Tractatus de Gratia Divina Actuali

I. Thus Jansenius argues in L. IV. De Gratia Christi c. 6, teaching that «for the doing of any work of justice whatsoever it is necessary that it be born of the greater delight in justice.» Our proof is in turn contained in a twofold response: the one ad hominem, the other direct, from the very analysis of Augustine's context. The former is this, already handed down by the Illustriss. Fenelon in his dialogues. The Exposition of the Epistle to the Galatians was written by Augustine at that age in which he was still involved in that error which was afterwards that of the Massilians. This Jansenius himself also admits, who, making no distinction, wishes to gather from the books written by Augustine before his episcopate, among which this one is, what precisely was the error of the Massilians. Now indeed, according to Jansenius, the error of the Massilians was this: that they wanted grace to be of such a kind that the human will could resist it; and therefore, according to the same Jansenius, this is the error by which Augustine was held before his episcopate. But if the will can resist the grace of God, it certainly cannot be necessarily drawn and overcome by a greater preceding heavenly delight, which is grace; wherefore when Augustine judged that the human will could resist grace, he could not teach that the will is necessarily overcome by a greater preceding heavenly delight. But since Augustine, when he was writing the Exposition of the Epistle to the Galatians, being involved in the error of the Massilians, judged, on Jansenius' authority, that the will could resist grace. By what right, then, or with what effrontery does Jansenius cast at us that testimony of Augustine, and repeat and inculcate it so frequently, when by that testimony, on Jansenius' own authority, that doctrine of the greater victorious delight cannot be contained?

II. The other response is this. Delight is twofold: indeliberate and deliberate. Indeliberate delight does not draw the will's assent along with it, but frequently men freely follow the greater delight. Deliberate delight is an act of the will by which we freely choose something, and by which consequently something pleases us more and delights us more; while this act exists, with the necessity, of course, that follows upon the very exercise of freedom, it is necessary that we do those things which we will. Then delight is partly actual and transient, partly habitual, arising from acts, which you sometimes foster or neglect to put off, although you could. Now indeed, Jansenius would first have to prove that in this testimony, as also in similar ones, the discourse is about indeliberate delight; which, however, he does not do. Then, 1º it is more probable that here the discourse is about deliberate delight. Surely if the delight were indeliberate, it would be compared with the act of the will which follows it; but if it is deliberate, it cannot be compared except with the operation which follows the will. Now Augustine does not say: according to that we must will, but we must operate. Therefore that delight is signified which is the reason of the operation, which Augustine, as also the Pelagians were wont, is wont to distinguish from the will or volition, and that a free one. Therefore a deliberate delight, placed in the free act of the will, is signified. 2) It is still more probable that here the discourse is about habitual delight, undertaken, of course, deliberately. This is sufficiently manifest from the very context. For he says: «But those goods reign (namely, the fruits of the Spirit, charity, joy, etc.) if they so delight that they hold the soul in temptations, lest it rush into consent to sin. For what delights us more, according to it we must operate: as for example the form of a beautiful woman occurs and moves to the delight of fornication; but if that intimate beauty and the sincere species of chastity delights more, through the grace which is in the faith of Christ, according to this we live, and according to this we operate." The delight which fortifies the soul in temptations, lest it fall, by which, when some beautiful form occurs, the beauty of justice, which reigns in the soul, pleases more, has all the characters of habitual delight, which, given the occasion, breaks forth into act. Moreover, the necessity which one experiences is more or less moral. But actual grace does not relate itself as a certain habit; therefore actual grace, which Augustine says is placed in suavity, would not be compared to this delight of which Augustine here speaks.

Moreover, it is one thing to say that we for the most part choose that which delights us more indeliberately, a view which does not harm freedom, and another to say that we necessarily will deliberately that which delights us more indeliberately; this indeed destroys freedom: but Augustine never said or signified this.

III. Delight is repeatedly called victorious by Augustine, or conquering. And indeed the appellation of victorious is given by Augustine to delight only once, in de Pecc. merit. et remiss. L. II. c. 18. Elsewhere delight is named conquering, or it is attributed to it that it conquers. But conquering delight is not said with respect to the will, as if delight conquered the will and subjugated it to itself, but with respect to concupiscence. Cont. duas epistt. pelagg. L. I. c. 13. «The guilt of concupiscence, contracted by generation, is discharged by regeneration, so that it is therefore now not sin, but is so called either because it was made by sin or because it is moved by the delight of sinning, even if, the delight of justice conquering, consent is not given to it» and elsewhere many times. 2) Conquering delight is deliberate; for this is in reality that which has an immediate order to concupiscence and conquers it, and Augustine plainly indicates this in several places, as in Enchir. c. 118. «If God has looked upon us and is believed to help in fulfilling what He Himself commands, and man has begun to be acted upon by the Spirit of God, there will be a lusting against the flesh with the stronger strength of charity, so that although there is still something in man that fights against man from man, the infirmity not yet wholly healed, nevertheless the just man lives by faith, lives justly, insofar as he does not yield to evil concupiscence, the delight of justice conquering.» Delight, by whose conquering consent is not given to concupiscence, and by which one lives justly, and which is the strength of charity, is a delight conquering concupiscence, and indeed deliberate and meritorious.

III. Moreover, to turn aside the Jansenian theory of the greater victorious delight, Augustine's classic locus from Civ. Dei L. XII. c. 6 is plainly sufficient, which Jansenius wrongly strives to pervert. It must be described here, although it is rather long. There the holy Doctor seeks the cause why some of the angels stood and others did not stand, and he brings the matter to this, that he may show that the ultimate cause is to be sought in their will; for an evil will is the cause of evil, but of an evil will no efficient cause is to be sought, but only a deficient one. He sets an example, moreover, in two men, whom he thus describes: «If two men, equally affected in mind and body, should see the beauty of one body, on seeing which one of them is moved to enjoy it illicitly, while the other perseveres stable in a chaste will; what do we think is the cause that an evil will comes to be in the one and does not come to be in the other? What thing made that in him in whom it was made? For it was not that beauty of the body; for it did not make it in both, since it presented itself not dissimilarly to the sight of both. Is the flesh of the beholder the cause? Why not also of the other? Or indeed the mind? Why not of both? For we said beforehand that both had been equally affected in mind and body. Or is it to be said that one of them was tempted by the hidden suggestion of the malignant spirit? As if he had not consented by his own will to the same suggestion and to whatever persuasion. We seek, therefore, what thing made this consent in him, this evil will which he gave to the evil persuader. For, that this impediment too may be removed from this question, if both are tempted by the same temptation and one yields to it and consents, while the other perseveres, he who he had been, what else appears but that the one willed, and the other did not will, to fall away from chastity? Whence, except by his own will, where the same affection of body and soul had been in both? The same beauty appeared equally to the eyes of both; the same hidden temptation pressed upon both equally; therefore, to those wishing to know what thing made the evil will proper to one of them, if we look well, nothing occurs.»

Jansenius says that these two men, in whom Augustine places his example, look to the state of integrity. Nothing is more inept, as Stephen Dechamps well refutes, Haer. Iansen. I. III. D. 8. c. 2. For 1) that word videant refers to the present state.

In the state of integrity there were not two men who would see the beauty of one body.3) Because these two men are drawn to illicit sensible pleasures, which could not be in the state of innocence, according to Augustine himself.4) Because mention is made of carnal concupiscence: was the flesh of the beholder the cause? Moreover, this was absent from the state of integrity.5) Because these men are tempted by the interior suggestion of the Demon, which again could not be even in a standing man, not yet handed over to the Devil. Augustine certainly posits that in him who sins of these two there was, before the evil will, a good nature: for thus he continues »If we should say that he himself made it, what was he himself before the evil will, except a good nature, whose author is God?« But he does this for this reason, because he considers nature as distinct from concupiscence, which, together with the beauty placed before it and the temptation of the Devil, he places on the side of the adjuncts or conditions of sin; for concupiscence is not the cause of the evil act of the will, but only allures the will: but now the cause of sin is sought. Therefore, if the cause is sought, if that which can be a cause is investigated, before the evil will nothing is found except a good nature. Whence he concludes that, since nature, insofar as it is nature, because it is good, cannot be the cause of evil, therefore that is the cause of evil not because it is nature, but because it is nature from nothing; and therefore the cause of evil is not efficient but deficient. Thus Augustine does not place a good nature before the evil will in order to signify that he is speaking of that first sin which happened in a nature not previously vitiated, as Jansenius wishes.

Now indeed these two men, existing in wholly the same conditions, are likewise urged by the same sensible delight. For that some delight or love of chastity went before them is established from this: that he who does not sin is said to remain stable in a chaste will. But that that heavenly delight is supposed the same in both is clear from this: that the same affection of soul is said in both. This being posited, if the consent of the will does not follow except the greater delight, in the sinner the earthly delight must be said to have been greater than the heavenly, and in the other the heavenly delight greater. But this is against Augustine's very hypothesis; for each delight was the same in both. Was the heavenly delight, then, greater in the one? But since it was also the same in the other, why did this one sin? Say the same of the sensible delight. But if the heavenly delight was equal to the earthly delight, why did the one prevail over the other in the one, since two equal delights, according to Jansenius, destroy each other and some greater delight is necessary in order that the assent of the will may follow? Of course, this example of Augustine cannot at all be reconciled with the doctrine of Jansenius, and it utterly undermines it to its foundations. By it we are surely taught that, once the preceding grace and the persuasion of concupiscence are posited, the power of determining itself in whatever way it will lies with the will as indifferent, and that the reason for the determination is not to be sought from some delight preceding and overcoming the contrary one, or existing alone; for if it were to be sought from this, in that hypothesis of Augustine no consent of the will would have been possible.