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Order of Contents
Intro
Book 1
More Resources
Historical 4
Latin 12+
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Intro
Travis Fentiman
9-2026
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The De Auxiliis (“concerning helps”) controversy occurred in the late-1500’s and early-1600’s in Roman Catholicism. The basic issue was over free will, whether (1) man’s will is the first to act decisively in spiritual conversion (albeit with preceding and/or concurrent grace), or (2) whether God by grace moves the will (and must move the will) to freely choose salvation, such that the will inevitably does so choose. Certain Jesuits argued for the former (including Molina, Suarez and Bellarmine), while certain Dominican Thomists argued the latter (such as Banez, Alvarez and Lemos).
This controversy spilled over into Protestantism as James Arminius and numerous Arminians drew upon Molina’s ideas while the Reformed drew from the detailed discussions and delineations of the Thomists for their view(s). The whole came to a head in the Dutch reformed Synod of Dort (1618-1619), which fundamentally landed on the side of God’s effectual working of salvation in and through human instrumentation. The Synod’s canons strongly reflected Biblical guidance without going into as much metaphysical detail as the Thomists did.
After the Synod, the De Auxiliis controversy continued through the 1600’s. Part of this was due to the Pope in 1607, in an attempt at moderation, allowing the debate to continue, yet forbidding each side to condemn the other. Note that Thomist views and Reformed views were not identical in every way, just as Arminians did not always adopt the famed Middle Knowledge of Molina (or the Congruism of Suarez and Bellarmine). Likewise, some Jesuits favored Augustinianism and/or Thomism and suspected the others of their fraternity of Semi-Pelagianism.
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Of Helps & Middle Knowledge
“Of helps” in the name of the controversy refers to the gracious helps God often (or even always, according to some) provides sinners towards salvation. The debate lies in the nature and efficacy of those helps, and in their interaction with the human intellect and will. The writings of Augustine (d. 430) strongly leant themselves to the side of the Thomists, if history is any indication, though both sides did appeal to Augustine in favor of their views.
In the Augustinian tradition, God has two kinds of knowledge: God’s natural, simple knowledge encompasses his omniscience and all pure possibilities. God chooses from these possibilities the creation and future to create. Subsequent to that choice by his will, and based on it, is his knowledge of vision, or his knowledge of the future.
Middle Knowledge, commonly understood, posits a kind of knowledge between God’s simple knowledge and that of vision, of what creatures would do in various (hypothetical) scenarios. From these possibilities, God chooses to decree and create the universe and future where his selected scenario plays out.
Luis de Molina systematized and popularized middle knowledge with his book, the Concordia (1588), or The Harmony of Free Choice with the Gifts of Grace, Divine Foreknowledge, Predestination & Reprobation. Medieval precedents for middle knowledge had come before Molina and Molinists were quick to cite numerous early Church fathers for the same.
The Reformed commonly held the category of middle knowledge to be impossible and a fiction. Yet some, such as Molina himself (and some of the Reformed), considered middle knowledge to be a part of God’s simple knowledge. Others (including some of the Reformed), thought middle knowledge partook of both God’s simple knowledge and of his knowledge of vision.¹
¹ For some of the varied Reformed responses and conceptions, see ‘Middle Knowledge’ (RBO).
The issue truly is complex, in considering how God knows future actions that humans (and angels) will freely choose (this preserving God’s omniscience). Contingent actions, such as those exercised by man’s free will,¹ cannot be known simply from the causes that exist, because multiple varied effects may come from those same causes, they acting, by their nature, contingently.² There is no necessity from a contingent cause itself that requires a certain action and only that action, by definition.
¹ The Reformed regularly affirmed man’s free will in natural actions; see ‘On Free Choice’.
² See ‘On a Contingent Cause & Contingency’.
Augustine, with Thomas Aquinas (d.1274) following, posited that God knows the future (and future contingents) by beholding all things present, and that which will be present, from his Eternal Now. Yet this does not precisely encompass actions that creatures could do (and possibly would have done), but never do, and never become present, such as the Bible speaks of (1 Sam. 23:11-12; 2 Kn. 13:19; Jer. 38:17-18; Eze. 3:6; Mt. 11:21-23; Jn. 15:22-24; 18:36; 1 Cor. 2:8). These kinds of actions and scenarios are known as counter-factuals.¹
¹ That the Reformed affirm counter-factuals are possible, see ‘On Possibilities & Hypotheticals’.
John Duns Scotus (d. 1308), in seeking a better solution, posited that God knows future, contingent actions, and those that will never occur, though they might have, through his eternal decree, his decree establishing not only what will happen, but also what could happen and would have happened if contingent causes acted otherwise. Domingo Banez (d.1604) and the later strict Thomists, ironically, maintained this position, with much of the Reformed after them.
Note that, with at least regards to Molina, by definition middle knowledge comes before God’s decree, and thus (inline with Augustine) God still decrees every last thing that comes to pass.¹ This could not necessarily be said of all Arminians’ appropriation of Molina (and thus Arminians sometimes were more akin to Semi-Pelagianism than many Jesuits).
¹ Thus Molinists were fully inline with the most relevant parts of the later Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), such as ch. 3, sect. 1-2:
“I. God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.
II. Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions, yet hath he not decreed anything because he foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions.”
They were also fully inline with ch. 5, sect. 1-2, and the whole chapter.
“I. God, the great Creator of all things, doth uphold,a direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence, according to his infallible fore-knowledge and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.
II. Although in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first cause, all things come to pass immutably and infallibly, yet by the same providence he ordereth them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.”
Yet, even in Arminianism, with their (usually) affirming God’s immutable omniscience of all future things, this entails that all things will certainly come to pass as they do, lest God’s foreknowledge be wrong. Hence the certainty of the future, and that it will not be otherwise, is a common position between the Reformed and Arminians (and any reputable Christian). The objection against the Reformed (regularly used by Arminians) that future certainty implies a morally destructive determinism, is an unsustainable chimera.
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Physical Predetermination
If the Reformed sometimes took varied views on the nature of God’s knowledge(s), and decree(s) (or lack thereof), of counter-factuals, this being the substance of middle knowledge (call it what you will, however one wants to delineate the finer points), it shows that such a category of God’s knowledge itself does not determine the issue. Rather, where the rubber hits the road is how God brings about, or allows,¹ his decree to come to pass.
¹ The Reformed affirmed evil is effectively allowed to come to pass; the issue here is with free, natural actions themselves.
The Jesuit side of things affirmed God supports all creaturely beings and their actions with a general concursus (or by a positive, necessary influx of God’s will, without which the actions would not occur), yet the person (from his or her own power given of God by creation, along with a moral suasion by God) makes the determining decision between choices. God’s concursus is herein indifferent, allowing for and supporting one or the other choice of the person. Persons choose, with the influence of God, as two persons on either bank, as it were, drawing a boat with ropes upstream. Man and God act as partial causes in the same order of things to bring the action to pass.
The Thomistic and Reformed side generally held to physical predetermination:¹ that God ineffably determines the will, according to its nature, that is freely, to a certain choice and not another. What God predetermines, man freely and actively does. God, the First Cause, does all his God-work, and man, a secondary cause, does all work proper to him, man being herein subordinate and an instrument in some way of God.
¹ This has a train of significant exceptions on the Reformed side. Barthold Holtzfus (d. 1717), a German Reformed professor of theology, who argued at length against physical predetermination, said, in supporting his view of free will: “Francis Junius, Gerhard Johann Voss, Davenant, Johann and Louis Crocius, Louis le Blanc, William Ames, Robert Baron, Johann Strangius, Richard Baxter, D. Elias Grebenitz, D. Phil. Buchius, Dn. D. Samuel Strimesius, Pierre Jurieu—out of love for truth, antiquity and ecclesiastical peace, have preferred to retain that old and accustomed definition of free will; because it, in itself, and viewed without the abuse of the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians, contains nothing evil or inconvenient.” ‘Theological Dissertation on the Free Will of Man’ tr. AI by Nosferatu (Frankfurt: Zeitler, 1707), p. 7 Latin
Yet there were different conceptions of physical predetermination, or physical pre-motion, some more basic (leaving much to mystery) and some more detailed, with variations. The same words do not always mean the same thing.
It should not be surprising that the detailed paradigm Banez came to develop did not exist in such explicit detail before him (though precedents did precede him), as there was no one who had yet pressed the antithesis so far. In this regard Banez went further than Thomas.
Specifically, in order to explain the difference from the state of the will before it determines its choice, to after, Banez posited that God infuses into the soul a physical quality which hence determines the choice to one option and not another. This conceptual mechanism (often simply known as “physical predetermination”) was sometimes objected to in that era, by even Thomists and some of the Reformed, as destroying free choice, and, with some persuasive force of evidence, as not only going beyond Thomas and Augustine, but against them.¹
¹ One such objector was Francisco Macedo (1596-1681), a Franciscan theologian, who argues, contra Banez, that he takes the original position of Scotus and Thomas: Collations of the Teachings of St. Thomas & Scotus, with the Differences between the Two… with the commentaries of the interpreters, vol. 2 tr. AI by Vertias (Padua: Frambotti, 1671), bk. 2, Collation 9, pp. 361-429.
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Trajectories
One of the main determining issues that the whole subject comes down to, is whether it is possible for God to create a rational will that, by definition, has power of itself to move itself.¹ If this is not a contradiction, then, as God can do all things possible that are not contradictions, God can make creatures in this way. The question is one of Voluntarism. Thomists answered in the negative; Scotists (and others) in the positive. Both sides interpret the Biblical data according to their conceptions, which they seek to propose as coherent.
¹ So Richard Baxter, who took the Voluntarist view, following, apparently, the Medieval Durandus of St. Pourcain (d. 1332 or 1334) and Ludovicus a Dola (fl. 1634), without dependence on middle knowledge. For a lesson in humility, see if you can answer all his arguments against physical predetermination (in any and all of its forms), with his defense of voluntarism, in Catholic Theology, Plain, Pure, Peaceable, for Pacification of the Dogmatical Word-Warriors (London: White, 1675), bk. 2, First & Second Days Conference of Predestination, pp. 1-49.
Baxter on these points was fully in accord with the most relevant parts of the Westminster Confession, quoted above in a footnote, as well as Westminster’s deliverances on conversion and effectual calling, such as in WCF 7.3 and 10.1-2 (though explaining how so with Westminster’s consensus language would take a fair amount of more space). In Baxter’s scrupulous review of the Westminster Confession and Catechisms, he does not take exception to any of the relevant passages of Westminster on this topic; see ‘Baxter on Westminster’ under ‘Origins of & Historical Examples of Scruples & Exceptions to Confessions…’ at ‘On Subscription to Confessions by Church Officers’ (RBO). Baxter was approved and ordained by the Westminster Assembly (1648): ed. Chad van Dixhoorn, The Minutes & Papers of the Westminster Assembly, 1643-1652 (Oxford Univ. Press, 2012), vol. 4, Session 1041, Mar. 30, 1647 (actually 1648), Thursday Morning, p. 747; Alan Argent, The Richard Baxter Treatises: a Catalogue & Guide (Boydell Press, 2018), pp. 4, 109-10. From p. 110: “…doe hereby Order and appoynt Mr. Richard Baxter a godlie able, honest Orthodoxe Divine to be minister thereof.”
Roman Catholic theologians did delve into these matters (earlier, throughout and later) at much greater length and detail than Protestants, which means that if Protestants desire to (as they often did in the Post-Reformation), the mass of Romanist literature is already there to be drawn on.
Likewise, every conceivable, minute issue surrounding the main themes above have been discussed and argued, with various positions taken, expounded and defended, in this great body of literature (which is only scantily reflected on this page). Such minutia include the nature of decrees, their relation to eternity and time and God’s revealed will, whether God’s will may be in any sense conditional or ineffectual (and in what ways),¹ the nature of providence and the means of grace as revealing the will of God,² the issue of sufficient grace,³ how Christ’s atonement relates to all this (especially with the rise of Jansensimª in Roman Catholicism, which the Reformed substantially agreed with on the pertinent issues) and much more. The Reformed often learned from Roman Catholics in these matters (and were eager to), while eclectically using what they found as sound (2 Tim. 1:13) for a fuller understanding in teaching God’s ways with us.
¹ See many Reformed theologians affirm this at ‘On Conditional Aspects of God’s Will’ and ‘On Ineffectual Willings of God’.
² See some of the Reformed, such as Davenant and Gale, draw profitably on some Medievals and Roman Scholastics on this: ‘On a Divine Will of Providence, & as Revealed through the Means of Grace’.
³ For some of the Reformed polemic on sufficient grace, see ‘On the Romanist & Arminian Distinction of Grace into Sufficient & Efficient’.
ª See ‘On Jansenism’.
Protestant theologians, though, be it noted, were often more content to receive Biblical guidance in these matters, according to their understanding, than to delve into extended metaphysical speculation.
The historical interest here is profound and complex, both in regard to the history of the controversy in the Roman Church, and with respect to the (developing) mutual interactions and influences between the Roman Catholics (not limited to Thomists, Jesuits, Scotists, Franciscans, Jansenism, etc.), Lutherans, Reformed, Arminians, Socinians and others in that era. To explore these historical connections more, the interested student may peruse:
eds. Ballor, Gaetano and Sytsma, Beyond Dordt & de Auxiliis: The Dynamics of Protestant & Catholic Soteriology in the Sixteenth & Seventeenth Centuries in Studies in the History of Christian Traditions Buy (Brill, 2019) 368 pp.
This page, as it grows, will only contain the most pertinent works to the controversy. Right now most are in Latin, though that is changing. For literature on numerous of the theological topics involved, see other RBO pages and sections, such as those on:
Predestination & the Decrees of God
Ordering of the Decrees
Immanent vs. Transient
Possibilities & Hypotheticals
God could have not Created
Reformed Freedom of Choice vs. Determinism
Revealed Will vs. Decrees
Revealed Will has a Foundation in God
Revealed Will: Improperly God’s Will
Revealed Will has Purpose
Persons’ Salvation ought to Occur, though it Never does
Mixed: Will of Sign & Decree
Divine Disposition, Inclination & Willingness
Signified Will
Providence
Divine Concurrence, Secondary Causation & contra Occasionalism
Can’t Move Apart from God’s Will
To Act Follows Being
Will of Providence
Conservation
Conditional Will
Antecedent / Consequent Will
Ineffectual Will
Kinds of Necessity
Contingent Causes & Contingency
Free Causes
Middle Knowledge
Calling
Ineffectual Call
Calling’s End vs. God’s
Irresistible & Resistible Grace: Compatible
Sufficient & Efficient Grace
Human Soul
Relations between the Intellect & Will
Primacy of Intellect or Will
Last Judgment of the Practical Intellect
Free Choice
Cause of the Will
Regeneration
Regeneration as Subsequent to Faith
Regeneration, Only Initial Aspect is by the Lord Working Alone
Conversion
Jansenism
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Book
1500’s
Molina, Louis de – On Divine Foreknowledge (Part IV of the Concordia) tr. Alfred J. Freddoso (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1988) 300 pp. ToC
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Historical
Articles
Matava, R.J. – ‘A Sketch of the Controversy de auxiliis‘ in Journal of Jesuit Studies (Apr, 2020)
Abstract: “In the 16th century, the Dominicans and the Jesuits engaged in a polarized theological debate about how God can move the human will in a way that neither compromises human free choice nor makes God the author of moral evil. This debate, called the “controversy de auxiliis,” was never resolved. In 1607, Pope Paul V decreed that neither side was heretical and forbade further publishing on the issue without his explicit permission. This article explains the main theological points of the various Dominican and Jesuit actors, the human factors that contributed to the debate…”
Torrijos, David – ‘De Auxiliis Controversy’ in eds. Mário Santiago de Carvalho & Simone Guidi, Conimbricenses.org Encyclopedia with a bibliography
Wikipedia – ‘Congregatio de Auxiliis’
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Book
ed. Ballor, Gaetano & Sytsma – Beyond Dordt & de Auxiliis: The Dynamics of Protestant & Catholic Soteriology in the Sixteenth & Seventeenth Centuries in Studies in the History of Christian Traditions Buy (Brill, 2019) 368 pp.
de Auxillis means ‘on helps’, referring to certain gracious gifts or helps of God with respect to certain abilities of man in salvation according to the Roman Catholic tradition.
Blurb: “An exploration of post-Reformation inter-confessional theological exchange between Reformed, Dominican, Arminian, and Jesuit theologians on controversial soteriological topics. These essays bring theological works into meaningful points of contact in a European-wide struggle with the legacy of Augustine.”
“The title of the book mentions two of the most important events among Protestants and Roman Catholics in the early modern period dealing with the nature of divine grace: The Synod of Dordt [1618-19] and the Congregatio de Auxiliis [1582-1611]… to view them… as snapshots of the history of dogma which represent a larger conversation in these Western traditions… Beyond Dordt and De Auxiliis reminds us that just as the early modern theologians read outside their own tradition to understand it more fully, so contemporary Protestants and Roman Catholics will best understand our own traditions by reading earnestly outside of them.” – Michael Lynch
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Records of the Congregations on Aids
Latin Book
Lemos, Thomas de – All the Acts of the Congregations & Disputations which were held before the Most Holy Supreme Pontiffs Clement VIII & Paul V in that great Cause & Controversy concerning the Aids of Divine Grace, which disputations, I, Brother Thomas de Lemos, assisted by that same grace, sustained against several members of the Society [of Jesus] (d. 1629; Lovanius: Aegidius, 1702) 1,364 cols. ToC
Lemos (1555–1629) was a Spanish Dominican theologian and controversialist. He was the lead disputant for the Dominican side, with Alvarez by his side, in the congregations before the Popes.
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Latin
Thomists
1500’s
Soto, Dominicus – De natura et gratia (Venetiis: Iuntas, 1547)
Báñez, Domingo
Scholastica Commentaria in Primam Partem Angelici Doctoris D. Thomae Aquinatis usque ad sexagesimam quartam quaestionem complectentia (Salmantica: M. Gastius, 1584a)
De Fide, Spe et Charitate. Scholastica Commentaria in Secundam Secundae Angelici Doctoris Partem, quae ad quaestionem quadragesimam sextam protenduntur (Salmantica: S. Stephanus, 1584b)
Super Primam Partem Divi Thomae a quaestione sexagesimaquinta usque in finem commentariorum (Salmantica: A. Renaut, 1588)
De Iure et Iustitia Decisiones (Salmanticae: I. & A. Renaut, 1594)
De moderando decreto silentii in materia de auxiliis (1597), Biblioteca Angelica, Roma, ms. 883, ff. 54-58
Comentarios inéditos a la Prima Secundae de Santo Tomás (Madrid: CSIC, 1948), vol. 3
Beltrán de Heredia, Vicente. 1968. Domingo Báñez y Las Controversias Sobre La Gracia: Textos y Documentos. Madrid: CSIC.
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1600’s
Alvarez, Diego
Of Divine Grace & the Powers & Liberty of Human Choice, & the Legitimate Harmony of that with the Efficacy of those same Helps, in 12 Books (Lugduni, Cardon & Cavellat, 1620) 502 pp. Detailed ToC Index
Diego Alvarez (d. 1632)
bk. 1. Introductory 2 ToC
2. Knowledge of God in respect of future contingents, especially of those which depend on the created will 29 ToC
3. General concursus of God and divine predestination 70 ToC
4. Divine providence 140 ToC
5. Gracious predestination of saints 164 ToC
6. Original sin and the powers of natural choice, especially after the Fall 198 ToC
7. Powers of natural choice in respect of seeking or consequent grace 245 ToC
Powers of choice in order unto supernatural good, after it has received the prior helps of divine grace from God 261 ToC
8. Division of the helps of grace 307 ToC
Help of exciting and sufficient grace 320 ToC
9. Help of grace operating and cooperating, assisting or efficacious 333 ToC
10. Help of grace assisting and efficient through a comparison with the help of grace exciting and sufficient 388 ToC
Help of the most special grace proper to the predestined, that is, the grace of perseverance 417 ToC
11. Reprobation 437 ToC
12. Harmony of grace and free choice 467-502 ToC
Works on the Helps of Divine Grace, the Powers of Human Choice, Liberty & the Legitimate Concord of that with the Efficacy of those same Helps, a Summa in 4 Distinct Books, now first produced (Lugduni: Cardon & Cavellat, 1620) 802 pp. ToC Index
4 Books of Responses to Objections against the Concord of Free Choice with Divine Foreknowledge, Providence & Predestination, and that with the Efficacy of Prevenient Grace, as it is Defended & Explained by St. Thomas & Thomists (Lugduni: Cardon & Cavellat, 1622) 914 pp. ToC Indices: Subject, Scripture
de Lemos, Tomas – The Panoply of Grace, or Theological Dissertations on the gracious, divine, gently-powerful ordination, leading, means and free progress of the rational creature to a supernatural end, vol. 1 (Introduction), 2 (Highest Providence of God & the most Efficacious Predestination of the Saints), 3 (Influx of God into the Secondary Causes of the Natural Order that they may Produce their Natural Operations), 4 (Divine Efficacy of Prevenient Grace by which God works in us both to will and to work according to his good pleasure) (Leodi: Landas, 1676) ToC 1, 2, 3, 4 Index 1, 2, 3, 4
Lemos (1555–1629) was a Spanish Dominican theologian, professor of theology and controversialist. He was the lead disputant for the Dominican side, with Alvarez by his side, in the congregations before the Popes.
Ledesma, Petrus de – Tractatus de divinae gratiae auxiliis, circa illa verba Esaiae cap. 26, Omnia opera nostra operatus es in nobis Domine: Et circa doctrinam D. Thomae multis in locis: praecipue I. Par. Quaest. 19. Art. 8. et Quaest. 23. et I.2. Quaest. 111 (Salmantica: A. Ramirez, 1611)
Zumel, Franciscus – Opuscula, Libros III ad Primam Partem, et ad Primam, Secundae duos variorumque questionum alium continentia (Salmantica: A. Taberniel, 1608)
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Jesuits
1500’s
de Molina, Luis
The Concordia
Liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis, divina praescientia, providentia, praedestinatione et reprobatione concordia (Olyssipone: Riberius, 1588)
Appendix ad concordiam liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis, divina praescientia, providentia, praedestinatione, et reprobatione (Olyssipone: E. de Lyra, 1589)
Liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis, divina praescientia, providentia, praedestinatione et reprobatione concordia. Edited by Iohannes Rabeneck (Oniae/Madrid: Collegium Maximum S. I./Sapientia, 1953)
Suárez, Franciscus – Varia opuscula theologica (Matriti: Ex Typographia Regia, 1599)
Torrijos: “Congruism” is the name given to the somewhat mitigated sort of Molinism supported by Bellarmine and Suárez, which was the one defended de facto in the controversies of Rome. According to this version, God gives a “congruous” grace morally adapted to the nature and circumstances of each one. This version tries to highlight the divine predilection for the predestined, somewhat diminished in Molina’s approach. Thus, unlike Molina, who thought that the divine decision to predestine some people presupposes in its design the good works they were going to perform with the grace of God (predestination post praevisa merita), congruists believe that predestination is logically previous to those merits and is, therefore, totally unwarranted (predestination ante praevisa merita).”
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1600’s
Bellarmine, Robert –
For Bellarmine’s modified congruist position, see under Suarez above.
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