Tractatus de vera et legitima concordia liberi arbitrii creati cum auxiliis gratiae Dei

1. — Since the etymology of the name is wont to be of use for investigating the very what-it-is of the thing, it is to be noted that aid or assistance bespeaks an order and relation of the aider and assister to another existing thing. For aid is so called as if from increasing and promoting an existing thing. Assistance too is from assisting an existing thing which by itself cannot either be conserved or operate, or cannot operate so perfectly, as when another cause comes to it influencing the thing itself or its effect. Hence that which aids or assists is properly said of the efficient cause which influences a preexisting thing or its effect or both at once. E.g., if some man cannot lift some weight, or lifts it scarcely and with difficulty, then if another comes and applies himself at the same time to lifting the stone, he is said to aid and assist the other, not by conferring strength on him, but by applying his own strength to the effect, and thus each aids the other. And let the example be committed to memory. But the heavens and their concurrence aid each in both ways effectively, by influencing not only the effect, but also conserving by their influence the strength of the limbs and the corporeal motive faculty, and sometimes perfecting it. For with the motion of the heaven ceasing, the motions of lower bodies would cease, as the common philosophy holds. But much more necessary is the influx of the first cause, moving both natural and voluntary causes to their effects, by influencing the cause, or the effect, or both, as will at once be more fully explained.

2. — From what has been said it follows that when God created the world, He is not said to have aided or to have conferred aid. For creation is production from nothing; but aid or assistance presupposes a thing already existing. We can therefore define aid as the influence of an efficient cause ordered to some operation or motion of a preexisting thing. This definition ought to be received by the common consensus of the wise, both because another more fitting one will perhaps not be able to be assigned, and because it is not limited to a particular opinion concerning the mode in which causes concur or influence causes or effects, and finally because it is common to the aids borne whether by the author of nature or by the author of grace.

And since our chief intention is to treat of the aids of God as author of grace and of the whole supernatural order, the difference between each order is to be noted. In the first place the order of grace presupposes the order of nature and perfects it. Wherefore the whole order of grace joined to the order of nature can be called the aid of God elevating and perfecting preexisting nature to supernatural operation and tending to a supernatural end. E.g., God created the angels, at once founding nature in them and lavishing grace. But nevertheless those things which were in the angel, the term of creation, are in no way called aids. Such was the existence by which formally the angelic nature was educed from nothing; such also consequently was the angelic intellect and will and free choice and the remaining properties which are due to the angelic nature from its proper quiddity and are naturally represented in the divine idea. For all these cannot properly be called aids, but as pertaining to the existence of the thing as naturally following from the essence, against Pelagius, who thinks the whole grace of God to be free choice. Since however, as St. Thomas teaches in 1. 2, q. 109, a. 1, «however perfect any corporeal or spiritual nature is posited to be, it cannot proceed to its act unless it is moved by God», therefore every creature needs for its operation or motion the aid of God the first mover. The reason of which St. Thomas insinuates in the same place, since «from God is every formal perfection as from the first act». As if he said, just as the thing depends in to-be on the first act, which is to-be itself, so also it depends in every operation of its own, since everything that operates, operates insofar as it is in act.

3. — Concerning which it is especially to be observed and to beware of the bad philosophy of certain men asserting that the influx of the first cause into the second, that the second may actually act, is nothing other than the conservation of the second cause and of every power of it by which it is constituted in first act sufficiently for acting. This sentence I evidently gather to be that of Molina and of Suarez. Of Molina indeed in his Concordia, disp. 27 and 28, which are had from p. 179, where he says that God by general aid and concurrence does not influence second causes by premoving them, but only influences immediately the very operations and effects of second causes, without any premotion of the causes themselves. And he thinks the contrary sentence takes away the freedom of choice, and holds that God by His concurrence, whether general or gratuitous, is disposed as a partial cause with respect to the effect. For he says on p. 169: «Whence it comes about that the general concurrence of God is not an influx of God into the second cause, as if, moved beforehand, it acted and produced its effect, but is an influx immediately into its action and effect». And on the following page he says: «since it cannot be denied that any effect whatever of a second cause needs the immediate influx of God into it that it may be conserved, even after the influx of the second cause has ceased, much more that it be newly produced. Certainly either it would have to be granted that the general concurrence of God with second causes for their actions and effects is not an influx into the causes, but with the causes immediately into the actions and effects, which we intend to prove; or it would have to be affirmed that God influences the production of each effect by a double general concurrence: one immediately into the cause and through the cause mediately into the effect, and the other into the effect». So much for Molina. Behold how he denies that the concurrence of God influences anything in the second cause, but only conserves it in its to-be and power, concerning which conservation there is no controversy.

Likewise Suarez in his Metaphysica, disp. 22, sec. 1 and 2 philosophizes at length concerning the first cause and cooperation or concurrence with second causes. And when in the first section he had treated of the immediate concurrence of God in every thing, operation, and motion, afterwards in the second section, while inquiring what that concurrence of the first cause is, whether it is something by way of principle or of action, and having related various sentences, he at length concludes in n. 20 that «the concurrence of the first cause, besides what it is by way of action or becoming, does not include from intrinsic necessity anything newly imparted to the second cause itself which would be a principle of its action or a condition necessary for it». He says «newly imparted, because it is certain that the concurrence of the second cause supposes in it a power of acting given and conserved by the first cause, which we suppose here, and we inquire what beyond it must necessarily be added on the part of the first cause». So far Suarez. Which sentence he strives to prove from testimonies of St. Thomas, from which all Thomists prove the opposite. Concerning which matter, if it were to be treated according to the dignity of the subject, a rather prolix treatise would have to be composed.

4. — Now I say first against Molina, that it is unworthy of the divine omnipotence to assert that God is a partial cause with His creature, just as two men dragging a boat are called partial causes, because neither influences the other nor is the whole effect attributed to each singly, but to both at once. But when God concurs with a second cause, the whole effect and whatever is in it is immediately from God by immediacy of power and of supposit, as Suarez also confesses above. Where note that that particle immediately is not taken exclusively so as to exclude the supposit and power of the second cause, but only imports the intimate and perfect power of God operating in all things, in which He intimately exists by essence, by power, and by presence. Nevertheless He assumes certain creatures to cooperate with Him in the same effect, by power imparted to them by God by way of principle, to which the effect is proportioned. And in this part Suarez agrees with us where cited above [sect. 1], nn. 22 and 23, where he cites St. Thomas, bk. 3 Contra gentes, c. 70, saying that «it does not come from insufficiency of power, but from the immensity of His goodness that He has communicated to creatures the power of acting; and therefore not by Himself alone, but with them does He will to produce such effects». Likewise Suarez denies, as less probable, that God and the creature are partial causes composing one total cause, but says that each is whole in its own order, insofar as one is subordinated to the other. But surely, if subordination consists in nothing other than the conservation of the second cause, he denies that such causes meet fortuitously for acting, since «the second cause depends on the first a priori and essentially, because it is insufficient of itself to do anything without its aid. But the first cause properly depends neither on the second, neither a priori nor a posteriori … And since the first cause always acts from certain knowledge and its own will and according to the order instituted by itself, it cannot be said to meet fortuitously with the second cause for acting, but with the highest providence concerning things». Which doctrine we shall afterwards adduce against him.

I say secondly against the same Molina, that there is no need for a double general concurrence, one into the cause, another into the effect, when the effect is an immanent action; but rather God by a single influx moves the cause and with it has produced the action, whether we speak of the general concurrence of the first cause by which He governs all things, or of the special gratuitous concurrence. It is proved. Since if the second cause depends a priori and essentially on the first, as Suarez well said, there is no need for one influx into the second cause as actually causing, and another into its action; but the second cause itself from the passive motion of the first cause receives actual power of acting and producing. I said however «into the cause as actually causing», since if the cause is considered as it is in itself with habitual power of acting, by another divine influx it is conserved in that to-be and by another it is actually moved to effecting actually. This influx nevertheless immediately reaches the cause and the effect, since as it is from God it does not depend on the second cause, although the effect itself depends on each. And for this reason God is said to produce the effect through the mediation of the second cause, because He Himself makes the effect depend on it in becoming, and sometimes in being conserved, as happens in vital actions.

Now we say thirdly against Francisco Suarez: whenever a second cause passes from not operating to operating, it is necessary that the cause itself be moved by the first, which motion is received passively in the cause itself. And from that motion, as it is from God, the actual causality of the second cause is so far from being impeded that rather it is thereby actually perfected so that it operates. This doctrine is expressly that of St. Thomas in 1 p., q. 105, a. 4 and 1. 2, q. 6, a. 1 ad 3 and q. 10, a. 4 and most of all q. 109, a. 1, where we commended his words, namely: «however perfect any corporeal or spiritual creature is posited to be, it cannot proceed to its act unless it is moved by God; which motion indeed is according to the account of His providence, not according to the necessity of nature». And he concludes that «the action of any created being whatever depends on God as to two things: in one way insofar as it has from Him the perfection or form by which it acts; in another way insofar as it is moved by Him to acting». Note that he does not say «insofar as it depends on Him for acting», but says it is moved, lest anyone say that it depends insofar as it is conserved. In which article St. Thomas speaks universally, and not only of agents acting naturally, as Suarez says, but also of agents acting supernaturally.

5. — In whose doctrine of St. Thomas note first that he says, «however perfect a corporeal or spiritual creature is posited to be», namely through its form, power, and habit, «it cannot proceed to act unless it is moved by God».

Note secondly that he says this motion is from God not according to the necessity of its nature, as the heaven moves these lower things, but according to the account of His providence. From which it follows that, since government is the execution of the account of providence, it is impossible for any creature to be moved or to operate unless it is moved by God, whose motion is prior in nature to every other motion or operation of any creature whatever, whether it moves itself, or another, or is moved by another. And the reason is that, just as the to-be of God is the cause perpetually influencing to-be in creatures, so it is necessary that when a creature passes from not operating to operating, or in any other way moves or is moved, the influx of the divine motion be prior in the order of causality. And it is confirmed from the doctrine of St. Thomas, q. 109, a. 6: «For it is necessary, since every agent acts for an end, that every cause convert its effects to its end; and therefore since according to the order of agents or movers there is the order of ends, it is necessary that man be converted to the last end through the motion of the first mover». From which doctrine I argue thus: the last end influences by nature earlier, according to its proper mode of causing or finalizing, those things which are ordered to the end than do other particular ends: therefore the first agent also influences by nature earlier every operation and motion than does every creature acting or moving. And this reason proceeds much more concerning the operation of a lower agent which is ordered to a supernatural end. Since although God converts all things to Himself; but He converts just men to Himself as to the special end which they intend, as Dionysius says, De divinis nominibus, ch. 4.

6. — It is to be observed however that those doctors Molina and Suarez, to pave the way for their opinions concerning the determination of free choice to acting, destroy even in natural things many metaphysical principles, as will be patent to one reading disputation 22, where Suarez innovates much concerning the subordination of the second cause to the first, as is patent in n. 47, where he expressly holds that that maxim, a second cause does not act unless moved by the first, ought not to be understood so «that a second cause, besides its to-be and every connatural power of acting which it has, needs a new true and real motion received in itself that it may act».

But this doctrine seems to us most false. First indeed because it is against the common sense of philosophers heretofore received, and against the natural reason which St. Thomas uses in 1. 2, q. 9, a. 4: «everything that is sometimes an agent in act, and sometimes in potency, needs to be moved by some mover». And thence he gathers that, since the will begins to will what it previously did not will, it is necessary that it be moved to willing by some extrinsic principle.

Then, because the divine government, which is the effect of the account of providence, posits something real anew in the things governed besides the conservation of those things in their to-be and natural powers. For no one has hitherto said that the creation and conservation of things is government, but rather a certain passive motion which proceeds from the account of divine providence and is received in the things governed.

Moreover through that doctrine the discourse of natural reason is enervated, by which it is shown that there is one first mover and one efficient cause. For surely, if the actual causality of the second cause does not depend on the actual influence of the first upon the second cause itself, the discourse of Aristotle in bk. 8 of the Physics is vain. For from that principle, everything that is moved is moved by another, we could answer that we stop at once at some particular mover which is not moved by another. E.g., when wood is heated, it is moved by fire which is causing in act, without its being actually moved by another; and so fire will be the first mover with respect to that effect, and it will not be necessary to arrive at the first mover who is God. The more so since Aristotle thought the world to be from eternity, and not to depend on the free will of God in its conservation; and nevertheless by that discourse he intended to show that there is one first actually moving the rest which move or are moved.

And finally, to put an example in morals, and to destroy the chief reason on which Suarez relies to prove that the free will is not determined by God, I argue thus: free choice is perfected really and intrinsically and formally through immanent action, just as any other vital potency; e.g., sight by seeing, intellect by understanding. Therefore, just as any other vital potency depends on the motion of the first cause as on an efficient cause that it may operate in act, so also the faculty of free choice. The consequence is proved. Since this faculty passes from privative potency to act no less than do the other vital potencies when they exercise their proper actions. It is confirmed. Since the intellect through cognition of the indifference of means to the end is perfected anew when from not cognizing that indifference it becomes cognizing. Therefore it is moved by another to that cognition.

But you will say: the intellect from cognition of the end can move itself to cognition of the means, just as from cognition of first principles it moves itself to scientific cognition. It is answered that this very thing we assert, but we intend thereby to prove that the motion of the first cause is necessary, since even for the cognition of the end and the cognition of first principles there is required in us the motion of the first cause. Since for such cognition we are sometimes in potency, sometimes in act, the motion of the first cause, which is always in act, is required, as St. Thomas teaches in 1. 2, q. 9, a. 4. From this therefore we confirm that the will which does not elect and afterwards elects is moved not only by itself insofar as it wills the end, but also by the first cause which moves it to actually willing the end. For whatever is the cause of the cause is the cause of the caused, if the predication is formal, insofar as something is the cause of the cause as causing.

Moreover that maxim, everything that is in potency must be reduced to act by something that is in act, is most received among philosophers and metaphysicians; for also on that account did Aristotle posit the agent intellect, because our intellect is in potency to receiving likenesses. And that maxim is founded on that principle known by natural light, no one gives what he does not have, at least eminently. Therefore if our free choice is to be perfected by a perfection for which it is in potency with privation of it, it is necessary that it be reduced to that actual perfection by another which is in act. This reason, although it has place in the natural actions of free choice, nevertheless proceeds much more in supernatural elections; as when man consents to believe, to hope, and to love as is fitting for justification and salvation. Even although someone could answer to the reason given by saying that the will as it is in act for willing the end naturally, is able to move itself to willing the means and to electing something fitting for the end; nevertheless this solution, whatever sort it be, has no place in the aforesaid supernatural elections. And the reason is manifest, since the will, while it passes from not consenting to the assent of believing those things which are of faith, and of hoping in God the aider for eternal life, and of loving Him above all things as the supernatural end, cannot beforehand be in sufficient and virtuous act concerning its proper object, which is good in common, whence it might determine itself to electing the aforesaid means to that supernatural end. Therefore this change is of the right hand of the Most High, and consequently it needs to be determined by it that it may determine itself. Which determinations, namely the passive determination as it is from God moving, and the active determination as it is from the will consenting, although they are conjoined in the same moment, nevertheless the active determination of the will is dependent on the passive motion, which is from the free choice of God, intimately operating and moving and reducing free choice to act according to the mode of its nature, by illuminating the intellect that it may better cognize the means, and by inspiring into the will that it may efficaciously elect what is well-pleasing to God. And this is what the Apostle says in the proposed theme, may He fit you in every good, that you may do His will, doing in you what is pleasing before God. Behold our will is passively fitted by God that we may do. But how this comes about efficaciously, he explains in what he says, doing in you what is well-pleasing before Him.

With which doctrine agrees the exposition of St. Augustine concerning that, who are moved by the Spirit of God, ad Rom., 8 (v. 14), De verbis Apostoli, serm. 13. «Someone says to me: therefore we are moved, we do not act. I answer, nay both you act and you are moved; and then you act well if you are moved by the good. For the Spirit of God who moves you is an aider to those acting; the very name of aider prescribes to you».

7. — But those who hold the contrary clamor that we destroy free choice through that passive determination by God, as by a really efficient cause moving free choice. We on the contrary object that they precipitate free choice, attributing to it the principate in the real and physical determination of itself, in which consists the consummation of consent; while God Himself is only a moral cause furnishing certain supernatural aids, sufficient indeed, if free choice wills to use them. But this good use is not a real effect from the causality of the grace of God, but only a moral effect, insofar as God gave it at the time at which He foreknew that free choice would consent. Concerning which matter we shall treat more deeply in the third part. We therefore build up free choice while humbling it under the mighty hand of God, according to the doctrine of the Apostle ad Phil., 2 (vv. 12-13): With fear and trembling work out your salvation. For God is He who works in you both to will and to accomplish, lest we be proud thinking that we do anything of ourselves which the grace of God does not do in us. But those who say that our will applies itself to the work, and at once God also influences; «but if our free choice continues its influx, the actual concurrence of God also will cease», seem to assert that God awaits our will that we may will to be cleansed. So seems Suarez to say in bk. 3 De auxiliis, ch. 6, n. 7. But concerning this difficulty it will be established from what is to be said what is to be held.

1. — With the foundation supposed concerning which, as I judge, there cannot be controversy among theologians, namely that the aid of God is the actual influence into a preexisting thing by which the thing is ordered to operation, let the first division of divine aid be into natural aid and supernatural aid. Natural aid indeed is aid ordered to the natural operations of man or of other natural things. For the divine government, insofar as God is the author of the universe, extends itself to every creature, from the highest to the lowest, moving each according to the mode of its nature; concerning which matter it is treated in 1 p. from q. 103 on. Whence it is established that government is not the mere conservation of things, but the ordered motion of them according to the rule which is in the account of divine providence.

Hence it follows that, since man is the noblest creature, insofar as through reason and free choice he is more assimilated to God the author than the remaining corporeal creatures, so in a more excellent way the author of nature governs and aids man to his proper operations.

According to this doctrine, the first natural aid which God confers on man coming to the use of reason is not the conservation of man, nor of the natural light, which is a connate power, nor even the conservation of the will or of the faculty of free choice; for all these follow upon the existence of the thing as properties due to nature, as we said in the preceding chapter. But the first aid which God confers on man pertaining to the order of nature is the actual illumination by which man is illuminated to cognition of the true, whether speculative or practical. In which illumination God confers nothing on man by way of a principle constituting the intellect in first act. For through the intellect endowed with natural light, man is sufficiently constituted in first act for understanding those intelligibles into whose cognition he can come through sensibles. But nevertheless, «however perfect any creature … is posited to be, it cannot proceed to its act unless it is moved by God», as St. Thomas says in 1. 2, q. 109, a. 1. But what that passive motion of man already perfect in first act, newly imparted to the creature, is, the metaphysical theologians inquire all too laboriously.

And the same is the difficulty concerning the first operation of the will, which we attribute to the author of nature, who by His motion draws our will from not willing the end to actually willing, according to the doctrine of St. Thomas in 1. 2, q. 9, a. 4. Concerning which doctrine I do not understand there to be controversy among the recent theologians. For all confess that our will is disposed passively in the first volition of its object. Not because that volition is not an action elicited by the power of the will, for it is a vital action, but because that volition is not an operation of man insofar as he is man. Since not insofar as rational and insofar as master of his actions discoursing from some principle; but it is altogether an operation of the will as it is a certain nature, and an inclination to its natural proper object. With respect to which the will needs no other formal principle imparted to it, but the extrinsic principle suffices which is in the intellect, the natural light showing and proposing the good which is the object of the will, with the motion of the first cause intimately existing.

2. — This supposed, I say the same to that troublesome question in which it is asked what that passive motion is by which the will is moved by the author of nature only when it passes from not willing to willing good in common: whether it is some quality imparted to the will by way of principle for eliciting vital action concerning its proper object. And I answer that it is not any superadded quality by way of principle, since the will itself according to itself is a sufficient principle for eliciting vital action concerning its proper object proposed by the intellect. But that it be proposed by the intellect now, and that the will now actually tend to it, neither comes about without the divine premotion. Which premotion is not the mere conservation of the powers; otherwise the intellect and will would always be in act, since they are always conserved by God. But I confess that I do not understand what else that divine premotion, if considered passively, is, than the very faculty of intellect placed in complete act by the author of nature, who operates in all things according to the account of His providence.

But if premotion considered actively, as it is in God, I understand it to be nothing other than the divine will, which is intimately present in all things, effecting in them all things which come about, insofar as they have the character of to-be and of goodness. But why it moves now and did not move before, that divine will itself, which is the first cause of all things which come about, no reason can be reduced except to the account of divine providence, which has so disposed according to the counsel of its will. For it is never to be conceded by a wise philosopher and theologian that the divine concurrence which is called natural and general is determined by creatures, just as the concurrence of the celestial bodies is determined by lower causes, above all by man, who through free choice dominates even the stars. But the general concurrence of the divine will, since it is according to the account of divine providence, intimately reaches all causes and all effects, determining all things and determined by none. It is called the general concurrence of God, since it is not limited to one effect, but without exception disposes and governs all things according to the mode of the nature of each thing.

All this doctrine is expressly that of St. Thomas in 1 p. q. 19 throughout, and q. 22 throughout, which is on divine providence, and likewise let q. 105 be seen. Which doctrine, if certain of the moderns had penetrated it, they would not so frequently reduce contingent effects, above all those which have their root in the free choice of man, to divine foreknowledge only, but would reduce all things to divine providence, to which are to be reduced all things which come about, whether good or evil: good indeed as effects directly willed and ordered according to the account of divine providence; but evil things of fault as permitted, as Augustine says in the Enchiridion, cap. 95 and 96. For the permission of sins is good and orderable by God to the last end. Otherwise divine foreknowledge would not have infallibility, unless the things foreknown were reduced to the decree of the divine will. Concerning this natural concurrence more could be said, but for brevity of time let these suffice.

3. — Let us now pass to defining and dividing supernatural aid.

It is to be noted first, lest we labor in equivocation, that there is a difference between aid and concurrence, if we speak properly. For aid properly bespeaks influence into the principal cause, even if it be secondary; but concurrence bespeaks influence into the produced effect, whether by a cause or by an instrument, for producing which effect there concurs at once with the cause, or with the instrument, that cause which influences the effect, aiding the cause or elevating the instrument. This is proved from the common mode of speaking; for to aid or to assist bespeaks a relation to the cooperating cause. Hence we shall not properly say that the artificer aids the instrument for effecting the artifact, since the instrument is not properly a cause, but we say that the artificer moves and elevates the instrument, and concurs with it for effecting the image; and similarly we say that God concurs with water for producing grace in the soul, but we shall not properly say that God aids water that it may produce grace.

From which doctrine it follows that there can be given aid which is not concurrence, and there can be given concurrence which is not aid, and there can be given aid which is at once concurrence. An example of the first: when God infuses the habit of grace and the habits of the infused virtues, He bears aid to man. For the infused habits themselves are aids of God, ordered indeed to operation, but it is not necessary that they operate at once. But that a habit is aid, St. Thomas teaches in 1. 2, q. 109, a. 9 where he says that «man for living rightly needs the aid of God in two ways: in one way as to some habitual gift through which human nature is healed and elevated …; in another way man needs the aid of grace that he be moved by God to acting». The infused habit itself therefore is an aid of God, which is given to little ones in baptism before they operate; indeed also to adults when by power of the sacrament with attrition alone they are justified, this habitual aid is given, when they do not yet have the act of charity. Indeed also, as St. Thomas teaches where cited above in answer to the first argument, the very conservation of the habit is an influence into a preexisting thing and is ordered to operation.

An example of the second: God concurs with water for sanctifying the soul, and yet does not aid water for the production of grace, since water has no formal principle proportioned to the effect that it be properly said to be aided to operation, but is a mere instrument of God. From which it follows that the priest has no need to ask for the aid of grace that he may absolve, that he may consecrate, but that he may worthily exercise this ministry. And the same seems to be said concerning saints working miracles, with whom God concurs for working miracles; but He is not properly said to aid them for working miracles, since they have only the character of an instrument. And finally, if it were to be spoken properly, when some partial cause influences only the effect of another partial cause, it would not be said immediately to bear aid to the other cause, since it influences nothing into it, but into the effect caused by both at once. Whence neither immediately aids the other, but both at once in the character of causing are made one cause with respect to one effect, as happens when two men lift a stone which neither can lift.

Finally the example of the third is manifest. For when God moves the just man that he may use the infused habits and operate, it is certain that by the same aid of motion He aids the just man to operation, and concurs in it.

4. — With these things thus established, when henceforth we make mention of the aid of the first cause, we shall understand the influence of God not as He concurs with the instrument for the effect, but as He is the assistance of the principal cause in order to operation. And speaking in this way, we made the first division of aid into natural aid and supernatural aid. Natural indeed is what is conferred for operation or motion to a natural end, or to good in common, which is the natural object of the will. And this aid is what is commonly called the general aid of the first cause.

5. — Nevertheless this generality is understood differently by the authors of the new concord and by the Thomists. For the authors of the new concord understand by general aid nothing other than the conservation of second causes and the immediate concurrence in the operations and effects of them. We however by this aid understand the actual motion of the first cause, without which the second cause, however conserved, cannot operate. And the reason which moves us is this, that every second cause is perfected through its operation, especially if the operation is immanent. For concerning transeunt action it is not so manifest, although to me it is most certain. Since every active power of the creature is intrinsically and essentially ordered as to its proper end and complement to its proper operation. Therefore when it operates, it has the complement of its species. And this is the reason why the divine action is not properly transeunt, since the power of God is not essentially ordered to the operation of any effect outside Himself; for this would be an imperfection in God.

But that the power is perfected through immanent action is most manifest, since the action itself is the complement of the actuality of the power, just as sight is really more perfect when it sees than when it does not see, and intellect when it understands than when it does not understand. Therefore when every power passes from not operating to operating, it is necessary that it be moved by a cause which is in act.

6. — Now supernatural aid is aid ordered to a supernatural end through supernatural operations. And I suppose that now we speak of supernatural aids intrinsic and ordered to the good of the recipient himself, that we may exclude graces freely given, which are rather called supernatural concurrences of God for the utility of the Church, than aids of the operator himself ordered to his proper good which consists in adherence to God, as St. Thomas teaches in 1. 2, q. 111, a. 1. All the divine influences therefore into the soul accommodated to this end are supernatural aids of God.

Again supernatural aid is divided by St. Thomas where cited above, art. 2 and 3, first indeed into operating and cooperating grace; secondly into prevenient and subsequent. Whose doctrine, when we interpreted those articles, we greatly commended as useful for the present treatise. This however is especially to be recalled, that just as St. Thomas there divides grace whether as it is a habitual gift, or as it is the divine aid by which God actually moves us to willing well, so also we now divide supernatural aid into the habitual gift divinely imparted to us, and into the actual motion of God by which the mind is moved by God, whether according to intellect or according to will. For all these are called aids of God by St. Thomas. For as we said, in 1. 2, q. 109, a. 9 he expressly calls the habitual gift of grace an aid; but the remaining motions and influences ordered to the supernatural end, in q. 111, a. 2 he expressly calls aids. And we in what follows shall call it actual grace, that we may distinguish between habitual aid and the aid of actual motion.

7. — But since our whole dispute is concerning actual aids, it is still necessary to divide actual aid into aid wholly prevenient to our freedom, or rather to the use of our freedom, and into aid with which we already exercise our freedom. Of the first kind aid is a certain sudden illumination and arousing of God calling and inviting the soul to good. And they are wont to be called divine inspirations, which come about in man earlier in time, regularly speaking, than he himself deliberates to adhere to God. And concerning inspirations of this kind it is said in the Council of Orange, can. 20: «many good things come about in man which man does not do». Concerning the same it is also said in Prov., 1 (v. 24): I called and you refused, that is, after you adverted to my call, and refused. Concerning those also can be understood that of Is., 50 (v. 4): The Lord raises up in the morning, in the morning He raises up my ear that I may hear as a master. It is to be noted however that aids of this kind wholly prevenient are indeed identified with the vital actions of intellect and will. But since they come about from the motion of God wholly prevenient earlier in time than the use of our freedom, therefore the council says, «many good things come about in man which man does not do». And similarly theologians say that in receiving them then we are disposed merely passively. For they speak of man as he is the moral cause of his actions and master of deliberating or not deliberating. And in this part there is no difference between the fathers of the Society and the Thomists.

Of the second kind we said aid to be, with which standing, we exercise our freedom. And this can happen in two ways. In one way so that, with that arousing persisting which was wholly prevenient, now man adverting and knowing and prudent resists God calling and arousing. And then the aid of the grace of God is converted into anger, from the malice of the recipient, according to that of the Apostle ad Rom., 2 (vv. 4-5): Do you not know that the benignity of God leads you to penance? But according to your hardness and impenitent heart, you treasure up to yourself anger in the day of anger. In another way man is wont to exercise his freedom by consenting to God calling and arousing. And concerning this turns the whole difficulty and controversy between the Preacher fathers and the fathers of the Society. Wherefore in the following chapter we intend to dispute the special question: whether that same prevenient aid with nothing else added suffices for the consent of free choice and conversion to God; or whether another aid accedes by which the mind of man actually consents to God and is converted to Him.

1. — The principal question therefore is whether it is the same and one aid which, with respect to the conversion of the mind to God, whether through faith or through charity, is called sufficient and efficacious.

It is argued first for the affirmative side. For if there is always another efficacious aid by which man consents to God, distinct from every other which he received before he consented, it follows that no other beforehand had been sufficient. The consequence is patent, since if every other still needs another efficacious aid, it was not sufficient for effecting.

2. — It is argued secondly. Since if every man who is not converted does not receive that efficacious aid necessary for conversion, he would be excused from sin. The sequel is proved. Since no one can be bound to the impossible; but it is impossible for man to be converted without that aid: therefore as long as that aid is not given to him, he will be excused from sin.

But you will say: by his fault he does not have that aid. On the contrary it is proved that not having that aid is not a new fault. Since it is not in his power to obtain it, but it is only in the power of the divine mercy freely to confer it on those whom He efficaciously converts to Himself: therefore it is not denied to man by his fault.

And it is confirmed. God has decided not to give to the man who is not converted that efficacious aid: therefore it does not stand through man that he does not have it.

3. — Thirdly it is argued. Since it seems cruel to bind man to an act for exercising which he has no necessary principle, nor is it in his power to do anything by which he may obtain it. Nor does it avail to answer that he ask from God, for even for that prayer he needs efficacious aid. Therefore either there must be process to infinity, or it must be said that he already has a sufficient principle for eliciting the act without another efficacious aid; but that sufficient aid will become efficacious through the consent of free choice.

4. — It is argued fourth from that celebrated testimony of Matthaei (11,21): Woe to you Bethsaida, woe to you Corozain, for if in Tyre and Sidon there had been done the mighty works which have been done in you, they would long ago have done penance in sackcloth and ashes. From which testimony I argue thus: if the divine aid which was given to the Jews did not suffice so that with it alone the Tyrians and Sidonians would be converted, but another aid which is called efficacious were necessary, the conditional uttered by Christ the Lord would not be verified. For neither would the Tyrians and Sidonians have done penance any more than those cities which the Lord reproaches. For Corozain and Bethsaida could have answered: if to Tyre and Sidon You had given nothing more than to us, neither would they do penance.

5. — Finally it is argued from the testimony of St. Augustine in the book On Predestination and Grace, ch. 15, where he compares Pharaoh with Nabuchodonosor, and makes them equal as to all things, both on their part and on the part of God, and concludes: «What therefore made their ends diverse, except that one, feeling the hand of God, groaned in recollection of his own iniquity, while the other with free choice fought against the most merciful truth of God?»

And it is confirmed from St. Gregory in the homily on those invited to the wedding, where he refers the difference why some came to the wedding and some did not come to the diversity of the effects of those who were invited, not to the difference of the calling. Which St. Augustine also seems to confirm in the book of the Eighty-three Questions, q. 68 near the end where, speaking of those called to the supper (Luc., 14,16-24), he says thus: «For to that supper which the Lord says in the Gospel was prepared, neither did all who were called will to come, nor could those who came have come unless they were called. Therefore neither ought those who came attribute it to themselves, since being called they came; nor ought those who refused to come attribute it to another, but only to themselves, since that they might come they were called in free will». So much for Augustine. Where he seems to hold that the aid of the calling of the grace of God was equal to both.

Further it is confirmed from the Council of Trent, sess. 6, can. 4, where it is defined: «If anyone shall have said that the free choice of man, moved and aroused by God, cooperates nothing by assenting to God arousing and calling, whereby it disposes itself to obtain the grace of justification, nor can dissent if it wills, but … is disposed merely passively, let him be anathema». Hence it is argued: therefore with any aid whatever standing, it can stand at once that man dissents; and consequently there is no efficacious aid of God distinct from the sufficient, but that same aid will be efficacious if man consents, and not efficacious if man does not consent.

6. — This question demanded more time than is available to us in a few lectures. Let what we said be seen On the First Part, q. 23, a. 3, doubt 3, and in the Second of the Second, q. 10, a. 2, doubt 2, document 3.

Now proceeding summarily, let the first conclusion be: A distinction of the aid of the grace of God into sufficient aid and into efficacious aid is necessary. This distinction the authors of the new concord also admit, at least in word. And although this distinction is not found expressly in St. Thomas, nevertheless it is found virtually both in St. Thomas and in St. Augustine. For St. Augustine says most often that to the first man it was given to be able to persevere, but not to persevere, and it was given that he could not sin, but it was not given that he would not sin. It has a foundation also in the similar speech of theologians concerning the merit and redemption of Christ.

For they say that Christ the Lord satisfied for the sins of all men as to the sufficiency of merit and satisfaction, yet He did not merit for all that it be applied as to efficacy; since for many in fact the satisfaction and redemption of Christ has not been applied, and for fewer as to the salvation of eternal life. For in this way only for the predestined has the redemption of Christ the Savior been applied, according to that: Father, those whom You gave Me, I have lost none of them (Ioan., 18,9). And of sheep of this kind He said: No one shall snatch them from My hand (Ioan., 10,28). In this way of speaking the Apostle said of Christ that He is the Savior of all, especially of the faithful (I Tim., 4,10). By which words he declares both the universal sufficiency of the redemption of Christ and the efficacy in some. Which efficacy is also explained by the words of our theme when Paul says: But may the God of peace fit you in every good, that you may do His will, doing in you what is well-pleasing before Him. Let Augustine be seen in the book On the Predestination of the Saints and On the Gift of Perseverance.

But that this distinction of aid be better understood, it is to be noted that then aid is called efficacious when it has a concomitant effect. I do not say because it has, but when it has, and in this all agree. But that effect can be twofold: for sometimes it is with the consent of free choice, but sometimes it is not with the consent of free choice. Now our distinction is understood of efficacious aid in the first way, with which standing, man freely either believes or is converted to God.

For if it is understood in the second way, let the second conclusion be: Every aid of the grace of God is efficacious for some effect to which it is sent from the absolute good pleasure of the divine will. E.g., sudden illuminations and inspirations of the mind have some effect, while man is aroused and invited by certain vital actions to the supernatural end. This doctrine is that of St. Thomas in 1. 2, q. 112, a. 3, where he says that preparation can be considered in two ways. And he says that if it is considered according as it is from God moving, it has necessity for that to which it is ordered by God, not indeed of coercion, but of infallibility, since the intention of God cannot fail. Whence if it is from the intention of God moving that the man whose heart He moves obtain grace, he infallibly obtains it; and such aid is called by us efficacious.

7. — Note secondly that when we distinguish sufficient and efficacious aid we speak of a sufficiency which is not yet conjoined with the free effect, although of itself it is ordered to it. For otherwise the division would not be good.

Speaking therefore thus of sufficient and efficacious aid, let the third conclusion be: Efficacious aid is really distinguished from sufficient.

This conclusion is against Molina and Suarez. Against Molina indeed, who expressly holds in his Concordia, p. 232, that «the division of the sufficiency of aid into efficacious and inefficacious is taken from the effect»; and that the same aid, «whether greater or less, which is sufficient, is called efficacious when with it choice for its freedom is converted»; and that it is in our free power to render the divine aids efficacious, by consenting and cooperating with them, or to render them inefficacious by withholding consent.

Similarly against Suarez, who in bk. 3 On Aids, especially from ch. 14, posits nothing real intrinsic in sufficient aid that it become efficacious, and at length concludes in ch. 20 that the same really identical aid of grace is called greater because it is given at an opportune time. But he considers this opportuneness of time on the part of the individual, insofar as God foreknew that that singular man, if at that time he received aid, would consent and operate with it. And there he defends Molina, who said absolutely that one man with equal aid operates and another not; since among the wise that assertion is understood of equal powers on the part of the principle, and not on the part of the concurrence of God, which he thinks to be the very action of man. They hold therefore that between sufficient aid and efficacious there is no real difference, but only a moral one, which comes from the opportuneness of time, on the supposition of the foreknowledge of God, who foreknew that man constituted in such a time with such aids would operate, and mercifully willed to constitute him in such circumstances.

Nevertheless our conclusion is proved from that egregious testimony of the first ad Cor., 4 (v. 7): For who distinguishes you? But what do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it? In which place, as St. Augustine says in the book On the Predestination of the Saints, ch. 5, the Apostle speaks most evidently against human pride, «lest anyone glory in man, and consequently not in himself, but in the Lord». And he says: «Is it through these gifts which are common to all men that men are distinguished from men?» As if he said, not at all. And he subjoins: For the Apostle said: For who distinguishes you? And because inflated man could say, «my justice distinguishes me, my faith, or if anything else», meeting such thoughts the good doctor added: But what do you have that you did not receive? From whom except from Him who distinguishes you from another, to whom He did not give what He gave to you?». So much for him. From which I argue thus: if the aid of efficacious grace is not really distinguished from sufficient aid, it follows that he who is converted can glory in himself, saying: nothing real more has been given to me than to another, but I have added something real by which I distinguished myself from another. Therefore the good use of sufficient aid he does not receive from the grace of God, but from the powers of his free choice. He has used that sufficient aid well, and consequently he really distinguishes himself, and is not really distinguished by God.

8. — But they say that God distinguishes him morally, insofar as He gave equal and sometimes less aid really and entitatively at the opportune time, in which He foreknew from the property of his free choice that he would consent and use the sufficient aid well.

But on the contrary is what Augustine at once says in ch. 6: «Many hear the word of truth, but some believe, others contradict. The former therefore will to believe, but the latter refuse. Who is ignorant of this? who denies this? But since for some the will is prepared by the Lord, for others it is not prepared, it must in any case be discerned what comes from His mercy, what from His judgment».

From this it is patent that it does not suffice to posit opportuneness of time, that God be said really to prepare the will of one and not of another. Nor again does it avail to answer that that aid given at the opportune time in which God foreknew that man from the property of his choice would use it well was a greater mercy. First indeed since this opportuneness and that foreknowledge does not argue a real distinction of those men on the part of God, and consequently we have our point, that God does not really distinguish the believer from the non-believer; and consequently he alone who wills to believe really distinguishes himself from another through the powers of free choice alone, and will be able to glory in himself and of himself. Nor finally will it avail to answer that free choice itself at once with sufficient aid is given and reserved by God the author of nature and of grace: both because that answer was partly that of Pelagius, and also because in that which is to have free choice the believer is not distinguished from the non-believer. But in that which is to conserve sufficient aid in one and not in another, they give no reason on the part of God, but on the part of man.

There is another egregious testimony of St. Augustine in the Enchiridion, ch. 32, where explaining that of the Apostle ad Rom., 9 (v. 16), Therefore it is not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy, he himself moves the question how the Apostle says it is not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy, «when without doubt, if a man of the age now to use reason cannot believe, hope, and love unless he wills, nor arrive at the palm of the supernal calling of God unless the will concur». And he answers that therefore it was said not of him who wills nor of him who runs, because the will itself is prepared by God. And that he may more explain this solution of the question, he refutes a certain false solution, namely that «therefore it was said, not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy, because it comes about from both, that is from the will of man and the mercy of God, so that the sense be, not of him who wills nor of him who runs, that is the will of man alone does not suffice, unless there be also the mercy of God». Which solution is that of Anastasius of Nicaea in the book of Questions on Scripture, q. 55, and of Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 31. See Suarez bk. 3, ch. 9, n. 7.

But Augustine replies against this solution: «If therefore it was said not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy, because the will of man alone does not fulfill it, why shall it not rightly be said also on the contrary, it is not of God who shows mercy, but of man who wills, because the mercy of God alone does not fulfill it?» Augustine therefore concludes that, «just as no Christian will dare to say, it is not of God who shows mercy, but of man who wills …, it is necessary that therefore it be rightly understood to have been said, not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy, that the whole be given to God, who both prepares the good will of man to be aided, and aids it having been prepared», so indeed that the good will be counted among the gifts of a merciful God, according to that of Ps. 58 (v. 11): His mercy shall go before me. So much for Augustine.

In whose doctrine note first, that he calls the good will the very good action of free choice by which it uses the aid of God well.

Note secondly how he distinguishes between the preparation, and this good will, and the assistance of God for it. For he says, that the whole be given to God showing mercy, not as to the creator conserving free choice, but as to the savior who both prepares the good will of man to be aided, and aids it having been prepared. Behold he distinguishes preparation and assistance, two different aids. Otherwise if it is the same aid, we could say He prepares what is to be prepared, and aids what is aided. But surely by the name of preparation he understands the aids which are given by way of sufficiency for perfecting the power itself in first act. But when he says, He aids it having been prepared, he understands the divine efficacious motion of the consent of free choice. And in this way the whole is given to God who effects the whole in the very faculty of free choice, not only by illuminating the intellect and proposing the object, but also by really and efficaciously moving free choice, that deliberating it may consent.

Finally note how far this Augustinian doctrine stands from the doctrine of those who posit no greater physical and real efficacy on the part of God, but only on the part of the natural property of this free choice. But to God Himself they attribute only a certain moral efficiency in the execution of the good human will, which consists in this, that since God by natural and necessary knowledge apart from a decree, or rather apart from what is decreed, by the divine will knows this conditional: if this man be constituted in such a time and with such aids and circumstances, he will consent by believing in God and loving above all things, etc. In which knowledge indeed He shows no mercy to this man, since it rises from the natural comprehension of the divine essence and in it of all creatures, as Molina philosophizes. See Suarez Metaphysical disput. 30, n. 33.

9. — The whole mercy of God therefore they constitute in this, that God willed to create that man and to place him in those circumstances and in that opportuneness of time, and for this man will be able to give thanks to the divine mercy. But that, with those circumstances supposed, man applied himself to good consent, he has from the property of his free choice, and consequently concerning this application he will not be able to give thanks to God the savior, but perhaps to the creator and conserver of the faculty of free choice. For these modern doctors posit no other concurrence on the part of God, except the conservation of the faculty of free choice with sufficient aid, with which God concurs, not by influencing it, but only into the substance of the effect. And consequently the whole will not be given to God, if He does not prepare the will of man to be aided, nor aid it having been prepared; but they distinguish the whole sufficiency and real efficacy so that the sufficiency be from God, but the effecting be attributed to the nature of this free choice, which equally pre-aided by a real aid, which they call physical, distinguishes itself from another, which had received an equal or perhaps greater aid, and nevertheless does not consent to God calling and arousing.

Behold the whole difference between the Thomist and Augustinian theologians on one side, and between certain modern inventors of the new concord on the other. They indeed are convicted by the arguments made, in that they say they cannot understand how the property of the faculty of free choice is preserved with such real efficacy of the grace of God. We however with Augustine much less can understand the omnipotence of the divine will and of the good pleasure of God, «if, as Augustine says in the Enchiridion, ch. 95, God willed to do something which He did not do; and what is more unworthy, therefore He did not do it, because lest what the omnipotent willed come about the will of man impeded it». And thus «the very beginning of our confession, in which we confess to believe in God the Father omnipotent, is endangered». So much for Augustine. But how with this certain efficacy of the grace of God the condition of the faculty of free choice is preserved is explained in the solution of the arguments and in what was said in the first part of this treatise.

1. — To the first argument, I deny the consequence. To the proof, I deny the consequence again. For an aid is not called sufficient because it avails to effect without the motion of the first cause, but it is called sufficient for constituting man as it were in first act, by means of which there is proposed to him as a possible good from the aid of God's grace the supernatural end and the means to that end. And this is the kindness of God, which rouses and invites man by a certain sufficient illumination of the intellect and a certain inspiration of the will, to bind him to believe, to hope, and to love. But if he refuse, it will be imputed to him for fault, which he can commit from his own powers, with God not as author; if however he consent, with God as author and by a special efficaciously operating aid he is converted, consenting through his free choice. And thus by this efficacious aid God distinguishes him from the other who is not converted, to whom he did not give efficacious aid.

2. — To the second argument the consequence is denied, since for sinning less suffices than for acting well. And therefore one who does not have efficacious aid is not excused from sin, because it suffices that it was proposed to him by God as possible, and the man himself from his own defectible free choice does not will that aid, by the very fact that he does not will to be converted to God as the supernatural end. And this suffices for sinning. Nor is it required that it be in his power as in an active, physical, or meritorious virtuous principle for obtaining that aid, but it suffices that it be proposed to him as possible from God's aid, lest he be said to be bound to the impossible. As if, for example, God commanded me to fly, and himself offered me wings, I would not be excused from sin by saying, I do not have wings, since they are already offered to me as possible from God's gift, and accordingly I would sin if I answered, I do not will to fly.

To the confirmation it is answered: I distinguish the antecedent. For if it be understood without foreknowledge of the future resistance of free choice, I deny the antecedent; indeed to no adult to whom he offered efficacious aid does he deny such aid in execution, except to him whom he foreknew would refuse. And accordingly the divine decree does not excuse him from sin.

But you will say, why did he foreknow concerning this man that he would refuse rather than concerning the other who is converted? It is answered that he willed to permit this one to fail, and did not will to permit the other to fail. Of this difference and distinction do not wish to investigate the cause, if you do not wish to err; but let us be content to distinguish what comes from mercy, what from judgment. And this is to be wise unto sobriety (ad Rom., 12,3).

But here is an importunate and sophistical rejoinder, by which some think they triumph against us. Against it I argue thus: If affirmation is the cause of affirmation, negation is the cause of negation. But the efficacious aid which we posit as special, really distinct from the sufficient, is the cause of the conversion of every man who is converted. Therefore the negation of that aid is the cause why everyone who is not converted is not converted.

To this argument see 1 p., q. 23, a. 3, last doubt, ad 6. But it is answered first indeed that that maxim is to be understood of a total cause, which alone in its genus is the cause of the affirmation, as, for example, if whiteness is the formal cause of a white thing, the negation of whiteness will be the cause of a non-white thing. Likewise if God alone is the cause of creation by his decree, he will also be the cause of not creating through the negation of the decree. And thus the divine will by its decree was the cause of creating these angels and of not creating others. But when two causes concur, even if they be subordinated to some effect, although from the affirmation of the first cause the effect is posited, yet the negation of the effect does not have as its cause the negation of the first cause, but it can have the negation of the second cause, as is clear from the teaching of St. Thomas 1. 2, q. 112, a. 3 ad 2, where he says that «the defect of grace has its first cause from us, but the bestowal of grace has its first cause from God».

It is answered secondly, and the preceding solution is confirmed. And note that the negation of conversion to God can be considered in two ways. In one way in the genus of morals, and thus it is not a pure negation of being, but is an omission. In the other way it can be considered as it is a pure negation of being. If it be considered in the first way, it does not have as its cause the negation of efficacious aid on God's part, but the defectible and failing free choice. If however it be considered in the second way, I grant that the cause of the negation of that entity is the pure negation of efficacious aid, which God was not bound to give, but rather he willed to permit the sin. Nor always in punishment of another sin. For he permitted the angels to sin, and God often permits a just man to fall from grace through sin, and yet that permission is not in punishment of another sin. For original sin had already been remitted in the just man; and therefore that negation of efficacious aid cannot be called the punishment of a preceding sin, although sometimes such a withdrawal of aid is the punishment of sin, which in the sacred writings is usually called blinding and hardening. Hence to the confirmation we rightly deny that consequence, God decreed from eternity not to give that efficacious aid, therefore it does not stand through this man not to have it. For sometimes indeed he decreed not to give in punishment of sin, which God foreknew to be future; sometimes however, even if it be the first permission of the sin of our first parents, and it cannot have the character of punishment of a preceding sin, yet the first and adequate cause of the negation of aid, as that negation holds on the side of execution in time, is free choice, which of itself has the power to will to fail and to omit God's precept, with God permitting, who nevertheless could prevent it, if he willed in his mercy to convert man from sin, or to maintain him in justice.

3. — To the third argument it is answered that it would rather be blasphemous to charge God with cruelty because to some he does not give that efficacious aid or the gift of perseverance to those already justified. For by equal reasoning we would murmur that he did not predestine all men, if predestination has no cause in foreknowledge of merits on the part of the predestined, as some even in our times strive to introduce into the school. Against whom I urge that word of the Apostle ad Rom., 9 (vv. 12-16): Not of works, but of him that calleth it was said, that the elder shall serve the younger, as it is written: Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. And he adds: What then shall we say? Is there injustice with God? God forbid. For he saith to Moses (Ex., 33): I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy. Therefore it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. Behold where he attributes the whole effect of predestination to the divine mercy alone. Indeed he denies that this whole effect has its ground in foreknown striving and running of free choice, although the bestowal of glory will be future on account of foreknown merits, yet not the whole effect of predestination. And again the Apostle answers others proudly objecting thus: Why then is complaint made? For who resisteth his will? If on whom he will he hath mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth, O man, who art thou that repliest to God?, etc., unto the eleventh chapter where he concludes: O the depth of the riches of the knowledge and wisdom of God, etc. It is not, therefore, cruelty to bind man to believe before he has efficacious aid, since it is not to bind him to the impossible, since it is possible to have it, and accordingly it is possible to fulfill the precept. For there is no need that that aid be in man's power as in an active or meritorious principle; but that possibility is founded on God's mercy, and on the common law, and on the faculty of free choice, to which aid is offered by God, who is ready to give, unless it stand through man.

4. — To the fourth argument see what we said at length in 1 p., q. 23, a. 3, doubt 3, concl. 10, § But concerning the teaching, and in 2. 2, q. 10, a. 1, doubt 2, document 3. Now however it is to be noted with St. Augustine book 1 On the Trinity, chap. 12, where he sets down an excellent rule for understanding the sacred writings, namely «there is no kind of speech used by sacred Scripture which is not found in the usage of men». With which agrees Origen book 4 Against Celsus saying that sacred Scripture measures what it announces according to the strength and profit of its hearers. This supposed, it is to be known that concerning that passage of Matthew 21¹, doctors say many things inquiring why he did not give to the Tyrians and Sidonians those aids which he gave to the Jews, by his preaching and miracles. But certainly St. Gregory and St. Jerome on that passage say that to know God's secrets is not man's.

Nevertheless, to satisfy scholastic theologians, it is answered to the argument by denying the consequence when it is inferred: therefore, with God's equal aid existing, the Jews were not converted, and the Tyrians and Sidonians would have been converted with that alone. And the reason is that for the truth of that conditional it is not required that the Tyrians and Sidonians would have done penance receiving no other gift of God, which was not given to the Jews. But the sense is: if among them I preached and worked miracles as among you, they would have done penance. For this is the same as if he said: God would have given them penance. For it is certain that to do penance is a gift of God, according to that II ad Tim., 2 (v. 25): Lest ever God give them penance, etc. Which gift indeed one who does not do penance does not receive.

But if you ask again, why does Christ say that, with those miracles and teaching posited, he would give penance to the Tyrians and Sidonians which he gave to the Jews: it is answered that Christ the Lord in human fashion wished to object to the Jews that they were worse than the Tyrians and Sidonians and that on account of their greater sins and demerits that efficacious aid of salutary penance was justly denied to them, of which aid the Tyrians and Sidonians were less unworthy, to whom, if Christ had come preaching and working miracles, God would mercifully have softened their less unworthy hearts. And therefore it shall be more tolerable for the Tyrians and Sidonians in the day of judgment than for the faithless Jews. And this was the chief intention of Christ the Lord, to reproach those cities which on account of their greater iniquities, even if those exterior benefits were bestowed on them, namely of miracles and of the preaching of the Gospel, were more unworthy to be granted the interior efficacious aids than the Tyrians and Sidonians, in whom there was less unworthiness for mercifully receiving those aids which would have been given to them, if such miracles had been worked among them.

Nor does the rejoinder made on the Jews' part avail anything to excuse them when they say, if to the Tyrians and Sidonians thou hadst not given other greater interior aids, neither would they have been converted more than we. For the solution from what has been said is manifest. For we answer on Christ's behalf, granting that neither would they have been converted without greater interior aids. But nevertheless this does not excuse the Jews' greater unworthiness of their infidelity and pride, on account of which most grave sins such aids were denied to them, which would not have been denied to the less unworthy, if Christ had deigned to come to them and to work such miracles in confirmation of his teaching. Yet, as Augustine says book 2 On the gift of perseverance, chap. 14, because «neither to the Tyrians and Sidonians was believing given, and whence they might believe was denied», and both will be punished in the day of judgment; but the Jews much more on account of their greater sins.

5. — To the fifth argument, concerning the comparison of Pharaoh and Nabuchodonosor, it is answered that those who cite that testimony in favor of their view either did not read it, or if they read it, bring it forward truncated on purpose. For indeed there Augustine proceeds by arguing against him who judges God's most high counsel with a wise heart. Hence Augustine asks of him the cause of the indifference, where the medicine is equal. And although in that discussion St. Augustine brings forward that particular and formal difference on the part of the recipients, «since the one, feeling God's hand, groaned in recollection of his own iniquity, but the other fought with his free choice against God's most merciful truth», yet this difference is at once reduced to another deeper one. For St. Augustine warns us to understand that all those things which happened in Pharaoh and Nabuchodonosor and in similar sinners, «are either perfected with the Lord aiding, or permitted with him abandoning, that we may know that with the Lord unwilling nothing at all is admitted». Thus the first cause of the conversion of the one is God's assistance, which the other did not have as efficacious.

Hence let the theologian gather the lesson that, although of this difference, why one sinner is converted and another is not converted, the proximate formal account can be assigned, that one uses God's aid well, but the other resists God calling, yet this is not the first cause and root of this difference. For if one stopped there, man by the powers of free choice would distinguish himself from the other, who received God's equal aid. Therefore recourse must be had to the divine will, which inwardly aided by efficaciously moving the free choice of the one that he be converted, but permitted the free choice of the other to fail. Thus all things happen either with God willing, or with God permitting, so that the permission is not the cause of sin. «But why he draws this one and does not draw that one, do not investigate if you do not wish to err», as Augustine says on that Joan., 6 (v. 44): No one can come to me.

We have it, therefore, that greater aid was given to the penitent Nabuchodonosor than to the hardened Pharaoh; not indeed exteriorly, but interiorly.

To the confirmation from St. Gregory it is answered from the aforesaid lesson that when the proximate account of the difference is assigned, the first is not excluded, but rather is understood in it. For that prior one is as it were the formal account of the difference. But the divine will is the first efficient cause of the good and of the permission of evil. And thus St. Augustine explains himself book 2 On the gift of perseverance, chap. 9, where he asserts that the affair of the Tyrians and Sidonians pertains to the causes of predestination, «without prejudice of which hidden causes I then said I so answered». As if he said that, if anywhere he referred the account of the aforesaid difference to the use of free choice, it must always be understood without prejudice to divine predestination. And thus St. Gregory is to be expounded and all the holy fathers when from the diversity of effect of those called they say diverse ends come about, namely that some come to the supper, some do not come. For the holy fathers do not intend to deny that the good use of free choice is a gift coming from God's efficacious aid.

To the last confirmation from the Council of Trent, I wonder how insistently they contend from that canon and from chap. 5 in those words, «with God touching man's heart through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, neither does man himself do nothing at all receiving that inspiration, seeing that he can cast it away». I wonder, I say, how they contend to gather from the Council's words that the efficacy of the aid which we posit has been condemned. First, what is defined in the fourth canon, we understand according to the teaching of St. Thomas and St. Augustine as regards those words: «nor to be able to dissent if he will». Of whose understanding see what I said in 2. 2, q. 10, a. 1, document 3, doubt 2, § Now indeed to the objection. But now against those thus objecting I object testimonies of the Scriptures, which they too are bound to explain; and as they shall have explained them, so shall we explain the Council. For Esther chap. 13 (v. 9) the faithful woman says: There is none that can resist thy will. Which words the Church takes up in the office of the Mass of a certain Sunday: «In thy will, O Lord, are all things placed, and there is none that can resist thy will … Thou art the Lord of all». And in Ps. 134 (v. 6): Whatsoever he would he did in heaven and on earth. Which argument Augustine richly pursues in the Enchiridion from chap. 95 onward, and in chap. 99 he reports the argument of those blaspheming against God from the Apostle ad Romanos, 9 (v. 19): Why then doth he complain? For who resisteth his will? «As if for that reason the evil man were not seen to be blameworthy, because God hath mercy on whom he will, and whom he will he hardeneth». Where Augustine says: «Far be it that we be ashamed to answer this, which we see the Apostle answered: O man, who art thou that repliest to God?» In which place he says: «Some fools think he failed in his answer, and for lack of a reason to render repressed the contradictor's audacity. But great, he says, is the weight of what was said: O man, who art thou, etc. For in such questions he recalls man to the consideration of his capacity. For if he does not grasp these things, who is he to answer God? But if he grasps them, the more will he not find what to answer». And at length Augustine concludes that one who considers that to all men the judgment of damnation is due on account of sin, at least original, has no ground to ask why he had mercy on some. For the answer is easy, that his undebted mercy willed to succor some. In which treatise Augustine most firmly contends that God's will cannot be overcome or impeded by man's will, so that the most powerful cannot do what he wills, «who in heaven and on earth not willed some things and did them, willed others and did them not, but did whatsoever he would».

6. — Let us come therefore to our point. For since in the sacred writings these two are found which on their face seem to be contrary, that no one resists God's will, and again, you always resist the Holy Spirit (Act., 7,51); Job, 9 (v. 4): Who hath resisted him and had peace? Ps. 75 (v. 8): Thou art terrible, and who shall resist thee? Ps. 16 (v. 8): From them that resist thy right hand, and the like, and other like testimonies, the Catholic theologian must needs distinguish and harmonize these testimonies, since both are from the Holy Spirit. And indeed St. Augustine above makes a similar objection against himself in chap. 97 from that of the Apostle I ad Tim., 2 (v. 4): Who will have all men to be saved; and that Mat., 23 (v. 37): How often would I have gathered thy children as a hen her chickens and thou wouldst not. Therefore God's will is impeded by man's will. But he solves these arguments by recourse to divine predestination and by explaining that testimony of the Apostle, who will, etc., to be understood first according to an accommodated distribution, inasmuch as all who are saved are saved by God's will; secondly according to distribution for the kinds of individuals, and he shows this to be the most literal understanding according to the context.

Moreover St. Thomas 1 p., q. 19, a. 6 demonstrates that God's will is always fulfilled, from that foundation: that «the divine will is the universal cause of all things». Whence it must needs be that, «what seems to recede from the divine will according to one order falls back into it according to another». And after in the answer to the first he recounts Augustine's two solutions concerning that, who will have all men to be saved, he adds a third from Damascene, book 2 Of the Orthodox Faith, chap. 29, that that testimony and the like are to be understood «of the antecedent will, not of the consequent will. Which distinction is not taken on the part of the divine will, in which there is nothing prior or posterior, but on the part of the things willed», as St. Thomas there excellently explains. For some goods are absolute and considered in themselves, that is without other circumstances; and thus they are said to be willed antecedently by God. As, for example, that every man be saved, compared to the divine will, is good. But the same object considered with sin presupposed and according to the exigency of divine justice is not willed consequently, that is, resolutely with circumstances attended to, it is not willed by God, but rather simply speaking he does not will every man to be saved. But what is willed antecedently is not willed simply. The reason is «that the will is compared to things according as they are in themselves. But in themselves they are in particular», with all their circumstances. «Hence we will something simply according as we will it with all particular circumstances considered». And note that one of the circumstances on account of which simply speaking God does not will all men to be saved is the showing of greater mercy to those who are saved, while divine justice is shown in those who on account of their sins, which with God permitting they committed, are punished, as is gathered from the Apostle ad Rom., 9 (v. 22): What if God willing to show his wrath, and to make known his power, etc.

7. — But you will say, to what end so many windings to solve the argument proposed from the Council's testimonies? It is answered that for this reason I interposed the teaching on the fulfillment of the divine will, which is always fulfilled, that thence I may gather that the aid which is called efficacious brings with it from that absolute divine will the power of effecting. Which standing, it implies a contradiction that the dissent of free choice stand at the same time. Otherwise the divine will which simply and absolutely is called will would not be fulfilled. Since therefore these things so stand, Catholic theologians must needs harmonize the Council's words with the aforesaid teaching. We say therefore that since the Council's teaching is directly against the Lutherans, who understood the efficacy of the divine motion and will to be such that it would have its effect without the consent of free choice, from this intention of the Council we shall give a most clear solution to the argument saying that, however efficacious the divine aid be posited by which man is made believing from unbelieving, it never has such an effect without us consenting. But we deny that from us consenting it has its effecting power, but rather from the divine will it brings with it to effect infallibly that we use that aid well by freely consenting, since we have the faculty of dissenting, if we will. Yet it will never be verified that, with that aid standing, we will to dissent, as has already been explained in the first part of this treatise.

Thus it is one thing to have the faculty of assenting or dissenting while we have that aid, for the faculty is not destroyed; and another thing to have the act of dissenting. For this second is impossible, but rather, with that aid standing, it must needs be by necessity of consequence and of infallibility that consent from free choice be present at the same time.

But they say, what does it profit me that the faculty of free choice is not destroyed, if the use in the exercised act is not free? But we answer that that act is most free, even if from the physical premotion of efficacious divine grace it has necessity of consequence and of infallibility, as has been explained in this treatise, first part, chap. 2. For this comes from the infinity of the divine free choice, which, united to our free choice, moves it so strongly and sweetly that it does with it what it wills, perfecting its freedom, so that it deliberate what is pleasing before God, from divine illumination and divine impulse. For the divine illumination makes man know the end more perfectly, and the indifference of the means to it. But the efficacious impulse of the Holy Spirit makes the will under that knowledge elect determinately what is good.

8. — And in this place the teaching of St. Thomas 1. 2, q. 112, a. 3 is to be recalled, which we reported in the preceding chapter, second conclusion, on the infallibility of the preparation of free choice for grace as it is from God's motion. Otherwise the divine will would not do what it wills in us really, and as they themselves say physically, but would only ordain to give us aids in opportune time, so that we through our free choice and by our own powers be the sole physical cause of applying that gift to use.

And through this teaching the sense is clear regarding the words brought from chap. 5, sess. 6, in the decree on justification, where it is said that man, «receiving God's inspiration, does something, seeing that he can also cast it away». Where the sense is not composite that he at once receive it and cast it away, but the sense is that he both had the power not to receive it, and accordingly by receiving it, by consenting with it, he does something. Likewise also after he received it and worked, he will afterward be able to cast it away and cease from working or sin.

And our teaching is confirmed from the testimony which is brought there from Jerem. (Thren., 5,21): Convert us O Lord to thee and we shall be converted. In which prayer we ask not only that God give us whereby we can be converted, but that in fact such grace of God go before and prepare us, by which we in fact be converted. For this is what God promises his own of himself through Eze., 36 (v. 27): I will make you to walk in my precepts, and to keep my judgments and do them. Whence the argument is taken. The divine promise is fulfilled through divine operation: therefore God will efficaciously do what he promises, applying efficacious means that the promise come about. Therefore when man wills to believe, he so freely wills that, with the efficacious divine aid standing, it cannot be verified that man does not will; otherwise it would remain in man's power to frustrate the divine promise.

9. — St. Augustine uses this argument On the predestination of the saints, chaps. 10 and 11, explaining that ad Rom., 4 (v. 16), Therefore of faith, that according to grace the promise may be firm to all the seed, where he says: «He promised not from the power of our will, but from his predestination. For he promised what he himself would do, not what men would. For although men do the good things that pertain to worshipping God, he makes them do what he commanded; they do not make him do what he promised. Otherwise for God's promises to be fulfilled would be in man's, not in God's, power». With which teaching what Father Suarez says does not well agree, book 3 On aids, chap. 6, especially no. 7, that the general concurrence and sufficient aid in the manner of concurrence «be so exhibited on God's part or exposed in first act, that from our choice it hang whether it be placed or not be placed in second act. For with our will applying itself to the work, at once God too inflows, and from the force of his antecedent will. But if our free choice hold back its inflow, the actual concurrence of God too has ceased». So he. Behold how he wills that God's promise in execution hang on our will applying itself to the work, with a certain priority of causality, so that at once God inflows from the force of his antecedent will; whereas Augustine teaches that from the absolute divine will it hangs that our will apply itself to the work, with God efficaciously moving it. For always, as Augustine says in letter 106 to Boniface, the human will in good works and actions pertaining to salvation is foot-following, not fore-going, God's grace. And this itself is what is said in the Council of Orange, last canon: «In every good work we do not begin and afterwards are aided through God's mercy, but he himself … inspires into us faith and love of him». And canon 23 had said before: «When men so do what they will as to serve the divine will, although willing they do what they do, yet their will is from him by whom is prepared and arises what they will». Thus the very act of loving God is from the grace preparing and executing what men will. Otherwise indeed God would await our will that we be purged from sin, whereas even that we will to be purged, it is God who worketh in us both to will and to perfect, as the Apostle says ad Phil., 2, and in the same council canon 4 it was defined.

Many other things could have been said concerning the efficacious aid which all who act rightly have, from which those lack who do not believe or love; but constrained by narrowness of time, we pass over them. Yet one thing I shall not cease to warn: that we be attentive to the Church's prayers, both in the sacrifice of the Mass and in the divine office, in which most frequently the Church asks not only for the aid whereby we can act well, but we also ask for the very operation, namely that God make us by his grace always to obey his commands. For example on the Wednesday after the second Sunday in Lent the Church prays: «O God, restorer and lover of innocence, direct to thee the hearts of thy servants, that, with the fervor of thy Spirit conceived, they may be found both stable in faith and efficacious in work». But if it were already in our power with only sufficient and prevenient aid to apply ourselves to acting efficaciously with God's general concurrence, there would be no need to ask this efficacy from God. Likewise the Church says in another prayer of a summer Sunday «that we may merit to attain what thou promisest, make us to love what thou commandest». And on the sixteenth Sunday: «We beseech thee, O Lord, let thy grace both always go before us and follow, and make us to be intent upon good works».

So much said on the second part may suffice.