Tractatus de Gratia Divina Actuali

Therefore this grace is physically and after the manner of a first act predetermining the will; although in some of those theologians it is said, not very coherently, to pertain to the second act. Moreover, they contend that this grace is necessary in order that a good act of the will may exist, to such a degree that it is impossible for it to be absent and for consent to be had to God calling. Now, however, disputing theologically about this matter, we judge that it must be affirmed that grace of this kind — which precedes the consent of the will and infers it necessarily, so that dissent is repugnant, and which is necessary in order that there be a good act — is opposed to the doctrine which can rightly be gathered from the testimonies of Scripture, their analysis having been instituted, cannot be reconciled with the Tridentine definition: that man moved and excited by God can reject the grace of God, can dissent, if he wills; that it removes freedom and sufficient grace from the midst; finally, that it perverts the concept of grace.

To obtain knowledge of this opinion the Thomists must be brought into consultation. Let us therefore bring them forward into the midst, having followed the best expositor of this matter (Zeitschrift für kath. Theol. Innsbruck. 1877.).

I. The Thomistic opinion, which takes its origin from Dominic Bañez, rests, as regards efficacious grace, first of all on these principles.

Principle 1° is drawn from the dignity of the first cause. Namely, no created agent can act unless it be applied to acting by a divine motion. The principal argument of the Thomists is drawn from the notion of being: that God alone, as the most universal efficient cause of all things, can produce it through a previous, real and physical influx (Graveson, Epistt. theol. polem. T. I. ep. 2a.).Graveson, Epistolae theologicae polemicae, Tomus I, epistola 2a.

In other words: No second cause can operate, unless it be efficaciously determined by the first (Bañez in 1am. p. q. XIV. a. 13.). This motion indeed, if it is truly a motion, must be previous to the act of the creature and prior in nature and causality to the action of the creature, just as every action is prior to its effect; therefore it is rightly called a premotion (Goudin, Phil. p. VI. D. 2. q. 3. a. 2.). Namely, «that preposition prae denotes or can denote nothing other than that God is the prior and first cause, moving, applying, inclining and determining the will prior in nature and causality to the will's determining itself... so that this causal statement is true: therefore the will determines itself in the second act, because it is prior in nature determined by God in the first act» (Lemos in Actis p. 1065.).

The premotion is indeed not prior to the action of the second cause as regards existence, but as regards causality (Reginaldus, De novit. et antiq. nominis praedeter. phys. l. II. c. 36.). «But this previous motion or actual help is really distinguished from the operation of the second cause... for every efficient cause is really distinguished from its effect» (Alvarez, De Auxiliis D. XIX. concl. 5.). Furthermore, «this divine motion received in the creature is called physical by the Thomists... because from its own essence and from within it is efficacious, independently of any created consent» (Gonet, Clypeus Thomist. D. XI. a. 5.).

Now indeed, «since God gives this motion to second causes knowing and willing it, and thus with certain knowledge and intention of a determinate effect — otherwise these would be by chance with respect to God — it follows that that physical premotion is a predetermination» (Reginaldus l. c.). «Physical premotion is called predetermination, because it determines the will to one thing, not only as regards specification but also as regards exercise, although not after the manner of nature» (Nazarius in 1am. p. q. XXII. a. 4.). For God «so predetermines free causes that He makes them operate infallibly — not indeed naturally or from absolute necessity, but freely and contingently according to their own nature» (Alvarez op. c. D. XXIII. n. 13.).

«Physical, therefore, is the predetermination... by which God predetermines man's will in the first act, so that the will itself, with all its freedom, infallibly and freely determines itself in the second act (Lemos l. c. p. 1063.)." But this divine motion takes place for any act of the will. "God causes the action of sin by premoving physically to it, not as it is evil, but precisely as it is an action (Goudin l. c.)." Wherefore "God certainly and infallibly knows all future sins in the decree by which He determined to predetermine the created will to the entity of the act of sin, insofar as it is an action and a being, and to permit the moral malice of sin or sin itself, as it is sin, by not giving efficacious help for avoiding it (Alvarez l. c. D. XI. n. 3.)."

Principle 2^m, drawn from the indifference of the will. "It is proper to the divine will to determine itself independently of any other cause; but the created will, before it determines itself, must be determined by God, namely because it is indifferent and that indifference is resolved in no other way than through a previous motion of God (Graveson op. cit. ep. XI.)." Wherefore "man's free will, because it is created, although it determines an act for itself, nevertheless determines it as predetermined by God (Alvarez l. c. D. XXII.)." Namely, "it is impossible that a determinate act proceed from a potency indeterminate in the first act (Lemos op. cit. p. 1234.)."

Principle 3^m, from the prescience of God. "With the efficacy of physical premotion removed from God, no other sufficient causality remains in God with respect to the determination of free acts, and consequently there can be in God no prescience of such future things; and once that is removed, the very notion of divine providence and predestination with respect to the said acts must necessarily be taken away (Nazarius l. I.)."

With these arguments, indeed, the Thomists wish to prove the physical premotion and predetermination of any act whatever; and if they are worth anything, they ought to be worth equally in the supernatural order no less than in the natural. They warn, however (at which you would not unjustly marvel), that "the Thomists admit general predetermination only as probable according to natural reason and not necessarily connected with the Catholic faith. But grace efficacious of itself they hold as a theological conclusion most certainly handed down by Augustine and Aquinas and, after the articles of faith, above every exception, definable in a proximate and, as it were, ultimate disposition. Whence, even if no physical predetermination to merely natural and moral acts were admitted, we nevertheless contend that it must be admitted in the supernatural order for living rightly and Christianly. We construct general premotion for this reason only, that through it we may pave the way to establishing more richly and more strongly grace efficacious of itself, and that philosophy may also serve to defend it (Contenson Theol. ment. et cord. I. VIII. Diss. 2. specul. 3.).Contenson Theol. ment. et cord. I. VIII. Diss. 2. specul. 3.

II. Wherefore concerning grace efficacious of itself they establish these things. «The principal of the prerequisites, in order that man may produce an act through free will — for example, of conversion to God — is the efficacious decree of God from eternity and the physical motion or efficacious help by which God premoves the will to such an act (Nazarius l. c.).» For this reason «never in fact does the created will produce a supernatural act, unless it be physically premoved and predetermined by efficacious help to producing that same act (Alvarez l. c. D. XCI. n. 8.).» This most celebrated school (says Graveson op. cit. T. II. ep. 3.), firmly adhering to the doctrine of Saints Augustine and Thomas, recognizes no versatile, indifferent grace so subject to man's free will that its efficacy or inefficacy depends on the consent or dissent alone of that same will.» Hence they say: «grace sufficient understood in the Thomistic sense does not comprise in itself everything that is necessary for actually acting, but another grace is required, which is efficacious of itself and from within and which comprises everything that is necessary for actually acting (Serry Schola thomistica vindicata praelect. 2. cf. Gotti Tom. II. Tract. 6. q. 2. Dub. 4. Alvarez l. c. DD. XXIII. et LXXX.).» «Indeed no Thomist ever denied that the created will equipped with grace sufficient in the Thomistic sense has, in that sense, a true, complete, proximate and ready potency, in such a way, however, that besides sufficient grace it needs on God's part another grace for actually acting, namely grace efficacious of itself (Graveson l. c. Tom. I. ep. 1).» But some difference exists in the manner of speaking between the older and the more recent Thomists; for «the Thomists after Alvarez, who call the potency given by merely sufficient graces full, ready, complete and even proximate, certainly agree less with the older ones (Serry D. Augustinus D. Thomae conciliatus praelect. III. c. 26).»

III. But of what sort is the efficacy of this necessary grace efficacious of itself? Namely, «however freely Peter operates while he is being disposed to grace, it nevertheless implies a contradiction that, the same efficacious help standing simultaneously, he should not consent to God calling and preparing (Banez l. c. a. 7.)». Or «it is repugnant to join at the same time with that help of grace the contrary dissent; because to join in this way expressly states the composition of two opposites (Lemos l. c. p. 1052)». Namely, «efficacious help for consenting and actual dissent are mutually repugnant (Alvarez I. c. D. XCII. n. 6)». Wherefore the same Bañez, in 2º. Zae. g. 10. a. I. doc. 3., having admitted the Tridentine definition can. 4. Sess. VI., adds: «with this, nevertheless, it stands in truth that this conjunctive proposition is impossible: God by such help excites and moves man's free will, and man's free will does not consent to God so exciting and calling; for this implies a contradiction.»

IV. Does this efficacious help look to the first act or to the second? «Some (says Xantes Mariales Biblioth. Interp. 7. 4. Relect. 9. sect. 3.) concede that the motion is the complement of the first act; others deny it. Those who deny it deny that it is a complement formally pertaining to the first act and perfecting within the limits of the first act, which is most true. Those who affirm it affirm that it is an extrinsic complement, perfecting not within the limits of the first act, but rather within the line of the second act, at least reductively, insofar as it applies the first act to producing the second exercisedly, which is also most true.» But it is only too evident that what is necessary for acting, and is necessary as a cause, and which therefore is prior to the action by a priority of nature and causality, pertains to the constitution of the first act, although when the action is done it is simultaneous with it. Certainly (as Lemos says l. c. p. 1053) «before the will says: I will, the prevenient help of divine grace precedes by a priority of nature, making it will, and making it in such a way that dissent does not stand simultaneously. Nor is this against the Council of Trent; indeed it is of its express mind.»

V. But how is this efficacy of grace reconciled with human freedom? Not difficult, they say: for what is freedom? «Freedom is nothing other than the very potency of the will connoting the object indifferently proposed (Sebille Interpres thomisticus L. III. c. 1. sect. 5.).» «Positive and active indifference is nothing other than the positing of some act or determination of the will, with potency to the opposite (Graveson op. c. Tom. I. ep. 8).The second act is said to be free... through the indifference which it has to its principle, namely insofar as it could be produced and not produced by it, and produced it can be continued and not continued (Xantes Mariales op. cit. Tom. III, contr. 19. a. 10. c. 4.). Thus Graveson further argues (l. c.): the active indifference of the will arises as from a root from the indifference of the judgment; this root remaining, that also remains. But grace efficacious of itself does not take away that root: therefore.

However, if we listen to Sebille (l. c.), it indeed implies a contradiction that, in the state in which the will actually retains the predetermination to love, the actual positing of non-love should be possible. But we say, he says, that under the predetermination to love the will is truly proximately able not to love, in this sense: because, although the positing of non-love is impossible, the proximate potency to not loving is nevertheless retained (but if, while the act is still impossible, the potency is proximate — when will that act be possible, and of what sort will the potency be?), because for this proximate potency to be had it is not required that that extreme be possible even with the predetermination retained, but it suffices that it be possible absolutely. Wherefore the same writer says: «The Thomistic school most constantly holds that for the free eliciting of an act at some instant it suffices that the will be proximately able at that same instant not to act, although for that same instant the very negation of the act is impossible by reason of some prerequisite then existing, with which the negation of the act has an essential repugnance.» Namely, also, «all the prerequisites for acting standing, free will can, in the composed sense (with grace), not act, by a potency separated and not to be reduced to act; but it cannot not act by a conjoined potency, that is, one to be reduced to act... if it be objected that this potency is in vain, I deny this; indeed, absolutely speaking, it does not imply a contradiction to be reduced to act, but only with the predetermination standing (Xantes Mariales l. c.).»

De Avila, however (in the place to be cited below), says: «We hold with firm faith that man, moved by God by this wonderful, efficacious and efficient and physical help, freely assents and cooperates with God calling — absolutely and simply speaking, and in the divided sense; but if the discourse be carried on in the composed sense, as long as that supposition stands firm that God impels us by this help, we likewise profess according to faith that we operate the acts of free will necessarily and infallibly.» What then do the Thomists intend by this distinction of the composed sense and the divided sense, or what are the terms which must be conceived either as composed together or as divided from one another? «The Thomists teach that man, while he is equipped with grace efficacious of itself, retains a true potency of dissenting from it or of not acting in the divided sense, i.e., retains the potency of dissenting from grace efficacious of itself, but divided and separated from actual dissent — in which potency stands the genuine ground of man's freedom; but that man endowed with grace efficacious of itself does not retain the potency of dissenting from it in the composed sense, i.e., does not retain the potency of dissenting from it conjoined with actual dissent (Graveson l. c.)» «In the present controversy (says Alvarez op. cit. D. CXIV), when it is said that man moved by efficacious help cannot dissent in the composed sense, nothing else is signified than that that efficacious motion and actual dissent are not at the same time in the same man; but the sense is not that efficacious motion and the potency to dissenting are incompossible in the same man,» the potency, however, not to be reduced to act; for (as Bañez says l. c. q. XXIII. a. 3) «the reason is evident: for who resists His (God's) will?»¹ «We confess (says the same Alvarez, ibid.) that the Council of Trent, sect. VI. can. 4, speaks of a physical potency which can be reduced to act absolutely speaking; but nevertheless that potency is never reduced to act, efficacious help standing in man; because the help itself brings it about that that potency is not reduced to an act repugnant to that same help.» If it is repugnant, therefore the act is impossible, that prevenient help being posited. The Thomists therefore concede that, with efficacious help standing, the absolute potency to the opposite, to dissent, remains — a potency, however, never to be reduced to act under that help. Then they deny that their composed and divided sense ever was or is to be explained in this way, namely that the will can in the divided sense of grace, i.e., with grace efficacious of itself removed, and cannot in the composed sense of grace, i.e., with grace efficacious of itself posited; for, as they say, the potency remains absolutely, but nevertheless not to be reduced to act under that help, for the reason that the act is repugnant to it. But is not that the same as saying that the will cannot except divided from grace? I fear lest we play with words. In the 3ª Congregation De Auxiliis before Paul V. (H. Controv. Livini De Meyer L. VI. c. 9.) Bastida had thus proposed the Thomistic distinction of the composed and divided sense: «To be able to dissent in the composed sense they define as being able to join consent with dissent in the will. To be able to dissent in the divided sense, they say, is to retain the free will — even when it is under motion and excitation — the power of lacking the consent to which this grace moves, provided, however, that it lack that grace and be divided from it: so that the sense of the definition is that free will, even while it is moved and excited, retains the power of lacking consent or of having the contrary act — not indeed simultaneously with this motion, but if it be divided from it.» To these things Lemos responded (ibid. c. 10): «The Reverend Father proceeded thus: that being able to dissent in the divided sense says nothing but that free will has the potency to dissenting, if efficacious grace be taken away; but this does not suffice for free will placed under efficacious grace to have freedom. To this it is responded that not only if efficacious grace be taken away, but even with it posited and while it is posited, free will has the potency absolutely and simply to dissenting.» Certainly, but nevertheless a potency never to be reduced to act under that help, for the reason that that help, inferring consent necessarily, by the same necessity excludes dissent. Therefore, although the terms that would be composed (in the composed sense) are consent and dissent, nevertheless, because consent is not except by the force of efficacious grace, and is necessarily had when it exists, nor is it or can it be except when it exists, the matter truly comes back to this: that the terms of the composition are efficacious grace and dissent, and therefore it is denied that dissent can be in the composed sense with grace, as Bastida explained well; and how far that is from the doctrine of Trent, we shall see a little later.

VII. From the things thus far set forth it is sufficiently evident that, given that help efficacious of itself, a certain necessity of acting is present. «As long as that supposition stands firm, that God impels us by this help, we likewise profess according to faith that we operate the acts of free will necessarily and infallibly» (De Avila De Grat. et Lib. arb., cited by Bastida, H. Congr. Livini Meyer L. VI. c. 15. prop. 2). But, they say, the necessity is of the consequence, not of the consequent. Namely, the will is moved by grace efficacious of itself: therefore it cannot not act; the consequence is necessary. The consequent is not, but after the manner of the antecedent, i.e., of grace, which is free not only with the freedom of God moving, but of man, which is involved in grace efficacious of itself; because it would not be efficacious unless it made man will freely (cf. Reginaldum et Nazarium Il. cc.). Certainly, «since God is the first free being and contains in a most eminent way every determination of our will, He cannot by premoving take away, but rather bestows, freedom. Just as a consequent supposition does not take away freedom, a fortiori neither does the antecedent supposition of divine predefinition, because, as the Thomists teach, such a decree arises from the first root and principle of freedom, namely the infinite efficacy of the divine will. But it implies a contradiction that something should precede freedom as a cause of freedom and should destroy freedom (Gonet op. cit. D.IX.).»Gonet op. cit. D.IX.

«For God moves not only to the substance of the act, but also to its mode, which is freedom (Billuart De Deo D. VIII, a. 4.).»Billuart De Deo D. VIII, a. 4.

«Therefore the act will be contingently and freely, because God decreed that it be freely and contingently (Goudin Tract. Theol. I. tract. 2. g. 2. a. 3).»Goudin Tract. Theol. I. tract. 2. g. 2. a. 3.

VIII. Efficacious grace described thus far differs essentially from sufficient grace. «Grace sufficient in the Thomistic sense (says Graveson op. cit. Tom. I. ep. 1ª.) is so essentially distinguished by its nature from grace efficacious in the Thomistic sense, that never and in no case can grace sufficient in the Thomistic sense become grace efficacious in the Thomistic sense, nor is the second act ever posited, unless efficacious grace in the Thomistic sense has supervened.» But that truly sufficient help is given, all Thomists concede. Thus Peter Ledesma (De Auxiliis art. 16.) thinks it must be held, according to faith, that sufficient help distinct from efficacious is given, and that it is sufficient in all rigor and is intrinsically supernatural, and is given on every occasion on which the obligation of a precept urges. Likewise John of St. Thomas, in 1ª. p. q. XIII. a. 3., says it is necessary to posit such help giving sufficiency and ability; because .... a proximate and proportioned faculty for operating is required.

For what reason, then, is such grace called sufficient? Namely, «in sufficient grace everything is contained that is required for the potency of operating well, but not everything that is further required for the act. For it is certain that in every acting cause something more is required for the act than for the potency (Gazzanica Prael. theol. D. V. c. 6. cf. Reginaldum op. cit. tom. I. c. 42. Serry de divina gratia prael. 3.). Therefore, «although sufficient grace is a sufficient power on the part of the first act, nevertheless it is never to be joined with the second act, unless grace efficacious of itself be at hand (Graveson op. cit. tom. I. ep. 1.).» «The prevenient help is sufficient for salvation; nevertheless, by itself alone it cannot attain salvation, unless the light of efficacious help shine upon man, just as sight is sufficient for the beginning of seeing, yet cannot actually see without light (Franciscus Avila apud Suarez De vera intelligentia auxilii efficacis c. 17.).» «For it is one thing to be able to operate, another to operate actually» (Alvarez op. cit. D. XVIII. n. 20.). Moreover, note with Ferdinand Bastida (H. Contr. Livini De Meyer De Auxiliis L. VI. c. 17.) that the first Thomists, with Bañez, affirmed that efficacious predetermining help is necessary for being able, but others afterwards, broken by the difficulty, affirmed that it is required only for operating. But those, indeed, were consistent with themselves; these were not. Thus Didacus Nuñes (in 3m. p. q. 2. De Auxiliis) affirms that to one having sufficient help, «simply speaking, nothing of the requisites for operating is lacking... And to the argument that something necessary is lacking to him, the proposition itself is distinguished: a necessity on the part of the potency, in such a way that the potency is not altogether complete, is in some way bound or impeded, is denied; something necessary is lacking on the part of the act, which is given together with the act itself and passes away.»

But because perhaps this response did not please all Thomists, another was devised. In order, then, that more Thomists may extricate themselves from the difficulty that such help does not seem sufficient, they say that «such is the sufficient grace of the Thomists, that from it not only can the act come forth, but it also in fact comes forth, as often as the created will is not wanting to it; although I confess that it belongs to efficacious grace that the will not be wanting to sufficient grace (Goudin... De Gratia q. V. a. 2.).» Namely, «sufficient help so confers sufficiency for operating, if man wills, that the defect of operation in no way proceeds from any insufficiency of the help itself, but only from the defect of the free will, which resists it and places an obstacle (Lemos Panop. I. IV. p. 2. Tract. 3. c. 2.).» «For God, giving sufficient help, offers the efficacious in it; and because man resists the sufficient, he is deprived of the efficacious which was being offered to him (idem ibid. c. 6.).With whom Alvarez agrees (op. cit. D. CXVIII.), saying: «God, as long as a precept obliges, gives in fact to every man sufficient help, ready to give him efficacious help, unless he place an obstacle to that same help.» And this is (with Goudin l. c. as witness) the opinion of all Thomists, even the more rigid ones, that «man, by resisting sufficient help, placed an obstacle, lest God proceed further with His grace,» as Alvarez says (ibid. D. LXXX.).

This, therefore, is the most certain doctrine concerning the grace of God — indeed, if you believe Bañez, to be believed. «But the assertors (he says in 1. p. q. X. a. 1.) of the contrary opinion say that they cannot understand how man freely believes, hopes and loves, etc., if the help of God is so efficacious, so proceeds from divine predefinition, that these two cannot stand at the same time: this man receives such help and this man is not converted, etc. Therefore, about to respond to this objection, I cannot sufficiently marvel at the ignorance of theologians of this sort, not to say their temerity; for first of all they ought to have believed what they say they cannot understand: for we Catholics believe the mystery of the Trinity, even if we do not understand it.» Which he also repeats, q. XXIII. a. 5., from which it is evident that nothing was said more rashly and less wisely.

IX. Therefore efficacious help or grace is commonly called that by which God brings it about that we actually will, which namely obtains the effect for which it is given, and which is joined with the consent of the will. It is asked whence this actual efficacy of grace arises: these theologians say that it arises from the very character of the help, which is efficacious from its nature, in such a way that the help is not actually efficacious because the will consents, but on the contrary the will consents because the help is efficacious — and indeed with an efficacy from within; so that, with it existing and by its force, the act is posited by the necessity of the consequence, and it is repugnant that it not be posited.

X. From what has been said it is lawful to explain the name of physical predetermination as used by these theologians. Of it three things are to be explained, namely what determination, what that preposition prae, and what physica signify: whence also it will again become clear what follows from such grace.

Determination is attributed to the will, and both the divine and the created will are said to determine themselves and to be determined. Now, first, a twofold determination is to be distinguished, namely from oneself and from another. The former is that which proceeds from the same principle as the thing determined, namely when someone determines himself; the latter is that which proceeds from a principle distinct from the thing determined. This latter is to be understood when efficacious grace is called predetermination; because it proceeds from God. But determination from another is again to be distinguished as twofold, namely determination of the object and determination of the subject. For 1) something is said to be determined inasmuch as it is the term of the determination of the will; thus the existence of the Church was determined from eternity by the divine will. Whence its determination is a determination of the object. 2) Something is said to be determined in that it receives from another into itself some entity or some mode or motion through which it is determined to do or to receive something; thus a sentient being is determined by a sensible species to sensing. What is determined is the subject, and its determination is a determination of the subject. Determination of the object is extrinsic to the object itself, which is denominated determined not by some intrinsic form or intrinsic mode, but solely from its relation to the determining cause. But determination of the subject is intrinsic to the determined thing, which is called determined on account of the intrinsic form or mode by which it is really changed.

Now when the will is said to be predetermined by grace, a determination of the subject is to be understood, not of the object. For it is a determination which exists in the will itself, just as the grace which determines does. That is, the will is not called determined for the reason that its act is the term of the divine will determining or commanding it; but it is called determined for the reason that something is placed in the will itself by God, namely grace, by which it is intrinsically changed and determined to act. Wherefore a determination of this sort is not to be confused with the simple eternal predefinition of good acts, which could be conceived; for this is only in God and places nothing in the will whose acts are predefined.

Now concerning the particle prae. The will, according to these authors, can be determined both in second act and in first act. It is determined in second act by its own act, which it vitally elicits; it is determined in first act by something preceding the act, which accordingly is not something vital, but is placed by God in the will in the manner of a certain quality or motion. Wherefore with respect to this determination the will does not behave except passively. What is placed in the will by God is said by some to be some entity, or form or quality, and by others is said to be only a motion: certainly it is a real modification, whose adequate cause is God and which is not vital. But it is not necessary, they say, that this motion should precede the second act in time; it suffices if it precedes by nature; namely, it precedes in the way in which first act must precede second. In order, therefore, that this word determination may be narrowed to signify the determination prior by nature to the second act, that particle prae is added, and thus it is called predetermination.

Why finally is it called physical? Note that this appellation is given to predetermination. This word physica signifies something proper to predetermination. The word is not added for the sole purpose of signifying that grace is a real cause, an efficient cause — not only moral but also physical — of the salutary act; for that is not proper to the determination which these theologians defend, nor is it denied by their adversaries, who teach that grace is the efficient and physical cause of the good act. But this word physica is added to predetermination so that it may further be signified that the predetermining help has, not from some extrinsic circumstance or congruity, but from its own entity, nature, quality, that by which it predetermines the will.

Moreover this efficacy of predetermining, which belongs to efficacious help from its intrinsic nature, is, according to its authors, so great that by the very fact that that help is placed in the will, it implies a contradiction that the consent of the will should not follow. For what all theologians teach — that it is repugnant that grace be actually efficacious and there be no act — is transferred by these theologians to this grace of theirs, prior to the act and nonetheless requiring from its nature that the act follow.

The necessity of the consequence of the act is called by these same authors necessity of consequence, not necessity of the consequent. Necessity of consequence, because the nexus between the antecedent help and the consequent act is necessary: not necessity of the consequent, because the consequent act follows freely, receiving participated liberty from the divine free will moving the created free will, so strongly and sweetly according to the mode of its nature. Bannez in 1m. p. q. XXIII. a. 5.Bannez, In 1m. p. q. XXIII. a. 5.

Help of this kind physically predetermining is necessary for the act to be; for it is itself that which gives the good act, and just as when it exists the good act necessarily exists, so when the good act does not exist, it must necessarily be said that the help itself was lacking.

This efficacious help differs essentially from sufficient help. But sufficient help indeed gives the ability, as they say, but the act cannot be unless efficacious help is also present. Indeed, just as it is necessary that when efficacious help exists the act exists, so it is impossible that when only sufficient help exists the act exist: for if the act existed through it alone, it would be efficacious; and because sufficient help can be joined with dissent, there would be had an efficacious help which from its nature would not be necessarily connected with consent, which they say is repugnant. Sufficient and efficacious help therefore differ in intrinsic nature: with the former alone it cannot come about that consent is joined, with the latter it cannot come about that dissent is joined — and this from the proper nature of each.

Efficacious help is called both physically predetermining and also a physical predetermination. For it predetermines after the manner of a formal cause; for when it exists in the will, by that very fact the will is predetermined.

It is clear that the exposition of the Thomistic opinion which the Thesis presents is sincere. That too which we add — that those who deny that efficacious help pertains to the first act, or to the constitution of the first act, do not sufficiently cohere with themselves — is manifest. For what is necessary as a principle and cause of the second act and inheres in the faculty itself evidently pertains to the first act: but, with all Thomists admitting that such is efficacious help, therefore.

XI. But entering upon this disputation we protest that we are unwilling in any way to brand with some theological censure the system which we impugn: that is not our office, and the reverence with which we regard catholic doctors restrains us even from thinking it. But in order to set forth what seems to us right, we shall of course have to gather arguments from the Scriptures, from the Councils, from the Fathers, from reason: yet all things are to be taken as if we said: as far as in us lies, this seems to us to follow from those principles, this appears certain to us; for the rest, let the judgment of the matter rest with those to whom it pertains.

For now the question is not whether the grace of God is some entity or dead quality placed in the soul by God. On this matter we have already spoken in Ih. XVI. Nor is the question about the physical efficiency of grace, which we too established there. The question turns only on the mode of causing or of efficacy which these theologians attribute to grace efficacious of itself, and on the sufficiency of the grace which they call sufficient. The question is namely, 1º whether prevenient grace, which the consent of the will follows, is so efficacious from its own nature that the consent of the will follows necessarily by the force of the nature of that same grace, so that it implies a contradiction that this grace be joined in the will with dissent or with lack of consent. It is asked 2º whether under this grace the exercise of liberty remains. It is asked 3º whether, given the necessity of this grace, it can truly be said that those who do not actually work well were furnished with sufficient grace for acting well. This the Theologians who side with Dominic Bannez affirm: we deny. Leaving aside other arguments, we are content with these alone, lest the disputation be drawn out too long.

XII. a) Matth. 11, 21. Woe to you, Chorazin, woe to you, Bethsaida; because if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes. It must be supposed 1º that these words of Christ contain infallible truth, 2º that the reproach of Christ is legitimate and just: both are persuaded from the person of the speaker. It must be supposed 3º that with the mighty works, or miracles, done outwardly, interior graces were conjoined; for without them salutary repentance, which Christ demanded, would have been impossible. These things being posited, we again note that the reproach of Christ is comparative, namely He does not only rebuke the Chorazinites because they did not repent on seeing the signs of Christ, but because they did not repent instructed with that abundance of means which, had the Tyrians had them, they themselves would have repented.

Now with these things presupposed, these things must be certain: 1º that for the Tyrians to do repentance no other help was necessary besides those which were given to the Chorazinites; for if another help had been necessary, then this proposition would be true: if the things which were done in Tyre had been done in Chorazin, the Tyrians would not have repented; moreover this is the contradictory of the proposition of Christ: therefore Christ would be deceitful, if that proposition is true. Since therefore Christ can neither be deceived nor deceive, that proposition must be said to be false, and it must be said that no other help besides those conferred on the Chorazinites was necessary for the Tyrians.

It must be certain, 2°, that the Chorazinites could have done repentance through those same helps by which the Tyrians could have, and that those helps by which the Chorazinites certainly could do repentance were the same as those by which the Tyrians would have repented, and were not lesser. Otherwise that comparative reproach would be unjust. For the Chorazinites could justly have responded: why is the repentance of the Tyrians objected to us, and from it our impenitence is rebuked, because we did not repent instructed with those helps by which they would have repented? Let the same helps be given to us as those which would have been given to the Tyrians, and then, if we do not repent, you may rebuke us, even compared with them.

Therefore 1) the Tyrians would have done repentance with those same helps with which the Chorazinites did not, and for this repentance to be actual there was required, besides those helps, only the positing of the condition, i.e. that those helps actually be conferred.

Therefore 2) that help which remained sufficient in the Chorazinites would have been efficacious in the Tyrians.

Therefore 3) no other help besides the sufficient is necessary for acting.

Therefore 4) efficacious help can by its nature be joined with dissent.

Therefore 5) sufficient and efficacious help do not differ in nature.

Moreover all these conclusions directly oppose the opinion which we impugn: therefore.

Isaias V, 3. seg. What is it that I ought to do further (hebr. what still remained to be done) to my vineyard and did not do to it? Or why (hebr. why) did I wait for it to produce grapes and it produced wild grapes? Namely, why, while I was waiting for it to produce grapes, did it produce wild grapes? We suppose 1) that the fruit which the vineyard, i.e. the people of God (cf. v. 7.), ought to bear is the salutary works by which men please God; for God expects these from men, namely judgment and justice, as the Lord says in v. 7. 2) That the helps which God testifies that He provided to the vineyard were not only external but also… chiefly internal; because these are necessary, and God says that He omitted nothing. 3) That to these men physically predetermining help was not given, since the act was lacking.

Now if for acting there were necessary a predetermining help, or a help without the positing of which it is impossible for the act to follow, then 1° it would be false that God did whatever He ought so that the act would be; for for the act to be, this help would have been necessary, which God denied: He would therefore have had to give it — not insofar as it was owed to men, but insofar as it was necessary that the effect intended by God follow. For if God wills something and it cannot be done unless the means which He alone can give is supplied, God must surely provide it. 2° God would have expected grapes from the vineyard in vain, since He knew that He had denied that means which alone could actually produce grapes; for what do you expect which you know for certain cannot come about? 3° The divine complaint would also be unjust; for why does He complain that the vineyard did not bear fruit, it which was cultivated by Him, when the necessary means for bearing fruit was lacking?

Therefore 1) for the act to be, physically predetermining help is not necessary.

Therefore 2) sufficient grace becomes actually efficacious, or the effect is obtained, not through another help of a different nature superadded, but through the consent of the will.

Therefore 3) sufficient grace and efficacious grace do not differ in intrinsic nature.

Therefore 4) grace which is actually efficacious is not necessarily connected with the good act, but can be conjoined with dissent and then remains purely sufficient.

But these things wholly contradict the doctrine which we attack: therefore.

If these things are maintained, it will easily be clear that the other passages of Scripture, in which men are reproved for contempt of grace, teach the same. Surely e.g. what do they mean, c) the words of Christ. Matth. XXIII, 37. Jerusalem, Jerusalem... how often I willed to gather your children... and you would not! The absence of this effect of gathering together is attributed to the evil will of the Jews because they would not: God willed, they would not; therefore what God willed did not come to be. But if God truly willed it, surely He used those means, He provided all those things which were necessary, which, with the free consent of the will supervening, would have obtained the effect. Otherwise, if the things which God had provided were such that, even with the consent of the human will supervening, they would not have obtained the effect because the efficacious help was lacking; would it be true that God truly willed it? would it truly be said that the effect did not come to be because man would not, and therefore man would be deservedly blamed? If therefore men had willed to use the helps which God conferred on them, willing that salutary effect, those helps would have obtained the effect, i.e. the same helps which remain purely sufficient when the consent of the human will is lacking become efficacious in second act when the will itself consents.

XIII. The Council of Trent Sess. VI. can. 4. defines that free will, moved and excited by God, cooperates by assenting to God exciting and calling, and can dissent, if it wills. Those theologians say that the words of the Council are to be taken in the divided sense, not in the composed sense. But what do they understand by composed and divided sense? Namely, they say, to be able to dissent in the composed sense is to have the power of dissenting in such a way that dissent is composed with consent, which is repugnant; therefore it cannot dissent in the composed sense; but to be able to dissent in the divided sense is to retain under the divine motion the power of dissenting, not however to be reduced to act while there is consent (see above n. VI.). Wherefore it would also be permissible to explain this composed and divided sense in this way: the will under efficacious grace has the power of dissenting — the power, however, conjoinable with the act of dissent, they deny; not conjoinable, they concede. But 1. when it is asked whether the words of the Council are to be taken in the composed sense, there is not understood that composed sense by which consent is conjoined with dissent; but that composed sense is understood by which, namely, dissent is conjoined with grace. Surely a proposition is said to be taken in the composed sense when the predicate belongs to the subject as having itself in the way in which it is expressed in the proposition; whence it is said that this proposition, a blind man sees, is false in the composed sense; because the predicate cannot belong to the subject existing in the way in which it is expressed in the proposition. Now this is the proposition of the Council: free will, moved and excited by God, can dissent, if it wills; it is not said: consenting free will can dissent; which manner of speaking could supply the occasion of devising that composed sense; although even then we would establish the same thing, as will be clear from the analysis made of another similar phrase from chapter 5 of the same Session. But on the part of the subject only the motion and excitation of God is posited. The composed sense of this proposition, therefore, is, that dissent could freely (if it wills) be conjoined at the same time with the motion and excitation of God, or with free will moved and excited by God. It is asked, therefore, whether the words of the Council are to be understood according to this composed sense, or according to the divided sense, namely that free will, moved and excited by God, retains at the same time the power of dissenting, which dissent, however, could not be posited unless that motion and excitation were lacking.

2. The words of the Council are to be weighed: it can dissent — namely, the discussion concerns possible dissent, not in general any other non-salutary act, but dissent: dissent, however, is dissent from something; here, truly, there is speech only of grace, from which man can dissent; the dissent, therefore, of which there is speech here, is dissent from grace, or from God calling and exciting. Now can there be dissent from grace, if grace does not exist? can there be dissent from God calling and exciting, if God does not call and excite? That is utterly impossible. Therefore if dissent is possible, it is possible only under grace, under God moving and exciting, and therefore in the composed sense with grace.

It is not, therefore, the question whether, from the doctrine of Trent, some absolute power of acting otherwise or of acting badly remains to the will under grace, but whether under grace there remains to the will the power of acting otherwise or contrarily, which could be reduced to act under grace itself. This is what we say the Council affirms, and affirms also concerning efficacious grace, and what the adversaries deny, who in their system can only concede that under efficacious grace there indeed remains the power of doing something else and the opposite, but deny that it can be reduced to act under grace.

Surely, as to the first thing which we say is affirmed by the Council, it is clear from what was said just now in n. 2. For it is evident that the Council affirms that under grace there remains the power of resisting grace itself. For that is demonstrated most evidently from that little word dissent; for free will can dissent: but dissent cannot exist unless there is something from which one dissents; dissent, therefore, demands to be at the same time with that from which one dissents; here, however, it is grace, or God moving and exciting, from which free will is said to be able to dissent; therefore grace, and the dissent which can be posited, must be at the same time. Otherwise, if grace be removed, if free will be not moved, from what will it dissent, or be able to dissent? It will be able to do nothing, to do evil, but it will not be able to dissent.

The same is established from the parallel phrase of ch. 5, namely that man receiving the inspiration of God can cast it away. For the act of casting away grace cannot exist except at the same time with grace; for what would you cast away that you do not have? Furthermore, note that in this other phrase there occurs that divided sense of which the adversaries speak. For it is said that man receiving the inspiration can cast it away; it is clear that the casting away and the reception (which is the consent given to the inspiration) cannot be at the same time, but the casting away, just as the reception, must be at the same time with grace; whence in this respect the proposition is to be understood in the composed sense.

Therefore not only does the power of dissenting remain under grace — which power, however, could not come into act unless that grace were taken away — but there remains a power of dissenting which can come into act while grace itself exists: otherwise dissent from grace, from God calling, would be impossible.

But (that we may demonstrate the other thing which we affirmed) this grace, from which free will can dissent, is efficacious grace. It is proved 1 1) because it is that same grace with which man cooperates, can. 4; that same grace which man freely acting receives, ch. 5; it is therefore grace which gives the act: but this is efficacious grace; for with only sufficient grace, according to the adversaries, there is never consent or cooperation. 2 2) because the words of the Council must be taken of any prevenient grace, and not of some one only which from its own nature is indeed sufficient but not efficacious. For the Council speaks without any limitation of that actual grace by which man is disposed to justification; therefore no prevenient grace among those which dispose to justification is such that it cannot be dissented from; for if some one were, and indeed that one which actually disposes man to justification, the proposition of the Council would be simply false; for an indefinite proposition is taken universally, i.e., in order to be true, it must be true universally, according to that universality of which the subject is capable.

But taken universally the proposition of the Council would be false, if man cannot resist efficacious grace, by which he is actually prepared for justification. Now since the actual graces which are conferred before justification and those which are conferred after it are of the same kind, it follows that there is no prevenient grace which cannot actually be resisted. And indeed 3) The Council in that canon, as is clear from the words quoted from chapter 5, wills to assert the freedom of man under grace, because he can dissent from it. Therefore it is proper to freedom to be able to dissent from grace. Furthermore, from this demonstration it follows that if man cannot dissent from some grace, he is not free under it. Whoever, therefore, denies that efficacious graces are also comprehended by the definition of the Council must maintain that under those graces men are not free. But if man is free under every grace, let it be conceded that the Council speaks of every grace.

It is proved 4) The sentence of the Council was issued against Calvin: it was therefore uttered in that sense in which the doctrine of Calvin is excluded and condemned. But Calvin taught that man cannot resist that grace which is efficacious, namely which works the good act in us; therefore the grace which the Tridentine Fathers teach can be resisted is efficacious grace. Therefore from the Council we have that man can dissent from efficacious grace, and that there is no prevenient grace which from its own nature is necessarily connected with the act: but grace physically predetermining is such that it cannot be resisted, that it is from its own nature necessarily connected with the act; therefore grace physically predetermining cannot be composed with the definition of the Council of Trent: q. e. d.

XIV. Bastida shows that freedom is destroyed thus (H. C. L. VI. 17). «I now show that freedom is destroyed from the fact that they say this grace physically predetermines the will. For all cry out with one voice of nature that our freedom is placed in indifference or indetermination (namely, the exercise of freedom does not consist in this, that the will puts forth an act which could not be, which is common to all causes; but in this, that the will existing in first act remains always actively indifferent, and is not in second act determined by nature before it has determined itself, although it does this by powers received from God; for this is to have dominion over its own act: otherwise, however, no distinction is had between necessary and free causes). But nothing can be devised more contrary to indifference and indetermination than physical predetermination to one thing (which by nature runs before the exercise of the faculty), nor can it be conceived in the mind that someone is at the same time indifferent or indeterminate to both and predetermined to one. Nor could God take away from the will the indifference and indetermination to either alternative by an easier way, than by placing in it a form (or motion) by which it is physically predetermined to one thing before it acts (at least by nature). Therefore, since by this efficacious help a predetermination to one thing is placed in the will, by this very fact the indifference or indetermination of the will to either alternative is taken away.» And because it is essential to the created will to act in such a way that it cannot act — at least salutarily — unless predetermined by God, hence neither can any power of active indifference be conceived in the will; for just as the predetermining help takes away this indifference in its exercise, so the essential necessity of the same help takes away its power.

Surely freedom, i.e. the exercise of freedom, consists wholly in this, that the act is posited with no necessity of consequence from all things posited that are required for acting: for this is the definition of freedom, that with all things required for acting posited, it can will, can not-will, can will this, will that: but in the system of the adversaries this very necessity of consequence is constructed: for with efficacious grace required for acting posited, consent follows with necessity of consequence, as they themselves speak; therefore there is no exercise of freedom. Surely let them show how the definition of freedom is verified here. With only sufficient grace posited, the will cannot yet will; because the act is impossible with that alone existing, since efficacious grace is essentially required: with efficacious grace posited, the will cannot not-will: therefore. Or will you say that this definition of freedom regards freedom only in the state of potency, not however when it exercises itself in act? To be sure, when it exercises itself and posits one act, it cannot at the same time posit another: but that definition requires that this act be elicited with no necessity of consequence from the circumstances posited, so that therefore under the same circumstances it could have posited another. Otherwise there is no freedom. For the rest cf. Th. LII.

Nor should you say that God, in predetermining, accommodates Himself to the nature of a free cause: for these are contradictory, namely such predetermination and the accommodation of the motion of God to a free cause: wherefore by the very fact that God accommodates Himself to free causes, He cannot predetermine them. It is indeed the doctrine of St. Thomas in 2m. D. XXV. q. 1. a. 1. cf. the cited Thesis) that God, in moving, accommodates Himself to the natures of the causes which He moves, but on that account He thence inferred that «the determination of the action and of the end is placed in the power of free will.» Wrongly, therefore (as Bastida says, loc. cit.), from the accommodation of God with secondary causes, while He moves them, do these authors infer that God physically predetermines the will with its freedom safe, since from the same entirely antecedent St. Thomas inferred the contrary consequent» and it must be inferred. Cf. In. LI. and LII.

Bastida concludes, «that Bannez commands his predetermination to be believed by us as a mystery of the most holy Trinity is truly ridiculous, as if we ought to assent to his inventions, for this sole reason, because he himself said it, as to decrees of faith... For just as to captivate the intellect in obedience to faith is both a pious and a due duty, so to defer that to some particular author would be impious and execrable.» Let this also be said to other doctors in similar questions.

XIV. If grace physically predetermining is necessary for operating, sufficient grace is removed from the middle: namely, whoever does not operate well lacks not only efficacious help — for if he had it, he would most certainly and necessarily operate — but he lacks also sufficient help. Surely that help is called sufficient which confers the power of operating, the complete power, beyond which nothing else is required for the constitution of the operative principle in first act: but he who lacks the efficacious predetermining help also lacks this power; therefore. And in truth Bannez concedes, 1. p. q. XIV. a 13, that «no secondary cause can operate unless it is efficaciously determined by the first,» he concedes namely that the power of operating is lacking when the efficacious predetermining help is lacking; and thus the first assertors of physical predeterminations spoke, more aptly and logically (cf. the Disputations of Bastida, with Livinus de Meyer, I. VI. c. 15. art. I. § I. fourth proposition). But with the opinion afterwards changed, the defenders of predetermining grace said that it is necessary not for being able but for operating, and therefore can be conferred through sufficient grace. But 1) that is false, and these unjustly departed from the doctrine of Bannez. For if the efficacious predetermining help is not necessary for being able, it no longer pertains to first act, but to the second, and so it is no longer a prevenient help but only a concomitant one, nor is it something which God operates in us without us — which things are wholly repugnant to the nature of this help as it is defended by its assertors. But the defenders of the efficacious predetermining help must teach that it pertains to first act, and that God operates it in us without us.

2. But even if it is necessary only for the act, since nevertheless it is necessary as determining the act and as its cause, it evidently follows that when it is lacking, the act is impossible for man. Namely, contradictions are spoken, when it is said that sufficient help gives the ability, and yet efficacious help, which is different from it and is not in our power, is necessary for the act. For if efficacious help is lacking, it is impossible to posit the act, and indeed impossible because of the lack of the principle necessary for the production of the act; but with this impossibility standing, it is absurd to say that the power of the act is had, that what suffices for positing the act is had.

Nor 3) can it be said that the attainment of the efficacious help necessary for the act is in the power of him who already has sufficient help. For that attainment is in his power either because he can consent to the sufficient help and render it actually efficacious, and thus merit or obtain efficacious help, or because through some natural act he can merit or obtain efficacious help. But this latter would be Pelagian or Semi-Pelagian heresy; the former is impossible in the opinion of the adversaries; for it cannot come about that consent is conjoined with only sufficient help; for then the efficacy of grace would be had depending on the consent of the will, not on the intrinsic nature of grace, and it would be false that any efficacious predetermining grace is necessary for the act.

They say: a good builder is sufficient for building a house in the genus of efficient cause, although in the genus of material cause he needs stones, lime, etc. in order actually to build. Thus sufficient grace is sufficient in its own genus, namely to give the ability, although not in every genus, because another grace is required for the act (cf. Card. Gotti Tomo II. Tract. VI. q. 2. D. 4.).

We answer. If a prince were to shut a good builder of this sort in prison and, having taken away from him the stones, lime, and the other things necessary for building, were to order him to build a house, and, with the house not built, were to condemn him to the death penalty: would there be any man who would not call this judgment of the prince most unjust, and indeed for this simple reason, because the prince was demanding an impossible thing, because that good builder could not build? And yet this is the idea of divine justice which spontaneously comes forth from the system of predetermining grace. For by these examples the character of sufficient grace is explained by them. «Thus a good builder is sufficient in the genus of efficient cause for building a house; although in the genus of material cause he needs stones, lime, etc. in order actually to build. And a painter skilled in his art is sufficient for painting, although in order actually to paint he needs a brush. Thus sufficient grace for faith will be truly sufficient; although in order actually to believe it needs a further grace; because in its own genus and for the effect for which it is proximately given, namely to make man apt and disposed to believe, it suffices of itself: that a further grace is required in order actually to believe, however, is outside the genus of sufficient grace and pertains to the genus of efficacious grace» (Card. Gotti ibid. n. IX.). Therefore whoever sins certainly lacked predetermining grace, which is necessary for acting well and freely avoiding sin, and yet is damned, because he did not do what was impossible for him to do, for the act is impossible without efficacious grace. Indeed, as we shall see presently, he who sins not only lacks the predetermining grace necessary for acting well, but has an efficacious predetermination to the act of sin, which predetermination infers with necessity of consequence the act of sin, just as grace predetermines the good act.

Wherefore it must be denied that that builder has the power for the act of building in those circumstances; he has indeed some elements of that power, but others are lacking, and with some element lacking, the power is not complete: but a power not complete is not a power for that for which it ought to be a power, because it cannot do that. In sum, power to the impossible is not given: but with the principle necessary for the act lacking, the act is impossible; therefore, with efficacious help lacking, the power of the act is lacking, and there is no sufficient grace — truly, I say, sufficient — although we do not deny that it is sufficient thomistically, as they themselves say. And surely, is it not an evident contradiction? Sufficient grace gives the ability; the ability for what? the good act, I think; for on account of it grace is given, and this power is the power of acting well. And nevertheless it is repugnant that with only sufficient grace any good act, even the least, be done: therefore this grace gives the ability and does not give the ability; i.e. it gives the ability for nothing. Can there be any power without an intrinsic order to act? what, then, is this power which is obtained through Thomistic sufficient grace, the power of acting well, to which the good act intrinsically repugns? But what they say, that more is required for the act than for the ability, needs explanation. For if the speech is of the ability in pure potency, of which sort is the power of understanding without any determination to acting, that is true; but then we deny that a sufficient power for understanding is had, because the necessary element is lacking: if, however, the speech is of the proximate ability, or of the power in first act, then we concede that a sufficient power is had, and we concede also that more is required for the act than for the ability, formally however, not efficiently; for this 'more' which is required is nothing but the act itself, not however something on the part of the principle of the act: by that saying, therefore, nothing else is said, except that there is more reality in the power acting than in the power able to act, and yet the reality of the act is from the power itself which is able.

XV. We say that the concept of grace is destroyed in this system: which we briefly prove thus. Grace is a help supplying powers for operating and making us operate, giving the very act in the salutary order: moreover, grace does this in this system by the fact that it predetermines the will to the act, which unless it did, it would not be true that we need the help of God, that God makes us act, that He gives the good act. Now, truly, in a like manner God acts in us with respect to evil acts. For He predetermines the will to the physical act, without which predetermination it would be impossible for it to be posited, and with which existing it is impossible for it not to be posited: and therefore this predetermination is a help supplying powers for acting, making us act, giving the very act. A distinction, indeed, can be feigned in the intention of the giver of the help; but insofar as it is a help giving powers and effecting, one is equal to the other. Therefore if account is taken of that which God physically provides to us in order that we act, we do not need a different help of God for operating salutarily than for operating non-salutarily. But the help of God supplying powers for acting piously and salutarily differs wholly from that divine operation, whatever it may be, by which He physically cooperates with the will acting badly. For such must be the distinction, that it be true what Augustine frequently teaches: «From the time man begins to use the choice of the will, he can both sin and not sin. But one of these he does not do unless aided by Him who said: without me you can do nothing; the other, however, by his own will.» Namely, grace is a help providing power and making the good act: but when one sins, God does not supply power to the will, does not make it act, but the will alone suffices to itself. Therefore the notion of grace, or of the help necessary for acting salutarily, is perverted, when it is constituted in a help predetermining to the act and necessary in order that the will act. Otherwise, however, it stands in the other opinion, as we shall show in its place (Th. LV.).

I. In order to defend their own doctrine the Thomists appeal to these testimonies of Scripture. Ioan. VI. 45. Everyone who has heard from the Father and has learned, comes to me. Philip. II. 13. It is God who works in us both to will and to accomplish, for good will. Ezech. XXXVI. 26. I will take away the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh; I will make you walk in my precepts. 1a. Cor. IV. 7. Who distinguishes you? What do you have that you have not received? Ioann. VI. 44. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. Ioan. XV. 5. I am the vine, you are the branches. Psal. L. 12. Create a clean heart in me, O God. Ephes. II. 10. Created in Christ Jesus for good works. But there is no need to dissolve the arguments deduced from these; for 1º. in these testimonies there is question in general of the effect of God working in us through His grace; now, however, with the Thomists the question is about the mode by which such an effect is obtained from God: 2º. if the mode seems to be indicated at any time, the argumentation of the Thomists is the same as that which we have already rejected in Th. XLII. seqq., and therefore there is no need to add others: 3º. indeed the same arguments had already been employed by Calvin and the Calvinists (cf. the Disputation of Bastida in Livinus De Meyer I. VI. c. 15. a. 3. § I.).

II. As to the Fathers, the Thomists lean chiefly on Augustine and glory in following his doctrine. Since Augustine disputed with set purpose about Grace against the heretics, and his doctrine — at least as to those heads in which he withstood the heretics — carried the suffrage of the Church, although he did not directly treat that question which we now handle, which nevertheless not all concede; it is unlawful for a Theologian to deem this disputation finished, when Augustine's doctrine is not well known. This we will now strive to accomplish. Wherefore it is lawful to affirm that Augustine is wholly alien from the opinion of the Thomists. This can be made manifest from certain heads of Augustine's doctrine and from the most open declarations by which he declares the efficacy of grace. Indeed 1) Augustine places the grace by which God works in us a good act in the vital acts of the intellect and of the will (cf. what we have given in cap. I.); but physical premotions to a deliberate act have no necessary connection with these; therefore. 2) Augustine teaches that for Adam to persevere that help which he had was sufficient, by which he would have persevered if he had willed, and by which many Angels actually persevered: but that help was efficacious grace; for by it the Angels persevered: yet it could be joined with dissent and was not predetermining, because it lacked its effect in the bad Angels and in Adam; therefore. And note that the adversaries defend the necessity of predetermining grace not only for the state of fallen nature alone, but for any state; for they prove it from the necessary dependence of the second cause on the first, which reason ought to hold for every creature, at least in the salutary order; whence if for some creature the necessity of that grace be none, the whole system must necessarily collapse. Hence you understand that those things which Card. Gotti (L. c. Dub. 5. n. XXI.) bids his candidate always to keep before his eyes are not to the point: «the free will of man in this state of corrupted nature is weakened toward the good and bent toward sensible things, and although through sanctifying grace it is healed as regards the mind, it nevertheless needs actual grace, by which it may be efficaciously healed as regards the rebellious flesh.» This observation it was permitted to suggest to a Jansenist, not to a Thomist.

3. Augustine opposes this thesis = grace makes us will = to this other = grace is given to us because we will == (cf. Epist. CCXVII. ad Vitalem n. 17. L. I. ad Simplic. n. 12.) or to this = grace gives the power; good will and good action are from the free will which we have received from God == (cf. De Gratia Christi c. 47.). But of these two, to which Augustine's thesis is opposed, the former contains that opinion, that a good will existing by the force of nature precedes, and grace rendered for the merits of nature follows; the latter exhibits the Pelagian opinion, namely that from God there is only the possibility of the good, because free will was created by Him, whereas the good volitions and the other operations are done by free will without the help of any superadded assistance conferring strength. Furthermore, from this opposition it is clear that by Augustine's thesis this one thing is asserted: that every salutary act is an effect of grace, and that grace superadded to nature is the efficient principle of the act of the will and of the other good operations. But this is wholly other than saying: that grace physically predetermines; therefore.

4. Augustine teaches that God makes us will by offering most efficacious powers to the will (De Gratia et lib. arb. c. 16.): but this does not at all cohere with predetermining grace. For powers, and indeed most efficacious ones, are therefore offered to man, that he may act of himself and move himself; but there is no need that powers be conferred on another, when he is drawn by another irresistibly and invincibly: therefore Augustine did not conceive of predetermining grace, but of grace placed in supernatural powers, by which, once conferred, God leaves to free will the determination of its own act. Nor should you say that there is need of powers in order that the will may freely follow God predetermining it: for in order that it do this, it suffices for it to hold itself passively, and certainly it suffices that it be a creature; for, to argue with Bannesius, who resists the will of God? and indeed the less a man is furnished with powers, the more easily he lets himself be drawn by another; therefore.

5. Augustine explains in more than one place accurately how God works the willing; he explains it, however, in this way. In Ad Simplic. q. II. n. 10. he teaches that God »bestows willing and running on man by calling... for He willed the willing to be both His own and ours, His own by calling, ours by following." And in n. 13., explaining how — if a certain calling of God, of which the Apostle speaks... saying: It is God who works in us both to will and to accomplish, and it is not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy; if that calling is so productive of a good will that everyone called follows it — explaining, I say, how it is true that many are called, few chosen, he has these things, which he first proposes indeed in the manner of one doubting, but afterwards proves. «Perhaps those, who called in this way do not consent, could, called in another way, accommodate the will of faith, so that this also is true: many called, few chosen; so that although many are called in one way, nevertheless because not all are affected in one way, those alone follow the calling who are found fit to receive it, and this is no less true: Therefore it is not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy, who called in the way which was apt for those who followed the calling. But to others the calling indeed came; but because it was such that they could not be moved by it nor were apt to receive it, they could indeed be said to be called, but not chosen. And it is no longer similarly true: Therefore it is not of God who shows mercy, but of man who wills and runs, since the effect of God's mercy cannot be in man's power, so that He shows mercy in vain if man be unwilling: because if He willed to show mercy even to them, He could call in such a way as would be apt for them, that they might both be moved and understand and follow.» He therefore concludes: «True, therefore, is: many called, few chosen; for those are chosen who suited the calling; but those who neither suited nor were attuned to the calling are not chosen, because they did not follow, although called. Likewise it is true: it is not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy; because even if He calls many, He nevertheless shows mercy to those whom He calls in such a way as is apt for them to be called that they may follow. But it is false if anyone says: therefore it is not of God who shows mercy, but of man who wills and runs; because God shows mercy to no one in vain: but on whomsoever He shows mercy, He calls him in such a way as it is congruous for him not to reject the caller.» And in n. 15. he says: «since, therefore, one is moved to faith in this way, another in that way, and the same thing often said in one way moves, said in another way does not move, and moves one and does not move another; who would dare to say that there was wanting to God a mode of calling by which even Esau would apply his mind and join his will to that faith in which Iacob was justified?... For who would say that the mode by which he would be persuaded to believe was wanting even to the Omnipotent?» These things Augustine says in the work to which, after the Pelagian heresy was vanquished, he appeals the Massilians (De Praed. ss. c. 4.), as to a work containing the true doctrine concerning the grace of God. He taught the same after the Pelagian heresy had arisen, in the book De Spiritu et littera c. 34., explaining those words: «What do you have that you have not received?» Let him attend and see that this will (of believing) is to be attributed to the divine gift not only for this reason, because it is from free will, which was naturally created in us; but also because God acts by the persuasions of visible things that we may will and that we may believe, whether extrinsically through evangelical exhortations… or intrinsically, where no one has in his power what comes into his mind: but to consent or to dissent is of one's own will. By these modes, therefore, when God acts with the rational soul that it may believe Him (for it cannot believe anything by free will, if there be no persuasion or calling which it may believe); certainly God works in man even the very willing to believe, and in all things His mercy prevents us: but to consent to the calling of God, or to dissent from it, as I said, is of one's own will. Which thing not only does not weaken what was said: «What do you have that you have not received?» but even confirms it. For the soul cannot receive and have the gifts, about which it hears this, except by consenting: and by this, what it has and what it receives is of God: but to receive and to have certainly is of the receiver and the haver.» To this comes back what he says in his last work: «Why, therefore, do you not confess… that God by a hidden instinct prepares and excites the wills of men to accomplish most efficaciously that which He has willed?» Op. imperf. L. III., n. 166.

It is clearer than light that the efficacy of grace, which obtains its effect, is according to Augustine an efficacy placed in a calling and persuasion congruous with and attuned to the soul, and in an inclination of the will, so that the same calling, the same grace, which so moves one that he follows the caller, is frustrated in its effect in another. But these things are wholly abhorrent from the doctrine of physically predetermining grace, which is efficacious from its own nature, which, being the same in all, always obtains the same effect (cf. Livinus de Meyer, Opusc. de Augustini mente circa gratiam physice praedeterminantem).

With these things wholly agree those which he has in Tractatu XXVI. in Ioann. n. 7. «Everyone who has heard from the Father and has learned, comes to me. See how the Father draws; by teaching He delights, not by imposing necessity. Behold how He draws.» Now the grace by which one comes to the Father is efficacious. Likewise in Lib. LXXXIII. qq. q. LXVIII. «It is little to will, unless God shows mercy; but God, who calls to peace, does not show mercy unless the will has gone before (Retract. I. c. 26. «This was said after penance. For there is a mercy of God preventing even the will itself, which if it were not, the will would not be prepared by the Lord. To that mercy belongs also the calling itself, which also prevents faith, about which, when I was treating a little later, I said, etc.»). And since no one can will unless admonished and called, whether intrinsically, where no man sees, or extrinsically through sounding speech or through some visible signs, it is brought about that God works in us even the very willing... Therefore neither should those who came attribute it to themselves, because called they came; nor should those who were unwilling to come attribute it to another, but only to themselves; since to come they were called in free will.» Again in Serm. CLXXVI. n.5. «When He made you, you had not what you could do; but when you now are, you yourself also have what you may do: you run to the physician, you implore the physician, who is everywhere. And that you might implore, He stirred your heart and gave you the power to implore: for it is God, he says, who works in you both to will and to operate; because that you might have a good will, His calling went before:» Doubtless God gives us a good will, because He calls, because He excites, and by calling and exciting gives the power, which is sufficient grace, so that no other grace besides is required which would predetermine.

Now indeed it is established that in these places it is explained by Augustine how God is the author in us of the good will; it is established that in no way is even signified a grace which would be efficacious from its own nature by predetermining the will; it is established that there is represented a grace which (physical powers being indeed conferred for putting forth supernatural acts) attains its effect by reason of a certain moral force, by which it persuades, by which it moves, by which it calls, as it is apt for a man to be moved and called, that the one called may will to follow the caller, which accommodates itself to the disposition of the subject, and which for that reason is not by itself alone necessarily efficacious. You easily notice that here the physical efficacy of grace is not excluded, which confers physical powers for acting supernaturally; the use of which powers, nevertheless, is in the power of free will; but that physical efficacy is excluded by which grace, from its intrinsic nature, is the efficacious cause of the act, by predetermining the act itself.

6. In order that God may truly be said to distinguish us, Augustine requires this one thing: that God through His grace be the author in us of the good work, of faith, of the good will, etc. This we have already seen in Th. XLIV., to which this can be added from the book de Praed. SS. c. 5., where he most lucidly unfolds the testimony of the Apostle and, having recited it, says: «Nothing is so contrary to this sense, as that anyone should so glory in his own merits, as though he himself had made them for himself, not the grace of God... And by this, where it is said: who distinguishes you, what do you have that you have not received? whoever dares to say: I have faith from myself, therefore I have not received, certainly contradicts this most open truth: not because believing or not believing is not in the free choice of the human will, but because in the elect the will is prepared by the Lord. Therefore to faith itself also, which is in the will, pertains: who distinguishes you, what do you have that you have not received.» Namely, he is therefore distinguished, because he receives faith, h. e. because God Himself is the author of faith; but how He prepares, or is the author of the good will, we have heard in the preceding number. Likewise in lib. II. Contra duas epistolas Pelag. c. 7: «Who distinguishes you? says the Apostle, and as though he had answered: my faith distinguishes me, my purpose, my merit — what do you have, he says, that you have not received? But if you have received, why do you glory as though you had not received, h. e. as though that by which you are distinguished were of your own? Therefore He distinguishes you, who bestows that from which you are distinguished.»

And indeed it suffices to notice that this testimony of the Apostle was always employed by Augustine against the Pelagians or the Massilians, who wanted the grace of God to be given according to some merits of nature; and therefore that by that testimony Augustine wished to teach this one thing: that God precedes every good will, that God is the author in us of every meritorious work. But that God is author by predetermining, that Augustine nowhere indicates that he ever even once thought. For the question was not how God operates in us, and whether He acts by predetermining or otherwise. But the question simply was whether God is, through His grace, the cause of every salutary act of ours, and that that grace is given gratuitously.

7. Augustine teaches that of two men prepared by the same grace one can act well, the other badly; compare his testimony at the end of Thesis XLV: but this cannot be true in the adversaries' view, who therefore openly deny it; for the one acting badly lacks efficacious grace, which is present in the one acting well; therefore Augustine's view is wholly alien to the doctrine of physically predetermining grace.

8. Finally, no one will deny that s. Prosper is a faithful interpreter of the Augustinian doctrine. But since Prosper defends the doctrine of Augustine against its detractors, he certainly establishes those things which do not cohere with grace efficacious from within. For it is known that the defenders of this opinion must also champion the opinion of gratuitous predestination to glory before foreseen merits, since the absolute decree itself of conferring graces efficacious from within, from which all merits are, supposes an absolute decree of giving glory. But Prosper denies that this follows from the nature of the grace which he defends. Indeed, in ad Capitula Gallorum, c. 3. he says: «that those of this sort (namely, those who have passed from faith and holiness to impiety and uncleanness), having fallen into these evils, perished without the correction of penance, did not have from this the necessity of perishing, because they are not predestined (this is his denying, which perhaps even the adversaries admit: hear him affirming), but they are therefore not predestined, because they were foreseen as going to be such from voluntary prevarication.» Likewise in c. 12., to those objecting that according to the doctrine of Augustine, from certain ones called and living piously and justly obedience (h. e. the grace of obedience) is withdrawn, so that they cease to obey, he responds: «He did not therefore withdraw the powers of obedience from anyone because He did not predestine him: but He therefore did not predestine him, because He foresaw that he would depart from obedience itself.» Again, answering the Vincentian objections, obiect. 12. he says: «These, of whom it is said: They went out from us, etc., went out by will, fell by will. And because they were foreseen as going to fall, they are not predestined: but they would be predestined, if they were going to return and remain in holiness and truth.» In these testimonies that causal, qui, ideo, is to be weighed; by which the reason of predestination is sought from prescience, the prescience of good works, otherwise than in the system of grace efficacious from within. Therefore the doctrine of Augustine about grace (whatever be the case concerning his special system about Predestination) was not necessarily connected with absolute predestination to glory before foreseen merits.

If all these things are brought together, it will be clear that Augustine wholly excludes physically predetermining grace.

COROLLARY. Having also opportunely compared those things which we have given in Theses XVIII. seqq., by which we explained the doctrine of Augustine, it is again clear how undeservedly Augustine is paraded as the author of the opinion asserting grace efficacious from within. Cf. the cited Theses: for there is no need to repeat the same things twice. Especially note that there is wrongly appealed to those testimonies in which the question is about the necessity of grace, not about the mode by which it effects, as when it is said that the whole good work, h. e. not only its progress but its beginning, is from grace, that grace works all our merits, that no one comes to the Father unless he be drawn by Him. Likewise note how badly the opinion of Augustine is urged, saying that by the grace of God the will is led indeclinably and insuperably. For the sense is not that the will cannot decline from grace, cannot resist grace, but that it does not decline from the right way nor is overcome by concupiscence, and indeed not in individual instances, but finally: for the discourse is about the grace of perseverance. But how this effect is obtained from grace, Augustine teaches in the places cited here II. 5.

Likewise, the grace by which whoever is freed is most certainly freed, and by which that effect is obtained which God intends, is surely rejected by no heart (De Praed. SS. c. 8.): but how this is done Augustine taught in the same cited places; for there cannot be wanting to the Omnipotent a congruous mode, by which He so calls someone that he follows the caller.

Finally, note that the adversaries are wont to seek an argument for their opinion from the history of the Pelagian and semi-Pelagian controversy, supposing that the Pelagians at some time confessed also a grace of the will, and that they were heretics because they did not admit a certain grace of the will. But on this matter compare what we have said in the Synopsi historica haeresis pelagiana and what we have given in the Synopsi controversiae Massiliensium: for these are enough to exclude this false imagination.

Furthermore, it is false that the dignity of the first cause requires that it itself predetermine secondary causes, and it is false even more so, if the secondary causes are free causes.

I. The first philosophical principle, i.e., known by the very light of reason, by which the necessity of physically predetermining grace is proved by its authors, is this, that a secondary cause, from its very condition of being a secondary cause, cannot act unless the first cause concurs by premoving and predetermining the act: whence this principle, since it holds for any secondary cause and in any order, it follows that also in the supernatural order, for salutary acts, a predetermination of God is necessary, which will be physically predetermining grace. The doctrine of physically predetermining grace, therefore, is nothing but a special application of that universal principle, that every secondary cause is to be premoved and predetermined by God.

Hence these same authors not only concede but contend that God predetermines to the entity of sin as well: for it is necessary that God concur to the entity of sin; but God does not concur to the acts of creatures except by predetermining with a previous concurrence to the act (Th. XLIX. I.). This predetermination to the entity of sin is efficacious, just as the grace predetermining to the good act is efficacious, namely, just as dissent cannot be joined with the latter, so neither with the former. The reason is that both alike are predetermination, i.e., the operation of the omnipotent first cause, which no secondary cause can resist. Moreover, it is necessary that these authors defend this predetermination to the entity of the act of sin; for if this be denied, that philosophical principle is false, and if that is false, the doctrine of physically predetermining grace lacks its foundation. «This necessity, says Bannez p. q. XIV. a. 13., follows from the most efficacious power of the first cause, which so determines all secondary causes to produce their effects, that no secondary cause can» depart from its determination." Wherefore the same author (ibid. q. XXIII. a. 13), having related the opinion of those who teach that God confers on all the predestined and reprobate sufficient help by which they can operate well in every event, if they will, yet does not determine or apply their will to a good or evil use, but the actual operation depends solely on the freedom of the will willing to determine itself to a good or evil action; he affirms that it is false and little consonant with Catholic truth; against which he argues thus. «For from it manifestly follows that God has no providence over the actual use of free will, which is opposed to the doctrine of Thomas and Augustine, indeed even to manifest truth: therefore. Proof of the consequence: since the whole providence of God terminates in this, to confer on free will sufficient help by which it could operate well, if it will. But that it operates well or ill would pertain wholly to free will itself, because God would not determine it to operate well or ill.» Cf. the words of Alvarez cited above.

But we say that by this very consequence the falsity of the doctrine of physically predetermining grace, as it rests on that principle, is demonstrated. This is demonstrated most evidently from the absurdities which are contained in this opinion, which teaches that God predetermines to the entity of the act of sin.

Absurdity I. God is properly and per se the cause of the evil work. For he who freely impels another and premoves him with a premotion which cannot be resisted is himself properly and per se the cause of the act which necessarily follows his motion. Surely, is not God properly and per se the cause of the good act, because by His grace He predetermines the act? Do they not say, to defend God as the adequate cause of the salutary act, that it is necessary that we say that God predetermines to salutary acts? Since therefore God likewise predetermines to the evil work, He will be its adequate cause and therefore its proper and per se cause. Nor does the distinction between the entity of the act and its malice matter. For 1) malice, which is a certain privation, cannot be caused except by the entity of the act being caused; therefore it can in no other way be caused properly and per se, unless the entity of sin is caused properly and per se, unless by causing the entity of the act to which the malice belongs; nor is it necessary that the agent intend that malice, but it is enough that he intend that which he knows to be forbidden. Surely 2) the entity of the act being necessarily posited on account of the determination, if its malice is from us, it will be from us insofar as we intend it: but who, when he sins, intends malice? Or is it necessary to intend the malice of the act in order that there be sin? Then, that he intend it, since this intention is an act, is not another predetermination required? But if we do not intend the malice, how is it true that the malice of the act, to which we are predetermined by God, is from us?

Furthermore, the entity of the act, e.g., of hatred of one's neighbor, being necessarily posited on account of God's predetermination, is it in man's power to add malice to it or not to add it? Is the malice separable from that act, when the act is done by one who knows (as is here supposed), being simultaneously predetermined by God? By what act is the will the author of the malice, since it cannot act unless predetermined by God? Or does it suffice that the will be a finite and deficient cause? But this is the condition on account of which sin can exist, not the reason why it exists, unless there be some free act or free omission of an act, which itself also is some elicited act.

Besides, 1°) what is prohibited by the law is not the malice of the act alone, but the very physical act itself, which is evil; but he who willingly does what the law forbids is in reality the cause of the evil work, and he who premoves another to positing that act in such a way that he cannot be resisted is the proper and per se cause of that thing which the law forbids, i.e., of the evil work. For a cause is called proper which truly is a cause whether by moral influence or especially by physical influence: a cause is called per se, with respect to some effect, whose operation is naturally ordered to producing that effect, and if it is a free cause, whose operation is ordered by the intention of the agent to that effect. But that it be the per se cause of evil, nothing else is required than that it be, in the said manner, the cause of that thing or action which is known to be evil. Moreover, the predetermination of the evil work is naturally ordered to effecting it; because necessarily from its nature it brings it about, and since that predetermination is freely given by God, God certainly intends that which He knows cannot but follow from it.

Yet this both abhors common sense and right reason and is opposed to Canon 6 of Session VI of Trent: If anyone shall say that it is not in man's power to make his ways evil, but that God works evil works just as He works good ones, not permissively only, but also properly and per se, so that the betrayal of Judas is no less His own work than the calling of Paul, A. S.

Absurdity II. It follows from this opinion that the betrayal of Judas is no less the proper work of God than the calling of Paul; for the calling of Paul is the work of God, because God predetermined, so that in the opinion of the adversaries it would not be the work of God, nor would it be to be attributed to God but rather to Paul that he came when called, unless God had predetermined the will of Paul; but likewise God predetermined the will of Judas to the act of betrayal: therefore the betrayal of Judas is no less the work of God than the calling of Paul. But this is repugnant to the cited canon.

Absurdity III. It follows that it is not in man's power to make his ways evil. For when he lacks the predetermination to the entity of the act of sin, he cannot sin, and this is metaphysically impossible for him; for who could posit malice without the entity of some act? But when he has that predetermination, he cannot but elicit that act, and again it is metaphysically impossible for him to abstain from that act, and therefore from sin; therefore. Surely let them say how he sins freely. Is it in man's power to produce or not to produce the malice alone without predetermination? But malice alone is not producible, and if it were producible, a predetermination would be required. Is it in man's power to add malice or goodness to the entity of the act to which he is predetermined? But it is absurd that goodness could be added to an act of blasphemy, and that malice could be added to an act of the love of God; but if this could be done, it would have to be done through some action, which would again demand a predetermination: therefore. Moreover, this doctrine also is opposed to the cited canon.

Absurdity IV. It follows that man, when he sins, does not sin. For he cannot resist the cause leading him into sin. But Augustine's opinion from Lib. III. de lib. arb. is certain: «Whatever that cause of the will is (i.e., the act of willing), if it cannot be resisted, one yields to it without sin: but if it can be resisted, let one not yield to it, and one will not sin.»

Absurdity V. It follows that God tempts men with a more vehement temptation than the Demon. For the Demon acts on the will only mediately and morally; but God immediately and physically. Therefore it is false and absurd that God predetermines to the entity of the act of sin: false therefore and absurd that God, the first cause, predetermines the will to the act; consequently false that God by His efficacious grace predetermines the will to salutary acts.

II. That the dignity of the first cause does not claim for itself that it predetermine secondary causes, and free ones likewise, is left sufficiently demonstrated from the preceding part; for the predetermination of the entity of sin follows from it, which teems with many absurdities, as we have seen.

And indeed the concurrence of God to the acts or operations of creatures is demanded for this reason, because whatever is and whatever comes to be must proceed from the first cause of all being. But in order that the act be from God, it suffices that it be the term of the divine action ad extra; since however God effects ad extra by willing (de Deo Creant. Th. V.), in order that God be the cause of the act, it suffices that He Himself, man willing, will that act. And this is the concurrence which is called simultaneous, the concurrence by which God concurs as universal cause, says St. Thomas, and cooperates with all agents on account of the necessity equally common to all, and therefore cooperates with all in the same manner. Indeed, for salutary acts something previous to the salutary act is required, which is from God. But this is situated in the elevation of the faculty, the illumination, the inspiration, which pertain to the constitution of the first act made ready for the deliberate supernatural act. But when the faculty is thus constituted in the supernatural first act, it requires no other concurrence besides the simultaneous one, just as in the natural order (ct. Th. XVII.). Nor is divine predetermination required for any cause.

And indeed if the cause which acts is a necessary cause, it is already by its nature determined to the act specifically: as regards exercise, however, it is determined by the circumstances, or by all those things given which it is necessary that it act, and therefore then it acts with God concurring at the same time. But what would the superadded predetermination of God accomplish, since it is already, its nature being presupposed, a cause determined by the circumstances to the act in such a way that it cannot not act? therefore God's predetermination to the act is useless.

But if it is a free cause, it itself, insofar as it is a cause, requires no other concurrence than that which is required by other causes: for the need of concurrence is common and equal for all; because its reason is the same for all. Insofar, however, as it is a free cause, it requires to be indifferent when it acts, and therefore rejects a previous concurrence predetermining it.

Moreover, that consequence is to be denied, that if God is the first cause, He must also be the first determiner: for the determination of the act is proper to freedom, of which it cannot be deprived without ceasing to be freedom; for the determination of the act is the very free exercise of the faculty, which is proper to it. Just as, since the act of the will is a vital act, although God is the first cause of the act, it does not follow that God is the first living principle of the same; indeed He is in no way its living principle. In the same way, although God is the first cause of the act, it does not follow that He is the first determiner: for just as the vitality of the act, so the determination of the same depends on the will, God concurring as the universal cause of being, not as determining the act. Whence the first, indeed the only determiner of the act is the free will; for the determination of the act is not something other than the act itself, but is the act freely elicited, i.e., without any necessity of consequence from all the things posited that are necessary for acting.

I. The determination of a faculty can be taken in two senses. Certainly any finite agent, in order to act actually, stands in need of some determination from without: for it is not an agent by its own essence. This kind of determination aims at this, that the principle which can act be constituted in first act; namely, that all things required for acting be posited, and, when they are posited, it is stirred to act. This determination is necessary for the will also, just as for the other finite causes. For it is necessary that the knowledge of some object precede, and in order that an act of choice be possible, it is necessary that such knowledge precede, by which each act of willing and of not-willing is urged. This determination is extrinsic to the will, and ultimately depends on the objects by which the knowledge of the intellect is determined. When this determination exists, the will is constituted in first act. Thus far the will does not differ from necessary causes; but here the difference begins. For, when all things required for acting are posited, or when it is constituted in first act, a necessary cause necessarily acts, and it does that one thing alone to which it is determined by its own nature and to which it is stirred by its circumstances. But the free will, when all things required for acting are posited, can will, can not-will what is proposed to it, can will this or will that, or can act and not act. Now if the discourse concerns that determination which we have explained, by which the will is constituted in first act, by which the species of the act is determined, we concede it and affirm it to be necessary: nor can there be any question about it. It is this of which St. Thomas speaks in I Ilae. q. IX. a. 4. cf. seg. Thesis.. But the defenders of physical premotion devise another determination from without, by which the second act itself, or the operation of the faculty, is predetermined by God physically acting; so that the will therefore wills rather than not-wills, or conversely, or wills this rather than that, because God antecedently determines the act by His physical action, which cannot be resisted. The reason, however, is, as they say, because even when the other things required for acting are posited, the will remains indifferent: but what is such cannot determine itself to one rather than to another, because since it is indifferent, there is not in it a reason of the one rather than of the other.

Now if this is so, the distinction between a free and a necessary cause is wholly removed. For even a necessary cause can be indifferent of itself to several things, just as a motive force is to impressing on another body either this or that direction of motion: but it is said to act necessarily and not freely, because such an impression is determined from without, not by itself. That is, in order that a cause be free, it is not enough that it have indifference while it is in potency, but it is necessary that in the very exercise of itself it have dominion over its own act and be itself that which determines the act. And the definition of freedom looks to this: a faculty which, when all things required for acting are posited, can act and not act; for either that predetermination is contained among those requisites, or it is not: if it is not contained, it is wrongly numbered among the things which precede the act; if it is contained, then, when it is posited, the will can act and not act; and therefore it is not a predetermination: and if the will cannot act and not act, then it is not free: for this is the definition of freedom, that when all things required for acting are posited it can act and not act. By this argument that distinction is excluded: namely, that it can, in the divided sense, but not in the composite sense with the predetermination: for it is required that it be able with all things required for acting posited, among which this predetermination is placed; and therefore in the composite sense with this predetermination that power must be. Otherwise a necessary cause also, which in the divided sense, i.e., with those things removed which determine a certain act, can not posit it, will have to be called free by the same right. Hence the inability to act otherwise cannot be anything but consequent, arising namely from the very determination of the will, which, when it acts, cannot not act.

Therefore, with that principle established, freedom is destroyed. Hence it is clear that that principle, insofar as it is applied to free causes, is false. And indeed it holds when the indifference is passive. But when the indifference is active: if the acting principle is only in potency, that determination of which we spoke is indeed required, so that it be constituted in first act: but once this is posited, nothing else is demanded from without, but the active faculty itself by its own power brings forth the act, wills or does not will, chooses one thing before another, without any antecedent determination or necessity. Nor is the determination one thing and the act another: but it is one act proceeding freely, i.e., without necessity, from the will. And what must be carefully weighed is that the exercise of freedom consists in this self-determination posited without any necessity: and therefore the so-called necessity of consequence is excluded by the very nature of freedom. For the act, or the determination of the will, is free for this reason, because it does not follow necessarily when all things required for acting are posited, but the will acts, or determines itself to something, without necessity. Yet this act is not without a reason. For the sufficient reason which could be demanded is either the final cause or the efficient cause: the final cause is the apprehended goodness of the thing, the efficient cause is the will itself, which is not only a certain acting cause, but is the mistress of its own act, and therefore acts in such a way that it can not act, wills in such a way that it can not-will. Wherefore they are deceived who seek a sufficient and complete reason, independent of the will, why this act rather than the opposite one is posited: for this is to destroy freedom itself, and this reason is not given. For in order that an act be free, this is required, that rational knowledge be present and the will be mistress of its own act: but whatever act is posited by it will have in itself a sufficient reason for its coming to be; for this is the nature of a free cause, that when all things required for acting are posited, there is a sufficient reason for each act, whether of willing or of not-willing, whether of willing this or of willing that. From the fact that God is the first free being it does not follow that the acts of other free beings must be determined by Him. For, as we said in a similar argument in the preceding Thesis, God is the first free being, just as He is the first living being. But just as it is proper to a living being to elicit vitally an act immanent to itself, so it is proper to a free being to determine its own act; for in this is the essence of freedom. Just as, therefore, from the fact that God is the first living being it does not follow that God vitally elicits the vital acts of creatures, which would amount to pure and unmitigated pantheism, so from the fact that He is the first free being it does not follow that He determines the acts of created freedom; for thus He alone would be a free being: for only that is free which, being indifferent, determines its own act for itself. It is therefore indeed necessary that the act of the will be referred to God as first cause, but not as a free being, just as neither do vital acts depend on God as He is living, but as He is the efficient cause ad extra. Otherwise the act of the will will be free just as the action of an instrument is free, which is used by a free agent. Wherefore in this hypothesis God would be not the first but the only free being; which savors of pantheism. And let these things suffice in this matter: for we can suppose the rest from philosophy. Cf. Suarez De Concursu et efficaci auxilio Dei ad actus liberi arbitrii necessario Lib. Im.Note. We suppose that the third principle of the Thomists in this question, deduced from divine prescience, has been settled in the Tract. de Deo.

of St. Thomas, which appears alien enough from their fabrications. I. Concerning the opinion of the Angelic Doctor in this matter there has already been most abundantly disputed by learned and erudite men, some swearing that it is the same as the doctrine of the Thomistic school, others flatly denying it, both parties remaining in their own opinion after six hundred conflicts. Wherefore I at first hesitated in mind whether it would be better to desist from this question; because if one wishes to have regard for both schools, he must confess that the doctrine of St. Thomas in this matter is uncertain to us, either in itself or on account of the labors of interpreters dragging him now this way, now that. Nevertheless, because the treatise on Grace would seem incomplete without the doctrine of the Angelic Doctor being brought forward, and lest anyone think that we fear anything from him, I judged that deference should be shown to custom, so that a discourse be had on the opinion of St. Thomas. Yet we shall so engage in this question that we treat the matter rather thetically than polemically, simply proposing the doctrine of St. Thomas, which will appear from itself to be alien to the opinion of the Thomists. If anyone desires more, let him go to the authors who have treated this question more fully even in our age, e.g., Mazzella, Tract. de Gratia, and Schneemann, Controvv. de div. gratia, etc.

II. Therefore we judge that this is first to be established: when the opinion of some doctor concerning a certain question is sought, that is to be attended to above all, that his certain and clear principles in the matter under discussion be brought forward, if they occur in him, rather than some propositions uttered in passing; for in establishing these the mind of any author is wont to be always more attentive, and by them to express what he himself thinks more fully and more clearly; so that it may rightly be demanded that according to these the other utterances of the same author be explained, insofar as this can be done; but if this cannot be done, it will remain for us to say that he suffered something human and did not always agree with himself. His principles, however, are to be sought from those places where the author expressly treats of the same matter.

This observation is especially valid if the author lived before the rise of the questions for whose solution his authority is invoked. For then you would wrongly expect from him a judgment that is borne directly and immediately to settling those very questions; but the doctrine is to be sought from him according to which the questions that have arisen may be resolved, which comes to this, that we should require principles from him.

III. Now concerning the motion of the will from an extrinsic principle the holy Doctor treats expressly in 1. p. q. CV. a. 4; 1. II. q. IX. a. 4, 6; q. X. a. 4; c. G. III. 89, 99; dispp. de Veritate q. XXII. a. 8; De Potentia q. III. a. 7. Now he teaches this: a) «Everything that is sometimes an agent in act and sometimes in potency needs to be moved by some mover. It is manifest, however, that the will begins to will something, when previously it did not will it; it is necessary, therefore, that it be moved by something to will. And indeed, as was said (in the preceding article), it moves itself insofar as, by the fact that it wills the end, it reduces itself to willing those things that are for the end. But this it cannot do except through counsel; for when someone wills to be healed, he begins to think how he may attain this, and through such thinking he arrives at this, that he can be healed by a physician, and this he wills. But because he did not always actually will health, it is necessary that he began to will to be healed from some mover; and if indeed it moved itself to will, it would have been necessary that it do this through counsel from some presupposed will; but this is not to proceed to infinity. Wherefore it is necessary to posit that in the first motion of the will the will proceeds from the instinct of some exterior mover, as Aristotle concludes in a certain chapter of the Eudemic Books (L. VII. c. 14.)»II. q. IX. a. 4. c.; Gen. III. 89, 6: where again he cites the same doctrine of the Philosopher.

This is the determination to act necessary for every created faculty, when in any series of actions it begins to act, of which we spoke in the preceding Thesis, n. 1, to be distinguished entirely from the Thomistic predetermination. It is that which Aristotle also proved, whose doctrine we adduced in Thesis II. The immediate exterior mover of the will, of which the holy Doctor here speaks, is the counsel of the intellect, which is itself also determined by another, namely by the object; and because it is finally the action of God that proposes the objects, hence Aristotle concluded that the mover of the will to its first act is God. This is all the doctrine of St. Thomas in this place. To this, moreover, insofar as it regards the will, we judge that to be referred which he affirms generally of all causes in 1. p. q. CV. a. 5. ad 3^m: that God applies them to act.

b) «The power of willing is caused by God alone. For to will is nothing other than a certain inclination into the object of the will, which is the universal good. But to incline into the universal good belongs to the first mover, to which the ultimate end is proportioned.... Whence in both ways (namely as object and as causing the power of willing) it is proper to God to move the will, but most of all in the second way, by inwardly inclining it.» Because, namely, objective motion is also from other objects, although only God, as is said here, moves the will sufficiently and efficaciously as object; but the inclination of the will into the good is from God alone, the author of the will itself. «God namely gives the will its own proper inclination», just as a heavy body receives from its generator to be moved downward, as he speaks here in resp. ad 1.

This inclination implanted in the will by God, like the inclination of a heavy body downward implanted in it by its generator, is not a determination to individual acts, but to the love of the good in general, just as is expressly said in corp. artic.

c) God is the efficient cause not only of the power but also of the act of the will: c. G. III. c. 89. This is proved thus, because no thing can act by its own power unless it acts in the power of God; but that in whose power an agent acts is the cause not only of the power, but also of the act. In 1. p. q. CV. a. 5. he teaches that «if there are many ordered agents, the second agent always acts in the power of the first agent. For the first agent moves the second to act, and according to this all things act in the power of God himself, and thus he himself is the cause of all the actions of agents.» If, therefore, the will itself also acts in the power of God, then it is also moved by God, just as a second subordinated agent is moved by the first. We have, therefore, that according to St. Thomas the created will, when it acts, is moved by God, i.e., God is the cause of its action or motion: but the question is how this takes place according to the Doctor himself; for if you only affirm that, we shall all easily concede.

d) «By the fact that the will is moved by another, it is not excluded that it be moved from itself.» 1. p. q. CV. a. 4. ad 3^m. These two things, therefore, are to be reconciled, and it must be true that the will is moved from itself, i.e., moves itself; but how does this happen? I think the following will make it clear.

e) «God moves the will of man as a universal mover to the universal object of the will, which is the good, and without this universal motion man cannot will anything. But man by reason determines himself to will this or that, which is truly good or apparently good.» 1a, 2ae, q. IX. a. 6. ad 3^m. Ibid. q. seq. a. 4.: «because the will is an active principle, not determined to one, but indifferently disposed to many, so God moves it that it does not determine to one of necessity, but its motion remains contingent and not necessary, except in those things to which it is moved naturally.» Here the speech is not about the contingency of the effect, which is also found in those things that are done by natural causes, but about the contingency of the action, insofar as the act depends on the agent, which contingency consists in this, that the act does not necessarily follow, i.e., is not posited. Therefore, with the motion of God existing, the act of the will remains contingent, i.e., does not necessarily follow: but with physical predetermination existing, the act of the will necessarily follows, namely with the necessity of consequence.

De Potentia. q. III. a. 7. ad 13^m. »the will is said to have dominion over its act, not by the exclusion of the first cause, but because the first cause does not so act in the will as to determine it of necessity to one, as it determines nature: but the determination of the act is left in the power of reason and will."

What the holy Doctor denies to the action of God is not the determination of necessity, but the determination of the act, which indeed, according to the holy Doctor, would bring in necessity; he denies, namely, to the action of God that which he teaches is left in the power of the will, and this is the simple determination of the act. Wrongly, therefore, is it said that God indeed predetermines the will, but according to its nature: for this very nature, on the authority of St. Thomas, excludes the determination of God, not to say predetermination. Therefore God so moves the will that it determines itself, that its motion, its act under the motion of God, is contingent, not necessary, and therefore does not follow upon the motion of God with the necessity of consequence, so that the determination of the act is in the power of the will; it is not, therefore, predetermined by another more powerful being to which resistance cannot be made. But in the system of physical predetermination, the act that is called deliberate and free follows with the necessity of consequence upon the motion of God, which is not in our power.

I. II. q. IX. a. 6. ad 3^m. »Sometimes God specially moves some to will something determinate, which is good; as in those whom he moves through grace."

These things are said in the same context in which it was said that God moves the will as a universal mover, and that without this universal motion man cannot will anything. Consider 1º that it is one thing to determine the act of the will, another to move to some determinate good, which anyone does, e.g., when he counsels, urges, etc. something in particular. Consider that this very motion to some determinate good, on the authority of St. Thomas, does not always take place whenever the will acts, but sometimes, namely in the order of salvation, when God through his grace moves the will; for then the illumination and inspiration move the will to a certain determinate good, namely by alluring, urging, delighting. But in the system of physical predetermination, on the contrary, there is had necessarily the motion of God in the will to some determinate good, not only sometimes but always, whenever the will acts; for predetermination to the singular act also moves to the determinate object or good. The doctrine of St. Thomas, therefore, is entirely different from the Bannezian. There is no need to warn that there never occur in St. Thomas expressions of this kind, God determines the will, under the motion of God the act follows with the necessity of consequence, and others similar to these.

From the doctrine of St. Thomas you have that the divine motion by which a man is moved to will something determinate is of itself proper to grace, and that there is not had in nature anything corresponding to it, at least of necessity. But since, whenever God moves the will, he so moves it that he does not determine the act, this motion, already of itself metaphorical, is so to be understood that not even metaphorically does it agree in every part with physical corporeal motion. For the latter always determines the mobile to one motion and one direction of motion: which indeed, according to the holy Doctor, cannot take place in the motion of the divine will except with respect to the motion to the universal good: as is clear from the cited testimonies.

In the q. de Veritate cited above the holy Doctor teaches that God can change the will by causing another inclination to succeed the preceding (actual) inclination. Since we all likewise confess that this can be done through prevenient and exciting graces, and this is a dogma of faith, there is no need for us to dwell on this chapter of the doctrine of St. Thomas.

Its vigorous defender Laurentius Berti, of the sacred Augustinian order, sets it forth in Book XIV of the Theologicarum Disciplinarum, c. 7. seqq., and in the Augustiniano systemate vindicato, Dissertation 4ª. It comes down, however, to this. 1º «Grace is an act of the intellect and of the will, that is, an illumination of the mind and an inspiration of charity, but it is situated more in delight than in illumination; it is effected, however, by a motion of God, which is the very will of God supplying this delight and charity» (Theol. Discip. L. XIV. c. 7.).

Note: if by the name of act there are understood not only deliberate but chiefly indeliberate acts (cf. Th. XII.), and if by the name of charity there is understood any pious affection, any good will — both of which indeed the same author sometimes means — we have nothing to reproach.

2°. «With the Thomists we are joined most harmoniously in the confession of sufficient and efficacious grace, and we agree that free will accomplishes nothing good unless it is bent and determined to the act by victorious grace. We dissent from them, however, not only in explaining the nature of grace, but also in this, that they are unwilling to admit gradualness in the same grace» (c. 8), about which dissent shortly after.

Now each grace is explained thus (ibid.). «Therefore sufficient grace, in the Thomistic and in our sense, is that which gives the power, not the willing; or if it gives the willing, that willing is so invalid and imperfect that it does not overcome the desires of the flesh contrary to concupiscence, unless a most burning and most powerful charity supervenes. Of this sort are the inspirations and the pious desires of the soul, which move and excite the perverse soul somewhat, but do not draw it to conversion. From which it is clear that sufficient grace always produces some effect, namely a pious motion of the soul and a good will, but one that is invalid and to which free will resists... In order that (man) may will, there is required in this state a holy, victorious delight, which is rejected by no hard heart, and this we call grace efficacious of itself. Therefore grace is that which is always joined with its effect, that is, charity, which gives the power to do and to will, and to will so much that it easily conquers the will of the flesh coveting what is contrary; nor does it only give the power to act well, but it brings about the very action.» And again ibid.: «It must be acknowledged that through sufficient grace there is given to us the power of fulfilling the divine commandments, and a true and proper one, but not one so valid and ready that efficacious grace is not necessary for positing the act.» And cap. 9.: «It is the opinion of the Thomists and of all the Augustinians affirming that efficacious grace is efficacious of itself, that it is not made such either by the cooperation of free will or from congruous circumstances, and that it is most certainly and infallibly joined with its effect inasmuch as it is an individual and peculiar premotion and inspiration conferred upon men not by a suspended and indifferent will of God, but by an absolute and most full one, so that this grace gives the power to do, to will, and to accomplish, and it does not itself cooperate because we will, but we will because it operates...» There is given, therefore, a grace efficacious from within, in the sense now explained.

Note. Since in this matter the Augustinians say the same as the Thomists, what we have brought against the latter holds also against the former. Do not these men seem to you to play games in a serious matter, who speak of an invalid grace, of a grace given to the sinner which does not draw him to conversion, of a grace sufficient for fulfilling the commandments, which is not able to fulfill them unless a grace of another kind is added? Moreover, what was said at the beginning agrees rather with Jansenius: Th. XLVII. XI.

3º. The necessity of grace efficacious from within arises not from the subordination of the second cause to the first, but from the weakness of nature corrupted by concupiscence, to which weakness of the human will aid was given so that it might be moved by divine grace indeclinably and insuperably. Wherefore in the state of the earlier condition, before sin, God conferred upon the rational creature an indifferent illumination and inspiration; but now there is required one that is determinate and effectively premoving (ibid. c. 9. momento 3º. coll. LXII., c. 8. prop. 2.).

Note. Why so great zeal in following the Jansenist doctrines, which, although they have not been condemned, nevertheless cohere with them not a little? The weakness of nature indeed requires that powers be supplied — physical ones, for acting supernaturally, and moral ones, for resisting concupiscence; but once these powers are supplied, the healed will ought to remain the mistress of its own salutary act, just as it was in Adam. For nature is healed through grace; but just as the health of one sick from paralysis of the limbs does not consist in his being able to be dragged by another, but in his moving himself, so the health of free will through grace consists in this, that it acts freely in the salutary order and therefore determines itself. And in very truth, either the freedom of indifference was lost through sin or it remained; if you say it was lost, you have the heresy of Calvin and of Jansenius; if it remained, this alone is required, that man be elevated to the supernatural order, in which through grace he obtains physical powers of acting salutarily; for thus constituted, free will will be able to do that which it could before sin; but against the concupiscence that remains, which inclines to sin only morally, there suffices a certain sweetness of grace, which morally allures to the good, without bringing about of itself necessarily the positing of the act.

4. Delight, that is, charity, has degrees, so that the same degree of grace is efficacious in one man and inefficacious in another, because of the force of the contrary concupiscence, which grace does not overcome (ibid. C. 8.). Note. What if the degrees are equal on both sides? The will will be able to do nothing, contrary to what its nature demands. Cf. what was said in Th. XLV. III. Moreover, this comparison between grace and concupiscence is unworthy and is to be left to Jansenius: «for the least grace can resist any concupiscence»p. q. LXII. a. G. ad 3m.. And surely, since any force of indeliberate concupiscence never necessitates to evil, why does the will never consent to that grace which is called inefficacious and yet is sufficient? If the effect of grace depends also on free consent, it is not efficacious from within; if, on the contrary, it is efficacious from within, it ought to obtain its effect as often as it is possible; but the free consent of the will is possible under whatever concupiscence is pressing, both physically, because freedom remains, and morally, because the delight of grace sufficient for it is present; therefore that distinction of degrees conduces to nothing.

Moreover, the testimonies from the Scriptures and from Augustine for proving this doctrine are the same as those which Jansenius brings forward in defense of his own (cf. Th. XLII. seqg.).

5. On Freedom. «It is one thing to be able to dissent, another to dissent in actual fact; for the potency stands without the act, and we can do many things which we do not do. While we are stirred by efficacious help, we assent infallibly, since God makes us act. We can nevertheless not assent, since such a stirring is not that of the light of glory and of consummated charity, but of illumination and of love, which is consistent with the indifference of judgment» (Ibid. c. 9.). Wherefore «man under efficacious help can dissent by a potency of possibility, that is to say, not of the positing of the act» (Ibid.).

Note. The non-potency of positing the act is an impotence of acting: is this, then, sufficient grace? Freedom remains under grace efficacious of itself, premoving and determining to the act, because the indifference of judgment remains, which is the root of freedom, etc. If this is not to play games in a serious matter, what else will it be? Certainly the indifference of judgment is the root of freedom, because from it follows the indifference of the will, situated in this, that the dominion of its own act lies with the will itself — namely, that it itself determines the act: whence formally freedom consists in this indifference of the will; but this is wholly other than its root, that is, the indifference of judgment. Wherefore it is said always to be present as long as this remains, not because freedom is situated in the indifference of judgment alone, but because from it the latter naturally follows. But if a hypothesis is made which impedes the indifference of the will — of which sort is an antecedent efficacious determination of God to the act, from itself — then we deny that the indifference of the will remains, the active one, I say, which is proper to freedom, and we affirm that contradictions are asserted inasmuch as the natural root of freedom is posited and that is posited which essentially excludes it. Because the root of the tree remains in the ground, will you say that the fruits remain after you have cut down the tree? And enough about these things.

Note. After the Quesnellian propositions had been condemned by Clement XI through the Bull Unigenitus, there were those who, in order to defend them, alleged as a calumny that by the proscription of those propositions the Thomistic doctrine also had been proscribed, the doctrine which the Dominican Fathers uphold. In order to avert this calumny and to console those same Fathers, Benedict XIII, in a Brief given to them on the 6th day of November of the year 1724, says this: «Therefore with great courage despise, beloved sons, the calumnies leveled at your teachings, especially concerning grace efficacious of itself and from within and concerning the gratuitous predestination to glory without any prevision of merits, which you have until now taught laudably and which your School boasts with commendable zeal to have received from the holy Doctors Augustine and Thomas themselves and to be in accord with the Word of God and with the decrees of the Supreme Pontiffs and Councils.» Observe that it is not the Roman Pontiff who testifies that the doctrine of the Dominican Fathers is in accord with the Word of God, etc.; but that this is reported by the Roman Pontiff as having been said by them. Moreover, an opinion which is permitted in the Church, which those who hold it think to be in accord with Scripture, the Fathers, and the Councils, is defended laudably by them, and their zeal in reconciling it with Scripture, the Councils, the Fathers, and the decrees of the Roman See is commendable. But in these things there is contained no definition or approbation of the truth of the opinion considered in itself. Wherefore his successor Clement XII, in a Brief given in the year 1735 on the 2nd day of October, says: «Having ascertained the mind of our same Predecessors, we do not will that anything be detracted — whether by our praises or by their praises conferred upon the Thomistic School, which we approve and confirm by our repeated judgment — from the other Catholic Schools that think differently from it in explaining the efficacy of divine grace, whose merits toward this Holy See are likewise distinguished, so as to hinder them from continuing to defend the opinions on this matter which until now they have taught and defended openly and freely everywhere, even in the light of this Alma City.»

Assuredly, grace, by which the will is formally constituted elevated, enlightened, and inspired, has from itself an efficacy both physical — in that it confers supernatural powers — and moral — in that it prepares the will, as is fitting, for the good work: which efficacy is the efficacy of power, and it depends on divine omnipotence and wisdom. The connection of grace with the good act, however, is determined by the exercise of free will, not indeed acting naturally, but elevated: which accordingly consents only through the powers of grace, while it could dissent through the powers of nature. Wherefore the efficacy of the connection of grace with the effect embraces both elements, namely the efficacy of power proper to grace and the determination of free will. Moreover, grace that obtains its effect is called, according to Augustine, congruous; but its congruity in first act need not be affirmed.

I. We must keep before our eyes what we presuppose: for we must argue from the doctrine of faith. This we have already established in the preceding pages. That explanation of the efficacy of grace, therefore, is to be put forward which alone composes all these things together harmoniously: that the grace of God precedes our wills and is the principle of every salutary act, and likewise that free will remains intact under grace and that salutary acts are free, and hence that the grace of God can be resisted; for both are equally of faith, namely the necessity and efficacy of grace and the freedom of the will in the salutary order. With these, likewise, truly sufficient grace is to be composed, which namely, according to the common manner of thinking and speaking, is truly worthy of this appellation 'sufficient': for it is according to this norm that the Church uses its terms. That explanation of Catholic doctrine, therefore, which composes all these things in a friendly covenant is certainly not to be rejected, and if it alone, or before the rest, achieves this, it will have to be received or preferred to the others.

This method of disputing, which proceeds immediately from the articles of faith, just as in other questions bearing on revealed matters, so also in this one, no one will doubt to be safer — although the conclusion to be drawn is not yet a defined matter — than if we wished to argue from the authority of some, even the most approved, doctor, especially if he wrote before the many decisions on this matter were issued by the Church. This is evident first from the fact that the authority of the Church is always to be preferred to all others, and that not only by some, as it were, theoretical profession, but by practical exercise, so that accordingly we should measure not the doctrine of the Church by the opinion, say, of Augustine, but Augustine's opinions by the doctrine of the Church, as far as possible: but if it were manifest with respect to some heading of doctrine that this could not be done, we know indeed to whom the first, nay the only, role must be assigned, if we are not Jansenists. Besides, who assures us that the doctrine of some, even the most approved, doctor is wholly immune from every blemish, that it is not defective in some things, or that something less than right has not at times escaped from him? For neither is this the sense of the Church when it commends the doctrine of some man. Nor should you say that the Roman See through Hormisdas (epist. ad Possessorem) declared Augustine's doctrine on grace to be its own: for 1º Hormisdas appealed only to the books of Augustine written against the Massilians; 2º this testimony of the Roman See is wrongly adduced in our present controversy; for this commendation of the Roman See regards Augustine's doctrine on the necessity and gratuitousness of grace, not the question of its efficacy, or of the manner in which its efficacy is composed with man's freedom, which is our question.

I know, to be sure, that not a few, in order to claim Augustine's authority for themselves, so construct or pervert the history of the Pelagian controversy that Augustine seems to have disputed with the Pelagians about this very efficacy of grace; but, besides that we have already shown this to be false, this likewise again demonstrates how little fittingly it would be demanded that the solution of the question depend on Augustine's authority either alone or chiefly, since not all the learned are yet unanimous in determining about what matter Augustine disputed and about what matter he did not dispute. Let us hold, therefore, first, since they exist, the dogmas sanctioned by the Church, and let us embrace them fully according to the sense which the words themselves convey; then, according to these, let us consult the doctrines of this or that doctor.

II. I note that the discourse now is properly about interior grace. This, however, presupposes exterior graces, by which the subject is disposed and helped, so that grace may exert its force in it. For exterior graces are also required, e. g. the magisterium of faith, and they can contribute much to acting well, especially those which consist in the removal or diminution of impediments. Wherefore the divine help, by which we are aided to work holily, consists of both elements, interior and exterior grace: exterior remotely and by way of occasion or condition, interior proximately and efficiently; for a supernatural salutary act is not produced efficiently except by interior grace, that is, by the elevated will.

III. These things being posited, the first part, after what we have so far said about the nature of grace, does not need demonstration. For since grace is placed in the physical and moral powers by which the will, being equipped, acts, grace itself has from within itself the efficacy by which a supernatural and salutary act is produced; just as any cause whatever has from within itself efficacy for producing the effect to which it is proportioned. And because it confers not only moral but also physical powers, its efficacy is intrinsically also physical. For grace is the physical principle of the act, both because the physical powers, by which the act is produced, are themselves grace, and because the enlightenment and inspiration by which the will is morally moved are also real modes by which the equipped will elicits the act. Wherefore grace is the immediate principle of the salutary act; for it proceeds immediately from the powers by which the augmented will operates. This is called the efficacy of power; for it is the efficacy of grace considered insofar as it is a power, whether the effect follows or not.

COROLLARY. The defenders of this opinion are therefore wrongly objected to, that they assert for the grace of God only a moral efficacy. The state of the question between the two schools is also wrongly established in this way: namely, whether the efficacy of grace is physical or moral. For we both attribute physical efficacy to grace: but the state of the question here is this; whether, grace existing, with which the act can most certainly be done without any other help, the act necessarily exists with the necessity of consequence with respect to that grace, or whether it exists because under that grace and through it the will freely determines itself to the good, being able to resist it.

IV. Moreover, this efficacy depends on divine omnipotence. For in general, to confer powers for something is the work of power, and only the Omnipotent can confer powers for a supernatural work. In particular, if physical powers are considered, they in turn, insofar as they are such, are formally referred to omnipotence as received from it; for just as it is the work of omnipotence to create nature, so it is its work to elevate nature. But if moral powers are regarded, they depend both on omnipotence, in that they are certain powers, and in particular on divine wisdom insofar as they are aptly disposed for bending the will; for it is the work of the wise man to dispose those opportune means by which the will of another is sufficiently aroused and attracted to the work.

V. Moreover, what we say in the Thesis about the connection of grace with the good act remains demonstrated from what has been disputed thus far. For either the good act follows from this alone, that grace is efficacious of itself, and therefore, grace being posited, it is necessary that the act follow; or grace indeed confers the power, but the determination of the act freely depends on the will; since therefore the first is false, the second remains. And so these two things are certain: negatively, that, grace being posited, the consent of the will does not necessarily follow; and that, grace being posited, it is the will that, by the native force of freedom, determines itself, so that if it itself is unwilling, no connection of grace with the good work is had. For this connection is nothing other than the existence of the good act from the powers of grace, and the act proceeds freely from the will: therefore it is the will that freely determines this connection.

But when such a connection is said to depend on the will, the will alone, according to its natural powers, is not to be thought of. For, as we have already explained, the principle of the salutary act is the free will elevated, enlightened, inspired; the will therefore freely exercises itself in the supernatural order, but it is the will elevated, enlightened, inspired; and therefore the existence of the salutary act, that is, its very connection with grace, depends on the free exercise of the will acting according to supernatural powers; just as the existence of a naturally honest act is determined by the will acting according to the powers of nature. Cf. Th. XVII.

This, however, is the difference between natural and supernatural powers, that we can use the former both for good and for evil; but supernatural powers not otherwise than for good. But the will, elevated and equipped with supernatural powers, retains natural powers, just as nature remains, and it can use them, because it can sin. When therefore the will freely consents to grace according to supernatural powers, it can dissent according to natural powers; but dissenting, it casts away grace, which is to resist grace or to receive grace in vain.

Wherefore when the efficacy of the connection of grace with the good work is spoken of, both elements are comprehended; for in order that this connection exist, there is required both the efficacy of the power of grace and the free determination of the will. Just as also in the natural order, in order that an act exist, there is required both the force of the will and free determination, that is, the free act of this force. Wherefore we do not trace the efficacy of the connection back to the free determination of the will alone: because when efficacy is said, there is signified, or can be signified, the force itself by which the act exists, which is the force of grace.

VI. Efficacious or effective grace, namely that which obtains its effect, is wont to be called, on Augustine's authority, congruous grace. That Augustine is the author of this appellation is clear from his testimonies cited under Th. L. n. 5. It is called congruous, namely, because through it a man is so called that he really follows the one calling. Wherefore it is not signified merely that that grace is suitable to the one called; for every sufficient grace is such, and can thus be called congruous; but a special, or greater, congruity is signified, insofar as it is not only apt but moreover attains the effect. By reason, therefore, of the effect which is obtained, that grace is distinguished with such an appellation.

Faure thought (in Enchir. c. 52.) that already in first act grace is congruous, in that, all circumstances being considered, it is already apt certainly to obtain consent. This at least Augustine seems to have thought, who, explaining the efficacy of this grace, warns that not all are affected in one way, that some are attempered, some not attempered to the calling (cf. his words pag. 468.) and therefore, although all are called, not all are chosen. Nevertheless such congruity of grace in first act does not seem to be to be asserted. For a) the will can of itself consent to and resist any grace, and it can consent to a lesser grace and resist a greater one. b) The reason why this congruity is required is this, that it be open to God, if He wills, to predefine good acts, to choose those graces to be supplied which will be infallibly congruous and which therefore He already knows as such. And in order that He know this, that congruity of grace in first act is not necessary; for it suffices that God, through middle knowledge, foreknow with which graces the will would consent, that is, that He foreknows the congruity of graces in second act conditionally. Nor is it true that grace which obtains the effect is more apt than the others, as we have already noted («), but only that it will obtain the effect; and this is true because of the consent of the will. These things, however, we wish to be taken as said generally about the graces which are wont to be conferred ordinarily. For we except extraordinary graces, endowed with such moral force that it is morally impossible a priori for a man not to yield to them willingly and freely.

COROLLARY. Since we admit prevenient graces, by which the will is moved by God to the salutary act — which motion is therefore prior to that same act — we admit the determination of the will, by which it is aroused to act (Th. LII. 1.), which in turn is prior to the act to which it arouses; it is clear that we admit a certain premotion and predetermination: but how far these are from the Thomistic premotion and predetermination! With these, because of their intrinsic efficacy, the act follows with necessity of consequence; under those, the will, enjoying the freedom of indifference, determines itself.

Therefore it is a singular benefit of God that God mercifully calls a man in such a way as He knows to suit him, so that he does not reject the one calling. But the suitability of grace, inasmuch as it is such and is infallibly known to be such in the future, is properly located in the moral force of the same grace.

I. Infallibility refers to the intellect. It is properly in the intellect and is an endowment of its knowledge; it is attributed, however, also to objects, insofar as they are subject to the knowledge of the intellect, and so, e.g., that is said to be infallibly about to happen which the intellect, incapable of being deceived, certainly knows will happen. This objective infallibility is a certain necessity, inasmuch as, given infallible knowledge of the thing, the thing cannot be otherwise than it is known. Hence, under the name of infallibility, when it is applied to things, a certain necessity is wont to be signified. Now indeed efficacious grace, as such, is not only conjoined with the good work, but this connection of grace with the work is also known by God from eternity as infallibly future.

Note well: if the reason of the connection of grace with the good work were sought, this question has already been answered, namely that it is the free will itself acting with the help of grace; and because, since this connection exists, it exists necessarily, with a consequent necessity indeed, the reason of this necessity too is in turn the free will. Therefore, if by the name of infallibility this necessity of connection is understood, enough has already been done for this question. But something else is sought when it is asked whence the infallibility of the connection of grace with the good work is to be derived. Namely, it is asked whence it is that one conferring that grace is most certain antecedently that the effect will follow: the connection of grace with the act is considered, namely, insofar as it is subject to divine knowledge, and it is asked what is the reason of that infallible knowledge which God has of the same connection before the absolute vision of the effect; or it is asked in what God infallibly sees this connection.

II. He who posits a grace efficacious of itself and from within, with which consent is conjoined necessarily, thinks — and rightly thinks — that in the efficacy of the power of grace, sufficiently and adequately, inasmuch as nothing else is required, its connection with consent is seen infallibly by God; and because this efficacy of the power of grace depends on nothing but divine omnipotence, which so moves the will that it cannot resist its motion, hence they likewise say that God, in His acting omnipotence, or in the operation of His omnipotence, infallibly sees the consent of the will.

III. But once a grace efficacious of itself and predetermining is denied, it is clear that this cannot be asserted. Just as, therefore, as St. Thomas teaches (1ª p. q. XIV. a. 13.), in a cause still indifferent the effect cannot be known with certainty even by God, so too in the mere efficacy of the power of grace, which still leaves the exercise of freedom indifferent, the connection of that grace with consent cannot be known infallibly. It remains, therefore, that just as that connection depends on the free exercise of the will, so too the infallible knowledge of that connection requires the knowledge of that free exercise; once this is infallibly known, the future connection of grace with the good work is infallibly known. Which is nothing other than saying that the infallible knowledge of the connection is determined extrinsically (just as the knowledge of God can be determined objectively) by the connection itself, or by the very determination of the will present to the divine intellect. Now indeed a twofold infallible knowledge of God is to be distinguished with regard to this connection, namely absolute and conditional. For, given the decree of creating the will and of conferring upon it the grace which is to be efficacious, God infallibly sees the future connection with absolute knowledge, because He sees the consent of the will as absolutely future.

But even if the conferral of this grace were not decreed by God, God nevertheless sees, by the knowledge of conditionals, that if that grace were decreed, it would be efficacious! He sees this, moreover, in the consent which would most certainly be given, if that grace were conferred upon the will. This knowledge of God, for this reason — that it is of an object which, in order to be true, does not require any absolute decree of God operating ad extra — is said to be prior to the knowledge of vision.

Thus, just as the connection of grace with the good work, and the consequent necessity of this connection, is formally constituted by the will freely exercising itself — for this free exercise is the connection itself — so too the divine knowledge of this connection is infallible for this reason, because the knowledge of future conditionals sees the very exercise of the will which would take place, if a certain condition were posited. This knowledge is prior to the very decree of conferring such grace. Therefore the infallibility of the connection is to be formally derived from the divine foreknowledge, by which God knows what the will, prevented and aided by such grace, would do.

IV. Nor is the opinion of Augustine different. For Augustine indeed, in the controversy with the Pelagians and Massilians, appeals to divine omnipotence, both to refute the error of those who say that God cannot confer His grace except upon those willing — i.e., those first disposing themselves to it by the sole powers of free will — and therefore to teach that God can, if He wills, convert the hearts of whomsoever by His grace and bring it about that from unwilling they become willing, which is certainly a kind of power, and therefore is to be ascribed to the Omnipotent. But in what manner does Augustine teach that God can bend any will whatsoever? From the solution of this question it is clear what Augustine thought concerning the infallibility of the connection of grace with the good work.

Now indeed it is enough to read what Augustine teaches in Lib. I. ad Simplic. q. II. nn. 13. 14. (see Th. L. n. II. 5.); for from these it is clear that Augustine indeed asserts that it cannot be said that a manner of persuading someone to faith was lacking to the Omnipotent — i.e., of efficaciously calling someone to faith; but he asserts this for this reason, because God can call a man in the way He knows to suit him, so that he does not reject the one calling. This power of calling efficaciously, therefore, comprises the knowledge of the manners by which men are congruently called, and it is exercised by its opportune use. And this knowledge of manners we call middle knowledge; with it shining before Him, God infallibly knows how someone is to be called, so that he freely and infallibly works well. Thus God is not asserted to be omnipotent in bending hearts insofar as, by His physical force, by predetermining, He could bring about in wills the consent which He Himself wishes, but insofar as, on account of His infinite knowledge, He can use those means by which He infallibly attains what He wills; and therefore Augustine does not derive the actual efficacy of grace, or its infallible connection with the good work in the historical or absolute order (for of this he speaks), from divine omnipotence insofar as it is a productive principle ad extra, but derives it from divine foreknowledge, yet in such a way that the use of those means, which are shown beforehand by knowledge to be infallibly efficacious, depends on divine omnipotence insofar as it is a productive principle ad extra.

V. Given the universal salvific will, God owes (to Himself, to be sure) to confer upon all sufficient graces, which accordingly have the efficacy of power. But since the efficacy of the connection depends on the will, each one ought to impute to himself that grace is not actually efficacious. Therefore, even if God confers upon someone graces which He foresaw would not actually be efficacious, He has sufficiently fulfilled the obligation by which He bound Himself, namely of conferring sufficient graces. The conferral, therefore, of a grace which God foresaw would be efficacious, when He could confer another foreseen as not actually efficacious, is an unowed benefit and is a benefit greater in itself; because it is a gift of power and of act, and is a sign of greater love; for every benefit of God proceeds from love, and accordingly a greater benefit proceeds from greater love. It is, therefore, a singular benefit that God calls a man in such a way as He knows to suit him, so that he does not reject the one calling; for in this way it comes about not only that he can, but that he infallibly works well and attains salvation.

VI. Such a gratuitous predestination of grace, which that conditional knowledge would have shone before, Augustine seems to have signified clearly enough. For when, in the cited place ad Simplicianum, he had said that manners of persuading someone to believe are not lacking to God; in the book De Spir. et lit., c. 34, having proposed the question — why is one so persuaded that he is persuaded, while another is not so — he answers nothing other than by appealing to the inscrutable judgments of God. But if Augustine had raised the question why this grace is efficacious, he would easily have answered, namely because the will consents; but if he was asking why that grace, which is to be efficacious, is conferred upon this one rather than another, while upon the other otherwise, then surely recourse must be had to the inscrutable judgments of God: but these presuppose that God knew, apart from the vision of future consent, what the will would do, and freely chose this grace before others. Hence it is clear that it was Augustine's opinion that that middle knowledge shone before the predestination of graces; from which it follows both that a singular benefit is conferred upon him who is so persuaded that he is persuaded, and that the reason of this benefit, given to one and denied to another, is nothing other than the most hidden will of God.

VII. We also judge this to be the doctrine of Augustine: that the suitability of congruent grace, as such, is located in its moral force. Certainly, explaining in the cited place ad Simplicianum, n. 14, how God calls men in that way which is apt for them to follow the one calling, he says: «since one is moved to faith in one way, another in another, and the same thing, often said in one way, moves; said in another way, does not move; and moves one, and does not move another; who would dare to say that a manner of calling was lacking to God?» and then: «who would believe that the manner by which he (Esau) would be persuaded to believe was lacking to the Omnipotent?» And in the preceding n. 13 he says (which he afterwards approves): «Or perhaps those who, called in this way, do not consent, could, called in another way, accommodate the will to faith, so that that saying too would be true: many are called, few are chosen; so that, although many are called in one way, nevertheless, because not all are affected in one way, only those follow the calling who are found suited to take it up? and that saying would be no less true: therefore it is not of the one willing nor of the one running, but of God showing mercy, who called in the way which was apt for those who followed the calling?... If He also willed to have mercy on them, He could so call them in a way which would be apt for them, that they would be both moved and understand and follow.» Wherefore (as he says in q. 68 of the Lib. IXXXIII. qq., which he certainly does not disapprove in the Retract., Book I, c. 26) «neither should those who came attribute it to themselves; because they came called; nor should those who did not wish to come attribute it to another, but only to themselves; since, in order that they might come, they were called in free will.» The grace to which we consent is called a calling, i.e., a grace calling, stirring, and preparing the will — an interior calling, to be sure, a calling apt for him who is called, so that he follows the one calling; he who is called, according as he is disposed, now follows, now does not follow. But a calling imports moral efficacy, nor could a grace physically efficacious of itself and from within be apt for one and not apt for another, and for the same person now apt, now not apt. Since, therefore, according to what has been said (Cap. I. Art. I.), a twofold efficacy of grace is to be attributed — physical, by which the faculty is elevated and becomes powerful for eliciting supernatural acts; moral, by which it is drawn, persuaded, and affected toward the good — the efficacy of grace, insofar as it is congruent and obtains the effect, is to be affirmed as moral. Certainly the moral efficacy of grace can be diverse in diverse graces, greater or lesser; but the physical efficacy does not seem able to be diverse; for it is the elevation of the faculty to the supernatural order, which is the same for all, just as in the order of nature the physical power of the will is the same for all. And we judge this to be the reason why Augustine, who frequently speaks of grace insofar as it is efficacious, i.e., obtains the effect, distinctly presents it to us rather on the part of moral than of physical efficacy; for by that efficacy, congruent to him who is called, it comes about that consent actually follows.

Moreover, since God does not bestow physical supernatural powers except for the good; nor, except for the good, does He attract, persuade, and draw by His illuminations and inspirations, it is altogether clear that God stands in a wholly different manner toward good and salutary acts than toward evil acts. Cf. Th. XLIX. n. XV.

Note. If, when grace is said to be efficacious of itself and from within, the infallibility of efficacy is regarded, which grace borrows from divine omnipotence and wisdom, and this one thing is signified — that God, by means of such graces, can obtain from the will whatever act He Himself wishes, and cannot be impeded by any cause — it must be conceded that such graces are efficacious of themselves and from within, i.e., that the divine operation in the soul, from the omnipotence and foreknowledge of God Himself, obtains infallible efficacy.

I. From what has been proved thus far, both parts of the thesis ought to be manifest. It is manifest that whatever man has, both power and act, he has received from God. As regards the power there is no difficulty: as regards the act, however, it must be noted that, in order that it be received from God, it is not necessary that it be predetermined by God, which is repugnant; but it is necessary that God give it to us through His prevenient and helping grace in such a way that the soul, by consenting, receives it and has it from God. For since grace is the cause of the good act; for it is done by an elevated will, and therefore by the help of prevenient and helping grace; it follows that the good act is done by God through grace, and therefore is given by God: just as a cause gives its effect. Yet the good act is so given that it is done freely, that is, as Augustine says, the grace of God is received by freely consenting. «In these ways, then (namely, by manifold vocation; cf. what we have said on this passage, Th. L. and the preceding), when God acts with the rational soul that it may believe Him, surely God Himself works in man the very willing... but to consent to God's vocation or to dissent from it belongs to one's own will. Which thing (attend to these things) not only does not weaken what was said: what have you that you have not received? but even confirms it. For the soul cannot receive and have the gifts, about which it hears this, unless by consenting; and thereby what it has and what it receives belongs to God: but to receive and to have surely belongs to the receiver and the haver.» Thus Augustine, De Spir. et lit., ch. 24.

II. That God, however, distinguishes us ought likewise to be manifest. For, with Augustine as interpreter of that testimony of Paul, God distinguishes us for this reason, because we receive from God whatever we have (Th. XLIV. n. IV.); therefore, what is demanded for the distinguishing is what is required, in order that it be true that we receive; but in order that we receive, it is enough that God, through His grace conferring physical and moral powers, truly work in us salutary acts: nor is it necessary, and it cannot come to pass, that He predetermine our acts: therefore. Moreover, cf. Th. XVII.

I. We do not bring forward new arguments, but, having regard to what we have already indicated, we wish it to be understood more clearly what the foundations of this explanation are.

Indeed, 1. in this explanation the full dignity of actual grace is preserved, which supplies physical and moral powers to the will and which is the physical principle of the salutary act and the principle of the whole act, which proceeds immediately from it, inasmuch as it proceeds from the will elevated, illuminated, and inspired.

2° In this explanation freedom remains intact, which can truly resist grace and each grace of God, and consents because it wills to consent. Moreover, the freedom of man under grace is no less a dogma of faith than the necessity and efficacy of grace: therefore we defend it not from some swelling of pride, but for the sake of safeguarding divine revelation.

3º. Likewise, true sufficient grace remains, to which nothing is lacking on the part of the active principle required for the act, and which lacks its effect solely through the fault of man, not through a defect of God.

4°. In this explanation there also has a place that gratuitousness of the predestination of efficacious graces, of perseverance, and of glory, the defense of which could be demanded of Catholics.

5º. This explanation moreover, if there is need, is conformable to the explanation of the efficacy of grace which Augustine hands down.

6º. Finally, this explanation wholly departs from the Pelagian and Semi-Pelagian and Calvinist and Jansenist heresy, and is the perpetual antithesis of the same.

These things stand firm from what has been proved so far in this chapter and in the two preceding ones.