Article III. Mystical Theology and the Doctrine of St. Thomas on the Efficacy of Grace

Those who are surprised that we seek the principles of mystical theology in the writings of St. Thomas should consider especially his teaching on the efficacy of grace.

This doctrine, precisely because it is very lofty, is not generally well understood except by speculative theologians and souls that have entered the passive ways. The reason for this is found in the fact that speculative theologians are accustomed to consider everything in relation to God, the universal first cause and Author of salvation. Souls in the passive ways know from experience that in the work of salvation everything comes from God, even our co-operationin this sense, that we can distinguish therein no part that is exclusively ours and that does not come from the Author of all good.

The expression “no part exclusively ours” occurs frequently in the works of the fathers and in those of St. Thomas. As we shall see, it clearly expresses his thought; but to grasp all its loftiness and profundity, we shaJ i, first of all, state the less lofty conceptions proposed by certain theologians. It will be to our advantage to understand the efficacy of actual grace which we need for our conversion, then to resist temptation which at times is violent, so as to merit, to grow in the love of God, to pass through the crucible of the purifications, and to persevere in good until death.

Some theologians 1 thought that the grace which is profitable to salvation is called efficacious, not at all because of itself it leads us gently and mightily to consent to good, but because it is given to us at the moment when God has foreseen that by ourselves alone we would choose to accept it rather than to resist it. The divine prevision of man’s response is what distinguishes efficacious grace from grace that is not efficacious. In other words, this efficacy does not come from the divine will, but from the human will; the grace is efficacious, not at all because God wills it so, but because man accepts it. According to this idea, it may happen that of two sinners under the same circumstances receiving equal actual graces, one will be converted and the other will remain in his sin. Hence this difference of determination between these two men springs solely from the human will, and not at all from the difference in the divine help which they received. The same grace, which was only sufficient and which remained sterile in one, was efficacious in the other because he himself made it efficacious. If this is the case, evidently the salutary act is called forth by the divine attraction, but the initial distinction separating the just from the sinner does iSt. Thomas did not, as a rule, otherwise designate the theologians whose opinion he did not share; but he set forth their thought very exactly in their own words. Charity gained thereby, and the discussion was more serene. We will follow his example so far as we can. At this point we merely recall the principal assertions of these theologians of whom we are speaking: “Whether a sufficient help is efficacious or inefficacious depends on the will of him to whom it is given. With equal grace one sinner may be converted and another not. One person may arise from sin and that with a lesser help of grace, when another with greater help will not arise and will remain hardened. Not that he who accepts a grace accepts it by his liberty alone, but this distinction arises from liberty alone, and not from a difference of antecedent grace (auxilium praeveniens)”

not come from God; it is exclusively ours. And this conception of the efficacy of grace is applied not only to the salutary acts preceding justification, but also to all meritorious acts, even to the last which crowns the work of salvation. 2

Does such a very human explanation of this divine mystery preserve the grandeur of the mystery? The School of St. Thomas has never thought so. 8 Is not free determination the most important part of the work of salvation? This determination is what distinguishes the just from the sinner in the production of every salutary act; every time he avoids sin in the course of his life, every time he triumphs over temptation, or merits and perseveres in good. According to St. Thomas, we cannot admit that this important distinction comes exclusively from us and not at all from God, the Author of salvation. St. Paul says: “For who distinguisheth thee? Or what hast thou that thou hast not received? And if thou hast received, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?” 4 “Without Me,” says our Lord, “you can do nothing.” 0 In these words the fathers, especially St. Augustine and following him St. Thomas, have seen the affirmation that in the work of our salvation all comes from God, even our co-operation, even the distinction between the just and sinners, so that we cannot find therein a part which is

2 In this conception, what depends on the divine good pleasure is that Peter be placed in circumstances where, according to God’s prevision, he will infallibly be saved, and Judas in another order of circumstances where he will infallibly be lost. The divine good pleasure might have made the inverse choice. Setting aside this choice of circumstances, we see that in this theory such a one is saved without being aided by grace more than another who is lost. Furthermore, certain elect souls have been less aided by grace than certain reprobate souls, not only in the course of their life but also at the last moment.

• Cf. Salmanticenses, De gratia, tr. XIV, disp. VII, “De gratia efficaci”: a comparison of the aforesaid doctrine with that of St. Thomas. The latter is set forth in this treatise according to the texts in a much more correct manner than in the article “Gr&ce” in the Dictionnaire de thtologie catholique .

4 See I Cor. 4: 7.

8 John 15:5. St. Thomas says (In Matth. 25: 15): “He who attempts more, has more grace in fact; but to attempt more, he needs a higher cause.” See also In Ep . ad Ephes . 4: 7.

exclusively ours. 6 Moreover, if God were in no way the cause of our choice, He would not have been able to foresee it infallibly from all eternity; for He alone is eternal, and our free acts are future from all eternity 7 only because He decided to produce them in us and with us, or at least to permit them if they are bad. 8

Other modern theologians have sought to correct the doctrine which we are examining, by saying that grace, followed by consent to good, is called efficacious because it is more adapted (congrua), than simply sufficient grace, to the temperament of the subject who receives it and to the circumstances of time and place in which he is. Grace thus urges us to give our consent, but the free determination of the latter remains exclusively our work. God’s action inviting us to good, is analogous to that of a mother who, when she wishes to do so, can find the best means to persuade her child and to lead him to conduct himself well.

In spite of this slight modification, we can truly say that in this second doctrine as in the preceding the efficacy of grace does not come from the divine will, but from the hu-

«St. Cyprian, Ad Quirin., Bk. Ill, chap. 4 (PL, IV, 734): “We should glory in nothing, because of ourselves we have nothing.” St. Basil, Horn. 22 , “De humilitate”: “Nothing is left to thee, O man, in which thou canst glory.” St. Chrysostom, Sermones, 2, In Ep. ad Colos. (PG, LXII, 312): “In the business of salvation all is the gift of God.” St. Augustine, De praedest. sand., chap. 5. St. Thomas, la, q.23, a.5: “There is no distinction between what flows from free will, and what is of predestination; as there is no distinction between what flows from a secondary cause and a first cause.” The first cause and the second cause are not, in fact, two partial co-ordinated causes, as two men tugging a ship, but two total subordinated causes, in such a way that the first applies or moves the second to act. Cf. Ia, q. 105, a.5; De pot., q.3, a.4, 7 ad 7um and ad isum; Contra Gent., Ill, chaps. 66, 149; De malo, q.3, a.2 ad 4um; Contra errores Graecorum, chap. 23.

7 They are absolutely future or future under certain conditions only by virtue of a divine decree, because, being of themselves free, future events are not determined. If they were, they would impose themselves on God Himself as a fatality that would be superior to Him. Cf. Ila Ilae, q.171, a.3: “Things remote from the knowledge of all men, through being in themselves unknowable: such are future contingencies, the truth of which is indeterminate.” Cf. also Ia, q.14, a.5, 8, 13; q.19, a.8; q.22, a.4; q.23, a.4, 5.

«Cf. Ia, q.16, a.7 ad 3um; q.19, a.4; q.14, a.8; Ia Ilae, q.79, a.i, 2.

man will and also from our temperament and circumstances. In other words, grace, in this doctrine also, solicits our good consent, but the determination of the latter is exclusively ours. If this were the case, the most important part of the work of salvation would not come from the Author of salva tion; it would only have been foreseen by Him.¹

In reality, according to St. Thomas, the action of God on the will of a converted sinner is infinitely deeper than that of a mother on the heart of her child. The mother’s action could grow forever without ever attaining the action of God. Of God alone, Holy Scripture says: “For it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish, according to His good will.”² He Himself says by the mouth of Ezechiel: “And I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My spirit in the midst of you; and I will cause you to walk in My commandments, and to keep My judgments, and do them.”³ “As the division of waters, so the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord: whithersoever He will He shall turn it.”⁴ And St. Paul asks: “Or who hath first given to him, and recompense shall be made him?” 13 “So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy” 14 . . . “but the same God, who worketh all in all.” 1 * “For in Him we live and move and is Rom. 11: 35.

14 Rom. 9: 16.

15 See I Cor. 12: 6 are.” 16 “For of Him and by Him and in Him are all things.” 17

After quoting two of these texts from Scripture, 18 St. Thomas remarks: “Some, who do not understand how God can cause in us the movement of our will without prejudice to liberty, have done their best to wrest a different interpretation from these divine words. For them, they mean that God causes in us the will and the act, in as far as He gives us the faculty to will, but not in as far as He makes us will this or that. Origen has understood it thus (Peri Archon, Bk. III). . . . To hold this opinion is manifestly to resist the authority of Holy Scripture. It is said in Isaias (26: 12): Thou hast wrought all our works for us. It is not, therefore, only the faculty of will that we have from God, but the very operation.” 19

The Council of Orange explains these words of Scripture by saying: “God effects in man several blessings without man's co-operation, but man can do no good without the help of God, who enables him to accomplish all his good works. 20 No one has anything of himself except his deceitfulness and sin. Whatever truth and justice we have in us, we have received from that source whence we should all drink in this life, if we do not wish to faint on the way.” 21

Following in this the doctrine of St. Augustine, expressed in the Council of Orange, St. Thomas teaches that grace is efficacious of itself and not by reason of the consent following

18 Acts 17: 28.

17 Rom. 11: 36.

isprov. 21: 1; Phil. 2: 13.

19 Contra Gentiles, Bk. Ill, chap. 89. See also De veritate, q.22, a. 8; “Every act of the will, in so far as it is an act, is not only from the will as from an immediate agent, but from God as from a first agent that impresses it more vehemently; wherefore, just as the will can change its act into another, so much the more can God.” Ibid., q.22, a.9: “God alone can transfer the inclination of the will, which He gave to it, from one thing to another according as He wills.”

20 No supernatural good without a supernatural aid; no natural good without the natural aid of God.

21 Denzinger, Enchiridion, pp. 193, 195.

it. Let us consider what occurs in the innermost depths of the will of a converted sinner. If God wishes efficaciously that a certain sinner should be converted at a given moment, “this divine will,” says St. Thomas, “cannot fail to be accomplished”; as St. Augustine observes: “It is by the grace of God that all who are saved are very surely saved.” “If then,” continues St. Thomas, “it is in the intention of God, who moves wills, to convert or to justify a certain sinner, this sinner will be infallibly justified according to the expression of Jesus: Everyone that hath heard of the Father and hath learned cometh to Me.” 22

According to St. Thomas, divine grace, which efficaciously inclines us to salutary good, is not, therefore, indifferent or changeable. It is not made efficacious by our foreseen consent; but it moves us surely, powerfully, and gently to follow the way of good rather than that of evil. 28

Thus in the work of salvation man can do nothing without the help of God, but unfortunately he is sufficient unto himself to fall or to sin. And precisely because sin as such is a deficiency or the privation of a good, it demands for its production only a defectible and deficient cause according to Scripture: “Destruction is thy own, O Israel: thy help is only in Me.” 24 God permits this failure to occur, or rather does

22 Summa, la Ilae, q. 1125, a. 3: “Man’s preparation for grace is from God, as Mover, and from the free will, as moved. Hence the preparation may be looked at in two ways: first as it is from free will, and thus there is no necessity that it should obtain grace, since the gift of grace exceeds every preparation of human power. But it may be considered, secondly, as it is from God the Mover, and thus it has a necessity—not indeed of coercion, but of infallibility—as regards what it is ordained to by God, since God’s intention cannot fail, according to the saying of Augustine in his book on the predestination of the saints (.De dono persev., XIV) that by God’s good gifts whoever is liberated, is most certainly liberated. Hence if God intends, while moving, that the one whose heart He moves should attain to grace, he will infallibly attain to it, according to John 6: 45: Everyone that hath heard of the Father and hath learned cometh to Me.”

23 Cf. Ia, q.105, a.4; la Ilae, q.10, a.4 c ad 3um; q.111, a.2 ad 211m; q.113 passim; Ha Ilae, q.24, a. 11; De malo, q.6, a. 1 ad 3um; De cavitate, a. 12; Rom., 9, lect. 3; Eph., 3, lect. 2; Heb., 12, lect. 3; 13, lect. 3.

24 Osee 13: 9.

not prevent it, only because He is sufficiently powerful and good to draw a greater good from it—the manifestation of His mercy or justice. 25

Accordingly no one who has attained the use of reason is deprived of the efficacious grace necessary for salvation, except for having freely resisted a sufficient grace, a good inspiration which recalled the duty to be accomplished. The sinner thus placed an obstacle in the way of efficacious grace which had been offered in the sufficient help. For example, fruit is offered in the flower, but if hail falls on a tree in blossom, we will never see its fruit. St. Thomas observes: “Only those are deprived of grace, who place in themselves an obstacle to grace. Thus when the sun is shining, if someone closes his eyes and falls over a precipice it is his own fault, even though sunlight is necessary for him to see. . . . On the subject of certain sinners, we read in Job (21: 14): Who have said to God: Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways. . . . They were enemies of the light.” 26

God is not obliged to remedy our voluntary faults, especially when they are repeated. The truth of the matter is that He often does remedy them, but not always. Therein lies a mystery. 27

In this sense we understand the profound meaning of the words of the Council of Trent (Sess. VI, chap. 13): “If men do not resist His grace, as God has begun in them the work of salvation, He will pursue its accomplishment by working in them both to will and to accomplish. 28 But he that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall, 29 and let him with fear and trembling work out his salvation.” 80 In the same chapter, the Council reminds us that “the grace of final

25 Cf. Ia Ilae, q.79, a.i, 2; la, q.2, a.3 ad lum; q.49, a.2.

26 Contra Gentes, Bk. Ill, chaps. 160, 161; Ila Ilae, q.2, a.5 ad lum.

27 Cf. Ia, q.23, a.3-5. Of this mystery it is said: “He that is a searcher of majesty, shall be overwhelmed by glory” (Prov. 25: 27).

28 Phil. 2: 13.

29 See I Cor. 10: 12.

so Phil. 2: 12.

perseverance can come only from Him who has the power to sustain those who stand , 81 that they may persevere, and to lift up those who have fallen. No one can be absolutely certain of obtaining this final grace, although all should constantly place firm hope in the help of God.”

The Church speaks as follows in her liturgy: “Forestall, we beseech Thee, O Lord, all our thoughts, words, and actions by Thy holy inspirations and carry them on by the assistance of Thy grace, so that every prayer and work of ours may begin always from Thee and by Thee be happily ended.”

As St. Augustine says, “Free will is of itself sufficient for evil but, so far as good is concerned, it does nothing unless aided by all-powerful goodness.” 82 Although our resistance to sufficient grace is of ourselves alone, we freely give our cooperation, our consent, to good only in virtue of intrinsically efficacious grace, a new gift of God which produces in us the will and the act. “Without Me you can do nothing,” says our Lord; and, on the other hand, the soul united to God says with St. Paul: “I can do all things in Him who strengtheneth me”; 83 that is, co-operate in His sanctifying work, labor for eternity.

Some have thought that this doctrine of intrinsically efficacious grace destroys human liberty and contains an absurdity. Far from being absurd, in the opinion of St. Thomas it expresses a sublime mystery: the mystery of God more intimately present to our free will than our free will is to itself.

Grace does not destroy our liberty by its certain efficacy; rather by that very efficacy divine grace moves the free will without doing violence to it. This is the inspired idea of St. Thomas Aquinas when he interprets revelation. “When a cause,” he says , 34 “is efficacious to act, the effect follows upon si Rom. 14:4.

82 De correptione et gratia, chap. 11.

as Phil. 4: 13.

84 Cf. Ia, q. 19, a. 8, fundamental article of the Summa theologica on this great problem. Cf. Del Prado, O.P., De gratia et libero arbitrio, Vol. II, chap. 9.

the cause, not only as to the substance of the effect, but also as to its manner of being and of being made; when a cause is feeble, on the contrary, it does not succeed in giving to its effect the manner which is in it.” It is not capable of leaving its imprint on the effect. The property of powerful agents in the physical, intellectual, and moral order is to imprint by the very force of their action their likeness on their works, on their children, on their disciples. Artistic geniuses are aware of it in themselves, great military leaders experience it. St. Thomas says: “Since the divine will is perfectly efficacious, it not only follows that things happen that God wills to happen, but happen also in the way that He wills from all eternity. God wills some things to happen necessarily, some contingently and freely.” 35 With this end in view He has given us free will. And why should He be unable to produce in us and through us even the free manner of our acts? As Sophocles, Dante, and Corneille have their way of touching us and of stirring up our emotions, just so God has His way when He moves our will. St. Thomas states: “Free will is the cause of its own movement, because by his free will man moves himself to act. But it does not of necessity belong to liberty that what is free should be the first cause of itself, as neither for one thing to be cause of another need it be the first cause. God, therefore, is the first cause, who moves both natural and voluntary causes. And just as by moving natural causes He does not prevent their acts being natural, so by moving voluntary causes He does not deprive their actions of being voluntary: but rather is He the cause of this very thing in them; for He operates in each thing according to its own nature.” 86 Thus a great master communicates to his disciples not only his knowledge, but his spirit and his manner. Leo XIII says the same thing in the encyclical Libertas. “God,” adds St. Thomas, “immutably moves our will because as Cf. Ia, q.83, a. 1 ad $um.

8 « CL ibid.

of the perfect efficacy of His power, which cannot fail; but liberty remains because of the nature (and of the unlimited amplitude) of our will (which is ordered to universal good, and which is as a result) indifferent in regard to the particular good which it chooses. Thus in all things Providence works infallibly, and yet contingent causes produce their effects in a contingent manner, for God moves all things proportionately to the very manner of the nature of each being.” 87

Under the impulse of intrinsically efficacious grace, the will moves itself freely, for it is moved by God in a manner befitting its nature. By nature it has for its object universal, limitless good, conceived by the intellect, which is infinitely superior to the senses; only the attraction of God seen face to face could invincibly captivate this faculty to will and to love. 88 It enjoys a dominating indifference in regard to every particular good, judged good under one aspect, but insufficient under another. The relation of our will to this object is not necessary; rather our will dominates the attraction of this good. The act is free because it proceeds, under the indifference of judgment, from a will, the universal amplitude of which projects beyond the particular good toward which it is inclined. 89 By His efficacious motion God does not change, and even cannot change, this contingent relation of our voluntary act with this object, since the act is specified by this

87 De malo, q.6, a. i ad gum: "Deus movet quidem voluntatem immutabiliter propter efficaciam virtutis moventis, quae deficere non potest" (St. Thomas does not say because of the prevision of our consent). The dominating indifference which constitutes liberty is potential in the faculty and it becomes actual in the choice itself. The divine motion, far from destroying, actualizes it: at the moment when the divine motion desires it, our will, which is directed toward the universal good, actually dominates the attraction of the particular good which it chooses.

88 Cf. Ia Ilae, q.2, a.8: "Now the object of the will, i. e., of man’s appetite, is the universal good: just as the object of the intellect, is the universal truth. Hence it is evident that naught can lull man’s will, save the universal good. This is to be found, not in any creature, but in God alone: because every creature has goodness by participation.’’

80 Cf. Ia Ilae, «-io. a.2; q.2, a.8; q.5, a.3, 8.

object itself. The divine motion does not do violence to our will, since it exercises itself interiorly according to the natural inclination of our will toward the universal good, an inclination which comes from God and of which He is the master. 40 To say that liberty remains, is not contradictory; but in all of this we have an infinitely profound mystery analogous to that of the creative act: the mystery of God nearer to His creatures, whose existence He preserves, than they are to themselves. 41

God moves our liberty fortiter et suaviter. Power and gentleness are so intimately united in efficacious grace that failure to recognize the first is a suppression of the second; it is a failure to see the infinite abyss separating the divine influence from the created influences that exert themselves on our free choice. The beings dearest to us exercise a great persuasive influence on us. Let us suppose it is continually on the increase. Then let us consider the influence which the greatest of the angels can exercise; and let us remember that God can always create more perfect angels who would exert over us a still greater influence. But all this will never attain the efficacy of divine grace.

Does it follow that efforts and willing are useless? Quite the contrary. Precisely because good will and holy effort are most important in the work of salvation, they cannot be exclusively our work. Grace is what causes us to make this choice, what makes us struggle against temptation and overcome it. As St. Augustine frequently says, God moves us, not that we should do nothing, but precisely that we should act. And often, if we demand too little of ourselves, this is because we do not count sufficiently on grace, because we do not sufficiently ask for it. If our spiritual life declines to a lower level, and if we are satisfied with an entirely natural life, this

Cf. Ia, q. 105, a. 4 ad lum.

41 See Ia, q.8, a.i; Ia Ilae, q.10, a.4; q.113, a.3; Contra Gentes, Bk. Ill, chap. 89.

is a consequence of our believing we are alone in acting, forgetting that God is in us and with us, nearer to us than we are to ourselves.

We now come to the foundation of the loftiest mystical theology, that of St. Paul, St. Augustine, Dionysius, St. Bernard, 42 St. Thomas, Tauler, Ruysbroeck, the author of the Imitation, and St. John of the Cross. In the work of salvation, all comes from God, even our co-operation. We cannot glory in contributing a single part, however small, that would be exclusively ours. Man of himself is sufficient for evil; but for good, he can do absolutely nothing without the natural or supernatural help of God. On the other hand, with God and through Him he can achieve the greatest actions: he can co-operate in the salvation of souls, each of which is of more value than the entire material universe; he can make acts of charity, the least of which has greater value than all angelic natures taken together. 43 “But they that hope in the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall take wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” 44

In conclusion, we simply quote the masterly passage where Bossuet, in the eighth chapter of his treatise on free will, sums up this doctrine of St. Thomas. “To reconcile God's decree and His omnipotent action with our free will, we need not attribute to Him a concurrence (in our action) which is equally ready for anything, and which will become whatever we choose to make of it. Still less is it necessary for Him to await the decision of our will, that He might thereupon form His decree in accordance with our resolutions. Aside from this weak device, which deforms the whole idea of first cause, we need merely consider that the divine will, with its infinite power reaching not only into the essence of

42 St. Bernard, De gratia et libero arbitrio, chap. 14. Cf. Diet, thiol,, art. “Saint Bernard,” col. 776.

48 Cf. Ia Ilae, q.113, a. 9 ad 211m.

44 Is. 40: 31.

all things but into their every mode of being, is of itself in accord with the whole and entire effect, producing in it whatever we conceive to be in it, because His will ordains that it shall come into being endowed with every property that belongs to it”

The same chapter continues: “In the creature there is nothing that has being, no matter how little of it, but what has, for that very reason, received from God everything it possesses. And no one may object that the special property of the exercise of free will is that it comes solely from free will itself. This would be true if man's liberty were a primary and independent liberty and not a liberty which flows from a higher source. God, who, as first being, is the cause of all being, as first mover must be the cause of all action so that He produces in us the action itself, just as He placed in us the power to act. And the created action does not cease to be an action because it was produced by God. On the contrary, it is action all the more because God has invested it with being. . . .

“If the power to produce our action in us were attributed to any other but our Maker, it might well be believed that He would do violence to our liberty and by moving it would break so delicate a spring which He had not made. But God does not have to guard against His action taking anything out of His work, because He produces everything in it down to the last detail. Consequently He produces not only our choice, but also the very freedom that is in our choice. . . . To put freedom in our action is to cause us to act freely; and to accomplish this, is to will that the action should exist; for with God, to accomplish is to will. . . . Thus in order to understand that God creates our free will in us, we must understand only that He wills us to be free. But He wills not only that we should be free in power, but that we should be free in its exercise. And He wills not only in general that we should exercise our liberty, but that we should exercise it in such and such an act. For He, whose knowledge and will extend to the uttermost detail of things, is not satisfied to will that they exist in general, but descends to what is called such and such, that is, to what is most particular; and all of this is comprised in His decree.

“Thus God from all eternity wills every future exercise of human liberty in so far as it is good and real. What could be more absurd than to say that it is not, because God wills it to be? On the contrary, we must say that it is, because God wills it; and since it happens that we are free in virtue of the decree which wills that we should be free, the result is that we act freely in such and such an act in virtue of the decree which reaches into all this detail.”

Therefore absolutely everything in the world of material bodies and of spirits, in their being and their actions, comes from God, with the single exception of evil, which is a privation and a disorder. Evil is permitted by the supreme goodness only because God is powerful enough to draw an even greater good out of it: the striking manifestation of His mercy or justice. 45

This doctrine praises the glory of God. Often it is not understood, because it is at one and the same time too lofty and too simple. Those who do not attain its loftiness disdain its simplicity. “But the humble of heart enter the depths of God without being disturbed and, remote from the world and its thoughts, they find life in the loftiness of the works of God.” 46 They do not feel their liberty oppressed by the divine force of grace; rather they find in this power deliverance and salvation.

St. Thomas and the greatest mystics who have come after him tell us that this doctrine should lead us to great depths of humility, continual prayer, practical and sublime faith, abandonment in hope, thanksgiving, and intimacy of love.

45 St. Thomas, In Epist . ad Rom., chap. 9, lect. 4; la, q.23, a.5 ad 311m.

46 Bossuet, Elevations sur les my stores, 18th week, 12 th elevation.

Footnotes

1. Cf. Del Prado, O.P., De gratia et libero arbitrio, III, 364 ff. (1907 ed.). As this learned author shows, it is inconceivable that God can infallibly foresee from all eternity a determination which would in no way come from Him. He alone is eternal; and no act of ours is future (absolutely or conditionally) from all eternity without being founded on a positive or permissive eternal decree of God. This is what St. Thomas establishes in the celebrated articles already cited: la, q. 14, a.5, 8, 13; q.19, a.8; q.23, a.5, which we have ex plained elsewhere (God, His Existence and His Nature, II, 71-93). ↩

2. Phil. 2: 13. ↩

3. Ezech. 36: 26. ↩

4. Prov. 21: 1. ↩