Chapter VII. The doctrinal principles of st. thomas
St. THomas Aquinas developed a higher, simpler, and more comprehensive theory concerning the great problem of the reconciliation of God's universal will to save with the mystery of predestination. The limits of this book do not permit us to trace St. Thomas’ thought in his different works, examining them in chronological order. We have his interpretation of St. Paul's text on this subject.’ He has also discussed this question from the speculative point of view.? In his theological treatise which he wrote toward the end of his life, he gave us his final decision on this question.®
We shall present his point of view in these pages, stressing the principle of this synthesis and how it applies, by way of inference, to God’s universal will to save and to the principle of predilection. As for the scriptural foundation for this teaching, so as to avoid repetitions, we shall examine this point in connection with the leading article of this treatise.* The point at issue is whether predestination depends upon the foreseeing of our merits. We shall see that St. Thomas, like St. Augustine, is of the opinion that the absolute gratuity of predestination to glory is affirmed by St. Paul. Later we shall see this exegesis adopted by St. Robert Bellarmine and Suarez.
4 Ibid., q.23. All the articles of this question may be viewed as corollaries of these two principles. 5 Ibid., La, q.23, a.5.1
We shall assign here a considerable number of pages to the teaching of St. Thomas on this subject which concerns us, and this for three reasons: (1) because he himself proposes it in explanation of the revealed doctrine transmitted to us by St. Paul, and such as St. Augustine understood it; (2) because, the authority of St. Thomas being admitted, almost all the theologians since his time, even the Molinists of our day, claim to follow him; (3) because, by so doing, we shall need to comment but briefly on it in the theoretical part of this work, It will suffice for us to recapitulate the principles of this teaching of St. Thomas, showing how superior they are to the proposed attempts at synthesis as recorded in later chapters.
THE PRINCIPLE OF THE THOMIST SYNTHESIS
St. Thomas had a grander conception than St. Albert the Great and preceding theologians ever had, of the sublimity and unlimited scope of the principle that God’s love is the cause of goodness in things. He expressed this very forcibly in the following passage: “It has been shown above (q. 19, a. 4) that God’s will is the cause of all things. It must needs be, therefore, that a thing has existence, or any kind of good, only inasmuch as it is willed by God. To every existing thing, then, God wills some good. Hence, since to love anything is nothing else than to will good to that thing, it is manifest that God loves everything that exists. Yet not as we love. Because since our will is not the cause of the goodness of things, but is moved by it as its object, our love, whereby we will good to anything, is not the cause of its goodness. . . . On the contrary, God’s love infuses and creates goodness in things.” ° In substance St. Thomas had already said as much in two fundamental articles of preceding questions.’
“Whether God's will is the cause of things?” These two articles will be the source of all we have to say on this subject.2
THE UNIVERSAL WILL TO SAVE
By the light of this principle, that God’s love is the cause of goodness in things, St. Thomas clears up the two extreme and apparently contradictory aspects of the mystery that confronts us. On the one hand, we have the universal will to save, which St. John Damascene so strenuously defended, and on the other, we have the dogma of predestination, which was stressed by St. Augustine.
First of all, the universal will to save is conceived not only as a sign of God’s will, like some oral or written precept, but it is also viewed as a will of good pleasure that really exists in God.* If, in truth, God’s love is the cause of the goodness in things, then it is by reason of His will of good pleasure and His love that He gives to all men not only a human nature by which they can know and love Him in a natural way, but that He also makes it possible for them to observe the precepts of the natural law, and in this very way salvation is possible. God can never command what is impossible, for that indeed would be an injustice. Sin would then become inevitable, which, in such a case, would no longer be sin, and could not be justly punished either in this life or in the next. God, by reason of His love, therefore, makes it possible for all to observe His precepts, avoid sin, and thus be saved.® St. Thomas also says that even in those things that are due to one, God gives more than strict justice demands; for mercy or entirely gratuitous and superabundant kindness is at the root of all divine works of justice, which presuppose that intellectual
? Loc. cit, Ya, q.21, a.1 ad gum, where it is stated that God gives to each thing what is due to it by its nature and condition; also Ia, q.23, a.5 ad gum, where we read that God deprives nobody of his due; Ia Iae, q.106, a.2 ad zum, in which he states that it (New Law) gives man sufficient help to avoid sin.
creatures from purely gratuitous love were created and destined for the supernatural life of eternity.’
This was the point St. John Damascene insisted upon; but he scarcely considered it but from the moral point of view, in its relation to the divine goodness and the malice of men. God, he said, by an act of His antecedent will, of His goodness wills to save al] men; but, as some sin and remain in sin, by an act of His consequent will He punishes them eternally because He is just.
It remained for future theologians to probe this distinction more deeply, considering it not only from the moral point of view but also from the metaphysical, in its relation either to God’s omnipotence or to the efficacy of His will and love. This is what St. Thomas did by the light of that principle which, in his opinion, completely dominates the problem, and from which a whole series of corollaries is deduced.
If God’s will and love are the cause of the goodness of creatures," this will, in sq far as it is that of the omnipotent Being, produces infallibly the good that it wills unconditionally to be realized right at the moment,” even that good that has to be realized by our free act, and this without forcing the will. He is also powerful enough to produce in and with the will that its acts are freely performed. “Since the divine will is perfectly efficacious,” says St. Thomas, “it follows not only that things are done which God wills to be done, but also that they are done in the way that He wills. Now God wills some things to be done necessarily, some contingently, to the right ordering of things, for the building up of the universe.” 28 This free mode of our acts is still an entity and therefore is included in the adequate object of the omnipo-
10 Ibid., Ia, q.21, 2.4. 11 [bid., Ia, q.19, a.4. 12 Ibid., Ia, q.19, 2.6, ad 1um. 18 Ibid., Ia, q.19, a.8.
tence and love of God, the Creator.’ Only evil is excluded from this adequate object, and therefore God cannot be the cause of sin either directly or indirectly because of insufficient help given.**
What metaphysical definition shall we give, then, of the consequent and antecedent wills? St. Thomas gives us in substance the answer to this question. He points out that good is the object of the will; now goodness, unlike truth, is formally not in the mind but in things as they actually are. Hence we will, truly and simply, what we will as having to be at once realized, and this is called the consequent will, which in God is always efficacious. As St. Thomas says: “The will is directed to things as they are in themselves, and in themselves they exist under particular qualifications. Hence we will a thing simply, inasmuch as we will it when all particular circumstances are considered; and this is what is meant by willing consequently. . . . Thus it is clear that whatever God simply wills, takes place.” 1° As we shall see later on, this principle concerning the will is of supreme importance for St. Thomas as constituting the foundation for the distinction between efficacious and sufficient graces.
If, on the other hand, the will is drawn to what is good in itself regardless of the circumstances, not to a thing as it actually is, then this is called the antecedent will, which of itself and as such is not efficacious, since good, whether natural or supernatural, easy or difficult to acquire, is realized only with its accompanying circumstances, As St. ‘Thomas says: “A thing taken in its primary sense, and absolutely considered, may be good or evil, and yet when some additional circumstances are taken into account, by a consequent consideration may be changed into the contrary. Thus that a man should
14 Ibid., Ia, q.22, a.4 ad gum. 15 Ibid., Ia Iae, q.79, 2.1, 2 16 bid., Ia, q.19, a.6 ad 1um.
live is good, . . . but if in a particular case we add that a man is a murderer . . . to kill him is a good.” '" Thus the merchant during a storm would will (conditionally) to retain his merchandise, but he wills to cast it into the sea so as to save his life." Thus again, God wills antecedently that all the fruits of the earth become ripe, although for the sake of a greater good He permits this not to happen in all cases. He also wills antecedently that all men should be saved, although, in view of a greater good, of which He alone is the judge, He permits that some commit sin and are lost.
The conclusion, then, is that God never commands what is impossible, that by His will and His love He makes it possible for all to keep His commandments: “It (New Law) gives sufficient help to avoid sin.” 1° God gives to each person even more than strict justice demands.” Thus St. Thomas explains metaphysically the notion of antecedent will by appealing to the definition of omnipotence, which should never be overlooked, and in virtue of which all that God wills simply is fulfilled.
THE PRINCIPLE OF PREDILECTION AND WHAT IT PRESUPPOSES
On the other hand, as regards the consequent will, St. Thomas affirms, more clearly than anyone had done before his time, the principle of predilection, which is that one would not be better than another unless one were loved more by God. As he says: “Since God’s love is the cause of goodness in things, as has been said, no one thing would be better than
17 Ibid., q.19, a.6 ad 1um. 18 [bid., Ia Ilae, q.6, a.6, ¢ 19 Jbid., q.106, a.2 ad 2um. 20 Ibid., la, q.21, a.4-
another if God did not will greater good for one than for another. .. . And the reason why some things are better than others, is that God wills them a greater good. Hence it follows that He loves more the better things.” *
This principle of predilection is the corollary of the preceding one, that God’s love is the cause of the goodness of created beings. It seems to follow in the philosophical order as a necessary consequence of the principle of causality, that what comes in addition to a thing in existence has an efficient and supreme cause in Him who is Being itself, the source of all being and all good. It follows also, as a consequence of the principle of finality, that every agent acts for an end, and the purpose of the action of the supreme agent is to manifest His goodness, by reproducing a likeness of Himself, which is a more or less perfect participation of His nature.
Not only is this principle of predilection a manifest truth of the philosophical order, but it is also a revealed principle, for it finds its special application in the order of grace which, by its very nature, is gratuitous and makes us pleasing in God’s sight. This principle was enunciated by God to Moses, when He said: “I will have mercy on whom I will, and I will be merciful to whom it shall please Me.” ** St. Paul refers to this revealed truth when he writes concerning the divine election as follows: “Is there injustice with God? God forbid! For He saith to Moses: I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. And I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy.” 24 With this same principle always in mind, St. Paul also writes: “For who distinguisheth thee? or what hast thou that thou didst not receive?” ** St. Thomas thus explains these words in his commentary on this epistle: “Who is it that distinguisheth thee from the mass of those who are lost? This is more
2t Rom, 9: 14 É than thou canst do. Who is it that makes thee superior to another? Thou thyself canst not do this, and therefore why art thou proud of thyself?” 2 He says the same in commenting on the parable of the talents: “He who makes a greater effort, has more grace; but to make a greater effort, he needs to be moved by a higher cause.” ? Likewise, in asking whether grace is greater in one than in another, he replies: “We must not seek the first cause of this diversity in the subject (or in man), for man prepares himself, only inasmuch as his free will is prepared by God. Hence the first cause of this diversity is to be sought on the part of God, who disposes His gifts of grace variously, in order that the beauty and perfection of the Church may result from these various degrees; even as He instituted the various conditions of things, that the universe might be perfect. Hence after the Apostle had said (Eph. 4: 7): To every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the giving of Christ, having enumerated the various graces (v. 12), he adds: For the perfecting of the saints . . . for the edifying of the body of Christ.
St. Thomas had come across this principle of predilection formulated in different ways in the writings of St. Augustine who, concerning the good and bad angels, says: “If both were created equally good, then, while some fell by their evil will, the others were more abundantly assisted, and reached that high degree of blessedness from which they became certain they would never fall.” 2 The good angels would not be better than the rest unless they had been loved and helped more by God. This same thought, variously expressed, is constantly recurring in St. Augustine’s writings on predestination against the Pelagians and Semipelagians.*® This is also the meaning he gives to the famous Gospel text which St. Thomas often
26 Com. on Cor. 4: 7. 27 Com. on Matt. 25: 15. 28 Summa theol., Ia Iae, q.112, a.4.
29 De civitate Dei, XII, 9. 30 De praedest, sanct., chap 8; De dono persever., chap. 9.
quotes: “Why He draws this one and not that other, seek not to judge, if thou dost not wish to err.” *
Having formulated this principle of predilection, that no created being would be better than another unless it were loved more by God,? St. Thomas makes it the keystone of his treatise on predestination.* To realize fully the importance of this principle, we must in the first place note more precisely what it presupposes as regards the efficacy of divine love, which is the cause of all kinds of created good. The principle of predilection presupposes, according to St. Thomas, that the decrees of the divine will with regard to our future salutary acts, are of themselves infallibly efficacious, and not because God foresees our consent. The same must be said of actual grace, by which we freely perform these salutary acts; it is of itself efficacious. St. Thomas spoke of these decrees as follows: “Determined effects proceed from His own infinite perfection, according to the determination of His will and intellect.” ** And again he says: “Even in us the cause of one and the same effect is knowledge as directing it, whereby the form of the work is conceived, and will as commanding it, since the form as it is in the intellect only is not determined to exist or not to exist in the effect, except by the will.” 35 Similarly he remarks that: “God's knowledge is the cause of things, in so far as His will is joined to it.” *
That these decrees of the divine will concerning our salutary acts are of themselves infallibly efficacious and not because God foresees our consent, is evidently the meaning of the famous eighth article of St. Thomas which we have already quoted. In it he says: “Since the divine will is perfectly efficacious, it follows not only that things are done which
God wills to be done, but also that they are done in the way that He wills. Now God wills some things to be done necessarily, some contingently, to the right ordering of things, for the building up of the universe.” * In this same article St. Thomas proposes this objection: “But the will of God cannot be hindered. Therefore the will of God imposes necessity on things willed.” He replies as follows: “From the very fact that nothing resists the divine will, it follows that not only those things happen which God wills to happen, but that they happen necessarily or contingently according to His will.” **
If, as all the Thomists without exception remark, these decrees and the grace that assures their execution were not of themselves efficacious, but only because our consent was foreseen by God, contrary to the principle of predilection, the result of this would be that of two men or two angels equally loved and helped by God, one would become better than another. He would become better either because of a first or final act, or of one easy or difficult to perform, without having been loved and helped more by God; and then it would follow, exclusive of God's intention, first as to conditionally free acts of the future, and then as to future acts, that of these two men equally loved and helped, and placed in the same circumstances, one of them would be more virtuous than the other.
St. Augustine, when writing about the efficacy of grace, had stated what is the foundation for the principle of predilection. He says: “And so this grace, which by divine liberality is secretly bestowed upon human beings, is spurned by no one hard of heart, for it is given for this very purpose that the hardness of heart may be taken away.” *
89 De praedest, sanct., chap. 8; cf. De dono persever., chap. 10; De corrept. et gratia, chap. 9; De gratia Christi, chap. 24.
THE ANTECEDENT AND CONSEQUENT WILLS
In no less clear terms than St. Augustine, St. Thomas expresses what is the foundation for the principle of predilection, in the fine distinction he draws between the antecedent will, which is the principle of sufficient grace, and the consequent will, which is the principle of efficacious grace. On this point he says: “Whatever God simply wills takes place; although what He wills antecedently may not take place.” * God wills simply the good that must be accomplished right at the moment, as in the example of the good thief’s conversion, who was loved and helped more than the other. However, God made the observance of the precepts really possible for this latter; if he was lost, it was truly his own fault, in that he resisted the sufficient grace which was offered and even given by Christ who was dying for him.
St. Thomas often distinguished between these two graces. He did so, for instance, in one of his commentaries in which he said concerning Christ as redeemer: “He is the propitiation for our sins, efficaciously for some, but sufficiently for all, because the price of His blood is sufficient for the salvation of all; but it has its effect only in the elect, because of the obstacle to it.” ** God often removes this obstacle, but not always. There is the mystery. “God deprives nobody of his due.” ** He also “gives man sufficient help to avoid sin.” ** As for efficacious grace, if it is given to this particular sinner, that is because of God’s mercy; if it is refused to a certain other, that is because of His justice.
A considerable number of texts could be quoted from St. Thomas in which he clearly shows that, in his opinion, grace is of itself efficacious, like the divine decrees, the execution of
48 Ibid., Ia Mae, q.106, a.2 ad gum. «t Ibid., Ila Mac, q.2, a.g ad rum, which is assured by it. Thus, for instance, he writes: “The salutary work we perform is conferred upon us by God inasmuch as He operates in us, interiorly moving and urging us to good . . . inasmuch as His power operates in us to will and accomplish according to His good will.” 4 Elsewhere he says: “No matter how perfect a corporeal or spiritual nature is supposed to be, it cannot proceed to its act unless it be moved by God.” ** “God's intention cannot fail, according to the saying of St. Augustine in his book on the Predestination of the Saints (De dono persever, XIV), that by God’s 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.” * “If God moves the will to anything, it is incompossible with this supposition, that the will be not moved thereto. But it is not impossible simply. Consequently it does not follow that the will is moved by God necessarily.” #8
The necessity mentioned here is one of consequence, not of consequent. A good explanation of it had already been given by St. Albert the Great, and St. Thomas improved upon it when he showed that the divine will, by the very reason of its sovereign efficacy, reaches out mightily and sweetly, even to the free mode of our acts; it wills them to be performed freely, and so they are infallibly. Bossuet admirably expresses the mind of St. Thomas, writing as follows: “Thus God wills from eternity all the acts that will be performed by the free will of human beings, all the goodness and reality there is in them. What is more absurd than to say, that it is not because God wills, that a thing exists? Must we not say, on the contrary, that a thing exists because God wills it? And
just as it happens that we are free in virtue of the decree that wills us to be free, so it happens that we act freely in this or that act, in virtue even of the decree which includes all this in detail.” ® St. Thomas had said the same: “God changes the will without forcing it. But He can change the will from the fact that He Himself operates in the will as He does in nature. . . . Hence as the will can change its act for another, much more so can God.” * Farther on he says: “Only God can change the inclination of the will, which He gave it, according as He wills, from one thing to another.” * Again St. Thomas says: “God moves the will immutably on account of the efficacy of the moving power which cannot fail; but on account of the nature of the will that is moved, which is indifferently disposed to various things, the will is not necessitated but remains free.” * We shall see that the Thomists say just this and no more. This intrinsic efficacy of the divine decrees as regards our salutary acts is considered by St. Thomas as even a revealed truth. He quotes, in fact, well known scriptural texts in this sense.* “Lord, Thou hast wrought all our works tor us.” * “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.” 5 “For it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish, according to His good will.” ** In his theological treatise *® he quotes the following passage: “O Lord, Lord almighty King, all things are in Thy power and there is none that can resist Thy will, if Thou determine to save Israel.” °° Another text quoted is as follows:
49 Traité du libre arbitre, chap. 8.
“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.” ° St. Thomas sees the intrinsic efficacy of grace in these scriptural texts as well as in several canons of the Second Council of Orange. Most of these texts of the Council of Orange are taken from the works of St. Augustine and St. Prosper. Now St. Augustine, as we have seen, held that grace is efficacious of itself. The five canons of the Council of Orange cited in the footnote express in different ways this truth that every good, whether natural or supernatural, comes from God. Now this is the very foundation of the principle of predilection.
Thus God willed efficaciously from all eternity that the Virgin Mary should give her free consent to the mystery of the incarnation. This had infallibly to be fulfilled; moved powerfully though very gently by a special grace, Mary infallibly uttered her fiat with complete freedom of will. Thus, too, Christ willed to die for us on the Cross at the hour irrevocably decreed. So also the good thief and the centurion were converted as God efficaciously willed. St. Thomas considers this the normal consequence of God’s omnipotent will and love. The great mystery in this begins especially with sin. What is manifest for both St. Thomas and St. Augustine is this, that every good, even the free determination to perform a salutary act, comes from God, and entirely from Him as first cause, even though this determination comes entirely from us as secondary cause. As St. Thomas says: “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 from a first cause.” °
59 Ez. 36: 26f. 60 Cf. Denz., nos. 177, 182, 185, 189, 193. 61 Loc. cit., la, q.23, a.5.
Now if the divine decrees concerning our salutary acts, and if the actual grace which assures the execution of these decrees, were not of themselves efficacious, but only because our consent was foreseen, then God’s knowledge and will would no longer be the cause in the free determinations of our salutary acts of the more intimate and better part. In that case there would be some good, and even the best part of our merits, which did not come from the source of all good. Moreover, with regard to this free determination of the salutary act, since God's knowledge and will are no longer the causes, these would be passive and dependent. We should have to admit a passivity in the pure Act. His knowledge with regard to certain determinations of the created order and even to the best of them, would be passive, measured by this created reality instead of measuring it.* This would mean the final rejection of the principle that no being would be better than another, unless it had been loved more by God.**
Footnotes
Chapter 9 of 35