On Efficacious Grace

Whence should its efficacity be sought, and is it per se efficacious?

By efficacious grace we understand here that which has its effect in reality and to which no resistance is made, so that, of what power soever it be strong, if it attain not its effect, it is not efficacious; because efficacious grace is taken here as distinguished from sufficient. Sufficient is called that which gives the power, efficacious that which gives the acting.

That efficacious grace is given in this sense no one denies. But the difficulty is there, and a most grave and celebrated one: whence does this grace have that it be efficacious? I say not whence it have the force of effecting howsoever, which is to be efficacious in first act; for it is certain that it has this from God: but whence it have that it certainly and infallibly obtain our consent, which is to be efficacious in second act, and in that mode in which we understand efficacious grace here, as appears from what has been said.

Pure Molinists seek the efficacity of grace from the event, so that, according to them, only graces sufficient of themselves are given, which become efficacious from the consent of the human will, or because the human will consents to them.

Congruists seek the infallible efficacity of grace from the direction of middle knowledge, and because it is given in those circumstances in which it was foreseen to have its effect; but since neither circumstances nor foreknowledge confer anything of virtue upon grace, as the Congruists themselves confess even in this opinion, just as in the opinion of Molina, the efficacity of grace is sought from the very consent of the will, so that it be efficacious because the will consents, but not that the will therefore consent because it is efficacious. Whence, in both systems, sufficient and efficacious grace are not distinguished entitatively and by their intrinsics, but, in the system of the Congruists, by extrinsic circumstances; for entitatively the same grace which is efficacious in one who consents is inefficacious in another who does not consent.

Thomists seek the efficacity of grace from intrinsics, whether from the most omnipotent will of God and his supreme dominion which he holds over the wills of men, as over other creatures: so that between grace and effect there be an infallible connection, not only with the infallibility of foreknowledge, as the Congruists wish, but of causality; nor is the infallibility of operation founded in the foreknowledge of our consent, but, on the contrary, the foreknowledge of our consent is founded in the infallibility of divine causality.

I say: The efficacity of grace must be sought not from the event, nor from the direction of middle knowledge, nor from the congruity of circumstances, but from the most omnipotent will of God and his supreme dominion over our wills; and thus it is per se infallibly efficacious, not with the infallibility of science only, but also of causality.

This conclusion directly prove whatsoever things I said in the treat. on God, dissert. VI, against middle knowledge and for per se efficacious decrees. Wherefore I shall not repeat all at full length, but compendiously only, indicating the places, yet with certain things added.

1° It is proved from Scripture.

1° The Apostle, I Cor., IV, 7, says: Who distinguisheth thee? And what hast thou that thou hast not received? And if thou hast received, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received? But if grace be not efficacious of itself of our consent, but expect it from us and become efficacious through it, man has something which he has not received and wherein he can glory and distinguish himself from another who, prevented by equal grace, does not consent, namely the very consent to grace, which he has not from grace, but from himself. Therefore. Seek this argument more fully drawn out, with the various replies of adversaries, in the treatise on Middle Knowledge, § 2.

2° According to Scripture, God makes that we do, Ezech., XXXVI, 27: I will cause you to walk in my commandments. He makes that we will, Philipp., II, 13: He worketh in you both to will and to accomplish, according to his good will. He makes of the unwilling willing, taking away the hardness and resistance of the will and giving obedience or consent, Ezech., XI, 19 et XXXVI, 26: I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Whence Augustine, de Praedest. sanct., c. 8, n. 13: « By this grace, which is bestowed upon human hearts secretly by divine largess, no one repels with hard heart; for it is bestowed precisely that the hardness of heart be first taken away. » But God gives us not that we will and do, takes not away the stony heart, that is, the resisting heart, gives not a heart of flesh, that is, a docile and consenting heart, takes not away the hardness and resistance of the heart through a pendulous grace abandoned to the free arbitrament of the will, expecting its obedience or resistance, its consent or repulse, as appears from the terms; but through a grace of proper force productive of good volition and of a docile, obedient and consenting heart, and victorious over the hardness and resistance of the will. Therefore.

3° According to Scripture, grace is infallibly efficacious of our consent from the most omnipotent will of God and the supreme dominion he holds over our wills. Therefore not from the consent of the human will. — Proof of the antecedent. In Esther, XIII, 9 et 11, Mardochaeus praying God to convert the heart of king Assuerus hostile to the Jews, says: Lord almighty King, for all things are in thy power, and there is none that can resist thy will, if thou decree to save Israel... Thou art Lord of all, and there is none that resisteth thy Majesty. And cap. XIV, 12 et 13, queen Esther thus prays: Lord King of gods and of all power,... turn his heart into hatred of our enemy. And cap. XV, 11, it is subjoined: And God turned the spirit of the king into mildness. By which words the infallibility and efficacity of the divine motion and grace is referred evidently to the omnipotence of God, and not to a foreseen consent of Assuerus. Whence Augustine, lib. I contra duas epist. Pelagian., ad Bonif., c. XX, n. 38, weighing these words, says: « The heart of the king... he converts and transfers by a most hidden and most efficacious power from indignation to lenity. » Likewise Prov., XXI, 1, the heart of the king in the hand of God is compared to the divisions of waters in the hand of the gardener: As the divisions of waters, so the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord: whithersoever he will he shall turn it. Eccli., XXXIII, 13, man in the hand of God is compared to clay in the hand of the potter. Isa., X, 15, the axe is compared [to him], the staff, the rod in the hand of the man using them as he wills. By which comparisons it becomes manifest that God by the force of his power and dominion disposes wills at his nod, and does not wait upon them to see who may will.

Honoratus Tournely replies that these things are objected in vain, since no one denies that the force and efficacity of grace derive from the most omnipotent virtue of God. Here Tournely plays with words and mocks. So indeed. No one denies that the force and efficacity which grace has derive from the most omnipotent virtue of God; but the Molinists and Congruists deny that grace has the force and efficacity, from the most omnipotent virtue of God, of determining the will infallibly to consent, as the cited texts bear, seeing they wish it to be efficacious through the very consent. And so they denied in the Congregation held before Paul V, September 20, 1605.

2° It is proved from Augustine.

And first from the terms whereby the holy Doctor expresses the efficacity of grace. Lib. I de Peccat. meritis et remiss., cap. 9, n. 20, calls efficacious grace « the most hidden grace of the Holy Spirit. » Lib. de Gratia Christi, cap. 24, n. 25: « That internal and hidden, admirable and ineffable power whereby God operates in the hearts of men, not only true revelations, but also good wills. » Lib. IV contra Julian., cap. 8, n. 42: « Most omnipotent will. » Lib. I contra duas epist. Pelag., c. 20, n. 38: « Most hidden and most efficacious will and power, which converts and transfers the hearts of men from indignation to lenity. » Lib. de Corrept. et Gratia, c. 14, n. 45: « Most omnipotent power of hearts to be inclined. » De Praedest. sanct., c. 8, n. 13: « Grace which no one repels with hard heart, because it is given first to remove the hardness of heart. » But these things befit grace efficacious per se and from intrinsic, nowise grace abandoned to free arbitrament, and rendered efficacious by its consent or by the circumstances of place or time. For 1° this grace does not operate in hidden, admirable and ineffable modes; for the cause why it operates is, in this system, obvious and open, namely the consent of the human will. 2° It is not most powerful and most efficacious, since it can effect nothing if the human will resist. 3° It effects not that man be willing and consenting, since, on the contrary, it is efficacious because man wills and consents. 4° Finally, it inclines not hearts whither and when God pleases, but rather man bends the divine power whither and when it pleases himself. Therefore.

2° Augustine, de Praedest. sanct., cap. 10, n. 19, says: « When God promised Abraham the faith of the Gentiles in his seed,... he promised not of the power of our will, but of his own predestination. For he promised what he himself was about to do, not what men. Because, although men do the goods which pertain to worshipping God, he himself makes that they do the things he commands, not they make that he do what he promised: otherwise, that the promises of God be fulfilled would be in the power not of God, but of men, and what was promised by the Lord would be rendered to him by themselves. But Abraham believed not thus, but believed giving glory to God, because that which he had promised he is able also to perform, Rom., IV, 20 et 21. He says not « to preach, » he says not « to foreknow »... but, he is able to perform, and hence deeds done not alien, but his own. » But if grace be not per se efficacious of our consent unto faith or of the work of piety, but expect it and depend upon it that it be efficacious, it follows: 1° that, when God promised faith to Abraham, he promised not of his predestination, but of the power of our will. 2° That he promised, not what he himself was about to do, but what men. 3° That he makes not that men do the things he commands, but that they make that he do what he promised. 4° That the promises of God be fulfilled would be in the power not of God, but of men. 5° That he be able to preach and to foreknow the things he promised, but not able to perform, since these depend upon the human will, and thus that he promised deeds done alien, not his own: all which things are directly against Augustine. Therefore.

It is confirmed. Augustine, de Corrept. et Gratia, c. 14, n. 45, proves « that God makes of the wills of men what he wills, when he wills; » because « he holds more in his power the wills of men than they their own. » But man, from the power which he has over his own will, determines himself efficaciously, and what is capital, his liberty remaining safe. Therefore, a fortiori, God from the greater power which he has over the wills of men determines them efficaciously, their liberty remaining safe: otherwise how should he hold more in his power the wills of men than they their own?

4° According to Augustine, it is difficult to reconcile liberty with grace. Thus lib. de Gratia Christi, c. 47, n. 52: « This question, where the arbitrament of the will and the grace of God are disputed of, is this, difficult for discerning, so that when free will is defended, the grace of God seems denied; when however the grace of God is asserted, free will is thought taken away. » And lib. II contra litt. Petiliani, cap. 84, n. 185: « If I propose to you the question, how God the Father draws unto the Son those men whom he left in free arbitrament, perhaps you will find it difficult to solve. For how does he draw, if he leaves it that each choose what he will? And yet both are true; but few can penetrate this by understanding. » But, in either system of the Molinists and Congruists, all can easily penetrate the accord of liberty with grace. For who, though most stupid, understands not that liberty remains with a grace which hangs upon his nod? Nay, those systems were fabricated precisely that this accord might easily be perceived. By this alone it is patent how far those systems differ from the system of Augustine.

3º It is proved from St. Thomas.

From innumerable [texts] I select a few. 1° The holy Doctor says, Iª IIª, q. 10, a. 4, ad 3: « If God moves the will to anything, it is incompossible with this position that the will not be moved to it; not however is it simply impossible. » Q. 6 de Malo, a. unico, ad 3: « God indeed moves the will immutably, on account of the efficacity of the moving virtue, which cannot fail; but, on account of the nature of the will moved, which holds itself indifferently toward divers things, necessity is not induced, but liberty remains: as also in all things divine providence operates infallibly, and nevertheless contingent effects proceed from contingent causes, inasmuch as God moves all things proportionably, each one according to its mode. » I p., q. 19, a. 8, c: « Since the divine will is most efficacious, it follows not only that those things come to pass which God wills to come to pass, but that they come to pass in that mode wherein God wills them to come to pass. But God wills some things to come to pass necessarily, some contingently, that there may be order in things, unto the complement of the universe. » And ad 2: « From this very thing that nothing resists the divine will, it follows not only that those things come to pass which God wills to come to pass, but that they come to pass contingently or necessarily which he thus wills to come to pass. » These things are plain and open, and expressly in terms declare that the infallible efficacity of grace must be sought from the efficacity of the divine will, and, what is of chief moment, that liberty remains safe under it.

Both again are drawn out from q. 22 de Verit., a. 8, c, where he says: « Every action of the will, inasmuch as it is an action, is not only from the will as immediate agent, but also from God as first agent, who impinges more strongly. Whence, as the will can change its act into another, so and much more can God. » Nothing more urgent. For thence I thus form the argument: God, as first agent, impinges more strongly upon the will than it itself, as second agent, upon itself. But the will, as second agent, moves itself in the genus of efficient cause and determines itself to act with its liberty safe. Therefore much more God, as first agent in the genus of efficient cause, moves and determines it with its liberty safe.

2º According to St. Thomas, the use of grace is from grace. Therefore by its own force it is efficacious. — The holy Doctor teaches this I p., q. 23, a. 5, c; q. 6 de Verit., a. 2, ad 11; lect. 1 in cap. 15 I ad Cor.; lect. 3 in cap. 9 ad Rom., where he says in terms: « The use itself of grace is from God. »

4º It is proved by reasons.

The reasons are the inconveniences which I deduced against middle knowledge and which now I summarize compendiously thus.

1° Efficacious grace per se being taken away, and efficacious grace from the event or from foreknowledge and circumstances being posited, that is, a pendulous grace abandoned to the determination of free arbitrament and expecting its consent and determination, it follows 1° that there is taken away from God the reason of first cause and first mover, because the will determines itself, not determined by God. 2° That there is taken away from him the reason of universal cause; because there is something, namely the consent and free determination of the will, which escapes his causality. 3° That the omnipotence of God be curtailed, and the supreme dominion he holds over our wills; because he cannot incline our wills into good in whatever circumstances. 4° That there be taken away, chiefly on this side, the necessity of prayer; for, in that opinion, it is not necessary to ask of God that we consent to grace, since that is from us, and not from God. 5° That we ought not give thanks to God for what is the head of the business of salvation, namely for the determination unto good, which is from us, and not from God. 6° That we ought to rest not upon the hope of grace alone, but principally upon our liberty, since it is always in our power to render it efficacious; and thence that we ought not fear so anxiously for our salvation, nor keep watch over it with such solicitude. 7° That this opinion seems akin to Semi-Pelagianism, inasmuch as it makes a composition with God, vindicates a part to man and a part to God, and — what is worse — man takes the first place, drawing forth from himself his own consent, gives to God the later: in which, according to Augustine, lay the error of the Semi-Pelagians. 8° Specially against the system of congruous grace, that in it God should be no more author of good than of evil works; because, in that system, God is said to be author of good works inasmuch as he places man in those circumstances in which he foresees he will use grace well, and concurs simultaneously with him unto the work. But he likewise places him who acts ill in those circumstances in which he foresees him about to use badly the grace offered, and concurs simultaneously with him unto the evil work. Therefore. All these things more fully expounded, with the replies of adversaries, especially Honoratus Tournely, seek in the treat. on God, dissert. VI, on Middle Knowledge, a. 6, § 1.

Add again, specially against the same system of congruous grace, that it lies subject to nearly all those difficulties which are proposed against per se efficacious grace. For he to whom congruous grace is denied and only incongruous given does no more, nor will do more, than he to whom per se efficacious grace is denied and only thomistic sufficient given, as we have observed not once in the treat. on God and in this present [work]. Whence Martinonus, a writer of the Society of Jesus, in his Anti-Jansenio, disp. 26, sect. 3, n. 25, concludes that that sentiment was uselessly devised for explaining the difficulties concerning the auxiliaries of grace. And Honoratus Tournely, q. 7 de Grat., a. 4, concl. 4, rejects it, because either it slides back into the sentiment of Molina, or is pressed by the same difficulties as the thomistic system.

2° Consult diligently the treat. on God, dissert. VIII, on Decrees, a. 2, where the first reason embraces summarily nearly everything hitherto said, with all the refuges of adversaries shut off. Thereunto we added, for coronis, that the adversaries elsewhere acknowledge our determination unto good not to be from God; which here they deny, that they may decline the odium of so many absurdities. Hold all these things here for said, lest we be compelled to repeat the same.

But one thing only must be observed, which I already observed in part § 2 on middle knowledge, namely that to the arguments whereby it is proved, in the opinion of Molinists and Congruists, that grace is subjected to the will, determined by it and its handmaid, two replies are everywhere employed by Tournely. 1° He says it is absurd that a superior be said to be subjected to an inferior, when the inferior executes the mandates of the superior. 2º He likewise pronounces it absurd that what is of itself a certain determination, inclination, impulse toward something, be said to be determined, when the will follows the determination thereof or its motion and impulse. Grace however, he says, is of itself a certain determination, inclination, propension toward good, which when the will follows, it determines not grace unto good, but rather follows its determination, and executes the mandates of God the superior. So the Sorbonic doctor.

I answer to the first. Indeed it is true that it is absurd for a superior to be said subjected to an inferior, when the inferior executes the mandates of the superior, standing there and in the moral order. But if, that the inferior execute the mandates of the superior, he stood in need in the physical order of the concourse of the superior, and the superior offered him that indifferent and determinable by himself unto whatsoever he willed, it would not be absurd, but plainly true, to say that, in this case, the superior, as to the use of his offered concourse, is subjected to the inferior. But this is our case.

To the second there must be uncovered the equivocation latent in the word grace. There is a certain grace physically premoving and determining the will to undeliberated acts. Adversaries, at least some, admit such grace not unwillingly, but of it there is no question here; for the question is concerning grace moving us to the deliberated consent of the will. Respectively therefore toward that deliberated consent it is, according to all, a moral preventing grace, alluring and moving objectively the will as to specification, in the genus of final cause, not of efficient: Tournely acknowledges no other preventing grace with the Molinists. And indeed even in their opinion this needs not to be determined as to species, but as to this it can be called a determination and impulse; it needs however to be determined as to exercise, because it posited, the will is still indifferent and undetermined whether it follow it or not: whence on this side we already have in this system grace determinable by the will. But, what is of chief moment, besides this moral grace the Molinists acknowledge another to be necessary whereby God concur physically to my deliberated consent. This concourse or grace they say is offered by God, not determined to one — otherwise, say they, liberty would be injured — but indifferent and abandoned to the determination of the will. Therefore of this concourse or grace it cannot be said that it is determination and impulse, but truly is said that it is versatile, pendulous, indifferent, determinable by the will and its handmaid; and thus, the equivocation removed, the replies of Tournely remain shut off.

3° Man, in the state of fallen nature, is exceedingly weak toward good and wholly prone to evil, seduced without by objects and examples, carried away within by passions. « When covetousness, says Cyprianus in Augustine, lib. II cont. Julian., c. 8, n. 25, together with wantonness, together with anger, together with ambition, has an encounter with us; when with carnal vices, with secular enticements there is a continual and troublesome struggle, the mind besieged, girt round on every side with the devil's inroads of man, scarcely meets them one by one, scarcely resists. » We are therefore incited unto evil from every side in such sort that, if grace fortified not the will against evil by its most potent force and converted it not unto good, but left it to itself, scarce or hardly one of a thousand would not succumb. Whence Augustine, de Corrept. et Grat., c. 12, n. 38, says: « If in so great infirmity the will of its own... were left to men themselves,... amid so many and so great temptations the will itself would succumb through its infirmity, nor would they will, or not so will through the infirmity of the will, that they could. Succor therefore was brought to the infirmity of human will, that by divine grace it be borne along indefectibly and insuperably, and hence, although weak, yet would it not fail, nor be overcome by any adversity. »

Objections.

As to the objections which are wont to be raised from a fourfold head: 1° from authority, 2º from injury to liberty, 3° from the insufficiency of the help which is called sufficient, 4° from affinity with Calvinism; you have these solved abundantly in as many §§ of the often cited dissert. VIII on Decrees, a. 2. Wherefore I judge it superfluous to renew them here afresh. See the place cited.

Only this must be observed in addition, that it is often objected by Honoratus Tournely that per se efficacious grace holds an essential connection with the act, and thence he infers that liberty is injured. But again there is an equivocation in rò essentialem. For per se efficacious grace holds not an essential connection with the act as though it necessarily bring it forth, as e.g. essence brings forth properties; but so as to have from itself the virtue of infallibly obtaining consent. Whence it can thus be distinguished: It holds connection essential, that is infallible, with the act; I concede; that is, necessary, I deny; because it moves the will not howsoever, but that it freely consent, and with the power of dissenting.