Chapter X. Predestination and the views of the firsr thomists

Tue first Thomists who wrote on predestination follow faithfully the teaching of St. Thomas as just presented by us. Especially is this the case with Capreolus, Cajetan, and Sylvester of Ferrara.

Before considering these authors we would point out that Aegidius Romanus of the Augustinian Hermits and a pupil of St. Thomas in Paris (1269-71), wrote on this subject as follows: “God wills all men to be saved by His antecedent will, when we consider the order as established, its nature and the common helps afforded; but He does not will all to be saved by His consequent will, when we consider the execution of the order, the individual and the special helps afforded.” + Among the common helps he includes the precepts and the counsels; special helps are the conferring of grace, justification and conversion, and perseverance in doing good. In the same passage he makes the following observation: “The conferring of grace requires the movement of free will... although such willing on God’s part is effected by Him in us through the intermediary of our free will.

1. Capreolus * emphasizes the seven conclusions quoted by us from the works of St. Thomas, and he is unmistakably clear in his defense of predestination to glory previous to foreseen merits, as Dr. John Ude points out.* In this same work he proves (pp. 149-217) that Capreolus taught the in-

8 Cf. Doctrina Capreoli, “de influxu Dei in actus voluntatis humanae,” 107 trinsic efficacy of the divine decrees as regards our salutary acts, and also the intrinsic efficacy of grace which is explained as a physical but non-necessitating predetermination. His words are: “Although God’s consequent will is always fulfilled, yet it does not generally impose a necessity upon the things willed.” + Capreolus proves this conclusion from many texts of St. Thomas, especially from the following one: “The divine will does not exclude contingency nor impose absolute necessity on things. For God wills all that is requisite for the thing which He wills, as already stated. Now it is befitting some things, according to the mode of their nature, that they be contingent, and not necessary. . . . Therefore He wills certain things to be contingent. Now the efficacy of the divine will requires not only that what God wills to be should be, but also that it should be in the mode that God wills it to be. . . . Therefore the efficacy of the divine will does not remove contingency.” * The divine consequent will is therefore always of itself efficacious. Capreolus also says: “No effect proceeds from the divine knowledge without the will as intermediary, and this latter determines the knowledge to realize the effect.” ° This means the decree without which the divine intellect cannot know infallibly the free acts of the future, whether these be conditional or absolute."

2. Cajetan * defends, against Henry of Ghent, the teaching of St. Thomas such as we have presented it. Moreover, previous to this, in commenting on the divine will ° he had positively affirmed the transcendent efficacy of the divine causality as follows: “Because that willing is most efficacious, the effects

TCE. Ude, loc. cit, pp. 222-45, where the principal texts from Capreolus are quoted, who admits, however, as all Thomists do, that one man would not be better than another, unless he were loved more by God. Cf. I Sent., d. XLI, q.1, a.2.

VIEWS OF THE FIRST THOMISTS 109 follow not only as to the things willed, but also as to the mode of their being willed.” Far from destroying the freedom of our acts, the divine causality, which is supremely efficacious, produces this effect in us and with us. Cajetan, moreover, admits also the principle of predilection. On this he says: “For this reason some things are better, because God wills for them a greater good.” © And again he says: “The reason why God chose us is because He loved us.” 1? Similarly, in his commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Cajetan wrote on the transcendency of the mystery of predestination a page that commands our admiration; a page in which certain assertions of his,’ for which he had been criticized by Sylvester of Ferrara,** receive their finishing touch.

3. Sylvester of Ferrara, a contemporary of Cajetan, writes in defense of this same doctrine in his commentary as follows: “According as God preordained from eternity to direct some to their ultimate end, He is said to have predestined them. . . - But He is said to have reprobated those to whom He decided from eternity not to give the final grace. . . . Whatever there is in man ordaining him to salvation is included in this total effect of predestination.” +5 Predestination to glory cannot therefore be because of foreseen merits.

Sylvester, like Cajetan, refutes here Henry of Ghent; like him, he also admits that the decrees of the divine will with regard to our salutary acts are of themselves efficacious.’* From this he concludes the principle of predilection.” St. Thomas had affirmed this principle too clearly for it to be denied by any of his commentators. Now it presupposes, as we have seen, that the divine decrees with regard to our salutary acts

are of themselves efficacious, and not because our free consent was foreseen.

Almost all the old theologians, whether they are Augustinians, Thomists, or Scotists, agree on this principal point and on the intrinsic efficacy of grace; although they differ on a secondary issue, which concerns the divine motion that gives assurance of the execution of the divine decrees. The Thomists, following the teaching of their master,"" maintain that this motion is not merely of the moral or objective order, by way of attraction, but that it is also physical or as regards the exercise of the act. They also maintain that it is not merely a general and indifferent premotion, but one which, without necessitating us, inclines us infallibly, though firmly and sweetly, to determine ourselves to perform this particular act rather than its contrary.

The Augustinians explain the intrinsic efficacy of the divine decrees and of grace by means of a motion of a moral or objective order, which they often called a victorious delectation. To this the Thomists reply that there is no such delectation in the case of salutary acts performed in a state of great aridity and with much difficulty. Moreover, they add, of moral motions by way of attraction, seeing God face to face is the only one that infallibly attracts.

Scotus, as we shall see, agrees with St. Thomas and the Thomists on the absolute gratuity of predestination to glory and on the intrinsic efficacy of the divine decrees and of grace; but for the physical predetermining and non-necessitating premotion, he substitutes a sort of sympathy that prevails between created and uncreated liberty, a sympathy that amounts to a moral motion by way of victorious attraction.

In the great problem that confronts us, these differences of opinion, as the Thomists have frequently pointed out, are of secondary importance. If, in fact, we agree in admitting that

18 Summa theol., Ia, q.19, a.8; q.105, a.4-5; Ia Hae, q.9, a.6; q.10, a.4 ad gum.

VIEWS OF THE FIRST THOMISTS 111 the divine decrees and grace are of themselves efficacious, and not because our consent to them was foreseen, it is of much less importance for us to know by what kind of motion the execution of these decrees is assured. Likewise, if we agree that our will moves of its own accord our two arms, it is of much less importance for us to know by the intervention of what nerve centers the will does so.