do not resist the

spirit’s call
Francisco Marín-­Sola. From New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2E. © 2003
Gale, a part of Cengage Learning, Inc. Reproduced by permission.
Do Not
do not Resist
theresıstSpirit’s Call
the
Francisco Marín-Sola

spırıt ’s
on Sufficient Grace

call
edited and translated by Michael D. Torre

Francisco
Marín-­Sola
on Su≈cient
Grace

edited and translated by

Michael D. Torre

The Catholic University of America Press

Washington, DC
Copyright © 2013
The Catholic University of America Press
All rights reserved
The paper used in this publication meets the
minimum requirements of American National
Standards for Information Science—Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI
Z39.48-1984.
∞

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-

Publication Data
Torre, Michael D.
Do not resist the spirit’s call : Francisco Marín-Sola
on sufficient grace / Michael D. Torre.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8132-2149-6 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Marin-Sola, F. (Francisco), 1873–1932. 2. Grace
(Theology) 3. Free will and determinism.
4. Marin-Sola, F. (Francisco), 1873–1932. Sistema
tomista sobre la moción divina. 5. Thomas,
Aquinas, Saint, 1225?–1274. 6. Causation.
7. God (Christianity)—History of doctrines.
I. Marin-Sola, F. (Francisco), 1873–1932. Sistema
tomista sobre la moción divina. English. II. Title.
BT761.3.T67 2013
234.092—dc23 2013003482
To the many Dominicans who have
helped me understand the mind of the
Common Doctor, and especially to
Fr. Francisco Marín-Sola, OP, in the hope
that it will make his true stature better
known and appreciated within the order
and worldwide
Contents

Preface ix

Introduction xi
  The Life and Work of Francisco Marín-Sola xi
    Note on the Translation xxxii

1. Marín-Sola’s Articles on the Divine Motion 1

  First Article: The Thomist System regarding the Divine Motion 1
  Second Article: A Reply to Some Objections concerning the
   Thomist System regarding the Divine Motion 56
  Third Article: New Observations concerning the Thomist System
   regarding the Divine Motion 139

2. Conclusion: The Reception of Marín-Sola’s Articles 227

  1926 to 1977 227
  1991 to 2012 240
 3. Afterword: God’s Salvific Will 258

Appendixes 303
  1. Marín-Sola and the Thomistic Commentators 303
  2. The Spanish Additions to the Second Article 334
  3. Some Translations from the Concordia Tomista 339

Bibliography 375
  Works Referred to by Marín-Sola 375
   Works Referred to by Editor-Translator 377

Index of Subjects 393

Index of Names 399

Preface

In a recent article, I argued that the doctrine of Jacques Maritain

on God’s permission of sin substantially derived from that of Francisco
Marín-Sola, OP.1 Since he is too little known to the audience of theolo-
gians whose native language is English, I have supplied them here with an
Introduction to his life and work. Since his articles on the divine motion
deserve a wider audience (being difficult to obtain even in their original
Spanish), I have translated them. And since the story of how his articles
were received by Catholic theologians is also too little known, I have sup-
plied this story in the Conclusion.2 Finally, I have also supplied an appen-
dix (Appendix 1) that annotates the Thomistic commentators he cites and
that briefly situates his doctrine in relation to his predecessors. The ap-
1. Michael Torre, “Francisco Marín-Sola, OP, and the Origin of Jacques Maritain’s Doc-
trine on God’s Permission of Evil,” Nova et Vetera 4, no. 1 (2006): 55–94.
2. This chapter substantially duplicates an unpublished appendix of my doctoral thesis.
See “God’s Permission of Sin: Negative or Conditioned Decree? A Defense of the Doctrine of
Marín-Sola, OP, According to the Principles of Thomas Aquinas” (Kalamazoo: University Mi-
crofilms, 1983).

ix
x  preface
pendixes also supply the Spanish text of the “Additions” to his second ar-
ticle, since it was not published, and also assemble select passages from
his Concordia Tomista already translated in my God’s Permission of Sin,3
in order to make his thought as accessible as possible to an English audi-
ence. I have tried to keep my own views—or, rather, a defense of Marín-
Sola’s views—to a minimum.4 I have, however, included an Afterword,
on God’s salvific will, that in part defends my own firm conviction that
Marín-Sola’s doctrine remains of contemporary relevance.
I wish to thank all those at the Catholic University of America Press
who shepherded this text through the publication process, especially
James C. Kruggel and Theresa Walker. My thanks to Anne Kachergis for
her fine design of the cover and text and a special word of thanks to Carol
A. Kennedy for the many small improvements that she patiently made in
her copyediting of a complicated text.

3. See my God’s Permission of Sin: Negative or Conditioned Decree? A Defense of the Doctrine
of Francisco Marín-Sola, O.P., Based on the Principles of Thomas Aquinas (Fribourg: University of
Fribourg Press, 2009). The Spanish texts of the Concordia are assembled in its appendix. (For
a review of this book, see Reinhard Hütter’s in the Thomist, April issue of last year: Thomist 76,
no. 2 [2012]: 305–11. I very much appreciate his judgment of my scholarship: both of that book
and of this one.)
4. Should anyone wish to see my defense of those views at greater length, he may find
something of use in the work just referenced in note 3, especially, 249–326.
Introduct ion

Although Francisco Marín-Sola, OP, is known to many through his

work on the evolution of doctrine, he no doubt remains a largely un-
known figure to all save those who have tracked him down in Spanish
sources, some of which are not easily at hand for many. And even these
do not give a complete picture of his work, especially insofar as it bears
on the concord between the free will of God and man and on sufficient
grace. I will thus try to supply this introduction here, in a simple, straight-
forward, yet complete way.1

Th e L if e and Work of Fr an cisco Mar í n- S ol a

Francisco Marín-Sola was born on November 22, 1873, in the town
of Cárcar (then, as now, numbering some 1,200 souls), in Navarre, some

1. The fount for most biographical material on Marín-Sola is Mariano Velasco, OP: “En-
sayo de Bibliografía de la Provincia del Santisimo Rosario de Filipinas” (manuscript, Manila),
6: 87–117. It is the main source for much of the biographical information Emilio Sauras, OP,

xi
xii  introduction
fifty miles south of Pamplona, near the river Ebro.2 Like Aquino, Cárcar
rests on a high hill dominating a rich agricultural area, mainly of grape
and grains. In medieval times, it was on the border between Muslim lords
to the south and Christian lords to the north and constantly contested. As
with other such border towns, its parochial church was dedicated later to
Saint Michael the Archangel.3 Incorporated into Castille in the fifteenth
century, it participated in the missionary activity of Spain, and one of its
sons (an unknown Augustinian friar) even founded a town in the Phil-
ippines (on Cebu, three hundred miles south of Manila) that bears the
name of his birthplace.4
Perhaps influenced by traditions of his native town, Francisco Marín-
Sola entered the Dominican Province of the Most Holy Rosary: the Span-
ish Dominican province dedicated to missionary work in the Far East, cen-
tered in the Philippines. He entered the order at the youngest canonical
age possible (fifteen), in Ocaña (about fifty miles south of Madrid), hav-
ing already begun studying philosophy there at the age of thirteen. He
continued doing so and took his simple vows on December 10, 1889; he
then made his perpetual vows exactly three years later, in Avila, where
he had been sent to study theology. In 1897, being still a deacon, he was
transferred to Manila, and was there ordained a priest, on September 18
of that year. Due to poor health, he was moved to the town of Amulung
(where he worked as the assistant parish priest) in the province of Cagay-
an, two hundred miles north of Manila, at the beginning of 1898. There,

supplies in his introduction to the BAC version of La evolución homogénea del dogma católico
(Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1952), 11–31. It is also used extensively by Victoria-
no Vicente, OP, in his excellent summary “De la prisión a las aulas universitarias,” Philippiniana
Sacra 1 (1966): 320–46, which is the most detailed account of his life in print at present. For fur-
ther biographical information on Marín-Sola, see the bibliographical entries listed in “Works
Referred to by the Author” for Gregorio Arnaiz, Ángel Rodriguez Bachiller, Claudio Garcia Ex-
tremeño, Vidal Fueyo Fernandez, Eladio Neira, and Felix Vacas. See also the brief pieces on him
by Yves Marie-Joseph Congar, Francis Dominic Nealy, and Tomas Tascon, and the brief inter-
net piece on him by Claudio Garcia Extremeño found at www.canalsocial.net.
2. For an account of his birthplace, see Eduardo Mateo Gambarte, ed., Cárcar: Historia,
Vocabulario y Plantas (Pamplona: Gobierno de Navarra, 2002). This work contains two men-
tions of Marín-Sola as one of the famous religious of the town (66 and 146–47). Seemingly all
of the information about him in this book is derived from Sauras.
3. Ibid, 35. Sauras says that “the spirit of fighting was innate in him; he was an authentic
figure of Navarre vigor” (La Evolucíon Homogénea, 22).
4. Ibid, 45–46.
 introduction   xiii

Parochial church, Cárcar (Church

of St. Michael the Archangel).

in the town of Enrile, he was taken prisoner in the Tagalog uprising, held
prisoner (largely in Tumawini) for sixteen months, and subjected to harsh
treatment. He was set free and returned to Manila on January 1, 1900.5
His teaching career began and ended in Manila. From 1900 to 1904,
he taught mathematics (arithmetic, algebra, and geometry) and meta-
physics there at the College of San Juan de Letrán. From 1904 to 1906, he
taught philosophy at the University of Santo Tomas, and then theology
there, from 1908 to 1910. From 1906 to 1908 and again from 1910 to 1911, he
taught theology in Avila, focusing on the study of the “Theological Plac-
es” and the work of Melchior Cano dedicated to that subject. It was there
5. He had a great facility for languages; according to a companion, he learned the Ibanag
language (i.e., Tagalog) in the 6 months prior to his captivity, speaking easily with native Filipi-
nos in their own language (Vicente, “De la prisión a las aulas universitarias,” 321). Sister Maria
Cruz Rich, OP, in her Apuntes históricos del Beaterio y Colegio de Santa Catalina de Manila (Ma-
nila: University of Santo Tomas, 1939), 23, says Fr. Marín-Sola endured harsh treatment while
in captivity, including a judicial flogging. Father Fidel Villarroel, OP, confirms that Marín-Sola
was one of the Dominicans held prisoner; see his The Dominicans and the Philippine Revolution,
1896–1903 (Manila: University of Santo Tomas), 328, 330, and 344.
xiv  introduction
that he first conceived and began to publish articles in La Ciencia Tomista
on his most famous work, dealing with the evolution of Catholic dogma.6
His province decided to transfer its General Study from Avila to Ro-
saryville, Louisiana, in order for its missionary priests to obtain a better
grasp of English, which was fast replacing Spanish in the Philippines. Thus,
Marín-Sola went to the University of Notre Dame, in 1911, where he per-
fected his English, while teaching Spanish and philosophy. He made such
an impression there that the university bestowed on him the title “Doctor
honoris causa in Civil Law” on June 12, 1916.7 He moved to Rosaryville in
1913, where he taught theology until 1918. During his first years there, he
also served with distinction as secretary for a commission created by the
archbishop of New Orleans to examine and suggest emendations to the
new code of Canon Law (published in 1917).8 During this same period, he
continued to publish further articles on the evolution of Catholic dogma.
No doubt due in large part to the brilliance of those articles, in the
fall of 1918 he was invited to fill the chair of dogmatic theology at the Uni-
versity of Fribourg vacated by the death of Norberto del Prado, OP.9 He
taught dogmatic theology there from January 1919, until the fall of 1927,
when he voluntarily retired, citing reasons of poor health.10 He then
6. Marín-Sola, “La homogeneidad de la doctrina catolica,” La Ciencia Tomista 3 (1911):
394–410.
7. This honorary doctorate may also have been due to his work on the code of Canon Law
(see the following note). He received his lector in theology in 1901, his licentiate in 1908, and his
doctorate in 1910, all from the University of Santo Tomas, in Manila. In 1920, in Fribourg, he re-
ceived the master of sacred theology.
8. Velasco quotes the following words of the apostolic delegate (and later cardinal) Mon-
signor Bonzano to Archbishop Blenk of New Orleans: “from the time this apostolic delegation
of Washington has existed, it has received no other reports as profound, methodical, and so
logically ordered as those that your excellency has had the goodness to send [it]” (La evolucíon
homogénea del dogma católico [Madrid: Ciencia Tomista, 1923], 17–18). Archbishop Blenk con-
firmed that the reports to which Bonzano referred came from the pen of Marín-Sola. Some 63
of the 76 emendations he proposed were later included in the Canon Law of 1917.
9. Vidal Fueyo Fernandez was an eyewitness to his departure from New Orleans in the
fall of 1918 (see Vidal Fueyo Fernandez, “El P. Francisco Marín Sola, O.P., [1873–1932], “Algu-
nos rasgos de su fisonomia intellectual,” Teologia Espiritual 37 [1993]: 49–73, 49–50). However,
according to Velasco (“Ensayo de Bibliografía,” 92), events connected with World War I’s end
postponed his arrival in Fribourg until January 25, 1919.
10. In fact, he often had problems with his health, and he had recently been under much
stress, due to his work on grace and free will (as Journet had noted to Maritain: see my “Francis-
co Marín-Sola, O.P., and the Origin of Jacques Maritain’s Doctrine on God’s Permission of Evil,”
n. 36).
 introduction   xv

Marín-Sola’s Convent, Ocaña.

stayed for a little over one year in his first convent of Ocaña (and its house
in Nambroca, near Toledo), before setting sail for Manila in January 1929.
Thus, after twenty years, he again taught theology there, until his death,
on June 5, 1932.
Marín-Sola’s writing career began and ended in Manila. From 1902 to
1904, he wrote brief articles and editorials for the magazine Libertas, even
assuming its direction in the years 1908 to 1910. Particularly notable were
a series of twenty-two brief articles he wrote in 1902 and 1903, under the
pen name “Euripio,” comparing the Catholic and Protestant churches.11
These were simple in nature, their central aim being to help the Philippine

11. According to Velasco (“Ensayo de Bibliografía,” 111), Marín-Sola collected his brief ar-
ticles published in Libertas (published anonymously or under the pen names “Euripio” and
“Quicoy”) in 22 notebooks, which he had to leave in the parish of St. Anthony of Padua, in New
Orleans, when he left for Europe in 1918. These notebooks, if they still exist, may now be in the
Dominican archives of the University of Santo Tomas. (They do not seem to be in the present
Provincial archives of Avila; but see n. 26.)
xvi  introduction
populace better understand the difference between its Catholic faith and
the versions of the Protestant faith Americans were now bringing to the is-
lands.12 Despite their firm defense of the Catholic Church, the articles’ fun-
damental fairness evoked a letter from the Episcopalian bishop of Manila,
Irving Spencer, who thanked him for their “gentle and honest” spirit.13
His second work of particular note was also simple in nature. It con-
sisted in a “panegyric” to Saint Thomas, preached before the professors
of the University of Madrid on March 15, 1908, and published in Avila
that same year.14 While his series of articles in Libertas defended revealed
truths of Catholic faith, this speech lauded the greatness of Thomas’s
mind, the marvelous reach and depth of his use of human reason. These
first two “introductory” works, then, defended the two (albeit unequal)
bases of the scholastic theology of which he became a clear master: the
revealed truths of Catholic faith and the metaphysical use of reason that
aided in their organization, explication, and defense.
That he was, indeed, a master of scholastic theology was made ev-
ident in his work that then followed, on the evolution of Catholic doc-
trine. He presented his thought in articles, first in La Ciencia Tomista,15
and then—after his arrival in Fribourg—also in the Revue Thomiste.16
These were then assembled into the first edition of a book: La evolucíon
homogénea del dogma católico.17 This Spanish edition was soon followed
by a French edition, emended and enriched: L’Evolution Homogène du
Dogme Catholique.18 In 1952, the BAC went on to publish a Spanish ver-
12. See the articles from Marín-Sola published in Libertas in 1902 and 1903 listed in “Works
Referred to by the Author.” At this same time, he also published a very brief piece celebrating
the fiftieth anniversary of the proclamation of Mary as Immaculate: “Los méritos de Cristo pre-
visto en Maria,” in Corona Literaria (Manila: University of Santo Tomas, 1904), 95–97. (For a
translation of this text, see the Afterword, n. 57.)
13. Spencer’s words, in Spanish, are suave y recto (Velasco, “Ensayo de Bibliografía,” 99).
14. Marín-Sola, Panegírico de Santo Tomas de Aquino (Avila: Benito Manuel, 1908), 40 pag-
es. A Latin version of this may also have been delivered by him in Fribourg (on March 7, 1924),
under the title “Excelentia rationis humanae juxta sanctum Thomam”: see “La Liberté,” Fri-
bourg, June 17, 1932.
15. See the articles from Marín-Sola published in La Ciencia Tomista from 1911 to 1923 list-
ed in “Works Referred to by the Author.”
16. See the articles from Marín-Sola published in the Revue Thomiste from 1920 to 1922 list-
ed in “Works Referred to by the Author.”
17. Marín-Sola, La evolucíon homogénea del dogma católico (Madrid: Ciencia Tomista,
1923), 600 pages.
18. Marín-Sola, L’Evolution Homogène du Dogme Catholique, 2 vols. (Fribourg: University
of Fribourg, 1924), 535 and 375 pages.
 introduction   xvii

sion of this definitive, second, edition.19 Although first conceived and

then completed in Europe (in Avila and Fribourg, respectively), this work
should rightly be seen as the fruit of his time in the United States.
Marín-Sola’s fame justly rests on this work.20 It was notable for di-
verse reasons. First, he carefully distinguished the bases for a homoge-
neous development of dogma—which he showed was traditional to
Catholic theology—from transformative and untraditional forms be-
ing proposed by some thinkers. Second, he was not afraid to indicate the
need to abandon certain false positions, even when these had been de-
fended by many Catholic theologians. Third, he examined the problem
in depth, not being content simply to quote a few “standard authorities”
or favorite commentators, but instead canvassing the views of the entire
scholastic Tradition—Thomist and non-Thomist alike—to distinguish
what was authentic and essential from what was unnecessary and acci-
dental.21 He thereby provided a very high scholarly model for scholastic
theologians to follow in their work.
While at Fribourg, he also published two, more minor, pieces. The
first one was fitting for a member of his Province: it was a celebration of
the vast missionary work that had characterized the Dominican order from
its inception.22 The second was a new and brief solution to a problem of
Catholic theology: how to explain the way in which sacramental grace

19. Marín-Sola, L’evolucíon homogénea del dogma católico (Valencia: Biblioteca de autores
cristianos, 1952), with introduction, 758 pages. This work was subsequently translated into Eng-
lish by Antonio T. Piñon: The Homogeneous Development of Catholic Dogma (Manila: University
of Santo Tomas, 1988), 840 pages. (This translation includes a further 14 pages of general intro-
duction by Emilio Sauras, written after Vatican II, which indicates the enduring relevance of the
work for the post-conciliar Church.)
20. It was remarkably well received, as evidenced by the following remark from the Études
Franciscaines: “Numerous French and foreign reviews have come to know and appreciate this
remarkable work. They almost unanimously consider that in it is solved the anguished problem
of the evolution of dogma” (37 [1925]: 220.) It has gone on to be a “standard reference” for those
who continue to discuss this matter today: see, as one instance, Jan Hendrik Walgrave, OP, Un-
folding Revelation: The Nature of Doctrinal Development (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1972), espe-
cially 168–78.
21. It is worth noting that, in Evolution (670), he speaks of Cajetan and then Bañez as the
two greatest interpreters of Thomas. This would not prevent him from later drawing on his
then-even-vaster knowledge of the scholastic (and especially Dominican) tradition to disagree
with them on several crucial points.
22. Marín-Sola, “Santo Domingo de Guzmán y las misiones de infieles,” Missiones Domini-
canas 4, no. 47 (August 1921): 246–53. (This periodical was published by his Province, out of
Avila, by Senen Martin.)
xviii  introduction
could revive and operate physically when an obstacle to it was removed.23
During the 1920s, his scholarly interest was principally focused on
the relation between grace and free will. Although, in a conversation with
Abbé Journet,24 Marín-Sola had remarked that he had been interested in
this matter for some twenty years, he dated the beginning of his own so-
lution to this vexed problem from a course he gave at Fribourg in 1920.25
From that time on, he amassed an extraordinary research on this matter,
referring to every doctrine it touched on and virtually every Thomist who
had dealt with the subject. By his own reckoning, Velasco says that he had
assembled more than fifteen thousand texts from the scholastic tradition
bearing on this subject!26 If his first work showed the possibility and vir-
tue of a homogeneous development of Catholic doctrine, this work was
an attempt to do just that on this very much disputed and complex matter.
Marín-Sola indicated his intention to share his thought as he had with
his previous work: by first exposing it in a series of articles.27 He recog-
nized that this matter had been and was then very much a matter of dis-
pute between Molinists and Thomists, and he cited two recent exchang-
es, between Johannes Stüfler, SJ, and Reginald Schultes, OP, and between
23. Marín-Sola, “Proponitur nova solutio ad conciliandam causalitatem physicam sacra-
mentorum cum eorum reviviscentia,” Divus Thomas (Fribourg) ( January 1925): 49–63. There is
an evident relation between this work and the problem of grace and free will that occupied him
at that time. Just as sacramental grace is revived and rendered effective by the removal of an im-
pediment, so merit is revived and rendered effective by the removal of sin. In order for grace and
merit that order to glory to be effective, then, it is not necessary that each of them be infallibly ef-
fective, but only that the final removal of sin be so; for, with the removal of any final impediment
or sin, all previous merit, even though previously impeded, is renewed and rendered effective.
24. See my “Francisco Marín-Sola,” n. 35. In his first article, he also states that he had been
preoccupied with this problem for “very many years.” (See Marín-Sola, “El sistema tomista so-
bra la moción divina,” La Ciencia Tomista 17 [ July–August 1925]: 5–54, 11.)
25. Marín-Sola, “El sistema,” 11: “Five years ago, however, while dedicating an entire
course to expounding the questions in which Saint Thomas treats the origin of evil, we seemed
to see the light” (on how best to resolve some classic difficulties Thomists had faced in explain-
ing the “line of evil”).
26. Velasco, “Ensayo de Bibliografía,” 112. Marín-Sola’s notebooks containing this work
can be found in the current archives of his Province, in Avila. They are 22 in number, of some
200 pages each. (Perhaps Velasco’s reference to “22 notebooks” [see n. 11 above] may mistakenly
be referring to these notebooks.) They include not only references, but his own thoughts on var-
ious points, texts that are often quite lengthy. These would appear to be “first drafts” of material
that was later included in his Concordia tomista sobra la moción divina y la libertad creada (see
n. 44 below for further details on this work).
27. Marín-Sola, “El sistema,” 5.
 introduction   xix

Adhemar d’Alès, SJ, and Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, OP.28 These dis-

putes of the 1920s in fact continued ones of a generation prior. (One had
been between Gerard Schneemann, SJ, and Antoine Marie Dummermuth,
OP, then continued by Victor Frins, SJ, and Humbert Bisschop, OP.29 An-
other was engaged in between Theodore de Regnon, SJ, and Hippolyte
Gayraud, OP, it being continued by Eugène Portalié, SJ, and Henri Guill-
ermin, OP.30 Leo XIII’s Thomistic revival was certainly swift in reawaken-
ing this old disagreement between Jesuits and Dominicans!) Marín-Sola,
however, did not aim his articles at arguing with any opponent, but only at
better understanding the Thomist view, and at developing certain of its po-
sitions, especially regarding God’s permission of sin.31
In doing this, he was following the lead of his predecessor Henri
Guillermin, OP, who had gone on to write a series of articles on the Tho-
mistic understanding of sufficient grace.32 Guillermin had acknowledged
that the “more common” Dominican position faced certain difficulties:
in using “sufficient” in a questionable way, in explaining man’s responsi-
bility for sin, and in explaining “resistance” to grace.33 He sought to over-
come these difficulties by defending the position of González de Albeda
(which had been taken up by the French Dominicans Nicolaï, Massou-
lié, and Reginald during the Jansenist controversy). Following this view,
Guillermin had argued sufficient grace was a motion that was defectibili-
ter and impedibiliter, whereas efficacious grace was a motion that was infal-
libiliter and unimpedibiliter.34 He also held that sufficient grace was in fact

28. Ibid., 7. For examples of the first, see the articles by Stüfler and Schultes listed in
“Works Referred to by the Author.” Summaries of the second can be found in d’Alès’s Provi-
dence et Libre Arbiter (Paris: Beauchesne, 1927), and in the fourth appendix and epilogue to the
English translation of the fifth edition of Garrigou-Lagrange’s Dieu: Son Existence et Sa Nature
(God: His Existence and His Nature [St. Louis: Herder, 1945], 2:465–562).
29. See the entries in “Works Referred to by the Author” for Gerard Schneemann, An-
toine Marie Dummermuth,, Victor Frins, and Humbert Bisschop.
30. See the entries in “Works Referred to by the Author” for Theodore de Regnon, Hip-
polyte Gayraud, and Eugène Portalié. Henri Guillemin contributed two works to this contro-
versy: Saint Thomas et le prédeterminisme (Paris: Lethielleux, 1895), and then a brief response to
Portalié in Revue Thomiste 4 (1896–1897): 642–58.
31. Marín-Sola, “El sistema,” 7.
32. See Henri Guillermin, “De la grâce suffisante,” Revue Thomiste 9 (1901): 505–19; 10
(1902): 47–56, 377–404, and 654–75; and 11 (1903): 20–31.
33. Guillermin, Revue Thomiste 10 (1902): 661–62.
34. Guillermin, Revue Thomiste 11 (1903): 21.
xx  introduction
always impeded without the aid of efficacious grace; he admitted, howev-
er, to having difficulty explaining why this should be.35
Marín-Sola’s position resolved Guillermin’s difficulty. He noted in
“Respuesta” that González de Albeda had held sufficient grace to be proxi-
mately preparatory for the act of justification itself.36 Since most Domini-
cans taught that efficacious grace was always necessary for this perfect act,
his position entailed that sufficient grace alone was always impeded. How-
ever, if sufficient grace concerned man’s vocation, not justification (i.e., if it
was only remotely preparatory for this perfect act), then there was no need
to hold that an impedible motion was always impeded; for Dominicans
commonly taught that sufficient grace could cause those preparatory acts.
It seems likely that Guillermin’s articles first prompted Marín-Sola to think
seriously about these matters (since he dates his interest in the matter near
to the time of their publication); certainly, his own position is very much
in his predecessor’s line of thought, while taking up and solving its poten-
tial difficulties. Thus, Guillermin had also acknowledged difficulty in ex-
plaining how God knew man’s resistance and sin;37 Marín-Sola sought to
solve this difficulty, too, by reference to God’s decree as eternal.
Marín-Sola recognized that several of his ideas were relatively new
and asked only that his readers be patient and await further articles that
would explain his thought more fully.38 He was not successful in this plea,
however, for Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, OP, immediately objected to
his first article.39 As just noted, Garrigou-Lagrange was at that very time
engaged in a dispute with Adhemar d’Alès, SJ,40 and he ended his objec-
tion by calling on all Dominicans to maintain a “common front” in their

35. Guillermin, Revue Thomiste 10 (1902): 673.

36. Marín-Sola, “Respuesta a algunas objeciones acerca del sistema tomista sobre la mo-
ción divina,” La Ciencia Tomista 18 ( January–February, 1926): 5–74, 7.
37. Guillermin, Revue Thomiste 11 (1903): 29.
38. Marín-Sola, “El sistema,” 8.
39. Garrigou-Lagrange, OP, “La grâce efficace est-elle nécessaire pour les actes salutaires
faciles?” Revue Thomiste 30 (November, 1925): 558–66. It acknowledged that Marín-Sola might
“complete the line of [some Thomists] in the line of culpability [for sin]” (558), but the article,
while brief, was sharply critical of Marín-Sola’s position.
40. For a full reference to their debate, see the articles listed in “Works Referred to by the
Author” by d’Alès, mostly in Recherches de Science Religieuse, and by Garrigou-Lagrange, mostly
in Revue de Philosophie and Revue Thomiste. Their debate began with an article by d’Alès in 1917
and ended eleven years later with one by Garrigou-Lagrange. It included some fourteen articles
over that span of time, and a dozen between 1922 and 1927.
 introduction   xxi

opposition to Molinism. Marín-Sola therefore interrupted his series to of-

fer a reply to Garrigou-Lagrange.41 Since the latter then wrote a second
critical article,42 Marín-Sola appended fourteen pages to his next article,
briefly replying to his further difficulties.43 These three articles (a book-
length treatment, totaling some two hundred pages) represent his only
published material on this matter.
After he retired to Ocaña, he began to write his systematic account of
this matter, in a multivolume work entitled Concordia tomista entra la mo-
ción divina y la libertad creada.44 He completed the first volume, on God’s
knowledge, in Ocaña. The second was to be on God’s will, to be followed
41. Marín-Sola, “Respuesta a algunas objeciones.” As he indicates in #14 of his “Documen-
tos” (see n. 50 below), he added a four-page “Additions” to this article, which he printed and in-
cluded with the off-prints he had received from La Ciencia Tomista, since they had arrived too
late to be published in it. These additions add little new to his ideas, being brief replies in “scho-
lastic form” to the given objections. (For the text of these “Additions,” see Appendix 2.)
42. Garrigou-Lagrange, “La grâce infalliblement efficace et les acts salutaires faciles,” Re-
vue Thomiste 31 (May, 1926): 160–73. This was again brief, but even more pointed, suggesting
that Marín-Sola’s views not only opposed essential principles of Thomism, but even struck a
blow (porter atteinte) at Catholic dogma (173). He promised to demonstrate this more fully in
an article soon to appear in the Angelicum.
43. Marín-Sola, “Nuevas observaciones acerca del sistema tomista sobre la moción divi-
na,” La Ciencia Tomista 18 (May–June 1926): 321–97. The appendix (384–97) contains his point-
by-point reply.
44. The original of this work is also located in the Avila archives. It consists of 18 notebooks,
each of about 200 pages (the first 6 containing a volume on God’s knowledge, and the next 12 a
volume replying to the last objections of Garrigou-Lagrange), and 11 further notebooks, in pen-
cil, one small one containing the introduction to the entire work and 10 containing an unfinished
volume on God’s will. In his last complete work (see n. 50 below), Marín-Sola says that all but
one of the first 18 notebooks were written while in Ocaña, while the last of these was complet-
ed in Manila (“Documentos,” #50). Since he also indicates there that he has not yet written on
God’s will, this final volume was presumably written between the completion of “Documentos”
(February 1931) and his death ( June 5, 1932). The last volume completes its account of God’s will,
and then turns to God’s providence, but breaks off after one chapter and never gets to God’s pre-
destination and reprobation: the matters he had intended it to take up (see the next note). The
introduction to the whole work also seems to have been written after the first two volumes. (Not
only is it in pencil, but it proposes a slightly different order than that given in his “Documentos”:
at that time, he thought of the work as consisting of five parts, with separate treatments for God’s
motion and grace, treatments he then combines in his introduction, as can be seen in the follow-
ing note.) The entire work is remarkable for having almost no alterations. Later, Marín-Sola cut
out texts he had assembled in his earlier 22 volumes of notes (see n. 26 above) and pasted these
into his text. These become ever more extensive, throughout volume 1 especially, no doubt be-
cause of a felt need to demonstrate—against the attack of Garrigou-Lagrange—that his views
were in essential accord with past Dominican commentators.
xxii  introduction
by one on the divine motion, and a final one that would reply to objec-
tions.45 A third negative article by Garrigou-Lagrange, however, had been
published, in pamphlet form.46 Thus, while in Ocaña, Marín-Sola inter-
rupted his work to reply thoroughly to Garrigou-Lagrange’s objections
(thus, in effect, writing his projected fourth volume). He had almost fin-
ished this reply when he set sail for Manila, in 1929. He finished the reply
there, and later began his volume on God’s will. Although this was left in-
complete at his death, he had made substantial progress on it. Since his
three articles in effect cover much of the ground of his projected third vol-
ume, his written work substantially gives us his thought on these complex
questions. Most of it, however, remains unpublished.
Marín-Sola was very much aware that seeking to harmonize opposing
views can lead to confusion, rather than clarification, as this comment on
Suarez indicates: “Eminently traditional where common doctrines are con-
cerned, Suarez is also one of the most eclectic spirits in matters where his
predecessors are divided among themselves. Suarez rarely declares himself
unconditionally for any of two opposed schools. More often than not, he
introduces a distinction or observation of his own, undoubtedly moved by
the praiseworthy intention of reducing the distance between adversaries.
However laudable this purpose, it is not always philosophically sound and
can often prove dangerous; for, when it is a question of harmonizing hetero-
geneous or even contradictory systems, there is the risk of making a mess
of everything instead of putting things in order.”47 He clearly thought that
Molina had “made a mess of everything” in his famous Concordia, where-
45. In its introduction, Marín-Sola declares his intention as follows: “la divideremos en
cuatro libros. El primero tratara de la Ciencia Divina. El segunda, de la voluntad divina, junta-
mente en [con?] la providencia, predestinación y reprobación. El tercero de la moción divina, la
quale es [en?] el orden sobrenatural se llama gracia divina. El cuarto de la solución de las ob-
jeciones”; his emphases. The page is xxvi, from the first, typed, edition, of the Concordia (see
n. 70 below). The likely errors (see brackets) are also found in his own notebook, and its editor
dutifully reproduced them in its typed form.
46. Garrigou-Lagrange, Principi Thomismi Cum Novissimo Congruismo Comparata:
Thomismi Renovatio an Eversio? (Rome: Angelicum, 1926), 59 pages. Garrigou-Lagrange is here
referring to the “Thomistic Congruism” of González, for he later characterized Marín-Sola’s po-
sition as an “extension” of González’s (Grace [St. Louis: Herder, 1952], 230). Yet Marín-Sola dis-
tinguished his position from González’s, and, in doing so, resolved the difficulties inherent in his
position. Garrigou-Lagrange’s animus appears to derive, in some measure, from his failure to
detect that Marín-Sola’s opinion was not an extension of the views of González and Guillermin,
but a correction of them.
47. L’Evolution Homogène du Dogme Catholique, 184.
 introduction   xxiii

as the title of his own work, Concordia Tomista, indicates his obvious desire
to avoid this. Yet, he, too, was moved in part by a desire to reduce “the dif-
ference between adversaries,” while putting doctrines “in order”; he knew
well, however, that this risked making a “mess” of Thomas’s doctrine, and
this evidently accounts for both his thoroughness and his mental strain.
He also left two further works, also unpublished at his death. One was
a commentary on various questions of parts I and III of the Summa.48 Ex-
cept for an extensive treatment of the first question, much of this remains
brief. It represents material he used for his theology courses in Manila, be-
ing in fact the notes of his students that they assembled from his classes for
their private use.49 The second is from his hand and is more important. It
supplies a number of letters from friends, together with a “running com-
mentary” on them that explains his departure from the University of Fri-
bourg.50 He assembled this material in 1930–31, after completing his reply
to Garrigou-Lagrange and before writing his volume on God’s will.51 Both
of these final works remain unpublished, although the second especially is
of scholarly interest and deserves to see the light of day.
Several of its points are worth noting. In 1926, the Dominicans elect-

48. Marín-Sola, “Praeelectiones Theologicae I y III” (3 volumes, of some 300 typed pages
each), unedited (manuscript, Manila).
49. I have this information from Victoriano Vicente, OP, in a private letter of November
9, 1981: he refers to this work as “the notes of those same students of Fr. Marín-Sola that they
collected in class and that they then assembled for their private use.” Lecture notes from the
winter of 1926 and the summer of 1927 (his last days at Fribourg), have also recently become
available, through the National Library of Scotland: see www.nls.uk/catalogues/online/crimi/
inventories/acc7993.pdf. These contain notes (seemingly accurate and reliable) made by Rev.
William James Anderson (1894–1972) that were presented to the National Library of Scotland
in 1981. The winter (December) lecture notes are on the first question of the Summa Theologi-
ae: 89 pages constituting an Introduction to Theology. The length of treatment is similar to the
notes contained in his “Praeelectiones Theologicae I”; it contains only slightly different mate-
rial. The summer lecture notes are 118 pages devoted to the Summa’s treatise on the Trinity and
are somewhat “summary” in nature. In both, one senses Marín-Sola’s fine mind at work.
50. Marín-Sola, “Documentos sobre mis tres artículos y mi salida de la Universidad de Fri-
burgo.” The original of this work can be found in the Avila archives, filling two notebooks. In it,
Marín-Sola copied a number of letters from scholarly friends and supplied comments on them.
He also repeats various conversations bearing on his departure from Fribourg, especially those
with his superior, Buenaventura Garcia de Paredes, OP.
51. He arrived in Manila on February 9, 1929 (“Documentos,” #68), but soon took quite
ill. He did not write after April 29, 1929 (“Documentos,” #71), until he began to compile the
“Documentos” in April of 1930. Thus, he must have completed the last volume of his reply to
Garrigou-Lagrange just after he first arrived.
xxiv  introduction

ed a new master general: Buenaventura Garcia de Paredes.52 Although a

Spaniard, and from Marín-Sola’s own Province, Paredes had not been well
disposed toward him,53 apparently because of “factions” within their Prov-
ince.54 He immediately took action to stop both Marín-Sola and Garrigou-
Lagrange from writing as they had; for—without entering into the mer-
its of either position—he judged such a public debate in periodicals to
be inappropriate to brother Dominicans.55 (This explains why Garrigou-

52. For brief biographical accounts of Paredes (1866–1936), see Diccionario de Historia Ecle-
siástica de Espana (Madrid: Instituto Enrique Flores, 1972), 2:976, and Dictionnaire d’Histoire
et de Geographie Eclésiastique (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1981), 19:1204–5, and especially Neira’s
Misioneros Dominicos, 313–15. See also the account given by his successor as master general,
Martin Stanislas Gillet, OP: “Maximas inter angustias,” Analecta Sacri Ordinis Fratum Praedicto-
rum 46 (1938): 541–58; this was substantially translated (and rearranged) by J.B. Reeves, OP, as
Dominican Martyrs in Red Spain (Oxford: Blackfriars, 1938), 20 pages. Paredes was with Marín-
Sola in the Philippines in 1900–1901, and was his provincial from 1910 to 1917. Shot by Commu-
nists at the start of the Spanish Civil War, he is one of the 498 martyrs (38 being Dominicans
from Madrid) of that war beatified (in Rome) in 2007. Some sense of his character can also be
gleaned from his First Circular Letter To The Dominican Order (Rome: Vatican Polyglot Press,
1927), 25 pages. For further accounts of him, see the entries for Vito T. Gomez and Reginald M.
Coffey in “Works Referred to by the Author.”
53. In “Documentos” (#28) Marín-Sola made the following comment: “No one from
within our Province did not know that Fr. Paredes (by virtue of those lamentable divisions that
often occur, even within religious orders, and that are termed ‘parties’) was my greatest person-
al enemy, insofar as there can be enemies between religious persons. Fr. Paredes was the recog-
nized head of the so-called ‘Asturian party,’ and all the Asturians of our Province, and especially
Fr. Paredes, considered me to be the greatest adversary of their party. . . . Since Fr. Paredes had at
hand the greatest occasion to remove me that he could wish, simply by taking advantage of the
opposition being brought against my articles by Fr. Garrigou and other professors of the Ange-
licum, for this reason I told Fr. Santiago Ramirez in Fribourg, as soon as I knew of the election
of Fr. Paredes, that my days in Fribourg were numbered.” (For the original Spanish from which
this, and the further remarks of Paredes given below, are translated, see my God’s Permission of
Sin, preface, n. 3, and ch. 1, nn. 29–31).
54. On this matter of “factions” or “parties,” Pablo Fernandez, OP, when librarian at the
University of Santo Tomas, shed the following light (in a personal letter to me of May 26, 1982):
“After the foundation of the noviate in Ocaña in 1830, without being able to give exact dates, two
parties began—Castillians and Asturians—due to the fact that there were abundant religious
coming from these regions (and, among them, many that were very good). Between the years of
1910 and 1940, the contest went back and forth between Asturians and Castillians. The Asturians
are very gregarious and support each other strongly. We Castillians are not so much, although
this was not absent. The goal of these parties was to scale high posts, especially the provincialate.
Fr. Paredes, despite his great virtue, was very much involved in these human miseries. His coun-
terpart was Fr. Serapio Tamayo. And Fr. Marín was one of the victims” (my translation).
55. In a letter copied in “Documentos” (#33), Marín-Sola reports Paredes’s injunction
 introduction   xxv

Lagrange’s third article, although completed, was not allowed to be pub-

lished in the Angelicum, but only as a separate pamphlet.)56 He further re-
quired that Marín-Sola present common Dominican positions on this
matter in his courses: he remained free to present his own position as well,
but only as one possible view, and he was not to defend it in such a manner
as to refute other opinions.57
According to Marín-Sola, he complied entirely with his superior’s di-
rectives.58 Paredes, however, claimed otherwise.59 Thus, after taking coun-
to him as follows: “Without entering into an examination of what you yourself have espoused, and
bearing in mind only, in this case, both the bad impression produced in souls and the importu-
nity of treating a question of this nature in journal publications, I believe myself obliged, and
with this fulfill the obligation, to prohibit you . . . [to publish in them further]. I have indicated
an equal prohibition to those who have intervened in the question” (Marín-Sola’s emphases, which
originally, here and elsewhere, used underlining).
56. Maritain reported that Garrigou-Lagrange was “content” with this solution, although
he himself could think of “more noble solutions” for handling such a controversy: see my “Fran-
cisco Marín-Sola,” n. 122. No doubt one reason Garrigou-Lagrange was content was that, even
though his article appeared only as a pamphlet, it was nevertheless printed: he, therefore, had
the “last word” that was published on this matter.
57. Marín-Sola reports his directive as follows (“Documentos,” #37): “In imposing silence
upon you regarding the said question, I am not seeking that you recant what you have taught or
written, nor scarcely that you cease to declare your opinion, in order to espouse the other or the
others that exist on this matter, but to declare it such that, it being a matter not demonstrated,
the students are able to accept whichever opinion they please . . . but not refuting the contrary
opinions that pass as genuinely Thomistic, nor putting such a firmness in the defense of your
own as to be equivalent to a direct refutation or condemnation of the others.” Paredes sent this
directive to Marín-Sola on March 2, 1927, complying with Marín-Sola’s request that he be given
some direction as to how Paredes wished him to teach the disputed material that was normal-
ly covered in his class on De Deo Uno. Marín-Sola was quite content with this directive, writing
him back to confirm that he was and to explain how he intended to comply with it.
58. He explains (“Documentos,” #37) that he had used his weekly Thursday classes at Fri-
bourg during the spring of 1927 to present in some detail both distinctions concerning God’s
knowledge and the common Dominican objections to Molina’s scientia media; he had expect-
ed to treat briefly his own opinion on some related issues in several weekly classes in the winter
term of 1927–28 (which he subsequently never gave).
59. Paredes wrote to him (“Documentos,” #38) that Marín-Sola had taken the opportunity
to give classes on the “prohibited questions” (tomo V. ocasión para dar unas conferencias sobre la
cuestión o cuestiones prohibidas), and implied that this was to act against Paredes’s previous di-
rectives. It is clear from the previous communications, however, that Paredes had not “prohib-
ited” discussing these questions, and that Marín-Sola had indicated his intention to deal with
them in his classes only according to Paredes’s previous directives. Furthermore (see the pre-
vious note), Marín-Sola in fact had not yet given any classes directly on the disputed issues.
When Fr. Alberto Blat, OP, read Paredes’s order, he predicted that he would not finish his office
xxvi  introduction
sel with some Dominicans in Rome (almost certainly Garrigou-Lagrange
and others at the Angelicum), he did as they urged and required that
Marín-Sola step down from his teaching post.60 On no matter did Marín-
Sola teach more eloquently than in his response to this order: he obeyed
it immediately.61 Nevertheless, and despite his cited reason of health, it
was clear to many at Fribourg what had transpired, and it prompted
no little grief and disgust.62 Even one who later disagreed with Marín-

as master general; his prediction proved to be accurate: Fr. Paredes would step down from be-
ing master general within the following year.
60. In the same letter (#38), Paredes details the actions that led to his dismissal: “After re-
turning to Rome and reflecting, and listening to those who seemed responsible, I believed it
my duty to treat the matter in a General Counsel . . . and, amply considering and discussing this
matter with the Fathers of the Counsel, the unanimous agreement was that it is not possible to
maintain you in the charge, to which obedience had assigned you, of continuing to teach in the
University of Fribourg.” Although Paredes does not name these men, they were almost certain-
ly Garrigou-Lagrange and his supporters at the Angelicum. As Marín-Sola indicates (“Docu-
mentos,” #8), Garrigou-Lagrange had unsuccessfully tried in 1925 to get the then vicar general,
Serapio Tamayo, to silence him. At that time, Garrigou-Lagrange circulated a protest against
him, which he had gotten six other professors at the Angelicum to sign: Szabo, Hugon, Zac-
chi, Bacic, Paban-Segond, and Buonpensiere. (It is not clear whether those who signed it knew
Spanish or had read his first article; they may simply have been supporting their colleague.)
With the new master general, Garrigou-Lagrange’s desire to silence Marín-Sola was fulfilled.
The outcome of taking counsel with Garrigou-Lagrange and his supporters would have been a
foregone conclusion, as Paredes must surely have known; for Garrigou-Lagrange’s opposition
was deep and public. The letter he had circulated can be found in the Dominican archives at
Santa Sabina (Seria XIV, 950 [Fontes varii personalia], #46), as well as in “Documentos” (#8),
and in Vacas (“Lista de Documentos sobre el P. Marín-Sola,” 4–6).
61. Marín-Sola received his superior’s order to step down from his post in Avila on Sep-
tember 8, 1927. That very day, he wrote a letter to the university submitting his resignation (for
reasons of health) and telling Paredes of his submission to his will. (Copies of both these letters,
as well as Paredes’s previous directives to him, were in the Avila archives in 2003, in a folder la-
beled “Documentos Relativos al M. R. Padre Maestro Francisco Marín-Sola.”) He was then re-
assigned to Ocaña, where he remained until reassigned to Manila the following year (“Docu-
mentos,” #65). The example of religious obedience with which possibly the most justly famous
Dominican theologian of his generation met a directive such as this is edifying.
62. The chancellor of Fribourg wrote him the following: “C’est avec plus vifs regrets que j’ai
appris connnaissance de votre demission” (“Documentos,” #44). The daily Catholic newspaper
of Fribourg, La Liberté, in its issue of September 27th, announced his departure as follows: “Cette
demission . . . provoquera de vifs regrets chez les etudiants” (“Documentos,” #45). Eladio Neira,
OP, wrote about this episode in the following terms: “Esta decisión produjo gran disgusto en la
Universidad de Friburgo, donde el P. Marín era considerado como un auténtico genio teológico
y un gran professor, disgusto que el ministro suizo de instrucción publica hizo llegar al Maestro
de la Orden” (Misioneros Dominicos en la Extremo Oriente, 1936–1940 [Manila, 2000], 312).
 introduction   xxvii

Sola’s view could not fail to regret the way he had, in effect, been silenced.63
Ironically, just at this time, the people of Cárcar chose to honor him,
by dedicating a plaza to him, next to the house in which he was born. The
dedication took place in early 1928, after his departure from Fribourg and
while he was staying in the convent of Ocaña.64 The plaque commemorat-
ing him remains to this day (as does his house). It reads as follows: “Pla-
za de Fray Francisco Marín-Sola. In Perpetuam Rei Memoriam. In this
house was born Father Francisco Marín Sola, who, through his native wis-
dom, covered his people with glory. He is an eminent writer, profound
theologian, Dominican religious, and marvel of the world. Cárcar dedi-
cates this plaza to the Father who has shined so greatly and proclaims him
its famous son, beloved of the town.” 65 One cannot help but sense the
providential timing behind his town’s decision to honor him when it did.
Given the way that Marín-Sola had left Fribourg, it was in fact pos-
sible for some to wonder whether he had somehow offended against Do-
minican doctrine. I believe that Marín-Sola wrote his last work in order to
dispel any possible doubts some might have about this. In fact, his articles
63. Luis Jesus Pereña describes Marín-Sola’s work in the following terms: “Los tres artícu-
los del P. Marín-Sola . . . que produjeron gran impression y que desgraciadamente no llegaron a
su finalización, debido a la oposición energica que encontraron” (“La voluntad divina y la gracia
suficiente y efficaz,” Salmanticenses 9 [1962]: 479–508, 487). This statement is all the more telling
since its author does not share Marín-Sola’s views and raises some difficulties concerning his in-
terpretation of God’s antecedent will (in “Analisis de la voluntad antecedente,” Salmanticenses 7
[1960]: 633–66). Although influenced by Marín-Sola, Pereña thinks that he did not find “la solu-
ción recta” to his chosen problem (“La voluntad divina,” 487). Pereña’s difficulties, however, may
be more apparent than real. He insists that the gift of all grace is based on God’s consequent will
and that it is efficacious in itself (although it can be impeded by sin). He apparently does not rec-
ognize that Marín-Sola explicitly holds both these positions. Their ideas are in fact very close.
64. Two dates for its inauguration are given on the plaque: February 19 and April 22 of
1928. The first is the day the decision was made to honor him, and the second is the day the
plaque was placed. Although he had reluctantly agreed to attend the celebration, a sudden at-
tack of ill health prevented him from going.
65. The plaque is still there and can be read, as follows:
PLAZA DE
FRAY FRANCISCO MARIN SOLA
IN PERPETUAm REI MEMORIAM
EN ESTA CASA NACIO ES ESCRITOR EMINENTE
FRAY FRANCISCO MARIN SOLA ES TEOLOGO PROFUNDO
QUE CON TALENTO DE SABIO RELIGIOSO DOMENICO
EL PUEBLO COLMA DE GLORIA Y MARAVILLA DEL MUNDO
CÁRCAR DEDICA ESTA PLAZA—A PADRE QUE TANTO BRILLA
Y LO PROCLAMA HIJO ILLUSTRE—PREDILECTO DE LA VILLA
FEBRERO 13 Y ABRIL 22 DEL AÑO 1928
xxviii  introduction

Plaque honoring Marín-Sola, Cárcar.

had been submitted to Dominican censors before being published in La

Ciencia Tomista, and the censors had granted their permission, and even
praised them.66 While Marín-Sola showed himself willing (indeed, hero-
ically willing) to suffer in silence the actions taken against him, he believed
it was important that his ideas not suffer the same fate. He wrote his last
work for a future time that could assess it more calmly.
In fact, the truth will out.67 No position as profoundly thought through

66. Marín-Sola begins his “Documentos” with the order of the master general Ludvig
Theissling, OP, to have his articles duly examined, and with the subsequent approval of the
censors (“Documentos,” #2–#12, except #5 and #8). Here is the judgment of the censor, José
Maria Porta, OP, on his second article: “His praelibatis, le digo que encuentro muy bien la con-
testación a las objeciones de su amigo. Como censor no tengo mas que firmar el nihil obstat”
(“Documentos,” #6); and here is the judgment of the second censor, Matias Garcia, OP: “Lo
lei ‘cum maxima attentione’. Lo entendí todo muy bien. Lo apruebo, como artículo ‘tomista,’
maxima cum laude. Ahora mismo lo envío a Madrid con el Nihil Obstat” (“Documentos,” #11);
their emphases.
67. The account of this book (e.g., its “Conclusion,” in particular) shows that there are
many means, beyond religious disobedience or dissent, for Catholic theologians to ensure that
a theological position receives its due, and that ways can be found to overcome an imprudent
use of religious authority or an unjust censorship. In a letter to his friend Ángel Bachiller, he
himself wrote as follows: “Unconditional obedience is the most sure path in order that justice
 introduction   xxix

A view of the countryside below Cárcar.

as his was, and no religious as virtuous and brilliant as he was, could fail
to have devoted and loyal followers. Thus, following his death, the Do-
minicans in Manila appointed Angel de Blas, OP, to type up the Concor-
dia Tomista from the twenty-nine notebooks in which it was handwritten.68
He did so diligently, following the order in which they had been writ-
ten.69 It was in four tomes: the first devoted to God’s knowledge, the sec-
ond and third to his reply to Garrigou-Lagrange’s final objections, and the
last to God’s will.70 Although at least one carbon copy of this was made at

may triumph (because, if a cause is not just, it is better that it not triumph, even though it be our
cause), for Divine Providence usually rewards, even in this life, whatever sacrifices of self-love
are made while looking at God (“Transcripcíon de algunas cartas ineditas de Marín-Sola,” Escri-
tos del Vedat 3 [1973]: 381–90, 386–87); Marín-Sola’s emphasis.
68. See B. Turiel, OP’s “M.R.P. Angel de Blas, O.P., 1896–1961,” Studium 1–2 (1961): 61–95,
92, n. 1.
69. I have compared the typed version with the original manuscript. It includes all the
handwritten material and has no significant errors (that I could find), beyond making one addi-
tion to the text (see the following note).
70. The pages of the first edition are as follows: vol. 1—27 pages of introduction (in Ro-
man numerals), 1,039 of text, and 49 of indexes; vol. 2 (in two tomes)—1,258 pages of text and
166 of indexes; vol. 3—643 pages of text and 21 of indexes. The pages are roughly 200 words
each. Were these translated into the pages of La Ciencia Tomista (as one example), they would
xxx   introduction
that time,71 the work perforce received a very limited distribution. Thus,
in 1957, a second edition was made, under the direction of Jesus Valabuena,
OP.72 This edition was mimeographed, and copies of it were circulated to
various Dominican houses of study. This three-volume edition is the same
as the first, except that Valabuena placed the last volume on God’s will af-
ter the first, in conformity with the order of its introduction. Otherwise, he
made no change to the text. Both these editions, although well done, are
“informal.” The work has yet to be formally published.
I think it fitting to let Marín-Sola have the last word here. After being
removed from Fribourg, he wrote the following on Christmas Day, 1927,73
professing his fundamental theses on the nature of sufficient grace (which
he saw was the key doctrine at issue):
In the name of the most holy Trinity, and under the invocation of the most
holy Virgin, of our Holy Father Dominic and our Angelic Doctor, Saint Thomas
Aquinas: I sincerely profess, after many years of studying and meditating on the
work of Divus Thomas and of all the Thomists that I could get my hands on, to

total some 1,500 pages. All of this material is original, except for the last pages (1167–1258) of
volume 2, which reproduce Marín-Sola’s third article. The length of the work, together with
its numerous footnotes (many from scholastic sources not easy to locate), explain in part why
there is as yet no scholarly edition of this work. It eminently deserves one.
71. A carbon copy of this first edition can be found in the Dominican archives of Oakland,
California. My own first acquaintance with the work was via this copy, made available to me by
Fr. Kevin Wall, OP. (Although he had great respect for Francisco Muñiz, OP, who had been his
teacher at the Angelicum, and had himself taken a doctorate in philosophy at Fribourg, under
Innocent Bochenski, OP, Fr. Wall did not himself agree with the position of Marín-Sola. This
did not prevent him, however, from graciously being willing to lead my dissertation, which de-
fended Marín-Sola’s doctrine against its many objectors, and thus his own views.)
72. Marcus Manzanedo, OP, indicates the date in his “La predeterminación al pecado se-
gun el Asturicense,” Studium 5 (1965): 61–95, 92, n. 31. (Although this is a historical study, the
author refers to Marín-Sola at the end, with approbation. The work that led to this article was
directed by Francisco Muñiz, OP, at the Angelicum.) In a personal letter (May 4, 1982), Candi-
do Garcia, OP, wrote me that the person in charge of this second edition was Jesus Valabuena,
OP: “The [e]ditor of the second edition of ‘Concordia’ in 1957 at Salamanca was Fr. Jesus Val-
abuena, OP, a member of our Province then teaching in the Pontifical University there.” I have
compared the two editions, and except for reversing the order of volumes 2 and 3 (as he indi-
cates in a “Monitum” that precedes the work), he kept the text the same. Volume 1 is 593 pages,
volume 2 is 451 pages, and volume 3 is 850 pages.
73. So Felix Vacas, OP, reports. (See his “Lista de Documentos sobre el P. Marín-Sola”
[manuscript, Manila], 13.) The profession was published in Vicente, “De la prisión a las aulas
universitarias,” 330–31; my translation.
 introduction   xxxi

have come to this judgment and intimate persuasion, namely that, according to
the mind and principles of the Angelic Doctor, the following four propositions, as
much true as entirely fundamental, ought to be affirmed—
First: Sufficient grace is a true, determinate, and physical premotion on the
part of the subject [ex parte subjecti] or its own will, and not only moral or on the
part of the object [ex parte obiecti]. By it, we infallibly receive from God the begin-
ning of a supernatural work or the beginning of good will, but with the faculty of
actually placing or not placing an impediment to its continuation.
Second: This supernatural premotion or sufficient grace tends, by its nature
and by the intention of God, to its continuation and to the continuation of the
work begun, and it is never interrupted by God, as long as man does not place an
impediment to its continuation.
Third: In fallen nature, this sufficient grace or supernatural physical premo-
tion, given by God and not interrupted, truly and proximately suffices not only that
man can not place an impediment, but even that de facto he will not place an im-
pediment in imperfect acts or in easy things and during a not long time, at least in
works that are most easy, as is the simple will to pray, which is called by Thomists
“motus ad orandum” and by Saint Liguori “oratio tedipa.”
Fourth: In integral nature, this physical premotion or sufficient grace, which
is called by Saint Augustine “auxilium sine quo,” is truly and proximately sufficient
that the Angel or Adam not only can not place an impediment, but even de fac-
to will not place an impediment in whatever matter and during whatever space of
time.74
I also profess it to be my intimate persuasion that, concerning the question of
sufficient grace:

74. Note that both Augustine and Thomas believe that Adam and the angels were creat-
ed in a state of grace and that they fell from that state. The “auxilium sine quo” (of Augustine)
is proportioned to Adam’s graced state, and the “integral nature” (of Aquinas) is likewise the
product of sanctifying grace. This fourth point, then, does not refer to man or the angel in some
imagined state of “pure nature.” It thus is analogous to what holds for fallen man when restored
to grace, save with this qualification: one restored to a state of grace—by virtue of the “ordinary
efficacious graces” proper to that state, and insofar as one does not depart from them—can
continue in a state of grace “in whatever matter and during whatever space of time,” and thus
not fall into mortal sin or depart from that state; but he cannot “for long” (non diu) avoid all
venial sin (even though he can avoid each one individually), due to the tinder of sin (fomes pec-
cati) that remains in him as a remnant (and reminder) of the state of original sin from which he
has been drawn by sanctifying grace. (The “tinder of sin” refers to that set of temperamental in-
clinations particular to each person which—insofar as these incline away from the true good—
are the root of venial sin and with which each one must ever patiently struggle.)
xxxii  introduction
in the first proposition lies the radical difference between Thomism and Mo-
linism;
in the second proposition lies the radical difference between Thomism and
Jansenism;
in the third proposition lies the root of the true concordance between the
doctrine of Saint Alphonse Liguori and the doctrine of D. Thomas;
in the fourth proposition lies the root of the true concordance between the
Augustinian system and the Thomistic system.
I intend to develop all the above in a work that I have already begun to elab-
orate, and that, by the favor of God, I hope to complete. But, should the danger
of death come to me before the consummation and publication of that work, I di-
rect that the aforesaid profession of doctrine be made public, should the opportu-
nity present itself, just as I am forthwith making this profession, now for then, and
I want it to be held as done. Under correction of the Most Holy Mother, the Catho-
lic Church.

No te o n the T r ansl at ion

I am not a professional translator, and there are no doubt small errors
scattered throughout the translation; but I am confident that these do not
alter the fundamental meaning of Marín-Sola’s articles and that it gives his
doctrine on all important points. On any small point, any scholar can of
course consult his original articles, published in La Ciencia Tomista in 1925
and 1926.
In general, the translation seeks to stay as close to the text as ordinary
English permits. When there was a choice between ease of expression and
a possible change of meaning, I preferred to choose the original meaning,
at the expense of the ease of English expression.
Ciencia media has been put in Latin and italicized, because it seemed
that this remains more recognizable than the English “middle knowl-
edge,” despite recent usage of the latter. Ciencia is usually translated as
“knowledge,” rather than the more literal “science,” because the latter is
used today chiefly in relation to modern, empirical and mathematical, sci-
ence and thus carries misleading connotations; “knowledge” does not.
He often uses de hecho—“in fact”; this is often translated as de facto
and italicized, because this gives the more technical sense of the phrase
than the English carries.
 introduction   xxxiii

His sentences contain many clauses. For ease of reading, dashes are
sometimes used (and, occasionally, parentheses), rather than a pair of com-
mas. This is only for ease of reading. One should place no more importance
on what these contain than were they a pair of commas. Marín-Sola never
used dashes this way and rarely used parentheses. Save for a very few of the
latter, both of these have always been added.
Words placed in brackets have been added for clarity of expression or
meaning. Occasionally, his Spanish has been given in brackets, when con-
nections between certain words that are present in the Spanish get lost in
their English translation.
His “replies” to the objections were merely italicized (“Respuesta”);
again, for ease of reading only (so that one can more easily find his reply,
amidst his many italicizations), these have been capitalized, while being
put in a smaller font (“reply—”).
He sometimes capitalized words, and sometimes used different-sized
fonts (e.g., INCOATUS and motus ), apparently for differing empha-
ses. I have conserved the capitalization but reduced them all to the same
font size. (The difference in size is trivial and distracting, and may even
have been introduced by a typesetter, for it seems to have little or no im-
portance.) In the “Additions” to his second article, he also used boldface
for emphasis; this has been retained.
Although he sometimes sets off one section or argument from what
has preceded by adding a space between it and the previous material, this
usage has not been retained. (Again, this spacing is trivial and potentially
distracting, and it, too, may even originate with the typesetter.)
The footnotes have been “rationalized” (e.g., Thomas’s Summa theo-
logiae is always referred to with “I [etc.]” q.,” and “a.,” the latter in lower
case, although his usage can vary from this). I have abbreviated where he
did, but I have tried to maintain a consistent abbreviation throughout, for
example, pt., diss. or disp., chpt., art., dub., t., no. or no, whereas he some-
times varies these. Again, the work to which he refers has always been ital-
icized; occasionally he failed to do so. Also, in conformity with contem-
porary usage, the period is placed before the parentheses that include the
textual reference and no period is placed within the parentheses (even
though he puts a period before them and then a second one within them).
He renumbered his footnotes for each page. I have chosen to number
them consecutively and throughout all three of the articles.
xxxiv  introduction
The references to the Latin texts are as given in his articles. Parenthe-
ses in any quoted text are his; brackets in the same are mine. I have tried
to make the Latin readable; if the translation is at times inexact, I trust it
is in the main accurate. I have translated the Latin concursus (e.g., simul-
taneous concursus) as “concurrence.” (As with the Spanish translations,
any scholar can check the original Latin, on any point, from his articles.)
Monica Cortright made an initial translation of the Latin texts for me, to
which I was able to refer, but the final translation is substantively mine,
and any errors it contains are my responsibility alone. My colleague, clas-
sicist Ted Muenk, looked over some of these Latin translations: those that
now appear are very much better for his having done so, and I thank him
for his help.
do not resist the
spirit’s call
 1

M arín-Sola’s Articles on
the Divine Motion

First Article: The Thomist System regarding

the Divine Motion
Published as “El sistema tomista sobre la moción divina,” La Ciencia Tomista 32,
no. 94 ( July–August 1925): 5–54.

Fourteen years ago, we began in this same periodical a series of arti-

cles on “The Homogeneity of Catholic Doctrine.” When the first articles
appeared, they created a fair stir among theologians, foreigners as well as
Spaniards. Some believed that we extended the evolution of dogma too
far; others, on the contrary, believed that we excessively restricted the in-
fallibility of the Church; finally, there did not lack some who thought that
we were departing on certain points from the traditional doctrine of the
Thomist school.
Fortunately, as the series of articles proceeded, the fears of our critics
were also calmed, and when the articles appeared united and amplified in

1
2  first article
the voluminous tome of the Spanish edition, and then in the two volumes
of the French edition, they garnered warm praise from theologians of all
nationalities and schools, especially from Thomists of true stature, such as
Fathers Gardeil, Pègues, and Ramirez.1
We recall these past events because we imagine that, insofar as caus-
ing fear and exciting criticisms at the beginning is concerned, an analogous
or even greater thing will occur with the series of articles that we are be-
ginning today. We pray God that, in the end, this new series will merit the
same approval that the first merited, especially from Thomist theologians,
for it is for them that it is principally written.
Our intention is to do—respecting the Thomist ideas of physical pre-
motion and simultaneous concurrence, of sufficient and efficacious grace,
of predestination and of reprobation, of the divine antecedent and con-
sequent will, of the [divine] knowledge of simple intelligence and vision,
and of all the other ideas connected with these—something similar to
what we did with the ideas of revelation and dogma, of connected and in-
clusive virtuality, of theological principles and conclusions, of the author-
ity of God and the Church, of divine and ecclesiastical faith: that is, to
try to organize these ideas into a synthesis, to our mind more harmoni-
ous and relatively new, but always within the fundamental principles of
the doctrine of Saint Thomas and his principal commentators.
This “relative newness” is, on the one hand, what most animates us to
write and, on the other hand, what instills in us the greatest fear. Without
the hope of saying something new, it is not worth writing in a periodical
of the stature of La Ciencia Tomista, and much more so concerning mat-
ters that have already been treated an infinite number of times by the best
amongst theologians. But to introduce the very least novelty in the tradi-
tional concepts of Thomism, above all regarding certain concepts over
which Thomism has now been engaged in fighting for three centuries
against Molinism, is an extremely risky business, and it runs the risk, as is
1. “A number of French and foreign reviews have already come to know and appreciate
this remarkable work of Father Marín-Sola. THE UNANIMITY IS PRACTICALLY UNANIMOUS
that in it is found the solution to a disturbing problem: the evolution of dogma” (Études Fran-
ciscaines 37 [March–April 1925]: 220). [For Gardeil’s opinion, see “Introduction á la Théolo-
gie,” Revue des Sciences Philosophiques et Theologiques 13, nos. 2–4 (1924): 576–90, especially 582–
90; for Pègues’s, see “L’Evolution homogène du dogme,” Revue Thomiste 29 (1924): 57–66; for
Ramirez’s lengthy and fine analysis, see “Bolétin de Teologia Dogmatica,” La Ciencia Tomista 30,
no. 84 (November–December 1923): 390–97.]
 The Thomist System   3

almost certain, of seeing raised against it in a tone of indignant protest the

voice of certain excessively conservative Thomists, for whom there is hardly
any sympathy for the very name of evolution, and for whom all novelty is re-
garded as being a corruption or transformation of Thomist doctrine.2
If, despite this fear, we have decided to write with a certain aspect of
innovation on such delicate matters, it is because we know that, besides
certain Thomists, few in number, of closed and intransigent mind, there
is an infinitude of others sufficiently ample and tolerant to view without
fear, and even with a certain sympathy, any study in which, with a pro-
found love for the doctrine of Saint Thomas and of his school and with a
complete sincerity of spirit, one tries to penetrate and develop Thomistic
principles, even if with a certain appearance of innovation; because they
know very well that, if there are substantial and transforming innovations,
which are equivalent to the death or the abandoning of a system, there are
also homogenous ones, which cannot occur without reinvigorating and
amplifying it, because these are both the effect and the sign of true life as
much in doctrinal systems as in corporeal organisms.

t homist s a n d mol in ist s

Since the time of Bañez and Molina, and above all since the famous
Congregations “de auxiliis,” Thomists and Molinists have been fighting
without quarter for their respective systems. During the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, the fight was bitter. There was hardly any theologian
of note, of one or the other school, who did not take part in the combat,
dedicating to this question an immense quantity of work and time, which
perhaps could have better been spent in expoujnding and solving other
problems that were much more essential to the life of revelation and the
Church.
During the nineteenth century and what we have of the twentieth, the
2. “In order to condemn a doctrine as anti-Thomistic, it is not enough to say that it adds
something to the Holy Doctor (Saint Thomas), because every explication or exposition wor-
thy of such a name should add something to the explicated text, but something homogeneous
and brought forth from the virtuality of the text or the context; otherwise, one would be forced
to reduce Thomism to a simple reedition (Santiago Ramirez, in the C. Tomista, March 1925,
p. 269).” That which, with his habitual open-mindedness, the wise Father Ramirez affirms con-
cerning “adding something” to Saint Thomas can be extended with even more reason, as is
clear, to “adding something” to what is said by the commentators of Saint Thomas.
4  first article
Molinist-Thomist combat has lost much of its passion and acrimony, be-
cause the interest and importance of this question has diminished before
other more modem problems. Nevertheless, neither of the two adversar-
ies has abandoned one inch of its central positions, nor have intermittent
cannonades ceased to be fired between one and the other camp. It was just
yesterday, as it might be said, that the hardly gentle attacks of the Molinists
Stüfler and D’Alès were launched against Thomism, and that the no sweet-
er replies were given by the Thomists Schultes and Garrigou-Lagrange. It is
possible that this fight will continue as ever, with periods of greater or less
passion, to the end of time; for, once the question has been converted not
only into a question of a School, but also of a Family, being personified in
two powerful religious orders, it is not easy for one of them to cede its ter-
ritory, nor is there hardly a great likelihood that the Church will intervene,
the only judge who could bring to an end this debate of three centuries.
Being ourself a Thomist with all our soul, and writing furthermore
in an essentially Thomist periodical, perhaps many readers, upon reading
the title of our article, will have immediately supposed that we are going
to fight for Thomism, attacking Molinists. This is not our intention. We
propose simply to work for Thomism, but without fighting with anyone.
There are two ways to work on behalf of a system: first, by developing and
fortifying it in itself, giving greater clarity, amplitude, or precision to the
key ideas of which it is composed; second, by attacking its adversaries or
responding to their shots. We propose to do the first, not the second.
While Molinists and Thomists, then, from their respective camps, oc-
cupy themselves in launching cannonades against the opposite camp, we
ourself will have nothing whatsoever to do with Molinists and their camp,
and will dedicate ourself simply to examining in depth the Thomist camp:
to see if its positions are equally firm and are bound together or whether,
on the contrary, there is any weak position, narrow or unconnected, that
it would be advisable to fortify further, amplifying it or noting the place
where it is connected to the ensemble.
Although our articles, then, insofar as they depend on us, will be in
no way polemical, we believe that they will offer not a little interest as
much to Molinists as to Thomists. To Molinists, because at times they will
lead them to rejoice, imagining that, with our assertions, we are destroy-
ing or abandoning some of the traditional Thomist positions, and at other
times to be annoyed, seeing that we are getting rid of some of the obscure
 The Thomist System   5

points that have served them as a target to direct their shots against Tho-
mism. To Thomists, because in dealing with a system of a family, and one
that is so traditional, it is not possible to contemplate without interest the
very least innovation that one tries to introduce into it; and even more in
that, in a system as logical and as well bound together as is Thomism, it is
hardly possible to make the least modification in one of these ideas, with-
out its having a repercussion on almost all others.
For this reason, and in spite of our desire to avoid anything that has
the least aspect of polemic, we foresee that there will not lack Molinists
and above all Thomists who, not being in agreement with our ideas, will
begin to attack them and will oblige us to reply, with perhaps the danger
that objective questions will degenerate into discussions more or less per-
sonal, as has happened frequently in polemics sustained in periodicals.
In any case, of our adversaries, if they exist, we would ask more than
a little patience and not a little open-mindedness. Of patience, so as not
to react angrily, because of the impressions of one or two articles, but to
give us time to develop all of our thought in successive articles. When one
tries to examine not one isolated idea, but an entire system of intimately
interconnected ideas, a reader should not rush to form a definitive judg-
ment because of certain things that shock him at the beginning, that ap-
pear to be innovations, until he sees how the author later makes these
things, which appear to be innovations, to accord with the traditional and
fundamental principles of the entire system. Of open-mindedness, so as
not to evaluate an affirmation as false for the sole reason of appearing to be
new or strange, and much more not to evaluate it as anti-Thomistic for the
reason that it goes against one, various, or many Thomists, when there are
other Thomists of true stature who support it.

S A IN T T HOM A S A N D HIS SCHO OL

Since we are practically certain, nevertheless, that at the beginning
theologians will not be lacking who will regard certain of our ideas as
anti-Thomistic, for the sole reason that they sound different from those
they are accustomed to read in this or that Thomist author, we are going
to say two words concerning our judgment regarding true Thomism, that
is, regarding fidelity to Saint Thomas and to his school.
After what the Church has said concerning the doctrine of Saint
6  first article
Thomas, it appears to us that the authority of the Holy Doctor ought to
be sacred for every theologian, and much more for every Thomist, but es-
pecially for every Dominican. For ourself, we can affirm with all sincerity
that, even prescinding from the praises of the Church, the habitual read-
ing of the works of Saint Thomas has led us to form such a concept of the
truly amazing amplitude, profundity, and exactitude of the Holy Doctor
that, in regards to any question of a philosophical or theological charac-
ter (as is the one with which we are dealing), and even if we seem to see
the matter clearly, we would believe that we were mistaken and we would
abandon our judgment without hesitation, were one simply to convince
us that Saint Thomas was resolutely affirming the contrary. Perhaps to
some, this, our cult of the authority of Saint Thomas, will appear exces-
sive; however, whether excessive or not, it is so.
Well then, any theologian who is not in agreement with any of the as-
pects, relatively new, that we hope to expound in these articles has a very
straight and very short way to convince us. Without requiring long argu-
ments against us, show us a single text of Saint Thomas in which he clearly
says the contrary, and this will secure our rectification. And more: show
us simply that such is the truly common consent of the Thomist school,
and even of the Dominican commentators of the Holy Doctor, and with
this we will find ourself satisfied. But do not confuse the Thomist school
with a greater or lesser number of Thomist interpreters, when there are
others of true stature who opine to the contrary. When, in the interpre-
tation of Saint Thomas, the consent of his commentators is not unani-
mous, nor even common, every modern Thomist has the freedom to fol-
low the opinion that appears better to him, even if it is opposed to a great
number of commentators of the Holy Doctor, as our forefathers have held
and practiced.3 A tree does not grow or develop well if free space is not al-

3. Should there be some who would fall into the temptation to combat us with texts of
Thomist authors, we will give a warning ahead of time. Thomist authors can be cited for two
purposes: a) to confirm the truth or falsity of a doctrine; b) to confirm that a doctrine can be
defended within Thomism. If we were to cite Thomist authors for the first purpose, we would
understand that they would cite other Thomists against us. But, as we cite them only for the
second purpose, it is useless that they cite other Thomists against us, for this would indicate
only that Thomists are divided on this point, which confirms the liberty of following one or the
other opinion. The only efficacious means of combating us would be to demonstrate that the
Thomists we cite do not say this that we attribute to them.
We harbor the security that one will encounter in our articles not a single affirmation that
 The Thomist System   7

lowed it to extend its new branches. In an analogous manner, a doctrinal

system will atrophy if its expositors are limited almost to copying one an-
other, by lack of a freedom to expose new points of view, which are the
branches or the developments of a scientific virtuality.

OUR MOT IVE S IN W R IT ING ON T HI S QUE STION

The principal Thomist ideas that enter into the questions known as
de auxiliis can be distributed or classified in two lines, which we will call
(a) the line of good, and (b) the line of evil.
Four fundamental points mark the trajectory of the line of good:
(a) physical premotion to the morally good act, (b) grace ab intrinseco ef-
ficacious, (c) predestination to glory that is completely free and indepen-
dent of the use of any scientia media, (d) the eternal decrees predefining
any morally good act.
The trajectory of the line of evil is also marked by these four cor-
relative points: (a) physical premotion to the material of sin, (b) mere-
ly sufficient grace, which gives the posse, but never the agere, (c) negative
reprobation, independent of any scientia media, (d) the eternal decrees
predefining the material of sin.
Anyone who is up to speed on these questions will have noticed that
the more obscure and more difficult points of the Thomist system are the
points referring to the line of evil or of sin, and that it is against this line
that the adversaries of Thomism, with greater arrogance and pretension of
victory, have directed their shots, to such a point that one of the most fer-
vent defenders of the scientia media has just written that, if Thomists man-
age to explain in an intelligible way how the predetermination to the ma-
terial of sin can be combined with the responsibility of the creature, with
this alone all the difficulties of the Thomist system would disappear and
there would hardly be any reason not to accept it.4
would be contrary to the unanimous sentiment of Thomists, even intending by this exclusively
Dominican Thomists, even though they will encounter some explicit affirmations that were not
yet found in the principal Thomists, although these were implicit in them.
4. “If Thomists could convince us, their own doctrine of physical predetermination to the
act of sin being presupposed, and in conformity with this kind of doctrine—in whatever way
they assert it is to be understood (even including a physical predetermination ad unum)—in
what the free guilt of the creature consists, and one could also say why God permits this, there
would hardly remain any reason that would require the rejection of their system. But precisely this
8  first article
Well then, for very many years we have been preoccupied, as we be-
lieve any true Thomist ought to be preoccupied, with these difficulties that
the Thomist system seems to present in the entire line of evil, and with
seeing whether a solution could be found that, without in any way aban-
doning or placing in danger the fundamental positions of Thomism,
could meet the objections of its adversaries with greater clarity.
It has been but five years that, having dedicated an entire course to
expounding the questions in which Saint Thomas deals with the origin
of evil, we have seemed to see the light. Nevertheless, not trusting in our-
self, and much more in all that could have the least aspect of innovation in
a matter treated by such eminent theologians as the Thomist school has
had and has, we have remained silent during these years, without want-
ing to take part, despite repeated invitations, in the discussions that de-
veloped in different periodicals occasioned by the works of Stüfler and
Zigon. We have not stopped during all this time, however, to reread and
to meditate not only on Saint Thomas, but on practically all of his classic
commentators on these questions, since the time of Capreolus to Father
del Prado, and our ever-growing conviction is that the difficulties that the
Thomist system presents to its adversaries derive—more than from the
mystery of the subject itself (a mystery that can never completely disap-
pear in any system)—from the slightly rigid way that certain Thomists
from the time of the Congregations “de auxiliis” have expounded the four
points in the line of evil.
In regards to the four points of the line of good, and very especially
in regards to the second and third points on efficacious grace ab intrinseco
and completely free predestination to glory, our conviction is that these
points represent the authentic doctrine of Saint Augustine and of Saint
Thomas; that these are the fundamental points upheld so gloriously by
Alvarez and Lemos in the Congregations “de auxiliis”; that on these there
has always been unanimous consent among true Thomists; that they

is impossible” (Zigon, Divus Thomas, arbiter controversiae de concurso divino, [Gorizia, 1923],
p. 109, no. 104). The illustrious Dr. Zigon is one of those theologians who, along with Cardinal
Billot, on the one hand admits physical premotion and on the other hand denies physical pre-
determination, defending with heat the scientia media. The root of his position, as he himself re-
peats with frequency (pp. 33, 96, 206), is his belief that sin is inexplicable without a free suppo-
sition on the part of the creature (which is true), and that any free supposition ex parte creaturae
must entail the scientia media, which we hope to show is not exact.
 The Thomist System   9

form, in a word, the substance of Thomism on these questions of predesti-

nation and grace.
On the other hand, we are also convinced that in the line of evil there
have been and there are for some Thomists certain affirmations that will
be more or less probable, but that do not pertain to the substance—but
only to modalities or accidental variables—of the Thomist system; that,
in many of these affirmations, far from there being unanimity among Tho-
mists, there has on the contrary been a considerable variety of opinion;
that Thomists of the first order have already made notable modifications
in the manner of explaining the points of the line of evil; that other mod-
ifications, without having been made in a definitive manner, have been
clearly indicated by Thomists of the stature of Gonet, Massoulié, Regi-
nald, and Billuart, and their seeds are already visible, although not clear-
ly, in the Salmanticenses, John of St. Thomas, Lemos, and Alvarez; that
the just horror that every Thomist feels and ought to feel for the anti-
Thomistic scientia media, and the natural desire to avoid anything that
could have even the least appearance of a concession or an approximation
to the Molinist camp, has been the true reason why these famous Tho-
mists have not at times explicitly drawn out all the logical consequences
of the indications that they themselves have made; that, finally, simply by
collecting and organizing these indications already made by Thomists of
the first order, and applying them logically to the four fundamental points
of the line of evil, the objections that ordinarily come up against the Tho-
mist system fall at their base, as much regarding freedom as regarding sin.
This is, at any rate, our conviction, and this is the principal motive for
writing these articles, offering them to the consideration of every open-
minded Thomist.5

5. As a confirmation of what we have just said concerning the difference in importance for
Thomism between the line of good and the line of evil, we cite only the following text: “One
should carefully note that the legitimate opinion concerning predetermination to natural acts and
also to the material of sin was chosen by Thomists as more probable: not because handed down
to them, but because premotion to natural acts and the material of sin derived from the cardinal
truth concerning per se efficacious grace, which was necessary for supernatural acts and to merit
salvation. Of course, Thomists do admit general predetermination (even to the physical act of
sin), but only as probable, according to natural reason, and not as necessary, and as connected
to Catholic faith. However, per se efficacious grace they hold as a theological conclusion, most clear-
ly handed down by Augustine and Aquinas, and, after the articles of faith, to be of greatest im-
portance and even proximately ready to be defined. For which reason, we are only asking about and
10  first article
To this principal motive are added two others, very secondary, which
will only be briefly mentioned.
The first is the fact that there are certain eminent theologians who are
Thomists at heart, and who, nevertheless, far from accepting the Thomist
system on this matter in its integrity, reject it as energetically as the most
fervent Molinist. One of these, among others, as is recognized, is the most
eminent Cardinal Billot.
Whoever has read the works of this most wise Cardinal could not deny
that one finds in him a theological profundity encountered in few modern
theologians.
In the introductions that it is customary to place before the diverse
treatises of theology, above all that are placed before the treatise of the
Trinity on relation, on the treatise of the Eucharist on quantity and on
transubstantiation, and on the Incarnation on personality—even if, in this
last, one could take issue with certain of his ideas—he is revealed (in our
judgment) as a Thomist theologian of the first rank, of the stripe of Car-
dinal Cajetan. No one could hardly deny his vast knowledge of the works
and the doctrine of Saint Thomas and his profound and sincere venera-

interested in the assertion of per se efficacious grace. And thus, as Alvarez excellently observed,
while some Thomists have denied that God premoves to the act of sin, insofar as it is an act, they
have all as one staunchly professed the all-powerful power of victorious and per se efficacious grace,
independent of the foreknowledge of a scientia media: and it is of this that the Fathers of the So-
ciety and Dominicans disputed with each other before Clement VIII and thereafter. I have been
led to note the value of this point in these discussions at the end, because, by the adversaries’ cun-
ning, the majority of those opposed to the opinion of the Thomists on grace were led to think ill
of it because our position would make God the first author of the act of evil. But, as I have said
regarding general premotion, it is not a principle of, but an adjunct to, the dispute. We have defend-
ed that grace is, by the omnipotence of God, per se efficacious, which notion has been entrusted to
the guardianship of the order of Preachers through the highest kindness of God: this, which was
transmitted to us by the Theology of the Angelic Instructor, our own D. Thomas, we guard with
our might; this, Thomas of Lemos and Didacus Alvarez and others of no mediocre learning no
less worthy of pious praise contested before Clement and Paul, patrons of the Catholic Church;
this we preserve, as a divine and sacred deposit entrusted to our School” (Contenson, Theologia
mentis et cordis, bk. 8, diss. 1, chpt. 2, Cologne, 1687, t. 2, pp. 716–17).
Billuart, Alvarez, Lemos, and many other Thomists make an analogous observation. Let
no reader think, in reading this text, that we ourself in these articles are going to deny or put in
doubt the divine premotion to the material of sin, which for us is evident. We have cited this
text with the sole purpose that one may see that not all the points of the Thomist system are
equally fundamental, and that Thomists themselves do not give equal weight to its doctrine on
the line of good and on the line of evil.
 The Thomist System   11

tion for the authority of the Holy Doctor. No one, finally, could deny his
real independence from the greatest theologians of the Society of Jesus,
such that not only has he parted company with them on fundamental
points—when the mind of Saint Thomas appeared to be clear to him—
but he has gone so far as to speak of them (above all, regarding Suarez and
Lugo) in terms as serious as hardly any Dominican Thomist could have
dared utter. On the very question of physical premotion, far from being a
pure Molinist, he is—among all the modern theologians of the Society of
Jesus—the one who has drawn closest to the Thomists. And nevertheless,
far from accepting the integral Thomist system on physical predetermi-
nation and grace, not only has he rejected it as contrary to Saint Thomas,
but he does not see well how certain Thomist theses can be distinguished
from Calvinism.
What we have said of this famous theologian could equally be said
of many others, for it is not a rare phenomenon today, above all since the
restoration of Thomism so recommended by the Sovereign Pontiffs, to
find sincere theologians of stature, who accept in their integrity Thomist
theses on other matters and who, nevertheless, reject the theses referring
to the divine motion, as this is explained by Thomists.
The second motive is the consideration of certain middle systems, be-
tween Thomism and Molinism, which are neither Molinist nor Congru-
ist, because they reject the scientia media; nor either are they Thomist,
because they reject physical predetermination or physically efficacious
grace. Such is the system called Augustinian (at least as regards fallen na-
ture); such is the system of the Doctor of the Church, Saint Liguori; such
is the system of the so-called neo-Thomists, such as Lorenzelli, Pecci, Pa-
quet, and the famous commentators of the Summa theologica, the most
reverend Janssens and Lepicier.
Thomists have repeated at every turn, and with reason, that there
is no middle ground between the scientia media and physical and deter-
mined premotion to every act, and that, if one rejects one of these, one is
bound to end up with the other. How then explain that there are so many
theologians (and famous theologians) who flatly reject the scientia media
and who, nevertheless, do not end by accepting Thomism in its integrity?
There will always be someone who will believe this phenomenon
means nothing, and who has a very simple explanation of it. To the point,
perhaps, that someone would say that the authors of these middle sys-
12  first article
tems are hardly sincere, and that they reject the scientia media only in
name, being at root Molinists.
We, on the other hand, who like to be taken as being sincere, are
easily ready to believe in the sincerity of our adversaries, and because of
this we are persuaded that the representatives of the middle systems be-
tween Molinism and Thomism are as sincere in rejecting the scientia me-
dia as they are in denying physical predetermination. And more: we are
persuaded that the reason these theologians stay on a middle course, be-
tween Molinism and Thomism, comes more from the revulsion phys-
ical predetermination causes in them than in any attraction that the sci-
entia media exercises on them. Well then, as we ourself are intimately
convinced that part of this revulsion comes from the slightly narrow way
that the concepts of physical predetermination and sufficient grace are
customarily explained by certain Thomists, for this reason we believe that
to amplify and to clarify these concepts—for which it is enough to fol-
low and to develop the indications that Thomists of the first order have
already given—will contribute to attracting to Thomism all those systems
that, by simply denying the scientia media, are gravitating towards it.
In a word: the principal motive for writing these articles is our in-
timate conviction that the Thomist system, above all in the line of evil,
could and should be developed and amplified in various of its concepts.
As a secondary motive, there comes in the desire to attract towards Tho-
mism all theologians who love Saint Thomas, and, much more, all who re-
ject, as ought to be rejected, the famous scientia media, the cornerstone of
all Molinism and Congruism.
If our aspirations appear to some to be pretentious, do not forget
that, regarding great undertakings, there can be generous souls who only
aspire to them, even though they do not succeed in reaching the summit.
If we only get half way, perhaps we will still succeed in indicating the way
to others, more competent or fortunate, to reach it. Even if we are mistak-
en in this, we are confident that no one could place in doubt our profound
love for the doctrine of Saint Thomas, our sincerity in expounding it such
as we ourself understand it, and our ardent desire that the Thomist theses
regarding physical premotion, efficacious grace ab intrinseco, and the com-
pletely free predestination to glory will one day be formulated by the
Church with as most clear a precision, and with the almost universal ac-
ceptance, as the twenty-four theses of the Thomist Syllabus of Pius X have
already been formulated.
 The Thomist System   13

A MOST BR IEF S Y N T HE SIS

The material we intend to deal with in our articles, even if in a sum-
mary fashion, is quite vast. It can be said to extend to the entire Thomis-
tic system on premotion and simultaneous concurrence, on sufficient and
efficacious grace, on justification and perseverance, on predestination and
reprobation, on the divine knowledge and will; for, as we have already in-
dicated, it is practically impossible to make the slightest modification or
amplification in one of these concepts without, to a greater or lesser de-
gree, having to apply it correlatively to almost all of them. It is impossible,
then, for this work to be carried out in two or three articles.
Furthermore, our idiosyncrasy or our defect—as readers of LA
CIENCIA TOMISTA already know from experience—is a lack of conci-
sion. Through a desire to be complete and convincing, we frequently stop
to introduce amplifications that are not at all necessary, whether by accu-
mulating an excessive number of proofs, or by signaling the relations that
the question has with the rest of Sacred Theology, or by solving those ob-
jections that we imagine could be raised against our affirmations.
So that readers, then, will not remain for long in the dark, without
knowing where the author is headed with his articles, we are going to give
them from the beginning a very brief synthesis, distributed in ten prop-
ositions, that will serve as so many pointers that mark, even if at a great
distance, the beginning, middle, and end of the path we intend to travel.
As a confirmation of each proposition, we will allege only short texts of
one or two classic Thomists, with the purpose of showing that these prop-
ositions can be defended within Thomistic orthodoxy, leaving for other
articles the examination of whether, within Thomism itself, these propo-
sitions are more or less probable than their contraries, and adding abun-
dant confirmatory texts from the Thomist tradition.
Although these ten propositions, above all those referring to the line
of evil, express our actual conviction, we desire that they be considered
not so much as definitive affirmations, as a studied opinion rendered, or as
an open letter directed to all Thomists of open mind, to whose judgment
we submit them.
14  first article

FIR ST PROPO SIT ION

“Although all divine providence is infallible or unfrustratable as re-
gards the realization of the universal end, which is the glory of God and the
good of the universe, nevertheless, general providence, whether natural or
supernatural, is fallible or frustratable in respect to a particular end of each
individual or of each individual act.” 6
#>
6. So that even those uneducated in Theology may understand the sense of this most fun-
damental proposition, we will clarify that theologians divide divine providence into natural and
supernatural. One and the other of these they subdivide into general and special. In the super-
natural order, general providence is the will to save all men, and the two special providences are
predestination and reprobation.
The end of all providence is divided into universal and particular. In general providence,
whether natural or supernatural, the universal end is the glory of God or the good of the uni-
verse. The particular end is whatever other less universal end there may be; that is, the proximate
or more or less remote end of each act or of each individual of the universe, such as that fire
burns, that the seed germinates, that the sinner does these or those other acts to be converted,
that the just keep the commandments, persevere or are saved, all these are particular ends re-
specting general providence, and whether these particular ends are achieved, or not, the univer-
sal end always is achieved, namely the glory of God or the good of the universe.
In the special providences, such as predestination and reprobation, the universal end is the
same as that of general providence. But the particular or proper end is the salvation or non-
salvation, respectively, of the predestined and the reprobate.
Well then: all theologians concur in these two propositions: (a) all providence is infallible
or unfrustratable respecting the accomplishment of the universal end, which is the glory of God
or the good of the universe; (b) special providence, such as predestination and reprobation, is
also unfrustratable as regards the accomplishment of its respective particular end, which is the
salvation or non-salvation of the predestined and reprobate.
The dispute between theologians concerns only whether general providence, natural or
supernatural, is infallible or unfrustratable respecting the accomplishment of the particular end
of each one of its acts, that is, respecting any other end less universal than the glory of God or
the good of the universe. The negative opinion is what we have established in this first proposi-
tion, and the reader can find its proofs in Gonet or in whichever of the authors he cites, above
all in Ferrariensis (Contra gentes, III, 94). One ought not to deny, nevertheless, that two theolo-
gians as famous as Lemos and Alvarez have followed and applied the Thomistic system to the
contrary opinion, leaving indelible tracks in it in some of the formulas initiated by them and ac-
cepted by later Thomists.
The division of providence into general and special corresponds exactly to the division
of the divine will into antecedent and consequent: the one, conditioned and frustratable by the
creature; the other, absolute and unfrustratable. The antecedent will is called conditioned and
frustratable, not as regards the application of the means or motions, which God always applies
(and, thus, as regards this it is a consequent will, absolute and unfrustratable), but as regards the
 The Thomist System   15

In order to prove that this proposition can be defended within Tho-

mism, it will be enough to cite the following text:
As to whether predestination (special providence) is to be distinguished from prov-
idence (general providence) by the former being infallible not only as regards the
ordination of means to an end, but also as regards the actual execution of the end,
whereas the latter in truth only demands infallibility of order, but not the execution
of the end . . . the affirmative opinion nevertheless is upheld by Capreolus, Ferrarien-
sis, Nazarius, González, and Marcus de Serra, and it seems truer and more in confor-
mity with the doctrine of D. Thomas. (Gonet, Clypeus Theol. Thom., De praedestinatio-
ne, disp. 1, art. 4, no. 113, Vives edition, t. 2, p. 280)
The consequences of this proposition, which do not appear to have
sufficiently penetrated certain theologians, are most transcendental. All
providence essentially includes eternal decrees and temporal premotions:
“Two things pertain to the care of providence: the reason of order, which
is called providence and disposition; and the execution of order, which is
termed governance: the first is eternal, and the second temporal” (Sum-
ma theologica I, q. 22, a. 1 ad 2). “Wherefore there are two effects of gov-
ernment, the preservation of things in their goodness, and the moving of
things to good” (Summa theologica I, q. 103, a. 4).
If, then, as much in the natural order as the supernatural, there are
two kinds of providence, one general and the other special—one falli-
ble and the other infallible—as regards the execution of a particular end,
there will also be two kinds of decrees and two kinds of premotions—
fallible or infallible, respectively—regarding the accomplishment of the
end of these motions. One who penetrates well this first proposition and
draws from it all its consequences, does not have any need to read our ar-
ticles. To our mind, many of the obscurities and difficulties of the Tho-
mist system derive from the forgetfulness or inadequate penetration of
this proposition. For now, it is enough to concede to us that this propo-
sition, just as it stands, can be defended Thomisticly, even though some
deny its consequences. These consequences are already drawn forth or in-

success or execution of the particular end of these motions, which the creature can in fact frus-
trate or not frustrate, placing or not placing an impediment to them.
To understand the language of theologians in this question, it is necessary to keep in mind
that, when they use the words providence and end, without anything else, they intend by “provi-
dence” general, not special, providence, and by “end,” the particular, not the universal end.
16  first article
dicated, even if not always with all the clarity and precision desirable, by
classic Thomists, as will come to be seen in the following proposition.

SECON D P ROPO SIT ION

“The divine motion is always of itself towards the good: but the ac-
tual defect of the human will is what converts the premotion to the good
into a premotion to the material of evil; or, if one prefers to say it in a dif-
ferent manner, the divine intention is always to move to the honest good,
but the actual defect of the human will is what objectively determines
God to move it to the material of evil.
“Therefore, the actual defect of the creature is anterior in nature to the
divine motion to evil, and thus this motion, rather than a premotion or
predetermination, is a postmotion or post-predetermination.”*
>
We believe that, in confirmation that a Thomist can defend this prop-
osition, it will be enough to cite the following texts:
From these things we hold, therefore, what I will say presently, that God, as the first
and universal principle of every entity and good, moves the created will to act, which
is being and good; but the will, being from itself in an undue disposition, turns from
this motion, and thus disordered action arises. . . . So that it is certainly not wrong for us
to speak of a licit decree by which God, from eternity, decides to concur with a sin-
ful act, as much of angels as of men, and causes the movement in time that moves to
it—which, in the right sense, is truly a pre-definition and pre-determination, because
it predefines the entity of the act, and premoves to it; however, in another sense, it
could be termed a post-definition and post-determination, because God from eternity
does not predefine the entity of an act that is joined to evil, nor does He premove
to it in time, unless the will has first turned away from the order of the first agent and is
in a state not disposed to the reception of the divine motion, because of which the act that
follows, which otherwise would have been good and ordered, is disordered. For the Tho-
mists never said nor dreamed that God is in an equal position with respect to good
and evil, and they have constantly said and say that what more determines an act to

*editor’s note: This could be a typo. He may have meant simply to say “post-deter-
mination,” in line with the language used by Gonet and Billuart that he then quotes. However, it
is both “after” (the actual voluntary defect) and “before” (the physical entity or material of sin),
so possibly he intended this odd combination. (Here and throughout the entire text, all empha-
ses are Marín-Sola’s, unless otherwise noted.)
 The Thomist System   17

be evil than its opposite springs from the creature, so that the undue disposition of the
will objectively determines God to move to an evil act. (Billuart, De Deo uno, diss. 8,
art. 5)
Unless an angel or a man by a priority of nature limits himself to the formality of sin
or to the material [of sin] taken fundamentally [“materiale fundamentaliter sump-
tum”], God does not determine to the material [of sin] taken materially [“materiale
materialiter sumptum”] or to the physical entity [of sin]. . . . It is licit then that, in a
certain manner, the cause [of sin] is prior to the created will; but, in another sense,
nevertheless, it is posterior to it and depends on it, in the way explained, for which
reason it can be called a post-definition or post-determination. (Gonet, De providentia
Dei, disp. 8, art. 5, numbers 254–57, t. 2, pp. 250–51)
All of this and much more had already been said by Saint Thomas,
without such tangles of nomenclature, in a multitude of texts we will cite
in their time. We cite only Billuart and Gonet, because we know that this
has greater effect for certain Thomists.
In parenthesis, note the relation of this second proposition to the
first. Sin could not take place without the motions of general providence,
natural or supernatural, motions that are fallible as regards their particular
execution or effect. If there were no more than special providence, whose
decrees and premotions were infallible, sin could not occur. The motions
of God, then, are not divided into infallible for good and infallible for evil,
but rather infallible for good and fallible for good. In these last is where sin
occurs.

T HIR D PROPO SIT ION

“The will or power, however perfect it may be, but before being
placed in or entering into movement or action is one thing; another is the
will or power, already placed in movement towards a term or directed ac-
tually towards it, but before reaching the term; another, finally, is reaching
the end. As one thing is the arrow before being shot towards the target;
another is the arrow already shot, but before reaching it; another, finally,
is reaching or arriving at the target.
“The first is called in Thomistic philosophy pure potency or pure pos-
se; the second is called a true agere, but an imperfect agere, because it is still
a posse with respect to the term or the perfect act; the third not only is
agere, but perfect agere.
18  first article
“In the supernatural order, the arrival at the target or perfect agere is
the act of justification or the acts that are simul natura with it, and the im-
perfect acts are all those acts that prepare it and are anterior to it in time.
“The traditional Thomist aphorism that sufficient grace does not give
the agere, but only the posse, can be taken in two senses essentially distinct
and of consequences transcendentally different, according to whether
one understands only the perfect act or also the imperfect act.
“In our judgment, a Thomist can defend (and we believe he should,
but it is enough for us now to prove that he can) that sufficient grace does
not give the perfect agere, but it does give the imperfect agere. Sufficient
grace is a true supernatural premotion. It alone is enough to effect in fact
the acts of the fear of God, of hope, of attrition, and other imperfect acts
that precede in time and prepare the perfect act of justification. As these
acts are true acts and sufficient grace is enough to effect them, one can say
in all truth that sufficient grace not only gives the posse, but also the age-
re, that is, the imperfect act. But as these imperfect acts are a via or a po-
tency with respect to the perfect act of justification, in this sense one can
say and one does say that sufficient grace does not give the agere, that is,
it does not give the perfect act. The Thomist division, then, of grace into
sufficient grace and efficacious grace is not a division into a non-efficacious
grace and an efficacious grace; but a division into a sufficiently efficacious or
imperfectly efficacious or fallibly efficacious or secundum quid efficacious
grace and a fully efficacious, perfectly efficacious, infallibly efficacious, sim-
pliciter efficacious grace.”

To prove that this doctrine can be defended by a Thomist, it will be

enough to cite the following text:
As regards another explanation of sufficient and efficacious grace, as handed on by
many Thomists—González, at one time Regent of the Minerva, Nicolaï, Regent of
the convent of S. Jacob of Paris, Bancel, Massoulié, and Reginald—they conceived of
sufficient and efficacious grace differently. Sufficient grace not only has the ability
of completing the faculty in the order of potential, but even the ratio of physical pre-
motion, which of itself is apt to lead to the salutary act itself. In the proper and strict
sense it is sufficient, or, more correctly, is efficacious on the part of God, but the will
is able to place an obstacle to it. For which reason, according to them, one must dis-
tinguish two physical premotions: one that impels to second act, but can be imped-
ed, and this is sufficient grace; the other that moves to and is simultaneous with sec-
 The Thomist System   19

ond act, and removes all obstacles and thus cannot be resisted, and this is efficacious
grace. Because this efficacy is truly from God Himself, and does not proceed from
the will, this efficacious grace really differs from sufficient grace. As to their sub-
stance, the two views are in accord. (Hugon, Tractatus dogmatici, de gratia, q. 4, art. 2,
no. 9, t. 2, p. 354)
Thomists of the stature of González, Nicolaï, Bancel, Massoulié, and
Reginald are sufficient so that a doctrine can be defended by a Thomist,
above all when some of them, such as Massoulié and Reginald, prove this
doctrine with abundant texts of Saint Thomas. But it will not be amiss to
add the authority of Gonet. He speaks this way:
True, a sufficient aid does not apply the will to a perfect act, to which it is by nature
ordered; nevertheless, it does apply it to imperfect acts, disposing and inclining the
will to more perfect acts, as Thomists commonly teach. . . . Through which words Saint
Thomas manifestly recognizes a certain grace in the state of fallen nature moving
and applying to the imperfect act and preparing for the more perfect; this grace the
Thomists call sufficient. . . . Through which words Saint Thomas openly recognizes, in
the state of fallen nature, a certain interior movement of grace, which sometimes is
resisted; but this grace can be nothing other than sufficient grace. . . . For under the
name “auxilium Dei moventis” (as Saint Thomas uses this) both aids, as much the
sufficient as the efficacious, are contained; because both consist in a certain super-
natural motion, applying the power of the soul to supernatural acts; with this distinc-
tion, nevertheless, that sufficient grace only moves to imperfect acts, which prepare
and dispose the soul for more perfect ones; whereas efficacious grace moves and ap-
plies the soul to the perfect acts of contrition and charity, which finally dispose and
prepare the soul for sanctifying grace, which is the ultimate and most perfect form in
the supernatural order. . . . Such that sufficient grace is sufficient simpliciter, but effica-
cious secundum quid. (Gonet, De voluntate Dei, disp. 4, nums. 76, 140, 142, 147, t. 2,
pp. 76, 90, 91, 92)
This doctrine that sufficient grace is a true supernatural premotion, and
that with it one can have, and does frequently have, the easy or imperfect
acts that precede justification, is found in all the Thomists, from Lemos
and Alvarez, as we have already indicated, to Father del Prado. Only that,
as Lemos and Alvarez, as we have already indicated, follow the opinion
that general providence is unfrustratable in all its acts, they mix in, when
dealing with sufficient grace and imperfect acts, certain phrases proceed-
ing from this particular opinion that is theirs.
20  first article
The common and true opinion of Thomists is that all aid that is sufficient for ob-
taining one act is always efficacious in regards to another, to which efficiency it is
ordered by the absolute and efficacious decree of the divine will. . . . Aid that is suf­
ficient for contrition is efficacious for the completion of other imperfect acts, which
it efficaciously produces in man: the consideration of the punishments of Hell, the
shame of sin, the fear of Hell, attrition, and similar acts, which regularly antecede
essential contrition. (Lemos, Panoplia gratia, bk. 4, pt 2, treat. 3, chpt. 7, no. 104)
The posse that sufficient aid confers ought to be understood in relation to the perfect
act, to which it is finally ordered; just the same, all aid that is sufficient for the com-
pletion of one act, is always efficacious in respect to another, to which efficiency it is
ordered by the absolute and efficacious decree of the divine will. Thus, for example,
an aid sufficient for the act of faith efficaciously produces the pious desire to have
the faith. . . . Similarly, an aid sufficient for the act of contrition efficaciously produces
the fear of Hell or attrition. (Alvarez, De auxiliis, bk. 8, disp. 8, no. 2)
There is an act or motion of the free will towards God in love and away from sin in
sorrow or sadness that is simultaneous with justification and another act or motion
of the free will towards God in love and away from sin in sorrow and penance that
precedes justification itself in time. Yet both are a supernatural motion; the former
motion proceeds from the motion of the will, which is efficacious grace; the latter,
from the interior motion of the heart, which is sufficient grace. Thus, grace, taken as
a motion by which God physically works in the free will of man, can be as such suffi-
cient and also efficacious, whenever this is a vocation that is identified with the infu-
sion of grace itself, by which man is justified. (del Prado, De gratia, t. 3, pp. 20–21)
In these texts of Lemos and Alvarez, note the phrase “to which ef-
ficiency it is ordered by the absolute and efficacious decree of the divine will.”
This phrase is ambiguous, and comes from the particular opinion of Lemos
and Alvarez on the infallibility of all divine motion. The divine motions,
if they are sufficient—that is, if they pertain to general providence—are un-
frustratable in regards to their application by God to the human will, and
thus as regards the actuation of the will or the beginning of the effect. But
they are fallible as regards to whether this same, premoved, will might place
or not place an impediment to the course of this sufficient motion, and, thus
as regards to the continuation and term of the effect, which is called the ac-
complishment of the particular end of this general providence or motion.
As, then, all true movement or course, as short as it may be, has three
parts, which are called the beginning or incoaction, middle or continua-
tion, and term or particular end of this movement, so also does the suc-
 The Thomist System   21

cessive or complete human act. The beginning is formed by the acts ante-
rior to counsel, such as simple volition and intention; the middle is formed
by counsel itself and its final practical judgment; the term is constituted by
consent, election, and the execution of the act, to name but the principal acts
of this course. Well then: it is clear that sufficient grace, if it is a true physi-
cal premotion of the will, as it is, must produce something infallibly, and
this something must be, at least, the simple volition, which is the beginning
of every voluntary act. But it does not produce infallibly, but fallibly, the
continuation or term of the course of this act, because the will can in fact
place an impediment to this course. If the will does not place an impedi-
ment (as it can not-place it, without a new premotion or new grace, in
easy or imperfect things), the course of the premotion of this sufficient
grace continues, and reaches the term or the particular end of this premo-
tion or act. Thus, the common idea that “if God premoves me to some-
thing, for example to write, I will infallibly write,” is ambiguous. If this
premotion is only sufficient or pertains to the general providence, even su-
pernatural, it is infallible that I will begin the act, that is, that I will have at
least the simple volition to write. But it is not infallible that I will have the
intention to write, the counsel to write, the consent to write, the election to
write, the execution to write, because I can place an impediment to and
paralyze or deviate the course and term of this premotion.
Lemos and Alvarez are right, then, that the effect of these motions
comes from an “absolute divine and efficacious decree,” if by effect they
mean the beginning of the effect, for the nature of Thomistic premotion
consists in this. But they are not right, or one can defend the contrary in
Thomism, if they mean the continuation or term of the effect or action, be-
cause, in regards to this, the antecedent will or general providence or suf-
ficient grace are not absolute or unfrustratable (neither in what one has
nor in what one does not have), but frustratable or conditioned by the im-
pediment that the will can place or not place in fact to the course of this
motion, in easy or imperfect things.
Note also, in passing, in these texts, above all in the text of Father del
Prado, that the imperfect acts, effects of sufficient grace, that customarily
are called indeliberate acts, are not indeliberate-necessary, but indeliberate-
free acts, as are normally free all the acts of grace, whether efficacious or suf-
ficient grace, as we will see in its time.
For every supernatural act, whether easy or difficult, imperfect or per-
22  first article
fect, there is need, then, of a supernatural premotion, and, therefore, of ef-
ficacious grace. But, for the easy or imperfect acts, all that is required is a
grace that is fallibly or secundum quid efficacious, which is what is called
sufficient grace; and for the difficult or perfect acts there is need of a grace
that is infallibly efficacious or simpliciter efficacious or perfectly efficacious.
Note the connection of this third proposition with the first. Since there
are, even within the supernatural order, two classes of providence, one gen-
eral and fallible, the other special and infallible, as regards the particular
success of each act, there must also be two supernatural premotions: one fal-
lible and the other infallible. In Thomism, these are called sufficient and effi-
cacious grace. In this third proposition is the true connection of the system
of Saint Liguori with the Thomist, as will be seen more clearly in its time.

Observations regarding This Third Proposition

In order to prevent certain scruples that could occur to some Tho-
mist concerning this third proposition, we are even going to add some ob-
servations.
Perfect and imperfect acts. Perfect acts, in general, are those that, be-
cause of the greatness of the work or by [virtue of] its difficulty, require
all the power of the will, and, because of this, are absolutely impossible,
without the special aid of God, for a nature that is infirm or not integral.
Such are, in the natural and supernatural order, respectively, the ef-
ficacious love of God above all things (which, in the supernatural order,
is justification), the accomplishment of all the precepts, the conquering
of all temptations, the removal of all obstacles or the not placing of any
impediment, and even doing anything easy or removing any impediment,
when it concerns a long time, because the length of time converts an easy
work into a difficult one.
Correlatively, one calls imperfect acts those that do not require all the
power of a healthy or integral nature—neither by virtue of the greatness
of the work nor by its difficulty—but for which some power is enough,
which one who is infirm always has, while he is not dead. These are easy
works and those done in a brief time, such as any imperfect act of the fear
of God, of hope, of attrition, etc. (that, in the supernatural order, are a re-
mote preparation for justification), the accomplishment of some easy pre-
cept, the conquering of some light temptation, the not placing of some
light impediment, etc., so long as it does not concern a long time.
 The Thomist System   23

It is indubitable that, for every act, whether imperfect or perfect, easy

or difficult, one has need in Thomism of ordinary physical premotion or a
general aid of God, in the natural order, and supernatural physical premo-
tion, or a general supernatural aid or sufficient grace, in the supernatural
order. This is proper to every creature, in whatever state it is found. But in
the state of non-integral or infirm nature, this is enough for imperfect acts;
but, for perfect acts, a special aid is required in the natural order, and a spe-
cial grace (which is infallibly efficacious grace) in the supernatural order.
This way of understanding and explicating Thomist doctrine, which
has already been admitted by Thomists of the first order, and which is the
key and the summary of the whole question 109 of the Prima secundae of
Saint Thomas on the necessity of grace, constitutes the point of connec-
tion of the Thomist system with the system of Saint Liguori, and even
with the Augustinian system.
In effect: if sufficient grace, in being a true supernatural premotion, is
enough for imperfect acts, and if, as all Thomists teach, to one who with
grace does what he can and prays for what he cannot, God concedes, by
His mercy but infallibly, further graces, it follows that to one who, with the
sufficient grace that God denies to no one, does the imperfect and easy
acts that he can, God infallibly will concede further and further graces, up
to final perseverance. The system of Saint Liguori and of Augustinianism
does not demand, in substance, more than this.
From this way of understanding sufficient grace, it also follows that,
in the state of innocence and in the angels, there is need—for every act,
and therefore to persevere—of a supernatural physical premotion, and the
Thomist system demands nothing more and its proofs express nothing
else; but there is no need for a special or healing supernatural physical pre-
motion (or infallibly efficacious grace), and the Augustinians demand noth-
ing more.
In this way, then, we are persuaded that this doctrine—that Thomist
sufficient grace is a true fallible premotion, which is enough for imperfect
acts—is the key to the future and harmonious developments of the Tho-
mist system regarding grace.
The not-placing of an impediment to grace. One thing is not placing an
impediment to grace in all the time of one’s life, or for a long time, or in
difficult things, and another very distinct thing is not to place it for some
time and dealing with easy things.
24  first article
For the first one has need, according to Thomists, of infallibly effi-
cacious grace; but, for the second, nature alone is enough, and therefore
much more nature with sufficient grace.
This is the true meaning of that famous and consoling doctrine of Saint
Thomas, so often repeated, that “in potestate liberi arbitri est impediri divi-
nae gratiae receptionem vel non impedire” (Contra gentes III, 159).
In integral nature, the will could in fact not place an impediment to grace
semper et in omnibus. In fallen nature, it cannot in fact do this in omnibus nor
semper nor even diu; but it can do it for a little time and in easy things.
Billuart, who had earlier given a different opinion, later modified
his opinion: “In our treatise on God, we expound a little on this text of
Thomas; but, after a more thorough examination, we stand by the present so-
lution” (Billuart, De gratia, diss.3, art. 7, obj. 3, instabis 70).
The not-placing of an impediment, when it is done by nature alone
(that is, before receiving the first grace), has no infallible relation with the
reception of grace. For this reason, Thomists unanimously reject the Mo-
linist aphorism that “facienti quod in se est ex viribus naturae, Deus non
denegat gratiam.” But the not placing of an impediment, when it is done
with grace, has an infallible relation with the reception of further graces.
For this reason, Thomists unanimously accept the aphorism that “facien-
ti quod in se est ex viribus gratiae, Deus non denegat ulteriorem gratiam.”
If certain Thomists interpreted the phrase “ex viribus gratiae” as “ex viri-
bus gratiae efficacis,” it is because they followed the opinion that sufficient
grace is not a true premotion, but a pure potentiality, and that with it alone
one could not in fact do anything. Once granted, as already many famous
Thomists grant, that it is a true premotion, one need only apply in all its ex-
tension this traditional and most true aphorism in order to reconcile the
Thomist system with the “middle systems.”
Deliberate and indeliberate acts. One calls every first act an indeliberate
act, that is, every completely new act of the will or one that does not fol-
low from an anterior one. Such is the first act of rational life or the use of
reason, the first act of the first grace or the beginning of the supernatural
order, the first act of every completely new series.
Indeliberate acts divide into necessary-indeliberate and free-indelib-
erate acts. When the indeliberate act is exclusively about a necessary ob-
ject (the good in common) or when it is done without full knowledge (the
very first [primo-primos] acts of distraction, of passion, or during sleep),
 The Thomist System   25

not only is the act necessary, but it is also a necessary indeliberate act.
But when it is about a free object (concrete goods), and is done with full
knowledge, as happens always or usually in the motions of grace, the act is
a free indeliberate act.7 The theory of necessary-indeliberate acts, as con-
stituted by sufficient grace or operating grace, is of Molinist origin, and
has infiltrated into some Thomists. When Thomists, then, in combating
Molinists or our own González, affirm that, in order to consent to the in-
deliberate acts of sufficient grace, there always is need of an infallibly effica-
cious grace, they are referring to the necessary-indeliberate acts, as will be
noted immediately by all those who read the objections of the adversaries
as carefully as they do the replies of the Thomists.
But if, by indeliberate acts of sufficient grace, one means the free-
indeliberate acts—as every Thomist ought to understand them—then it
is clear that it can be defended within Thomism (and, in our judgment it
ought to be defended) that, in order to consent to these acts, there is not
always need of an infallibly efficacious grace, but only in things that are
difficult or that take a long time. The reason is that these indeliberate acts of
grace, for the very reason that they are free, already lead to the consent, pro-
duced by the operative grace itself. That which we call, then, deliberate
consent is not a new consent or a new act, but the perseverance or continu-
ation in the same act, not putting it out or deviating it; that is, in not plac-
ing an impediment. Well then: to persevere in the good or not to place an

7. “Sufficient aid gives a certain will, which will nevertheless is free, and it disposes to another
will; . . . it gives a certain free will—that is, a certain free velleity—and it disposes to a perfect will,
which is also free” (Reginald, De mente Conc. Tridentini, pt. 2, chpt. 30, p. 942, Antwerp, 1706).
“Others hold this first will of supernatural good, which is the effect of operating grace, to
be free; and these others are, it seems to me, more in conformity with the Author (Divus Thom-
as) who, in speaking about the grace that is divided into operative and cooperative, says that it is
‘an aid through which God moves us to good will and action;’ now, good will is free will, because
a necessary will is neither good nor evil, since it is not moral. And later, in [I-II], q. 113, a. 3, he
says that, in one who has the use of free will, the movement toward justice does not take place
without a movement of the free will” (Billuart, De gratia, diss. 5, art. 1).
“Learned Cajetan, truly perceptive, replies according to the mind of D. Thomas. For oper-
ative grace is not said to be thus operative in everything without the movement of the free will;
on the contrary, in an adult, grace never operates save as moving the free will” (Domingo Soto,
IV Sent., distinction 14, question 1, art. 6, p. 420).
“Such an act ought in no way to be called indeliberate, in the sense in which it is not free.
For which reason the Angelic Doctor never says such an act is indeliberate, as a means of avoid-
ing any ambiguity or equivocation in his discourse” (del Prado, De gratia, t. 1, p. 291).
26  first article
impediment to grace does not demand a new or special grace when one is
dealing with easy things and for a short time. To affirm the contrary would
be to suppose our [fallen] nature was not only weak, but rotten.
And more: even were one to concede that the deliberate consent to
sufficient grace was a completely new act and that it demanded efficacious
grace, one would come in Thomism to the same conclusion noted: that is,
to one who does not place an impediment (and all can not-place an im-
pediment in easy things with sufficient grace alone), God gives infallibly
this efficacious grace that some demand for the deliberate consent.
In effect: these same Thomists who demand efficacious grace for ev-
ery consent confess that sufficient grace alone, without a new grace, is
enough for counsel, even though they deny it is enough for “good counsel”
(Lemos, Panoplia, book 3, part 1, treatise 4, numbers 197, 200, 260). Well
then: many famous Thomists, anterior and posterior to Lemos and Alva-
rez, concede that, for “good counsel” in easy things, there is no need for a
special or new grace, because practical reason of fallen nature, even though
it is weakened, is not dead. And since, given the final practical judgment
of consilium, the divine motion to consensus follows and is due infallibly,
it always follows that, to one who, with sufficient grace alone, which God
concedes to all, does not place a defect or impediment in consilium, God
concedes infallibly the efficacious grace necessary for deliberate consent.
In a word, when one deals with imperfect acts, every Thomist can admit
one of these two affirmations: (a) sufficient grace is enough to have them;
(b) sufficient grace is enough not to place an impediment to the efficacious
grace necessary to have them. Either of these two affirmations is enough
to reconcile the Thomist system with the “middle systems.” At root, both
of these are identical.
The demand of some Augustinians and Thomists of an infallibly effi-
cacious grace for every supernatural deliberate act was born from the rigid
thesis that, of one who lacks a special grace or motion, every act of fallen
nature is evil or defective, at least on the part of the end or of the agent.
And, as sufficient grace is not a special grace, but a general one, it follows
from this thesis that, with sufficient grace alone, one could never do any
good act, therefore requiring for these an efficacious grace for every su-
pernatural act. Well then: this thesis that without special grace or mo-
tion—whether one calls it special in regards to the nature or in regards to
the person—one cannot have any good act, is true respecting fallen nature
 The Thomist System   27

in dealing with perfect or difficult acts, but it is not, or the contrary can be
defended in Thomism, when dealing with imperfect or easy acts.8
For this reason, the common idea of all Thomists that infallibly effica-
cious grace is needed for every supernatural act is inexact. It is required for
every perfect act, which is what the Thomists call opus salutis aeternae, but
it is not for easy or imperfect acts, which are only a via to the perfect act of
justification and to the merit of eternal life, and for which sufficient grace
is enough. This is a doctrine common enough in Thomism, as we have
repeatedly noted, among many others, in Father del Prado, even though
these same Thomists appear later to forget it, in other parts of their work
(del Prado, De gratia, t. 2, p. 29, and t. 3, pp. 403 and 422, note.)
Determined premotion and versatile premotion. When we say that suf-
ficient grace is a fallible physical premotion, we do not mean by fallible a
versatile or indeterminate premotion, in the Molinist style, as the motion
of wind, which pushes the sails of a ship without determining the port,
but we mean that it is a motion as determined and as individual as the ar-
row shot accurately at the target, or of fire in regards to burning or of a
sacrament in respect to its proper or sacramental grace. But as such, and
not withstanding its most determined motion, the arrow can be imped-

8. Among the ten propositions with which we have summed up the plan of our articles,
we could have included the following proposition:
“Human nature remains debilitated by original sin for the honest good, but it is not dead.
For this reason, with a general premotion, and without a special grace or motion, one cannot
have every good, but one can have some good: one cannot overcome all obstacles, but one can
overcome easy obstacles and for some time; one cannot fail to place an impediment to grace in
difficult things and even in easy things that last for a long time, but one can in easy things and
for some time. That which [fallen] nature can do even without grace it can do with all the more
reason with sufficient grace.”
This proposition, admitted by the majority of Thomists, is the key to all the questions of
grace in fallen nature. If we have not included it among the ten propositions, it is because we de-
sire that these not be limited to [the state of] fallen nature, but that they embrace all creatures
and in all their states.
We believe that Thomism, in the matter with which we are dealing, could be extraordi-
narily simplified and developed as soon as all Thomists accept the following principle: “Suffi-
cient grace and efficacious grace are proportionally in the supernatural order what the general
motion and the special motion are in the natural order. All and only what one can have in the
natural order with the general premotion or concurrence, one can have with sufficient grace in
the supernatural order. All and only that, in the natural order, which demands a special grace or
concurrence demands an efficacious grace in the supernatural order.” This is the organic princi-
ple that is latent underneath all Thomist affirmations.
28  first article
ed from reaching the target by a cause interposed in its path, or fire can
be impeded from the effect of burning by water, or the sacrament can be
impeded from causing its grace by the defect of the one who receives it;
so also the most determined premotion of sufficient grace can be imped-
ed by the will. Thomistic sufficient grace, then, does not need to be deter-
mined by the will: it only needs not to be impeded.
Thus, to say that for easy works and imperfect acts sufficient grace is
enough, intending by sufficient grace the simultaneous concurrence or the
indeterminate and versatile grace in the Molinist sense, would be against all
Thomistic principles. In this sense, the refutation that Billuart makes against
the Sorbonist Tournely and that del Prado makes against the Liguorian
Hermann is conclusive (Billuart, De gratia, diss. 5, art. 6; del Prado, De gra-
tia, t. 3, p. 423). But if by sufficient grace one means a true physical premo-
tion and a determinate premotion, even though frustratable in its course by
an impediment that the will can in fact 9 place or not place in easy things or
imperfect acts, this is not incompatible, in our judgment, with any funda-
mental principle of Thomism, nor of Augustinianism, nor of Liguorianism,
and is the true union in understanding between all these systems.
From the fact that God always gives a further grace to one who does
not place an impediment to a previous grace, it does not follow that this
not-placing of an impediment is the cause or the reason for conceding a
new grace. A seed or a plant continues its course or development, not be-
cause no impediment is placed (because one does not place the impedi-
ment of a stone and, nevertheless, it does not grow), but by its own prop-
er vital power. Thus, grace or supernatural premotion, once given by God,
follows its course or growth, not because the will does not place an im-
pediment, but by its proper power. It is still true that this power or course
of the grace would not have continued had the will placed an impedi-
ment. From the fact, then, that the will can paralyze or deviate the course
of the motion or divine grace, it does not follow that this grace is not ef-
ficacious ab intrinseco; it only follows that it is not infallibly or perfectly ef-
ficacious, as sufficient grace or any motion of general providence is not. Nor
does it even follow that the not-placing of an impediment is at least the
condition sine qua non, because, even if the impediment were placed, God
could remove it and assure that the course of grace was not interrupted.
9. Always when we use the word “can,” we mean that one can “in fact” or “in sensu composi-
to,” which is what is meant by this word in ordinary language.
 The Thomist System   29

We have repeated various times that, to have easy or imperfect acts,

sufficient premotion is enough in the natural order and sufficient grace
in the supernatural. But if God were to decree that man or the angel un-
frustratably have any act whatsoever, as easy as it may be, this would not
be a decree of the antecedent will, but the consequent, nor of general provi-
dence, but of special [providence], nor would it occur unfrustratably with
a sufficient premotion or grace, but rather with an efficacious one. The divi-
sion or primary and radical distinction between sufficient and efficacious
grace, then, is that one is in fact frustratable, as is the antecedent will or
general providence, and the other is in fact unfrustratable, as is the con-
sequent will or special providence. The other distinction made, of easy or
imperfect acts and difficult or perfect acts, corresponds to sufficient and
efficacious grace by reason of fallen or weak nature, for which no general
motion, natural or supernatural, is enough to have anything perfect.
For this reason, one also sees that the classic and most fundamental
Thomistic distinction that divine premotion can be resisted “in sensu di-
viso,” but not “in sensu composito,” has application only to the premotion
or grace that is infallibly efficacious, to which it is applied by the Thomists;
but it does not have equal application to the premotion of sufficient grace,
which, as the antecedent will to which it pertains, can be resisted in sensu
diviso, in sensu composito, and in all senses, as regards the course and term of
such motion. All of this is no more than a consequence of the first propo-
sition: that is, of the division of divine providence and the divine will and
the divine motion into general and special, or into frustratable and un-
frustratable, respecting the accomplishment of any particular end.
The triple character of sufficient grace. All sufficient grace in the Tho-
mistic sense, then, has the three following characteristics:
a) It is infallibly efficacious for something, that is, for the actuation of
the free will or the free “incoaction” of the imperfect act.
b) It is fallibly efficacious or proximately sufficient for something, that is
for the continuation or perseverance of the imperfect act or (if one
wishes to speak in another way) for not placing an impediment to
the course of grace in easy things and for some time.
c) It is completely inefficacious or remotely sufficient by itself alone for
something, that is, for the perfect act and even for difficult or large
trajectories of the imperfect act, for which one has need of another
grace: perfectly efficacious grace.
30  first article
Some Thomists take much note of the first and third characteristics,
above all of this last, and do not notice as much the second characteristic,
where precisely is found the relation between Thomism and any system
that denies the scientia media.
To one, then, who, with the sufficient grace (large or small) that he
actually has and that God denies to no one in this life, does the little or
much that he can do with it, and prays for the little or much for which he
can pray—to one who does not place to the movement of sufficient grace
any impediment that he could in fact not place with it—God, infinitely
merciful, never will deny further sufficient graces for the other imperfect
acts, efficacious grace for the perfect acts, difficult or for a long time, and
final perseverance for death.
This is the truly consoling sense of the traditional aphorism that “fa-
centi quod in se est EX VIRIBUS GRATIAE, Deus non denegat ulteriorem
gratiam.” The aphorism does not say “ex viribus gratiae efficacis,” but “ex
viribus gratiae.” From some having limited this aphorism to infallibly effi-
cacious grace has come the ambiguous idea that frustratably efficacious or
sufficient grace gives the posse but never the agere; that is, that, with only
sufficient grace, man can never in fact do anything, not even not place an
impediment in easy things and for some time. This narrow understand-
ing of sufficient grace is not the most common in Thomism, or at least
its contrary can be defended within Thomism, and that is enough for us
now.10

10. The fact that Tournely unnecessarily mixed the scientia media of Molina with the sys-
tem called “Sorbonic Congruism” was the true reason that the distinguished Billuart declared a
war without quarter against Tournely and against the entire system and that later Thomists have
continued to combat it in the same manner.
But if this system removed the scientia media, as the great Doctor of the Church Saint
Liguori, with his profound theological sense, knew to remove it, and if, further, one understood
sufficient grace not as a versatile or indeterminate motion, in the Molinist style, but as a most
determinate premotion, although fallible or impedible in its course by the human will, we be-
lieve there is nothing in the aforesaid system that cannot be reconciled substantially with the
true Thomist system. Some Thomists of note anterior to Billuart have already indicated this, as
one can see from the following text of Bancel:
“In addition, the opinion of those who distinguish two gifts—that is, the operative gift
and the gift of prayer—pleases me very well; and indeed they profess that everyone does not
have the gift of operation, or the aid necessary that they may operate and observe the precepts;
but they also assert that all have at least the gift of prayer or the aid necessary for this, so that
they may pray for and obtain that other aid required to observe the precepts” (Bancel, Ord.
 The Thomist System   31

To complete the line of evil, there now remain only two propositions
relative to reprobation and the predetermining decrees to the material of
sin. But, in order that one may see their connection with the line of good,
we will insert some propositions on predestination.

FOURT H PROPO SIT ION

“Predestination, not only to grace but also to glory, is completely free,
without having as a cause, motive, foundation or condition either merit
or any other thing on the part of man: it has no other foundation or rea-
son of being than the pure will of God.
“But merits are one thing and demerits or sins something very distinct.
Without going in any way against Thomistic principles, one can sustain that
predestination as much as reprobation supposes the foreknowledge of sins.”

The first part of this proposition, on completely free predestination,

requires no proof for a Thomist, because it is a fundamental point of the
doctrine of Saint Thomas.
The second part, that predestination and reprobation suppose the fore-

Praed. Brevis universae theologicae cursus, de voluntate Dei, q. 3, §2, edit. Avignon, 1685, t. 2, p. 34).
Any theologian knows that this doctrine, of which Bancel here approves with such plea-
sure, constitutes the substance of Sorbonic Congruism and of the system of Saint Liguori.
And more: the same Billuart, in the middle of his heat—certainly well justified—with
which he attacks Tournely, at times takes note, to the point of indicating it clearly enough, that
the Sorbonic system, deprived of unnecessary additions, substantially agrees with the Thomis-
tic system. The following text will serve as an example: “Tournely does not deny this: but he
responds that Holy Thomas, in comparing predestination and reprobation, surely does not
make one depend on the other, and so he concedes that they have no reason beyond the divine will.
But this is the very thing we desire and intend: for the question is not only why God elects some
in general and does not elect others; but it is also why this man more than that man, why Pe-
ter more than Judas, is elected for glory: whether He foresees the future merit of Peter that He
does not foresee in Judas or whether on the contrary it is from His free will alone. This last,
Holy Thomas asserts; this, Tournely concedes; what more could we ask?” (Billuart, De praedes-
tinatione, diss. 9, art. 5, § 3, in fine).
We are persuaded that the day these questions are studied and dealt with a little less po-
lemical heat, and with a little more serene objectivity, one will better distinguish what in each
system constitutes its immutable substance, and what is nothing more than its accidental vari-
ables; and that all systems are substantially Thomist that reject the scientia media in the order of
intention and that, in the order of execution, do not limit themselves to a pure simultaneous con-
currence, but also admit, with this and that shade, a true physical premotion.
32  first article
sight of sins, we will prove in its time by many reasons taken from the same
Thomistic principles. We could indicate, among other reasons, the follow-
ing: first, that sins pertain to general providence, and predestination and
reprobation to special providence, and it is well known that general provi-
dence is prius natura to special [providence]; second, that our predestina-
tion supposes the predestination of Christ, this supposes the Incarnation,
and the Incarnation supposes the foresight of original sin and the actual sins
to whose remission it is ordered; third, that the predestination of Adam is
no less free than our own, and that of Adam is evidently posterior to the
foresight of his actual sin; fourth, that almost always when Saint Thomas
speaks of absolute predestination [i.e., to glory] and reprobation, he uses
the phrases “per modum misericordiae parcendo; per modum justitiae puni-
endo,” phrases that supposes sin; fifth, that Saint Thomas expressly says that
“praedestinatio supponit praescientiam futurorum” (III, q. 1, a. 3 ad 4), and by
“futurorum” it is evident that at a minimum he intends sins, etc., etc.
But, as we now are only trying to prove that a Thomist can defend
this, it is enough to allege that following text of Cajetan, commenting on
the cited words of Saint Thomas:
Just as, simply speaking, predestination presupposes the providence of the natural
universe, so, simply speaking, it presupposes foreknowledge of futures pertaining to
the order of the natural universe, and defects in those futures. Among these is con-
tained the sins of men. . . . And, from this, the imagination of Scotus is patently false
that Peter is first predestined to glory before it is foreseen that he would sin; inas-
much as Peter is foreseen first according to those things which pertain to him—as
separate from the order of grace—before he was predestined, because he was fore-
seen first according to the order of simple divine providence before he was foreseen
according to the order of divine predestination; and thus it was first foreseen that he
would sin, before he was predestined. (In III, q. 1, art. 3 ad 4, no. 6)
The entire commentary of Cajetan on this point occupies three col-
umns in the Leonine Summa. Let any Thomist read it and he will see that
the mind of Cajetan is clear, beyond any possible equivocation. Well then:
a Thomist is free to interpret Saint Thomas as the chief of the Commenta-
tors interprets him.
On the other hand, the reader should note that this fourth propo-
sition is nothing other than a logical corollary of those before. If, as we
saw in the first proposition, there are two providences—general and spe-
cial—and predestination is a special providence, it follows that it ought to
 The Thomist System   33

be posterior in nature to general providence, to which sin always pertains.

And, as we saw in the second proposition, just as for God to deny grace or
premove to the material of sin supposes the previous defect of the human
will, so also reprobation—as much positive as negative—correlatively
ought to suppose it.
The truly fundamental principle on which Cajetan rests in order to
say that predestination, and therefore reprobation, supposes the fore-
sight of sins is that “predestination supposes all that it does not cause.” If
anyone were to reply that while predestination does not cause sin, it nev-
ertheless does cause its permission, we will contest two things: first, that
even if predestination caused the permission of sin, nevertheless the ap-
plication of Cajetan’s principle stands, because the permission of sin does
not cause sin; second and principally, that a Thomist can defend—as Ser-
ra, Contenson, and Goudin defended it—that the permission of sin is not
the effect of predestination.
We could add that this—that reprobation is posterior to the foresight
of actual sins—not only Cajetan defends, but also Domingo Soto and Pe-
dro Soto. Some have pretended that Domingo Soto had retracted [this]
at the end of his commentary on book four of the Sentences; but one who
reads this so-called retraction will see that Domingo Soto continues to
qualify this opinion as satis probabilis (IV Sent., dist. 50, art. 6, Louvain,
1573, p. 1052).
Our personal opinion is that reprobation necessarily supposes the
foresight of the futurition of the defect and the futurability of sin, as we
will see at the end of this article. God does not reprobate anyone except
because his salvation is opposed to the good of the universe, and in this
sense reprobation is free; but the salvation of such a man never is opposed
to the good of the universe except by his culpable defect, and in this sense
it always supposes the actual defect of the creature. “The conditions by
which man is made to be de-ordered [“deordinatus”] from the execution
of the end—under which conditions God does not want to save him—
are from man himself; and thus all that follows from them is imputed to him
as his fault” (D. Thomas, I Sent., dist. 46, art. 1 ad 5).
Therefore, the divine will to save all men, as being an antecedent will,
is a conditioned will. As conditions of this will, one might point to many
things, but they all always suppose the culpable defect of man. Thus, the
true and most adequate formula of the common opinion of theologians
34  first article
and of the faithful is the following, of John of St. Thomas: “God wills all
men to be saved, UNLESS THEY SHALL HAVE FAILED” [“SI PER IPSOS NON
STETERIT ”] (Cursus theol., De voluntate Dei, disp. 5, art. 7, no. 5, Vives edi-
tion, t. 3, p. 471). This formula is nothing other than an exact translation of
the text of Saint Thomas that we have cited.

FIFT H PROPO SIT ION

“The question as to whether predestination to glory is completely
free—a question which every Thomist ought to resolve affirmatively—is
essentially distinct from the question whether of itself it is before or after
the predestination to grace or to merits. So long as one affirms that merits
come not from a versatile grace or a general concurrence, but from a grace
that is intrinsically efficacious, it is of little importance for Thomistic doc-
trine whether one says that predestination to glory is before or after pre-
destination to merits.”

In order to prove this proposition, which is evident, it is enough to

cite the following text of Billuart:
If here one is brought to raise the exact order that exists between a predestination
to grace or to merit and a predestination to glory, and it is conceded by those who
want a predestination to merit to be prior that these merits are from God by the ef-
ficacious power of His grace—and not by free will under versatile grace and indif-
ferent concurrence—the question would be OF LITTLE MOMENT, and in this only
would the Congruists have erred: that, by an improper order, the election of means
would have been placed before the intention of the end. (Billuart, De Deo uno, diss.
9, art. 4, no. 3)
Alvarez and Lemos express themselves in an analogous manner (De
auxiliis, disp. 110, no. 13. Panoplia, t. 2, nums. 273, 282, 291, 602).
We have stated this fifth proposition with the unique purpose that any
Thomist who wants to go to the bottom and to the substance, more than
to the accidents, of this question, separate in his mind the idea of gratuity
and non-gratuity from the idea of before or after. These ideas can frequent-
ly be joined, but it is never licit to deduce one from the other, and much
less to confuse them. The “post hoc ergo propter hoc” [fallacy] is the cause
of many paralogisms in Theology, as in all the sciences.
 The Thomist System   35

Well then: these distinguished Thomists, and with much reason,

point out to us that, with respect to the gifts of predestination and merits,
their gratuity is one thing and their order of placement a very distinct mat-
ter. Once one establishes the affirmation that merits do not result from a
versatile grace or an indifferent concurrence, but from a grace that is effi-
cacious ab intrinseco, with this the gratuity, as much of merits as of predes-
tination, is [also] established, and to place these merits before predestina-
tion would be a pure question of an absence of order, because logical order
requires that the end, which is the predestination to glory, be placed be-
fore the means, which is grace or merits.
This is dealing with merits persevering to the end or leading effica-
ciously and infallibly to glory; for, if one speaks of non-persevering mer-
its or not leading infallibly to glory, logic does not require this order, and
God could very well, if it pleased Him, predestine a man to such merits
and to such grace before predestining him to glory, as Gonet well says, ex-
pressly, in the following text:
It ought to be said that God could conduct himself in two ways in the bringing to-
gether of grace and merit. In the first way, He wills and desires these as sufficient
means only, and not as infallibly connected to glory. In the second way, He wills and
desires grace and merit as efficacious means and as infallibly connected to glory.
In the first way, God could efficaciously elect men to grace and to merit without the
presupposed intention of glory; not, however, in the second way. (Gonet, De praede-
stinatione, disp. 2, no. 78, edit. Vives, t. 2, p. 302)11
This is, in our judgment, the reason that Saint Thomas, in order to
express that predestination is completely free, has never used the phrase
before or after merits, but phrases that indicate causality, saying that pre-

11. For Molinists and Congruists, predestination is the preparation of those means with
which God infallibly FORESEES that a man will save himself. For Thomists and Augustinians,
predestination is the preparation of those means with which God infallibly CAUSES man to save
himself. As one can see, the difference is not precisely before or after, but of foreknowledge or cau-
sality. One can defend, then, as Suarez and the Blessed Bellarmine defend, that predestination
is before the foreknowledge of merits, and not be a Thomist, by founding the infallibility of this
predestination in pure scientia media. Just as one can defend, as Billuart and Lemos expressly
point out (and as these thus interpret certain Holy Fathers and theologians of antiquity), that
predestination is after the foreknowledge of merits, and be a Thomist, if one founds the infalli-
bility of this predestination not in the scientia media, but in the efficacy of the divine will, that is,
in a grace efficacious ab intrinseco. This is precisely what Billuart affirms in this, our fifth propo-
sition.
36  first article
destination is the cause, and that grace and merits are the effect; and every
Thomist knows that nothing can be the effect of predestination, if it does
not bear the character of being persevering: “Without including persever-
ance and final grace, nothing is the effect of predestination . . . regardless of
whether an efficacious election does or does not antecede the prevision
of merit” ( John of St. Thomas, De praedestinatione, disp. 9, art. 3, nums. 7
and 10, edit. Vives, t. 3, pp. 758 and 762)
Saint Thomas himself had indicated already clearly enough that there
could be acts of man, for example sins, whose foresight by God precedes
the predestination to glory, without their being the cause of this predesti-
nation. Read with attention the following text of Saint Thomas:
Objection 13: According to the philosopher, “one thing is said to be prior to
another when the sequence of their being cannot be reversed.” But God’s fore-
knowledge is related to predestination in this way, because God knows beforehand
what He predestines, while He foreknows the evil (or sins) which He does not pre-
destine. Foreknowledge, therefore, is antecedent to predestination. But what is
prior in any order is the cause of what is posterior. Consequently, foreknowledge
(namely, of sins) is the cause of predestination.
Response to Objection 13: Although that with which the consequent cannot be
interchanged is prior in some way, it does not always follow that it is prior as a cause
is said to be prior; for, if this were true, then to be colored would be the cause of be-
ing a man. Consequently, it does not follow that foreknowledge (of sin) is the cause
of predestination. (De veritate, q. 6, art. 2, obj. 13 and ad 13)

SIXT H PROPO SIT ION

“As much imperfect acts, which precede justification, and which some
call congruous merits, as healthy acts posterior to justification, and which
are condign merits, can be considered under two aspects: a) in themselves,
abstracting from whether or not they are persevering to the end; b) insofar
as persevering to the end, which is alone how they lead infallibly and in fact
to glory.
“Well then, when the Thomists defend that predestination to glory is
anterior to the foresight of merits, it is enough to understand merits in the
second sense, insofar as they are persevering to the end, or insofar as effi-
caciously and infallibly connected with the attainment of glory.”
 The Thomist System   37

In order to convince himself of the truth of this proposition, the best

way would be for the reader himself to read any classical Thomist; for in-
stance, Billuart or Gonet, in the question that deals not with whether
predestination is free, but whether it is before or after merits, while pay-
ing careful attention to the qualifications that they always add when they
speak of this question of “merit.” We will cite only a pair of texts.
Predestination, according to the definition of Augustine that Tournely accepts,
is the foreknowledge and preparation of benefits, not of just any sort, but of those
through which whoever are freed are most certainly freed; that is, those that effica-
ciously and certainly lead to glory. But it is not possible that God would wish to apply
means that were absolutely efficacious for the fulfillment of glory, unless He absolutely
and efficaciously willed that glory itself: therefore . . .
To this, the Parisian Doctor Tournely gives two responses. First, he denies this
principle, that is, that election of means certainly and efficaciously leads to an end,
supposing the intention of the end. Note his reason for denying it: because, he says,
“Many of the reprobate no less than the elect are given efficacious aids of grace, if one
excepts final perseverance.” Who is not amazed at this very weak refutation of the ar-
gument? The argument concerns those graces that certainly and efficaciously lead to glo-
ry, and hence includes final perseverance. Tournely’s response concerns those aids effi-
cacious for certain acts, but final perseverance is not included with them, nor do they lead
certainly and efficaciously to glory: we speak of the first, he of the second. (Billuart,
De Deo, diss. 9, art. 4, § 3, Probatur rationibus)
Read all the reasons that Billuart and Gonet here adduce, or simply
read the text of Gonet cited in the previous proposition, and one will see
that they all suppose the same thing. In reality, this sixth proposition is no
more than a corollary of the fifth. The efficacious volition of the end need
not necessarily be anterior to the volition of all the means, but [only] of
the means leading efficaciously to that end.

SEVEN T H PROPO SIT ION

“One can, then, defend within Thomism that the sole elicited or prop-
er effects of predestination are glory and final perseverance, and that,
therefore, all other acts or merits are or can be proper and elicited effects
of general providence, if considered in themselves; although they are always
imperated by predestination, if they are considered insofar as persevering or
united with perseverance.”
38  first article

In order to prove this proposition, which is nothing more than a cor-

ollary of the previous [one], the following text is sufficient:
I respond that only glory and final perseverance are elicited effects of predestination.
On the other hand, the other gifts that are bestowed on the elect are imperated by
it, but proportioned to, and elicited by, general supernatural providence . . . granted,
most learned theologians confound these two. (Gonet, De praedestinatione, disp. 3,
nums. 132 and 136, t. 2, p. 351)
Note in passing the connection of this proposition, and the two pre-
vious, with the first. If there are two true providences, even within the su-
pernatural order, one general and one special, each one ought to have its
proper or elicited effects, as each have their decrees and premotions. And,
being a general providence anterior in nature to the special, although able
to be ordered to it, and thus imperated by it, nevertheless the acts or ef-
fects proper to general providence ought to be anterior in nature to those
of special providence or predestination, although imperated by this, which
subordinates them to its end, giving them the character of infallible or fi-
nal perseverance. One who, guided by a narrow idea of the antecedent will
of God or general supernatural providence, imagined that every supernatu-
ral act is, under all its aspects, an effect of predestination to glory, which is
special providence, with this would reduce general supernatural providence,
and the sufficient grace that pertains to it, to terms empty of meaning.

EIGHT H PROPO SIT ION

“With this alone, then, that one admits truly that final perseverance is
completely free, the Thomistic thesis of the complete gratuity of predesti-
nation to glory remains saved.”

In order to prove that a Thomist can defend this proposition, it will

be enough to cite the following text of John of St. Thomas:
It cannot be that the election of final grace is free and that the election or intention
of glory, to be given efficaciously and in fact, is not free. God foresees as many merits
as are elicited by His grace, which merits—save the final perseverance that He gives
freely and out of His mercy—incur no debt so as in fact to occasion and produce
glory. . . . Thus, these merits neither necessitate nor in fact produce a debt, save as
depending on a free gift of the rewarder previously given; and this [reward] concerns
 The Thomist System   39

these merits as dependent on His grace and liberality and a will that glory be given,
being moved to intend and will this out of the motive of liberality, because these merits
are deserving of this reward from such a motive, and not without it.
Nor is it a difficulty that perseverance supposes merits, such that willing to give
glory by the consideration of free perseverance is a fortiori by consideration of the
merits over which perseverance falls. I say it is not a difficulty, because this [latter
consideration] supposes merits as they regard the dignity of the person considered
in himself [“quantum in se est”], but not as sufficiently inducing the rewarder to the
real rendering of reward, save insofar as this depends on that which is given freely:
that is, on perseverance. Therefore, the will of deciding to give this reward de facto
and truly ought absolutely to be moved by some free motive, without which these
merits do not lead to it sufficiently, even including the dignity of the person, because
they can fail and not persevere.
Persevering merits, however, even to the end, include something beyond the
reckoning of debt and merit, namely the free gift of perseverance liberally bestowed
by the rewarder himself, and without it glory is not given even as a reward. There-
fore, in the free bestowal itself of such a gift, which is the final condition for the at-
tainment of glory, God has a sufficient free motive and freely intends to give glory
efficaciously and in fact, because this free gift of perseverance renders those merits
effective so that they in fact lead to glory. ( John of St. Thomas, Cursus Theol., q. 24,
disp. 8, art. 3, no. 6, edition Vives, t. 3, p. 685)
Note how this eighth proposition confirms what was said in the fifth,
sixth, and seventh propositions, that is, in order to save the Thomistic
doctrine that predestination to glory is ante praevisa merita it is enough
to understand by merits persevering merits, without it being necessary to
understand demerits, nor even non-persevering merits. The effect, then, prop-
er to predestination, and thus essentially posterior to it, is the persevering
character of the grace and the merits of the predestined; and when in Tho-
mism one says that “all merit is the effect of predestination,” it is enough
to understand this of all persevering merit, or insofar as persevering. With-
out the character of perseverance, merits can be encountered even in the
non-predestined. And more: according to the more common opinion
among Thomists, the foreknowledge by God of the merits Adam had pri-
or to sinning is anterior to his predestination.
Note also how, with this eighth proposition, combined with the third,
the foundation of the accusation customarily made to the Augustinian-
Thomistic system—of its “leading to desperation”—disappears. Really,
if sufficient grace never is enough in itself to execute in fact any act, per-
40  first article
fect or imperfect, we confess that we do not see clearly how there could
be any room for hope in one who possesses only sufficient grace. But if, as
we saw in the third proposition, sufficient grace is enough by itself to ac-
complish at least imperfect acts, and thus to pray, even if to pray imperfect-
ly; if, again, as Thomists unanimously teach, to one who does what he can
ex viribus gratiae, God infallibly concedes a further grace, it follows that ev-
ery Thomist can logically affirm that, to one who with sufficient grace does
what he can and prays for what he cannot, God infallibly concedes, one af-
ter the other, new graces, until one reaches the completely free gift of fi-
nal perseverance. The prayer of the sinner, as Thomas teaches (II-II, q. 83, a.
16) is founded in the pure divine mercy, and thus the infallibility of impetra-
tion, by means of prayer, in no way removes the completely free character of
what is impetrated, that is final perseverance, nor, consequently, [does it
remove] the gratuity of predestination.
If it occurs to anyone to object that one of the conditions for prayer
to be infallibly heard by God is that it have the character of being persever-
ing, and for perseverance in prayer sufficient grace is not enough, we reply,
with a beautiful doctrine of John of St. Thomas, that total perseverance
is nothing other than a continuous conjunction of partial perseverances,
and to one who acts and prays, with the actual grace that he possesses, as
he is able to act and pray in one act, God infallibly concedes grace for an-
other act, and so on, without interruption, to final perseverance, so long as
not interrupted by the fault of man. We cite his words:
Finally, it can be said that, while total perseverance cannot fall under the merit of
prayer, because this is required in order to pray, nevertheless inadequate and partial
perseverance can be given infallibly through congruous merit; for example, if any
one by praying should merit aid for one act, for which he has sufficient perseverance,
and, through another prayer, aid for another act, and so on for the remaining acts;
then, for whichever prayer there may be, he has inadequate [and partial] persever-
ance, and thus each prayer will have its own inadequate perseverance. And thus com-
plete perseverance, which is constituted (brought about?) by all aids and acts, does
not fall under one merit (congruous or of prayer), but under many merits, which
does not seem to be opposed, nor to be denied, by divine Thomas. Nevertheless, this
always supposes the aid for the first persevering prayer, which is given freely. ( John of
St. Thomas, Cursus Theol., De merito, q. 114, disp. 31, art. 3, num 7, t. 6, p. 932)
In reality, neither this eighth proposition nor the previous ones offer
any difficulty, once one admits the third proposition that sufficient grace
 The Thomist System   41

is a true premotion and that with it one can do, and one frequently has
done, imperfect acts. If, finally, any rigid theologian does not want to con-
cede that sufficient grace is enough to do imperfect acts, this matters little,
so long as he concedes, as every Thomist ought to concede, that it suffices
not to place an impediment to grace in these aforesaid imperfect acts, that
is, in easy things and for a certain time.

N IN T H PROP O SIT ION

“As thus, according to what we saw in the second proposition, one
can say in Thomism that the divine motion to the material of sin is pos-
terior in nature to the actual defect of the human will, so one can also
say that the eternal predefining or predetermining decrees of this motion
are posterior in nature to the foresight of this defect of the will, and that,
therefore, one can call these decrees postdefining or postdetermining.”

In order to prove that this proposition can be defended, the following

text of Gonet will suffice:
Unless a man or an angel by a priority of nature determines himself to the formality
of sin, or to the material formally taken, he is not determined by God to the materi-
al materially taken or to the physical entity [of sin], which is put at the disposal of
moral malice.
What we have said concerning temporal predetermination ought to be applied to
eternal predefinition or to the decree to predetermine from which it flows and is its
execution. . . . And so we must therefore say that God predetermines the created
will to the material of sin, because it prius natura determines itself to the formal-
ity [of sin], or to the material formally taken: thus, also, according to this solution
and doctrine, it should be said that God had in mind, therefore, to predefine eternal-
ly the entity and actuality of the material of sin, because He foresaw that the created
will would determine itself to the formality of sin, or to the material of sin formally
taken, from its own malice and defectibility. . . . From this, one can understand that
it is licit to speak of the decree by which God concurs with the evil and sinful act of
man and angel as in one sense a predefinition and predetermination, and yet also,
in another sense, as a postdefinition and postdetermination. (Gonet, De providentia
Dei, disp. 8, art. 5, nums. 254–255, t. 2, pp. 250–51)
Note the connection of this thesis with the first and the fourth. If
there exists a general providence whose decrees and premotions are fal-
42  first article
lible and impedible by the creature, as regards the particular outcome of
each act, and if this general providence, as is clear and as we will see in the
following proposition, is anterior in nature to the special, it is logical that
the foresight of the impediments placed by the creature to the decrees
and premotions of this general providence be also anterior in nature to
the efficacious predefining decrees or infallible motions of special provi-
dence. From this derives the need to place the foresight of sins or impedi-
ments between the antecedent will to save all men, which pertains to gen-
eral providence, and predestination and reprobation, which are special
providences, as we saw with Cajetan in the fourth proposition.12

12. In Thomism, sometimes one says our fault precedes the negation of grace, and at other
times one says that the negation of grace precedes our fault.
In order to understand these two affirmations, which appear contradictory, one must no-
tice that there are three graces: a) ordinary sufficient grace, which God never denies completely to
anyone in this life, neither one with fault or without fault: this sufficient grace is ordered to do
imperfect acts; b) ordinary efficacious grace, which is ordered to perfect acts: this God never denies
without previous fault, which consists in placing an impediment to sufficient grace; c) extraordi-
nary efficacious grace, which Thomists customarily call final or privileged grace. This third grace is
not ordered to anything, because it is extra-ordinary, and because God can give it or not, with fault
or without fault; with this extraordinary grace God can, if He wishes, prevent that man use suf-
ficient grace badly, even though man could, with sufficient grace alone, do imperfect acts well.
When, then, Thomists say that fault is prior to the negation of grace, they intend the sec-
ond grace, which is never refused without fault. When they say that the negation of grace is
prior to fault, they intend the third grace, with which, if God had given it, there would not have
been fault, but, without which, a man could have avoided fault in imperfect acts with sufficient
grace alone. Of these two efficacious graces, the ordinary and the extraordinary, the ordinary
God has promised and never denies to one who does not place an impediment to sufficient
[grace]. In this sense, one can say that it is a due grace, because sufficient grace gives an incho-
ate right to it, as all Thomists teach. On the other hand, the extraordinary grace is not due to
anyone, nor has God promised it to anyone. As what does not receive or have what is due is
customarily called privation, and what does not receive or have what is not due is called simple
negation, there follows the other Thomistic aphorism that “the privation of efficacious grace (or-
dinary or due efficacious grace) is posterior to fault; whereas the negation of efficacious grace
(extraordinary efficacious grace) is prior to fault.” We have observed that, by not distinguishing
well these two efficacious graces, ordinary and extraordinary, some theologians frequently cre-
ate a confusion, to the point of appearing to contradict themselves, by treating the resistance
to sufficient grace as though it were both before and after the lack of efficacious grace. When,
at the end of this article, we indicate the order of the divine decrees, the reader will see how
to harmonize between themselves these Thomistic propositions concerning whether the fore-
knowledge of sin is anterior or posterior to the decree.
 The Thomist System   43

T EN T H A N D F INA L PROPO SIT ION

“Although, in God, will is solely one and He wills everything in one
most simple act, nevertheless, in our human manner of understanding
and on the part only of the objects willed, the antecedent will of God and
the decrees and motions corresponding to this will are by nature prior to
the consequent will and its corresponding decrees and motions.
“This antecedent will, with its corresponding decrees and motions, is
antecedent, or conditioned, or inefficacious, or impedible, or fallible as re-
gards the execution of a particular end; but it is consequent, or absolute, or
simpliciter efficacious, or unimpedible, or infallible as regards the applica-
tion of the means sufficient for the execution of this end.”

Although this tenth proposition will offer no difficulty to the major-

ity of Thomists, it will not be superfluous briefly to confirm it with the fol-
lowing texts:
It is obvious from what is said regarding the motive of the Incarnation that God first
wills the salvation of all, with an antecedent will, and He predestines Christ to this
end; nevertheless, later He wills the efficacious election of some with a consequent
will, which is predestination, according to the glory of Christ. (Billuart, De Incarna-
tione, diss. 22, art. 2)
If you say with Contenson that to admit antecedent providence is opposed to the
concept of providence and prudence, whose nature it is to be consequent and to
command an effect, we respond that we do not admit an antecedent providence, but
a providence that supposes an antecedent will as such; nor do we deny that the nature
of providence and prudence is to be consequent and to command an effect . . . but
which effect?: just the execution of the means and not the attainment of the end (Billu-
art, De praedestinatione, diss. 9, art. 1, § 3).
Or, in the second place, it may be said with the same (Ferrariensis), that what God
provides is not the end, but the means; for while it is right that the execution of the
end is an effect of providence, nevertheless this is not provided by it, but rather the
effect of ordering means to an end. As regards means, divine providence is immuta-
ble, and, regarding this, it is true that it is never frustrated or overthrown, for what­
ever means it itself provides are infallibly placed in being.
You will urge: a consequent will of the means cannot arise save by a consequent
will of the end. I reply by distinguishing the major. A consequent will of efficacious
means to the end cannot arise save by a consequent will of these, I concede; a conse-
44  first article
quent will of means sufficient as such, I deny. (Gonet, De praedestinatione, disp. 1, art.
5, nums. 107–109, t. 2, p. 281)
Note the parallelism of this proposition with the first. The root of ev-
erything in the Thomistic system is the efficacy of the divine will. But, as
we distinguish in God two divine wills, one antecedent and conditioned
respecting the end, the other consequent or absolute, so we also distin-
guish two classes of efficacy or two providences: one general, condi-
tioned, or fallible respecting the execution of the end, and the other spe-
cial, absolute, and infallible respecting the execution of the end. And as
there are neither will nor providence without decrees or motions, so also
one must distinguish two classes of divine decrees or motions: some fal-
lible or frustratable by defect of the creature as regards the execution of
the end, and others infallible or unfrustratable. The divine motions [that
are] frustratable by the defect of the human will constitute, in the super-
natural order, sufficient or fallibly efficacious grace; [those that are] un-
frustrable or infallible constitute infallibly efficacious grace. For this rea-
son, sufficient grace corresponds to general supernatural providence and
the antecedent will to save all, and infallible and perseveringly efficacious
grace corresponds to the consequent will to save some, or special provi-
dence, which we call predestination.
Note also these two characters of the antecedent will, and thus of its
decrees and premotions: a) to be conditioned or impedible as regards the
end, because only in this sense are they called antecedent; b) to be absolute
or unimpedible as regards the application of the means, because as regards
the application of the means, the so-called antecedent will is absolute or
consequent. From the fact, then, that a grace is a true premotion, one can-
not deduce that it infallibly executes its end; nor from the fact that a grace
is frustrated does it follow that it is not a premotion. On the contrary: if it
is a grace that pertains to the divine antecedent will or general providence,
as pertain all the graces that are called sufficient, it ought to unite precisely
these two characters: to be a premotion infallibly applied by God and to
be, nevertheless, frustratable as regards its end by impediment of the crea-
ture. Sufficient grace, as the general providence to which it pertains, infal-
libly involves the concept of premotion, but it is a fallible premotion as re-
gards its result, because it moves the will, but it does not prevent it from
placing, if it wishes, an impediment to the course of this motion. Effica-
cious grace, as the special providence to which it pertains, also infallibly
 The Thomist System   45

involves premotion, but an infallible premotion as regards the result, be-

cause it not only moves the will, but makes it infallibly not place an im-
pediment to the course of the motion, and [makes] it reach its term,
which is the perfect act.

CONCLUS I ON
These ten propositions mark in broad strokes the path that we in-
tend to travel in our articles. Four of them—the second, third, fourth, and
ninth—refer principally to the line of evil. Another four—the fifth, sixth,
seventh, and eighth—deal with the line of good. Two of them, the first and
the tenth, the alpha and the omega, are the two keys that in the order of
execution (motion or general governance) and in the order of intention
(antecedent will of God), are common to both lines, and are like the clasps
that close them or join them together.
The four referring to the line of good, and that are the ones that prob-
ably will most shock many Thomists, could have been omitted, because
we do not consider them to be absolutely necessary for the end that we
propose, that is, to clarify, simplify, and harmonize the Thomistic con-
cepts over the material taken principally from the side of liberty, sin,
and reprobation, making the principal difficulties that its adversaries op-
pose to it disappear. If we have put them down, it has been for three rea-
sons: first, because they appear explicitly or are transparently indicated in
words and reasoning by many classical Thomists; second, because with
them the fundamental Thomistic principles develop much more naturally
and the objections of its adversaries are resolved with much less subtlety
and complicated formalism; third, because, if they are not absolutely nec-
essary for Thomism, much less are their contradictories, which, for their
part, have an aspect that is extremely rigid. In any case, we once again re-
peat that the four referring to the line of evil, with the two referring to
both lines, are for us those of greater importance, to the point of being
persuaded that, without them, sin and reprobation are inexplicable.13

13. We have said that one can defend in Thomism the said propositions in the line of evil
without it being necessary, for that, also to defend those referring to the line of good because, as
Cajetan and Bañez remark very well, from the fact that reprobation supposes the foreknowledge
of demerits or sins it need not follow necessarily that predestination also supposes the foreknowl-
edge of futures: “it is manifest that predestination and reprobation are not of the same order; nor, if a
46  first article
To some Thomists, it will at first glance appear that, with these ten
propositions, one completely alters the traditional understanding of the
Thomistic system. In our series of articles, we hope to show with total
clarity that it alters it in nothing substantial, but only in accidental mat-
ters; and it is well known that accidental alterations, such as the renewal
of leaves in trees, far from killing or altering an organism or system, are
the greatest signs of its internal life and of its assimilative and progressive
strength.
To many others, Thomists or non-Thomists, it is going to seem at
the beginning that none or few of these ten propositions can be defend-
ed without the scientia media. If they will only have a little patience, they
should be able to see how evidently one can follow this path and unite
these ten propositions without involving in the least the anti-Thomistic
scientia media and using only the principles of Saint Thomas on the divine
knowledge of vision and on the nature of sin. In this, we believe precisely
lies the principal originality, if there is any, of our articles. Nevertheless, in
order to calm the legitimate fear of certain Thomists in this matter, which
is so delicate, we will here indicate certain points.
Recall the following, fundamental, principles of Saint Thomas:
First: In every movement, three things are involved: a) the motion or
physical premotion of the mover; b) the movement or beginning of move-
ment in the mobile; c) the attaining of the term or end of this movement.
Of these three things, the first and the second are correlative and in-
separable; the third, when it concerns motions not infallibly efficacious,
can be impeded, as much by the defect of the moved as by the will of the
mover, if it is omnipotent.

cause of reprobation is given on our part, need it be given for predestination (Bañez, In I, q. 23,
art. 5, Salamanca, 1585, 790). Cajetan expresses himself in a similar manner (In III, q. 1, art. 3).
But, with the end of putting aside beforehand an infinity of more or less subtle objections,
with the end also of shortening the distance between Thomism and the middle systems, and
principally because Thomists of the first order have already indicated it, we have added that one
can also defend in Thomism the said propositions referring to the line of good; for, even with
conceding that predestination to glory supposes the foresight of merits—of those that are not
persevering nor infallibly connected with the accomplishment of said glory—this would be
contrary to nothing substantial in the Thomistic thesis concerning the gratuity of predestina-
tion, and neither certainly to the order logic requires. When the Thomists say that logic requires
placing the efficacious will of the end before that of the means, they are referring to the means
infallibly leading to the end.
 The Thomist System   47

Second: Regarding all that there is of defect or sin in the moral order,
the human will, and not God, is the first cause.
Third: In all sin, one must distinguish two things: a) the voluntary de-
fect of the intellect not to consider or not to attend to the honest rule of ac-
tion; b) the formal sin of acting without considering the said rule.
Of these two things, the first is prius natura to the second; but, when
a creature is in motion or under the divine premotion, given the first, the
second infallibly follows, unless God interrupts it by His mercy, with a
special grace. Well then, when one thing is anterior in nature to another,
God can place His action between the first and the second, impeding the
second, as He interposes it, for example, between the constitution of
the person and the contraction of original sin in the Virgin, or between
the human nature of Christ and His human personality.
Fourth: That the decrees of the antecedent will or general providence,
as all the divine decrees, are decrees and are eternal. Insofar as decrees, they
cause that and only that of which God is the first cause. Insofar as eternal,
they reflect (or coexist with) absolutely everything, that is, not only that of
which God is the first cause, but also that of which the creature is the first
cause, whether it be the defect or sin.14
With these principles, which are familiar to every Thomist, the order

14. “Defectus gratiae, atque ideo pravi operas, prima causa est ex nobis” (D. Thomas, I-II,
q. 112, a. 3 ad 2—Billuart, De Deo uno, diss. 8, art. 4, no. 3). “Unde defectus iste non reducitur in
Deum, sed in liberum arbitrium” (I-II, q. 79, a. 2).
“In quolibet motu naturaliter primum est motio moventis: secundum autem dispositio mate-
riae seu motus ipsius mobilis: ultimum vero est finis vel terminus motus, ad quem terminator actio
moventis” (D. Thomas, I-II, q. 113, a. 8).
“In rebus voluntariis defectus actionis a voluntate actu deficiente procedit, in quantum non
subjicit se actu suae regulae. Qui tamen defectus non est culpa, sed eum sequitur culpa, ex eo quod
cum tali defectu operator” (I, q. 49, a. 1 ad 3).
“Ratio interdum cessat a consideratione regulae debitae, et sic voluntas producit actum pec-
cati” (I-II, q. 75, art. 2, ad 1).
“Non uti regula rationis praeintelligitur in voluntate ante inordinatam electionem: hujus
autem quod est non uti regula rationis non oportet quaerere aliam causam nisi voluntatis libertatem
(the defective or peccable liberty), quia videlicet in ejus potestate est ut sinat se moveri a ratio-
ne, vel non sinat” (De malo, q. 1, art. 3).
Every Thomist concedes that, on the hypothesis that there were another first cause dis-
tinct from God, God, without being the first cause of anything, would continue to be eternal—
or, better said, would continue being eternity itself—and that God would continue, in this hy-
pothesis, to know everything: not insofar as cause, but insofar as eternal. Equally, if God were
the first cause of some things, and not of others, He would know the first insofar as cause, and
48  first article
of the divine decrees and the divine knowledge with respect to the line of
evil, which is what most interests us, can be synthesized in the following
four moments or signs:
First. Decrees of the antecedent or general providence, whether natural
or supernatural.
These comprehend, in the natural order, all the premotions given by
God and owed to each thing, according to its nature, and, in the super-
natural order, all the supernatural premotions corresponding to the gen-
eral will to save all men, and which constitute the ensemble of the so-
called sufficient graces to be saved. Do not forget that these premotions
and these decrees have, the same as does the antecedent will from which
they proceed, the character of being conditioned or frustratable as regards
the execution or outcome of a particular end. This condition is “if the hu-
man will does not place an impediment by its defect, paralyzing or deviat-
ing the divine motion.” This does not deal, then, with indeterminate, in-
different, or versatile decrees, in the Molinist style, but with decrees to
give physical and most determined premotions, to the final individual detail
of the act; but fallible or impedible premotions in their course, by the ac-
tual defect of the moved will.
Second. Knowledge of vision, in these same decrees insofar as de-
crees, of the beginning of the act of the creature, because this beginning al-
ways and infallibly is placed; and, at the same time, knowledge of vision,
in these decrees insofar as eternal, of the defect or impediment actually
placed by the creature to the continuation of the act.
Third. Decrees of the consequent will or special providence, by which
God freely determines not to impede that formal sin come after, or, what
is the same, not to give grace or special motion in order to remove the de-
fect already placed by the creature.

these—or, better said, and all—insofar as eternal. This is nothing other than an evident conse-
quence of the Thomistic doctrine concerning the nature of eternity.
Well then: God being, as He is, the cause of the act, but not of the defect [in sin], He
ought to know the act insofar as cause, that is, in His decree insofar as decree, and the defect in
[His] eternity, that is, in the decree insofar as eternal.
The disorientation, in our judgment, of some theologians in this matter is born from un-
dertaking to explain all the knowledge of God by the sole way of causality, which would be the
case were God the cause of everything. God not being the first cause of the moral defect, one
who limits himself to consider in God the sole way of causality, or the decrees insofar as de-
crees, will never be able to explain in any way the so-called line of evil.
 The Thomist System   49

Fourth. Knowledge of vision of the formal sin of the creature, in these

decrees not to give grace or special motion in order to remove the impedi-
ment or defect.15
Of these four moments, two pertain to the divine will, antecedent
and consequent, namely the first and the third, and the other two to the
knowledge of vision, always posterior to the respective decrees of the di-
vine will, namely the second and fourth.
Every reader who well pays attention to these two moments, the sec-
ond and the fourth, corresponding to the divine knowledge of the line of
evil, will see with clarity that they carry with them the knowledge of vi-
sion and the presence to eternity (two things that appear almost always
united in the texts of Saint Thomas), but in no way require the scientia me-
dia. In the second moment, which is nothing other than the vision of the
decrees of the first moment or antecedent will, God sees infallibly two
things: first, the futurition of the defect; second, the futuribility of sin. That
is, God sees that the human will has already placed in fact a defect; and He
also sees, and in consequence, that it would infallibly place sin, if He does

15. The moments or signs of predestination and reprobation are easily deduced from the
four just indicated and are as follows:
First. Decrees of the general providence or antecedent will to save all men, if they do not in-
terrupt it, and to give them, in consequence, all the sufficient graces for this end.
Second. Knowledge of vision, in these decrees, of the actual defects or impediments placed
or not placed by each man to these graces. In our fallen nature, we can in fact not place an im-
pediment to these sufficient graces in easy and short stretches; but all will place it in fact, with-
out a special grace, in long and difficult stretches that go from vocation to justification, and, even
more, from this to death.
Third. Decrees of special providence or of the consequent will, freely predestining to glory
whom He pleases, and giving to one, in consequence, a grace that is efficacious and persevering
to the end, and likewise reprobating whom He pleases by only not giving (negative reprobation)
the special or persevering grace to impede the sins consequent to these foreseen defects. As
much the will to save as to reprobate is completely free, or most free, without this liberty having
any more limitation than that which God, also freely, and by pure mercy, has placed upon Him-
self—by the merits of the passion of His divine Son—namely to promise to save or not repro-
bate anyone who, with grace, does what he can or prays for what he cannot [do].
Fourth: Science of vision, in these decrees, of the final perseverance or infallible salvation of
the predestined, and of the final impenitence or infallible condemnation of the reprobate.
As one can see, these four moments refer to predestination and reprobation in fallen na-
ture. To work it out in respect to integral nature and to the angels, or to enter into more details,
resolving the difficulties, is not possible in this article, and we will do this, if God wills, in its
due time.
50  first article
not remove this defect by means of a special motion of the third moment.
Neither the sight of what in fact has already been placed nor of what is in-
fallibly connected with it pertains to the scientia media, but [these pertain]
to the knowledge of vision. The scientia media is a knowledge not of fu-
tures, but of futuribles, and those futuribles not of infallible connection,
but of fallible or contingent connection. The knowledge that one who has
contracted original sin will infallibly contract guilt, if God does not im-
pede it; or the knowledge that one who is in mortal sin will fall before
long into other sins, if God does not impede this with a special grace; or
the knowledge that, once created, a human nature will result infallibly in
a human person, if God does not impede it: in a word, to see whatever fu-
turible or conditioned future—when between the condition and the con-
ditioned there is an infallible connection—has nothing to do with the sci-
entia media, as every student of Theology knows. So, then, in the second
moment God sees in the decree, insofar as eternal, the absolute futurition
of the defect, and He sees in this decree the futuribility or conditioned fu-
turition of sin. In the fourth moment, God sees the absolute futurition of
this same sin in the decrees of the third moment not to remove the defect
or not to give a special grace, which it to establish the condition with which
the futuribility of sin passes infallibly into futurition.
To one who finds strange, because it appears new, this distinction that
we have made between the divine decree insofar as decree and insofar as
eternal, we will ask that he pay attention well, and he will see that this dis-
tinction, although it appears new, is nothing other than a development of
these two Thomistic principles: first, the infallible connection between
the divine secrets [sic: decrees (“decretos,” not “secretos”)] and sin or de-
fect of the creature is not a causal connection, but a logical one; second,
the infallibility of this connection does not come to the human will from
its source in God, but from its source in the defective human will.
Well then: to say that this connection is not of causality is the same as
saying that it does not come from the decree insofar as decree; and to say
that the infallibility of this connection does not come from God, but from
the creature is the same as affirming that this infallibility of connection is
found in the decree, not insofar as decree, but insofar as eternal.16

16. “The permissive decree is the decree not to impede sin and to deny the special aid
that could avoid it; but the malice and deformity of sin, which is the infallible consequence of
 The Thomist System   51

No less important, in our judgment, however new it may appear to

some, is the other distinction that we have made between the actual defect
of the creature and formal sin, which is posterior in nature to the defect,
but which follows it infallibly, if God does not impede it by a special grace.
This distinction, which is of Saint Thomas himself, explains two things
that some present as insoluble for Thomism.
The first is how God can, without scientia media, infallibly foresee sin
and nevertheless impede it, if He wishes, after having foreseen it. The ex-
planation is that He foresees it as futurible in the actual defect of the crea-
ture, a defect that God sees in the second moment; and He can impede
this same sin, if He wishes, by the decrees of the third moment, on which
depend its futurition.
The second thing that this distinction between defect and sin ex-
plains and resolves is the celebrated appearance of evident contradiction
that Gonet and Billuart encounter, and that Franzelin and Zigon have
thrown in the face of Thomists with the air of secure triumph. This ap-

denying this aid, is not a physical or causal consequence, but a logical and inferred consequence”
(Gonet, De scientia Dei, disp. 4, no. 188, edit. Vives, tom. 1, p. 429).
“I distinguish the minor. And thus I concede this minor, that the privation of rectitude
follows in the act, inasmuch as it proceeds from a defective principle—that is, the created will; while
I deny this minor: inasmuch as it proceeds from an effective principle—that is, God. I concede that
malice is inseparably connected with the act inasmuch as it is from a defective will; but I deny it in-
asmuch as it is from God” (Billuart, De Deo uno, diss. 8, art. 5, Solvuntur objections).
Notice well that the divine permission that the creature sin is infallibly connected with
sin, once the actual defect of the creature is supposed; but it is not under every supposition, [at
least] in not supposing a creature essentially evil. In effect, one thing is, for example, my per-
mission that Peter fall, when he has not yet begun to fall, nor even has tripped, and, therefore,
he need not fall, in spite of my permission; and another very distinct [thing] is my permission
that he fall when he has already tripped and has begun to fall, and infallibly will fall, if I do not
sustain him.
Every general providence of God (decrees of the first moment), in being a fallible provi-
dence as regards the outcome of a particular end, entails the permission that a creature trip and
fall; but, from this permission, anterior to all divine foreknowledge, it does not infallibly follow
that it will fall or that it will not fall. On the other hand, the permission of special providence is
when—the actual tripping of the creature (which is the defect of attention to the rule or the begin-
ning of sin) being already foreseen by the knowledge of vision—God permits that it fall; and, in
this permission (decree of the third moment), God sees the [creature’s] fall or sin, and it infalli-
bly follows this permission, not as the cause of sin, but as “not removing the prohibited.” We be-
lieve that, with these four moments that we have presented, what Thomists wish to say in those
two principles cited [in second to last paragraph on p. 50] has been well explained.
52  first article
pearance of contradiction consists in saying that the foreknowledge of the
sin of the creature is anterior in nature to the divine decree, and that, nev-
ertheless, God foresees sin in this decree.17
This appearance of contradiction is resolved without difficulty with
these four moments that we have signaled. In effect, the foreknowledge of
sin as regards its futuribility (second moment) is anterior in nature to the
efficacious permissive decree (third moment), and, nevertheless, the fore-
knowledge of sin insofar as its futurition (fourth moment) is posterior. In a
17. “But there will never be a way of reconciling the two positions that Gonet affirms in this
place (De Deo uno, treat. 4, disp. 8, no. 254). The first proposition: ‘Unless a man or an angel by
a priority of nature determines himself to the formality of sin, or to the material formally taken,
he is not determined by God to the material materially taken or to the physical entity [of sin],
which is put at the disposal of moral malice . . . it should be said that God had in mind, therefore,
to predefine eternally the entity and actuality of the material of sin, because He foresaw that the cre-
ated will would determine itself to the formality of sin, or to the material of sin formally taken, from its
own malice and defectibility.’ I will not ask how God is able to foresee that the creature would de-
termine itself in some respect, the predetermination of this destination not yet being supposed,
when, according to the doctrine of these same theologians, it remains metaphysically repugnant
that a created will determine itself in some respect without a predetermination. But I ask, and
Gonet himself asks, how, or, as he says, ‘in what means does God foresee that same self-determi-
nation of the created will, which is by nature prior to the divine decree of predetermination?’ He re-
sponds that God sees a by nature prior determination of the will in His own decree of predeter-
mination, which is nevertheless by nature posterior. For here is his second proposition: ‘If you ask
in what means the aforesaid foreknowledge is founded, it can be said that—and this response
seems truer and more in conformity with the principles of Thomists—such foreknowledge is not
founded in any other means than this same predefinition or positive decree of predetermining the cre-
ated will to the material of sin materially taken.’ Therefore these two things are proposed to us:
without any decree of predetermination yet supposed, God foreknows from eternity that the cre-
ated will determines itself toward sin, and only save by this already held knowledge (in our way
of understanding, with a foundation in re) does God conceive a predetermining decree; just the
same, nevertheless, this foreknowledge that is had antecedent to all decrees—without any de-
cree, apart from any decree, and just as not founded in a decree of predetermination (the con-
ceiving of this decree being itself founded on that antecedent foreknowledge)—nevertheless, he
says, such antecedent foreknowledge is founded in no other means than in the decree of pre-
determination, not yet supposed, but, on the contrary, only consequent upon that already held
foreknowledge. If these things are not contradictory, evidence itself must deceive” (Franzelin, De Deo
uno, pp. 458–59, edit. altera, Rome, 1876). After having cited this text, Señor Zigon adds, “Haec
Franzelin et juro merito” (Zigon, Divus Thomas, p. 148, Gorizia, 1923).
It seems to us that, with these four moments in which we have distributed these decrees
and previsions of which Gonet and Billuart speak, this entire question has been fully resolved.
If these four moments are not pleasing to some Thomist, we would appreciate it if, before com-
bating our doctrine, he begins by giving at least a plausible solution to this appearance of con-
tradiction that Franzelin has brought out [“resaltar”] with such vigor and clarity.
 The Thomist System   53

word, sin, as an actual defect, is anterior to the decree of the third moment,
and for this reason is not known in it, but in the decree of the first moment.
But sin, as formal sin, is posterior to the decree of the third moment, and for
this reason can be foreseen in it without the least shadow of contradiction.
Although we have put, for greater clarity, four moments or signs, the
reader will note that they can be reduced to two, that is, the first and the
third, because the second is nothing other than a vision of the first, and
the fourth a vision of the third. These two fundamental moments, first
and third, which are precisely the decrees of the two divine wills, anteced-
ent and consequent, are nothing other than an unfolding in two decrees
or motions, which we ourselves have made, of that famous divine decree
that Thomists indicate as the divine means of seeing future sin. This fa-
mous decree, which Thomists present sometimes as one sole decree and
sometimes as two, is—as Billuart says—“a decree in part effective and in
part permissive; effective, insofar as the material entity of the act, and per-
missive, insofar as its formal malice.”18
So, then, all the apparent novelty of our articles is founded in these
three ideas:
a) The distinction of physical premotion, as much in the natural order
as in the supernatural, into infallible premotion and fallible premo-
tion: the first constitutes, in the supernatural order, infallibly effica-
cious grace, and the second, fallibly efficacious or sufficient grace.

18. “It may be asked by what means God knows future sin. I have already responded above
that God knows sin in a double decree: that is, permissive and effective. For, as there is in sin
something of God (namely the act or effect) and something of man (namely, the defect), God
does not see only in an effective decree, as He does the good act, which is entirely from God,
but in a decree partly permissive and partly effective, by which He decides not to impede the de-
fect on the part of the created will, and to move it according to this defective disposition.” Gon-
et says the same thing in the place cited above.
Note how these two famous Thomists speak of two decrees (“in duplici decreto”) as the
means by which God knows sin. Now read the texts of these same theologians that we have cited
in the second and ninth propositions and one will note that they say that the foresight of sin is,
in a sense, anterior to the decree, and, in another sense, posterior, as though there were two fore-
sights. Now, combine these two ideas of two decrees and of two foresights and one will get some-
thing very similar to the four moments or signs that we ourselves have signaled, and that was out-
lined already in the mind of Billuart and Gonet, even though not reaching express formulation.
The proof is that all the affirmations they have made regarding these decrees and foresights of
sin, and whose obscurity Franzelin qualifies as an evident contradiction, will find a clear explica-
tion, by formulating the doctrine of Billuart and Gonet as we ourselves have formulated it.
54  first article
b) The distinction between an actual and voluntary defect of the in-
tellect, and formal sin of the will. The first takes place in the prac-
tical judgment or termination of consilium, and the second in the
consent or election.
c) The distinction of the divine decree insofar as decree and insofar as
eternal.19

19. Perhaps someone will object that, if the impediment or defect of the creature cannot
be seen by God in His decrees insofar as decrees, but only insofar as eternal, then God, before
giving sufficient grace, does not know what effect this grace will have in the creature and so will
be working blindly.
To this one responds that, in the first place, one thing is before giving sufficient grace and
another is before decreeing to give it. Before giving it, He knows its effect infallibly, because He
gives it in time and God knows everything from eternity.
In the second place, if one deals with before decreeing to give it, and by “before” one
means an anteriority that affects the very decrees of God, the phrase has no meaning, because
all the decrees are only one, same, and eternal act, with neither before nor after. For this reason,
God knows everything from the first moment and in no moment is ignorant of anything.
Finally, if this “before” refers, as it should refer, to the objects of the decrees or to our hu-
man manner of conceiving them, there is nothing inappropriate in conceding, and we believe
one should concede, that God does not infallibly know the result of sufficient grace before de-
creeing to give it, and not even in the very decree of giving it, insofar as decree. In the same way,
according to the opinion more common among Thomists, neither before decreeing to create
Adam, nor before decreeing to give him the grace of original justice, nor even after decreeing to
give him this grace, but before He will foresee his sin, did God know whether Adam would be
saved or not; because He does not infallibly know this until the decree of the predestination of
Adam, which is posterior to the decree of the Incarnation, and therefore [also] to the decree of
the permission of the sin of Adam, of the grace of innocent Adam, and of his creation.
To pretend that God knows everything before every decree is Molinism and the scientia
media. And to pretend that God knows everything in His decrees, insofar as decrees, would lead
to putting in the divine decree the first cause of the actual defect of the creature. To one who
objects that, in this case, the knowledge of God will be determined by the creature, we will re-
mind him of the phrase of Billuart already cited in the second proposition: “Indebita voluntatis
dispositio objective determinat Deum ad movendum ad actum malum.”
Again, no Thomist ought to be surprised at this distinction of the decree insofar as decree
and insofar as eternal, of which we ourselves have made use to explain the divine foresight of
the defect or sin, when there are Thomists of the first order who affirm that even the completely
good acts and the good or positive part of evil acts are not knowable infallibly by God in His de-
crees insofar as decrees, but insofar as eternal: “However God knows His decree, He cannot have
an infallible knowledge of a future before that aforesaid future exists in its own prior and adequate
duration or before it is so quod nos” (Salmanticenses, De scientia Dei, treat. 3, disp. 8, no. 130, edit.
Palme, Paris, 1870, t. 1, p. 165). “The actual presence of things in eternity, considered on the part of
the divine eternity, is the proper reason according to which God knows with certainty all futures”
(Alvarez, De auxiliis, bk. 2, disp. 9, no. 3, p. 86).
 The Thomist System   55

In our judgment, these three distinctions are profoundly Thomistic,

and with them one can simplify, develop, and clarify many of the ques-
tions referring to this material with which we are dealing, to resolve the
difficulties that its adversaries raise against the Thomistic system and to
join the middle systems with Thomism.
Above all, with this crucial idea, and admitted already by distinguished
Thomists, that sufficient grace is a true supernatural premotion, although a fal-
lible premotion, and that with it one can have something, even if no more
than not to place an impediment to grace in easy things and for some time,
there completely disappears the rigid character that some have thrown in
the face of Thomism, without, for this, either efficacious grace, or justi-
fication, or final perseverance, or predestination losing anything of their
completely free character and of the pure divine mercy. It is certain that
the weak human will, although gifted with all the sufficient graces imagin-
able, will never travel, without placing a defect to grace, the entire path that
goes from vocation to justification, and much less from justification to fi-
nal perseverance, unless God comes to its aid by means of an infallibly effi-
cacious grace and the ineffable gift of final perseverance, which no one can
merit. From this [derives] the full gratuity of vocation to grace, of justifica-
tion, and, above all, the gift of final perseverance and of predestination. But
it is no less certain in Thomism, or at least it can be defended within it, that
God, infinitely merciful, never denies this infallibly efficacious and perse-
vering grace to one who, with sufficient grace, does this something that he
can do and prays for this something for which he can pray; that is, not to place
those impediments that he can in fact not place; and, with this, efficacious
grace, final perseverance, and our salvation are really and truly in our hand,
despite not being merited, but humbly impetrated, by depending on the pure
mercy of God.
In the following articles, the multiple ideas that are in this article—
which, despite being extremely long, we have only been able to indi-
cate—will appear developed and connected with greater clarity. With a
little patience and with a little open-mindedness, which our readers pos-
sess, we are confident that they will not find cheated in them the hopes
that this first article will have led them to conceive.
Fr . F. Marín- Sol a , OP
University of Fribourg, Switzerland
56  second article

Second Article: A Reply to Some Objections

concerning the Thomist System regarding the
Divine Motion
Published as “Repuesta a algunas objeciones acerca del sistema tomista sobre la mo-
ción divina,” La Ciencia Tomista 33, no. 97 ( January–February 1926):5–74.

In our previous article, we begged of our readers two indulgences:

first, a little open-mindedness; second, a little patience.
This second thing appears to be absent in a Thomistic theologian,
who has sent to a friend of ours a great number of very interesting objec-
tions, which he has delivered to us, begging us to answer them as soon
as possible. In this way, the series of our articles, which already promised
to be large, will end up by becoming interminable. Perhaps it would have
been better to pursue the tranquil exposition of our doctrine, accord-
ing to the plan of the ten propositions put down in our first article. This
would undoubtedly have been the more secure route, by being methodi-
cal, clear, and concise, as we would always desire to be. This must serve as
our excuse to our readers to overlook the absence of concision in this ar-
ticle, in which we are going to occupy ourselves with the objections of our
friend, transcribing them literally, in the same language in which their au-
thor has drawn them up.20

FIR ST OBJECT ION : As to Whether Thomistic Sufficient

Grace Is or Is Not a True Physical Premotion
Our objector begins his objections with the following paragraph:
Father Marín-Sola proposes a new interpretation of the doctrine of S. Thomas
on grace, according to the way of González, Bancel, Massoulié, and Reginald, ac-
cording to which sufficient grace gives not only the potency to the act, but also the
active impulsion to second act; more precisely, this impulsive sufficient grace is a
true physical premotion or even predetermination, but fallible, because it does not
infallibly overcome obstacles or resistance, as does infallibly efficacious grace.

20. See La Ciencia Tomista, July 1925, pp. 5–54 [1–55]. With this second article that we are
publishing, all the objections that our first article has led to in the Revue Thomist (November–
December 1925, pp. 558–66) are also answered. [Indeed, the objections given here are identical
to those in the Revue Thomiste, save given in Latin, not French.]
 A Reply to Some Objections   57

REPLY—In the first place, it needs to be well understood, in order to

save the freedom of opinion within true Thomism, that, even if what our
objector calls “the way of González, Bancel, Massoulié, and Reginald”
had been followed only by these four distinguished Thomists, this alone
would have been sufficient for any Thomist whatsoever to be able freely
to follow it, without anyone having the right to accuse him of being anti-
Thomistic.
Without mentioning that González as much as Reginald are Tho-
mists of the first rank, we will do no more than report the following text
concerning the authority of Massoulié on the question with which we are
dealing. It says: “No one of the Thomistic school since the most celebrated
Lemos defended the doctrine on the aids of grace more successfully or er-
uditely than Father Massoulié explained it and upheld it against the attacks
of its adversaries” (Concina, Theologiae Christiana, t. 6, p. 173, Rome, 1750).
If the authority of Concina, for being better known and cited as a
moral theologian than as a dogmatic one, does not satisfy our objector,
we will add the following text from our celebrated historian of the Con-
gregation de auxiliis: “Against these, Antonius Massoulié has an equal re-
sponse, in an erudite work whose title is Sanctus Thomas sui interpres, and
which, when I was in Rome not less than thirty years ago, was not mere-
ly approved, but praised” (Serry, Praelectiones theologiae, de divina scientia,
disp. 2, t. 3, p. 454, Venice, 1742).
Thus, even had this doctrine—that sufficient grace is a true physi-
cal premotion—only been that of these four great Thomistic theologians,
[while] no one would be obliged to follow it, neither could anyone, by
following it, be qualified as hardly being a Thomist.
In the second and principal place, this doctrine—that sufficient grace
is a true physical premotion and not a pure potentiality—is followed not
only by these four authors (which our objector appears to give us to un-
derstand), but is the more common opinion among classical Thomists.
The following, among many others: Medina, Lemos, Alvarez, Navarette,
Asturiensis, John of St. Thomas, Gonet, Goudin, Graveson, Nicolaï, Billu-
art, Gazzaniga, and del Prado. Some of the texts we have already cited; the
others will be coming forth in reply to the following objections. If these
authors, as all the other Thomists, say with frequency that sufficient grace
gives only the posse and not the agere, they understand by posse the po-
tency for the perfect act, while expressly and frequently confessing that it
58  second article
is a true premotion and that it gives the agere for imperfect acts, which are
the acts preceding justification in time, or at least for the indeliberate-free
acts, which ordinarily precede deliberate consent. If some theologians
today, Thomists and non-Thomists, believe and say that this doctrine—
that grace is a true premotion—is the less common [one] in Thomism, this
comes from a small confusion suffered by the wise Father Guillermin in
his articles in the Revue Thomiste, the principal source from which these
said theologians appear to have studied this question.21
Father Guillermin, in expounding the doctrine of González de Albe-
da on this point and calling it a doctrine less common in Thomism, does
not sufficiently distinguish four things that are completely distinct. First,
whether sufficient grace is a true physical premotion that produces the so-
called indeliberate acts; second, whether these indeliberate acts are neces-
sary indeliberate acts or free indeliberate acts; third, whether these indeli-
berate acts, without a new premotion, are efficacious, so long as the will does
not place an impediment, to produce the perfect act; fourth, whether this
efficacy is absolute, or is relative to the greater or lesser degree of disposi-
tion of the subject, in which consists the celebrated Thomistic congruism of
González.
Of these four points, the third is commonly rejected by Thomists,
and in this Father Guillermin had reason to qualify the doctrine as less
common. The fourth is also combated by the multitude of Thomists, al-
21. The study of the illustrious Father Guillermin, O.P., is entitled “De la grâce sufficien-
te.” It covers five large articles published in the Revue Thomiste in November of 1901, March and
September of 1902, [and] January and March of 1903. [See the bibliography in this volume for
their full reference.] In these articles, worthy of every praise, Father Guillermin has very well
brought out that, for González and some others who follow him, sufficient grace was a premo-
tion or impulsion, whereas, for the common Thomistic theory, it was only a potentiality, but
without calling sufficient attention to the fact that the difference of opinion between these two
theories exclusively regarded the perfect act; whereas, respecting the imperfect act, both theories
agree that sufficient grace is a premotion. The theory of González, which Father Guillermin fol-
lowed—that sufficient grace is a premotion that is proximately sufficient for the perfect act—is
not one that pleases us, and in this we are with the more common opinion. In order that the
perfect act take place, we believe that there is always need of a new premotion (the grace called ef-
ficacious), distinct from the premotion of sufficient grace, because this, in fallen nature, is never
more than remotely sufficient for the perfect act. But we also believe that God always gives this
new premotion for the perfect act, by the merits of Jesus Christ, to all who, with the first suffi-
cient premotion received for the imperfect acts, does all that he in fact is able to do and prays
for all that he in fact is able to pray; that is, he does not place to this premotion those impedi-
ments that he in fact is able not to place.
 A Reply to Some Objections   59

though the majority of these regard this [opinion] as compatible with the
substantial principles of Thomism. Even in the second opinion there is a
certain variety of opinion among Thomists, because, as we already said
in our first article, the Molinist doctrine of necessary indeliberate acts, as
constituted by operating or sufficient grace, has infiltrated into [the work]
of some Thomists, among them González de Albeda, even though the
distinguished Father del Prado has energetically reacted against it,22 and
with reason.
The fact that Father Guillermin has not distinguished well between
these second, third, and fourth points would be of little importance, be-
cause they are accidental to the question that we are now treating. But it is
to be regretted (because it has been the source of error for some who do
not know the history of this question except by journal articles) that he has
not distinguished radically and well the first point from the other three.
This first point, which is the only one that interests us and that we
are now treating, affirms that sufficient grace is a true premotion. Father
Guillermin believed or gave one to understand that this doctrine was less
common in Thomism. In this he was mistaken, despite his great knowl-
edge and his no less great erudition. This doctrine not only is the more
common [one] in Thomism, but one can say that it is most common, to
the point that, in the many years of [our] historical investigation on this
point, we have hardly encountered a Thomist of note who denied that suf-
ficient grace is a true physical premotion and a true physical predetermina-
tion for the imperfect acts that ordinarily precede, more or less remotely,
the perfect act.
We will not ourselves say, then, as our illustrious Nicolaï says or indi-
cates clearly enough, that one who denies that Thomistic sufficient grace
is a physical premotion is a captious person who does not have a sane
mind or is becoming a play toy of Jansenism.23 But, yes, we will say, and

22. So energetically has Father del Prado reacted against this idea of indeliberate-necessary
supernatural acts that he has almost come to consider it as of Jansenist and Calvinist origin: “Dum
ponunt actus indeliberatos supernaturales, cum Jansenio et Calvino convenire videntur” (De gratia,
t. 3, p. 414).
23. “In the right sense, predetermination is said to be nothing other than a removal of pas-
sive indifference or indetermination, since, were the agent not applied to act, it would not act,
continuing in indetermination. However, how many times does not Thomas inculcate that,
when God determines the will, He does so not irrevocably ad unum, nor with necessity, nor im-
mutably, but according to the condition of the will, and it is able nevertheless to resist this determi-
60  second article
we will repeat a thousand and one times, that for us (because we are not
attempting to impose our opinions on anyone) this doctrine is evidently
that of Saint Thomas; that it is evidently that of virtually all his commen-
tators; that it is a necessary and clear result of the Thomistic doctrine re-
garding the sufficiency of the divine motion for good and regarding the re-
sponsibility of the creature for evil; that it is, finally, the center and the root
of all the Thomistic affirmations on this matter, and thus the key to all its
legitimate developments in the future.
The proximate sufficiency and the responsibility of the creature begin
where physical premotion begins. With pure potentiality, there is not nor
will there ever be in the creature, however perfect one supposes it to be,
any responsibility or sufficiency. From this [comes] the most fundamen-
tal principle of Saint Thomas: “Quantumcumque natura alicua corporalis
vel spiritualis ponatur perfecta, NON POTEST in suum actum procedere,
nisi moveatur Deo” (I-II, q. 109, a. 1). Saint Thomas does not say that with-
out physical premotion “non procedit in actum,” but he says, and every
Thomist ought to say, that “NON POTEST procedere in actum”; that is, it
does not have a true sufficiency to act, nor any responsibility in not acting.
To want to apply to this case the well-known distinction between prox-
imate sufficiency or power and remote sufficiency or power has no sense in
Thomism; because it is a fundamental Thomistic principle that all grace
that is sufficient for a greater thing is and must be efficacious for a lesser
thing. And, as in Thomism it means the same thing to be efficacious and to
be a physical premotion, from this comes the other fundamental Thomistic
principle that all grace that is sufficient for a greater thing is or entails physi-

nation, it is able to turn from this determination and thus is able sometimes to resist it or block it?
“Just as it is recognized that Thomists hold this actual grace to be twofold, one of which
they call ‘sufficient,’ and which gives the ability, and the other of which is efficacious, and which
places in act, so PREDETERMINATION OR PREMOTION IS TWOFOLD, AS ANYONE OUGHT
PLAINLY TO RECOGNIZE, nor can one with a SANE MIND reject what these SCOFFERS deny,
which is that this actual grace is anything other than a motion of God or that there is one SUFFI-
CIENT PREDETERMINATION—which is sometimes resisted, whose effect is not brought about
per se—and another that is truly an EFFICACIOUS PREDETERMINATION, which is able to be
resisted, because the nature of the will is not altered, but which it never resists, because the ef-
fect infallibly operates. Certainly the notion of sufficient and efficacious grace neither is misused
against the Jansenists nor do they have any reason to mock us” (Nicolaï, In I-II, q. 111, art. 3. Opera
omnia D. Thomae, t. 21, pp. 242–43, Paris, 1760). “Pater Nicolaï in penetranda mente D. Thomae sa-
gacissimus” (Bancel, O.P., Cursus theol. t. 1, pp. 461–62, Avignon, 1684).
 A Reply to Some Objections   61

cal premotion for a lesser thing. In a word, all truly sufficient grace is a physi-
cal premotion or is going to be accompanied by physical premotion.24
But, finally, let us leave aside reasonings and let us simply state, one
time for always, that, whether or not it pleases some modern theologians,
disoriented by the confusion or ambiguity of Father Guillermin, the doc-
trine that Thomistic sufficient grace is a true physical premotion is not a
doctrine peculiar to González and some others, but is the most common
doctrine of Thomism.25 Although our articles had no other result than to
make this truth stand out and to fasten it forever in the mind of modern
24. In Thomism, sufficient grace bears a relation to efficacious grace not as stillness in rela-
tion to movement, nor as pure potency or habit in relation to act, but as an imperfect movement
or act in relation to a perfect movement or act. For this [reason], in Thomism, one is called im-
perfectly efficacious and the other perfectly efficacious. But both involve the idea of efficacy or
of premotion.
The theory that sufficient grace is a pure potentiality appears to derive from the theo-
ry that the antecedent will is not a true “volition” or will of beneplacito [good pleasure], but
is a metaphorical will or one of sign. Just as the theory that it is a premotion, but an infallible
premotion as regards everything, appears also to correspond to the theory that all divine provi-
dence, even general providence, is infallible or unimpedible as regards everything, which theo-
ry leads to the other one just mentioned, that there is no more true will or of beneplacito [good
pleasure] than the consequent will of God, which is de facto infallible or unimpedible by the crea-
ture in everything.
Those which, in the supernatural order, are called “sufficient grace” and “efficacious grace”
do not proportionally correspond, in the natural order, to “potencies” and “premotions,” but
they correspond to “general premotion or concurrence” and to “special premotion or concur-
rence.” If God were to create a creature, giving it only its nature and potencies, but not giving it
premotion, this creature not only would never act, but neither would it bear any responsibility for
not acting. The responsibility of man consists in placing an actual impediment to a present pre-
motion, or in having placed it before to a previous premotion, being by this the cause of being de-
prived of an actual premotion. And, as it is not possible to place an actual impediment without
operating, and as it is not possible to operate without premotion, from this it follows that, be-
fore all premotion, there could not be an actual impediment, nor any responsibility nor sufficien-
cy in the creature in respect to acting. When it is said in Thomism that the cause of the privation
of ordinary efficacious grace is the defectibility or the defect of the creature, one means an actual
defect, not the radical or potential defectibility, as every Thomist knows. Of this radical defecti-
bility, no created will is responsible; of the actual defect, it is.
25. When classical Thomists, such as John of St. Thomas, the Salmanticenses, Gonet, or
Billuart are concerned with González in this question, to refute him, it is always in regard to
the third or fourth point, never in regard to the first, as any reader will see who pays attention to
them. But, even respecting these third and fourth points, in which Massoulié and Father Guiller-
min follow González, and which we in no way follow him, our historian Serry has said with jus-
tice regarding González: “Certainly González Albeda opens a new way of expounding grace that
is less traveled by the remaining company of Thomists, but which also diverges from Molinism and
62  second article
Thomists, we would feel they were well used, whatever was their success
regarding the other various points of which we intend to treat.
Let us end, then, one time for ever, this equivocation of calling the
“less common way” or the “way of González” the doctrine that sufficient
grace is a true physical premotion for imperfect acts. If one wishes to give a
name to this way, call it the WAY OF GONET. It is not because Gonet has
been the first to follow it, because it had been followed before by prac-
tically all previous Thomists, including Lemos and Alvarez; but because
Gonet was, as we will next see, one of those who most expressed and am-
ply taught this way, being forced to it by the objections of the Jansenist
Arnauld; and from Gonet it will then be taken up by Goudin, Massoulié,
Graveson, Bancel, Billuart, Gazzinaga, and the rest of later Thomists.
Thus, to this first objection that we—in teaching that Thomistic suf-
ficient grace is a true physical premotion—have entered on the “way of
González,” we reply simply that we have entered on the common Thomistic
way. Of this there is not, nor can there be, any doubt. The other question
as to whether, in entering on this way, we have more amplified what earlier
Thomists have said, let us go on to see, because on it turns the second ob-
jection of our friend.

SECON D OB JECT ION : as to whether, with only sufficient

Grace, One Can Have Some Imperfect Acts
It also seems that Fr. Marín-Sola greatly extends this opinion of González; per-
haps it may perfect it in the line of evil; but he extends it to the line of good, and even
to this affirmation, which is often found in his article: efficacious grace is not neces-
sary for imperfect and easy salutary acts such as attrition and imperfect prayer.

REPLY —In order to see whether it is we ourselves or Thomists them-

selves who have extended the concept of sufficient grace to the point of
making it enough for the execution in fact of the imperfect acts of attrition
or of prayer anterior in time to justification, it will be enough to cite the
texts of a few classical Thomists. We begin with Gonet, not only for be-
ing one of the principal modern Thomists, but also because, as we said, he

equally leads to its intrinsic efficacy” (Serry, Historia congregationum de auxiliis, bk. 4, chpt. 27,
p. 609, Venice, 1740).
 A Reply to Some Objections   63

is one of those who has better dealt with this matter and has analyzed the
texts of Saint Thomas.26 He says this:
Granted, sufficient aid does not apply the will to the PERFECT ACT, to which it is
by nature ordered; nevertheless, it does APPLY it to the IMPERFECT ACT, which
prepares, disposes, and inclines the will to more perfect acts, AS THOMISTS COM-
MONLY TEACH. (Gonet, De voluntate Dei, disp. 4, no. 76, edition Vives, t. II, p. 76)
Before all else, let our objector note right off that this deals with Tho-
mistic sufficient grace; that it deals with a true physical premotion or appli-
cation to the act, at least the imperfect act; above all, that Gonet proposes
this not as a singular opinion or [the opinion] of some Thomists, but as
the common doctrine of Thomism.
Well then, in the texts of the same Gonet that follow, not only will
we see this same doctrine repeated in diverse forms, but we will also see
that evidently Saint Thomas also teaches it. Let us continue copying from
Gonet:
First, then, you will object: St. Thomas never recognizes anything other than two
aids of grace, one of which he calls an “habitual gift” and the other of which he calls
an “auxilium Dei moventis,” as is clear from the Prima Secundae, q. 109, aa. 2, 3, 4, 6,
9, and 10. But sufficient grace is not found under an habitual gift, since it is an actual
and transient aid; nor, either [is it found] under auxilio Dei moventis (physical pro-
motion), since this is an efficacious grace and a physical predetermination, as Thomists
admit; therefore, D. Thomas never recognizes in the state of fallen nature a sufficient
grace that is DISTINCT FROM AN EFFICACIOUS ONE AND SEPARABLE FROM IT.
(Gonet, loc. cit., no. 133, p. 89)
Let the reader pay attention to this objection of the Jansenist Ar-
nauld, which goes to the very heart of the Thomistic doctrine. In it, he at-
tempts to show that one of two things follows: either sufficient grace is
not a true physical premotion, and thus there is in Saint Thomas no text
by which one can prove the existence of sufficient grace, insofar as it is
distinct and separable from infallibly efficacious [grace]; or, on the other
hand, it is a true physical premotion, and then it is not a sufficient grace,
but an infallibly efficacious [grace]. Let us listen to the answer of Gonet:

26. The authority of Gonet in the modern Thomist School is so great that Serry has said
this of him: “Of recent Thomists, he is easily the first” (Historia congregationum de auxiliis, bk. 4,
chpt. 20, p. 569).
64  second article
To the first, I first respond that D. Thomas CLEARLY recognizes and admits
this grace that the Thomists call SUFFICIENT, although admittedly he does not call it
by that name. For, in I-II, q. 112, a. 2* ad 2, he says ‘Now it sometimes happens that
God MOVES a man to some good, although not the perfect good, and this prepara-
tion precedes grace. But He sometimes MOVES him suddenly and PERFECTLY to
good, and man receives grace immediately, according to John 6 [:45]: “every one
that has heard of the Father and has learned comes to me.” By which words, the
Holy Doctor plainly recognizes in the state of fallen nature a certain grace MOVING
AND APPLYING TO IMPERFECT ACTS and preparing for more perfect ones: Tho-
mists, however, call this grace SUFFICIENT.
Second, D. Thomas in 1 Thessalonians, chap. 5, lect. 2 [133], says: “Someone is
said to quench the Spirit, in one way, by extinguishing the ardor for the Spirit ei-
ther in himself or in someone else, as when someone wishes to do something as
a result of the impulse of the Holy Spirit, or EVEN WHEN SOME GENEROUS IM-
PULSE ARISES AND THE PERSON IMPEDES IT [“ALIQUOS BONUS MOTUS IN
IPSO SURGIT ET IPSE IMPEDIT”]: Acts 7 [:51], ‘You always resist the Holy Spirit.’”
By which words, the Holy Doctor OPENLY recognizes in the state of fallen nature
SOME INTERIOR MOVING GRACE THAT IS SOMETIMES RESISTED; but this can
be nothing other than SUFFICIENT grace, because an efficacious aid, according to
the principles of Saint Thomas, is never de facto resisted, as is clear from what he
says in the following dispute [reply ad. 3]; therefore, D. Thomas clearly recogniz-
es in the state of fallen nature some sufficient aid DISTINCT FROM THE EFFICA-
CIOUS. (Gonet, loc. cit., no. 139, pp. 90–91)
Let every Thomist read and reread these texts of Gonet; but let him
read them without preoccupations of a school and with the sincerity
proper to a lover of the truth above all, and he will see that Gonet here
affirms four things: first, that sufficient grace is a true physical premotion
for imperfect acts: “gratiam moventem et applicantem ad actus imperfec-
tos”; second, that this concerns a physical premotion that is in fact falli-
ble or resistible: “gratiam moventem cui aliquando resistitur”; third, that
it deals with a sufficient grace that is distinct from the efficacious: “auxilium
sufficiens ab efficaci distinctum”; fourth, that this is the evident doctrine
of Saint Thomas: “D. Thomam clare agnovisse . . . aperte agnoscit D. Thom-
as . . . manifeste agnoscit Sanctus Doctor.”
Should by chance there still be doubt in the reader whether Thomis-
tic sufficient grace, in distinction from the efficacious, is not a true physi-

*editor’s note: Marín-Sola’s text mistakenly gives the text from Thomas as “art. 1.”
 A Reply to Some Objections   65

cal premotion for the imperfect acts that precede the perfect act of charity
or of contrition—that is, for the imperfect acts that precede justification
in time—we will cite one more text of Gonet, between the infinite that
could be cited:
To the first argument, I respond conceding the major (that is, he concedes that
Saint Thomas does not include sufficient grace under the phrase “donum habitu-
ale gratiae”), denying the minor (that is, he denies that Saint Thomas does not in-
clude it under the phrase “de auxilium Dei moventis” or actual grace or supernatu-
ral physical premotion); for, under the name “de auxilium moventis” (which is the
phrase of Saint Thomas) both aids, as much sufficient as efficacious, are contained;
for both consist in a certain supernatural MOTION APPLYING THE POWERS of the
soul to supernatural ACTS, with this difference: sufficient aid as such moves and ap-
plies to IMPERFECT ACTS, which dispose and prepare the soul for more perfect
ones, whereas a truly efficacious one moves and applies to the perfect acts of char-
ity and contrition, which prepare and dispose the soul for sanctifying grace, which
is the ultimate and most perfect form in the supernatural order. And thus Thomists
commonly teach since Alvarez that all aid that is sufficient in respect to one act is si-
multaneously efficacious in respect to another, to which it is ordered by the absolute
decree of divine providence; and thus it is simpliciter sufficient although efficacious se-
cundum quid. (Gonet, loc. cit., num 147, p. 92)
Our readers will here see how what some call the “way of González,”
seeing it as a singular doctrine or less common in Thomism, is the way
of Gonet, and the common Thomistic way, and the WAY OF SAINT THOM-
AS . Here they will also see how we—in affirming that sufficient grace, inso-
far as distinct from efficacious [grace], is a true physical premotion that is
enough to do imperfect acts—have not extended this way more than Tho-
mists themselves have done. We have done nothing other than to purify
and to clarify this way and to call it to the attention of some Thomists of
our day, and to invite them to be logical, that is, to follow or prolong this
way in a straight line, without inconsistencies or equivocations, to the fi-
nal end of the divine knowledge, something one can do simply by following
and developing the indications already made by distinguished Thomists,
and without combining it with the scientia media, as we will see in resolv-
ing the following objection of our friend.
We could adduce similar texts to those cited from Gonet from Me-
dina, Navarette, Alvarez, Ledesma, González, Lemos, John of St. Thomas,
Goudin, Bancel, Reginald, Massoulié, Graveson, Nicolaï, Billuart, Gazza-
66  second article
niga, and del Prado, because we have collected them and in abundance;
but this would only be to repeat the same [thing] and bore the reader. We
will cite, nevertheless, the following text from Billuart, because this au-
thor is the vademecum of many Thomists. He says this:
Note first that there is more than one opinion concerning this SUFFICIENT
aid. . . . Wherefore the MORE COMMON and TRUER opinion is that this aid—at
least as much regards the conversion to faith, the resurgence from sin and the ful-
filling of supernatural commandments, such as to believe, to hope and to esteem
God—is found in pious illuminations and motions, or rather IN A DIVINE MO-
TION (physical premotion) CAUSING and exciting to these pious illuminations and
movement. (Billuart, De voluntate Dei, diss. 7, art. 8, § 2)

The Paralyzing of the Course of Sufficient Grace or Premotion

We repeat that we have hardly encountered a Thomist of note who
denied that sufficient grace entailed premotion. We have encountered one
who has put the question very seriously as to whether God could, by His
absolute power, separate in sufficient grace the character of being a qual-
ity from that of being a premotion: a question, as one can see, that is very
interesting for someone who has nothing else to do. And we have also en-
countered another who appears to have in mind the two ideas together:
one, that sufficient grace is a premotion, and the other that it is a pure po-
tentiality, and that he appears to use one or the other idea, according to
whether he is arguing against Jansenists or against Molinists. And final-
ly another, who, in defending that it is a premotion, sometimes says—as
one ought to say in Thomism—that this premotion never stops save by
the fault of man, and at other times gives one to understand that it does
stop . . . because the wick has burnt out: that is, that God is the one who
stops it, without previous fault of man. But, we repeat for the last time,
hardly have we encountered one who denies that sufficient grace is a
premotion, and this idea must be firmly fixed in the mind of a Thomist
novice, in order that he never identify the idea of supernatural physical
premotion with the idea of perfectly efficacious grace. All perfectly effica-
cious grace is a supernatural premotion, but not all supernatural premo-
tion is a perfectly efficacious grace, because it is able to be imperfectly ef-
ficacious or sufficient.
One who wants to penetrate to the bottom of both Thomistic
thought and our own on sufficient grace need do nothing more than pay
 A Reply to Some Objections   67

attention to the following: Thomistic sufficient grace is a true premotion,

and it infallibly produces a true motus or movement. Well then, what stops
this motion? Or, what is the same, from whom comes the initiative that
the course of this motion is paralyzed? There are only the following three
hypotheses:
a) The creature stops it with his actual defect.
b) God stops it, but after the defect is placed.
c) God stops it, before the defect is placed.
Whoever admits whichever of the first two hypotheses is with Tho-
mists, but also with us. One who admits the third is against us, but also
against Thomists, at least against those before Bañez and after Gonet. In
addition, we do not see how, in admitting this third hypothesis, one can
avoid falling into the theory of a completely corrupted nature, and of be-
ing accused of not being sufficiently distanced from Jansenism and Cal-
vinism.
In a word: either the premotion of sufficient grace tends by its proper
nature and by the intention of God toward the perfect act, or not. If the
first, it cannot be the initiative of God who stops it, and this is our doc-
trine and that of Thomists. If the second, such a sufficient grace does not
differ from Jansenist sufficient grace, as the same Thomists, and Billuart
in particular, recognize. But as there are many formulas of some Thomists
that appear a little ambiguous on this central and most delicate point, our
articles are ordered precisely to this: to clarify and develop the true sense
of the Thomistic formulas.
To a Thomist who is not pleased by or is shocked by our articles, we
beg him, before placing objections to other points, to reply to us or to
himself on these two questions:
a) Does the motion of sufficient grace tend or not tend by its nature
to efficacious grace?
b) From whom comes the initiative that paralyzes the course of this
motion?
A Thomist who concerns himself with giving a reply to these ques-
tions, as well as to the apparent celebrated contradiction of Gonet and
Billuart, will understand the finality and the utility of our articles.
68  second article

T HIR D OB JECT ION : As to Whether “Infallibly” Efficacious

Grace Is Necessary for Every Act, Even the Imperfect
Fr. Marín-Sola not once, but often, affirms that fallibly efficacious grace suf-
fices for imperfect and easy acts, for example attrition or prayer, and he attempts to
confirm this by the authority of González, Gonet, and others. But, in truth, these
authors expressly affirm, in texts that Fr. Marín-Sola does not cite, that every super-
natural act, however easy and imperfect it may be, requires INFALLIBLY efficacious
grace.

REPLY —If our objector had read our first article with more attention,
he would have seen that there is no opposition between what we say and
what these Thomists say, nor between the texts of these authors that we
cite and the texts to which our objector alludes.
In Thomism, these two propositions, which appear at first glance to
be opposed, fit together perfectly: a) no supernatural act, perfect or imper-
fect, ever occurs without infallibly efficacious grace; b) to accomplish im-
perfect acts, fallibly efficacious grace is enough: that is, the so-called Tho-
mistic sufficient grace, which is a true premotion.
In order to see this clearly, we need only repeat the distinction, made
many times in our first article, between the beginning of the imperfect act
and the placing or not placing of an impediment to the course or continua-
tion or perseverance of this same act.
If, by having the act, one means to begin the act, it is certain that no
act, perfect or imperfect, great or small, ever occurs or begins without in-
fallibly efficacious grace. This is the sense which the texts have to which
our objector alludes, and we ourselves also affirm this.
But if to accomplish the act one means the course of the act—that is,
to place or not to place an impediment to this course (because, while one
does not place an impediment, the course will continue)—it is no less
certain that sufficient or fallibly efficacious grace is enough not to place
an impediment, when dealing with easy things and for a little time. This is
the sense that our affirmations have had and have, as a reader can see on
each page of our first article. This sense is opposed in no way to what Tho-
mists say or, at least, one can sustain this within Thomism, because there
are Thomists of the first order who sustain it.
Well then, as all sufficient grace is infallibly efficacious for the begin-
 A Reply to Some Objections   69

ning of the act—or, that is, to have the act—and fallibly efficacious for its
course—or, that is, to continue the act—one can have and one does have
in Thomism the following three affirmations:
a) No act takes place without infallibly efficacious grace; that is, it can-
not begin without it.
b) Imperfect acts occur with fallibly efficacious grace; that is, with this
grace one does, or one can, not place an impediment to the course
of the act in easy things and for a little time.
c) For every imperfect act, sufficient grace is enough, because suffi-
cient grace joins together both characteristics: to be infallibly ef-
ficacious for the beginning and fallibly efficacious to place or not to
place an impediment to its continuation or its course in easy things
and for a little while.
In sum, the truly sufficient Thomistic grace joins together these four
characteristics:
a) It is infallibly efficacious for the beginning of the imperfect act, and
this is “to have the act,” dealing with transient or imperfect acts.
b) It is fallibly efficacious for the course or continuation of the imper-
fect act, that is not to place an impediment to this course in easy
things and for a little time.
c) It is, by itself, infallibly inefficacious to have the perfect act, and to
continue the imperfect act in difficult stretches or for much time.
d) It is, by itself, infallibly efficacious, if one does not place an impedi-
ment, to impetrate from the mercy of God the infallibly efficacious
grace that is necessary to have any perfect act, and that is also nec-
essary to persevere, without placing an impediment, in the imper-
fect act, in difficult stretches or for much time.
All of this is to do nothing but repeat what has already been indicated
on p. 30 [29] of our first article, as our objector will note. There is, then,
not the shadow of opposition between our doctrine and the Thomist
[doctrine].
When Billuart and many other Thomists, in their well-justified heat
against the versatile grace of Molina, say and repeat, as fundamental Tho-
mistic doctrine, that “in order not to place an impediment to sufficient
grace, there is always required infallibly efficacious grace,” one needs to
understand this affirmation as Billuart understands and interprets the
70  second article
similar phrase of Saint Thomas; that is, by “not to place an impediment,”
one means to say “not to place any impediment”; that is, “objectively to
avoid all impediments,” as much for easy as for difficult [acts], as much
for the brief as for the long [stretches of time]. But not if one understands
[by this] the easy impediments and for little time (non diu, as Thomas
says: Contra gentes III, 160), because, if one can do this with nature alone,
one can all the more [do it] with sufficient grace. Thus, with the sufficient
grace that God ordinarily denies to no one, and that is infallibly efficacious
for the beginning of the act, to one who does not place those impediments
to the course of the act that one is able in fact not to place with this suffi-
cient grace, and prays the little or the much that, with this grace, one is
able in fact to pray, God—by the merits of Jesus Christ—never denies the
ulterior grace. This is, in our judgment, and we will not tire of repeating it,
the true sense implicit to the affirmations of practically all the Thomists.

Thomistic Sufficient Grace and the Grace to Pray

Since our objector has spoken in this objection of the imperfect act
of praying, we are going to add two words concerning the relations be-
tween sufficient grace or premotion, in the Thomistic sense, and the so-
called grace to pray, of which Saint Liguori speaks, and with which we
hope one day to deal more extensively.
According to Thomism, supernatural acts divide into perfect and im-
perfect, which are also called transitory. What one means by imperfect or
transitory acts depends on what one means by the perfect act. By perfect
act, Thomists sometimes mean the act of justification, and then they mean,
by imperfect or transitory acts, all those acts that precede justification in
time, and that are called the remote dispositions for it. In contrast, at other
times they mean, by the perfect act, the deliberate-free consent to whatever
act there is, and then they mean, by imperfect or transitory acts, the five in-
deliberate-free acts that precede consent and that are: cogitatio [simple un-
derstanding], volitio [simple will], judicium [judgment], intentio [inten-
tion], consilium [counsel].
The Thomistic sufficient grace is, then, a premotion, and a true premo-
tion to do imperfect acts, and in particular the act of prayer. But, by this,
no one should imagine that one who has sufficient grace or premotion to
pray because of this will pray infallibly. This is to forget the nature of the
premotion for the imperfect act, which is that it is transitory, and is, thus, a
 A Reply to Some Objections   71

fieri or motus. If one has sufficient grace or premotion to pray, one will be-
gin, infallibly, the motus ad orandum, which begins in cogitatio orandi, fol-
lows in the volitio orandi, continues in the judicium de orando, follows in
consilum orando, etc. But as, in this trajectory or course of sufficient grace,
man can place an impediment, it follows that anyone who has the suffi-
cient grace to pray will have some motus ad orandum, but it does not nec-
essarily follow that he will pray, because he can place an impediment. And
thus the system of Saint Liguori and the Thomist one are in perfect ac-
cord, because, if one understands them well, both concede that, by means
of sufficient grace, God concedes to all, at a minimum, the grace to pray;
that is, the motus ad orandum with which man, if he does not place an im-
pediment, will pray and will continue to receive sufficient graces, and ul-
terior efficacious graces, for the remainder of the trajectory that finishes
by leading to justification and, from this, to final perseverance.
Let us listen to Goudin: “You say many do not have the grace of
prayer. . . . I respond that no one is so impious in this life as to lack all pious
motion, because no one, as long as he lives, is so far from God, as Augus-
tine says. And thus even the impious do not lack this motion to invoke God
and to begin to pray” (Goudin, Tractatus theol., t. 2, pp. 274–75). If, at times,
Thomists appear to say that God does not give to all the grace to pray, but
only the proximate potency to pray, one needs to note that, in Thomism, all
that is proximately sufficient for something greater is always efficacious for
something less, or that what is proximately sufficient to pray is efficacious
for the motus ad orandum, and this is precisely the famous grace to pray
that God never denies to anyone, and that, therefore, is the key to the ter-
rifying problem of predestination, which is never able to be merited, but is
always able humbly to be impetrated.
For this reason, we said in our first article (p. 26 [27]), that these two
propositions are equivalent in Thomism: a) Sufficient grace is enough to
do imperfect acts; b) Sufficient grace alone is enough not to place impedi-
ments to the new grace that is necessary to do imperfect acts. In reality,
this new grace or greater grace that is needed to continue the beginning of
the imperfect act, is also sufficient grace, because it is an infallible grace for
another beginning (the imperfect act being, in its entire course, nothing
more than a continual conjunction of fieris or beginnings) and fallible for
its continuation, and so successively, while the course of the imperfect act
endures. The entire course of the imperfect act, then, is accomplished with
72  second article
sufficient grace, because this is what Thomists mean by sufficient grace;
that is, it is a grace that is infallible for the beginning, or, that is, to have the
act, and fallible for the course of the imperfect act, or, that is, to continue
the act.
If this shocks some theologians, it is because they conceive the imper-
fect act, and therefore sufficient grace, as a conjunction of unconnected or
discontinuous strokes [“golpes”], in which the action stops and must stop,
because God does not give another stroke of grace. This is not the true con-
cept of Saint Thomas. The course of the imperfect act is a continuous cur-
rent of premotion. By the imperfect premotion or beginning of the act, God
impresses on the will a movement toward the perfect act; and God never
stops this movement or continuous current of grace, while man does not
stop it, that is, while man does not place an impediment to the course of
the movement begun by God, and, thus, to the course of grace. “Aliquis
dicitur extinguere spiritum sanctum cum aliquis motus ex fervore spiritus
sancti in ipso surgit, et ipse impedit” (D. Thomas, loc. cit.).
There is, then, as we said, nothing unsuitable in admitting the
phrase—apparently rigid and certainly ambiguous—that at times some
Thomists use, when they say that “without infallibly efficacious grace one
will never have anything supernatural, neither perfect nor imperfect.”
In effect: in Thomism, there are two kinds of grace, both infallibly ef-
ficacious. One is infallibly efficacious for the beginning of the act, but is not
infallibly efficacious not to place an impediment to its course; and the oth-
er is infallibly efficacious for the entire course of the act, as much to begin
it as not to place any impediment up to the consummation or termina-
tion of the perfect act. The first is called imperfectly efficacious or sufficient
grace; the second is called perfectly efficacious or simply efficacious grace,
because, as Billuart observes in the text that we will next cite, denomina-
tions are frequently taken from the perfect act. But both are infallibly effi-
cacious, each in its order; one for something (the beginning), the other for
everything.
The phrase, then, that “nothing, neither the perfect nor the imperfect,
is done without infallibly efficacious grace” is true, when understood of the
first grace. That is, it is true that “nothing, neither the perfect nor the im-
perfect, is done without a grace that is infallibly efficacious as regards the
beginning of the act”; which is to say no more than that nothing happens
without sufficient or imperfectly efficacious grace, which is also an infalli-
 A Reply to Some Objections   73

bly efficacous grace as regards this [the beginning]. But it is not to say that
nothing is had without a grace that is infallibly efficacious as regards every-
thing.
In the same way, it is true that nothing happens without infallible prov-
idence; but it is not true that nothing happens without a providence that
is infallible as regards everything, because then general providence would
disappear, where defect or impediment is located; in the same way, it is
also true that nothing happens—neither the future nor futurible contin-
gent—without an infallible decree, but it is not a decree that is infallible as
regards everything, because then the decrees of the antecedent will would
disappear and only those of the consequent will would remain; and it is
also true that nothing happens without infallible premotion or infallibly ef-
ficacious grace, but it is not a premotion or grace that is infallible as regards
everything, because then the general or sufficient motions or graces would
disappear, and there would remain only special motions or graces, the per-
fectly efficacious; all of which would make it difficult for a truly sufficient
grace to exist and would also make man’s responsibility for sin difficult
to explain, and would end by giving a pretext to the accusations of [Tho-
mism] having an affinity with Jansenism and Calvinism.

Two Texts: Of Billuart and of the Salmanticenses

You object thirdly: According to Thomists, all interior grace, even that which
they call sufficient, has an effect; therefore, all interior grace is efficacious, and in no
way sufficient.
I respond, distinguishing the antecedent. All grace has an imperfect and less
principal effect, I concede; a perfect and principal effect, for which it is given, I deny.
And thus I distinguish the consequent: I concede, therefore that all grace is effica-
cious secundum quid, being lessened by this addition; I deny [that it is so] simpliciter
and absolutely.
Indeed, Thomists teach that there is no actual grace intrinsically received—
even that which they call sufficient—that does not have some effect, and no one can
think it proper to deny this since, leaving authority now to one side, this follows by
the simple fact of nature. For, indeed, one cannot conceive it is possible that God
should illumine my intellect interiorly and my intellect not be illumined or that He
should move my will and my will not be moved, any more than one can conceive
that the sun illumines the earth and the earth is not illumined or that fire burns
hemp and that hemp is not burned or that one moves a stone and the stone is not
moved; for the action of the cause is the BEGINNING [“INCHOATUS”] of the ef-
74  second article
fect, as Thomas says here, [I-II], q. 110, a. 2: “actio moventis in moto est MOTUS.”
Rightly, therefore, Thomists say that all actual grace, which is the motion of God (let
the reader notice that, according to Billuart and Thomists, all grace, even the suffi-
cient, is a premotion, which infallibly produces the beginning of the act)—this same
[actual grace] being received into the soul—always produces some effect. For the
true effect produced by the grace that remains sufficient (it remaining [merely] suf-
ficient by the fault of the will, which stops the movement of grace, placing an impedi-
ment to it, which it in fact could not have placed) is not its principal one, which it in-
tends and to which it is ordered; for both FROM GOD’S WILL GIVING IT AND BY ITS
OWN NATURE IT TENDS TO THAT FINAL AND PERFECT EFFECT, judgment or
conversion or meritorious act that it does not obtain (not obtaining it, because pri-
us natura the will places an impediment, which it could in fact not have placed in easy
things to the ulterior and perfectly efficacious grace that is needed for the perfect act
of conversion), to which it in fact disposes and for which it confers the capacity;
and thus it is not able to be simpliciter and absolutely efficacious, but, on the contrary,
saying it under the restriction that it is efficacious as regards some, and a less principal,
effect—that is, a more or less proximate potency to act—it ought to be said that it is
simpliciter and absolutely inefficacious, inasmuch as it does not obtain its principal
effect, to which it is ordered and disposes, and for which it confers the capacity; be-
cause, according to philosophers, a thing is denominated simply and absolutely in
reference to what is more perfect and more principal in it. (Billuart, De gratia, diss.
5, art. 3)
Briefly, some things ought to be presupposed. The first is that rightly an adult
man has control over his conversion, and is able absolutely to attain it, although
nevertheless it is commonly not attained, except as regards those lesser acts such as
the acts of faith, hope, [servile] fear and attrition; for grace, as much as nature, pro-
ceeds from imperfect to perfect. This supposition the Council of Trent most clearly
teaches. . . . Whereby, as one can see, many less perfect supernatural acts commonly
precede justification, and thus precede the perfect act of conversion, which in our
opinion proceeds from the same justifying grace. For the same order which holds
among acts ought also to be considered among the aids that give rise to the acts and
from which they occur. And thus, before God bestows the aid proximately suffi-
cient for conversion, He imparts many lesser aids at the service of the act, by which
man is disposed to this conversion.
Next, note that God, according to the common axiom of Theologians, never
denies grace to those who do what they can by the power of grace [“non denegare
gratiam facienti quod in se est ex viribus gratiae”]. And thus, to a man using the pri-
or and more imperfect aid, He confers the second and more perfect aid; and to one us-
 A Reply to Some Objections   75

ing the second, he confers the third, and so on with the others up to the final, whatev-
er that might be, by which he is able to be perfectly converted. From which, a man
who elicits the operation corresponding to the first aid is made able, at least medi-
ately, for the more perfect operation; for the corresponding aid sufficient for that
proximate operation INFALLIBLY follows—and so on regarding those subsequent
operations—unless man interrupts the process of justification through the abuse or
non-use of that aid, which tends towards it [the act of justification]. Just so, an em-
bryo is the sufficient disposition to the formation of a man, yet mediately and re-
motely, since it lacks further and more perfect dispositions, which, should these
occur, the perfect formation of man then follows; whereas, if they are interrupted,
an abortion instead of the true form takes place.* And thus, by the first internal aid
(which is not a pure potentiality, but life and movement, although imperfect, as is the
embryo), there begins a sufficiency for salvation: and to the extent that this sequence
of aids, by a right order, continues, the perfect salvation itself follows. Not that this
occurs through a physical connection and is necessary from the thing’s nature, but
because it is morally infallible; for God has so decreed and by THIS PACT PLACES
salvation IN MAN’S HAND, by means of grace. . . .
This easily meets the objection; for we concede that fallen man, in sensu com-
posito, in the sense previously mentioned, does not have the aid proximately suffi-
cient for his conversion, certainly not the habitual gift; nevertheless, we deny that he
is unable absolutely to elicit the act by which he is converted. For HE HAS MANY
ACTUAL AIDS that are compatible with his aforementioned state, by which, if he
uses them rightly in believing, hoping, petitioning, knocking and thus doing what it is
in him to do [“faciendi quod est in se”] BY THE POWER OF THE AFORESAID AIDS,
the habitual grace certainly and INFALLIBLY follows from God, by which both the
fallen state is destroyed and the commanded act of conversion is elicited by him.
But if God, by pressing command, denies this grace, THIS IS THEREFORE because
man FIRST fails to use the preceding aids.” (Salmanticenses, De gratia, disp. 6, nums.
20–21, edit. Palmé, 1878, t. 9, pp. 735–36)
All Thomists, even the most rigid, have these paragraphs and innu-
merable others of this kind, when dealing with sufficient grace and the re-
*editor’s Note: They are here supposing Thomas’s doctrine regarding gestation, which
is that the living embryo passes through several substantial changes—from vegetative to sen-
sitive states—that prepare the embryonic matter for the infusion of the rational soul (on the
principle that God infuses a form into matter properly prepared to receive it, and the embry-
onic matter is not so prepared until it is sensitive, such that the rational soul then infused is able
to function according to its nature, which requires sense data in order to operate). This theory,
much disputed today, was the common theory in the late seventeenth century, when the text
was written.
76  second article
sponsibility of man for sin. Read and meditate on them thoroughly and
one will see that, simply by extending this same doctrine logically all along
the line—that is, simply by extending this PRIUS to the moments of the di-
vine decrees, making the foresight of the impediment placed by man to gen-
eral or sufficient grace (second moment) be anterior to the denial of special
or efficacious grace (third moment), without, for this, it ceasing to be pos-
terior to the decree of the antecedent will (first moment)—there is no more
consoling doctrine than the Thomist, without this involving any mixture
of the scientia media, as we will see in resolving the following objection.
By contrast, if by excessive preoccupation in assuring the infallibili-
ty of the divine knowledge by the sole means of infallible decrees, inso-
far as decrees, one lacks this logic and does not apply it, or one makes it
vanish with sophistries, we do not see how one can avoid falling into the
many-times-cited apparent contradiction denounced by Franzelin, and,
with this, how one can fail to annul what Thomists say, and ought to say,
in all the other treatises in order to save a truly sufficient grace and the re-
sponsibility of man for sin.

The Greater or Lesser Efficacy of the Divine Motions

Some Thomists pay much attention to the fundamental principle of
Saint Thomas that the will of God, by being omnipotent, is most efficacious,
and do not pay as much attention to the other principle, no less funda-
mental, that God, in being free, does not always move according to all the
efficacy of His power, but more or less efficaciously, as it pleases Him.
In the same manner as the divine being, by being infinite, is equal to
all beings, and can create, as it pleases Him, greater or lesser beings, incor-
ruptibles and corruptibles; just so His action, by being infinite, is equal
to all actions, and He can work with an action more or less efficacious,
with an action irresistible or resistible. God can throw a stone with a force
and an efficacy such that no creature nor force can deter it in its course.
But He could also, if He wished, throw it with a force and with conditions
exactly equal to those by which a man throws it, and therefore this stone
could be stopped in sensu diviso, in sensu composito and in all the senses,
exactly equal as though it were thrown by a man. The motions of general
providence are of this class; they are motions exactly accommodated to the
exigencies and conditions of the creature, and for this reason precisely are
called general and not special.
 A Reply to Some Objections   77

When one says that divine motion accommodates itself to the nature
of the moved thing, or, as Saint Thomas says, that God moves each thing
“secundum modus ejus,” this phrase can be taken in two senses. In the in-
tellectual creature, there are two properties or modes: a) its liberty; b) its
defectibility. The first is a perfection; the second, an imperfection.
When God moves the rational creature, He always preserves the first
mode, moving it freely, because this is a perfection, and the divine motion
does not destroy or diminish, but rather conserves and augments, all that
there is of perfection in the creature.
But, respecting the second mode, that is, its defectibility, which is an
imperfection, God does not always accommodate Himself to it, but with
frequency, by His liberality and mercy, acts against it and above it, as oc-
curs in all special providence.
Every providence, then, and every decree, and every motion, whether
special or general, accommodates itself to, conserves, and augments the
liberty of the creature.
But, respecting the actual or de facto defectibility, general providence,
with its decrees and premotions, leaves it as it is, and thus these are de fac-
to resistible or defectible. By contrast, special providence, with its decrees
and premotions called special or efficacious, works in a praeter-natural or
super-natural way, moving the defectible creature in an indefectible way;
that is, without removing its natural defectibility, it makes it de facto never
resist [these decrees and motions].
Between the motions of ordinary providence and special providence,
whether in the natural or supernatural order, there is a difference analo-
gous to that between the motions of the ascetical life and the mystical life.
In the first, God moves in an ordinary or human way; in the other, God
moves in a superhuman way: a divine way.
Because, in general providence, natural or supernatural, God moves
in a less efficacious way, that is, in an imperfect way accommodated to the
defectibility of the creature, for this such a motion is defectible or imped-
ible by the creature, and this is what is called a motion or grace that is im-
perfectly efficacious or fallibly efficacious or simply sufficient. Because, in spe-
cial providence, God moves in a most efficacious way, that is, in a divine
way or ordered infallibly to impede the actual defect of the creature, for
this it is de facto indefectible, and this is what is called a motion or grace
that is perfectly efficacious or infallibly efficacious or simply efficacious. The
78  second article
distinction between sufficient and efficacious grace, then, is not between
being or not being a premotion, and a premotion for free acts, because
both are this, but in the mode, defectible or indefectible, of this motion.

Operating Grace and the Beginning of the Supernatural Act

The route that goes from the first actual grace, called vocation, to the
infusion of sanctifying grace, called justification, is, by its nature and as re-
gards the intention of God, a continuous route, or a non-interrupted mo-
tus or fieri, as is the route of the seed or embryo from carnal copulation to
the infusion of the rational soul.
The length of this route is divided by theologians into various pas-
sages or stations, which are called the acts remotely preparatory to justi-
fication, such as the imperfect acts of faith, of hope, of attrition, etc. Each
one of these acts, as every psychologically complete act, is composed in
its turn of twelve acts or parts of an act, which are the simplex cogitatio,
simplex volitio, judicium, intentio, etc. etc.
God is the one who puts the soul on this road or puts it into a su-
pernatural movement by an initial stroke of operating or prevenient grace.
This initial stroke can be so strong or efficacious, as in the case of Saint
Paul, that in one instant it brings a man to the perfect act or term of this
way, which is justification, without passing through the imperfect acts.
But this is miraculous or extraordinary.
The ordinary [way] is to go through this route in parts or successive-
ly. Therefore, the movement also begins with an initial stroke of operat-
ing grace, with which God brings the soul in an instant into one part of
this way, and that can already be a very large part of the way (i.e., com-
plete acts of the fear of God, of hope, of attrition) or a lesser part of it, or
purely the beginning of it, as it pleases God, and then the route continues
by means of cooperating or helping [“adjuvante”] grace. This part of the
route, gone through in one stroke by the effect of the initial or operating
grace, is what is called the beginning of the act, and which, at a minimum,
by being a truly sufficient grace, ought to include not only the “cogitatio su-
pernaturalis,” but also the “simplex volitio supernaturalis,” because, with-
out it, there would be no supernatural motion of the will ex parte subjecti,
nor could this begin to move by itself supernaturally. This “cogitatio” or
“volitio,” is not yet either faith, nor attrition, nor prayer, nor anything com-
plete, but is a “motus ad fidem,” “motus ad attritionem,” “motus ad oran-
 A Reply to Some Objections   79

dum.” These are the celebrated indeliberate acts, which are called this by
preceding the consilium or deliberation; but they are free and most free,
because they are made with an indifferent judgment, and a most luminous
judgment, but with the light immediately instilled by God.27
So, then, to put the free will in a supernatural movement or to begin
the route, which is what is called the beginning of the act, is always of God
and only of God, or is an operating grace. This beginning of the act, which
is the beginning of supernatural life, can be begun or God can give it in
the state of a seed, of an embryo more or less advanced, or of perfect life,
just as in natural life God created our first father, Adam, in an adult state.
He could have created him, if He had wanted, in an infantile state or in a
state of an embryo: of nine months, of one month, of a seed. This initial
state in which God alone creates or instills the natural or supernatural life
in order that it then, with the ordinary cooperation of God, continues to
develop itself, is what is called the beginning of the life or the act. In this
beginning, by being from God alone, there can be no impediment, just as
Adam could not place an impediment that God instill in him the breath
of life. In the continuation of this life, there can be an impediment, just as
Adam could commit suicide after being created. In order not to place an
impediment to the continuation of this life, general providence is enough
for an integral nature, natural or supernatural, respectively; but in a fallen
or weak nature, there is need of special providence and special motion, if
it concerns difficult things or for much time.28

27. “Indeed, if the matter is more deeply and more acutely weighed, it ought to be said that
this first motion (the motion to the so-called indeliberate act) proceeds from God such as to con-
form to the proper nature of the will operating in relation to that object, such that the act that
proceeds from it is MORE FREE than if it were moving itself and acting deliberately” (Navarette, Con-
troversiae in D. Thomae et ejus scholae defensionem, t. 2, Controv. 16, p. 264, Valladolid, 1609).
Let every Thomist note that, if the acts produced by sufficient grace are free, they lead to a
free consent, and that, thus, the question of the so-called deliberate consent is not a question of
passing from a necessary act to a free one, but a question of the continuation or the perseverance in
the free consent given or begun by God. Let every Thomist also recall now that to persevere in
difficult things one has need of a special grace or a new grace, but not to persevere in easy things
or for a little time.
28. For this reason, we said in our first article (p. 22 [21]) that the phrases of Lemos and
Alvarez that every sufficient grace proceeds from “an absolute and efficacious decree” and that,
for this reason, all sufficient grace “produces its effect infallibly”—phrases repeated afterward
by practically all Thomists, from Gonet up to Father del Prado—have an ambiguous meaning.
These phrases are true and are profoundly Thomistic if, by effect, one means the beginning of
80  second article

FOURT H OB JECT ION : On the Infallibility of the

Divine Knowledge
Having already shown that, according to our doctrine, sufficient grace
is a physical premotion for imperfect acts—that is, a premotion infallible for
their beginning, but fallible or resistible in fact as far as placing or not plac-
ing an impediment to its course or continuation—it remains to see wheth-
er such a doctrine (which is, in our judgment, the true Thomistic doctrine)
destroys the infallibility of divine knowledge or leads to the scientia media.
This is what our objector attempts to prove in the following paragraph:
And thus according to Fr. Marín-Sola in order to place those easy salutary acts
there is required only a grace that is sufficient, impedible, and fallible and previously a
fallible divine decree.
But this objection immediately arises for any Thomist who reads this article:
by what means then could God from eternity infallibly know in a fallible decree the
attrition of this sinner or the non-placing of an impediment to it? And this applies
either to the predestined or to the non-predestined. By what means can one explain
the infallible foreknowledge of attrition or imperfect prayer, or at least the non-
placing of an impediment to this, without recourse to the scientia media?

the act, which is always and infallibly placed; because, as regards this, the decree and the pre-
motion of God are always absolute, efficacious, and infallible. But it is not true if, by effect, one
means all the effect, that is, if one also means the placing or the not placing of an impediment to
the course or the continuation or the perseverance of the effect or act infallibly begun; because, as
regards this, sufficient grace or premotion, the same as the decrees of general providence, are not
infallible, according to the opinion, today current among Thomists, that general Providence is
not infallible as regards the execution of a particular end or the outcome or course or term of its
premotions.
The problem, then, is not, as our objector appears to have understood, whether one re-
quires an infallible decree to have or to begin the act, because in this all are agreed; but whether
one requires an infallible decree (always and even in easy or imperfect things) to place or not to
place an impediment to the course of the act infallibly begun by the divine premotion. One who
says that, for this, we do not require a decree that is always infallible, opines like us, whatever
may be the diversity of the formula with which he expresses it. One who says that this is neces-
sary certainly does not opine as we do, but we fear that this is not far from what the Jansenists
opine, who assert infallibility respecting every effect of sufficient grace.
 A Reply to Some Objections   81

REPLY—If our objector had had a little patience, as we had request-

ed, we would have examined and resolved this objection, as the two pre-
vious and the others that will follow, in their respective places and with
all the amplitude they deserve, which it neither was nor is possible to do
in a single article. We are going, nevertheless, to say what is sufficient, in
our judgment, to satisfy or reassure for the moment any Thomist of open
mind, leaving for later articles the developments that a matter such as that
of the divine decrees, the divine knowledge, and the presence in eternity
require.
For this, we will properly distinguish and examine with clarity two
very different things contained in the objection just cited: first, whether
our doctrine is the scientia media or contains any mixture of the scientia
media; second, whether, with it, the infallibility of the divine knowledge is
or is not explained well.
Of these two questions, the first is essential for every Thomist who
understands the principles of Thomism and its history. Insofar as reject-
ing the scientia media or any mixture of the scientia media, there is full una-
nimity among Thomists. By contrast, as to the second, that is, insofar as
explaining or not explaining well the infallibility of the divine knowledge,
there have been diverse ways among the same Thomists, some affirming
with frequency that the way of the others does not sufficiently save the in-
fallibility of the divine knowledge. In its time, if God wills, we will give an
account of all these varieties of approach within Thomism respecting the
means of seeing, in order to save the infallibility of the knowledge of God.
So, then, let us see in the first place if our doctrine is the scientia media
or contains any mixture of it. This is what is important for a Thomist, and
in this we hope that we will be able to satisfy all who hold ideas, at least el-
ementary but exact, of the root, the object, and the nature of the scientia
media. Later we will see, in the second place, whether our doctrine does or
does not save the infallibility of the divine knowledge, showing how, with
fallible but eternal decrees, an infallible knowledge is possible. Regarding
the latter, we hope to convince every impartial Thomist that our doctrine
at least can be sustained within Thomism. With this, we will be satisfied,
because with a doctrine such as this, which would extraordinarily simpli-
fy and soften the complication and rigidity of other solutions, to say that it
can be followed in Thomism, is almost equivalent to following it.
82  second article

Our Solution and the Scientia Media

In order to see, with all possible clarity and brevity, that our doctrine
is not the scientia media, and has absolutely nothing to do with it, two
things are required before all else: first, to recall what Molinists and Tho-
mists understand by future conditioned contingents, because this is precise-
ly the object of the scientia media; second, to recall what we have already
said in our first article concerning the order that we have established be-
tween the so-called moments or signs of the will and the knowledge of
God.
One calls an absolute future that which in fact will be, and that, as a
consequence, is for the eternity of God. One calls a conditioned future, and
also a futurible, not that which is or will be, but only that which would be if
this or another condition were placed.
Yet the conditioned futures are of two sorts: ones of an infallible con-
nection, in which, therefore, once the condition is placed, the condi-
tioned infallibly follows; and others of a fallible connection, in which,
even if the condition is placed, the conditioned does not infallibly follow.
An example of the first: “Peter would convert, if God gave him the effica-
cious grace for this.” An example of the second: “Peter would convert, if
he practiced the Exercises of Saint Ignatius for ten days.”
Of these two sorts of conditioned futures, the first are classified by
theologians among absolute futures, and they regard as future conditioned
contingents only the second, the only ones with which we are dealing.
As a consequence, in order for something to be called a future condi-
tioned contingent, two conditions are necessary: first, that it not be abso-
lute, but conditioned, that is, that its existence or futurition depends upon
a condition; second, that, given the placing of this condition, the placing of
the conditioned does not infallibly follow.
Having seen what one means by future conditioned contingent, let
us now recall the four moments or signs that we ourselves distinguish in
the will and knowledge of God. Two of these moments, the first and the
third, correspond to the decrees of the two wills, antecedent and conse-
quent, that theologians distinguish in God. The other two, the second and
the fourth, correspond to the two knowledges of vision or the two signs
of the knowledge of vision, correlative to the two kinds of wills or de-
crees. They are as follows:
 A Reply to Some Objections   83

First moment—This corresponds to the antecedent will of God. It in-

cludes all the decrees referring to the general premotions of the natural or-
der, or sufficient graces of the supernatural order. These are decrees and
premotions infallible as regards the beginning of the act, and fallible as re-
gards the continuation and term of the act.
Second moment—This corresponds to the knowledge of vision in the
aforesaid decrees of the first moment. In these decrees, God sees three
things: a) the beginning of the act; b) the impediment placed or not placed
in fact to the course of the act or motion; c) that, even though an impedi-
ment has not been placed, this course will continue infallibly or will not
continue infallibly (exercise), according as to whether God wills or does
not will to continue the motion; and that, even though an impediment
has been placed, the course will continue infallibly well or infallibly bad-
ly (specification), according to whether God wills or does not will to re-
move the impediment placed, by means of a special motion of the third
moment.
Third moment—This corresponds to the consequent will. It includes
two kinds of decrees: a) the decrees referring to giving special motions of
the natural order; or b) special premotions or infallibly efficacious grac-
es of the supernatural order, by which God ensures that one infallibly
does not place an impediment or removes it after it has been placed, with
which the course of the act continues infallibly well; or decrees referring
to not giving special motions, but to continue the general ones, with which
the course of the act to which one has not placed an impediment contin-
ues well, and the act to which one has placed an impediment and that had
begun well continues infallibly badly and begins to be formally sin.
Fourth moment—This corresponds to the knowledge of vision of the
aforesaid decrees of the third moment. In these decrees to give or to not to
give special motion or grace, God infallibly sees the good or evil course of
the act.
One need do no more than apply successively these four aforesaid
moments, which we have applied to the beginning and the course of a
part of the act, to any other part of the act or to other acts that occur from
the first use of reason to death.
Let us then see if, in all this, there is or is required the very least shad-
ow of the scientia media. We hope to show that there evidently is none [re-
quired]. We will be brief, because we believe that the matter is clear.
84  second article
To demonstrate this, we have three distinct ways: a) the order that ev-
ery true scientia media occupies in respect to the divine decrees; b) the ob-
ject of the true scientia media; c) its nature.
We begin with the order, and this will give us the first demonstration.
In effect, as Molinists and Thomists confess, and as every student of The-
ology knows, it is the essence of the scientia media to be a knowledge ante-
rior to the divine decrees. It will be enough to cite Molina and Lemos:
“Finally, observe that the scientia media is something in God before
ALL free act of the divine will” [“Illud postremo observa scientiam medi-
am esse quidem in Deo ante OMNEM actum liberum divinae voluntatis”]
(Molina, Concordia, disp. 53, memb. 3, p. 365, Paris, 1876). “The whole sub-
stantial question against Molina is this: whether one should assert a scien-
tia media in God that antecedes all act in God, and certainly the free act of
the divine will” [“Tota quaestio substantialis contra Molinam est: an detur
media scientia, quae antecedat omnem actum in Deo, nempe actum libe-
rum divinae voluntatis”] (Lemos, Historia congregationum de auxiliis, disp.
35, coram Clemente VIII, p. 922, Louvain, 1702).
Well then, the knowledge of the impediment that a creature will or
will not place is not, in our theory, a knowledge anterior to the decree, but
a knowledge posterior to the divine decree of the first moment.
The Molinists affirm: “God knows the future conditioned before ev-
ery decree,” and this is precisely what we ourselves deny. The Thomists
say “God does not know any future conditioned, save after the decree,”
and this is what we ourselves affirm.29

29. The Molinists also at times say that the scientia media is after the divine decrees, but in-
tending, by divine decrees, decrees conditioned not only on the part of the object, but also on
the part of the subject.
A decree is called conditioned on the part of the object when the condition does not en-
ter into the decree, but into the thing decreed: for example, “I decree to move a creature, if it
is found in such conditions.” A decree is called conditioned on the part of the subject when the
condition enters into the decree itself or the act of decreeing, and not only into the thing de-
creed: for example “Were I to decree to move a creature in such conditions, it would consent.”
As one sees, these decrees conditioned on the part of the subject are decrees that decree noth-
ing [in fact].
When as much Molinists as Thomists discuss as to whether the knowledge of God is be-
fore or after the decree, they always intend the decree not conditioned on the part of the sub-
ject, and which one customarily calls an absolute decree. Thus, Molinists as much as Thomists,
without a single exception, agree in that, by scientia media, one means a knowledge that would
be anterior to every absolute decree, or that is not conditioned on the part of the subject. And
 A Reply to Some Objections   85

But someone will say: the Thomists speak of this [knowledge being]
after the infallible decree, and with that they save the infallibility of the di-
vine knowledge, while you speak of this [being] after the fallible decree,
with which one does not see how to save the infallibility of the divine
knowledge.
The reply to those who mix questions essentially distinct is very sim-
ple. We are not now dealing with whether our doctrine saves or does not
save the infallibility of the divine knowledge. This we will see later. We are
here dealing with whether our doctrine is or is not a scientia media, and it
evidently is not. By not placing in God any knowledge of future contin-
gents before the decree, one is already outside the camp of the scientia me-
dia and within Thomism: “Once a decree is placed, this is no longer the sci-
entia media” [“Posito autem decreto, iam non est scientia media”] ( John of
St. Thomas, De scientia Dei, disp. 20, art. 5, no. 46).
The second demonstration that our doctrine contains nothing of the
scientia media we will give by an examination of the object of the scientia
media.
In effect, every theologian knows that the scientia media does not
have as its object absolute futures, but those that are conditioned, and not
those conditioned by an infallible connection, but a fallible one.
Well then: it is evident that none of the divine knowledge that we
place in God in the second moment, which is the only one that offers any
difficulty to the objector, has anything to do with this object of the sci-
entia media. In this second moment, God sees three things: a) the begin-
ning of the effect, and this He sees not as conditional, but as already in fact
placed; b) the impediment to the course of the motion, and this He also
sees as in fact placed or not placed, not as conditionally possible; c) the
continuation or non-continuation of the act and its good or bad continu-
ation, and this, it is true, God sees conditionally, but with a condition of
infallible connection. There is not, then, the scientia media nor any scent
of it.
Let us give, finally, a third demonstration, taken from the nature itself
of the scientia media, that is, from its character of being middle between
the natural or necessary knowledge and the free knowledge of God.
All theologians, following Saint Thomas, admit four divisions, at
whether there is or is not such a knowledge is the essence of the dispute between Molinists and
Thomists in respect to the scientia media.
86  second article
least, of the divine knowledge: a) into a knowledge of simple intelligence
and of vision; b) into a knowledge purely speculative and a knowledge at
once both speculative and practical; c) into a knowledge of approval and a
knowledge of disapproval; d) into a knowledge that is necessary or natural
and a knowledge that is free (D. Thomas, I, q. 14, aa. 8, 9, 16).
The dispute between Thomists and Molinists precisely does not con-
sist in whether or not there is a knowledge that would be middle between
members of the first three divisions, but between members of the fourth:
that is, middle between the necessary knowledge and the free knowledge of
God (del Prado, De gratia, t. 3, p. 121, Definitur sensus controversiae).
This is, precisely, the middle knowledge that Molina introduced and
that we and the Thomists deny and will eternally deny. It is a knowledge
that, on the one hand—that is, on the part of the known object—is free or
contingent, because it has as its object neither necessary futures nor free
futures of infallible connection, but futures conditioned by a contingent or
fallible connection; on the other hand, it is a necessary knowledge—that
is, on the part of the knower, which is God—because God could not cease
to know, according to this knowledge, what he knows. Listen to Molina
himself:
We ought to distinguish three kinds of knowledge in God . . . One purely natu-
ral . . . another purely free . . . and finally a third, scientia media. Perhaps one may ask
whether the scientia media should be called free or natural? To this, it ought to be
responded in the first place that for no reason should it be [called] free, both because it
antecedes every act of the divine will and also because it was not in the power of God by
it to have any other knowledge than the thing itself He will know. (Molina, Concordia,
disp. 53, p. 317–18)
Well then: it is evident that the knowledge we have placed in God
to describe the four divine moments is not a necessary knowledge, but a
knowledge completely free for God. In whatever circumstance or in what-
ever combination of circumstances in which one supposes the created
will, God could prevent that an impediment be placed to His motion sim-
ply by giving it a special motion or grace infallibly and ab intrinseco effi-
cacious. If God, then, wants to know infallibly that the creature will not
place an impediment, and this in whatever circumstance that the creature
is placed, it is most freely in His hand to know it: by simply decreeing to
move it with an infallibly efficacious motion, He infallibly knows it. So He
chose to move the most sacred humanity of our Savior and the person of
 A Reply to Some Objections   87

the Most Holy Virgin Mary in all their acts, and so He moves, when He
wants and as He wants, each man in those acts in which God freely de-
sires that there be no defect nor impediment, and simply with this, to de-
cree to give a special motion or an infallibly efficacious grace, He knows
freely and infallibly that the impediment or defect will not exist.
And more: even supposing that God freely wanted to move a crea-
ture with a general premotion, and also supposing that the creature plac-
es or does not place an impediment to this motion, God is free to know
whether the beginning of the effect will continue by simply decreeing
freely to continue or not to continue the motion: as He is free to know
whether the act will be good or bad by simply decreeing to give or not to
give a special premotion or an infallibly efficacious grace. It is not, then, a
necessary knowledge, but a completely free one.
It has thus been demonstrated, and by three different ways, that our
doctrine, whether one accepts it or whether one rejects it, has nothing
to do with the scientia media. Of these three ways or demonstrations, the
principal and the root of the others is the first: that is, to admit or not to
admit in God a knowledge in respect to future contingents, before any de-
cree or free act of God. One who admits it is within Molinism; one who
denies this, and only this, is outside of Molinism and within Thomism.
The divine decrees are in the order of intention what the premotions or
physical predeterminations are in the order of execution. One who admits
that there is any act, great or little, supernatural or natural, with only a si-
multaneous concurrence or without a true and most determined physical
premotion, which is what is meant by the name predetermination, is within
the Molinist camp and outside of Thomism. On the other hand, one who
admits that there is no act without physical predetermination is, with this,
within Thomism as regards the order of action or execution. Once this is
admitted, the question as to whether all the premotions or predetermi-
nations are infallible, or whether there are also fallible ones, is a question
discussed within Thomism.
The same occurs in the order of intention. One who admits that there
is any divine knowledge respecting any contingent future or* futurible be-
fore the free decree of God is within the scientia media and Molinism. One
who denies that there is such a knowledge, except after the decree of God,
is already outside of Molinism and within Thomism as regards the order
*editor’s note: This corrects an error in his text, which read “nor” (“ni”) instead of “or.”
88  second article
of intention. Once this is admitted, the question whether all the decrees
of God are infallible as regards everything or whether there are also falli-
ble decrees, and how with these one can save the infallibility of the divine
knowledge, is a question within Thomism.

our doctrine and the infallibility of the divine knowledge

Having now shown that our doctrine has nothing in common with
the scientia media, it remains to see how it is reconcilable with the infalli-
bility of the divine knowledge.
In effect: according to our doctrine, the decrees of the antecedent
will or general providence, which are the decrees of the first moment, are
fallible decrees and, nevertheless, in these same decrees, insofar as eternal
decrees, God sees the impediment that the creature will place or will not
place to the course of the general premotion or sufficient grace, an effect of
these decrees. Well then, our objector says, and every reader would like to
know: how can a thing be seen infallibly in a fallible means?30
We do not deny that the objection here proposed wounds the imagi-
nation and appears difficult to resolve. We have confidence, nevertheless,
that our solution, which will do nothing more than amplify what was al-
ready indicated in our earlier article, will satisfy every open-minded Tho-
mist: if not to the point of declaring it demonstrated, at least to the point
30. In speaking of general providence, with its respective decrees and premotions, theolo-
gians customarily use three adjectives: a) frustratable; b) fallible; c) impedible.
The first is not exact, because something is said to be frustrated from which no effect fol-
lows, or whose principal effect does not follow. Well then: general providence always achieves
its principal end, which is the glory of God and the good of the universe.
The second also is ambiguous. Coming from the verb to fail, it could signify He is inept
[“engañarse”] and it could signify that a means fails. God is never inept, nor does His provi-
dence ever fail: what fails is man.
The third is more exact. It only means to say that the creature can place an impediment to
the divine providence; but this is an impediment that God can, if He wants, prevent him from
placing, and that He can also remove, after it is placed.
This that one calls “to place an impediment,” and that is or signifies something less than
“to impede” (because one can place an impediment to another so that he does not pass on fur-
ther, and this person can remove it by kicking it aside and passing on, with his walk being nei-
ther interrupted nor impeded), is what Saint Thomas examines in dealing with “utrum aliquid
posit reniti contra ordinem gubernationis divinae,” after having examined already “utrum aliq-
uid praeter ordinem divinae gubernationis contingere possit” (I, q. 103, aa. 7 and 8). It is worth
reading the commentary of Cardinal Cajetan on this “reniti” [“resist”] and how or in what sense
a creature can have this in respect to God.
 A Reply to Some Objections   89

of conceding to us that this solution can be sustained within Thomistic

principles.
We have repeated many times, in speaking of Thomists, the phrase
“open-mindedness,” not with the intention of alluding to or upsetting
anyone, but because we are conscious that—and there is no reason to
hide it—in certain points the doctrine we propose is a true innovation in
modern Thomism, if by innovation one understands the actualization of
what one cannot find save in a virtual or latent way in the principles of
Saint Thomas and the logical organization of many indications that are
dispersed throughout earlier Thomists. Thus, being conscious that, in this
particular point of the divine knowledge, we are innovating in the sense
just given, it is clear that we can only have confidence in leaving satisfied
those Thomists of dispassionate spirit who are not closed to every innova-
tion. But we shall leave off these digressions and go on to try to expound,
without any vehemence of school and with complete sincerity, how we
ourselves understand the Thomistic doctrine on the means of the knowl-
edge of God, and how God can know infallibly through decrees of the an-
tecedent will, which are fallible or impedible by the creature.
The solution indicated in our earlier article reduces to the following
three points:
First. In the human act there are two things: a) the beginning of the
act; b) the impediment or defect placed by the creature to the course or
continuation of the act. The beginning of the act is placed always and in-
fallibly under the divine decree or under the physical premotion corre-
sponding to this decree; the human will can in fact place or not place the
impediment, even in fallen nature, in easy acts and for a little time. Of the
beginning of the act, God and God alone is the first cause; of the placing
of the impediment, the first cause is not God, but the human will and it
alone.
Second. In the divine decree one must distinguish two things: a) being
a decree and b) being an eternal decree, or, better said, being eternity itself.
Insofar as a decree, it is the infallible cause of the beginning of the act; inso-
far as eternal decree, it coexists and contains infallibly, not only all of which
God is the first cause, but also all of which the creature is the first cause:
that is, the impediment placed by the creature to the course of the act.
Third. In consequence, God sees and sees infallibly each one of these
two things, and He sees these where they are and where they are infalli-
90  second article
bly: that is, He sees the beginning of the act in the decree insofar as decree,
which is infallible as to the beginning; and He sees in the decree insofar as
eternal decree not only this beginning, but also the impediment placed by
the will; because eternity, although by itself incapable of being the cause
of anything and of explaining the existence of anything, infallibly contains
all that exists or is caused, whether caused by God or by the creature.
The solution indicated in our first article reduced to these three
things, and we are going now to amplify them, explicating them accord-
ing to the principles of Saint Thomas and with all the concision and clar-
ity that the matter and our capacity permit us.
In effect: in order for a thing to be able to be infallibly known as ex-
isting, three things are necessary and sufficient: a) that the thing really ex-
ists; b) that there is an intellect infallible in knowing; c) that the thing is in-
tellectually present to this intelligence.
Well then, there are two ways for a thing to be present to another: a)
the way of causality; b) the way of real containment, even prescinding from
all causality.
By the way of causality, every cause, to cause its effects, contains
them and is present to them by its causative power of them. If it is the
cause of the effect as regards everything, it contains them as regards ev-
erything, and if it were at the same time fully intelligent or fully compre-
hended its power and its actual action, and its power were immanent or
identified with the cause, it would know them all and totally, because it
contains them and they come from its action. Fire, the sun, electricity re-
ally contain all the effects that they actually cause, insofar as what they
cause, and if these elements were intelligent and infallibly comprehended
themselves and their action, and their action were the same as their sub-
stance, they would infallibly know all their effects, because they are really
in them. This is the way by which Saint Thomas proves the immensity of
God, and how all that exists is present to Him by way of causality, because
He causes everything (I, q. 8, aa. 1 and 3).
But there is another way by which an existing thing can be present
to another without being the cause of it or being caused by it. This is the
way of pure actual containment, without any relation to or any necessity of
causality. Thus is water actually contained in a vase, bodies in the space
they occupy, or in the ether that penetrates and surrounds them, the less-
er numbers in the greater. If the vase, space, ether, [and] the greater num-
 A Reply to Some Objections   91

bers were by nature completely intellectual and infallibly comprehensive,

they would contain these things intellectually, and would know them in-
fallibly, without [having] any relation of causality with them.
Whoever penetrates well these two ways of containment, of pres-
ence, or of knowledge, and compares them with one another, will at once
see two things:
First: That the way of causality does not suppose the existence of the
thing, but rather produces it. A thing is not caused because it exists, but it
exists because it is caused. The effects of fire, water, and electricity are not
caused because they already actually exist, but they exist because they are
caused. The causality is the reason for their actual containment. By con-
trast, the way of pure containment without causality does not cause the ex-
istence of the object contained, but rather supposes it. The vase contains
the water, but it does not cause the existence of the water, but supposes it
as already caused.
Second: That the way of containment extends further than the way of
causality, because the former extends to things not caused by that which
contains them, whereas the latter is limited to things caused by the same
thing that contains them. The vase actually contains, by way of pure con-
tainment, the water not caused by the vase, but fire can actually contain,
by way of causality, only its proper effects.
Let us now translate this to divine things, which we cannot know ex-
cept by analogy with human things; yet we can, at the end, know them,
always guarding the analogy of infinite proportion or of that free from all
imperfection, which the divine being requires.
In God, two attributes must be well distinguished: a) being the first
cause; b) being eternal, or, better, eternity itself. To both attributes it per-
tains to be infinitely intelligent, because intellectuality has its root in im-
materiality or pure actuality, which is common to all the divine attributes.
From this, it follows that there exist in God two ways of containment,
and two ways of knowing existing or future things: a) the way of causality;
b) the way of eternity, or, better said, the way of eternal causality.
The nature of causality, if it is an infinitely intelligent causality, is to
contain and to know infallibly whatever it causes (and even to cause know-
ingly or by means of knowledge, although this is presently not at issue for
us); the nature of essential and intellectual eternity, which is the divine
eternity—that is, the way of eternal causality—is to contain and to be pres-
92  second article
ent to not only all that God causes, but also all that, in what is caused by
God, the creature causes or uncauses (defects, impediments, sins); that is,
to all that exists in whatever distinction of time: past, present, or future.
To these two kinds of containment there correspond in God two re-
spective ways of knowing: the way of first causality and the way of eternity
or eternal causality.
As first cause, God knows and contains not everything, but only that
which He causes: that is, everything that possesses the nature of entity
and perfection, and only that. As eternal cause, or, better said, as a cause
that is eternity itself, God contains and knows absolutely all the present,
past, and future, as much whatever possesses the nature of entity or per-
fection as what has the nature of sin or defect: as much that made by God
as that made or unmade by the creature.
For this reason, when Saint Thomas attempts to prove that God
knows these or those things that do not have the nature of defect or sin,
he uses either of the two ways—the way of causality and the way of eter-
nity—without distinction, because both ways extend to whatever has the
nature of entity or perfection. But when he attempts to prove that God
knows sin, he always uses the way of eternity, or, at the most, he uses
whichever of the two ways regarding what there is of entity and perfec-
tion in sin, and uses exclusively the way of eternity for what there is of de-
formity or defect in sin.
Whoever penetrates well the nature of these two ways of divine
knowing will understand immediately the three following corollaries:
First. The way of first causality does not suppose the existence or fu-
turition of its object, but rather causes it; by contrast, the way of eternity
as such does not cause the existence or futurition of its object, but rather
supposes it as already caused, and only contains it or is present to it.
Second. The way of eternity supposes the way of first causality, not in
the sense that both ways comprise the same extension or extend to the
same things, but in the sense that, if one entirely suppresses the second or
supposes it as not begun, the first also disappears and does not begin. The
reason is clear. First causality having been removed, all secondary causal-
ity disappears, even the deficient causality in order to sin or place an im-
pediment, just as, all good being removed, all evil would disappear; and
therefore no act, either good or evil, efficient or deficient, could be pres-
ent to eternity nor known by this way.
 A Reply to Some Objections   93

Third and principal: That the way of eternity, although it supposes and
includes the way of causality as previous, in the sense just given, extends
further than it; or, what comes to the same, that although the eternal de-
cree could not be the means of knowing any contingent were it not a de-
cree, it nevertheless extends to a greater containment of things, and, there-
fore, to the knowledge of more things, insofar as eternal decree than it does
insofar as decree. The reason is clear. The way of first causality or of the di-
vine decree insofar as decree extends only to that of which God is the first
cause; while the way of eternity or the decree insofar as eternal decree ex-
tends to everything, not only to that of which God is the first cause, but
also to that, in what is caused by God, the first cause is the human will.
It is needless to repeat what we already indicated in our first article con-
cerning the fact that the human will, and not God, is the first cause of the
impediment or sin and of all the infallible connection that any act can have
with the deformity of sin.31

31. In order not to increase the prolixity, already excessive, of the “prenotations” necessary
to resolve with clarity the proposed objection, we are omitting very many applications that oc-
cur to us regarding these three important corollaries. But we will not resist from adverting to
the fact that some theologians pay much attention, and with reason, to the first two corollaries,
above all else to the first part of the second (that “the way of eternity supposes the way of the
decree”), for its being the citadel of indestructible granite that Thomism holds against Molin-
ism. But they do not appear to pay as much attention to the third corollary, which is what expli-
cates and amplifies the second, when, without this third corollary, that citadel would be so nar-
row that there would hardly be room in it for an explanation of how man is responsible for sin,
and it would be, in our opinion, constructed on the border of Calvinism. Really, if one pays at-
tention to the expressions, more than to the mind, of certain theologians, one would get the im-
pression that, in order to save the infallibility of divine knowledge, they take care to establish an
infallible connection between divine causality and sin, making sin or the impediment be known
by the sole way of decree, although disguising it with the name of permissive decree, and [mak-
ing] the premotion to the beginning of the act leave the most holy and most loving hands of
God already infallibly connected with sin. No, no, and a thousand times no! The divine decree,
if we suppose it anterior to all foreknowledge of the impediment placed by the creature, cannot
have and does not have, in the doctrine of Saint Thomas, any connection whatsoever, and much
less an infallible connection, with sin. Neither do the divine premotion and the beginning of the
act, effects of such a decree anterior to all foreknowledge, have any [such connection], nor can
they have. This premotion and this beginning are always for the honest good. Man, and not God,
is the one who, freely placing to this divine motion an impediment that he can in fact not place,
defectively converts the good beginning into a bad continuation, or into the so-called material of
evil, and establishes with this [impediment] the infallible connection with sin, if God does not
intervene to prevent it through a special grace.
The express declarations of many classical Thomists already tend to this most natural and
94  second article
We believe that the solution to the objection we are examining is al-
ready easy for one who has penetrated the previous doctrine. This objec-
tion consists in saying that, with a fallible means—which the decrees of
consoling solution that we are here indicating concerning the nature of the divine motion to
the material of sin, as one can see from the following text of Gonet: “God never determines the
will to the material of sin save objectively and in the order of material and occasional cause AS DE-
TERMINED BY THE WILL ITSELF, because HE FORESEES it would determine itself to the for-
mality [of sin] through its proper malice and defectibility . . . such that this determination and
application to the material [of sin] is, as it were, summoned and forced from God. . . . It is licit
therefore that He applies the will of man to the material of sin, for He is nevertheless MOVED
AND DETERMINED TO THIS BY THE HUMAN WILL ITSELF, which, by a PRIORITY of nature
[“PRIUS natura”], is determining itself to it formally or to the material formally taken (as we say
elsewhere); it follows that this malice and deformity of sin ought not to be attributed to God
moving and applying, even though materially consequent to this, but instead to the same will
OBJECTIVELY AND MATERIALLY DETERMINING THE FORMER TO THIS SAME MOTION
AND APPLICATION. Which response and doctrine, handed down from John of St. Thomas and
Vincent Baronius, and which the Salmanticenses probably take into consideration in their trea-
tise on the will of God, totally crushes the impetus of all adversaries and most easily parries all of
their assaults and sophistries” (Gonet, De scientia Dei, disp. 4, no. 200, edit. Vives, tom. 1, p. 426).
Let every Thomist read and reread this paragraph, and he will see how it tends, by a direct route,
to our doctrine, only by being logical to the end and by applying, in respect to the knowledge
of God, this same priority that the actual impediment of the creature has in respect to the de-
crees and the motions of God regarding sin. There is no greater inconvenience in admitting that
the knowledge of God can be modified objectively and materially by the defect of the creature,
than there is in admitting, as he has admitted here, that the decrees and motions of God can be
so modified. We have said that these Thomists tend to the doctrine that we ourselves have ex-
posed, but not that they expressly arrive at it, because they detour somewhat timidly before ar-
riving at the divine knowledge, and, for fear of placing in danger the infallibility of this science,
they fall into the famous apparent contradiction of Gonet and Billuart, thereby appearing to
render useless the value of all the solutions they had given to resolve and to elucidate “adversari-
orum impetus, tela et sophismata.”
The Thomistic novice ought never to forget the principle here annunciated by Gonet:
“The human will can, by its impediment or defect, objectively and materially modify the divine
motion and the divine decrees of general providence.” By only recalling that, in Thomism, every
knowledge of God concerning the contingent is always posterior to the decree, he will at once see
that, if it is possible that the divine decree and motion is modified by something of the creature,
also, and with more reason, it will be possible for the divine knowledge—which is always poste-
rior to the decree—to be modified. But all of this is an objective and material modification made
by the defect of the creature. It is, in a word, a defective modification. This in no way prejudices
the decrees and the dignity of the first cause; because God is the first cause, but only in the line of
good. In the line of evil, the first cause is not God, but the creature, who cannot have more of the
positive or the good than that to which God moves it, but who is able to have less, not following
(= defect) perfectly or in everything the general or sufficient motion of God, which is always, of
itself, for the honest good.
 A Reply to Some Objections   95

the antecedent will are in our doctrine—one cannot see anything infalli-
bly, and thus the infallibility of the divine knowledge perishes.
The clear solution can be summarized in these three propositions:
First: One thing is the beginning of the act and another is its continu-
ation or non-continuation: that is, the impediment placed or not placed to
its continuation or course.
Second: One thing is the decrees insofar as decrees and another the
decrees insofar as eternal decrees.
Third: a) the decrees, insofar as decrees, are infallible insofar as con-
taining and knowing the beginning of the act; b) the decrees, insofar as
decrees, are fallible insofar as containing and knowing the continuation or
non-continuation of the act, or, that is, insofar as containing and knowing
the placing or non-placing of the impediment to its course; c) these same
decrees, insofar as eternal decrees are infallible insofar as containing and
knowing everything; that is, insofar as containing and knowing not only
the beginning of the act, but also the impediment placed or not placed to its
course or continuation.
As a result, in these fallible decrees, that respect in which they are fal-
lible cannot see infallibly; but it can see infallibly that respect in which they
are infallible.
So that every reader, whoever he may be, can see with clarity wherein
lies the weakness of the objection and wherein lies its true and complete
solution, we will put the objection and the solution in scholastic form.
The objection reduces to the three following propositions:
Major: No infallible knowledge is possible with a fallible means.
Minor: The decrees of the antecedent will are fallible.
Conclusion: Therefore, no infallible divine knowledge is possible with
these decrees.
Here, then, is the very simple and very clear reply in the same scho-
lastic tone:
Distinction of the major: No infallible knowledge is possible with a fal-
lible means, distinguo: if this means is fallible in respect to everything, con-
cedo; if it is fallible in respect to one thing and infallible in respect to others,
subdistinguo: no infallible knowledge is possible in respect to which it is
fallible, concedo; in respect to which it is infallible, nego.
Distinction of the minor: The decrees of the antecedent will are fallible,
distinguo: in respect to the placing or non-placing of the impediment, con-
96  second article
cedo; that they are fallible insofar as decrees in respect to causing the be-
ginning of the act, or are fallible insofar as eternal decrees in respect to con-
taining or being present to the placing or non-placing of the impediment,
nego.
Distinction of the conclusion: Therefore, no infallible knowledge is pos-
sible with these decrees, distinguo: with such decrees insofar as decrees, no
infallible knowledge is possible in respect to the placing or non-placing of
the impediment, concedo; with such decrees, insofar as decrees, no infal-
lible knowledge is possible in respect to the beginning of the act, or with
such decrees, insofar as eternal decrees, no infallible knowledge is possible
in respect to the placing or non-placing of the impediment, nego.
The solution, as the reader can see, is logically and rigorously found-
ed in the following Thomistic principle: the first causality (divine will =
decrees insofar as decrees = physical premotion = actual graces) does not
cause everything, because it does not cause sin or the impediment of the
creature; neither does it cause infallibly whatever it causes, because some-
times (antecedent will = general decrees and premotions = sufficient grac-
es) it is impedible in fact by the creature. On the other hand, the divine eter-
nity contains all that is caused, as much that caused by God as that caused
by the creature, as much that caused infallibly as that caused fallibly.
We cherish the confidence that this solution has what is sufficient to
satisfy the majority of Thomists or at least to convince them that such a
solution can be defended within Thomism.
For those, nevertheless, who do not concede this to us and pretend
to make all other questions concerning premotion and grace depend upon
this obscure question of the divine knowledge, we will add with sincerity
that the existence of fallible premotions and graces and decrees appears to
us evidently taught by Saint Thomas and so absolutely necessary to save
truly sufficient grace and the responsibility of man in sin and in its condem-
nation that we will continue, on the one hand, to defend these said fallible
decrees and graces and premotions and, on the other hand, to deny, as did
Saint Liguori, what is for us the absurd scientia media, even were we not
to see the means of reconciling all this with the infallibility of the divine
knowledge.
The question of signaling the means of the divine knowledge respect-
ing the future or fallible contingents has been and will always be a question
so difficult and obscure that it verges on a mystery, and whatever means
 A Reply to Some Objections   97

that is signaled appears to clash with one of the divine attributes. The Mo-
linists have signaled as means the scientia media, and for this the Thomists
have accused them of putting in danger the divine causality. The majority
of Thomists, above all those after the disputes de auxiliis, have signaled as
means for everything the infallibly predetermining decrees, and for this the
Molinists have accused them of placing in danger the divine holiness, mak-
ing it responsible for sin. It will not surprise us, then, we ourselves having
signaled a means somewhat different from either of these two, although de-
rived from the concessions and indications of these same Thomists, should
there be some, as much among Molinists as among Thomists, who will ac-
cuse us of placing in danger some new attribute of God: the infallibility of
the divine knowledge. This indicates that the question of the means of the
divine knowledge is an obscure matter, and that it is not prudent to make
what is clear in all the other points in this extensive matter depend on it;
for us, among other points, this includes the impossibility of explaining sin
and truly sufficient grace without the existence of premotions, graces, and
decrees that are fallible or impedible in fact by the creature.
We repeat, nevertheless, that we hope that our solution has enough
to satisfy the majority of Thomists, for being evidently founded in the
Thomistic doctrine concerning the nature of the causality of God and of
His eternity, as we will see even more clearly in resolving the objection
that follows, which is nothing more than a new form of the objection we
are finished examining. This will give us the occasion to enter even more
deeply into the nature of the divine causality and eternity, the base of this
entire question.

FIFT H OBJECT ION : On Whether the Presence in Eternity

Supposes an Infallible Decree
Nor can it be said: God infallibly knows this future attrition or the placing or
non-placing of an impediment to it insofar as this is present in eternity, which in-
cludes all time; for the future free act is not so present in eternity, rather than its op-
posite, save by virtue of an infallible decree; otherwise they would be present as nec-
essary truths and then liberty would perish.

REPLY—In the first place, and speaking in passing, we do not un-

derstand this last conclusion of our objector, taken from the words tran-
98  second article
scribed at the end—that is, that “if a thing were to be present in eternity
without an infallible decree or, that is, by a fallible decree, it would be like
the necessary truths and freedom would perish.” It seems to us that our ob-
jector has suffered from a small distraction. The necessary truths are pres-
ent to the eternity of God without any decree, neither infallible nor fallible.
Everything that requires, in order to be present in eternity, a divine de-
cree, whether it be an infallible decree or a fallible decree, is not a necessary
truth, but a contingent one, and the more fallible the decree is, the more
contingent will be the truth.
In the second and principal place, this—that the good future act can-
not be present in eternity, more than its opposite, save by an infallible de-
cree—we have already examined and resolved in the previous objection;
but we are going to add some observations.
We concede that, in order to be present in eternity (which is the same
as to exist or to be future), the beginning of the good act undoubtedly re-
quires an infallible decree; but, for this, the decree of the antecedent will or
of sufficient grace is enough, which decree, even though it is called fallible
for the course of the act, is infallible for its beginning.
On the other hand, we have denied—and we believe that every Tho-
mist who takes into consideration the sense, and not just the formulas, of
the Thomistic doctrine ought to deny—and we repeat that we do deny
that an infallible decree is required for the placing or the non-placing of
the impediment to the course of the act to exist, and therefore for this same
placing to be present to eternity.
If the antecedent will of God or the sufficient grace that is its correla-
tive were to require an infallible decree so that an impediment would not
be placed, that impediment would never in fact be placed, nor even could
it ever in fact be placed; with which the antecedent will and sufficient grace
disappears, converting them into the consequent will and into infallibly ef-
ficacious grace. If, on the other hand, an infallible decree is required so that
an impediment would be placed (naming it a positive decree or a permissive
decree or mixed of both, or with whatever other name one cares to dis-
guise it), this impediment always and infallibly will be placed; with which
the antecedent will and sufficient grace disappear anew, converting them
into infallibly inefficacious for good, not to mention infallibly efficacious for
the impediment and sin, or infallibly connected to it.
Thus the division of grace into efficacious and sufficient would tend
 A Reply to Some Objections   99

to mean the division of grace into infallibly efficacious for good and infal-
libly inefficacious for good, which seems much like the Jansenist division.
So understood, the comic saying of Pascal—“that is to say that this grace
suf­fices, even though it does not suffice” [“C’est à dire que cette grace suffit,
quioque’elle ne suffise pas”]—would not surprise us, nor the other com-
mon [“vulgar”] saying invented by another Jansenist and condemned by
the Church: “From sufficient grace may God deliver us!” [“A gratia suffici-
enti libera nos Domine”] (Denzinger, no. 1296).
All of this—in not admitting in God more providence than the infal-
lible, nor more decrees than the infallible, nor more premotions or graces
than the infallible—appears to us to rest upon that theory that there is no
more will in God than the infallible or consequent and that, therefore, the
antecedent will (with the decrees, motions, and graces that correspond to
it and that are called sufficient) is a will of pure name, a will of sign, and not
a real, sincere will of beneplacito.
It is true that this is not clearly said, and that the names of antecedent
will and of a will of beneplacito are conserved. But, in reality, this anteced-
ent will is thus destroyed, by one of these two ways: either by converting
it into a will of pure sign, which is equivalent to saying that it is sufficient
in fact for nothing, not at least for not placing impediments in easy things
and for some time, and this is the way that affirms that sufficient grace is
a pure potency; or by transforming it into a consequent will, to say that it
serves to have something in fact, but all that it has it has infallibly, and this
is the theory that admits that sufficient grace is a premotion, but an infal-
lible premotion, which is equivalent to saying that there are no more true
divine decrees than infallible decrees. Both theories are going to come to
the same thing, namely to suppress the antecedent will of God: either by
reducing it to so little that it serves in fact for nothing, or by augmenting it
so much that there are no more ways than the infallible and irresistible in
fact, with which one converts it into the consequent will.
No, no, and a thousand times no! Thomistic sufficient grace corre-
sponding to the antecedent will must be a premotion, but a fallible pre-
motion. Without the first, it is sufficient in fact for nothing; without the
second, it is not distinguished from infallibly efficacious grace, and, in ad-
dition, the existence of sin and the responsibility of man for it is rendered
inexplicable.
In our judgment, in order to save the sincere will of God to save all
100  second article
men; in order to save with much more plenitude and naturalness the
sense of the doctrine of the Church according to which one sometimes
(neither always nor never) resists sufficient or interior grace; in order to
save the sense of an infinite number of texts of Saint Thomas; in a word, in
order to save within Thomism a true sufficient grace, two things are need-
ed: a) that, with it alone, one can have something, should it be no more
than the beginning of the imperfect act and the not placing of an impedi-
ment to its course; b) that this placing or not placing of an impediment
be fallible. These two things are contained in the phrase fallible premotion.
Without this, we cannot conceive of a grace that is truly sufficient. On
the other hand, with this, which is implied by all the Thomistic principles
and is already admitted or indicated by distinguished Thomists, not only
is a truly sufficient grace saved, not only are all the Thomistic principles
harmonized amongst themselves, but there also enter into Thomism all
those systems that admit physical premotion in the order of execution and
deny the scientia media in the order of intention.
So, then, this entire objection concerning eternity has no value at all
against our doctrine. If sufficient grace, by being a true supernatural phys-
ical premotion, although a fallible premotion—as well as the divine de-
cree, although it be a fallible one—is enough for the beginning of the act
as much as for the placing or not placing of an impediment to its course
to exist in time, it will be enough for it to enter into eternity. In order for
a thing to enter into eternity, there is required, according to Thomistic
principles, neither more nor less than for it to enter into time. That which is
enough for a thing to be—that is, for it to be present, past, or future—also
is enough for it to be contained in eternity, and to be present to it, and [to
be] known infallibly by it, that is, by God.
Never should a Thomist who understands the doctrine of Saint
Thomas concerning eternity argue that this or that thing cannot be or ex-
ist in time, founding his argument on [the idea] that it could not then be
known infallibly by God in eternity, but, on the contrary, he ought always
to argue that such or such thing cannot be known infallibly by God in eter-
nity, because it cannot be in time. The contrary is not to understand at its
depth in what consists the dividing line or the specific difference between
Thomism and Molinism; that is, it is not to understand the essence of Tho-
mism.
The base and root in which Thomism is founded in order to reject the
 A Reply to Some Objections   101

scientia media—that is, to reject the divine knowledge of any future or fu-
turible contingent before a decree—is not precisely or formally that God
cannot know the futuribles without a decree, but that the futuribles are not
able to be futuribles without a decree. If, without a decree, there could be fu-
turibles, then these could also be known infallibly by God without a decree.
Well then: in our doctrine, it is certain that no act, great or small, can
be or exist without a decree that is infallible insofar as its beginning; but it
is no less certain that it can exist without a decree that would be infalli-
ble insofar as the placing or not-placing of an impediment to its course. If,
then, the placing or not placing of the impediment can exist in fact in time
without an infallible decree, it also can be present to eternity and be infal-
libly known by God.
If the Thomists say with frequency that “there can be no knowledge
by way of eternity without an infallible decree,” and other similar phrases,
these phrases can be taken in two radically distinct senses: a) that knowl-
edge by way of eternity supposes previously knowledge by way of infallible
decree; b) that it does not extend more than it.
In the first sense, these phrases are true, and this is the sense that they
have in Thomism, and this is the eternal base against Molinism or the sci-
entia media. But, in the second sense (and the objection of our friend will
tend to have force only in this sense), they are false.
The infallible knowledge by sole way of infallible decree does not ex-
tend more than to one thing: to that caused infallibly by God. By contrast,
the knowledge by way of eternity extends to the same and to two oth-
er things: a) to that caused fallibly by God, which is the non-placement of
the impediment to the course of the act of the divine motion; b) to that
caused by the creature alone, which is the placement of the impediment.

saint Thomas and Cardinal Cajetan

We cite, finally, some texts of the Angelic Doctor and of his very great
commentator Cajetan:
Although contingent things become actual successively, nevertheless God knows con-
tingent things not successively, as they are in their own being, as we do, but simul-
taneously. The reason is because His knowledge is measured by eternity, as is also His
being; and eternity being simultaneously whole comprises all time, as said above [q.
10, a. 2]. Hence all things that are in time are present to God from eternity, not only
because He has the types of all things present within Him, as some say, but also be-
102  second article
cause His glance is carried from eternity over all things [“sed etiam quia ejus fertur ab
aeterno super omnia”] as they are in their presentiality. (D. Thomas, I, q. 14, a. 13)
Wherefore manifestly two causes are assigned for why a thing is present to God from
eternity: that is, the forms [“rationes”] of things and eternity. Indeed, through forms
all things are present as regards what is known, as what is known in the knower;
through eternity, however, as a coexistent is to what coexists [“coexistentia coexisten-
ti”]. (Cajetan, ibid. [In I, 14, 13], no. VII)
“For knowledge to be certain cognition, from the very notion of cer-
titude, and even excluding causality, there is required certitude and deter-
mination in the thing known, which excludes contingency, as is obvious in our
knowledge, which is not the cause of things, and in the knowledge of God as
regards evils” (D. Thomas, I Sent., dist. 38, q. 1, art. 5). “For God sees those
things that are not yet among us [i.e., not yet in time], not only as they
exist in their causes, but also as they exist in themselves, insofar as eternity
is present in its indivisibility to all time” (D. Thomas, Contra gentes I, 66).
“Contingent things (or the object of a fallible decree) are not opposed to the
certainty of knowledge save insofar as future (way of causality alone); not,
however, according to what is present (way of eternity or of eternal causal-
ity). . . . Therefore, all cognition (that is, whether the cause or decree is in-
fallible or fallible) which is brought to bear upon the contingent insofar as
present (way of eternity) is able to be certain. . . . Therefore it remains that
nothing prohibits God to have INFALLIBLE knowledge from eternity regard-
ing the contingent (or of that fallibly decreed)” (D. Thomas, loc. cit., chap.
67). “Contingency is different from the necessary (that is, there is a difference
between fallible and infallible decrees) according to the way each is IN ITS
CAUSE (that is, when it is a question of knowing something by the sole
means of causality). . . . According, however, to the way each IS IN ITSELF,
THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE (that is: but to know something by way of eter-
nity the same thing is given, whether it be contingent or necessary, fallible
or infallible) as regards being, upon which the true is based” (D. Thomas,
loc. cit.). “For it is not possible that simultaneously God know that one
will run (or whatever other effect of general or fallible providence), and for
it to fail to run; and this is because of the certitude of knowledge, and not
because of its causality. For any science in order to be certain requires cer-
titude in the known. . . . Therefore, I say that the divine intellect intuits from
eternity every contingent whatsoever (all that fallibly decreed), not only in-
sofar as it is in its causes (not by the sole way of decree or of causality), but
 A Reply to Some Objections   103

also as it is in its determined being (but by the way of eternal causality)” (D.
Thomas, I Sent. dist. 38, q. 1, art. 5). “A future contingent is not truly deter-
mined before it comes into being, because it does not have a determined
cause (it has no infallible decree connected with it) . . . but when it is in act it is
truly determined; and thus, for the knower who is present to that act, there
can be certitude in knowing, as is also obvious regarding the vision of bod-
ies; and because the divine knowledge is measured by eternity—which,
remaining the same, is present to all time—thus it sees each thing what-
soever as it is in its act” (loc. cit., ad. 2). “Thus it is said that, considered
in itself it is contingent, but, as related to God’s knowledge, it is necessary;
because this is not brought to bear upon it save as in its actual being [“in
esse actuali”] (ad 3).” “The contingent IS ABLE TO BE IMPEDED before
it is produced in being [“esse”], because it then exists only in its causes, to
which an impediment can occur, such that they do not arrive at their ef-
fect; but after a contingent has been produced in being [“in esse”] it cannot
then be impeded . . . from which it is patent that the contingent insofar as fu-
ture (by the sole way of causality) is known by no knowledge that is subject
to falsity; and as the divine knowledge is not, nor can it be, subject to fal-
sity, it would be impossible for God to have knowledge of future contin-
gents were He to know these as futures” (De veritate, q. 2, art. 12). “Just as
our knowledge is not able to reach over future contingents, so neither can
the knowledge of God and moreover He would know these things less well
were He to know them as futures” (loc. cit., ad 6.) “Thus, whoever knows a
contingent effect in its cause only (by the sole way of causality, without eter-
nity), has only a conjectural knowledge of it. God, however, knows all con-
tingents not only insofar as they are in their causes (not only by the way of
causality or of decree), but also as each and every one of them is actual in it-
self (but also by way of eternal causality of or eternal decree) . . . because
His knowledge is measured by eternity” (I, q. 14, a. 13).
To the common objection of Scotist origin that, in this case, the di-
vine knowledge would lose its certainty concerning created objects, being
modified by them, the immortal Cardinal Cajetan has already admirably
responded that it does not follow from this that the divine knowledge los-
es its certainty of the known object but only that it requires certainty in the
known object, a certainty that contingent objects do not have while they do
not exist in themselves, that is, while they are not present to eternity. Let us
listen to the objection and the solution:
104  second article
Against the application of reason to this conclusion, the same Scotus gives three ar-
guments in the same place. . . . The second is as follows: God’s knowledge does not
receive certainty from any object, but from its proper essence; therefore it is not cer-
tain from this, that the sitting is in act, but otherwise. He proves the antecedent thus:
because otherwise the divine knowledge would be cheapened [“vilesceret”].
There is the objection of Scotus. And here is the reply of Cajetan:
To the second it is said that it is one thing that the knowledge of God gains certitude
from the sitting of Socrates and another that the sitting of Socrates is not able to be the
term of God’s certain knowledge save in what is certain in it. For the first is not fitting;
the second, however, is necessary; the first is not meant in what is written, but the sec-
ond. Given which, the entire point is conceded, inasmuch as it says nothing against
us, but it supposes falsely; that is, that from this position the knowledge of God gains
certitude from an object other than His essence. It ought rather to suppose that it re-
quires certitude also in that other object, or in the term of its knowledge, and not only
in its essence; for the latter has this, and it does not gain this certitude from another.
(Cajetan, In I, q. 14, art. 13, nums. 9 and 14, edit. Leonina, t. 4, pp. 188–89)
Our opinion is, then, that, according to the doctrine of Saint Thom-
as, the way of eternity, although it supposes as previous the way of causal-
ity, extends further than this in regards to two things: first, as regards the
number of objects known, because this only extends to the line of good,
while the other extends besides to the line of evil, that is, to the impedi-
ments or sins of the creature; second, as regards the certainty of knowing,
even within the line of good, because fallible or contingent futures, even
when dealing with the good, are not known infallibly by the sole way of
causality, save by way of eternal causality.
If many Thomists, since the time of Bañez, appear to say clearly the
contrary, it is because they are treating, reasoning, and arguing against the
anti-Thomistic doctrine of Molina, which understands by way of eternity
or by scientia media, eternity without decrees, or knowledge anterior to ev-
ery decree. In this sense, not only does the way of eternity not extend fur-
ther than causality, but it extends to nothing, and is an absurd way.
This is, in our manner of seeing, the true doctrine of Saint Thomas
on this point of the means of the divine knowledge, a point that all theolo-
gians, with Saint Paul, recognize to be involved in mystery, and in which,
therefore, “oportet sapere ad sobrietatem” [“one requires a sober wisdom”].
In its due time, we will amplify more these ideas, which were already in-
dicated in our first article (pp. 46–52 [46–54]), but which our friend has
 A Reply to Some Objections   105

obliged us to amplify, without giving them, nevertheless, all the extension

and clarity that we hope they will have when we deal with them in their
proper place.

The True Relations between Divine Causality and Infallible Knowledge

Some appear to confound with frequency the relations of knowl-
edge—that is, relations between the knowledge of the effect and this
known effect—with the relations of existence or of causality: that is, the re-
lations of this effect with its cause.
In order for the knowledge of an effect as existing to be infallible, there
is need, it is true, that this effect infallibly exist—that is, that it is exist real-
ly or in fact—because, as Saint Thomas repeatedly adverts when speaking
of the contingent, all that exists, while it exists, exists necessarily and infalli-
bly. “A contingent thing can be considered in two ways: first, in itself, inso-
far as it is now in act; and in this sense it is not considered as future, but as
present; neither is it considered as contingent, as having reference to one or
two terms, but as determined to one; and, on account of this, it can be infal-
libly the object of certain knowledge” (D. Thomas, I, q. 14, a. 13).
But, in order for an effect to exist in fact, there is no need that its
cause has placed an unimpedible or infallible action; it is enough that is
has placed an action sufficient to produce it, even though it is an impedible
or fallible action, with this [further], that it has in fact not been imped-
ed. The principle of causality is not that “every effect requires a sufficient
and unimpedible cause,” but only that “every effect requires a sufficient and
not impeded cause.” With this, that the action or causality, even though im-
pedible and fallible, has not in fact been impeded, the effect is produced,
and being produced it exists, and existing it is able to be infallibly known
in everything that it has of positive and negative, of entity and of defect.
Therefore, if one is dealing with an infinitely intelligent cause, one whose
action is identified with itself, this cause will know infallibly in its own ac-
tion all that it produces—whether it produces it now infallibly, now fal-
libly—and as many defects or resistances as its action encounters. And,
if the action of this cause is eternal, that is, placed from all eternity, it will
know everything ab aeterno in its proper action. In order to make this more
patent, we will give a common or familiar example.
If I am raising in the air with my arm an object that can offer resis-
tance to my action (for example, a baby), I am perceiving in my arm—
106  second article
that is, in my action or causality—the effect of raising it; in the same arm,
I perceive that the baby is kicking out or resisting my action; in the same
arm, I perceive that the baby has dropped from or has escaped from my
arm. Whether my action be fallible or infallible in producing its effect—
that is, whether it can in fact be resisted or not—this in no way prevents
me from perceiving in it the effect that it has in fact caused, and the resis-
tance that is offered to my action, up to the final failure of my action.
God is present, then, by His immensity, that is, by His essence (that
is, by His causality or actual action) to all things; and, in this causality, He
is now perceiving and knowing all His effects, [and] all the resistances, all
the failures or sins of each thing.
Well then: what we call eternity or the eternal decree of God is noth-
ing except an anticipated immensity, an action placed from all eternity. This
eternal action is what we call a decree, and, in this decree, whether fallible
or infallible, irresistible or resistible, God is perceiving all from eternity,
analogously to how this is being actually perceived by His immensity.
It seems to us that some theologians, when they employ or read the
traditional Thomist statement that God knows all the contingent in His
decrees, give to this word “decrees” a potential, not an actual, sense; that is,
they mean by decree, without adverting to it, a potential power, or a pow-
er to cause, which we call the divine omnipotence, and not the actual cau-
sality, which we customarily call the divine will and which signifies, in this
case, the actual volition of God.
Were God to see future contingents in the potential power of His de-
crees, and not in His actual causation—were He to see in His will and not
in His volition—this would be a knowledge not post decretum, but ante
decretum; this would be a knowledge in possible or future decrees, not
in actual decrees; this would be a true scientia media, disguised with the
name of decrees.
Dealing with future contingents, every Thomist who does not stop on
the surface of formulas, but penetrates to the bottom the true thought of
Saint Thomas and his school, ought to sustain not that God knows things,
knowing what He would decree or will decree, but He knows them know-
ing what He actually decrees, what now is decreed, knowing His actual de-
cree, His actual action. This action of God, this actual causation—not po-
tential—by being infinitely intimate to being, insofar as being, which is its
proper and formal effect, is present to everything; and, by being infinitely
 A Reply to Some Objections   107

intelligent, it sees everything; and, by being eternal, it foresees everything:

whether positive or negative, whether good or defective, whether infalli-
bly or fallibly caused: absolutely everything.
With the aim of not mixing unnecessary and accidental questions
with this present question, we have conceded that God knows the things
infallibly caused by Him by the sole way of causality, or, that is, in the de-
cree insofar as decree. Nevertheless, the opinion of the Salmanticenses
against other Thomists—that even this is not knowable to God except by
way of eternal causality, that is, in the decrees insofar as eternal decrees—is
well known to all. “To the confirmation of which it should be said that fu-
ture contingents do not have determined truth in their duration, in which
they are not present, except by means of a decree, and not as considered in
whatever way, but as measured by presentiality” (Salmanticenses, De scientia
Dei, disp. 8, number 144, edit. Palmé, t. I, pp. 573–74). As one can see, we
are not even going as far as the Salmanticenses.
Let us suppose for a minute that God were not to have caused nor
worked from all eternity, but that He were to have worked now, that is, in
the same moment of time in which the effect is produced. His operative
power being identical to His essence, by His same essence God would be
in all that caused by Him, and, being infinitely intelligent, He would com-
prehend all the caused, and, comprehending all the caused, He would
comprehend all the defects that are in the caused.
If we see a statue and this does not have a head, we see that the stat-
ue is without a head; that is, we see not only what it has, but also, seeing all
that is has, we see ipso facto all that it does not have, all that it lacks, all its
defects. Since God works from all eternity, He sees from all eternity all that
He would see were He to have worked in time. He sees by causing; He
sees by means of actual causality or by means of the decree: but He would
not see it from all eternity, that is, before the effect exists in time, if the de-
cree had not been eternal. One requires a decree, then, so that a contin-
gent thing is able to be seen by God, and an eternal decree or that it be
eternity itself, in order that it be seen before what occurs, which is what we
call in our human and deficient language to be foreseen.
God knows, therefore, all the contingent by way of causality or de-
cree; this is the eternal foundation of Thomism against Molinism. But
He knows by way of eternal causality or of eternal decree, and without this
there can be no explanation of His foreknowledge, at least in respect to that
108  second article
caused fallibly and respecting the defects or sins that are in that caused by
God without being caused by God, but rather being caused or being un-
caused by the creature.
When, then, a Thomist disputes concerning the means in which
God foresees the future contingents, distinguish well between these three
means: a) the eternity without decrees; b) the decrees without eternity;
c) the eternal decrees.
The first way is not enough to see or foresee anything.
The second is probably also not enough to foresee anything, and this
is the opinion of the Salmanticenses; but it is certain, at least for us, that it
is not enough to foresee the future contingents of general or fallible provi-
dence, and it is evident that it is not enough to foresee sin.
The third is enough for everything.
One will understand well, then, whatever Saint Thomas and the Tho-
mists say concerning divine causality as a means of knowing, if one notes
the difference that exists between the following three propositions:
a) God knows everything by causing it, or insofar as He causes it.
b) God knows everything by the way of causality.
c) God knows everything by the sole way of causality.
The first proposition is false, because God knows sins and He does
not cause them.
The second is true, because in knowing—as He knows—everything
that He causes, He knows with this everything that there is in the caused, as
are all sins or defects.
The third is ambiguous. If, by it, one means that without the way of di-
vine causality nothing contingent is knowable by God, it is true, because,
without divine causality, nothing can be known by means of eternity. But
if, by it, one means that causality alone, prescinding from its character of
being eternal, is enough to know, or better said, is enough to foresee every-
thing, it is false.
By this, one sees, finally, that causality and eternity in God not are two
distinct or independent ways of knowing, but that the second is noth-
ing more than a characteristic or mode without which the first would not
be sufficient to know or foresee all things. For this reason, instead of say-
ing that God sees something by way of eternity, one ought better to say in
Thomism that He sees by way of eternal causality or of eternal decree. If,
 A Reply to Some Objections   109

at the beginning of resolving this objection on the infallibility of the di-

vine knowledge, we were intent on strongly accentuating the difference
between causality and eternity, this was not done in order to constitute
with them two ways or two means of knowing in God, but uniquely in or-
der that it well stand out what is proper to the eternal causality of God in-
sofar as it is causality and what is proper to it insofar as it is the selfsame
eternity of God.

SIXT H OBJECT ION : On Whether It Can Happen That, with

Equal Grace, One Has More or Less than the Other
Would not Fr. Marín-Sola judge that, of two sinners equally tempted and
equally aided by God through the impulse of sufficient grace, it happened that one
freely chose the act of prayer and the other not or that one placed an impediment
to this and the other did not?
But then this is opposed to the doctrine of D. Thomas in Matt. XXV, 15:
“Whoever endeavors more [“conatur plus”] receives more grace, but that one en-
deavors more requires a greater cause.”
Also in the Epistle to the Ephesians IV, 7: “For who discerns you [“te discer-
nit”]? What do you have that you have not received (1 Cor. IV, 7)?”

REPLY—We will proceed in parts. First, we will examine the [sup-

position] of two sinners equally tempted and with “equal grace.” Then, we
will consider the “greater conato” of which Saint Thomas speaks. We will
take a look, finally, at the other [text], “quis te discernit,” of Saint Thomas
and of Saint Paul.
Responding directly, then, to the first part of the objection, we will
say that, to resolve it, one need do no more than to pay attention to what
we have already indicated repeatedly in our article (pp. 27, 30, 40 [26, 29,
40]). From our doctrine, it is not necessarily deduced, and there is no
need that it be, that one with equal grace freely has the act of prayer that
the other does not. Rather, it is enough to deduce, and this we concede,
that, with equal grace—and, as a result, with an equal beginning of the
act—one freely places an impediment and the other does not place an im-
pediment to the course of the act, which is the same as saying to the course
of the grace.
Well then: as the one who places an impediment paralyzes the course
of the grace and does not receive further grace, and the one who does not
110  second article
place an impediment continues receiving greater grace, it always results
that—as the Thomists say—the act of prayer or any other easy supernat-
ural act whatsoever, in the one who places it, is placed with greater grace
than that received by the one who does not place it.
If, to this, one adds that the grace by which one begins the act is com-
monly called prevenient or operating, and the grace with which one con-
tinues the course of the act is called aiding [“adjuvante”] or cooperating,
we will hold that the act of prayer supposes greater aiding or cooperating
grace, even though no greater initial or prevenient grace, in the one who
prays than in the one who does not pray.
With this, not only is the Thomistic doctrine saved, but it is also har-
monized well with the system of Saint Liguori and other middle systems.
When the Thomists say that a greater grace is needed in the one who has
the act of prayer (or any other supernatural act, however easy it may be)
than in the one who does not, they are right, because a greater aiding or
cooperating grace is needed. But when the middle systems, in order to
save grace that is truly sufficient, say that to have or not to have the act of
prayer or another easy thing, the sufficient grace given to all is enough—
that an equal grace is enough—they also have reason, because they are
speaking of an equal prevenient grace, but affirming expressly with Saint
Liguori that a greater aiding or cooperating grace is required in the one
who has whatever supernatural act than in the one who does not.32

32. “We assert that a grace is conceded to all by which, no others being given [“nulla alia
accedente”], they can actually pray, and, by praying, acquire for themselves all remaining aids
for fulfilling the law and attaining salvation. Nevertheless, these words, “no others being given,”
by no means signify that this common grace works in such a way that we pray without the aid
of helping [“adjuvantis”] grace; because, for whatever act of piety, beyond [“praeter”] exciting
grace, there is without doubt required helping [“adjuvans”] or cooperating grace; but, by these
words [“nulla alia accedente”] is to be understood that the common grace effects single acts,
so that they can actually pray without a new prevenient grace that predetermines the will of man
either morally or physically actually to carry out the prayer” (Saint Liguori, De magno orationis
medio, p. 2, chap. 4, no. 1, Opera dogmatica, t. 2, p. 702, edit. Walter, Rome, 1903).
In our judgment, this opuscula of Saint Liguori, entitled The Great Way of Prayer, although
brief in extent, is of no less value for the questions of predestination and grace than the volu-
minous folios of whichever great theologian of the seventeenth or eighteenth century. We will
add, and one time more, even knowing that with this we will please neither some Liguorians
nor some Thomists, that, prescinding from accidental formulas and questions of pure detail,
there is nothing in the entire system of Saint Liguori on these questions that differs substantially
from the Thomist system.
 A Reply to Some Objections   111

In summary, then, and as we already indicate in our first article (p.

30 [69]), the Thomistic doctrine concerning sufficient grace, such as we
ourselves understand it, can be summarized in the following four propo-
sitions:
a) Sufficient grace, which God ordinarily gives to all, is enough to
begin the imperfect supernatural act and especially the act of prayer. For
this beginning, every sufficient grace is infallibly efficacious. This beginning
includes, at a minimum, the “cogitatio salutaris” and the “simplex volitio
salutaris” [“the thought of salvation and the simple will of salvation”], or,
that is, the first motus ad orandum.
b) This same grace is enough not to place an impediment to the
course or the continuation of these motus [“motions”] in easy stretches
and for a little time. Insofar as this placing or not placing of an impedi-
ment, this grace is fallibly efficacious, which is to say nothing more than
that the will can in fact place or not place an impediment to these divine
motus [“motions”], extinguishing them or not extinguishing them, as
Saint Thomas says.
c) It can occur, then, with the same grace—that is, with this same suf-
ficient grace that is infallibly efficacious for the beginning of the act, or
to have the imperfect motus, but that is fallibly efficacious as regards the
placing or not placing of one or more impediments, in easy things and for
a little time—that one places an impediment and another does not. In
this sense, and only in this sense, one can say that, with the same grace, one
can have more than another; that is, one can have less impediments than
the other or have none, when it concerns short and easy stretches, as Saint
Thomas says.
d) To one who does not place an impediment to the prevenient or
operating or sufficient grace already received, God gives greater aiding or
cooperating grace, because God never interrupts the course of the same
grace, if man does not interrupt it, and, with this greater grace, one has a
greater continuation of the act than the other.

The Greater or Less Effort [“Conato”] Toward Grace

From what was just said, it is implied that, according to our doctrine
and according to the fundamental principles of Thomism, one ought to
concede that—in order not to place an impediment to the course of suffi-
cient grace in imperfect acts and for a little time—one does not need an
112  second article
infallibly efficacious grace, and that it can thus occur that one places an
impediment and another not, or that one places more or another less im-
pediments, to the same sufficient grace.
To this, the second part of the objection refers, founded in this text
of Saint Thomas: “Qui plus conatur, plus habet de gratia; sed quod plus
conetur, indiget altiori causa.” Does it not appear that Saint Thomas here
clearly says the contrary of what we have just come to affirm?

REPLY —No, neither this text says the contrary, nor, in our judgment,
does it have the sense that some theologians have believed.
In the first place, the greater or lesser effort (“conato”) toward grace
is one thing and the greater or less impediment to it is another. The proof
that these two things are radically distinct, and that it is most danger-
ous to confuse them, is that, with nature alone, there is no effort at all to-
ward grace, and to say the opposite would be semi-Pelagian; on the other
hand, with nature alone (and, therefore, with much more reason with na-
ture premoved by sufficient grace), one can place or not place some impedi-
ments to grace, and even place no impediment, in easy things and for a little
time, even when dealing with fallen nature. This is the current doctrine of
Thomism. When Saint Thomas with frequency says that “non ponere im-
pedimentum ex gratia procedit,” [“not to place an impediment proceeds
from grace”], the phrase “non ponere” [“not to place”] means to say “nul-
lum ponere” [“to place none”] or “nunquam” [“never”] to place; that is, to
avoid all of them and avoid them always, as we already said in our first ar-
ticle (p. 25 [24]), confirming it with the express doctrine of Billuart. So,
then, the text of Saint Thomas cited in the objection with which we are
dealing speaks of the conato [“effort”] for grace, and our doctrine speaks
of the impediment or non-impediment to grace.
Although this solution is enough to solve the objection, we will add,
in the second place, that, even limiting ourselves to the conato and leav-
ing the impedimento in peace, the text of the Holy Doctor does not have
the sense that some seek to give it and that other Thomists before have al-
ready sought to give it.
In effect, it is one thing to require (“indiget”) a greater grace in order
to have a greater effort, and this is what Saint Thomas affirms, and it is a
very distinct thing that one is not able, with a greater grace, to have a lesser
effort, which is what our objector appears to want to conclude. Just as it
 A Reply to Some Objections   113

is one thing to require much health in order to work much, which is true,
and another very distinct thing that one cannot, with much health, work
less or not at all, which is false.
Saint Thomas, in this text, pretends no more than to refute the Pela-
gians, who were teaching that the effort for grace could come from nature.
For this, Saint Thomas establishes, here, as in many other places in his
works, that the effort for grace cannot come from nature, but from grace,
and that, therefore, every degree of effort supposes an equivalent or great-
er, but never a lesser, degree of grace. To affirm this, one needs to affirm,
and Saint Thomas affirms, that a greater effort requires a greater grace; but
one need not affirm, nor does he affirm, that with a greater grace one can-
not have a lesser effort. By only not using a greater grace, or placing an im-
pediment to it, one can have a lesser effort, as is evident.
What has happened is that our objector is thinking of a grace that is
infallibly efficacious for everything, without remarking that our doctrine,
as opposed to that to which he is objecting, speaks of a sufficient grace.
If one had no more grace than grace that was infallibly efficacious for ev-
erything, it is clear that one could not have in fact any effort of a lesser
degree than the grace, because one cannot in fact place an impediment
to any perfectly efficacious grace. By this, one sees how the interpretation
that our objector gives to this text of Saint Thomas supposes tacitly that
there are no more actual graces or graces of action than graces infallibly ef-
ficacious. This is in a perfectly logical line with that other [view] that there
are no more divine decrees than the infallible. This would be, in our judg-
ment, the negation of truly sufficient grace, insofar as it is distinct from ef-
ficacious grace.
From this, one deduces the essential difference between these two
propositions: first—“With an equal grace, two (or one of them) can have
a greater effort than the degree of grace received”; second—“With an equal
grace received by two, one of them can have a lesser effort than that had
by the other.” The first is false, because it would suppose a degree of effort
greater than the grade of grace. The second is true, because it only supposes
a degree of effort less than the grade of grace. The first is what Saint Thom-
as denies, and it is also what we deny. The second is what we affirm, be-
cause it is deduced from our doctrine; but this Saint Thomas in no way
denies, nor is he the least occupied with it in the text objected against us,
although some Thomists have denied it or appear to have denied it.
114  second article
There is more. Saint Thomas brings forth this text while commenting
on the parable of the five, two, and one talents, according to which the one
who receives five talents negotiates for another five, the one who receives
two talents negotiates for another two, and the one who receives one tal-
ent negotiates for nothing, by his own fault (In Mattheum, chap. 25, edit.
Vives, t. 19, p. 595). Comparing the talents with graces, as Saint Thomas
compares them, he could deduce and he does deduce that one never ne-
gotiates with grace for a greater effort than the degree of grace, just as the ser-
vants never negotiate for a greater number of talents than they receive. But
he could not deduce nor did he deduce, as our friend appears to attribute
to him, that, with a greater or equal grace one cannot have less effort, because
the one who receives one talent negotiates for nothing; and, in this case,
Saint Thomas would have failed to apply the parable.
Some Thomists, in employing this text in the sense of our objector, do
not appear to have paid attention to the word “indiget” that Saint Thom-
as uses. Paying attention to this word, one sees that the clear sense of the
phrase “Qui plus conatur, indiget altiori causa” is the following: “Qui plus
conatur, indiget altiori causa quam illa qua INDIGET qui minus conatur”
[“he who endeavors more requires a greater cause than the one that is RE-
QUIRED for the one who endeavors less”]. That is, the one who puts in
more effort REQUIRES more grace than that which the one who puts in less
effort REQUIRES. This is always verified, even in the case in which, with an
equal grace of five degrees, one has five degrees and the other has three de-
grees of effort. The one who has more, that is five degrees, requires more
grace to have them than the one who has three requires, because, to have five
degrees of effort, one always requires five degrees of grace, whereas, to have
three degrees of effort, one requires no more than three degrees of grace.
The final conclusion, then, of this text of Saint Thomas is that, of the
two who have equal grace that is sufficient, one of these cannot have great-
er effort than the grace that he has, nor, therefore, more than the grace that
the other has, because we suppose that they are equal. But he can have
greater effort than the grace that the other requires to have less effort, or, also,
he is able to have greater effort than the effort that the other has, if this other,
by his fault or by the impediment that he places, does not use all the grace
that he has, as he can in fact not have used it, when one deals with sufficient
grace. The having use of the grace comes from the grace itself; but the not
having use or the abuse comes from our own fault, of which we, and not
 A Reply to Some Objections   115

God, are the first cause. “Insurgunt motus (ex gratia) et ipse (homo) illos
extinguit” (Saint Thomas).
Let us suppose that God gave to two men equal graces, and that, after
receiving them, or during whatever moment of the course of those graces,
one falls asleep, while the other commits a sin. With this alone, we will have
the result that, with equal grace, one man has sinned and diminished the ef-
fect of the grace, and the other has not; unless one were to say that even, in
order to fall asleep, one had need of a greater grace or a special providence.33
Only by admitting that, for all the good, and for all the lesser evil, there
is always need of a special providence, whether one calls it “special as re-
gards the nature” or one disguises it with the name “special as regards the
person,” could one logically say that, with equal motions or equal graces,
one cannot have less than another. But to admit this would be, in our judg-
ment, to reduce to zero the general or antecedent will of God and general
providence and sufficient or general grace; it would be simply the theory of
a dead or rotten nature, which, for all good—the least that it would be—
requires a special motion. It would be, in our judgment, to give a pretext
to the Molinists to accuse us Thomists of having affinities with Jansenism.

The “Quis te Discernit” of Saint Paul

We pass now to the third and final part of the objection. We have end-
ed by conceding that, of those who have received equal sufficient grace,
one of them can have more or less than the other, by not placing an imped-

33. Natural or necessary agents are determined to one effect, and not another, by their own
specific form. For this reason, although they require physical premotion in order to operate, as
does every created being, they do not require this premotion for the specification [of their op-
eration], but only for its exercise. Fire, without special premotion, and only with general premo-
tion, will always have the effect of burning, and not of cooling.
That which, for necessary agents, is their specific form is, for intelligent or free beings, the
final practical judgment, with which the “consilium” or deliberation terminates. Once this final
practical judgment is formed, they [free beings] are already specified, and they only require an
executive motion or “quoad exercitium,” which, save by a miracle, God always gives, and, save
by special providence, He gives always in conformity with this final judgment.
Since, in our nature, although weak, practical reason is not dead, and it can form, with only
general premotion or sufficient grace, a morally good final practical judgment, when it concerns
easy things, it follows that, once this practical judgment has been formed by the intellect, the
will still requires a physical premotion to consent, but only a premotion “quoad exercitium” or
general, not insofar as its specification, or special.
116  second article
iment as the other places it, although neither of the two can have more
than the degree of grace received.
Against this claim that, with equal grace, one can have more than the
other, our objector places the celebrated text of Saint Paul, so many times
utilized by Saint Augustine and by Saint Thomas against the Pelagians, as
also by the Augustinians and Thomists against the Molinists: “Quis te dis-
cernit? Quid habes quod non accepisti?” At first view, it appears that, in
the given case, man, and not grace, would be the one who discerned him-
self by himself. If the graces of both are equal and the effects are unequal,
it clearly seems that this disequality of the effect cannot come from grace,
and, therefore, it would come from man, who, in this case, would discern
himself by himself. That which is common to good and evil, as Saint Au-
gustine repeats so many times, cannot discern the good from the evil. To
admit, then, that, with a common or equal grace one can have more good
than another appears to admit that the discernment does not come from
grace, but from man; this will go against Saint Paul, Saint Augustine, and
Saint Thomas. This is the sense of the objection, and no one can say that
we are trying to deny its force.

REPLY—Before all, do not forget that, when we speak of the case of

equal graces, we are speaking specifically of equal sufficient graces and not
infallibly efficacious graces.
Therefore, we are not speaking of the ineffable grace of final persever-
ance, which is an infallibly efficacious grace. One who has it (conceded
by the pure mercy of God and never obtainable by any merit, but being
able to be solicited [“impetrable”] purely by the way of prayer) infallibly
will persevere, and the one who does not have it infallibly will not perse-
vere. Thus, we concede that it can never happen that, of two who have the
gift of final perseverance, or of two who have [this] equal grace, one perse-
veres to the end and the other does not. This is the eternal fundament of the
Thomists and Augustinians against Molinism; this is the substance of Tho-
mism concerning predestination.
Neither are we dealing with the grace of justification, which is also an
infallibly efficacious grace. One who has the infusion of sanctifying grace,
in whatever degree that he has it, infallibly is justified, and the one who
does not have it infallibly is not. As justification is that which is called con-
version, we also admit that it can never happen that, with equal grace, one
converts and the other does not.
 A Reply to Some Objections   117

Neither, finally, is it a question now of any other infallibly efficacious

grace, as is required in fallen nature for all perfect or difficult acts, wheth-
er they are acts of the natural or of the supernatural order, anterior to jus-
tification. The one who has this infallibly efficacious grace infallibly does
such acts, and the one who does not have it infallibly does not. Thus, we
concede that, with grace, never does one have these acts that require infal-
libly efficacious grace while the other does not.
In the three given cases, of final perseverance, conversion, and difficult
acts, the impossibility of having either more or less derives from its re-
quiring infallibly efficacious grace: from which, it is not possible that one
place in fact any impediment to grace, and, no impediment being possible,
it is not possible to have less than that to which God moves [the person].
The present question, then, refers exclusively to the premotions or
graces that admit an impediment in fact by the creature; to the fallible pre-
motions or graces; to the graces called sufficient. In these, we say and we
repeat that it can happen, and it happens with frequency, that, with equal
grace, initial or prevenient, one can place or not place an impediment, and
this is enough for the one who places an impediment to interrupt or di-
minish the course of grace and, in consequence, to have less; while the
one who does not place an impediment does not interrupt the course
of grace, and, in this sense, has more than the other. As one can see, all of
the more and all of the less that can exist in our doctrine, of two who have
equal grace, consists in that one places and the other does not place an im-
pediment to grace. Let us go on, then, to see that this is in no way opposes
the celebrated text of Saint Paul.
In effect, the discernment between Peter and John, for example, can
come from two sources: first, that Peter does something good that John
does not do; second, that John does something evil that Peter does not do.
Either of these two ways is enough to establish a discernment between
two persons. The first is a true discernment, but a discernment in good;
the second is also a true discernment, but in evil.
The discernment of which Saint Paul speaks consists in having some-
thing not received of God. “Quid te discernit? Quid habes quod non accepis-
ti?” And since one cannot receive anything from God except the good, the
discernment of which Saint Paul speaks is the discernment in good, and
consists in admitting in the creature some good not received from God or
more good than he received from God. Saint Paul does not speak, therefore,
of the discernment in evil; that is, the discernment of the other for hav-
118  second article
ing some evil that the other does not have, [which evil] does not proceed
from God, but from the one who has it.
Well then: and this is the fundamental principle that no Thomist
should ever forget, man can never be the first cause of good. He cannot be,
therefore, the cause of any good without being premoved, nor have more
good than that to which God premoves him. He cannot, in consequence,
discern himself from the other in good.
But he can be and is (and this is frequently forgotten) the first cause
of evil, and has less good than that to which God moves him, when one
deals, as we are dealing, with impedible motions or sufficient graces. He
can, as a consequence, discern himself from the other as regards evil, or
insofar as having less good.
To the question, then, as to one who discerns Peter from John, when,
with equal sufficient grace, Peter has done more than John, the reply is
clear: God discerns Peter, who has done more good, from John, because,
although he may have done more than John, he has not done more than God
premoved him to do. By contrast, John, who has done less, distinguishes
himself from Peter, because not only does he have less than Peter, but he
also has less than that to which God premoved him.
Peter, in having more than John, does not discern himself with re-
spect to God, because he has done neither more nor less than that to which
God premoved him. Were one to deal with a simultaneous concurrence,
indifferent for acting or not acting, for doing good or evil, one would have
much more than that to which God moved one. In this case, one would
have something not received from God and would discern oneself in good.
In this sense, the text of Saint Paul is of overwhelming value against Mo-
linists, and our objector is thinking of this sense, which the Thomists
commonly give it. But the reader should note that our doctrine deals not
with a simultaneous concurrence that is indifferent to act or not to act or
to do good or to do evil, but of a premotion to act and to act well; and, of
a premotion not to act or to do good in general, but to do this good; in a
word, it is a premotion exactly as most determined as infallibly efficacious
grace, with no more difference than being fallible, that is impedible, in its
course by the creature, as we have already pointed out in our previous ar-
ticle (p. 28 [27–28]).
If Peter, then, is moved by God most determinately to act well, he is
thus moved not to place an impediment to the divine motion, because
 A Reply to Some Objections   119

this is precisely in what consists to act well; that is, in acting without plac-
ing an impediment to the action of God, he has all and only that to which
God moves him, in having neither more nor less than that to which God
moves him. If Peter does not place an impediment, he then has in truth
more than John, who does places it; but he has neither more nor less than
that to which God moves him. He thus has nothing that he has not received
from God, since he has nothing save that to which he has been premoved
by God. There is not in Peter, then, a discernment in good, of which Saint
Paul speaks, because he has no good that he has not received from God.
By contrast, John, who did less, who acts badly, who places an impedi-
ment to grace, is the one who discerns himself from Peter, but not with a
discernment in good, of which Saint Paul speaks, but with a discernment
in evil. He received the same motion as Peter, a most determined motion
to act, most determined to act well, most determined not to place an im-
pediment to the motion—whether deflecting it or acting badly when he
ought to act well, or whether paralyzing it and not acting when he ought
to act—without requiring for this any new premotion; because—for
evil, for not acting, for placing an impediment, for having less than that to
which God moves it—the creature is the first cause, and non oportet quae-
rere aliam causam [“it is not necessary to look for another cause”], as Saint
Thomas says (De malo, q. 1, art. 3).
The one, then, who broke the equilibrium, the one who introduced
the disequality, was not, in reality God, nor was it Peter; it was John. God is
the first cause of all the good that Peter and John have, not of the evil that
John has. God, and not the creature, is thus the cause of the discernment
in good; the creature, and not God, is the cause of the discernment in evil.
“Perdition tua ex te Israel: in me tantummodo auxilium tuum” [“your perdi-
tion is from yourself, Israel; your aid of whatever sort is in me”].
Between two objects, equally white, one can introduce difference or dis-
cernment as regards whiteness in two different ways: first, if one of them in-
creases its whiteness; second, if the other loses or decreases it, while the first
continues the same, without having either more or less whiteness than it re-
ceived from the painter. In the first case, the discernment would come from
what increased the whiteness. But in the second, and this is the case with
which we are dealing, the discernment has been introduced by the one that
loses or decreases it. Well then, all the whiteness of the good and of being
comes from God, and man can never by himself increase it without God,
120  second article
nor can he have more than that which God gave him. But he can by him-
self lose it or decrease it or have less that than which God gave him, not only
without God, but even against the antecedent, but true, will of God.34

34. Conscience many times tells us that we have been unfaithful to the grace of God: that
is, that we have not done, with it, all that we could and should in fact have done. If, de facto, we
could do neither more nor less with grace, there would never be infidelity to grace nor remorse
of conscience.
Let any reader think it over, then, and he will at once see that, if man with frequency has
less than he could in fact have had with the grace which he has, it is evident that, with the same
grace—that is, with this same grace to which the man was unfaithful—this same man or anoth-
er man could in fact not have been unfaithful, having more: that is, by not placing an impedi-
ment to it.
Some appear to divide all grace into two groups, in this manner: a) graces to which one
infallibly never resists; b) graces to which one always infallibly resists. This division has much
likeness to the Jansenist.
In our judgment, the division is this: a) graces to which infallibly one never resists; b) grac-
es to which, fallibly, one sometimes resists and at other times not.
The first are infallibly efficacious graces. The second are fallibly efficacious or sufficient
graces.
That which Thomists say—that with sufficient grace alone, or without efficacious grace,
one infallibly resists—is true, but understanding it in the sense that one resists it infallibly soon-
er or later, in the short run or in the long run; because, without infallibly efficacious grace, man
cannot remain for much time (diu, as Saint Thomas says) without sinning: that is, without plac-
ing an impediment. But it is not true, nor does it have the sense, that one at once infallibly resists,
that is, in easy acts and that last for a short time (“ad aliquod tempus,” as Saint Thomas says) or,
that is, when one is not confronted with grave temptations, but light ones. Without any super-
natural grace—and thus much more with sufficient grace, which is a true grace—man need not
place an impediment to God or to His grace for some time. This is the express doctrine of Saint
Thomas, and so Billuart expressly recognized it, when treating or modifying the opinion that he
had defended before, as we already said in our previous article (Saint Thomas, Contra gentes, III,
160; Billuart, De gratia, diss. 3, a. 7, obj. 3, instabis §7).
And more. In this same place that we have just cited, Billuart even goes a little further in
his phrases than we ourselves go, with the following words: “Moreover, after the first actual grace,
all grace is given according to merit, at least de congruo. Nevertheless, neither does the grace so
given on account of merit cease to be grace, because in its root it is ever gratuitous.” As one can
see, Billuart affirms that, with the first actual grace (or, that is, with the sufficient grace that God
never denies to anyone), all the other graces are MERITABLE, at least de congruo. We ourselves
are content with saying that, with the first actual grace, all the other graces are IMPETRABLE from
the mercy of God, by the merits of His Divine Son. We suppose that Billuart here understands
by “congruity,” a congruity widely or improperly said, which is impetration, as Billuart explains
in dealing with final perseverance (De gratia, diss. 8, art. 5, paragraph 5). But, in that same place,
Billuart himself points out that, on this, some authors, even Thomists, dissent [“dissentiunt aucto-
res etiam thomistae”], there being Thomists who mean merit de congruo in the proper and strict
sense.
 A Reply to Some Objections   121

The one who objects that the difference of effects cannot come from
equal causes is correct, while the causes remain equal. But he does not
take into consideration that the cause of the act is not only the grace, as
first cause, but also the will: as second cause in good and as unique and first
cause in evil. Were the cause of the act exclusively the grace, never with
equal graces would one have unequal acts. Even were grace and the will,
and not grace alone, the causes of the act, so long as the will could never
fail—that is, were it not defectible—neither could it ever be the case that
one have unequal effects with equal graces; because the creature can never
have more good than that to which God moves it, nor, in this hypothesis
of not being defectible, could it either in fact have less. Not having either
more or less, there could not be discernment either in good or in evil.
But two causes entering into the production of the act—the grace
and the will—and this later being defectible, the causes will be equal, and
the effect will also be equal, while the will of one of [two persons] does
not fail. But, if the will of one of [two persons] does fail, the causal equal-
ity is broken, and it is not surprising that there is an inequality in the effect.
Thus, the cause of the inequality or discernment in the effect, but a dis-
cernment in evil, is the defectible will, not grace.
This same will perhaps be seen even more clearly by only paying atten-
tion to the difference that exists between the following two propositions:
first, “God is the cause of the lesser good that John has”; second, “God is the
cause that the good that John has is less than that which Peter has.”
Of these two propositions, the first is true, but the second is false.
God is the cause of all the good, and thus of the least good that John has.
But He is not the first cause of this good being less than that of Peter, but
the first and unique cause of this is John. And as this alone, of his good be-
ing less, is enough for John to discern himself from Peter, it follows that it
is John, and not God, who discerns himself in this from Peter, but it is a
discernment in evil, in the less good.
In effect, God was so far from wanting John to have less good than
Peter that, on the contrary, in decreeing to give him the equal motion or
grace as Peter, He wanted him to have as much good as Peter had, with
an antecedent will, but a true will. But to the decree or action of God,
first cause in good, the defective liberty of John was mixed—first cause
in evil—and from this first cause of defect, and not from God, it follows
that John discerns himself from Peter insofar as having less, insofar as evil.
122  second article
Between the first cause of good and the lesser effect of John, a connec-
tion has been established: but this connection has its root not in God, but
in the defect of the creature. To want to put in God the beginning or root
that a good motion sometimes results in an evil action, or that, with equal
motions, one had less good than another, would lead, in our opinion, to
having God be the initiator or the first cause of evil. “Perditio tua ex te, Isra-
el; in me tantummodo auxilium tuum.”
We are confident that, in this solution given to the objection of the
“quis te discernit,” there is enough to satisfy every Thomist, but only so
long as there is not riveted in his imagination the versatile grace of Moli-
na, against which we Thomists wield with triumph this text of Saint Paul.
So long as one pays attention well to the fact that the solution concerns a
most determined motion to act, and most determined to act well, and thus
a true physical premotion toward the honest good, although a fallible prede-
termination, that is, impedible by the creature; so long as one further pays
attention to the fact that the creature cannot have more, but it can have
less, than that to which God moves or predetermines, and that in this it is
the first cause, one will see with clarity that, with equal premotions or suf-
ficient graces, there can be unequal effects, without any opposition to the
“quid te discernit” of Saint Paul.
Everything depends, then, on accepting or not accepting this idea of
fallible premotions, an idea already accepted by distinguished Thomists.
One who accepts this idea will see with clarity that the solutions given by
us to the objections of our friend are conclusive. One who will not accept
it, perhaps will not accept our solutions; but we believe that he will nev-
er arrive either at explaining the possibility of sin or the responsibility of
man in it.35

35. Sin does not begin, nor can it ever begin, by a premotion infallibly connected with it. In
the doctrine of Saint Thomas, this is for us obviousness itself. How, then, does sin begin? In our
judgment, the doctrine of Saint Thomas is the following:
The sinful act, or what the creature will convert into the sinful act, begins with a true pre-
motion, but a premotion to the honest good, or good “secundum rationem”; there then follows
the impediment placed freely by the creature, and that it in fact could not have placed; and this
impediment, which consists in ceasing to consider the reason of honesty, defectively (“defective”)
modifies the course of the divine motion, converting this from a moral motion (= motion cum
respectu ad rationem) into a non-moral motion (= motion sine respectu ad rationem). This mo-
tion, as modified defectively by the creature, is called “premotion to the material of evil” and
since, as modified, it is posterior in nature to the impediment that modifies it, some Thomists
 A Reply to Some Objections   123

The idea of physical premotions or physical predeterminations for

every act has been and is the basis for the strength of Thomism; but the
idea of certain Thomists that there are no more than premotions and pre-
determinations that are infallible has been the origin of all the special dif-
ficulties and obscurities that Thomism presents in the line of evil; it has
been and is the pretext of all the accusations of Calvinism and Jansen-
ism that have been so unjustly thrown at it; it has been and is the reason
why all the theologians and systems that reject the scientia media have not
come to Thomism, and the cause, at the same time, why certain theolo-
gians who have already accepted premotion do not reject the scientia me-
dia; it has been and is, in our judgment, an idea opposed to all the princi-
ples of Saint Thomas.
Excuse us for saying that, in all this, we have exposed only our own
opinion, with the sincerity and loyalty with which we believe a Thomist
should always proceed, leaving to our objector and every Thomist the
freedom to opine as seems best to him.

call it, and it is well called, a post-motion to the material of evil, because that which has preceded
it is always a premotion to the honest good.
The creature, then, and not God, is the one who makes a premotion to the honest good be
converted into a premotion to the material of sin. This the creature has through only its actual
defect of not considering reason. For this, a creature does not require a new premotion of God,
because, in this, the creature is the first cause.
The creature, in this case, modifies the divine action, modifying the course of the effect; but
it modifies it DEFECTIVELY, not doing, or having less than that to which God moves it.
To this defective modification of the divine motion by the creature corresponds, in paral-
lel, that other objective modification of the divine decrees or of the divine knowledge by the crea-
ture of which Billuart speaks, as we have seen in our first article (p. 18 [16–17]). And thus is also
explained the connection, whether one calls it causal or logical, between the divine motion and
defect or sin, begun in the creature, and not in God, as the Thomists confess, as we saw (p. 49
[49 and n. 15]). This is evident for all who penetrate well the fundamental principle that the first
cause (= beginning of the thing) of the defect or sin is the creature, and not God.
If some Thomist is alarmed by this idea that the creature modifies the motion of God,
even defectively, and prefers to say that it is God who modifies His own motion, this accidental
change of formula matters little to us, so long as one adds, as the Thomists commonly add, that
God never modifies it in a defective sense, save supposing the previous impediment placed to
this motion by a creature. A Thomist ought never to forget, in all the line of evil, that principle al-
ready cited by Saint Thomas: “Horum autem duorum talis est ordo, quod secundum (negation
of grace in the supernatural order or motion to the honest good in the natural order) non est nisi
ex suppositione primi (the impediment of the creature).”
124  second article

FINA L OB JECT ION : Taken from a Text of Saint Augustine

The final objection of our friend is expressed by a text of Augustine,
utilized by Father Guillermin, in the following paragraph:
But it is not only to save the infallible certitude of the knowledge of God that
we conclude to the intervention of efficacious grace by itself in the effective production
of EVERY good act; it is also for a more direct and more immediate reason. . . . S. Au-
gustine says (Confes., l. 2, c. 7): “gratiae tuae deputo . . . quaecumque non feci mala” [“I
attribute to your grace . . . whatever evil I did not do”] (Revue Thomiste, 1903, pp. 23–
24).36

REPLY —We wonder as much at Father Guillermin as at our objector

for citing this text of Saint Augustine to prove the necessity of efficacious
grace, when it does not even serve to prove the necessity of grace, prop-
erly so called. Baius and Jansen precisely base themselves on this text to
say that, without grace, man can do no good act nor avoid any evil act, and
there is hardly any Catholic theologian who has not treated this text as
an objection against Catholic doctrine, and who does not explain in what
sense one must understand it and that Saint Augustine understood it.
In effect, if by grace Saint Augustine had understood, in this text,
grace properly so-called or supernatural grace, this would be opposed to
the doctrine of the Church. And more: even if he had intended only a nat-
ural benefit, but a special one, this would be against the common doctrine
of theologians.
So, then, Saint Augustine here calls grace any divine benefit, whether
it be supernatural or natural, whether it be of special or of general provi-
dence, because every good comes gratuitously from the abundant hand
of God.
Every truly Christian soul, when he sees a blind neighbor, and con-
siders that he himself has sight, or when he has been freed from a catas-
trophe, in which many others who were along with him have perished,
gives thanks [“gracias”] to God for this [for being saved], without this

36. “Mais ce n’est pas seulement pour sauver la certitude infallible de la science de Dieu
que nous concluons à l’intervention de la grâce efficace par elle-même dans la production de TOUT
act bon; c’est encore pour une autre raison plus directe et plus immediate . . . S. Augustin dit
(Confes., l. 2, c. 7): ‘gratiae tuae deputo . . . quaecumque non feci mala’” (Revue Thomiste, 1903, pp.
23–24).
 A Reply to Some Objections   125

signifying that, for not being blind or for not perishing in a catastrophe,
a supernatural grace is always necessary, nor even a special providence,
since, for these things, ordinarily general providence is enough or can be
enough, unless anyone were to suppose that general providence served for
nothing but evil.
In the same way, to have imperfect good acts of the natural order, a
general providence or premotion of the natural order is enough, and, to
have imperfect acts of the supernatural order, the general providence or
premotion of the supernatural order, which is the so-called sufficient
grace, is enough. One and the other are divine benefits, but they do not
need to be special benefits. For one and the other, as for everything, one
ought to give thanks [“gracias”] to God, from whom all good comes; but
not always to God as a special benefactor, but as a general benefactor.
To require special premotion for every natural good act, or perfect-
ly efficacious or special grace for every good supernatural act, even for
not placing an impediment to sufficient grace in easy things and for little
time, is implicitly to confess that neither nature in the natural order nor
sufficient grace in the supernatural order serve for any good, as little as it
might be; that they serve only for evil. Let us listen to John of St. Thomas:
Grace is not always special, when the temptation occurring is not grave, for this per-
tains to GENERAL providence. In truth, what Augustine says—that whatever sin he
did not do he attributes to God’s grace—is most true speaking about grace, as ab-
stracted from special and general; for sometimes a special grace ought to be reckoned
so that man does not sin, as in a more grave temptation; and in truth sometimes a
GENERAL grace, when a temptation does not press in that way. . . . Nor ought we to
glory in any victory over temptation, because at least a GENERAL aid is required
for all victory, for which reason that saying of the apostle “Quid habes quod non ac-
cepisti?” is verified in everything, that is for special or for GENERAL grace. ( John of
St. Thomas, Cursus theol., de gratia, disp. 19, art. 3, nums. 27 and 29, edit. Vives, t. VI,
pp. 745–46)
For this reason, Saint Thomas had already observed that the saying of
Saint Augustine, in which he attributes to the grace of God all the evils or
sins that he has not done, is meant only of fallen nature. And Saint Thom-
as had also expressly added that, even dealing with fallen nature, one has
need of grace to avoid sins for a long time, but not to avoid them for any
time: “By virtue of this state (corrupt nature), Augustine reckons what-
ever evil he did not do to grace [“Augustinus divinae gratiae deputat quae-
126  second article
cumque mala non fecit”], but this state derives from previous fault” (De
malo, q. 3, art. 1 ad 9). “Now this statement of ours, that it is within the
power of free will not to place an impediment to grace, is applicable to those
persons who possess the power of integral nature. But if, through a pre-
ceding disorder, one swerves towards evil, it will not at all be within one’s
power to place no impediment to grace; for, although at any definite mo-
ment one may be able to refrain from a particular act of sin according to
one’s own power, still, if left to oneself FOR LONG [“DIU”] , one falls into
sin, by which one places an impediment to grace” (Contra gentes, III, 160).
One should say exactly the same thing that he says of infallibly effica-
cious grace in the supernatural order of special motion in the natural order,
whether one calls it special as regards the nature or as regards the person.
There is no need of it in all states and for all acts, but only in some states
or only at least for the continuation of some acts: that is, for difficult or
lengthy acts called perfect acts.
In our judgment, the equivocation of some theologians, even Tho-
mists, has been in wanting to give a universal or ontological extension to
many Augustinian formulas concerning infallibly efficacious grace, which
are only applicable to determined states or acts of the creature, and, there-
fore, which have only a restricted or moral value. Physical premotion, re-
spectively natural or supernatural, is necessary for all states and for all
their acts, and in this the Molinists were mistaken. But special or perfectly
efficacious premotion is not necessary for all these states, or at least for all
these acts, but only for perfect acts. This infallibly efficacious premotion
or grace is necessary for the beginning of every act; but it is not always nec-
essary to not place an impediment in easy things to the continuation of
the act. If man does not place an impediment to the continuation of this di-
vine beginning, doing with it what he can and praying with it for what he
cannot, God, by His mercy and by the merits of His Son, continues giv-
ing greater graces to do that which, with the beginning or sufficient grace
alone, it would be impossible to do. “The free will is admonished by pre-
cept that it ask for the gift of God. One would, however, be admonished
entirely without fruit, unless one first received SOME LOVE (the beginning
of the act, effect of general or sufficient grace, which is infallibly efficacious
for this), so that one asks that it be added to, so that one may fulfill what
has been commanded” (Augustine, De gratia et libero arbitrio, chap. 18).
“Charity that is small in the beginning of temptation is able to resist temp-
 A Reply to Some Objections   127

tation, because by the end of temptation it has become great, since God AL-
WAYS bestows aid for one who fights” [“Deus pugnanti auxilium SEMPER ad-
ministret”] (D. Thomas, III Sent., dist. 31, q. 1. art. 3).
You insist: the privation of efficacious grace PRECEDES guilt and the resistance to
sufficient grace. . . . I RESPOND BY ABSOLUTELY DENYING THE ANTECEDENT,
whose falsity via Thomas we have already asserted and that we now prove more, be-
cause ON THIS TURNS THE CARDINAL DIFFICULTY. It is true, therefore, that the
sin of man, or to resist sufficient grace, and to be deprived of efficacious grace are
simultaneous in time; but, in order and by nature, sin or resistance to grace PRE-
CEDES, and the privation of efficacious grace follows. Putting aside what we have
put forward from Saint Thomas, attend to what the Holy Doctor says in [Sentences]
I, dist. 40, q. 4, art. 2: “Man lacks grace, on account of two things: for, both because
this man does not want to receive it and because God does not instill it in him or does
not want to instill it in him. Of these two, the order is such that THE SECOND DOES
NOT EXIST SAVE ON SUPPOSITION OF THE FIRST . . . it is hard to see what could
be more clearly or more expressly said. Therefore, as I said, although these two occur
at the same time—that man sin and that God denies grace to him—this is still con-
stituted according to this order: that God NEVER denies grace unless a man does
not want to receive it. . . . One could say that the privation of grace precedes sin in
the order of material causality, granted that sin precedes it in the order of formal
causality, and certain Thomists use this distinction. Nevertheless, the matter is more
openly [“planius”] explained if, making no reference to these mutual antecedents, it
is SIMPLY DENIED, as we have done here, that the privation of grace precedes guilt
and is its cause. (Billuart, De Deo uno, dis. 6, art. 4 §3)
In our judgment, Billuart is right to teach that the cardinal point of
the Thomist system in this matter is to affirm that the privation of effica-
cious grace or the paralyzation of the course of sufficient grace is posteri-
or to the impediment or sin placed by man: in hoc vertitur cardo difficulta-
tis. He* also is right to teach that this is the clear and express teaching of
Saint Thomas: “quo quid clarius et expresius dici potest non apparet.” He is
right, finally, to affirm that this doctrine of Saint Thomas ought not to be
minimized or obscured with the distinction of a priority and posterity of
diverse kinds of causality, but it ought to be proclaimed openly and with-
out distinctions: “Res tamen planius explicatur si, nulla habita ratione hu-

*editor’s note: This corrects the original, which mistakenly had the plural (“tienen”)
rather than the singular.
128  second article
jus mutuae antecessionis, simpliciter negetur, ut hucusque fecimus, priva-
tionem gratiae praecedere culpam.”
We cherish the hope that certain Thomists who now view our articles
as an innovation, and almost as a corruption, of the Thomist system, will
one day see—or that future Thomists will come to see—that these arti-
cles are nothing but a logical development of this fundamental doctrine so
clearly affirmed both by Saint Thomas and by Billuart.

CONCLUSION: Three Great Theological Lines

We are going now to terminate this long article, although not without
inviting our objector that we both leave this narrow and entangled scho-
lastic wood of objections and answers, of replies and counter-replies, that
sometimes have the effect of letting each contender display his dialectical
ingenuity more or less, and even to the point of frequently lacking cour-
tesy, but almost always ending by boring readers and leaving the question
as obscure as it was. For this reason, we are going—we repeat—to invite
our objector to place ourselves for a moment upon the elevated heights
that dominate the diverse theological systems below and view from these
heights the respective regions in which his objections and our answers
move.
In the multiple questions referring to the relations or harmony be-
tween the divine motion and the cooperation of created freedom, there
can be no more than three lines or trajectories of thought, which are
marked by the three following propositions:
First. The created liberty, under the divine motion, can in fact have
not only less, but also more, good than that to which God moves it.
Second. It can in fact have neither more, nor less.
Third. It cannot have more, but it can in fact have less.
Of these three lines or propositions, the first is the way constructed
exclusively with an indifferent concurrence (or versatile grace) and with the
scientia media. The second is that constructed with premotions and decrees,
but all infallible. The third is constructed not only with infallible decrees
and premotions, which are required for all the parts [“trozos”] in that way
pertaining to special providence, but also with fallible premotions and de-
crees, which are required and are enough to construct the parts in that
way pertaining to general providence.
 A Reply to Some Objections   129

The first way appears to make the creature the first cause of some
good; the second appears to make God the first cause, not only of good,
but also of evil; the third makes God the first cause of all good, but the
creature the first cause of all evil.
The first is the line of Molinism; the second is completely to the po-
lar extreme of Molinism, but it does not appear to be very far removed
from Calvinism and Jansenism; the third is as much removed from Mo-
linism as from Calvinism and Jansenism and it is to where, in our judg-
ment, converge all the principles and developments of Thomism.
Saint Thomas, following the doctrine and the true mind of Saint Au-
gustine, much more than the apparent rigor of his phrases, at times rigid,
brings together all of his principles into the third line. In order to attack
Molina and defend himself from him, the immortal Bañez and the first
anti-Molinist Dominicans at times advanced some positions toward the
second line, by being more radically opposed to Molinism; but the con-
demnations of Baius, Quesnel, and Jansen, and more than anything the
force of logic, made them—from the time of the great Lemos—begin al-
ready to think of abandoning little by little these excessively advanced po-
sitions and of establishing themselves in the third line, the truly Thomis-
tic line.
Of these three lines of thought, so clearly characterized and so clear-
ly different among themselves, the first is—as we said and as our objec-
tor will have no difficulty in conceding—the Molinist line. For a Thomist
there only remain, then, the second and third lines. Well then, which of
these does our objector select? Because it is indubitable that one must
commit oneself from the beginning to one or the other, if one does not
want later—when entering into each question or particular difficulty and
seeking to deal with it or resolve it—to employ contradictory principles
and antagonistic solutions, proceeding from different lines, as succeeded
in happening, in our judgment, to some Thomists of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries.
For our part, we declare that we place ourselves, without distinctions
or dodges, in the third line: that is, we admit that the creature can never have
MORE entity or good than that to which God moves it; but that he can in
fact have or not have LESS, and that this happens in all the motions of gen-
eral providence and of sufficient grace. Three reasons, among very many
others, moved—not to say forced—us to decide frankly and resolutely for
130  second article
this third way. First, we are persuaded that this is the true mind of Saint
Thomas. Second, it appears evident to us that, without this, there can be no
truly sufficient grace, nor can there be any satisfactory explanation of how
God would not be truly responsible for sin, or how man can be responsible
for it. Third, because this line appears to us to constitute the true result of,
or the true center of convergence of, a multitude of the solutions already
given and a multitude of the indications already made by Thomists of the
first rank, which any Thomist whatsoever can follow without any fear.
If our objector places himself, on the contrary, in the second line, in
the line that does not admit more decrees than the infallible nor more pre-
motions than the infallible or not in fact impedible by the creature, we advise
him that it seems to us a useless waste of time for him to place objections
to us and for us to take the time to resolve them, because neither to us do
his objections appear to be as important as they evidently appear to be for
him, nor do our solutions, as conclusive as they appear to be for us, have
any value for him, as always happens when two are moving in two different
lines of thought. For this, we are only going to repeat that which, foresee-
ing what has occurred, we already indicated in the note of our first article
(p. 51, note 52 [last para. of n. 17]): that is, if our doctrine—or, that is, the
third way—does not please any Thomist, we would appreciate it if, before
combating it with objections (which are never lacking in all things), he be-
gin by giving a solution, at least plausible, to the apparent contradiction
that, with such vigor and clarity, Franzelin threw at Gonet and Billuart. This
contradiction comes precisely from not following the same way in a straight
or logical line; that is, it is to have employed the third way in referring to suf-
ficient grace and sin, because, without this it was impossible to give a solu-
tion to the unjust accusations of [accepting] Jansenism and Calvinism, and
then to run away to the second way, the way of only infallible decrees, in order
to resolve the question of the infallibility of the divine knowledge. So, then,
if our objector rejects the third way, holding that there are no more premo-
tions nor decrees that the infallible or unimpedible in fact by the creature, let
him begin by giving a solution, at least plausible, to the aforesaid apparent
contradiction, but while sustaining, at the same time, the solutions of Billu-
art and Gonet and innumerable other Thomists of the first rank on the an-
tecedent will of God, on general providence, on sufficient grace and on the
motion to the material of sin, which any Thomist can follow.
And, while he is involved in this task, which is essential for a Tho-
 A Reply to Some Objections   131

mist, let him concede to us the freedom to follow these classical Thomists
in the matters indicated, and to attempt a modification (or, better said, an
amplification) of the solution that some gave to the point regarding the
“infallibility of the divine knowledge”—the unique point that remains to
be settled in the doctrine of these distinguished Thomists—in order that
all of Thomism be logically collected into the third line, at an equal dis-
tance from Calvinism and Jansenism as from Molinism.
We have no fear that our articles will lead to any evil for the Thomist
system. If we fail in our task, as any man can fail, the evil that will follow
from this will be exclusively for us, because we write in our own name,
and not in the name of anyone else, assuming sole responsibility to our-
selves. If, on the other hand, as we hope to God, we get it right, the good
of this will redound entirely to the Angelic Doctor and to his glorious and
faithful Thomist school, to which we owe whatever we know and value in
these matters, and for whose greater glory, insofar as it depends on us, we
have embarked upon this series of articles.

T HE CONCOR DI A OF M OL INA A N D THE

T HOMIST IC EDIF ICE OF BA Ñ E Z
Molina ordered all of his celebrated Concordia to defend two funda-
mental theses: predestination “post praevisa merita” in the order of inten-
tion and versatile grace in the order of execution. In order to give stability
to these two theological theses, he founded all his Concordia on two phil-
osophical columns that are completely weak and clearly anti-Thomistic:
the scientia media in the order of intention and simultaneous concurrence
in the order of execution.
The edifice of defense and attack that Bañez and his first anti-
Molinist companions opposed to the Concordia of Molina was an edi-
fice of eternal consistency, constructed entirely of blocks from the most
pure Thomistic quarry. Its finality was to defend two fundamental theses:
predestination ante praevisa merita and efficacious grace ab intrinseco. Its
two philosophical bases were the divine decrees against the scientia media
and physical premotion against the simultaneous concurrence. Thus, to
the four Molinist theses, these Thomists opposed four contrary and com-
pletely irreducible theses. This irreducibility still endures and will endure
forever, because it is never possible to harmonize the contradictory.
132  second article
Into this cement, in our judgment there figured four theses that Bañez
and his companions added to the Thomistic edifice, without taking them
from the pure doctrine of Saint Thomas: first, that the antecedent will of
God is not a will of beneplacito and that, as a result, it is not formally, but
only eminently, found in God; second, that all divine providence is infalli-
ble as regards everything, even as regards the execution of a particular end;
third, that every divine premotion is infallible or irresistible in fact, as re-
gards everything; fourth, that every divine decree is infallible, as regards ev-
erything. We just alluded to these four theses, when speaking of some po-
sitions excessively advanced toward the second line by modern Thomists.
These four theses, perfectly connected amongst themselves in a de-
scending order, make Thomism, it is true, more radically opposed to Mo-
linism; but they were not necessary, in reality, either to defend the Tho-
mistic edifice or to combat Molinism. On the other hand, they make the
defense of a truly sufficient grace and the responsibility of man in sin truly
difficult to defend, and they could therefore give a pretext for the calum-
nious accusations of Jansenism and Calvinism.
Lemos and González already modified the first thesis, without in
any way weakening the eternal Thomistic edifice by this. González, Ser-
ra, Godoy, Gonet, Goudin, Nicolaï, Billuart and other Thomists modified
the second and already gave indications on the modifiablility of the third,
without the Thomist edifice suffering anything at all by this. We ordered
our articles to collect all these indications on the modification of the third
proposition, and also to extend them logically to the fourth, showing how,
with this, the Thomistic edifice turns out to be more beautiful and attrac-
tive, without anyone needing to fear that the Thomistic edifice—erected
by Bañez from the pure Thomistic quarry and defended with such brio
and success by the incomparable athlete Lemos in the celebrated Congre-
gationes de auxiliis—suffers the least danger from this.
Thus, if any Thomist, in reading the ten theses formulated in our first
article, has come to a stop in front of them, being surprised and a little ir-
ritated, fearing that the author has supplanted the traditional Thomistic
edifice with another, let him be completely reassured: enter with us into
its interior and search in all directions, and he will see how he will finally
be persuaded that the edifice is the same, without more change than that
the unuseful cement of its joints has been scraped off and it has been re-
painted, after the artists have polished one of its blocks—that of the di-
 A Reply to Some Objections   133

vine decrees—in order that one may better appreciate the regularity and
the harmony of our traditional family house, of the eternal abode of every
true Thomist.

T HE SUBSTA N T I A L A N D T HE ACCIDE N TA L
IN MODER N T HO M ISM
With this, the reader already has an objective and scientific criterion to
distinguish well, in these questions, between the substantial and the acci-
dental in modern Thomism, that is, in the Thomism posterior to the times
of Bañez and of Molina. The four propositions that, taken from the doc-
trine of Saint Thomas, Bañez established against the four fundaments of
the Concordia of Molina are substantial, as much as regards the conclu-
sions necessarily deduced from them. On the other hand, the first two of
the other four propositions that Bañez added from his own invention (and
that already are rejected by the majority of posterior Thomists) are acci-
dental, and thus as much are the ramifications or conclusions deduced
from these two propositions—as the third and fourth propositions are
deduced—and as are also deduced other secondary propositions that ap-
pear in the diverse treatises of this vast matter of the de auxiliis. To distin-
guish well between the substantial and the accidental is the first and most
fundamental function of every truly scientific spirit, because science—
in distinction from the passion of a school—takes an interest only in the
substantial or in the “quod quid est” of things.
Our glorious ancestors, conscious of the right and of the duty to
move to eliminate from modern Thomism certain accidental things, did
not believe that this diminished in the least the substance of the Thomist
system, nor that they were discrediting the glory of Bañez, of Lemos, or of
Alvarez, just because they rejected certain theses admitted by these emi-
nent Thomists. Let us listen to Gonet and to Montalban:
Is the antecedent will to save all men in God formally and properly or only eminent-
ly and metaphorically? We raise this question against recent theologians who teach
that it is licit, against Jansen, that God wants all men to be saved by an antecedent
will; however, they assert that this will is not found in God properly and formally,
but only metaphorically and eminently, and that it is not a will of beneplacito, but
only a will of sign. Thus, Guillaume Estius . . . and more probably Bañez, Navarrete,
and Zumel adhere to this. . . . I say, therefore, that the antecedent will by which God
134  second article
wills all men to be saved is properly and formally, and not only metaphorically or
eminently, to be found in God. (Gonet, De voluntate Dei, disp. 4, art. 3, edit. Vives,
t. 2, p. 72)
Our conclusion (against Bañez, Alvarez, and Lemos): It is not the nature [“ratio”]
of providence that it be infallible as regards the execution of a particular end. . . . This
D. Thomas openly teaches and explains by example. And this same opinion is more
commonly defended by theologians, as much domestic as foreign. ( John of Montal-
bán, Ord. Praed., Disputationes theologicae in primam partem Divi Thomae, t. 2, p.
309, Salamanca, 1731)
He who reads our articles with a serene soul and without the agita-
tions of a school, [which are] improper to science, will finally see how
much of what we appear to introduce into the Thomist system, with a
certain aspect of novelty, reduces purely and simply to eliminating some
ramifications that, coming from those two accidental theses of Bañez, Al-
varez, or Lemos, still remain in modern Thomism, and that give it that as-
pect of rigidity that so alarms many theologians who are otherwise anti-
Molinists, and makes them draw back from it.
When one attempts, then, to accuse a theologian of being “hardly a
Thomist,” this appears to us to lack the scientific spirit and is proper to an
empirical or quantitative spirit that limits itself to accumulating texts in
order to show (“mostrar”) that the contrary has been taught by many or
by all modern Thomists, when the principal problem and that which one
ought to make clear (“mostrar”) before everything else is whether it con-
cerns a substantial matter or only an accidental and secondary matter for
Thomism.
Systems or schools, the same as any living organism, if they do not
wish to perish, equally require two things: a) unity and permanence, as
regards the substantial; b) progress and renewal, as regards the accidental.
He who, with the pretext, apparently agreeable, of conserving the UNI-
TY, seeks to prevent a doctrinal organism from renewing itself and expel-
ling from itself accidental excretions, not only impedes the PROGRESS of
the organism, but will end up by holding back and paralyzing its life, signs
that are precursors to anemia, senility, and death.
University of Fribourg (Switzerland)*

*editor’s note: The following “Corrections” were made to his second article:
 A Reply to Some Objections   135

Additions*
a) For greater clarity, one can condense into a scholastic formula all of
our reply to the fifth objection (pp. 42–52 [97–109]), in the following sev-
en propositions:
1a In order for a thing to be known infallibly in time, it is enough that
this thing really or de facto exist in time.
2a So, then: in order for a thing to exist really or de facto in time, it is
not necessary that it have been caused with an infallible or unimpedible
causality, but it is enough that it have been caused with a causality that is
fallible or de facto impedible, as long as it has not in fact been impeded.
3a Therefore, for a thing to be known infallibly in time, it is not neces-
sary that it have been caused with an infallible or unimpedible causality,
but it is enough that it have been caused with a causality that is fallible or
impedible, but not in fact impeded.
4a I subsume; so, then: the divine causality is what we call the divine
decree.
5a Therefore, in order for a thing to exist really or de facto in time, and
thus to be known infallibly in time, an infallible or unimpedible decree is
not required, but a fallible or impedible decree is enough, as long as it has
not in fact been impeded.
6a I subsume again; so, then: that which is enough for a thing to exist

Page 15 [67], lines 7 and 8 [7 and 8], say previsto. Read: puesto.
Page 16 [68], line 2 [6], says actum. Read: actum supernaturale.
Page 16 [68], line 9 [14], says ningún acto. Read: ningún acto sobrenatural.
Page 19 [72], line 16 [1], says en gracia. Read: con gracia.
Page 44 [100], line 5 [3], says resista. Read: resiste.
Page 50 [107], line 23 [14], says disp. 9, #6, . . . 575–76. Read: disp. 8, #144, . . . 573–74.
Page 64 [123], line 19 [sic: 11] [10], says rechazen. Read: no rechazen.
Page 72 [132], line 38 [18], says Lemos y Alvarez. Read: Lemos y González.
These did not make the printed version of the text. They were included after it went to
print. At least one printed version of it exists (in the Dominican archives of the Province of
the Holy Rosary, in Avila), and it may have been included with offprints. I include the correc-
tions in Spanish so that anyone who uses the original can see the basis for the translation given,
which incorporates these corrections. The pagination in the translated texts is given in brackets.
*editor’s note: What was just said of “Corrections” is also true of these Additions,
save that I have translated them here. He appears to have deliberately italicized the author, as
opposed to his work, in these additions (since these seem principally ordered to establishing
authorities for his positions); his practice has been respected here.
136  second article
in time is also enough for it to be present to eternity and thus to be known in-
fallibly by God from all eternity.
7a Therefore, in order for a thing to be known infallibly by God from
all eternity, an infallible or unimpedible decree is not necessary, but a fal-
lible or impedible decree is enough, but [one] in fact that is not impeded.
Let our objector serenely examine these seven propositions and he
will see that they are all profoundly Thomistic. With these, the objection
is fully resolved as to how, with fallible or impedible decrees, as long as
these are eternal, God can have an infallible foreknowledge. By only plac-
ing divine decrees for every future contingent, and infallible decrees for fu-
ture contingents of special providence—to which pertain predestination
and final perseverance—Thomism is radically distinguished from Mo-
linism. By only placing fallible decrees for future contingents of general
providence—the only one in which sin is possible—Thomism is radical-
ly distinguished from Calvinism and Jansenism. By placing them both to-
gether, one saves all the fundamental theses of Thomism concerning pre-
destination and grace—that is, all the positions referring to the line of
good—and, at the same time, all or virtually all of the objections that Tho-
mism encounters in the line of evil disappear.
b) In resolving this fifth objection, of which we have just spoken, we
indicated (p. 50 [107]) that, regarding the question as to whether eternity
was necessary for the infallibility of the divine knowledge, we ourselves
were not even going as far as the Salmanticenses. With equal, and even
greater reason,37 we could have said that we were not going as far as the
“Prince of Thomists,” Capreolus, who said:
First conclusion: What is contingent, as being future, cannot be known infallibly, but
[only] according as it is in the present. This very conclusion, Saint Thomas himself
proves. . . . And thus that this future act (of the will) be known certainly, it is neces-
sary that it be seen in itself, and not only as it has being in its cause. (Capreolus, De-
fensiones . . . , in III Sent., dist. 38, q. 1)
Although the true sense of Capreolus will not give rise to doubt for
any Thomist, I will do more than confirm it with the following paragraph
of Alvarez:
37. I say “with greater reason,” because Capreolus does not require an infallible decree, as do
the Salmanticenses, for a thing to be able to be present to eternity. But both agree in that, without
a physical presence in eternity, future contingents are not infallibly knowable by God, and this is
the only thing that interests us here. Ferrariensis is of the same opinion (Contra gentes I, 67).
 A Reply to Some Objections   137

Does God certainly and infallibly know all future contingents in His decree or in the
predetermination of His divine will?—Regarding this difficulty, there are as many
opinions as there are heads, but there are three principal ones, to which all the oth-
ers that circle around them can be reduced. The first opinion is of Capreolus . . . who
believes the entire reason by virtue of which God certainly knows future contingents
is the actual presence they have in eternity; so much so that, whether possible or not,
were this presentiality to be removed, the knowledge of God regarding these futures
could not be certain and infallible. (Alvarez, De auxilis, disp. 10, no. 1, Rome, 1610,
p. 89)
And more: Bañez himself—even though he follows the opinion that
the divine decrees alone, even prescinding from eternity, are enough for
the infallibility of the divine knowledge—expressly points out that, on this
question, there is no unanimity among the true disciples of Saint Thomas,
but a diversity of opinions: “Varie enim exponitur ab ejus (D. Thomas) dis-
cipulis,” and, among others, he expressly names Capreolus and Ferrariensis
(Bañez, In I, q. 14, a. 13, Salamanca, 1585, p. 515).
The question, then, of whether the presence of future contingents in
eternity is or is not an absolutely necessary element for the infallibility of
divine knowledge, is a completely free question within Thomism. Well
then, it is evident that, once the presence in eternity is given, it is com-
pletely accidental to the infallibility of divine knowledge whether this pres-
ence results from an infallible decree or a fallible decree. Similarly, once
the presence or the existence of a thing in time is given, it is accidental in
order to know it infallibly whether this has been caused with an infallible
causality or with a fallible or impedible causality.
c) In [regards to] the reply to the sixth objection, whether or not one
can have less effort [conato] with equal grace (p. 52 [109]), we will add the
following texts:
That greater or lesser grace appears in the baptized may occur in two ways. First,
because one receives greater grace in baptism than another, on account of his great-
er devotion, as stated above. Second, because, although they receive equal grace, they
do not make an equal use of it, but one applies himself to avance more therein, but
another by his negligence falls short of the grace of God [“gratiae Dei deest”]. (D. Thom-
as, III, q. 69, a. 8 ad 2)
From equal grace sometimes a more fervent motion is elicited and sometimes a lesser
one, according to the cooperation of the free will. (S. Bonaventure, IV Sent., dist. 16,
p. 1, art. 4, q. 1—Opera omnia, Quaracchi, 1889)
138  second article
As evidence of this, know that two causes can be assigned to the quantity of char-
ity: that is, simpliciter and ex suppositione. If one asks the cause simpliciter, this is the
will of God alone, distributing it just as it pleases Him. If one asks the cause on the
supposition that the will of God is ready to infuse grace equally [“aequaliter se haben-
tis ad infussionem gratiae”], then the cause of the quantity is the effort [“conatus”]
or proximate disposition. . . . From which, it is evident [“manifestium est”] that, on the
supposition that God is equally ready to infuse grace, the quantity of grace is found
on the part of the proximate disposition or effort [“conatus”]. (Cajetan, In II-II,
q. 24, art. 3, no. 1)
That there can be no greater effort [“conato”] than the grade of grace
received is a substantive affirmation for Thomism, and it is in this that
Thomism is radically distinguished from Molinism. That there can be less
effort, when it concerns sufficient or fallible graces, is a question freely dis-
cussed within Thomism.
d) Finally, in order that a reader can see that this enlarging or soft-
ening that we ourselves are trying to introduce within modern Thomism
had already been indicated by true Thomists before Lemos, we will copy
on this [point] the following words:
To this last it ought to be pointed out that some of the disciples of Saint Thomas
distinguish two good uses of the free will: the first proceeds from sufficient aid, and
this they say is not to resist the divine vocation, but to consider it and to stand firm
in it. The other is a more perfect good use, and this is the actual conversion to God,
and the act of penance, and this they say is the effect of efficacious grace. That prior
good use, they say, proceeds from a sufficient aid, in respect to which it has its effica-
cy. This doctrine of theirs is, however, one that suffers great difficulties. (Lemos, Pano-
plia, bk. 4, pt. 2, treat. 3, chpt. 4, no. 41)
The great difficulties that Lemos opposes to this conception of cer-
tain Thomists are the same that our objector has opposed to our own
self, and we have replied to these in our article. Among these “disciples of
Divus Thomas” from whom Lemos separates himself is indubitably Fer-
rariensis, who expresses himself thus:
As evidence of this, it ought to be considered that we require two aids by which we
attain beatitude: that is, habitual grace and the divine motion—as much intrinsic as
extrinsic—through which we are directed to accomplish good and are stirred up to
prepare for [habitual] grace. The first aid God does not give to all, absolutely speak-
ing, after they have sinned, but He concedes it to all who have well prepared through
 New Observations   139

the divine motion. The second aid, however (the sufficient grace or premotion) He ex-
tends to all, and, as regards it, God is absent to no one, since there is no one who is
not moved by Him to the good and to prepare for grace, according to that passage
in Apoc. III: “Behold I stand at the gate and knock” [“Ecce sto ad ostium et pulso”].
But because divine providence (general providence) governs and moves each one
according to the condition of his nature (that is, not only freely, but defectibly), one is
able to follow or not to follow this divine motion, and thus it is that some, following
this divine motion, prepare for grace; whereas others, not following it, do not prepare
for grace, but rather place a greater impediment to it by sinning.” (Ferrariensis, Contra
gentes, III, 159)
That this power or faculty to follow or not to follow the divine mo-
tion—that is, to place or not to place an impediment to this by sin—is lim-
ited in fallen nature to imperfect acts (or, that is, to easy things and for lit-
tle time), Ferrariensis expresses immediately after by the following words:
Secondly, one says that, granted that one can avoid each single sin, and avoid all sins
for a time, nevertheless, one is not able to do this always or for a long time [“sem-
per aut diu”]; and thus one cannot avoid all sins united together. (loc. cit., chpt. 160)
That our objector follows, or leaves off following, this doctrine of Ca-
preolus, of Ferrariensis, of many other older Thomists, and of ourselves, is
a secondary matter. The important thing is that he recognize that this doc-
trine, to whose exposition and enlargement our articles are ordered, is a
question—as Lemos acknowledges—discussed within Thomism; that is,
among the true disciples of Saint Thomas.

Third Article: New Observations concerning the

Thomist System regarding the Divine Motion
Published as “Nuevas observaciones acerca del sistema tomista sobre la moción div-
ina,” La Ciencia Tomista 33, no. 99 (May–June 1926): 321–97.

Our two previous articles38 have produced some commotion among

Thomists. Some write praising us; others place objections to us; there are
also others who limit themselves to having some questions or to asking us
for some clarifications.

38. See La Ciencia Tomista, January 1926, p. 1 [sic: the first page is actually 5, not 1].
140  third article
Among these objections and questions, we have run across some
that we believe deserve to be attended to by us, because they refer to four
points that we had intended to deal with more amply, according to the
plan of our first article. Here are the four points.
First, the famous distinction between easy and difficult works. Sec-
ond, the beginning and progress of the divine motion in the line of good,
as much natural as supernatural. Third, the beginning and progress of the
divine motion in the line of evil. Fourth, the laws or the order of the di-
vine motions.
We are going to occupy ourselves in this article with these four points.

I. T HE DIST INCT ION BET W EEN E A S Y A N D

DIFFICULT ACT S IN T HE T HO M I ST S YSTE M
Some Thomists of our day believe that this distinction between easy
and difficult acts, in these questions of predestination and of grace, has
been introduced by Saint Liguori and by the defenders of the system
called “Sorbonic.” They believe that this distinction is proper to casuists,
who view these questions from the moral or practical point of view, and
that it is improper to metaphysicians or Thomist theologians, who always
have founded their theory on an ontological point of view. They believe, fi-
nally, that to introduce such a distinction in the Thomist system, far from
contributing to the dissipation or the diminution of the difficulties proper
to Thomism, contributes only to augmenting them, accumulating to the
difficulties of Thomism those of Molinism.
We are going to see that this distinction is not a distinction intro-
duced by Saint Liguori, nor by the defenders of the Sorbonic system, but
by Saint Thomas himself and by all the Thomists. We are also going to
see that it is not an ontological distinction applicable to every creature, nor
even to every state of the creature, but a moral or de facto or contingent
distinction, applicable only to man, and only in the state of fallen nature.
We are going, finally, to see that, with this distinction, the difficulties that
ordinarily are thrown in the face of Thomism dissipate or are diminished,
without this incurring for it any of the difficulties proper to Molinism and
to Jansenism: extreme systems and polar opposites, in whose center or
middle Thomism ought always to keep itself.
Two problems that are ontological and another that is not—Some theo-
 New Observations   141

logians do not pay enough attention to the distinction that exists between
the following three problems:
First: Whether every creature, in whatever state one encounters it, re-
quires divine motion for all its actions.
Second: Whether every creature, in whatever state one encounters it,
requires divine grace or a supernatural motion for all supernatural acts.
Third: Whether man in the state of fallen nature requires divine grace
for all his natural morally good acts, or, as it is the custom to formulate
it ordinarily in the manuals of Theology: “Utrum homo lapsus possit sine
gratia velle vel facere aliquod bonum morale.” Any reader will immediately
see that the second and the first problems are ontological problems. They
refer to the actions of every creature and in every state in which one con-
siders it: that is, of the creature insofar as creature. For this reason, neither
Molinists nor Thomists nor any theologian who would know what an on-
tological question is has distinguished nor will he ever distinguish—in ei-
ther of these two problems—between works that are easy or difficult, im-
perfect or perfect, for a short or for a long time.
To the first problem, Thomists and Molinists respond affirmatively;
that is, that for every action, without any distinction between actions, there
is need of a divine motion, with no more difference than that, for the Tho-
mists, this motion ought to be previous, and regarding the will itself or ex
parte subjecti, and for this reason it is called a physical premotion; while,
for the Molinists, it is enough that it be simultaneous or with the will re-
garding the act, not regarding the will itself, and for this it is called a si-
multaneous concurrence.
To the second problem, Thomists and Molinists also respond affirm­
atively; that is, that for every supernatural act, without distinction of any
kind, there is need of a divine grace or supernatural motion. The differ-
ence turns only on whether this grace or supernatural motion is effica-
cious ab intrinseco, as the Thomists want, or ab extrinseco, as the Molinists
claim. But, we repeat again, no one distinguishes in these two problems
between acts that are easy and difficult, perfect or imperfect. The distinc-
tions and disputes in the diverse theological systems in these two prob-
lems refer exclusively to the nature of the motion of God, not to any dis-
tinction between the actions of the creature.
By contrast, as every reader will also note, the third problem is com-
pletely different. It does not refer to every creature, nor even to every state
142  third article
of any creature, but it regards man exclusively, and it regards man not in-
sofar as man, and, thus, in all his states, but only man in a state of fallen
nature; that is, in an accidental state. For this reason, it is not an ontologi-
cal or essential problem, but a contingent or moral [one]; it is a problem
not de jure but de facto; its resolution does not depend on the essence of
human nature nor on the essence of grace, but on the degree of strength that
remains to man in this fallen [state]. If all the strength of an integral or
healthy nature remained to him, he could do all the natural good with­-
out any grace; if none of his strength remained to him, as it does not re-
main to one who dies from a fall, he could do no good without grace; if
some strength remains to him, as it remains in one who is injured from a
fall, but not dead, he could do some good without grace, but not all: he
could do the easy or imperfect [good], but not the difficult or the perfect
[good].
Three great lines or theories regarding “fallen” nature—From this, three
great theories were born regarding what remained to human nature after
the fall incurred by the original sin of its first father, Adam. These three
theories are: a) the theory of healthy nature; b) the theory of dead nature;
c) the theory of sick nature. The first is the Pelagian theory; the second
is the Jansenist and Calvinist theory; the third is the Thomist theory. Each
of these three theories gives, and must give, a distinct reply to the third
of the three said problems; but with the difference that the first two do
not make, nor can they make, any distinction between easy and difficult
works, whereas the third—that is, the Thomist—makes and must make
it, by an absolute necessity, as we are going to see.
In effect: the Pelagians take as their point of departure that fallen
nature is, in respect to the natural honest good, completely integral or
healthy. Being completely healthy, it must be able, without any grace, [to
do] all that is natural, or, that is, all that is proportioned to nature. As a
consequence, the Pelagians affirm, and affirm logically, that in the ques-
tion of what nature can do without grace, it is useless [necio] to distin-
guish between easy and difficult [works]. For a healthy nature, the diffi-
cult is as possible as the easy, insofar as one is dealing with natural acts,
that is, proportioned to nature. The distinction, then, between easy and
difficult works has no sense for a true Pelagian.
Calvinism and Jansenism are positioned at the opposite pole from
Pelagianism on this question. Calvinists and Jansenists take as their point
 New Observations   143

of departure that fallen nature is dead, or completely corrupted, for the

moral good; that it cannot, therefore, by itself—that is, without grace—
do any honest good, neither small nor large; that it is useless, as a conse-
quence, to distinguish in this question between easy and difficult works.
This distinction, then, has no sense for a Calvinist or a Jansenist, any more
than it has for a true Pelagian.
The Thomist system is positioned in the exact middle between Pela-
gians and Jansenists in this matter, as anyone who reads Saint Thomas (I-
II, q. 109) or his commentators will note. For Saint Thomas, fallen nature,
respecting the honest good, is neither healthy nor dead, but sick; there-
fore, it does not have all its strength, but it has some [of it]; it cannot, in
consequence, do those acts that demand all the strength of [its] nature,
and that are called perfect or difficult acts, but it can do those acts that re-
quire only some strength, and which is what one means by imperfect or
easy acts. Respecting a healthy man, as well as a dead man, the distinction
between being able to do the easy and not being able to do the difficult
has no sense; respecting a sick or weak man, this distinction not only has
sense, but it is essential, by virtue of the proportion that must always per-
tain between act and potency, that is, between the action and the strength
needed to execute it. For this reason, for a Jansenist or a Pelagian, the dis-
tinction between works that are easy and difficult, imperfect and perfect,
for a little or for a long time, is simply a useless distinction. For a Thomist,
when it concerns the third problem—that is what fallen nature can or can-
not do with or without grace—it is an essential distinction, most funda-
mental, absolutely necessary. The Thomist who denies this or places it in
doubt manifests, in our judgment, that he has not yet penetrated the Tho-
mist system perfectly to its bottom.
Let us see, then, the conclusions that have resulted in Pelagianism,
Jansenism, and Thomism from these three theories regarding healthy,
dead, and sick [human] nature.
Pelagian principles and conclusions regarding what nature can do without
grace—Departing from the principle that fallen nature is healthy, Pelagius
deduced that, even without grace, it can [do] all the acts of the natural or-
der, as difficult or as perfect as they may be, and that, therefore, nature can
without grace:
144  third article
a) Love God above all things, even concerning a perfect and effica-
cious love, and not only an imperfect or inefficacious one.
b) Keep all the commandments, and not only some.
c) Avoid all grave sins, collectively and always, and not only some, or
disjunctively, or for some time.
d) Conquer all temptations, as much serious as light.
e) Place no impediment or not resist grace, whether in easy or seri-
ous things, for a short or for a long time.
f) Persevere to the end, and not only for some time, in all the said
things, that is, in doing good and avoiding evil.
All of this is perfectly logical. If fallen nature is integral or healthy, it
can do everything. For it, there is no distinction between imperfect and
perfect, easy and difficult, for much or for little time.39
Jansenist principles and conclusions regarding what nature can do with-
out grace—Departing from the principle that fallen nature is dead, Jan-
sen deduced that, without grace, nature could do no morally good act, as
easy or as imperfect as it might be, and that, therefore, it could not, without
grace:
a) Have any love of God, neither if it concerns a perfect or effica-
cious love nor if it concerns an inefficacious or imperfect love.
b) Keep any commandment, neither difficult nor easy.
c) Avoid any sin, neither serious nor light.
d) Conquer any temptation, as light as it might be.
e) Cease from placing any impediment or cease from resisting grace,
whether in serious or light things, for a short or for a long time.
f) Persevere in good to the end, neither persevere for a long nor a
short time, nor persevere for a single moment.
Thomist principles and conclusions regarding what nature can do without
grace—One who wants to know the authentic thought of Saint Thomas
on this matter need do nothing more than open the treatise on grace of
the Holy Doctor (Summa theologica I-II, qq. 109–14; Summa contra gentes,
160; De veritate, q. 24) or whichever of his classical commentators, above
all Cajetan and Ferrariensis. In the first of these questions in the Summa

39. Further on we will see, in the texts that Lemos cites, the relations between Molinism
and Pelagianism in this question of fallen nature.
 New Observations   145

theologica, entitled “de necessitate gratiae,” he will find, as the foundation

of everything, the doctrine that fallen nature is neither healthy nor dead,
but sick. As general conclusions, he will discover that fallen nature does
not have all its strength, but has some strength for the honest good, and,
therefore, it cannot do anything perfect or difficult, but it can do something
imperfect or easy. And, as corollaries or particular conclusions, he will
clearly see affirmed that fallen nature can without grace:
a) Love God with an inefficacious or imperfect love, but not with a
perfect or efficacious love.
b) Keep some commandment, but not all the commandments collec-
tively.
c) Avoid some sin, and even all sin for some time, but not all sin for a
long (“diu”) time.
d) Conquer light temptations, but not serious temptations.
e) Not place an impediment or not resist grace in easy things or for
some time, but not in difficult things, nor even in easy things for a
long time.
f) Persevere for some time in good, but not persevere to the end, nor
even for much time.
All of this, which one will see confirmed in the texts of Saint Thomas
and of his commentators, when we will cite them, is also perfectly logi-
cal. These are the clear consequences of the theory of a sick nature. If it
is not healthy, never by itself or without grace could it have the perfect or
supreme act that is called the efficacious love of God or could it have per-
fect contrition from sin, which are the models of the perfect act. If it is not
dead, it always could have something imperfect or easy, at least the act of
prayer, which is by its nature the minimal type of the imperfect act.
Three great lines or theories regarding sufficient grace in fallen nature—
From what has been said so far, the reader will already have been able to
see clearly that, when it concerns what fallen nature can do without grace,
the distinction between imperfect and perfect acts, easy or difficult, is ab-
surd in the Pelagian and Jansenist systems, but it is essential in the Tho-
mist system. Let us now take another step, and let us go on to see how the
same thing occurs regarding the question of what fallen nature can do with
sufficient grace; that is, let us go on to see how, when it concerns the acts
that one can have with sufficient grace, the distinction between easy and
146  third article
difficult acts still has no sense for the Jansenist and Pelagian systems, but
is essential for the Thomist system.
For this, it is enough to recall two things.
First. That sufficient grace is a true supernatural grace and, therefore,
it in no way diminishes the forces of nature, but rather elevates them transi-
torily to the supernatural level. From which, one deduces that all that na-
ture can do without grace in the natural order, it can also do with sufficient
grace in the supernatural order.
Second. That sufficient grace is a general grace or motion that God
sincerely gives or offers to all—that is, to all who have human nature—
and that, therefore, the premotion of sufficient grace is in the supernatural
order what the premotion that is called a general concurrence is in the nat-
ural order. From which one deduces that what fallen nature cannot do in
the natural order with the general natural concurrence neither can it do in
the supernatural order with sufficient grace, which is nothing other than a
general supernatural concurrence.40
From the application of these two principles, there must logically re-
sult, and there has in fact resulted, three great lines or theories regarding
what one can and cannot do with sufficient grace, theories exactly corre-
sponding to what one can or cannot do with fallen nature alone, without
grace. These three theories are the same as those already given: the Pela-
gian, the Jansenist or Calvinist, and the Thomist.
The Pelagian theory regarding what one can do with sufficient grace—
Given that with sufficient grace one can do in the supernatural order all
that one can do without it in the natural order, Pelagius deduces and ev-
ery Pelagian ought logically to deduce, that with sufficient grace one can
in fact:
a) Love God efficaciously above all things.
b) Keep all the commandments collectively.
c) Avoid all sins.
d) Conquer all temptations.
e) Remove all the impediments or resistances to grace.
f) Persevere in all [good] to the end.

40. “For the general concurrence in the order of grace is called and is a sufficient aid or a grace
that is inciting” [“Nam generalis concursus in ordine gratiae vocatur et est auxilium sufficiens,
seu gratia quatenus excitans est”] (Lemos, Panoplia, bk. 4, pt. 1, treat. 8, no. 137).
 New Observations   147

All of this is perfectly logical. But this is simply equivalent to denying

the necessity and the existence of a grace that is truly efficacious. If suffi-
cient grace is enough for all [things], there is no need of efficacious grace
for anything. If, despite this, the Pelagians sometimes speak of an effica-
cious grace, they mean and they must mean (if they are to be logical) an
efficacious grace that is not really distinct from a sufficient grace or from its
potency; an efficacious grace that is distinguished from the sufficient only
with an accidental or extrinsic distinction. An efficacious grace of pure
name. Pelagianism is at bottom nothing but the negation of a grace of ac-
tion, of an efficacious grace ab intrinseco.
The Jansenist theory regarding what one can do with sufficient grace—
Given that fallen nature remains dead for good, and by itself can have
nothing good, neither could it [have anything] with a general grace, ac-
commodated to nature, which is sufficient grace. To one dead, all tran-
sient motions serve for nothing, as long as they do not give life, that is, as
long as they do not give a perfectly healing grace, which is only efficacious
grace. From which Jansen deduced, and every Jansenist ought logically to
deduce, that, without a perfectly efficacious grace—or, that is, with an im-
perfectly efficacious or sufficient grace—man cannot in fact:
a) Have any love of God, neither perfect nor imperfect.
b) Keep any commandment.
c) Avoid any sin.
d) Conquer any temptation.
e) Remove any impediment to or any resistance to grace.
f) Have any perseverance in any good, neither long, nor short.
All of this is perfectly logical. It is simply equivalent to denying the
existence or the utility of sufficient grace. In reality, if sufficient grace does
not serve in fact to do anything, efficacious grace is necessary for every-
thing. If, despite this, certain Jansenists speak much of sufficient grace, it
is a sufficient grace of pure name, and in this precisely is its substantial dis-
tinction from Thomism. In any case, and this is the principal thing, Jan-
senism, exactly as Pelagianism, does not distinguish, nor can it distin-
guish, between easy and difficult acts when dealing with sufficient grace.
If sufficient grace is not enough in fact for any good act, the distinction
between easy and difficult acts has no sense.
The Thomist theory regarding what one can do with sufficient grace—
148  third article
Given that for Thomism nature is not healthy, nor dead, but sick, and thus
it cannot by itself do anything perfect or difficult, but it can do the im-
perfect and easy; given that, for Thomism, sufficient grace is a true super-
natural grace, which elevates the forces of nature, but without diminish-
ing them in the least, it follows logically that fallen nature, with sufficient
grace, can have in the supernatural order all that, without it, it could have
in the natural order. Therefore, it can in fact:
a) Love God with an inefficacious or imperfect love.
b) Keep some commandment.
c) Avoid some sin, and even all for some time.
d) Conquer light temptations.
e) Not place an impediment or resistance to grace in easy things and
for a little time.
f) Persevere some time in the good; that is, in whichever of the five
matters above.
All of this, as the reader will note, is perfectly logical; but he will also
note that all of this is founded on the distinction between acts that are im-
perfect and perfect, easy and difficult, for a little or for a long time. This
distinction, which does not have any sense either for Jansenism or for Pe-
lagianism, is what substantially distinguishes Thomism from these two sys-
tems, and for this reason is essential to Thomism. Pelagianism is the sys-
tem of healthy nature; the system, therefore, that nature, without grace,
can do everything in the natural order; the system, as a consequence, that,
with sufficient grace, [nature] can do everything in the supernatural [or-
der]; the system, finally, of the negation of all truly efficacious grace. Jan-
senism is the system of dead nature; the system, therefore, that nature,
without grace, can do nothing in the natural order; the system, as a con-
sequence, that, with sufficient grace, [nature] can do nothing in the su-
pernatural order; the system, finally, of the negation of all truly sufficient
grace. The Thomist system must be and is the system of sick nature; the
system, therefore, that nature, without grace, cannot do everything in the
natural order, but can do something; the system, as a consequence, that
nature, with sufficient grace, can do something, but not everything, in the
supernatural order; the only system, finally, that admits a sufficient grace
that is truly sufficient, and an efficacious grace that is truly efficacious.
These are, in outline, the three trajectories, clearly distinct and distin-
 New Observations   149

guished, that Pelagius, Jansen, and Saint Thomas follow (without mean-
ing to imply that these have been followed with perfect logic and regular-
ity by all the Pelagians, [nor] all the Jansenists, nor all the Thomists).
Some reader will not cease to object to one or the other phrase of
what we have finished exposing. But we are confident, at least, and that
will be enough for us, that every reader remains convinced of one sole
thing, to wit: that the distinction—between acts that are imperfect and
perfect, easy and difficult, brief or lengthy [“diuturnos”] in these ques-
tions of fallen nature and of sufficient grace—is not a distinction invented
by the Liguorians or Sorbonists, but is normal and current in Thomism,
although without sense for Pelagianism and Jansenism. Just in case some
would like confirmative texts of this truth, we are going to give them in
abundance in the following paragraph [i.e., section]. A reader who is not
pleased by such a large list of texts or who does not need them may go on
ahead without reading them, because in reality they are not necessary for
a matter that is so clear.

CON FIRMAT IVE T E X T S

We are going, then, to limit ourselves in this paragraph [i.e., section]
to citing clear texts,* as much from Saint Thomas as from his principal
commentators, in which one will see how they make use of this distinc-
tion between works that are easy and difficult, imperfect and perfect, for
a short or a long time, whenever they deal with one of these two ques-
tions: a) what one can do with fallen nature, without grace; b) what one
can do with sufficient or imperfectly efficacious grace, without perfectly ef-
ficacious grace.

SAINT THOMAS—“I answer that man’s nature may be looked at in

two ways: first, in its integrity . . . ; secondly, as it is corrupted in us through
the sin of our first parent. . . . In the state of integrity, as regards the suffi-
ciency of the operative power, man by his natural endowments could

*editor’s note: For ease of reading, I have placed texts taken from the same work in
the same paragraph. The only exceptions are the final texts of Norberto del Prado, which are
cited together from all three volumes of his work. These I have paragraphed according to their
subject matter, again mainly for ease of reading.
150  third article
wish and do the good proportionate to his nature. . . . But in the state of cor-
rupt nature, man falls short of even what he could do by his nature, so that
he is unable to fulfill it [the whole good of this kind] by his own natural
powers. Yet because human nature is not altogether corrupted by sin, so as
to be shorn of every natural good, even in the state of corrupted nature it
can, by virtue of its natural endowments, work some particular good . . . yet
it cannot do all the good natural to it, so as to fall short in nothing; just as
a sick man can of himself make some movements, yet he cannot move per-
fectly with the movements of one in health, unless by the help of medi-
cine he be cured” (I-II, q. 109, a. 2). “And hence we must say that in the
state of perfect nature man did not need the gift of grace added to his nat-
ural endowments in order to love God above all things naturally, although
he needed God’s help to move him to it; but in the state of corrupted na-
ture, man needs, even for this, the help of grace to heal his nature” (ibid., 3).
“Man in the state of perfect nature could fulfill all the commandments of
the law . . . ; but in the state of corrupted nature man cannot fulfill all the
Divine commandments without healing grace” (ibid., 4). “In the state of
perfect nature, man, without habitual grace, could avoid sinning either mor-
tally or venially. . . . In the state of corrupted nature . . . before man’s reason,
wherein is mortal sin, is restored by justifying grace, he can avoid each
mortal sin, and for a time . . . ; but it cannot be that he remains for a long
time without mortal sin” (ibid., 9 [sic: 8]).
“Since this ability to impede or not to impede the reception of divine
grace is within the scope of free choice, not undeservedly is responsibility
for the fault imputed to him who offers an impediment to the reception of
grace. In fact, as far as He is concerned, God is ready to give grace to all;
indeed, He wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the
truth, as is said in 1 Timothy (2:4). But those alone are deprived of grace
who offer an obstacle within themselves to grace; just as, while the sun is
shining on the world, the man who keeps his eyes closed is held responsi-
ble for his fault, if as a result some evil follows, even though he could not
see unless he were provided in advance with light from the sun” (Contra
gentes III, 159). “However, when it was said that it was within the power of
free will not to place an impediment to grace, this applied to those things
that were within the power of integral nature. If, however, by a preceding
inordination (e.g., as in corrupt or infirm nature) it is inclined towards
evil, it will not be in its power to place no impediment altogether to grace;
 New Observations   151

for, even if it is able by its own power to abstain from some particular sin
at any moment, nevertheless, if left to itself for a long time, it will fall into sin,
by which it places an impediment to grace” (ibid., 160).
“It is more difficult to persist in great deeds, yet in little or ordinary
deeds it is difficult . . . from its very continuance, to which perseverance re-
fers” (II-II, q. 137, art. 3 ad 2).
“It ought to be considered, therefore, that one thing can be in act
only, another in potency only, and another can truly be in a middle way, it-
self being between a pure potency and perfect act. Thus, that which is only
in potency is not yet moved; that, however, which is now in perfect act
is not moved, because it has already been moved. Therefore, that which
is moved exists in a middle way between pure potency and perfect act,
so that it is partially in potency and partially in act, as is clear in altera-
tion. . . . So, therefore, an imperfect act (i.e., which is the only thing, as we
will see, that one can have with infirm nature, in the natural order, and
with sufficient grace, in the supernatural order) has the ratio of motion, and
is a potency in comparison to a further act and is an act in comparison to
anything more imperfect. And thus it is neither the potency of what exists
as potency nor the act of what exists as act, but it is an act of the potential”
(Physics, bk. 3, lect. 2, edit. Vives, t. 22, p. 385).

CARDINAL CAJETAN —“Just as a man corporally infirm does not dif-

fer from a healthy man in that the healthy man can do the work of a healthy
man and an infirm man can do no work of a healthy man—for an infirm
man is able to see and hear and smell, just as a healthy man, although
granted he may not be able to walk as a healthy man; but he differs in this,
that a healthy man is able to do all his acts, but an infirm man is not able
to do all his acts, as a healthy man can. And thus, in the text it is said, “An
infirm man is able to be moved by some motion, but he is nevertheless not
able to be moved with the perfect motion of a healthy man”; for since all
is the same as perfect, perfectly and wholly are the same; and thus integral
and corrupt natures do not differ in this, that one is able to perform all his
good acts and the other none, but that one is able to perform all and the
other not all. Therefore, being morally good in all acts is proper to integral
nature, not in each act” (In I-II, q. 109, art. 2, edit. Leonine, no. 18).
“Pay attention, novice, to the order of causality. For first a man places
an obstacle to the divine light and is the meritorious cause that the Sun of
152  third article
justice withdraws its efficacious rays from illumining, to remove the obsta-
cle. This, in the second place, is a punishment, which is proper. Third, from
this penalty, blindness follows” (In I-II, q. 79, art. 3).

SILVESTER FERRARIENSE —“To reply secondly, granted that (man

in a fallen state) can now avoid this individual sin, and for a time avoid all
other sins, yet he cannot do this always or for long; and so he is not able to
avoid all sin collectively” (Contra gentes III, 160, edit. Sestili, Rome, 1900, t.
3, p. 888).

BARTHOLOMEW MEDINA —“Were a man healthy and whole, and in

no way infirm, he could, by his own powers, act morally well for all his
life . . . ; however a man is infirm through sin, and therefore he will not
be able to perform the moral good perfectly and for all his life . . . nor over
much time” (In I-II, q. 109, a. 2, Venice, 1580, p. 577). “Fourth conclusion:
there are certain particular precepts that, because they involve incidental
temptations, are thus difficult, so that a man without the special aid of God
cannot fulfill these precepts. . . . An infirm and sick man cannot accomplish
just what an able and healthy man can; so, if there is some work in particu-
lar that is the least laborious, he will not be able to do it, and certainly not
in a short time: so an infirm man cannot traverse a long road quickly, how-
ever gradually and easily he walks, nor can he traverse a short space most
rapidly. Therefore, in the same way, since free will is infirm, without the
aid of grace it is unable to do either all the honest good for very long, nor
even those things that require much time, and thus pose greater difficulty”
(ibid., art. 4, p. 587).

THOMAS DE LEMOS —“It is proven through that example of a bodily

infirm man, by comparison to the healthy man, that S. Thomas and theo-
logians commonly use in this matter to explain that free will in a healthy
nature is able to effect some good that of itself a lapsed and corrupt na-
ture is not able to effect: not only does it show that man’s lapsed free
will is not able to resist by its own powers all temptations taken togeth-
er at one time, or many more difficult ones over much time; but it is also
evident that it cannot even resist an individual grave and vehement temp-
tation” (Panoplia, bk. 4, pt. 1, treat. 3, no. 82, Leiège 1676, p. 71). “There-
fore, of human goods, S. Thomas nevertheless concedes that easy ones,
 New Observations   153

and other things similar, are attributable to corrupt human nature without
grace, but certainly not the difficult ones” (ibid., bk. 3, pt. 2, treat. 2, no. 77,
p. 29). “Granted, some defend the opinion that a previous and a simultane-
ous concurrence of the same thing are two distinct concurrences; neverthe-
less, this does not seem to be true. . . . I have said that there is one general con-
currence, which is necessary for all causes regarding common and general
operations. For, in the lapsed human will, in order to effect any exception-
al moral work beyond that general concurrence, another special one is re-
quired” (ibid., bk. 3, pt. 1, nos. 262–63, p. 53). “For the general concurrence
in the order of grace is called and is a sufficient aid, or grace insofar as excit-
ing. Nor is it possible to assign any other general concurrence in the order
of grace” (ibid., bk. 3, pt. 1, nos. 262–63, p. 53). “Finally, it ought to be said
that the good moral works, taken objectively, that a lapsed man is able to
do without grace are those that are easy and do not contain difficulty, as is
evidently maintained by Holy Father Augustine and Saint Thomas in the
preceding conclusion” (ibid., bk. 3, pt. 2, treat. 2, no. 85, p. 30). “As we in-
dicated in the first conclusion, the actual middle way is that Catholic truth
that falls between two extremes: avoiding the errors of the Pelagians, who
say that this man [a lapsed] can do all good works and those of the Luther-
ans and Calvinists who contend that he can do no good works, damning
both errors equally” (ibid., bk. 3, pt. 2, treat. 2, no. 78, p. 29).41

41. “Congregatio VIII coram Clemente VIII—This [Congregation] disputed the seventh
proposition of Molina, that man, by his natural powers alone (or, as Molina said: ‘only with a
general concurrence and without any aid of grace’), can truly overcome any difficult [work]
whatsoever, even the most grave and most vehement temptation, even of God permitting
death. . . . This proposition, however, as explained and understood by Molina, he himself de-
duced, as he did other similar propositions, from that other principle he had brought forward
in those earlier Congregations. For the single and fundamental principle he holds in this matter
is that man, after the sin of our first parents, has the very same powers regarding our natural end
that man would have had were he created in a [state of] pure nature and without original sin.
From which he infers that, just as were man created in a state of pure nature, there would be no
single morally good work that he could not do, so he expressly attributes this to man in an infirm
state. And just as man can ‘for a brief time (as all theologians hold) love God above all things,’
so he attributes this to infirm man. And just as that man, were he to fall into sin, could have
contrition for it, so he attributes contrition to man in a lapsed state, indeed moral contrition!
And just as that man could overcome any grave and more vehement temptation whatsoever, this
is what he also concedes to the same infirm man. From which principle he also deduces, as an
evident conclusion, that man in a state of lapsed nature for a brief time can avoid all temptations
that occur collectively, and for a brief time can fulfill all the commands and the whole law. For all
154  third article

DIEGO ALVAREZ—“It ought to be understood that, by sin, the free

will of man is so attenuated and inclined that he is unable to perform
perfect and difficult works, even of the natural order, unless he is healed
and aided by grace, as is shown in disput. 45” (De auxiliis, disp. 50, no. 4,
p. 356). “Likewise, by that exciting grace (sufficient grace), God also causes
those imperfect supernatural acts, which remotely dispose man to attain
the consequent grace of justification, or, if he is already justified, his free
of these man in a state of pure nature no doubt could do. And, while in truth Molina did not de-
duce this conclusion expressly and openly, nor manifestly and without disguise seem to hold
the Pelagian opinion, yet he establishes it in various ways, as I shall note. And certainly one who
admits some principle, from which by evident reasoning another conclusion is deduced, even
if it be verbally denied, is still convicted of holding it, as could be proven from many Councils.
This, then, in the first place, as concerns the opinion of Molina. . . . And by this one can reply to
what Father Valentia asked: should we judge that [fallen] man can overcome no difficulty? For
our response to this is expressly taken from Saint Augustine: we can overcome easy tempta-
tions, but not strong and vehement ones, or difficult ones. This is indeed what the Holy Pontiffs
Pius X and Gregory XIII defined in a contrary way in the Bull cited: that it is indeed not nec-
essary that man succumb to all temptations if deprived of divine aid, but he can conquer some,
namely the light and easy. For, regarding the difficult, Saint Augustine says that we must pray and
ask so that we can conquer that. Therefore, without the aid of God, we are not able to overcome
that (the difficult); for we would not ask something from God that we had in our own power”
(Lemos, Historia congregationum de auxiliis, pp. 242, 248, 250).
“Therefore the Molinistic sufficient grace is nothing other than that famous adjutorium
sine quo conferred on Adam and necessary in the state of innocence. By which Molina shows that
he has done nothing other than change the grace of the Creator into the grace of the Savior, and,
for the aid proper to that state (of fallen man), substituted what Augustine held was necessary
for the Angels and the first man” (Berti, De theologicis disciplinis, bk. 14, chpt. 8, no. 5, Ratisbon,
1749, t. 2, p. 95).
By this, one can clearly see that, for a Molinist to be logical with his principles, the distinc-
tion between acts that are easy and difficult, imperfect and perfect—at least in dealing with par-
ticular acts—does not have any sense in these questions, just as it has no sense for a Pelagian
or a Jansenist. By contrast, this distinction is essential for Thomism, because it is nothing other
than a corollary of the two following principles in Thomism: a) In the natural order, fallen na-
ture can, with the general concurrence alone, do easy or imperfect acts, but not those that are dif-
ficult or perfect; b) that which the general concurrence is in the natural order sufficient grace is in
the supernatural.
Finally, and as a matter of interest, it will be enough to note that there are not wanting
some Thomists, although few, who appear to concede to fallen nature in theory the same forces
that pure human nature would have had. But this theoretical position does not have any practi-
cal significance for the question we are treating, because these Thomists do not concede to pure
nature all the forces of integral nature, but only the limited forces that all the other Thomists
concede to fallen nature: that is, the forces for the easy or the imperfect.
 New Observations   155

will is inclined by those imperfect acts so that, through God exciting and
calling, he may consent and cooperate” (ibid., disp. 75, no. 3, p. 519).

THE SALMANTICENSES*—“So, therefore, for easy works and of mod-

erate goodness, whatever it may be, the aforesaid faculty of free will suf-
fices, without recourse to grace; this also suffices for resistance to a light
temptation, from whatever source it arises” (Cursus theol., de gratia, disp. 2,
dub. 2, no. 49, edit. Palmé, t. 9, p. 162). “Can a just man, with the aids that
are usually imparted according to the ordinary law, be without any venial
sin for some brief space of time, as much in regard to guilt as in regard to
blame? To this, we reply in the affirmative: thus D. Thomas and theolo-
gians commonly [hold]” (ibid., dub. 7. no. 240, p. 275). It ought to be said
that a just man requires special aid in order to act [well] for a long time”
(ibid., disp. 3, dub. 10, no. 214, p. 479).

MARCUS SERRA—“One should pay attention to the fact that some

temptations are grave, great, vehement, and difficult; others are light,
small, of little urgency, and easy. . . . So therefore grace is not needed in or-
der that right reasoning occur to do some easy work, nor is it required in
order to overcome some light temptation, whether in restraining oneself
or in doing some good work” (Summa commentatorium, In I-II, q. 109, art.
8, t. 3, pp. 294 and 297, Rome, 1653). “A man is very well able to be without
any venial sin or stain for some brief time” (ibid., p. 310). “Note that a gener-
al aid is twofold, natural and supernatural; for just as a universal aid is giv-
en to all in order to perform natural works, so a universal aid is given to all
to perform supernatural works” (ibid., art. 9, p. 320). “It ought neverthe-
less to be said that a man existing in grace, through the aid of a general (su-
pernatural) aid alone, is able to do some good work, not only natural, but
even supernatural . . . ; but for him to do so for a long time requires a special
aid” (ibid., p. 320).

*editor’s note: Marín-Sola placed the commentators in their chronological order.

While it is true that the Salmanticenses began to publish their commentary (e.g., on De Deo
uno) before Marcus Serra and John of St. Thomas published theirs, nevertheless, their treatise
on De gratia (to which Marín-Sola here refers) only appeared after their works. (See the entries
on them, Marcus Serra, and John of St. Thomas in Appendix 1.)
156  third article
JOHN OF SAINT THOMAS—“Let there be one single conclusion:
man does not require the special grace of God to do any good moral work
whatsoever, nor to overcome any light temptation whatsoever” (Cursus
theol., In I-II, disp. 19, art. 3, no. 5, t. 6, p. 737, edit. Vives). “But if D. Thom-
as sometimes says that a good commensurate with human nature requires
the aid of the grace of God, it is necessary to understand by ‘auxilium gra-
tiae Dei’ a general aid, which in a broader sense is said to be grace: not spe-
cial, but general” (ibid., no. 11, p. 739). “However, in order to overcome all
temptations taken collectively, even light ones, a special aid is required; be-
cause all of them taken together become hard to overcome, because of the
continuance and perseverance, which the whole collection of temptations
brings with it: for that one do a good work perseveringly and continuously
belongs to health, not infirmity” (ibid., no. 17, p. 742).

PEDRO DE GODOY—“I respond that we cannot glory in a good

moral work (that is, of the natural order), in ourselves, as though it came
from us, excluding a dependency on God’s general concurrence; for while
the good [work] is from ourselves—that is, from our own powers—this
is not so without God’s general concurrence” (Disputationes theol., In I-II,
q. 119, disp. 41, no. 35, Venice, 1696, t. 3, p. 255). “I distinguish: that we
should truly give thanks to God for each single act, as the producer by his
general aid, I concede; as being specially conferred, I deny” (ibid., no. 34).
“For grace is no less powerful of itself as regards a good consonant to itself
than a reasonable nature is as regards a good connatural to it. Therefore,
if the angel’s nature had the power for all natural [acts] without a special
motion, the habitual grace of the angel had the power for all supernatural
[acts] without a special grace” (ibid., disp. 48, no. 4, p. 303).

JEAN BAPTISTE GONET—“I add that, from the opinion of Vasquez

(which requires special aid for every honest act) it follows that the intel-
lect without a special aid would be capable only of the false, and in addi-
tion that the will would be capable only of evil. . . . Nor is it correct to say,
with the same Vasquez, that it can do that between good and evil, namely
the indifferent; I say that is incorrect, because it is refuted in the treatise on
the morality of human acts: for it is shown there that no human act can be
indifferent in its singularity” (Clypeus, De gratia, disp. 1, no. 21, edit. Vives,
t. 4, p. 610).
 New Observations   157

“You will pursue: [given] sufficient aids, arisen from God’s will to save
all men, the will of man [still] remains indifferent as to whether it obtains
salvation or does not attain it. . . . I reply, distinguishing the antecedent:
that sufficient aids leave the will indifferent, with an indifference of elicit-
ing the perfect act and reaching that effect, I concede the antecedent; but
as regards its inclination (that is, the actual imperfect movement toward the
perfect act), I deny the antecedent. For, granted, a sufficient aid may not
apply the will to the perfect act, to which it is by its nature ordered; nev-
ertheless, this aid applies it to the imperfect acts, which prepare, dispose,
and incline the will to more perfect acts, as Thomists commonly teach in
the treatise regarding aids. And thus, yes, for this reason, the perfect act
and eternal salvation may not be attributed to them as perfect and complete
future acts; nevertheless they rightly are attributed to them as regards be-
ing inchoate and imperfect” (ibid., De voluntate Dei, disp. 4, art. 3, no. 76,
t. 2, p. 76).

ANTOINE REGINALD—“It ought therefore to be established first

that there is nothing in common between grace as divided between suffi-
cient grace, or the auxilio sine quo, and efficacious grace, or the auxilio quo;
for grace is first divided between habitual and actual, and actual is right-
ly subdivided between sufficient and efficacious. The division into this subdi-
vision is only of actual, as distinguished from habitual, grace. . . . And from
this arises no little difficulty, that is, how sufficient and efficacious grace are
members dividing actual grace. For dividing members ought to be mu-
tually exclusive, because a division ought to entail distinct opposites: so
that, actual grace being well divided into sufficient and efficacious, neither
should the sufficient be efficacious nor the efficacious be sufficient. And
so there should be another ground for explaining efficacious grace than that
this is always conjoined to a human act, if sufficient grace has this same fea-
ture, as it truly does. And this reason, finally, doubtless convinces entire-
ly: grace surely ought not to be said to be efficacious precisely from being
conjoined to any act, since this ought to be true of all actual grace from
the general notion of motion. So it should be said to be efficacious from
this, that it is always conjoined to the perfect act to which it is ordered; in
this it differs from sufficient grace, which is not conjoined to the perfect
act, to which it is ordered by its nature, but rather to some imperfect act, as
a certain velleity is said to be, from its imperfect desire of good” (De mente
158  third article
Concilii Tridentini, p. 1, chpt. 42, p. 402, Antwerp, 1706). “For no one, save
someone deeply irrational, could deny that many precepts are much more
possible for a man having sufficient grace (according to Thomism, easy pre-
cepts and for a little time are possible without grace), or instructed by hab-
it, than for a man not being supported by any actual or habitual grace” (ibid.,
p. 406).

ANTOINE MASSOULIÉ—“It ought to be observed that two things

are distinguished by S. Thomas. First, of course, that ‘God moves man to
some good, not however the perfect [good], and this preparation precedes
(sanctifying) grace.’ By which words, the most proper function of sufficient
grace is displayed, whose chief function is to move to certain imperfect acts
that dispose the will to perfect justification. . . . For no one can fail to experi-
ence in himself what Augustine wrote about in the books of his Confes-
sions: that one who is converted to God is disposed little by little to this
by those acts that precede justification, which the Sacred Council of Trent
defined and which S. Thomas practically enumerated in I-II, q. 113: that is,
some supernatural fear of punishment . . . , the hope of divine mercy, some
initial love of God. . . . And thus not undeservedly I should say that suffi-
cient grace is what conceives the spirit of salvation, while efficacious grace
truly labors to bring it to birth. For those imperfect acts of the will that emerge
little by little are effected by various SUFFICIENT aids, which are ordered in
fact to that further act, that of most perfect charity and the perfect conver-
sion to God; granted, they do not effect these, but they nevertheless dis-
pose one to effect them, which the Council of Trent also expressly teach-
es” (Divus Thomas sui interpres, diss. 1, q. 8, art. 11, p. 197, Rome, 1692). “In
this way, the discrimination and distinction between sufficient and effica-
cious aid is also easily explained. For the lesser impulse that impels the
will to elicit some imperfect act, and which only disposes it to the perfect
act of justification, is called a sufficient aid; the greater impulse, however,
which elicits the perfect act and also converts man, is the efficacious aid”
(ibid., disc. [sic] 2, q. 7, art. 2, p. 364).

ANTOINE GOUDIN—“First conclusion: fallen man, by the powers

of nature under the course of ordinary providence, can form an imper-
fect sadness for sin committed. . . . Second conclusion: fallen man, without
grace moving his heart, cannot have that full and perfect sadness for sin,
 New Observations   159

by which he detests it above all things and by which is excluded all affec-
tion for sinning” (Tractatus theol., edit. Dummermuth, Louvain, 1874, t. 2,
pp. 220–21). “Sufficient grace properly regards common providence, which,
when it orders a thing to some end, simultaneously furnishes sufficient
means to that end, according to the condition of each; nevertheless it does
not prevent defects from emerging on their part, by which it often happens
that these are rendered useless and the end in truth is not obtained. Ef-
ficacious grace truly and properly pertains to special providence, which
procures the effect of the thing and the attainment of the end, such that,
although the things are able to fail because of a defectible cause, neverthe-
less they do not fail. Likewise, the first (the sufficient) pertains to the ante-
cedent will . . . ; the second (the efficacious) pertains to the consequent will”
(ibid., p. 257).

JUAN DE ALIAGA—“You will say first that, according to Saint Au-

gustine, as noted above, the auxilium by which [“quo”] men are aided to
overcome temptations is the grace of Christ; therefore, for the victory over
a light temptation, which is an easy work, the grace of Christ is required.—
To the first, I respond that a light temptation is to be considered as noth-
ing; for whenever the will is able proximately to sin, it suffers a light temp-
tation through thought being attracted towards evil or retreating away
from good. And thus the victory of Saint Augustine ought to be under-
stood as over a grave temptation. And it can also be understood as a victo-
ry over a light temptation, provided over a long time, for which Thomists re-
quire special grace” (Questiones commentariae, In I-II D. Thomae, t. 3. dub.
20, no. 23, p. 663, Salamanca, 1728). “You say secondly that, according to
Augustine in de gratia Christi, chpt. 47, ‘If Pelagius would agree that God
not only aids us so that we are able to will and do good, but that He aids
us so that we also want and do good, and the aid of this kind is the grace of
Jesus Christ, no controversy regarding the aids of grace would remain be-
tween us and him.’ To the second, I respond that the words of S. Augustine
ought to be understood as concerning willing and doing the good that is
perfectly and simply such, by reason of the difficulty or excellence of its ob-
ject . . . not, however, were it restricted to one or another easy, naturally
honest, work” (ibid., no. 24, p. 663).
160  third article
CHARLES RENÉ BILLUART—“In addition, I say that grace is re-
quired not to place or to remove all obstacles to grace, because this is not
to place or to remove all sin; nevertheless, a special grace is not required
not to place or to remove some obstacle, because man is able, without a
special grace, to avoid a sin that is against easy precepts and to overcome
easy temptations, as we will say [in the treatise] on grace” (De Deo uno,
diss. 7, art. 8, solvuntur objections).
“Sufficient aid is divided into proximate and remote. . . . The proximate
is that by which one can immediately do a good work. . . . The remote is
that by which certainly one is not proximately able to do the act, but
one can do something EASIER, and, if one does it, one reaches that act:
for example, a sinner is not proximately able to overcome grave tempta-
tions, but he is able by grace TO PRAY, and, if he does this, he then has the
proximate power to conquer temptations” (De gratia, diss. 5, art. 5).
“Third, you will object: according to Thomists, all interior grace, even that
which they call sufficient, has an effect. . . . I reply, distinguishing the ante-
cedent: that all grace has an imperfect and less principle effect, I concede;
a perfect and principle effect, [I deny]” (De gratia, diss. 5, art. 3, solvuntur
objections).

NORBERT DEL PRADO—“Let it be said that certain of the goods

connatural to man are the highest. Since, from the aforesaid, man in a state
of fallen nature fails even of what he can do by nature, so that he is not able
now to fulfill all that is proportioned to his nature, because of the corrup-
tion of that nature, D. Thomas proceeds (I-II, q. 109) to determine on this
point just what those goods are that an infirm man by the power of his own
nature is not strong enough to accomplish. About which he asks in article
three, ‘Whether man is able to love God above all things by the power of
his nature alone, without grace,’ and article four, ‘Whether, without grace,
man by his nature can fulfill (all) the precepts of the law.’ For just these two
plainly manifest what is highest [“quid summum”] among the goods con-
natural to man—(this ‘quid summum’ precisely marks the point to which,
according to Thomism, fallen nature without grace, in the natural order,
and sufficient grace without efficacious grace, in the supernatural order,
can never reach)—to which a healthy man could reach by his own mo-
tion, from his natural powers alone. And so, since at present infirm man
is not strong enough to accomplish all the good connatural to him by his
 New Observations   161

natural powers alone, which is needed in the aforesaid two works, it needs
must be that he fails [to do them]” (De gratia, t. 1, p. 27).
“Interior grace, insofar as taken as a motion—by which God physi-
cally acts on the very power of free will—is also usually divided into suffi-
cient and efficacious. . . . Therefore, there are two actual motions or graces, by
which God moves the human heart supernaturally to the good of obtain-
ing sanctifying grace: that is, by moving to a good that nevertheless is not
perfect, and by moving perfectly to the good. The former indeed is sufficient
grace; the latter, truly efficacious grace” (t. 2, pp. 19–20). “There is an act or
motion of the free will towards God in love and away from sin in sorrow or
sadness (perfect love and perfect sadness) that is simultaenous with justifica-
tion, and another act or motion of the free will towards God in love and
away from sin in sorrow and penance (imperfect love and imperfect sadness)
that precedes justification itself in time. . . . Thus, the former motion proceeds
from the motion of the will, which is efficacious grace; the latter, from the
interior motion of the heart, which is sufficient grace” (ibid., p. 20).*
“And thus ALL other aids are included in the nature [“ratio”] of SUF-
FICIENT grace, by which man, doing something, is disposed to elicit the
acts of faith, hope, love, and penitence, as is proper, so that the grace of
justification is conferred on him” (t. 3, p. 422, note). “The motion of the
free will toward God in the love of charity (which is simultaneous with
justification) constitutes simpliciter the FIRST MANIFESTATION or effect of
intrinsically EFFICACIOUS grace” (t. 2, p. 65).
“We must rise higher to see that the distinction of SUFFICIENT grace
and efficacious grace is in fact founded on the distinction of an order of
GENERAL providence and an order of special predestination” (t. 2, p. 32).
“The will of God is twofold: antecedent and consequent, conditioned and
absolute. The order of divine wisdom is twofold, obviously according to
GENERAL providence and according to predestination. Grace is twofold:
SUFFICIENT and efficacious” (t. 2, p. 40). “General concurrence is called a
physical premotion in the order of nature” (t. 1, p. 69).
“Application, which Saint Thomas requires for secondary causes,

*editor’s note: As can be seen by comparing his text with the same one given on
22 [20] of his own first article, “sufficient” and “efficacious” had accidentally been switched. I
have kept the correct version, as given in his first article, the “interior movement of the heart”
is clearly the language Thomas uses to refer to the remote preparation for justification, or suffi-
cient grace.
162  third article
even for free ones, in the natural order retains the name of physical pre-
motion; in the truly supernatural order, it is called actual grace (which is
what is divided into sufficient and efficacious), which is a physical premo-
tion of God in the supernatural order” (t. 3, p. 88). “Operative grace is in the
supernatural order, in respect to the motion of free will, what that motion
is in the universal natural order, by which God moves the will of man to
the object of will, which is the good” (t. 1, p. 250). “And thus simultaneous
concurrence is that same previous influx continued” (t. 2, p. 245). “The ap-
plication of a created power to act is called a previous influx, and the pow-
er, now applied, that acts on all other powers to act, is called concomitant
or simultaneous, although not in the Molinist sense. And this influx is also
rightly said to be one: because the concomitant influx is the same previous
one continued” (t. 3, p. 488).42

To this large list of Thomist texts, we will do no more than add these
three texts that express the doctrine of the Church: the first from Saint
Augustine, the next from the Council of Trent, and the third from Pope
Clement VIII. “Naturally, as we most firmly believe God to be just and
good, so we believe He cannot demand things that are impossible, ad-
monishing us both that we act in easy things and that we pray in difficult
ones” (St. Augustine, De natura et gratia, chpt. 60). “For God does not de-
mand impossible things, but, in demanding, instructs us to do what we can
and to pray for what we cannot, and He aids us so that we can” (Conc. Tri-
dent., sess. 6, chpt. 11, Denzinger no. 804). “In the beginning of this Con-
gregation, His Holiness (Clement VIII) said that ‘Molina was affirming
[“ponebat”] perfect natural acts—both moral and supreme or heroic—

42. All of these texts cited from the famous Father del Prado, and other similar ones en-
countered in his magnificent work De gratia, are of the most pure Thomist doctrine. It is true
that in another place (t. 2, p. 23) he adds “For the cause once posited, the effect is posited; so also,
once a supernatural physical premotion is posited, a good supernatural act of the free will is pos-
ited. Therefore, once sufficient grace, which is a physical promotion, is posited, its effect is posited;
and, in relation to this effect, to which it is immediately ordered, it ought to be said to be effica-
cious.” But one needs to notice that, as Father del Prado points out no less than eighteen times
(we have counted them) in his work, premotion is not an effect or act, but the beginning of the ef-
fect or act. Therefore, given the cause or given the physical premotion or given sufficient grace, it is
certain that the beginning of the effect or of the act infallibly follows, and insofar as this, all grace is
infallibly efficacious; but neither the continuation nor the term of the act infallibly follows, when
one is dealing with SUFFICIENT causes or premotions or graces.
 New Observations   163

as it is to be pained by sin (with the more ample, absolute intention nev-

er to sin again) and to love God above all things. In which, he [Molina]
seems to designate free will as healthy and not infirm. For just as, were free
will able to do no easy moral work, it would seem extinct; so, if there is no
moral work, even the most difficult, that man cannot do by his own pow-
ers, this is to designate free will as whole and healthy’” (Historia congrega-
tionum de auxiliis a R. P. Lemos, p. 230).
The reader will excuse us for [citing] this large list of texts. We are
confident that every reader not preoccupied with a priori theories, will
deduce from these texts that one can defend in Thomism the following
three affirmations: a) fallen nature, with the general concurrence of the nat-
ural order, is enough to do easy or imperfect natural acts; b) fallen na-
ture, with the general concurrence of the supernatural order, called sufficient
grace, is enough to do easy or imperfect supernatural acts; c) the distinc-
tion between acts that are easy or imperfect and difficult or perfect is an es-
sential distinction for Thomism, as much as dealing with the power of
fallen nature as with the power of sufficient grace.

II. HOW A S MUCH T HE WAY OF G O OD A S THE WAY

OF EVIL BEG INS, PRO G R E SSE S, A N D TE R M INATE S
We have also been asked how we ourselves conceive the true Thomist
doctrine regarding the beginning, progress, and termination of the way of
good and the way of evil, whether in the natural order or in the super-
natural order. As the explication of all of this, with the extension that it
merits, would take an entire book, we have been asked to determine pre-
cisely our thought on the following points in particular. First: whether a
new premotion is needed to pass from the volition of the good in com-
mon to the volition of this or that good in particular. Second: whether a
new premotion is also needed to pass from the indeliberate volition of the
good in common to the deliberate volition of this same good in common.
Third: whether a new premotion is needed to pass from the volition of
good, whether it be common or particular, to the volition of evil or of sin.
Fourth: whether the divine premotions, as much natural as supernatural,
are subject to some order or law and whether they are therefore in our
hand. We are going to see if we can manage to give a clear but brief answer
to each one of these fundamental points of the Thomist system, according
164  third article
to what we ourselves believe to be the true mind of Saint Thomas and of
his many faithful commentators.

THE SO-CALLED INDELIBERATE ACTS—Before beginning the cat-

egorical reply to every one of these four points, let us say several words
on the so-called indeliberate acts. Every theologian, to whatever school
he pertains, must know that the first act of the will—whether it concerns
the first of all life or the first of a completely new beginning—must be an
indeliberate act. In effect, as we mean by a “deliberate” act one that is pre-
ceded by “deliberation” or counsel, with its practical judgment—and thus
that is preceded by another act—it is metaphysically impossible that the
first act be deliberate, because nothing can be a first act that is preceded
by another act. This is the fundamental and most evident argument upon
which Thomas always rests in order to prove that, respecting the first act,
the will cannot be the determining mover or cannot move itself (because
the will would have this [act] by means of another act, with which the act
with which we are dealing would not be the first, and we would end with
an infinite regress), but that the mover or one that determines [it] must
be an extrinsic agent, and thus God, the unique agent—among those ex-
trinsic to the will—that can physically move it, or on the part of the sub-
ject, or insofar as exercising its act.
Well then, these acts are not called “indeliberate” in the sense in
which we call indeliberate the “first-of-first” [“primo-primos”] move-
ments of which the Molinists speak, because these first-of-first acts are
acts of the passions that precede the exercise of the intelligence and of
the will; while the so-called indeliberate acts with which we are dealing
are not acts of the passions that precede the exercise of the intellect and
of the will, but are acts of the intellect and of the will itself. Neither are
they called indeliberate because they deal with the good in common and
not the good in particular, because all the first acts of the Angel, of man
in a state of innocence, and even of fallen man as regards his supernatural
acts, deal with the concrete good, and not the good in common, and, nev-
ertheless, if they are first, [these] must be indeliberate. Nor, finally, are they
called indeliberate because they must be necessary and not free, because all
the acts of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Angels, of innocent Adam (and,
in our judgment, all the acts of operating grace, even in fallen man) are free
acts, and nevertheless, if they are first, [these] must be “indeliberate.” In a
 New Observations   165

word, then, “indeliberate” does not mean to say more than “not preceded
by deliberation,” not “premeditated,” that does not come from another in-
terior act, “that is sudden,” as Saint Thomas is accustomed to name it. But
this does not decide, one way or another, whether it can be a free or an in-
deliberate-free [act].
Amongst the Molinists, the indeliberate or first acts of the supernatural
order, and thus the first acts produced by sufficient or operating grace, are
always considered as necessary, as not free. A fair number of Thomists ap-
pear to be of the same opinion, above all the followers of González de Al-
beda, as [was] the illustrious Father Guillermin. Although we are persuad-
ed, with Cajetan and many other Thomists, that the so-called indeliberate
acts, at least in the order of grace, are always or ordinarily indeliberate-free
acts, we nevertheless consider this question to be secondary or accidental
and we completely prescind from it in examining the points we are going
to be concerned with.
Of these first or indeliberate acts—whether one considers them
indeliberate-necessary ones or indeliberate-free ones—the will is the elici-
tive principle or executor, because without this the act would not be a vital
act, nor an act of the will; but it is not a determinative principle or a moving
principle, because, for this, the will would require another previous act,
and we are supposing that we are concerned with a first act. The unique
one that determines or moves these acts is God. In these first or indeli-
berate acts, the will is “mota et non movens: solus autem Deus movens”
as Thomas says in speaking of operating grace (I-II, q. 111, a. 2). For this
reason, as the Holy Doctor adds, these acts are attributed to God and not
to the creature, just as every operation is attributed to the principal and
not to the instrumental cause. In “deliberate” acts, the creature, as much
as God, is a principal cause, each in its order, and for this reason they are
attributed to both.
In the order of grace, this motion of God to the first or indeliberate
act has a proper name and is called operating grace, or—as Saint Prosper
calls it, in order to designate it better—pre-operating grace. In the natural
order, this motion to the first or indeliberate act has not received a proper
name, since the theologians were more preoccupied with the supernatural
than with the natural order. But one could also call it an operating premo-
tion or a pre-operating motion, or by whatever name is correlative or analo-
gous to operating grace, because its function in the natural order is correla-
166  third article
tive or analogous to operating grace in the supernatural order. With this
natural operating motion, or supernatural operating grace, one has the so-
called indeliberate acts, by which the will passes from potency to act, that
is, leaves stillness and “enters into movement” toward the natural or super-
natural good, a movement that God never stops while a creature does not
stop it. This motion or operating grace, in order to be truly sufficient, must
produce at a minimum the two first acts of the twelve that constitute the
trajectory of every complete human act; that is, it must produce the “sim-
plex boni cogitatio” and the “simplex boni volitio,” because, without this
second act, the will could never begin to move itself, nor, therefore, pass to
the “deliberate” act, with which we are going to concern ourselves.
In order to see how this passage takes place, it is necessary to distin-
guish well two completely different cases: a) the passage from an indelib-
erate volition of one thing to the deliberate volition of the same thing (e.g.,
the passage from a sudden and indeliberate volition to gain the jubilee
[plenary indulgence] to the deliberate volition of the same); b) the pas-
sage from the indeliberate (or deliberate) volition of one thing to the delib-
erate volition of another thing (e.g., the passage from the volition to gain
the jubilee to the volition to go to Rome for it, or the passage from the love
of God to the love of neighbor).
The first or indeliberate volition, about whatever it concerns, is called
the will of the end, because the first of what one wills always has the rea-
son of an end with respect to other volitions. Therefore, the first passage is
a passage of the indeliberate volition of the end to the deliberate volition of
the same end. The second passage is the passage of the volition of the end
to the volition of the means.
In the [usual] course of Philosophy, logical and psychological order
would require that one deal with the first passage before the second. But,
in order to have our answer follow the order of the questions that have
been put to us, we are going to deal with the second before the first.
THE PASSAGE OF THE VOLITION OF THE GOOD IN COMMON TO
THE VOLITION OF THIS PARTICULAR GOOD—It has been asked of us,
in the first place, whether we believe that, for the passage from the voli-
tion of the good in common to the volition of this or that particular good,
there is need of a new physical premotion, as Thomists commonly teach,
or whether the first motion given for the good in common is enough, as
Molinists teach.
 New Observations   167

As one can see, this question deals with the second of the above-said
passages; that is, with the passage from the volition of one thing to the vo-
lition of another thing, with the volition of the end to the volition of the
means. In order to respond to this with clarity, we will make a first obser-
vation on the double sense of the phrase “good in common”; we will ex-
pound, in the second place, the Molinist solution; we will then see the or-
dinary solution of certain modern Thomists; and we will finally give our
own opinion.
THE DOUBLE SENSE OF THE PHRASE “GOOD IN COMMON”—For
“good in common” two things can be meant: a) the abstract good, that is,
the good that abstracts from honesty or dishonesty and that is common to
both. We will call it, in order to designate it better, the amorphous good,
as not having of itself any morality, neither good nor bad. One could also
call it an amoral or indifferent good; b) for good in common one can also
mean the “honest good in common” or, what amounts to the same, “the
honest good in abstraction,” that is, that which abstracts from this or that
honest good in particular, but never abstracts from the “reason of hones-
ty,” but rather includes it.
We have an example of the first sense in the act by which a man de-
sires to “be happy.” We have an example of the second in the act by which
a man desires to “be virtuous.”
Between parentheses, let the reader already notice that, since sin is a
deviation or a privation of good, it cannot be a deviation of the amorphous
good, but is rather of the honest good. The volition of any creature never
deviates, nor can it deviate, from the amorphous good; and, if sin were
to consist in this, sin could never occur in any creature. Every agent that
wills, must, by metaphysical necessity, will some good, and, at a minimum,
the amorphous good.
Let the reader also notice that honesty or virtue does not consist, nor
can it ever consist, in willing nor in ceasing to will, the amorphous good,
because then every volition would be honest by necessity, there being no
volition that does not include this reason of the amorphous good, just as
there is no judgment that does not include the reason of being.
So, then, every theory that does not put, as previous, a divine motion
to the “honest good” could never satisfactorily explain either virtue or sin.
Virtue and sin, or the morally good and morally evil act, consist in follow-
ing or not following perfectly the divine motion to the honest good or, as it
168  third article
is also customary to say, in following or not following perfectly the mo-
tion or “order of reason”; and it is clear that no one can follow a motion
that does not exist, nor either can one deviate from it.
The Molinists have wanted to explicate honesty or virtue without a
previous divine motion to the honest good and with only a motion to the
amorphous good; some modern Thomists have also wanted, with only
the motion to the amorphous good and without a previous motion to the
honest good, to explain sin. In this has been, as we are going to see, the
radical vice of Molinism in the line of good and the deficiency or insuffi-
ciency of certain Thomists in the line of evil. Neither moral good nor evil
can be explained without a previous divine motion to the honest good; in
addition, never could moral evil occur were this previous motion to the
honest good infallible always and in everything, as we are going to see.
THE MOLINIST REPLY—The Molinists, when they speak of the
“good in common,” always mean the amorphous good. This supposed, to
the question whether, with only the premotion to the good in common,
and without a new divine motion, the will can pass from the volition of
the amorphous good to the volition of this or that good, honest or dis-
honest, they answer in the affirmative. Thus, for Molina, the beginning
and progress, as much for the way of good as for the way of evil is very
simple, and, prescinding from secondary details, can be reduced to these
two moments: a) God moves to the volition of the amorphous good,
and the absolutely necessary, and not free, result of this motion are the
so-called indeliberate acts; b) without a new divine motion, and with only
those indeliberate-necessary acts, the will itself determines itself, by itself
alone, to deliberately will this honest good or that dishonest good, that is
to work virtue or to practice vice.
CRITICISM OF THIS THEORY—Excuse me for saying so, but for
a Thomist, of whatever shade, this position of Molina is radically absurd.
It is to subtract completely from the divine causality not only all the or-
der of actual liberty, but, which is more grave, all the order of morality, all
the order of honesty and virtue. The immediate consequence of this, from
which Molina does not back away, would be that “God is not the cause
of virtue or of our virtuous acts,” but that the true cause of it is man. The
horror, and at the same time the logic, of this proposition of Molina, as
of some others that one encounters in his celebrated Concordia, would
be enough, in our judgment, amply to justify the opposition that Molin-
 New Observations   169

ism encountered from its beginning on the part of all true Thomists.43
THE SOLUTION OF SOME MODERN THOMISTS—Above all, we
point out that we understand by “modern Thomists” those posterior to
the disputes de auxiliis between Molinists and Thomists, and that we
speak of “some” and not “all” because, in this question of the passage from
the volition of the end to the volition of the means, above all referring to
sin, there have been a variety of shades among these same modern Tho-
mists.44
43. “For since the general concurrence of God is not a concurrence of God in the second
cause, but in the action of this same cause, in truth it is indifferent . . . such that the actions of free
will, of which this latter is the second cause, are not made by the general concurrence of God
to be such or such in particular, nor likewise to be honest or vicious, but these are so by the free
will alone. . . . Rightly, that we commit good or evil acts, which we are able to do by the faculty
of our own free will and the concurrence of God, OUGHT TO BE REFERRED TO OURSELVES,
inasmuch as to their particular and free cause, AND NOT TO GOD. And this is what . . . Justin
Martyr . . . openly teaches in these words . . . : ‘Not THEREFORE THAT GOD IS THE CAUSE
OF OUR VIRTUE or vice, BUT THIS IS OUR OWN DETERMINATION AND WILL . . .’ By which
words, HE TEACHES . . . THAT OUR VIRTUE and vice OUGHT NOT TO BE REFERRED TO
GOD, BUT TO OURSELVES AND OUR OWN WILL [“VIRTUTEM NOSTRAM ac vitium . . . NON
IN DEUM . . . SED IN NOSTRUM ARBITRIUM NOSQUE IPSOS . . . DOCET ESSE REFEREN-
DUM”]” (Molina, Concordia, q. 14, a. 13, disp. 33, pp. 185 and 196, Paris, 1886).
44. Among those Thomistic “shades,” we will limit ourselves to cite today, as a matter of
interest, the following three Thomists:
“In truth, other authors, the foremost among whom is Master Brother Juan Vincent, ex-
pressly teach that our will is not determined by God with a physical predetermination in the
order of free acts of an upright or honest nature, speaking of PARTICULAR acts, as regarding a
particular object. For, as far as the act of universal will, respecting that COMMON OBJECT OF
THE WILL—that is, the good—it is necessary that they proceed from the motion of God, as
the universal author of all nature, on whose motion and predetermination depend every opera-
tion of any secondary cause whatsoever. And he judges this to be the mind of D. Thomas. And
he says it is also that of Cajetan” (Peter de Ledesma, O.P., De divinae gratiae auxiliis, Salamanca,
1611, p. 54).
“As to whether God predefines the act of sin as regards its natural entity and premoves our
will to its act as such, many modern theologians defend the negative side; indeed, they deem this
to be de fide. Thus Molina . . . Suarez . . . Vasquez. The second opinion, by extreme opposition teach-
es that God predefines the entire entity of the sinful act, insofar as entity, and effectively predeter-
mines the created will to this effect . . . thus the Most Reverend Diego Alvarez. Between these two
extreme positions, I judge one ought to walk down the via media with the older Thomists Capre-
olus and Ferrariensis” (González de Albeda, Commentatorium, disp. 59, sect. 2, p. 113).
“The third opinion admits a predetermination to good acts, but denies it for evil ones, even
as regards the material of sin. So [hold] some Thomists, as Alvarez expressly admits . . . and that
he judges this to be probable even in the School of the Angelic Doctor is obvious from this: that he
responds to the objections he had raised as much according to this opinion as according to the
170  third article
Well then, the majority of these modern Thomists, when dealing with
the volition of the good in common, mean or appear to mean by “good in
common” the amorphous good, as the Molinists do, and not the honest
good in common. Having once meant this, they explain or appear to ex-
plain the passage from the volition of the good in common to the volition of
this good or this evil in particular, by placing the following two moments:
a) God moves the will to the amorphous good, and the results of
this motion are the indeliberate acts. In this first moment, the doctrine
of these Thomists appears to be distinguished from the Molinists only
in that the Molinists ordinarily mean by “motion” a simultaneous concur-
rence and the Thomists, as is clear, mean a true physical premotion.
b) God aims to give to the will a new premotion or predetermination
to want this good or this evil in particular. This premotion, which always is
infallible, can be of two classes. First: a premotion to the honest good, and
the virtuous act infallibly follows. Second: a premotion to the material of
sin, and then the will infallibly sins.
CRITICISM OF THIS THEORY—This theory can be considered un-
der two aspects: a) as regards its foundation, that is, as regards the funda-
mental principles that it seeks to establish against Molinism; b) as regards
its details, that is, as regards the manner or order that it establishes respect-
ing the divine motions.
At bottom, this theory is attempting to sustain the following three
principles against Molinism. First: for every new act, there is need of a new
premotion, and thus there is need of a new premotion to pass from the vo-
lition of the end to the volition of the means. Second: for every honest act,
there is need of a premotion to the honest good, and a premotion as deter-
mined as is the good. Third, for every evil act, there is need of a premotion
to the material of sin, or, better said, to the physical entity of evil, as deter-
mined as is the evil. The foundation and substance of the mind of these
Thomists rests, in our judgment, on these three propositions, and, as re-
gards them, we believe that they are right and that their theory is perfect.

other. . . . Ledesma, Curiel, and our learned Gonzaléz hold this same opinion” (Bancel, Cursus
theol., Avignon, 1684, t. 1, pp. 499–500).
We cite these texts with the unique end that Thomist novices enter into the history of
these questions, and acquire with it an open-mindedness and tolerance of others’ opinions in
questions arguable within Thomism: an open mind and tolerance that customarily characterizes
the truly wise person.
 New Observations   171

But, in all theories, the foundation is one thing and the form or the
accidental manner of ordering or changing or presenting this foundation
is another; just as foods are one thing and the diverse dishes that good
cooks serve with the same foods are another. In our judgment, with these
three same Thomistic principles, one could better perfect the theory of
these modern Thomists, were one to take away two defects from them.
The first defect of this solution consists in it being possible to place a
divine motion to the material of sin without this having been preceded by
a premotion to the honest good. In our judgment, the motion to the mate-
rial of sin does not and cannot exist, in the doctrine of Saint Thomas, save
as a consequence of an actual defect or impediment freely placed by the
will to the course of the honest motion. Therefore, every premotion to the
material of sin must be preceded by a premotion to the honest good. Sin is
an abortion, a disorder, a deviation, a rupture in the way of the honest good,
and, as there can be no abortion unless life precedes it, neither can there
be disorder, or deviation, or rupture in the way of the honest good be-
fore this way has begun. Sin is not an addition to the amorphous good, but
what remains of, or a subtraction from, the honest good.
The second defect, and from which the previous one follows, is not
to admit more motions than those infallible as regards everything. With
this one destroys, in our judgment, the concept of sufficient motion or
grace and of general providence and of the antecedent will, whose concept
is the power to fail in regards to the execution of a particular end, by re-
sistance or defect of the creature. With this, one also renders inexplicable
the responsibility of man in sin and even the existence of sin itself.
This second defect, of not placing more motions than the infallible—
from which was born the first, of admitting as the beginning of sin a mo-
tion to the material of sin itself, infallibly connected with it—in our judg-
ment has come from the preoccupation of wanting to save the infallibility
of all divine knowledge, even the knowledge of sin, by the sole way of cau-
sality, without the intervention of eternity. And both together have led to
this: that, just as Molinists admit that the creature can have more than that
to which God moves them, with which they subtract some good from the
divine causality, so these Thomists appear to admit that the creature can
have neither more nor less than that to which God moves them, with which
it appears that not only all good, but even all evil, falls again under the di-
vine causality.
172  third article
OUR OPINION AND OUR REPLY TO THIS QUESTION—Our opin-
ion is that, according to the doctrine of Saint Thomas and of all the princi-
pal Thomists, the true Thomistic solution to the proposed question ought
to be formulated in the following three affirmations.
First. In order to pass from the volition of the amorphous good to the
volition of this or that particular good, there is always need of a new pre-
motion.
Second. This new premotion cannot be a premotion to the material
of sin, without being preceded by a premotion to the honest good and by
the will having placed an impediment to its course.
Third. If one is dealing with general providence (as much natural as
supernatural), the unique one in which there can be sin, this new premo-
tion is a fallible premotion as regards the course or the success of the act,
although it is always infallible as regards its beginning.
In summary, then, we affirm two things: a) that either the entire se-
ries of natural motions begins with a motion to the “honest good in com-
mon” and not to the amorphous good or, if it begins by a motion to the
amorphous good, this motion must be followed immediately by another
motion, to the honest good, without which neither virtue nor sin is expli-
cable; b) that, however one desires the series of motions and volitions to
begin, there can never be a passage from the volition of anything in com-
mon to the volition of this thing in particular—or, that is, from a volition
of the end to a volition of the means, which is a passage from one act to an-
other new act—without a new premotion. The second of these two things
is, as the lector will see, against the Molinists. The first is not only against
the Molinists, but also is a small modification of what quite a few modern
Thomists teach.45

45. In this solution, we have taken it as supposed—as being supposed by Molinists and the
majority of modern Thomists—that the first divine motion and the first volition of the will is of
“the good in common,” and we have limited ourselves, almost, to showing the necessity of a di-
vine motion to the honest good, since, without it, no virtuous act can be explained, whatever Mo-
linists may want to say, nor, either, any sinful act, whatever some Thomists may want to say. But,
when we deal with this matter extensively from the point of view of Thomistic psychology, we
will note how, according to Saint Thomas, no volition exists or can exist toward the good in com-
mon, but that the “willed object” is always a concrete good, or this particular good, although the
“reason of willing” this particular good can be the “good in common” (honest or dishonest). The
will, in distinction from the intellect, is not a faculty of the abstract, but of the concrete, and the
material object willed cannot be anything other than a concrete or real good or apprehended as
 New Observations   173

THE PASSAGE FROM THE “INDELIBERATE” VOLITION OF THE

GOOD IN COMMON TO THE “DELIBERATE” VOLITION OF THIS SAME
GOOD IN COMMON—Let us now pass to the second case, which is dis-
tinct from the previous. In the previous [one], we dealt with the passage
of the volition of the end to the volition of the means, and, therefore, with
the passage from the volition of one thing to the volition of another. In this
[case], we deal with the passage from the indeliberate volition of the end
to the deliberate volition of the same end, and, therefore, not with the pas-
sage from the volition of one thing to another, but with the indeliberate vo-
lition of one thing to the deliberate volition of the same thing.
The Molinists, and some modern Thomists imitating them, give to
this deliberate volition the name of consent. It is not at all badly given, and
sometimes Saint Thomas gives it, and therefore we also will give it. But
it is necessary to point out that this word “consent” is ambiguous. Ordi-
narily and properly it signifies, in psychology, the deliberate volition of
the means, proceeding from a previous volition of the end. In this sense,
which is its proper sense, “consent” is the sixth among the twelve acts, or
parts of the act, that constitute the complete human act, and is always a
distinct act, because it is a passage from the volition of one thing (the end)
to the volition of another thing (the means). But it can also signify—and
it is in this broader or less common meaning that we now take it—the de-
liberate volition of the same end, but completely previous to the volition
of the means, or to consent properly speaking. This deliberate volition of
the end does not constitute, then, the sixth act, but is sustained or veri-
fied within the second act, and it is not the passage to the volition of an-
other thing, but is the deliberate volition of the same thing. Taken in this
broader sense, “consent” (as well as “election”) does not constitute a par-
ticular act of the twelve that compose the complete human act, but it ac-
companies explicitly or implicitly, as Saint Thomas points out, all delib-
such (D. Thomas, IV Sent, dist. 49, q. 1, art. 3, qc. 3). In its time, we will occupy ourselves with this
psychological aspect of the problem, and of the easy solution that exists, in this case, for the so-
much-debated question of whether there is need or not of a new premotion for the so-called “pas-
sage of the volition from the good in common to the volition of this particular good.” At present,
what interests us more is the problem of evil or of sin and, for this, it is enough, in our judgment,
to have made it stand out that there can be no sin save by a voluntary impediment placed by man
to a previous motion to the honest good, a premotion that God always gives to man in the first
moment of the use of reason and that always begins a completely new series of acts, man—and
not God—being the one who deviates the divine motion.
174  third article
erate acts, because all who freely will (the second act), consent in willing,
and all who freely judge (third act), consent in judging, and all who intend
or deliberate (fourth and fifth act) consent in deliberating, etc. In summary,
then, this “consent” to the indeliberate acts or to the motion productive
of these acts, of which we are now speaking, is not a passage from one to
another of the twelve psychological acts, but is verified and subsists in the
will within the second act, or, that is, within the “simplex boni volitio.” This
is what one customarily calls, in modern times, the “deliberate consent to
the divine motion.”
Having made this elemental observation, which would not be neces-
sary for many readers, let us go on to examine the proposed case, that is,
whether to pass from the indeliberate will of the end or the good in com-
mon to the deliberate volition of this same end—or, as modern theolo-
gians customarily say, whether “to consent to the divine motion”—there is
need of a new premotion.
If, prescinding for a moment from the motion of God, we pay atten-
tion only to the psychological process of the human will, all theologians
agree in that this psychological process, respecting the deliberate voli-
tion of the end, occurs in the following way: once the indeliberate volition
is placed, explicitly or implicitly counsel or deliberation then follows, as to
whether to accept or reject this volition. This counsel terminates in a final
practical judgment, which can be either the judgment to accept it or the
judgment to reject it, that is, to continue it or to extinguish it. From this
final practical judgment, there then follows infallibly (that is, “infallibly”
according to all Thomists, not according to all theologians) the deliberate
volition, which is what one calls “consent or dissent to the divine motion.”
Well, then, the entire process includes four parts of the act: first, in-
deliberate volition; second, counsel or deliberation; third, the final practi-
cal judgment to accept or reject the indeliberate volition; fourth, deliber-
ate consent or dissent, accepting it or rejecting it, that is, persevering in it
or ceasing in it.
The problem and the difficulty that we are going to examine is not
the process of these acts of the will, but the process of the divine motion in
these acts. The problem is the following: in order to pass from the indeli-
berate volition (first part of the act) to the deliberate consent or dissent
(fourth part of the act), by means of consilium or deliberation (the second
part of the act) and by means of the final practical judgment (third part
 New Observations   175

of the act), is the same motion given for the first part of the act—that is,
given for the indeliberate volition—enough, or is there need, on the con-
trary, for a new premotion?
It is evident that to pass to the second part of the act, that is, to consil-
ium or deliberation, there is no need of a new premotion. This is the com-
mon Thomist doctrine, as Lemos himself confesses. Consilium or delibera-
tion always and infallibly follows every indeliberate volition and all divine
motion, in such a way that anyone who receives any divine motion to will
indeliberately (first act), also receives it ipso facto to deliberate (second part
of the act), and infallibly deliberates, explicitly or implicitly.
It is also evident that, according to all Thomists, in order to pass from
the third part of the act, that is, the final practical judgment—once this
has been formulated—to the fourth part of the act, which is the deliber-
ate consent or dissent, either there is no need of a new premotion or, if
one wants to say that there is, one must say that God always and infallibly
gives it, save in the case of a miracle or of a special providence, and that
He gives it always in conformity with the final practical judgment.
All the difficulty, then, is in the passage from the second to the third
part of the act, that is, in the passage from the consilium or deliberation
to the final practical judgment, which is the final term of counsel or de-
liberation. All the difficulty is reduced to whether human nature can—
with only the general motion of the natural order, or with only the suffi-
cient grace of the supernatural order—form a final practical judgment that
is honestly good. If it can, there is no need for a special premotion, be-
cause, by a new premotion, we mean at present a special premotion, not
a simple continuation of the general premotion. Without the continuation
of the divine premotion, all action ipso facto would cease, just as, without
the continuation of the divine conservation, all being would cease, and it
would be ridiculous to dispute any question regarding whether one could
have any act without the continuation of the general premotion of God.
The question, then, is—and may our reader forgive such repetition—to
see if human nature can, without a special premotion, and with only the
general premotion, form an honest final practical judgment.
THE JANSENIST SOLUTION, AND OF SOME CATHOLIC THEOLO-
GIANS—The Jansenists, as we saw at the beginning of this article, who af-
firm that fallen human nature is dead or corrupt for the honest good and
that it therefore has no power for any honest good; also some Catholic
176  third article
theologians, who require a special motion for every honest act (although
they disguise it with the name of “special as regards the person”), which is
as though a general motion or providence did not exist, or that, by itself,
it was not enough for anything save sin; finally, all those theologians who
hold that the antecedent will of God, or His general providence, or His suf-
ficient grace, or His general concurrence or premotion are nothing save a
pure potency in regards to the honest good, must say and do say that, with-
out a new motion or without a special motion, or without a perfectly effi-
cacious motion (because all these names signify, in this case, almost the
same thing), one can never have an honest final practical judgment, nei-
ther regarding perfect acts nor regarding imperfect acts, neither regarding
easy nor difficult acts: in a word, regarding nothing. For these theologians,
honesty is the closed shop of special providence: general providence either
is enough for nothing or it is enough for nothing honest, or it is a pure po-
tentiality, or, if it is a motion, it is only a motion for the material of sin.
Well then: as the honest human consent cannot take place save as
preceded by an honest final practical judgment, these theologians must
say and do say that, for every honest final practical judgment, and, there-
fore, for every deliberate consent to the divine motion, there is need of a
special premotion, without any distinction between the perfect or imper-
fect consent.
THE MOLINIST SOLUTION—At the opposite pole, the majority of
Molinists who defend that fallen nature has power for every particular act
of the natural order, including for the perfect act of loving God above all
things, ought to defend and do defend that, with general motion in the
natural order and with general or sufficient grace in the supernatural or-
der, man can form every honest practical judgment, as perfect as it may
be. He can, then, without a new premotion, pass from the indeliberate act
to deliberate consent. There is no need, then, for a new premotion to con-
sent to the divine motion, and this is true whether one is dealing with an
imperfect or a perfect consent.
THE TRUE THOMIST SOLUTION—In between the Jansenist and
Molinist solutions, and at equal distance from them both, is, in our judg-
ment, the true Thomist solution to this fundamental question. This so-
lution consists in saying that, to form an honest final practical judgment
that would be perfect one has need of a special premotion in the natural
order and a special or perfectly efficacious grace in the supernatural [or-
 New Observations   177

der]. But, in order to form a final practical judgment that would be IM-
PERFECT, it is enough to have a general premotion for the honest good in
the natural order and sufficient grace in the supernatural order.
In order to understand this solution well, one must note that every
act, in order to be honest, must have as its motive or end the love of the
honest good, and, therefore, the explicit or implicit love of God. When
this love of honesty or of God is efficacious, at least affectively, it is called
in Thomism a perfect love and is a supreme act that requires all the forces
of an integral or healthy nature. This is impossible for a sick nature, there-
fore, without a special motion. When this love is not efficacious, neither
effectively nor affectively, it is called an imperfect love and falls within the
forces of a sick nature.
In consequence, every act made with the perfect love of God is called
a perfect act, whatever may be the matter about which it is concerned,
whether it be an act of prayer, of penitence, of begging, etc. On the con-
trary, every act made with the imperfect love of God is called an imperfect
act, whatever may be the matter about which it is concerned, and is cus-
tomarily called an easy act, so long as it does not last for a long time, be-
cause lengthiness converts what is easy into what is difficult for a sick [na-
ture], as Saint Thomas observes.
The perfect act, whatever may be the matter about which it is con-
cerned, affectively excludes all sin, includes affectively the fulfillment of
all the commandments or all of the law, and is indissolubly united—sup-
posing the actual economy of our elevation to the supernatural order—
with conversion and with justification. The imperfect act, on the contrary,
does not exclude all sin, nor include the fulfillment of all the command-
ments, nor is it directly connected to conversion or justification, but it is
only a more or less remote preparation for it: either a positive or a purely
negative preparation, according to whether one is dealing with supernatu-
ral or natural acts.
Once the reader has paid proper attention to what one means by
imperfect acts, he need do no more than also to pay attention to anoth-
er Thomist principle, and that is that the formation of the final practical
judgment corresponds to practical reason, and, according to whether prac-
tical reason has remained healthy, dead, or sick for the honest good, it will
be able to form all, none, or some honest practical judgment with a gener-
al motion and without a special motion. If it is healthy, it can do them all,
178  third article
even the perfect; if it is dead, it cannot do any, not even the imperfect; if it
is sick, it cannot form a perfect practical judgment, but it can form an im-
perfect one.
The solution, then, to this entire question discussed for the last three
centuries between Molinists and Thomists, and discussed also among
Thomists themselves—that is, among the followers of the less common
opinion of González de Albeda and the more common opinion of Alva-
rez and Lemos—depends, in our judgment, and depends entirely, upon
these two roots: a) whether fallen nature, and therefore the will, and
therefore practical reason are healthy, dead, or sick; b) whether sufficient
grace or a general supernatural premotion is a true actual grace or is a pure
potentiality.
Well then: every Thomist ought to defend against Molina that hu-
man nature, respecting the honest good, is not healthy. As a consequence,
every Thomist ought to defend that, without a special motion or grace,
fallen nature can do nothing perfect, and, therefore, cannot pass from the
indeliberate volition of the honest good (an effect of general motion or
grace) to a perfect final practical judgment, without which there can be no
perfect consent.
But, at the same time, every Thomist who admits against Jansen that
fallen nature and practical reason are not dead and that sufficient grace is
a true actual grace, ought to defend, or at least can defend (because this
is enough for us, since we are not attempting to impose our opinions on
anyone) that, with the general motion to the honest good in the natural
order and with sufficient grace in the supernatural order (the first part of
the act), one can deliberate or have consilium (the second part of the act)
and one can also terminate this consilium by an imperfect honest practical
judgment (the third part of the act). Once this imperfect practical judg-
ment is placed, there infallibly follows the deliberate consent (fourth part
of the act) to the indeliberate acts, or the imperfect deliberate consent to
the divine motion: that is, without a new premotion, for having no need
of one for a thing that follows infallibly—as some Thomists say—or God
[infallibly] giving a new premotion, since there is need of it, as other Tho-
mists say.46
46. “On reflection, I judge it to be truest that an indeliberate and deliberate act in regards to
the same object (such as in an indeliberate act to which the will is excited [“excitatur”] and in
the free act that assents to this excitation, for these are of the same object, as is plainly evident)
 New Observations   179

So, then, for fallen human nature there is need of a special grace or
premotion to form a perfectly honest final practical judgment, but not to
form an imperfectly honest final practical judgment. Consent infallibly fol-
lows the final practical judgment, whether by means of a new premotion,
as some Thomists say, or without one, as others want.
This is equivalent to saying that, to consent perfectly to sufficient grace
there is need of a perfectly efficacious grace. But to consent imperfectly to
sufficient grace, or at least to form an imperfectly honest final practical judg-
ment—at least not to place an impediment in this to sufficient grace—there
is no need of a perfectly efficacious grace, but the continuation of this same
sufficient grace is enough, which, for this very reason, is called in Thomism
an imperfectly efficacious grace or premotion.
We have full confidence that this solution, which springs from all
the principles of Saint Thomas, which is latent in many of the affirma-
tions of modern Thomists themselves, which places Thomism at equal
distance from Jansenism and Molinism, which, finally, joins the system
of Saint Thomas with the system of Saint Liguori and with every system
that rejects the scientia media, will satisfy any Thomist who is not exces-
are not to be distinguished in species or really, but are one and the same act in number, at first being
indeliberate because of the absence of reason and attention [“advertentiae”] and then becoming
deliberate through the arrival of attention” (Lemos, Panoplia, bk. 4, pt. 1, treat. 7, no. 83, p. 221).
“This (indeliberate) motion of the will, without a new one being elicited as to its sub-
stance, begins by being indeliberate, and continues by the will under a new mode of deliber-
ation, as is obvious in regards to indeliberate motions concerning a dissonant object, at least
when they begin to be imputed to us, and therefore to be deliberate, by virtue of reason attend-
ing; and thus the will does not elicit a new act as to its substance concerning the selfsame ob-
ject, but only bears upon it in a new way” (González de Albeda, Commentatorium, t. 2, disp. 59,
p. 109).
“I now inquire: is there another quality (that is, a new premotion), distinct from what
preceded it, when the will desires the same object deliberately that it desired by an indeliberate
act? . . . Now, what suffices that the will tend necessarily a fortiori suffices for the very same will to
tend efficaciously. So that, for a will tending in a natural way to change to tending in a free way, a
new awareness [“advertentia”] of reason suffices” (González, loc. cit., p. 97).
“Final judgment being posited, election conformed to it immediately follows, not, how-
ever, without God premoving to it, but by a motion accommodated to that final judgment”
(Goudin, Tractatus theol., t. 1, p. 259). “The will infallibly follows that final practical judgment,
which has the force of command” (Billuart, De peccatis, diss. 8, a. 8). “I say finally that, regard-
ing practical truths, the same ought to be said as regards speculative ones, not only as regards
the first practical principle, but also as regards the final practical judgment . . . the practical dictate
proximately moving to the act and the very work to which it moves are of the same order [ratio]”
( John of St. Thomas, edit. Vives, t. 6, p. 734, no. 40–41).
180  third article
sively preoccupied with the false idea that there are no more premotions
or actual graces than those infallible as regards everything. By admitting
that there is need of a determinate and physical premotion for every act,
Thomism distinguishes itself radically from Molinism; by admitting that
physical premotions of general providence, whether natural or supernatu-
ral, are fallible premotions for their course, or are resistible in fact by the
creature, Thomism distinguishes itself radically from Jansenism.
HOW THE WAY OF GOOD BEGINS—From what has been said to
this point, one deduces already how the way of good begins. The way of
good begins with a premotion to the honest good, given by God to man
from the first moment of his use of reason.47 This premotion to the hon-
est good is never interrupted by the initiative of God; but it is a fallible
premotion, whenever one is dealing with general providence, and can be
interrupted by the initiative of man. If man does not place a culpable im-
pediment to this motion, but rather does what he can with it, and prays
with it for what he cannot do, God will continue premoving man to the
honest good to the end of his life. If man deviates or interrupts this mo-
tion, working evil instead of working good or ceasing to work when he
had an obligation to work—which is in what the sins of commission and
omission consist—God could in justice, from the moment he commits a
first sin, deny to him as a punishment any special premotion to escape sin,
leaving him in final impenitence; but He can by a special grace move him
to escape sin and enter anew into the way of good. The doctrine that is to-
day virtually common among Catholic theologians is that, while man is
in this life and as great a sinner as he may be, God never denies him, but
continues to concede to him—by the merits of the passion and death of

47. “If you inquire further as to the particular mode and order of this very act, it should be
said that God first immediately illumines the intellect by a consideration of the honest good . . . and
God simultaneously moves the will intrinsically ex parte subjecti by a motion causing an im-
pulse . . . regarding the honest good” (González de Albeda, Commentatorium, t. 2, disp. §8, sect. 4,
p. 106). “In the third place, we say it is impossible that God moves the will in the said way (that is,
in those first acts, which are moved only by God, without being moved by oneself) regarding the
apparent good; but if the will has an act of love, as moved by God, the act needs to be exercised
in relation to the true good” (Navarette, In q. 19, art. 8., controvers. 9, t. 2, p. 84). “For we say that
the will is specially applied by God not only to the first act of one’s whole life, but also in regards
to whatever new beginning simpliciter of an activity, and in these one is never able to sin” (Gonet,
De actibus humanis, disp. 5, art. 2, no. 26, t. 3, p. 607). “In the first instant, the reason of man is illu-
mined in relation to the honest good” (Preingué, Theologia specul., t. 2, p. 433, Ghent, 1744).
 New Observations   181

His Divine Son—sufficient motions and graces, more or less remote, but
truly sufficient, to escape from sin and save himself.

III. HOW T HE WAY OF EVIL BEG INS

It remains to explain, although we have indicated it already, how the
way of evil begins, or how there is a transition from the divine motion to
the honest good to the divine motion to the material of sin, and how it is
not God, but man, who causes the beginning of this way [“via”], or, better
said, of this deviation [“desviación”].
In effect, the way of good and the way of evil are not two parallel or
isolated ways or with nothing in common between them, but, on the con-
trary, the way of moral evil or sin is a true deviation in the line of good; not
in the line of the amorphous good, from which no will deviates nor ever
can deviate, but in the line of the honest good.48

48. Everyone knows this celebrated text of Saint Thomas (I-II, q. 9, art. 6 ad 3), which con-
sists of three parts, and which goes as follows:
a) “God moves man’s will as the universal mover to the universal object of the will, WHICH
IS GOOD. And, without this universal motion, man cannot will anything;
b) but man determines himself by his reason to will this or that, which is true or apparent
good;
c) yet, nevertheless, sometimes God moves some specially to the willing of something de-
terminate, WHICH IS GOOD, as in the case of those whom He moves by grace, as we shall state
later on.”
Concerning the interpretation of this famous text, one can say that “there are as many
opinions as heads” [“quot capita, tot sententiae,”] even within Thomism. In its time, we will
dedicate an entire article to this text, because it is related to the entire psychology of Saint
Thomas. For now, we will limit ourselves to saying that we hold three things as probable.
First. That in the first two parts, the Holy Doctor is speaking of general providence (uni-
versalis motor) and that in the third he is speaking of special providence (speciliater movet), in-
tending by special, not only the special providence of the natural order, in which there can be
special motions, but also and principally all supernatural providence (and for this [reason] he
gives an example of it “as . . . through grace [“sicut . . . per gratiam”], which is always special re-
specting the natural, and whose motions are always to this good [“ad hoc bonum”] and to the
true good” [“ad vere bonum”].
Second. That by the phrases “universale objectum voluntatis” and “hoc vel illud,” of the first
and second members, Saint Thomas does not mean the “thing willed” or the “volitum materia-
le,” but the motive or end of willing, called the “volitum formale” or “ratio volendi” because, as
we have indicated, it is the express doctrine of Saint Thomas that the “volitum materiale” or the
thing willed by the will is always a concrete good: this good [“hoc bonum”].
Third and principally. That, by the phrase “universale objectum voluntatis” of the first
182  third article
Well then, whether one admits or one denies this famous premotion
to the amorphous good, which we regard as an accidental matter, the way
of moral evil is always preceded by the way of the moral good, that is, by a
divine motion to the honest good; and this way or deviation, called the
way of evil or sin, begins by an impediment, freely placed by the creature
to the upright course of this motion or honest way.
This impediment always consists in one of these two things. First, that
the intellect, in a given moment of the course or the way of the divine mo-
tion to the honest good, ceases to consider the reason of honesty, but contin-
ues considering the reason of good (useful or delightful), with which the
will continues working or willing, but working or willing without honesty,
which is what we call sin. This is the sin of commission. Second, that it not
only ceases to consider the reason of honesty, but also the reason of good,
with which the will not only ceases to will honestly, but also ceases com-
pletely to will or to work. In this second [case], when one has an obliga-
tion to work, consists the sin of omission: if there were no obligation, there
would be no sin in ceasing to will or to work.
For the first of these two ways, the created liberty can deviate the di-
vine motions, when dealing with general or sufficient or fallible motions;

member, Saint Thomas does not mean the amorphous good (or, that is, prescinding from its
honesty or dishonesty), but the honest good in common or the vere bonum in common, as one will
clearly see by comparing the phrase QUOD EST BONUM of the first member with the SAME ex-
act phrase of the third member; and it is known that this phrase in the third member signifies
the vere bonum, because, in special providence, all the motions are to the “vere bonum,” and he
is only accustomed expressly to say “vere bonum” when he is going to contrast it in the same
phrase to the apparent good [“apparens bonum”], as occurs in the second member of the text
cited.
In any case, we repeat that it is accidental to us whether one places as the first motion the
motion to the amorphous good (and that one interpret as amorphous good the “universale ob-
jectum voluntatis” of the first part of the text of Saint Thomas) as long as this motion to the
amorphous good is immediately followed by a “motion to the honest good,” without which, in
the doctrine of Saint Thomas, both the passage of the will to the honest good (as the Molinists
want to say) and the passage [of the will] to sin (as certain modern Thomists want to say) is evi-
dently inexplicable. Well then: everyone will see that it is useless to place a motion to the amor-
phous good as separate and previous, if it must immediately be followed by a motion to the hon-
est good in common; because the motion to the “amorphous good in common” is included in
the motion to “the honest good in common,” although not vice-versa, and, for this reason, to
explain the series of good and evil acts of the creature, it is enough to place, as a point of depar-
ture, the motion to the honest good, and it is not enough to place a motion to the amorphous
good.
 New Observations   183

for the second, it can paralyze or extinguish them, paralyzing or extin-

guishing their effect, that is, the action. Both occur simply by ceasing to
consider. The practical intellect is that which ceases to consider; but, since
this ceasing to consider is free, the intellect does not cease to consider save
by the will ceasing to move it to consider. Both occur, then, because the
will ceases to move the intellect that it consider, and, as a consequence, the
intellect ceases to consider. Well then: to begin to consider when before
one was not considering—that is, to pass from potency to the act, or from
less to more—one always has need of a new divine premotion, and this is
the eternal basis of Thomism against Molinism. But in order to cease to
consider, to not consider, one does not have need of a new premotion.
In this manner, without a new premotion, it is in the hands of cre-
ated liberty to deviate or paralyze in fact all divine premotions, when one
is dealing with premotions of general providence, natural or supernatural,
that are fallible as regards their course and particular outcome. The infal-
lible premotions of special providence cannot be deviated nor paralyzed
in fact or in sensu composito: but, for this same reason, there cannot be sin
in them.
The order, then, of the premotions in the way of evil—whether pre-
ceded or not preceded by a premotion to the amorphous good—is the
following: a) a premotion to the honest good; b) an impediment placed by
the creature to the course of this motion, one that the creature could in
fact not have placed; c) a deviation of the divine motion (which is what
we call the motion to the material of sin) or even a complete paralyzation
of the motion.
As one can see, the way of evil begins, or, better said, is preceded by a
motion to the honest good.
That which has made certain theologians feel obliged to begin the
way of evil not by a premotion to the honest good, but by a premotion
to the “material of sin,” and infallibly connected to it, has proceeded from
the ill-informed [“malhadada”] theory that all the divine premotions are
infallible as regards everything, that is, not only as regards its beginning, but
also as regards the placing or not placing of an impediment to its course.
On this hypothesis of [having] only divine premotions that are infallible
as regards everything, there remained to these theologians no other solu-
tion to explain the way of evil or sin than that the evil act was already evil
from its beginning.
184  third article
Here, then, in our judgment, and it will eternally remain so, is the
radical vice and the center of all the obscurities and difficulties that the
theory of some modern Thomists offers in the line of evil. With only pre-
motions that are infallible as regards everything, the responsibility of the
creature in sin, and even the existence of sin itself, appears to us to be in-
explicable.
It will be said to us, as it has already been said, that, with premotions
that are fallible as regards something, it is difficult to explain the infalli-
bility and the independence of the divine knowledge of vision. We do not
deny that this is an apparent difficulty, virtually the unique difficulty, that
our interpretation offers to Thomist doctrines. In our previous article, we
already indicated the solution that should be given to this difficulty, and
in its time we will deal with it more amply. But, in all events, our judg-
ment is that, once the scientia media is rejected, as every true Thomist
ought to reject it, a Thomist must do what he can to explain the how of
this eternal and infallible knowledge of God, which has always been, and
eternally will continue to be, a true mystery for the human intellect.49 But
whether a Thomist can or cannot satisfactorily explain this mystery, one
should not for this reason deny what is evidently necessary to explain the
existence of a motion or grace that is truly sufficient and the responsibil-
ity of man for sin. To explain the infallibility and the independence of the
Divine Knowledge with fallible premotions could appear, and may even
be, difficult and mysterious; but to explain sin or anything else in the line
of evil without them, not only appears to us to be difficult and mysterious,
but, to us, according to all the principles of Saint Thomas, it appears to be
evidently absurd.50

49. “This is the greatest and most obscure mystery of this attribute [“attributi”] and one
entirely obscure to the human intellect” ( John of St. Thomas, De Deo uno, q. 10, disp. 9, art. 3,
no. 1, edit. Vives, t. 2, p. 80).
50. After reading our first article, some Thomists became alarmed, believing that our solu-
tion destroyed the infallibility of the divine knowledge. After our second article, they now con-
cede to us that it saves the said infallibility; but they now object that they do not see clearly how
to save the independence of the divine knowledge, which requires that it not have anything cre-
ated as a ratio cognoscendi. This difficulty is analogous to another that classic Thomists already
dealt with and resolved, as one will see by the following text:
“You object first: nothing created can be for God the reason of knowing [“ratio cognoscen-
di”]; but, if evil or privation is known by God through the created good, it would be the reason of
knowing of the privation; therefore, God does not know evil through a created good.
“I respond: something can be the reason of knowing in four ways. First, on the part of the
 New Observations   185

TO WHAT HONEST GOOD GOD HAD BEGUN TO MOVE THE ONE

WHO THEN SINS—He who sins always sins having as the motive of his
sin or of his will something good, useful, or delectable. Sin does not con-
sist, precisely, in willing the useful or delectable good, but in willing it
“without the reason of honesty.”
Well then: in our judgment, God had begun premoving [the will] to
this same good, delectable or useful; but He had moved it to will “under
the reason of honesty.” Man, in the course of the divine motion, ceases to
consider “the reason of honesty” and continues considering and wanting
the useful or delectable good, and in this precisely consists sin.
Let us give examples, and ones that are most difficult: that is, sins in-
trinsically evil, such as adultery and blasphemy. The adulterer begins with
the thought of “carnal delight with a neighbor’s wife.” In the thought, and
while the will has not intervened, there is not yet any morality whatso-

knower, as being [“per modum”] a species or word. Second, as being the motive of the object.
Third, as being the formal object terminatively. Fourth, as a material object in which [“ut objec-
tum in quo materiale”].
“Of three of these ways, nothing created can be for God the reason of knowing, nor in
these does His knowledge depend on creatures. In the fourth way something created is able to be a
reason of knowing something, nor does there follow a dependence of knowledge in God from crea-
tures, but rather a dependence of the object; and only in this way is evil known by the divine intel-
lect through a created good” (Godoy, De scientia Dei, disp. 26, no. 307, t. 1, p. 282).
Just as, in the essential or possible order, sin has nothing divine as a reason of being, but
has something created or creatable, of which, and not of God, sin is a privation; so also, in the
existential or actual order, it has as a reason of existing not God or anything divine, but the crea-
ture, of which, and not of God, it is the effect, or, better said, the defect. Well then, the reason of
knowing follows the reason of being. Thus, just as it would be impossible, as Saint Thomas teach-
es (Contra gentes, I, 71), for God to know the essence of sin, were He only to know His own es-
sence, without knowing the essence of the creature, so also it would be impossible for God to
know the existence of sin, were He only to know His own will or action, and without knowing
the will or action of the creature. In both cases, the creature must enter as a means or as a reason
of being, and, therefore, as a reason of being known: in the first case, the essence of the creature;
in the second [case], the action of the creature. “Secundum quod aliqua se habent ad esse, ita se
habent ad divinam cognitionem” (D. Thomas, I Sent., dist. 38, art. 4). “Cum verum hoc significet,
ut dicatur aliquid esse quod est, hoc modo aliquid est verum, quod habet esse” (D. Thomas, Peri
Hermeneias, bk. 1, chpt. 9, lect. 13, number 11, edit. Leonine, t. 1, p. 62). Therefore, to us it appears
evident that, according to the doctrine of Saint Thomas, to place in God alone the reason of the
futurition of sin, or the truth of sin, or the divine knowledge of sin, is to place in God alone the rea-
son of being of sin. If the creature enters, as it must enter, into the reason of being of formal sin—
because it, and not God, is its first cause—there is no more remedy than that it also enter in
some manner into the reason of being known of sin, at least “per modum objecti in quo materia-
lis,” without that hindering either the infallibility or the independence of the divine knowledge.
186  third article
ever. This thought, at the intervention of the will, can be an object of an
“honest will” and of a “dishonest will,” according to what the will consid-
ers. Considered under the reason of honesty or under the dictate of rea-
son, this thought can produce and produces an honest will, which is the
will to avoid this pleasure, and this is the act of the will that is called “to
flee.” This same thought, or this same carnal delight with a neighbor’s
wife, considered in itself, “without considering the reason of honesty,” al-
ways produces a dishonest will: the will to execute this pleasure, which is
the act of the will called “to pursue.” These two acts, which are both true
acts or true “velles” of the will, have the same physical object, and are not
differentiated save in what is moral: in considering or in not considering
the “reason of honesty.” God had begun to premove man to the act of “to
will carnal delight with a neighbor’s wife under the reason of honesty,” that
is, “to want to flee it.” In this precisely consists the “simplex volitio refugie-
ndi” or the “motus ad refugiendum,” of which the “dictate of conscience”
is the echo. By only ceasing to consider this reason of honesty, this same
physical motion, which before was “to will to flee it,” converts into “to will
to execute it.” The movements or the stillness of a body follow necessarily
or physiologically from wanting to pursue or wanting to flee a thing, which
exist in the will. The act had begun, under the divine motion, with physi-
cal goodness (velle) and with moral goodness (velle secundum rationem or
velle refugere). By fault of man ceasing to consider the “reason of honesty,”
the course of the act has converted into a physically good act (velle), but a
morally bad [one] (velle “sine respectu ad rationem”; “velle prosequi mu-
lierem alienam”). At the beginning of the act, the physical and the moral
were good, and both came from God. In the course of the act, the physi-
cal is good, and the moral bad; the first is of God and man, and the second
is of man alone. Thus we say that, as one can see, a privation of honesty is
from man alone.
One ought to say the same thing of blasphemy or of any other sin
whatsoever. One who blasphemes blasphemes for some motive or good.
He blasphemes, for example, because God has deprived him of the good
of health, or of riches, etc. Well then: the privation of riches or health, or
being sent this or that calamity by God, considered under the “reason of
honesty” or in the “order of reason,” always produces [the act of] blessing
God and conformity with the divine will, as they produced this in Job.
Considered from the delightful or useful point of view, without consider-
 New Observations   187

ing the rule of honesty, they produce blasphemy and hatred of God. God
had begun moving the will to consider and to want these goods or mor-
tifications under the reason of honesty, that is, to want to bless God for
them. Man ceases to consider in them the reason of honesty and consid-
ers [in them] only the reason of delight or of no delight, with which, nat-
urally and physiologically and psychologically, the act “to want to bless
God” converts into “to want to blaspheme Him.”
In a word, all sin consists in continuing to will the same physical good to
which God has premoved one, but ceasing to consider the order of reason.
THREE DISTINCT ACTIONS PLACED IN THE HANDS OF MAN
WITH THE SAME PHYSICAL MOTION—For this reason, one deduces
that, with every divine premotion to the honest good, when dealing with
general or fallible premotions, God places three things into the hands of
man: a) the honest action to which God moves him; b) the contrary ac-
tion; c) the cessation of all action.
In effect, always when God moves freely, but with a general or suffi-
cient premotion, He moves with the freedom of specification and the free-
dom of exercise. He moves, then, with the freedom to do that to which He
moves or to do the contrary, as with the freedom to do or to cease to do.
As the freedom of the will has as its root the freedom or indifference of
judgment, and this consists in the power to consider or not to consider
the opposing aspects of good and evil that every concrete good has (save
God seen in Himself), it follows that, by considering only the good that
there is in one of these three things, and ceasing to consider the reason of
good that there is in the other two, one infallibly does this thing and not
the others.
So, for example, in the act of loving my enemies, there is a morally
good aspect, which is the being that is in conformity with reason and mer-
iting the reward of heaven, and a physically evil aspect, which is the repug-
nance that this causes in me or the force that I must exert in order to do
this. In its contrary act, with a contrariety of specification, that is, in the
act of hating my enemies, there is equally an aspect that is physically good:
the satisfaction of my passion for vengeance, and another aspect [that is]
morally evil: to be against reason or to be prohibited by God. Similarly in
to perform one or the other act or to cease to perform both, being idle or
ceasing from every act—which is in what the liberty of exercise consists—
there are also good and evil aspects.
188  third article
Well then: in fallible motions, the will can in fact resist the course of
the divine motion, ceasing to consider or considering the physical good
or the moral good that there is in each of these three acts. By simply not
ceasing to consider the honest good that there is in the love of one’s en-
emies, that is, by simply not considering the delightful good that there is
in hating them save under the reason of honesty, the will infallibly loves
them and does not hate them. On the contrary, by simply considering the
reason of being delectable or useful that there is in hating them, ceasing to
consider the reason of honesty that there is in loving them, the will infalli-
bly hates them. Finally, by simply ceasing to consider all the reason of good
in to operate [“obrar”], and considering only the reason of good that there
is in not to operate [“obrar”], the will infallibly paralyzes the divine motion
and ceases all action.
From this considering or not considering there follows what one calls
“liberum judicium,” that is, the final practical judgment. The correspond-
ing consent of the will infallibly follows this final practical judgment, sub-
ject to the new divine premotion, which God infallibly gives, if there is
need of a new premotion, after the final practical judgment.
All of this, as new as it may seem to some Thomist, is nothing other
than a logical consequence of Thomist principles, once the existence of
fallible premotions is admitted.
In this, our solution, the two traditional and substantial principles
of Thomism are perfectly saved, to wit: a) there can be no beginning of
any act without physical predetermination; b) there can be no beginning
of any honest act without physical predetermination to the honest good. The
unique accidental novelty as regards modern Thomism consists in adding
that all predetermination is infallible for the beginning of the act, but not all
predetermination is infallible for placing or not placing an impediment to
its course and term.
FORMAL AND CAUSAL PREDETERMINATIONS: RESISTENCE “IN
SENSU DIVISO” AND “IN SENSU COMPOSITO”—The divine motions
are nothing other than the execution of divine providence. Divine provi-
dence extends to everything, as individual, minimal, detailed, or deter-
mined as it may be: that is, it extends not only to the being or good in
common, but to all the individual determinations of being or of good.
Therefore, for every Thomist, the divine premotions also extend to every-
thing that there is in the action of the creature, as individual and minimal
 New Observations   189

as it may be: they are most determined premotions, to the final detail, as
determined as the premotion that David impressed on his sling and rock,
to throw this toward the forehead of the giant Goliath. Well then: as by
predetermination one means in modern Thomism a most determined pre-
motion, it clearly follows that, in this sense, every Thomist ought to defend
that every physical premotion of the divine providence is a true physical
predetermination.
But the phrase “to predetermine another” can have two senses. First,
to determine it without it determining itself. Second, to determine it or
to move it determinately so that it determines itself. In the first way, God
moves necessary agents; in the second way, He moves free agents in their
deliberate acts. The first is a predetermination ad unum per modum neces-
sitatas, and could be called a formal predetermination; the second is a pre-
destination [sic: i.e., “predetermination”] ad unum per modum liberi, and
Thomists call it a causal predetermination.
It is, then, a question of little importance to dispute whether the
name predetermination, applied to most determined motions—but per
modum LIBERI: that is, to the causal predeterminations—is well or badly
applied; the uniquely important thing is to know in what sense we Tho-
mists employ it.51
Let us then agree that, when Thomists say that God determines the
will of the creature in every deliberate act, they mean that God moves it
so that it determines itself; and that He moves it not only in a moral way,
or on the part of the object, but in a physical way, or on the part of the
subject; not in a vague way or in common, but in a most determined way.
The Thomist phrase, then, that God physically “PREDETERMINES” the
51. In any event, we repeat that the name physical predetermination does not mean to say
more than a “DETERMINED physical premotion regarding the will itself, moving it so that it de-
termines itself.” It is, then, a causal predetermination, not a formal [one]. It is simply a premotion,
and if the Thomists have given it the name predetermination, it is to signify that it is a premo-
tion not only to the good in common, but to this determined good. But always, when dealing with
deliberate acts, it is a causal predetermination, not a formal [one]. In formal predeterminations,
there can be no fallibility in the effect; in the causal [ones], there can be. It is one thing to close
the door (formal closing); it is another thing to give to the door a determined movement that it
close. It cannot be that I truly close the door and that the door not be closed. But it can be that I
give to the door a determined movement to close it, and that an impediment is interposed so that
it does not close. Causal predetermination in general does not necessarily entail infallibility. The
causal predeterminations of special providence entail it, not by being predeterminations, but by
being such predeterminations.
190  third article
will in deliberate acts means to say neither more nor less than that “God
physically and determinately PREMOVES the will so that it determines it-
self.” THE ONE who MOVES it to determine itself (and this is called causal
determination in Thomism) is God; the one who DETERMINES ITSELF
(and this the Thomists call formal determination) is the will itself.
Causal determination being nothing other than a physical and deter-
mined premotion, the causal predeterminations ought to be divided in
Thomism exactly as premotions are divided, and these ought to be divid-
ed as providence is divided: that is, into impedible and unimpedible (which
is what is called fallible and infallible) respecting the course or outcome of
such predeterminations. There are, then, fallible and infallible causal pre-
determinations, as regards their course or outcome. The first constitute
general providence; the second constitute special providence. The first are
resistible by the creature in fact, that is, not only in sensu diviso, but also in
sensu composito; the second can be resisted in sensu diviso, but not in sensu
composito; that is, they can be resisted, but they never in fact are resisted.
By this, one sees that a Thomist ought to contest the common objec-
tion that “praemotus ad orandum, non potest non orare” with the follow-
ing distinction:
If one is dealing with a general or sufficient premotion, I deny; be-
cause, in this case, one can cease to pray or to continue the “motus ad
orandum,” as much in sensu diviso as in sensu composito. If one is dealing
with a special or perfectly efficacious premotion, I distinguish. One cannot
cease to pray in sensu composito or in fact, I concede. One cannot cease to
pray in sensu diviso or on the part of the potency, I deny.
Well then: even though sufficient grace, according to the more com-
mon opinion of the Thomists, is a true premotion or physical predeter-
mination, it is nevertheless a premotion pertaining to general, not special,
supernatural providence. For this reason, the will can in fact resist the pre-
motion or predetermination of sufficient grace as regards its course or out-
come, that is, not only in sensu diviso but also in sensu composito and in all
senses. Since, for its part, nature alone without grace has the power not to
resist grace in fact (a power limited in fallen nature to imperfect acts), and
sufficient grace does not destroy this power, but rather perfects it and el-
evates it to the supernatural order, it evidently follows that, according to
true Thomist principles, under sufficient grace man has in fact two pow-
ers, to wit: a) the power in fact to resist it; b) the power in fact not to re-
 New Observations   191

sist it. This is what constitutes the essence of the fallibility of general provi-
dence. In it, God moves in a way accommodated to nature, and therefore
without removing the imperfection of the power to resist in fact.
In reality, some theologians do not appear to have sufficiently noted
that the so-called “potentia in sensu composito” or “the de facto power” is
double: a) the power in fact to resist grace or the divine motion; b) the
power in fact not to resist grace.
Of these two potencies, the first is an imperfection, proper to created
liberty; the second is a perfection. To diminish or remove the first not only
does not destroy or diminish freedom, but rather it perfects it. For this rea-
son, Thomists say, and with reason, that efficacious grace, under which
the first potency remains in fact impeded, not only does not remove free-
dom, but that it perfects and augments it.
By contrast, we Thomists say and we ought to say that, under all grace,
whether efficacious or sufficient, the second potency ought to remain, that
is “the power in fact not to resist grace,” because otherwise we would have
to say that grace does not perfect nature, but destroys or weakens it, since
this potency is a perfection of freedom. If nature, without sufficient grace,
has some power not to resist God, [then] nature, with only sufficient grace,
has an equal or greater power. The contrary would be the equivalent of af-
firming one of these two things, or both together: a) that nature alone,
without grace, is rotten and does not have any power not to resist grace in
fact; b) that it has it, but that sufficient grace removes it.
The idea of a nature that, without grace, always and in everything sins
or resists God is a Calvinist and Jansenist idea of a dead nature or rotten
for the good. Equally, the idea of a sufficient grace that, without effica-
cious grace, fails always and in everything, that is, does not have “the pow-
er in fact not to resist God,” not even in easy or imperfect things, appears to
us also [to be] the idea of a dead or useless sufficient grace: the Calvinist
and Jansenist idea.
In our judgment, the true Thomist idea of fallen nature is the idea of a
nature that, even without grace, can in fact not sin or not resist God in easy
and imperfect acts. In parallel with this, the true Thomist idea of sufficient
grace, in fallen nature, also must be the idea of a grace that, even with-
out perfectly efficacious grace, can in fact not sin or not resist God in easy
things, which is what is called “to do imperfect acts.” This is what one de-
duces, in our judgment, from all the Thomist principles.
192  third article
The more a grace diminishes the power to sin or to resist the divine
motion, the more is liberty greater and perfected; and if this power to
resist God comes to disappear completely, as in heaven, freedom would
then reach its greatest grade of perfection. Vice versa, the more the power
not to resist the divine motion is diminished, the more freedom deterio-
rates and is diminished; and, if this potency not to resist completely disap-
pears, the freedom for the good is dead, as in those condemned to Hell or
as in the theory of corrupt nature.
For this reason, to admit divine premotions that are connected infal-
libly and ab intrinseco with the line of good—that is, under which man
not does not maintain “the power to resist in fact or in sensu composito”—
is to perfect freedom. On the other hand, to admit divine premotions that
are connected infallibly and ab intrinseco with the line of evil—that is,
under which man does not maintain “the power not to resist them in fact
or in sensu composito,” but that he infallibly sins—is, according to Tho-
mist principles, to kill freedom or to suppose it to be dead. With premo-
tions themselves infallibly connected with sin, the defense of freedom and,
therefore, of the responsibility of man in it, appears to us impossible. For
this reason, we have said that the existence of fallible premotions is, to us,
the fundamental and essential point of the Thomist doctrine.

IV. T HE L AWS A N D OR DER OF

T HE DIVIN E M OT IONS
There are laws of necessity and laws of freedom. Some appear to imag-
ine that only necessary beings have laws that rule their activity, and that
free beings, in the exercise of their freedom, are beings without laws or
are completely autonomous. This is a great error. There is no being that is
completely autonomous save God. Only God does not have a law, or, bet-
ter said, He is His own law; all other beings, whether necessary or free,
have a law imposed by God, and they have it for all of their acts.
The difference between necessary beings and free beings is not in
having or not having a law, but in the power or lack of power to break this
law on their own or to leave its order.
Necessary beings, like fire, have a law for all their acts and a law from
which they can never depart by themselves. If, at some time, a necessary
agent seems to depart from its law, it is not because it leaves it by itself, but
 New Observations   193

that another withdraws it. Fire has the law of burning, and by itself it al-
ways burns. If at some time it does not burn, this does not derive from it-
self but from another cause that impedes its action: for example, water.
Free agents also have their laws, but laws from which they themselves
can depart, whether in performing or in ceasing to perform, at their plea-
sure (exercise), or whether in performing this or that, in performing well
or in performing badly (specification). These laws are the psychological
laws and the moral law.
Above all, free agents have psychological laws, which direct the mech-
anism, distinction, and order or succession of their acts. Between the
twelve acts or parts of act that make up the complete human act, there
is a linkage or order subject to laws. Such is, for example, the law that the
will can never begin to function without the intellect having first begun
to function. Such also is the law that one cannot will the means without
the will of the end having preceded [this]. Such likewise is the law that,
once the final practical judgment has been formulated, consent infallibly
follows. Such is equally the law that the will can never will anything save
under the reason of the good, a psychological law from which no will can
ever depart. Such are, finally, all the other laws that psychology studies,
and that Saint Thomas studied and formulated in his profound, ample,
and immortal treatise on human acts, with which he headed up the sec-
ond part (Prima secundae) of his Summa theologica. If the acts of free be-
ings were not ruled by laws, psychology could never have studied them as
a science, for science is not a simple empirical conglomeration of uncon-
nected facts, nor of facts united at random, but a demonstration of the re-
lation or laws that exist between an essence and its properties, between a
nature and its operations.
But, in addition to all these psychological laws, every free being is sub-
ject to other laws of an infinitely more noble and elevated order: to the
laws of the moral order. Such are the natural law, the divine law, the hu-
man laws, and—as a synthesis or condensation or reflection of all these
laws—the law of right reason, the law of the honest good, the law of pru-
dence, the law of conscience, because all these names signify at bottom the
same thing and are customarily expressed under the moral law. This is a
law that binds [“liga”] or obliges (“ob-ligation” = law) every free being,
and obliges it in all its free acts. There is no human act that is not obligated
by this law, bound by it. This is the sense of the Thomistic thesis that there
194  third article
cannot be indifferent human acts in the individual [instance]. Each and ev-
ery one of these free acts is maintained within this law—that is, to operate
in everything considering right reason is to operate well, is to operate within
the law of God, is to operate within the divine order, is to operate WITHIN
THE CHANNEL OF THE DIVINE MOTION—because, as we will next see,
all divine motion has its channel and order, freely imposed by God, but
always within the reason of honesty, while man does not depart from it. On
the contrary, to do evil or to sin consists in having the least minimal free
act without considering right reason, in leaving the divine order, in LEAV-
ING THE ORDER OR THE CHANNEL OF THE DIVINE MOTION; in a
word, to deviate from or paralyze the course of the divine motion, deviat-
ing or paralyzing the course of its effect.
So, then, free [beings] as much free as necessary beings have laws giv-
en by God and divine motions conformed in everything to these laws; but,
while necessary beings can never depart by themselves from the order of
these laws or motions, the free being can by itself depart from these laws
and motions that consider the honest good and that oblige it in all its free
acts, although it can never depart from the most general law and motion
to will the good. The concepts, then, of “free being” and “being subject to
laws” are not opposed concepts, but, on the contrary, are concepts that
are united in every intellectual being outside of God.
THE CONCEPTS OF “FREE GIFT” AND OF “GIFT DISTRIBUTED
WITH ORDER”—In the same manner that we began by seeing that the
concepts of “free being” and “a being with laws” are not opposed concepts,
we come now to see that neither are opposed the concepts of being a “free
gift” and of being at the same time “distributed with order” or with plan or
with laws. These are matters that appear elementary, but to which some
have not sufficiently given their attention.
In order for a gift to be completely free, it is enough that the giver,
in decreeing it, had no obligation to give it, nor, therefore, had the one to
whom he decreed to give it any right to receive it.
But the donor can decree to give a donation in two manners, without
it ceasing to be completely free: a) without fixing either any order or law
that regulates the distribution of this gift; b) by freely fixing some order or
law for its distribution.
We have, as an example of the first, a rich person who, without hav-
ing any obligation to give alms, and without establishing either a law, or
 New Observations   195

a plan, or any order in the manner and way of giving them, goes into the
street distributing his money a capricho [at his caprice or whim], as one is
accustomed to say. He gives it to this individual, to another he does not
give it, and so he goes, giving to these and not giving to those just because,
without regulating the distribution of his gifts by any preconceived order.
We have, as an example of the second, one who, although he also
does not have any obligation to give alms, and therefore can give them to
whomever he wants, and whenever he wants, nevertheless freely fixes or
establishes an order in the distribution of his alms, decreeing to give them
on these days, and not on others, to this class of person, and not to oth-
ers, in these circumstances, and not in others. It is evident that, so long as
this order has been freely established by the donor himself, and so long
as he does not demand, as a condition of receiving his gift, anything that
would be a merit or right or title to receive it, it is a completely free gift.
Thus, the gift would be completely free of one who decreed “to give alms
to all the poor who ask for them,” or, likewise of one who decreed saying,
“I will gave alms to every poor person whom my own son or my own wife
implores of me.” It is evident that such alms would be completely free.
Therefore, the concepts of a “gratuitous gift” and “a gift given with order”
are not absolutely irreconcilable.
It is important not to forget this, because there do not lack some
theologians who, when they read in Saint Augustine and in Saint Thom-
as that as much predestination as negative approbation [sic: reprobation]
are “completely free,” “independent of all merit,” by “the pure will of God,”
as they indeed are, at once imagine that, for this reason alone, there can
be no order nor any law in predestination and negative reprobation. And,
vice versa, the minute some theologian alludes to any law or order in
these things, they imagine that he departs from Saint Augustine and Saint
Thomas and that he follows Molina.52
52. Thus, for example, some novice Thomists, in reading the phrases of Saint Thomas in
which he clearly says that the unique motive of negative reprobation is the greater good of the
universe, at once imagine that negative reprobation cannot suppose the foreknowledge of actual
sins, as though “to be uniquely for the greater good of the universe” and “to suppose the fore-
knowledge of actual sins” were incompatible things, when, on the contrary, they are things that
can be united. Let us give an ordinary example, to make this clear.
Suppose that Peter has committed a crime, penalized by the laws of his nation with the
pain of death. Suppose also that the Prince of the nation so loves Peter that he has a most sin-
cere and true will to pardon him and free him from death, but a will conditioned by one sole
196  third article
In our judgment, this comes from confusing the concept of a “complete-
ly gratuitous gift” with that of a “gift given without order” and from not having
well grasped in what consists the dividing line or the true specific difference
between Augustinian-Thomism and Molinism, as we are going to see.
THE GRATUITY AND THE ORDER IN THE MOTIONS OF GENER-
AL NATURAL PROVIDENCE—God owes nothing to any of His creatures.
He created them freely and gratuitously; He conserves them freely and
gratuitously; He premoves them to operate freely and gratuitously. He
could create creatures or not create them. Even after creating them, He
could conserve them or annihilate them. Even after having created [them]
and conserved [them] in being, He could absolutely give them or not give
them, conserve in them or not conserve in them, the powers or principles
of their operation. Even having given and conserved the powers, He could
and can give them or take away from them the premotion to operate, as
He momentarily took away from fire [the power] to burn, in the oven of
Babylon. Should God give or take away any of these natural things, the
creature has not the least right to complain to God, but rather to exclaim
with Job: “Dominus dedit, Dominus abstulit, sit nomen Domini benedic-
condition: by the condition that the pardon is not opposed to the greater good of the republic.
Let us suppose, finally, that the Prince, after studying the case well, sees that the pardon of Pe-
ter would be against the greater good of the republic, and, in consequence, decrees two things:
a) not to pardon him, but b) to let the law be fulfilled and that he be hung.
In this case, a current and common occurrence every day, we clearly have two things:
a) the true and unique cause of not pardoning Peter (negative reprobation) is not the crime, but
the greater good of the republic, because even after, and in spite of the crime, the Prince had a
true and sincere will to pardon him; b) by contrast, the true cause of hanging him (positive rep-
robation) is the crime committed.
Thus, the two affirmations of the doctrine of Saint Thomas are verified. First, that the mo-
tive of positive reprobation is sin. Second, that the motive of negative reprobation is the greater
good of the universe, but a good of the universe that supposes sin, because, without sin, the salva-
tion of a person would never be opposed to the good of the universe.
There is more. The good of a human republic is not subordinated to the free will of the
Prince, and, when a pardon is opposed to the good of the republic, a Prince cannot concede it.
For this reason, a human prince who denies a pardon because the greater good of the repub-
lic requires it cannot say that he denies it by pure will. On the other hand, the greater or lesser
good of the universe (which is nothing other than the greater good of the predestined) depends
on the pure will of God, God being free in not pardoning Peter, if the pardon is opposed to the
greater good of other creatures, and also in pardoning him, making the creatures have less good
in place of a greater good. For this reason, one can say that negative reprobation not only has no
more motive than the greater good of the universe, but also that it has no more motive than the
pure will of God. But it always supposes sin.
 New Observations   197

tum” [“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away: blessed be the name
of the Lord”]. Everything, then, that the creature possesses is a free gift of
God, and if we call every free gift “grace,” in this sense all the motions that
man receives from God, even in the natural order, are “grace,” because
they are all free and ordained by God for the good of man.
But because to be a “gratuitous” gift is not opposed to its being given
with a law or with an “order” established by God Himself, the question
arises whether the motions of natural providence are subject to any law or
order, or whether, to the contrary, God gives or denies them “a capricho,”
as it is said, without subjecting them to any order or law. To this ques-
tion, every Thomist responds or ought to respond that God has subject-
ed the premotions of the natural order to a true order or law. This law is
that the divine premotion of general natural providence never fails by any
act proportioned to the creature, unless the creature himself places an im-
pediment to this motion. If fire does not burn, or my watch does not keep
good time, or my memory fails, or the servant does not serve me well,
this never is the fault of the divine premotion, but of a natural or free im-
pediment that the divine premotion to operate and to operate well has en-
countered in its path. The divine premotion or actuation to operate and to
operate well never fails on the part of God in things proportioned to the
proximate powers or forces of nature.
We have said “in things proportioned to the proximate powers or forc-
es of nature,” because, if one deals with acts superior to these powers or
forces, the premotion is not subject to a natural law, but what God may
give is a special providence. In fallen human nature, there is no proximate
power or force for the perfect honest good, but there is for the imperfect
or easy honest good. The premotion, then, to the easy or imperfect hon-
est good of the natural order is always in the hands of man, and it never
fails on the part of God, as long as man does not place an impediment.
These premotions are not special graces, but general [ones], and there is
not even the obligation to pray for them, just as there is no obligation to
pray that God concede to me the premotion necessary to eat or to walk or
whatever other easy act for which my nature has proximate forces or pow-
ers. Never, save by miracle, does a natural power, proximate and ready,
cease to operate by the failure of the premotion of God. If it does not op-
erate, it is not precisely by the failure of a premotion, but by an impedi-
ment placed by the creature.
198  third article
For this reason, when Molinists and Thomists dispute whether if, to
pass from the indeliberate to the deliberate volition or to pass from the
volition of the end to the volition of the means, or from one means to an-
other, there is or is not need of a new premotion, the Thomist well distin-
guishes these two questions: a) whether it is needed; b) whether God al-
ways gives it when needed. Of the first dispute, let it be as one wishes. But,
of the second, never doubt that, if it concerns the natural order, God al-
ways gives it, when it concerns acts proportioned to the forces of nature.
The motions, then, of general natural providence, even the motions
to the honest good, God not only gives subject to a law, but it is a law as
fixed as the laws of nature itself.
THE CURRENT OF THE MOTION AND THE NETWORK OR LAW
OF ITS DISTRIBUTION—One thing is the electric current that leaves the
generator or electric engine, and another is the network of metallic wires
through which the current travels and is distributed, producing light.
In the same way, one thing is the active virtue or transitive motion
with which God moves all natural beings and another is the network or
direction by which this current is distributed by God. The generator of
this current or motive virtue, which we call premotion, is always God; but
the network by which this current is distributed, when dealing with mo-
tions of general natural providence, is constituted by the ensemble of the
natural laws proper to each being.
Every being has its proper nature, and has its properties correspond-
ing to its nature, and has its natural laws exactly corresponding to its prop-
erties. The ensemble of these laws or powers constitutes the network by
which and according to which the current of the general natural divine
premotion is distributed.
Necessary beings, such as heat, light, [or] sound, have their laws or
network fixed, and we call them thermal, optical, [or] acoustical laws,
which correspond to their respective natures and activities, and the study
of which pertains to the physico-mathematical sciences. For this network,
the divine premotion is distributed always and invariably—save in the
case of a miracle—and a physico-mathematical [scientist] can calculate
with certainty where and when will be the effect of such agents, and, there-
fore, where and when there will be divine premotion, by simply knowing
well the laws of these agents and the others that can place an impediment
to them.
 New Observations   199

Free agents also have their nature, and for this reason they also have
their natural laws, although they are laws from which they can depart.
These laws constitute exactly the network by which the divine motions
are distributed to these agents, when one deals with motions of general
natural providence. To think that, by being free beings or by being per-
sons, they do not have laws, or that the laws of the person are distinct from
the nature, or that there are motions due to the nature and not to the per-
son, we believe to be oddities or inconsequential, with whose origin, as
not now being of issue, we will concern ourselves on another occasion.
The laws of free agents are the psychological laws and the moral law of
which we have spoken above. These laws constitute the network of the
distribution of the divine motions of general natural providence, and they
never fail on God’s part, save by miracle, as long as they do not encounter
an impediment in the creature.
Of these laws, the one that interests us most is the moral law. As we
have already said, this law is a true law of all free nature, and a law that ex-
tends to or is obligatory for all free acts, and it consists in having the obli-
gation or the law to execute all acts, without a single exception, consid-
ering the honest good, considering reason. Any Thomist who doubts this
need do no more than read the proofs that Saint Thomas or whichever of
his disciples—Billuart, for example—gives to prove that there can be no
free act that is morally indifferent in the individual [case]. There he will see
how, even if modern Thomists forget other things—in that these have be-
come entangled in the passionate disputes of the questions of the divine
knowledge—they do not distinguish, regarding the question of morality,
between nature and person, and how they expound with profundity and
logic that the moral law, the law of doing all free acts [while] consider-
ing reason or the honest good, is a natural law that obliges, not only human
nature in general, but all persons who have this nature, and it obliges in all
their acts.
Well then: as God always moves every person according to his nature,
and this law is obligatory for every free nature and for every person, and
is obligatory for all his acts, it is evident to us that every Thomist ought to
defend that God, in all acts, always moves, as far as His part is concerned,
to perform not only good, but also the honest good, to perform consider-
ing right reason.
So, then, God gives freely, as He gives everything, the divine motions
200  third article
of general natural providence respecting man; but He does not give them
without order or at a whim, but subject to the laws of human nature. These
laws, which constitute the distributive network of the divine motions,
have, among others, the four following characteristics.
a) Because they are divine motions, which never fail for things pro-
portioned to nature, and much less fail for obligatory things, they are al-
ways motions to the honest good, insofar as they depend on God or while
man does not place an impediment.
b) Because they are motions of general providence, they are given to
all, and man has them at his disposition provided that a physical imped-
iment, such as infancy, madness, dreaming, distraction, or some other
cause does not impede the actual use of reason, which is constitutive of
an actually free nature, that is, provided that man actually thinks. If man
did not have these motions at his disposition, he could never make prom-
ises or contracts for the future, nor could he impose any law or mandate
regarding the honest good, but, instead, all promises, mandates, or laws
would always have to be qualified by the condition “if God gives the pre-
motion,” a condition that is simply ridiculous when one is dealing with
things proportioned to our powers.
c) Because they are also motions of general providence, they are falli-
ble in their course; that is, even though begun by God alone, as happens in
first or indeliberate acts, or begun by God and by the will itself, as happens
in the deliberate ones, man can, at his pleasure, interrupt its course or ex-
ercise, ceasing to think or to will, as he can also, at his pleasure, change its
specification, converting these morally good acts into evil ones.53

53. Neither the metallic network nor the electric current of the house in which I live come
from me, but from the Electric Company. By contrast, there are two switches [“llaves”], placed
[in it] by the Company itself, which are completely in my hand. With one of them, by only clos-
ing it, I turn off the light of all the upstairs floor, but the light of the lower floor still continues.
With the other of these switches, I can turn off the light throughout the whole house. If I could
close these switches by only ceasing to consider them, we would then have an image analogous
to what takes place with our freedom. God has given us the metallic network, the electric cur-
rent, and the switches with His general premotion and they come from Him alone. God Him-
self, by His general premotion, which never fails, begins by moving us to the honest good, that is,
so that we will actually begin acting considering the switch of the good and considering the switch
of the honest good. This beginning must come from God and God alone (operative motion). By
only ceasing to consider “the switch of the honest good” (upstairs floor), but continuing to con-
sider “the switch of the good in common” (lower floor), the current of honesty is turned off, but
the current of action continues: in this consists sin or the deviation of the divine motion. By only
 New Observations   201

d) Because they are premotions of fallen nature, whose potencies do

not have the force for any perfect honest [act], these motions of general
providence do not extend further than imperfect acts, requiring a special
providence and a special motion for perfect acts.
This is, in our judgment, the order of the divine premotions in gen-
eral natural providence. To suppose that the divine premotion, even the
premotion to the honest good, is a thing without law, that God gives or re-
moves at His whim, is, in our judgment, an inconsistent Thomistic con-
ception. To be gratuitous, on the part of God, as is everything of God in
respect to His creatures, does not prevent these premotions from being
subject to an order, freely established by God, which we call the natural
order of things. The concepts, then, of “gratuitous” and “given with order
or law” are not opposed between themselves, but rather, on the contrary,
they come united when one is dealing with motions of general natural
providence.
In reality, the natural motions, even though gratuitous at their root,
which is the free creation of beings by God, can be called and are called
owed to the nature of the things, once creation is placed. The reason is that,
in the nature itself of these things, there is a true potency or inclination
to their effects, and, therefore, to the divine motions, and God owes it to
Himself not to cease His works halfway or without completing them.
THE GRATUITY AND ORDER IN THE MOTIONS OF GENERAL SU-
ceasing to consider both switches at the same time, I turn off all light and all action, ceasing to op-
erate: in this consists the extinction of the divine motion.
This conception, which to some, before meditating on it, appears to sound like [that of]
a Molinist, is profoundly Thomistic, with two conditions. First, that it apply exclusively to the
premotions of general providence, natural or supernatural, which are the only ones that are fal-
lible or resistible; that is, whose switches we can ourselves in fact close. Second, that it always be-
gins by a determined physical premotion to the honest good; that is, that God and God alone is
He who places the creature in movement and in an honest movement, God alone being the One
who begins making a creature will and that it will honestly, because the creature cannot be the
first cause or beginning either of willing or of willing honestly, although it can indeed be of not
willing honestly or of not willing either honestly or dishonestly. The creature cannot, without di-
vine premotion, pass from not considering to considering. But once God has given it the [act] to
consider, by means of premotion, it can, without a new premotion, cease to consider, closing the
switches of honesty and of action. The Molinist error is in placing in the creature, and not in
God, the beginning of action and the beginning of honesty, by not requiring a determined and
physical premotion for these two things. At the same time, the excess of some Thomists appears
to us to be in placing in God the beginning of sin, by requiring that sin begin with a divine pre-
motion infallibly connected to it.
202  third article
PERNATURAL PROVIDENCE—All the motions of general supernatural
providence can be reduced to two classes: a) sufficient graces; b) efficacious
graces not persevering to the end, or prescinding from their final persever-
ance. One and the other can be found in the reprobate, and for this they
are not proper or elicited effects of predestinative or special providence,
but are proper or elicited [effects] of common or general supernatural
providence.54
These two classes of graces or supernatural motions also have two
characteristics: a) they are gratuitous, and very much more gratuitous that
the motions of the natural order; b) they are subject to an order or laws in
their distribution by God, but not to an order as universal and rigorous.
In the first place, they are gratuitous, and completely gratuitous, be-
cause God determined to give them without having the most minimal ob-
ligation to give them, and without man having had the least merit, right,
or requirement that God give them. Not only are they gratuitous, but
[they are] very much more gratuitous than the motions of the natural or-
der. These latter, as we have seen, are in a certain manner owed to the na-
ture of each being, once its creation is supposed. By contrast, supernatu-
ral premotions, which are what one properly calls actual divine grace, are
not owed to the nature of any creature, even [with] its creation supposed,
and even also supposing the properties, laws, motions and possible per-
fections that a creature can have in the natural order. Between nature and
grace there is not of itself any tie at all, nor any merit, nor any tendency,
nor any claim, nor any active potency, nor even any passive natural poten-
cy. There is only the so-called passive obediential potency, which is some-
thing like one who has a very large empty purse that is very capable of be-
54. “It is impossible that the discrimination between the predestined and reprobate be-
gins with the bestowal of habitual grace or even actual efficacious grace, since both of these are
common, as much to the reprobate as to the predestined; therefore, it is necessary that it begins
through the generosity of that first grace that serves for one to persevere infallibly [“ut deservit
ad infallibiliter perseverandum”] (Salmanticenses, De praedestinatione, disp. IX, dub. 3, no. 95,
t. 2, p. 447). “Further, granted that a grace of good action (efficacious grace) can exist without
predestination, such as is sanctifying grace (for not all who have this are predestined); neverthe-
less, that this is conjoined with death, and thus that it leads certainly to glory happens neither to
adults nor infants except through predestination (Goudin, Tract. theol., t. 1, p. 295). “Without tak-
ing into account final perseverance, nothing is an effect of predestination” ( John of St. Thomas,
De praedestinatione, disp. 9, art. 3, no. 10, t. 3, p. 758). “Only glory and final perseverance are the
elicited effects of predestination; the others, however . . . are merely the imperated effects of pre-
destination” (Godoy, Disput. theol., De praedestinatione, q. 23, treat. 7, disp. 65, no. 61, t. 2, p. 246).
 New Observations   203

ing filled with money by someone else; but he himself has not one cent
with which to fill it, nor any least minimal way of acquiring it, nor any
right that the other give it to him.
In the second place, these graces or supernatural motions, without
ceasing to be gratuitous, have an order most freely established by God.
Of this order, we know two laws: a) that God gives to all men, at least to
adults, some sufficient grace: greater or lesser, proximate or remotely suf-
ficient, as it pleases God, but really and truly sufficient to keep the com-
mandments and to be saved; b) that once the first sufficient grace, called
vocation, is given, God always and infallibly gives the efficacious grace nec-
essary for justification, if man, by his fault, does not paralyze the course of
this sufficient grace, placing an impediment to its course; that is, if, with
it, he does what he can and prays for what he cannot.
The first of these two laws, that is, that God gives sufficient grace to all
men, Saint Thomas clearly formulates, and the majority of his commen-
tators expound it with no less clarity, especially Ferrariensis, before the
disputes de auxiliis. Owing to these disputes, and to better oppose Mo-
linism more radically, some Thomists, a little rigid on this point, limit
and obscure this law a little; but the Thomists afterward have returned on
this point to the traditional Thomist doctrine, and we do not believe that
there exists today a single Thomist who denies this law, or who does not
admit, at least, that this law can be defended by a true Thomist.
The second of these laws, that is, that God always and infallibly gives
efficacious grace to one who does not resist or place an impediment to
the course of sufficient grace, and that, therefore, the resistance of man
to sufficient grace PRECEDES the negation of efficacious grace, is also a
clear and perpetual doctrine of Saint Thomas and the Thomists. And al-
though some rigid Thomists try to minimize or obscure this law that the
resistance to sufficient grace precedes the negation of efficacious grace—
distinguishing between diverse kinds of causality and conceding that it
[the resistance] precedes it [the negation of efficacious grace] in one kind
of causality, but is posterior to it in another—nevertheless, later Thomists
have seen that it is better and more in conformity with the clarity and the
consistency of the Thomist system to affirm without distinction this sec-
ond law; that is, to concede that the resistance to or the placing of an im-
pediment to the course of sufficient grace is SIMPLICITER BEFORE the
negation of efficacious grace.
204  third article
So then, the premotions or graces of general supernatural provi-
dence, even though they are gratuitous, and more gratuitous than those of
the natural order, still have some order; they have some laws.
The laws of the motions of general natural providence are founded,
for all creatures, in the nature and properties that God conceded to them
gratuitously in their creation. The laws of the motion of general supernatu-
ral providence are founded, for the Angels and for man in the state of in-
tegral nature, in the elevation to the supernatural order. The laws of the mo-
tions of general supernatural providence, for fallen nature, are founded in
the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom all men have been redeemed,
that is, restored to the rights of the elevation to the supernatural order lost
through original sin.
That which is for every creature its creation, and is for the angels and
innocent Adam their elevation to the supernatural order, is, for fallen hu-
manity, its redemption by Jesus Christ. So then, without ceasing to be gra-
tuitous on the part of God, the premotions of general natural providence
are owed to the nature; thus, also, without ceasing to be gratuitous, and
very much more gratuitous, the supernatural premotions or graces prop-
er to general supernatural providence for fallen humanity are in a certain
manner owed to redeemed nature, or, even better, are owed to the adorable
blood of our Divine Savior.
To imagine, then, that such motions, by being supernatural or gratu-
itous, are given or denied “a capricho,” as one says, without any order or
law, or that to indicate that they have some order or law is to remove from
them their gratuity, also appears to us to be a somewhat rigid concept,
born from believing that the concepts “gratuitous” and “given with order
or law” are opposed, or by believing that the infallibility or the indepen-
dence of the divine knowledge perishes, if one admits order or laws that
man can in fact resist or [to which he can in fact] place an impediment.
THE GRATUITY OF THE MOTIONS OR GRACES OF PREDESTINA-
TIVE PROVIDENCE AND THE MOST GRAVE PROBLEM AS TO WHETH-
ER THEY HAVE ANY ORDER OR LAW—The effects proper to special su-
pernatural providence, which one calls predestination, effects [that are]
elicited by it alone and that are the only ones that one can never find in a
non-predestined, are two: a) glory in the other world, as end; b) final per-
severance, in this world, as the means infallibly connected with the attain-
ment of that end. Therefore, since, in speaking in this article of graces or
 New Observations   205

motions, we are speaking exclusively of the graces or motions that God

gives in this world, it is clear that all the graces or motions that are elicited
or proper to predestination can be condensed into one alone: in the justi-
fying grace persevering to death, which is what one calls final perseverance.
This supreme grace—without which all the others are, by fault of
man, practically useless, and with which alone, without any other, man at-
tains his eternal salvation—not only is gratuitous, but is that which oc-
cupies the supreme grade in the order of grace or of being gratuitous: the
gratuitous grace par excellence among all graces that God can concede in
this life to a pure man, and we say “pure” man, because one must place
above all the graces and all [that is] gratuitous the grace of the hypostatic
union, conceded only to the Man-God, who is our Lord Jesus Christ.
We repeat that final perseverance is and ought to be considered by
every true Thomist as fully and supremely gratuitous. Not only [is it] gra-
tuitous with respect to nature or natural providence, because this per-
tains to all supernatural grace and is a doctrine of faith, and therefore ev-
ery Catholic theologian admits this; but it is also completely gratuitous,
even supposing all general supernatural providence; that is, even suppos-
ing all the motions and graces—whether sufficient or efficacious—of this
general supernatural providence, and supposing all the merits that, with
these graces of general supernatural providence, the best of all the sons
of Adam could have accumulated. This is what Molina denied, and in this
precisely is [found] the substance and the eternal base of Thomism against
Molinism as regards predestination.
For Molina, with only the motions and graces of general supernatural
providence, designated by all the theologians with the name “grace suffi-
cient to save oneself,” man can in fact persevere to the end and save him-
self.
For every Thomist and Augustinian, with only general supernatu-
ral providence or sufficient grace, and even accumulating all the sufficient
graces imaginable, fallen man cannot in fact persevere; that is, he will nev-
er persevere without a most special providence, called predestination, or,
that is, without a most special and most especially gratuitous grace, which
is called final perseverance, and which is the proper effect, the axis and the
center, of predestination.
For Molina, general supernatural providence, which is the provi-
dence of sufficient motions and graces, is completely free; but, once this
206  third article
gratuitous providence [is] supposed, man himself is the one who converts
general supernatural providence into special or predestinative supernatu-
ral providence. For this reason, according to Molina, man does not need
God to intervene by a new divine causality, but it is enough that a simple
divine foreknowledge intervene. Before decreeing to give sufficient grace,
God foresees its final result, but He does not cause it: the difference or the
passage between general providence and final perseverance or predestina-
tion is, for Molina, a question of foreknowledge, not of causality. In a word,
for Molina, predestination to sufficient or general grace is free, but once
this predestination to grace [is] supposed, neither the predestination to
glory, nor, therefore, the predestination to final perseverance, infallibly con-
nected to it, is free.
For Saint Augustine and for Saint Thomas, as for every true Thomist
or Augustinian, not only is general supernatural providence gratuitous,
but, even supposing this providence with all its graces or sufficient motions,
special or predestinative providence is still gratuitous, and not man but
God is the one who, by means of a most special and supremely gratuitous
grace, converts general providence into predestination or special prov-
idence. For this reason, according to Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas,
it is not enough that God intervene only with divine foreknowledge, but it
is required that He intervene with a new, true, and infallible divine causal-
ity. God does not foresee the final result of sufficient grace without caus-
ing it, but as much as He foresees it so much He causes it, and He causes
it by His very free decree of giving final perseverance, which is the con-
sequence of another very free decree to give glory: two decrees founded,
not in any merit of nature nor in any merit of grace, but in the pure mercy
of God. The difference or the passage between general providence and fi-
nal perseverance or special providence is, then, for Augustinian-Thomists,
a question not of pure foreknowledge, but of true and gratuitous causality. In
a word: for Saint Augustine and for Saint Thomas, not only is predestina-
tion to grace gratuitous, but also, and even supposing all the sufficient grace
imaginable, predestination to glory as end, and to final perseverance as the
unique means infallibly connected to it, is gratuitous and completely gra-
tuitous.
In this, we repeat and we will [continue to] repeat is the substance
of Thomism against Molinism, and novice Thomists ought not to forget
it, if they want to distinguish well the substantial and the eternal in Tho-
 New Observations   207

mism from the accidental and transient that some of its modern cultiva-
tors might have added to Thomism, as happens in all systems, above all in
a time of agitation and struggle.55
55. “Second conclusion: granted the predestined adult certainly—that is, without any de-
ception of God—attains eternal life; nevertheless, the certitude is not on the part of the means
and as the effect of predestination, but on the part of the divine foreknowledge” (Molina, Concor-
dia, q. 23, art. 4, disp. 1, memb. 11, p. 506). “In eternal predestination, there is no other certitude
that the predestined will attain everlasting beatitude than that of the divine foreknowledge” (ibid.,
p. 507). “So He will have provided to some [reprobate] by far greater and more powerful means
than that ordered for many predestined” (ibid., p. 517). “Placing moreover the entire certitude of
predestination neither in the decree, by which God decided to provide to the one who was pre-
destined the means which, through his freedom, he would reach eternal life, nor even by virtue
of the same providence, but in His foreknowledge of the one He foresaw, on account of which is to be
assigned the reason for such a decree and providence of the predestined” (ibid., pp. 520–21). “Our
opinion can be grasped, then, in this conclusion: that God foresaw this order of aids and other
such by which as much those adults through the use of their free will as those infants without free
will would come to eternal life, the abandoned being truly few, He having elected more that
would come to that other end; and so that He predestined by election more of this order than
the other, and these rather than those, has no cause or reason on the part of the predestined,
but is to be referred entirely to the free will of God. But truly the election of this order of predes-
tination had a reason, in comparing these adults and not those, which reason or condition on the
part of the adult, on which it depends, was that, by their innate liberty, these and not those through
their will would cooperate with the grace received TO THE END OF THEIR LIFE, and God,
from the heights of His intellect, FORESAW this” (ibid., memb. 13, p. 545).
As one can see, all the difference that Molina places between general supernatural provi-
dence and predestinative providence is a difference of pure foreknowledge; and when, at times,
Molina says that perseverance requires a special aid, all this speciality reduces to is a special-
ity of foreknowledge, that is, that it is an aid with which God foresees that man will persevere, not
that infallibly and intrinsically causes the perseverance. With reason, then, John of St. Thomas
and del Prado have said the following of Molina: “That it is absurd, however, to say that a spe-
cial providence is not required for the predestined is obvious from this, that at least to the pre-
destined is given the benefit of persevering, which is not given to the non-predestined; however,
the Council of Trent openly teaches that this requires a special grace. . . . And, in Molina’s opin-
ion, truly a more special grace, or a more special providence among the order of graces, is not re-
quired in order to persevere. For, since all aid collected from general providence is the same, by
this alone—that it is foreseen that this one through his freedom would use it well—is being pre-
destined and persevering attributed to him; and thus a special aid is not necessary in order to
persevere, but common [aids] suffice, together with that foreknowledge” ( John of St. Thomas, De
scientia Dei, disp. 20., art. 4, no. 22, t. 2, p. 629). “Properly speaking, neither predestination nor
reprobation are given in Molina’s system, but only providence (Prado, De gratia, t. 3, p. 208). “By
this (Molina’s) way, indeed one certainly arrives at God’s foreknowledge, but not at God’s effica-
cy” (ibid., p. 522).
To distinguish oneself radically from Molinism, then, and to be a true Thomist, one must
deny that predestination is founded on foreknowledge alone; that is, one must not admit before
208  third article
But, as the reader already knows, to be a completely free gift is not
opposed in any way to the donor having most freely signaled some “or-
der” or “law” in the distribution of this gift. Well then: can a true Tho-
mist admit that God has signaled some order or law in the concession or
the denial of the gratuitous motions of predestinative providence, that is,
some order or law in the concession or denial of final perseverance?
For ourselves, as the reader will already have deduced from the in-
dications made in these three articles that we have come to write on the
matter, it is indubitable that the reply of every true Thomist ought to be or
at least CAN be (because this is enough for us) that the supreme and su-
premely free gift of final perseverance has, by the very free and most mer-
ciful will of God, something of order, an order that can be reduced to one
sole law, and that is called the law of impetration. This law consists in that,
although final perseverance can neither be caused nor merited by man (be-
cause it depends solely and exclusively on the pure will of God, who gives
it to whom He wants to give it and as He wants, giving it sometimes to the
predestination such a foreknowledge (as would be, for example, the foreknowledge of final per-
severance) that the total certainty of predestination would depend upon it. “One ought to hold
of all imaginable foreknowledge, whether absolute or conditioned, what follows from Thom-
as, who placed the ENTIRE CERTITUDE of predestination beyond the common ratio of providence”
(Lemos, Historia congregationum de Auxiliis, p. 1019). In this lies the substance of Thomism in
this matter. Once this is admitted, it is accidental that one place this or that foreknowledge be-
fore predestination (for example, the foreknowledge of all that pertains to general providence), so
long as one does not place before predestination, but after it, the foreknowledge of final persever-
ance, which is the proper effect of predestination and the only [one] infallibly connected with it.
“Predestination supposes the foreknowledge of futures” (D. Thomas, III, q. 1, a. 3 ad 4). “Inasmuch
as Peter is foreseen first according to those things which pertain to him—as separate from the
order of grace—before he was predestined, because he was foreseen first according to the or-
der of simple divine providence before he was foreseen according to the order of divine pre-
destination; and thus it was first foreseen that he would sin, before he was predestined” (Cajetan,
loc. cit.). “Well and truly D. Thomas says that predestination presupposes the foreknowledge
of futures, for it supposes general providence, and thus the foreknowledge of those things that through
it are futures” (Goudin, Tract. theol., t. 1, p. 337). “Predestination as to its elicited effect supposes
foreknowledge of the futures that are its imperated effect” ( John de Montalbán, O.P., Disputationes
theol. in primam partem D. Thomae, t. 2, pp. 613–14, Salamanca, 1731). “I respond that only glo-
ry and final perseverance are the elicited effects of predestination; certain other gifts that are con-
ferred on the elect, however, are imperated by it, while being proportioned to it, and are elicited
by a general providence of the supernatural order” (Gonet, De praedestinatione, disp. 3, no. 132, t.
2, p. 331). Novice Thomists should pay attention to these things in order not to confound what
is substantial in Thomism with what is accidental in these questions of the relation between predes-
tination and foreknowledge.
 New Observations   209

greatest sinners and denying it to others who sin much less, for which Au-
gustine with reason says “why He draws one and does not draw another
one you should not seek to judge, if you do not wish to err” [“quare hunc
trahat et illum non trahat, noli velle judicare si non vis errare”]), it can,
nevertheless, be humbly impetrated or is obtainable from God by the sole
way of prayer; but a way of prayer founded, not on the merits of the na-
ture of the one who prays, as perfect as one may suppose this nature, nor
even on the merits of the grace that the one who prays possesses, as great
as these graces and merits may be supposed to be, but based exclusive-
ly on the blood and the merits of Our Lord Jesus Christ, that is, on the
pure mercy of God by the merits of His Divine Son. There is, for fallen man,
no other means of obtaining final perseverance than that of prayer; but it
is an infallible means as regards the part of God, and a means that God has
really and truly placed within the reach of every man, so that one can say
that every man, however much a sinner he has been before, has it still re-
ally and truly in his hand while life remains to him.
This is, in our judgment, the true sense of the doctrine of Saint Au-
gustine; the true sense of the doctrine of Saint Thomas and of all the prin-
ciples of the Thomist school; the true sense of the teachings of the Coun-
cil of Trent; the true sense expressed daily in ecclesiastical preaching, and
engraved in the heart of every Christian. Without this sense, we do not
see any way of signaling a foundation or a truly divine formal motive, and,
therefore, [one] truly infallible on the part of God, for the divine or theo-
logical virtue of Christian hope.56
56. For this reason, Saint Augustine, the Doctor par excellence of completely gratuitous pre-
destination and final perseverance, in his last two books entitled De praedestinatione sanctorum
and De dono perseverantiae, was rejecting and grinding down, one by one, all the laws or con-
ditions that, as Saints Prosper and Hilary had communicated to him, the Marseillians wanted
to place on final perseverance. But, of these conditions or laws, Saint Augustine conceded that
one could admit one, or better said, [one] means. The Marseillians had opposed to Saint Au-
gustine, as Hilary communicated to him, the following: “Thus, they (the Marseillians) are un-
willing to have this perseverance preached in such a way that it cannot EITHER be merited as a
gift through supplication [“donum suppliciter emereri”] OR be lost through defiance.” Of these
two parts, or laws, or conditions, or however one wants to call them, Saint Augustine energeti-
cally rejected the second, but fully conceded the first: “Therefore, this gift of God IS ABLE TO
BE SUPPLICATED AS A FAVOR; but, when it has been given, it cannot be lost” (De dono perse-
verantiae, chap. IV [I, VI, 10]). “We impetrate in prayer those things that we do not merit. . . . So,
too, we may impetrate of God in prayer the grace of perseverance, either for ourselves or for oth-
ers, although it does not fall under merit” (I-II, q. 114, art. 6 ad 1). “And thus man is NOT ABLE
210  third article

BY HIMSELF TO BE THE CAUSE OF PERSEVERANCE (and, in this affirmation, lies what sub-
stantially differentiates Thomism from Molinism), but he must petition from God that he have
perseverance” (D. Thomas, De veritate, q. 24, art. 13). “Impetration does not oblige God out of
justice, but one obtains a petition solely by liberality bestowing it” (D. Thomas, IV Sent. dist. 43,
q. 2, art. 1, qa. 1). “It is one thing for something to be impetrated infallibly; it is another [for it]
to be merited” (Prado, De gratia, t. 1, p. 664). For this reason, the key and the summary of this
mysterious question of predestination, and, therefore, of final perseverance, is reduced to these
words of Saint Augustine: “Always receive and acknowledge: not yet being drawn, PRAY that you
may be drawn” [“Semel accipe et intellige: nondum trahentis, ORA ut traheris”] (In Joan. Evan-
gelio, treat. 26, no. 2).
Fervent prayer is not always in our hand, but it is always in our hand to pray, at least tepid-
ly, and, doing the little or the much that (with the little or great grace that we have at each mo-
ment, and that God never entirely denies to anyone) we are able in fact to do, it is infallible that,
on the part of God, He will not stop giving us more and more grace, including final persever-
ance. “Anyone doing what is in him [“faciens quod in se est”] to obtain eternal salvation will ob-
tain salvation through the grace of God” [“Quilibet faciens quod in se est ad salutem aeternam
consequendam, salvus erit per gratiam Dei”] (Cajetan, Comment. in epist. ad Romanos, chpt. 9).
To pray and to pray grasping onto the cross of Jesus and the mantle of Mary, and not from any
merit of our own, is the consoling solution to this terrifying problem of predestination: a solu-
tion that God has placed in the hands of every man, and that one can say every man has still in
his hand, while there remains to him a breath of life, however much he may have been a sinner
in the past.
To teach that some creatures exist who God, a priori and without supposing or foreseeing
any fault on their part, has infallibly or definitively reprobated—either with a positive reproba-
tion or a negative reprobation—appears difficult to us to reconcile with the truly divine founda-
tion of Christian hope. In order to defend the Augustinian-Thomist doctrine of the complete
gratuity of predestination, there is need, in our judgment, neither for this nor for some other
extremely rigid affirmations that, with the best of intentions, and despite their great knowl-
edge and sanctity, certain theologians (including Suárez), who pertained to the most diverse
schools, have defended.
As we already indicated in our first article (pp. 32–34 [31–34]), and as we hope to demon-
strate fully in its time, this is an accidental question for Thomism, in which there is no unanimity
among the Thomists themselves. “It ought to be said that divine aid, either the divine gift, or the
special motion, is never lacking to anyone except by placing an impediment; and therefore neither
Adam nor the evil angel are excused if they did not persist, because they themselves were the
cause that the divine aid necessary for perseverance was absent in them” (Capreolus, II Sent.,
dis. 29, q. 1, art. 3, edited by Paban and Pègues, t. 4, p. 321). “Others, it is true, EVEN AMONG RE-
CENT THOMISTS seek seriously to give a certain reason for reprobation on our part, although not,
nevertheless, the same one for all. For they say that in some, namely in infants dying without
remedy (baptism), the cause of reprobation is original sin; in others, however, the cause of repro-
bation is mortal sin alone, either in the reprobate angels or in baptized adults” (Alvarez, Summa de
auxiliis, bk. 4, chap. 9, no. 2, p. 674, Lyon edit., 1620). It deals, then, with a free question within
Thomism.
 New Observations   211

To expound the foundations of this, our persuasion, with the ampli-

tude that it deserves, not only requires another article, but would require
an entire book. Perhaps, as many of our benevolent readers have coun-
seled us, we will decide to expound our thought all at once in a book,*
instead of doing so in successive articles, reserving articles for going on,
from time to time, to contest the objections that, without any doubt,
many—as much Thomists as Molinists—will put to this, our interpreta-
tion of the Augustinian-Thomist doctrine concerning the divine motion.
           FRIAR FRANCISCO MARÍN-SOLA, O.P.
          University of Fribourg (Switzerland)

A PPEN DIX
This, our third article, already having been printed, there came into
our hands the March–April issue of the esteemed Revue Thomiste, where
our earlier objector has again made some observations (pp. 160–73).†
Even though, with what has been said in this third article, we could con-
sider them answered, we are going to concern ourselves with them in this
appendix with all possible brevity. His observations, faithfully translated
into Spanish, are what follow.

FIRST—“Father Marín-Sola says that infallibly efficacious grace is

not required for the continuation of the easy salutary act” (Rev. Thomiste,
p. 160).
*editor’s note: This article was no doubt completed by no later than late April 1926
(see the date at the end of the Appendix following this third article) and then published in the
May–June edition of La Ciencia Tomista. Thus, even before Paredes was elected master general
(on May 22, 1926), Marín-Sola already contemplated a way to avoid further controversy, by not
publishing his work piecemeal in articles. Paredes’s own injunction not to do so, and his similar
injunction to Garrigou-Lagrange (see Introduction, n. 55), must indeed have been given shortly
after he became master general; for Garrigou-Lagrange’s pamphlet, which he published in 1926,
had previously been readied as an article, but was not allowed to be published as such (see In-
troduction, n. 42). Having already reached the same conclusion as Paredes, Marín-Sola would
have all the more easily been able to accept with equanimity his injunction prohibiting further
articles.
†editor’s note: See Garrigou-Lagrange, “La grâce infalliblement efficace et les acts
salutaires faciles,” Revue Thomiste 31 (May 1926): 160–73. Here, Marín-Sola identifies his earli-
er “objector,” even if not by name, although this would have been clear to all who were familiar
with the controversy in any way beyond the cursory.
212  third article

REPLY—What we have said, and we repeat, is that infallibly effica-

cious grace is not required for placing or not placing an impediment to the
continuation of the act in easy things and for some time. To affirm the
contrary we consider as bordering on Jansenism and as evidently con-
trary to the doctrine of Saint Thomas.

SECOND—“General providence is infallible for all good that occurs,

occurred, or will occur” (loc. cit., p. 161).

REPLY—Our objector does not appear to distinguish between in-

fallibility of foreknowledge and infallibility of causality. With infallibili-
ty of foreknowledge, general providence is infallible, respecting not only
all good, but even all evil; that is, respecting everything. With infallibility
of causality, it is not infallible respecting any moral evil; but it is infallible
respecting the good of the universal end, although not respecting the par-
ticular end; that is, respecting placing or not placing an impediment to the
course of the divine motion, or—what is the same—to the continuation
of the effect. The fallibility or infallibility of divine providence respecting
the attainment of a particular end is now current doctrine in Thomism.

THIRD—“Without an infallible divine secret [sic: decree], one can-

not explain how the free continuation of my attrition passes from the
state of possible to the state of contingent, really and certainly present to
eternity, under the intuitive glance of God” (loc. cit., p. 162).

REPLY—That which is enough for a thing to pass from possible to ex-

isting is also enough for it to pass to being really present to eternity and
for it to pass to being seen infallibly by God. Well then: for a thing to pass
from possible to existing, Thomistic metaphysics teaches that there is need
of causality or action, but it does not teach that there is need of infalli-
ble or unimpedible causality or action. Our objector distinguishes between
“required in order to exist” and “required to be able to be known infallibly.”
The requirements for the second are exactly the same as for the first; and,
among the requirements for the first, in no way does there enter infallible
causation, but only causation. Once a thing has been really caused, even
though it has been caused fallibly, it exists really and it exists infallibly, be-
 New Observations   213

cause “all that exists (however may have been the mode of its causation)
exists infallibly while its exists.” This is the base used by Saint Thomas to
show how a thing fallibly caused can be infallibly seen in time and infallibly
foreseen in eternity.

FOURTH— “But then the divine knowledge to see these things would
be passive. Well then, is there nothing more absurd that a passivity in the
first act?” (loc. cit., p. 163).

REPLY—Above all, we congratulate our objector on his change of

tactic. In his previous article, everything reduced to crying out that our
theory of fallible decrees destroyed the infallibility of the divine science.
He now appears to have seen that it saves the infallibility and resorts to
the reason of Pure Act, saying that our theory places passivity in God. Let
us look at it.
In order to be pure Act there is need not to receive anything from any-
thing; but there is no need to cause everything, because then God would
be the cause of sin; nor either is there need of causing everything infalli-
bly, because then general providence or the antecedent will—which is a
true will—of pure Act would disappear and there would be nothing left
but the consequent will and special providence.
It is certain that the free will of God or of pure Act cannot receive
anything from created objects; but it is no less certain that it can suppose
something in created objects. The essential or metaphysical relations of
things, and, therefore the infallibility of these relations, are not born from
the will or efficient causality of God or of pure Act, but are supposed by
them. Well then: in all existing being, even in the case where it exists by a
fallible causality, there is an essential metaphysical property, supposed and
not caused by the free will of pure act. This essential property is the “in-
fallibility of fact,” expressed so often by Saint Thomas in the formula that
“all that exists, while it exists, exists infallibly.” Well then—and some do
not pay sufficient attention to this—as the science of vision is after (in our
poor way of understanding) the free will or decrees of God, the science of
vision supposes and does not cause the infallibility of fact of the existence of
the contingent, although it causes, and does not suppose, its existence. By
virtue of the essential principle that “all the existent or the caused (wheth-
er caused infallibly or fallibly) exists infallibly, while it exists” it results that
214  third article
the effect of fallible causality can be the object of an infallible knowledge.
In this case, the infallible science of vision of God supposes something in
the created object, without receiving anything from the created object.
That which the knowledge of God supposes is an essential thing (the es-
sential law of the “infallibility of fact”); and, as all the essential, although
supposed by the free will of God, and therefore by the science of vision,
is a formal effect of the divine intelligence or simple intelligence, exempla-
ry cause of all the essential, we hold that the science of vision of pure Act
can suppose something in its known objects, but it is something that, in its
turn, derives from the essence itself or the simple intelligence of Pure Act.
There can be some supposition without divine dependence or divine passiv-
ity, unless we say that the free will of God is also passive respecting the es-
sential relations of creatures and the infallibility of these relations by the
sole fact that these relations and this infallibility are not caused, but are
supposed by the free will of God.
In its time, we will expound with extreme latitude this question of
the divine knowledge, in a work that we are preparing on all these ques-
tions.* Meanwhile, may every reader have the goodness to return to read
the objection of Scotus and the reply of Cajetan cited on page 47 [104] of
our second article; because we are sure that he will see that this objection
that our friend has made on the passivity of pure Act is exactly the same
that Scotus made against the doctrine of Saint Thomas, and that our reply
is nothing other than that given by Cajetan.
Above all, we insist on the idea that the clear question of whether
there are divine motions and graces that the human will can in fact resist
and can in fact not resist (which is the only thing we mean by the phrase
“fallible premotions”) ought not to depend on this obscure and mysteri-
ous question of the divine Knowledge. The Church has defined against
Jansenism that “interior gratiae aliquando resistitur,” and the Church, in
defining this, has done nothing more than apply the doctrine one thou-
sand times and in all forms taught by Saint Thomas. This doctrine of the
Church, sincerely translated in Thomist language, wants to say nothing
more than that “praemotioni Dei aliquando resistitur”; that is, that there
can be fallible premotions. This is infinitely clearer than all the questions
*editor’s note: This is his as-yet unpublished Concordia Tomista, the first volume of
which covers the divine knowledge in depth. He worked on it after this article, completing the
first volume either in 1927 or early in 1928.
 New Observations   215

and subtleties over the divine knowledge, in which our poor imagination,
by nature anthropomorphic, entangles itself, distinguishing too much
between before and after respecting the most simple, unique, and eternal
glance of the knowledge of God.

FIFTH—“Saint Thomas expressly says (I, q. 14, art. 11) ‘Since God is
the cause of things by His knowledge, His knowledge extends as far as His
causality extends’” (loc. cit., p. 163).

REPLY—Saint Thomas says in this text, and it is evident, that the di-
vine knowledge extends as far as His causality. But Saint Thomas does not
say, and one who said it would be Calvinist, that the divine causality ex-
tends as far as His knowledge, because then it would extend to formal sin.
That which our objector adds, that “God does not know things in Himself
save insofar as they are His EFFECTS,” we prefer to consider as a distrac-
tion, unless he claims that formal sin is an effect of God or that God does
not know formal sin.

SIXTH—“Saint Thomas says formally in q. 6 of De malo, art. 1, ad 3:

“Providence operates infallibly in all things” [“In omnibus providentia in-
fallibiliter operator”] (loc. cit., p. 164). Our objector cites this text on prac-
tically every page of his article.

REPLY—There are two providences: the general and the special. In

general providence, there are two classes of end: the universal end, which
is the glory of God, and the particular end, which is the salvation of this
individual in particular, or the outcome of this or that act.
Every Thomist knows that special providence is infallible in all its
proper acts. He also knows that general providence is infallible in the at-
tainment of the universal end, but that it is not infallible respecting the at-
tainment of the particular end: that is, respecting the placing or not plac-
ing an impediment to the course or outcome of the divine motion or of its
effect. All divine providence has, then, infallibility of foreknowledge as re-
gards everything; but not all divine providence has infallibility of causality
in respect of everything. This is current doctrine today in Thomism, even
though some Thomists have opined to the contrary.
216  third article
SEVENTH—“Saint Thomas says (I, q. 19, art. 8), ‘No defect of a sec-
ondary cause can hinder God’s will from producing its effect.’”

REPLY—That which Saint Thomas says in the detached phrase of

this text, cited by our objector, the Holy Doctor deals with ex professo in
two articles, whose titles are: “Whether anything can happen outside the
order of divine government [“praeter… contingere”], and “Whether any-
thing can resist [“reniti contra”] the order of divine government” (I, q. 103,
aa. 7 and 8). Let our objector read them, with the magnificent commen-
tary of Cardinal Cajetan, and he will see how, according to Saint Thomas,
the human will cannot resist or place an impediment to the universal ef-
fect of God or of His providence, which is the divine glory; but that it can
resist or place an impediment to whichever particular effect of this gener-
al divine providence. This is what these phrases mean: “intercipere cur-
sum motionis divinae,” “sistere cursum gratiae sufficientis: detorquere mo-
tionem Dei,” and others analogous to them that are repeated at each turn
by the Thomists, above all those after the condemnation of Jansenism.
All these phrases, profoundly Thomistic, entail the idea of fallible premo-
tions, that is, of premotions to whose course one can in fact place an im-
pediment.
Some Thomists today, who so note the unity of the Thomist doctrine,
do not appear to have observed the clear symptoms of evolution that, in
these questions, are noticeable already in Gonet, Goudin, Billuart, and
other Thomists posterior to Bañez, Alvarez, and Lemos. We cite as exam-
ples the following texts:
You will insist. . . . The antecedent is proved thus: if this decree denying grace to avoid
sin were to have an infallible connection with sin, the will in this way destitute of aid
would always sin. . . .
I respond. . . . I distinguish. If that decree etc., by which the will this way des-
titute of grace must always sin, refers to those cases in which THIS IS REQUIRED
BECAUSE OF ITS BAD DISPOSITIONS, such that, according to the laws of com-
mon providence, it is moved to an act connected with a defect, concedo; in cases IN
WHICH IT IS NOT REQUIRED, nego. (Billuart, De Deo uno diss. 6, art. 4, solvuntur
objectiones, objectio 3a, Instabis)
It is concluded that sometimes both wills coincide, such that the same thing is
willed by the antecedent and consequent will: that is, both in itself, and consider-
ing all circumstances, as with the salvation of the elect, which is willed by both wills.
 New Observations   217

And sometimes they do not coincide, but are as it were opposed, such that what is
willed by the antecedent will is not willed by the consequent will, as the salvation
of the reprobate. In the first way, it is not necessary that the consequent will suppose
something on our part [“ex parte nostra”]. . . . In the latter way IT ALWAYS SUPPOS-
ES SOMETHING ON THE PART OF THE CREATURE; for that God does not want
to give some good to a creature with a consequent will, that He willed to give him
with an antecedent will, ALWAYS SPRINGS FROM SOME DEFECT IN IT. (Goudin,
Tract. theol., t. I, pp. 173–74)
God NEVER determines the will to the material of sin save objectively and in the or-
der of material and occasional cause AS DETERMINED BY THE WILL ITSELF , be-
cause HE FORESEES IT would determine itself to the formality [of sin] through
its proper malice and defectibility . . . such that this determination and application
to the material [of sin] is, AS IT WERE, SUMMONED AND FORCED [“VELUTI IN-
VITO ET COACTO”] (from God). (Gonet, De scientia Dei, disp. 4, no. 200, t. I, p. 426)
And thus, according to our way of explaining the matter, the highest goodness of
God shines out in this: that, by the most efficacious aid of grace, as prepared out of
pure mercy, He saves so many. Why not all? Because this is accomplished by the or-
der of divine wisdom, according to which the overflow of His goodness is tempered
[“temperatur”], and also a place for his justice is reserved. We are able to affirm that
NO ONE IS PASSED OVER, WHO, ACCORDING TO THE WAY OF THE ADVER-
SARIES (Molinists), were it possible he be saved, IS SAVED, and that innumerable are
saved that they do not save. (Goudin, t. I, p. 347)
We ourselves confess besides, and that it should be as among all things most certain,
that the first man and angel, BY THOSE healthy and most strong POWERS THAT
THEY HAD RECEIVED, could AS EASILY have persevered, as man now, in whole
body and soul, is able to speak or not to speak, AS IT PLEASES HIM . . . ; such a
good use of God’s benefits ought to be referred not to the singular way that perse-
verance is now referred, in the state of fallen nature, but to that other GENERAL
WAY, by which whatever good there is in things is referred to God as their author.
(Goudin, t. I, p. 369)
In this question of integral nature, the symptoms of Thomist evolu-
tion are even more marked in Gonet and Contenson. These two famous
Thomists concede that, if we prescind from general premotion, which is al-
ways necessary for every natural or supernatural act of the creature, and
limit ourselves to the grace supernatural acts require by virtue of their
special nature, one should affirm that, for the angels and Adam, sufficient
grace is enough for them to persevere:
218  third article
But, in the state of healthy and integral nature, such aid is not per se required, but all
that was necessary to him were the powers of THE SUFFICIENT GRACE ALONE of
his state, through which, with GENERAL CONCURRENCE alone, he could have per-
severed, if he had wished, with as much ease as he could have walked. (Contenson,
Theol. mentis et cordis, bk. 8, diss. I, chap. 2, § 2, t. I, p. 711, edit. Cologne, 1687)
Gonet states the same thing, and with virtually the same words
(Manuale Thomistarum, de voluntate Dei, treat. 4, chap. 4, § 11, t. I, p. 368,
Padua, 1704).
We are intimately persuaded that all that we have said and that we
will say in our articles is nothing other than a logical development of THESE
texts of Gonet, Contenson, Goudin, and Billuart, which we have just fin-
ished citing, and of other similar texts that we have cited and will cite.
With this [development], we can perfectly harmonize at bottom the Tho-
mist, Augustinian, and Liguorian systems, without the least mixture of
Molinism.
Perhaps someone will object that there do not lack other Thomists,
and even other texts of these same Thomists, in which the contrary is said
or appears to be said. To this, we simply reply that, it being so, our objec-
tor has the full liberty to follow that which these other texts say, as we have
[the liberty] to follow and develop that which these cited texts so very
clearly say, and many others that we could cite from classical Thomists.

EIGHTH— “If, according to Saint Thomas, the divine decrees save

the contingency and the liberty of our choice, it is not because they are
fallible, defectible, but, on the contrary, because they are most efficacious,
and their transcendent efficacy extends not only to the substance, but also
to the mode of our choices. See Saint Thomas, I, q. 19, a. 8, where he says:
‘Since then the divine will is perfectly efficacious [“efficissima”], it follows
not only that things are done, which God wills to be done, but also that
they are done in the way [“eo modo”] that He wills they be done.’ For this
reason, it is impossible for us to admit the Spanish parentheses that Fa-
ther Marín-Sola inserts in the texts of Saint Thomas, of the Salmanticens-
es, and Billuart” (loc. cit, p. 165).

REPLY —We do not understand to what end our objector brings up

this text of Saint Thomas. If we are defending that one must admit fallible
or defectible premotions, it is not to save freedom, because the more effi-
 New Observations   219

cacious a divine motion is, the better saved is freedom, which is a perfec-
tion. But it is exclusively to explain sin and the responsibility of man in it,
a thing that is inexplicable if all motions are infallibly efficacious as regards
everything. It would be curious were our objector to respond, to one who
asked how one saved that sin or [how] an immoral mode could be in the
creature under the divine premotion: “Since the divine will is perfectly ef-
ficacious [“efficicissima”], it not only follows that things are done which
God wills to be done, but also that they are done in the way [“eo modo”]
that He wills they be done.” If our objector calls us to keep “the unity of
the Thomist School” in this, then we understand why our objector imag-
ines that we are breaking this unity and why he cannot admit our Spanish
parentheses to the texts of Saint Thomas, Billuart, and the Salmanticens-
es.57 To have spoken so much, and with reason, of the infallible efficacy of
the divine will as regards predestination (which is a special providence)—
because this is the true Thomist bastion against Molinism—it seems to
us that some modern Thomists run the risk of supposing that there is no
more true divine will than the infallibly efficacious or consequent, without
sufficiently realizing that this is the way by which one goes directly to Cal-
vinism and Jansenism. By this way runs, in our judgment, the theory that
does not admit more divine premotions than those that are infallibly effi-
cacious in everything, because the divine premotion and the divine will
are correlative in Thomism. These are remnants or the legacy of the old
theory that the antecedent will is a will of sign and that there is no more
true will than the consequent.

NINTH —“According to Saint Thomas, the infallibility of justification

comes from God having disposed man by an actual grace [that is] infallibly
efficacious” (loc. cit., p. 166).

57. The parentheses placed in our second article (pp. 21 and 22 [74–75]) to the texts of Bil-
luart and the Salmanticenses are taken from the express doctrine of these theologians. Respect-
ing the parentheses placed (p. 46 [and 47] [102–03]) to the texts of Saint Thomas, it is true that
we could have put them in another, more clear, form, in order not to give a ground for confu-
sion. These parentheses were not placed to signify that the word “contingent,” used by Saint
Thomas, ought or ought not to be translated by the phrase “fallibly decreed,” but simply to sig-
nify that, applying to “fallibly decreed” the same exact reasoning that Saint Thomas applies to
“contingent,” one sees clearly how, even with fallible decrees or those impedible in fact by the
creature, there can be an infallible knowledge in God, by reason of His eternity.
220  third article
REPLY—If one is dealing with proximate dispositions, which are si-
multaneous with justification, it is certain. These dispositions, as justifica-
tion itself, come from an infallibly efficacious grace and are enough, with
this, for the infallibility of justification. But if one is dealing with remote
dispositions, earlier in time than justification, these dispositions can be
done, and ordinarily are done, with sufficiently efficacious grace, which is
a grace [that is] infallibly efficacious for all beginning [of an act] and [is]
fallibly [efficacious] for the placing or not placing of an impediment to
its course. For this reason, one currently now says in Thomism that infal-
libly efficacious grace, or the grace of justification, of which Trent speaks,
cannot be resisted in fact or in sensu composito, when it has already been
given in itself or when it is already in its proximate dispositions; but it can
be [resisted] in fact (and not only in sensu diviso, as other Thomists inter-
pret it) when it is still in its remote dispositions, which ordinarily are pre-
vious in time to the proximate [ones]. This, we repeat, is today current
doctrine among Thomists, and [one] that Lemos himself had already in-
dicated. Well then: for whoever understands what he says, the phrases “a
motion non-resistible in fact” and “a motion resistible in fact” mean the
same thing as the phrases “an infallibly efficacious motion” and “a falli-
bly efficacious motion.” Both motions ordinarily enter into justification:
the second in remote dispositions and the first in proximate dispositions.
Were there no more motions than the infallible, the process of justifica-
tion would never abort. Were there no more than the fallible, it would
never reach its term, because it deals with an act that is perfect par excel-
lence, which is the efficacious love of God.

TENTH—“We do not see, then, how to save in all its extension the
principle of Saint Thomas (I-II, q. 109, art. 6) that ‘the order of agents cor-
responds to the order of ends’; because, in order to obtain a supernatural
end infallibly, there is need that the first agent, who is the one who dispos-
es for it, intervene infallibly in the entire course of this disposition, to which
pertains the continuation of the act” (loc. cit., p. 167).

REPLY—We do not wish to be discourteous to our objector; but we

must confess with sincerity that we do not understand to what purpose
one cites texts of Saint Thomas that do not have any relation to the prob-
lem with which we are dealing. In order to obtain or secure infallibly any
 New Observations   221

end whatsoever, there is no need that all the means be infallible, but it is
enough that some are, and even that one alone is: that is, one that is in-
fallibly or efficaciously connected with the attainment of such an end.
For God infallibly to assure the salvation of a man (for example, the good
thief, converted on the cross), there was no need that all the motions of
his life were infallible, but it is enough that the final motion was infallible.
For this reason, modern Thomists, from the time of Serra (followed by
Godoy, by Gonet, and by others) signal final perseverance, along with glo-
rification, as the unique proper or elicited effect of predestination, all the
others being able to be effects of ordinary providence or of fallible mo-
tions. And, correlatively, they tend to signal final impenitence as the prop-
er effect of reprobation or the premotion of unpardonable sin, all the rest
being able to be the effect of general or defectible providence. In a word:
the order of the agents corresponds to the order of ends; but, as general
providence does not have any particular end as an infallible end, there is no
need that the agent use any motion that is infallibly connected with either
the continuation or the attainment of such an end. As special providence
is infallible as regards the attainment of the particular end, which is sal-
vation, it is indispensable that it use means infallibly connected with this
end, for which it is enough [that there be] one efficacious vocation, with
one efficacious justification, as long as this vocation and justification are
persevering to the end. But it could have been preceded by innumerable
inefficacious vocations, and it could be accompanied by innumerable fal-
lible acts, as long as what we call final perseverance is secured. In this final
perseverance is the bastion of Thomism, and its radical difference from
Molinism, that is, in affirming that final perseverance cannot be the effect
of nature, nor of sufficient grace, nor of ordinary efficacious grace, nor of
any merit, but that it is the effect of a most special grace depending on the
pure mercy of God, and, therefore, obtainable only by the way of prayer.58
58. On page 167 of his article, our objector indicates that our theory, by establishing an in-
fallible ordinary law between not placing an impediment to the course of sufficient grace and the
attainment and impetration of efficacious grace, “is reminiscent of certain aspects of the Molin-
ist theory of the PACT between God and Jesus Christ respecting those who dispose themselves
for justification.” Our objector appears to forget that the famous pact of Molina consists in plac-
ing an infallible connection between nature and grace, and, for being this, with [good] reason
the Thomists reject it and we reject it. By contrast, our theory does not place any connection
at all, neither infallible nor fallible, between nature and grace, but between the successive stages
of the course of the grace itself, once the first grace is given, something admitted by distinguished
222  third article

ELEVENTH—“The negative precepts prohibit culpable acts and

oblige in all moments; and it is evident that the sinner can, WITHOUT
GRACE be for some time without violating them, because, as Saint Thomas
says ‘it is not necessary that we sin continuously’” (loc. cit., p. 168).

REPLY—Admirable! Let us draw up a deed of this concession, which

had to come. It is at last conceded to us that, without actual grace, one can
be some time without sin. And as neither does one need grace to sin, we
hold that, of two who are without grace, it can occur that one in fact sins
and the other does not. Let our objector now tell us four things. First,
what has happened to that objection that, taken from a text of Saint Au-
Thomists. May our objector have the goodness to reread the long text of the Salmanticenses,
cited on page [21 and] 22 [74–75] of our previous article, from which it is enough to repeat here
the following lines: “Not that this occurs through a physical connection and is necessary from
the thing’s nature, but because it is morally INFALLIBLE; for God has so DECREED and by
THIS PACT places salvation IN MAN’S HAND, by means of grace . . . ” We respect the psychology
of certain Thomists, who can hardly deal with any question of these [matters] without bring-
ing up Molina. But we trust that these will also respect the psychology of other Thomists who,
without hardly being concerned or in accord with Molina, are concerned to penetrate and to
develop the principles of Saint Thomas and his school in themselves. Thomism has need of these
two kinds of Thomists: the first, to defend it; the second, to develop it.
Even the most rigid Augustinians, as Berti, already indicate that, in order to defend the
Augustinian-Thomistic doctrine of a completely free predestination, it is enough to defend that
final perseverance is the effect of predestination. Let us listen to his words:
“You object secondly: the merits of fallen man, except final perseverance, are not an effica-
cious means to glory; and so, even though God works our merits in us through the aid of effica-
cious grace, it does not follow that these same merits are the effect of predestination.
“I respond: by this, that by the very fact that final perseverance is the effect of predestination,
that very predestination does not result from the foreknowledge of merits, if, as is the case, to pre-
destine out of the foreknowledge of merits is to predestine out of the foreknowledge of final persever-
ance. For, unless someone were foreseen to be going to persevere to the end, how else would he
be selected for glory through a consideration of his merits? But final perseverance is the effect of a
predestination to glory, and, consequently, man is predestined first, according to our [human]
way of reasoning, before it is foreseen that he would persevere to the end. Therefore, I CON-
CEDE THE ENTIRE ARGUMENT [that non-persevering merits, even though caused by effica-
cious grace, are not the effect of predestination (and thus that predestination could suppose a
foreknowledge of such merits)]” (Berti, De theol. disc., bk. 6, chpt. 8, t. I, p. 29, Munich, 1750).
We believe that one who does not notice these shades or concessions that one encounters
at every step in the affirmations of the Thomists and Augustinians of the first order will never
distinguish between that which is substantial and that which is accidental in the Augustinian-
Thomistic system on this question of predestination.
 New Observations   223

gustine, he made to us with Father Guillermin, concerning which every

sin that we did not commit was a special grace. Second, tell us who it is that
discerns between these two when, without grace, the one sins and the oth-
er does not. Third, tell us in what means God infallibly sees the sin or the
non-sin of the one who, without grace, can in fact not sin. Fourth, if per-
haps, as we fear, he leaves us with this, that it does not require grace not
to sin, but it does require some other motion to the honest good, or some
special providence, or I don’t know what it will occur to him to say (be-
cause there is now no way out in this concession made, and which is the
concession of Saint Thomas), we will always hold that this motion, or this
providence, or this what he wills, IS NOT GRACE, against everything that
he has been saying and arguing since the beginning.

TWELFTH—“Finally, this general concurrence, natural or supernatu-

ral, is not equal in the one who continues the good easy act, as he should,
and in the one who sins, not continuing it. In the second case, the effect,
the general concurrence that inclines to the good, is going to be accompanied
by the divine permission of sin, and then it is not INFALLIBLY EFFICA-
CIOUS” (loc. cit., p. 169).

REPLY—Here is another concession to which it is important to draw

up a deed. We have, then, in this case, a general concurrence that is NOT
INFALLIBLY EFFICACIOUS FOR GOOD. As it is to be supposed that it is
not INFALLIBLY EFFICACIOUS FOR EVIL, because this would be pure
or disguised Jansenism, it will turn out to be, then, a concurrence or pre-
motion that is not infallibly efficacious for good and not infallibly effica-
cious for evil; it will therefore tend to be a fallibly efficacious premotion,
which is what we are searching for.
I already know that our objector will say that this motion is not infal-
libly efficacious for evil, but that it is infallibly connected with it. But this ac-
cidental variation of formula does not remove this doctrine from the ways
of Calvinism or Jansenism. We are dealing with a general premotion previ-
ous to all foreknowledge of actual defect on the part of the creature. Well
then: the infallibility of connection between the motion and the sin must
be born from some source. If it is born in God, this is pure Calvinism;
if it is born in the creature, this is to confess that, with a general premo-
tion, a creature infallibly sins, which is to confess with Jansenism that the
224  third article
creature is dead or corrupt for good. Apart from this, in the previous ob-
jection, our objector ended by conceding, because Saint Thomas express-
ly teaches this, that the creature, even without grace (= permission) does
not sin infallibly in all moments and can for some time sin or not sin. Our
objector will never get out of this jam without admitting fallible premo-
tions or [ones that are] de facto resistible by the creature, as every Thomist
ought to admit, in our judgment. The idea that, anterior to all free suppo-
sition on the part of the creature, there exist infallible premotions connected
with sin we consider as opposed to all the fundamental principles of Saint
Thomas.

FINAL—“We have consulted many contemporary Thomists who are

in agreement with us. We do not comprehend how one can resist the evi-
dence of the texts of Saint Thomas, such as the following: ‘Divine provi-
dence infallibly operates in all things’ (De malo, q. 6, art. 1, ad 3). To deny
this proposition would be to commit an outrage against dogma itself ”
(loc. cit., p. 173).

REPLY—With these previous words our objector ends and closes his
article. We ourselves are also going to close our answer with brief words.
This text of Saint Thomas, which we have answered in the sixth ob-
jection, can be translated in two different ways or meanings: a) divine
Providence works in all things without making a mistake [“engañarse”]; b)
divine Providence works in all things without being able to be resisted in fact
by the creature in regards to anything.
To deny this text of Saint Thomas, understanding it in the first sense,
which is how Saint Thomas understands it and as every faithful Christian
understands it, would be to commit an outrage against dogma. By con-
trast, to deny it in the second sense, as we ourselves deny it, not only is
not to commit an outrage against dogma, but rather, to the contrary, it
would be an outrage against dogma to affirm it, which the Jansenists af-
firm, and which, in our judgment, those who do not admit more premo-
tions than those infallible as regards everything do not go very much dis-
tance from affirming, if they are logical.
It seems to us that, by lack of serenity and calm in dealing with these
questions, our objector has so disturbed his view that he cannot fix it on an
attentive reading of Saint Thomas. In the continuation of the words cited
 New Observations   225

from the reply ad tertium, he could have read the reply ad quintum, where
the Holy Doctor expressly says that, although the creature cannot disagree
with the divine will or Providence as regards the outcome or what happens,
he can disagree as regards the movement of the will. “To the fifth it should
be said that the human will in this respect is not in accord with [“discordat
a”] God’s will REGARDING THE HUMAN WILL’S MOVEMENT [“QUAN-
TUM AD MOTUM VOLUNTATIS”] , although it can never be in disaccord
with God’s will regarding the outcome or result” (edit. Vives, t. 13, p. 454). In
the general providence of God, the outcome never fails, which is the glory of
God, but the particular ends of this providence are able to fail and fail with
frequency. All providence, then, has infallibility of foreknowledge as regards
everything, but not all providence has infallibility of causality as regards every-
thing. The essence of Molinism consists in not admitting, in predestination
or special providence, more infallibility than foreknowledge. The essence of
Calvinism or Jansenism consists in extending to everything, including gen-
eral providence, the infallibility of causality. The essence of Thomism con-
sists in admitting infallibility of causality for the acts proper to special prov-
idence, but infallibility of foreknowledge, and not of pure causality, for the
particular acts of general providence, as every Thomist will note who pen-
etrates well the principles of Saint Thomas and of his school, and who uses
a cool head and scientific serenity to examine these problems objectively,
without the passion of a family or only sticking to the routine of formulas.
Respecting what our objector adds, that five contemporary Thomists
consulted by him have said they are in accord with his doctrine, we will
make only the following observations:
First, that these five Thomists are in their full right to opine as they
best wish, because it concerns a question discussed among Thomists.
Second, that our objector ought to be aware that, at this time, there
are contemporary Thomists no less in numbers nor no less in authority
who opine as we do. Above all, there are many more who, without having
yet formed a definitive judgment concerning the foundation of the ques-
tion being discussed, because it has hardly even begun to be dealt with,
desire that it be left to each one to develop and expound all of his thought
with amplitude and tranquility, and this precipitation to attack an adver-
sary, without hardly permitting him to explain himself, does not please
them.
Third, that we consider it to be a true diminishment of both conten-
226  third article
dants to mix a question of persons in these objective discussions, and to
calculate the number and the quality of the favorable or contrary votes, as
though one were dealing with economic affairs or some senatorial elec-
tion.
Fourth, if this discussion—which profoundly repels us, as concern-
ing two Thomists and even two brothers—must continue, it would be
best that it resemble not the virulent discussion that, in the decadent
eighteenth century, Concina entered into nominally and passionately
with Billuart, but the gentle way that, in the classical sixteenth century,
Ferrariensis knew how to combat Cardinal Cajetan on many questions,
but without naming him, and even better the truly holy way that, in the
golden century of Scholasticism, the two great disciples of Saint Augus-
tine, who Saint Thomas and Saint Bonaventure were, knew how to main-
tain divergent interpretations on the doctrine of the common Master,
without ever attacking one another and without losing or having to lose
one atom of their mutual friendship.
Fifth, with respect to the Thomist school, as with respect to the Cath-
olic doctrine, one ought to maintain unity as regards necessary or evi-
dent things, but no less one ought to maintain freedom as regards doubt-
ful things, and much more one ought to maintain charity as regards all
things: “In necessariis, unitas; in dubiis, libertas; in omnibus, charitas.”
             Fr. F. Marín-Sola, OP
             April 1926—University of Fribourg
 2

Conclusion
The Reception of Marín-Sola’s Articles

Just as neither Marín-Sola nor his articles are well enough known,
neither is the reception that they have received. We will conclude, then,
by trying to make this plain.

1926 to 1977
Although Marín-Sola’s great work was not published, its fundamental
ideas were.1 For Jesus Valabuena, OP, and especially Francisco Perez Mu-

This chapter republishes, and expands on, material from my thesis that was not published
in God’s Permission of Sin, as well as doing the same for several pages published in its introduc-
tion (10–14).
1. With the exception of four works referred to in this section—by Piñon (1970, 1971, and
1977: see n. 10), Diaz (1972: see n. 40), Arfeuil (1974: see n. 18), and Wright (1977: see n. 62)—
the works referred to in it reacted to Marín-Sola’s own articles or to the re-presentation of his
doctrine by Muñiz and Maritain, and occurred before or close to Vatican II.

227
228  CONCLUSION
ñiz, OP, wrote notes for the bilingual edition of the Summa (published
by the BAC starting in 1947, under the general direction of Marín-Sola’s
friend Santiago Ramirez, OP) that presented his entire position on the
matters in question . . . but without ever mentioning his name!2 That Mu-
ñiz’s notes were in fact based on Marín-Sola’s ideas did not go unnoticed.3
When Maritain’s views on this same matter were published, they also pro-
voked a brief review of Marín-Sola’s views.4 In this way, his ideas were ex-
amined by theologians on two occasions: when first published,5 and then
again twenty years later, provoked by the works of Muñiz and Maritain.6

2. In appendix 2 of volume 1, Muñiz gives an account of God’s knowledge, will, provi-

dence, and predestination that follows Marín-Sola’s views throughout: see Suma Teologica,
vol. 1 (Madrid: BAC, 1947), 979–1055. In the volume dealing with God’s grace (Suma Teologi-
ca, vol. 6, [Madrid: BAC, 1956]), he again follows Marín-Sola’s doctrine, this time on sufficient
grace (767–81). Valabuena, in his discussion of God’s governance, first refers the reader to Mu-
ñiz’s earlier treatment in volume 1, and then goes on to give an account of God’s causal influx.
On the last page, he does acknowledge that his account was first proposed by Marín-Sola: see
Suma Teologica, vol. 3, part 2 (Madrid: BAC, 1959), 1119–83. In 1947, Muñiz also published a brief
article on predestination that followed Marín-Sola’s view on this matter: see his “Es posible una
predestinación gratuita post praevisa merita?” La Ciencia Tomista 73 (1947): 105–15.
3. José Sagües, SJ, “Reflexiones teologicas: crisis en el Bañecianismo?” Estudios Eclesi-
ásticos 22 (1948): 699–749, 714. He returned to it again in “La suerte del Bañecianismo y del
Molinísmo,” Miscelanea Comillas 34–35 (1960): 393–431. See, also, Luis Jesus Pereña’s “La vol-
untad divina,” 487.
4. Georges Bavaud, “La doctrine du Père Marín-Sola sur la grâce: est-il une concession au
Molinisme?” Revue Thomiste 58 (1958): 473–83. Unfortunately, this brief work is not entirely ac-
curate, for he says that Marín-Sola differs from “traditional Thomists” on only one point, that
“for him, not to resist grace is not always the effect of grace” (475). Marín-Sola, however, teach-
es that not to resist actual grace is itself an effect of that grace. See the lengthy quotations from
“El sistema,” 29 [28] and 31 [30], as well as those from “Respuesta,” 56–57 [114–115] and 60–61
[118–19].
5. See these following works: Emile Neveut, CM, “Marín-Sola, F., O.P.: ‘Respuesta a al-
gunas objeciones acerca del sistema tomista sobre la moción divina,’” Divus Thomas (Piacenza)
29 (1926): 517–21; Herman Lange, SJ, “Marín-Sola, Bañez und Molina,” Scholastik 1 (1926): 533–
65; Jean-Baptiste Raus, CSsR, “Un échange de vues recent sur la prémotion divine,” appendix
2 of La doctrine de S. Alphonse sur La vocation et la grâce au regard de l’enseignement de S. Thom-
as (Lyon: Vitte, 1926), 122–29; and Francis Zigon, “Marín-Sola, O.P., de motione divina,” Eph-
emerides Theologicae Lovaniensis 9 (1931): 17–46 and 51–72. (He then went on to discuss his own
account of God’s knowledge of sin: “Providentia divina et peccatum,” Ephemerides Theologicae
Lovaniensis 10 (1933): 597–617 and 12 (1935): 51–72.)
6. In particular, Marín-Sola’s views were subjected to the critique of Jean-Hervé Nicolas,
OP, in “La permission du péché,” Revue Thomiste 60 (1960): 5–37, 185–206, and 509–46. Nico-
las had earlier worked out his own main position in “La grâce et le péché,” Revue Thomiste 45
 Reception of the Articles   229

In truth, his views have received a far greater dissemination and dis-
cussion than many recognize: in part because the identity of Maritain’s
position with his was insufficiently understood and in part because Cath-
olic theologians following Vatican II ceased being interested in quarrels of
scholastic commentators. In concluding this presentation of his seminal
articles, the degree of his influence (even if hidden and implicit) will be
noted.7
Regarding his direct influence, one should begin with men of his
province and other Spanish Dominicans: Angel de Blas and Jesus Val-
abuena, for their editions of the Concordia, and Velasco, Sauras, Vicente,8
and Fernandez, and his friend, Bachiller, for their biographical informa-
tion (and, in the latter case, for his passionate defense of his friend). Pride
of place among Spanish Dominicans must go to Francisco Perez Muñiz,
for his notes and article affirming Marín-Sola’s views.9 Next, one should
note those to whom he was missioned, especially the work of a Domini-
can of the Philippines, Manuel Piñon, OP.10 This present book bears wit-
ness to his effect in the United States.11 Finally, one should note his ef-
(1939): 58–90 and 249–270. (This was the fruit of his work for the lectorate at the Angelicum—
“Nature et origine du mal morale” [1938]—and his doctoral thesis: “Le mal moral et la causalité
universellement prevenante de Dieu” [1938]. Both of these are available through the director’s
office of the Angelicum [under the name “Marie Jean Nicolas”].)
7. For a fuller account of some texts referred to in this chapter, see my thesis, “God’s Per-
mission of Sin: Negative or Conditioned Decree?” 850–94. For the agreement of Maritain’s
doctrine with Marín-Sola’s, see Torre, “Francisco Marín-Sola, O.P.,” n. 1 in the Preface.
8. Victoriano Vicente had also written his thesis on God’s permission of sin, under a previ-
ous disciple of Marín-Sola, Juan Ortega, OP: “Permissionis Analysis Divinae et Existentia Pec-
cati” (University of Santo Tomas, Manila, 1939), which can be located through the University of
Santo Tomas. Not surprisingly, he defends Marín-Sola’s position, while examining all of Saint
Thomas’s texts on “permission.”
9. Muñiz also indirectly defended Marín-Sola’s position through a series of dissertations
he directed at the Angelicum in the 1950s. These are collected in Appendix 1, n. 13.
10. Manuel Piñon, OP, Predestination and Salvation (Manila: Dominican House of Stud-
ies, 1977). See also his “The Metaphysics of Evil, Defectibility, and Peccability, and the Prob-
lem of Evil,” Philippiniana Sacra 5 (1970): 303–57 (especially 327) and “The Metaphysical Con-
ciliation of the Universal Primary Causality of God with the Particular Secondary Causality of
Creatures, in Particular the Free Action of the Will,” Philippiniana Sacra 6 (1971): 232–301 (espe-
cially 264 and 294). Marín-Sola’s influence is clear.
11. Note the favorable reference toward Marín-Sola (and Muñiz) by William Joseph Hill,
OP, in his entry on Bañez and Bañezianism in the New Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Mc-
Graw Hill, 1967), 2:49, as well as his endorsement of fallible graces that can be resisted, in ap-
pendix 7 of the bilingual edition of the Summa (New York: McGraw Hill, 1966), 33:164 and
230  CONCLUSION
fect upon those in Fribourg: first, his friend Santiago Ramirez, both as
general editor of the BAC Summa, and for his own treatment of sufficient
grace;12 and second, and even more importantly, Cardinal Journet, both
because he endorsed Maritain’s ideas, and because he introduced Mari-
tain to Marín-Sola’s work (and person). There is every reason to believe
that, without Journet, Maritain would never have read Marín-Sola’s work
on God’s motion, nor have come to endorse his position.13
Even before the publication of Maritain’s ideas in Existence and the
Existent, there seemed to be evidence of Marín-Sola’s influence among
French Dominicans. Marie-Dominique Chenu, OP, published a brief arti-
cle on the idea of sufficiency that indicated Thomas’s view on this was the
same as the one Marín-Sola proposed.14 The following year, Yves Con-
gar, OP, argued that Thomas never uses “praedeterminatio” in speaking
of God’s motion.15 Finally, in an article published later on actual, prepa-

note. Note further the reference of Benedict M. Ashley, OP, to the theological “intransigence” of
Garrigou-Lagrange relative to the “brilliant” Marín-Sola and his attempt to “revive the Grace Con-
troversy from a new angle” (The Dominicans [Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1990], 219); the
same words are online, at www.domcentral.org/study/ashley/dominicans/ashdom09.htm.
12. See Santiago Ramirez, OP, De Gratia, vol. 2, which is tome 9 of his Opera Omnia (Sal-
amanca: Editorial San Sebastian, 1992), especially his excursus on sufficient grace (758–84).
He argues that sufficient grace is based on God’s antecedent will and his general providence
and governance and that it is imperfectly efficacious, whereas efficient grace is necessary for
the acts of conversion and final perseverance and is perfectly efficacious: however briefly, he
here summarizes Marín-Sola’s position. In fact, Marín-Sola indicates, in his “Documentos,” that
many other Spanish Dominicans supported his articles, among them Juan Arintero (“Docu-
mentos,” #23), José Cuervo (#18), and Vicente Beltran de Heredia (#25), as well as the French
Dominican Thomas Pègues (#17, #22, and #29). He was also supported by the Brazilian priest
M. T.-L. Penido (see “Documentos,” #16) and the Dutch Dominican Marie Fabian Moos, OP,
who mentioned that Cardinal van Rossum, CSsR, had urged using them when training semi-
narians for missionary work (see “Documentos,” #53).
13. For Maritain’s relation to Marín-Sola’s doctrine, see Torre, “Francisco Marín-Sola,
O.P.”
14. Marie-Dominique Chenu, OP, “Notes de Lexicographie Philosophique Medièvale:
Sufficiens,” Revue des Sciences Philosophiques et Théologiques 21 (1933): 251–59. He argues that,
for Thomas, “sufficient” means a cause that is effective in its order, one that is effective but not
impeded, or one that is relatively efficacious. These are exactly the meanings that Marín-Sola attri-
butes to his idea of “sufficient” grace.
15. Yves Congar, OP, “‘Praedeterminare’ et ‘Praedeterminatio’ chez saint Thomas,” Revue
des Sciences Philosophiques et Théologiques 23 (1934): 363–71. While Marín-Sola was willing to
use “praedeterminatio,” he held that man can deflect God’s motion to the honest good and that
he is not infallibly “predetermined” to most good acts, and never to an evil act, absent a moral
 Reception of the Articles   231

ratory, grace (in reply to Henri Bouillard, SJ), Marie-Louise Guérard des
Laurier, OP, argued that Thomas’s idea on this was identical to the one
Marín-Sola proposed.16
After Existence, and then after God and the Permission of Evil, a num-
ber of French Dominicans discussed Maritain’s doctrine. The first was
Marie-Joseph Nicolas,17 followed by Claude-Jourdain Geffré and then
later by Maurice Corvez, Louise-Marie Antoniotti, and Jean-Pierre Ar-
feuil.18 Georges Bavaud also contributed a second article on this mat-
ter, again agreeing with Marín-Sola’s view.19 As both Jean-Hervé Nicolas,
OP, and Luis Jesus Pereña attest,20 this position was regarded by many in
France and in Spain as that of Thomas himself.
defect (of which he is the first cause, by his own non-act). Even Jesuits who opposed his view
took this point: see n. 64 in this chapter.
16. Marie-Louise Guérard des Laurier, OP “La théologie de saint Thomas et la grâce actu-
elle,” L’Année Théologique 6 (1945): 277–300. He argues that Thomas’s idea of actual grace is the
“instinctus interior” or motion of the Holy Spirit, which “does not always arrive at maturity”
(279), due to the defect or resistance of the will (286). (Guérard des Laurier would later offer a
lengthy, and highly critical, review of the ideas of J.-H. Nicolas, OP, in “Le péché et la causalité,”
Bulletin Thomiste 11 [1960–62]: 553–637, and would there indicate his own agreement with the
position of Maritian [598].) On Thomas’s “instinctus interior,” see also Servais Pinckaers, OP,
“Morality and the Movement of the Holy Spirit: Aquinas’s Doctrine of Instinctus (1991),” in The
Pinckaers Reader (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 385–95,
and the briefer remarks of Jean-Pierre Torrell, OP, in his Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 2: Spiritual
Master (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2003), 206–11.
17. Marie-Joseph Nicolas, OP, in fact reviewed Maritain’s work twice—first, in itself: “La
liberté humaine et le problème du mal,” Revue Thomiste 48 (1948): 191–217; second, in compar-
ing it to the line of argument taken by Garrigou-Lagrange: “Simples réflexions sur la doctrine
thomiste de la grâce,” Revue Thomiste 58 (1958): 645–53. He admits to being unable to follow the
latter’s position to the end without running into impossibilities, yet also admits to encountering
grave problems with Maritain’s views, “although perhaps the escape [from them] is by virtue of
the privative nature of evil” (650).
18. Claude Jourdain Geffré, “La possibilité du péché,” Revue Thomiste 58 (1958): 473–83.
This article summarized his doctoral dissertation at the Angelicum of the previous year, which
had been directed by Muñiz. Maurice Corvez, OP, “Où commence le péché?” Revue Thomiste
64 (1964): 53–62. Louise-Marie Antoniotti, OP, “La volonté antécédente et conséquente selon
S. Jean Damascène et S. Thomas d’Aquin,” Revue Thomiste 65 (1965): 52–77; “La présence des
actes libres de la creature à l’éternité divine,” Revue Thomiste 66 (1966): 5–47; and “Libre arbitre
et péché,” Revue Thomiste 67 (1967): 466–77. Jean-Pierre Arfeuil, “Le dessein sauveur de Dieu,
la doctrine de la prédestination selon S. Thomas d’Aquin,” Revue Thomiste 74 (1974): 591–641.
19. Georges Bavaud, “Comment Dieu permit-il et connait-il le péché?” Revue Thomiste 61
(1961): 226–40.
20. See Jean-Hervé Nicolas, OP, La permission du péché,” Revue Thomiste 60 (1960), 187,
232  CONCLUSION
At the same time as Maritain’s views were being discussed in France,
in Italy Umberto Degli-Innocenti, OP, defended the view that God moves
man formally to the universal good and virtually to the many particular
goods that fall under it.21 The development of this theory is hardly sur-
prising, given what Thomas expressly says in ST I-II, 10, 4, and most fa-
mously in ST I-II, 9, 6 ad 3. His view is in fact very close to Marín-Sola’s.
The heart of the latter’s position is summarized in these three propo-
sitions: (1) God places the will in act, such that further good acts of the
will and intellect are caused by the will as secondary cause, and by God as
first cause; (2) God moves the will to the honest good, or in accord with
its natural powers, or such that it can in fact use the intellect to consider
what it should, including the rule that should govern its action; and (3) it
is only a failure to do what it could, or a non-act, or a limiting of act, that
redounds to the will, as first cause. His doctrine principally seeks to de-
fend the position that, by virtue of God’s motion placing the free creature
in act toward the honest good, it could in fact cause a good, and thus pos-
sess a greater good, than it in fact does, when its non-act impedes God’s
motion from reaching its term. There are various views, such as that de-
fended by Degli-Innocenti, that may depart slightly from Marín-Sola’s ex-
pressions or even certain details of his position, but that nevertheless are
entirely in accord with his principal doctrine.22
In fact, and chiefly through Maritain, Marín-Sola’s position was fol-

and Les Profondeurs de la Grâce (Paris: Beauchesne, 1969), 285, n. 71; see also Pereña’s “La vol-
untad divina,” 487: “esta articulo [Muñiz’s appendix to the Suma], que lastimosamente es con-
siderado por muchos como la sintesis genuina del pensamiento de Santo Tomas sobre estos
temas.” Pereña distanced himself somewhat from Marín-Sola because he failed to realize that
the latter held that all means ordering creatures to their ends were willed absolutely by God.
Laurent Sentis later offered a critique of Maritain that similarly failed to appreciate that Mari-
tain’s “nihilation” differed only verbally from the negation anteceding sin he analyzed and de-
fended. (See his Saint Thomas D’Aquin et le Mal [Paris: Beauchesne, 1992], ch. 2.)
21. See his “De actione Dei in causas secundas liberas iuxta S. Thomam,” Aquinas 4 [1961]:
28–56. He was not the first to advance this idea. For an earlier expression of a very similar view,
see Jacques Winandy, OSB’s “La Prédétermination Restreinte,” Ephemerides Theologicae Lovani-
enses 13 (1936): 443–56.
22. Father Norris Clarke, SJ, called my attention to Degli-Innocenti’s article, for he regard-
ed it as the best exposition of Thomas’s position on the relation between God’s motion and hu-
man freedom. Father Clarke is thus one of the most recent Jesuits who did not follow Molina or
avail himself of the scientia media, while still wishing to avoid the view of physical predetermina-
tion, as he understood this to be presented by Bañez.
 Reception of the Articles   233

lowed beyond the Dominican order. The catholicity of this support is a

striking testimony to its truth.
We might first note the support it received from important Benedic-
tines, since (Curiel excepted) they had not become much embroiled in
the “school dispute” over these matters. The first to signal his approval
was the abbot of Saint Wandrille, Dom Pierdait, OSB, in a personal let-
ter to Marín-Sola (“Documentos,” #34). The first (it seems) to publish a
work in which his doctrine is defended was Dom Mark Pontifex, OSB:
first, in an article on predestination, in 1939,23 and then (much later) in a
book on providence.24 Pontifex does not acknowledge the source of his
view, but his brother Benedictine, Dom Illytd Trethowan, OSB, soon in-
dicated that his ideas were not original: “For long there have been voices
crying this in the wilderness. The theory thus broadly sketched was first
given definite expression in English, so far as I am aware, by Dom Mark
Pontifex.”25 The indication of time (long) and language (not English)
may imply a reference to Marín-Sola, for his was the first “voice” to have
“spoken” on this previously. Trethowan makes his comments in a review
article of Maritain’s 1942 Marquette lecture on evil. He does not miss the
importance of what was at stake: “Does M. Maritain realize the tremen-
dous implications of his conclusion? It seems nothing less the end of the
deadlock created by the Congregatio de auxiliis nearly two hundred and
fifty years ago.”26 Finally, Dom M. John Farrelly, OSB, in defending a sim-
ilar position on these matters, recognized Marín-Sola as its source (and
also noted that both Muñiz and Maritain had been its supporters).27

23. Mark Pontifex, “Predestination,” Downside Review 57 (1939): 63–76. This simple article
is a lucid account of man’s defectibility, advanced first by Marín-Sola, that corrects the other
Dominican position.
24. Mark Pontifex, Freedom and Providence (New York: Hawthorne, 1960).
25. Illytd Trethowan, “St. Thomas and the Problem of Evil,” Dublin Review 212 (1943): 175–
78, at 176 (my italics). Winandy had written three years before Pontifex, and not in English (see
n. 21 above), yet this hardly seems a time frame that would have prompted Trethowan to use the
phrase “for long.”
26. Ibid.
27. M. John Farrelly, Predestination, Grace, and Free Will (Westminster, Md.: Newman,
1964), especially 18–19, nn. 36–40. He defends impedible, physical, premotion. The following is
typical of his position: “Even though the object has been presented to the will and has thus pre-
moved it and predetermined it toward a particular act, the will may reject it and not proceed to
its deliberate act. Hence . . . its deliberate choice is not preceded by an antecedently infallible ac-
tion that is infrustrable” (195).
234  CONCLUSION
If Benedictines were not much involved in the de auxiliis dispute, the
Mercedarians were much more so, via Francisco Zumel (1540–1607), who
defended Bañez from attack.28 It is therefore noteworthy that a member
of his order should take up and defend Marín-Sola’s position. Martin Or-
tuzar, OdM, does just this, in no uncertain terms, defending Muñiz.29 In-
terestingly, he suggests that Cajetan is really the first Dominican to insist
that all divine motion must be unimpedible,30 thereby importing a Scotist
idea into Thomism.31
Similarly, the Carmelites (of Salamanca) were much involved in the
de auxiliis dispute, and again one of the order’s contemporary members—
Philippe de la Trinité, OCD—has taken up pen in defense of the position,
this time as it was articulated by Maritain.32
The Augustinians likewise developed their own “school” on the mat-
ters of the dispute.33 In the 1950s and 1960s, the Revue des Études Augus-

28. For Zumel’s involvement in the de auxiliis dispute, see Vicente Beltran de Heredia,
OP’s Domingo Bañez y las controversias sobre la gracia (Salamanca: Biblioteca de Teologos Es-
panoles, 1968).
29. Martin Ortuzar, “El libre albedrio y el principio de la moción eficiente,” Estudios 6
(1950): 217–35 (35 especially), and “El libre albedrio en sus causas final y eficiente,” Estudios
7 (1951): 12–28 and 231–47. In reviewing Domingo Bañez y las controveresias sobre la gracia (La
Ciencia Tomista 96 [1969]: 673–77), he reaffirmed his position: “Regarding sufficient aid, Ba-
ñez has said and repeated in indolent series something false: that it gives no more than the posse
and never the agere. This is not true . . . the aid not only gives the posse, but also the agere, within
man’s actual, weak, condition” [i.e., an imperfect agere] (677).
30. See Ortuzar, “El libre albedrio en sus causas final y eficiente,” 25. Albert Michel, OP,
makes the same point concerning the origin of Cajetan’s idea that the antecedent will is a will of
sign. (See his “Volonté de Dieu, Salvifique Universelle,” in Dictionnaire du Théologie Catholique,
vol. 15, 2nd part [Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1950], 3368.)
31. For the views of an independent Franciscan, see Paul Vignaux’s account of Peter Au-
riol’s position in Justification et prédestination au XIVeme siecle [Paris: Leroux, 1934], especially
44–53. Auriol makes use of a metaphor dear to Thomas to defend one of the positions at issue,
as Vignaux explains: “The goodness of God is of a universal agent who offers His grace to every
reasonable creature, as the sun shines on the good and the bad. . . . If a man does not prevent Him
from accomplishing in him this law of universal salvation, he is predestined in God’s eyes, who
sees all. If another places an obstacle, God also knows it and reproves him” (49). Here and else-
where in my own text (the Conclusion, Afterword, and Appendix 1), all emphases when quot-
ing others are my own, unless otherwise noted. (Obviously, Auriol was no “Thomist”! My only
point is that this view could find qualified support even among Franciscans.)
32. Philippe de la Trinité, “Notre liberté devant Dieu: ni ‘Thomism’—ni Molinisme,” in
Structures et Liberté (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1958), 47–76.
33. For an account of this school, see Winifried Bocxe, OESA’s Introduction to the Teachings
 Reception of the Articles   235

tiniennes featured various articles analyzing Augustine’s views. One of

the first articles was from Georges Bavaud, shortly after writing his short
piece on Marín-Sola. He noted that Augustine held that, of the baptized,
God did not demand the impossible, and that God only foresaw their
lapse into sin, but did not cause it; he argued that Augustine was there-
fore implicitly committed to God extending to the baptized what was lat-
er called “sufficient grace.”34 Directly following this issue, Athanase Sage,
AA, devoted a long series of articles to studying the texts of Augustine
himself.35 He argued in them that, for Augustine: Adam could have per-
severed with the grace given him, even the grace of Christ can be refused,
and only those who desert God are deserted. Furthermore, he argued that
God’s preparation of man’s will can be “sterilized” by man, who thereby
“subtracts” himself from God’s grace; thus, in Augustine’s view, “grace is
efficacious by itself, while the free will maintains itself and acts under its
influence and it is by its fault that it is only sufficient.”36 Significantly, Sage
quotes Philippe de la Trinité with approval that “I can never render grace
efficacious, but I can render it inefficacious.”37 Thus, Sage’s account not
only endorses the substance of Marín-Sola’s view, but is also influenced
by it.
Of course, not only religious orders but secular priests had become
of the Italian Augustinians of the 18th Century on the Nature of Actual Grace (Louvain: Augustin-
ian Institute, 1958) and his “Introduction to the Teaching of the Italian Augustinians,” Augustini-
ana 8 (1958): 356–96. (The second is a shorter version of the first, which was a thesis he wrote
under Muñiz at the Angelicum.)
34. Georges Bavaud, “Prédestination et Reprobation Chez Augustine et Calvin,” Revue des
Études Augustiniennes 5 (1959): 431–38, especially 435–36.
35. Athanase Sage, “La prédestination chez Saint Augustin d’après une thèse recent,” Revue
des Etudes Augustiniennes 6 (1960): 31–40; “La grâce du Christ, modèle de la grâce,” Revue des
Etudes Augustiniennes 7 (1961): 17–34; “Les deux temps de la grâce,” Revue des Études Augustini-
ennes 7 (1961): 209–30; “Faut-il anathematiser la doctrine Augustinienne de la prédestination?”
Revue des Études Augustiniennes 8 (1962): 233–42; “Praeparatur voluntas a Domino,” Revue des
Études Augustiniennes 10 (1964): 1–20; and “La volonté salvifique universelle de Dieu dans la
pensée de Saint Augustine,” Recherches Augustiniennes 3 (1965): 107–31; as well as “Augustinisme
et théologie moderne,” Revue des Études Augustiniennes 12 (1966): 137–56. In this latter work,
he shows himself to be influenced by Philippe de la Trinité (who was previously by Maritain).
Thus, there is a clear connection between the thought of Marín-Sola and this Augustinian. (I
wish to thank Professor Gerard Caspari of UCB for calling my attention to the work of Atha-
nase Sage.)
36. Sage, “Augustinisme,” 153, n. 49.
37. Ibid.
236  CONCLUSION
involved in these disputes, the most famous probably being the doctor of
the Sorbonne Honoré de Tournely (1658–1729). As with many Catholics,
he had tried to follow Thomas, while charting a middle course between
the common Dominican and Jesuit positions. The same could be said of
the contemporary priest William Most.38 He acknowledges the work of
Marín-Sola, and points out that Muñiz, Pontifex, and Philippe de la Trin-
ité take the same line.39 He does the same. Another “independent voice”
raised in defense of the theory was that of José Antonio Diaz, who de-
fended Maritain’s view in the Argentinean periodical Sapientia.40
Saint Alphonse Liguori had also found it necessary to take a “medi-
ating” position between the positions then associated with the Domini-
cans and Jesuits. From his very first article, contemporary Redemptorists
recognized that Marín-Sola’s interpretation of Thomas accorded with that
of their founder. The first to write to him was Jean Hermann, CSsR, fol-
lowed by Charles Keusch, CSsR, who indicated that many Redemptor-
ists were Marín-Sola’s admirers and supporters.41 Indeed, as earlier noted,
their sympathy had found its way into print as early as 1926, in J. B. Raus’s
book.42 He had examined Marín-Sola’s debate with Garrigou-Lagrange
and had indicated that the former’s view accorded well with that of his
founder. That fact was later noted by L. Vereecke, CSsR,43 and has been
especially born out by the study of José Fidel Hidalgo, CSsR, devoted to
Liguori’s doctrine on grace.44 It is hardly surprising that Redemptorists

38. William Most, Novum tentamen ad solutionem de gratia et praedestinatione (Rome: Pau-
linae, 1963).
39. Ibid., 274–82. Throughout, Most makes positive reference to Marín-Sola and Muñiz:
see 322–23 and 370–71. (The clear relation of his position to Marín-Sola’s was recognized by
Candido Garcia, OP, in his review of the book in Studium 4 [1964]: 606–7.) Most translated his
own work into English, and it was recently reissued as Grace, Predestination, and the Salvific Will
of God: New Answers to Old Questions (Front Royal, Va.: Christendom, 1997): see 384–91 and
516–18 for references to Marín-Sola. In the English edition, he recognizes not only that Pontifex
and de la Trinité held views similar to Marín-Sola, but that Journet and Maritain do as well (and
that the latter influenced de la Trinité): see 484–85.
40. José Antonio Diaz, “El problema del male en Jacques Maritain,” Sapientia 27 (1972):
257–72.
41. Marín-Sola, “Documentos,” #32 and #68.
42. Raus, “Un échange de vues recent sur la prémotion divine,” 122–29: see n. 5 above.
43. Louis G. Vereecke, “Alphonse Liguori,” in New Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Mc-
Graw Hill, 1967), 1:339.
44. José Fidel Hidalgo, Doctrina alphonsiana acerca de la acción de la gracia actual eficaz y
 Reception of the Articles   237

should value Marín-Sola’s work, for it clearly attempts to show the funda-
mental accord between Saint Alphonse and Saint Thomas.
Finally, it is the Jesuits who have been the classic opponents of the
Dominicans on this question (albeit in varying degrees). The order has
been more united in its opposition to the interpretation of Bañez than in
its support of Molina.45 It is thus interesting to note how contemporary
Jesuits have received Marín-Sola’s alternate interpretation. Given the con-
tinued interest in Bernard Lonergan’s thought, we will begin with him.
Just prior to directing Lonergan’s thesis, Charles Boyer, SJ, wrote
an article in which he referred to Marín-Sola’s work.46 In it, he argued
for several of Marín-Sola’s key ideas.47 Shortly before, when examining
Marín-Sola’s position in a book on grace, Boyer’s only objection to his
view had been that the scientia media was needed to explain God’s infallible
knowledge of sin’s defect.48 However, by the time he directed Lonergan’s
thesis, he had come to argue, instead, that it is the physical presence of

suficiente (Rome: Angelicum, 1951). This was also a doctoral thesis directed by Muñiz at the An-
gelicum.
45. As but one example of the willingness of at least contemporary Jesuits to criticize Mo-
lina, see Gerard Smith, SJ’s fine, critical, study of him in Freedom in Molina (Chicago: Loyola
University Press, 1966).
46. Charles Boyer, “Providence et liberté dans un texte de St. Thomas,” Gregorianum 19
(1938): 194–209, and 208 for the reference to Marín-Sola. For how he came to direct Lonergan
in his thesis, see Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, vol. 1: Grace and Freedom: Operative Grace
in the Thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, ed. Frederick E. Crowe and Robert M. Doran (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 2000), xviii. Lonergan never refers to Boyer’s works, nor are they
later included in the bibliography of Grace and Freedom, ed. J. Patout Burns, SJ (London: Dar-
ton, Longman, & Todd, 1971).
47. Thus, he argues that the physical presence of contingent futures to God’s eternity (n.b.:
not making use of the scientia media!) dispenses with the necessity of infallible, predetermina-
tive, decrees for his knowledge of them to be infallible, and he has this to say about the origin
of sin: “It is clear that, while moving to the good, He [God] leaves to them [free creatures] con-
tingency and indifference, because in fact it happens that defectible wills fail, that they subtract
themselves from the action of grace and that they sin. The defective effect, this evil, one cannot
say is wanted by God; He only permitted it, while conditionally wanting the opposite act” (207);
my italics. He thus endorses Marín-Sola’s doctrine on its absolutely central point.
48. Charles Boyer, De gratia divina (Rome: Gregoriana, 1938), 290 and 296–97. He never
addresses the way Marín-Sola argues that his own doctrine of God’s knowledge does not im-
ply the scientia media. In fact, Boyer’s later argument in his article tempers, if not indeed under-
mines, this argument of his book. (As its preface indicates, the above work was written at least a
year prior to his article, albeit published in the same year.)
238  CONCLUSION
things to God’s eternity (and not the scientia media!) that dispenses with
the need for infallible predetermining decrees.
Given Boyer’s appreciation of Marín-Sola, the latter may well have
exercised some indirect influence on Lonergan himself. He could have
known of him not only from Boyer, but also from Neveut,49 or Lange,50
both of whom wrote the works he quotes directly after their reviews of
Marín-Sola, in 1926. However, he never refers to him and it is unlikely he
read him. (Lonergan references one or two works in Spanish, but never
La Ciencia Tomista.) Nor could he have known Maritain’s use of his po-
sition, for this was published in a clear way only just after his own arti-
cles (Maritain’s Marquette lecture of 1942). In any case, Lonergan takes an
original position on the whole problematik. He thinks Thomas’s view of
God’s transcendence undergirds an idea of instrumental causality differ-
ent from either Molinists or Thomists: he argues the terms of their debate
are foreign to Thomas’s point of view.
Despite his own differing position, or perhaps precisely because of
this, it is very interesting to see how many of his points accord with Marín-
Sola’s: God’s moves the will to the honest good51 and the creature is able
to withdraw from that ordination;52 God’s permission of sin is a “third al-
49. See Lonergan, Collected Works, Grace and Freedom, 12, n. 17. He did not refer to Neveut
in his dissertation, but he cites his specific articles in his own “summary” of it in “St. Thomas’s
Thought on Gratia Operans,” Theological Studies 2 (1941): 289–324, and 3 (1942): 69–88, 375–
402, and 533–78. (The reference to Neveut is in 2 [1941]: 311–12, n. 112.) He relegates these to the
bibliography in Grace and Freedom, and the editors of Collected Works follow him in that. For
Neveut’s article on Marín-Sola, see n. 5 above. (It was published in 1926, in Divus Thomas [Pia-
cenza], in the issue prior to the first one Lonergan cites, but it was altogether brief, almost dis-
missive, and Lonergan could have learned little of Marín-Sola’s work from it.)
50. He cites Lange’s work (De gratia tractatus dogmaticus [Freiburg: Herder, 1929]), but
without full reference, at the beginning of his dissertation (159, n. 1, in Collected Works) and then
in the first footnote of his articles, but giving the reference mistakenly as “Limburg, 1926”; the
editors of his Collected Works give the correct reference, as above. For the reference to Lange’s
review of Marín-Sola’s work, see n. 5 above. His work on grace was published after this, but
was not significantly impacted by it. It contains twelve references to Marín-Sola, but again all of
them are very brief and almost all in footnotes.
51. “When God moves the will to the end, this movement of itself tends to the good; the
divine intention is that the sinner do what is right” (Lonergan, Collected Works, vol. 1, 343). NB:
The end is the honest good, not the amorphous good. This passage is taken from his doctoral
thesis, published in the Collected Works. It does not appear in his articles or in the book based
on them. (The title of Lonergan’s Gregorianum thesis was “Gratia Operans: A Study of the
Speculative Development in the Writings of St. Thomas Aquinas” [May, 1940].)
52. “It is obviously impossible for Bañez to speak of anything withdrawing itself from the
 Reception of the Articles   239

ternative” between God’s willing that (x) be and willing that (x) not be,53
with the sinner alone being responsible for the “surd” that is the defect in
sin;54 God’s providence is certain because universal;55 and the physical
presence of creatures to God’s eternity is essential in order properly to un-
derstand God’s infallible knowledge, irresistible will, and efficacious ac-
tion.56 These ideas accord with Marín-Sola’s. Boyer had defended some of
them, but Lonergan expands on and defends them in far more detail. He
does so in his own way, but quite in accord with Marín-Sola’s views.
If Lonergan neither knows of, nor entirely follows, Marín-Sola’s posi-
tion, another Jesuit, Joseph J. Sikora, SJ, endorsed it in its entirety, defend-
ing Maritain’s position.57 Other Jesuits, such as George Klubertanz, SJ,58
and Joseph de Finance, SJ,59 have expressed their clear sympathy for Mar-
itain’s view, the latter agreeing with Trethowan: “[His] is a theory of the
divine motion and of God’s knowledge of free acts which, if it were com-
ordination of the divine intellect,” Ibid., 330, n.34. In Grace and Freedom, he affirms that a crea-
ture does do this (112). Lonergan seems unaware of the fact that Dominicans and other Tho-
mists themselves had disputed Bañez on this point.
53. Ibid., 329. For the way this dovetails with the idea of God’s will secundum quid, see my
Afterword on God’s will.
54. Ibid. Lonergan notes the parallel between sin and the objective falsity of ST I, 17, 1. In
his thesis, he makes the curious assertion that “sin has no cause” (333). In his articles, he cor-
rects this: sin is “first in its own order” and “due to the sinner alone” (Grace and Freedom, 115). It
would seem he meant to indicate that the free failure of the creature is simply a fact: that it can-
not be reduced to a principle of intelligibility.
55. This is from Grace and Freedom, 79. This correlates to the position that not every par-
ticular end of providence is infallibly attained; the infallibility of providence is based on its
causing all ends, not each end infallibly.
56. Ibid., 323, 326, and 335. He puts the point sharply on 346: “Any predication with respect
to God ad extra presupposes the actual instance (sub species aeternitate) of the term.” In Grace
and Freedom (116), he notes that it is only in God’s “atemporal present that God’s knowledge is
infallible, His will irresistible, and His action efficacious.” (For how this correlates to Marín-
Sola, see my Afterword.)
57. Joseph J. Sikora, “Freedom and Nihilation,” Modern Schoolmen 42 (1964–65): 399–411,
and 43 (1965–66): 23–38.
58. George Klubertanz, “The Root of Freedom in Thomas’s Later Works,” Gregorianum 42
(1961): 701–24.
59. Joseph de Finance, Existence et Liberté (Paris: Vitte, 1955), especially 283–89. De Finance
also recognized that Maritain’s underlining the physical presence of creatures to God’s eternity
both accorded with Thomas and helped to come to terms with the problem of evil and provi-
dence: see his reference to Maritain’s “penetrating study” of these in Existence and the Existent in
his “La présence des choses à l’éternité d’après les scholastiques,” Archives de Philosophie 19 (1955–
56): 25–62, at 59.
240  CONCLUSION
monly received by the Thomists, would without doubt end the secular
quarrels.”60 Likewise, other Jesuits have recognized the similarity of Mar-
itain’s view to that of Marín-Sola,61 and have taken the point that God’s
permission of sin means it is within the power of the free creature to fail
or not.62 (Surprisingly, no Jesuit seems to have noted the clear similarity
between Marín-Sola’s position and Saint Robert Bellarmine’s. Their dif-
ference chiefly lies in that what the latter holds of man’s freedom per se,
the former holds of the fallible mode of that freedom.)63 Even Jesuits who
were inclined toward Molina and who criticized Marín-Sola still said that
they remained favorably inclined toward his view.64 Given the reception
the sons of Ignatius have often accorded the views of the sons of Dominic
on the question of grace and free will, this reception is altogether remark-
able (even if some differences may still remain).

19 9 1 to 2012
The articles that appeared up to the 1970s were written by theolo-
gians formed by the Thomistic education common before Vatican II.65

60. Finance, Existence et Liberté, 289, n. 36.

61. See, for example, John P. Rock, SJ’s “St. Thomas on Divine Causality,” in Philosophical
Studies 5 (1955): 21–43 (and 22 for the reference to Marín-Sola).
62. See John Wright, SJ, “Divine Knowledge and Human Freedom: The God Who Dia-
logues,” Theological Studies 38 (1977): 450–77 (and 473 for the point on permission).
63. For a brief comparison of Bellarmine with Marín-Sola, see my God’s Permission of Sin,
473–77. (It is notable that Marín-Sola’s position accords well with the positions of the two doc-
tors of the Church since the time of the Congregatio de auxiliis who dealt with its issues: Robert
Bellarmine and Alphonse Liguori.)
64. Hermann Lange, SJ, had this to say about Marín-Sola’s view: “When Molinists reject
a ‘praedeterminatio’ of the free will and desire a ‘concursus indifferens,’ they do not take aim
against Marín-Sola’s ‘praedeterminatio fallibilis,’” and “when Marín-Sola calls this possible maxi-
mum physical and moral perfection, by which God fallibly premoves a determined will in deter-
mined circumstances, a ‘premoción determinada y determinadisima,’ then we have nothing to
object to such a determination” (“Marín-Sola,” 553 and 534). And José Sagües, SJ, had this to say
about the theory, as presented in Muñiz: “we believe that the exposition of F. Muñiz . . . merits a
degree of special consideration that Molinism can make on its behalf ” (“Reflexiones,” 699–749,
at 747). Likewise, Zigon “congratulates” Marín-Sola for rejecting “fundamental Bañezianism”
and speaks of his article’s “great merit” (“Marín-Sola, O.P., de motione divina,” 42).
65. Except for the unpublished dissertation of Helen Rosalind Smith in 1979 (see n. 69
below), my own 1983 thesis (then available only through University Microfilms, and only pub-
lished in 2009), as well as the 1988 American Maritain Association book dealing with Maritain’s
 Reception of the Articles   241

Following the council, Catholic theologians turned their attention in dif-

ferent directions, and the kind of careful scholastic theology practiced by
Marín-Sola, or its debated issues, was largely put to one side.
Nevertheless, he did not entirely drop from sight in Spain. Several ar-
ticles supplying additional notes on his life and thought appeared in the
1990s, as did Ramirez’s volumes on grace, written decades earlier.66 Ana
Azanza Elio dedicated a number of pages to him in an encyclopedia ar-
ticle,67 Eudaldo Forment supplied a detailed summary of his analysis of
freedom,68 and he was referred to briefly in a recent, unpublished doctoral
thesis on the same subject.69 Most of this material, however, either sheds
interesting sidelights on him, is historical in nature, or is critical only “in
passing.” Yet the obvious sympathy that Forment shows him warrants the
claim that Marín-Sola continues to have Spanish disciples.70
For some time, there was very little in French works bearing on
work on this same matter (see nn. 90 and 91), there was a hiatus of interest in Marín-Sola’s ideas
after the 1960s. (The work of Ramirez earlier mentioned was from an earlier time and published
only posthumously. Other references from after the 1960s mentioned in the previous section ei-
ther did not directly concern Marín-Sola’s work [e.g., Pinckaers and Torrell: see n. 16] or were
a republication of a previous work [e.g., Most: see n. 39].) The first “renewal” of interest came
in 1991 (see n. 66). In 1992, J. H. Nicolas retracted his previous position (see n. 80). Cottier (see
n. 72) and Forment (see n. 68) were the first to provide renewed serious attention to the doc-
trine of Marín-Sola, in 1996 and 1998, respectively.
66. Claudio García Extremeño, OP, “El ‘sentido de la fe’ en la teología del progresso dog-
matico de F. Marín-Sola (1873–1932),” Studium 31 (1991): 199–243, with a one-page summary of
his life in electronic medium in www.canalsocial.net; Vidal Fueyo Fernandez, OP: “El P. Fran-
cisco Marín Sola, O.P. (1873–1932). Algunos rasgos de su fisonomía intellectual,” Teologia Espiri-
tual 37 (1993): 49–73; and Ramirez, De Gratia, especially 758–84.
67. Ana Azanza Elío’s Diccionario de Pensadores, 1: Pensadores Navarros Siglos XII–XX
(Pamplona: Eunate, 1996), 300–15.
68. Eudaldo Forment, Historia de la filosofia tomista en la España contemporanéa (Madrid:
Encuentor, 1998), 205–59.
69. See the electronic citation of Jesus Martínez García’s thesis “Como Dios Mueve el Mun-
do” (Pamplona: University of Navarra, 2000), at www.autorescatolicos.org/jesusmartinez. (Mar-
itain’s work on the same matter had also been subjected to longer scrutiny in an earlier doctoral
thesis, although, I have argued, not with complete success. See Helen Rosalind Smith, “Man’s
Conquest of Liberty and the Problem of Evil: A Study of the Meaning of Salvation in the Writ-
ings of Jacques Maritain” [thesis, The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., 1979];
for my replies to some of her criticisms, see God’s Permission of Sin, 253–55 and 262–63.)
70. Indeed, in Forment’s recent biography of Thomas, he simply presents Marín-Sola’s
doctrine on sufficient and efficacious grace as Thomas’s own, without further comment. See his
Santo Tomás de Aquino: su vida, su obra, y su época (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos,
2009), 540–41.
242  CONCLUSION
Marín-Sola, although interest in Maritain’s (and Journet’s) treatment of
the same matter has recently provoked several articles. In 1992, the Re-
vue Thomiste published several letters of Marie-Michel Labourdette, OP,
dating from the debate surrounding Existence and the Existent.71 Also, in
the first volume of Maritain’s correspondence with Journet, published in
1996, Georges Cottier, OP, wrote a five-page appendix on Maritain’s ex-
change with Marín-Sola given therein.72 The fifth volume of that corre-
spondence, published in 2006, also includes two interesting exchanges
between Journet and Maritain: on the genesis of sin and on Nicolas.73 On
the second point, Maritain speaks of Nicolas’s person in warm terms,74 al-
though Journet had said that he still found his doctrine unacceptable.75
On the first and more important point, Journet wonders how one should
speak of the faulty decision (the final practical judgment) between the
non-consideration of deliberation and sinful election,76 and Maritain re-
plies that this is the beginning of sin.77
71. “Deux inedits du Père Marie-Michel Labourdette (1908–1990),” Revue Thomist, vol.
100 (2000): 355–83, especially 356–64. Maritain replies to one of Labourdette’s worries in God
and the Permission of Evil (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1966), 55–58.
72. Georges Cottier, OP, “La Liberté Creéé Devant Dieu,” appendix 2 in Journet Maritain
Correspondance, vol. 1: 1920–1929 (Fribourg: Editions Universitaires Fribourg Suisse and Paris:
Editions St. Paul, 1996), 742–46.
73. Charles Journet, Journet Maritain Correspondance, vol. 5: 1958–1964 (St.-Just-La-
Pendue: Editions Saint Augustin, 2006).
74. Ibid., 625: “He is a friend who is very dear to me, and a theologian for whom I have
a very particular esteem and respect . . . between men who belong to [font partie] the same in-
tellectual family, there can be and there are serious disagreements on particular points, with-
out that thereby breaking the unity of their fundamental views and their common universe of
thought. The particular disagreements are themselves a good sign: they show that their com-
mon effort is set only on the truth, and thus is free from all conformism and lives in freedom.”
This is the exact attitude that Marín-Sola evinced in his own earlier debate.
75. Ibid., 598: “The positions of Fr. Hervé are manifestly unsustainable; to preach them
would give rise to [souleveraient] the indignation of the faithful: they would not support a doc-
trine such as the antecedent permissive decrees or that of negative reprobation. . . . As to the ob-
jections of Fr. Hervé on the knowledge of God, which otherwise would be undermined [mise
en déroute], they seem to me to be unworthy of him.”
76. Ibid., 599: “It seems that the decision to act without considering the rule is to be placed
between the non-consideration of the rule that is a mera negatio and acting without considering
the rule, which is sinful (a privatio)”; he then asks whether one should not describe this deci-
sion as “already sinful.” (This letter is from August 15, 1963, and responds to Maritain’s last publi-
cation on sin: Dieu et la Permission du Mal [Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1963]. Maritain’s own re-
sponse could thus be said to be his “last word” now published on this matter.)
77. Ibid., 602: “The decision to act without considering the rule is election itself and is the
 Reception of the Articles   243

While ever positing that judgment and choice constitute one act, Mari-
tain also recognized that they were of diverse faculties, of intellect and will.
By contrast, Marín-Sola held that each faculty has its own act, although by
nature the will infallibly follows the final practical judgment. He held the
latter terminates deliberation and renders its non-use of reason the cause
of the sinful election (whereas, prior to that judgment, one can continue to
deliberate, consider the rule, and thus not sin), and that sinful choice most
formally follows this judgment. Maritain comes close to this in placing the
defective cause of sin in the “final time” (ultimus tempus) of deliberation;78
for it is only the final practical judgment that terminates deliberation and
renders this time in fact to be final. While Maritain seemed reluctant to
posit even a priority of nature between final practical judgment and sin-
ful election, he also clearly regarded the precise relation between the “fi-
nal time” of deliberation, final judgment, and choice itself to be an obscure
and very difficult point, and he left just this point to be decided by further
discussions “inter sapientes.”79 (In Maritain’s terms, Marín-Sola regards the
non-use of the intellect as a negation, for the will is only deprived of its
proper order in choice; but this same negation or non-use has two differ-
ent relations to sin. In deliberation, it has no infallible relation to choice and
thus is a non-culpable negation; whereas, in final judgment, it has an infal-
lible relation to choice, being the deficient cause of sin, or an “actual defect”
or “impediment,” and could rightly be termed a “culpable negation”: the fi-
nal practical judgment is deprived of its order because the will fails then to
do what it in fact could do, does not cooperate with God’s operation em-
powering it to be truly good; it thus deserves God’s “withdrawal of grace”
or the non-prevention of sinful choice.)

first and principal action of the will not considering the rule, and therefore the first sinful act of
the will.” In a brief response, Journet seems satisfied with this reply (604). Earlier, Maritain had
argued as follows: “The practico-practical judgment, indivisibly bound to the election, consti-
tutes, together with the election, the component elements of one and the same instantaneous act,
the very act of free choice” (The Sin of the Angel [Westminster, Md.: Newman, 1959], 5).
78. Maritain, God and the Permission of Evil, 53.
79. Ibid., 54. As W. Matthews Grant notes, there continues to be debate between Tho-
mists on the relation of reason and will in choice, with Kevin J. Flannery, SJ, taking the posi-
tion Maritain defended, Ralph McInerny taking that defended by Marín-Sola, and others (e.g.,
Daniel Westberg) taking yet another view. (See Grant’s “Aquinas on How God Causes the Act
of Sin without Causing Sin Itself,” Thomist 73 [2009]: 455–96, 466, n. 3.) For my own views on
this, defending Marín-Sola, see the Afterword, nn. 9–13.
244  CONCLUSION
Of even greater interest than this very brief exchange between Mari-
tain and Journet is a final article by Jean-Hervé Nicolas himself, for, with
an altogether admirable (and extraordinary!) humility, in it he retracted
his earlier position that God’s permission is a “non-conservation of the
good”: one that logically, and infallibly, entailed sin’s defect.80
The only text seriously cited as evidence for such an idea was ST I-II,
109, 2 ad 2: “in itself, it [every created nature] can of itself fail in the good,
even as of itself it can fall into non-existence, unless it is upheld by God.”81
This text is then used as though Thomas were there defining “permission.”
Such a claim cannot stand scrutiny. First, it is opposed to good exegetical
principles to construct a theory on one isolated text, especially when it
goes against many other texts where Thomas does ex professo define “per-
mission.” Second, as a matter of fact, the text in question is not even ad
rem. Thomas simply notes the dissymmetry between evil and good—man
can fail on his own, but he cannot do good on his own—and the refer-
ence to non-conservation is merely used as an analogous example of this.
Third, this reply follows his main text, which teaches that even fallen na-
ture (much less integral nature) is able to do some natural good insofar as
God moves it according to its powers; it makes no sense to interpret him
as immediately denying this, by suggesting that, given God’s permission,
man is infallibly unable in fact to do such goods, but instead infallibly sins.
Rather, to apply the text directly to the doctrine given in the body of the
article, the more obvious interpretation is that Thomas is teaching that
one cannot do any good unless moved by God, even though one can fail on
one’s own . . . when moved by God. Fourth, and finally, the application of
non-conservation to the problem is really a category mistake. For God’s
governance involves conserving creatures in being and moving them ac-
cording to their capacities so conserved. In both cases (as Thomas’s re-
ply notes), no being or goodness is possible save by God’s action, as First
Cause of all being (esse) and movement or becoming (fieri); but this does
not mean that one should seek to reduce the later reality—God’s motion
of the beings he conserves—to a conceptuality proper to his conserva-
tion of those beings.

80. J.-H Nicolas, OP, “La volonté salvifique de Dieu contrariée par le péché,” Revue
Thomiste 92 (1992): 177–96.
81. Labourdette cites this very text in his discussion of Maritain’s view: see “Deux inedits
du Père Marie-Michel Labourdette (1908–1990),” 360.
 Reception of the Articles   245

If Thomists make this mistake, it may be because they think all nat-
ural failure in being (esse) derives from not being upheld by an extrinsic
cause. This is to forget that corruptible things, unlike incorruptibles, can
fail by virtue of an intrinsic cause (their matter). This is the natural ana-
logue to what occurs with voluntary failure and sin, which is a moral cor-
ruption from within, not a moral annihilation. However, once Thomists
forget the way corruptibles can fail in being, it is impossible to solve the
problem at hand. For there is no per se secondary cause of creation or
conservation (or of the act of existing: esse); so conceived, any failure in
being must derive from God, as First Cause, not upholding a free creature
in the moral good or withdrawing his aid, and this (despite all verbal cam-
ouflage to the contrary) ends up making God the cause of sin. Sin is pos-
sible only because there is a secondary cause of free acts—the free will—
and this secondary cause fails when it could in fact not have failed, God
having moved it toward the honest good, in accord with its nature. That is
why sin is its personal fault.82
Nicolas came to retract his doctrine just because he saw that conceiv-
ing it as analogous to a non-conservation in being led to an impossibil-
ity: “if a creature’s non-conservation in being, which would be its anni-
hilation, is contrary to the wisdom and the goodness of God, how much
more would be its non-conservation in the good that would make it evil!
. . . I am obliged to recognize, and I willingly do so, that the concept of
an antecedent permissive decree that I had proposed is not right [ne vaut
pas].”83 He here puts his finger on the heart of his difficulty.
In fact, it is not just that annihilation goes against God’s wisdom and
goodness, and thus that God would never in fact annihilate: Thomas’s
point in ST I, 104, 4. Rather, it is the point he had made in his previous
article (ST I, 103, 3 ad 2) that is crucial; God would be the accidental first

82. Thomas famously defends the intrinsic cause of corruptibility through the adage “any-
thing that can fail at some time will fail.” To see just how seriously he takes this principle, see his
most careful defense of its source, in his late and great commentary on De caelo (I, 26–29). For
the commentators’ general failure to appreciate Thomas’s teaching on natural corruptibility, see
Stephano De Andrea, OP, “La terzia via e le sue difficoltà,” Sapienza 2 (1949): 18–45, especially
25–28. For its proper application to the analogous problem of moral corruptibility, see my God’s
Permission of Sin, 207–17.
83. Nicolas, “La volonté salvifique de Dieu,” 186. While retracting his own position, Nico-
las still remained unpersuaded by Maritain’s own account. He thus remained perplexed, believ-
ing that the right account had yet to be given properly.
246  CONCLUSION
cause of the non-being that would occur in annihilation: “indirectly, God
can be the cause of things being reduced to non-existence, by withdrawing
His action therefrom.”84 However, while God can be the cause of the sim-
ple non-existence (negatio) of a creature, it is not merely against his wis-
dom or goodness, but it is absolutely impossible that he be the cause of the
defect (negatio) that causes sin; for he is the cause of the entity in sin, and
were he to be the cause of its defect as well, he would be the cause of sin
as sin, which is impossible. Were God to cause the simple non-existence
of a creature, he would not be causing a creature to tend away from him or
any privation; but he would be causing just these were he to cause the de-
fect of sin, and that is why the first is at least possible, whereas the second
is not.85 If one thinks of God’s permission as infallibly entailing a first sin,
this is because one is truly (albeit unconsciously) making him be the in-
direct cause of that sin, for God is being conceived as the One who first
indirectly causes the defective cause of sin and the defect in sin, by with-
drawing his aid.
One might try to avoid this conclusion by arguing that God’s non-
conservation in the moral good merely entails that a free creature contin-
ues not to consider the honest good prior to final judgment, during de-
liberation, which is not the cause of sin, but only a non-culpable negation,
and that God then infallibly causes the creature’s final judgment and elec-
tion given that creaturely “negative disposition.” This rejoinder fails. For
one of two things is true: a good, free, creature possesses a nature that, as
moved by God, either can or cannot in fact consider its true rule. If by its
nature it cannot, and a supposed non-conservation entails that it continue
84. Note that Thomas here equates (as he always does) God’s non-conservation with the
withdrawal of his power. Thus, God may permit someone to continue in his culpable defect or
sin, by withdrawing his grace from him or by not extending his grace to him; but, as Thomas ex-
pressly teaches, this withdrawal of grace and protection is a punishment for a previous sin (or a
culpable defect). God only abandons those who have already abandoned him.
85. “God inclines and turns all things to Himself as to their last end . . . so that it is impos-
sible that He should be . . . the cause of receding from the order which is to Himself ” (ST I-II, 79,
1): “recessum ab ordine” or “discedendi ab ordine.” Thomas explicitly compares annihilation to
sin to make this very point: “Just as He cannot cause an existing creature not to owe its existence
to Him, even so He cannot cause that creature not to be ordered to his goodness. Wherefore,
since the evil of sin removes the order of which He is the end, inasmuch as sin is an aversion from
the highest good; it follows that God cannot be the cause of the evil of sin, although He can be
the cause of annihilation, by ceasing altogether to uphold a creature” (De potentia Dei 5, 3 ad 13).
For further analysis of this point, see my God’s Permission of Sin, 197–207.
 Reception of the Articles   247

not-considering, then this absence, defect, or negation is not the personal

fault of the creature, but is due to its nature (which it receives from God
and for which God, not it, is responsible). If, however, by its nature and as
moved, it can in fact consider its rule (as Thomas plainly holds), then this
supposed non-conservation would cause the creature to have less than it is
able to have by nature; but this is impossible, for God in his wisdom moves
his free creatures to have either what is within their natural powers, or
what is above them, but never what is beneath them, unless they already
possess some culpable defect for which they are first responsible.
Thomas even raises this possible misapplication of non-conservation
and rejects it. Thus, in De malo 16, 6, he advances the following objection
(22): “As a creature would dissolve into nothingness were the power of
God not to encompass it, as Gregory says, so also would a rational crea-
ture fall into sin were grace not to encompass it. Therefore, if an angel did
not possess grace at the first moment of its creation, it could not have been
without sin.” To this, Thomas responds as follows: “The argument fails be-
cause as creatures could dissolve into nothingness were God’s power not
to sustain them, so also would they fail to be good were God not to sus-
tain them. But it does not follow that they would fall into sin were God not
to sustain them through His grace, excepting only the case of a corrupted
nature that of itself inclines to evil.” And the evident reason that the an-
gels need not have sinned, even on the supposition that God did not create
them in sanctifying grace (the case at issue in this text), is because they are,
by their natural powers, able in fact to sin or not (in other words, they are
not in the alternative case he supposes, of a corrupted nature), and because
it never occurs to Thomas that anyone would suggest that God would not
conserve them with those natural powers or would choose not to give
them at least a natural concurrence, or would choose not to move them ac-
cording to their nature; but, if he does, they could in fact sin or not sin, as
he there teaches. Among theologians, Nicolas had been the “lone voice”
to argue this way, namely to teach that God’s permission of sin was a “non-
conservation” that infallibly entailed sin.86 With the retraction of his earli-

86. Even before his retraction, Nicolas had already indicated his “unhappiness” with the po-
sition he was taking. Thus, he exclaimed “how sincerely would I like to rally to that [other] ex-
planation!” (see his “La permission du péché,” 197). He had earlier characterized the view he had
then felt bound to defend as “almost unacceptable” (“La grâce et le péché,” 270). He later came
to find it completely so. For his part, Garrigou-Lagrange, in his first article on Marín-Sola, had
248  CONCLUSION
er position, there is at present no theologian (at least no Dominican) who
argues for the theory that Marín-Sola had so vigorously disputed. The key
idea in this entire matter, and the key text noted by Marín-Sola, is that, in
order to explain the failure of sin, one need look no further than the creat-
ed will itself (its intrinsic cause): non uti regula rationis non oportet quaerere
aliam causam nisi voluntatis libertatem (De malo 1, 3). Once this is admit-
ted, and one refuses to explain this failure by reference to God’s will (even
if qualified as “permissive”)—as Nicolas here refuses to do—then the key
idea has been granted and the other distinctions that are correlative to it
are implicitly conceded.
There has been more writing touching on this matter in English than
in either Spanish or French, for Maritain’s position continues to engender
some interest in the United States. Recently, for example, some of his ideas
were summarized by Brian Shanley, OP.87 Shanley distances himself some-
what from the traditional Dominican position on physical premotion,88
and he seems influenced by the work of Lonergan and his disciple, David
Burrell, CSC.89 Yet, as earlier noted, in relation both to Degli-Innocenti
and to Lonergan, it is possible to hold slightly divergent views on instru-
mental causality and God’s interior motion of the will (e.g., as “physical”
and not merely as “moral,” or as only presenting it with a possible object),
while defending the substance of Marín-Sola’s views.
Not surprisingly, the American Maritain Association has also gener-

conceded that he “might” advance the Thomistic doctrine in relation to man’s culpability for evil
(see the Introduction, n. 39). He indeed did do this, but just by demonstrating that it is a mistake
to interpret God’s permission simply as a “non-conservation” (as Garrigou-Lagrange had) or to
hold that a divine permission infallibly entails sin even for someone without any defect.
87. See Brian Shanley, The Thomist Tradition (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2002), 99–108.
88. See his “Divine Causation and Human Freedom in Aquinas,” American Catholic Philo-
sophical Quarterly 72 (1998): 99–122 (especially 110–11 and 115–17).
89. See the latter’s Aquinas: God and Action (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1979), 131–40. (For a defense of the traditional Thomistic account, see Muñiz’s commen-
tary in Suma Theologica, 6:721–26. One can find the same argument in Laurentius Noël’s De na-
tura gratiae operantis actualis [Rome: Angelicum, 1952]: a dissertation for which Muñiz served
as second reader [see Appendix 1, n. 13]. For another discussion of Thomas’s celebrated passage
in De potentia Dei [3, 7 ad 7] that the theory tries to develop, see Robert Moore, SS’s “Motion
divine chêz Saint Thomas,” Studia Montiis Regii [1958]: 93–117 and 129–37. For a discussion of
its classical antecedent, see Sr. Louise-Marie Antoniotti’s “La prémotion divine: Saint Thomas
et l’auteur de Liber De Causis,” Studi Tomistici 17: S. Tommaso nella storia del pensiero [Citta del
Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticano, 1982]: 60–70.)
 Reception of the Articles   249

ated some work on his views: the work of Jack Cahalan on the idea of ni-
hilation,90 as well as several other brief essays, in its 1988 volume.91 (Ob-
viously, many philosophers have written on the debated issues—the
literature on free will always being vast—but not in relation to Marín-
Sola.)92 Nevertheless, as regards the doctrine of Marín-Sola himself (and
largely as regards that of Maritain, as well), none of this work has been
lengthy or searching in nature. Indeed, save Piñon’s publications in the
Philippines and my own in the United States, all English publications are
related to Maritain’s presentation, not Marín-Sola’s.
This remains true of the articles recently published in the English ver-
sion of Nova et Vetera. In 2006, it dedicated an entire issue (vol. 4, no. 3) to
a number of the ideas that are connected to Marín-Sola’s doctrine. As that
issue thus indicated, the ideas expounded in his articles remain of current
interest and are quite relevant to contemporary theology.

90. Jack Cahalan, “Making Something Out of Nihilation,” in Jacques Maritain: The Man
and His Metaphysics, ed. John F. X. Knasas (Notre Dame, Ind.: American Maritain Association,
1988), 191–201. Readers may also wish to consult his electronic source www.foraristotelians.info
under “Contributions to Modern Aristotelian Philosophy,” where he contends that Maritain’s
originality lay in what he had to say about the negatio that is sin’s defective cause, a matter not
taken up, he argues, by Marín-Sola. There is a minor difference between Maritain’s last thoughts
and Marín-Sola’s doctrine (as I noted in n. 77 and the paragraph following). Nevertheless, Mar-
itain substantially agreed with, and was deeply instructed by, Marín-Sola’s earlier work. As just
argued, the crucial correction Marín-Sola makes to the Dominican position (one that Maritain
subsequently embraced) was precisely to insist that the initial failure of the will—its non-act or
non-use of the intellect—requires no other explanation than the created will itself, and is not
grounded in the divine will or entailed by any divine act or non-act (i.e., an initial “permission”
that is a “non-conservation” or “negative decree”).
91. Most of these essays appear in the volume edited by Knasas, Jacques Maritain: my “The
Sin of Man and the Love of God,” 203–13; Vukan Kuic’s “Existential Realism and Freedom of
Choice,” 215–25; Desmond FitzGerald’s “Without Me You Can Do Nothing,” 227–34; David
Higgins’s “Evil in Maritain and Lonergan: The Emerging Probability of a Synthesis,” 235–42;
and Laura Westra’s “Freedom, Existence and Existentialism,” 243–53. In a later volume, The Fu-
ture of Thomism, ed. Deal W. Hudson and Dennis Wm. Moran (Notre Dame, Ind.: American
Maritain Association, 1992), David Burrell, CSC, added another, brief, comparison between
Maritain and Lonergan: “Jacques Maritain and Bernard Lonergan on Divine and Human Free-
dom,” 161–68.
92. To see how some analytically trained philosophers, who now take a serious interest
in Aquinas’s positions, are writing on these matters, see Stefan E. Cuypers’s “Thomistic Agent
Causalism” and Christopher Hughes’s “Aquinas on God’s Knowledge of Future Contingents” in
Mind, Metaphysics, and Value, ed. John Haldane (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame
Press, 2002), 90–108 and 143–59.
250  conclusion
Thus, in one article, Gilles Emery, OP, raises in passing Maritain’s
own, earlier, difficulty regarding the independence of God’s knowledge93
and also questions his idea of “nihilation”: “if nihilation is purely nega-
tive [which it is], this means that God has not given something positive to
the human person . . . it is not easy to see how the explanation can avoid
the intervention of an antecedent decree.” 94 Matthew Levering has recent-
ly re-echoed Emery’s query: “Does not this [creaturely] lack of adver-
tence, from which follows the freely willed defect, require God’s permis-
sion?” 95
It is not easy to know what to make of this objection, since Emery
recognizes that Nicolas came to reject his own explanation of God’s an-
tecedent decree as a “not-giving,” a “non-conservation in the good.” He
would seem to recognize, then, that it is a mistake to ground man’s de-
fect or non-act (i.e., his non-use of the intellect) in God’s non-act (i.e.,
his “not giving something positive”). The following passage from Marín-
Sola’s Concordia seems particularly apposite here: “In the non-placement
of the good act that he [the creature] ought to place, there also enters the
non-action of the good by the creature, and the non-concurrence of God
to the non-action of this good. But this hardly enters in parallel or ex ae-
quo; rather, the non-action of the creature or the non-concurrence of the
creature or the impediment placed by the creature is a condition or a pre-
vious supposition in respect to the non-concurrence of God. The creature
does not cease to concur because God ceases to concur, but God ceases
to concur because the creature ceases to concur.”96

93. Gilles Emery, “The Question of Evil and the Mystery of God in Charles Journet,” Nova
et Vetera 4 (2006): 529–56. For Journet’s and Maritain’s relation to Marín-Sola, see my article in
Logos (Torre, “Francisco Marín-Sola, O.P.”). For Maritain’s initial difficulty with the indepen-
dence of God’s knowledge, see the same, 75–79. For Marín-Sola’s likely response to Maritain
(and thus, here, to Emery), see the footnote on 360–61 of “Nuevas observaciones” (184, n. 50,
in this book).
94. Ibid., my italics.
95. Matthew Levering, Predestination: Biblical and Theological Paths (Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2011), 176.
96. See his Concordia Tomista, 40, 681 [995], 768–69; his emphases. The text is given in
Appendix 3, 355. Thomas constantly teaches the same when he teaches that, quantum in se est,
God is ready to aid all, just as the sun’s light shines on all, and any failure to see derives from
our closing our eyes to God’s light, even when it is shining. For Thomas’s constant teaching on this
point, see the texts given in my God’s Permission of Sin, 364–69. Closing one’s eyes to God’s light
is a common patristic trope, found in both Ambrose and Hillary, as well as in Scripture itself.
 Reception of the Articles   251

There is in fact a simple alternative to this idea of God withdrawing

his aid (which is what a “non-conservation” means), one that addresses
both Emery’s and Levering’s above worry, and it is this: the creature fails
on its own, just when there is no need to fail, no ground or explanation of
failure beyond its own will. There is no intelligibility to initial moral de-
fect beyond the ostensive, the fact of failure.97 It is also unclear how Emery
and Levering might judge Marín-Sola’s position, since he teaches that sin
indeed does suppose “antecedent” permissive decrees: sin is permitted to
be possible—a creature being moved according to, and not specially pro-
tected from, its defectibility—and it is permitted to be actual—the crea-
ture’s defective judgment being supposed,98 and not prevented from caus-
ing. Perhaps Emery and Levering would find this to be a sufficient answer
to their worry.
(If I understand him correctly, Brian Davies, OP, concurs with the
above point: “It is not due to God that any moral failure is due to me.”99
That appears to refer to the defective cause of sin, Aquinas’s prior defor-
mity in a limb, to which Davies then refers us [ST I-II, 79, 2]. Likewise,
he notes that we cannot have a defective choice without choosing some-
thing, and God accounts for what we actually do [i.e., the activity in sin:
the act of choice—Aquinas’s per accidens efficient cause].100 However, both
here and in his later work on Aquinas101 Davies avoids raising the ques-
tion that is at issue in the two Dominican interpretations: whether, un-

97. There is an analogue between man’s first causality of evil and God’s of good. God pos-
sesses a motive to create—to share his own goodness—yet need not act on that motive, and his
free decision to do so has no other explanation than his indefectible freedom, the fact that he
chose to create. A free creature likewise possesses a motive to sin—the mutable good, unruled
by God’s order—yet he need not act on this unruled good, and his free decision to do so has no
other explanation than his defectible freedom, the fact of failure.
98. Marín-Sola teaches that there are two orders of God’s providence in relation to sin: one
that antecedes man’s defect or non-cooperation, and one that supposes it; but the defect itself (and
the malice it causes) is not a part of God’s providence. My God’s Permission of Sin, 405–48, con-
firms that this position is Thomas’s doctrine.
99. See Brian Davies, The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil (London: Continuum,
2006), 189.
100. It is nevertheless notable that in his earlier “summary” of Thomas’s account of the
cause of sin, Davies seemed to reduce any causal explanation to this per accidens efficient cause,
without averting to sin’s prior defective cause. (See his “Introduction” to Thomas’s On Evil [Ox-
ford: Oxford University Press, 2003], 42.)
101. See his Thomas Aquinas on God and Evil (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).
252  conclusion
der the circumstances of God’s governance, one could in fact avoid one’s
moral failure when this occurs.102 One will likewise look in vain for any
discussion of this in the work of Herbert McCabe, OP, whom Davies rec-
ommends and who evidently has influenced his own thinking.103 It is no-
table that both of these Dominicans approach most of the problems con-
cerning this matter from the standpoint of God as creator, rather than as
governor, of the world, and thus of esse, rather than of fieri, that is, not es-
pecially as the One who moves created agents to act as secondary causes,
but as the One who causes the term of any action, as he does immediately
when he creates.)
Again, in another article, Thomas Osborne defends the classic Tho-
mist account of physical premotion.104 Since Marín-Sola defends and
uses this idea, his doctrine is not thereby at issue. While Osborne says he
favors Nicolas’s earlier view105 (albeit without arguing for it), it is unclear
whether he would find Marín-Sola’s doctrine on these matters instructive.
He seems to think that the infallibility of all physical premotion is a philo-
sophical truth. If so, he might also find instructive what Marín-Sola had to
say on this point.106
102. W. Matthews Grant also struggles with this issue in his recent article on God and
sin (see n. 79). I believe the thrust of his analysis is compatible with Marín-Sola’s account, for
Grant underlines that the free creature does “have power to elect under the order which in-
cludes the rule,” 488 (his emphasis). Presumably, he means “power” in the ordinary sense (in
sensu composito) and thus affirms that God does cause this active power.
103. See Herbert McCabe, OP, God and Evil in the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Lon-
don: Continuum, 2010). It may be that Davies (as also McCabe), and perhaps somewhat like
Lonergan, thinks that insufficient attention to God’s transcendence has led to some false prob-
lems in the classical de auxiliis and later (post-Jansen, Dominican) debates. If so, the source of
his stringency on this point evidently owes something to Wittgenstein’s own “apophatic” philo-
sophical tendency. As Davies indicates, McCabe was a “dedicated Wittgensteinian all his life”:
see his foreword to McCabe’s book, x.
104. Thomas M. Osborne Jr., “Thomist Premotion and Contemporary Philosophy of Reli-
gion,” Nova et Vetera 4 (2006): 607–32.
105. Ibid., 615, n. 17. He says the objection that God is thus responsible for sin “does not
seem particularly difficult” and that Nicolas had “overwhelming refuted” it in his earlier articles.
This claim is puzzling, since Nicolas’s articles were written before they were subjected to criti-
cism, not only by Maritain, but by his fellow Dominicans. (See, in particular, the many objec-
tions raised by Guérard des Laurier, OP, in his lengthy article in the Bulletin Thomiste, “Le péché
et la causalité.”) Nicolas had said he would reply to his critics (see Les Profondeurs de la Grace
[Paris: Beauchesne, 1969], 285), but, after further reflection, he chose to retract his position.
Osborne makes no reference to this retraction.
106. See, in particular, many of the texts from the second volume of the Concordia Tomista,
 Reception of the Articles   253

Likewise, Steven Long—who also supports Nicolas’s earlier view107

and who raises various philosophical objections against Maritain’s earlier
position in Existence and the Existent (one he later modified)108—is not
directly concerned with Marín-Sola; it is thus hard to know how he might
judge his own account of the doctrine Maritain had sought to defend. For
example, Long often argues that, if one is moved by God, then one infal-
libly acts (action and passion being correlatives, such that God moving
and our being moved are mutually entailed). As true as this is, it is not to
the point. The issue rather, is this: if God moves one toward an end, must
one infallibly attain that end? Or, again, at issue is whether any secondary
cause that has been placed in act by God’s motion, and thus that possesses
the de facto active power to cause acts to which it is ordered, must infalli-
bly cause these acts. It is hard to see how one could argue that it must. A
hot burner could in fact cause paper to burn; yet it may not, if no paper is

which includes the decisive text of Ferrariensis, where he refutes Cajetan’s position that every
end of providence is infallibly attained. It is hard to argue that it is a philosophical truth that all
motion infallibly attains its term, since this is plainly counterfactual: many natural motions are
impeded and interrupted, thus not attaining their term. More plausibly, one might argue that
any impediment or interruption of one natural motion is caused by some other natural order
and thus by God. This is true of natural evils, which is why Thomas defends that God is their
accidental cause (either by moving one nature such that it causes the destruction of another, or
by moving corruptibles according to their nature, in which case at some time they must fail, due
to their matter). But this is precisely not true of moral evil; rather, a free creature is its first cause
and thus it is the one responsible for failing morally, when it need not, and for impeding God’s
motion to the honest good.
107. Steven A. Long, “Providence, Freedom, and Natural Law,” Nova et Vetera 4 (2006):
557–607. Although written in English, his article was published first in French: “Providence,
Liberté et Loi Naturelle,” Revue Thomiste 102 (2002): 355–405. My references are to the pub-
lished English version. As an example of his support of Nicolas’s earlier position, he de-
fines permission as a “non-causing” (581); by contrast, Thomas defines permission as a “non-
prevention,” which is clearly different, since God can move a creature to have a good while
not preventing it from impeding that motion. Long defines permission as a will that (x) not-
be (where [x] is a being or goodness that is not preserved) or a non-will that (x) be (or a non-
causing of [x]); but both the younger and the mature Thomas expressly define permission as a
non-will that (x) be and a non-will that (x) not-be. (See SN I, 46 1, 4 ad 2 and ad 3, ST I, 19, 9 ad 3,
and De malo 2, 1 and 4; and, for comments, my God’s Permission of Sin, 405–17.) This is the same
as saying that, whether one sins or not, either is within the ambit of God’s permission, a point
again Thomas expressly makes.
108. Compare the long note in Existence and the Existent (New York: Pantheon, 1948), 95–
99, with his subsequent explanation of that note and correction of it in God and the Permission
of Evil, 55–56.
254  conclusion
present or is wet (and thus its not causing does not derive from any insuf-
ficiency on the part of the active cause, but from an impediment). Simi-
larly, once the will is placed in act (the simple will of the good), it can be
the active cause of other acts: its use of its own power (or the exercise of its
act) and the intellect’s consideration of various aspects of the willed good
(or deliberation and judgment), which are thus acts of self-determination;
yet it may not go on to cause these acts, because another cause intervenes
and deliberation is interrupted. If it does cause further acts of will and in-
tellect, then God is the first cause of these, having first placed the will in
act or moved it. But if it does not cause these further acts, then this is not
due to God having not placed it in act or having not moved it to the honest
good, or having not ordered it to those good acts, but it is rather due to it-
self alone, as first cause, not doing what it in fact could do.
Since Long never deals with Marín-Sola’s articles, he never address-
es the way he argues his point, so it is again difficult to know whether he
would wish to bring arguments against it. He seems in part to want to de-
fend the position of Garrigou-Lagrange, and that of Cajetan and Bañez,
because he views it as “the” classic one of Thomists, regarding the posi-
tion Maritain tried to defend as a “revision” of it.109 However, as is made
clear from Appendix 1, both Marín-Sola and Muñiz have successfully
shown that this historical account of the Thomistic (and Dominican) tra-
dition is not entirely accurate; perhaps, then, he might view their position
more favorably.110

109. Long, “Providence, Freedom, and Natural Law,” 569, n. 14, for Long’s support of
Garrgiou-Lagrange, Cajetan, and Bañez, and 578 for his claim that Maritain’s position is a “revi-
sion.” In fact, Garrigou-Lagrange’s view is itself importantly different from Bañez’s, since the for-
mer holds that the antecedent will is a true will in God, that it grounds sufficient graces, and
that these can be resisted. He emphasized these points no doubt because of what the Church
came to teach regarding sufficient grace in the Jansenist controversy, some fifty years after the
death of Bañez. His dispute with Molina was principally over efficacious grace, and we have no
way of knowing how he himself would have responded to the later controversy. In fact, how-
ever, he held none of the above views, since he thought that the antecedent will was not a
true will in God, and thus that it grounded nothing, and that all actual grace was irresistible.
Garrigou-Lagrange tried to “combine” the ideas that came to the fore with Jansenism with the
earlier views of Bañez on efficacious grace that came to the fore in the Molinist controversy. As
I believe I have shown successfully, however, his effort to do so turns out to be incoherent: see
my God’s Permission of Sin, especially 217–27.
110. One should note that the papal permission for Dominicans to teach Bañez’s view pre-
dated Jansenism. His Dominican followers in the Jansenist controversy and after came to em-
 Reception of the Articles   255

Finally, this issue of Logos contains an interesting article by Thom-

as Joseph White, OP, who favors Cardinal Journet’s ideas on these mat-
ters over those of Cardinal Hans Urs von Balthasar, particularly as regards
God’s antecedent will and sufficient grace.111 The latter’s views in fact
prompt several clarifications. First, whatever use Maximus the Confessor
may have made of God’s antecedent will against Origen’s doctrine of apo-
katastasis, that is not the origin of this distinction.112 Rather, John Chrys-
ostom makes it more than one century before the Provincial Council of
Constantinople (543); and he manifestly does not make the distinction to
compromise God’s salvific will!113 In truth, the distinction is required not
by perseverance in sin, but sin itself: sin is against God’s will. God created
man for blessedness and wants him to choose in relation to the reason for
which he was created. Thus, leaving aside the question of heaven and hell,
one must still make a distinction regarding God’s will; for, in some sense,
sin is opposed to God’s true will, even though, finally, it is impossible to
act outside or against his will. For the same reason, a distinction must in-
evitably be made regarding God’s grace; for, in sinning, a creature resists

phasize that actual, interior, grace could be resisted and impeded, and that not all moving grace
was irresistible. When they distinguished the two different ways that God’s grace could operate,
they did not regard themselves as doing anything more than defending and developing Bañez’s
and “the” Dominican position, while attending to the more recent authoritative pronounce-
ments of the Magisterium against Jansenism.
111. Thomas Joseph White, OP, “Von Balthasar and Journet on the Universal Possibility of
Salvation and the Twofold Will of God,” Nova et Vetera 4 (2006): 633–66.
112. For Maximus’s use of it, see Ambigua 7 (Patrologiae cursus completus, Series Graeca
Prior, 1:1069A11–1102C4 [Paris: Migne, 1865]); Maximus (as earlier John Chrysostom and lat-
er John Damascene) emphasizes that Hell is based first on the creature’s refusal of God’s saving
will and grace.
113. John Chrysostom, Commentary on Ephesians (1:15): “‘According to the good pleasure
of his will. That is to say, because He earnestly willed it. That is, one might say, His earnest de-
sire. For the word ‘good pleasure’ everywhere means the precedent will, for there is another
will. As for example, the first will is that sinners should not perish; the second will is that, if men
become wicked, they shall perish. By ‘good pleasure,’ then, he means the first will, the earnest
will, the will accompanied by earnest desire. . . . What he means to say is this, God earnestly aims
at, earnestly desires, our salvation” (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 13 [New York: Christian
Literature, 1889], 52): my italics. The date is AD 392–97. Thus, the very place that grounds the
Latin assertion of God’s will as “beneplacitum”—that is, his true and sincere will—is the place
that grounds Chrysostom’s antecedent will! Far from thinking this is not truly God’s will, his
point is the opposite: the consequent will is only the result of (and, as it were, a concession to)
man’s sinful will. As grounded only in himself, God’s will is first and exclusively salvific.
256  conclusion
God’s grace, places an obstacle to its end being obtained, impedes it. The
distinctions at issue do not derive principally from the doctrine of hell, or
from the ultimate destiny of some men, but rather from the fact of pres-
ent, actual, sin.
Second, von Balthasar’s worry about God’s antecedent and permis-
sive will and sufficient grace seems to be based on a misunderstanding.
He seems to think these entail that God divides his salvific will between
those for whom he absolutely wills salvation and gives efficacious grace
and those for whom he wills salvation only conditionally, giving them
only sufficient grace, while permitting their sin. On such a conception,
one could well understand the Jansenist cry “liberate us, God, from suffi-
cient grace!” But this is a faulty conception of these distinctions. Of those
given sufficient grace, being permitted to refuse it, some sin and some
do not. Of those given the efficacious grace of justification, some perse-
vere in the state of grace and some do not. To receive sufficient grace does
not mean one will not be saved, and to receive efficacious grace does not
mean that one will be saved. These distinctions do not map directly onto
the issue of one’s final destiny or onto the issue of universal salvation. It is
true that some may die while in a state of grace and others while in a state
of mortal sin, and thus that each one’s final destiny is a mystery that we do
not understand and about which we cannot judge; but this division and
mystery is not based solely on God’s will, but rather supposes the will and
decisions of free creatures: either as cooperating with God, acting well in
and by his grace, or not cooperating with God and his grace, but resisting
and impeding the latter, by their own independent and sinful will.
As this article shows, contemporary theology still needs to appropri-
ate correctly the various distinctions of the modern scholastic tradition
that bear on this matter. From it, and from the ones previously discussed,
it is clear that what Marín-Sola had to say on this whole question—both
in his tremendous knowledge of the modern scholastic tradition and in
the few key distinctions and arguments that he himself contributed to
it—is quite relevant to current discussions, and that his own doctrine is
very much a “living option.” I have thus attempted, in an Afterword on
God’s salvific will in this book’s next (and final) chapter, to make as clear
as possible the crucial distinctions needed to defend his central teaching.
The summary of this chapter has attempted to be as exhaustive as
possible. Catholic truth is symphonic, and it is hard not to be impressed
 Reception of the Articles   257

by the harmony of the “chorus” found in it. One finds fundamental ac-
cord with Marín-Sola’s doctrine across nationalities and generations,
and—perhaps most significantly of all—across orders and “schools.” The
best way to understand the relation between God’s grace and man’s free
will had created division and opposition between various Catholic theo-
logians and orders, especially since the Congregatio de auxiliis, at the be-
ginning of the seventeenth century. For over 300 years, various scholastic
“schools” and “systems” on this matter all continued to argue with one an-
other. To have found a way past such disunity and rancor,113 and a way to
establish a possible unity and agreement between all Catholic theologians
on this matter, is an extraordinary accomplishment: not only a great work
on behalf of Catholic theology, but a great work on behalf of the Church
and its faith as well. However extraordinary it may seem, there is reason
to believe that Marín-Sola’s work is accomplishing just this and that the
judgment of Dom Illytd Trethowan, OSB, will be the judgment of histo-
ry: his work “has brought an end to the deadlock created by the Congrega-
tio de auxiliis.”

113. To recognize how close theologians had come to avoiding this, one can consider this:
had Bellarmine argued that man’s “negative determination” pertained not to his freedom per se,
but to his fallible freedom as ordinarily exercised, and had González argued that man can im-
pede not the proximate, but the remote, preparation for justifying grace, then their two posi-
tions are perfectly consonant, as Marín-Sola has shown. Molina had held that to be free was to
be a first cause; Bellarmine rightly insisted that a creature could be so of one thing only: negativ-
ity. Bañez had held that man was not the first cause of being and goodness; González rightly in-
sisted that man was the first cause of negativity, by impeding God’s causing of good. Jesuits and
Dominican advanced “corrections” to their own “school positions,” even during the time of the
de auxiliis debate; unfortunately, the careful distinctions needed to avoid further disharmony
were just missed, although one can see the correct intuitions at work behind several of these
“corrections.”
 3

Afterword
God’s Salvific Will

As noted in both the Conclusion and Appendix 1, the crucial matter

that needs to be understood properly in Marín-Sola’s doctrine is the na-
ture of God’s qualified will (or will secundum quid) and the related idea of
his universal salvific will. In this note, I will attempt to make these matters
clear, in particular regarding what Thomas himself teaches on them, but
also the way the commentators developed his teaching. Finally, I will in-
dicate the way the Church is presently poised to develop this doctrine yet
further.
Before Thomas addresses God’s operations—and thus his intellect
and will—he discusses his essence, and thus his eternity. Just as time is
the measure of the duration of changeable material substances, and aeve-
ternity is the measure of the duration of pure spirits (or “separated sub-
stances”) and their sequential acts, so eternity is the measure of the infi-
nite and simultaneous duration of God: a divine attribute that will forever
remain incomprehensible to a created mind, since it is incapable of en-

258
 God’s Salvific Will   259

compassing the infinite perfection of God’s simple essence. Because God

is timeless, one must exercise great care in speaking of his will in relation
to its created effects ad extra; for God does not exist “before” they do, in
some imaginary “time before time,” nor is his will “prior” to its effects.
Despite the fact that all created being, order, and goodness depend on
God’s will, it does not “precede” them, with either a temporal or a natural
priority;1 rather, God eternally wills that a creature exist at some time (or
aeveternity). Not bearing this in mind will lead only to confusions and
muddles when speaking of God’s will and providence.
One must use what one might call a “principle of inversion” 2 in
speaking about God’s intellect and will. For creatures, an object first ex-
ists and then it is known and loved: what changes is the created faculty,
not the object. In God’s case, what changes is precisely the object. In or-
der for God to be said to know or to love an actual object, it must exist:
the object changes, not God’s intellect or will. If the created term does not
exist at some time or aeveternity, then God cannot rightly be said to know
it (as an actual being). Likewise, if the created term does not exist at some
time or aeveternity, then neither can God rightly be said to will it.
Thomas avoids confused speech about God by supposing the created
effect, and then predicating God’s will of it, as its cause. Proceeding this
way avoids making God’s will prior to its effects (even though these de-
pend on it). Thus, for example, when Thomas says that God loves the bet-
ter thing more (ST I, 20, 4), he does not mean that God first wills that
one thing be better than another, and thus and then it is so; rather, Thom-

1. A cause is naturally prior to another when its effect depends on it, while existing at the
same time. Thus, the higher stories of a building depend on the lower stories, the foundations,
and the earth, which cause them to remain standing, even though these exist at the same time
as those stories. Or the matter of a substance depends on its form to exist, and that form de-
pends on its matter to be individualized, even though the matter and form always exist together,
at the same time. As the last example indicates, natural priority is typically true of correlative
causes. But God’s will is neither the correlative cause of created effects, nor does it exist at the
same time as those effects, but infinitely transcends time and aeveternity.
2. See Thomas’s teaching in ST I, 20, 2. “God’s love essentially proclaims ‘Let there be,’
while our love is an ‘Amen’ to the objects of creative love”: Michael Sherwin, By Knowledge and
by Love (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 93, n. 120. Augus-
tine had already made a similar point: “We, therefore, see these things you have made, because
they exist, but for you it is different: they exist because you see them:” see his Confessions, in-
troduction, translation, and notes by Maria Boulding, OSB (Hyde Park, N.Y.: New City Press,
1997), bk. 13, 379.
260  afterword
as is comparing two created things that already exist. Since one is better
than another, it must be loved more than the other, since God’s love is the
cause of whatever goodness each possesses. Again, Thomas speaks of God
preparing necessary causes for necessary things and contingent causes for
contingent things (ST I, 21, 2). This is the same as saying that if we sup-
pose an existing effect, then God’s will causes not only that it exist, but
that it came to exist the way it did. It is a mistake, however, to reverse this
process. Given only its created causes, the effect need not exist (since an-
other cause might intervene and impede them from causing it). And it
would again be wrong to say, “but we are supposing God’s will, as well”;
for this would be (whether unconsciously or not) to make God’s uncre-
ated will be prior to its effect, which would be future to it and would then
follow it. This would be to make the same mistake, putting God in time.
Again, when Thomas addresses questions concerning God’s predes-
tination, he supposes its term, namely a person who in fact perseveres to
the end in grace (for a predestined is just such a one, and none other). But
one can reach one’s good end only because God brings this about. As the
created means by which this is achieved derive from God, their Uncreated
Cause (whether he causes these directly or through the instrumentality of
creatures, including one’s own free activity), one reaches one’s good desti-
ny on the basis of the means God prepared. And, since God destines and
prepares those means eternally, a person is rightly said to reach his or her
good end by virtue of God’s predestination.3

3. Thus, from Thomas’s point of view, there is truth in both positions of his commenta-
tors on the effects proper to predestination. The crucial effect is final perseverance, since, with-
out it, a person cannot even be said to be predestined. But, that supposed, it is true that all the
graces that the person received contribute to his final end and are the effects of his predestina-
tion. Just as a final walk-off home run or save brings victory to the home baseball team . . . al-
though it required each previous run scored and each previous run denied the opponent to win
the game . . . so a person does not reach his or her final destiny save by all the graces he or she
receives. Just as the final home run or save makes all of those previous efforts again contribute
to the victory, so a final return to grace revives one’s previous merits. This is the truth being de-
fended by those commentators who affirm that predestination includes all graces. However, if
one shifts from Thomas’s point of view, and compares two persons in via and absent their fi-
nal term, there is no reason to suppose that—at the moment of the comparison—they possess
anything other than equal graces; furthermore, a predestined as well as a reprobate can, and
sometimes does, impede the effect of these graces, by sinning. Thus, that the graces a predes-
tined receives differ from those of a reprobate is only established by final perseverance (just as
all previous runs in a game are only part of a victory, rather than a defeat, by virtue of a final run
 God’s Salvific Will   261

Finally, Thomas speaks of God’s knowledge reaching as far as his

power extends (ST I, 14, 5). That power extends to the production of its
term. God sees what his power (will or decree) in fact causes: whether this
created effect comes into being in a contingent way that could fail or in
some necessary way. Thus, when one says that God knows all being and
good “in his decree,” because he sees to what his creative power extends,
this does not mean that he knows to what his power extends absent its
term, or supposing only his will, with the created thing supposed as not
yet existing or being future to God. This is impossible, because God’s will
is an eternal one, and nothing is future to God’s eternal being. (Further-
more, it is not clear that it makes any sense to say that God knows to what
his power “extends” . . . when it is supposed just as not extending to its cre-
ated term!) Thus, God knows all created being and goodness, because he
knows the term of his will, which is supposed as existing in time, whether
it comes to exist in time in a contingent or fallible way, or in a necessary
or infallible way. Once this is grasped, then there should be no problem in
conceding that God knows the created good “in” his decree: for that is not
to know the created term before it exists (or supposing that it does not ex-
ist), with the latter infallibly coming into being later; rather, it is to know
the created thing as existing (and to know it as existing even though, prior
to this or in its secondary causes, it need not have existed, and it came to
be contingently or fallibly).
The analysis of sin is analogous. Supposing that a creature does sin,
then whatever being, goodness, and order there remains in this act is
traceable to God, as first cause. However, whatever non-being, evil, or de-
fect of order there is in the act is traceable only to the will of the crea-
ture. It is a constant of Thomas’s teaching,4 from the Sentences to De malo
and the Prima secundae, that there are two causes of sin: an accidental ef-
ficient cause, and a deficient cause. The first is the act of conversion to the
mutable good: in choosing it, the sinner turns away from (averts itself)
from God, which is the formal element or the malice in the act. The ac-
tivity in conversion is traceable to God, the first cause of all created ac-
tivity. The deficient cause is the creature’s failure to consider the honest
scored or save). This is the truth being defended by those commentators who affirm that pre-
destination imperates or commands earlier graces (i.e., orders them definitively to salvation):
the full sense of events in our lives is only established by our end.
4. For further discussion of this point, see my God’s Permission of Sin, 331–59.
262  afterword
good or the rule that should govern any choice. Just as non-being, or fail-
ure in being, this cause is not traceable to God’s will, but to the creature’s
alone. And since—as Thomas always teaches—the defective cause is at
least by nature prior to the accidental efficient cause, God only moves
the creature as it is defectively disposed.5 Now, supposing a sinful choice,
then it is true that this occurs only supposing God’s permissive (i.e., non-
preventive) will; but that permission in its turn supposes the prior defec-
tive cause or disposition of the creature: God chooses not to prevent the
creature’s own defect from continuing and having its effect. God permits
the creature’s non-cooperation to cause the sin to which it is ordered, and
just because he intends to make use of this sin to bring about some great-
er good.6 And God knows the creature’s defect and the malice it causes,
because he sees the created term of his own power or will, and, in see-
ing it perfectly and eternally, sees the defect in the created good (which is
caused not by him, but by the free creature).
Thomas clearly teaches the above point. Thus, in ST I, 14, 10, he pres-
ents the following objection: “What is known through another and not
through itself is imperfectly known. But evil is not known by God through
itself, because otherwise evil would be in God, for the thing known must
be in the knower. Therefore, if evil is known through another, namely
through good, it would be known by Him imperfectly, which cannot be,
for the knowledge of God is not imperfect. Therefore God does not know
evil things” (obj. 4). Thomas replies to this objection not by denying that
God knows evil in another; on the contrary, he affirms this. Rather, he re-
plies by denying that this bespeaks an imperfection in God’s knowing: “To
know a thing by something else only belongs to imperfect knowledge if that
thing is of itself knowable; but evil is not of itself knowable, because the very
notion of evil means the privation of good; therefore, evil can neither be
defined nor known except by good” (ad 4). He had just explained by what
good God does know evil in his reply to the previous objection: “[Evil] is

5. Thus, even the act of sinful conversion—just insofar as an act not governed by the hon-
est good (or not ordered to the immutable good)—is traceable only to the creature’s will, not
to God’s.
6. As a note in passing, we often cannot fully see what the greater good could be, and
sometimes have no sense of it, which is why evil can be so anguishing, a trial that must be born
with great patience by one who knows or believes that God, in his infinite goodness and power,
has permitted it only to bring a greater good from it.
 God’s Salvific Will   263

opposed to the effects of God, which He knows by His essence; and know-
ing them [that is, the created effects], He knows the opposite evils” (ad 3).
Manifestly, then, Thomas holds that the actual, defective, creature is sup-
posed as existing and present to God for him to know its evil.
One cannot, however, reverse this process and claim that a person
will sin (at the term of deliberation) given that God is moving it (in its
deliberation) in such a way that he permits it to fail and sin (i.e., does not
prevent it from failing); for, even though moved in this way, it can fail or
not fail. And it is again a mistake to say “but we have supposed God’s per-
mission of sin”; in this case, one would not only put God’s will in time,
making his permission prior to the failure that then would follow, but one
would make the defect that followed depend on and be indirectly caused
by that permission, which is impossible.
On pain of infinite regress, the defective cause of sin is a pure nega-
tion, not a privation. Thomas’s doctrine here is not deeply puzzling.7 It is
impossible to consider all aspects of a given good at once, and, in delib-
eration, we consider them serially. Thus, while we are considering, let us
say, what pleasure a particular good might bring, we may not be consider-
ing that this pleasure is opposed to the rule that should govern our choice.
But such non-consideration is not evil, nor need it have any connection
with a sinful choice; for we can go on to consider this aspect of the good
and/or bear it in mind in making our final decision, in which case we will
not sin.8 Prior to making our final decision, we may not be using our intel-
lect to consider, although we could in fact do so when judging, and often
do. Thus, this non-use of the intellect by the will is neither a privation nor
a sin, but a simple absence of act or negation. Now, when we make our fi-

7. I am pleased to note that Lawrence Dewan, OP, shares this perspective: “To be consid-
ering only a part of the situation is not, in itself, a bad thing. In fact, given the sort of beings we
are, it must sometimes be the case. However, not to have been thorough in one’s consideration
is bad” (“St. Thomas and the First Cause of Moral Evil,” in Wisdom, Law, and Virtue [New York:
Fordham University Press, 2007], 186–96, 195).
8. Thomas’s doctrine on our non-use is already outlined in Aristotle’s classic account of
moral incontinence in his Nicomachean Ethics: “We speak of knowing in two ways: we ascribe
it both to someone who has it without using it and to someone who is using it. Hence it will
matter whether someone has the knowledge that his action is wrong, without attending to his
knowledge, or he both has it and attends to it. For this second case seems extraordinary, but
wrong action when he does not attend to his knowledge does not seem extraordinary” (VII, 7,
1146b 32–35).
264  afterword
nal decision, it is the intellect, not the will, that changes: in a final judgment,
the will is still not using the intellect to consider. Thus, what was a negatio
in deliberation remains a negatio in judgment. Now, however, this non-use
does have a relation to sin: it is its defective cause.9 For, in closing the pro-
cess of deliberation, our final judgment means that we did not do what we
could in fact have done: we did not use our intellect to consider in judg-
ment, and thus we decide upon a false good. The intellect is deprived of
its proper order in its false judgment, and the will naturally and immedi-
ately chooses the mutable good decided on, converting to it and averting
itself from God and his order: we choose what we judge it is then right to
choose.
Thomas holds that there is no other reason or cause that explains
our culpable failure to do what we can, or our non-use of our intellect,
beyond our will.10 This failure is culpable in judgment and not in its an-
tecedent deliberation, just as charity is driven out by sin in the “final in-
stant” that terminates its presence (as judgment terminates deliberation)
and not in the entire time that precedes it.11 This is why Thomas uses the
word praeintelligitur in speaking of the defective cause, the voluntary non-
consideration: given the final practical judgment, one can “recognize as
prior” the non-act that renders it defective. This non-act (the non-use of
the intellect and thus the non-consideration of the rule of reason) is tem-
porally prior, in the deliberation that precedes judgment, but it then bears
no necessary relation to sin; this same non-act is by nature prior to the de-

9. This is why Thomas says (in ST I-II, 74, 1 ad 2) that this judgment—even though onto-
logically prior to choice—is still “deemed [deputetur] a sin,” since it is “subject to the will.” His
point is that the will’s antecedent non-use (negatio) is now (in judgment) a culpable negation, an
impediment, a non-cooperation.
10. The degree to which this is already anticipated in Augustine can be seen in the lat-
ter’s analysis of sin and its cause made in The City of God, bk. 12, ch. 7 (see the 4th Loeb volume
[London: William Heinemann, 1987], 33). The defective cause that is the “fount and origin” of
sin plainly lies in the will itself: “It is with evil will itself that evil starts in the changeable spirit”
(bk. 12, ch. 9, 39). Notice that Augustine drives back the explanation of sin to the created will
and not to God’s will, permissive or otherwise. This is also Thomas’s express position. Anyone
wishing to see the fundamental identity of doctrine between Aquinas and Augustine on the
cause of sin (in Adam and the angels) should read with attention this entire book of The City
of God. For a similar analysis of the point at issue, see Michael Sherwin’s By Knowledge and by
Love, 104.
11. See ST I-II, 113, 7 ad 5 and De caritate 12 ad 14 (and, for further comments, my God’s Per-
mission of Sin, 335–38).
 God’s Salvific Will   265

fective judgment as defective, but it is only by virtue of this act that it is

causative. Thomas always uses praeintelligitur to refer to a cause that is by
nature prior when dealing with correlative causes.12
That there is also a real difference between final judgment and elec-
tion is clearly signaled by Thomas in ST I-II, 75, 2, where he teaches that
the completeness of the sinful act pertains to the will, with the previous de-
fect of the intellect being presupposed. This latter is “subject to the will”
and thus it is “deemed a sin” (ST I-II, 74, 1 ad 2). Marín-Sola is therefore
right to distinguish the act of choice from that of final judgment, which
has the “force of a command” over the choice that naturally and infallibly
follows, as John of St. Thomas, Goudin, and Billuart held.13
That distinction also helps make sense of two things Thomas says re-
garding sin. On the one hand, he affirms (in ST III, 1, 3, ad 4 and in Quod-
libet 5, 5, 1) that predestination supposes sin, such that God would not have
chosen for the Word to become incarnate had man not sinned (more
probably, and pax Scotus): here, God’s predestinative will supposes sin,
and thus God’s predestination supposes his permission of sin. On the other
hand, Thomas affirms that God permits evil only because he will bring a
greater good from it (ST I, 2, 3 ad 1). Since sin is the principal evil per-
mitted, and since the Incarnation of the Word is its principal remedy in-
tended, this implies that God’s permission of sin supposes his predestination,
rather than this latter supposing his permission. And thus Thomas seems
12. For more on this, see my God’s Permission of Sin, 355–58. As with an evil choice, so with
a false decision: its activity is traceable to God as First Cause, but its defect is traceable to the
free creature alone. However, whereas there is an infallible connection between decision and
choice (unless God specially intervenes), there is no infallible connection between deliberation
and decision: prior to judgment, one could in fact use the intellect well, but one fails to do so.
This failure is not a sin and requires no further cause: one just fails to do what one could do, and
thus one fails to do what one should do.
13. See Marín-Sola’s third article, n. 46. Indeed, many Thomistic commentators had de-
veloped the position that the intellect and will are coordinate faculties, each with its proper act.
Cajetan was the first to attempt a systematization (see his In I-II, 16, 4), but Reginald seems
to be the first to work out the scheme of coordinate acts that then becomes more common
to the tradition, in his Doctrinae Divi Thomas tria principia (Paris: Lethielleux, 1878), Princip-
ia I, #766–77: see, on this point, M. M. Gorce, OP’s “Reginald, Antonin,” in the Dictionnaire
de Théologie Catholique (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1937), 13b:2105–14. (For another defense of fi-
nal judgment and choice being different acts, see Joseph Lebacqz, SJ’s Libre arbitre et judgement
[Bruges: Desclée, 1960], especially 61; for another discussion of the acts of Thomistic psychol-
ogy, see Joseph Romiti, SJ’s De Processu Evolutivo Doctrina de Actu Humano Completo [Medio-
lani, Italy: Gregorianum, 1949].)
266  afterword
to assert contradictory things: that predestination supposes sin and its
permission and that it does not suppose sin and its permission. The dis-
tinction made resolves this difficulty. God’s predestination does suppose
the defective decision and cause of sin (the non-cooperation) that man first
and independently makes (and that naturally and immediately leads to sin
formally speaking), as well as its permission; whereas the defective choice
and its permission supposes his predestination. God’s predestination sup-
poses his eternal foreknowledge of the creature’s independent defective
order (final judgment) and that defective, false, order is permitted to cause
its effect (sinful choice) only because God chooses to predestine Christ as
its remedy.
In causing its own sin, the creature places an impediment to, or re-
sists, God’s qualified will or will secundum quid. This must be spoken of
using the same “strategy” or “grammar” as employed in speaking about
God’s unqualified will: one must begin with a created effect, and predi-
cate God’s will of it. Now, God not only causes an effect or term, but he
also causes the created order to an effect or term. This is to will the end or
term in a qualified way: it is to will the end in its created order or cause (or
virtually); it is to will that the end in fact be possible (insofar as there are
created means ordering to it); it is to will the end conditionally (or to will
the end occur if it is not impeded, or unless it is impeded); it is to will the
end quantum in se est (when speaking of God’s salvific will). All of these
expressions are different ways of asserting the same point, which is that
God possesses an unqualified will that the creature be ordered to an end
(quite obviously, since this created order exists), and thus, and in this, he
possesses a qualified will that the end be attained.
The notion of a will secundum quid can refer to any order to an end.
Thus, God wills that the gazelle escape from the cheetah, just in govern-
ing it according to its nature, and in supplying it with means by which it
can, and does, flee the cheetah, seeking to escape; but to will that it es-
cape in this sense, or that the gazelle to be placed in action toward the
goal of escaping, does not mean that it will in fact elude the cheetah and
reach that goal, nor can God thus be said to will that end unqualifiedly.
Or God wills that a person attain salvation, inasmuch as he orders that
person to this end through his grace (places the person in act toward the
end of salvation), but this does not mean that the person will reach salva-
tion, nor thus can God be said to will that end unqualifiedly. Note that, to
 God’s Salvific Will   267

possess a qualified will of an end—or that a creature be ordered to an

end—does not mean that it will not attain this end. It only means that,
considering only this aspect of the creature—its being ordered to an end—
God can only be said to will that end, or that it attain that end, in a quali-
fied sense (i.e., “secundum quid”): in the sense that he wants the end to be
in fact possible for the creature, or that the free creature attain the end on
condition that it does not impede it. Note, further, that God himself can
be the first cause of a condition being met. Thus, God wills that one attain
to glory if one perseveres in grace, and God causes that condition (for the
one who does persevere and attain glory).
What is true of that example will be true of any example where the
condition is an act or a good. Yet, in the case of sin, where the condition
is a defect and an evil, it can be the creature, not God, who first causes the
condition. Thus, God wills to move a person to choose the mutable good
if the person fails to do what he can in fact do and thus places an impedi-
ment to receiving further aid, and this impediment derives only from the
free creature. There is nothing imperfect in this last case of a qualified will
any more than there is in the others, even though it is the creature, not
God, who is responsible for the condition (when, and only when, dealing
with the negativity and defect of moral evil). There would only be some
imperfection were God not to permit the possibility of the creature’s quali-
fied independence; but he does permit this, just in moving it according to
its defectible nature. Again, whether a free creature places an impediment
or not, in either case it was ordered well to the honest good, which end,
and which order to it, is good and bespeaks no imperfection. To possess a
qualified will of an end, or to order something to an end conditionally, is
in no way incompatible with the perfection of God’s will.
Thomas explains how we should understand our “resistance” and
“impediment” as early as the Sentences: “A contrary found in a subject re-
sists action in two ways: in one way, insofar as it acts upon the one acting,
as is clear in reciprocal action and passion; in another way, insofar as plac-
ing an impediment is in the one susceptible of receiving a form. In the first way,
there cannot be any resistance to the divine action, because He is acting
and in no way suffering. And thus resistance of a thing to His action does
not exist save on the part of the effect to be received” (4 SN, d. 17, q, 1, a.5 ad
2). What is “placed,” or the “impediment,” is precisely a non-act, a non-
cooperation with God’s movement; One’s will simply fails in fact to co-
268  afterword
operate: one does not do what one could, one does not will to use one’s
intellect as one is empowered to do by God’s motion or activation. The
language of resistance and impediment is used just to underline that the
free creature, not God, is the one who is first responsible for this interrup-
tion.14
Thomas uses “resistance” to refer to grace resisting sin (ST III, 704),
charity resisting concupiscence (ST II-II, 24, 4), and virtue resisting
temptation (ST I-II, 68, 1), as Adam could (ST II-II, 165, 1 ad 3), and more
easily than fallen man (ST I, 95, 4 ad 3). Indeed, it seems to be Thomas’s
preferred language when speaking of the need to resist the “onslaught of
passion” in concupiscence; whether by using one’s reason: ST I-II, 80, 3;
II-II, 53, 5; ST II-II, 155, 4; and ST II-II, 156, 1; or by using one’s will: ST
I-II, 6, 7 ad 3; ST II-II, 155, 3 ad 3; and ST II-II, 175, 2 ad 2. Here, there is a
movement opposite to that of the Holy Spirit, namely to the inordinate
object of passion; yet, the will is able to resist this motion in the same way,
by not acting on its impulse. Both cases are dynamic, and both cases natu-
rally lead to the use of identical language, for “resistance” is not-acting by
the power of the moving cause, which failure to act impedes what would
otherwise occur, given that motion. The obvious backdrop here is Saint
Paul’s war between flesh and spirit: both of these move or incline a per-
son within, but in opposite directions. If a person does not act in accor-
dance with the inclination of concupiscence, this is because he or she is
acting with and by an opposite motion or inclination: either one’s inclina-
tion to the honest good (e.g., acting in accord with one’s nature and rea-
son) or to goods that prepare for sanctifying grace (e.g., acting in accord
with God’s grace and vocation). Not-following (i.e., resisting) passion is
caused by the contrary inclination of nature and/or of grace. Likewise,
in the common situation of men who end by following passion and con-
cupiscence, not-following or not-acting with (i.e., resisting) reason and/
or grace occurs as one is being moved toward the opposite (the object of
passion). But, in the second case as much as in the first (where Thomas’s
14. The likely origin for Thomas’s position in the Sentences is Augustine—including the
use of the word “resistance”! (“vitium, quo resistant Deo qui eius appellantur inimici”): see his
The City of God, bk. 12, ch. 3. Here is an even clearer example: “whatever the cause of the [po-
tentially evil] will might be, if the will cannot resist it, it is no sin to yield to it; but if the will can
resist it, let it do so, and there will be no sin. . . . There is no sin . . . by doing what he cannot guard
against. But there is a sin, so it is possible to guard against it” (On Free Choice of the Will [India-
napolis, Ind.: Hackett, 1993, 105]).
 God’s Salvific Will   269

view is express and quite clear), the motion that one can follow is merely
“seductive” and not determinative: just as, when moved by passion, one
can resist the impulse (not-acting on it when one in fact could), so, too,
when moved by reason and/or sufficient grace, one can resist the inclina-
tion (not-acting on it when one in fact could).
God’s antecedent will, or his universal salvific will, is but one exam-
ple of a will secundum quid.15 As with all such instances, it refers to some
created order to an end. From the beginning to the end of his career, and
in every instance,16 Thomas clearly teaches that this is the free creature’s
nature, made for salvation: “by His antecedent will, God wants a certain
person to be saved by reason of his human nature, which He made for salva-
tion” (De veritate 23, 2 ad 2).17 Because God made man for salvation, he
created him in a state of grace, so that he could act properly and thus at-
tain it. Indeed, the universal nature of the antecedent salvific will means
that, for Thomas, it could only refer to man’s nature; for, from the begin-
ning to the end of his career, Thomas held there was a significant group—
children dying unbaptized—who received no gracious aid and whose
only actual order to salvation was the human nature that they possessed,
15. Albert Michel, OP, long ago pointed out that the antecedent will is not identical to
God’s conditioned will or will secundum quid: see “La volonté de Dieu,” in the Dictionnaire de
Théologie Catholique, 15b:3348–49. The first refers to the object willed, but this is just but one
of many possible: in this case, God wills that the nature he made for salvation attain that end, if
this end is not first impeded by sin.
16. Marín-Sola mistakenly thought that at one point Thomas indicated the antecedent will
referred to the nature without all of its circumstances (as opposed to with none of them). He is
misled on this point by the Vives edition of Thomas’s commentary on 1 Timothy 2:4, which he
quotes as follows: “voluntas potest dupliciter considerari, scilicet universali vel absolute, secun-
dum aliquas circumstamstantias, et in particulari” (Concordia Tomista III, 6, 508 and 512). The
Parma text has the same reading. But the Venetian edition, as well as the Marietti edition that is
the present best scholarly version, is this: “voluntas potest dupliciter considerari, scilicet univer-
sali vel absolute ET secundum aliquas circumstantias et in particulari.” By virtue of the other texts
missing the crucial “et,” Marín-Sola could think that “secundum aliquas circumstantias” was
meant to modify the antecedent will; whereas, in fact, here and in every other reference, the an-
tecedent will is of the nature alone, or considering the nature of each individual that was made
for salvation. It remains true that there is a conditioned order to salvation in any person who God
calls or justifies by his grace, and thus there is a divine will of salvation secundum quid in this gra-
cious order; but Thomas expressly does not refer to any such order as God’s universal, anteced-
ent will: this latter always and only refers to one’s nature, made for salvation, and thus Thomas
holds it can be said of each human person, even those lacking any grace.
17. For Thomas’s unchanging doctrine on the antecedent will, see 1 SN 46, 1, 1; 3 SN 31, 2,
3a; his commentary on Timothy 1, 2, 1; and ST 1, 19, 6 ad 1.
270  afterword
which nature God intended for salvation (or inasmuch as he was con-
cerned, quantum in se est). The right “grammar” to be observed in speak-
ing about God’s will requires that we begin with some actual salvific order
in the creature, and this is the only one this group possesses.
God’s antecedent will of an end is analogous to our simple will of a
good, or without considering the circumstances that pertain to it, an anal-
ogy Thomas expressly affirms.18 When we apprehend a good, we are at-
tracted to it or desire it; because we do, we use our intellect to consider it
under its given circumstances, and we cease willing it only if we discover
some circumstance that impedes it from being choice-worthy. The sim-
ple will of a good is the ground of all our willing.19 By contrast, a velleity
or wish grounds nothing, for a velleity is what is left of a simple will just
when we discover something about the good that makes it impossible to
attain or undesirable to will. Thus, considering his nature made for sal-
vation, we rightly say that God wants the creature’s salvation, for his na-
ture was made for this end. Wanting his salvation in this sense, God will
aid a person to attain his end unless God foresees something in the crea-
ture—namely sin—that impedes the end for which he was created. God’s
antecedent will is thus like a velleity just because of sin. When we want
to help someone if he or she will let us, and he or she will not, we rightly
say something like “I really want to help you” (or “I really wish you would
let me help you”), “but, since you will not, I will not try to stop you” (or
“I will not act to prevent you”): one’s true will is thus like an inefficacious
velleity. The same is true of God’s will: God wants us to be saved as far as
he is concerned; but if, as far as we are concerned, we would prefer some
other order than God’s and turn from him, impeding our original order
18. For Thomas’s references to the antecedent will both as a simple will and as a velleity
(references made in both his earlier and later work), see my God’s Permission of Sin, 448–54.
There is little, if any, difference between a simple will and a conditioned intent. In both, we want
a good and are inclined to obtain it, but only on condition that we discover nothing un-choice-
worthy about it. Marín-Sola prefers to think of a conditioned will as a conditioned intent, rath-
er than a simple will, but the difference here seems to be purely verbal. (If he did not want to
speak of it as a simple will, this may have been because the commentators did not clearly distin-
guish a simple will from a velleity, and the antecedent will is not a velleity unless sin or its defec-
tive cause is supposed.)
19. For an analysis that underlines the importance of simple will in Thomistic psychology
(and also the signal difference between a simple will and a mere velleity), see Servais Pinck-
aers’s “La structure de l’acte humain suivant saint Thomas,” Revue Thomiste 55 (1955): 393–412,
particularly 397–99.
 God’s Salvific Will   271

to that end, then just that order (that is, God’s antecedent will) has been
blocked from leading to that end.
That Thomas teaches the antecedent will is like a velleity because of
our sin is patent from the example of the merchant he adapts from Aristot-
le’s classic account in his Ethics. This is an analogy of proper proportional-
ity. Aristotle’s example features a merchant, his ship, its goods, a safe port,
and a storm. These are analogous to God, his free creature, the graces it
receives, its end of salvation, and sin. The merchant wants to transport his
goods to a port, and so he builds a ship, loads it with goods, and sets off
for the port. God wants to be friends with creatures, and share the intima-
cy of his Triune life with them, and so he creates free creatures capable of
being raised into his life, and gifts them with the graces that order them
to that end, setting them on their way. The merchant continues to guide
his ship to port and will attain that port safely, should no storm intervene;
but, if one does, then he may need to throw his goods overboard to save
the ship (or even, as a simple variant on this, not steer or abandon his ship
altogether), against his initial intention. Likewise, God continues to guide
his free creature by his grace and will bring the creature safely to his glory,
should no sin intervene; but, if it does, and this impedes his graces from
reaching their end, then he may choose not to give further graces for a
time (or even to abandon the free creature altogether to the order he has
sinfully chosen), against his initial intention inscribed in the nature of the
free creature and the graces it had received.20 The analogy of the judge is
the same (as Marín-Sola’s excellent analysis of it makes crystal clear).21
God’s antecedent will is conditionally effective; if its end is not at-
tained, this is only because it has been opposed by sin, which impedes and
interrupts its order. Not only Thomas’s analogies, but his express words,
20. Thomas uses the same analogy of a ship’s pilot when explaining how God is not even
the indirect cause of sin in the Summa theologiae (ST I-II, 79, 1 and ad 1–4). He there concedes
that God may not assist someone to avoid sin, and the person may thus sin, but this is no more
imputable to God than a wreck is to a pilot who does not steer his ship when he is not bound to
do so. Now a pilot is bound to steer his ship under normal, good, sailing conditions; he is only
not bound to do so (just as he is not bound to conserve the ship’s goods) when it is in extremis
(for then he may be forced, instead, to order that it be abandoned). And thus Thomas says that,
if God does not assist someone by his grace and gives him up to a reprobate sense, this is be-
cause he already had a reprobate sense (sin: the equivalent of a storm or of the ship being in ex-
tremis). God’s withdrawal of grace or abandonment of the person to this sin is thus due him, as a
punishment for a previous sin.
21. See Marín-Sola’s third article, n. 52.
272  afterword
affirm this: God “wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge
of the truth, as is said in 1 Timothy (2:4). But those alone are deprived of
grace who offer an obstacle within themselves to grace; just as, while the sun is
shining on the world, the man who keeps his eyes closed is held responsi-
ble for his fault, if as a result some evil follows, even though he could not
see unless he were provided in advance with light from the sun” (SCG III,
159).
We are now in a position to understand Thomas’s entire doctrine,
and the commentators’ development of it. We need only note one further
point: his shift on fallen man’s preparation for sanctifying grace.22 From
the beginning to the end of his career, Thomas unchangingly affirms that
man’s justification involves the infusion of a new form, sanctifying grace,
whereby the sinner is transformed into God’s friend. The final and perfect
preparation of justification is the act of converting from sin (filial fear)
and to God (the love of charity). This final disposition or perfect prepara-
tion is simultaneous with justification, being the effect of the new form in-
fused.23 Thomas thus expressly conceives justification as he does the sac-
raments: the acts of filial fear and charity are its matter and sanctifying
grace is its form.24 Just as the water of baptism infallibly causes spiritu-
al rebirth by the baptismal words, and just as the bread and wine are in-
fallibly transformed into the body and blood of Christ by the Eucharistic
ones, so the sinner is infallibly turned around, in his acts of filial fear and
charity, by the infusion of sanctifying grace.25
An ultimate disposition is of the same order as what it prepares or
proportions the subject to receive. Now, the life of sanctifying grace,
22. For the fullest discussion of Thomas’s teaching on the preparation for sanctifying
grace, including a clear analysis of his change in doctrine between the Sentences and De veritate
and his two Summas, see Joseph Nguyen Tri-An, OP’s De praeparatione ad gratiam apud Divum
Thomam (Manila, 1958), 161 pages.
23. See De veritate 28, 3 ad 18 and 28, 4 ad 1 and the ST I-II, 111, 2 ad 1; ST I-II, 112, 2 ad 1; and
especially ST I-II, 113, 8.
24. Thus he says that “in the sacrament of Penance . . . human actions take the place of mat-
ter, and these actions proceed from internal inspiration . . . by God working inwardly” (ST III, 84,
1 ad 2). In the sacrament of penance, a sinner returns to God’s good grace, just as he does in the
process of justification.
25. The words of the centurion daily said at the liturgy are apposite: “Lord, I am not wor-
thy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the Word and my soul shall be healed.” As
with the Eucharist and baptism, so with penance and justification: the Holy Spirit comes upon
the material object or the immaterial soul and it is thus made holy.
 God’s Salvific Will   273

just because a participation in the divine life, is infinitely above any cre-
ated nature. Such a one, by using its natural powers (even in an unfallen
state), could in no way finally dispose itself for the reception of sanctify-
ing grace. Since the disposition is proportioned to sanctifying grace, it can
be caused in the creature only by that grace itself. (The same holds in rela-
tion to any actual grace previously moving the fallen creature; while this is
an aid above nature, that nature is still fallen, and thus, even as so moved,
it remains disproportioned to God’s life of sanctifying grace.) Because
the infusion of sanctifying grace infallibly causes the acts of filial fear and
charity, Thomas famously says that “sometimes God moves some spe-
cially to the willing of something determinate, which is the [true] good,
as in the case of those whom He moves by grace [e.g., sanctifying grace]”
(ST I-II, 9, 6 ad 3).26
Thomas also unchangingly affirms, throughout his career, that this
perfect preparation is temporally preceded by a remote and imperfect
preparation. (The only exception he allows is the miraculous conversion
of Saint Paul, who is converted suddenly and all at once.) His latest work,
on penance, evinces the same doctrine. Contrition and the forgiveness of
sin suppose God turning man to him and an order of dispositive acts: un-
formed faith, servile fear, unformed hope, charity, and filial fear (ST III,
85, 5). The first three acts precede the habit of penance, whereas the last
two suppose it (ST III, 85, 6), for both charity and filial fear (love of God
and hatred of sin) suppose the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit, where-
as the other acts do not, but precede its infusion.
This remote preparation is related to the adage facienti quod in se est,
26. Another text often used as evidence of this doctrine is ST I-II, 112, 3: “if God intends,
while moving, that the one whose heart He moves should attain to grace, he infallibly attains it.”
As Koëllin had noted long before the modern controversies, and as Nicolaï reaffirmed during
them, this text is conditional (“if ”). Koëllin thus took it as referring not to all grace or prepa-
ration: “Isto modo praeparatio ad gratiam habet necessitatem ad id quod ordinatur a Deo quia
contingit ut Deus moveat hominem sufficienter qui tamen non consequitur gratiam [habitualem]
propter dissensum ejus ad gratiam” (In I-II, 112, 3). Likewise Nicolaï: “Alia est voluntas antece-
dens quae non discernit absolute quod effectus ponatur, nec omne modos comprehendit quius
efficaciter sit ponendus, atque nihil impedit quia ei resistere dicatur homo vel propositum ejus
non implere” (Rayner Pantheol. verbo Gratia, ch. 6, 292 and 285, Edit. 1655]. (The references are
from Guillermin: see “De la grâce suffisante,” Revue Thomiste 9 [1901]: 668–69, and the notes
on each page.) While it is possible to interpret ST I-II, 112, 3, this way, as referring to the effects
infallibly caused by the infusion of sanctifying grace, an alternative interpretation of the text is
possible, and one that to me seems much more probable: see n. 28 below.)
274  afterword
Deus non denegat gratiam. Thus, if the sinner does what he can, in this ini-
tial and imperfect preparation, God will not deny the sanctifying grace by
which one will perfectly prepare and be transformed into his friend. Since
this latter is the principle of merit, Thomas always teaches that it cannot be
merited by one’s initial preparation.27 Nonetheless, out of his goodness,
God chooses so to gift the one who initially prepares and he infallibly
does so, not because this is deserved, but simply as fulfilling his own in-
tention.28 Again, the matter of any sacrament must be properly prepared:
water must be apt to be a sign of spiritual generation, and the Eucharistic

27. Some of his commentators (e.g., Ferrariensis, Domingo Soto, and Medina) thought
the younger Thomas allowed that one could merit justification de congruo; this position was
also recently defended by Jean Rivière and by Joseph P. Wawrykow, in his God’s Grace and Hu-
man Action (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), see 84–90. By contrast,
other commentators (e.g., Capreolus, the Salmanticenses, and Billuart) denied this, as did more
recently Henri Bouillard, Conversion et grâce chez saint Thomas, and Nguyen Tri-An: see De
praeparatione, 101. Theirs is the right interpretation. For the younger Thomas, knowing that oth-
ers argued for this merit de congruo, expressly denies this is possible, saying that the first grace “in
nullo modo sub merito cadere” (2 SN, d. 27, q. 1, a. 4). He further holds (ibid., ad 4) that, when
others speak of such merit, they mean it only in “quodammodo ex congruo,” evidently meaning
only in “an improper way” (thereby interpreting them to agree with his own view). One who
first prepares himself must look not to God’s justice, but to his liberality, as when one impetrates
a gift of God. He thus interprets Ambrose in the Sentences to mean we can expect God to infuse
grace into one who is prepared to receive it not from any merit on his part, but simply because
God is good: “God proposes to infuse grace in the one whom He foresees prepares for grace,
but not because of the preparation, which is not a sufficient cause of [sanctifying] grace nor of
the end of His will, but on account of His goodness. He wills nevertheless that this one have
[sanctifying] grace since he prepares himself, which conjunction denotes a disposition and not
a cause. But, as regards His own act of willing, one can assign neither disposition nor cause; for
He does not want this because one has prepared oneself, but only because He is good” (1 SN,
d. 41, q. 1, a. 3 ad 1).
28. His teaching on this in the Sentences can be seen in the previous note; in the Summa,
he says “if God intends, while moving, that the one whose heart He moves should attain to [sanc-
tifying] grace, he infallibly attains it” (I-II, 112, 3). The one whose heart has been moved to its
term is then given sanctifying grace, not by any merit on his part, but simply by the intention
of God, who chooses infallibly to give sanctifying grace to one who has prepared for it. When
Thomas speaks of our “heart” being moved, he habitually refers to the interior instinct of the
Holy Spirit, by means of which a person can remotely prepare for justification. (Another inter-
pretation of I-II, 112, 3 is possible, as was just noted in n. 26, but, regardless of one’s interpretation
of this text, Thomas’s later teaching that God gives sanctifying grace to one who has done what
he could to prepare for its reception is clear from the adage facienti quod in se est, which he con-
tinues to use in his mature work: see his commentaries on Hebrews [23, 3] and Romans [10, 3]
De malo 7, 10 ad 8, and ST I-II 109, 6 ad 2.)
 God’s Salvific Will   275

bread and the wine must be apt to be transformed; likewise, by his ini-
tial and imperfect preparation, man is made apt to receive the sanctifying
grace that will justify him. However, Thomas ever teaches that—unlike
the perfect preparation, which is infallibly achieved by the infusion of the
new form—one may fail to do what one can and thus this initial prepara-
tion may be impeded (just as one may fail to supply proper matter for a
sacrament, apt for its transformation).29
While Thomas is consistent regarding the above two points, it was
recognized by his commentators from the very beginning,30 and remains
undisputed,31 that he changed his teaching regarding the nature of man’s

29. The younger Thomas: “Vocation is twofold: an exterior one, as is accomplished

through a preacher, and this is not justification, but disposes for it. Another interior. And this
sometimes does not attain its end on account of a defect of the one called. And this vocation is noth-
ing other than a certain instinct or motion toward the good, sent by God” (4 SN, d. 17, q. 1, a. 1,
#31). The mature Thomas: “God moves the human mind to the good, but he is nevertheless able
to resist this motion [“potest huic motione resistere”]; and thus it is from God that man prepares
himself for grace, but that he lacks grace does not have a cause from God, but from man, accord-
ing to Osee xiii, 9: ‘Destruction is thine own, O Israel, thy help is only in me’” (Quodlibetum 1, 4,
2 ad 2). For the same, see his commentaries on 1 Corinthians 12:1; 1 Timothy 5:2; John 15, 5 (4);
and (applying the same to the angels) De malo, 16, 4.
30. Various catalogues listing changes in Thomas’s work note the change: see Friedrich
Stegmüller, Reportorium commentariorum in Sententia Petri Lombardi, 2 vols. (Würzburg: F.
Schöningh, 1997), and René Antoine Gauthier, OP’s “Les ‘Articulis in quibus frater Thomas me-
lius in Summa quam in Scriptis,’” Recherches de théologie ancienne et médievale 19 (1952): 271–326,
at 317: “39. Nota quod libro suo tertio Sent. d. 28a, a. 4o, in fine, dicit quod homo de solo libero
arbitrio potest se ad gratiam gratum facientem praeparare; faciendo enim quod in se est Deus
infundit gratiam. In prima vero parte secundae Summa, q. 109, a 6o, dicit quod non. Hoc idem
dicit in quaestionibus De veritate [24, 15]. Hoc idem in quodam Quodlibet Parisius disputato
primo [1, 4, 2].” Gauthier places the above catalogue in the first generation of Thomists, in the
thirteenth century.
31. As Nguyen Tri-An notes (De praeparatione, 75–76), some commentators had tried to
argue that Thomas changed his way of speaking, but not his doctrine: thus, John of St. Thom-
as, Silvius, the Salmanticenses, or Billuart, as well as contemporary commentators such as del
Prado and Boyer. Other commentators held that Thomas changed his mind: thus Capreolus,
Cajetan, Domingo Soto, or Estius, as well as contemporary commentators such as Bouillard,
Deman, and Dhont. Nguyen Tri-An defends the second with these, among various other, very
good reasons (77–82): the dictum facienti quod in se est Deus non denegat gratiam had common-
ly been held to mean that man could prepare for justifying grace simply through the use of his
free will, and the younger Thomas follows the general consensus of his day; and when parallel
texts from his later and earlier work are set side by side, the earlier ones notably lack any refer-
ence either to the necessity of an “auxilio divinae gratiae” (Quodlibetum 1, 4, 2) or to the fact
that to posit free will as the beginning of faith is “part of the Pelagian heresy.” For the modern
276  afterword
initial preparation. He always held that one could prepare only as aided by
God. The younger Thomas, however, held (with all his confreres and even
more strongly)32 that this aid was a natural one and man’s initial prepara-
tion was within the power of his free will: “To prepare oneself for grace
is just another way of saying: to do what one is capable of—as it is com-
monly said that, if man does what he is capable of, God gives him [sanc-
tifying] grace (De veritate 24, 15).” And he there adds that “the whole rea-
son for speaking of this preparation necessary for [sanctifying] grace is to
point out some sort of reason on our part why ingratiatory grace is given to
some and not to others.”
A perfect illustration of Thomas’s earlier position is the way he first
interprets Lamentations 5:21:33 “Converte nos Domine ad te et converte-
mur.” He supports this text with a similar one from Jeremiah: “Converte
me Domine, et convertur, quia tu es Dominus Deus meus.” He then gives
an opposite text (sed contra) from Zechariah—“convertimini ad me”—
and goes on to say that both of these texts are correct, and for this reason:
“quod ad opus meritorium exigitur liberii arbitria praeparatus et gratiae
infusio.” In other words, he deflates the significance of Lamentations, mak-
ing it refer only to the “gratiae infusio,” and having the text from Zecha-
riah refer to the “liberii arbitria praeparatus.” His evident meaning is this:
if we prepare for grace (Zechariah), then God will infuse sanctifying grace
( Jeremiah). He first interprets Lamentations 5:21, then, precisely not to
refer to the initiative of God’s grace in our conversion: that initiative lies
with our free will. He will go on, in 2 SN, d. 28, q. 1, a. 4, sed contra, to use
this very text from Zechariah as just the proof text for man’s ability to pre-
pare for grace without further grace.

studies that confirm that Thomas did change his doctrine (and not just his expression), see
Henri Bouillard, SJ’s Conversion et grâce chez saint Thomas (Paris: Aubier, 1944), Thomas De-
man, OP’s review of it in the Bulletin Thomiste 20–22 (1943–46): 46–58, and René Charles
Dhont, OFM’s Le problème de la préparation à la grâce (Paris: Editions Franciscaines, 1946).
More recently, the view is abundantly defended by Joseph P. Wawrykow, God’s Grace and Hu-
man Action.
32. See Nguyen Tri-An’s comparison of “Thomas Junior” with Alexander, Bonaventure,
Albert, and Innocent V (Peter of Tarentaise), De praeparatione, ch. 6, 110–58. Dhont makes a
similar point: Le problème de la préparation, 264.
33. See his commentary on Lamentations, the Parma edition, vol. 14 (New York: Musurga,
1949), 685. It is one of his earliest works. Emery dates it as even prior to his arrival in Paris, in
1252: see Torrell, St. Thomas Aquinas, vol. 2, 337 (cited in the Conclusion, n. 16).
 God’s Salvific Will   277

By contrast, starting with the Summa contra Gentiles (III, 149) and
continuously thereafter, he uses the same text from Lamentations as his
favored proof text precisely for underlining the initiative God takes in our
conversion34 (and thus, in SCG III, 149, he reverses the sense of Zechari-
ah: it is now taken to refer to an assistance subsequent to our conversion!).
From then on, he teaches that to declare otherwise is part of the Pelagian
controversy.35 From then on, he insists that this turning of our heart is to
an end that transcends our fallen capacities and, indeed, our very nature;
and thus, from then on, either implicitly or explicitly, he declares that we
can be turned to God only by a motion that is supernatural, and there-
fore that is a grace in the proper sense of that word.36 And thus, from then
on, he reinterprets facienti quod in se est Deus non denegat gratiam to mean
that God will not refuse the infusion of sanctifying grace to one who does
what he can with the aid of God graciously moving his heart to do what he
can.37 This interior instinct is now held to cause specifically supernatural
acts: not only the act of servile fear, but acts of faith and hope unformed
by charity (to which later commentators reasonably add the acts of pray-
ing to God for aid, and attrition for sin).
This shift marks a new understanding of God’s initiative in the process
of justification: that initiative goes beyond the need for his natural provi-
dence (or “natural concurrence”) and requires an aid that is properly su-
pernatural or gracious, one that causes acts that transcend both one’s fall-
en state and one’s natural powers. Nor should we underestimate the care
with which Thomas makes this shift, for he knows that “the men of his
day” (e.g., Alexander, Albert, Bonaventure, and the many who followed
34. See Super secundam epistolam ad Corinthios lectura II, 3 (#68), Super epistolam ad Ro-
manos lectura VIII, 6 (#707) and X, 3 (#849), Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, 1, 6 (#154)
and 6, 5 (#937), Quodlibetum I, 4, 2, sed contra, and ST I, 62, 2 ad 3, I-II, 109, 6 ad 1, and III, 85, 5.
35. See Summa contra Gentiles III, 152 [7] and 157 [6], Super secundam epistolam ad Corin-
thios lectura III, 1 (# 86), Quodlibetum I, 4, 2, ST I, 23, 5, and ST II-II, 6, 1.
36. “Ad errorem pelagianum pertinet dicere quod homo possit se ad gratiam praeparare
absque auxilio divinae gratiae. . . . Homo indigent auxilio gratiae non solum ad merendum sed
etiam ad hoc quod se ad gratiam praeparat” (Quodlibetum I, 4, 2); “homo non potest se praepa-
rare ad lumen gratiae suscipiendum nisi per auxilium gratuitum moventis” (ST I-II, 109, 6); “gra-
tia dupliciter dicitur . . . quandoque autem ipsum auxilium Dei moventis animam ad bonum” (ST
I-II, 112, 2); “oportet quod voluntas hominis praeparetur a Deo per gratiam ad hoc quod elevetur
in ea quae sunt supra naturam” (ST II-II, 6, 1 ad 3).
37. See Super epistolam ad Romanos lectura X, 3 (#849), ST I-II, 109, 6 ad 2; ST I-II, 112, 2
and ad 1 and 2; ST, I-II, 112, 3 and ad 1; and ST II-II, 33, 2 ad 1.
278  afterword
their lead, as he once had) did not teach the necessity of this gracious aid.
His mention of the Pelagian heresy is surely meant to alert his confreres
to something that their common theological tradition had then “forgot-
ten” or (perhaps better) whose significance had been lost sight of.38
Although this aid transcends a free creature’s natural ability, Thom-
as always teaches that God does not withhold it from a free creature who
possesses no defect; for its nature is made for grace, and thus there is no
reason to withhold the latter unless there is an impediment. Thus, when
the mature Thomas discusses the creation of the angels, he gives as his
own view that they were probably created in a state of grace (I, 62, 3); if,
less probably, they were not, they still would have been created with the
aid of God’s actual grace moving them toward him, with the same proof
text from Lamentations being given: both as a proof of the gratuitous aid
that is needed and as positing that it is given (ST 1, 62, 2 ad 3).39 (The par-
allel case never comes up for Adam, because he holds it as almost certain
that Adam was immediately created in a state of grace, or at least raised
to that state before the Fall [ST 1, 95, 1].) However, supposing that a crea-
ture is defective, God may indeed choose to withhold his grace. Crucially,
from the beginning of Thomas’s career on, he always holds that even the
defective state of original sin is a sufficient motive for withholding grace.40
We are now in a position to understand the other shifts that the ma-

38. It seems likely that Thomas’s own shift on this question derives from a more attentive
reading of Augustine’s works against the “Semi-Pelagians,” as Bouillard suggested: Conversion et
grâce chez saint Thomas, see from 103 on, especially 111. Neither Thomas nor his confreres are fa-
miliar with the Semi-Pelagian controversy: neither its major figures, such as Prosper of Aquita-
ine, Caesarius of Arles, or Faustus of Riez, nor the Councils of Arles and Orange (whose Acts
were only made generally available as late as 1538). How Thomas made his shift is an interesting
question; what matters, however, is that he made it. Thus, like Augustine, whom he is following,
Thomas comes to recognize that our fallen condition makes it impossible for us even to prepare
for a life of grace without God first intervening gratuitously to call us out of our sin.
39. It is Thomas’s mature and express view that “God did not distinguish between the an-
gels before the turning away of some of them” (ST I, 63, 5 ad 4): from either this imperfect voca-
tion or sanctifying grace.
40. “As Augustine says, moreover, a justifying reason for reprobation [in the present] is
the fact of original sin in man; for reprobation in the future the fact that mere existence gives
man no claim to grace. For I can reasonably deny something to a person if it is not due him” (De
veritate 2, 6 ad 9). This position is maintained, with equal or stronger language, by the mature
Thomas: see his commentaries on Romans (9, 3), Hebrews (10, 3), and John (10, 5, 4), Quodlibet
4, 11, 2 ad 1, and the ST, II-II, 10, 1.
 God’s Salvific Will   279

ture Thomas makes. For, while the younger Thomas concedes that God
could withhold sanctifying grace on the basis of original sin alone (and
that God does so for those infants dying unbaptized), he also holds that,
in his goodness, God never in fact withholds his grace from one who ini-
tially prepares to receive it, and fallen man can do this without the aid of
grace: his natural power remains sufficient to do this (in accord with the
dictum of facienti quod in se est and in accord with all the great Doctors of
his day). Thus the antecedent will is held to be conditionally effective, and
thus the younger Thomas makes important use of it; for that will refers
just to the order of nature by which a person can prepare to receive God’s
sanctifying grace. By contrast, the mature Thomas expressly denies that
fallen man (and even nature itself) can prepare for grace: man has lost his
gracious order to God and is without means to prepare for grace unless
God should choose to come to his aid. Thus the antecedent will is indeed
“like a velleity,” for having been made for salvation is an insufficient order
to salvation, given man’s fall from grace and original sin. And, just because
he had emphasized its conditional efficacy before his shift, Thomas now
is intent on denying that it has any such efficacy; for preparation itself re-
quires a gracious aid.
Given his altered view, Thomas thus abandons the conditional effica-
cy of God’s antecedent will as a structural part of his teaching on grace and
its preparation. Instead, he emphasizes the efficacy of God’s absolute or
consequent will; if one attains the end of salvation, this is by his absolute
will, and if one is ordered to that end, this is likewise by virtue of his abso-
lute will: for one cannot prepare for grace by virtue of one’s nature alone,
or by virtue of God’s antecedent will, but only by virtue of God’s grace.
This shift likewise explains a change that Thomas makes regarding
God’s permission of sin. The younger Thomas is conceiving of man as de-
fectible, as able to prepare or not to prepare for the reception of sanctify-
ing grace, with God permitting him to fail or not to fail, not to prepare or
to prepare, according to his own will. The mature Thomas is conceiving of
man as defective, as fallen from grace and possessing the guilt of original
sin, and unable to prepare on his own, with God possibly permitting him
to continue in his state and thus infallibly to remain defective. The young-
er Thomas is supposing no actual defect on the part of man that impedes
his way forward or his ability to prepare for sanctifying grace or an order
to the same; as a consequence, he holds that sin only supposes God’s fore-
280  afterword
knowledge, and that the latter is a form of God’s simple intelligence. The
mature Thomas is supposing that there is a defect on the part of man that
impedes his way forward or his ability to prepare for sanctifying grace or
any unimpeded order to the same; as a consequence, he holds that sin
also supposes God’s will and permission (to leave man with his actual
defect) and thus that God’s foreknowledge of sin is a form of his practi-
cal knowledge.41 Without further qualifications required by any particu-
lar circumstance, the younger Thomas is thinking of God’s permission as
not-supposing any actual defect or sin preventing one to prepare, whereas
the mature Thomas is thinking of God’s permission just as supposing some
such defect or sin (at least original).
For the same reason, Thomas shifts his account of providence. In his
earlier work, he underlined that only predestination infallibly attained its
end, whereas providence itself did not necessarily attain its end, since a
providence based on the antecedent will (that is, God moving fallen man
to prepare or not to prepare, on the basis of his natural powers) might
not attain its effect (since man might not prepare). To continue to speak
this way about providence could be misleading for the mature Thomas,
since the order to the end of salvation founded on the antecedent will
has been impeded by sin, and all of God’s providential order in relation
to man is now founded upon and is effective by Christ’s grace and not by
man’s nature. Thus, instead of speaking about an end of God’s providence
that might not be attained, Thomas shifts to speaking about the order to
the end, which order occurs infallibly, by God’s absolute will. Ferrariensis
captures this difference exactly. Whereas earlier commentators, follow-
ing the Sentences, had spoken of providence not necessarily attaining its
end—and thus, like the younger Thomas, emphasizing that providence is
fallible—Ferrariensis instead emphasizes the infallibility of providence, an
infallibility that pertains both to its end (predestination) and to any order
to an end, which order exists infallibly by virtue of God’s absolute will.
This is to capture precisely the way the mature Thomas shifts his language
and emphasis regarding providence.42

41. Compare the Sentences (1 SN, d. 40, q. 4, a. 1 and 1 SN, d. 38, q. 1, a. 4) and De veritate (6,
1, ad contr. 5 and 3, 4 ad 1), on the one hand, with the Summa theologiae (I, 14, 6), on the other.
Richard Schenk, OP, pointed this out to me long ago, when I was first working on this problem,
and I am glad to be able again to acknowledge this.
42. With reason, there is virtual unanimity that the Summa contra Gentiles marks this shift
 God’s Salvific Will   281

Thus, any salvific order to an end is now caused by God’s absolute will,
and this is true of any good order, at whatever stage. When it first begins
again (by God’s call or vocation) or at any point thereafter, for as long as
it continues, we should rightly say that whatever order to salvation exists
does so by God’s absolute will. Nevertheless, and as Ferrariensis rightly
noted, the end of this good order need not be attained: it can be willed
only secundum quid and can be impeded. Thus Thomas, in his Lectura ad
Hebreos (XII, 15 [nn. 688–89 in the Marietti ed.]), teaches that we should
do what in fact is in us and prepare (remotely) for sanctifying grace, rath-
er than place an obstacle to it, as he ever taught that we could do; yet he
also teaches there that the not-placing of an obstacle comes from our gra-
cious vocation itself. This is so because our initial preparation or good or-
der is both begun by God’s grace and continued by it, so long as we do
not interrupt its trajectory by our own independent, first causality of sin.
Thomas’s reinterpretation of the dictum facienti quod in se est Deus
non denegat gratiam becomes the definitive way the Catholic Church
combines Augustine’s insistence that even the preparation for sanctify-
ing grace requires God’s saving initiative with the sinner’s responsibili-
ty for his own sin. For, while preparation is God’s initiative, the refusal of
that preparation or non-cooperation comes from man’s initiative.43 Thomas

in his doctrine, which also shows up in works of roughly the same time (mid-1260s), notably in
his Pauline commentaries. For a clear defense of this point, see Walter L. Ysaac, SJ’s “The Cer-
titude of Providence in St. Thomas,” Modern Schoolman 38 (1960–61): 305–21. His work is ob-
viously indebted to Lonergan (see his 308–9). On page 312, he sums up Thomas’s position in
the Summa contra Gentiles as follows: “Divine providence is conceived as an eternal act of ordi-
nation of the divine wisdom, intellect, and will by which the whole world order and history of
created being are realized exactly as they have been understood, affirmed, and ordained in that
eternal act. Thus its certitude is both a certitude of knowledge and a certitude of ordering or
causality.” (And since providence includes all created orders, of his mercy and of his justice—
which permits a sinner who impedes that mercy and withdraws himself from it to continue in
sin—it is infallible.)
43. Thus, Trent insisted that man could reject the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (Denzing-
er #1525) and dissent from it (#1554), Jansen was condemned for denying that one could resist
God’s interior grace and motion (#2002 and #2004), Vatican I reaffirmed that man could fail
to cooperate with grace, since he could resist it (#3010), and the latest Common Declaration on
the Doctrine of Justification with Lutherans (Vatican City, 1999) reaffirms that cooperation with
grace is the work of God’s grace, but man is free to reject it (sections 20 and 21). Most recently,
the International Theological Commission, in The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die without
Being Baptized, ( January 19, 2007), has stated that the universal salvific will (of 1 Timothy 2:4)
“refers to a will which is sincere on the part of God, but, at times, is resisted by human beings”
282  afterword
goes out of his way to underline this initiative by creating the neologism
deagendo: the free creature is the defective cause of sin by “deagendo, id est
per defectum activae virtute” (De malo 1, 1 ad 8). As his neologism under-
lines, the free creature’s non-act is de-activating: his non-use of his active
power de-activates or “de-couples” it from causing the good acts to which
that power was in fact ordered.
We see, then, that—contrary to what some seem to think—there re-
ally is no dispute between the two Thomist positions—one affirming an
impedible motion, the other denying it—regarding what actually occurs:
for both, whatever actually occurs is by God’s absolute will. God’s will se-
cundum quid does not refer to an act or end that is caused, but the order to
that end. For both positions, it is right to say that the sinner “could” avoid
sin by virtue of this previous order or condition, which both positions can
affirm (and thus both can affirm that there is a conditioned divine will or
a will secundum quid). The difference between the two positions lies en-
tirely in the meaning given to “could”: that is, in regard not to what actu-
ally occurs, but to what could actually occur, yet often does not, by virtue
of our failure. The correct meaning, which is Thomas’s, is that a person
(at least prior to any sin being in him) could in fact and in sensu composi-
to avoid sin and act well;44 and it is just because a person has been placed
in act by God’s motion and grace (and thus is able in fact to avoid sin and
act well), that he is responsible for his sin (in the first instance) and it is
his fault: he is its first cause. Whereas, the other position can affirm only
that a sinner “could” avoid sin in sensu diviso, but it must inevitably (even

(#46). In all of these documents, the Magisterium has reiterated that all the saving good that we
do comes from God and his grace, but that we are responsible for turning from it, when we do:
that we can (and unfortunately do) resist and turn from God, and thus are the first cause of our
sin. Thomas taught just this.
44. This difference between the two positions is exactly the same as declaring the divine
will secundum quid as inefficacious or a velleity because of sin (Thomas’s clear doctrine) or in it-
self. If it be said that the order of nature (the antecedent will) is “inefficacious” in itself in relation
to grace, this is of course true, but there is a conditioned efficacy between God’s intention in cre-
ating a free creature and his will to grace him, just as there is a conditioned efficacy between a
fallen person’s remote preparation and God’s intention to infuse sanctifying grace. In both cases,
God intends to give a further gift if a creature does not turn from a previous one or does not sin.
The mistake of the other position regarding “could” (as Marín-Sola indicates: see the Concordia
Tomista III, 10, 538–39 [490–91], 298–99 in Appendix 3 of this volume, 370–71) is to be insuffi-
ciently attentive to Thomas’s condition and thus to view God’s will secundum quid as inefficacious
without supposing the crime or tempest (i.e., sin).
 God’s Salvific Will   283

if reluctantly or “unwillingly”) hold that the reason why a sinner cannot in

fact avoid sin is finally to be explained by God’s will, which interrupts the
good order given or which renders it de facto ineffective.
Again, the correct position makes a necessary distinction between fi-
nal judgment and choice, on the one hand, and deliberation and final judg-
ment, on the other. And thus it holds that sinful choice indeed occurs in-
fallibly supposing God’s permission: a non-prevention of a choice that
naturally and infallibly follows final judgment. This use of “permission”
could also be said to suppose a non-bestowal of God’s (special) effica-
cious grace or a “withdrawal” of his (special) aid. But there is no infallible
relation between deliberation and final judgment: we can judge well or fail
to judge well, at the term of our deliberation. And thus that God orders us
to judge well in our deliberation could in fact lead us to judge well or not,
since we can impede that right judgment by our failure to use our intel-
lect as we in fact could. Whereas the other position makes no distinction
between God’s permission that antecedes man’s culpable defect (and that
only makes it possible) and one that supposes it, and from which sin infal-
libly follows: and thus, for it, in both cases, the created defect—as much
in final judgment as in choice—is infallibly entailed by God’s permission
or non-prevention. But, in this case, both the act and the defect of sin (or
sin as sin) is caused by God’s will, even if spoken of as “only permissive.”45
Marín-Sola has shown this is a mistake, one that occurs by failing to dis-
tinguish Thomas’s two different implications of “permission.” The differ-
ence between the two positions on God’s will is this, and uniquely this.
One can thus see that Cajetan and those who followed him were right
to see that the shift Thomas made on preparation for grace (a shift that
previous commentators had also noted) brought with it a shift regard-

45. As noted in the Conclusion (n. 84), Thomas equates a non-conservation with the with-
drawal of God’s action and expressly says that a non-conservation is the per accidens cause of defect
(or negation). It is perfectly correct to say that God withdraws his grace from one who has sinned
or failed to cooperate with (i.e., impeded) his actual grace: this is a punishment for that sin or non-
cooperation, and the consequent malice that occurs in the will is rooted in its own defective will. (In-
deed, God is simply governing His free creature according to what it has decided upon.) It is right,
then, to hold that a sinful election infallibly follows a final practical judgment, this permission be-
ing supposed. But to make a non-conservation in the true good or a withdrawal of grace not sup-
pose any defect, and then to make it be the final explanation for this occurring, is to make God the
per accidens cause of that moral defect, and thus (since God is the cause of all the activity in sin) of
sin as sin. Marín-Sola has freed Thomism from inclining in the slightest to this great error.
284  afterword
ing his use of the antecedent will and the way he preferred to speak about
providence. Yet there are two ways that this shift could be misunderstood.
First, it might be supposed that God’s antecedent will is a velleity in itself
and is infallibly inefficacious in itself. This is an error. Any order to salva-
tion that is ineffective is so first because of a free creature’s actual defect
and sin that impedes it (and thus impedes the antecedent will). Second, it
might be supposed that, because the antecedent will has been impeded by
the Fall and original sin, Thomas no longer uses the concept of God’s sal-
vific will secundum quid. This is also an error. The mature Thomas contin-
ues to speak of God willing salvation secundum quid for all those who re-
ceive grace (e.g., those written into the “Book of Life”), even though they
do not persevere in this grace or are saved. Thus, Ferrariensis and Prierio
were correct to object to Cajetan (and to all who followed him) that he
was overemphasizing or misunderstanding Thomas’s shift.
Bañez followed Cajetan in undervaluing God’s antecedent will and in
making all divine will unconditioned. This had no ill effect on his doc-
trine of efficacious grace, or of justification and its perfect preparation; for
these are indeed caused by the infusion of sanctifying grace, which is infal-
libly efficacious. Here, free will is rightly seen to be compatible with God’s
infallible motion and “determination.” But Cajetan’s error and Bañez’s en-
dorsement of it, which universalized the infallible efficacy of God’s justi-
fying grace and motion, did have deleterious consequences when it came
to the doctrine of sufficient grace, or of vocation and its imperfect prep-
aration. For, all motion being held to be infallibly efficacious, one could
hardly speak of resisting or impeding God’s motion, and any failure to
cooperate with God’s gracious invitation was bound ultimately to be ex-
plained by God not doing something (not moving to some gracious end
or good or not conserving one in good). Had the de auxiliis controver-
sy remained a discussion only of justification and of efficacious grace, no
doubt Molina’s position (recognized to be problematic by many) would
simply have been rejected; but because there was a “one-sidedness” to the
alternate position, which could hardly explain the creature’s moral failure,
or non-cooperation with or impediment to sufficient grace, no action was
taken;46 for this is closer to a libertarian than a compatibilist position:47 by
46. See Contenson’s complaint (n. 5 of Marín-Sola’s first article) in support of my judg-
ment here.
47. One example of the way Thomas combines both compatibilist and libertarian posi-
 God’s Salvific Will   285

God’s sufficient motion and grace, a free creature is in fact empowered

to do well and cooperate with the motion and grace given, but it can in
fact fail to cooperate or not will to cooperate. When the Dominicans, un-
der the pressure of Jansenism, reaffirmed the pre-Cajetanian position of
two different motions and graces—ones that are infallibly efficacious and
ones that are impedible or conditionally efficacious—they returned their
school both to Thomas himself and to a way to overcome the impasses
posed in the de auxiliis controversy. This is what Marín-Sola has shown.
The key to this success lies in a proper articulation of Thomas’s “suffi-
cient” grace, one that he himself has rightly made.
All of Thomas’s Dominican commentators recognized that the ma-
ture Thomas taught the need for a gracious aid in order to prepare, and
thus that there were two graces involved in the process of man’s justifica-
tion: an interior instinct that moved the soul imperfectly to prepare (and
that most commentators saw could be impeded), and the final infusion of
sanctifying grace, by which one infallibly prepares. At least two hundred
years before the de auxiliis controversy, they referred to the first as a “suf-
ficient” grace, and the second as an “efficacious” one.48 This distinction
maps exactly onto Thomas’s two preparations and captures his doctrine
correctly: the first grace is sufficient to effect its term (imperfect prepara-
tion), although it can be impeded, whereas the second infallibly effects its
term.
“Sufficient” grace moves one to affirm just that one is insufficient on
one’s own to attain salvation, and that one must rely upon the mercy of
God (as promised in Christ). Sufficient grace makes one confess one’s
sin (servile fear), and the need to be drawn forth from it by relying on a
tions can be seen from ST I-II, 5, 14. He there teaches that a free person’s will being inclined
rightly is compatible with its simultaneously reaching its end; but the order of God’s wisdom re-
quires that it not reach this end immediately, but rather by first making a choice and only then
reaching its end. Now, it belongs to God’s wisdom just to move a free creature in accord with its
nature, which is morally fallible; and thus, under God’s wise and gracious motion, a free creature
remains free to cooperate with the motion given or not to cooperate, to “non-deficere or defice-
re.” The libertarian position is correct when it comes to sin and its possibility, for a free creature
is really, if qualifiedly, independent of God just (but only) in its sinning.
48. Thus, the Thomist Henry of Gorkhum (†1431) wrote: “Reminisci igitur oportet
quod doctrina scholae theologiae distinguere consuevit duplicem gratuitam motionem divi-
nam, quarum unam vocat motionem efficacem aliam vero sufficientem.” This is quoted by Gerard
Schneemann, SJ, in Controversarium de divinae gratiae liberique arbitrii concordia initia et progres-
sus, 103.
286  afterword
truth (unformed faith) and a good (unformed hope) that transcend the
reach of one’s natural powers. (Likewise, as the commentators added, it
can cause attrition for sin, and the prayer to God that he draw one from
one’s sinful state.) “Sufficient” grace hardly implies that a creature is self-
sufficient! Rather, it moves him to confess his insufficiency and need to
rely on God’s further grace. And the same is true of the “ordinary” effica-
cious (or sufficient) graces that follow justification in relation to dying in
grace and being saved: one can no more merit this latter without a gift of
God’s grace than one can merit the gift of justification. In both cases, the
“sufficient” aid that God gives is one by which one can confess an insuffi-
ciency and pray for further aid.
God gives the interior instinct of preparatory grace in accord with na-
ture. Because his providence preserves, but does not destroy nature, he
moves free creatures in accord with their defectibility, and thus in a way
that can fail: “evil cannot be kept from certain things without taking away
their nature, which is such that it may or may not fail [deficere vel non defi-
cere]. . . . Consequently, since God is most prudent, His providence does
not prevent evil, but permits each thing to act as its nature requires that
it act.”49 Implicit, then, to moving a defectible and free creature accord-
ing to its nature is the permission that sin be possible; for, given this in-
terior movement, it still remains possible for man to resist it, and to not-

49. De veritate 5, 4 ad 4. Thomas is making use of Dionysius’s dictum that “providence does
not corrupt, but saves nature.” See, for examples, 2 SN, d. 33, q. 1, a. 2; SCG III, 71; Commentary
on the Divine Names 4, 23 (the origin of the dictum), Against the Errors of the Greeks 7; Compendi-
um of Theology 142; and ST I, 48, 2 ad 3. Dionysius uses this dictum with the minor premise that
man is per se mobile to conclude that God’s providence moves free creatures to move themselves
(a use to which Thomas does not object, and which he occasionally employs, as in Summa con-
tra Gentiles III, 73). But Thomas usually substitutes for this the minor premise that man is de-
fectible et non defectible, and his conclusion is thus that God moves man (and the angels, who are
likewise defectible) in a way that he can fail or not fail. (For his constant use of the dictum, see
my God’s Permission of Sin, 419–21.) His altered minor premise intends to situate man precisely
before God’s providence, for man is not the one who, as first cause, can move himself (he always
does so as a secondary cause); but he is the one who, as first cause, fails to cooperate with God’s
motion or does not want to cooperate. Richard Schenk, OP, called Thomas’s altered minor to
my attention long ago (which I acknowledge again with thanks). See his own discussion of sim-
ilar matter in “Aquinas and Mid-Thirteenth Century Platonisms,” Nova et Vetera 3 (2005): 307–
20, especially from 318, and the fuller account in his thesis, Die Gnade vollender Endlichkeit. Zur
transzendental-theologischen Auslegung der thomanischen Anthropologie (Freiburg: Herder, 1989),
especially 285–363.
 God’s Salvific Will   287

act or not cooperate with it, even when he in fact could.50 Thus it remains
true that a person may fail to respond to God’s gracious call, resisting it
instead: given the gracious aid of God’s initial vocation or invitation, one
may still fail to prepare remotely for sanctifying grace.
The fullest presentation of Thomas’s doctrine is from one of his lat-
est works, Contra doctrinam retrahentium a religione. Less referred to than
many, this passage deserves attention:
There is another way, whereby God speaks interiorly to man. . . . Now this inner
voice is to be preferred to any external speech. . . . If then, we are bound to obey im-
mediately the audible voice of our creator, how much more ought we not, unhesi-
tatingly and unresistingly obey the interior whisper, whereby the Holy Spirit chang-
es the hearts of men. . . . But he who resists or hesitates does not act by the impulse of
the Holy Spirit. . . . St. Stephen thus reproached certain men, “You always resist the
Holy Spirit” (Acts vii, 51). St. Paul says (1 Thess., v. 19), “Extinguish not the Spir-
it.” . . . We have further authority for our teaching not merely in passages of Scrip-
ture, but in the examples of the Saints. . . . It is most reprehensible to hesitate or take
counsel, as if we were in doubt, when we have heard an interior or exterior call. . . .
Interior inspiration has efficacy to enable those to whom it is vouchsafed to accom-
plish great deeds. . . . St. Augustine speaks of the efficacy of internal inspiration in
his book De Praedestinatione Sanctorum. . . . St. Gregory, in his Homilia Pentecostes,
thus treats the efficacy of interior inspiration: . . . He who hesitates to obey the im-
pulse of the Holy Spirit for the sake of taking counsel, either knows not this im-
pulse or resists it. . . . Philosophers, no less than sacred writers, condemn the error
of acting thus. Aristotle, in the chapter of the Ethics called “De Bona Fortuna,” says
“If we seek to know what is that principle of movement in the soul, corresponding to
God in the universe, we shall see that reason cannot be the principle of reason; that
principle must be something better. But what, save God, can be better than knowl-
edge and understanding?”51
As is evident, Thomas regards this interior vocation as efficacious and yet
also as resistible (i.e., as being conditionally efficacious).

50. To see how Thomas constantly uses this sense of permission, see my God’s Permission
of Sin, 405–28.
51. Thomas Aquinas, Refutation of the Pernicious Teaching of Those Who Would Deter Men
from Entering the Religious Life, in An Apology for the Religious Orders, ed. with an introduction
by John Proctor, OP (London: Sands, 1902), ch. 9, 426–30. This can now be found online at
www.dhspriory.org/thomas/ContraRetrahentes.htm. For all of Thomas’s texts affirming his
constant doctrine, see God’s Permission of Sin, 372–92.
288  afterword
Both the younger and the mature Thomas, then, teach that man can
prepare or fail to prepare for sanctifying grace; thus both teach that there
is an order that may not reach its term and thus a divine will secundum
quid; but Thomas first thinks of this as a universal natural order, and then
as a gracious one. Because this gracious order can still be resisted, many
commentators easily enough spoke of this order as being the “antecedent
will” (since it, too, is a will secundum quid); and, because its order was now
recognized as a gracious one, they then spoke of this will as being ground-
ed in Christ’s universal redemption, or his passion and prayer for all.52 But
this is not the way Thomas uses the term: for him, it refers simply to man’s
nature, made for salvation. For Thomas, the antecedent will always refers
to an actual order in the free creature; when commentators come to think
of it as referring to Christ’s universal redemptive act, they shift to thinking
of it not as an actual order in every free creature, but as actually in Christ
and only virtually in every creature (since his redemptive act still needs to
be applied to a creature to have any actual effect or order). Their change
in terminology and shift in perspective naturally inclined commentators
to hold that sufficient grace, by which a sinner could initially prepare, was
universally given, since the antecedent will is revealed to be universal.53

52. Thomas indeed refers to Christ’s prayer in the same terms as the antecedent will,
namely as a simple will (ST III, 21, 4 and ad 2); for, even though offered for all, it need not bring
all to the end of salvation. However, while Christ’s redemptive death is ordered to the salvation
of all (and thus the human nature assumed in him bespeaks a salvific will secundum quid), this
order is only virtual in him and still must be applied to be actual in all men; whereas the univer-
sal salvific will in Thomas refers to just such an actual order in every person (including unbap-
tized infants).
53. There is already a tendency to this in Capreolus: “It ought to be said that divine aid, ei-
ther the divine gift, or the special motion, is never lacking to anyone except by an impediment be-
ing placed (“nulli deest nisi praestanti impedimentum”)” Capreolus, II Sent., dis. 29, q. 1, art. 3
(Paban and Pègues, t. 4, 321). Ferrariensis explicitly affirms it: “The second aid, however [re-
motely preparatory grace] He extends to all” (In Summa contra gentes III, 159). Lemos implicitly
concedes it: “For the general concurrence in the order of grace is called and is a sufficient aid or an
exciting grace” (Panoplia, bk. 4, pt. 1, treat. 8, no. 137). Serra expressly teaches such an aid: “Gen-
eral aid is twofold: natural and supernatural; for just as a universal aid is given for all operations
of natural works, so then a universal aid is given for all operations of supernatural works” (Sum-
ma commentatorium, in I-II, q. 109, a. 9, 320). (Note that the aid here spoken of is not merely vir-
tual, but is actually applied or given.) Goudin is equally clear: “No one is so impious in this life
as to lack all pious motion . . . as Augustine says” (Goudin, Tractatus theol., t. 2, 274–75). These are
but selections taken from Marín-Sola’s texts; it would be possible to cite similar texts of many
other commentators.
 God’s Salvific Will   289

This is the same as saying that God chose to call all by Christ’s grace or
to draw all to him (or at least all adults, capable of being so drawn). It is
to assert a universal vocation or a “general supernatural providence”; but
Thomas does not explicitly affirm as much.
This change explains much of the confusion in the commentary tra-
dition on this point. Those, like Marín-Sola, who teach that there is a
sufficient grace that is conditioned on the part of the object (that is, a
grace that can be impeded)—and thus an impedible order and an im-
pedible or conditioned divine will—accurately grasp and teach the sub-
stance of Thomas’s mature teaching on the remote, gracious preparation
for sanctifying grace. But when this conditioned will and grace is spoken
of as God’s antecedent, and thus universal, salvific will, other commenta-
tors rightly object, sensing that the mature Thomas denies efficacy to any
such (which he does deny, since its [natural] order has been impeded by
the Fall). Many theologians thus end by thinking that any will secundum
quid must be inefficacious in itself; but this is a mistake. The universal sal-
vific will is inefficacious, but by virtue of the impediment of original sin,
and Christ’s graced order to salvation may be inefficacious, but only by
the personal sin of one who resists it. Since one called need not in fact re-
sist, this graced order and will secundum quid is conditionally efficacious
(as was the graced order of Adam prior to the Fall). Thomas substantially
teaches Marín-Sola’s doctrine of the antecedent will, but of a conditioned
will that may not be universal (even for all adults). Thus, for example, he
never asserts that all reprobated adults were once written into “The Book
of Life.” For Thomas, God’s conditioned salvific will, or will secundum
quid, was not identical to the antecedent will; for the former could refer
to whatever graces were received that ordered one to that end in a way that
could be impeded, and these might not be given to all (even to all adults),
whereas the “antecedent salvific will” is universal and present in all. For
the commentary tradition, the antecedent salvific will comes to be seen to
refer not merely to the nature of each person made for salvation but also
to Christ’s prayer and sacrifice offered for all, so that fallen nature can be
redeemed, and thus also to the graces that flow to all from that prayer and
sacrifice, ones that can be impeded.54
54. For the commentary tradition, that “all” remains limited to adults. As one can see from
the argument that follows, it seems to me that the Church is no longer willing to restrict God’s
universal salvific will only to adults.
290  afterword
Thomas did recognize not just that there was the need for a specifi-
cally gracious aid in order for fallen man to prepare, but that his confreres
had taught that all could prepare initially, with only those who failed to
prepare, as they could, being deprived of sanctifying grace. Thus, he could
have reinterpreted the adage facienti quod in se est to mean that all were
able to do what was in them . . . by virtue of an actual “sufficient grace”
that was extended to all. This would have made his mature teaching con-
sonant with both his confreres and his earlier teaching, and it would have
continued to explain why some were not justified, since they resisted
their vocation. Indeed, even some of his most mature texts tend toward
just such a doctrine.55 But Thomas himself did not go so far. Rather, he
recognized that there were two possible positions on this question: the
more ample position of Chrysostom, who affirmed a universal vocation,
and the narrower position of the mature Augustine, who denied it. Thom-
as evidently regarded both of these positions as possible, since the extent
of God’s grace and mercy was an open question, then undetermined by
the Church itself.
Thomas, then, recognized both possibilities, and he kept his own
mature doctrine open to either one. The likely reason he switched (in the
Summa contra Gentiles and thereafter) from sanctifying grace being giv-
en to one who “prepares to receive it” to one who “does not impede its re-
ception” lies neither in a philosophical change (as though when younger
he held that to be free was to be a first cause) nor in his ceasing to believe
in the universal gift of God’s grace; for, when younger, he was clear that
God is the first cause of all being and good (including good free acts), nor
did he then hold that unbaptized infants received any gift of grace beyond
possessing their nature (positions he continued to hold in his maturity).

55. In late Quodlibet questions from his second Paris regency (1, 4, 2 and 2, 4, 1), he argues
that faith is indeed above the capacity of human nature, but God has given aids to believe, and
thus one is responsible for not having faith, by not using the aids given. Yet, at this same time, he
discusses the possible case of the “negative infidel”: one who would have no faith, having not
been drawn to it (ST II-II, 10, 1). This seems to imply that not all may be given those “aids to
believe” (unless, by “drawn,” Thomas were possibly to intend only the perfect preparation for
faith, and not the imperfect). In that case, Thomas concedes, a person would not be responsible
for his sin of unbelief, not having been drawn to it; but he would still be responsible for other
sins he commits, even if he must fall into some sin. (Similarly, the justified are responsible for
any venial sin into which they fall, even though, absent a special grace, they are bound to fall
into some venial sin.)
 God’s Salvific Will   291

Rather, his new position is compatible with the older Augustine’s position
that grace is not given to all adults; for Thomas can now say that the rea-
son it is not given derives from the fact that they have an impediment with-
in themselves (the defect of Original Sin), which prevents the reception
of sanctifying grace, or which could even prevent the gift of actual grace
that (he now holds) they need in order to prepare for sanctifying grace.
And this position is likewise compatible with actual grace being given (to
some or even to all adults); for, if sanctifying grace is then not given, this
is also because of a personal defect or impediment of the free creature, not
cooperating with, but resisting, actual grace. On either supposition, a free
creature, not God, remains responsible for the impediment to grace and is
the first cause of it and sin. Creatures can fail and not use reason (and thus
possess an impediment) with or without grace (whereas, for the mature
Thomas, they cannot prepare save with actual grace).
To repeat, Thomas in all humility refused to adjudicate this issue him-
self. Thus, in the Catena Aurea, he noted that John’s words in 1:9, that “the
Word enlightens every man,” could be interpreted as Chrysostom does or
as Augustine does, in a full or a narrow sense; and he noted these two in-
terpretations in his own Commentary on John (1, 5, #130, and 6, 5, #943), as
he did in the Summa theologiae (1, 19, 6 ad 1). In each case, he notes these
two views, but he does not decide between them.56 By contrast, the later com-
mentary tradition comes to opt for Chrysostom’s more ample view. On
this view, and to use Thomas’s own language, the graced order to salvation,
which is a salvific will secundum quid, is actually and universally found in all
who reach the age of reason; but this goes beyond what Thomas explicitly
affirmed, making his “sufficient grace” available to all.
This last fact explains why someone might sense that Marín-Sola’s
doctrine is different from Thomas’s; for Marín-Sola followed what had by
his day long since become the common teaching of Catholic theologians,
namely that God’s sufficient grace was in fact given to all adults.57 The
56. Thomas is unaware of the degree to which the narrower position of Augustine is a rela-
tively isolated one, with even his strongest defender, Prosper, tending toward a universal voca-
tion: see his Answer to the Gauls, article 8, and On the Call of All Nations 1, 21, and 2, 4. A better
knowledge of the complexities of the Semi-Pelagian controversy, and the further need to coun-
ter what one could call the “hard” Augustinianism of the late-Medieval and Reformation pe-
riod—one that continued in the Jansenist movement—explains in part why the Thomist com-
mentary tradition (and the Magisterium) comes to assert a universal vocation.
57. Marín-Sola’s strongly stated reverence for Thomas was as the right guide to Catholic
292  afterword
commentators’ development of Thomas’s position is now beyond ques-
tion, for the Church itself, in Vatican II, has unambiguously affirmed it:
“since Christ died for all men and since the ultimate vocation of man is
in fact one and divine, we ought to believe that the Holy Spirit, in a man-
ner known only to God, offers to every man the possibility of being associ-
ated with this paschal mystery” (Gaudium et spes I, 22).58 Note that this
does not say that the offer of salvation is merely virtual in Christ’s saving
death, for that offer is not “known only to God,” but has been revealed to
man. Rather, the text is clearly referring to the actual inspiration and in-
ner working of the Holy Spirit in the human soul and heart, which is in-
deed “known only to God.” And thus, in Nostra aetate I, the council also
truth. He was thus perfectly ready to follow a development of his teaching that accorded with
the common teaching of the Church, as is this development of the commentators (which sim-
ply affirms one of the possibilities to which Thomas was open). Indeed, Marín-Sola was ready
to follow the Church even where its teaching took some issue with Thomas’s doctrine, as in its
teaching on the Immaculate Conception. Thus, in his “The Merits of Christ Foreseen in Mary”
(see the Introduction, n. 12), he wrote: “Yes: The Son of God, made man to live and die for
the salvation of prevaricating humanity, was the great Mystery hidden in the bosom of divine
Goodness from the beginning of the centuries: he is the end of the entire Creation, the restorer
and peacemaker of all the creatures of heaven and earth. . . . But how will Jesus Christ unite him-
self to humanity, corrupted from its origin in Adam? Who will be the happy mother in whose
breast he will be incarnate, whose blood will become the blood of a God, one who will be able
to be called, in all truth, her Son, the same son of the Eternal Father? Will it be a mother infect-
ed as all the sons of Adam by the sin of origin, conceived in iniquity, enemy of God and slave
of the infernal serpent from the first moment of her being? No: it would be a blasphemy just to
think it! The Mother of God, the happy Woman of whose flesh and blood is to be formed the
flesh and blood of the Incarnate Word, could not for a moment be impure, enemy of God, prey
to the ancient serpent, whose head had been crushed according to the divine promise. Her Son
was Omnipotent; the merits of His Passion and Death were abundantly efficacious to merit and
form a Mother excepted from the general law of sin, preserved from the original stain, limpid
and pure of all guilt: a Mother, in short, ever holy and worthy of such a Son. God could make
her; it was fitting, better said it was necessary, that He make her; and thus He did make her”: my
translation. Marín-Sola’s defense of the Immaculate Conception is enthusiastic and unqualified.
No Franciscan could have asked for better.
58. Already, in Singulari quadam (1854), Pius IX had stated that “it must be held as certain
that those who live in ignorance of the true religion, if such ignorance be invincible, are not sub-
ject to any guilt in this matter [of being outside the visible Church] before the eyes of the Lord”
(DS #2865); and in Quanto conficiamur (1863), he then affirmed that “those who lead a virtu-
ous and just life, can, with the aid of divine light and grace, attain eternal life; for God, who un-
derstands perfectly, [who] scrutinizes and knows the minds, souls, thoughts, and habits of all,
in his very great goodness and patience will not permit anyone who is not guilty of a voluntary
fault to be punished with eternal torments” (DS #2866).
 God’s Salvific Will   293

declared that God’s “providence, His manifestations of goodness, and

His saving designs extend to all men.” Thus, what was in doubt in Thom-
as’s time is no longer in doubt, as it was not in doubt at the time Marín-
Sola wrote: God’s vocation is universal, and all who are able to prepare
are called by the Holy Spirit to place their faith, hope, and love in the One
who made them and who redeemed them.59
The Church has thereby developed its traditional view on the bap-
tism of desire. That was applied first to those catechumens who died be-
fore being baptized, although they had expressed an explicit desire to be
baptized. The Church now recognizes them as a type for all who follow
the inner call of God’s Spirit.60 Thomas himself had already indicated that
the Gentiles could have an implicit faith in Christ, in believing that they
would somehow be delivered from their sins and brought to God (ST II-
II, 2, 7 ad 3). The Church has now indicated that such an implicit faith
can indeed be at work in the hearts of all those who are outside the vis-
ible Church and who, by Christ’s grace, are offered some share in the Pas-
chal Mystery. This undermines neither the need for evangelization nor
the importance of the baptism of water. For when what is held implicitly
becomes explicit and clear, it is then embraced; and when something is
seen explicitly, its truth shines forth all the more strongly and effectively.
Furthermore, by the baptism of water, a person is introduced into the vis-
ible Church, where the fullness of the means of salvation can be found.61

59. For a good summary of Thomas’s limited knowledge of non-Christians (together with
the author’s same readiness as Marín-Sola to follow the Church’s developed doctrine on this
matter), see Jean-Pierre Torrell, OP’s “Saint Thomas et les non-chrétiennes,” Revue Thomiste
106, nos. 1–2 (2006): 17–49.
60. The Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston already famously asserted this
(1949): “To gain eternal salvation, it is not always required that a person be incorporated in re-
ality [reapse] as a member of the Church, but it is necessary that one belong to it at least in de-
sire and longing [voto et desiderio]. It is not always necessary that this desire be explicit as it is with
catechumens. When one is invincibly ignorant, God also accepts an implicit desire, so called be-
cause it is contained in the good disposition of soul by which a person wants his or her will to
be conformed to God’s will” (DS #3870).
61. This idea of fullness defines the Church’s teaching on the presence of God’s grace with-
in and without the visible Church. The teaching is rooted in Vatican II—see Unitatis redinte-
gratio 2 and Lumen gentium 14—and is firmly in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (Vatican
City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997) #816, 819, 830, 837. In its recent Doctrinal Note on Some
Aspects of Evangelization, (December 3, 2007), the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
uses “full,” “fully,” or “fullness” thirteen times in terms of the faith and grace found in the visible
294  Afterword
Marín-Sola belonged to a missionary province, he wrote about the great
missionary movement characteristic of Dominicans, and he was flogged
and imprisoned in the Philippines because he was a Spanish missionary.
Yet, just as this did not prevent him from learning Tagalog and conversing
amicably with his captors, so it did not prevent him from affirming that
God’s gracious call was also at work in them.
This brings me to the final thought of this Afterword. When the
Church affirms that all are offered a share in the Paschal Mystery and that
Christ’s grace extends to all of fallen humanity, are we going to take the
Church at its word? Or are we going instead to continue to insert a “grand
exceptive clause” and thus say “except for the countless millions of in-
fants for whom Christ died, but who, dying unbaptized, are consigned to
Hell.”62 Can this possibly be believed in our day? Are we seriously going
to say that, of the 1.5 million children torn from their mother’s arms on the
platforms of the death camps and cast into their flames, those who had
not reached the age of reason were thereby thrown into the place created
for the fallen angels and any men who follow them (and who could thus
rejoice at the sinful deed that had brought them to their place)? What is
unbelievable of the Shoah is likewise unbelievable regarding all the geno-
cidal slaughter that has so characterized man’s recent history. And are
we to think that all those countless millions of infants who languish and
die in their mother’s arms from want of proper nutrition—as the cold-
hearted world continues to dedicate the resources that could aid them in-
stead to making and buying weapons of destruction—are destined for an
everlasting life apart from God and his saints? Can we possibly swallow
Catholic Church: see #2, paragraph 1; #7, paragraph 2 (twice); #9, paragraph 1; #10, paragraph 1
and 2 (twice); #12, paragraph 4 (twice) and paragraph 5 (thrice); and #12, paragraph 1. See also
its final remark in Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine of the
Church ( June 29, 2007). Just as Mary is full of grace, so is the Church of which she is the type;
yet both God’s truth and sanctity exist in various degrees outside the visible Church, just as they
do in saints lesser than she. (Indeed, quite obviously, there have always been some outside the
visible Church who have expressed its truth and lived its holiness better than many who seem
to be within it.)
62. Lest it be forgotten, “limbo” is the “skirt” or “border” of hell. There are only two final
destinies: union with God, in and by his Holy Spirit of Love, or separation from God, without
such Love. Those in limbo would be eternally separated from the Love of the Holy Spirit; that
would be the hell of their final destiny: “The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from
God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for
which he longs” (CCC # 1035).
 God’s Salvific Will   295

the idea that all of those countless millions who are torn untimely from
their mother’s womb in the current slaughter of the unborn are left with-
out means to have their own untimely death redeemed? It is time that the
Church became clear about what it needs to say: to affirm limbo is just
unbelievable.
In taking the Church at its word, the Catholic tradition would be re-
turning to the plain sense of Scripture; for the universal salvific will and
truth of which 1 Timothy 2:4 speaks surely refers to Christ, the Savior and
Mediator (and not to man’s original, Adamic, order). Now, God’s univer-
sal salvific will revealed in Scripture is an actual order to the end of sal-
vation (which is the only “grammar” that Thomas ever countenances of
this will), and it can be one that exists in all just insofar as all are called by
Christ’s grace and are actually ordered to his kingdom. Only so can the
impediment of original sin be overcome in all.
In De malo 5, 1 ad 1, Thomas himself signaled the way to connect the
universal salvific will given in human nature (made for salvation) with
that same nature (assumed in Christ) . . . with all men (implicitly) being
given an actual share in his salvation (an actual order to this end, albeit se-
cundum quid):
Human beings would have been created uselessly and in vain if they were to be un-
able to attain happiness, as would be the case with anything that cannot obtain its
ultimate end [and thus God created man in grace, so that all could in fact attain this
end]. And so, lest human beings begotten with original sin be created uselessly and
in vain, God from the beginning of the human race intended a remedy for them by
which they would be freed from such frustration, namely Jesus Christ, the very me-
diator between God and human beings. And the impediment of original sin could
be removed through faith in him. And so Ps. 89:47 says: “Remember what my sub-
stance is, for have you constituted all the children of human beings in vain?” And
an explanatory gloss says that David is asking for the incarnation of the Son, who
was to take his flesh from David’s substance and to free human being from empty
purpose [and so, through him, God’s original purpose for all could in fact attain its
end for all].”
Aquinas could have found a very similar argument to this in Augus-
tine:
Here we come to the slanderous question that is so often asked by those who are
ready to blame their sins on anything but themselves: “If it was Adam and Eve who
sinned, what did we poor wretches do? . . . Why do we first err in ignorance of what
296  Afterword
we ought to do, and then, when the precepts of justice begin to be open to us and
we will to do them, we are powerless, held back by some sort of necessity of car-
nal desire [being born, then, in a state where any natural desire to be just and to at-
tain a good end is useless and vain]?” My response is brief: let them be silent and
stop murmuring against God. Perhaps their complaint would be justified were there
no Victor over error and inordinate desire [for then God would have “constituted
all the children of human being in vain”]. But in fact there is one who is present ev-
erywhere and speaks in many ways through the creation that serves him as Lord. He
calls out to those who have turned their backs on him. He comforts the hopeful, en-
courages the diligent, helps the struggling, and hears the prayers of those who cry
out to him [so that, through Him, they are not constituted in vain and thus have no
excuse for their “murmuring”].63
God has clearly revealed that man was made for salvation. This “inten-
tion” is even inscribed in the very nature of an intellectual being, which is
why Thomas always argues that the natural desire to see God cannot be
“in vain.”64 In my judgment, this implies that this desire is more than the
“obediential potency” Marín-Sola evidently held it to be (see 202); that
is, it is a “natural passive potency” (to which there corresponds no “nat-
ural active potency”).65 But, regardless of this philosophical point, two
doctrines remain clear and the same: (1) any such natural desire can be
fulfilled only by glory, and God’s grace that leads to it, with nature hav-
ing no just claim on either, and with both being given freely by God, and

63. Augustine, On Free Choice of the Will (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993), 107. While this is
an early work of Augustine, he does not take the occasion to retract such a position in his later
Retractions.
64. For Aquinas’s analysis of “in vain,” see his Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics—specif-
ically, bk. 2, ch. 6, 197 b22–32 (his Lecture 10, #234)—(Notre Dame, Ind.: Dumb Ox Books,
1999, 117).
65. For several contemporary Dominicans who take much the same view, see Stanislas
Dockx, “Du désir de voir l’essence divine selon saint Thomas D’Aquin,” Archives de Philosophie
27 (1969): 49–96, and Quintin Turiel, “El deseo natural de ver a Dios,” in Atti dell’ VIII Con-
gresso tomistici internazionale, t. 4: Prospettive teologische moderne, Studi tomistici 13 (Vatican
City: 1981), 249–62, and especially his “Insuficiencia de la potencia obedencial como solución al
problema de las relaciones del espíritu finito con la Vision de Dios,” Divinitas 35 (1991): 19–54.
One might also consult my “Maritain on the Natural Desire to See God: Reflections Apprecia-
tive and Critical,” in Distinctions of Being: Philosophical Approaches to Reality, ed. Nikolaj Zu-
nic (Washington, D.C.: American Maritain Association, 2013), 128–44. It would require another
book to defend fully that the position being suggested here is indeed Thomas’s express view, as
given in the Summa contra Gentiles.
 God’s Salvific Will   297

(2) God has revealed that he made free creatures for this glory and that
he sent the Redeemer to open again a way for fallen humanity to reach
this end. And thus God never denies a free creature the gracious means
whereby his natural desire can be fulfilled unless the free creature first im-
pedes the order to that good end by his own fault, by his own independent
defect or impediment to his grace: whether the fallen angels or Adam
did so to the graces given to them at their creation or whether fallen man
does so to Christ’s grace calling him anew to that end. Those Thomists
who mistakenly held that God’s antecedent will was an “inefficacious vel-
leity” were consistent in holding that the order of nature or man’s natu-
ral desire (to which in fact it refers) was likewise an “inefficacious velle-
ity,” but they were consistently mistaken. In my judgment, this is a natural
implication of Marín-Sola’s position, although not one he saw or made.
He did see (see 201) that one could say that God owes it to himself to gov-
ern his creatures according to their given natures; and thus it can be said
that God owes it to himself (or, specifically, to his wisdom) not to deny
glory to a free creature (whose intellectual nature possesses a desire for—
i.e., a natural intellectual ordination to—this glory, i.e., to see God) un-
less that free creature personally impedes the grace that orders him to
that end.
The Church is already well on its own way toward affirming the truly
universal gift of Christ’s grace and call.66 For it has dropped all reference
to limbo from its catechism and has instead affirmed that infants dying
unbaptized should be offered up to God’s mercy. There is now a Catho-
lic liturgy for such infants, and the rule of prayer lays down the rule of
faith.67 Furthermore, and just as tellingly, the Church is remembering the
victims of abortion on the feast of the Holy Innocents, thereby indicat-
ing the open way for its thought to follow. For, just as it has applied the
explicit baptism of desire to all those who hold it implicitly, so it can apply
the baptism of blood suffered by the Holy Innocents, due to their explicit

66. For an account that well traces the trajectory of the Church’s teaching that is leading
it just to this point, of affirming salvific means for infants dying unbaptized by water, see Jean-
Miguel Garrigues, OP, “La perséverance de Dieu dans son dessein universel de grâce,” Nova et
Vetera 77, no. 4 (2002): 35–59. Thus, the International Theological Commission, in its recent
study of this matter, concludes that “there are theological and liturgical reasons to hope that in-
fants who die without baptism [by water] may be saved” (The Hope of Salvation for Infants, #3).
67. See the CCC #1261.
298  Afterword
(albeit to them unknown) connection with Christ and his birthplace, to
all infants murdered by the cruelty of men, or the diseases that cruelty in-
flicts upon them: all are implicitly connected to the sacrificial death he suf-
fered for them, and they are all offered a share in him.68
It will not be the first time that the ugliness of modern civilization
has brought home to the Church a need to develop its doctrine.69 Thus,
it was the ugliness of the slave trade and the treatment of field slaves in
particular that led the Church finally to realize that slavery could not be
tolerated, even though Paul had tolerated it for his time. Likewise, it was
the persecution of religion and the murder of people simply because of
their religious faith that has so characterized the tyranny of contemporary
totalitarian regimes that led the Church to affirm the freedom of religion
and its practice as a civil right, and one that must be defended for every
religion (provided it does not act against the common good). Likewise,
it is the outrageous blood-letting of the voiceless unborn—the shame of
the contemporary world—that is leading it to see that these innocents are
also not without some means of being saved. In all these cases, it is just
the extravagance of the evil suffered that opens the eyes of those within
the Church to affirm what needs to be said.
It may perhaps be urged that to affirm the baptism of blood of in-

68. Thus, in the same study just referred to (in n. 66), the Commission notes the baptism
of desire and of blood; and, while it indicates the first is not appropriate to infants, it does not
so reject the second (#29). Indeed, it affirms that “we may discern in those infants who them-
selves suffer and die a saving conformity to Christ in His own death” (#85), and “we may readily
refer to the example of the Holy Innocents and discern an analogy in the case of these infants to
the baptism of blood which brings salvation” (#86b).
69. It is also the case that the development of one doctrine has implications for another.
Thus, if one is willing to countenance (as Thomas seems to have been, out of respect for Augus-
tine) that God may leave some adults without means to be saved, it is easier to believe he might
do (or would do) the same for some infants; but if, as the modern Catholic tradition had come
to teach and as the Church itself now explicitly teaches, God calls all adults to share in the Pas-
chal Mystery and thus in God’s unending life, it becomes harder to believe that God does not
also call all absolutely, including infants. Thomas, in keeping his doctrine open to Chrysostom’s
more ample view of God’s call, thereby endorsed the possibility that the Church has now made
its own regarding adults; but, just in doing so, he indirectly kept open a possibility that he him-
self did not then consider, namely that there might be saving means even for infants dying un-
baptized by water. As the International Theological Commission says: “Only when seen in the
light of the course of the historical development of theology over the course of time until Vati-
can II does this specific question [of infants dying unbaptized by water] find its proper context
within Catholic theology” (The Hope of Salvation for Infants, #4).
 God’s Salvific Will   299

fants dying unbaptized by water undercuts the importance of sacramen-

tal baptism, constantly urged of infants in the Church’s practice. To this,
one could of course reply the way one can to the baptism of desire, name-
ly that the explicit is better than the implicit and that the baptism of water
introduces an infant into the visible Church and thus prepares him or her
to receive from it the further riches it will make available (and, in the case
of the Church’s Eastern tradition, ones that it immediately makes available,
in the sacraments of Confirmation and the Eucharist). As true as this re-
joinder is, it might still be replied that—as regards his or her own salva-
tion—an infant who dies unbaptized by water will be given just as great
a means of salvation as the one who is so baptized, and this seems incon-
gruous with the Church’s past practice.
To this worry, I offer the following consideration. The reports of near-
death experiences remind us at least of this: we do not well understand
the state of the soul on the point of leaving the body. Let us also recall
the prayer of the Rosary on the lips of Catholics, that their Lady pray for
them “at the hour of death.” One might wonder why that should be so im-
portant, since so many people die in their sleep or in a coma: the last hour
alive would thus hardly seem to be important or something that would
be well served by her prayers. Yet this would make perfect sense if, as the
soul is on the point of leaving the body, it is sufficiently removed from its
influence for a person to make his final choice: to serve God at whatev-
er cost or to choose his false and independent self, instead. For one who
has lived his life with mind and heart set on God, his choice of the for-
mer will no doubt be confirmed, by Christ’s grace and with the prayers of
his saints as aid, his Mother’s preeminently. For one who has, on the con-
trary, consistently chosen to make himself over in his own image, his final
choice could instead be to confirm that previous and deep life-choice. Yet,
since God is infinitely merciful and he hears the prayers of his angels and
saints, no person can be said to be without hope at this time, when his fi-
nal choice is made, as he departs this life. And thus the Church has never
been willing to declare of even the most notorious sinner, or of Judas, that
he is damned.
If this is in fact the case, then it sheds the following light upon the
situation of infants dying with the baptism of water and those dying by
violence or disease without it. The first, in receiving their baptism of wa-
ter, are placed in the same position as those who have been given the in-
300  Afterword
fallibly efficacious grace of justification. By the choice of their parents to
give them baptism (a choice they made when they could not have),70 and
as they leave their body, their first free act (and their only one this side of
heaven) is infallibly to say “yes” to God with the love he has infused with-
in their soul, and to be welcomed into his everlasting kingdom. Those in-
fants who die without the baptism of water, by their mystical participation
in the slaughter of the innocents and by the prayers of the Church, could
be placed in a situation analogous to the one that Thomas held could have
pertained to the angels at their creation: although (on this supposition)
not created in a state of grace, they are nevertheless called to that state by
the interior grace of the Holy Spirit and thus are able in fact to come to
that state (and thus his everlasting kingdom) or not to come to it, imped-
ing it by their free refusal. If this is indeed the final situation of these in-
fants—namely that they can make a choice for or against God, so that no
one enters his kingdom unless he freely chooses to, and no one is refused
that kingdom save by his own refusal71—then this would explain the
practice of the Church and a reason why infants should be baptized. For
the baptism of water infallibly ensures their “yes,” just as sanctifying grace

70. I emphasize this to note that all the saved had the possibility (at least in their parents)
of refusing to do what they could do or of not cooperating with the call of the Holy Spirit. Salvo
melior judicio, this seems to me likely also to have been the case with the Holy Mother of God
herself (although Marín-Sola held otherwise: see his second article, 32 [86–87]). In accord with
her unique calling, she was specially protected throughout her early youth from in fact not co-
operating with God’s grace. And, once she accepted her special vocation, she was again specially
protected from falling from it, now in accord with her unique status as the God-Bearer (The-
otokos). But, at the Annunciation, the angels “held their breath”; for she accepted her vocation
even when she could in fact have refused. Her divine Son was like man in all things possible to him
as the God-man; but, as divine, he was naturally impeccable. His mother, however, was only hu-
man, and thus was naturally capable of sin. Both she and her Son were like us “in all things but
sin”; but she could sin, whereas he could not. God thus governed her both in accord with her na-
ture, and her altogether special vocation, just so that, in giving her sublime “yes” to his invitation
(when she might in fact not have)—and thereby reversing Eve’s “no”—she could serve as the
perfect model for all her fallible children, adopted by the Father through her divine Son.
71. This is, in fact, the only reason the Gospels ever offer of our final state: our personal
choice to be compassionate and merciful or not to be (e.g., Mt 25: 31–46). They know nothing
of someone ending in hell due to the personal choice of another. Limbo is not merely without
scriptural foundation, a “remainder concept” supposedly required by other truths of faith; it is
even opposed to its very tenor (as in Matthew). Note that the CCC declares that to go to hell,
a willed turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary “and a persistence in it until the end”
(#1037); this is impossible for anyone without the use of reason.
 God’s Salvific Will   301

infallibly ensures the acts of contrition and formed faith; whereas those
infants dying unbaptized by water have the real opportunity of being with
God—precisely by that sufficient grace and call for which Marín-Sola
fought—but it is not infallibly efficacious, but can be impeded by their
free rejection of the offer made. And thus the fate of those infants dying
unbaptized by water remains for us now a mystery, but one that is still full
of hope in the mercy of Christ, who will have sought them out.72
Such are the reflections that I believe are prompted by Thomas’s
views on our two different preparations for grace, and by Marín-Sola’s
doctrine regarding the first: the sufficient grace of the Holy Spirit’s inner
inspiration and call. Yet now these doctrines are being applied to what
the Church is saying in our time. Just as, by the time of Marín-Sola, the
Church had extended the vocation of the Holy Spirit to all who reached
the age of reason (even though, as we have seen, Thomas seemed in some
doubt about this, due to his great respect for Augustine’s mature teach-
ing), so now it is ready to extend that same vocation (be it well noted, an
actual offer to participate in the Paschal Mystery, not a guarantee that the
offer will be accepted) to all, including infants who die unbaptized by wa-
ter. And thus the Church’s doctrine on heaven and hell is from beginning
to end a mystery always rooted in a dual freedom: of God, whose mercy
lays the foundation for heaven and ever builds upon it, through the man-
ifold workings of his grace, and of the response of free creatures to that
mercy, and to the sufficient grace and the interior call of his Holy Spirit,
God’s very own eternal Love.

72. The International Theological Commission notes that “many, many attempts have
been made in modern times to explore the possibility of a votum in the case of an unbaptised,
either a votum exercised on behalf of the infant by its parents or by the Church, or perhaps a vo-
tum exercised by the infant in some way” (#94). As one can see, my consideration here given
involves both of these: the offer of Christ’s salvation (the interior call of his Holy Spirit) is ex-
tended to the infant by virtue of his mystical participation in his death (and the death suffered
by the Holy Innocents) and the prayer of the Church; and his acceptance of the offer, as his one
free act this side of heaven (in analogy to the angels at their creation) is an implicit votum that
he makes. Of all such attempts to understand this mystery (while still leaving it intact, as a mys-
tery), the Commission immediately goes on to say, “The Church has never ruled out such a so-
lution, and attempts to get Vatican II to do so significantly failed, because of a widespread sense
that investigation of this matter was still ongoing and a widespread desire to entrust such in-
fants to the mercy of God” (The Hope of Salvation for Infants, #94).
 Appendix 1

Marín-Sola and the Thomistic

Commentators

This appendix is an annotated list of the commentators and theologians re-

ferred to in Marín-Sola’s articles. It contains nothing original: it merely collects
information that can be found in encyclopedias. Peninsular authors are usually
taken, in the first instance, from the Diccionario de Historia Eclesiástica de España,
4 volumes (Madrid: Instituto Enrique Flores, 1972–75), albeit sometimes supple-
mented by the Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, 25 volumes (Paris: Letouzey
et Ané, 1903–50). Almost all the other authors, almost all of French provenance,
are taken entirely from that same work.
I have arranged the authors alphabetically, but I have divided them accord-
ing to three important dates that bear on the matter: the publication of Luis de
Molina’s Concordia (in 1588), the condemnation of the five Jansenist propositions
(in 1653), and the publication of Aeterni Patris (in 1879). These three dates (more
than others: for example, the dates of the Congregation de auxiliis, 1598–1607) are
the most significant for the doctrines being treated. The first prompted the “Do-
minican protest” against some doctrines involved in this whole question and led
to the first “school position” of the order (albeit with various shades, including
opinions that diverged from Bañez on some points, e.g., in Juan Vicente [“As-

303
304  Appendix 1
turicense”] and Juan González de Albeda). The first period was principally con-
fined to Spanish theologians, for the controversy arose there, and the Domini-
can school of Salamanca was then at its height.1 The second period was already
being prepared in Louvain, in the work of Michel du Bay: the opposite extreme
from the work of Molina and the clear forerunner of Jansenism. The latter’s sub-
sequent condemnation (especially of the proposition that interior grace could
not be resisted) then led to some “modification,” or at least development, of the
first position. Here, given the provenance of the Jansenist controversy, the main
theologians were French. In the first period, Dominicans were intent on teach-
ing the intrinsic efficacy of justifying grace: it infallibly caused the will’s consent,
as a subordinate cause, rather than the will rendering it efficacious, as a coordi-
nate cause. In the second, they were intent on teaching the true sufficiency of pre-
paratory grace: the accent was on the resistance of the will to this grace, as an
“in-subordinate” and independent cause, which rendered this grace inefficacious.
Marín-Sola argued that the commentators fall into these two periods, and I have
organized them according to his view. I have bracketed those two periods by the
one that preceded the Concordia, and the one we are presently in, ushered in by
Leo XIII’s encyclical: a period generally marked by a more “historically minded”
approach to the whole problematik.
Only one group of Dominican commentators received no serious attention:
those before Capreolus. Partly, this was due to their not being involved in the de-
bates of “school positions” formed as a result of the debates around the Congrega-
tio de auxiliis: Marín-Sola limited himself to “modern Thomism,” which he dated
to that period, and he included only a few influential figures just prior to it. Also,
some of the work of the earlier Thomists (e.g., those who responded to the Correc-
torium) was not published when Marín-Sola was working on his doctrine and may
not have been known well by him. (In his masterwork on the evolution of Cath-
olic dogma, he also rarely cites these theologians, although, again, these did not
deal with the modern complex of issues that he treated there.) There is also a sig-
nificant gap in time between Gazzaniga and Aeterni Patris: the nadir of Dominican
(and Catholic) scholastic theology, caused in large part by the combined effects of
the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and Napoleon. Except in the last peri-
od, the theologians referred to are all Dominicans, unless otherwise noted.
It would be a mistake to assume that the theologians of the second period
were simply reacting to the Concordia. That is not accurate. The matters it touched
on are intrinsically controversial and had stirred significant debate prior to its pub-
lication. Indeed, the main views of some of its protagonists (e.g., Bañez) had al-

1. For overviews of the important theologians of this school at its height, see Luis G. Alon-
so Getino, OP’s “De Vitoria á Godoy: la edad de oro de San Esteban de Salamanca,” La Ciencia
Tomista (1913–14): 201–17. See also Juan Belda Plans’s La Escuela de Salamanca (Madrid: Biblio-
teca de Autores Cristianos, 2000).
 The Thomistic Commentators   305

ready been worked out and even published. A particularly good case is Juan Vi-
cente (“Asturicense”). His first work, a commentary on some of the first questions
of the Summa (including I, 19, on God’s will), was written in 1585. His second one
(De origine gratiae) was written in 1589. The first already gives the direction of his
thought, and never refers to Molina. The second develops that direction, and re-
fers frequently (and critically) to Molina. In both, he shows great respect for the
views of Bañez, while still disagreeing with him on several points.
While this list is almost entirely of Dominican commentators, it includes
all the theologians that Marín-Sola references, since most of these will also now
not be familiar to many readers. I normally have done no more than give a very
brief reference for each theologian. An asterisk indicates the author is not only
referred to, but quoted.
Following this list, I have grouped major theologians’ positions on various
disputed questions found within the Dominican tradition, attempting better to
situate Marín-Sola’s views within their context so that one will see to what de-
gree they are new or “novel.” This latter summary was made possible by the work
of Francisco Perez Muñiz, OP, who led a number of theses at the Angelicum that
bore on the positions Marín-Sola defended.

THEOLO GI A NS P R IOR TO 15 8 8
Baius, Michael (Michel du Bay) (1513–89) Louvain Theologian sympathetic to
the Reformers on grace. His claim that fallen nature could only sin (at least ve-
nially) was first condemned by the Sorbonne (1560) and then by Pope Pius V
(1567). He died in the Church, but his pessimism and strong defense of grace was
the fertile soil from which Jansenism later sprang. His closest disciple, Jacques
Janson, was the teacher of Jansen.
Cajetan (Tomasso de Vio) (1468–1534)* Most famous of Thomists, his com-
mentary on the Summa (1507–22) is incorporated into the Leonine version.
Among many other points, he proposed several positions made famous by Ba-
ñez, namely the infallibility of each order of divine providence and the infallibil-
ity of divine knowledge based on this.
Capreolus (Jean Cabrol) (c. 1380–1444)* “Prince of the Thomists” and most im-
portant defender of Thomas’s doctrine in the 225 years following his death. His
Libri defensionum theologiae divi doctoris Thomae de Aquino in libros Sententiarium
disputes earlier opponents of Thomas. It was first published (in printed form) in
1483–84.2

2. For more on Capreolus, see Jean Capreolus et son temps (1380–1444), ed. Guy Bedouelle,
OP, Romanus Cessario, OP, and Victor White (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1997).
306  Appendix 1
Council of Trent (1545–63)* Its sixth session (1547) defined the Catholic doc-
trine of justification. It insisted on the gratuity of God’s prevenient call and the
Holy Spirit’s illumination, which man nevertheless remained free to reject (“ab-
jicere potest,” “posse dissentire si velit”). While accenting the primacy of God’s
grace and mercy, it insisted nevertheless upon the necessity for man to cooperate
freely with God’s grace.
Ferrariensis (Silvestre de Ferrare) (1474–1528)* Contemporary of Cajetan and
classic commentator on Thomas’s Summa contra Gentiles (included in the Leo-
nine version). He disputed Cajetan’s views on the infallibility of each order of di-
vine providence.
Koëllin, Conrad (1476–1536) German Dominican who published an important
commentary on the Prima secundae just prior to the Reformation (1512). With
Crockaert in Paris and Cajetan in Rome, he took the Summa theologiae as his
teaching text. Entered into controversies with Luther and the Anabaptist Cor-
neille Agrippa.
Medina, Bartolomé de (1527–80)* Colleague of Bañez at Salamanca and likewise
a confessor of Saint Teresa of Avila. Wrote commentaries on the Prima secundae
and Tertia pars of the Summa (1577 and 1578) shortly before the Concordia dis-
putes began.
Soto, Domingo de (1495–1560)* Colleague of Francisco de Vitoria (1492/93–
1546) and collaborator with him in his restoration and reform of theology at Sala-
manca. (Among other things, Vitoria substituted the Summa for the Sentences, as
the central scholastic text, here following Cajetan and Koëllin). Assisted at the
Council of Trent (1545–47.)
Soto, Pedro de (1496/1500–63) Confessor and counselor of Charles V, these
tasks later also being taken up by Domingo Soto. With the latter, he assisted at
the Council of Trent, where he so distinguished himself that the pope named
him his own theologian. He died and was buried in Trent. A supporter of Ignatius
and the nascent Jesuit order.

THEOLO GI A NS FROM 15 8 8 TO 165 3

Alvarez, Diego (c. 1550–1635)* Designated defender of “the” Dominican position
at the Congregatio de auxiliis (1598–1606) and professor of theology at the Col-
lege of Minerva. After 1606, archbishop of Trani. His two principal works on the
disputed matters were De auxiliis Divinae Gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus et lib-
ertate ac legitima eius cum efficacia eorumdem auxiliorum concordia (1610) and Re-
sponsiorum ad obiectiones adversus concordiam liberi arbitrii cum divina praescien-
tia . . . libri IV (1622).
 The Thomistic Commentators   307

Asturicense (Juan Vicente) (1544–1595) Born in Astorga, whence his appella-

tion. At Salamanca from 1582–90, and in Rome thereafter, where he taught at the
College of Minerva and the Sapientia University. Wrote several commentaries on
the Summa and discussed disputes of his day in De origine gratiae. A younger col-
league of Bañez, whom he much esteemed, while still taking issue with him on
several important points.3
Bañez, Domingo (1528–1604)* Favorite confessor of Saint Teresa of Avila and
preeminent Dominican of Salamanca in its “golden age.” His commentary on the
first sixty-four questions of the Prima pars was published in 1584. He then led the
opposition to several of Molina’s doctrines and defended his own views against
the latter’s counterattack in his Apologia Fratrum Praedicatorum in provincia His-
paniae sacrae theologiae professorum adversus novas quasdam assertiones cujusdam
doctoris Ludovici Molinae nuncupati (1595).4
Baronius, Vincent (1604–74) French Dominican at Toulouse who entered into
numerous controversies with Protestants. Wrote extensively on moral issues es-
pecially.
Bellarmine, Robert (1542–1621) Doctor of the Church and cardinal and perhaps
the most renowned theologian of the Society of Jesus. Opposed Baius at Lou-
vain, helped prepare the Vulgate and various catechisms, and was involved in the
Galileo controversy. In the last volume of his most famous work, Controversies
(1586–97), while departing from Molina on several points, he both defended the
scientia media and proposed his personal theory of human liberty as a “negative
determination.”5 He urged Clement VIII to permit both sides in the de auxiliis
controversy to continue to defend their positions.

3. The magisterial articles of Marcus Manzanedo, OP, not only carefully examine his
thought in depth and with clarity, but provide a window into both the complexity and the sub-
tlety of the issues raised on the issues of grace and free will at that time in Salamanca. (See Mar-
cus Manzanedo, OP, “Introducción al studio del concurso divino en Fray Juan Vicente de As-
torga,” and “El problema del concurso divino según el Asturicense,” Studium 1–2 [1960–61]:
45–74 and 497–522; “Posibilidad, necesidad y existencia de la predeterminación divina según
Juan Vicente de Astorga,” Studium 4 [1964]: 241–79; and “La predeterminación al pecado según
el Asturicense: Epilogo y Conclusion,” Studium 5 [1965]: 61–95. His work is dedicated to Fran-
cisco P. Muñiz, who directed it at the Angelicum. In his conclusion, the author indicates the
way in which Asturicense’s doctrine is similar to that of Marín-Sola and argues that the latter
saves the truth that led him to take issue with Bañez, while remaining closer to Bañez’s own
thought.
4. For this text, see Vicente Beltrán de Heredia’s Domingo Bañez y las controversias sobre la
gracia; textos y documentos (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones “Francisco Suarez,”
1968), 115–380.
5. For an excellent summary of Bellarmine’s theory of “negative determination,” see José
308  Appendix 1
Congregatio de auxiliis (1598–1607) A series of discussions in Rome, initially
concerned with various doctrines in Molina’s Concordia, and then, more broadly,
with the differing views of Jesuits and Dominicans on sufficient and efficacious
grace. Although initially a number of propositions in the Concordia were ready
to be censured, the Jesuits managed just to avoid this from occurring. The discus-
sions first were presided over by cardinals and then took place before two popes:
Clement VIII and Paul III. The main Dominican theologians were Alvarez and
Lemos; the principal Jesuits were Gregory Valentia and Fernando Bastida (as
well as the Superior General Acquaviva, and Cardinal Bellarmine). In 1607, on
the feast of Saint Augustine, Paul III declared that the Dominican position was
not Calvinist nor the Jesuit one Pelagian. He thus accepted the advice of Saint
Francis de Sales (as, earlier, that of Cardinal Bellarmine) to allow each order to
defend its views.6
Curiel, Juan Alfonso (†1609) Benedictine theologian from Salamanca who entered
into the controversies provoked by Molina. His main work was published posthu-
mously: Lecturae seu quaestiones in D. Thomae Aquinatis Prima secundae (1618).
Estius, Guillaume (1542–1613) Along with François Silvius (1581–1649), a re-
nowned secular priest and theologian at the University of Douai. He seconded
the University of Louvain’s condemnation of Lessius (later rescinded by Pope
Sixtus V). He also wrote against Molinism, then being defended by Fr. Deckers,
SJ (1591). He wrote one of the more celebrated commentaries on Lombard’s Sen-
tences, and furthered both the work of the Douai English translation of the Bible
and the project of the Bollandists.
González de Albeda, Juan (1569–1622)* He entered the Dominican order in 1584
at Salamanca and participated in the controversies de auxiliis generated. Regent
of studies and master of theology at the Minerva, 1608–12, and later professor
at the University of Alcala, 1612–22. He dealt with the disputed issues in a two-
volume Commentariorum et disputationum in primam partem Summae S. Thomae
de Aquino (1621).
Jansen, Cornelius (1585–1638) Bishop of Ypres and author of Augustinus, pub-
lished posthumously (1640), and submitted to the judgment of Rome. Its pub-
lication was immediately prohibited (1641); later, five propositions having been
culled from this work at the Sorbonne, these were condemned as heretical by

M. Hellin, SJ’s “Determinación Negativa en San R. Bellarmino,” Estudios Eclesiásticos 10 (1931):

161–99.
6. For a lucid account of the issues between Molina and Bañez that led to these congre-
gations, and what transpired in them, see “La polemica de auxiliis (1582–1607),” www.filosofia
.org/ave/001/a152.htm.
 The Thomistic Commentators   309

Innocent X (1653), including the second proposition that God’s interior grace
could not be resisted.
John of Saint Thomas (João Poinsot) (1589–1644)* Obtained his bachelor of arts
at Coimbre and of theology at Louvain, before entering the order. Taught at the
University of Alcala and was confessor to Felipe IV. He is famous for his Cursus
philosophicus thomisticus (on logic and natural philosophy), 1631–35—in three
volumes, in the Marietti edition (1931–37)—and his Cursus theologicus, in eight
volumes (1637–44). He edited the first three volumes; the rest were published
posthumously, in 1649–67.
Ledesma, Pedro de (1544–1616)* Filled the chair of Durandus at Salamanca follow-
ing Bañez (1604–8) and then the chair of Vespers (1608–16). Supported Bañez. His
chief work is Tractatus de divinae gratiae auxiliis circa illa verba Isaiae, c. 26 “omnis op-
era nostra operatus est in nobis, Domine” et circa doctrinam S. Thomae (1596, 1611).
Lemos, Tomas de (1555–1629)* Sent to Rome for the General Chapter in 1600 and
stayed there, jointly defending the Dominican position with Diego Alvarez in the
Congregatio de auxiliis (1601–7). His two chief works on the matter are the four-
volume Panoplia gratiae (1676) and, on the disputes themselves, the Acta omnium
congregationum ac disputationum quae coram SS. Clemente VII et Paulo summis ponti-
ficibussunt celebratae in causa et controversia illa magna de auxiliis gratiae, quas dispu-
tations ego f. Thomas de Lemos eadem gratia adjutus sustinui contra plures ex Societate
(1702).
Lugo, Juan de (1583–1660) Famous Jesuit theologian who taught for twenty-one
years at the Roman College (1622–43) and was then made a cardinal. Wrote vari-
ous Disputationes scholasticae (e.g., on the Eucharist, Penance, Justice, Faith). Es-
pecially respected as an authority on moral questions. (Alphonse Liguori viewed
him as second only to Thomas.)
Molina, Luis de (1535–1600)* Jesuit theologian whose Concordia liberi arbitrii
cum gratiae donis, divina praescientia, providentia, praedestinatione et reprobatione
ad nonnullos primae parties divi Thomae articulos (1588, a new edition in 1589 with
a forty-four-page appendix giving fuller explanations of his doctrines, and a fi-
nal edition of 1595, in which he made some additions to his positions) made fa-
mous the recent idea (first advanced with clarity in 1565 by Pedro de Fonseca, SJ,
[1528–99]) of a scientia media: God’s necessary knowledge of created free acts not
caused by him. Molina’s effort to use this idea (and the correlate idea of God’s
non-determining “simultaneous concurrence” of those acts) to explain the con-
cord between God’s will, knowledge, and grace and acts of created liberty was
immediately attacked by Dominicans, especially Bañez. He defended himself to
the Spanish Inquisition and was supported by his order; in turn, he attacked Ba-
ñez. These disputes gave rise to the Roman congregations de auxiliis.
310  Appendix 1
Navarette, Balthasar (1560–1640)* Respected Dominican of Valladolid and Sal-
amanca. Authored Controversiae in D. Thomae et ejus scholae defensionem (Vallad-
olid, 1609).7
Nazari, Gian Paolo (1556–1641) Italian Dominican, teaching primarily at Bolo-
gna, who wrote a six-volume commentary on the Prima and Tertia pars (1619–27).
Salmanticenses (1631–1712)* A dense set of commentaries on disputed questions
from the Summa: twelve tomes that come to twenty volumes in the Palmé edi-
tion of 1870–83. Written by a distinguished series of theologians at the Discalced
Carmelite College of San Elias in Salamanca: Antonio de la Madre de Dios (1583–
1637) authored the first two tomes, including that on De Deo uno (1631); Domin-
go de Santa Teresa (1604–60) authored the next two, on the Prima secunda, up to
Grace (1647 and 1658); and Juan de la Anunciación (1633–1701) authored tomes
5–11, including those on grace, justification, and merit (1679). The final volume,
on penance, was authored by Antonio de San Juan Baptista (1641–99) and Ilde-
fonso de Los Angeles (1663–1737). As can be seen, the work spans the second
and third periods. It could be placed equally as well in the next period, although
its positions first developed in the face of Molinism, not Jansenism.
Serra, Marcus (1581–1645)* Dominican theologian at Valencia. Published Sum-
mum commentatorium (on the three parts of the Summa theologiae) in 1630, 1634,
and 1647.
Suarez, Francisco (1548–1617) With Bellarmine, the most renowned theologian
of the Society of Jesus. The first to defend Molina at Salamanca (having himself
already taught the scientia media), his own position (“Congruism”) modified the
former’s position to underline the priority of God’s will in the predestination of
the elect.
Valentia, Gregory (1549–1603) Famous Jesuit theologian. Taught theology at In-
golstadt from 1575 to 1592. Wrote a four-volume Commentarii theologici, the first
systematic treatment of Thomas’s Summa theologiae by a Jesuit. Tasked with de-
fending the Jesuit positions at the Congregatio de auxiliis. Named “Doctor Docto-
rum” by Clement VIII.
Vasquez, Gabriel (1549–1604) Renowned Jesuit theologian (“the Spanish Au-
gustine”), he disputed various points with Suarez, but nevertheless defended
both the scientia media and simultaneous concurrence, and also predestination
“post praevisa merita.”

7. He is also apparently the anonymous author of “La pícara Justina.” See Anastasis Rojo
Vega’s “Propuesta de nuevo autor para la pícara Justina: fray Balthasar Navarette O.P.” (2004),
http://revista.ucm.es.
 The Thomistic Commentators   311

Zumel, Francisco (1540–1607) Mercedarian who presided over the first dispute
(in 1582) in Salamanca over matters dealing with grace, prompted by some views
of the Jesuit Fr. Montemayor (whom he opposed, with Bañez). A later opponent
of Molina, he defended Bañez against his countercharges, while still diverging
from him somewhat, in his two-volume De Deo eiusque operibus, Commentaria in
I. P. S. Thomae Aquinatis (1585).

THEOLO GI A NS FROM 165 3 to 1878

Aliaga, Juan de (1668–1735)* Professor of theology at the University of Sala­
manca from 1706 to 1732, and prior of the convent of San Esteban from 1732. He
wrote a six-volume Quaestiones commentariae in Primam secundae Divi Thomae,
1726–32.
Arnauld, Antoine (1612–94) Leader of the Jansenist party and implacable adver-
sary of the Jesuits for fifty years. He famously argued that the five Jansenist prop-
ositions condemned as heretical by Pope Innocent X (in 1653) were not in Jan-
sen’s book, at least not in the sense given to them in their condemnation. This led
to the declaration of Pope Alexander VII (1656) that they were indeed taken from
it and condemned in the sense it gave to them. Also a polemicist against Protes-
tants and an apologist for the Catholic faith.
Bancel, Louis (1628–85)* First holder of the chair of theology of Saint Thomas at
the University of Avignon and author of a seven-volume Brevis universae theologi-
ae tam moralis quam scholasticae cursus juxta doctoris angelici D. Thomae dogmata
(1684–92).
Berti, Jean-Laurent (1696–1766)* Italian Augustinian and principal defender of
the positions of modern Augustinians on grace, especially in his De theologicis
disciplinis (1739–45) and Augustinianum systema de gratia ab iniqua bajani et jan-
seniani erroris insimulatione vindicatum, sive refutatio librorum quorum titulus Ba-
janismus et jansenianismus redivivi in scriptis PP. FF. Belleli et Berti, O.S.A. (1747).
Billuart, Charles-René (1685–1757)* Author of a famous, eight-volume Summa
S. Thomae hodiernis Academiarum moribus accomodata, sive cursus theologiae juxta
mentem, et in quantum licuit, juxta ordinem et litteram Divi Thomae in sua Summa
insertis pro re nata digressionibus in historiam ecclesiasticam (1746–51), a work he
condensed into the six-volume Summa summae S. Thomas, sive compendium theo-
logicae (1754), both of which enjoyed a great reputation into the twentieth cen-
tury. He frequently defended the Dominican position, as in Le thomisme vengé de
sa prétendue condemnation par la constitution Unigenitus, adressé en forme de letter
à un abbé par un religieux de l’ordre de S. Dominique (1720). He also successfully
defended Massoulié and Contenson (1723 and 1729) against a censure brought
against them by the theological faculty of Douai.
312  Appendix 1
Concina, Daniello (1687–1756)* Italian theologian and famed preacher who was
best known for his moral doctrine. He was engaged in many controversies during
his life, in particular with the Jesuits concerning the adequacy of probabilism in
casuistry.
Contenson, Guillaume de (1641–74)* He died young, and his fame rests on his
only work, Theologia mentis et cordis seu speculationes universae doctrinae sacrae. It
gave ascetical and mystical reflections on the moral life and was completed by
Massoulié. An enemy of probabilism, he defended Jansen’s person, while sup-
porting the famed five condemnations.
Gazzaniga, Pietro Maria (1722–99) Active in Vienna under Emperor Joseph II
and esteemed by Pius VI, he is chiefly known for a course in theology, Praelectio-
nes theologicae habitae in Vindobonensi universitate (1763–66), which went through
a number of editions into the 1830s. An apologist for the Church and an oppo-
nent of probabilism.
Godoy, Pedro (c. 1608–77)* The last representative of Salamanca’s golden period.
Bishop of Osma and then Sigüenza. Wrote Disputationes theologicae in Summam
D. Thomae in seven volumes (1666–72), used by Gonet in his Clypeus (and then
published after it).
Gonet, Jean-Baptiste (c. 1616–81)* Born in Beziers and teacher of theology at the
University of Bordeaux; his fame chiefly rests on a treatise of dogmatic theology,
Clypeus theologicae thomisticae contra novos eius impugnatores (1659–69), which
went through a number of editions throughout the eighteenth century. He abbre-
viated this work in Manuale thomistarum seu brevis theologiae thomisticae cursus,
which was also popular.
Goudin, Antoine (1639–95)* Taught at Avignon and then in Paris. Left an oft-
reprinted summary of scholastic philosophy: Philosophia juxta inconcussa tutissi-
maque divi Thomae dogmata tom. IV comprehensa (1671). He also left a manuscript
published only posthumously: Tractatus theologici posthumi juxta inconcussa tu-
tissimaque dogmata divi Thomae Aquinatis doctoris angelici. De scientia et voluntate
Dei, de providentia, praedestinatione et reprobatione atque de gratia in duas partes di-
visi (1723), which (some letters of Richard Simon not withstanding) affirms tradi-
tional Dominican doctrine.
Graveson, Ignace-Hyacinthe Amat de (1670–1733) Successor to Massoulié at the
college of Casanate in Rome, he taught theology there and wrote works of posi-
tive theology. He also wrote a series of letters, in which he defended Thomism
and opposed Molinism.
Liguori, Alphonso Maria de (1696–1787)* Doctor of the Church whose teaching
of equiprobabilism (in cases of conscience, one can follow freedom over the law
 The Thomistic Commentators   313

only when both are equally probable) increasingly “won the day” in the debate
between probabilists and tutiorists that dominated eighteenth-century casuistry.
In his Del gran mezzo del preghiera (1759) he taught a grace (e.g., sufficient) avail-
able to all, by which all could pray for further aid, as well as the need for a grace
that was intrinsically efficacious.
Massoulié, Antoine (1632–1706)* Born in Toulouse, but taught in Rome most of
his life. His most important work was his two-volume Divus Thomas sui interpres
de divina motione et libertate creata (1692–93), in which he defended physical pre-
motion and efficacious grace, but also strongly criticized Jansenism and defended
sufficient grace. It was attacked by the theological faculty of Douai, but approved
in Rome. He also wrote several works on the ascetical and mystical life and on
prayer.
Montalván, Juan de (1661–1720)* Held chairs of theology at Salamanca before
becoming bishop of Guadix and then Plasencia, and wrote several commentaries
on the Prima pars published posthumously, in 1730.
Nicolaï, Jean (1594–1673)* Taught at St. Jacques, where he was long the prior,
and was appreciated by both Louis XIII and XIV. He favored the condemnation
of the five Jansenist propositions, took part in the condemnation of Arnauld, and
defended sufficient grace, thereby earning the Jansenists’ scorn as a “closet Mo-
linist.”8 Fr. Nicole tried to show that Nicolaï’s concept of sufficient grace, as an
interior movement of the will preparing it for efficacious grace, was opposed to
the teaching of Alvarez and Lemos. Pascal likewise pilloried him, in the Provincial
Letters. He defended his position, teaching both a physical predetermination that
was sufficient and one that was efficacious. His doctrine of a sufficient grace that
was impedible (as opposed to an efficacious grace that was not) was defended by
many French Thomists thereafter. He explained his views in Rayneri de Pisis ordi-
nis Praedicatorum pantheologia, etc. (1670).

8. See Mathieu-Maxime Gorce, OP’s entry on Nicolaï in the Dictionnnaire de Théologie

Catholique (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1931), 11a:491. Also see his “Nicolaï et les jansénistes ou la
grâce actuelle suffisante,” Revue Thomiste 36 (1931): 761–75 and 37 (1932): 452–504. Just recent-
ly, Sylvio Hermann de Francheschi has noted the same in “Le Thomisme au secours du jansé-
nisme dans la querelle de la grâce,” Revue Thomiste 117 (2007): 375–417. He notes that, for Pascal
and other Jansenists of Port-Royale, “authentic” Thomism was identified with that of Alvarez
and Lemos, whereas Nicolaï and those who followed him were “new Thomists” and, in truth,
“Molinizing” Thomists (383). One of the ironies of Garrigou-Lagrange’s critique of Marín-
Sola, as well as Nicolas’s of Muñiz, is that these French Dominicans were in effect accusing their
Spanish confreres of not following the “authentic” Thomism of previous Spanish Dominicans,
whereas their Spanish counterparts were implying their French confreres had failed to learn
from previous French Dominicans and ran the risk of falling into Jansenism. Whatever else may
have clouded their dispute, it certainly was not nationalism!
314  Appendix 1
Preingué, Jourdain (1704–52)* Flemish Dominican who wrote on dogma and
morals: Theologiae speculative et moralis, 1744, and Theologiae moralis repetitio,
1747.
Quesnel, Pasquier (1634–1719) Last significant champion of Jansenism. Clement
XI condemned a number of his propositions in the bull Unigenitus (1713), among
them that neither God’s will (10) nor his grace (12) could be impeded or resisted
(13).
Reginald, Antoine (1606–76)* Fierce controversialist against Jesuits and the sci-
entia media and defender of “physical predetermination,” he nevertheless was
in accord with Nicolaï in condemning the five Jansenist propositions. His chief
work was Doctrinae D. Thomae tria principia cum suis consequentitis (1670). He
also wrote a work published posthumously (1704), and said to have been passed
by Massoulié to Arnauld, entitled De mente sancti concilii Tridentini circa gratiam
seipsa efficacem opus posthumum.
Serra, François Jacques Hyacinthe (1659–1738)* Chiefly known as an historian
of the Congregatio de auxiliis: Historia congregationum de auxiliis divinae gratiae
(1709).
Tournély, Honoré (1658–1729) Secular priest who combated Jansenism. His fa-
mous “Sorbonic Congruism” steered a “middle course” in the disputes on grace.
Vatican Council I (1869–1870)* Although not primarily concerned with the is-
sue of grace and free will, nonetheless, in its constitution on faith, “Dei Filius,” it
reaffirmed the teaching of the Council of Trent that the free will of man could re-
sist the grace of God: “homo liberam praestat ipsi Dei obedientiam gratiae eius,
cui resistere posset consentiendo et cooperando.”

THEOLO GI A NS SINCE 1878

Alès, Adhemar d’ (1861–1938) Jesuit theologian who disputed with Garrigou-
Lagrange over grace and free will: see his Providence et Libre Arbitre (1927).
Taught at the Institut Catholique from 1907 and was dean of its faculty of theol-
ogy after 1925.
Billot, Louis (1846–1931) Jesuit cardinal renowned for his deep and clear under-
standing, and defense, of Thomas (even if this meant disagreeing with past Jesu-
its). Wrote many commentaries: on God, the Incarnation, sin, grace, the sacra-
ments, and the Church.
Franzelin, Jean-Baptiste (1816–86)* Jesuit who was the pope’s theologian at Vati-
can I (and who helped prepare its schemas), he was then made a cardinal. Profes-
sor at the Roman College, renowned for being deeply versed in positive theology,
 The Thomistic Commentators   315

he wrote numerous treatises—on God’s unity and trinity, Christ, the sacraments,
the Church—his most famous being on Scripture and Tradition; they went
through numerous editions.
Gardeil, Ambroise (1869–1931) Dominican theologian who helped found the Re-
vue Thomiste and who was one of the first to collaborate on the Dictionionnaire
de Théologie Catholique. Best known works were La crédibilité et l’apologétique, La
donné révelé et la théologie, and La structure de l’âme et l’expérience mystique.
Garrigou-Lagrange, Reginald 9 (1877–1964)* Dominican who taught at the An-
gelicum for fifty years (1909–60) and was the mentor of Jacques Maritain and his
Cercles Thomistes at Meudon (before each became profoundly at odds with the
other over the Spanish Civil War and the Vichy regime). The outspoken oppo-
nent of Marín-Sola’s view.
Guillermin, Henri 10 (1845–1903)* Dominican professor of theology at the In-
stitut Catholique of Toulouse. After defending the Dominican idea of “physical
predetermination,” he then exposed the order’s various views on the nature of
sufficient grace and defended the position of González, Nicolaï, Reginald, and
Massoulié.
Herrmann, Jean (1849–1927) Redemptorist theologian who wrote Tractatus de
gratia (1904), reedited as Tractatus de divina gratia secundum S. Alphonsi de Ligo-
rio doctrinam et mentem (1922).
Hugon, Éduoard (1867–1929)* Dominican theologian often consulted by Bene-
dict XV and Pius XI. He taught at the Angelicum from 1909 to 1929. Author of the
XXIV Theses.
Janssens, Laurent (1855–1925) Benedictine theologian, from 1893 the rector of the
Roman college of St. Anselm and a member of numerous papal commissions. His
Tractatus de gratia Dei et Christi in Summa Theologica ad modum commentarii in
Aquinatis summam (1921) was the last in a series of commentaries on the Summa.
Lepicier, Alexis-Henri-Marie (1863–1936) Servite cardinal who wrote a twenty-
five-volume commentary on most of the Summa (all the Prima and Tertia pars
and much of the Prima secundae). The Tractatus de gratia was published in 1907.

9. See M. R. Gagnebat, OP’s review of his life in the Angelicum 42 (1965): 7–31, and B.
Zorcolo, OP’s of his work in the same issue (200–72), as well as M. B. Lavaud, OP’s “Le Père
Garrigou-Lagrange: In memoriam,” in the Revue Thomiste 64 (1964): 181–99. One can also con-
sult Richard Peddicord, OP’s The Sacred Monster of Thomism: An Introduction to the Life and
Legacy of Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. (South Bend, Ind.: St. Augustine’s Press, 2005). That
work never mentions Francisco Marín-Sola.
10. See William Sanday’s review of his life, “Le Père Henry Guillermin,” in the Bulletin de lit-
erature ecclésiastique 7 (1905), vii–xx. (He had signed his articles “Henri.” Sanday’s “y” is puzzling.)
316  appendix 1
Lorenzelli, Benedetto (1853–1915) Italian cardinal chosen by Leo XIII to teach
Thomism at the Roman College of the Propaganda, he took a position between
the Dominican defense of “predetermining decrees” and the Jesuit defense of the
scientia media.
Paquet, Louis-Adolphe (1859–1942) Dean of the faculty of theology of Québec,
he wrote a multivolume Disputationes theologicae seu commentaria in Summa theo-
logicam divi Thomae (1919–23).
Pecci, Joseph (1807–90) Italian bishop of Gubbio and cardinal who advocated
the revival of Thomism, he wrote Circa l’influsso di Dio sulle azioni delle creature
ragionevoli e sulla scienza media (1885).
Pègues, Thomas (1866–1936) Dominican theologian who reedited Capreolus
(1900–1908) and published a twenty-one-volume, literal commentary on the
Summa in French (1907–35).
Prado, Norberto del (1853–1918)* Dominican predecessor of Marín-Sola at Fr-
ibourg who wrote a three-volume work De gratia et libero arbitrio (1907), the
first two volumes being a commentary on De gratia and the third a defense of
Thomism against Molinism.
Ramirez, Santiago11 (1891–1967)* Dominican colleague of Marín-Sola at Fri-
bourg, where he taught from 1923 to 1945. He went on to be the general editor of
the BAC Spanish Suma Teologica (16 volumes, 1947–60). He was a peritus at Vati-
can II.
Schultes, Reginald Maria (1873–1928) Dominican theologian who taught at the
Angelicum from 1910 to 1928. He had quarreled with Marín-Sola on the evolution
of doctrine prior to Garrigou-Lagrange’s objecting to the latter’s views on grace.
Stüfler, Johannes (1865–1952) Jesuit professor of theology who opposed physi-
cal premotion and engaged in a controversy regarding this with Reginald Maria
Schultes.
Zigon, Francis (1863–1936)* Secular priest and monsignor who taught in Görizia
(now Slovenia). Having defended Molinism, he later went on to review Marín-
Sola’s articles.

11. For encomiums on Fr. Ramirez, see Santiago Ramirez, O.P.: In Memoriam, 1891–1967
(Salamanca: Convento de S. Estaban, 1968). Much revered by his fellow Dominicans, he was
buried in their Pantheon of Theologians, which includes the mortal remains of Vitoria, D. Soto,
Medina, Sotomayor, and Ledesma. Victorino Rodriguez, OP, continued to work on publishing
his Obras Completas throughout the 1990s.
 The Thomistic Commentators   317

Here, in chronological order, are the Dominican commentators whom

Marín-Sola references:
Jean Cabrol, “Capreolus” (c. 1380– Louis Bancel (1628–85)
1444) Antoine Massoulié (1632–1706)
Tomasso de Vio, “Cajetan” (1468– Antoine Goudin (1639–95)
1534) Guillaume de Contenson (1641–74)
Silvestre de Ferrara, “Ferrariensis” François Jacques Hyacinthe Serra
(1474–1528) (1659–1738)
Domingo de Soto (1495–1560) Juan de Montalván (1661–1720)
Pedro de Soto (1496–1563) Juan de Aliaga (1668–1735)
Bartolomé de Medina (1527–80) Ignace-Hyacinthe Amat de Graveson
Domingo Bañez (1528–1604) (1670–1733)
Juan Vicente, “Asturicense” (1544–95) Charles René Billuart (1685–1757)
Pedro de Ledesma (1544–1616) Daniello Concina (1687–1756)
Diego Alvarez (1550–1635) Jourdain Preingué (1704–52)
Tomas de Lemos (1555–1629) Pietro Maria Gazzaniga (1722–99)
Gian Paolo Nazari (1556–1645) Henri Guillermin (1845–1903)
Balthasar Navarette (1560–1640) Norberto del Prado (1853–1918)
Juan González de Albeda (1569–1622) Thomas Pègues (1866–1936)
Marcus Serra (1581–1645) Edouard Hugon (1867–1929)
João Poinsot, “John of St. Thomas” Ambrose Gardeil (1869 –1931)
(1589–1644) Reginald Schultes (1873–1928)
Jean Nicolaï (1594–1673) Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange (1877–
Antoine Reginald (1606–76) 1964)
Pedro de Godoy (1608–77) Santiago Ramirez (1891–1967)
Jean-Baptiste Gonet (1616–81)
In his Concordia Tomista, he quotes from these Dominicans as well:
Paolo Soncino (†1494) Jeronimo Vives (†1645)
Diego Deza (1433–1523) Juan Bolívar (fl. 1791)
Bartolomé Carranza (1503–76) Tommaso Zigliara (1833–93)
Matthew Aquarius (†1605) Antoine Marie Dummermuth (1841–
Diego Mas (1553–1608) 1918)
Serafino Capponi a Porrecta (1536– Henri Buonpensiere (1864–1929)
1614)
In fact, he investigated many more figures and texts than he was able to in-
clude in the Concordia, due to its unfinished state, as is evident by comparing its
first and last volumes (the last was unable to include his many references, as the
first volume had done).
It is an easy claim to make that never in the entire history of scholastic the-
ology has any Catholic theologian ever sought to study the mind of his school or
318  Appendix 1
his tradition on a controverted matter in as much depth as Marín-Sola attempted
regarding this question.
Francisco Perez Muñiz, OP (1905–60) was his truest and most worthy disci-
ple.12 To him went the honor of detailing and organizing the diverse positions of
the Thomistic commentators referred to by Marín-Sola, as well as of those who
preceded Cajetan. In the 1950s, he led a series of dissertations at the Angelicum
that dealt with the disputed matters at issue,13 a number of which subsequently
went on to be published.

PROVIDENCE A ND PR EDE STINATION

One of these theses was a study by Rufino Velasco, CMF, on the relation be-
tween God’s providence and predestination.14 As Marín-Sola pointed out at the
very beginning of his first article, this issue is really at the heart of the whole prob-
lematik.
Velasco begins by noting that Thomas’s position on the relation between
providence and predestination is clearly given in both the Sentences (I, 39, 2, 2 and
I, 46, 1, 1) and De veritate (6, 3): the first bespeaks an order to an end, whereas the
second adds to this the execution or accomplishment of an end. Both possess in-
fallible knowledge: providence, the knowledge of the order to an end; predesti-

12. In addition to his works referred to in n. 2 in the Conclusion, his main works were
(1) “Existencia y necesidad de una ciencia metafisica,” Revista de Filosofia 1 (1942): 215–55; (2) “La
‘quarta via’ de Santo Tomás para demonstrar la existencia de Dios,” Revista de Filosofia 3 (1944):
386–433, and 4 (1945): 51–101; and (3) “El constitutivo formal de la persona creada en la tradición
tomista,” La Ciencia Tomista 68 (1945): 5–89 and 70 (1946): 201–93. His one work translated into
English is his brief but trenchant The Work of Theology (Washington, D.C.: Thomist Press, 1953).
For a brief notice on his life, see Diccionario de Historia Ecclésiastica de España, vol. 3 (Madrid: In-
stituto Enrique Flores, 1973), 1970. He was a colleague of Garrigou-Lagrange at the Angelicum,
where he taught from 1935 to 1959.
13. Here are some of the theses he directed that bore on this question, in chronological
order, and their relevant citation (or notes in this chapter where they are cited): 1950—Mar-
cus Manzanedo on Asturicense (n. 3); 1951—Laurentius Noël on actual grace, as second reader
(De natura gratiae operantis actualis), and José M. Hidalgo on Liguori’s doctrine on actual grace
(Doctrina alphonsiana acerca de la acción de la gracia actual eficaz); 1953—Winifried Bocxe,
OESA, on the Augustinians’ doctrine of actual grace (Introduction to the Teachings of the Italian
Augustinians of the 18th Century on the Nature of Actual Grace); 1958—Rufino Velasco on provi-
dence and predestination (n. 14); Luciano González de la Fuente on the effects of predestina-
tion (n. 28), R. D. Felicis Gerbino on the antecedent will in early scholasticism (n. 37), J. J. Mi-
chael Reckman on the presence of futures to eternity (n. 47), and Joseph Nguyen Tri-An on the
preparation for grace (De praeparatione ad gratiam apud Divum Thomam). Other theses bore on
it, but less directly.
14. R. Velasco, CMF, “Providencia y Predestinación: Estudio positivo de una cuestión dis-
putada en la Escuela Tomista,” Revista Española de Teologia 21 (1961): 125–51 and 249–87.
 The Thomistic Commentators   319

nation, of the end itself as well. Thus, while the end of predestination is infallibly
attained, this is not true of every order of providence; rather, not everything or-
dered to a particular end by providence infallibly attains its end. Because Thomas
so clearly teaches this in these early texts, and no doubt because the Sentences re-
mained the main teaching text throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
it was the common teaching of early Thomists that not every end of providence
was infallibly attained. This is the doctrine of Annibale of Annibaldi (†1272), Pi-
etro of Tarantase—Blessed Innocent V (1225–76)—Giles of Rome (1246–1313),
Hervé Natalis (†1323), John of Naples († c. 1336), Gerard of Siena (†1336), Leon-
ard of Pistoia (fl. 1342), Robert Holcot (†1349), Capreolus, Soncino, Juan de
Torquemada (1420–98), and Deza.15 In fact, Capreolus consciously used Thom-
as’s earlier and later texts on this matter interchangeably.16 Velasco himself de-
fends this decision, noting that Thomas uses an equivalent distinction, regard-
ing the orders of grace and predestination, in his teaching on the “Book of Life”
in the Summa theologiae.17 It is hardly surprising, then, that when Cajetan held
that Thomas came to deny his earlier position on this issue, Silvester Mazzolini
de Prierio (1456–1523) should have exclaimed: “Mirum est quod hactenus nullus ex
discipulis divi Thomae viderit illam contradictionem!”18
Velasco supports this exclamation, noting that none of the concordances that
list the positions Thomas later abandoned list this as one such.19 Earlier com-
mentators also give the reason for this distinction: the sin caused by free creatures
opposes the order of providence founded in God’s antecedent will, thereby im-
peding the end of their salvation.20
Here, as with his views regarding the supposit, Cajetan changed his mind. In
his commentary on the Sentences, he unequivocally endorsed the common dis-
tinction.21 He then changes his position, holding that Thomas altered his view
and for the better. And he also gives the reason for this being so: since all provi-
dence derives from the consequent will of God, and since this infallibly attains its
end, so does every end of providence.22
As noted, Cajetan was immediately opposed on this point by Silvester Prie-

15. Ibid., 143–51. 16. Ibid., 149–50.

17. Ibid., 140–41. 18. Ibid., 142.
19. Ibid., 249, n. 65. He lists six such, ending with Prierio’s own. For a reference to some
of these concordances, see Friedrich Stegmüller’s Reportorium commentariorum in Sententia Pe-
tri Lombardi, 2 vols. (Würzburg: F. Schöningh, 1997), 1:405–707. One of the changes Thomas
made that was frequently noted concerned the need for actual grace to prepare for sanctifying
grace: see ibid., 406.
20. Velasco, “Providencia y Predestinación,” 143–51. All the earlier commentators cited
make this point.
21. Ibid., 249, n. 65; so Cajetan in In I Sent., d. 40, fol. 127–28.
22. Cajetan, In Summa theologiae I, 20, 1.
320  Appendix 1
rio. Ferrariensis likewise objected,23 noting that providence, like predestination,
does always infallibly attain its effect, but this is simply an order to, and not the
attainment of, an end. And, against Cajetan, Ferrariensis insisted that the ante-
cedent will refers to an end (i.e., salvation) and that providence thus really or-
ders some to an end that is not obtained. He expressly holds that providence
orders things fallibly and infallibly to respective ends. Yet the authority of Ca-
jetan was such that his changed opinion thereafter split the Thomist school—
as did his doctrine on the supposit. The following agreed with Cajetan: Bañez,
Asturicense, Giovanni Domenico Montagnolo (†1610), Alvarez, Lemos, Raf-
fael Ripa (1569–1611), Nazari, Estius, Silvius, Goudin, Contenson, and Vicenzo
Gotti (1664–1742). The following opposed Cajetan and agreed with Capreolus
and those before him: González de Albeda, Xantes Mariales (1580–1660), the
Salmanticenses, Serra, Juan Baptiste de Lezana (1586–1659), Godoy, Gonet, Vi-
cente Ferre (†1682), Montalván, and Billuart. One can see that almost all of those
who followed Cajetan were opposing Molinism (Bañez, Alvarez, Lemos, Mon-
tagnuolo, Nazari, Ripa, Estius, and Silvius), whereas the majority of those who
returned to the earlier position were also opposing Jansenism (Godoy, Gonet,
Ferre, Montalván, Billuart). If one were to summarize the entire Dominican tradi-
tion on this question, one could say that it commonly held that Thomas’s doctrine
was consistent regarding the distinction between providence and predestination,
except that, for about one hundred years—and just during the time of the de auxi-
liis controversy—some of its most important figures held that he had abandoned
his earlier view. These were ever opposed (e.g., Cajetan by Prierio and Ferrarien-
sis, Bañez by González and the Salmanticenses), but Cajetan’s authority was suf-
ficiently great as to prevent Thomistic unanimity thereafter.24
We should note that this matter essentially concerns the reprobate. The usu-
al discussion is not whether they are ordered to salvation, since their nature and
the graces they may receive obviously so order them. The precise issue is why
they do not attain that end: is that due to God’s providence or is that not due
to God’s providence, but rather opposed to it, in some sense? The position Ca-
jetan initiates ends by holding that free creatures can attain no more nor less than
God’s providence provides. The more common Dominican position holds that

23. Velasco, “Providencia y Predestinación,” 254–59.

24. It is Bañez’s endorsement of Cajetan that leads to others following his lead, precisely
during the Molinist controversy. He himself recognized that this went against the earlier view,
but he claimed that “universi doctores graves nostri temporis” held this opinion (one that he
notably defended in 1584, before the Molinist controversy): see his In I, 22, a. 1 (ibid., 263). He
never identified these “doctores graves.” M. M. Gorce, OP, has noted the kinship between Ca-
jetan’s and Bañez’s positions on the infallible efficacy of God’s providence in “Cajetan: Précur-
seur de Catharin et de Banès,” Revue Thomiste 39 (1934–35): 371–99. (This is a special volume of
the Revue Thomiste, added in that year and dedicated to works on Cajetan.)
 The Thomistic Commentators   321

free creatures can obtain less than God’s providence provides, since, by their sin,
they impede an order that otherwise would have accomplished more in them
than it in fact does. Cajetan’s position must end by saying that creatures can do
more or less in sensu diviso, but not in sensu composito: that is, given God’s gov-
ernance (i.e., motion). The other position can affirm without equivocation that
some can and do attain less in sensu composito (or as moved in God’s governance)
and that they could have attained more in sensu composito; for their failure—or
the impediment to an end being attained (be it noted, something entirely nega-
tive, a non-being)25—does not derive from, nor is it based on, God’s providence,
which, instead, actively orders them to an end that is not attained by virtue of
their free impediment.
Also note that one can find some followers of Cajetan (e.g., Alvarez) who
even affirm that the reprobate are not ordered to salvation, but principally to the
good of the elect and the manifestation of God’s justice.26 By contrast, this posi-
tion is opposed by those of the other position (e.g., González), who argue that
the grace received by the reprobate in itself orders them to salvation, which they
would obtain save that they impede it by their sin. Furthermore, González ar-
gued that only thus could one defend Thomas’s affirmation that creatures, by sin-
ning, move themselves from one order of providence to another.27
When Marín-Sola argued, then, that there is a fallible order of God’s provi-
dence, which can be impeded from obtaining its particular end due to man’s sin,
he affirmed nothing new. Rather, he was simply following the more common Do-
minican position, one that was unanimously taught by the first Thomists through
Capreolus, inclusive of Cajetan’s earlier view, that was defended against Cajetan
by both Prierio and Ferrariensis, and—save for most of the theologians involved
in the dispute with Molina—remained the position Dominicans commonly
taught thereafter, and, in particular, after Jansenism.

THE EFF ECTS OF P R EDE STINATION

There is a cognate dispute in the Thomistic school concerning the effects
of predestination. Here, the dispute concerns not the reprobate, but the predes-
tined. At issue is whether all of the effects that order them to salvation are the di-
rect effect of their predestination, and thus “elicited” by it, or whether some of
the effects in them are caused by a supernatural providence common to the elect
and non-elect, effects that are directed or “imperated” by God’s predestination to

25. These words of Annibaldi are to the point here: “deficere potest per seipsum, a solo autem
Deum indeficientiam habet” (In I Sent. d. 40, q. 1, a. 1, as quoted by Velasco, “Providencia y Pre-
destinación,” 143).
26. Ibid., 270; so Alvarez in De auxiliis divinae gratiae, bk. 4, disp. 30, ad 2.
27. Ibid., 275–76; so González in In I, q. 22, a. 1, disp. 63, sect. 3.
322  appendix 1
their final salvation. Muñiz directed another thesis on this matter: in 1958, by Lu-
ciano González de la Fuente, OP. It was published that very year out of the Ange-
licum (giving Muñiz’s name, as moderator).28
González begins by noting that providence bespeaks a command, whereby
God directs or orders a creature to its respective end.29 As such, it supposes a will
or desire of such an end (since command presupposes such: one commands only
something that one wants). Then González notes the same point that Velasco
made regarding Thomas’s teaching on the “Book of Life”: people can be ordered
to eternal life simply or absolutely (the predestined) or not simply, but secundum
quid (those who receive grace, even if not saved). Those who are not must still be
so ordered by virtue of God wanting their salvation in a qualified sense or secun-
dum quid.30 This will, then, is supposed by this order of providence and is the ba-
sis for their receiving the graces they do. Since both this will and the providence
based on it are the basis for the donation of grace in the reprobate, the question is
raised whether this can also be the case for some of the graces of the predestined.
In that case, not all the graces they receive need be the “elicited” (or direct) ef-
fect of their predestination. Rather, some can be the direct effect of a providence
founded on God’s conditioned will, and the goods these graces accomplish can
then be directed to their final salvation by their predestination, or be “imperated”
by it.
If this seems somewhat strange, that is because (as González explains) there
are two ways of conceiving predestination: “reduplicative” or “specificative.”31 In
the first way, one is conceiving predestination in terms of what is exclusive to it
alone. In the second way, one is conceiving it as including every benefit that leads
the predestined to his end. Now, Thomas always (from the beginning of his ca-
reer)32 conceives of the predestined in the second way; that is, he is always sup-
posing one who finally perseveres and is saved, and is conceiving his predestina-
tion as including all the goods that God eternally destined to achieve this end. As
a consequence, Thomas never directly examines this question; that is, he never

28. Luciano González de la Fuente, OP, Distintas Maneras de Concebir y Catalogar los Ef-
fectos de la Predestinación en la Escuela Tomista (Rome: Angelicum, 1958), 216 pages. The work
is particularly valuable for including many of the Thomists’ texts in an appendix, texts often dif-
ficult to find.
29. Ibid., 1. 30. Ibid., 5–6.
31. Ibid., 10.
32. I mention this fact because, in his early career, as we had occasion to see in the After-
word, Thomas clearly supposes an order of providence based upon the antecedent will and ef-
fects that follow from this that can order one to salvation (since he holds, in his earlier work,
that one can prepare for grace through a natural operation, a position he later retracts); nev-
ertheless, even in his early work, he has a “specificative” concept of predestination. Not having
a “reduplicative” concept of predestination, then, does not depend upon his switch regarding
preparation for grace or any possible shift in his view of the antecedent will.
 The Thomistic Commentators   323

supposes a predestined absent his final perseverance, or in abstraction from this

(thus, simply in via, side-by-side with someone who will not persevere), in order
to ask: is the eternal basis for the grace each receives different or not? Thus, this
question, which the commentators go on to discuss, is foreign to the way he con-
ceives this matter.
In fact, the earlier commentators (despite their teaching on the difference
between providence and predestination) also do not directly raise this question.
It is an analysis of Cajetan that gives rise to the distinction. In the Summa (III,
1, 3), when speaking of the motive for the Incarnation, Thomas took the occa-
sion to remark that predestination supposed the foreknowledge of future events
(“praedestinatio supponit praescientiam futurorum”),33 and thus that God “pre-
destined the work of the Incarnation to be the remedy of human sin” (supposed
as foreseen). From this, Cajetan argues that the eternal predestination of the pre-
destined supposes created things it orders to the end of salvation. For example,
predestination supposes the soul of the predestined, and, in general, all the ef-
fects of the natural order, as well as sin.34 By contrast, other effects in the predes-
tined are constituted by their predestination (and thus are not supposed by it).
For Cajetan, this included all the graces they receive (thus, anything of the strict-
ly supernatural order). What Cajetan refers to as “constituted,” later commenta-
tors come to refer to as “elicited,” and what he refers to as “ordered,” they come to
refer to as “imperated.”
Once this distinction is made by Cajetan, later commentators discuss (and
disagree) among themselves as to which effects in the predestined are proper to
predestination, and which are presupposed and ordered by it. Bañez follows him
in holding that all the graces received are proper effects of predestination, nature
alone being presupposed by it. Zumel agrees, explicitly holding vocation and jus-
tification, as well as final perseverance and glorification, to be the proper effects
of predestination. Likewise, Estius and Silvius hold that the first effects, even
though common to the reprobate, possess a different basis in the predestined
(namely God’s absolute and efficacious salvific will). In a similar way, others writ-
ing at the time of the de auxiliis dispute hold that all the graces a predestined re-
ceives are based on his or her predestination: thus Asturicense, González, John
of St. Thomas, Araujo (1580–1664), Ferre, and Gotti.35 By contrast, a number of
Thomists came to hold that the proper and elicited effect of predestination is fi-
nal perseverance (and glorification) alone, and that predestination supposes not

33. This is not an isolated text. He makes the same point, and uses the same language, in
another late text: “Deus praedestinavit homines habens scientiam futuri eventus” (Quodlibet 5, 5, 1).
34. Fuente, Distintas Maneras de Concebir y Catalogar los Effectos, 41; so Cajetan, In III, q.
1, a. 3.
35. González discusses all the men who follow Cajetan’s lead in this way in chs. 3 and 4,
46–107.
324  appendix 1
only effects of nature, but even effects of grace shared with the reprobate: thus
Serra, the Salmanticenses, Godoy, Gonet, Goudin, Montalván, and Billuart.36
As one can see, these are Thomists who fought not only Molinism, but Jansen-
ism. For both groups, all the graces in the predestined can be said to be its effects,
but the first group holds all are so as to both their substance and their ordination,
whereas the latter holds some are so only regarding their ordination.
This summary is not exhaustive, nor does it include all the figures González
mentions, because its main aim is limited to placing Marín-Sola’s view in the con-
text of the Dominican tradition. While it is not a central point of his doctrine (as
he himself says), he nevertheless defended the view of the later commentators that
predestination supposes the foreknowledge not only of the effects of nature, but
also of the graces common to the predestined and the reprobate. He holds that it
is precisely the persevering character of grace that is the proper effect of predes-
tination or that it is one’s final act of saying “yes” to God that renders all the ef-
fects of the graces that precede it to be finally and perfectly efficacious (or, in the
case of one in sin, revives their previous merits, as with the “good thief ”). In saying
this, he is again saying nothing original. Rather, he is merely siding with one group
of commentators since Cajetan (among whom are many figures of real stature):
namely, the group that argued against not only Molinists, but also Jansenists.
Although this is the main point to be made, there is another, and that is the
coherence between the history of this debate and the former one. In effect, while
the earlier Thomists do not discuss the distinction that derives from Cajetan, the
direction of their own thought is clear: that is, the “dividing line” they draw is
between providence, whose particular ends can be impeded, and predestination,
whose end cannot. Now, both the reprobate and the predestined are ordered to
salvation in a way that they both can, and sometimes do, impede by their sin;
whereas, predestination infallibly causes its end because it infallibly causes final
perseverance in grace. We see, then, that the same basic picture emerges as be-
fore, for, implicitly, the earlier Thomists held that the most proper or “elicited” ef-
fect of predestination is final perseverance in grace. This, then, is (either implic-
itly or explicitly) the common position of Thomists both prior to Cajetan and
after the Jansenist controversy. Whereas Cajetan, Bañez, and those who followed
Bañez held that the predestined were distinguished from the reprobate not only
by the gift of final perseverance, but by their whole life of grace, which they re-
ceived on a different basis from the reprobate, namely by God’s effective will to
save them (and not the reprobate).
We can see from this that, at root, the whole difference between the more
common Dominican position and the one defended by Cajetan and Bañez lies in
understanding just what Thomas intends by a will secundum quid, rather than by

36. González discusses all these men in ch. 5, 112–49. Throughout, he shows his preference
for them.
 The Thomistic Commentators   325

a will simpliciter. For, if the first is a true will that grounds means to the end of sal-
vation (albeit, again, means secundum quid), then it would seem that it might also
be the basis for the ordinary graces that the predestined have in common with
the reprobate. On the other hand, if it does not ground such means or does not
truly order one to salvation, then all of God’s graces for the predestined must de-
rive from the consequent, and absolute, will to save them. Clearly, then, one also
needs to examine Thomistic teaching on the antecedent will.

THE A NTECEDENT WIL L

As a matter of fact, Muñiz again directed (in 1958) a further dissertation on
this very question. This thesis, of R. D. Felicis Gerbino,37 while never published,
is worth studying. In fact, as its title suggests, he covers an enormous number of
commentators, more than one hundred, many not Thomists (and a number of
them from unpublished manuscripts). The brief summary here is mainly con-
fined to the Thomists, and to those who are not too obscure. In fact, the central
points of his history (that is, of the reception of Damascene’s distinction by West-
ern theologians) can be found scattered elsewhere in the literature;38 but his the-
sis has the merit of bringing them together to make the entire history plain.
The first to refer to the two wills in terms of simpliciter and secundum quid
was William of Auxerre, who identifies the latter with the phrase quantum in se
est.39 Alexander of Hales follows him, comparing the antecedent will to the sun’s
light: “it is similar to light which, insofar as it is concerned [quantum in se est] il-
lumines all, but a thing is nevertheless not illumined due to some impediment on
its part.”40 He takes the antecedent will as referring to our rational nature, capable
by its constitution of reaching beatitude, and holds that it is a true will, of bene-

37. Fr. R. D. Felicis Gerbino, “Il Concetto di Voluntá Antecedente Tra I Teologi Dall’Inizio
Della Scolastica Al Secolo Decimosettimo,” 235 pages. The thesis can be read through the direc-
tor’s office of the Angelicum.
38. For a brief summary of the positions mentioned in the next paragraph, as well as me-
dieval views prior to the reception of Damascene (in the late twelfth century), see Fr. Fried-
rich Stegmüller’s inaugural dissertation at Albert-Ludwigs University in Freiburg im Breisgau,
Die Lehre Von Allgemeinen Heilswillen In Der Scholastik Bis Thomas Von Aquin (Rome: Cuggiani,
1929), especially the final chapter (46–61).
39. Gerbino, “Il Concetto di Voluntá Antecedente,” 18: “est simile de luce, quae quantum
in se est omnes illuminat, nec tamen illuminatur propter aliquid impedimentum ex parte ipsorum.”
This is the exact language of Chrysostom: “The Word enlightens all men, ‘as much as it is in
Him’[‘quantum in ipso est’]. . . . His grace is spread over all the world” (In John 1, 9, Homily VIII,
Migne 59, col. 65, and 49, col. 401 and 405). Thomas quotes Chrysostom’s words in his Catena
aurea (In John, ch. 1, #11) as “illuminat igitur omnem hominem quantum ad eum pertinet.”
40. Gerbino, “Il Concetto di Voluntá Antecedente,” 19; so Alexander (Summa, P. I, Inq. I,
Tract. 5, sect. 2, q. 3, c. 6).
326  Appendix 1
placitum.41 Bonaventure follows his teacher and notes that it is efficacious as re-
gards ordaining means to the end (of salvation), although it can be inefficacious
as regards the end; thus, it is a “conditioned” will (In I Sent 46, a. 1). Albert the
Great has the same view (Summa, tract. 20, q. 79), although he reverses his terms,
preferring to speak of the antecedent will as an “absolute” one. In his Sentences,
Thomas follows the previous doctors and clarifies his terms in a way that nev-
er changes: the antecedent will is one of beneplacitum; it refers to man’s nature,
and thus as taken “absolutely,” and not with all its conditions; it is a will secundum
quid and indicates that, insofar as God is concerned (quantum in se est), he wills
salvation for all (since all possess a nature made for salvation). Likewise, in the
Sentences and throughout his career, he makes plentiful use of Alexander’s meta-
phor of the sun to refer to God’s will to illumine and save, whose effect is not al-
ways attained, due to sin’s impediment.
What is again striking, in the light of what we have seen before, is the his-
tory of this term in Thomas’s commentators. As before, his earliest followers do
nothing more than repeat the distinctions he so clearly advances in the Sentences:
thus, for example, Hervé Natalis, Robert Holcot, and especially Capreolus. And
it is again Cajetan who alters the previous consensus. No doubt influenced by
what Thomas says in Summa I, 19, 6 ad 1, he holds that the antecedent will is only
a “velleity” and that it is not a true will of beneplacitum, but a will of sign. As some
have seen, Cajetan here seems to import the view of Scotus into the Thomist tra-
dition.42 Once again, Prierio immediately challenged him, and, once again, his
authority quickly divided later Thomists. The difference between a true (albe-
it qualified) will to save and an inefficacious wish (or metaphorical will) seems
“technical,” but it is obviously of real moment. Cajetan’s view thus led to further
dissension among commentators. Vitoria took the antecedent will to be only a
velleity, whereas Dominic Soto argued it was a true will (taking a velleity not to
be). Pedro Sotomayor († c. 1564), Medina, and Bañez held that it was a will of
sign only, with the latter explicitly denying that there was a will to save the repro-
bate in God formally: it was there only eminently or as a velleity. Asturicense dis-
agreed in part: it was a velleity, but in God formally. A consensus later developed
on this point: it was a true will, of beneplacitum.43 Because the present consensus

41. Ibid., 20.

42. See the comments of Albert Michel, OP, and Martin Ortuzar, OdM, in this work’s
Conclusion, n. 30. As Gerbino details (58), even though Scotus speaks of the antecedent will as
one of “sign,” he still views it as grounding the donation of graces sufficient to save: “vult omnes
salvari et salvos fieri, quantum scilicet est ex parte sui [e.g., “quantum in se est”] et voluntate ante-
cedente, pro quanto dedit eis dona naturalis et leges rectas et adiutoria communis sufficientia ad sa-
lutem” (In I Sent., q. 46).
43. A. Michel, OP, summarizes the view current in his day with these words: “The ante-
cedent will is not a sterile velleity; it is an efficacious will in its genre, in this sense that it pre-
 The Thomistic Commentators   327

holds it is a true will, Marín-Sola taught nothing controversial in teaching this.

(We should note, however, that one might agree with this, but still hold that it
was only a velleity, as Asturicense did. No consensus was reached concerning the
possible difference between a true, albeit qualified, will [a will secundum quid]
and a velleity.) Nor is it controversial that it grounds the donation of graces that
are sufficient to save: again, this is now the common view of the commentators.
Nevertheless, we can see that his own position is very coherent and reaffirms the
consensus prior to Cajetan.
From this brief survey, we see the degree to which Cajetan and Bañez are
consistent in their entire position (it being the mark of intelligence to maintain
consistency throughout difficult material, and these two commentators being
preeminently intelligent). God truly wills to save only the elect; he does not truly
will to save the reprobate, or non-elect, for otherwise they would be saved (since
God’s true will is only infallibly efficacious). Thus, God’s true will being only in-
fallibly efficacious, every end of providence is infallibly attained. And it is God’s
will to save the elect that grounds every donation of the graces they receive; for
whatever gifts of nature or grace the reprobate may receive, these are not based
on a true will to save them, since such a will is only infallibly efficacious.
The “Achilles heel” of the new position Cajetan went on to advance—where
it is most glaringly questionable—is in relation to this final point. As González
argued against Alvarez, in themselves the graces all receive (including the repro-
bate) order all to the end of salvation. Since, ex hypothesis, the reprobate are not
saved, and thus God does not elect to save them, this donation of grace is not
rooted in His unqualified will to save them. In what, then, is it rooted?! God for-
bid that one claim that the reprobate lack the dignity of being an end in them-
selves and are treated only as means to someone else’s end! Or that God gives
the reprobate graces only because he wants to have a better reason for damning
them when they resist these graces!! If so, one would indeed be right to exclaim
“may God protect us from sufficient grace”!!! But this position makes no sense,
being opposed to the very grammar of speaking about God. Any gift received de-
rives from God’s will to give the gift. And, if he wills to give something that or-
ders to an end, or that is a means to that end, that entails a will of the end in some
sense, a sense already commonly specified by all the doctors who first received
this distinction (Alexander, Albert, Bonaventure, and Thomas): it is a qualified
will of the end. It is hard to see how that does not imply a true or formal will in
God, one that grounds the donation of gifts that do truly order one to an end. It
thus cannot be a “velleity” in itself, or without considering the sin that impedes it,

pares for all men, even infants deprived of the use of reason, the indispensable means of sal-
vation”: see “Volonté de Dieu,” Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique (Paris: Letouzey et Ané,
1950), 15:3367.
328  Appendix 1
for a velleity grounds no action: wishing to fly (to use the usual example) leads
to no action, since this end is impossible to attain. Were this the case—that is,
God knew that it was really impossible in itself for the reprobate to be saved (or
supposing only his holy will, and not their sinful one as well)—then his wishing
such an impossible thing could not ground the gift of grace. God’s salvific will
correlates to the order to salvation in the reprobate, which is a true order: an or-
der that, if not impeded by the sin a free creature alone first causes, could truly
lead to that person being saved.
This position—that God’s will to save all is a formal will of beneplacitum that
grounds the donation of graces that order to salvation—is consistent not only
with the present consensus of commentators, but with the condemnations of
Jansenism. For the Jansenists precisely held that God truly wanted to save only
the elect and that his grace irresistibly attained every end for which it was giv-
en. The ordinary Magisterium, in unequivocally condemning these views,44 has
made it clear that God does have a true will to save any who are not saved and
that the interior action of his grace can be resisted (and thus that there are par-
ticular ends of his providence that can be impeded by sin). This, among other
things, is why all of the Thomistic commentators involved in the Jansenist dis-
pute (and seemingly all thereafter) hold that the antecedent will is a true will and
that God gives sufficient graces that can be resisted.
It is sometimes remarked that both Clement XII (in 1730) and Benedict XIV
(in 1748) affirmed that the condemnation of Jansenism was not meant to include a
condemnation of “Thomism” (see Denzinger #2509 and #2564), since “Thomists”
were able to distinguish their position from Jansenism. However, “Thomists” here
cannot be supposed to include all that Thomists held since (as Thomists them-
selves admitted) they held contradictory positions on some of the key points at
issue. In fact, it was just those Thomists involved in the Jansenist controversy—
namely the French Thomists Nicolaï, Gonet, Goudin, Reginald, Bancel, and Mas-
soulié—who had indeed shown that Thomism was distinct from Jansenism just in
underlining that actual sufficient grace was really different from actual efficacious
grace in being impedible. The magisterial teaching, of course, was certainly not
aimed at Bañez, who had been dead for over fifty years! Nevertheless, if the Tho-
mist position on actual, impedible, grace affirmed against Jansenism is to be re-
44. It can be insufficiently underlined that the reason later Thomists developed the po-
sitions they did derived, at least in part, from responding to what the Church condemned in
Jansenism. Thus, having earlier condemned, against Jansen (1653), that interior grace is never
resisted (Denzinger #2002, and likewise #2005), it then went on against Quesnel, in the Bull
Unigenitus (1713), to condemn the following three propositions: “Gratia Christi est operatio ma-
nus omnipotentis Dei, quam nihil impedire potest aut retardare” (# 2410), “Quando Deus vult
salvare animam, quocumque tempore, quocumque loco, effectus indubitalis sequitur volunt”
(#2412), and “Quando Deus vult animam salvam facere et eam tangit interiore gratiae suae
manu, nulla voluntas humana ei resistit” (#2413).
 The Thomistic Commentators   329

jected, it then becomes uncertain how stating that all actual grace is unimpedible
and irresistible can appropriate the solemn teaching of the Magisterium in Unige-
nitus (or at least not without having to respond carefully to real and obvious diffi-
culties).45

THE PHYS ICA L P R E SENCE OF FU TUR E CON T INGE N T S

TO GOD’S ETER NIT Y
Nevertheless, and as again can be seen from comparing the opinions of vari-
ous Thomists previously noted, the innovations Cajetan introduced created a se-
ries of subtly differing views, with Dominicans taking positions that are hard to
reconcile, as they tried to combat Molinism, reject Jansenism, and appropriate as
they thought best the opinions of illustrious commentators, as Cajetan and Ba-
ñez rightly were held to be. Indeed, until Marín-Sola restudied all these issues in
depth and tried to develop a position that would be internally consistent, one can
hardly find a commentator who is so.46 For certain of Cajetan’s positions, even
after some of its key aspects were rejected (e.g., that the antecedent will is only
one of sign or an inefficacious velleity), continued to influence later Thomists.
Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than concerning Thomas’s teaching on
the presence of future contingents to God’s eternity. Again, Muñiz led an unpub-
lished dissertation in 1958, by J. J. Michael Reckman, that studied this teaching.47
Since, again, much of this story can be gleaned from other literature, this
summary will again be brief. The issue involves a dispute made famous by Wil-
liam de la Mare’s Correctorium and the Dominican replies, in their Correctoria.
The matter had already been detailed by Julianus Groblicki.48 There were two
rival ways of explaining God’s foreknowledge of futures: Bonaventure held that
45. As noted in the Conclusion (n. 109), Garrigou-Lagrange recognized the above point,
which is why his doctrine differs from Bañez’s on God’s antecedent will and sufficient grace (al-
though, as noted in the Conclusion, I believe his own effort to combine these ideas with Ba-
ñez’s teaching is unsuccessful). For a careful examination of each of the theses condemned in
Unigenitus, see the Sulpician Jean Carreyre’s article on this bull in the Dictionnaire de Théologie
Catholique (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1950), 15:2060–161. Arnauld himself had argued he was do-
ing nothing more than defending Banez’s position (although this is of course disputable). On
Arnauld, see Jean-Luc Solère’s “Arnauld versus Nicole: A Medieval Dispute,” 127–46, and Rob-
ert C. Sleigh Jr’s. “Arnauld on Efficacious Grace and Free Choice,” 164–75, in Interpreting Ar-
nauld, ed. Elmer J. Kremer (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996).
46. As noted previously (Introduction, n. 35), Guillermin was refreshingly honest in ad-
mitting both the difficulties faced by trying to maintain consistency throughout on these mat-
ters and his own perplexity as to how to do so.
47. J. J. Michael Reckman, OP. “De La Presencia de los Futuros en la Eternidad de Dios
(studio positivo de la cuestión en la tradición tomista),” Angelicum, 1958, 441 pages; again, this
can be read at the Angelicum.
48. Julianus Groblicki, De scientia Dei futuroum contingentia secundum S. Thomam eiusque
330  Appendix 1
they were intentionally present in God’s eternity,49 and Thomas held that they
were also physically or really present to God’s eternity. William attacked this posi-
tion (as did Scotus and many Franciscans) and the Dominicans defended Thom-
as. Because it was such a celebrated dispute, Thomas’s position was universally
defended by early Dominicans, through Capreolus.50 Cajetan famously did so as
well, and at length. And yet Cajetan also said that the divine ideas were intention-
ally present in God’s eternity, and were also infallible means of God’s knowledge,
given God’s determinate will.51 Thus, Cajetan also held that God could possess
an infallible knowledge of future contingents independently of their physical
presence to his eternity. This is, in effect, a concession to Scotus,52 who held that
contingent futures were intentionally present to God’s eternity, and were known
infallibly given his knowledge of his own will.53 Now, it is well known (as Marín-
primos sequaces (Kraków: Jagellon University, 1938), 146 pages. This was originally a thesis at the
Angelicum.
49. Groblicki notes (ibid., 45–52) that this is also the view of Albert. Joseph de Finance, SJ,
makes the same point: see “La présence des choses à l’eternité d’après les scholastiques,” Archives
de Philosophie 19 (1955–56): 25–62, 33 and notes. Thomas explicitly goes beyond his teacher and
his Franciscan confrere.
50. Capreolus had (rightly) argued that contingents are eternally present in the Now of
God’s eternity, and not in a temporal now, and that the former entirely transcends time. All later
commentators follow his position on this.
51. See Cajetan, In Summa theologiae, I, 14, 3.
52. Here is how Friedrich Stegmüller makes this same point in Francisco de Vitoria y la
doctrina de la gracia en la escuela Salamantina (Barcelona: Balmes, 1934): “Cajetan, despite the
outlines [“perfiles”] and affirmations that he made regarding the theory of presence, taken on-
tologically, does not defend the theory of coexistence exclusively. The presence of futures to
God is not only an entitative presence, but also a cognitive presence. More, even: He knows
by an intentional presence, independently of an entitative presence and that in no way suppos-
es it. . . . Cajetan concedes [to Scotus] on this first point . . . [that] the representative property of
the [divine] ideas regarding contingent details is not completely natural and necessary, but free
and hypothetical. For this reason, God knows future contingents in His ideas, on the basis of a
preliminary determination of the divine will. With this, the decretalist theory made its official en-
trance into Thomism. . . . Cajetan, then, followed the same path as Scotus. . . . Despite the obsti-
nate opposition of Cajetan against Scotus, the line uniting Bañez with Scotus passes through Ca-
jetan” (ibid., 18–19); my underlining. Stegmüller’s work importantly details the complex ways
Cajetan’s positions were appropriated and debated at Salamanca in the time leading up to Ba-
ñez, in the work of Vitoria, Cano, Domingo Soto, and Medina. It also usefully includes some
300 pages of texts from Vitoria’s commentary on the Summa that bear on these issues.
53. For a discussion of how these differing views continue to be argued today, see Brian
Shanley, OP’s “Eternal Knowledge of the Temporal in Aquinas,” American Catholic Philosoph-
ical Quarterly 71 (1997): 197–224. He reviews Scotus’s opinion on 200–205. He sums it up as
holding that God knows future contingents through a “knowledge of His own will regarding
the future” (201). Shanley himself comes very close to this when he argues that “God’s knowl-
edge about any contingent fact is a kind of self-knowledge about his will (and his causality) with
 The Thomistic Commentators   331

Sola had noted and as Groblicki details) that Thomas constantly says that God
infallibly knows whatever is present to his eternity,54 but that he also says that
God infallibly knows to whatever his causal power extends. Cajetan’s position
implied that the latter was a sufficient ground of all God’s infallible knowledge.
This idea was destined to have a long history. Bañez will hold that the physical
presence of futures to God’s eternity is necessary for his vision of them to be in-
tuitive, but not for it to be infallible: he expressly says God’s decree is sufficient for
infallible knowledge, even were (per impossible) a thing not present to him (that
is, even were one not to suppose its created term).55 This coheres well with his
view that God’s true will is only infallibly effective. Through Bañez’s influence,
and by virtue of the de auxiliis controversy, it became common for many Tho-
mists to say that God knows things infallibly “in His infallible decrees”: positive
regard to any contingent fact” (216) and when he says that “when Aquinas explains that eter-
nity holds together (continent) or envelops (ambit) time, it is as providing its ultimate origin,
unity, and meaning” (223); for, in both texts, he comes close to reducing the way of contain-
ment and the physical presence of things to God’s eternity to the way of causality. He even says
that God’s “scientia visionis and scientia approbationis are co-extensive; what God knows as hav-
ing real temporal existence is what God wills and causes to have real temporal existence” (217).
This, however, is impossible, for God knows sinful deeds, which have real temporal existence,
but he neither approves nor causes them. Eleanore Stump and Norman Kretzmann noted this
in “God’s Knowledge and Its Causal Efficacy,” in The Rationality of Belief and the Plurality of
Faith (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1995), 99–124, and they challenged him on this
point in “Eternity and God’s Knowledge: A Reply to Shanley,” American Catholic Philosophi-
cal Quarterly 72 (1998): 439–45. However, in “Aquinas on God’s Causal Knowledge: A Reply to
Stump and Kretzmann,” (American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 72 [1998]: 447–57), Shanley
explained that his earlier statement referred only to God’s knowledge of the being and goodness
he causes, and not to evil. In fact, Shanley seems to defend the position Marín-Sola earlier held,
namely that God’s knowledge is based on his eternity and will together.
54. For the texts detailing his consistent doctrine here, see my God’s Permission of Sin,
461–69. (See, as a particularly fine example, his penultimate work: his letter to Bernard, abbot
of Montecassino.)
55. See Finance, “La présence des choses,” 53–54: thus Bañez, Commentaria in Iam partem,
q. 14, a. 13. For the varying opinions in the Dominican school of Salamanca prior to Bañez, see
Stegmüller, Francisco de Vitoria y la doctrina de la gracia, 22–36. For a comparison of Capreolus
and Cajetan with Bañez and those who later follow him, also see Friedrich Smitt, MSF’s thesis:
Die Lehre Des Hl. Thomas von Aquin vom Göttlichen Wissen des Zukünftig Kontingenten bei Seinem
Grossen Kommentatoren (Nijmegen: Centrale Drukkerij N.V., 1950), 202 pages. It is hard to find
contemporary defenders of Bañez’s position on this point. To my knowledge, the only one to
defend it (apart from Garrigou-Lagrange) was M. Matthijs, OP: see his “De ratione certitudi-
nis divinae scientiae circa futura contingentia,” Angelicum 13 (1936): 493–97, especially 494–95.
(He wrote this, however, before Groblicki wrote his Angelicum thesis, two years later.) Even
Garrigou-Lagrange’s older colleague at the Angelicum, Edouard Hugon, held otherwise, and
he was followed in this by Albert Michel, OP, in “Science de Dieu,” Dictionnaire de Théologie
Catholique, 14b:1612.
332  Appendix 1
of good acts and “permissive” of sinful ones. God could know creatures in know-
ing His own mind and will alone: there was no absolute necessity for things to
exist for God to know them infallibly.
There was another way to interpret Thomas. On this interpretation, the
physical presence of futures to God’s eternity is a necessary condition of his in-
fallible knowledge, and it is so at least because of sin. It cannot be said that God
knows sin “because He knows what He causes” (that is, “decrees”), because he
does not cause sin. That is a principle reason why the physical presence of things
is needed to explain God’s infallible knowledge. To know merely “in His decree”
ends by making God the cause of sin, and to speak of such a decree as “only per-
missive” cannot avoid this conclusion (as we have seen in the Conclusion). But
that something exists in the future supposes his causality (which is why Thom-
as also mentions this); for only free negation and privation (i.e., defect) is not
caused by God, yet defect exists only in the good that he does cause. Thus, God’s
causality (that is, his decree) is also necessary to Thomas’s explanation; yet it
need not be a causality that is infallible in itself, or in abstraction from its created
term. In short, the correct interpretation of Thomas’s position is that both causal-
ity and presentiality are necessary to ground infallible knowledge, not that either
is. Thomas always gives presentiality, because it holds universally (in relation to
evil and to good), and because it implicitly supposes his causality; and the reason
why he does not always make use of this latter is because it is true only of all the
good that exists, but not of sin.
In hindsight, it appears likely that, had Cajetan not introduced his disput-
ed alterations, no controversy de auxiliis would have occurred, for, had Molina
or someone else argued for a theory of coordinate causality, simultaneous con-
currence, and scientia media, a simpler alternative could have been given within
distinctions traditional to Thomists. God truly wills, albeit secundum quid, that free
creatures be saved, and moves them in accord with this, giving them graces that
may or may not attain a particular end, since the free creature is moved in a way
that respects its defectibility. (It is just this essential part of Thomas’s solution to
these difficulties—that a free creature is defectible, e.g., “deficere et non deficere”—
that is muted in Bañez’s position in the de auxiliis controversy.) And, if a crea-
ture does fail under God’s motion, and thus withdraws itself from one order of
God’s providence to another, de-acting (deagendo), God still knows this failure
infallibly, and without change, because all things are present to his eternity and
thus are known infallibly. It is his knowledge as eternal, not some imagined sci-
entia media (nor “permissive decree”!) that Thomas mainly uses to explain this
matter. Here (as with “deficere et non deficere”), Thomas incorporates a point that
does not derive from Augustine (but that he here clearly takes from Boethius,
as Groblicki had noted),56 in what remains his otherwise thoroughly Augustin-

56. Groblicki, De Scientia Dei Futurorum, 40–44. (Thomas’s position on man as one who
 The Thomistic Commentators   333

ian account. One should not posit a “negative, permissive decree” (i.e., “negative
reprobation”) to explain the existence of sin, nor is this necessary to explain God’s
infallible knowledge of it. It was the great merit of Marín-Sola to correct the last
remnant of a false step taken previous to the de auxiliis controversy, a remnant
that had been “enshrined” by it, and thereby to return Thomists to the truer posi-
tions previously held.
In sum, and as the review of the commentators made possible through the
guidance of Muñiz makes clear, in truth there is nothing in Marín-Sola’s teach-
ing that is not found in previous commentators. It is now their accepted position
that God’s antecedent will is a true will that is in him formally: a position that
had been their universal view, prior to Cajetan. It is the accepted position of the
commentators that a will secundum quid grounds the donation of salvific means:
a position that was always the more common one. It is the accepted view that
these graces are sufficient, but can be impeded: a view that seems to be univer-
sally held since Jansenism. It is the more common opinion that particular ends of
God’s providence may not be attained (due to the impediment of sin): the univer-
sal view prior to Cajetan and following the condemnation of Jansenism. Even his
teaching regarding final perseverance as the proper effect of predestination is a
common opinion, especially since Jansenism. Finally, it is the more common opin-
ion that God’s infallible knowledge of future contingents supposes their physi-
cal presence to his eternity: a position universally held prior to Cajetan (and not
only was it so held through Capreolus, but it was then even a Dominican “badge
of honor,” defending Thomas against the Franciscan attack of the Correctorium);
save exceptionally, it is now held by all. Marín-Sola only noted that there is thus
no necessity to require an infallible decree as the means of God’s infallible knowl-
edge; that therefore God’s negative reprobation always supposes a creature’s im-
pediment to grace; and that one can thus unequivocally affirm that it is the crea-
ture who first rejects God: he never abandons anyone who relies on him with
and by the grace he has given. Marín-Sola was thus completely accurate in claim-
ing that he had only organized the teachings of previous commentators to render
their teachings coherent and thus to be able better to answer objections against
Thomism.

is able to fail or not [“deficere et non deficere”], impede or not impede the reception of God’s
grace, seems to be his personal appropriation of Dionysius’s dictum that God’s governance always
accords with, or saves, the nature of creatures. See, on this point, the Afterword, n. 49.) For a
contemporary account that supports God’s eternity as integral to Thomas’s account of God’s
infallible knowledge, see John F. Wippel’s “Divine Knowledge, Divine Power, and Human Free-
dom in Thomas Aquinas and Henry of Ghent,” 243–70, in his Metaphysical Themes in Thomas
Aquinas (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1984).
 Appendix 2

THE SPANISH ADDITIONS TO THE

SECOND ARTICLE

These “additions” were printed by La Ciencia Tomista directly following the

last page of Marín-Sola’s second article (or so they appear in a version of it held
in the Dominican archives in Avila). Nevertheless, these additions appear to have
arrived too late to be distributed in the published version of La Ciencia Tomista.
I have translated them in this book, and I include the Spanish original here, since
it has not (to my knowledge) been published. As I noted when I translated them,
Marín-Sola here uses boldface, not his usual practice: this represents his greatest
emphasis.

a) Para mayor claridad, puede condensarse en forma escolástica todo nuestra

respuesta a la objeción quinta (pp. 42–52) en las siete proposiciones siguientes;
1a Para que una cosa puede ser infaliblemente conocida en el tiempo, basta el
que esa cosa exista realmente o de hecho en el tiempo.
2a Es así que para que una cosa exista realmente o de hecho en el tiempo, no
hace falta que haya sido causada con causalidad infalible o inimpedible, sino que
basta el que haya sido causada con una causalidad falible o impedible de hecho,
con tal que de hecho no haya sido impedida.

334
 Spanish Additions   335

3a Luego para que una cosa puede ser conocída infaliblemente en el tiempo,
no hace falta que haya sido causada con causalidad infalible o inimpedible, sino
que basta el que haya sido causada con causalidad falible o impedible, pero no
inpedida de hecho.
4a Subsumo: es así que la causalidad divino es lo que llamamos decreto divi-
no.
5a Luego para que una cosa exista realmente o de hecho en el tiempo, y sea
conocída infaliblemente en el tiempo, no se requiere decreto infalible o inimpe-
dible, sino que basta decreto falible o impedible, con tal que de hecho no haya
sido impedido.
6a Subsumo de nuevo: es así que lo que basta para que una cosa exista en el
tiempo, basta tambíen para que esa cosa esté presente a la eternidad y sea conocida
infaliblemente por Dios desde toda la eternidad.
7a Luego para que una cosa sea conocida infaliblemente por Dios desde
toda la eternidad, no hace falta decreto infalible o inimpedible, sino que basta de-
creto falible o impedible, pero de hecho no impedido.
Examine nuestro objetante serenamente esas siete proposiciones, y verá que
todas ellas son profundamente tomistas. Con ellas queda plenamente resuelta
la objeción de cómo, con decretos falibles o impedibles, con tal que sean eternos,
cabe en Dios presciencia infalible. Con solo poner decretos divinos para todo fu-
turo contingente, y decretos divinos infalibles para los futuros contingentes de la
providencia especial, a la cual pertenecen la predestinación y la perseverancia fi-
nal, el tomismo se distingue radicalmente del molinismo. Con solo poner decre-
tos divinos falibles para los futuros contingentes de la providencia general, úni-
ca donde cabe el pecado, el tomismo se distingue radicalmente del calvanismo y
jansenismo. Con ambas posiciones juntas, se salvan todas las tesis fundamentales
del tomismo sobre la predestinación y la gracia, esto es, todas las posiciones refe-
rentes a la linea del bien, y desasparecen a la vez todas o casi todas las objeciones
que el tomismo se hacen en la linea del mal.
b) Al resolver esa misma objeción quinta, de que acabamos de hablar, indica-
mos (pág. 50 [156]) que en la cuestión de si la eternidad era necesaria para la infa-
libilidad de la ciencia divina, no íbamos siquiera nosotros tan lejos como las Sal-
manticenses. Con igual, y aun con mayor razon1 pudiéramos haber indicado que
no íbamos tan lejos como el “princips thomistarum” Capréolo, que dice así:
“Prima conclusio: Quod contingens, ut futurum est, non potest infallibiliter cog-
nosci, sed secundum quod est in praesenti. Istam conclusionem probat sanctus

1. Decimos “con mayor razon,” porque Capréolo no exige decreto infalible, como los
Salmanticenses, para que una cosa pueda estar presente a la eternidad. Pero ambos conviene en
que, sin presencia física en la eternidad, los futuros contingentes no son cognoscibles infalible-
mente por Dios, y eso es lo único que ahora nos interesa. Lo mismo opina el Ferrariense (Contra
Gentes, I, 67). [As is obvious, this is Marín-Sola’s footnote.]
336  Appendix 2
Thomas. . . . Et ideo ad hoc quod actus ejus (voluntatis) futurus certitudinaliter
cognoscatur, oportet quod videatur in se, et non solum secundum esse quod ha-
bet in causa sua.” (Capreolo, Defensiones . . . , in III Sent., dist. 38, q. 1)
Aunque el verdadero sentido de Capréolo no ofrecerá duda para ningún tomista,
no estará de más el confirmarlo con el siguiente párrafo de Alvarez:
“Utrum Deus certo et infallibiliter cognoscat omnia futura contingentia in decreto,
sive in praedeterminatione suae divinae voluntatis?—Circa istam difficultatem
tot fere sunt sententiae, quot capita: sed tres sunt praecipuae, ad quas possunt aliae,
quae circunferuntur, reduci. Prima sententia est Capreoli . . . qui sentit totam ratio-
nem, propter quam Deus certo cognoscit futura contingentia, esse actualem prae-
sentiam quam habent in aeternitate; ita videlicet ut, si tollatur per possible vel im-
possible talis praesentialitas, non posset cognitio Dei, respectu futurorum, esse certa
et infallibilis” (Alvarez, de Auxiliis, disp. 10, no 1, Romae, 1610, pag. 89).
Es más: Bañez mismo, aunque sigue la opinión de que los decretos divinos solos,
aun prescindiendo de la eternidad, bastan para la infalibilidad de la ciencia divi-
na, advierte expresamente que, en esta cuestión, no hay unanimidad, sino diver-
sidad de opiniones, entre los verdaderos discípulos de santo Tomas: “Varie enim
exponitur ab ejus (D. Thomae) discipulis,” y entre ellos nombra expresamente a
Capréolo y al Ferrariense (Bañez, in p. I, q. 14, art. 13, Salmanticae, 1585, p. 515).
La cuestión, pues, de si la presencia de los futuros contingentes en la eternidad es
o no un elemento absolutamente necesario para la infalibilidad de la presciencia
divina, es una cuestión completamente libre dentro del tomismo. Ahora bien, es
evidente que, una vez puesta la presencia en la eternidad, es completamente ac-
cidental para la infalibilidad del conocimiento divino el que esa presencia sea re-
sultado de un decreto infalible o de un decreto falible. Como una vez puesta la
presencia o existencia de una cosa en el tiempo, es accidental para conocerla infa-
liblemente el que sea presencia o existencia haya sido causada con causalidad in-
falible o con causalidad falible e impedible.
c) En la respuesta a la objeción sexta, sobre si cabe o no menor conato con
igual gracia (pág. 52) añadirémos los textos siguientes:
“Hoc quod in baptizatis major vel minor gratia apparet, potest dupliciter
contingere: uno modo, quia unus in baptismo percipit majorem gratiam quam
alius propter devotionem majorem, ut dictum est: alio modo, quia etiamsi ae-
quelem gratiam percipiant, non aequaliter ea utuntur; sed unus studiosius in ea pro-
ficit, alius per negligentiam gratiae Dei deest” (D. Thomas, p. III, q. 69, a. 8 ad 2). “Ex
aequali gratia aliquando magis fervens elicitur motus, aliquando minor, secundum
cooperationem liberi arbitrii” (S. Bonaventura, IV Sent. dist. 16, p. 1, art. 4, q. 1—
Opera omnia, Quaracchi, 1889, tom. 4, p. 394). “Ad evidentiam hujus scito quod
dupliciter assignari potest causa quantitatis charitatis: scilicet simpliciter; et ex sup-
 Spanish Additions   337

positione. Si quaeritur causa simpliciter, sic est sola voluntas Dei dividens singulis
prout vult. Si quaeritur causa ex suppositione voluntatis divinae tamquam aequali-
ter se habentis ad infussionem gratiae, sic causa quantitatis est conatus seu dispositio
proxima. . . . Quod autem, supposita divina voluntate tamquam aequaliter se ha-
bente ad infussionem charitatis, ex parte dispositionis proximae seu conatus at-
tendatur quantitas charitatis, manifestum est” (Cajetanus, 2a 2ae, q. 24, a. 3, no 1).
Que no cabe conato mayor que el grado de gracia recibido, es una afirma-
ción sustancial para el tomismo, y en eso es en lo que el tomismo se distingue ra-
dicalmente del molinismo. Que no quepa conato menor, cuando se trata de gra-
cias suficientes o falibles, es una cuestión libremente discutida dentro del tomismo.

d) En fin, para que el lector vea que esta ampliación o dulcificación que no-
sostros tratamos de introducir en el tomismo moderno, habia sido ya indicada
por verdadero tomistas anteriores a Lemos, copiarémos de este las siguientes pa-
labras:
“Hic ultimo advertendum quosdam Sancti Thomae discipulos distinguere
duplicem bonum usum liberi arbitrii: primum procedentem ab auxilio sufficienti,
et istum dicunt esse non resistere divinae vocationi, sed considerare illam, et sta-
tum, in quo est. Alium magis perfectum bonum usum, qui est ipsa actualis con-
versio in Deum, et actus poenitentiae, et istum dicunt esse effectum auxilii effica-
cis. Ille prior bonus usus, ut ajunt, procedit ab auxilio sufficenti, qui respectu illius
suam habet efficatiam. Haec illorum doctrina est, quae tamen magnas patitur diffi-
cultates” (Lemos, Panoplia, lib. 4, part, 2, tract. 3, cap. 4, no 41).
Las grandes difficultades que opone Lemos a esa concepción de ciertos to-
mistas son las mismas que nos ha opuesto a nosotros nuestro objetante, y a las
que hemos contestado en este articulo. Entre esos “discipulos Divi Thomae” de
que se aparta Lemos, está indudablemente el Ferrariense, quien se expresa así:
“Ad hujus evidentiam considerandum est, quod cum duplex sit auxilium quo
ad beatitudinis consecutionem indigemus, scilicet habitualis gratia, et divina mo-
tio tam intrinsece quam extrinsece facta qua ad bonum dirigimur et ad gratiae
praeparationem excitamur: primum auxilium Deus non omnibus dat, absolute
loquendo, postquam peccaverunt, sed bene omnibus se ad ipsam praeparantibus ex
divina motione concedit: secundum autem auxilium (la premoción o gracia sufici-
ente) omnibus impendit, et nulli quantum ad hoc est absens Deus, cum nullus sit
qui ab eo non moveatur ad bonum et ad gratiae praeparationem, juxta illud Apoc.
III: Ecce sto ad ostium et pulso. Sed quia divina providentia (la providencia general)
unumquodque secundum naturae suae conditionem (esto es, no solo libremente
sino también defectiblemente) gubernat et movet, homo autem est liberi arbitrii,
potestque divinam motionem sequi et non sequi, inde est quod aliqui divinam
hanc motionem sequentes, se ad gratiam praeparant: aliqui vero eam non sequen-
tes, non se praeparant ad gratiam, sed magis impedimentum praestant peccando”
(Ferrariense, contra Gentes, III, 159).
338  Appendix 2
Que ese poder o faculdad de seguir o no seguir la moción divina, esto es, de
no poner o de poner impedimento a ella por el pecado, se limita en la naturaleza
caida a los actos imperfectos, o sea, en cosas fáciles o por poco tiempo, lo expresa a
continuación el Ferrariense per [sic: con] las siguientes palabras:
“Dicitur secundo quod licet possit sigillatim hoc peccatum vitare, et pro
tunc vitare omnia peccata, non tamen semper aut diu hoc potest: et sic non potest
omne peccatum vitare conjunctim” (loc. cit., cap. 160).
Que nuestro objetante siga o deje de seguir esta doctrina de Capréolo, del
Ferrariense, de otros muchos tomistas antiguos, y nuestra, es cuestión secunda-
ria. Lo importante es que conste que esa doctrina, a cuya exposición y amplia-
ción se ordenan nuestros articulos, es una cuestión, como confiesa Lemos, disci-
tida dentro del tomismo: esto es, entre los verdaderos Sancti Thomae discipulos.
 Appendix 3

SOME TRANSLATIONS FROM THE

CONCORDIA TOMISTA

The original of these texts has already been made available to the public in
an appendix to my God’s Permission of Sin (493–527). Since this book seeks to
make Marín-Sola’s work and thought as available as possible to an English audi-
ence, I have decided to give a selection of them, as translated there.1 This will also
help situate my comments in the Afterword of this book and will indicate the de-
gree to which my thought follows his.
The original of the work has not yet been published. As earlier noted, it was
informally made available in two editions, the second of which was distributed to
some Dominican houses and can no doubt be found there.2 The notation here
follows the first edition, upon which the second is based. The latter merely places

1. Attentive readers will note some small changes in this translation. Thus, as one example,
I have adhered to the policy I followed in his articles of translating his ciencia not as “science,”
but as “knowledge.” I have also italicized all Latin passages here (as opposed to ones I add in
brackets), even when he does not. Sometimes, this means that an emphasis is lost, since he itali-
cizes only one of the Latin words; but I have accepted this difference, one always minor.
2. See the Introduction, nn. 44, 70, and 72. These texts are a very limited selection from it.

339
340  Appendix 3
the third book [The Divine Will] after the first [The Divine Knowledge] and before
the second [Reply to Objections], thereby conforming to the author’s intention, as
stated in the work’s introduction. The first edition gives the work as it was writ-
ten, with Marín-Sola’s replies to objections being written before his (incomplete)
treatment of the divine will. The first number below refers to the chapter given in
each book; the second, to a running numeration of sections Marín-Sola gave it
(with the slightly different section numbers from the second edition being given
in brackets); and the third, to the page in the first, typed, edition. Anyone who
has access to the second edition can merely reverse the second and third books
and then find the passage by referring to the section number given in brackets. I
have altered his underlining to italics, in keeping with the style he used in his ar-
ticles. Any capitalization found is from his own text.3 (Italics could not have been
easily supplied either in his handwriting or in the informal typed edition; there
is no difficulty in doing so now.) While I have followed his paragraphing, I have
spaced the paragraphs slightly differently.

B o ok I: The Divine Knowl ed ge

5, 44 [57], 67: The physical presence of things to eternity does not mean to
say, formally or only, that things are present to the intellect of God, insofar as God
knows or sees them, but it means to say, formally and above all, that they are
present to the divine being, and that it is precisely by being present to the being
of God that they are intuitively present to the intellect of God. For this reason,
this signifies not that things are physically present to eternity because God sees
them, but that God sees them because they are physically present to His eterni-
ty, to such an extent that, if we were to take the hypothesis that God, while being
eternity itself, were not intelligent, things would still be present to His eternity,
although not to His intelligence.
8, 106 [123], 210–11: Cardinal Cajetan, in defending Saint Thomas against an
objection of Scotus, observed very profoundly that to require the physical pres-
ence of a future contingent to the eternity of God for the infallibility of the divine
knowledge did not make the divine science receive anything from a contingent
object, which would place passivity and dependence in God, but it was simply
to have the divine knowledge suppose something in the contingent object, which
did not indicate any passivity or dependence in God. It indicated nothing more

3. I thank the Dominicans of the Most Holy Rosary Province in Avila for making their ar-
chives available to me, and thus allowing me to confirm that the typed editions faithfully repro-
duce Marín-Sola’s original text (with no significant errors). The difficulty in putting out a schol-
arly edition of the Concordia Tomista lies in the need to track down his sources to verify them
(something I have not done in this work: I simply give them as he reports them). Many of these
sources are not easily at hand in any library, and it would require much work to verify them.
 Concordia Tomista   341

than that all knowledge, even the divine knowledge, is correlative to being, and
thus infallible knowledge requires determined being. Well then, the contingent or
free being not being able to be determined if it does not exist or is present, and
not being able, before existing in time, to have another existence or other pres-
ence, which is the coexistence or presence to eternity, this indicates that the di-
vine knowledge concerning any contingent, being by its very nature an infallible
knowledge, is correlative to the physical presence of the thing to eternity, without
which there cannot be, in a future contingent, any determined being.
9, 1121 and 1124 [134 and 137], 236–37: The divine ideas being nothing other
than the divine essence known by God as particiable by creatures, it follows that
the means by which God forms or knows His ideas is nothing other than His es-
sence. . . . But as the divine ideas are not identical to the divine essence absolutely
considered, but to the divine essence insofar as known by God as participatable
by creatures, it ought to be said, speaking formally or technically, that the ideas of
God are not the means of knowing, but are the thing known: non sunt id quo cognos-
citur, sed id quod cognoscitur.
9, 1162–1164 [148–49], 260–61 and 266–67: In effect, true knowledge is noth-
ing other than an assimilation or equation between the idea of the knower and the
object known. Thus, a knowledge can be and be called undetermined if either of
the two members of the equation are undetermined; that is, either because the
idea of the knower is undetermined, although the object is determined or because
the object is undetermined, although the idea itself is determined. . . . If, despite
this, the Thomists say that these ideas, before the decree, do not represent any
contingent—that is, nothing futurible, future, or existing—this does not signi-
fy that they do not represent by wont of determination in the divine idea, but by
wont of determination in the contingent object, which cannot be determined be-
fore the divine decree.
9, 1163 [149], 266: The divine ideas, by their nature itself, or independent-
ly of any divine decree, already have as much as is necessary, on the part of the
idea itself, in order to represent and know all the knowable. They are not, then,
ideas that are universal, that is, indeterminate regarding any individual, but they
are most individual and most determined to the last detail and individual note.
9, 122 [168], 308: In effect, it is indubitable that God knows all things by
means of His divine essence; but it is no less indubitable that, knowing all things
in a perfect way, God must know how and where they are, were, or will be. If there
are, then, things that do not exist in themselves, as substances exist, but exist in
other things or subjects, as exist accidents, negations, and privations, it follows
that God must know these things as they are, that is, as existing in other things.
9, 122 [168], 310: The means of vision is and must always be the divine essence;
but the subject of the known object is not the divine essence, but something creat-
342  appendix 3
ed. This subject (objectum materiale in quo) is interposed, or is a means between the
means of knowledge (objectum formale quo) and the object known (objectum quod)
and for this reason is customarily called a means on the part of the known object, in
difference from the divine essence, which is a means on the part of the knower.
9, 125 [171], 334–35: In effect, when we say that the contingent object must be
posterior to the divine causality, because it is a caused object, this is true, but it ap-
plies to the object as already caused, as already made, as already existing, as already
present to the eternity of God. Equally, when we say that the object must be ante-
rior to the divine causality, because the knowledge or science of this object is the
cause or principle of this causality, this is also true, but it applies to this object, or
to the knowledge of this object, not insofar as it already is, or insofar as already
existing, or insofar as present to God, but insofar as fiendus, insofar as intended to
be made, insofar as decreed to be.
Since the science of the object, insofar as an existing object or as present to
the eternity of God, is called the science of vision insofar as vision, and the sci-
ence of the object insofar as fiendus or insofar as being decreed to be made is
called the science of vision insofar as approbation, it clearly results that the sci-
ence of vision insofar as vision, and thus the science or knowledge of the object as
existing, is posterior to the actual divine causation; while the science of vision in-
sofar as approbation and thus the science or knowledge of the object as fiendus or
as decreed to be made, is the beginning of the actual divine causality or is identi-
cal to divine causality and thus is anterior to it or simultaneous with it.
11, 140 [186], 369–70: If the word “because” is taken in the conditional sense,
not causal, and the word “to know” is taken in the sense of “intuitive vision,” one
can say that “God knows (that is, intuitively sees) things because they exist.”
This conclusion is expressly affirmed by Lemos, by Gonet, and by Billuart.
It is founded on the affirmation that the actual being of the effect, or the being
of the effect in itself, or the being of the effect insofar as present to the eternity
of God, although an effect of the divine science of approbation, or of vision in-
sofar as approbation, and thus posterior to it, is nevertheless anterior to the sci-
ence of vision insofar as vision, or insofar as intuition, and therefore is a condition
for it. This doctrine, as Billuart observes, is the best key for resolving the objec-
tions that the Molinists pose against the Thomistic doctrine in this question, and
for resolving at root all the texts of the Holy Fathers in which it is said that “God
knows things because they are and not that they are because God knows them.”
16, 186 [232], 573–75: The relation of this divine duration that is called eter-
nity to the durations of other beings, which are called aeveternity and time, and
to the beings regulated by these durations, is not formally a relation of cause to ef-
fect, but a relation of container to contained, which is the relation that exists be-
tween a greater number and a lesser one or between a pentagon and a tetragon.
 Concordia Tomista   343

Without any causality of the greater on the lesser, the greater contains the lesser.
From which it follows that, if we suppose an existing thing not caused by
God, the divine immensity would not extend to that thing, because, according to
Thomistic doctrine, causality is the formal reason of this attribute of immensity
by which God is most intimate to being. On the other hand, if we suppose that
a thing exists that is not caused by God, the divine eternity would extend to this
thing, that is, this thing would be physically present to God from all eternity, be-
cause, as we have said, the divine eternity, by virtue of being an infinite duration,
contains in its embrace all other durations and beings, and, by being the most
simple or simultaneous duration, not successive, embraces all durations and all
beings in a single most simple nunc from all eternity.
17, 192 [238], 586–88: According to the doctrine of Saint Thomas, sin is noth-
ing other than a physical act deprived of moral order. Thus, the following three
ideas enter into the idea of sin: a) the idea of “physical act;” b) the idea of “priva-
tion of moral order;” c) the idea of the union of these two previous ideas, that is,
the idea that the physical act is the subject of a privation of the moral order.
The first of these three ideas, that is, the physical act in itself, abstracting as
yet from its union with moral privation, or abstracting from its being the subject
of moral privation, is called by Saint Thomas: “that which has entity in sin.” The
Thomists, giving it a name that Saint Thomas never gave it, began to call it “the
material of sin.” But as this word “material” is very ambiguous (since “material”
of something is able to signify “subject” of something, with which the first idea
would be confounded with the third) they ended by calling this first idea “the
material of sin materially considered.” This is equivalent to saying, “the physical en-
tity of the act, abstracting from whether it is the subject of moral privation or ab-
stracting from any connection or union with moral privation.”
The second idea, which is “the privation of moral order” and which is also
wont at times to be called the malice of sin (even though this idea of malice also
enters, as we shall see, into the third idea) is called by the Thomists the formality
of sin.
Finally, the third idea, that is, the physical act insofar as now united to moral
privation, and therefore insofar as it is the subject of moral privation, receives the
name “the material of sin, formally considered.”
Of these three ideas, the first, which is the idea of the physical act, is a com-
pletely good idea, without its concept involving any mixture of malice or immo-
rality. On the other hand, the other two ideas, that is, as much the idea of “priva-
tion of morality” as the idea of “subject of the privation of morality” are morally
evil ideas or involve in their very concept moral malice.
20, 203 [249], 634–35: It is necessary to recall that, although the permission
or the permissive decree is a positive act of the divine will, that is, a true act of di-
vine willing, this positive act does not consist in wanting to cause or to have any-
344  Appendix 3
thing, but it consists in wanting not to cause something God could cause, in want-
ing not to have something God could have had, in willing to let a creature have
some evil God could have avoided that he have, in willing not to impede an act
that God could have impeded; in a word, to want not to give grace or special mo-
tion to a creature in order that it not fall into a sin into which it would not have
fallen had God given it this grace.
20, 203 [249], 635–36: It is also worth noting that, when one says the di-
vine permission consists in not to give grace, this does not mean that it consists
in to give no class of divine grace or motion, but in not to give a special motion
or grace, which is customarily called infallibly efficacious motion or grace. If God
gave no class of motion or grace, that is, if He denied even the general motion,
which is customarily called fallibly efficacious motion or sufficient motion, then
all action of the creature, as much good as evil, would cease ipso facto, and man
would have no responsibility in not acting.
When one says, then, in Thomism, that God denies or does not give to some
certain motions or graces, and that in this not giving consists the permission of
sin, one means that He does not give special motion or infallibly efficacious motion
in order to avoid sin, but one does not mean that He does not give a general or
sufficient motion, whether it be proximately or remotely sufficient.
21, 206 [252], 642–45: In effect, as we have already said above, to permit is
not to move or incline the will to do something, but is simply to let the will act
according to its nature, or according to its proper forces or according to the dis-
positions in which it actually and freely finds itself.
If we suppose, then, that one is treating of a will essentially evil, by its very
nature, as the Manichees assume; or completely dead for the moral good in vir-
tue of original sin, as the Calvinists and Jansenists assume; or completely obsti-
nate in evil by its proper fault, as is the will of the condemned in Hell; then it is
clear that, with simply the permission that this will sin, that is, with simply letting
it act according to its actual state, such a will would sin always and in everything.
Equally, if we suppose a will that—without being completely evil or cor-
rupted or obstinate—has already in fact made, in a particular case, a final practi-
cal judgment without regarding the rule of morality, which is what we intend by
an actual defect anterior to sin, it is also clear that simply by God permitting that it
sin—that is, by simply allowing this will to continue acting according to this de-
fective ultimate practical judgment—such a will infallibly would sin.
On the other hand, if we suppose that the created will is not evil by its very
nature, as it is not; if we suppose that it has not been left by original sin complete-
ly corrupted or completely dead for the honest good, as it has not been left; if we
suppose, finally, that it has not yet formed a defective final practical judgment,
which is what is called the actual defect; then it is also clear that such a created
will can either in fact act well or in fact act badly. God allowing it, then, to act ac-
 Concordia Tomista   345

cording to its nature (which is what is called to permit), it does not follow that it
will act infallibly either well or badly.
Therefore, to affirm that, with God’s permission alone that a created will sins,
this will infallibly sins, is to affirm one of two things: a) that this will is evil of its
very nature, as the Manichees affirm: b) that this will has been left completely
dead for all honest good by original sin. As the first of these two things must be
discarded from the mind of every Catholic theologian, it follows that a Catho-
lic theologian who admits that, with God’s permission alone that a human will sin,
this will infallibly sins in every one of its acts, must admit that this will has been
left completely dead for the honest good by original sin.
31, 287 [334], 856–87: It is enough to observe that, as the divine will and the
divine providence divide into infallible and fallible, thus also must divide into in-
fallible and fallible not only the divine motions, but also the divine permission, be-
cause as much motion as permission are integral acts of divine providence, and
effects of the divine will.
31, 287 [334], 857–88: As . . . one must distinguish well between having a
thing with divine causality and having it with infallible divine causality, so also
one must distinguish between having a thing with divine permission and having
it with infallible divine permission, that is, with a permission from which it fol-
lows infallibly that one has the permitted, and not the contrary. Saint Augustine
and Saint Thomas have affirmed that nothing evil occurs without divine permis-
sion; but they have never affirmed that nothing evil happens without infallible di-
vine permission.
Thus, we do not confound causality with permission, nor the approbative
will with the permissive will, but we simply divide the permission or the permis-
sive will into fallible and infallible, exactly as we divide into infallible and fallible
the causality or the approbative will of God.
In consequence, just as we affirm that nothing good happens without previ-
ous divine causality, but that one can have something good without previous in-
fallible divine causality, equally, and for the same reason, we affirm that no evil
takes place without previous divine permission, but one can have some evil with-
out previous infallible divine permission, that is, infallibly connected with that
which makes this evil.
37, 334–35 [384–85], 1003–5: The essence of the Scientia Media lies . . . in af-
firming that, with only hypothetical decrees (without actual decrees) God is able
to know something contingent, namely the futuribility of free acts. . . . The falsi-
ty of the Scientia Media . . . consists in [this] . . . for, with hypothetical decrees or
with the hypothesis of decrees, no contingent can be, nor, for that reason, can it
be known. The contingent does not have being by itself, but all the being it has,
whether it be existing, future, or futurible, must be caused. Now then, nothing
346  Appendix 3
ever can be caused by means of hypothetical causes, or by means of the hypothe-
sis of causality, whether one treats of the hypothesis of physical causes or the hy-
pothesis of decrees or the acts of the will. . . .
The falsity of the Scientia Media also consists, and perhaps more so, in
. . . mere simultaneous concurrence; because, with only simultaneous concur-
rence, not only can there not be—and thus also can there not be known—any
contingent being, but neither [can there be—and thus neither can there be
known] any necessary being.

B o ok II: R ep ly to Objections 4
10, 403 [718], 129–30: To interpret this Thomistic opinion concerning the
fallibility of providence in the sense that providence is fallible in respect to the
end or good that does not occur, but that it is infallible in relation to the good that
does occur, as our objector wishes, appears to us to be a platitude. In this sense, all
agents are infallible. Every shot at a target is infallible at hitting the target . . . all
the times that it hits it. Every player at the lottery is infallible in winning the lot-
tery . . . all the times that he wins it. But it is not in this sense that one intends the
infallibility of causality. If a thrower aims at the target with true intention of hit-
ting it, and nevertheless is able in fact or in sensu composito to hit it or not to hit
it, then one must affirm that the throw at the target is fallible, which is the same
in the case where he does not hit the target and where he does, for he hits it be-
ing able not to and he does not hit it being able to. Thus, if it is true, as it is, that
the divine general providence includes a true will, although an antecedent will,
to attain certain particular ends, and if it is also true, as it is, that the creature can
in fact or in sensu composito place or not place an impediment to the attainment
of these ends, then one must grant that this divine providence, although not all
providence, is fallible in the attainment of those ends, whether these ends are at-
tained or occur or are not attained and do not occur. This is, in our judgment,
the true sense of the Thomistic opinion that admits the fallibility of divine provi-
dence as regards the execution of a particular end.
27, 505 [819], 380–83: Our objector, in this objection, does not distinguish
between infallibility of fact and infallibility of causality or decree, and jumps tran-

4. The objections to which Marín-Sola replies here were given in a fifty-nine-page pam-
phlet published by Garrigou-Lagrange out of the Angelicum. And Marín-Sola treated it com-
pletely and thoroughly, filling 1,258 pages with his point-by-point reply! (See the Introduction,
nn. 46 and 70.) Many of the objections given are repetitive, and many are hardly to the point.
Thus, only a very few replies are here reproduced. One would have preferred that Marín-Sola
had devoted more of his energy to finishing his own work, rather than taking so much time and
space to reply to these objections, so many of which are truly weak; but then he could not have
known, when he did so, that he would be seriously ill within a year and would be prevented
from finishing his work. He died three years after writing this book, before turning sixty.
 Concordia Tomista   347

quilly from the first to the second, and by this makes his reasoning consist of four
terms, instead of three.
Infallibility of fact is nothing else than the infallible identity that every being
has with its very self. Saint Thomas expresses it at every step with the following
formula: “all that exists, while it exists, exists infallibly.” This is a truth of metaphys-
ical character, essential, independent of every human or divine will. It is a truth
that is outside (praeter) the will of God as are all the essential truths, which de-
pend upon the divine essence and the divine intellect, but not on the divine will.
On the other hand, infallibility of causality, or order, is not the infallible
identity of a thing with its very self, but the infallible connection between an effi-
cient cause and its effect. This infallibility of causality, as everything that pertains
to the order of efficient causality, does not pertain to the essential order, but to the
accidental order. Therefore, it does not depend solely upon the divine essence
and intelligence, as do essential truths, but it depends further upon the divine
will, as depends all the contingent and accidental, and for this reason it cannot
fall outside (praeter), but it falls within, the divine will. That a contingent being
exist depends upon the divine will, although it does not depend upon the divine
will that it be infallible that it exist, while it exists.
When, then, in the major premise of this objection or reasoning, our objec-
tor uses the word infallibility, saying that we admit in God an infallible foreknowl-
edge with a fallible decree, this major is true, and we concede it, if by infallibility
one intends the infallibility of fact, but it is false, and we deny it, if by infallibility
one intends the infallibility of causality or decree. . . .
Therefore, when in the conclusion of this reasoning our objector deduces
that such “infallibility” is outside (praeter) the divine will, this can only have two
interpretations. Either our objector intends by “infallibility” the infallibility of
causality, and then the reasoning has four terms, because in the major premise he
only intends infallibility of fact. Or our objector intends by infallibility the infalli-
bility of fact, as he intends it in the major premise, and we concede, as every Tho-
mist ought to concede, that such infallibility, by being an essential truth, is outside
(praeter) the divine will. That it is infallible that a being exist, while it exist, does
not depend upon any will, but is an essential and absolutely necessary truth.
28, 522–24 [836–38], 409–12: This position of Cajetan, which Bañez, Lemos,
and Alvarez then follow, but in which they depart from the majority of later Tho-
mists, proceeds from believing that there is no more true divine providence than
that founded upon the consequent will, and therefore upon an infallible will. This
is recognized by Cardinal Cajetan in the following words: “And the reason for this
is: because providence pertains to the consequent will” (Cajetan, In I, 22, art. 1).
To this, Ferrariensis responds with much reason: “It is responded and said
first, that it is one thing to speak of providence according to the common reason
of providence (i.e., general providence) and it is another thing [to speak of it] ac-
cording to one particular mode (i.e., predestinative or special providence), just as
348  Appendix 3
it is one thing to speak of an animal concerning the common notion of animality
and another thing [to speak of it] as it concerns a determinate species.
If one speaks of providence as regards its common notion, insofar as it is
providence absolutely, then providence refers to the order to an end as such, not,
however, to the event and the execution of the end; thus, its meaning is nothing other
than the notion of an order of any one thing to its particular end and to the com-
mon end that is the divine goodness.
If, however, one speaks of providence as regards a certain particular mode,
it is not unfitting that it also regards the outcome and execution of an end, as tran-
spires in that particular mode of providence that is called predestination, both in
that mode of providence that provides for necessary things, and also in that mode
in which He wants anything contingent to obtain its end. . . .
If, however, it [the objection] is insisted upon (with Cajetan), because prov-
idence pertains to the consequent will, which will, however, is always fulfilled, and
thus it seems that providence includes the outcome of the order in everything, and
consequently that what is said (by D. Thomas) in De Veritate will be false and re-
tracted in the First Part and in this place:
It is responded that, since providence includes two things, to wit, a will of the
end in some way and a will of the order of things to the end, as regards the order of
things to the end, this pertains to the consequent will, and thus what is provided
for is always fulfilled, because all that is provided for so as to have an order to this
end possesses this order; but, as regards the end, this pertains to the antecedent
will, as regards the thing provided for, as Saint Thomas wishes to say in De Veri-
tate and I Sentences. For, by providence, as it is said there, all men are ordered to
beatitude, and nevertheless not all obtain beatitude, which [by contrast] is grant-
ed of something that pertains to the consequent will. And the assumption (of Ca-
jetan) is false as regards providence in respect to the end, if it is taken universally”
(Ferrariensis, In III Contra Gentes, 94).5

5. “Respondetur et dicitur primo, quod aliter loquendum est de providentia quantum ad

communem rationem providentiae, et aliter quantum ad modum aliquem ipsius particularem; si-
cut aliter loquendum est de animali quantum ad rationem communem animalis, et aliter quan-
tum ad aliquam ejus determinatam speciem.”
“Si loquamur de providentia quantum ad communem ejus rationem, inquantum absolute
providentia est, sic providentia respicit ordinem in finem tantum, non autem eventum et finis con-
sequtionem: ideo de intellectu ejus nihil aliud est quam ratio ordinis uniuscujusque rei in finem
suum particularem, et in communem finem qui est divina bonitas.”
“Si autem loquamur de providentia quantum aliquem particularem ejus modum, sic
non inconvenit quod etiam eventum et consequtionem finis respeciat, sicut folet in hoc particu-
lari modo providentiae qui dicitur praedestinatio, et in illo modo providentiae quo res necessariae
providentur, ac etiam in illo modo quo vult aliquod contingens finem suum consequi . . .
Si autem instetur quia providentia ad voluntatem consequentem pertinet, voluntas autem
consequens semper impletur, et sic videtur quod providentia eventum ordinis in omnibus respici-
 Concordia Tomista   349

This itself, which Ferrariensis here holds against Cajetan, Gonet and Billu-
art repeat, as do practically all the Thomists after Jansenism, against Cajetan and
Bañez. If our objector wants, then, to follow Bañez and Cajetan in this opinion,
nothing stops him. But he ought not to impose this opinion on others, as though
it were substantial for Thomism and were obligatory for every Thomist.
30, 537–40 and 544 [851–54 and 858], 436–42 and 449: There is a consequent
will of infallible means and a consequent will of fallible means. Our objector appears
to take note only of the two divine wills that treat of the end, without noting the
other two wills that treat of the means for the execution of the end.
There exist in God two wills or volitions over the end: one antecedent and the
other consequent. At the same time, there exist in God two wills over the means,
and both are consequent, to wit: a consequent will of means fallibly efficacious
for the end and a consequent will of means infallibly efficacious.
Joining these two wills of the end and these two of the means, there result in
God four wills or volitions, which are:
a) an antecedent will of the end;
b) a consequent will of fallibly efficacious means;
c) a consequent will of the end;
d) a consequent will of infallibly efficacious means. . . .
The first and second of these two divine wills together make up general prov-
idence; the third and fourth constitute special or predestinative providence.
If only the reader pays a little attention to these four divine wills or volitions,
he will then note that there are in God three consequent wills, which are the sec-
ond, the third and the fourth.
As a consequence, this affirmation that “the antecedent will is never fulfilled
save in virtue of the consequent,” an affirmation upon which is founded the en-
tire argument of our objector, is ambiguous, because it can have the following
two senses.
First: that the antecedent will never is fulfilled save by virtue of any of these
three consequent wills, that is, save by virtue at least of the consequent will to give

at, et consequenter quod dicitur De Veritate erit falsum, et retractatus in Prima Parte et hoc loco:
Respondetur, quod cum providentia duo includat, scilicet volitionem finis aliquo modo, et
volitionem ordinis rerum in finem; respectu ordinis rerum ad finem pertinet ad voluntatem con-
sequentem, et sic semper impletur quod est provisum, quia omne quod est provisum ut habeat
ordinem ad finem, illum ordinem consequitur: respectu autem finis pertinet ad voluntatem an-
tecedentem, quantum ad aliqua provisa, ut vult Stus Thomas De Veritate et Primo Sententiarum:
per providentiam enim (ut ibi dicitur) omnes homines ad beatitudinem ordinantur, et tamen
non omnes beatitudinem consequuntur licet quantum ad aliqua ad voluntatem consequentem
pertineat. Unde assumptum falsum est quantum ad providentiam respectu finis, si universaliter su-
matur.”
350  Appendix 3
fallibly efficacious means for the end . . . taken in this sense we concede the entire
objection of our adversary. It is indubitable that the antecedent will of the end, if it
does not bring with it a consequent will of the means, at least of fallibly efficacious
means, is never fulfilled.
Second: that the antecedent will never is fulfilled save in virtue of the last
two consequent wills, that is, without a consequent will of the end or without a
consequent will of infallibly efficacious means for the end. Taken in this sense, the
affirmation of our adversary is false or at least is not common to Thomism and
we believe that it ought to be denied by every Thomist who has penetrated to the
bottom what distinguishes Thomism from Jansenism and not just what distin-
guishes it from Molinism.
According to the doctrine of Saint Thomas, neither the placing of an impedi-
ment, nor the non-placing of an impediment, when it concerns general providence
(or, as it is also customary to say, neither the sin nor the nonsin), always requires
a consequent will of the end, nor a consequent will of the infallible means to this
end, but only an antecedent will of the end with a consequent will of the means
fallibly efficacious for the end. “Deus nec vult peccata fieri nec vult peccata non fi-
eri.” . . .
The so-called will of permission is a will of means, because permission is not
an end, but a means of divine providence. It is, therefore, a consequent will, or
corresponds to a consequent will. But as there exist two consequent wills of the
means, one of means fallibly efficacious and the other of means infallibly effica-
cious, so there exist two classes of divine permission, to wit: a) a permission fal-
libly connected with the existence of sin; . . . b) a permission infallibly connected
with the existence of sin. . . . The first permission, which pertains to general prov-
idence, anterior to the foreknowledge of any actual impediment placed by the
creature, is not infallibly connected with sin, and the creature, even given this
general permission, can in fact not sin. “Potest fieri oppositum eius quod permissum
est.” . . .
If certain Thomists say or appear to say the contrary, it is because they fol-
low the opinion that the antecedent will of God (from which is born the falli-
bly efficacious means) is not a true will or the opinion that there is no more true
providence than that which is infallible as regards everything; both opinions are
already fairly antiquated or little probable or at the least disputable and disputed
within Thomism.
31, 549 [863], 458–89: It is meet not to forget that positive things—for ex-
ample, the creation of the world by God—exist in one way, and negative things
or things that involve a negation—for example the non-creation of the world by
God, in the case where He would not have created it—exist in another way. The
existence of the noncreation signifies nothing more than the nonexistence of cre-
ation. Equally, that which we call the existence of the nonplacement of an impedi-
ment signifies nothing other than the nonexistence of the placement of the impedi-
 Concordia Tomista   351

ment. A free being is free not only when it has something it was able not to have,
but also when it does not have something it could have had, and thus when it
does not place an impediment that it could have placed to the divine motion. In
this case, better than the existence of the nonplacement of an impediment, there is
the nonexistence of the placement of the impediment which it, in fact, could have
placed.
32, 565 [879], 486–87: The nonplacement of an impediment comes from God.
Do not forget that we are treating of a grace or motion that we suppose is a true
physical premotion, even if it is a premotion that is resistible by the creature, and
that we are supposing it is a physical premotion not only to the indeterminate
good, or the good in common, but to a particular and most determined good, as
determined as the movement of the arrow that the archer launches with a well-
aimed movement toward the target, even if this is a movement that can be imped-
ed in its course by the interposition of another cause. Well then: Saint Thomas,
and almost all the Thomists, especially the Thomists after Jansenism, teach that
the physical premotion of God, even if treating of a fallible physical premotion,
tends, by its own nature and by the intention of God to reach its term; it tends, there-
fore, toward not being impeded in its course: thus, it moves the creature not only to
begin its act but also to continue its act or to not place an impediment to its con-
tinuation. Since every effect is attributed to whatever agent that, with its action
and with its intention, has intervened in the production of this effect, it is clear
that the nonplacement of the impediment comes really and truly from God, with-
out coming only from the creature, as does the placement of an impediment.
33, 581 [895], 517–18: It is one thing to have made an effort [conato] more or
less toward grace and it is something very distinct to place or not to place a great-
er or lesser impediment to grace. The evident proof that these two things are radi-
cally distinct, and that it is dangerous to confuse them, is that, with nature alone,
one can make no effort in the order of grace, and it would be Semi-Pelagian to af-
firm the contrary. On the other hand, with nature alone (and, therefore, much
more with nature aided by sufficient grace) one can place or not place some im-
pediments to grace, even treating of fallen nature. . . . The text of Saint Thomas cit-
ed by our adversary and of which we are concerned speaks of the effort toward
grace, and our doctrine speaks of the impediment or non-impediment to grace.
Therefore, this text of Saint Thomas is not to the point in what we are treating.
33, 589 [903], 537–38: That with an equal grace one can place more or less im-
pediments than another, which is what is called to have greater or less use of the
received grace, Saint Thomas again repeats in the last part of the Summa while
treating of the Sacrament of Baptism, where he expresses himself this way: “To
the second, it ought to be said that greater or lesser grace appearing in the baptized
may occur in two ways. First, because one receives greater grace in Baptism than
another, on account of his greater devotion, as stated above. Secondly, because,
352  Appendix 3
although they receive equal grace, they do not make an equal use of it, but one ap-
plies himself more to advance therein, while another by his negligence fails the
grace of God [‘gratiae Dei deest’]” (III, 69, 8 ad 2).
Let it not occur to anyone to say that Saint Thomas, by “equal grace,” means
only an equal habitual grace, but not an equal actual grace, because all to whom
God gives habitual grace He always gives an actual grace equal to the intensity of
the habit, and, therefore, two who receive equal habitual grace also receive equal
actual grace, and, in consequence, receive from God an equal beginning of the ac-
tion of grace or of the effect of grace. If, therefore, in the course of this actual
grace or of this effect of grace, diversity is introduced, making one of them have
less effect than the grace received, this occurs not because the intensity of the ac-
tual grace has diminished in one of them by an initiative of God, but because one
of them, by his own initiative has been negligent or has placed an impediment to the
course of the grace, thus making it be that God diminishes in him [“haciendo asi
que Dios disminuye en el”] the action of His grace, while He does not diminish
[this action] in another. For this reason, Saint Thomas does not say that this in-
equality in the effects (between the two who receive equal grace) derives from
the fact that “for the other grace fails,” but rather that “the other fails grace.”
35, 605–12 [919–26], 567–79: As much our adversary in his objections as
ourselves in our responses hardly do more than repeat the same idea under dif-
ferent aspects, because each of us proceeds logically from our different point of
departure. The point of departure of our adversary is to admit no more true di-
vine providence nor more true divine motions than those irresistible in fact and
as regards everything. For our objector, every true physical premotion is irresist-
ible or infallibly connected, by its intrinsic nature, with the execution of the end,
and therefore with the placing or the nonplacing of an impediment by the crea-
ture to the course of these motions. If it is a motion without divine permission,
man infallibly does not place an impediment and therefore this motion is infal-
libly connected with the execution of the end. If it is a divine motion with divine
permission, man infallibly places an impediment and therefore this motion, just as
the permission, is infallibly connected with the execution of the end. For our ob-
jector, the creature cannot do the contrary of what God permits.
Our point of departure, on the other hand, is that, beyond the divine pre-
destinative or special providence, which is infallible or irresistible in fact in re-
gards to everything, and in addition therefore to the motions or permissions
of this special providence, which are infallibly connected with the execution or
nonexecution of the particular end, there exists another true general providence,
which is fallible as regards the execution of a particular end, and there also exist,
therefore, motions and permissions which are not, by their intrinsic nature, in-
fallibly connected with a particular end, nor are they as a consequence infallibly
connected with the placing or the nonplacing of an impediment to their course.
For ourselves, these motions of general providence always contain a general per-
 Concordia Tomista   353

mission that man place an impediment, but it is not a permission infallibly con-
nected with man placing an impediment or with him not placing one, but man
can in fact place it or in fact not place it. Man can, when one treats of this class
of permission, do the contrary of what God permits; but whether he does the con-
trary of what God permits or whether he does what is permitted, both things are
according to the permission of God, because this class of permission of general
providence involves the actual faculty, given by the divine motion, to do both
things. Potest fieri oppositum eius quod permissum est . . . et utrumque est secundum
permissionem. . . .
As regards . . . that which is the cause of the discrimination by which the one
who does not place an impediment is differentiated from the one who places it,
and the cause also of the presence of this discrimination in one man more than
another, we have already supplied the answer [to this difficulty] in the previous
objection. This discrimination, and the presence of this discrimination, can be un-
derstood in two senses:
a) the discrimination by which the one who places the impediment differen-
tiates himself from the one who does not, and therefore the presence of this dis-
crimination in the one who places the impediment;
b) the discrimination by which the one who does not place the impediment
differentiates himself from the one who does and therefore the presence of this
discrimination in the one who does not place an impediment.
If it concerns the discrimination or its presence understood in the first
sense, the unique cause is the one who places the impediment, and is in no way
God. God is solely the permittor, not the cause.
If it concerns the discrimination and its presence understood in the second
sense, God is the true cause and not only the permittor, although He is not the
unique or purely operative cause, but the first cause and cooperating with the
creature.
But, in neither case is God the infallible permittor nor the infallible cause
with infallibility of connection; because, when treating of the motions or graces
of general providence, this providence is fallible or resistible by the creature re-
specting the course of the divine motion, just as it is respecting whether one has
or does not have that permitted by the divine permission. . . .
Finally, we do not wish to terminate the reply to this objection without call-
ing the attention of our objector to what is inadequate in the example which, at
the end of his objection, he adds, saying “in Peter more than in Judas.”
This example does not apply to the question of which we are treating. We
are treating of the case of two men who have received from God equal grace and
we are disputing whether, of these two men, one can not-place an impediment to
the grace received while the other one places it, or whether one can place less im-
pediments than another. . . . Well then: Saint Peter and Judas do not receive from
God equal grace, but they receive graces that are essentially distinct.
354  Appendix 3
36, 617 [931], 589–90: In respect to the discrimination by which the one who
places an impediment distinguishes himself from one who does not, God con-
ducts Himself not as a spectator, but as a true permittor, although with a fallible
permission, when one treats of things of His general providence.
In the second case . . . God is still less a spectator nor only a simple permittor
but is also a true author….
Therefore, in neither of the two cases and very much less in the second, is it
verified that God is a mere spectator or that God is passive in respect to anything
of the creature.
38, 642 [956], 678–79: The CLEAR RESPONSE . . . to this objection of our ad-
versary is to call attention anew to the fact that not only is causality divided into
moral and physical but that, further, physical causality is divided into impedible
and unimpedible, which is what we intend by fallibly efficacious and infallibly ef-
ficacious.
The causality, for example, with which fire produces heat or with which the
sown seed produces its fruits is not only moral but physical causality, and a most
determined physical causality. Nevertheless, this causality is impedible or fallible,
because the interposition of water can impede the heat of the fire, just as frost or
drought can impede the fructification of the seed. . . .
Therefore the ideas of “physical and determined causality” and of unimped-
ible causality are not identical or convertible, but the first—that is, determined
and physical causality—is divided into unimpedible and impedible as regards its
course, which is what we intend by infallible and fallible.
The causality, for example, with which fire produces burning, or with which
the sown seed produces its fruits, is not a moral causality, but a physical causality,
and a most determined physical causality. Despite this fact, this causality is im-
pedible or fallible, because the interposition of water can impede the burning of
fire, just as hail or drought can impeded the fructification of the seed. . . .
39, 664 [978], 729–31: But then, some rigid Thomist or some timid Thomis-
tic neophyte will say, this is equivalent to conceding that in some sense the cre-
ated will determines God, from the moment that one concedes that the free crea-
ture, with his impediment, modifies the course of the divine determination or
moves God to modify it.
To this we respond, and every true Thomist ought to respond, that if one
wants really to save the responsibility of the creature in sin, and differentiate one-
self radically from Calvinism and Jansenism, there is no other remedy than to
concede that, in some sense the created will determines the divine will.
This sense is that the creature, with his actual defect, objectively or occasion-
ally determines God to interrupt the course of divine motion to the honest good,
changing it into motion to the material of sin. This is conceded by practically all
the Thomists after Jansenism. . . .
 Concordia Tomista   355

With this explanation, or addition, or development (consisting in a simple

subdivision) that we have made, following the internal logic of all the principles
of Saint Thomas and in the doctrine and dilemmas of Fr. del Prado and of oth-
er famous Thomists, the door is open to harmonize Thomism, without any vio-
lence, with all those systems which, like that of Saint Liguori, deny all Scientia
Media in the order of intention, and admit, in the order of execution, beyond a
sufficient grace, a grace infallibly efficacious ab intrinseco.
40, 671–74 [985–88], 745–52: This entire paragraph, which our objector
throws up against our theory, is taken word for word from Billuart (De Deo uno,
Diss. 8, art. 3, S. #4, Probatur conclusio secunda ratione) without other variation
than that, where Billuart says “Molinistae” our objector has placed “nova theoria”
and where Billuart says “decretum indifferens” our objector has placed “decretum
fallible.” . . .
It is of these decrees to give a simultaneous concourse or moral premotion,
which are indifferent or indeterminate decrees, that Billuart speaks in this entire
paragraph our objector has copied and they are not at issue in our interpretation
of Thomism.
We say “are not at issue” because the decrees that we call resistible or fallible,
and that pertain to the general providence of God, are not indifferent or indeter-
minate decrees, as are the decrees to which Billuart refers, but are most deter-
mined to the ultimate detail, as much as regards the exercise as regards the speci-
fication. . . .
These decrees, then, of general providence, born of the antecedent will of
accomplishing the end, which is an impedible will, do not require to be deter-
mined, because they are already . . . but require only not to be cut short or not to be
disdetermined by the creature as regards the course of the motion or the effect.
40, 681 [995], 768–69: In the nonplacement of the good act that he [the crea-
ture] ought to place, there also enters the nonaction of the good by the creature,
and the nonconcurrence of God to the nonaction of this good. But this hardly en-
ters in parallel or ex aequo; rather, the nonaction of the creature or the nonconcur-
rence of the creature or the impediment placed by the creature is a condition or a
previous supposition in respect to the nonconcurrence of God. The creature does
not cease to concur because God ceases to concur, but God ceases to concur be-
cause the creature ceases to concur.
41, 685 [999], 778–80: To require for every action an unimpedible motion is
not a metaphysical principle, but a metaphysical exaggeration. We do not know in
what treatise of metaphysics our objector has encountered this which he calls “a
most universal metaphysical principle,” and which consists in affirming that for
every operation of the creature there is need of a divine motion that is not only
not impeded but also unimpedible.
356  Appendix 3
Metaphysics teaches that there is no effect without a cause. It also teaches
that there is no effect without a sufficient cause, that is, one proportioned to its ef-
fect. It teaches, finally, that there is not any effect without a cause that is sufficient
and not impeded by another cause. All this is current in any treatise of metaphys-
ics whatsoever.
But we know of no treatise of metaphysics that teaches, as a universal meta-
physical principle, that there is no effect without a cause that not only is not im-
peded but that is unimpedible. To us it appears that this, rather than being a uni-
versal metaphysical principle, is a metaphysical error in the natural order and can
lead to Jansenism in the theological order. . . .
But that all divine will is unimpedible and that all divine motion is unimped-
ible, and that all operation of the creature requires an unimpedible motion, as re-
gards everything, is not a metaphysical principle, but a residue of that old and
abandoned opinion that there is no more true divine will than the consequent,
and that there are not, therefore, more true premotions or infallibly efficacious
graces than those of the consequent will.
43, 705–6 [1019–20], 817–19: We concede, as Thomas says in this text [I, 105,
6] and in a thousand other texts, that God operates in every creature operating,
not only applying the forms and powers to operation, but also giving and conserv-
ing in being all these forms, powers, and operations.
We also concede, as our objector deduces from this text, that, if God is the
cause of our perseverance in being, He is also the cause of our perseverance in op-
eration.
But our objector forgets anew that we are disputing not over whether God is
always a cause of our perseverance in operation but over whether He is always an
irresistible or unimpedible cause in sensu composito for the creature. . . .
The reasoning of our objector is similar to this other reasoning: the union
of the soul with the body is the cause of the life of man; the perseverance of the
union of the soul with the body is also the cause of the perseverance of the life of
man; therefore this perseverance of the life of man or this causality with which
the soul causes life is an unimpedible causality or perseverance and therefore man
cannot place de facto or in sensu composito an impediment to this causality or to
this perseverance in life; that is, he cannot commit suicide.
44, 725 [1039], 839–40: The discrimination by which the one who does not
place an impediment discerns himself from the one who does place it comes from
that agent who is the true physical cause of the nonplacing of the impediment.
Since the nonplacing of the impediment is caused by God and the creature, by
God as first cause and by the creature as second cause, it follows that the discrim-
ination comes from both God and the creature, from God as first cause and from
the creature as second cause.
The discrimination by which the one who places the impediment discerns
 Concordia Tomista   357

himself from the one who does not place it comes from that agent who is the true
cause of the placing of the impediment. Since the first and only cause of the plac-
ing of the impediment is the creature, it follows that this discrimination in the
placing of the impediment, or in the way of evil, comes from the creature and not
from God. Perditio tua ex te Israel.
46, 748–49 [1062–63], 872–75: In the first place, and just said in passing, it
is neither our objector nor ourselves but God who must give grace. Well then,
we suppose that our objector, in affirming that “no one will be able to say where
the difficult act that requires infallibly efficacious grace begins,” would not include
God in this no one.
In the second place, . . . in this question of the divine motion we do not in-
tend by easy and difficult acts those that are easy and difficult for fallen man.
Rather, by easy acts we intend those acts that, being easy in themselves, are possi-
ble to the forces proper to fallen man. Just as, by difficult acts, we intend those acts
that, being difficult in themselves, are impossible to the forces of fallen man. In
this way, then, easy and difficult acts have the same sense as possible and impos-
sible acts respecting the forces of our actual nature.
Well then, no one who would be a true Thomist ought ever to affirm that
we do not have an adequate criterion for distinguishing between the possible and
the impossible for the forces proper to fallen man. Saint Thomas, in his immortal
first question of the Treatise on Grace (III, 109), whose ten articles all begin with
the epigraph “utrum homo possit . . .” and more in particular in the second article,
whose title is “utrum homo possit velle et facere bonum absque gratia,” and practi-
cally all the Thomists who have commented upon this article, have shown us in
an exact manner the two points, maximum and minimum, on the scale of forc-
es of fallen man. This one hundred and ninth question of the Prima Secundae of
Saint Thomas could graphically be called the thermometer of the maximum and the
minimum of the forces of the creature and, above all, of the forces of fallen nature.
According to Saint Thomas, commented on admirably by Cardinal Cajetan,
the maximum to which fallen man cannot go with his proper forces, nor, there-
fore, with the general grace or premotion (which is accommodated to the forces
proper to nature) is the perfect love of God above all things, or the perfect sadness
of contrition of sin or any other perfect or difficult act that requires all the forces
of a healthy nature.
On the other hand, the minimum to which every man, as fallen as he may be,
while he is not dead to the good, is able to do with his proper forces, and therefore
with the general premotion of God (without which no creature could ever do any
act) is some imperfect honest good, that is, some act of imperfect love for God, of
imperfect sadness in relation to sin, or, at least, some imperfect act of prayer or
movement or volition to pray.
Between these two extremes, which mark the maximum and minimum be-
tween which fallen nature cannot and can do something with its proper forces, or
358  Appendix 3
with the general premotion of God, each individual of fallen nature has more or
less of his own proper forces, according to the diverse factors that enter into his
complexion or individual state at any given moment.
47, 754–58 [1068–72], 897–902: Final perseverance can have two senses: a
positive and a negative sense.
Taking final perseverance in the positive sense, it signifies the gift by which
God concedes to a creature the immobility in the good.
Taking it in a negative sense, it means to say no more than not in fact to sin
or not in fact to place any impediment to the continuation of the divine motion
or grace.
Final perseverance, taken in the positive sense, that is, in the sense of immo-
bility in the good, is a free gift that no creature, whether integral or fallen, is able to
cause or merit by himself. Every creature being by its nature defectible in the mor-
al order, at least in the supernatural moral order, no creature can immobilize him-
self in good. This must be an effect of God alone and, therefore, . . . of an infallibly
efficacious grace.
On the other hand, negative perseverance, that is, to maintain oneself with-
out sin for a long time, or for an indefinite period, is above the forces of fallen
nature, and, therefore, respecting fallen man, it requires an infallibly efficacious
grace. . . . Without a motion or grace that moves fallen man in an indeclinable or
insuperable way, as Saint Augustine says, the weak will of fallen man, confronted
with so many and so great temptations, will irredeemably succumb before reach-
ing the end.
But this not to sin, or this negative perseverance, is not above the forces of an
integral nature, which is that of the angels in via, and, therefore, does not require
for them a special grace, or a perfectly efficacious premotion, but it is enough
for them that they have a sufficiently efficacious grace or a general supernatural
concurrence, as not a few of the classical Thomists have already indicated clearly
enough. . . .
In our judgment one must affirm, according to the internal logic of Augus-
tinian and Thomistic principles, that the negation of infallibly efficacious grace,
as much in the evil angels as in Adam, is simpliciter posterior to the impediment
these Angels and Adam placed, an impediment it was in their hands not to place,
and for the nonplacing of which the continuation of the same sufficiently effica-
cious grace that they possessed was enough, without requiring for them a new
prevenient infallibly efficacious grace.
48, 767 [1081], 912–13: This negative disposition, of which our objector speaks,
which consists in the non-placement of an impediment to the course of grace—
as well as the infallibility of connection that this non-placement of an impediment,
if one perseveres, has with the infallibly efficacious grace of justification—does
not come from the nature of man, but from grace itself, and not from grace alone
(because we are speaking of sufficient grace, and therefore of something fallibly
 Concordia Tomista   359

connected with justification), but from grace jointly with the mercy and fidelity
of God, who has promised, by the merits of Jesus Christ, to give further grace, in-
cluding the grace of justification, to all who with the grace (great or little, effica-
cious or sufficient, remotely or proximately sufficient) which they actually have,
do what they can do and pray for what they cannot do.
49, 779–92 [1093–1106], 925–42: In this text cited [III, 112, 3], Saint Thomas
limits himself to making and proving the following two affirmations:
a) that preparation for justification, considering such preparation insofar as
it proceeds from the free will of the creature, has no infallible connection
with the execution of grace;
b) that, considering it insofar as it proceeds from the motion of God, it always
has an infallible connection with that to which God orders this motion;
and, therefore, if it is the intention of God that the one who moves obtains
grace, he infallibly obtains it, because the intention of God cannot fail.
The first of these propositions is evident. In it, Saint Thomas establishes the
absolute disproportion between the nature of the creature and grace. . . . The sec-
ond proposition can be taken in two senses: according to whether by “motion
of God” or “intention of God” one intends the motion and intention that corre-
sponds to His absolute or consequent will, or whether one intends the motion and
intention corresponding to the conditioned and antecedent will.
If it is taken in the first sense, as Saint Thomas evidently intends it, and as all
the commentators intend it, this second proposition of Saint Thomas is also in-
disputable. . . .
. . . But if this second proposition of Saint Thomas is taken in the second
sense—that is, if it is taken to refer to all divine motion or to all divine intention,
even of the motion and intention corresponding to the antecedent and condi-
tioned will of God—this proposition not only would be false, but it also would
coincide with the doctrine already condemned by the Church in condemning
the twelfth and thirteenth propositions of Quesnel, which are the following:
“When God wants to save a soul, at whatever time and at whatever place, the ef-
fect indubitably follows the will of God [“effectus indubitabilis sequitur voluntatem
Dei”]” [and] “When God wants to save a soul, and touches it with the interior
grace [“tangit interior gratiae”] of His hand, no human will resists Him [“nulla vol-
untas humana ei resistit”]” (Denzinger ##1362–63). . . .
All the Thomists teach that the motion of sufficient grace, and the remote
preparation to justification, preparation caused by this motion, is ordered by the
intention of God to justification itself, and that nevertheless this justification does
not always follow. There is, then, a remote preparation to grace, and a divine mo-
tion that precedes this preparation, and a divine intention from which this mo-
tion is born and a divine will whose act is this intention, which do not always
obtain the particular end ordered by God and which are, therefore, fallible re-
360  Appendix 3
garding the attainment of a particular end, in our case, the attainment of justifi-
cation. . . .
Therefore, when it concerns the question of “whether the preparation of
grace (not insofar as it proceeds from the free will of the creature, but insofar as
it proceeds from the motion or grace of God) has infallibility of connection with
the attainment of sanctifying grace,” one must notice whether one intends an ab-
solute infallibility or only a conditioned infallibility.
IF one intends an absolute infallibility, then it must be argued that disposi-
tion to grace has an infallible connection with the attainment of this grace when
this disposition to grace proceeds from a divine motion and intention born of
the absolute or consequent will that sanctifying grace be obtained, which occurs
always respecting the proximate dispositions of justification, which are infallibly
connected, with an absolute infallibility, with justification itself.
If one intends a conditioned infallibility, one must argue that the disposition
to grace has a (conditioned) infallibility of connection with sanctifying grace
when this disposition to grace proceeds from a divine motion and intention born
of the conditioned or antecedent will that sanctifying grace be obtained, which oc-
curs ordinarily regarding the remote dispositions or remote preparation, which
do not have an absolutely infallible, but conditionally infallible, connection with
justification or with the attainment of justifying grace, which is the end of this re-
mote preparation. . . .
The conditional infallibility which all remote preparation has with justifica-
tion comes to us from the infallibility of the divine promise through the merits of
Jesus Christ. This promise is that, to whom God has already given the remote
preparation, He never will deny the proximate preparation and justification itself,
if the creature does not place any impediment that he can not place.
50, 802 [1116], 954: According to the current doctrine of the Thomist school,
a just man, for example, does not require any special grace in order to pass some
time, and much less to pass one moment without mortal sin, because, as Thomas
says, it is not necessary that a man, as fallen as he may be, sin in every moment.
But from this one does not deduce, add the Thomists, that there is not required
a special grace, and even a most special grace, in order not to sin during one mo-
ment, if this moment is precisely the moment of death. The reason is because the
junction of death with the state of grace is a thing God alone can make, because
it depends upon God alone to fix for each man the moment of his death. And, as
in this precisely consists final perseverance, which is a special gift, and even most
special, it further results that, although it is not always a special grace to persevere
in grace for a moment, it is a special grace when this moment is the moment of
death.
50, 801–84 [115–18], 953–59: This objection, relative to final perseverance, in
our judgment suffers from two equivocations.
 Concordia Tomista   361

The first is to believe or to suppose that what one can do without special
grace, outside the moment of death, one can also do, without special grace, at the
moment of death itself.
This is not true. . . .
. . . the Union of death with a given moment of life, or with something done
by man in this moment, depends exclusively on God, and therefore the gift of fi-
nal perseverance is completely free.
The second and principle reply is . . . to distinguish what our objector calls to
dispose oneself infallibly for the grace of final perseverance. If by infallibly our ob-
jector intends an infallibility that . . . comes from merit or from the nature of the
grace with which it is had, I deny that there is such an infallibility or such an in-
fallible disposition, positive or negative, because neither that which a sinner (nor
even a just) does nor the grace with which he does it has an infallible relation
with final perseverance, which depends upon the simple will of God.
On the other hand, if by to dispose infallibly our objector means an infallibil-
ity founded exclusively upon the promise and fidelity of God, who has promised,
by pure mercy and by the merits of Jesus Christ, to save anyone who, with the
grace that he actually has, does what he can do and prays for what he cannot do, I
concede that such an infallibility exists.
53, 833–34 [1147–48], 1000–1001: We do not know from where our objec-
tor extracts this affirmation that, according to Saint Thomas, all the course of the
preparation for grace must proceed from an infallibly efficacious grace. Saint
Thomas, in this text cited by our objector [III, 109, 6], only says that all prepara-
tion for grace must proceed from “the gracious aid of the divine motion” (“per
auxilium gratuitum Dei moventis”) that is, from actual grace. But fallibly effica-
cious grace as well as infallibly efficacious grace is such a true actual grace. Both
graces are true “auxilium gratuitum Dei moventis.”
If, when Saint Thomas used the phrase “auxilium Dei moventis” he had al-
ways understood, as our objector pretends, infallibly efficacious grace, then the
Jansenists would have reason in arguing, as the Jansenist Arnauld argued, that
Saint Thomas does not admit a true sufficient grace, but that all the graces admit-
ted by Saint Thomas reduce to infallibly efficacious grace.
To this Jansenist objection, founded exactly in giving the same narrow in-
terpretation to the texts of Saint Thomas as our objector gives, the Thomists very
well take issue, saying that Saint Thomas understands, under the phrase “auxil-
ium Dei moventis” not only infallibly efficacious grace, but also sufficient grace.
54, 843–45 [1157–59], 1015–17: Well then, the Pelagians admit that man can,
without grace, or with the forces of nature alone, place no obstacle to grace or can
overcome all the obstacles that are opposed to grace. This is what the Church has
condemned, this is what Thomas and all the Thomists condemn, this is what we
ourselves condemn. This is the sense of this text of Saint Thomas as cited by our
362  Appendix 3
adversary, as Billuart recognized, expressly retracting the other narrower inter-
pretation he himself had originally given it.
Therefore, when Saint Thomas says that “not to place an obstacle to grace
proceeds from grace,” this means to place no obstacle or to overcome all obsta-
cles, as much the easy obstacles as the difficult ones. We concede, then, to our
adversary, that to overcome all the obstacles that are opposed to grace, which is
equivalent to avoiding all sins, requires divine grace. Further, we concede that for
fallen nature, as our own, not only is divine grace required, but even perfect or in-
fallibly efficacious divine grace.
On the other hand, the affirmation that in order not to place some obstacles
to grace, or to overcome certain obstacles to grace that are easy to overcome, no
grace whatsoever of God is required, but nature alone is sufficient with the gen-
eral natural concurrence of God, is neither Pelagian nor Semipelagian, but is the
current Thomistic doctrine, even though some rigid Thomists, fortunately few,
have required divine grace even for this. Therefore, we deny that grace is required
in order not to place to grace or to the course of grace some easy impediments,
and we affirm anew that, according to Thomistic doctrine, nature with the general
natural aid of God is enough. Therefore, also, if nature without grace is enough,
much more is nature with sufficient grace or that which is fallibly efficacious.
55, 856 [1170], 1031–32: The mystery of predestination, which Saint Augus-
tine made evident with such energy, depends in no way upon whether man can
or cannot do anything with sufficient grace, but upon the indubitable truth of the
following two propositions:
a) God is able to save any man, in such a way that there is no man con-
demned to Hell whom God could not have saved had He absolutely
wanted to;
b) God is able not to save any given man, in such a way that there is no saint
in Heaven whom God could not have excluded from Heaven had this so
pleased Him.
The first of these two propositions is evident for a Thomist. As much a sin-
ner as a man may be, and in whatever imaginable circumstances this man finds
himself, God can convert and save him by simply giving him the infallibly effica-
cious grace of justification and final perseverance.
The second proposition is no less evident. Had God simply sent death to
whichever of these men now in Heaven when that man had been in a state of
mortal sin or at least when he had been in original sin, that is, had He sent him
death simply before he had been baptized, such a man would not have been
saved.
God can, then, even supposing the elevation to the supernatural order,
and even supposing the redemption of Jesus Christ, save whichever one or all of
those who are condemned, just as He can not-save whichever one or all of those
 Concordia Tomista   363

who are saved. That notwithstanding, He has saved these and not saved those.
Why has He not saved all? Or why, given that God saves some and not all, has He
saved this one rather than that one? This is the mystery, and of this mystery noli
velle judicare, si non vis errare.
55, 858–59 [1172–73], 1034–35: [The mystery of which Augustine speaks in no
way disappears]: First, because we creatures can never know if, in a concrete case,
this hypothesis [that one is saved who doesn’t place an impediment whereas the
other is damned who does] is verified: because we never know, in this world, if,
of the two concerned, one has not placed an impediment, whereas the other has
placed one. One can know at times that one has placed an impediment to the di-
vine motion, but one can never know with certainty that one has not placed one.
Thus, when we see that two are converted, we only know that the two possess the
infallible grace to be converted, and that neither of the two placed an impediment
to this infallibly efficacious grace, nor even could in fact place an impediment. But
we never know if one of the two has not placed an impediment to sufficient grace.
This only God knows, and about this noli velle judicare si non vis errare.
Second, and even supposing that we did know for certain (something which
it is impossible to know) that one had not placed an impediment, while the oth-
er had, God is still able to draw [to Himself] as much the one who has placed
the impediment as the one who has not; and, what is more, He is able to draw
one following upon his placement of an impediment, giving the efficacious grace
to leave it, and He is able to defer drawing the one who did not place an im-
pediment, because God has no obligation to draw someone following upon his
not placing an impediment, but to draw him when and as it pleases Him. From
which, whenever God draws one and not another, we are unable to know why
God does not draw both instead of a single one or why He draws this one rather
than that one. Noli velle judicare si non vis errare.
55, 860–61 [1174–75], 1037–38: All that we know for certain in each of these
three cases is two things: a) that if someone converts to the faith, or is justified
from sin or is saved dying in the grace of God, all of this comes from the pure
mercy of God and never comes from the nature or the merits of man; b) that if
anyone remains all his life in infidelity, or remains all his life in mortal sin, and
therefore dies without the grace of God and is condemned, this comes from man
freely placing, to some sufficient grace, which God denies to no one, some im-
pediment that it was in his hand, by virtue of the grace which he possessed, not
to have placed. That is, it always comes from man not having with sufficient grace
something that he could have had, and above all not praying with the grace that
he actually had for something that he could have prayed. In this manner is veri-
fied that God saves those whom He wills and how He wills, in which the mystery
of predestination consists, but He does not cease to save one who, with the grace
that God has given him, prays for what he can pray.
364  appendix 3
The speculative mystery of predestination does not disappear with this, but
what disappears with it is desperation, because God, notwithstanding this mys-
tery, has placed in the hands of men a practical way of salvation. This way is the
way of impetration, an infallible way on the part of God, while man does not fail
on his part, that is, while man does not place, to the grace which he at each mo-
ment has, some impediment that he could in sensu composito not place.
57, 880 [1194], 1063: All the Thomists after the chief commentator, Cardinal
Cajetan, if one excepts the rigid Contenson, expressly affirm that, according to
the doctrine of Saint Thomas, in order to have some honest natural good, and to
have it for a little time (non diu) not only does one not need habitual grace, but
neither does one need actual grace, the general divine aid or concurrence being
sufficient, which is called grace only in a wide sense, insofar as everything that
comes from God, even in the natural order, can be called free in the sense that
God owes nothing to anyone.
Therefore, it is common Thomistic doctrine that, when it is said in Tho-
mism that fallen man without grace can do some imperfect good or can fulfill some
precept, or avoid some sin, when treating of the natural order and for a little time,
the phrase “without grace” means “without any grace”: neither habitual nor actual.
59, 909–16 [1223–30], 1106–15: Our objector, in this objection, has fixed
upon a point which has no importance at all for the question we are disputing.
On the other hand, he has not fixed on the point that we precisely are discussing,
and which has nothing to do with these texts cited in the objection.
In effect, one ought to distinguish well these four points:
a) whether for all honest good there must be a physical and determined mo-
tion to this honest good;
b) whether this divine motion, which is necessary for all honest good, ought
to be called a general aid or a special aid;
c) whether God, by a simple decision of His will—that is, without an im-
pediment having preceded on the part of man—can by absolute power
deny to this man the premotion to the honest good (called by some spe-
cial premotion as regards the person) and only give him a premotion to
the material of sin;
d) w hether God never denies in fact (even supposing that He could with an
absolute power) to any person this premotion to the honest good or this
aid called a special one in relation to the person, unless that person has
previously placed a defect or an actual impediment to the divine motion.
Or, what comes to the same, whether God ever in fact moves a creature
to the material of sin before this creature has placed an actual impediment
to the honest good. . . .
We are not discussing the first of these four questions. . . .
Nor are we discussing the second question. This premotion necessary for
 Concordia Tomista   365

every honest act some Thomists call a general aid, as do Cajetan, Ferrariensis,
Conrad, Medina, Serra and many others. Other Thomists, very much fewer in
number, call it a special aid, as do Capreolus and Contenson. Other Thomists, fi-
nally, also numerous enough, have sought to harmonize these first two Thomis-
tic opinions or at least to lessen the difference, calling this divine motion a general
aid in respect to the rational nature of the person to whom it is given, but special
in respect to the person or the individual of this nature, to which person God
gives it, being able to deny it, as He denies it to others. We ourselves incline to
the first opinion, that is, that this motion to the honest good ought to be called
simply a general aid, without any distinction between nature and person. But we
consider this as a question of names, or as a secondary question, and it is of little
importance to us which of these three opinions one follows.
Nor do we discuss the third question. . . . We are inclined to the view that,
even though God could, as is clear, deny all premotion to a creature, thereby
causing the entire exercise of his activity to cease, God cannot, unless an actual
defect precedes on the part of the creature, give to it only a premotion to the ma-
terial of sin, denying the premotion to the honesty of the act, because we believe
that, in this case, it would have no responsibility for sin or that this responsibility
would fall back upon God. But, finally, we repeat that we do not discuss this, and
it is of little importance to us for the question we are treating what one admits or
denies that God can do with this absolute power, because these questions, of what
God could do or not do with an absolute power, as Billuart says elsewhere, are as
obscure as they are useless.
The only question important to what we are discussing with our objector is
the fourth question. This question consists in whether God, as He Himself has
revealed to us in Sacred Scripture and in the doctrine of the Church, and such as
Saint Thomas presents Him to us in all his works, never in fact denies this premo-
tion to the honest good, only giving a motion to the material of sin before or un-
less the creature has freely placed an actual impediment to the divine motion to
the honest good. To us, it appears clear that a true Thomist ought to sustain, or
at least can sustain that God never in fact denies (prescinding from whether He
could with an absolute power) the premotion to the honest good, nor ever gives
a premotion to the material of sin, if a creature has not placed an actual impedi-
ment to the divine motion. . . .
This is equivalent, finally, to saying that the motion to the honest good can
be called a special motion in respect to the person if by “special motion” one in-
tends the same as “free motion”—that is, if one means a motion that God in fact
gives to the person without any merit of this person, or without any obligation to
give it on the part of God, because God has no obligation in respect to any of His
creatures. But this motion can and ought to be called a general motion, and not
a special motion, not only in respect to the nature, but also in respect to the per-
son, if by “general” one means that God gives it to all persons without distinc-
366  Appendix 3
tion, and that He continues to give it while that person does not place an impedi-
ment. . . .
Our objector believes that we separate ourselves from the common Thomist
doctrine by interpreting the sense of the so-called general motion or general aid
of God. We separate ourselves in absolutely nothing from the Thomists on this
question. We have done nothing else than to explicate what some, rather rigorous,
Thomists say by what other more ample Thomists say; or, better said, we have ex-
plicated what practically all the Thomists say in certain contexts, when combat-
ing Molinism, with what the same Thomists say in other contexts, when combat-
ing Jansenism.
60, 932–34 [1246–48], 1130–34: This supposition . . . makes the very idea of a
general aid, or an aid given to all men disappear. In effect, in this objection, our
objector gives two things as supposed:
a) That, if the general aid is accompanied by the divine permission to sin,
man sins infallibly. With this, it results that the general aid, if accompa-
nied by the divine permission, is distinguished in no way, as is clear, from
the motion to the material of sin.
b) That, if the general aid is not accompanied by the divine permission to
sin, man infallibly wills the honest good. With this, it results that the
general aid, not accompanied by the divine permission to sin, is distin-
guished in no way, as is clear, from the motion or grace infallibly efficacious.
With this theory, upon which the objection is founded, it would result that
there does not exist in Thomism a true general aid for the honest good in the nat-
ural order, nor a true sufficient grace in the supernatural order; because, according
to our objector, this general aid and this sufficient grace must be identified either
with the motion to the material of sin or with infallibly efficacious grace, accord-
ing to whether or not it is accompanied by the divine permission.
We believe, on the contrary, that one must distinguish three things in Tho-
mism:
a) motion to the material of sin;
b) general motion or motion sufficiently efficacious for the honest good;
c) motion or grace infallibly efficacious for the honest good.
Of these three motions, the first is infallibly connected with sin. The third
is infallibly connected with the honest good. The second is infallibly connected
neither with sin nor with the honest good, but rather is, by its very nature, fallibly
connected with the honest good, but without having any connection with sin, al-
though the creature can depart from this fallible connection to the honest good
and [thus] commit sin. In this second motion, and neither in the first nor in the
third, is what consists the so-called general motion in the natural order, and suffi-
cient grace in the supernatural order.
 Concordia Tomista   367

Our objector, on the other hand, has suppressed (by means of the accom-
paniment or nonaccompaniment of the divine permission) the second of these
three motions, and only leaves the first and third, which are:
a) motion infallibly connected with sin, and therefore motion to the mate-
rial of sin;
b) motion infallibly connected with the honest good and, therefore, motion
or grace that is infallibly efficacious.
We therefore supplicate our objector that, leaving aside for a moment the
position or polemics of school, he sincerely and with calm tell us to which of
these two motions pertains that which Thomists call the general motion in the
natural order and the motion or sufficient grace in the supernatural order. If it per-
tains to the second, then sufficient grace is identical to efficacious grace. If it per-
tains to the first, then sufficient grace is identical to the motion to the material of
sin. A tali gratia libera nos Domine!

B o ok III: The Divine Wil l 6

3, 469 [420], 52: The first condition, then, for a being to have freedom is that
it have some OBJECTIVE INDETERMINATION; that is, that this being have some
act that can terminate itself or not terminate itself in certain objects, or that there
exist certain objects in respect to which the act or the nonact of this being is not
necessarily determined. Because the free act is not necessarily determined or tied
to its object, it is said that freedom bears within itself objective indetermination.
Because the agent is not necessarily determined to terminate or not to terminate
its act to this object, but is able to terminate itself or not terminate itself, it is said
that freedom bears within itself DOMINION OVER ITS ACTS. These two prop-
erties, of objective indifference and dominion over its acts (which are nothing
other than two aspects of the same property), constitute the two basic and clear
properties of freedom properly called.
3, 469 [421], 55–56: Any being that has intelligence must have these three
properties: a) to know not only the particular good, as do the senses, but also
the universal good, and this is the remote root of liberty; b) to know that no par-
ticular good is perfectly adequate to the universal good, but that every particu-
lar good is limited, and therefore if it is viewed on one side it has the reason of
good, but being viewed from another side it has the reason of lacking a good,

6. The last book of the Concordia Tomista was written after the first two and without as
much time to devote to it as the first two (for which reason it remains incomplete). It was also
written in pencil, not pen (see Introduction, n. 44). Perhaps for this reason, Marín-Sola chose
to emphasize words in it not by underlining, but through capitalization: it was easier to achieve
with the time and the means at hand.
368  Appendix 3
from which is born the indifference and thus the liberty of practical judgment,
that is, the liberty to CONSIDER the particular good under one aspect or anoth-
er, which is the proximate root of the will’s liberty; c) liberty of election for the
will, because the will being nothing other than an appetite proportioned to in-
telligence, the will must have indetermination, and therefore liberty, to desire all
those objects in respect to which the intelligence has indetermination or liberty
to judge, which are all the particular goods.
5, 500 [425], 153–56: In those that we call the divine will of sign, or signs of
the divine will, we must distinguish three things:
a) the SIGN itself, that is the precept, prohibition, counsel, permission, and
operation;
b) the PERSON or CAUSE to whom God gives this sign, that is, the person
to whom God commands, prohibits, or counsels something or in whom
God permits or works something;
c) the OBJECT of the sign, that is, the things commanded, prohibited, coun-
seled, permitted, and worked by God.
If one treats of the sign itself, one must say that it is always willed by God
with the will of beneplacito, because God always wills truly to command what He
commands and He always wills truly to prohibit, counsel, permit, and work what
He prohibits, counsels, permits, and works. The signs, then, are always willed
with a will of beneplacito even though their objects are not. . . .
Respecting the PERSON or cause to whom these signs of God’s will refer,
God also always has SOME will of beneplacito. Thus, when God commands some-
thing to a person, He has a true will that this person feel OBLIGED to do it, even
if in fact he does not do it; and, when He prohibits, He truly wants the person to
feel obliged not to do it; and when He counsels, He truly wants him to feel it is
BETTER to do it than not to do it; and when He permits, He wants the person to
whom He permits to have the FACULTY to do it or not to do it; and, finally, when
He works something, He wants the person in whom He works to have that which
God works in him. . . .
Regarding the OBJECT of these signs, that is, respecting the THING com-
manded, prohibited, counseled, permitted, or worked by God, we have already
seen that there is one sign that always coincides with the will of beneplacito, an-
other that never coincides, and three that sometimes coincide and sometimes
do not. The object of the divine operation, which is the good work man does as
moved by God, is always willed by God with a will of beneplacito. The object of
the divine permission, which is sin, is never truly willed by God. The object of
precept, of prohibition, or of divine counsel—that is, the thing commanded, pro-
hibited or counseled by God—at times is truly willed by God and at other times
not.
 Concordia Tomista   369

5, 501 [453], 158–59: Although the operation as much as the permission cor-
responds to the consequent will, yet they correspond in a different manner. In
the divine operation, not only the divine operation itself corresponds to the con-
sequent will, but also the effect that the created cause produces by means of this
operation. On the other hand, in the divine permission, what corresponds to the
consequent will is the permission itself, which is the faculty given to the created
cause to produce or not to produce an effect. But the effect itself, which is sin,
never pertains to the consequent will, but to the created will.
5, 501 [453], 160–61: If one treats of the fifth sign of the will of sign, which is
permission, one must distinguish well between the PERMISSION and THE PER-
MITTED. One cannot act against the permission or outside it, but one can act the
contrary of that which is permitted. The reason is because permission does not
have for an end that one have or that one cease to have the permitted object, but
only that one have the faculty to have it or not to have it. Thus, whether man does
that which is permitted by God or does the contrary, he always acts according to
the permission, even in the case of acting contrary to the permitted object.
8, 520 [472], 257–60, 263–64: To this text of Saint Thomas, two explanations
can be given, both fully satisfactory.
The first is to call attention to the fact that the Holy Doctor does not say in
fact in this text that the antecedent will can be called a VELLEITY, but he only
says simply that it can be called BETTER A VELLEITY THAN AN ABSOLUTE
WILL.
Therefore, this affirmation of the Holy Doctor does not refer to the anteced-
ent will taken IN ITSELF, but to the antecedent will VIEWED IN COMPARISON
to the absolute will. Well then, it happens with frequency that a thing between
two extremes is called in one way when considered in itself, but called in anoth-
er manner when compared with the perfect extreme. Thus, for example, human
riches are in themselves true riches, but compared to the riches of heaven they
ought better to be called poverty than riches. . . .
To this first explanation, a second could be added. . . .
In effect, Saint Thomas teaches in these same places, where one encoun-
ters the said texts, that the antecedent will is that which regards or wills its object
without all its circumstances, while the consequent will regards or wills its object
with all its circumstances. We can, then, consider the object of the antecedent
will in two different stages or spaces of time. First, when it already has all those
circumstances under which it is willed with an antecedent will, but does not have
those conditions or that final condition under which it is not willed. [Second,
when it does have that condition.] In the first case, there exists an antecedent will
of the object without there yet existing a consequent will of the contrary. In the
second case, to the antecedent will of the object is joined the consequent will of
the contrary. . . .
370  Appendix 3
Respecting man considered in the first state, that is, before final impeni-
tence, God has a true will, and not a pure velleity, that this man be saved, and
from this He gives him and continues to give him the means sufficient to save
himself. Respecting man considered in the second state, that is, considered al-
ready in the Hell where he will remain for an eternity, God does not have a true
will that he be saved, but a pure velleity and He has on the other hand a true con-
sequent will to condemn him. Respecting the man considered in the first man-
ner or in the first state, the divine will to save him is not only a “would will” but
is a “will,” not a “vellem” but a “volo,” it is not a velleity, but a true will to save him.
Respecting man considered in the second state, that is, considered with the FI-
NAL circumstance, and thus with ALL the circumstances that the man has, the di-
vine will to SAVE HIM is not now a VOLO but a “vellem si . . . ;” it is not a will, but
a velleity. On the other hand, there is then a true and absolute will NOT TO SAVE
HIM.
When Thomas says, then, that the antecedent will ought to be called a VEL-
LEITY more than an absolute will, he speaks of the antecedent will to save con-
sidered jointly or comparatively with the consequent will of the contrary not
to save, that is, he speaks of the antecedent will in respect to man in the second
state, that is, in the state of impenitent sinner, in the state of the reprobated.
10, 538–39 [490–91], 296–99: [One can give] a more simple and clear re-
sponse simply by calling attention to the true POINT OF COMPARISON when,
in this question of the antecedent will, Saint Thomas compares God to the judge
and to the merchant. Then it will clearly appear that the comparison, as regards
the giving of means, is perfect.
In effect, the point of comparison in the example of the merchant is the
TEMPEST, when it is already there, which leaves no alternative between the mer-
chandise or one’s life perishing. The point of comparison, in the example of the
judge, is the CAPITAL CRIME, that is, the homicide or crime punishable by law
with the pain of death, when the guilty one has already been judicially convict-
ed of his crime. Finally, the point of comparison, in the exam-
ple of God, is the FINAL IMPENITENCE of the sinner, that is, one found in
mortal sin when death overtakes him.
Once these three points of comparison have been well noted, it appears
clearly against Jansenism that God, the merchant, and the judge maintain a per-
fect analogy as regards these two things, that is, as regards having a true ante-
cedent will, and as regards the antecedent will being truly active or placing the
means sufficient for the end. . . .
The Jansenist cunning, which does not appear to have been clearly un-
masked in certain Catholics (Gonet, tom. 1, disp. 4, No. 61, pg. 73) consists in
inverting the terms of the comparison. Instead of comparing the will God has
of saving each man BEFORE the man arrives at final impenitence with what the
merchant has of saving his merchandise BEFORE the tempest comes or what the
 Concordia Tomista   371

judge has BEFORE the man is convicted of a capital crime, the Jansenists (and by
inadvertence some who are not Jansenists) compare the salvific will God has of
saving each man BEFORE the final impenitence of this man with what the mer-
chant and the judge have AFTER the tempest or the crime has occurred.
10, 540 [492], 300–302: There exists a difference between God, the judge,
and the merchant. . . . As regards the PLACING or NOT PLACING the means,
there is an analogous agreement between God, the judge, and the merchant, be-
cause the three PLACE sufficient means in order that the antecedent will may
be fulfilled, when there has not yet arrived respectively the final impenitence,
the commission of the crime, or the imminent tempest, just as they CEASE TO
PLACE them when these have occurred. But the cause of not placing them or of
ceasing to place them is different. . . . The cessation . . . of giving the means comes,
in the case of the merchant and the judge, from IMPOTENCE, while in God it
does not come from impotence, but from His wisdom and His ever holy free-
dom. In the hands of God is always the capacity, by means of the use of infalli-
bly efficacious grace, to impede that man sin or, if he sins, to impede that death
catch him in sin. . . . Both man and God intervene in this final impenitence in sin.
The man is the cause, and the only cause of sin, as of impenitence, but God is the
cause, not of the sin of impenitence, but of the FINAL character of this impeni-
tence, in giving death then to the sinner.
10, 559 [511], 339–40: To read with attention and impartiality the Thomists,
it strikes one that Thomism still oscillates between two distinct conceptions,
as much regarding the treatment of the antecedent and consequent wills as the
treatment of the motion or graces that are sufficient and efficacious.
In effect, we can conceive the antecedent and consequent wills in two ways:
a) As two unconnected wills or closed between themselves, in such a man-
ner that the impediment placed or not placed by man to the first has no relation
to the existence of the second.
b) As two wills, not closed or unconnected between themselves, but as two
wills of which the first is the BEGINNING of the second, in such a manner that,
if man does not place an impediment to the first, God never fails by His good-
ness to place the second, although it is always in His freedom to place the second
without the first or to place the second despite the impediment placed by man to
the first.
Analogously, when one attempts in Thomism to conceive the sufficient and
the efficacious grace corresponding respectively to the antecedent and conse-
quent will, these can be conceived in two manners.
a) As two graces unconnected or closed between themselves in such a man-
ner that the impediment placed or not placed by man to the first has no relation
to the second.
372  Appendix 3
b) As two graces, not unconnected or closed between themselves, but as
two graces of which the first is nothing other than the BEGINNING of the sec-
ond and whose effect is a true MOVEMENT toward the second in such a manner
that, if man does not place to the first those impediments he is able not to place,
God never ceases by His goodness to give the second, although it is always in
the hands of the power and the freedom of God to give the second in one stroke
without having given the first, or to give the second despite all those impedi-
ments placed by man to the first.
We confess that in all the Thomists there are phrases in abundance that favor
one or the other conception, although in the Thomists before Jansenism are to be
found more phrases favorable to the first conception, while in those after Jansen-
ism are to be found more phrases favorable to the second conception. We believe
that the true Thomistic conception is the second.
11, 577 [529], 364–65: Some may say that, although to exclude man from glo-
ry, without any guilt, cannot lead to the greater good of the Universe, the permis-
sion that a man commit sin can lead to this greater good; thus, modern Thomists
have insisted upon negative reprobation in the permission of sin. But to this is
to be contested that, as Billuart very well notes in another place, the divine per-
mission, by itself, if it does not already suppose in man an actual defect that re-
quires premotion to the material of sin, cannot be infallibly connected with sin.
From which, it results that the divine negative reprobation, if it is to be infalli-
ble, cannot consist in the permission of sin, nor in the permission of the impeni-
tence connected with the sin of man, without a previous defect of this one; but,
once sin is committed, divine permission alone is enough for impenitence to fol-
low, because the divine permission proper to reprobation consists in giving death
while a man is still in sin.
18, 667 [619], 538–39: Saint Augustine had repeated in every form that noth-
ing resists God. The Council of Trent, in describing the process of justification,
had used the phrase that man can dissent or reject the divine motion, but with-
out employing the phrase that he could resist it. From this, it happened that some
excessively timid Thomists affirmed that one ought to concede that man could
dissent from grace, but not that he could resist it. Nevertheless, the majority of
Thomists with the majority of theologians from other schools, affirm that there
is at base no difference between dissenting from God and resisting God, and that
one can and ought to say, without any scruple, that man can resist God or His
grace, as one can say that he can dissent from both things. The Church, as much
in condemning the Jansenists, as in the Vatican Council’s declaration regarding
faith, has consecrated the phrase “to resist grace.” The fourth proposition of Jan-
sen condemned as heretical was the following: “interiori gratiae nunquam RESIS-
TITUR,” with which it was defined as of faith that man sometimes resists interi-
or grace, and thus can resist it. The Vatican Council expresses itself thus: “Fides
 Concordia Tomista   373

seipsa in se, etiamsi per caritatem non operetur (cf. Gal. 5:6), donum Dei est, et ac-
tus ejus est opus ad salutem pertinens, quo homo liberam praestat ipsi Dei obedien-
tiam gratiae eius, CUI RESISTERE POSSET consentiendo et cooperando” (Conc. Vat.,
Constit. “Dei Filius,” cap. 3, Denzinger no. 1791). Saint Thomas had already said
the same, and very clearly, in the following text: “Sic Deus movet mentem huma-
nem ad bonum, quod tamen potest huic motioni RESISTERE” (D. Thomas, quodlibet-
um 1, art. 7 ad. 2). It is, then, a thing beyond doubt that man can RESIST the grace
of God, and not only DISSENT from it.
18, 668 [620], 539–40: Resistance to an agent can be in two manners: direct
or indirect, which are also called resistance to the agent and resistance to the ef-
fect. . . .
So, for example, if Peter wants to give me a slap, I am able to resist Peter in
two ways. First, by seizing the arm of Peter and impeding it from moving. Sec-
ond, by in no way touching the arm of Peter, or impeding its action, but in duck-
ing my head and impeding its effect. In the first case, the resistance is direct, or
resists the agent itself, whom it forces not to operate. In the second case, the re-
sistance is indirect, or over the effect of the agent, because it does not act on the
agent, but on the effect.
20, 684 [636], 584: To be sincere, we ought to add that the arguments with
which the Thomists pretend to prove their own doctrine appear to us as weak as
the arguments with which the Molinists pretend that Trent proves theirs. In our
judgment, Trent does not pretend anything more than to define against the Prot-
estants that the divine grace, as much exciting as aiding, that intervenes in justi-
fication, does not work in a NECESSARY manner but in a FREE manner, and thus
in a RESISTIBLE manner. But Trent is in no way interested in whether this grace
that works in a free way is a grace that is efficacious ab intrinseco, as the Thomists
want, or ab extrinseco, as the Molinists pretend, nor thus whether it is in the pow-
er of man to resist this grace in sensu composito as the Molinists intend, or in sensu
diviso, as the Thomists want.
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Index of Subjects

Adam: able to resist temptation, 268; and auxili- Congruism: of González, xxiin46, 58; of Suarez,
um sine quo, xxxi; and negation of efficacious 12, 310; of Tournely, 30n10, 31n10, 314
grace, 358; cause of his sin, 210n56, 264; free conscience, 120n34, 186, 193, 312
acts of, 164; grace of 204, 217, 235 278, 289; im- consent to grace, 25, 26, 54, 58, 70, 79n27, 84n29,
peding grace, 297; in Augustine, 295; in Mo- 115n33, 155, 173–76, 178, 179, 188, 193, 304,
lina, 154n41; merits of, 39, 205; predestina- 316, 373
tion post praevisa demerita 32, 54n19. See also
integral nature deficere et non deficere, 285n47, 286, 332, 333n56
amorphous good, 167, 168, 170–72, 181–83, 238 Denzinger, 99, 162, 281n43, 328, 359, 373
angel, xxxi, xxxin74, 16, 17, 23, 29, 41, 49n15, Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, 230n30,
52n17, 154n41, 156, 164, 204, 210n56, 217, 243, 265n13, 269n15, 303, 327n43, 329n45, 331n55
247, 264n10, 275n29, 278, 286n49, 294, 297, discrimination: and placement and nonplace-
299, 300, 301n72, 358 ment of an impediment, 353–54; between
good and bad angels, 278n39; between pre-
conato, 109, 111, 112, 137, 138, 336, 337, 351 destined and reprobate, 202n54; in good and
Concordia of Molina, xxii, 84, 86, 131, 133, 168, evil, 354, 356–57
169n43, 207, 303, 304, 306, 308, 309 disposition: and implicit desire, 293n60; and
Concordia Tomista, vii, x, xviiin26, xxi, xxiin45, permission, 344; defective, 53n18, 16–17, 216,
xxiii, xxix, xxxn72, 214n, 229, 250, 252n106, 262; for final perseverance, 361; for sanctif-
269n16, 282n44, 317, 339–373 ying grace, 274n27; González and degree
Congregation de auxiliis, 38, 57, 84, 132, 153n41, of, 58; negative, 246, 358; proximate and re-
154, 162, 163, 208, 233, 240n63, 257, 303, 304, mote, 60, 70, 75, 138, 220, 272–73, 337; suffi-
306, 308–310, 314 cient, 75

393
394  Index of Subjects
divine decree: and Adam, 54n19; and antecedent and time, xxxi, 22, 24, 70; Billuart’s opinion
will, 43, 95–96; and beginning of every act, 21, of, 24, 73, 112, 120; further graces can be im-
80n27; and divine ideas, 341; and futuribili- petrated by, 120n34, 126; in Ferrariensis, 139;
ty of sin, 49–50, 51; and God’s foreknowled- in Salmanticenses, 74; of fear, hope, and attri-
ge, 83, 107, 342; and scientia media, 84–87, 131, tion, 18, 22, 74, 78, 273, 277, 285–86; placing an
345–46; and sufficient grace, 65, 96, 99–100, impediment to course of, 21, 23–24, 26, 27n8,
206; as both free and ordered, 194; as eternal, 80, 111, 191; possible for fallen man, 357; prac-
47–50, 54, 89–90, 93, 95–96, 98, 103, 107–8; tical reason not dead for, 26, 115n33; requires
as God’s intention, 342; defective modifica- physical premotion, 22, 55
tion of, 94n31, 123n35; fallible and infallible, efficacious grace: and permission in Garrigou-
15, 44, 51n16, 73, 77, 88n30, 95, 102; in Alvarez Lagrange, 366; impetration of, 221–22; in Au-
and Lemos, 20, 79n27; in Billuart, 53; in Ca- gustine, 235; in Bañez, 284; in Billuart, 73–74,
preolus, 137; in Franzelin, 52n17, 136–37; in 127; in Gonet, 63–65; in Nicolaï, 60n23; in
Gonet, 16–17, 41; in Molina, 101, 207n55; in Salmanticenses, 202n54; infallible in sensu
Salmanticenses, 75, 107, 222; of final perseve- composito, 18, 29, 53; necessary for difficult
rance and of predestination, 49n15, 206; or- acts, justification, and final perseverance, 55,
der of 48–49, 83; permissive, 93n21, 242n75; 117, 358; negation of posterior to impedi-
249n90, 251, 332–33, 343; potential and actual ment, 42n12, 123n35, 203, 358; never denied to
senses of, 106, 261; supposes infallibility of one who does what he can, 55, 203; of Mary,
fact, 213, 346–47 292n57; perfects freedom, 191; special provi-
divine foreknowledge: and containment by cau- dence, 49, 77; unimpedible, 43, 354–56. See
sality and by eternity, 91–93; and divine ideas, also sufficient grace
341; and eternity in Cajetan, 102–4, 340–41; election: and deliberation, 242; and nonuse in
and eternity in Capreolus, 136–37; and eter- Thomas, 47n14; and “consent,” 173; and vo-
nity in Salmanticenses, 54n17; and eternity luntary defect, 54; different from final judg-
in Thomas, 101–3, 329–32; and Godoy on in- ment in Thomas, 365; different views of Mari-
dependence of, 185n50, 250n93; and Gonet’s tain and Marín-Sola on, 242–44; freedom of,
difficulty, 52n17, 130; and negative reproba- 368; infallibly follows final judgment, 179n46,
tion, 195–96; and passivity of Pure Act, 213– 283n45. See also free choice; freedom
15; and predestination, 31–32, 36, 37, 324–24; Existence and the Existent, 230, 231, 239n59, 242, 253
and scientia media, 83–88; general motion
previous to all, 51n16, 223, 350; in Molinism facienti quod in se est, 24, 74, 273, 274n28, 275n31,
and Congruism, 35, 206–7; in predestination 277, 279, 281, 290. See also remote preparation
and reprobation, 45–46; in Thomism ver- final practical judgment, 21, 26, 54, 74, 115n33,
sus Molinism, 207–8; infallibility of, 88–93, 174–79, 187–88, 193, 242–43, 246, 264–66, 283,
95–96; 105–9; 135–36; 215; 225; 347; objective 344, 368
and material determination of, 94n31, 123n35, formal sin: 47, 48–49, 51, 185n50, 215
185–86, 262–63, 341–42; of Adam’s merits, 39; free choice: activity of traceable to God, 265n12;
of sin, 52, 185n50, 279–80; of vision, 48–50, 83, and efficacy of grace, 218–19; and final judg-
342; supposes essential truths, 214 ment, 265, 283; and honest good, 262; and
Documentos, xxin41, xxin44, xxiiin50, xxiiin51, one’s final destiny, 285n47, 299–300; can im-
xxivn53, xxivn55, xxvn57, xxvn58, xxvn59, pede or not impede grace in Thomas, 150. See
xxvi, n60, xxvin61, xxvin62, xxviin66, xxxn73, also election and freedom
230n12, 233, 236n41 freedom: and ability to resist grace, 191–92; and
God’s motion, 128; Bellarmine and fallible
easy acts: and difficult acts in Thomism, 140–63; mode of, 240, 257n113; conditions of, 367;
and error of some modern Catholic theo- God’s, 251n97, 371–72; laws of, 192–210; of
logians, 176–77; and further objections of specification and exercise, 187. See also elec-
Garrigou-Lagrange, 211–26; and Middle Sys- tion and free choice
tems, 30–31, 110; and perfect acts, 22–23; and free negation: and nonconservation, 283n45; as
sufficient grace, 22, 28, 30, 68–69, 79n27, 99; cause of sin, 246, 249n90, 263; as culpable
 Index of Subjects   395
and nonculpable, 246–47; as nonconsidera- 75, 76, 183, 188–92, 220, 252, 282, 321, 346, 356,
tion, 242n76; as nonuse, 243; in deliberation, 364, 373
243, 263; in judgment, 243, 264; in Maritain, indeliberate acts: 24–25, 164–198; and deliber-
232n20; not caused by God, 246, 332; way of ate acts, 24–27; and volition of good in com-
existing, 350. See also voluntary defect; nonu- mon, 163; fallible in their course, 200; free
se; resistance and necessary, 21, 58–59, 70; in Billuart, 25n7;
in Cajetan, 25n7; in del Prado, 25n7, 59n2; in
general providence: accommodated to defecti- Domingo de Soto, 25n7; in Gonet, 180n47;
ble creature, 76–77, 191; actuation and conti- in González de Albeda, 165, 179n46; in Guill-
nuance of, 20–21, 172; always attains principal ermin, 165; in Lemos, 197n46; in Navarette,
end, 88, 215–16; and ascetical and mystical 79, 180n47; in Preingué, 180n47; prior to con-
life, 77; and causal predetermination, 189; silium, 79
and consequent will of means, 349; and integral nature, xxxi, 22, 24, 49n15, 79, 126, 142,
Dionysius, 286n49; and not placing an im- 144, 151, 152, 154n41, 177, 204, 217, 218, 244,
pediment, 79; and permission, 286, 350; and 345, 358. See also Adam
predestination, 318–28; and sin, 17, 32; and interior instinct: 231n16, 274n28, 275n29, 277, 285,
special, 14–15, 32–33, 38; and sufficient grace, 286. See also vocation
22, 125; defectible, 129, 183 221; fallible, frustra-
table, and impedible, 15, 21, 28, 73, 88n30, 190 Jansenism, xxxii, 59, 67, 73, 115, 123, 129–32, 136,
354; gratuity and order of motions of, 196– 141–43, 148, 149, 179, 180, 212, 214, 216, 219, 223,
214; human will can modify decrees of, 94; in 225, 254n109, 254n110, 255n110, 285, 304, 305,
Billuart, 43; in del Prado, 161; in Ferrariensis, 310, 313, 314, 320, 324, 328, 329, 333, 335, 349,
139, 348; in Gonet, 15, 38; in Goudin, 159; in 350, 351, 354, 356, 366, 370, 372
John of St. Thomas, 125; in Molina, 207n55; justification: and attrition, 62–63; and difficult
in Montálban, 134; includes decrees and pre- acts, 117; and final perseverance, 256; and
motions, 15, 48, 188; 172; infallibility of forek- God’s intention, 359; and imperfect acts, 36,
nowledge, 215, 225; particular end frustra- 58; and infallibly efficacious grace, 116, 300,
table, 20, 44, 51n16, 225, 346, 352; preserves 358; and interior instinct, 285; and ordinary
and does not destroy nature, 286; proper and efficacious graces, 286; and penance, 272;
elicited effects of, 37; resistible in fact, 180, and sanctifying grace, 78, 272; and sufficient
190; supposed by special, 32, 42; supposes an- grace, 352–59; and vocation, 203, 275; God’s
tecedent will, 29, 43–44; Thomas on general initiative in, 277; gratuity of, 55; impetrated,
supernatural providence, 289; Thomas’s shift not merited de congruo, 274n27; in Trent,
on, 280; unfrustratable in Alvarez and Le- 372–73; man interrupts process of, 75; perfect
mos, 19, 132; universal and particular ends of, act, 18, 27, 70; proximate and remote disposi-
14–15. See also predestination; tions for, 20, 22, 220, 360
God’s Permission of Sin, x, xxivn53, 227n1, 290n63,
241n69, 245n82, 246n85, 250n96, 251n98, Mary: and Rosary, 299; fallible, 300n70; full
253n107, 254n109, 261n11, 265n12, 270n18, of grace, 294n61; mantle of 210n56; Marin-
286n49, 287n50, 287n51, 331n54, 339 Sola honors as Immaculate, xvin12, 292n57;
Marín-Sola’s invocation of xxxii; special
honest good, 16, 27n8, 93–94, 122–23, 142–45, graces of, 87
152, 167–88, 193–94, 197–201, 223, 230, 232, 238, material of sin, 7, 9–10, 16n, 31, 33, 41, 52n17,
245–46, 253–54, 262, 267–68, 344–45, 354, 94n31, 123n35, 130, 164n43, 170–72, 176, 181,
357, 364–67 183, 217, 343m 354, 364–67, 372
hope, 18, 22, 40, 66, 78, 158, 161, 209–10, 273, 277, Middle systems, 11, 12, 24, 26, 46n13, 55, 110, 314
286, 293, 296, 299, 301 Molinism, xxi, xxxii, 2, 11, 12, 54, 57, 93n31, 100,
101, 107, 116, 12, 131, 132, 136, 138, 140, 141,
impetration, 40, 55, 69, 71, 120n34, 208, 209, 144n39, 168, 170, 179, 180, 183, 196, 203, 205,
210n56, 221n58, 274n27, 364. See also prayer 206, 207n55, 161n56, 218, 219, 221, 225, 228n3,
in sensu composito and in sensu diviso, 28n9, 29, 228n4, 234n32, 240n64
396  Index of Subjects
motus ad orandum: xxxi, 71, 111, 190; and volitio, ent and consequent, 283; as nonwill to cause,
78; and ad refugiendum, 186 343–44; as will of means, 350; as will of sign,
368; can do contrary of, 224, 253; does not
negative reprobation: and final impenitence, 221, not remove order to God, 246n85; fallible
372; and greater good of universe, 195–96; and infallible, 345, 350, 354; general and spe-
and Original Sin, 278n38; and permission of cial, 344; infallibly connected to sin by actual
sin, 372; free, 195; law of, 196n52; moments of, defect, 51n6; infallibly entails sin for Man-
49n15; not explanation of sin, 333; reason for, ichees and Jansenists, 345; in Garrigou-
210 n56; supposes foreknowledge of impedi- Lagrange, 223, 352, 366–67; in Maritain,
ment, 31–33, 210n56, 333 242–43; in J.-H. Nicolas, 228n6; in Thomas,
nonconservation, 244–51; 283n45. See also with- 253n107, 262–67, 279–80; not cause of defect
drawal of aid or sin, 33, 249n90; withdrawal of aid suppos-
nonconsideration, 47n14, 242, 263–64 es actual defect, 51n16; 246, 283, 372
noncooperation, 251n98, 262, 264n9, 266, 281, Pelagian, 142–49, 153, 154, 275n31, 277, 278, 308,
284 361, 362, 113, 116
nonuse: and Aristotle, 263n8; as a negation, 263; physical premotion: and antecedent will, 44;
as caused by man alone, 249; as culpable and and beginning of act in del Prado, 162n42;
nonculpable, 243, 264; as deagendo, 282; as and general concurrence, 27n8, 38, 48, 161–62,
deficient cause of sin, 243; as prior to final 180; and meaning of “predetermination,” 87,
judgment 264–265; as praeintelligitur, 265; of 189; and postmotion 16, 17, 41; and responsi-
sufficient grace, 75; of the intellect, 250, 264. bility, 60; and sufficient grace, xxxi, 18, 21, 23,
See also voluntary defect; free negation; re- 44, 56–62, 100; causes nonplacement of im-
sistance pediment, 28, 351; determinate versus versa-
not placing an impediment: and antecedent and tile motion, 27–28; essence of Thomism, 123,
consequent will, 371; and cooperating grace, 131, 180; fallible and infallible, 23, 29, 44–45,
111; and gift of efficacious grace, 24, 48, 58; 53, 55, 66, 73, 96, 99, 122, 183, 192, 216; fallible
and grace to pray, 69, 71; and imperfect act, and sin, 17, 214; for exercise and specifica-
69; and infallible motion, 25; and noli velle ju- tion, 115n33; mover, moved, and term of, 46;
dicare si no vis errare, 363; and one who places necessary for every act, 23, 89, 126, 180; neces-
an impediment, 109, 119; and permission in sary for particular goods, 166, 180; resistible
Garrigou-Lagrange, 352; as nonexistence of in Billuart, 73–74; resistible in Gonet versus
the placement of an impediment, 351; caused Arnauld, 63–65; resistible in Nicolaï, 59–60;
by physical premotion, 351; discrimination sense of fallible, 100, 117, 141, 214; to the hon-
in good from God, 356; does not interrupt est good, 122, 201n53
course of grace, 117, 365–66; in easy acts, 111, physical presence of future contingents to eter-
120, 126, 145, 148; in integral nature, xxxi, 24, nity: 329–32; and divine decree, 93–97; and
79; in sensu composito, 346; not reason for fur- fallible decrees, 98–101; and God’s knowledge
ther grace, 28; to attainment of end, 346; to of vision, 49; as coexistent to coexistent, 102;
continuation of sufficient grace, xxxi, 20–21, based on God’s essence, 47n14, 340; in Alva-
49, 68, 72, 197; to honest good, 200; to preve- rez, 54n19; in Bañez, 137; in Cajetan versus
nient grace, 110–11, 117 Scotus, 103–4, 340; in Capreolus, 136–37; in
Salmanticenses, 107; in Thomas, 101–3; neces-
objective determination, 16, 17, 54, 94n31, 123n35, sary for God’s infallible knowledge of evil, 36,
217, 354, 367 48n14, 332; sufficient for infallible knowledge,
212–13; supposes creature’s existence, 342;
permission of sin: and Adam’s predestination in with and without decree, 108–9
Thomas, 54, 265–66; and divine operation, placing an impediment: ability for in sensu com-
369; and general providence, 51n16; 286–87; posito, 29, 346; as not using grace, 113; due to
and negative reprobation, 372; and noncon- creature alone, 119; in Billuart, 74; in Capreo-
servation, 244, 247–48; and permitted object, lus, 210; in Thomas, 267; to continuation of
369; and special providence, 51n16; anteced- sufficient grace, xxxi, 42, 203
 Index of Subjects   397
prayer, xxxi, 23, 30, 40, 49, 55, 58, 62, 68, 70, 71, 78, on Augustine, 235; its ability to be refused,
80, 109–11, 116, 126, 145, 154n41, 160, 162, 177, 281–82; not meritorious de congruo in Thom-
180, 190, 197, 203, 209–10, 221, 277, 286, 288, as, 274n27; ordered by God’s intention to jus-
289, 296, 297, 299, 300, 301n72, 313, 357, 359, tification, 359; Thomas’s shift on, 272–75. See
361, 363. See also impetration also facienti quod in se est
predestination: a special providence, 14, 15, 44; resistance: antecedent will, 171, 256, 266; de-
and “before,” 54n19; and foreknowledge of fectibility, 286; freedom, 192; impediment,
merits and demerits, 34, 36, 45–46; and fi- 203, 266; in Adam and the angels, 358; in
nal perseverance, 38–40, 55, 205; 221, 333; and Augustine, 268; in Billuart, 127; in Cajetan,
grace to pray, 71; and Liguori, 110, 140; and 88n30, 216; in Garrigou-Lagrange, 254n109; in
Molina, 131; and Molinism, 225; and Thom- Gonet, 19, 6; in Guillermin, xix–xx; in Jansen,
as, 260–61; Congruists and Molinists versus 312; in Lemos, 138, 145, 337; in Magisterium,
Thomists on, 35n11; elicited and imperated 372; in Nicolaï, 59–60, 273n26, 372–73; in
effects of, 37–38; free and independent of Quesnel, 314; in Salmanticenses, 155; in sensu
scientia media, 7, 8, 31, 55; four moments of, composito, 29, 76–77, 80, 190–91; in Thomas,
49n15; freedom of and law of, 195, 204–10; in 267–69, 275n29, 287, 372–73; 120, 144, 147,
Augustine, 209–10; in Berti, 222n58; in Bil- 304; instinctus interior, 231, 304; Jansenism,
luart, 31, 34, 37; in Cajetan, 32, 208n55; in del Pelagianism, and Thomism on 120, 144, 147,
Prado, 161; in Ferrariensis, 347–48; in Go- 281–82, 304, 316, 328–29, 359; known in God’s
doy, 202n54; in Gonet, 15, 35, 38, 208n55; in action, 105–6; negation of efficacious grace,
Goudin, 202n54, 208n55; in John of St. Thom- 203; noncooperation, 291; not infallibly over-
as, 36; in Lemos, 208; in Molina, 206, 207n55; come, 56; to Christ, 289; to divine decrees,
in Montálban, 208n55; in Thomas, 265; mys- 355; to general providence, 201, 353; to God’s
tery of, 362–64; particular and universal end agency, 373; to God’s call, 287, 290; to God’s
of, 14n6; reduplicative and specificative in motion, 188, 214, 284, 321; to Holy Spirit, 287;
commentators, 364; supposes and does not to order of Providence, 204, 288. See also vol-
suppose sin in Thomas, 265–66; supposes de- untary defect; free negation; nonuse
cree of Incarnation and sins it remits, 32; sup- responsibility for sin, xix, 7, 60, 61n24, 73, 76,
poses foreknowledge of futures in Thomas, 31, 96, 99, 122, 132, 150, 171, 184, 192, 219, 251, 344,
32, 208n55; supposes general providence, 32; 354, 365
supposes what it does not cause, 33; substance
of Thomism on, 8–9, 116, 136, 205; Thomistic scientia media, xxvn58; 7–12, 30, 31n10, 35n11, 46,
disputes on, 318–24; unfrustratable, 14n6, 43, 49–51, 54n19, 65, 76, 80–88, 96, 97, 100, 101,
136, 219. See also general providence 104, 106, 123, 128, 131, 179, 184, 232n22, 237, 238
Semi-Pelagian, 112, 278n38, 291, 351, 362
quis te discernit, 109, 115, 116, 122 simultaneous concurrence, 2, 13, 28, 31n10, 87,
118, 131, 141, 153, 162, 170, 309, 310, 332, 346, 355
remote preparation: and antecedent will, 279– simple will, 21, 61, 70, 78, 111, 166, 174, 186, 254,
80; and conditioned infallibility of, 360; 270, 288n52. See also velleity
and facienti quod in se est, 273–74; and God’s sufficient grace: and antecedent will, 29, 44,
promise in Christ, 360; and imperfect acts, 48n15, 83, 96–98; and beginning of act, 21, 68,
22, 177; and infants dying unbaptized by wa- 69, 72, 111, 162; and final practical judgment,
ter, 301; and interior instinct, 161n; and “nega- 175–79; and God’s pact in Christ, 75, 220–22,
tive infidels” in Thomas, 290n55; and perfect 358–59; and Guillermin, xix–xx, 58–61; and
act, 177, 284; and proximate preparation, 220, hope, 39–40; and human insufficiency, 286–
360; and sufficient grace, 285; and will secun- 87; and imperfect acts, 23, 62–66, 71; and in-
dum quid, 280–81, 282n49; from free will and tention of God, 67, 359; and its nonuse, 114,
God’s motion, 301; impedible in Thomas, 129; and Jansenists, 60n23, 62–63, 99, 130,
275; in Billuart, 160; in Bouillard, 276n31; in 327–29, 361; and Liguori, 30n10, 70–71, 110;
Dhont, 276n31; in Gonet, 64; in Massoulié, and mystery of predestination, 362–63; and
158; in Nguyen Tri-An, 272–75, 318n13; in Sage prayer, 70–71; and responsibility, 96, 130;
398  Index of Subjects
sufficient grace (cont.) vific will secundum quid, 289; and universal
as a general aid, 23, 27, 44, 48, 125, 163, 366– vocation in Chrysostom, 290–91; as Christ’s
67; as a physical premotion, 18–21, 55–62; universal redemption in commentators,
confirmative texts on, 149–62; decree of and 285n53; as general supernatural aid in Serra,
gift of, 54n19, 206; fallibly, imperfectly, or se- 155; as man’s nature made for salvation in
cundum quid efficacious, 18, 21–22, 27, 28, 68, Thomas, 269–70; Cajetan and Bañez’s mis-
72, 76–79, 96, 97, 99, 118, 120, 153; fundamen- interpretation of, 283–84; commentators’
tal character of, xxx–xxxii, 29–30, 111; im- confusion about, 289; in Auriol, 234n31; in
pediment to precedes negation of efficacious International Theological Commission, 287;
grace, 42n12, 127, 203; in angels and in Adam, in Vatican II, 292–93; no longer restricted to
23, 217–18; in Gonet, 19, 63–65; in Nicolaï, 59– adults, 289n54, 297–301
60; not to place an impediment, 68–69, 71,
111–12, 351; Pelagian, Jansenist, and Thomist Vatican I, 281n43, 314, 316, 372
theses on, 145–49; resistible in sensu composito, Vatican II, xviin19, 227, 229, 240, 241, 292, 293n61,
29, 190, 268–69; two senses of “does not give 298n69, 301n72, 316
agere,” 18; universal, 42n12, 139, 203, 289–91; velleity, 25n7, 158, 270–71, 279, 282n44, 284, 297,
via ad justification, 27, 67, 207, 359. See also ef- 326–29, 369, 370. See also simple will
ficacious grace vocation: able to resist, 138, 287, 289; and in-
fants, 301; and Mary, 300n70; and sufficient
Thomas Aquinas: and antecedent will, 269–72, grace, xx, 203, 284; as causing nonplacement
288–89, 369–70; and “Book of Life,” 284, 289, of impediment, 281; as efficacious, 20; as first
319, 322; and conato, 112–15; and infallibil- grace, 78; as universal, 289–90, 291, 293; gra-
ity of fact, 205 213, 347; and permission, 247, tuity of, 55; in Thomas, 275n29, 278n39, 287;
253n107, 279–80, 287; as authority for Marín- in Vatican II, 292; many inefficacious, 221;
Sola, xvi, xxx, 5–6, 291–92; causes of sin in, one efficacious enough for salvation, 221;
161–65; De malo 1, 3, 47n14, 119, 126, 215, 248; path to justification, 49, 55; preparation in ac-
deordination from man, 33, 47, 119, 248; free- cord with, 260; salvific order begun in, 281.
dom of final perseverance, 210; foreknowl- See also interior instinct
edge not cause of predestination, 36; God’s voluntary defect: and antecedent permission,
knowledge of sin, 262–63; man fails God’s 372; and fallible premotion, 48; as a “culpable
grace, 138, 336, 352; nature not made in vain, negation,” 243; as a nonconsideration of the
295–97; negation of grace supposes defect, rule, 123n35; formal sin futurible in, 51; gen-
123n35; nonconservation as withdrawal of eral motion previous to, 223; God’s vision
grace, 245–47; physical presence to eternity, of, 49n15; impedes antecedent will, 284; im-
101–3; powers of fallen nature, 145–51; prayer pedes reception of efficacious grace, 61n24,
founded on God’s mercy, 40, 210; predes- 279; impedes sufficient grace, 67; imped-
tination, 260, 265–66; predestination sup- ible by infallibly efficacious grace, 77; in final
poses futures, 32, 208; preparation for grace, practical judgment, 344; man responsible for,
272–78, 290–91; providence, 224–35, 280–81; 61n24; not caused by God, 54n19; objective
resistance to Spirit, 24, 64, 72, 88, 267–69, determination of God’s motion, 354; prior to
372; sufficient grace, 285–87; ST I-II, 9, 6 ad 3, motion to material of sin, 16, 41, 53, 171, 365;
118n48, 232, 273 supposed by consequent permission of sin,
Trent, Council of, 74, 158, 162, 207n55, 209, 220, 51n16; supposed by negative reprobation, 33.
281n43, 306, 316, 373 See also free negation; nonuse; resistance

universal salvific will; and 1 Timothy 2:4, 295; withdrawal of aid, 243, 246n84, 271n20, 283. See
and man not made in vain, 295–96; and sal- also nonconservation
Index of Names

Acquaviva, Claudio, 308 Aristotle, 263n8, 271, 287, 296n64

Albert the Great, 276n32, 277, 326, 327, 330n40 Arles, Council of, 278n38
Alès, Adhemar d’, xix, xx, 4, 314 Arnaiz, Gregorio, 12n1
Alexander VII, 311 Arnauld, Antoine, 62, 63, 311, 313, 314, 329n45
Alexander of Hales, 276n32, 277, 325–27 Ashley, Benedict M., 230n11
Aliaga, Juan de, 159, 311, 317 Asturicense, xxxn72, 169n44, 303, 305, 307, 317,
Ambrose of Milan, 250, 274 318n13, 320, 323, 326, 327
Alonso, Bernabe, 304n1 Augustine, xxxi, 8, 9n5, 37, 71, 116, 124–26, 129,
Alvarez, Diego, 8, 9, 10n5, 14n6, 19–21, 26, 34, 153, 154n41, 158, 159, 162, 195, 206, 209, 210n56,
54n19, 57, 62, 65, 79n28, 133–35, 137, 154, 226, 235, 259n2, 264, 268, 278n40, 281, 287,
169n49, 178, 210n56, 216, 306, 308, 309, 313n8, 288n53, 290, 291, 295, 296n63, 298n69, 301,
317, 320, 321, 327, 336, 347 308, 310, 332, 345, 358, 362, 363, 372
Anderson, William James, xxiiin49 Auriol, Peter, 234n31
Annibaldi, Annibale de, 319, 321n25
Antonio de la Madre de Dios, 310 Bachiller, Ángel Rodriguez, xiin1, xxviiin67, 229
Antonio de San Juan Baptista, 310 Bacic, Ambrosius, xxvi
Antoniotti, Louise-Marie, 231, 248n89 Baius, Michael, 124, 125, 304, 305, 307,
Aquarius, Matthew, 317 Bancel, Louis, 18, 19, 30n10, 31n10, 56, 57, 60n23,
Aquinas, Thomas. See Thomas Aquinas in Index 62, 65, 170n44, 311, 317, 328
of Subjects. Bañez, Domingo, 45n13, 46n13, 67, 104, 129–34,
Araujo, Francisco de, 323 137, 216, 228n5, 229n11, 232n22, 234, 237–40,
Arfeuil, Jean-Pierre, 227n, 231 254, 255, 257, 258, 303–10, 317, 320, 323–32
Arintero, Juan, 230n12 Baronius, Vincent, 94, 307

399
400  Index of Names
Bastida, Fernando, 308 Clarke, Norris, 232n22
Bavaud, Georges, 228n4, 231, 235 Clement VIII, 10n5, 84, 153, 162, 307, 308, 309, 310
Bedouelle, Guy, 305n2 Clement XI, 314
Bellarmine, Robert, 35, 240, 257n113, 307, 308, 310 Clement XII, 328
Benedict XIV, 328 Coffey, Reginald M., xxiv
Benedict XV, 315 Concina, Daniello, 57, 226, 311, 317
Bernard of Montecassino, Abbot, 331n54 Congar, Yves, xiin1, 230
Berti, Jean-Laurent, 154n41, 228n58, 311 Constantinople, Provincial Council of, 255
Billot, Louis, 8n4, 10, 314 Contenson, Guillaume de, 10n5, 33, 43, 217–18,
Billuart, Charles René, 9, 10n5, 16n, 17, 24, 25n7, 284n46, 311, 317, 320, 364, 365
28, 30–31, 34, 35n11, 37, 43, 47n14, 51, 52n17, 53, Cortright, Monica, xxxiv
54n19, 57, 61n25, 62, 65, 66, 67, 69, 72, 73–74, Corvez, Maurice, 231
94, 112, 120n34, 123n35, 127, 128, 130, 132, 160, Cottier, Georges, 241n65, 242
179n46, 199, 216, 218, 219, 226, 265, 274n27, Crockaert, Peter, 306
275n31, 311, 317, 320, 324, 342, 349, 355, 362, 365 Crowe, Frederick, 237n46
Bisschop, Humbert, xix Cuervo, José, 230n12
Blas, Angel de, xxix, 229 Curiel, Juan Alfonso, 170n44, 233, 308
Blat, Alberto, xxvn59 Cuypers, Stefan E., 249n92
Blenk, James Hubert, xivn8
Bochenski, Innocent, xxxn71 Damascene, John, 231n18, 255n112, 325
Bocxe, Winifried, 234n33, 318n13 Davies, Brian, 251–52
Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus, 332 De Andrea, Stephano, 245n82
Bolivar, Juan, 317 Deckers, Jean, 308
Bonaparte, Napolean, 304 Degli-Innocenti, Umberto, 232, 248
Bonaventure, 138, 226, 276n32, 277, 326, 327, 329 Deman, Thomas, 275–76
Bonzano, Giovanni Vincenzo, xivn8 Dewan, Lawrence, 263n7
Bouillard, Henri, 231, 274n27, 275–76, 278n38 Deza, Diego, 317, 319
Boulding, Maria, 259n2 Dhont, René Charles, 275–76
Boyer, Charles, 237, 238, 239, 275n31 Diaz, José Antonio, 227n, 236
Buonpensiere, Henri, xxvin60, 317 Dionysius the Areopagite, 286n49, 333n56
Burrell, David, 248, 249n91 Domingo de Santa Teresa, 310
Doran, Robert M., 237n46
Caesarius of Arles, 278n38 Dummermuth, Antoine Marie, xix, 159, 317
Cahalan, Jack, 249 Durandus of Saint Pourçain, 309
Cajetan, xviin21, 10, 25n7, 32–33, 42, 45–46, 88,
101–4, 138, 145, 151–52, 165, 169n44, 208n55, Elío, Ana Azanza, 241
210n56, 214, 216, 226, 234, 253n106, 254, Emery, Gilles, 250–51, 276n33
265n13, 275n31, 283–85, 305, 306, 317–21, 325– Estius, Guillaume, 133, 275n31, 308, 320, 323
27, 329–33, 327, 344, 347–49, 357, 364, 365 Extremeño, Claudio Garcia, xiin1, 241n66
Cano, Melchior, xiii, 330n52
Capreolus, 8, 15, 136–37, 139, 169, 210n56, 274n27, Farrelly, M. John, 237
275n31, 288n53, 304, 305, 316, 317, 319, 320, 321, Faustus of Riez, 278n38
326, 330, 331, 333, 336, 365 Felipe IV, King, 308
Carranza, Bartolomé, 317 Fernandez, Pablo, xxivn54
Carreyre, Jean, 319n45 Fernandez, Vidal Fuego, xiin1, xivn9, 229, 241n66
Caspari, Gerard, 235n35 Ferrariensis, 14n6, 15, 43, 136n37, 139, 145, 169n44,
Catharin, Ambroise, 320n24 203, 226, 253n107, 274, 280, 281, 284, 288n53,
Cessario, Romanus, 305n2 306, 317, 320, 321, 348, 349, 365
Charles V, Emperor, 306 Ferre, Vicente, 320, 323
Chenu, Marie-Domnique, 230 Finance, Joseph de, 239, 240n60, 330n49, 331n55
Chrysostom, John, 255, 290–91, 298n69, 325n39 FitzGerald, Desmond, 249n91
 Index of Names   401
Flannery, Kevin J., 243n49 Guillermin, Henri, xix–xx, xiin46, 58–61, 124,
Fonseca, Pedro de, 309 165, 223, 273n26, 315, 317, 329n46
Forment, Eudaldo, 241
Francheschi, Sylvio Hermann de, 313n8 Haldane, John, 249n92
Franzelin, Jean-Baptiste, 51–53, 76, 130, 314 Hellin, José M., 308n5
Frins, Victor, xix Henry of Gorkhum, 285
Heredia, Vincent Beltran de, 230n12, 234n28,
Gagnebat, M.R., 315n9 357n4
Gambarte, Eduardo Mateo, xiin2 Hermann, Jean, 28, 236
Garcia, Candido, xxxn72, 236n39 Hidalgo, José Fidel, 236
Garcia, Jesus Martinez, 241n69 Higgins, David, 249n91
Garcia, Matias, xxviiin66 Hilary of Poitiers, 209n56, 250n96
Garcia, Vito T. Gómez, xxiv Hill, William Joseph, 229n11
Gardeil, Ambrose, 2, 314, 317 Holcot, Robert, 319, 326
Garrigou-Lagrange, Reginald, xix–xxvi, xxix, 4, Hudson, Deal, 249n91
211n, 229n, 230, 231n17, 236, 247–48, 254, 313, Hughes, Christopher, 249n92
314, 315, 316, 317, 318n12, 329, 331n55, 346n4 Hugon, Éduardo, xxvin60, 119, 315, 317, 331n55
Garrigues, Jean-Miguel, 297n66 Hütter., Reinhard, xn3
Gauthier, René Antoine, 275n30
Gayraud, Hippolyte, xix Ildefonso de Los Angeles, 310
Gazzaniga, Pietro Maria, 57, 65, 304, 312, 317 Ignatius of Loyola, 82, 240, 306
Geffré, Claude Jourdain, 231 Innocent V, 276n32, 319
Gerard of Siena, 319 Innocent X, 311, 312
Gerbino, R.D., 318n13, 325–26
Getino, Luis G. Alonso, 304n1 Jansen, Cornelius, 59, 124, 129, 133, 147, 149, 178,
Giles of Rome, 319 252n103, 281n43, 305, 311, 312, 328n44, 372
Gillet, Martin Stanislas, xxivn52 Janson, Jacques, 305
Godoy, Pedro, 132, 156, 185n50, 202, 221, 312, 317, Janssens, Laurent, 11, 315
320, 324 John of Naples, 319
Gonet, Jean-Baptiste, 9, 14n6, 15, 16n, 17, 19, 35, John of St. Thomas, 9, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 57, 61n25,
37, 38, 41, 44, 51, 52n17, 53n18, 57, 61, 62–65, 67, 65, 85, 94, 125, 155n, 156, 179, 184n49, 202n54,
68, 79n28, 94n31, 130, 132–34, 156–57, 180n47, 207, 265, 275n31, 308, 317, 323
208n55, 216, 217, 218, 221, 312, 317, 320, 324, 328, Joseph II, Emperor, 312
342, 349, 370 Journet, Charles, xiv10, xviii, 230, 236n39, 242–
González de Albeda, Juan, xix, xx, xxii, 15, 18, 44, 250n93, 255
19, 25, 56, 57, 58, 59, 61, 62, 65, 68, 132, 135, 165, Juan de la Anunciacíon, 310
169–70, 178–80, 257n113, 304, 308, 315, 317, 320, Judas Iscariot, 31, 299, 353
321, 323, 327 Justin Martyr, 169
González de la Fuente, Luciano, 318, 322–24
Gorce, Mathieu-Maxime, 265n13, 313n8, 320n24 Keusch, Charles, 236
Gotti, Vincenzo Luigi, 320, 323 Klubertanz, George, 239
Goudin, Antoine, 33, 57, 62, 65, 71, 132, 158–59, Knasas, John, 241
179n46, 202n54, 208n55, 216, 217, 218, 265, Koëllin, Conrad, 273n26, 306
288n53, 312, 317, 320, 324, 328 Kretzmann, Norman, 331n53
Grant, W. Matthews, 243n79, 252n102 Kuic, Vukan, 249n91
Graveson, Ignace Hyacinthe Amat, 57, 52, 65,
312, 317 Labourdette, Marie-Michel, 242, 244n81
Gregory the Great, 247, 287 Lange, Herman, 228n5, 238, 240n64
Gregory XIII, 154 Lavaud, M. Benoît, 315n9
Groblicki, Julianus, 329–32 Lebacqz, Joseph, 265n13
Guérard des Lauriers, Marie-Louise, 231, 252 Ledesma, Pedro de, 65, 169–70, 309, 316n11, 317
402  Index of Names
Lemos, Tomas de, 8, 9, 10n5, 19–21, 26, 34, 35n11, Muenk, Ted, xxxiv
57, 62, 65, 79n28, 84, 129, 132, 133, 134, 135, 138, Muñiz, Francisco Perez, xxx, 227–29, 231–37,
139, 144n39, 146n40, 152–54, 163, 175, 178, 240, 248, 254, 305, 307n3, 313n8, 318, 322, 325,
179n46, 208n55, 216, 220, 288n53, 308, 309, 313, 329, 333
317, 320, 337, 338, 342, 347
Leo XIII, xix, 304, 315 Natalis, Hervé, 319, 326
Leonard of Pistoia, 319 Navarette, Balthasar, 57, 65, 79, 180, 309, 317
Lepicier, Alexis-Henri-Marie, 11, 315 Nazari, Gian Paolo, 310, 317, 320
Lessius, Leonard, 308 Nealy, Francis Dominic, xii
Levering, Matthew, 250–51 Neira, Eladio, xii, xxiv, xxvi
Lezana, Juan Baptiste de, 320 Neveut, Émile, 228n5, 238
Ligouri, Alphonse Maria de, xxxi, xxxii, 11, 22, 23, Nguyen Tri-An, Joseph, 272n22, 274n27, 275n31,
30–31, 70–71, 96, 110, 140–41, 179, 236, 240n63, 276n32, 318n13
309, 312, 318n13, 355 Nicolaï, Jean, xix, 18, 19, 57, 59–60, 65, 132,
Lombard, Peter, 308 273n26, 313, 314, 315, 317, 328
Long, Steven A., 253–54 Nicolas, Jean-Hervé, 228–29, 231, 241–42, 244–
Lonergan, Bernard, 237–39, 248, 249n91, 45, 247–48, 250, 252–53, 313
252n103, 281n42 Nicolas, Marie-Joseph, 231
Lorenzelli, Benedetto, 11, 315 Nicole, Pierre, 313, 329n45
Louis XIII, 313 Noël, Laurentius, 248n89, 318n13
Louis XIV, 314
Lugo, Juan de, 11, 309 Orange, Council of, 278n38
Origen of Alexandria, 255
Manzanedo, Marcus, xxxn72, 307n3, 318n13 Ortega, Juan, 229n8
Mare, William de la, 329 Ortuzar, Martin, 234, 326n42
Mariales, Xantes, 320 Osborne, Thomas M., 252
Maritain, Jacques, ix, xiv, xxv, 227–36, 238–45,
248–50, 252–54, 296n65, 315 Paban-Second, Ceslaus, xxvi, 210n56, 288n53
Mas, Diego, 317 Paquet, Louis-Adolphe, 11, 316
Massoulié, Antoine, xix, 9, 18, 19, 56, 57, 61n25, Paredes, Buenaventura Garcia de, xxiii–xxvi,
62, 65, 158, 311, 312, 313, 314, 315, 317, 328 211n
Matthijs, M., 331n55 Pascal, Blaise, 99, 313
Maximus the Confessor, 255 Paul, Apostle, 78, 104, 109, 115–19, 122, 268, 273,
McCabe, Herbert, 252 287, 298
McInerny, Ralph, 243n49 Paul III, 10n5, 308, 309
Medina, Bartholomé de, 57, 65, 152, 274, 306, Pecci, Joseph, 11, 316
316n11, 317, 326, 330, 365 Peddicord, Richard, 315n9
Michel, Albert, 234n30, 269n15, 326n42, 331 Pègues, Thomas, 2, 210n56, 230n12, 288n53, 316,
Molina, Luis de, xxii, xxv, 3, 30, 69, 84, 86, 104, 317
122, 129, 131, 133, 153–54, 162–63, 168–69, 178, Pelagius, 144, 146, 149, 154
195, 205, 221–22, 228, 232, 237, 240, 254, 257, Penido, M. T.-L., 230n12
284, 303, 304, 305, 307, 308, 309, 310, 321, 332 Pereña, Luis Jesus, xxvii, 228, 231–32
Montagnolo, Giovanni Domenico, 320 Peter, Apostle, 53, 31n10, 32
Montalbán, Juan de, 133, 134, 208, 313, 317, 320, Pierdait, Dom Jean-Louis, 233
324 Pietro of Tarantase: See Innocent V.
Montemayor, Prudencio de 310 Pinckaers, Servais, 231n16, 241, 270n19
Moore, Robert, 248n89 Piñon, Manuel, 227n, 229, 249
Moos, Marie Fabian, 230n12 Pius V, 154n41, 305
Moran, Dennis Wm., 249n91 Pius VI, 312
Most, William, 236 Pius IX, 292n58
 Index of Names   403
Pius X, 12 Shanley, Brian, 248, 330–31
Pius XI, 315 Sherwin, Michael, 259n2, 264n10
Plans, Juan Belda, 304n1 Sikora, Joseph J., 239
Pontifex, Mark, 233, 236 Silvius, François, 275n31, 308, 320, 323
Porrecta, Seraphinus Capponi a, 317 Simon, Richard, 312
Porta, José Maria, xviiin66 Sixtus V, 308
Portalié, Eugène, xix Sleigh, Robert C. Jr., 329n45
Prado, Norberto del, xiv, 8, 19, 20, 21, 25, 27, 28, Smith, Gerard, 237
57, 59, 66, 79, 86, 149, 160–62, 207n55, 210n56, Smith, Helen Rosalind, 240n65, 241n69
273n31, 316, 317, 355 Smitt, Friedrich, 331n55
Preingué, Jourdain, 180n47, 314, 317 Solère, Jean-Luc, 329n45
Prierio, Silvester Mazzolini de, 284, 319, 320, Soncino, Paolo, 317, 319
321, 326 Soto, Domingo de, 25n7, 33, 274n27, 275, 306, 316,
Proctor, John, 287n51 317, 326, 330n52
Prosper of Aquitaine, 165, 209n56, 278n38, Soto, Pedro de, 33, 306, 317
291n56 Sotomayor, Pedro, 316n11, 326
Spencer, Irving, xvi
Quesnel, Pasquier, 129, 314, 328n44, 359 Stegmüller, Friedrich, 275n30, 319n19, 325n38,
330n52, 331n55
Ramirez, Santiago, xxivn53, 2, 3, 228, 230, 241, Stephen the Proto-Martyr, 287
316, 317 Stüfler, Johannes, xviii, xixn28, 4, 8, 316
Raus, Jean-Baptiste, 228n5, 236 Stump, Eleanore, 331n53
Reckman, J.J. Michael, 318n13, 329 Suarez, Francisco, xxii, 11, 35n11, 169n44, 210n56,
Reginald, Antoine, xix, 9, 18, 19, 25n7, 56, 57, 65, 310
157–58, 265n13, 314, 315, 317, 328 Szabo, Sadoc, xxvin60
Regnon, Theodore de, xix
Rich, Maria Cruz, xiiin5 Tamayo, Serapio, xxivn54, xxvin60
Ripa, Raffael, 320 Tascon, Tomas, xiin1
Rivière, Jean, 274n27 Teresa of Avila, 306, 307
Rock, John P., 240n61 Theissling, Ludvig, xxviiin66
Rodriguez, Victoriano, 316n11 Torquemada, Juan de, 319
Romiti, Joseph, 265n13 Torre, Michael D., ixn1, 229n7, 230n13, 250n93,
Rossum, Wilhelmus Marinus van, 230n12 296n65
Torrell, Jean-Pierre, 231n16, 241n65, 276n33,
Sage, Athanase, 235 293n59
Sagües, José, 228n3, 240n64 Tournely, Honoré de, 28, 30–31, 37, 236, 314
Sales, Francis de, 308 Trent, Council of, 74, 158, 162, 207, 209, 220,
Salmanticenses, xxvii, 9, 54n19, 61n25, 73–75, 281n43, 306, 316, 372, 373
94n31, 107, 108, 136, 155, 202n54, 218, 219, Trethowan, Illytd, 233, 239, 257
222n58, 274n27, 275n31, 310, 320, 324, 335 Trinité, Philippe de la, 234, 235, 236
Sanday, William, 315n10 Turiel, Bienvenido, xxixn68
Sauras, Emilio, xin1, xiin3, xviin19, 229 Turiel, Quintin, 296n65
Schenk, Richard, 280n41, 286n49
Schneemann, Gerard, xix, 285n48 Urs von Balthasar, Hans, 255–56
Schultes, Reginald Maria, xviii, xix, 4, 316, 317
Scotus, Duns, 32, 104, 214, 265, 326, 330, 340 Vacas, Felix, xiin1, xxvin60, xxxn73
Sentis, Laurent, 232n20 Valabuena, Jesus, xxx, 227, 228, 229
Serra, Marcus, 15, 33, 132, 155–56, 221, 288n53, 310, Valentia, Gregory, 154n41, 308, 310
317, 320, 324, 365 Vargas, Manuel, 249n92
Serry, François Jacques Hyacinthe, 57, 61–62, 63 Vasquez, Gabriel, 156, 169n44, 310
404  Index of Names
Vatican I, Council of, 281n43, 314, 316, 372 Wawrykow, Joseph P., 274n27, 276n31
Vatican II, Council of, 227n, 229, 240, 292, Westberg, Daniel, 243n49
293n61, 298, 301n72, 316 Westra, Laura, 249n91
Vega, Anastasis Rojo, 309n7 White, Thomas Joseph, 255
Velasco, Mariano, xin1, xiv, xvn11, xvin13, xvi- White, Victor, 305n2
ii, 229 William of Auxerre, 325
Velasco, Rufino, 318–21 Winandy, Jacques, 232n21, 233n25
Vereecke, Louis G., 236 Wippel, John F., 332n56
Vicente, Juan: See Asturicense Wright, John, 227n, 240n62
Vicente, Victoriano, xiin1, xiiin5, xxiiin49,
xxxn73, 229 Ysaac, Walter L., 281n42
Vignaux, Paul, 234n31
Villarroel, Fidel, xiiin5 Zacchi, Angelus, xxvin60
Vitoria, Francisco de, 306, 316n11, 326, Zigliara, Tommaso, 317
330n52 Zigon, Francis, 8, 51–52, 228n5, 240n64, 316
Vives, Jeronimo, 317 Zorcolo, B., 315n9
Zumel, Francisco, 133, 234, 310, 32
Walgrave, Jan Hendrik, xviin20
Wall, Kevin, xxxn71

Do Not Resıst the Spırıt ’s Call: Francisco Marín-­Sola on Suffcient Grace was designed in Arno and
typeset by Kachergis Book Design of Pittsboro, North Carolina. It was printed on 55# Natures
Antique B19 and bound by Maple Press of York, Pennsylvania.