Tractatus de Gratia Divina Actuali

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.