.

Order of

Suarez
Banez

.

.

Francis Suarez’s Brief Defense of Free Will  1594

as translated from Spanish by ChatGPT 5.6 & Claude, Sonnet 5 from Vicente Beltrán de Heredia, Domingo Báñez & the Controversies over Grace: Texts & Documents  (Madrid: CSIC, 1968), ch. 4 (f) “In Defense of the Society [of Jesus] concerning Free Will” Paper delivered by Father Francisco Suárez, pp. 418-26 Archive H.N. Inquisition, leg. 4.437.  B. Llorca published the text of this memorial of Suárez in Gregorianum, 17 (1936), pp. 23–33.

.

“In Defense of the Society [of Jesus] concerning Free Will”

by Father Francisco Suárez, S.J.

Memorial delivered at Salamanca to Don Juan de Zúñiga

.

Two principal things present themselves which may help Your Worship to form a more complete and correct judgment, and to provide a firmer remedy for the differences concerning grace and free will which are proceeding with such scandal among the religious [persons] of Saint Dominic and of the Society of Jesus.

The first is to set out briefly the points in which they differ.  The second is to indicate their root, and what may help toward the better resolution and union.

As to the first: We must presuppose two heresies which are diametrically opposed in this matter.

The one is that of Pelagius, who denied the necessity of grace, saying that the natural powers of free will and its natural acts were sufficient for our salvation.

The other is that of Luther and Calvin, who, on the contrary, said that there is no freedom in us at all, but that we do only that which God makes us do, without being able to resist Him, both in natural things and in supernatural things, and likewise in evil things as well as in good.

Between these two heresies stands Catholic doctrine:

Which acknowledges the necessity of grace, both for supernatural acts and their perfection, and because of the sublimity of the supernatural end for which God created us; and also so that we may not fail in natural acts and precepts, for the fulfillment of which our nature is weak and feeble after original sin.

And this grace, which we say is necessary in addition to the supernatural and infused habits, includes two kinds of helps or aids which God gives for performing any of the supernatural acts, such as faith, hope, charity, religion, penance, etc., and also, speaking in a general and ordinary way, for performing natural and morally good and honest acts, such as giving alms, making restitution, etc.:

One kind of these helps is called exciting or prevenient, by which God goes before us, awakens, raises up, and encourages us to aspire to perform the said supernatural acts and the other acts of virtue and honesty.

The other is called auxiliary or cooperating help, because it is not enough for God to awaken us; rather, when we act, He must actually act in us and give actual assistance so that we may act together with Him: and that assistance is supernatural when the acts are supernatural.

And when these helps are of such a character that they actually bring it about that we act, or actually enable us to act with them, they are called efficacious.  But when we do not act, they are called sufficient.

At the same time, the Catholic faith confesses that there is freedom in us, not only for natural acts, but also for supernatural ones; and although it is not within our freedom whether God prevents us and touches the heart, it is within our freedom whether we resist or consent, aided by his grace.

This Catholic doctrine being presupposed, in which there can be no disagreement among Catholic doctors, one of the questions that has arisen, among others, in order to explain it and to avoid the two heresies mentioned above, is a very hotly disputed one: how the efficacy of grace and the divine will can be reconciled with our freedom on the other hand.

For we cannot act unless God acts in us, in such a way that it is necessary that He begin by acting, since He is the first and principal cause of our actions; otherwise it is impossible for us to act.  And if He begins and acts in us, it will likewise be impossible for us not to act with Him.  And thus it does not seem that anything at all remains in our free choice.  To this the whole point of the controversy is reduced.

In this matter the Dominican fathers say that, for every act of our will, there precedes in us a certain kind of divine motion which, once it is placed in us, determines us completely to do that to which we are moved.  Thus, once this motion is presupposed, it is impossible for us to resist; and without it, it is likewise impossible for us to act.  This motion they call an efficacious help of its very nature (auxilio de suyo eficaz).

And from this opinion of theirs arises their charging those of the contrary opinion with three principal things, leaving aside others:

The first is to say that they deny the efficacious help of divine grace, which is a serious error.

The second is that they [certain Jesuits, etc.] attribute actual conversion to free will, so that, if God calls two persons with equal helps, it happens that one is converted and the other is not; and they attribute this to [the individual’s] freedom and not to the fact that God communicated more grace to one than to the other, which they say is an error.

The third is that they [i.e. certain Jesuits] deny that God has particular providence over all the acts of free will, not providing and determining in each particular case, that each one should or should not take place—which they also say is an error.

And in order to avoid it, the said fathers say that God determines our will to all acts, even though they are evil, predefining them, as they put it, or providing and absolutely and efficaciously willing that our will should perform them before God knows that, of itself, it is going to perform them.

Those of the contrary opinion say that in the doctrine just described there are at least three serious errors:

The first is to make God the author of sin, attributing to the divine will not merely that it permits, but that it orders and positively wills that our will perform that act which is evil in itself, and that it even causes it to act.

This is, literally, the heresy of Calvin, and contrary to everything that sacred Scripture and the Fathers affirm.  And although the said authors try to evade this error by means of a scholastic distinction between the material and formal aspects of sin, if one looks at it carefully, they come to differ from Calvin only in terminology and language.  The Calvinists laugh at this, and it deprives Catholics of the necessary weapons for attacking Calvin’s heresy in defense of the Faith.

The second error is that in our conversion and supernatural acts they leave us no freedom at all.

For this, according to the judgment of all philosophers and theologians, consists in this: that, having everything necessary for acting, it should be in our power either to do the act or to refrain from doing it.  Now, they say:

That once that divine motion has been placed in us, it is not in our power to consent to it or resist it, but only to act in accordance with it; and; on the other hand, without it we are also unable to do anything.  Therefore, there is never an occasion in which we can act freely.

For example, although my arm is of itself indifferent to being moved in one direction or another, because, when the efficacious motion of the will arrives determining such a movement, the arm is no longer indifferent or free to move in this direction or that, but is determined to one of them.  That movement is therefore not said to be free with respect to the arm, but with respect to the will.

So likewise, although the will, before God moves it, is indifferent between this good act and its contrary, once that divine motion arrives which efficaciously determines it to one of them, it will no longer remain free or indifferent, but completely determined.  And thus that act will not be called free with respect to the will, but with respect to God.

To this they say that God, because He is infinitely omnipotent and wise, accommodates Himself to free will and disposes it in such a way that, on the one hand, He causes it to act with efficacy and strength, and on the other, with gentleness.

But this in no way satisfies those who consider the matter dispassionately and desire to shed light upon the truths of our Faith, rather than obscure or weaken them.

For God’s being omnipotent does not make that which involves a contradiction possible, as really happens in what they assert in this response.

For the essence and nature of a free act consists in this: that the power which performs it, having everything necessary in order to be able to perform it, nevertheless remains indifferent and undetermined with respect to whether it will perform it or not.  Therefore, to remove this indifference from it and nevertheless say that it remains free is not to join efficacy and strength with freedom and gentleness; rather, it is to say that it is free while lacking the essence and being which the thing called free requires.

And thus the Council of Trent [1543-1563], in order to teach that grace does not take away freedom, said that, once the divine motion has been placed in us, it is in our power to resist it.  And although those of the contrary opinion try to limit this text, nevertheless, in the reality of the truth, the definition of the Council is absolute, and the principle upon which it was founded, which is the one already proposed, is universal and applies to every kind of motion that comes to our free consent.

The third inconvenience that follows from this opinion is that, this being supposed, one must necessarily say that to all men who do not convert, there is lacking something on God’s part without which they are not able to convert, nor is it in their hand to have it.

And thus it appears they will have just excuse for not having in effect corresponded to the vocation of divine grace, if it is so that until that motion of God arrives, which these authors say to be necessary, they are not able to convert or to consent, nor can they do anything so that God may give them that motion.  And thus neither it nor the conversion is in their hand.  And [it is] to say this is manifest error, which certainly one does not see how it can be evaded.

And thus one will have to attribute to the divine will, not only the not giving of the said motion to man, but consequently also his perdition.  For if they should say that it is in man’s hand [two words missing; it may be “to have that”] motion, and that by resisting, it is not given to him, we shall ask them: Then what is it that man must do in order that it be given to him, and does he need for that another motion of God of like efficacy to the other?  For if this is required, the same difficulty remains, that it is not in his hand to have it.  And if it is not required, that is what we say — that it is likewise not required for free conversion.

To avoid these inconveniences and to flee the two extreme heresies referred to, the fathers of the Society [of Jesus] say that all the aids of grace, which we spoke of at the beginning, are necessary; and that these are of themselves sufficient, even in those who do not convert.  But that in those who do convert, they have efficacy, yet not without respect to our free consent, in such wise that God calls us and we either resist by our liberty alone (or by the ill use of it) or we consent (that same liberty [of persons] falling in [with it], aided by divine grace, which is made ready for all who would wish to make good use of it).  And this doctrine appears to be that which the Council of Trent teaches precisely, and that which departs from the two heresies referred to.

From which [correct premises] there follows no inconvenience at all from those [inconveniences] that are imposed upon us [by opponents].  For:

Firstly, we do not deny the efficacious aid:

Nor can it be denied without clear error, Christ saying: “No one can come unless my Father shall have drawn him.”  And St. Paul: “God works in us both to will and to accomplish.”  And Scripture frequently says God converts us, opens hearts and other like words which declare the efficacy of divine grace.

Secondly, there is not attributed to free will anything other than what ought to be attributed to it.

For it is certain that actual conversion is his, in its kind, as of an operating free agent, but not of him alone, but of him aided by preventing grace; and not only by this, but also by the assisting or cooperating grace.  In which the chief parts belong to grace, both preventing and assisting, but not without us, who freely consent.

And when, of two called by God, one converts and the other does not: On the part of him who does not convert, the not converting is attributed to his liberty alone; but on the part of him who converts, it is so that it is likewise attributed to his liberty; but not to it alone, but to it aided with divine grace.  And thus he who actually converts receives in effect a greater gift from God than the other, since he receives the same act and actual concourse of God which the other does not receive, though by his [the other’s] own fault, and not because it was wanting [lacking] on God’s part.

But if we consider the gifts of grace which precede that same act, and are as principles and causes of it, and which the theologians call first acts, or that which constitutes in first act him who is to work — that is to say, which render him able to act in this manner, we say that two persons having equal gifts and aids from God in actu primo [in the first act], it can happen, and does happen, that the one operates and receives the actual gift of the second act, making good use of the first with the same forces of grace, and that the other does not operate nor receive that gift, through his own negligence and fault.  Which the Council of Trent seems to teach so clearly that it cannot be more so.

We add, though this is not so certain, that although it happens that with equal preceding gifts one converts and the other does not, yet God’s giving of these gifts at such a juncture and season in which He knows they are to take effect in him who converts is a particular benefit and grace which God bestows, born of His infinite wisdom and gracious will, in which man can have no part at all.  And this grace He did not make for the other, whom He called when He saw that he was not to convert.  But not for that did He deny him anything necessary in order to convert, but only He saw that purely by his own liberty he was to resist.

As if I had such comprehension of the disposition and will of Peter that I knew that, asking him a thing at such an hour and in such a season in which he is wont to be content, he will do it; and asking it of him in another juncture, though he could do it, I know he will not do it; in such a case, my choosing to ask it of him at the one season or at the other depends on my will alone and does much toward whether what is intended is in effect obtained or not; and with all that, I do nothing more with respect to Peter by its being asked at one hour rather than another, or at least I do not fail to do any of the things necessary for the effect to be obtained.

The third and last point is very foreign to this opinion — namely, the removing of the notion that divine providence descends very particularly to all our things and acts.

Rather, it holds as Catholic Faith the contrary, except that within that providence it distinguishes various modes: some permitting and others ordaining; some concurring only to the said acts, and others awakening, preventing and applying special means so that the work may be done.  And thus God has special providence over evil acts:

First, antecedently, but in that manner only permitting them; and

Second, concomitantly, concurring with them;

Third, subsequently, ordaining the punishment or remedy for them after He has known that man has done them or is to do them.

And thus this doctrine remains without any stumbling-block.

As to the second point [“to indicate their root and what may help toward the better resolution and union”], it is offered to entreat your grace:

Firstly, that it be well noted that the authors of the contrary opinion, in order to give this doctrine a bad name, multiply many things, changing one word or another which make very different senses, or imposing upon the authors of it things which in their own view are inferred from this doctrine, although the authors of it do not say them — as is the saying that God does not have particular providence over all acts, because we affirm that He does not predefine all acts; and the inferring that he who converts receives no more from God than he who does not convert, because we affirm that with equal preceding aid it happens that one converts and the other does not, and things of this sort.

Secondly, I beseech your grace that it be attentively considered that certain modern doctors, in books written or by word of mouth, qualify propositions very rashly, without weighing the rules which theology sets down for this.

And thus in this matter credit ought not to be given easily, but only to persons very dispassionate, learned, versed in scholastic theology and in all the opinions and authors of it — because many times, from mere astonishment founded solely on never having studied save in one author or another, there is born rashness in qualifications; and thus everything that seems new to them, which for the said reason is a great deal, they judge to be new in theology, and consequently rash or erroneous, or something of the sort.

Wherefore it would be fitting that he who qualifies should give reason for his censure and that if he says a proposition is rash, he should point out how it is against the current of the doctors and a thing without foundation.  And if he affirms that it is error, let him show that by evident, or near-evident, consequence it is against the principles of the Faith; and if heresy, let him bring forth a definition of the Church or a clear passage of sacred Scripture to which it is repugnant; and so likewise for other qualifications.  And when the author to whom the proposition belongs is held to be learned and Catholic, it would seem fitting to give him such qualification, along with its foundation, so that he may clear himself.

Thirdly, I represent to your grace that this matter, particularly that which is now being treated, is one of the most arduous and difficult that there is in theology, and one which has most exercised the wits, both of the holy fathers and of the scholastic doctors.

And thus, in order to give judgment upon it, it is necessary to look well to whom it is entrusted — that they be men well-read and versed, and of mature and sound judgment, and that they not each give their censure consulted apart and alone, but that assemblies be made of some such lettered men as I have said and of learned prelates, since these are not lacking, and that they give and take upon it, as we read to have been done even in general councils, where the light of the Holy Spirit so especially assists; because what one does not see alone, roused by the reasons of others, he comes to perceive and thereby all form a better judgment of the matter that is treated.

Fourthly, because it is imposed upon the Society that it departs from the doctrine of Saint Thomas, it seems necessary to note that in that in which there is now a difference there is no passage in Saint Thomas that contradicts what the Society defends — rather, many that favor it; and thus there have been not a few learned men of the Order of Saint Dominic who have followed it, even in these times.

But because here in Salamanca two or three of those who have held authority have made effort in the contrary doctrine, and on the other hand pride themselves on being very Thomist, they have set upon it that name of their own doctrine, as they have likewise done in many other matters.  And they are not content that we should study and follow Saint Thomas as he is in his own source, but as they have understood him and according to their commentaries and the course and path by which they have walked, and that we not depart from that.

To us it seems that we have no obligation to this, and that it is not fitting to the Church and to sound doctrine that they should wish us to follow their opinions in such a way that they hold suspect everything that departs from them.  So much so, that some say and preach that it is mortal sin to depart from the doctrine of Saint Thomas in a grave matter — which is an intolerable error, since there is neither divine nor human precept that obliges to this, and it is to wish to introduce into the Church another new rule of Faith or of certain doctrine that should oblige us to follow it with obedience of judgment.

And what is to be marveled at is that, because the Society once or twice departs from this doctrine, it should be a matter of danger and of fault, while the order of Saint Francis contradicting it so universally should be no matter of momentת nor any risk at all.  Chiefly in the matters which in these years they have taken exception to, such as: that of the accomplice, and confession in absence or in extreme necessity of confessing, and in that manner; and that Christ, in what is exterior touching his food and clothing, did not profess an austere life — and in this that is now being treated there is nothing against Saint Thomas, and these are the opinions of many Thomists.

Lastly, for the remedy and prevention of the scandals and other inconveniences which are born of this difference:

I believe it would matter much to establish some order whereby those who follow in theology particular authors, such as Saint Thomas or Scotus, not only with fondness but with passion, should not rush to give the contrary doctrine a bad name.  For, beyond the offense and scandal which this causes, truth and sound doctrine often suffer thereby, and it is a great injury to the singular certitude of the Faith to wish likewise to make certain the opinions of particular authors and to wish that there be no opinions or judgments that are only probable, but that all be certain — since we see that the Church herself sometimes determines that this or that is uncertain, and may fall under opinion, as is seen in the matter of the conception of Our Lady.

And if the order here noted is not established, it appears to be an occasion for many innocents to suffer and for notable errors and injuries to be committed in the qualification of propositions when it comes to treating of this juridically; and it is an injury to the tribunal of the Holy Inquisition that particular persons, with pertinacious and obstinate facility should dare to set a mark upon and censure the doctrines that are publicly read and printed in approved books, this holy tribunal seeing and consenting to it, and learned and pious Catholic doctors following and defending them.

.

.

Domingo Banez’s Two Replies to Suarez  1594

as translated from Spanish by ChatGPT 5.6 and Claude, Sonnet 5 from Vicente Beltrán de Heredia, Domingo Báñez & the Controversies over Grace: Texts & Documents  (Madrid: CSIC, 1968), ch. 4 (g) “Declaration and Reply of Father Báñez concerning Father Suárez’s paper”, pp. 426-71  The online edition is missing pp. 437-61, but this has been supplied below.  Madrid. Archivo Histórico Nacional, Inquisición, leg. 4,437

.

“Declaration of Father Domingo Báñez concerning the Paper of Father Suárez”

.

In the city of Salamanca, on the twenty-seventh day of the month of October, in the year one thousand five hundred and ninety-four, before Doctor Palacios de Terán, Commissioner of the Holy Office, and before me, the undersigned notary, there appeared, having been summoned, Father Fray Domingo Ibáñez, of the Order of Saint Dominic of this city, professor of theology in the first chair in this University, from whom the said Commissioner received an oath in due legal form, and he duly took it, placing his right hand upon his breast.  And being questioned according to the tenor of the said commission, he said:

That at the end of August of this year, when this declarant was coming from Madrid, he found that there was a report in Salamanca that a paper written by hand in the vernacular concerning the defense of free will was circulating, which is in every respect the same as the one which has been shown to him by the said Commissioner, in better handwriting, because, in order to recognize it, he [the Commissioner] went through the whole of it in my presence.

And immediately this declarant endeavored to obtain a copy of the said defense.  And time passed and he found it in the hands of Fray Francisco de Pedrosa, a friar who was master of students at the convent of San Esteban in this city, who said that Diego de Carvajal, alderman of this city, had given it to him, and that it had been given to the latter by fathers of the Society [of Jesus] or by a father of the Society.

And this declarant, upon reading the said paper, was greatly scandalized, not only by the bad doctrine contained in the said paper, but also by the injury which it did to the friars of Saint Dominic, as will be seen from the said paper.

And beyond this, this declarant was no less scandalized that such doctrine concerning mysteries so difficult and incomprehensible should be disseminated by the fathers of the Society in the vernacular and vulgar tongue.

And therefore this declarant immediately undertook to write against what was contained in the said paper, first of all informing the said Commissioner of the said paper and of the diligence which he intended to undertake, so that he might present it to the lords inquisitors.

And thus this declarant wrote, and has written, twenty-one sheets of paper against the doctrine of the said paper and in defense of sound and Catholic doctrine, which he has communicated to no one and which no one has seen, except the provincial of this declarant, who is Master Fray Tomás de Guzmán, in Valladolid, at a meeting which took place there and which was held in the monastery of San Pablo with masters and grave theologians of his province.

The said Father Provincial, at the request of this declarant, delivered the twenty-one sheets of paper to the masters and presented doctors of the most learned who were there of the Order of Saint Dominic, so that, having seen the twenty-one sheets of paper which this declarant had thus composed, they might give their opinion, unanimously and concordantly, that it was doctrine worthy of being presented to the said Holy Tribunal of the General Inquisition, as will be seen from the said twenty-one sheets of paper signed by the said masters or presented doctors; which this declarant will send to the said Holy Tribunal through the hands of his said provincial, as he understands that he has been ordered to do by the lords of the said Supreme Council.

Likewise, this declarant declares that the said twenty-one sheets which are to go into the hands of the said Supreme Council of the Inquisition are the first ones that were written, this declarant dictating them, having as his scribe Fray Diego Lili de Artiaga, resident of the said convent of San Esteban, upon whom, with the authority of the said Father Provincial, an order of obedience was imposed that he should keep secret both what he wrote and the diligence which this declarant was undertaking.

Likewise, this declarant declares that he had twenty-one sheets copied which he has in his possession, imposing a command of secrecy upon three friar priests of the said Order who copied them in portions; and that he wished to keep the said copy, not in order to communicate it to anyone, as indeed he will not communicate it, except by order of the said Holy Office; but that he keeps it in order to make use of what he has composed there for another, longer treatise in Latin, which he has begun to compose concerning the same matter and subject, in order to present it to the Holy Tribunal of the Supreme Council of the Inquisition, and, if necessary, to the Holy Apostolic See.

Likewise, he declares that the Father Presented Doctor Fray Pedro de Herrera, of the Order of Saint Dominic, professor of theology at this University, said to this declarant that Father Gaspar de Mena, of the Society of Jesus, had written the said paper defending free will, [while] dictating it and composing it being Father Francisco Suárez, of the said Society.

Likewise, he declares that the said Fray Francisco Pedrosa, master of students, said to this declarant that, on the part of the said Society of Jesus, the said paper defending free will was offered to Doctor Diego de Vera, professor of canon law at the first chair in this University, and that he had not wished that it be given or delivered to him.

Likewise, this declarant declares that the said Fray Pedro de Herrera or the said Fray Francisco Pedrosa, one of them, said to this declarant that, on the part of the said Society, the said paper defending free will had been given to a secular gentleman called Don Antonio Rodríguez, resident and alderman of this city.

Likewise, that Fray Juan de Espila, lecturer in arts at the said convent of San Esteban, said to this declarant that he was scandalized that some nuns of the convent of Santa Isabel in this city had told him that the Dominican Fathers were heretics because they denied free will, and that the said nuns were very partial toward the Theatines and associated much with them.

And this is what he declared concerning that which had been asked of him.  And he said that he was sixty-six years of age.

And when his deposition was read back to him, he said that it was all true.  He was charged to keep the matter secret under penalty of latae sententiae excommunication.  He accepted this and signed it, and the said Commissioner—

Fray Domingo Báñez

Witnessed before me,
Antonio Velázquez

.

.

Rome, General Archive of the Order of Preachers, XIV-165. Incomplete. In the Roman manuscript there follows immediately a “Treatise on the Motion or Efficacious Help Necessary for Free and Supernatural Acts” by Suárez.

.

Reply of Father Báñez to the Memorial circulated by Father Suárez:
“In Defense of the Society concerning Free Will”

.

1. Most illustrious Lord: After I arrived in Salamanca, I found a novelty which caused me astonishment and seemed to me an act of boldness, especially on the present occasion.  Namely, there was circulating a defense, written in the vernacular, of the Society [of Jesus] concerning free will, which, through the hands of the fathers of the Society, was being given to different persons for their own defense and for the offense of the Order of Saint Dominic, as will be seen from the course of it.

One came into my hands, which is the one that goes with this [present writing], and it seemed to me that I was obliged to give Your Worship an account of it, although I believe that, by another means, this matter will have already come to your notice.

I understand that no one can communicate in writing treatises in the vernacular tongue concerning the mysteries of our Catholic Faith and disseminate them from hand to hand among the common faithful without giving an account of them to Your Worship.  But, leaving this aside, since it is not my office to judge it, it has seemed to me that I shall render some service to Our Lord and to that apostolic and holy tribunal of Your Worship if on this occasion I reply against the said defense; its author being understood to be a father of the Society who is here in Salamanca as a principal lecturer in theology, called Francisco Suárez.

And for greater distinction and clarity, I shall proceed to respond clause by clause and paragraph by paragraph to the whole of the said defense, [interweaving] my answer and reply in the manner of an apology.  And I hope, with the favor of our Lord, to satisfy Your Worship and any impartial judgment, and to show how the Order of Saint Dominic is proceeding along the royal and well-trodden path in the school of theology which had its beginning in its great master, Saint Augustine.

It begins, then, as follows, the said defense [of Suarez], with the following title:

2. Society: “In Defense of the Society concerning Free Will.  Two principal things present themselves to me to represent to Your Worship, which may help to give a more complete and correct judgment, and to provide a firmer remedy for the differences concerning the matter of grace and free will which are proceeding with such scandal among the religious of Saint Dominic and of the Society of Jesus.”

Báñez: It appears that this treatise is addressed to a particular person, and that it is intended to provide a remedy for these differences which, he says, are proceeding with such scandal.  And if this is so, why are the fathers of the Society going about communicating this treatise so publicly and to persons who do not know theology, nor know how to judge whether the defense is good or bad?

3. Society: “One is to set down in summary the points in which the difference consists; the other, to indicate its root and what may assist toward a greater resolution and union.”

Báñez: That very thing is my intention in another treatise which I am preparing in Latin, in order to prepare Your Worship and His Holiness, because I believe that the Society will not be satisfied with the decision which Your Worship may take from the theologians of Spain.

But while I finish the said treatise, I beg Your Worship to admit another apology in the vernacular concerning so high a mystery as is the concord of divine predestination and grace with free will and the free acts of man concerning every good; quoniam in vitium vitio coarctamur alieno [“Since into vice, by another’s vice, we are constrained”].  And Our Lord knows that, in this mystery and others of the same kind, which I have often read to my disciples, I have always sought to follow the precept of Saint Paul, Rom. 12:3:

“For I say, through the grace which has been given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to be wise beyond what one ought to be wise, but to be wise unto sobriety.”

Sobrietas [sobriety] is a virtue contrary to the vice which we call ebrietas [drunkenness], which consists in drinking more wine than a man’s head can endure; and because of the pleasure of excessive wine, he comes to lose the judgment of reason; and that which God had created to gladden the heart of man comes to be the destruction of his judgment.

Thus the apostle gives us to understand that the wisdom of the highest things is like a delicate wine which is gently drunk.  And for men to desire to taste more [or to know more] than their capacity requires, secundum mensuram fidei quam Deus unicuique divisit, “according to the measure of faith which God has divided to each one,” as the same Saint Paul says in the very same place, will lead them to become confused and to fall through pride, volens sapere plus quam oportet sapere [“wishing to know more than is fitting to know”].

The apostle had given us a good example when, in the preceding chapter, chapter 11, having made a lengthy discourse beginning from chapter 9 concerning the predestination of Jacob and the reprobation of Esau, and having taught men humility and fear of God and submission to the secret judgments of His divine majesty, setting forth as an example the calling of the gentiles and the abandonment of the people of the Jews, he says thus:

“For I do not wish you to be ignorant, brethren, of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own sight: that blindness in part has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the gentiles should enter.” (11:25)

Giving to understand, according to the common understanding of the saints, that God permitted the blindness of so many of the peoples of the Jews in order from it to bring forth a great good, namely, that the multitude of the gentiles might enter to participate in the mercy of God through Jesus Christ.

And considering the apostle that no reason can be given to the human intellect, of small capacity, which would satisfy it according to its own manner, he concluded by saying:

“O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  How incomprehensible are His judgments and unsearchable His ways!  For who has known the mind of the Lord?  Or who has been His counselor?  Or who first gave to Him, and it shall be repaid to him?  For from Him, and through Him, and in Him are all things; and to Him be glory forever and ever.”

I intend to make use of this testimony later to show how some theologians of the Society wish to know more than they ought to know, and undertake to give the human intellect a very straightforward satisfaction, as indeed they would give it, if what they maintain were true.

And we would have to regard Saint Paul as ignorant, since he was so greatly astonished at the incomprehensible judgments of God, seeing that, after all, these theologians reduce to free will the difference between the predestined who are called and justified and the others who remain in darkness and sin.

I said that they are “some” theologians of the Society, because I am certain that others, no less learned and of good intellect, are on our side, except that some do not dare to speak, because things go badly with those who speak and have spoken, as Your Worship will learn by experience.

But the friars of Saint Dominic, brought up in the doctrine of Saint Thomas, are all of one accord in the principal point of this concord which is under discussion; and this is no small argument that our position is the true one.

4. Society: “As to the first point, two heresies which are diametrically opposed in this matter must be set forth.  The one is that of Pelagius, who denied the necessity of grace, saying that the natural powers of our free will and its natural acts were sufficient to save us; the other is that of Luther and Calvin, who, on the contrary, said that there is no freedom in us at all, but that we do only that which God makes us do, without being able to resist Him, both in natural matters and in supernatural matters, and likewise in evil things as well as in good.”

Báñez: Pelagius not only attributed salvation to the natural powers of our free will and to its natural acts, rather, he confessed that faith was necessary, and consequently said that God had done us the grace and favor of giving us Christ our Lord to preach to us, and sending preachers to teach us the will of God and how we ought to have Christ as our pattern and example.  But his error and that of his followers consisted in thinking that by the natural powers of free will we could believe and do what was preached to us from the Gospel.

Thus Pelagius never said that natural acts were sufficient to save us, since by them we cannot come to knowledge of the Gospel unless it is preached to us; nor did he deny that the faith of Jesus Christ was necessary, except that he said that faith was given to us on account of our merits, as is clear from the treatises of Saint Augustine against Pelagius and his followers.

After this error, refuted by Saint Augustine and in the ancient Councils of Orange and Milevis, and in a Council of Carthage of two hundred and seventeen bishops around the year of our Lord 423, there nevertheless did not cease to be some remnants of that error, even among some of the faithful, it seeming to them that free will was taken away by the doctrine of Saint Augustine, who taught that the consent of the understanding and will to the faith of Jesus Christ was an effect of the grace and mercy of God, and not because man could by his natural powers consent to the interior callings of God.

Concerning all this, one ought to read in the seventh volume of the works of Saint Augustine, Concerning the Remnants of the Pelagian Heresy arising in Gaul, and another work of Hilary of Arles, bishop, on the same subject, and then the reply of Saint Augustine to the said bishops.

Whoever reads all this, being a dispassionate theologian, will recognize that similar remnants are arising in our times under the title of defending free will.  And truly, whoever teaches them seeks only to give complete satisfaction to human pride, which wishes to comprehend the incomprehensible and sapere plus quam oportet sapere—to know more than one ought to know.

Thus we Thomists do not accuse those entirely of being Pelagians who affirm that, with an equal help of God, one person is converted and another remains in sin; but we say that this doctrine is of the remnants of the Pelagians, since it reduces [the difference] to divine foreknowledge alone and not to His providence, but to that of man, who by his own powers added something to the movement of the grace of God, by which he differed from the other who remained in sin.

For it is clear that in such a case the one is not differentiated from the other by God; but they differed, according to this opinion, in that the one who was converted added, through the powers of his free will, what the divine help did not bring with itself, namely, consent to believe, or hope and love.  And thus free will made the divine help of the mercy of God efficacious.  So that one could say that believing by infused faith is not a gift of God except insofar as God inspired man and gave him help by which he might believe.

Let it be seen whether this doctrine is compatible with the Catholic Faith and with the testimonies which Saint Augustine brings in the place cited, and in others shortly before, On Corruption & Grace.  Concerning all of this I shall treat more extensively, with divine favor, in whose providence I hope, and shall show how pernicious and destructive of Christian humility the said doctrine is.

This doctrine Father Molina endeavors to persuade [others of] in his book which he entitled Concordia, with a thousand distinctions and new inventions; from it has arisen the whole discord between the truly Thomist theologians, not only Dominicans (as it is evident that there are many in Spain belonging to other religious orders, and [secular] men of the academic cap), and [on the other hand] certain fathers of the Society [of Jesus].  Among them, I am told, is Father Suárez in his Third Part and in his lectures, which, I confess, I have not wished to weary myself by reading in his writings.

5. Society: “The other is that of Luther and Calvin, who, on the contrary, said that there is no freedom in us at all, but that we do only that which God makes us do, without being able to resist Him, both in natural matters and in supernatural matters, and likewise in evil things as well as in good.”

Báñez: How great is this blindness of Luther and of all the others who deny the free will of man is so manifest to all of us faithful Christians that the contrary [to free will] seems to us to be sheer brutality [i.e. like brute animals]; and that it is proved by sound natural reason and known by experience that man possesses free will and chooses with judgment between good and evil that which gives him the greater pleasure, and between two goods, performs the one while leaving the other, even though it be the better.  And on this I have disputed at length concerning question 83 of the First Part of St. Thomas, article 2, throughout the Commentary.

But at times I have considered what cause there could have been for men to fall into two extremes of such great absurdity as Pelagius and Luther did; and I find that the occasion was the same, founded upon pride.  For Pelagius, experiencing in himself his free will, it seemed to him that it was so free that neither in natural, nor in supernatural matters was there anyone who ruled over it.  And thus he attributed believing the Gospel to his natural powers, although God did man the favor of sending Christ as teacher and example.

On the other hand, the senseless and blasphemous Luther, recognizing the omnipotence of the providence and will of God and [recognizing] his weakness for what is good, came to think that it was impossible for man not to sin; and on the other hand, that he could be saved by the sole confidence that God would not impute his sins to him, if he remained firm in believing that Christ had satisfied for all and that His righteousness was sufficient to call us righteous, even though we were laden with sins.  And because this blasphemer judged that this faith alone was the gift of God by which He saves us, which He gave to some and denied to others according to His eternal providence, he came to plunge headlong into denying altogether the faculty of our free will and attributing both good and evil to God alone.  For he could not understand how the efficacy of God’s providence, by which every good thing is accomplished and evil is permitted, could be reconciled and harmonized with the fact that our free will should be master of doing good or evil, of turning away from sin and of approaching virtue.

And by this path many of the philosophers fell into error: some denying the providence of God, others denying free will, because they did not comprehend how the great dominion of free will and of our providence concerning the acts of our will could be reconciled with it.  And thus they said: “Our lips are our own; who is our lord?” (Ps. 11:5)  And thus all those who have wished, with little humility, to comprehend this harmony have become vain and have fallen into one of the two extremes.

And before our Lord, who will judge me, I fear that in our times there is some root of this pride, because some seek to give complete satisfaction to curious men concerning how they are free, by taking away from the providence of God and from His free will the determination of individual human good acts, thinking that it is enough for the majesty of God to provide in general so that men may choose the good, but not that they actually choose it, although they do not deny that God knows everything that free will will do, both good and evil.  And by this they think that they satisfy the majesty of God and reconcile his general providence with human providence and free will in particular matters.

I confess that, dictating this, my hair stands on end that among Catholics there should be anyone who thinks so meanly of God and so highly of themselves and of their own faculty for choosing the good and turning away from evil.  I wish to go forward, because afterward, by the mercy of God, I shall state the true harmony which the humble Christian, learned or unlearned, must understand, if he wishes to remain humble and subject to the majesty of God.

6. Society: “Between these heresies stands Catholic doctrine, which confesses the necessity of grace both for supernatural acts and their perfection, and because of the sublimity of the supernatural end for which God created us, as well as so that we may not fail in natural acts and precepts, for the fulfillment of which our nature is weak and feeble after original sin.

And this grace which we say is necessary, in addition to the supernatural and infused habits, includes two kinds of helps or aids which God gives for performing any of the supernatural acts, such as faith, hope, charity, religion, penance, etc., and also, speaking generally and ordinarily, for performing natural and morally good and honest acts, such as giving alms, making restitution, etc., etc.

One kind of these helps is called exciting or prevenient, by which God goes before us, awakens, raises us up, and encourages us to aspire to perform the said supernatural acts and the other acts of virtue and honesty.  The other is called auxiliary and cooperating help, because it is not enough that God awaken us, but when we act, He must actually act in us and give actual help so that we may act with Him, and that help is supernatural when the acts are supernatural.

And when these helps are of such a nature that they actually cause us to act, or we act by means of them, they are called efficacious.  But when we do not act, they are called sufficient.  Along with this, the Catholic Faith confesses that there is freedom in us, not only for natural acts but also for supernatural ones; and that although it is not within our freedom whether God should prevent us and touch the heart, it is within our freedom to resist or consent, aided by his grace.”

Báñez: Everything he says in this paragraph he affirms to be Catholic doctrine between the two heresies.  Nevertheless, he says some things which are not so straightforwardly Catholic Faith, but rather could be liable to be censured, because in them he is insinuating his own opinion.

And I leave aside what he says, namely, that the grace which we say is necessary, in addition to the infused supernatural habits, includes two helps or aids, which seems to be false insofar as he says that the helps which come from the grace and mercy of God are in addition to the supernatural habits.  But I do not believe that he intended to teach this by that word “ultra,” although he could have spoken more clearly.

And likewise, to affirm that the infused habits and the supernatural helps of God are equally necessary for performing any of the supernatural acts, such as acts of faith, hope, and charity, religion, and penance, is false.  For that these helps, namely the divine motions, are necessary, is absolutely a matter of Catholic Faith; but that the first act of faith, hope and charity in one who is converted from unbelief to the Gospel proceeds from the habit, is not only not Catholic Faith, but it is a very common opinion that those acts of believing, hoping, and loving do not proceed from the infused habits which God infuses at that very moment into the one who is converted.

And in this the fathers of the Society are in good agreement; although I hold the opinion that such acts, in one kind of causality, are a disposition for the infusion of the habits, and, in another kind of causality, are an effect of those same habits infused by God at the very moment of justification.  But in the end these are opinions.  And would that God had it so that all our difference consisted in these philosophical or metaphysical matters.

Likewise, that there are infused habits, although it is a truth very much in conformity with our Catholic Faith, to such an extent that we theologians censure the contrary as rash and proximate to error, nevertheless we do not affirm that it is strictly and directly a matter of Catholic Faith, nor a conclusion which necessarily and by evident consequence follows from the Catholic Faith.

But I pass forward and note, concerning the division which he makes of the divine helps, that some are called exciting and prevenient, and others auxiliary and cooperating.  In this he speaks correctly.

But concerning another division which he makes of these helps, saying that, when they are of such a nature that they actually cause us to act, or that we actually act by means of them, they are called efficacious; but when we do not act, they are called sufficient—I say that in these words the poison of his bad doctrine is hidden.  For he gives it to be understood by that distinction that the very same helps, without being greater or lesser, are sometimes efficacious for supernatural acts and at other times are not.  And that the reason for their being efficacious comes from the fact that we act with them and make them efficacious.

But we Thomists say that our performing supernatural acts proceeds from the efficacy of the helps which come from the grace and mercy of God, so strongly and gently that they infallibly cause us freely to perform that for which God, by His absolute will, sends them.  And thus we understand what Saint Paul said: “He is the one who works in us both to will and to accomplish, according to His good pleasure.” (Phil. 2:13)  And likewise what Saint John says in ch. 6, verse 44: “No one can come to Me unless My Father who sent Me draws him.”

But I shall explain this doctrine further below, and much more, with the favor of God, in a treatise which I am composing in Latin, Of the True Concord.  Thus, not everything that he has said in the preceding clause is as much a matter of Catholic Faith as he thinks.

7. Society: “This Catholic doctrine being presupposed, in which there can be no disagreement among Catholic doctors.”

Báñez: I have already said what disagreement there can be.

Society: “And for the explanation of it, and in order to avoid the two heresies mentioned above, among other questions there has arisen one which is very hotly disputed, concerning how the efficacy of grace and the divine will can be reconciled with one another and, on the other hand, with our freedom.

For we cannot act unless God acts in us, in such a way that it is necessary that He begin by acting, since He is the first and principal cause of our actions; otherwise it is impossible for us to act.  And if He begins and acts in us, it will likewise be impossible for us not to act with Him.  And thus it does not seem that this can ever remain in our free choice.  To this the whole point of the controversy is reduced.”

Báñez: He proposes, very appropriately to his purpose and intention, the state of the cause and controversy which has arisen in these times.  But I also wish to propose wherein the point of our difference consists.

We all confess that supernatural help from God is necessary in order that we may act supernaturally.  Let me take, as an example, believing firmly as is fitting for our justification and salvation.  And, in my judgment, a difficulty arises on the one hand from this consideration: If this help of God, which proceeds from his will, is to make us believe, then we no longer believe freely, since we cannot refrain from believing or resist the divine will which wills that we believe, and thus causes us to believe.

On the other hand, if we are free and are to believe freely, we may resist the divine motion, however strong it may be, sent by the will of God which wills that we believe; and thus his will will not be fulfilled if we do not wish to believe, no matter how great the helps He gives us may be.  In this consists the point of the difficulty.

8. Society: “The Dominican Fathers say that, for all the acts of our will, there precedes in us a certain kind of divine motion which, once it is placed in us, determines us completely to do that to which we are moved.  Thus, once this motion is presupposed, it is impossible for us to resist; and without it, it is likewise impossible for us to act, because this motion which they call an aid (auxilio) is efficacious of its own nature (de suyo eficaz).”

Báñez: The Dominican Fathers more accurately explain the concurrence of the will of God, who gives us helps and motions and inspirations and aids when He absolutely wills to convert us, as strong and as gentle as his divine omnipotence and wisdom know and are able to make them.

For, although they are most efficacious and accomplish the will and eternal counsel of God, in which it was decreed that the sinner should be converted to God, they do no injury to the free will of man; rather, they raise up his nature and perfect it, so that with greater light he may know and judge what is fitting for him, and choose it with a judgment of his understanding caused by divine illumination.

And He is so far from God taking away his freedom that, rather, He confirms it and makes it more like the freedom of God, who mercifully moves him and wills to conform him to Himself.  And thus what Saint Paul says is verified: “He who is joined to God is one spirit,” (1 Cor. 6:17) and: “Those who are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” (Rom. 8:14)  And this is the true freedom of those who, at the point of justification, are made children of God.  Of these the words which St. John says are also verified (Jn. 1:12–13):

“He gave them power to become the children of God, to those who believe in His name; who were born not of bloods, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

In these words, according to the interpretation of the saints, we are given to understand that the efficacy of our justification is not to be attributed to the powers of our free will making the indifferent helps of God efficacious, but rather to the will of God and to His free will, which sends efficacious helps to cause us to choose that which God has determined that those whom He absolutely wills to be His adoptive children, born of God, should choose.

Concerning these divine helps I have written at length on question 23 of the First Part [of Thomas’s Summa]; but in particular I beg whoever is to examine this paper to see what I have written on question 10 of the Second of the Second Part, article 1, from column 569 onward, in three documents which I propose there, where the doctrine of the Dominican Fathers will be understood.  And now I shall explain it briefly; but first I wish to take occasion from what this father of the Society says, which he lays to our charge on account of our opinion.

9. Society: “And from this opinion of theirs arises their imposing three principal things upon those of the contrary opinion, leaving aside others.  The first is to say that they deny the efficacious help of divine grace, which is a grave error.

The second, that they attribute actual conversion to free will, so that, if God calls two persons with equal helps, it happens that one is converted and the other is not, and they attribute this to freedom and not to the fact that God communicated more grace to one than to the other, which they say is an error.  The third, that they deny that God has particular providence [over free-will], [not determining] that it should take place or not take place, which is also an error.”

Báñez: As to the first objection, it is indeed true that we say this and prove it.  For if the fathers of the Society affirm that the divine help, insofar as it comes from God, comes indifferent and is not determinately directed to cause us to believe; and that we, by the powers of our free will, although prevented by that help, without which they readily confess that we could not believe, make that help efficacious and determine it to act, it is clear that the help, of itself and according as it is directed from God, does not bring efficacy with itself, since I must give it its efficacy, and I am the one who makes it differ from another similar help which the one who was unwilling to convert received.

And thus it was not God who, by His grace, differentiated me from the one who remained in sin, since I differentiated myself from the other by something which God had not given me more than He had given the other.

An example presents itself to me for the explanation of this: If a man of great strength were to arm a crossbow and place in it a poisoned arrow in order to kill a wild beast, and were to hand it over to another who, by his own strength, could not arm it, but who, once it had been armed and placed in his hands, could level it, take aim, and release the crossbow—and although it were necessary that the man who armed it should help him release it and hold it in his arms, nevertheless we would say that all that he received from the stronger man was not efficacious for killing the beast, but rather that the one who leveled the aim made the blow efficacious and killed the beast.

Thus the fathers of the Society wish us to level the helps of God and determine them like an aiming device, so as to strike the target of the ultimate end.  And thus, they say, God works with us, and not because his help comes from his eternal counsel and providence already leveled toward our conformity with the aim which God has determined in his divine providence.  Thus, if these fathers of the Society call the helps of God efficacious, it is because we make them efficacious, because of themselves they are nothing more than sufficient, according as they are sent from the eternal providence of God.

This does not agree well with what St. Paul says in 1 Cor. 4:7, in order to humble men:

“For who makes you to differ?  And what do you have that you did not receive?  And if you received it, why do you glory as though you had not received it?”

For truly, if I added something beyond the eternal counsel of God and His providence—namely, that He provided no more than to give me the help which they call sufficient, and left it to my providence to make it efficacious—I may well glory in the work of my own providence, which was not provided for in the providence of God; and I may glory in myself, because I distinguished myself from the other who, receiving an equal sufficient help, did not make it efficacious.

“The pious and humble teacher did not think in this way—by the most blessed Cyprian I mean—who said that there is nothing in which we ought to glory, since nothing is ours; and to show this he brought forward the Apostle saying: ‘What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you glory as though you had not received it?’”

These are the words of Saint Augustine, Book 1 of De praedestinatione sanctorum, chapter 3, and of Saint Cyprian, Book 3 of Ad Quirinum, chapter 4.

And further on, in chapters 4 and 5, Saint Augustine wonderfully expounds at length upon those words of Saint Paul: Quis enim te discernit?.

These passages must be examined not only because of the authority of Saint Augustine, but also because of the theological demonstrations which he makes there.

When properly considered, these have force against those who affirm that God’s providence does not provide in particular for one’s making use of that help which is common to another; that God had not provided that I should make use of it in particular, but only to give me sufficient help, so that, if I should wish to make use of it, He would also continue to work with me by continuing the same help; and thus that there is only foreknowledge in God, by which He knew what I was going to do, not because He had provided what I would do.

Thus the providence of man and his choice already go one step ahead of the divine cooperation; for God exercises His cooperation because He knew what man would do, and not because He had provided that His creature would consent to the first helps with which He had prevented it.

I do not know how this doctrine can be reconciled with Canon 4 of the Council of Orange, where it is determined in this form:

“If anyone contends that, in order that we may be cleansed from sin, we ought to await God for our will, but does not confess that even our willing to be cleansed is brought about in us through the infusion and operation of the Holy Spirit, he resists the Holy Spirit, who says through Solomon, ‘The will is prepared by the Lord,’ and the Apostle who salutarily proclaims, ‘It is God who works in us both to will and to accomplish according to His good pleasure.’ (Phil. 2:13)”

Thus, not only are we anticipated by sufficient helps, but even the willing to be cleansed from sin is an effect of the Holy Spirit.  And this is confirmed by Canon 20:

“Many good things are done in man which man does not do; but man does no good thing which God does not grant that man should do.”

In the first part he gives us to understand the divine inspirations and motions which precede, suddenly, our consideration and care, and which God alone causes.

In the second he gives us to understand the consent and choice of our will, which consents by believing, hoping, and loving.  And concerning these acts he says:

“Yet man does no [such thing] which God does not grant that he should do.”

Thus it is a new favor of God to make us willing to do that to which He invites us by His antecedent inspirations.

And another, more efficacious help, is that which causes us to choose the good, whereas the other help is that by which God inspired us, invited us, and taught us that it was possible to choose the good by turning away from evil.

Whoever reads Saint Augustine, Book 2 of De praedestinatione sanctorum, chapters 10 and 11, will clearly see that his position is the one which we affirm, which he grounds upon what Ezekiel says in chapter 36:

“I will cause you to walk in My commandments and to observe My judgments.”

And Saint Augustine says:

“For this reason these things are both commanded to us and shown to be gifts of God, so that it may be understood that we also do them, and that God causes us to do them, as He says through the prophet Ezekiel.”

And beyond this he brings forward a marvelous example which, if it is not a theological demonstration, I do not know theology, for it moves my mind. And he says:

“God promised Abraham the faith of the Gentiles in his offspring, Christ, saying to him, Pater multarum gentium posui te [‘I have made you the father of many nations’]. Whence the Apostle says, Ideo ex fide ut secundum gratiam firma sit promissio omni semini, that is, ‘Therefore it is by faith, so that the promise may be firm according to grace to all the seed’; that is, not from the power of our will, but from His predestination.

“For He promised what He Himself was going to accomplish, not what men [were going to accomplish]; because, although men do good things which pertain to the worship of God, He Himself causes them to do what He has commanded; they do not cause Him to do what He has promised.

“Otherwise, in order that the promises of God might be fulfilled, it would not be in God’s power but in the power of men, and that which was promised by the Lord would be rendered to Abraham by them.”

(1) If these new concordists of divine predestination and free will would consider this reasoning of Saint Augustine attentively and humbly, they would not do God so great an injury as, without realizing it, they do Him, by making themselves more masters of their free will and of their own industry, since they do not wish to confess that, in the particular case, hic et nunc [“here and now”], God has predetermined and provided that others should deliberate and provide.

What sane and humble Christian will dare to say that God fulfilled His word equally with Abraham in calling many of the Gentiles with antecedent inspirations and callings, which they did not wish to follow, and in the others who actually consented and believed in Christ?

And that this follows from the concord which Father Molina and others of the Society make is manifest, if the helps of God are not efficacious of themselves, but the free will of man must make them efficacious.

Then the promise of God would remain dependent, in its effect, upon the uncertainty and inconstancy of free will.

And thus, as far as it was a matter of God and of His promise, He fulfilled it equally by giving equal helps to those who did not believe and to those who actually believed.

They fulfilled the promise to Abraham with what God, insofar as it depended upon Him and upon His helps, which were of themselves indifferent, did not give them, except with that which they added by actually believing and making the divine helps efficacious.

May God, in His mercy, enlighten with special light those who do not understand that this is blasphemy against the divine majesty, by taking away from Him what belongs to Him and adding to the free will of the creature what neither belongs to it nor can belong to it, namely, to be the first deliberator of the good act in particular, thereby denying God that He has eternally deliberated in particular all the goods that are to exist, and the way and manner in which they are to exist, with such force and gentleness that the free will of man is not thereby derogated.

Saint Augustine reproves such men in the place cited, chapter 12, saying of them:

“Unless they assign to themselves something which they give first, in order that it may be repaid to them, they think that they are restrained from every devotion of piety.”

And although it is true that the said concordists confess that it is necessary that God prevent us with interior inspirations and excitations, and in this they differ from the purely Pelagian, yet afterward they wish to go further, making use of those helps; and they place that use on their own side, without God’s having predetermined it as an infallible effect of His divine providence.

And by this they think themselves comforted and understand how they are free.

And if this were true, I confess that it would be easier to understand how we are free in supernatural acts, and even in the natural acts of free will, for we would ourselves be the first deliberators of the good act.

But it is not compatible with Catholic faith, nor even with natural reason, nor with the majesty of God, who is the supreme and infinite good and supernaturally free, and the perfect provider of every good which is found outside Him, both in general and in particular.

Nor do I understand how what Saint Paul says in Romans 11:35 can be verified in any other way:

“Who has first given to Him, and it shall be repaid to him?”

And he gives the reason:

“For of Him, and through Him, and in Him, are all things.”

From this it follows that no good may be taken away from Him, however particular it may be considered, since it is clear that, if it is good, it is ordered to God as its ultimate end.

And if the said new concordists do not understand how they are free if God has predetermined what they are to deliberate, I answer them that this is a great freedom for the creature, because it is proper to God Almighty, who is no less the God and Lord of the free will of man than of the heavens and the earth.

And much less could I understand how God is a most perfect Lord, who by His power penetrates all things strongly and disposes all things gently, if it were true that in His wisdom and eternal providence it had not been deliberated and defined that I should believe the Gospel as I truly believe it, with the freedom and choice of my will.

But when I come to examine it, I find no good thing which I do not attribute to the divine mercy and providence which provided that I should now perform it, and not merely that I might be able to perform this act of believing in the Triune God.

And it would seem to me the pride of Lucifer for me to rise up by saying that I am the first determiner and deliberator of this particular act.

And I say the same concerning morally good acts according to natural reason.

Thus the truly humble man must have this saying, which I heard from a religious man, a very old man, deeply fixed in his understanding:

“God with me and I with Him; He before, and I after Him.”

And it is the doctrine of Saint Augustine that our will can never anticipate the will of God, but must always be subsequent, as he says, to the mercy of God, which anticipates and prevents us in every good work and in every good movement and impulse of our will.

And thus the Church prays:

“May Your grace, O Lord, always go before us and follow us, and continually grant that we may be intent upon good works.”

And what it says, sequatur [“follow”], is not understood as though it should go after us, but that, just as it has gone before us, so it may continue to hold us by the hand and grant us the favor of persevering in good works.

And although at the same time we act together with God, it must always be understood that, if we act, it efficaciously arises from the fact that God is first, at least in the order of causality, in His concurrence that we should act well.

Just as, if a man pulls a chain with his hand, the movement which the hand causes in the first link is prior, although not in time, to the movement in the second, and in the second to that in the third, because of the dependence which they all have upon the motive power communicated to the hand; so I understand that divine grace through Jesus Christ and His merits always goes before us, even when we are acting.

And our work or merit was not only previously provided for in particular in divine providence or predestination, but also in the knowledge of Christ our Lord, who knew in the book of predestination all the predestined, and also those who were to believe and be justified, and all the good works which they were to do.

And all these fell under the merits of Christ our Lord, who merited that they should be done, not only as regards the sufficiency of the merit—as He merited redemption for the whole world—but also as regards the execution of those meritorious works; and the Eternal Father promised this to Him as the reward of His obedience.

And thus, through His merits and through the virtue of this hand of God, which is Christ, God moves us and justifies us and causes us to believe and hope and love, etc., to continue and persevere in good works.

It would be a fine thing if that which the Eternal Father promised to Christ our Lord, namely, our believing in Him, should be caused efficaciously in the individual case by us alone, when we determine the sufficiency which God gives us and make it efficacious, although it was not efficacious of itself, for the exercise of the act of believing and of the other supernatural acts!

But how this concerns and agrees with the act’s being free, I shall explain further below, giving the true definition of free will.

Now let us see what they say in the other two objections which they claim that we impose upon them, for we have said enough concerning the first.

From this we conclude that it is indeed true that the second and third objections which they say we impose upon them follow from their position.

And truly it is not an imposition, since they clearly affirm that God does not determine by His providence the particular acts of free will; and thus they affirm that, with equal help, one person is converted and another is not.

But because that word “determine” has some obscurity, I have always used the word “deliberate”, because even Saint Thomas, in the Prima Pars, explains a saying of Damascene which says:

“That God does not determine the wills of men.”

He understands this as coercive determination and determination by compulsion.

But if we speak of determination by providence, he confesses:

“That God predetermines the will to good acts.”

And thus the Lord says:

“The Son of Man goes as it has been determined concerning Him.”

And it is evident that this eternal definition of the divine counsel did not take away freedom from the obedience of Christ our Lord, but He was offered because He Himself willed it:

Sed oblatus est quia ipse voluit.

Although in this matter there have not been lacking those who have said that Christ did not merit in obeying the command, because, supposing that He could not sin, He was not free in obeying.

But they say that He merited in obeying with greater willingness and with greater intensity than He was obliged to have.

And when I replied in a public disputation that that intensity of Christ’s obedience had been predefined in the eternal counsel of God, with which it was incompatible for that intention not to be found in Christ’s obedience, I was answered by saying that that intention was not predefined in the providence of God, but that the soul of Christ our Lord, or He insofar as He was man, determined it with His human will.

And this answer was given by a Father of the Society who was defending the proposition.

From this answer there arose a great disturbance in the General, on account of which the Inquisitor Arrese was sent to Salamanca.

And even today, I am told that there are those who uphold the same opinion.

And all these novelties arise from failing to understand the true definition of free will and of the free act.

Let us now go forward and see what our opponents charge us with.

10. Society: “And in order to avoid them, the said Fathers say that God determines our will to all acts, even though they are evil, predefining them, as they say, or providing for them and absolutely and efficaciously willing that our will should perform them before God knows that it is of itself going to perform them.

Those of the contrary opinion say that in the opinion and doctrine just mentioned there are at least three grave errors.

The first is to make God the author of sin, attributing to the divine will that it not only permits, but orders and positively wills, that our will perform that act which is evil in itself, and that it even causes it to act; which is literally the heresy of Calvin and contrary to everything that Sacred Scripture and the saints affirm.

And although the said authors seek to evade this error by means of a scholastic distinction between the material and formal aspects of sin, yet, if one looks attentively, they come only to differ from Calvin in terms and language.

Of this the Calvinists laugh, and it deprives Catholics of the necessary sinews for attacking Calvin’s heresy and defending the faith.

The second error is that in our conversion and supernatural acts they leave us no freedom at all; for this, according to the judgment of all philosophers and theologians, consists in this: that, having what is necessary for acting, it should be in our power either to do it or to refrain from doing it.

Now, they say that, once that divine motion is placed in us, it is not in our power to consent to it or resist it, but only to act in accordance with it; and, on the other hand, without it we can do nothing either. Therefore, there never remains in us any occasion for acting freely.

For just as, although my arm is of itself indifferent to being moved in one direction or another, because, when the efficacious motion of the will arrives which determines such movement, the arm no longer remains indifferent or free to move in this direction or that, but is determined to one of them, therefore that movement is not said to be free with respect to the arm, but with respect to the will;

so likewise, although the will, before God moves it, is indifferent to this good act or its contrary, yet when that divine motion arrives which efficaciously determines it to one of them, it will no longer remain free, but completely determined; and thus that act will not be called free with respect to it, but with respect to God.”

Báñez: This paragraph imputes two errors to us, deriving the first from a false testimony which it raises against us, namely, that we say that God determines our will to all acts, even though they are evil; and that from this it follows that we make God the author of sin, and that this is the heresy of Calvin.

To this I answer, before all else, that it is a marvelous thing that, although the doctrine which we Thomists teach is so expressly that of Saint Thomas, no one until now has realized that this is an error and the heresy of Calvin, except the Fathers who have come to give to the free will of man exemption from the providence of God in good acts and in all the good that may be found in the act of sin.

And I should have wished that we had first treated of divine predestination of good acts, rather than of the other matter, namely, how God concurs with the good that exists in the act of sin while permitting the sin.

But since this is an apology, I shall have to follow the order of our opponents.

I say, then, that, speaking absolutely, it is clearly an error to say that God has predefined, provided for, or willed sin or the act of sin insofar as it is evil, and no Thomist theologian has ever uttered such blasphemy.

What we say is precisely what Saint Thomas teaches, word for word, in the Prima Secundae, Question 79, article 1.

And in the first [article] he puts this conclusion: [the supplied OCR is incomplete here] the ultimate end, as Saint Dionysius says in chapter 2 of De divinis nominibus.

And he proves it because God directs everything that He does to Himself as its ultimate end, as Saint Dionysius says in chapter 2 of De divinis nominibus.

And since sin is a departure from the order to the ultimate end, it is clearly concluded that God cannot be the direct cause of sin.

Likewise, he proves that He is not its indirect cause either; for although it happens that God does not give some persons such help that, if He gave it to them, they would not sin, nevertheless for this reason the sins of those persons are not to be indirectly imputed to God because He did not prevent them, although He could have prevented them, just as the sinking and going down of a ship is attributed to the governor of the ship because he did not provide the governance which he could and ought to have provided.

For although God could have prevented sin by giving efficacious help by which it would have been prevented, He is not bound to give it; because He permits man to sin according to the order of His wisdom and justice.

All that has been said is the explicit doctrine of Saint Thomas, as will be seen in that first article.

The second conclusion which he sets forth in the second article is upon the presupposition of this foundation:

Quod Deus sit causa omnis actionis inquantum sit actio.

“That God is the cause of every action insofar as it is an action.”

And he proves it from a saying of Saint Dionysius, De divinis nominibus, chapter 9, which says:

Omne ens quocumque modo sit, oportet quod derivetur a primo.

“Everything that exists in whatever manner it may exist must be derived from the First.”

And he inserts his conclusion in this form:

Et secundum hoc Deus est causa actus peccati, non tamen est causa peccati, quia non est causa hujus, quod actus sit cum defectu.

“And according to this God is the cause of the act of sin, but He is not the cause of sin, because He is not the cause of this, namely, that the act should be accompanied by defect.”

And he says the same in the solution to the second argument, worthy of consideration by whoever is to evaluate this paper.

Thus this is what we affirm.

And consequently we say that, of everything of which God is the cause and which He performs in time, He has likewise provided in His eternal counsel that He should do and govern it as He executes it in time, touching and reaching by His providence and wisdom all the good circumstances in particular which are found in any good thing, even though it be a free act of free will.

This universal proposition is the precipice from which the proud and the heretics take occasion to say that they do not understand how, if this is true, man remains free in his good and evil acts.

And much less do they understand how it is not imputed to God that He is the cause of sin, if He is the cause of the act which, when all its circumstances are considered in particular, is sin.

And this same occasion certain Fathers of the Society seize upon in order to introduce their new concords into the school of theology, pretending to make them Catholic faith, whereas at the beginning they entered by affirming them as probable opinions.

But we Thomists have always remained firm, affirming that the new concord is an error against the Catholic faith.

And because of this they have become irritated and stirred up against us, saying that the concord which we establish is an error of Luther and Calvin.

And on this account they have sought to bring an ordinary lawsuit and to challenge all Dominican theologians, and even, if they could, all Thomists and those who understand matters otherwise than they do.

So that in Spain it does not seem to them that there will be theologians who, by order of Your Worship, can define this case with respect to the qualification of the propositions which they affirm.

May God put His hand upon Your Worship and enlighten you, as I hope He will, since it is necessary for the tranquility of these kingdoms, and even of the whole Church, and so that you may apply the most efficacious remedy.

And finally, the author of this defense of the Society accuses us that, in order to evade the said error, we make use of a scholastic distinction between the material and formal [aspects] found in sin, which, he says, if one looks attentively, amounts only to differing from Calvin in terms and language, of which the Calvinists laugh.

And in my judgment, he is the one who laughs at the common distinction of Saint Thomas and of all Thomists, by which they declare that, although God is the cause of the action and of the real and positive entity found in sin, it does not therefore follow that He is justly the cause of the defect found in the act, because this is attributed solely to the free will of the creature.

Not because it wishes to act, but because it wishes to act without the rule of the law.

And this defect has its origin in the fact that the rational creature is defectible and peccable on account of the part it has from nothingness.

And thus by its natural powers it can fail, God permitting it, although He could prevent it and does not prevent it, in order, by occasion of sin, to show Himself powerful and just, bringing into the order of His justice the one who wishes to depart from the highest good, and at the same time to display His mercy more greatly toward those whom He efficaciously willed to hold by His hand, giving them helps preventing sin.

And let the heretic, and whoever is on his side, laugh at this; he is the one who takes occasion for himself, just as heretics are also accustomed to take occasion from the doctrine of the Gospel.

Thus, from what Saint Paul says concerning Christ our Lord in 1 Corinthians 1:30–31:

Qui factus est nobis sapientia et justitia et sanctificatio et redemptio, ut… qui gloriatur in Domino glorietur.

“Who was made for us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that … he who glories may glory in the Lord,”

they infer their error, namely, that there is no righteousness or inherent sanctification in us, but that Christ’s extrinsic righteousness alone is the formal reason by which we are called righteous.

And they laugh at us Catholics, who affirm that inherent righteousness and sanctification are necessary for salvation.

It has grieved me that this theologian, whoever he may be, should appeal to Calvin’s laughter against a distinction so ancient and so necessary, even in sound metaphysics, as is the distinction between the good which is found in the act of sin, which is natural and proceeds even from the same free will insofar as it is a creature of God, and which in its movements reveals an inclination toward good, although it sins by not wishing to act subject to the law.

And this is properly its own, and not God’s, on the part by which it is made from nothing.

The second objection

The second error which they impute to us is that, by positing predetermination in God and in His providence of everything good in particular, we leave men no freedom at all.

And they reject it on account of a common definition of free will, which they say belongs to all philosophers and theologians.

And the definition is this:

Liberum arbitrium est quod, positis omnibus requisitis ad agendum, potest agere et non agere.

“Free will is that which, with all the requirements for acting being posited, can act and not act.”

From this they infer that, if we say that that divine motion, efficacious of itself, is necessary in order that we should act, it follows that, once it is posited, it is no longer in our power to refrain from acting or to resist it; and, on the other hand, without it we can do nothing.

Therefore, there never remains in us any occasion for acting freely.

This is the greatest argument which the said Fathers have for denying to divine providence the predeliberation of free works of virtue.

To this argument I respond that it has two defects.

The one is a bad understanding of the definition.

The other is the bad consequence which they draw.

And everything proceeds from ignorance of the definition of free will.

And that this is so I prove as follows.

First, that definition is not found in Aristotle, nor in Saint Thomas, nor in the Master of the Sentences in Book II, distinctions 24 and 25.

I believe it will be found in Almain and in other Nominalists.

Although it is true that, if the expression positis omnibus requisitis ad agendum is understood as it ought to be understood, even though it is not a formal definition, it is a truth which follows from the true definition of free will.

For its examination I ask: what requirements do they understand when they say, positis omnibus requisitis ad agendum?

For if they speak of all the requirements which accompany the action when it is exercised, it would be a bad definition, because it is clearly evident that for the free choice of the will the judgment of the understanding is necessary, and once that is posited it is impossible—or, rather, incompossible—for the will not to choose.

And nevertheless the choice is free.

For although the judgment is determined ad unum hic et nunc [“to one thing here and now”], because it is subject to another superior judgment which precedes in the understanding, by which man judges the indifference of the means with respect to the end, and in virtue of this judgment the choice is called free, not because it and the judgment lack formal determination to one means.

Hence it follows that, although the divine motion which accompanies our choice is most efficacious, since it does not erase that judgment of the understanding concerning the indifference of the means with respect to the object of the will, it does not take away freedom in the choice; rather, it perfects it, because it is a motion accompanied by divine light which clarifies the understanding so that it may judge better among many means what is fitting for it.

And in this consists the strong and gentle motion of divine wisdom: strong in executing what is in His divine providence, and gentle in executing it in each thing according to its nature.

And because man is made in the likeness of God by reason and by the free will which he possesses, He moves him by giving light to the understanding and inclination to the will.

And thus, although at the time and instant in which man believes, illumination of the understanding and pious affection on the part of the will are required, and, once these things are posited, it is incompossible for man not to believe, nevertheless, although both the illumination of the light of faith and the pious affection of the will are efficaciously gifts of God and of His Spirit, he nevertheless does not cease to believe freely.

And the reason is that neither the illumination of the light of faith nor the pious affection of the will destroys the judgment which man has by which he knows himself to be capable of not believing, although he will not fail to believe when God moves the will, giving it pious affection toward that which is proposed and disclosed to it by the light of faith, or actual divine illumination, by which the infused virtue of faith is infused sine nobis efficientibus—

“without our causing it,”

yet

non tamen sine nobis consentientibus pia affectione voluntatis,

“not without our consenting by the pious affection of the will.”

From what has been said it follows that that phrase, positis omnibus requisitis ad agendum, cannot be understood of omnibus requisitis concomitantibus ipsam actionem—“all the requirements concomitant with the action itself”—but of requirements that precede the action itself in time.

And what I say is understood on the supposition that they wish the other part of the definition, which says potest agere et potest non agere—“he can act and can not act”—to be understood in sensu composito, where the contrary action, or non-action, is composed with the very requirements for acting.

But if this second part of the definition were understood, as it can be understood, by composing merely the power of not acting with all the requirements for acting, then this word etiam could be understood even of requirements concomitant with the very action which is exercised.

And this the good logicians and theologians call the divided sense (sensus divisus), because act is not composed with act, or with non-action, but only with the power, which is not destroyed by not being exercised in a particular act, as is clearly understood in this example.

Peter is sitting freely, because, throughout the time that he is sitting, he has the power not to be sitting, and nevertheless he is determined to remain sitting.

And it would be incompossible, while he is sitting, for him to be standing.

And in this composite sense Aristotle said:

Omne quod est, quando est, necesse est esse.

“Whatever is, when it is, must necessarily be.”

For he was not speaking of absolute necessity, but of the necessity of consequence, because it necessarily follows that Peter runs if he runs, and that he is not black if he is white.

And nevertheless what is white can be black.

In part I am ashamed to speak of such small matters, which the summulistae know.

But, as I said at the beginning:

In vitium vitio coarctamur alieno.

“We are constrained into error by the fault of another.”

Ignorance of the true definition of free will has reached such a degree that certain Fathers of the Society laugh at us when we make this distinction, so ancient in the school of theology, between sensu composito and sensu diviso, although it is necessary in sound natural reason for answering many sophistical arguments which are accustomed to be made concerning future contingents and free will.

For suppose I were now to say:

“God has eternally provided and determined to preserve the world; therefore, now He does not preserve it freely.”

And I wished to prove the consequence because, given His providence and the determination of His immutable will, which is necessary for this effect, He cannot fail to preserve it: therefore He is not free in preserving it.

It is clear that, in resolving this argument, it is necessary to use the distinction in sensu composito or in sensu diviso.

For the power which God has to annihilate the world is perfectly compatible with His having determined to preserve it forever.

That power is not taken away by determining one effect and not its contrary.

But there is no power to do something from which two contradictory propositions would follow as simultaneously true.

And they would follow if, supposing that God has determined and said that the world will remain forever, it should now cease to be, because God would then be changeable and not truthful; and therefore He would not be God if His word should fail.

In this manner we may answer when they argue against us that, once the efficacious help of divine grace is posited, we cannot refrain from acting, and thus do not remain free in that consent.

To this we respond that, while that efficacious help is present, it is incompossible that we should not act; but it is not incompossible that, while acting, we should have the power not to act.

For power is quite compatible with the contrary act to the other which is in potency.

Otherwise no choice of man would be free, since, once the judgment and command of reason are posited, it is incompossible that he should not choose; but it is not incompossible that he should at the same time have the power not to choose.

Rather, when he chooses, he has knowledge of the indifference of the means which he chooses with respect to the end of the will; and this knowledge is the first root of the free choice of the will, notwithstanding that the particular judgment and command determine the will to one [thing].

And it is no argument to say that the judgment and command which I have are ab intrinseco, and that I can change them.

First, because that very judgment and command is also an effect of God, who works more intrinsically in me than my own soul:

In ipso enim vivimus, movemur et sumus.

“For in Him we live and move and have our being.”

And thus we cannot have a vital act or movement without God producing it in us, because He is the intimate cause of all our being, without dependence upon another cause; for He is omnipotent to make and preserve everything necessary for the effect which He intends.

And thus our judgment proceeds most efficaciously from the will of God, who absolutely wills that I now choose this good in particular, without derogating from my free will, but rather perfecting it and moving it according to its own mode, as God of the natural and of the moral order.

And whoever does not understand this concord, let him believe it, and in time he will come to understand it, as the very learned Abbot Chaeremon says in the Collations of the Fathers, Book II, Collation 13, chapter 18.

After stating that:

Summam nostrae salutis deputandam esse caelesti gratiae,

“the whole of our salvation must be attributed to heavenly grace,”

he says:

“Moreover, if anything gathered by subtle human argument and reasoning seems to derogate from these things, it is to be avoided rather than proposed or urged to the destruction of faith. For we do not merit faith through understanding, but understanding through faith, … just as it cannot fully be comprehended by human reason how God works all things in us.”

The second reason is that, if it were necessary for the choice to be free that, once it had been made, it could be changed, it would follow that neither God, nor an angel, nor the soul of Christ our Lord chooses freely, since it is impossible for God, or an angel, or the soul of Christ our Lord to change a choice once made.

And if we can change it, that is not a perfection of freedom, but an imperfection, because we are changeable and not so firmly settled as the angels, who, because of the perfection of their understanding, cannot have a new circumstance represented to them by which they would change their judgment and choice.

From what has been said it is demonstrated how bad is the understanding of that common saying which they call the definition of free will:

Positis omnibus requisitis ad agendum, potest agere et non agere, et agere contrarium.

“With all the requirements for acting being posited, [one] can act and not act, and act the contrary.”

If it is understood in sensu composito, as we have seen from the clear examples which have been given against this interpretation.

And because this definition is confused and gives occasion for sophistry, neither Saint Thomas nor the Thomists ever use it, nor even a Father of the Society of great renown in our times, Robert Bellarmine, in Volume 3, chapter 11, which is on grace and free will, Book 3, chapter 3, where he gives five definitions of free will.

And none of them is that one, positis omnibus requisitis ad agendum, etc.

And it is to be believed that a man as diligent as Bellarmine would not have failed to give that definition had he found it in some serious author.

And finally he resolves to choose as the complete and perfect definition of free will the fifth, which he gathers from the doctrine of Saint Thomas, and it is this:

Liberum arbitrium est libera potestas ex iis quae ad finem aliquem conducunt unum prae alio eligendi, aut unum et idem acceptandi vel pro arbitrio respuendi, intelligenti naturae ad magnam Dei gloriam attributa.

“Free will is a free power, attributed to an intelligent nature for the great glory of God, of choosing one thing rather than another among those things which conduce to some end, or of accepting or rejecting, at will, one and the same thing.”

He explains that definition in his manner in the said chapter.

But in my judgment, although what he says is true, yet, as a definition, it is not well devised but superfluous and confused, and even somewhat limited, if he intends to define free will as it is common to God and creatures.

For since there is formally free will in God, it is right that we give a definition which is formally common, although analogically, to the free will of God and of His creatures, who are made in His image.

But the said definition excludes the free will of God in its last word.

And that it is confused is manifest because it puts both parts of the thing defined into the definition, saying libera potestas and pro arbitrio.

And because, as I have said, all the errors which exist concerning the concord of God’s grace with free will proceed from ignorance of what free will is, I wish to set down the true and substantial definition drawn from the doctrine of Saint Thomas.

For in Aristotle one will not find, at least I have not found it, the expression liberum arbitrium, or its definition, although we do find choice and deliberation and their definitions and properties.

And I am not surprised that in this matter he was deficient, since he fell into so grave an error as to deny that there is free will in God to make this world, but rather that it necessarily and without beginning proceeded and proceeds from God.

And truly we have in Aristotle a good example by which to learn caution and humility and not wish to know more than suits our limited capacity.

The whole reason why Aristotle concluded to say such an absurdity was that he could not understand how, since God is pure act and most simple in His essence, and there is not and cannot be any difference in Him, but He must always be wholly uniform, it could be possible that the world might not proceed from God and then proceed later, or how it could be possible that it should never proceed.

And he reasoned for himself in this manner:

Causa totali invariabiliter existenti semper idem, effectus sequitur, vel nunquam sequitur.

“From a total cause existing invariably, the same effect always follows, or never follows.”

Since, then, there could be no other cause of the creation of the whole universe than God alone, because He was to make it from nothing, he concluded that He always and eternally produced it.

And for this same reason he affirmed:

Ex nihilo nihil fit.

“Nothing comes from nothing.”

Thus this monster of nature, who in so many things reasoned so acutely, while honoring on the one hand the purity and immutability of the divine majesty, on the other came to deny Him so great a perfection as to have free power not to produce the world and to produce it, as in fact He did produce it at the beginning of time.

From this error many others follow by good consequence, such as that the soul is not made from nothing but from matter, like other things, and thus would not be immortal.

In this Aristotle was deluded, however much the Peripatetics may wish to excuse him.

And if the world and men were eternal, there would necessarily now be infinite souls, or they would have perished or passed from one body to another.

And if the intelligences, which he posited and which are the angels, proceed eternally and necessarily from God, they have no reason to give Him thanks for having created them or for preserving them in being, since He produces and preserves them by the necessity of their nature.

And a thousand other absurdities could be inferred from that first one.

I have wished to set forth and enlarge upon this example because, for me, it is one of the greatest arguments that can be brought to teach us modesty and humility in the inquiry and investigation of divine mysteries.

And I make the argument thus:

If natural reason, by its natural discourse, upon coming to know the immutability and purity of God, and wishing to proceed further and reconcile the being of the universe with the causality of God, is dazzled by a little argument founded upon a principle which it finds to be true in creatures, and, wishing to apply it to the causality of God, comes to deny in God free will to make the world and to be able not to make it or to preserve it—

what wonder is it that, in our arguments concerning supernatural mysteries, we should come upon some difficulty where, if we wish to investigate it in order to satisfy our limited reasoning, we become dazzled and fall through pride, and come to deny what is clear because we do not understand what is obscure?

These are the words of Saint Augustine, Book 2 of De dono perseverantiae, chapter 14:

Nunquid ideo negandum est quod apertum est quia comprehendi non potest quod occultum est?

“Is what is manifest therefore to be denied because what is hidden cannot be comprehended?”

This happened to the philosophers who, wishing to comprehend the concord of God’s providence with the works of our free will, some denied providence, others free will, even though the latter is so clearly experienced in us, and providence is demonstrated by natural reasoning to exist in God, because He is the highest good from whom all goods are derived, and because He is the supreme wisdom from whom all wisdom found in creatures is derived.

Luther also and his followers fell on this account, and deny our freedom because it seems to them incompatible with the great perfection of the providence of God, who provides and orders everything in particular as it is done according to the order of His divine wisdom, of whom it is said that He:

Est omnium artifex

“is the artificer of all things,”

and:

Attingit a fine usque ad finem fortiter et disponit omnia suaviter (Wis. 7:21).

“reaches from end to end mightily and disposes all things gently.”

In the same manner certain Catholic theologians, in their own person and intention, have sought and continue in our times to seek to give complete satisfaction to the curious human intellect concerning this concord, not denying altogether the providence of God or the necessity of His grace, but limiting it, in order to enlarge free will and give it something good which God has not provided for it and does not efficaciously give it.

This is the execution in particular of free acts, both morally good acts performed by the natural powers of man and supernatural free acts, for which man needs supernatural help from God his Savior.

But they do not wish, and cannot, understand that either one help or the other is efficacious insofar as it is sent by God and by His providence, but rather that it is indifferent and that free will makes it efficacious or refuses to act with it.

And one of the said theologians, Father Molina, affirms in the book of his Concordia, on page 207, in the paragraph beginning Nonum and in that beginning Decimum, that the general concurrence of God, when no other concurrence is posited for morally good acts, is indifferent for acting with it either badly or well.

And although God knows how we are going to make use of His help, doing good works by our freedom, and complacet in illis [“takes pleasure in them”], He wills absolutely that they should exist:

Vult quod absoluta voluntate ut sint,

“but that they actually be performed:

ut fiat non vult voluntate absoluta, sed conditionata.

‘He does not will with an absolute will, but with a conditional will.’”

Thus, according to this author:

Deus complacet in illis bonis operibus absque absoluta voluntate ut fierent.

“God takes pleasure in those good works without an absolute will that they should be performed.”

In proportion to this, they wish supernatural helps, however great they may be, if we are to act freely with them, not to be so efficacious that, while they are in place, this proposition cannot be true:

Homo non credit Deum esse trinum et unum.

“Man does not believe God to be Triune and One.”

For otherwise they do not understand how man freely believes, if God by those helps causes him to believe and absolutely wills, and eternally willed, that he should believe.

And certainly it would be much safer to believe that the one can be reconciled with the other than to place in doubt God’s eternal predestination and His preparation of the good works which we are to perform for our justification and salvation.

But, for my part, I am quite satisfied, by the mercy of God, as to how the one is possible together with the other, although I confess that I do not comprehend it completely.

But I answer their arguments sufficiently, assuming the most formal definition of free will.

And I have wished first to make this digression so that it may be more clearly understood how necessary is the definition of free will which I shall now set forth.

The true definition of free will

Vera definitio liberi arbitrii.

Concerning the true definition of free will I have printed, on the Prima Pars of Saint Thomas, Question 19, article 10, and on Question 83, article 1, and to those places I refer what I say here less fully.

And I beg those who are to evaluate this paper to look at them briefly now.

I say that, assuming it to be Catholic faith that there is formally free will in God, just as there is knowledge and wisdom, it is fitting to give a definition in which we do not exclude this attribute so proper to God.

And let this be the definition:

Liberum arbitrium est facultas intellectus et voluntatis ad agendum vel non agendum, vel ad prosequendum unum vel aliud.

“Free will is the faculty of the intellect and will for acting or not acting, or for pursuing one thing or another.”

In this definition I deliberately exclude a word which the Master of the Sentences puts in Book II, distinction 24, chapter 3, where he says:

Liberum arbitrium est facultas rationis et voluntatis.

“Free will is the faculty of reason and will.”

And in place of that word rationis, I put intellectus, so that it may be the common definition of angels and God.

For there the Master defines free will according as it is found in man, and thus he adds:

Qua bonum eligitur gratia assistente, vel malum eadem desistente.

“By which good is chosen with grace assisting, or evil with the same withdrawing.”

And further on, in distinction 25, he repeats:

Liberum arbitrium dicitur quantum ad voluntatem quia voluntarie ferri potest ad ea quae bona vel mala judicat vel judicare valet.

“Free will is so called with respect to the will because it can be carried voluntarily toward those things which it judges, or is able to judge, to be good or evil.”

But in truth, the power to sin is not freedom nor a part of freedom, as Saint Thomas teaches in the First Part, Question 62, article 6, ad 8; in the Secunda Secundae, Question 88, article 4, ad 1; and I Sent., distinction 42, question 2, article 1, ad 3, and in many other places.

Rather, it is an imperfection and weakness of free will, which of itself is inclined toward good and ordered to good, to such an extent that it cannot move toward evil except under some aspect of good, as Saint Thomas teaches in the First Part, Question 63, article 1, ad 4.

Hence it follows that free will will be more perfect insofar as it is further removed from choosing what is evil and outside the order to the true ultimate end.

And thus it is most perfect in God, whose will by nature loves the highest good, and from this freely loves every good which is outside God, and is the free cause of it.

For no good can exist in the creature which is necessary for the beatitude which God has, although He can order every good to Himself as to the ultimate end.

Hence it also follows that the more the free will of man resembles that of God, the more perfect it will be.

And thus even in natural matters the free will of the angels is more perfect than that of man, because it is more constant in choosing the good and in remaining immutably in its choice.

And although it is true that no intellectual creature is by its nature impeccable, as Saint Thomas teaches in the First Part, Question 63, article 1, nevertheless the grace of God is so powerful that it can confirm free will, making it so like God that it cannot sin.

And this does not therefore take away freedom in the choice of good, as He did in the Mother of God, who could sin neither mortally nor venially, and in the Apostles insofar as concerns not sinning mortally.

And in all the blessed free will is so perfect with respect to many things in which they have freedom that it is impossible for there to be any sin in them.

I do not speak of the soul of Christ our Lord; for it is clear that, by virtue of the hypostatic union, even if He had had no other graces, it was impossible for Him to sin, because that sin would be attributed to the person of the divine Word, according to the common understanding of all theologians.

From this, finally, it follows how badly Father Molina said in the book of his Concordia, page 12, that that freedom has the full and perfect nature of freedom which can will the contrary of what it wills; as, if a man wishes to be temperate, that he can be intemperate, and can be honest and dishonest.

Let us now explain our definition, the most profound understanding of which depends upon perceiving wherein formally consists the indifference of being able to will a means and being able not to will it, and of willing one thing or another indifferently.

And I say that the principal root and foundation of this indifference arises from the fact that the understanding judges the indifference which there is in the means with respect to the end.

From this it follows that this indifference does not have to reside in the understanding itself or in the will which is to choose; for if this were true, there could be no free will in God:

Apud quem non est transmutatio nec vicissitudinis obumbratio.

“With whom there is no change nor shadow of alteration.”

For God is pure act, as we said above, and it is impossible for Him to be in Himself otherwise than He is eternally.

Therefore it is sufficient for the freedom of the will that the understanding judge and propose the indifference of the means with respect to the end.

It is indeed true that in the creature there neither is nor can be such uniformity that the understanding and will, whose faculty we said free will to be, should not have some indifference in themselves for judging and choosing some means suitable to the end.

For it is clear that when our will chooses a means, it is not in the same state as when it judges hic et nunc aliquid eligendum—“something here and now to be chosen”—and when it does not judge it, or judges another means suitable to the end.

But because both one and the other are founded upon a more general judgment of the indifference of any of those means with respect to the end, the will does not cease to be free in the act of choice, already determined to one means by the particular judgment and command of the act of the understanding which judges:

Hic et nunc hoc eligendum.

“Here and now this is to be chosen.”

And the reason is that both the choice and the command of the particular judgment operate beneath another judgment which the understanding has actually or virtually concerning the indifference of that which is chosen in relation to the end.

And thus the free creature acts in virtue of that power which it has in itself to act and not act, or to act upon one thing while leaving another.

From this it follows that whenever the act of the will originates from the said root of that judgment of the indifference of the means with respect to the end, it will always be free.

It also follows that, since the formality of the free act consists in this, everything else which precedes, accompanies, or supervenes upon the said act of the will will not take away the freedom of the operation, unless it takes away that judgment of the indifference of the means with respect to the end.

And thus we may give the following definition of an agent acting freely:

Agens liberum est quod operatur propter finem cum cognitione indifferentiae mediorum ad finem.

“A free agent is one who acts for an end with knowledge of the indifference of the means with respect to the end.”

For truly, in this consists the power of free will: that man should be like God, who freely and with dominion acts upon everything that He acts upon outside Himself, with power not to act upon it.

And thus the theologians understand with Damascene, Book II of De fide orthodoxa, chapter 12:

Quod propterea homo dicitur factus ad imaginem Dei cum creatus est cum libero arbitrio.

“That for this reason man is said to have been made in the image of God, because he was created with free will.”

And the very sacred text of Genesis, chapter 1, gives us to understand this very thing according to the propriety of the name by which God is there called in the sacred language, namely Elohim, which means “judge,” repeating the name in this manner:

Et creavit Elohim Adam in imagine sua, in imagine Elohim creavit eum.

“And Elohim created Adam in His image; in the image of Elohim He created him.”

As though it were saying, “in the image of the judge.”

Now let us come to our purpose.

It is a strange case that there are theologians who think that we take away freedom from man when God, who is the prototype, joins Himself by His grace to the will of His creature, illuminating its understanding and the judgment of the indifference of the means with respect to the end, and at the same time giving it light by which He efficaciously persuades it and causes it to have a particular judgment, and communicates a command to it so that its will chooses what God absolutely wills it to choose.

And thus what Saint Paul says is verified:

Qui adhaeret Deo, unus spiritus est; et qui spiritu Dei aguntur, hi sunt filii Dei.

“He who is joined to God is one spirit; and those who are moved by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.”

So that when the impetus of our will is guided and carried along lovingly by the impetus of the Spirit of God, it does not therefore cease to proceed with perfect freedom, for He does not take away that universal judgment in which the indifference of the means with respect to the end is judged.

Rather, it proceeds with the awareness that it is possible to cease from the love of God or to fail in His law because of the power which it senses in itself before attaining the ultimate end, which is to see God.

But there the will will no longer have freedom to be able to cease from loving God, because the clear vision of God reveals that all goods are together in Him in a supreme and infinite good, and thus it can no longer have that judgment that it might be fitting to will some good outside God.

But even then it remains free to love creatures as known in their own species, directing this love to God, because the divine precept does not erase the judgment of the indifference which that means had of itself for attaining the enjoyment of the ultimate end.

Thus also the soul of Christ our Lord, at the instant of the Incarnation, with most perfect freedom obeyed and accepted the command to die for the honor of the Father and the salvation of men.

Et oblatus est quia ipse voluit.

“And He was offered because He Himself willed it.”

And by His obedience and humility He merited to be exalted, and not only because of the intensity with which He obeyed.

Concerning this intensity and fervor, the new concordists say that He did not have a precept concerning it, so that, if God had commanded Him to obey with as much fervor as He did obey, His obedience would not have been meritorious.

To such absurdities they come by saying that they do not understand how He remained free because He could not sin.

They would do better to say that they do not understand wherein free will and the freedom of the act consist.

And before Our Lord I say and protest that, if these bold assertions are not remedied, the Catholic faith in Spain is in danger, because of the great freedom and favor enjoyed by those who wish to introduce a new theology and a new concord of the grace and providence of God with our free will.

It remains now to explain one word of the definition which I have set forth, from which some ignorant or malicious sophist could take occasion to contradict the truth which I have stated.

And the word is this: I have repeated many times that, for a free act, it is necessary that it originate from the judgment of the indifference of the means, or of the means to the end.

For someone might argue against me that no one can judge the keeping of the commandments to be indifferent for attaining the end of eternal life unless he be a heretic.

To this I respond that the end which is spoken of and understood insofar as we define free will need not always be, in particular, the true end, which is God, but it is enough that “end” be understood in the sense in which Saint Thomas said in the Prima Secundae, Question 1, that:

Omnis actus humanus est propter finem.

“Every human act is for an end,”

and:

Omnia quae homo agit, agit propter ultimum finem.

“Everything that man does, he does for the ultimate end.”

For truly, man, being made in the image of God, does not err in the common reason which he seeks, intending to find some good which satisfies him.

And because he does not clearly know it in particular, many times he seeks it under the common aspect in other goods where it is not really found, but through them he turns away, in particular, from God.

For this reason Saint Augustine said to sinners:

Quaerite quod quaeritis, sed scitote quaerere.

“Seek what you seek, but know how to seek it.”

And this doctrine is very common among those who are learned and well read in the First Question of the Prima Secundae of Saint Thomas, where this is treated at length.

Thus, when I say that the judgment of the indifference of the means with respect to the end is necessary, I understand this of the end to which the will is determined, at least with respect to specification, as ours is in this life.

And if it were determined with respect to exercise, it would not for this reason have less freedom with respect to the means, as the blessed have their will determined to the ultimate end which they enjoy in such a way that they are not free even with respect to exercise, because of the perpetual presence of the highest good, with whom there is supernaturally every aspect of goodness.

But they nevertheless do not cease to have a judgment of the indifference which many other goods have of themselves with respect to this ultimate end.

And thus they freely will them for the glory of God.

And although the precept supervenes, it does not erase that judgment of the indifference of that means considered in itself; although, given the precept which supervenes ab intrinseco, the exercise is necessary by the necessity of consequence, and not by the absolute necessity of the consequent.

And all this was verified in the obedience of Christ our Lord, of whom it is truly said:

Oblatus est quia voluit,

“He was offered because He willed it,”

and at the same time:

Sicut mandatum dedit mihi Pater, sic facio; et Filius hominis vadit sicut definitum est de illo.

“As the Father gave Me commandment, so I do; and the Son of Man goes as it has been determined concerning Him.”

And if these things were considered with humility, we would not wish to measure these mysteries with the short span of reason, nor would we assert novelties to satisfy curious intellects.

Rather, we would give glory to the divine majesty, subjecting our understanding and believing what we do not understand.

And for the present, let this suffice concerning the definition of free will and of the free act.

[Need to start at point 11]

[The online document skips from p. 437 to p. 461]

.

The sacred canon defines two things.

The first is that our free will, moved and excited by God and consenting to His calling and excitation, does something by which it disposes itself to obtain the grace of justification.

And in this respect there is not, and cannot be, any difference of understanding among Catholics.

The other part is:

“And that it cannot dissent if it should wish to do so, but, like something wholly inert, should do absolutely nothing and be merely passive, let him be anathema.”

In this respect it is clear that the heresy of Luther is condemned.

But in the understanding of how it is condemned, and in what sense liberum hominis arbitrium a Deo motum et excitatum posse dissentire si velit—“the free will of man, moved and excited by God, can dissent if it should wish”—is to be understood, in this we Thomists differ from certain Fathers of the Society.

For we say that the Council could have intended no more than to affirm true freedom in the consent which we give to God at the moment of justification. This freedom, as we have shown, is not destroyed by the efficacious help which God gives the sinner at that moment; rather, his freedom is perfected, so that he may determinately choose that which God commands him.

And thus I say that this proposition, liberum arbitrium a Deo motum et excitatum potest dissentire si velit, has two true and Catholic senses, and a third which is false and, in my judgment, erroneous.

The first true sense is that it be understood of the motion and excitation and calling which God makes in the soul before the moment of justification.

And in this sense it is plainly verified that potest homo resistere et dissentire Deo vocanti et excitanti—“a man can resist and dissent from God calling and exciting him”—as is evident in Proverbs 1:24:

“Because I called, and you refused.”

And in Rom. 2:4–5:

“Do you not know that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But according to your hardness and impenitent heart, you are treasuring up for yourself wrath on the day of wrath.”

And it is manifest that in these passages there is discussion of the divine motion before the moment of justification.

Nor should anyone think that man can resist the absolute will of God when He absolutely wills that the sinner be converted.

Although I well know that there are not lacking those who deny that there is in God such an absolute will concerning the consent of free will, this is what I regard as an error, and contrary to what is said in Psalms 113 and 134:

“All that He willed, He has done in heaven and on earth.”

This testimony, even to the present day, the theologians have always declared concerning the absolute will of God.

It is also contrary to what is said in Esther 13:9:

“There is none who can resist Your will.”

And contrary to Isaiah 46:10:

“My counsel shall stand, and all My will shall be done.”

Nevertheless, the sinner is said to resist God who calls and invites him, because by his own freedom and by his natural powers, and often by his antecedent malice, he says that he does not wish the operation which God commands him to perform and invites him to perform.

And thus, in order to sin, he has no need of the other efficacious help.

But if God absolutely willed that such a man should consent, without any doubt he would do so, as Saint Augustine says in the Enchiridion, chapters 95 and 96, condemning the contrary as an error in these words:

“Otherwise, how would God be omnipotent, if He willed to do something and did not do it, and, what is more unworthy, if He did not do it because the will of man prevented that which the omnipotent One willed to be done? … And thus the very beginning of the confession of our faith is endangered, by which we confess that we believe in God the Father Almighty.”

From this it follows that those who say that the sacred Council intended to condemn this doctrine of Saint Augustine give false testimony against the sacred Council.

The second sense is also true and Catholic: namely, that the said proposition is understood simpliciter et absolute loquendo—“speaking simply and absolutely”—even though it speaks of efficacious motion and excitation and calling, from which it infallibly and by a necessity of consequence follows that man consents to God who calls and invites him.

But even in that moment, speaking absolutely, it is verified that homo habet potestatem dissentiendi, si velit—“man has the power to dissent, if he should wish”; and this conditional proposition is verified absolutely and in sensu diviso, as the theologians say, and as I have explained above.

But simultaneously with that conditional there is in truth this contradictory conjunction:

“God moves the free will of man by such efficacious help, and the free will does not consent to God thus exciting and calling him.”

For this implies a contradiction and is contrary to the omnipotence of God, and to what Christ our Lord says through Saint John (6:45):

“Everyone who hears from the Father and has learned, comes to Me.”

And likewise to what the Church asks in a Secret prayer in the Mass twice each year:

“Compel even our rebellious wills to You.”

Where by that word compelle it does not ask that He take away our free will, but that He give us the most efficacious help by which we may be converted, even though we are rebellious.

And in this sense Saint Augustine understands what the Redeemer says in Jn. 6:44:

“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.”

He understands it in these words:

“What a great commendation of grace! No one comes unless drawn. Whom He draws and whom He does not draw, why He draws this one and not that one—do not wish to judge, if you do not wish to err.”

Thus Saint Augustine already gives us to understand that not all receive that great help and efficacy of the grace of God by which all who receive it are infallibly converted, and that it is dangerous to seek the reason why God gives this help more to some than to others.

And if what some wish to say were true, namely, that the divine help is of itself indifferent, it would be very easy to judge why this one is converted and led to God while the other is not, simply by saying that this one, by his free will, determined the help of God and made it efficacious, while the other did not wish to act with it.

But Saint Augustine thought that it was not a safe thing to wish to sound the depths of the abyss of God’s judgments. And nevertheless he comforts us, saying:

“Are you not yet drawn? Pray that you may be drawn.”

And he sets forth the argument which moves those who are newly in agreement:

“If we are drawn to Christ, then we believe unwillingly; therefore violence is applied, rather than the will being excited.”

And he denies the consequence, saying:

“Do not think of being drawn unwillingly. The mind is not drawn unwillingly, but by love … There is a certain delight of the heart to which that heavenly bread is sweet.”

And declaring how gently God knows and is able to lead our free will after Himself, he says words worthy of being written in letters of gold, or, better said, in the hearts of those who treat the matter of their salvation with humility:

“Moreover, if a poet was permitted to say, ‘His own pleasure draws each man’ … not compulsion, but delight; how much more strongly ought we to say that man is drawn to Christ, who takes delight in truth, takes delight in blessedness, takes delight in righteousness, takes delight in eternal life, all of which Christ is? … Give me one who loves, and he understands what I say; give me one who desires, give me one who burns with longing, give me one who wanders as a pilgrim in this solitude and thirsts and sighs for the fountain of the eternal homeland; give me such a one, and he knows what I am saying.”

(St. Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 26, chapter 9, nos. 2–4; PL 35, 1607–1608.)

Behold, Saint Augustine placed strength and sweetness in the movement of the spirit of man whom God so nobly leads after Himself; indeed, He leads him as a son.

And I say before God, who will judge me, that when I was reading this in Saint Augustine and dictating it, I was greatly astonished at how it can be possible that men who profess prayer and spirituality should come to think so coldly of the movement of the grace of God, making it so indifferent that, with an equal excitation, it leads one along after itself and not another, and that they wish to attribute this difference to their freedom, by which they determined the grace of God for that to which it was not of itself efficacious.

For even I, though I am a sinner, as God knows, and a man of little spirituality and still less prayer, yet, knowing that I am a work of His mercy and that each day He bears with my ingratitude, when reading these words of Saint Augustine, restrained my tears; and, recognizing my sins, I have called upon the mercy of God that He may efficaciously lead me after Himself.

May God give us all light, so that with humility we may attribute to God what is properly His, and to ourselves what is properly ours alone, which is sin, in which God has no part, although, being able to prevent sin, He permits it according to His secret judgments.

And I do not know what we ask when we say, et ne nos inducas in tentationem [“and lead us not into temptation”], if what we ask has already been received, namely, a help by which, without receiving another more efficacious help, we could avoid sin, by making it efficacious ourselves.

For, as Saint Augustine says in the single book De natura et gratia, chapter 18, explaining those words, Dimitte nobis debita nostra et ne nos inducas in tentationem [“Forgive us our debts and lead us not into temptation”]:

“In order that past sins may be expiated and future ones avoided, the grace of God is necessary … For what is more foolish than to pray that you may do what is in your power?”

From this I infer that, if the just can persevere in God’s grace without a new sustaining help from God, they would have no need to pray et ne nos inducas in tentationem.

And I would regard it as bad doctrine to say that, in the same circumstance, one just man falls and another equally just man does not fall, the temptation having been equal.

For in such a case the one who did not fall has no more to thank God for than the one who fell, since his refraining from sin was not the effect of a greater help or special preservation from God, because in this they were equal; rather, the final resolution must be reduced to this: that the one who persevered wished, by his free will, to make use of what he had already received from God.

Let whoever wishes say this; but I, in conformity with the doctrine of Saint Augustine, regard it as pride arising from much ignorance of the mercy and power of God, and from little understanding of the providence of God, who by His secret judgments permits one to fall and holds another by the hand.

And may Father Molina forgive me, for he holds the contrary in his Concordia, Disputation 12.

And what is worse is that he appeals to Saint Augustine, Book 12 of Of the City of God, chapter 6, and does not faithfully report his words, as anyone will see who reads this place of Saint Augustine, where he is investigating the cause of the evil will and speaking through frequent questions.

And he never affirmed the proposition which Molina gives:

“That it can happen solely from the freedom of the will that, of two persons, one should consent to sin and the other should not consent.”

Nor will such a proposition be found in Saint Augustine.

What Saint Augustine affirms and concludes is that the evil will was not made by free will insofar as it was good, sed ex eo quod de nihilo natura facta est [“but from the fact that nature was made from nothing”].

And this is what he proceeds to investigate and define with very great care and humility: that the cause of the evil of the will is not some nature evil of itself, but that its defect in sin proceeds from the fact that nature was made from nothing.

And his conclusion is found in chapters 7, 8, and 9 of the place cited.

But he never affirmed that a man’s standing firm in the same temptation and circumstance was to be attributed solely to the powers of the free will of the creature, especially in the case of the just man, who has the grace of God and whom God preserves with special help and gift so that he may not fall, or gives perseverance unto the end, or preserves him so that he does not fall into the temptation which was an occasion of sin for the other, equally just man, and in which he sinned.

Nor do I understand how, in the contrary doctrine, Canon 9 of the Council of Orange can be reconciled with it:

“It is a gift of God when we think rightly and keep our feet from falsehood and injustice.”

Nor do I understand how it can be reconciled with what Saint Augustine says in Book 10 of the Confessions:

“I attribute to Your grace the sins which I did not commit.”

And in Homily 23 in the Book of Fifty Homilies, explaining that saying of Saint Luke, chapter 7, Cui autem minus dimittitur minus diligit [“But to whom little is forgiven, he loves little”], he says that, although one man may have committed fewer sins than another, he can love more than another, if he recognizes that the sins which he did not commit were from the mercy of God.

And in another place, which I do not remember, he expressly says these words:

“There is no sin which one man commits which another man would not commit, unless he were restrained from it by Him through whom man was made.”

(St. Augustine, Sermon 99, chapter 6; PL 38, 598.)

I well know that many times the concurrence of God, insofar as He is the author of rational nature, is sufficient to avoid a sin. But even in this concurrence we consider a special providence of God, by which He permits one man to sin and prevents another from sinning, giving him particular help and illuminating his understanding with a particular reason so that he may choose to abstain from sin.

And thus all the sins which a man avoids when placed in the occasion of them, he avoids by a particular help of God, either insofar as He is Creator or insofar as He is Savior.

And in this sense Saint Augustine seems to have spoken in those words:

“Unless he is restrained by Him through whom man was made.”

But, in the end, ordinarily, among those who have the Catholic faith, overcoming temptation proceeds from a particular consideration founded upon supernatural knowledge and supernatural divine inspiration.

From the doctrine which I have proposed here I took the foundation in my Commentaries on the First Part of Saint Thomas, on Question 14, article 13, column 518, letter D, in order to resolve an argument which ran as follows:

“It follows from those conclusions and their proofs that, of sins which depend solely upon the free will of the one acting, God cannot have certain knowledge in their causes.

The inference is proved as follows. The divine will does not determine the created will to sin, but leaves it indifferent and free; but through an indifferent and undetermined cause there cannot be had certain knowledge of a future effect; therefore God cannot have certain knowledge of future sins.”

And in order to explain how the knowledge of God could not depend upon an undetermined future contingent, both in itself and in its cause, I had already said that, with regard to what is good, God’s foreknowledge was certain, because everything was predetermined in the divine will.

But concerning future sins I gave two solutions.  The first was:

“That future evil of fault is known by God through the idea of the good to which it is opposed.”

But this solution did not satisfy me so much, because it gives rise to many objections.

And so I stated the second, laying down this foundation:

“That the created will will infallibly fail with respect to any matter of virtue, unless it is efficaciously determined by the divine will to act well.”

Therefore, from the fact that God knows that He has not determined the created will to act well in, for example, the matter of temperance, He knows evidently that the created will will sin and fail in the matter of that virtue.

From this solution some slanderer inferred, by a bad consequence, that I was saying:

“That the created will is so determined of itself to evil that, concerning the matter of any virtue whatsoever, unless it is efficaciously determined by God to the contrary, it will fail and sin.”

And I never said anything of the kind, nor will it be found written [by me] that the created will is determined to evil, because this is blasphemy against God, the author of nature; for it would be to say that God is the author of sin, since what the creature receives from God would be an inclination to evil.

But what I affirm is that:

“The created will is defectible and peccable by its nature, insofar as the soul is from nothing,”

as is the common opinion of the theologians and of Saint Augustine in the place cited, Book 12 of The City of God.

From this it does not follow that it is of itself inclined to evil; nor does it follow from saying that the created will would infallibly fail with respect to any matter of virtue, unless God, by His providence, in the circumstances which are to be presented to it, had decreed to help it efficaciously so that it would not fall.

And I give an evident instance for any good theologian.

It is certain that all creatures, even the heavens and the angels, would return to nothing and be annihilated if God, by His free will, had not determined to preserve them.

But he would be a very poor dialectician, and a still worse metaphysician and theologian, who inferred from this:

“Then creatures are of themselves inclined not to be,”

however true it may be that:

“All things desire to be.”

It is likewise a very bad consequence to infer, from the fact that the will needs the help of God’s providence, which is infallible, for every good act in particular, that it therefore follows that the will is of itself inclined to evil.

And whoever makes this inference does not understand that the inclination of creatures must be considered on the part of the form and end and terminus ad quem for which they were created and are preserved (ex parte formae et finis et termini ad quem creatae sunt et conservantur), and not from the terminus a quo, from which they were brought forth by the omnipotence of God, namely, from nothing (ex nihilo); from this comes their power to sin.

And just as the natural appetite of all things flees, insofar as possible, from losing their being, so also the rational soul, made in the image of God, has a natural inclination toward the highest good.

And every sin is contrary to its natural inclination, to such an extent that even when the sinner aims at an evil, he intends some good.

“For no one acts with evil as his intended end.”

But because the soul was made from nothing, as from the terminus a quo, from this it comes that it fails and sins while seeking some good that is not regulated by the law.

And it truly grieves me that those who, in order to defend their new inventions, walk with such blindness should give false testimony against what is perfectly set forth in print, and should say that we affirm the consequences which they infer, by a bad consequence, from our doctrine.

And in this same manner they must have brought other calumnies against those of us who have the doctrine of Saint Thomas in print, which should be examined with regard to this matter at Romans 9, lectio 4, on the words:

“To make known His power.”

15. Society: “The third inconvenience which follows from this opinion is that, necessarily, once it is admitted, it must be said that all those men who are not converted lack something on God’s part, without which they are not able to convert themselves, nor is it in their power to have it.

And thus they seem to have a just excuse for not having actually corresponded to the calling of divine grace, if it is so that, until that motion of God which these authors say is necessary leads them, they are not able to convert or consent, nor can they do anything by which God would give them that motion.

And thus neither that motion nor conversion is in their power.

And to say this is a manifest error, which certainly does not seem possible to evade. And thus one would have to attribute to the divine will not only the failure to give the said motion to man, but consequently his perdition as well.

For if they should say that it is in the man’s power to have this motion, and that because he resists it, it is not given to him, we shall ask them: then, what must the man do in order that it may be given to him?

And if he needs for this another motion of God of similar efficacy to the former, because, if this is required, the same difficulty remains, namely, that it is not in his power to have it.

And if it is not required, that is precisely what we say: that neither is such a motion required for free conversion.”

Báñez: This very objection is represented by Saint Paul in Romans 9 as coming from the proud human heart.  For, having said that God, by His will and eternal purpose, and not by works, had chosen Jacob and rejected Esau, Saint Paul says:

“Therefore it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. For Scripture says to Pharaoh: ‘For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show in you My power, so that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth.’ Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.”

And then he immediately makes the reply of the proud, who, with their limited reason, wish to penetrate all the secrets of God:

“You will therefore say to me: ‘Why then is anything further asked? For who resists His will?’”

And undoubtedly Saint Paul is speaking of the absolute will, of which he had said:

“That the purpose of God according to election might stand.”

Thus the objection is: What cause is there for God to complain? As if they were saying: “If we sin and are wicked, who can resist His will and purpose?”

And thus, if to some, to whom it pleases Him, He communicates His mercies, proceeding from His firm purpose, so that they actually profit by them and are converted and saved, while to others He denies these mercies, as to Pharaoh, our perdition ought not to be imputed to us.

And Saint Paul, so enlightened concerning this mystery of predestination, gave as his first answer to one who thus objects a rebuke of the one who makes such a reply, saying:

“O man, who are you who answer back to God? Does the thing formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why have you made me thus?’ Or does not the potter have power over the same lump of clay, to make from it one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?”

How easy it would have been for the apostle to silence this objection of the human heart, if what these Fathers say were true, simply by settling the whole difference and separation between the good and the wicked upon the free will of man.

But he did not wish to say what was false in order to please and satisfy men, who gladly hear of their own excellence, even when it is a lie.

But neither did the Apostle wish, nor did the Holy Spirit permit him, to do so.

Rather, he wished to silence them by the omnipotence and majesty of God, with the example of the potter, who from the very same clay makes one vessel for the table and another for base service.

But lest from this answer the proud man should take occasion to blaspheme God, saying that God was the cause of sin, the Apostle gives a second solution, in which he declares the difference which exists between the good and the wicked with respect to divine providence, and says thus:

“But what if God, wishing to show His wrath and to make known His power, endured with much patience the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, in order to show the riches of His glory upon the vessels of mercy, which He prepared for glory?”

Concerning this passage, see Saint Thomas, Lectio 4.

From his doctrine it is evident that the apostle distinguishes the concurrence of God’s providence with respect to the good and with respect to the wicked.

For with respect to the latter it is permission, whereas with respect to the good it is properly divine preparation.

To them God gives greater mercy in chastening them, in order more greatly to display His mercy and the riches of His grace toward the predestined, whom he calls “vessels of mercy, which He prepared for glory” (vasa misericordiae, quae praeparavit in gloriam).

And without any doubt, if God were to use such great mercy toward those whom He permits to sin and die in sin, all would be saved, none would be condemned, He would permit no one to sin, and God would have no occasion in which to display in effect His omnipotence and also His vindicative justice against the wicked.

But because it pleased Him to display these attributes of His divine majesty in their effects, for this reason He permitted there to be sinners who would die in sin, by comparison with whom His great mercy, which He used toward the predestined, might be all the more exalted.

This is an abyss which only the humble can contemplate without becoming dizzy; rather, for their greater benefit, they surrender themselves to the mercy of God and invoke it with earnest prayers.

And they bear this cross, which is laid not upon their bodily shoulders, but in the center of their spirit, annihilating themselves in reverence before the divine majesty, casting all their care upon God, and at the same time doing that which God commanded them to do.

And having done it, they put it again into the hands of God, acknowledging that by His gracious goodness He gave them help by which they might actually do it for Him.

And they ask again for new helps, and above all for the great gift of perseverance, which no one can merit, nor can anyone be certain that he will have it, unless it be one to whom God should reveal it.

Such persons find a shortcut along the road to heaven which, although it is accompanied by labor of spirit, is nevertheless of much profit, because it is founded upon great humility grounded in a sovereign truth, by which one comes to know who God is and who the creature is.

And these are they who descend into hell while living (descendunt in infernum viventes) through their consideration and confession; and from now they confess God to be holy and just if, on account of their sins, He should cast them there.

And if those who are in hell could make this consideration and confession, it would not be hell, although the torment which the bodily fire caused would still be present, even if, by the omnipotence of God, it should rival bodily suffering, as the love which Saint Lawrence had rivaled it when he was stretched out upon the fire.

And of what I say, only the proud or the ignorant can be scandalized.

Of such persons I understand the words of Saint Peter to have been spoken in his second epistle, chapter 3, verses 15–16:

“As also our most dear brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them concerning these things; in which there are certain things difficult to understand, which the unlearned and unstable distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.”

For, on account of the incomprehensible judgments of God, many allow themselves to be carried away after their own lusts.

But, as Saint Augustine says in Book 2 of Of the Gift of Perseverance, chapters 15 and 16, one must not cease to speak the necessary truth because some, on account of it, say that they are left without consolation and faint in the performance of good works and in prayer.

And he is speaking there of this truth concerning predestination and the foreknowledge of God.

And this passage should by all means be examined; for unless they say that Saint Augustine was in error, they cannot tell us that we are in error.

It may seem to someone that I have been avoiding the argument which this Father on the part of the Society has made. I have not avoided it; rather, I have quietly cut off its roots. And now I wish to come to answer the sophistical argument formally, the like of which was left unresolved in the preceding paragraph.

And so, to this one I now say that it does not follow from our doctrine that those who are not converted cannot be converted, because it is one thing for it to be possible to be converted according to the common laws of God and of His Gospel, and another thing to say that the one who is not converted does not receive from God the efficacious help for being converted.

We say the second; we deny the first.

And what the arguer says, namely, that before he has that special help by which he is to be converted, he is not able to convert himself, nor is it in his power to have it, contains an equivocation.

To this we respond with the common distinction between sensu composito and sensu diviso, which, as I have shown above, is necessary for resolving many sophistical arguments.

And thus I say that, although the sinner does not have that help which we call special and efficacious for his conversion, nevertheless he can have it, because God is not only powerful enough to give it to him, but also invites him to it, even by interior inspiration.

And in order for the sinner to say that he does not want it, but rather to remain in his sin, he does not need to have it first.

For if he had it, he would be converted immediately by it.

And thus he sins, not because he did not have it, but because he said that he did not want it and resisted God’s invitation.

And this he could do by his free will; for that is sufficient of itself for sinning.

And thus the sinner has no just excuse, since sin consists in a voluntary defect.

And since God proposed it to him as possible, according to His ordinary law, and man of himself could say—and did say—that he did not want it, and thus sinned, the sin is attributed to him alone, and not to God, who did not give him what He was not bound to give him, although He willed to give it to another, toward whom He exercised the greater mercy.

And as to what the argument says, that that efficacious motion, and consequently the conversion, is not in the sinner’s power, and that to say this is a manifest error, there is much confusion in it.

For if he wishes to say that it is not in the sinner’s power—that is, that it is not to proceed from his own powers and authority—then so we say; and this is not an error, but Catholic faith.

But if he wishes to say that God does not offer it to him as something possible to come from His divine hand, this would be an error and blasphemy.

And by this way, those who with humility consider this profound and sovereign mystery justify God, although He permits sin, and attribute it to the creature, who by his free will and powers can sin.

And certainly I do not know what greater difficulty they find in understanding this than in resolving another argument which I would make to them concerning the gift of perseverance, of which the holy Council of Trent says, in Session 6, Canon 16, that no one can know that he possesses it, and of which it is likewise certain that it does not fall within human merits, however holy a man may be, except for the merits of Christ, who merited this gift for all who persevere.

And I shall formulate the argument in this way:

No one can persevere without the gift of perseverance.

And God has determined to give this gift to a certain number of His chosen ones.

Therefore, all the others cannot persevere.

Likewise, I shall argue in another way:

For a man to be saved, the gift of perseverance is necessary.

This is not in his power, nor does God give it to everyone.

Therefore, those who do not have it cannot be saved, and their perdition will be attributed to the divine will, which did not give them this gift.

I should like to hear how they resolve this argument.

For if they answer that those to whom this gift is not given merit by their fault that it is not given to them, then the objection immediately follows, and it creates a still greater difficulty.

There are two men who are just and equally holy, and one, on a certain occasion and under an equal temptation, sins, and is immediately killed.

The other, in the same circumstance, perseveres, and also dies immediately.  I ask…  [The document cuts off as incomplete.]

.

The End

.

.

.

Related Pages

On the De Auxiliis (Gracious Helps in Conversion) Controversy

Free Choice

Divine Concurrence, Secondary Causation & contra Occasionalism

Providence

Regeneration