Whether man can prepare himself for grace without grace?

The Pelagians, denying original sin, said that man could by his own powers do good works by which he would merit first grace. The Semi-Pelagians, admitting original sin, said that by his own powers he could do, if not a good work, at least the beginning of a good work, at whose sight, as it were out of occasion, God would confer first grace. Louis Molina, in the Concordia, disp. 10, teaches that God will never deny grace to one who makes good use of his natural faculty, not indeed by merit of the natural work, but by reason of a pact entered into between God and Christ, that to him who does what in him lies from the powers of nature, grace should infallibly be given. Against whom:

I say : Fallen man can do nothing whatever that disposes him in any way to grace, whether actual or habitual, unless he be prevented by the aid of actual grace¹. ¹ Here q. 109, o; q. 112, a. 3, o.

It is proved 1° from Scripture. Prov., VIII, it is said : The will is prepared by the Lord² ; which Augustine everywhere urges against the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians. To the Apostle asking, Rom., XI, 35 et 36 : Who hath first given to him, and recompense shall be made him? For of him, and by him, and in him are all things, man could answer, according to the opposite opinion: « I have first given him my endeavor and disposition, which is from me, and not from him. » Likewise to him asking, I Cor., IV, 7 : Who distinguisheth thee? he could answer: « My endeavor and my disposition. » What hast thou that thou hast not received? he would say: « My endeavor and my disposition. » ² That text, as cited here from Aug., exists neither in Prov., VII, nor is found anywhere in the Vulgate. Other texts of like force are brought forward by the same Doctor in book II de Peccatorum meritis et remissione, chapter 18, n. 30, where he says: « If then the will is either good or evil, and certainly we have not the evil one from God, it remains that we have the good will from God: otherwise I know not, when we are justified by him, with what other gift of his we ought to rejoice. And hence I judge it written: The will is prepared by the Lord, and in the Psalms, XXXVI, 23: The steps of man are guided by the Lord, and he will well his way; and what the Apostle says, Philipp., I, 13: For it is God who worketh in you both to will and to accomplish, according to his good will. »

It is proved 2° from the second council of Orange, in which, canons 3, 4, 5, and several following ones, up to 25, the Semi-Pelagians are condemned, who said that the beginning of faith and of the good work is from us, and that at its sight God confers grace, not as being merit of grace, but only disposition, or a condi-

^{1 1} That text, as cited here from Aug., exists neither in Prov., VII, nor is found anywhere in the Vulgate. Other texts of like force are brought forward by the same Doctor in book II de Peccatorum meritis et remissione, chapter 18, n. 30, where he says: « If then the will is either good or evil, and certainly we have not the evil one from God, it remains that we have the good will from God: otherwise I know not, when we are justified by him, with what other gift of his we ought to rejoice. And hence I judge it written: The will is prepared by the Lord, and in the Psalms, XXXVI, 23: The steps of man are guided by the Lord, and he will well his way; and what the Apostle says, Philipp., I, 13: For it is God who worketh in you both to will and to accomplish, according to his good will. »

tion, or, as Cassianus says, Collatione III, chapter 14, an occasion: « For God, he says, is present, upon an occasion only offered by us of good will, to bestow all these things. »

Concil. Trid., session VI, chapter 6 : « They are disposed, he says, unto justice itself, when, excited and assisted by divine grace, receiving faith from hearing, they are freely moved toward God. »

It is proved 3° from Augustine. The Holy Doctor everywhere urges against the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians the following principles: First, which is also that of all the other Fathers, that in the business of salvation nothing whatsoever is to be withheld from the graciousness of grace; something however would be withheld if the disposition to grace were not from grace. Second, that the Church prays God, not only that he assist the willing and trying, but also that from unwilling he make them willing. Third, that the least preparation for grace is a good thought, which man cannot have without preventing grace, according to that, II Cor., II, 5 : We are not sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves, and many others which it would take long to recount. But no one does not know how sharply the Holy Doctor assailed everywhere the Semi-Pelagians, contending that the beginning of the good work is from us, and that at its sight God confers grace upon us.

It is proved 4º by the authority and reasons of St. Thomas. 1° The Holy Doctor, Quodlib. I, a. 7, c., says: « To the Pelagian error belongs the saying that man can prepare himself for grace without the help of divine grace. » And it is against the Apostle, who says, Philipp., I, 6 : He who hath begun a good work in you, he himself will perfect it. And he proves this by two reasons. 2° Super cap. x ad Rom., lect. 3 : « This very thing, that some do what in them lies, converting themselves namely to God, is from God moving their hearts toward good. Thren., V, 21 : Convert us, O Lord, to thee, and we shall be converted. » He teaches the same in book III Contra gentes, chapter 149, and often elsewhere.

[Lib. III Contra gentes, chapter 149, the Angelic Doctor says: « Not for this is divine aid given us, because we are advanced toward it through good works, but rather therefore do we profit through good works because we are prevented by divine aid... Therefore he is prevented by divine aid unto working well, more than divine aid is prevented by him, as though meriting it, or preparing himself for it. » Which he proves by five reasons.]

The Holy Doctor proves this constant doctrine, in the places assigned, by more than ten reasons. One or two I set down here.

He has the first in the present q. 109, a. 3, ad 1. The principle and end of any effect must be so proportioned that they be of the same order; for according to the order of agents is the order of ends. But the end of the disposition to grace is supernatural, namely the proximate end is grace itself, the remote end God himself, to whom as supernatural author grace is ordered. Therefore.

The second is drawn from q. 112, a. 3 cit. Every disposition, both remote and proximate, must have a certain proportion with the form to which it disposes: otherwise how would it dispose to it? But acts merely natural have no proportion with supernatural grace. Therefore. — It is confirmed. Every disposition approximates the subject to the form to which it disposes, and in a certain way demands it. But natural acts do not approximate the soul to grace, nor demand it at all, since it is of an order superexceeding all the powers of nature. Therefore.

From these things you will gather that the sense of this ancient and common axiom: « To him who does what in him lies, God does not deny grace, » is not that, to him doing what in him lies from natural powers God does not deny grace by reason of the pact entered into between God and Christ, so that to him making good use of his natural faculty God would infallibly confer grace, as Molina contrived. For this sense the arguments hitherto made impugn: since indeed, in that system, the morally good work would be a disposition to grace, if not of itself, at least from the enacted law, and from it would have some proportion and some right to the aids of grace. Add to these the following:

1° The Council of Orange II, canon 6, condemns him who shall say that « mercy is conferred on believers, willing, desiring, without the grace of God. » It would however be conferred, the aforesaid pact supposed.

2° I ask what that good work of nature is, to which that law annexed grace. Is it observance of the whole law? But we have proved that it cannot be rendered without grace. Is it observance of some precepts? But, as Augustine proves in book I de Peccat. merit., c. 22, and experience shows, among unbelievers and sinners there are those who observe many precepts of the law, and there are less evil men, more modest, temperate, merciful, whom nevertheless grace passes over, while it converts the most criminal.

3° According to Augustine, the judgment of God why he draws one and draws not another is inscrutable. But, the said law supposed, this would not be inscrutable, but the reason could easily be rendered, namely because this one does what in him lies from his own powers, not that one.

4º It repugns that Christ merited that a law be made by the Father by which the reason of grace is destroyed, such as that law would be. For it posited, grace is given from works, and thus is not grace; it is prevented by free will, whereas free will ought to be prevented; and prior parts are given to man, posterior to God: things which subvert the whole system of grace defended by Augustine.

5° In this hypothesis run the inconveniences of which above, namely: man would have that whereby he might distinguish himself, in which he might glory, and which he had not received in ordine to salvation, namely this good work of nature, which by the enacted law would conduce to salvation, and to which grace would infallibly be present.

6° Finally this pact has no foundation, neither in Scripture, nor in councils, nor in the Fathers. Therefore it is plainly fictitious. Whence the Clerus Gallicanus, in the year 1700, in its general assemblies condemned it as « a fabrication rash and erroneous, put forth not only with Scripture and the tradition of the Holy Fathers silent, but even opposed. »

Wherefore this axiom cannot be understood otherwise than St. Thomas understands it, namely that to him doing what in him lies from grace, God does not deny further grace.

[You will ask 1º how that defined thing against the Pelagians is to be understood: « Grace is not given according to merits. »

I answer. it is to be understood thus, that no grace of good work pertaining to salvation is given on account of any merit, whether de condigno or de congruo, which we may have from our powers without the grace of God. Nevertheless it must be said, that some grace is given according to our merits which are from grace. Thus to the just, according to merit strictly taken, is given the augmentation of grace and glory. Likewise every grace, after the first actual one to which the will cooperated, is given according to our merit at least de congruo, yet it does not cease to be grace, because in its root it is always gratuitous. And hence true is what Augustine says, Enarrat. in Psal. IXX, n. 15: « When the reward shall come, [God] will crown his own gifts, not your merits. » Again in Psal. cu, n. 7: « Therefore he crowns thee [God], because he crowns his own gifts, not thy merits. » And elsewhere.

You will ask 2º whether man can rise from sin without grace. I answer. negatively¹. It is defined matter of faith. Conc. Arausicanum II says, canon 14: « No wretch is freed from whatever misery, except he who is prevented by the mercy of God. » And canon 19: « Since human nature cannot guard without the grace of God the health which it received, how without the grace of God shall it repair what it lost ? » ¹ Here a. 7, c, and in the argument Sed contra. — 2. Ibid. c.

It is proved by reason². To rise from sin is not merely to cease from the act of sinning, as the adversaries will, but it is for man to be repaired to those things which he lost by sinning, consequently to be freed from the evils which he incurred through sin. But man cannot without grace be freed from the evils and detriments which he incurs through sin. Therefore. ² Ibid. c.

Moreover it must be observed, that there is some imperfect vivification, or inchoation of vivification, to which

^{1 1} Here a. 7, c, and in the argument Sed contra. — 2. Ibid. c.

although habitual grace is not required, actual nevertheless is required, namely that by which the sinner, before he obtains remission of sin and receives sanctifying grace, grieves for sins on account of God, begins to love him and aspires to reconciliation with him; of which imperfect resurrection that to the Ephes., V, 14 can be understood: « Rise thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall enlighten thee. » Whence deservedly was condemned this proposition of Baius, n. 64: « That distinction of twofold vivification, of the one by which the sinner is vivified while there is breathed into him by the grace of God the purpose and inchoation of penance and new life, of the other by which he is vivified who is truly justified and made a living branch in the vine Christ, is fictitious and in no wise consonant with the Scriptures. »]