Chapter XXXI. The divine motion and the freedom of our salutary acts
Tue question has been raised against the Thomist thesis that it destroys liberty, as Calvinism does, in that it makes us maintain that the free will cannot resist. This is the thesis of the Reformers that was condemned by the Council of Trent defining: “If anyone shall say that man’s free will, moved and aroused by God, by assenting to God arousing and calling, cannot refuse to consent, if it would, but that, as something inanimate, it does nothing whatever and is merely passive; let him be anathema.” + This and other similar objections were made to St. Augustine by the Pelagians and Semipelagians. St. Thomas ofteu referred to them and solved them.?
The Thomists reply that the Council of Trent did not wish to condemn either the doctrine of intrinsically efficacious grace or that of physical premotion, as clearly expressed by Benedict XIV and Clement XII. At the end of the sessions Paul V also had declared: “The opinion of the Friars Preachers differs very much from that of Calvin. For the Dominicans say that grace does not destroy but perfects free will, and such is its power that it leaves man to act as befits his nature, which is freely. The Jesuits, however, differ from the Pelagians who declared the beginning of salvation to be from ourselves, whereas the former teach quite the contrary.” $ gratia, p. 291. This decision of Paul V was afterwards confirmed by a decree of Benedict XIV, July 13, 1748.12
Evidently the Thomist doctrine differs entirely from that condemned by the Council of Trent. According to this condemned doctrine, the free will does not co-operate with the divine action. Furthermore, there were many Thomists among the fathers of the council. One of them, Dominic Soto, was even engaged in the drawing up of these canons. It is even very probable that the fathers of the Council in the abovementioned canon speak of an intrinsically efficacious divine motion; for it is this motion that Luther had in mind when he said it could not be reconciled with free will. Therefore the mind of the fathers is rather that the intrinsically and infallibly efficacious divine motion does not destroy free will; for, although man does not actually resist it, yet he retains the power to do so; remanet potentia ad oppositum, as the Thomists commonly say.
Moreover, the council had said previous to this: “For God, unless men be themselves wanting to His grace, as He has begun the good work so will He perfect it, working in them to will and accomplish.” * These last words were generally understood by the pre-Tridentine theologians as meaning that grace is of itself efficacious, and not because God foresaw our consent.”
Finally, the Thomists retort by saying that it is the scientia media which destroys liberty; for it supposes that God previous to any divine decree sees infallibly what a particular man freely would choose if placed in certain circumstances. How, indeed, can one then avoid determinism of circumstances? In what medium can God see infallibly the determination that would arrest the appetite of the created free will, if not in the scrutiny of the circumstances that thence become infallibly determining? And not having decided in favor of a divine and non-necessitating predetermination that makes its influ-
Thomas sui interpres, Vol. I, diss. 2, q.9.3
ence felt strongly and suavely in the very depths of the free will, is not one led to admit a very inferior sort of determinism that results from the influence exerted by external things on our spiritual will?
The canon of the Council of Trent just quoted was but the occasion of reviving an old objection. We saw that St. Thomas had already formulated it as clearly as possible, when he said: “It seems that the will is moved of necessity by God. For every agent that cannot be resisted moves of necessity. But God cannot be resisted, because His power is infinite; wherefore it is written: Who resisteth His will? (Rom. g: 19.) Therefore God moves the will of necessity.” We know that St. Thomas replied to this by saying: “The divine will extends not only to the doing of something by the thing which He moves, but also to its being done in a way which is fitting to the nature of that thing. And therefore it would be more repugnant to the divine motion, for the will to be moved of necessity, which is not fitting to its nature, than for it to be moved freely, which is becoming to its nature.” * From this reply, what remains of the major of this objection: Every agent that cannot be resisted, moves of necessity? St. Thomas distinguishes as follows: If this agent causes the movement, without causing the being to move freely, I deny the major; if it causes the being to move and to move freely, then I concede the major. Thus man under the influence of efficacious grace remains free, although he never resists it; for it causes in him and with him even that he act freely; it actualizes his liberty in the order of good, and if he no longer is in a state of potential or passive indifference, he still has an actual and active indifference, a dominating indifference with regard to the particular good which he chooses. This good is incapable of invincibly attracting him like the vision of God face to face. He is inclined freely toward this good, God actualizing this free movement; and since its free mode still is being, it is ê Ibid., Ia Iae, g.10, a.4 ad 1um.
included in the adequate object of divine omnipotence. Such is manifestly the doctrine of St. Thomas. The texts just quoted 7 clearly prove this to be the case.
Such is also the traditional teaching of classic Thomism. Molina concedes this at the same time that he declares his departure not only from the teaching of the Thomists, but even from that of St. Thomas.* Several Molinists made the same admission.’
This same doctrine of St. Thomas was later on expounded by Bossuet, who wrote: “Is there anything more absurd than to say that the will is not free in its act because God wills it to be free.” 1° In other words: Is there anything more absurd than to say that the actualization of the free will destroys it?
This freedom in our acts is not only safeguarded, but is also produced by God in and with us. The divine motion does not force the will, because it operates according to the natural inclination of this latter. It inclines the will first toward its adequate object, which is universal good, and only after this toward an inadequate object, which is some particular good. In the first case the divine motion causes the act to be free. It operates interiorly, as was just said, in the very depths of the will, as to the universality of the same, and in a sense inclines the will toward every degree of good, before giving it the inclination to tend toward some particular good."
Thus God moves us suavely and powerfully to act freely. If the divine motion were to lose its power, it would also lose its suavity. Incapable of reaching what is more delicate and intimate to us, it would remain external to us, affixed, as it were, to our created activity, something unworthy of the
9 Cf. P. Mandonnet, “Notes de l'histoire thomiste,” in the Revue Thomiste, 1914, pp. mg 79; Dummermuth, S. Thomas et doctrina praemotionis physicae, pP. 685-7 10 Trae du libre arbitre, chap. 7. 11 Cf, John of St. Thomas, Cursus theol., in 1am, q.19, disp. 5, a.5f., nos.
creative, conservative, and motive activity, which is more intimate to us than we are to ourselves. Our free act therefore proceeds entirely from us as secondary cause, and entirely from God as primary cause."* When, after deliberation, we perform the act, in virtue of the universal scope of our will and our independence of judgment that is not necessitated by the object, we retain the power not to perform the act.** If our free will were able of itself alone to determine itself, then it would have the dignity of the first Will and would be like to it not only analogically but also univocally. It would be purely and simply an image of the divine liberty, instead of there being a similarity of proportion between it and this latter.** Between the two there is similarity and dissimilarity. If we consider the similarity, we must say that it is just as easy to reconcile created liberty with the intrinsically efficacious divine motion, as it is to reconcile God’s free act with His immutability. In God freedom of action is not the dominating potential indifference of a faculty that is capable of acting or of not acting. With Him it is the dominating indifference of pure Act with regard to everything created.** Likewise, in due proportion, under the influence of the efficacious divine motion, our liberty is no longer the potential but actual indifference of the faculty, and its actualization does not destroy this liberty.
If Molinism rejects this doctrine, the reason is because it seeks to define human liberty without any reference to the object that specifies the free act. Human liberty is a faculty that, presupposed all that is requisite for it to act, it still can either act or not act, and among these prerequisites it places the divine motion, which is compatible, according to this theory, not only with the power of resisting but also with the actual fact of resisting.
In virtue of the fundamental principle that the faculties, habits, and acts are specified by their object, in the definition of free will we must consider its specifying object, and say with the Thomists that liberty is the dominating indifference of the will with regard to good proposed to it by the reason as not in every respect good. The essence of liberty consists in the dominating indifference of the will with regard to every object proposed by the reason as at the moment good in one aspect, and not good in another, according to the formula of St. Thomas: “If the will is offered an object that is not good from every point of view, it will not tend to this of necessity.” ** There is then indifference in willing or not willing this object, a potential indifference in the faculty and an actual indifference in the free act which is not necessarily inclined toward it. Even when, in fact, the will actually wills this object, when it is already determined to will this, it is still inclined freely toward this with a dominating indifference that is no longer potential but actual. In like manner, the divine liberty that is already determined maintains us in existence. Liberty therefore arises from the infinite disproportion prevailing between the will that is specified by universal good, and a particular good which is good in one aspect, not good or insufficient in another. The Thomists also say in opposition to Suarez, that not even by His absolute power can God move our will of necessity to will a certain object, the indifference of judgment remaining as it is, so long as we judge the object to be good in one aspect and not so in another. The reason is that it implies a contradiction for the will to will of necessity the object proposed to it by the intellect as indifferent or as absolutely out of proportion to its scope.’”
That we may better grasp how the divine motion is the cause of our free act, we must point out that this latter depends upon three different finite causalities that are mutually
related: (1) the objective attraction of particular good; (2) the direction of the intellect in forming a practical judgment; (3) the efficiency or production of the free choice by the will. The divine motion transcends these three causalities and actualizes them, without violating free will. The attraction of the end thus remains the first of the causes, and it implies a contradiction that our will be necessitated by the divine motion, when the judgment is indifferent or non-necessitating; for it implies a contradiction that our will should wish an object different from that which is proposed to it.
To sum up, as Bossuet said: “Is there anything more absurd than to say that the will is not free in its act, because God efficaciously wills it to be free?” 18 Is there anything more inconsistent than to say that the actualization of free will destroys it?
The great mystery, too, according to St. Augustine and St. Thomas, is not how to reconcile God's foreknowledge and His decrees with created liberty; for, if God is God, His efficacious will must extend even to the free mode of our acts. From the fact of His willing efficaciously that Paul be freely converted on a certain day at a certain time, on his way to Damascus, it must follow that Paul is freely converted; and, if in this case the effect of the divine motion on the human will does not destroy its liberty, why would it do so in other cases?
We must seek elsewhere for the reason of this great mystery. It is to be found in God’s permission of moral evil or sin in this particular man or angel rather than in a certain other. St. Augustine `° and St. Thomas *° say that if the grace of final perseverance is granted, as it was to the good thief, that is because of God's mercy; if it is not granted, that is in just punishment as a rule for repeated sins, and for having resisted the
18 Loc, cit, 19 De correptione et gratia, chaps. 5 f. 20 Loc. cit, IIa Mae, q.2, a.5 ad ium, final appeal, a final resistance that God permits in this one rather than in a certain other. This makes St. Augustine say: “Why God draws this one and not that one, judge not, if thou wilt not err.” ** St. Thomas says in like manner: “No one thing would be better than another, if God did not will greater good for one than for the other.” ??
On the other hand, God never commands what is impossible. Even when Judas fell from grace, though so near to Christ His redeemer, it was still truly possible for him to comply with the divine law.
There is still one difficulty to be discussed, and this concerns the act of sin.
Footnotes
Chapter 34 of 35