this, an argument from Prov. XXI, 1: The heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord; whithersoever He will, He shall turn it — and from August. Enchir. c. 98. «Who would so impiously rave as to say that God cannot convert the evil wills of men, which He wills, when He wills, into the good?» and other similar testimonies of the same author. Moreover, for this to be true, it is necessary that this power be ascribed to grace, by which, with the physical possibility indeed remaining, the moral impossibility of dissent can be engendered. Suarez, in the posthumous work De vera Intelligentia auxilii efficacis c. 35., proves that God can impose a certain necessity on the will toward the act: he disputes, however, how this could come to be; he supposes that some quality is possible, but he says it is more probable that it would come about through the action of God, n. 12. Then in n. 17. he makes mention of the kind of necessity which we have explained.

1. Indeed if it be supposed that the will cannot freely will that toward which it has not first been affected (at least by nature) with a spontaneous movement, it must also be said, speaking of the possible, that the divine excitation of indeliberate movements of this kind can also be such a cause, that together with these the deliberate movement of the will toward the opposite is physically impossible. Namely, God can bring it about not only that a most vehement indeliberate movement of inclination toward something exists, but also that any indeliberate movement of inclination toward the opposite ceases or is not excited, but rather that only a movement of aversion toward it exists: but in this hypothesis the dissent of the will is impossible not only morally, but physically; because, no natural indeliberate inclination existing toward something, there is lacking — as we suppose from the preceding Th. n. III. — the sufficient reason of the free consent of the will toward it. But if in this the will does not consent, it will certainly consent in that; because it must will something, as we have already reminded. Cf. Ripalda ibid. Sect. 3.

III. Note that when we claim this power for God and His grace, we do not teach that God in reality acts thus, much less that this is the ordinary and common manner of divine Providence, but we wish only to show what the grace of God can do, so that its moral efficacy may be thoroughly understood. But we think it is not absurd to judge that God has repeatedly so acted and acts with His Saints; for whom if at that time the expedite power of meriting is actually lacking, this defect (which otherwise is present in us very frequently, as when e.g. we sleep) will be compensated by that good which is a certain foretaste of heavenly beatitude. Cannot God grant to some wayfarer the vision of Himself for some brief space of time? Or will it be judged impossible or illicit for God, because then the power of meriting would cease?

Moreover, there must be ascribed to God the power of bringing it about, short of the communication of His immediate vision and with no coercion applied, that sin be physically impossible in the will. It is proved from the fact that natural beatitude is possible; but with the certainty and inamissibility of beatitude, the expedite physical power for the act of sinning cannot cohere; and God does not seem able to impede this in any better way than that which we have now proposed. Therefore.

Note. The doctrine on the moral efficacy of grace delivered in the preceding Th. is to be held accurately; because, as we shall teach later, the distinction between congruous and non-congruous grace, between efficacious and purely sufficient grace, depends on that moral efficacy of grace.