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

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.