This short article will address the logical problem of the Trinity and its refutation by Domingo Báñez, O.P. (1528–1604) in his work on formal logic called Institutiones minoris Dialecticae, quas Summulas vocant written in 1599 as one of the final works of the distinguished Dominican Professor of Salamanca University.

CHAPTER TEN.
On the Art of Syllogizing in Divine Terms.

Some theologians who have written on dialectical instruction have thought they performed a pious duty when they carefully handed down special principles for syllogizing in divine terms pertaining to the mystery of the Trinity. Wherefore we also in this place, imitating their zeal rather than their principles, will attempt with God’s help to show that the common precepts given concerning syllogisms can easily be accommodated to legitimate syllogizing and to dissolving contrary sophisms concerning the mystery of the Trinity. In order to demonstrate this more easily, it pleases me to propose and examine the following question.

QUESTION

It is asked, therefore, whether special and new principles are necessary for syllogizing in the divine terms of the incomprehensible mystery of the most holy Trinity, beyond those which have been handed down by the Philosopher by natural light and accepted by the Philosophers.

For the affirmative position it is argued first: This consequence, “every divine essence is the Father, the Son is the divine essence, therefore the Son is the Father,” according to the common rules set forth above appears to be a syllogism in Darii, and yet the antecedent is a Catholic truth, and the consequent is heresy, therefore special principles of the art of syllogizing are necessary in the mystery of the Trinity.

It is argued secondly: This consequence: “the Father generates the Son, and the Father is the divine essence, therefore the divine essence generates the Son,” according to the common rules appears to be an expository syllogism (for the term “Father” in divine matters is a singular name of a person), and yet the antecedent is Catholic, and the consequent is heretical and expressly condemned, therefore, etc.

It is argued thirdly: This consequence: “this God is generating, and this God is generated, therefore the generated is generating,” also appears according to the common art of syllogizing to be an expository syllogism, for the middle term “this God” is a singular term, just as God himself is one and most singular, and yet we Catholics confess the antecedent, and detest the consequent as heretical, therefore, etc.

It is argued fourthly: For this consequence “the Son does not generate, and the Son is God, therefore God does not generate,” similarly also this one, “the Father is not generated, and the Father is God, therefore God is not generated,” similarly also this one, “the Holy Spirit does not spirate; the Holy Spirit is God, therefore God does not spirate,” similarly also this one, “this God spirates, and this God is spirated, therefore the spirated spirates,” and several other similar ones require a special mode of responding beyond the common rules set forth above, therefore a special art of syllogizing in divine matters is necessary.

But in opposition: for the mysteries of the Catholic faith ought not to be repugnant to principles known by natural light, but the art of syllogizing is founded on principles immediately known by natural light, such as “said of all and said of none,” and “whatever things are the same as a third thing are the same among themselves,” and “whatever things are so related that one is the same as a third from which the other is different are also diverse among themselves,” therefore the principles and rules of syllogizing have a place even in divine terms.

For understanding this difficulty, a Christian dialectician should first note that it pertains to the theologian, not indeed to demonstrate that the mystery of the Trinity is possible, for if this were shown, this mystery would also be demonstrated to be as faith teaches. (Since in perpetual things to be and to be possible are the same.) It involves a contradiction that this mystery be demonstrated, for knowledge and faith cannot concern the same thing in the same subject, since faith is to believe what you do not see. But the proper duty of the theologian is to dissolve the arguments of the gentiles and heretics which are brought forward against the mysteries of faith. Arguments which are brought forward against faith must be solvable, since no effective reason can be adduced against truth, even though an unskilled theologian may sometimes not know how to dissolve contrary objections.

Note secondly that arguments of this kind sometimes proceed from a poor understanding of physical science, or metaphysical or another science which deals with real being. Sometimes indeed, in fact most frequently, heretics err from ignorance of dialectic, which St. Augustine calls the science of consequences, to which he says one must have recourse when the consequence of some reasoning is denied. Let there be an example of the first mode of erring: the Catholic faith teaches that God in the beginning of time created both creatures from nothing, and that the whole universe did not exist from eternity, but began in time. Aristotle, however, erred vehemently, thinking he had demonstrated that the universe existed from eternity, and could not have had a beginning of time. He indeed from the complete immutability of God and from a poor understanding of that maxim, namely, “from a total cause always existing in the same way and necessarily immutably, the same effect altogether follows,” reasoned poorly thus: “The first cause, which is God, cannot and could not be otherwise than it is, therefore it is always the cause of the same effect, and therefore it was not possible for the world to have begun with time. Otherwise there could be some mutability in God, so that he would be otherwise related if he had not created the world, than he now is related.” But he erred vehemently, wanting his maxim, which was gathered from created and finite causes, to comprehend the first cause of infinite power. For since God is demonstrably pure act, and therefore infinite in his being, he also has an infinite mode of causing through free will without any possible indifference intrinsic to God’s free will itself. Not understanding this, many philosophers — some denied that the faculty of free will exists in God, which they conceded to men, others indeed asserted that all things happen by necessity of fate. Others fell into other errors because they attempted to comprehend all things by their own judgment. The Catholic faith, however, which does not destroy but perfects nature, teaches Christian philosophers to think rightly about God as the author of nature, and not to be wise beyond what is fitting to be wise, but to be wise unto sobriety. To want to comprehend God himself completely, even as author of nature, as to the reason and mode of causing, should be called not sobriety but rather drunkenness. Moreover, to gather from knowledge of creatures by study of true wisdom that God exists and is the first cause of all things, is sobriety, provided that the one who philosophizes thus contains himself within the bounds of his finite intellect, and does not want to comprehend completely even the author of nature in his mode of causing. I have briefly mentioned these things not inappropriately, intending to teach novice theologians pious modesty in discussions about the mysteries of the most holy Trinity and of predestination and grace. But let us come to our undertaking.

To the proposed question a response is given in one conclusion: A Catholic theologian does not need, for syllogizing in divine terms, nor for dissolving paralogisms which can be made against the mystery of the Trinity, a new dialectic, but that which has been discovered by natural light suffices. This conclusion is proven in no other way than by solving the arguments proposed at the beginning of this question.

It should be observed, however, that the aforesaid arguments can be dissolved by theologians in a twofold way. The first way is common, which the most learned Master Soto follows, and our teacher, in the treatise on divine terms, in the fifth book of his Summulae. For understanding this, note that according to the opinion of others, divine terms are in a threefold difference. Some are essential, others personal, and others notional. An essential term, as they say, is a term which supposits for the essence and any person separately, such as the name “essence,” the name “God.” A personal term is one which supposits for one person separately, but not jointly for several, such as the name “person,” the name “Father.” But they say a notional term is one which supposits jointly for several persons, but not separately, such as the name “Trinity,” the name “persons” in the plural number. But these dialecticians misuse terms contrary to their signification and the usage of theologians’ speech. For in the first place they confuse terms. For either it is required that a term be essential because it supposits immediately for the essence and person, and thus the name “essence” would not be essential, because it does not supposit immediately for a person. Or it suffices that it supposit for the essence and person, whether immediately or mediately, and thus the name “Father” would be essential, and the name “essence” would be personal. Next, it is contrary to reason to assert that the name “person” in the singular number is personal and “persons” in the plural is notional. And moreover to say that the name “Trinity” and “persons” in the plural are notional is against the common sense of theologians in the first book of Sentences, distinctions 28 and 29, and against St. Thomas, first part, question 32. For a notion is the reason for making known or knowing a divine person insofar as it is distinguished from another, as Augustine says in book 5 On the Trinity, chapter 7. One is the notion by which the Father is understood as unbegotten, and another by which he is understood as generator. Whence there are only five notions in divine matters, namely, innascibility, paternity, filiation, procession, and spiration. Therefore the name “Trinity,” which supposits for three persons, is not notional. Therefore it is much better to say that an essential name in divine matters is what signifies the essence per se and immediately and formally, whether in the abstract like “essence,” “deity,” “goodness,” or in the concrete like “being,” “God,” “good,” “just.” A personal name, however, is what signifies a person per se and immediately, such as “Father,” “Son,” “Holy Spirit,” and “person,” and “persons” in the plural, and “Trinity,” which is a collective personal name. Finally, a notional name is what signifies a notion by way of action or passion, such as “to generate,” “to be generated,” “generating,” and “generated.”

Moreover, those more modern dialecticians err in opining that an essential name in the abstract not only supposits immediately for the essence, but also mediately for a person. For they do not distinguish between a term being verified of something and suppositing for it. And consequently they say that an essential name in the abstract can be distributed or particularized in two ways: in one way completely, in another way incompletely. It is distributed completely indeed for the mediate and immediate signified; incompletely indeed when it is only distributed for the immediate signified. And they say many other things which one is ashamed even to recount. For they find a way by their false dialectic how this proposition is false: “every divine essence is the Father,” and this becomes true: “some divine essence is not the Father.” For if in the universal the name “essence” is distributed completely, it is also taken for the persons, and thus it is false, because not every person is the Father. And in the negative they say the name “essence” is particularized for some person who is not the Father. But farewell to these doctors, who not only are ignorant of the proper mode of speaking, but speak dangerously and rashly. For since in divine matters there is only one most simple and most singular essence, it is the same to say “the divine essence is the Father” and “every divine essence is the Father.” Against whom our aforesaid master Soto inveighs vehemently. We however, following the doctrine of St. Thomas in everything in the first part, question 39, articles 3, 4, 5, 6, deny that an essential name in the abstract can supposit for a person, nor can a personal name supposit for the essence, although either name is verified of the signified of the other. For we say: “the Father is the essence,” and “the essence is the Father,” on account of the identity of the essence with the Father; nevertheless we do not therefore concede that the name “essence” is taken for the Father, or the Father for the essence. For since words represent their significates by means of concepts, they signify nothing other than what is represented in the concept according to the mode of signifying of the concept itself. And because when some concept represents some nature in the abstract, it does not represent the one having that nature, neither immediately nor mediately, and therefore it cannot supposit for the one having the nature. For supposition is not only verification of some thing, but is the taking of a term for the thing which it signifies. Whence if a term does not signify some thing it cannot be taken for it nor supposit: although it can be verified. For a term which supposits for some thing is placed in place of it to predicate of that thing actions or passions befitting such a thing. Just as we use the term “man” to predicate of him an action or passion signified through the verb, as “man walks,” “man disputes.” And although the matter and form of man do not differ really from man, nevertheless because in the abstract they signify parts of human nature, we do not say “matter and form run” or “humanity runs,” because actions and passions are of supposita, but abstract terms in no way signify supposita, although on account of the identity of the thing they are sometimes verified of them. And the same reasoning applies to a name signifying a supposit in the concrete, whether signifying nature in the concrete, like the name “God,” or signifying the property of a person, like the name “Father.” For neither can supposit for the essence in the abstract, although it is verified of it.

It should be noted secondly that in the most sacred mystery of the Trinity, this as it were maximal proposition must be embraced by Catholics: “In divine matters all things are one, where the opposition of relation does not stand in the way.” Concerning this maxim we intend to explain how it does not contradict the principles of dialectic which are known by natural light. This we shall accomplish in no other way than by solving the arguments of opponents, assigning the common defects which in bad consequences which are wont to be made in physical or metaphysical matter are wont to be assigned, by which we abundantly satisfy according to dialectical principles. We shall also dissolve the paralogisms which are made in discussions about the mysteries of the Catholic faith.

Now therefore let us respond to the arguments which were proposed at the beginning of this question. To the first argument, the common way of the moderns is to deny that it is a syllogism in Darii, because it has an intrinsic defect in the middle term, which is not distributed completely. For to be distributed completely it would have to be distributed for every thing which is the divine essence, and thus the major would be false, because the sense would be “every thing which is the divine essence is the Father,” where it would be licit to demonstrate under that distribution the Son or the Holy Spirit. But truly this mode of responding has never pleased me, even from youth. For since the syncategorematic word “every” from the mode of its signification has to distribute the term to which it is joined for its whole signified, for which it is taken according to the requirement of the copula, I do not see by what reason it would not distribute the divine essence for its whole signified for which it supposits or is taken. Nor do I see how satisfaction is sufficiently made to the gentile arguing against our faith and wanting to prove it is against a principle known by natural light: “said of all,” which is exercised in this consequence: “every deity is the Father, and the Son is deity, therefore the Son is the Father.” For he will not understand how the name “deity” is not distributed completely, just as “humanity” is distributed completely in this: “every humanity is composed of matter and form.” Finally I do not find this mode of responding in St. Thomas. We indeed in that paralogism do not assign an intrinsic defect: rather we assert that the middle term is distributed for its whole signified for which it is taken. For we do not concede that a nature in the abstract signifies persons, just as neither does the name of a person signify the essence in the abstract, although they are verified of each other. We assign, however, an extrinsic defect, which St. Thomas calls the fallacy of diction, because what is changed into something. We however name this defect from an identical to a formal locution. And moreover we bring forward a similar example in physics. For this consequence does not hold according to the Philosopher: “every physical motion is a passion, and every physical motion is an action, therefore action is passion.” Not because the middle term is not distributed completely, but because the argumentation is from an identical to a formal. For the major and minor are verified in an identical sense; the conclusion however imports opposite relations in both extremes. And the sense is made that by which reason action is compared to the agent, it is also compared to the patient. Which is most false. For one is the relation of motion to the agent, another to the patient, although according to the signification of the term “motion” it is indifferent so that it can be verified of action or passion, even if it does not signify action determinately, nor passion determinately. Therefore a Catholic will respond to the gentile: just as you deny the aforesaid consequence, which seemed to be in Darii, so I deny your consequence on account of a similar defect. For our faith teaches us that the three divine persons are constituted and differ from each other by real relations alone, which are founded in the procession of one person from another. And this mode of responding is founded on the doctrine of St. Thomas, where above he expressly denies that the divine nature in the abstract supposits for persons, or vice versa that personal names in the concrete or in the abstract supposit for the nature in the abstract, although they are verified of each other because the opposition of relation does not stand in the way.

We hold therefore that the distribution of any term is most complete if it is distributed for everything for which it supposits. For it neither supposits nor is taken except for that which it signifies. And the same reasoning applies to this expository syllogism: “this essence is the Father, this essence is the Son, therefore the Son is the Father.” For it is not legitimate, for it has an extrinsic defect, because what is changed into something, or because the argument is from an identical to a formal, or from less formal to more formal. Which I have added on account of that solemn disputation among theologians: whether relations are formally included in the essence. For some deny that relations are formally contained in the essence. Others however follow the affirmative position. To whom I willingly assent on account of the simplicity of the divine essence, which with personal relations admits no composition, not even metaphysical. It is true, however, that if to be formally contained is understood according to our mode of conceiving, relations or properties of persons are not contained in the essence. And if those following the negative position understood it in this way, the opinion is certain. For this is what we have said, that an essential name in the abstract does not signify relations nor persons. But because the essence itself, or deity, according to itself and intrinsically in its definition (if a definition can be said of an infinitely perfect thing) includes all things which it is, more formally than man includes the nature of animal with rationality, therefore it cannot be denied that this proposition, “deity is the Father,” is formal on the part of the signified thing, just as “deity is the Trinity of persons.” Nevertheless in this proposition, “the Father is the Son,” a more formal sense is made not only according to the mode of signifying of the terms, but also on the part of the signified things, which are formally opposite relations really distinct. And therefore that proposition is false and heretical. For the sense of it is not “the Father is the thing which is the Son,” for this proposition is true, since the Father is one thing, namely one deity, which is the Son. Deservedly therefore we have said that in that consequence an argument is made from an identical to a formal, or from less formal according to the mode of signification and our mode of conceiving, to a more formal locution also on the part of the signified things, and this is to change what into something.

To the second argument I deny the consequence on account of an extrinsic defect, because the appellation is changed. For the minor premise is a true affirmative, because the extremes are verified of each other by reason of the identity of the signified thing. But in the conclusion, “the divine essence generates,” because the verb “to generate” is an adjective and applies the action of generating to the supposit signified by the name “essence” for which it supposits (I speak of the supposit of the term “essence” for which it supposits, not however of the supposit in which it exists, for that is the person for which deity does not supposit), therefore when we say “deity generates,” the predicate applies its formal to the supposit signified through its substantive, which is deity, to which it does not belong to generate as what generates, otherwise what proceeds by generation would be really distinct from the generating essence. Whence the defect is a variation of appellation on the part of the adjective verb, which in the major applies its formal signified to the supposit of the Father, which is the very person generating signified through the substantive “Father,” through which the essence is not signified, although it is verified of it in the minor. But in the conclusion the minor extreme is taken as the supposit which generates, and a false proposition arises. Not only because the essence is signified in the abstract and actions are said to be of supposita — for if this reason alone sufficed, this also would be false: “the deity created the world,” which is true and Catholic. But the most powerful and only reason is that what proceeds from something through generation must be similar in nature and distinct in person. But the Son in divine matters properly proceeds from the Father through generation, similar indeed in nature, but really distinct in person. Therefore the Son cannot be said to be generated by the essence, from which he is not really distinguished. In divine actions ad extra, however, it is established that those which proceed are really distinguished from the deity, and there is no need that they have specific similarity in nature, since it is not a natural and univocal procession like processions ad intra. Whence with respect to actions ad extra, whatever befits God or the persons is also predicated of the deity itself, and there is no difference between what is and by which it is.

To the third argument some are accustomed to respond that the middle term “this God” is not a singular term because it is common to the three persons. But truly this commonness does not destroy the nature of a singular term, to which it is accidental that that singular thing which is signified is really common to three persons. For this commonness is not from the mode of signifying of the term, but from the infinite perfection of the singular signified thing, which is the same altogether, three things and one most singular thing. For the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, not only is each of them this God, but the very same this God, whose deity is one and most singular. Wherefore I judge it most sufficient for the reason of syllogizing that “this God” be a singular term, and from those premises it is wrongly inferred “therefore the generated is generating,” because what is changed into something, as you would say “this motion is action, this motion is passion, therefore action is passion.”

But against this: if “this God” is a singular term sufficient for expository syllogizing, it will also be sufficient for contradictory opposition. For example, “this God generates,” “this God does not generate” will be contradictories. The consequent is false, for both seem to be true. The affirmative indeed, for “this God” supposits for the Father, and therefore if the Father generates and the Father is this God, therefore this God generates. Similarly the negative is proved true. For “this God” also supposits for the Son on account of the mode of signifying in the concrete; therefore if the Son does not generate and the Son is this God, therefore this God does not generate, where no defect seems to be committed from what has been said above.

To this argument I respond: I concede the inference but I deny that the negative is true. For that term “this God,” although it supposits for the Son for predicating of him any action or passion, nevertheless is not limited to suppositing only for the Son when some action or passion is denied of it which befits this God by reason of some supposit, and therefore it is the same to say “this God does not generate” as if you were to say “no supposit for which this God supposits generates.” But it supposits for the Father; therefore if this God does not generate, the Father does not generate. And this perhaps is what some assert from the doctrine of St. Thomas: that when the predicate is notional, the subject is drawn to stand for that person to whom that notion belongs.

But truly I judge this doctrine to be verified not from the mode of signifying of the terms, especially if we say “God generates,” “God does not generate,” which are also contradictories on the part of the signified thing, which is one and most singular God. But it comes about from this very fact that “this God” from the mode of signifying in the concrete has to supposit for everything having this deity. Whence in affirmative propositions where the predicate is some notional, it suffices if the predicate is verified of one having that deity. But in a negative proposition it is required for its truth that the predicate be removed from everything having this deity, because everything having this deity is this most singular God. And in this way it seems to better satisfy the sophistical argumentations of gentiles or heretics, if we do not invent another dialectic in divine locutions.

But supposing our mystery, if anything is removed from this singular God, it is necessary that it be removed from everything having this deity. And because there are three persons subsisting in this deity, it is necessary that if to generate were removed from this God, it be also removed from any person. But it is not necessary that if this God generates, everything having this deity generates, but it suffices that something having this deity generate. Wherefore all these propositions are true: “this God generates,” “this God is generated,” “this God spirates,” “this God is spirated,” always pointing to the same God, but not verifying the propositions for the same physical and incommunicable supposit.

To the fourth argument the response is given from the preceding doctrine by denying that all those consequences are syllogisms. And the first indeed has an intrinsic defect, because the middle term is held less formally in the affirmative than in the negative, which is an intrinsic defect, as in this consequence: “this action is not passion, and this action is motion, therefore motion is not passion.” For in the major negative premise the subject and predicate import distinct relations, and in divine matters opposite ones, and therefore the negative “the Son does not generate” is verified, and in the minor there is not that formality of opposite relations, namely “the Son is God.” Next there is also an extrinsic defect when it is inferred “therefore God does not generate,” because virtually it is as if arguing from the non-distributed to the distributed on the part of the minor extreme. For since in divine matters there is only one most singular God, if he does not generate, no God generates, and therefore nothing having deity generates. But vice versa in affirmatives, whatever belongs to one incommunicable supposit, it is necessary that it belong to this God, because God supposits for the one having deity. The same defect is committed in the second consequence and in the third. In the fourth, however, an extrinsic defect is evidently committed, because what is changed into something, or from less formal to a more formal locution, as has already been explained.

These are the things which in the present treatise I have judged should be noted for theologians. The remaining things of greater moment are found more fully in our Commentaries on the First Part, which I sent to press eighteen years ago, and again more extensively I dictated by living voice in the schools of the theologians of Salamanca fourteen years ago.

PRAISE TO GOD.

The bee is swift in volatiles,
But the beginning of sweetness has its fruit.
Ecclesiasticus, Chapter 11.

In recent days the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández (who is disliked by almost all faithful Catholics), published a doctrinal note titled Mater Populi Fidelis in which it takes a clear position on certain Marian titles, in particular declaring the title “Co‑Redemptrix” of the human race to be always inappropriate for use. According to the note, the title risks obscuring the unique mediatorial and redemptive role of Christ and may lead to confusion or theological imbalance in the faith of the people of God.

I will present three simple and easy arguments against this document — gathered from various scholastic theologians — and defend the traditional Mariology taught by the theologians of the Church that supports the usage of the title and how it can and is indeed used most fittingly and properly.

1. Mary is the true Co-Redemptrix of the human race because by her most powerful and efficacious sighs, prayers, and desires, she merited de congruo the hastening of the Incarnation. On account of her, says St. Bernard in Sermon III on the Salve Regina, man was redeemed and the Word was made flesh. Richard of St. Victor, on Canticles 19: “She desired, sought, and obtained the salvation of all — and indeed, the salvation of all was wrought through her.”
2. Because she conceived and gave birth to Christ, the author and Redeemer of salvation, and supplied to Him that very blood which He poured out in His Passion as the price of our redemption. As St. Bernard aptly confirms: “The blood which He also offered for His mother, He likewise received from His mother.” Thus, although Christ is the primary and efficient cause of our redemption, she nevertheless cooperated by the mediation of the shared flesh and blood in our redemption. Hence St. Albert the Great rightly says: “Mary was a helper in the Redemption.” Thus the daughter of Pharaoh may rightly be called the co-redeemer of Israel, although Moses was the principal cause — for she preserved, nourished, and was his adoptive mother.
3. Because not only today does she offer Jesus for the sins of the world, that He may have mercy on us, but also as she stood beside the Cross, she conformed her will to the will of her Redeemer, and the blood which she had given to her Son, she offered to the eternal Father for the salvation of the world. So that of Mary it can fittingly be said what is said of the eternal Father: “He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all” (Romans 8:32). Hence, beautifully is she called by St. Anselm “the restorer of the lost world”; by the learned Idiota, “the reformer of the deformed world”; by Andrew of Crete, “the renewer of fallen nature”; and by St. Augustine, “the author of salvation.”

Cast thyself, therefore, today at the feet of Mary, our Co-Redemptrix; implore her help, her mercy, that just as she once cooperated in thy salvation, she may now and in the hour of thy death deign to be thy Mediatrix.

Chapter I.
Introduction to the Controversy.

Is there anything in creation that can explain the identity and distinction of the Holy Trinity? As Christians, one of our fundamental beliefs is that we believe in one God that is three persons, and that these three persons are identified with this one God or the divine essence, nature or substance, but that each of the persons is really distinguished from one another, so that the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, and the Father is not the Holy Spirit.

Can this belief be reconciled with the Aristotelian maxim of identity that says whenever two things are identified with a third thing, they are identified among themselves? It seems not. For if the Father is the divine essence, and the Son is the divine essence, then it seems to logically follow that the Father is the Son. But this conclusion clearly contradicts our dogmatic belief that there are three really distinct persons in the Godhead.

Various theologians have given various solutions, but St. Thomas has given one in particular that has baffled and amazed the minds of the greatest theologians and philosophers of all time. We will therefore discuss whether this example which the Angelic Doctor uses in order to explain away the difficulty surrounding the mystery of the blessed Trinity succeeds. But since the success of this example the Holy Doctor has adduced depends on our philosophical foundations in Physics, we therefore will examine various positions and defend the teaching of the Holy Doctor.

The famous example which St. Thomas used and is one of the most well-debated disputes among the scholastic theologians — regardless of the theological school they adhered to — is found in St. Thomas’s Summa Theologiae, Prima Pars, q. 28, art. 3, ad 1, where the Holy Doctor, in response to an objection says:

Objection 1: It would seem that the divine relations are not really distinguished from each other. For things which are identified with the same, are identified with each other. But every relation in God is really the same as the divine essence. Therefore the relations are not really distinguished from each other.

Reply Obj. 1: According to the Philosopher (Phys. iii), this argument holds, that whatever things are identified with the same thing are identified with each other, if the identity be real and logical; as, for instance, a tunic and a garment; but not if they differ logically. Hence in the same place he says that although action is the same as motion, and likewise passion; still it does not follow that action and passion are the same; because action implies reference as of something from which there is motion in the thing moved; whereas passion implies reference as of something which is from another. Likewise, although paternity, just as filiation, is really the same as the divine essence; nevertheless these two in their own proper idea and definitions import opposite respects. Hence they are distinguished from each other.

This tiny sentence has sparked a huge controversy among scholastic theologians and philosophers, many discuss it in the philosophical courses on Physics, others discuss it in theological commentaries on the First Part of the Summa Theologiae, q. 28 on the Divine relations.

The controversy is can be defined in the following manner:

What is the distinction between these three formalities: action, passion and motion? Are they entirely identical? Are action and passion identical to motion but distinct among themselves? There are many positions on this question, which I will get into to the best of my ability.

But since we cannot learn about a dispute without knowing the definitions of the terms used in it, we must first define these three formalities, namely, action, passion and motion.

Chapter II.
What Action, Passion, and Motion Are and How They Are Defined.

Action and passion belong to the Categories of Aristotle and everyone who has studied some Aristotelian philosophy has already heard of their names. But what are they? Without making it too complicated, let’s determine first what action and passion are not, then move on to what they are or, what they consist in.

Let us take the example of the physical production of an effect, e.g., in heating. First is found the supposit of fire; second the operative potency; third the effect produced; fourth motion, or the medium by which the patient, e.g., wood, passes from not hot to hot; fifth and finally the mutual relation between agent and patient. And in none of these does the proper concept of action or passion consist. Not in the first, because the agent or supposit pertains to the predicament of substance; nor in the second, because the immediately operative potency regards the predicament of quality; nor in the third, because the effect is either quality or substance; nor in the fourth, because motion is an incomplete being and a post-predicament; nor finally in the fifth, because that relation pertains per se to the genus of relation and results from action and passion themselves, and is founded in them.

Having clarified what they are not, we now proceed to what they are.

Starting with action, we say that it is operation or causality of an effective principle. Such operation is twofold: one immanent and in the agent itself, like intellection and volition; another transient to external matter, like heating and cooling, which are said to proceed into the patient, e.g., when I heat a wood, the heat passes on to the wood. Of these the former or the immanent operation does not pertain to the predicament of action, but is constituted in the genus of quality. The reason for this is that action as constitutive of this predicament is operation conjoined with motion, and therefore is defined in Physics, lib. 3 through this, that it is motion as from an agent, but immanent actions do not import from their formal concept physical mutation, and therefore cannot be placed under this genus. Therefore, in this article, we are not discussing the immanent actions, which are perfections of the agent and pertain to the category of quality, rather, we are discussing the transient actions, which properly fall under the category of action in ten predicaments.

Note: this point is very crucial, so please keep this in mind that the disputation is not at all about the immanent action, which does not pertain to the category of action, but quality; rather it is about the transient one, which properly falls under the category of action.

Thus the transient action formally and metaphysically accepted consists in a transcendental respect to the principle from which it flows, and to the effect or term which it induces in the patient with its transmutation. Hence is is commonly defined in this way: Action is the form according to which we say something acts into that which is subjected. This is evident, because to act into external matter imports a transmutative form of it, which regards the principle from which it arises in such a way that it simultaneously states a relation to the effect which it produces and originates in the matter subjected to itself. I refer you to the examples I’ve already used above.

Next, we should treat passion. Let us first definite what passion does not consist in, just as we did with action. First off, the notion of passion cannot consist in the form which is newly induced, since this would either be quality or quantity. Likewise, it does not consist in the inherence of the same form, since inherence is a mode and incomplete being, and remains when passion is finished. Finally, it also cannot consist formally in motion or in its reception, because all these things are incomplete beings and unfit for constituting a predicament, since motion is a transient thing which tends toward something more complete and thus is not a complete entity, but a mode or what we call a modal entity, but passion is something complete and is one of the ten predicaments.

Therefore, what we are left with is only that the formal reason of passion which constitutes this predicament must consist in the relation of actual subjection which the mobile states to the agent, by force of which it is overcome and receives a new form. Therefore, it is commonly defined as an accident by which a thing is constituted as actually receiving, or it is motion as in the patient. For just as action is the relation of agent to patient, or to the effect which it induces in the patient, so passion is the relation of the suffering body to the agent, or to the term which it sustains by suffering.

Finally, we need to define motion. Motion is defined by Aristotelian and scholastic philosophers as the act of something that is in potency inasmuch as it is in potency. (Cf. 3 Physics 1, 6)

St. Thomas in Phys.Bk3.L2.n285.2 says that a thing subject to change can be considered in a triple state. First in potency only, and then it is not yet moved, but is in potency not only to the term but also to the motion itself. Second in ultimate or perfect act, and then it is not moved but has been moved, because when the term is acquired, motion ceases. Third in a middle state between pure potency and ultimate act, and then it is properly moved, because it is in progress and actual way to a more ultimate term. To quote St. Thomas himself:

Consider, therefore, that something is in act only, something is in potency only, and something else is midway between potency and act. What is in potency only is not yet being moved; what is already in perfect act is not being moved, but has already been moved. Consequently, that is being moved that is midway between pure potency and act, which is partly in potency and partly in act — as is evident in alteration. For when water is only potentially hot, it is not being moved; when it has now been heated, the motion of heating is finished; but when it possesses some heat, though imperfectly, then it is being moved, since whatever is being heated gradually acquires more and more heat. (St. Thomas Aquinas, Phys.Bk3.L2.n285.2)

And a little bit after, he adds:

For it must be remembered that, before something is being moved, it is in potency to two acts: to a perfect act that is the term of the motion, and to an imperfect act that is motion itself. Thus, before it begins to be heated, water is in potency to being heated and to having been heated. When it is being heated, it is being reduced to the imperfect act that is motion, but not yet to the perfect act that is the term of the motion — rather, in respect to this, it still remains in potency. (St. Thomas Aquinas, Phys.Bk3.L2.n287.8)

And from this, the truth of the definition of motion becomes manifest. Because a definition is legitimate which sufficiently explains the nature of the defined thing, but such is the definition of motion, therefore it is legitimate. Proof of the minor premise: because as already explained motion actuates the mobile in such a way that it leaves it partly in act and partly in potency, and this is explained by saying that it is the act of a being in potency inasmuch as it is in potency, since insofar as motion actuates, the mobile must be its act at least imperfectly, since all actuation comes from act, and insofar as it is not the ultimate term but leaves the subject in potency to a further term, it is necessary that it be the act of something existing in potency. Therefore, motion is correctly and most beautifully defined by Aristotle and the Angelic Doctor as the act of something that is in potency inasmuch as it is in potency.

Having explained the definitions of the terms we’re going to work with, we now proceed to treat the dispute among scholastics, namely, what is the identity and distinction between the three formalities of action, passion and motion?

Chapter III.
Various Opinions Among Scholastics.

I am only going to treat of the most popular positions among the scholastics, which are reduced to four opinions.

1. First Opinion. The defenders of this view hold that action and passion are distinguished both from motion and among themselves by a distinction of reason with a foundation in the thing, or simply put, a distinction of reasoned reason. For this opinion we can cite Rubio, Massius, Prado, Froylan, Pedro de Godoy, the great Spanish Thomist from the University of Salamanca and the Bishop of Osma, and all Benedictine Thomists of Salzburg such as Mezger, Babenstuber, Wenzel, Ruedorffer, Placidus Renz, and many other Thomists who defend this view and attribute it to be the view of Aristotle and St. Thomas.

2. Second Opinion. The defenders of this view agree with the defenders of the first in that action and passion differ from each other by a reasoned reason distinction, but with regard to motion, they hold that although action and motion differ by reasoned reason distinction, yet passion and motion do not differ by a reasoned reason distinction, but solely by appellation of name, or by a nominal distinction. Thus Suarez in Disputationes metaphysicae, disp. 49, sect. 2, n. 13 and commonly his followers. Luis de Lossada reports that action and passion being distinct by a reasoned reason distinction is common among the Jesuit and Thomist doctors, whom we cited above in the first opinion. See his Cursus philosophici, Physicorum, tract. 3, disp. 1, cap. 2. It should be noted that there is almost no substantial difference between this and the first opinion, for it does not matter much if passion and motion are distinct by reasoned reason or solely by the appelation of name.

3. Third Opinion. The defenders of this view hold that action, passion, and motion are really distinct from each other and are in no way identified. Thus Scotus and his followers commonly hold this. Mastrius can be seen in Cursus philosophicus, Pars prior, disp. 6, q. 1, art. 6. Sébastien Dupasquier, summarizing the Scotist position can be seen in his Summa Philosophiae Scholasticae et Scotistae, Logicam, disp. 8, q. 4, conclusion 2, and also in Physicorum, disp. 16, q. 3, conclusion 2.

4. Fourth Opinion. The defenders of this view hold that action and passion are distinguished from each other really or formally, but are identified in the modal entity of motion. Consequently, they hold that motion, since it’s a mode, is distinguished from action and passion modally, but action and passion are distinguished from each other or among themselves really formally or as formalities, since they are complete things and constitute distinct predicaments. Hence, they are two formalities really-formally distinct from each other, yet identified with the modal entity of motion. And when they say that action and passion are really distinct from each other, they immediately add the word “formally” to clarify that their distinction is not strictly real, or what’s called a major entitative distinction, but a lesser real distinction, which is called real-formal. However, we will explain the nature of this distinction in the final chapters. Thus hold all Thomists except the ones we have excluded in the first opinion. It would be a long list if we were to cite them one by one, but to point out a few names, we may refer to Cajetan, Bañez, Ferrariensis, Gonzalez, Capreolus, Flandria, Zanardus, Sanchez, Nazarius, Araujo and all of the faithful disciples of St. Thomas.

Chapter 5.
The Mind of St. Thomas.

St. Thomas discusses this particular questions only in two places directly, namely, an entire chapter on his commentary in either books of Aristotle’s Physics and also in a small paragraph in his commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics.

Unfortunately, because the Holy Doctor did not clearly explain his mind, his followers have claimed the very same texts for contradictory views, as we explained above.

We will first examine the Holy Doctor’s principal treatment of this question, which can be found in Commentary on Physics, lib. 3, lect. 5, where he discusses whether action and passion are the same motion. Since it is a pretty long text, I will selectively deal with it.

St. Thomas, following Aristotle, affirms that action and passion are one and the same motion, therefore, regarding their identity with motion, there is no difficulty whatsoever, and thus, the first, second, and fourth opinions all agree that action and passion are the same as motion. To quote St. Thomas:

Then, at to generalize (202b19), he answers the third difficulty by destroying the inference that, if action and passion are one motion, they are the same. And he says that ultimately it must be said that it does not follow that action and passion are the same, nor that teaching and learning are, but rather that both are in the same motion. This motion, as a matter of fact, is action from one viewpoint and passion from another. For it is one thing as to reason to be an act of a thing as being in that and another to be the act of a thing as being from that.

Now, motion is called action inasmuch as it is an act of the agent as from the agent; it is called passion inasmuch as it is an act of the patient as in the patient. Thus, it is clear that, although the motion of the mover and that of the moved are the same thing due to the fact that motion as such abstracts from these reasons, yet action and passion differ due to the fact that diverse reasons (diversas rationes) are included in their signification. From this, it is also apparent that, since motion abstracts from the reason of action and passion, it belongs neither in the predicament “action” nor in the predicament “passion,” as some supposed. (Commentary on Physics, lib. 3, lect. 5, n. 320)

Here St. Thomas refutes and rejects the third position (which Scotus and his followers hold) that asserts action and passion are really distinguished from motion and also among themselves. He replies by saying that they are not really distinct from motion, but are identified with it. But as to the second part of the controversy, which is regarding the distinction of action and passion from each other, he doesn’t give us a clear answer apart from saying that they are not the same because they have diverse reasons (diversas rationes)!

As subtle as it may be, it still doesn’t answer our question. Are these diverse reasons distinguished on the part of the thing before the operation of the intellect or not before? St. Thomas doesn’t give us any answers, which is precisely why all three positions claim St. Thomas for themselves. For since he doesn’t tell us explicitly whether those diverse reasons are diverse and distinct before or after the operation of the intellect, we cannot determine the exact mind of the Holy Doctor.

However, in the very next section, St. Thomas seems to be saying something in favor of the first and second positions that seems to rule out the fourth position, he writes:

But two difficulties still remain with respect to this.

The first is this: if action and passion are one motion (unus motus), and do not differ except according to reason (et non differunt nisi secundum rationem), as was said, it seems that they ought not to be two categories, since categories are genera of things (genera rerum). (Commentary on Physics, lib. 3, lect. 5, n. 321)

To which, after a lengthy examination responds:

This makes it clear that, although motion is one, yet there are two predicaments that are based on motion, depending on the different external things according to which the predicamental denominations are made. For an agent is one thing from which, as from something external, the predicament of “passion” is taken; and the patient is some other thing from which something is denominated an agent. This solves the first difficulty. (Commentary on Physics, lib. 3, lect. 5, n. 323)

Whether this succeeds in proving the first or second opinions is something that will perhaps remain unknown to us, considering that we can and will give other proofs that argue for the fourth opinion, which can lead us to interpret these differently. But whatever the case may be, I am examining various opinions regardless of my own convictions. Therefore, although I will defend the fourth opinion as the true sentence of the Angelic Doctor, nothing would prevent a faithful Thomist from adhering to the first or second opinions.

Moving on to the last direct and explicit quote, which comes from his commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, St. Thomas writes something almost identical to the passages in Physics:

But it is (1066a30). Fourth, he proves the second of these points — namely, that the act of what is capable of causing motion and the act of what is capable of being moved are one and the same motion. He does this as follows.

It has been stated that motion is the act of what is capable of causing motion inasmuch as it causes motion, and a thing is said to be movable inasmuch as motion is caused in it, but the thing capable of causing motion causes that motion which is found in the thing moved and not a different one.

This is what he means when he says that it is on what is movable that the mover is capable of acting. It follows, then, that the act of the mover and that of the thing moved are one and the same motion.

And it is one (1066a31). Fifth, he clarifies this by an example.

He says that the distance from one to two and from two to one are the same, although they differ in reason, and for this reason the distance is signified differently, namely, by the terms double and half.

Similarly, the path of an ascent and that of a descent are one, but they differ in reason, and for this reason some are called ascenders and others descenders.

The same applies to a mover and to the thing moved, for the act of both is essentially one motion, although they differ in reason.

For the act of a mover is as that from which motion comes, whereas the act of the thing moved is as that in which motion occurs; and the act of the thing moved is not from which, nor is the act of the mover that in which motion occurs.

Hence, the act of the thing causing motion is called action, and that of the thing moved is called passion.

But, if action and passion are essentially the same thing, it seems that they should not be different categories. However, it should be borne in mind that the categories are distinguished on the basis of a different way of predicating. Thus, inasmuch as the same term is differently predicated of different things, it belongs to different categories; for inasmuch as place is predicated of a thing that locates, it belongs to the genus of quantity, but inasmuch as it is predicated denominatively of the located thing it constitutes the category of where. Similarly, inasmuch as motion is predicated of the subject in which it is found, it constitutes the category of passion; but inasmuch as it is predicated of that from which it comes, it constitutes the category of action. (Commentary on Metaphysics, lib. 11, lect. 9, nn. 2311–2313)

Let the reader decide the mind of the Angelic Doctor.

Chapter 6.
Arguments of the Various Opinions Mentioned Above.

1. Arguments For the First Opinion. Apart from the textual proofs used by the proponents of this view, there can be arguments made from reason based on the texts of Aristotle and St. Thomas to prove the truth of this position. We may argue that since motion is the act of the active, as from this, and of the passive, as in this; but it is the same real act that proceeds from the efficient principle and is received in the subject, therefore the same will be motion proceeding from the principle and received in the patient or subject. But as it proceeds from the principle, it is action, and as it is received in the subject, passion; therefore action and passion are really the same as motion, and thus also among themselves; because things that are the same with a third are the same among themselves.

To prove the staunch defender of this view, the erudite Benedictine Thomist Ludwig Babenstuber, O.S.B. (1660–1726) in his famous Philosophia Thomistica Salisburgensis:

I say first with the second opinion: Motion, Action, and Passion are not really distinguished. Thus commonly with other Thomists, our Salzburgers.

This seems to be the express mind of Aristotle in this book chapter 3, as St. Thomas explains there in his lecture, saying: “But it is manifest from what has been determined above, that action and passion are not two motions, but one and the same motion. For according as it is from the agent, it is called action: but according as it is in the patient, it is called passion.”

I prove the conclusion by reason. Motion is that by which one thing is formally denominated agent, and another patient: therefore motion is action and passion: therefore action and passion are the same: because they are the same with a third thing, namely motion. Therefore motion, action, and passion are not really distinguished.

The antecedent is proved. That by which one thing is formally denominated actively moving, and another passively moved, is that by which one thing is formally denominated agent, and another patient: but motion is that by which one thing is formally denominated actively moving, and another passively moved; therefore motion is that by which one thing is formally denominated agent, and another patient. The minor is established; because motion denominates that from which it proceeds as actively moving, and denominates that which is moved by it as passively moved. The major is proved: because to be actively moving and to be agent, likewise to be passively moved and to be patient, are convertible: therefore that by which a thing is formally denominated actively moving is that by which a thing is formally denominated agent, and that by which a thing is formally denominated passively moved is that by which it is formally denominated patient.

Therefore the same entity of heating in the direct sense, insofar as it proceeds from fire, is act from this, that is, action; insofar as it is received in water, is act in this, that is, passion: and insofar as it constitutes water in the way and tendency toward heat, is act of being in potency as in potency, that is, motion.

I say secondly: Action and passion, both among themselves and from motion, are distinguished by reasoned reason. This is easily proved from what has been said. For action is not motion in whatever way, but as it is from another; but passion, as it is in another. But this, which is to be from another, and this, which is to be in another, are different formal reasons, at least according to our mode of conceiving with foundation in reality. If they are also compared with motion, the same will appear. For motion formally only names the flux and way of one thing to another, but action refers to being from another, and passion being in another, as has been said; which are different reasons. And so the stated conclusion is true.

Ludwig Babenstuber, O.S.B. (1660–1726), Philosophia Thomistica Salisburgensis, Physicorum, lib. 3, disp. 1, art. 3, p. 203.

How can those who hold the fourth position try to refute these arguments will be made clear below.

2. Arguments For the Second Opinion. This opinion is essentially the same as the previous one, so there is no need to provide arguments for its first assertion regarding the distinction of action and passion, and action and motion; but as to the second part, namely, the distinction of passion and motion, which they hold to be merely nominal and not by reasoned reason, it may be argued in the following manner.

Aristotle in Physics, lib. 3, text 16 defines motion as being the act of the mobile, as mobile, and later in texts 22 and 23 defines passion as being the act of the patient, as patient; but on the part of the subject, to be mobile or mutable, and to be receptive or passible (if these two are taken proportionally in order to positive reception or change) are not two powers or passive capacities, even distinct by reason, as seems evident. Therefore neither are the acts themselves distinct among themselves. Or put in other terms, the same entirely is the potency of a body as mobile and as patient, therefore passion and motion are entirely the same act. The consequence is evident: because if they were distinct acts, they would regard different potencies.

3. Arguments For the Third Opinion. First, it can be argued that since action is subjectively in the agent, and passion is subjectively in the patient, action and passion must be really distinguished.

Secondly, action, apart from any operation of the intellect, is the actual egress of an effect from the agent, just as passion is the actual reception of that effect in the patient. But to go out from one’s own nature is not to be received, but something really distinct from it, so that they are in no way identified. Therefore action and passion are distinguished from each other by a similar distinction. And if this argument is valid, it would prove that motion is distinguished from both, because the actual transit of a subject to the term to which it moves does not seem to be actual egress or reception of an effect, and therefore those who distinguish action and passion must also concede that motion is different from both.

To quote the Scotist Sébastien Dupasquier, O.F.M. (1630–1705) in his philosophy course:

Second conclusion: Action and passion are really distinguished. This is the opinion of the Doctor and his followers.

Proof: Because, according to Scotus, action is in the agent, as has been proved, and passion in the patient, therefore they are really distinguished. The consequence is proved: For the same accident really cannot be in two really distinct subjects.

Confirmation: For even if action were in the patient, as many wish, they would still be distinguished: for the same relation cannot regard opposite terms, but action and passion regard opposite terms, therefore etc. The minor is proved: For action is from the agent into the patient, or subject, and what is transmuted, and passion is from the patient to the agent, therefore etc.

Sébastien Dupasquier, O.F.M. (1630–1705), Summa Philosophiae Scholasticae et Scotistae, Logicam, disp. 8, q. 4, conclusion 2.

Second conclusion: Motion is really distinguished from the mover, the mobile thing, the term, action, and passion.

Third proof concerning action and passion: Those things are really distinguished which are in really different subjects; but action is in the agent, and passion in the patient, or term (I speak of that by which a thing receives being). But concerning that by which a subject is changed, it receives form, and this can be without motion; as in creation by which subject and form are produced simultaneously; for then there is no motion, nor change in matter, but indeed passion, as the Doctor notes; then form is impressed in matter by passion of the genus of passion: but without any change: therefore motion is really distinguished from action and passion.

Sébastien Dupasquier, O.F.M. (1630–1705), Summa Philosophiae Scholasticae et Scotistae, Physicorum, disp. 16, q. 3, conclusion 2.

This concludes the end of the chapter and the arguments in favor of the first, second and third positions.

Chapter 7.
The True Opinion is Defended.

This view has two parts that need to be defended.

First, whether these three formalities are distinct apart from the operation of the intellect.

Second, that their distinction is such that motion is a mode modally distinct from action and passion, but action and passion themselves are distinguished as two formalities from one another. Therefore, while being tow formalities, they are identified in the modal entity of motion.

1. Proof of the First Part. The argument can be formed from Aristotle’s Physics, lib. 3, text 22 where he says: To generalize, teaching is not the same as learning, or action as passion, in the full sense, though they belong to the same subject, the motion; for the “act of this in that” and the “act of this through the action of that” differ in reason.

Likewise, St. Thomas, in De Potentia, q. 8, art. 2, ad 1, where he proves that a created relation is really distinct from the substance, but the divine relation is the same as the divine substance says: No substance that is in a genus can be a relation, because it is defined for one genus and is therefore excluded from another genus. The divine essence, however, is not in the genus of substance, but rather is above every genus, and comprises within itself the perfection of all genera. Therefore, nothing prevents what belongs to relation from being found in it.

From this testimony, an argument can be formed: It is accepted that action and passion are different genera or predicaments, but since in creatures, no such identity can be given on account of their imperfection, action and passion cannot but be distinct prior to the operation of the intellect, and therefore, really. The same applies to motion, which, on account of its imperfection, is excluded from predicaments and constitutes a post-predicament, because it is a certain mode or incomplete entity, that is, a modal entity.

Proof from reason: things which pertain to different predicaments are really distinguished; but action and passion are different predicaments, therefore they are really distinguished. The minor needs no proof. The major is already evident from the things we explained at the beginning of the article, but to briefly prove it, we can say that those things which from the part of the thing have adequately different essences are really distinguished; for distinction follows unity, and unity follows entity or essence of the thing, but those things which are placed in different predicaments enjoy adequately distinct essences, since they are primarily different, therefore they are really distinguished.

Confirmation of the major premise: because those things which have different adequate definitions cannot be really the same; since definition manifests the essence of the thing. But action and passion have different adequate definitions, since they are distinct predicaments, and consequently cannot agree univocally in any respect, therefore they are really distinguished.

2. Proof of the Second Part: The second part is that these formalities are distinguished from the nature of the thing, and apart from the operation of the intellect, but nevertheless are identified in one and the same real-modal entity, and therefore are not distinguished as thing and thing, and as entity and entity, but as formalities or things of such nature that cannot be separated.

Proof: the same must be the act of the motive, mobile, and passive, because through the same motion by which the mover moves, the mobile is moved and the patient suffers, just as through the same impulse by which the agent impelling the stone impels it, it itself is moved. Therefore the same motion will be the act of the motive as it proceeds from it, and consequently its action, and similarly it will be the passion of the passive, insofar as it is received in it.

Therefore, action and passion are not really-entitatively distinct from motion, but are identified with it in the motion’s modal entity, and since motion is a certain modal entity or a mode, it follows that they are identified in the modal entity of motion and the same motion remains distinct from them as a mode from these two formalities of action and passion. Consequently, these two formalities of action and passion are said to be the same modal entity of motion, but in relation to each other, they are adequately distinguished as two formalities from one another. Hence, it is rightly said that motion modal entity identifies with itself these two formalities of action and passion and remains distinct from them only as a mode from formality, but these two formalities of action and passion themselves remain as two formalities distinct from one another, as we explained in depth.

We should also note that identity is twofold, namely proper and improper. The former is that which removes every real distinction from the extremes which it connects. But the latter is only considered according to identity of subject, or according to agreement of some things in a subject common to them from which they cannot be separated. This is because the term same imports unity in substance, but the subject, even as subject by which, takes on the mode of substance with respect to the form to which it is subjected.

From which it is inferred that although action and passion are distinguished as two formalities among themselves, as we showed above, nevertheless they can be called the same by improper and broadly accepted identity insofar as they agree in the same motion in number as their subjectum quo (subject by which), and cannot be separated from it, because as we said, action and passion are identified in the modal entity of motion.

Likewise, the reason action and passion are said to differ from each other as formalities, and not by a strict real distinction such as that of entities and things is that they are so connected to each other that they cannot be separated from one another. Therefore, although these two are complete beings, they are not said to be distinct by a strict real distinction because such distinction requires beings that can exist separately and without one another, but action and passion are mutually connected and inseparable, therefore, they are distinguished from one another as formalities.

From what we have said so far, all of the arguments that can be adduced against our conclusions can be refuted.

Chapter 8.
Refutation of the Contrary Opinions.

1. Refutation of the First Opinion. From this, the testimony of Aristotle and St. Thomas and the argument based on the same can be refuted. We can say that when Aristotle and St. Thomas say these formalities differ in reason, it is understood of different formal reason or their reasons most properly, which is of such diversity infers distinction apart from the operation of the intellect, otherwise St. Thomas would not have said that their reason is not one, for if they were completely identified without any real distinction, their reason would be one apart from the operation of the intellect. Likewise, if what the adversaries say is true, he wouldn’t have asserted that action and passion are not properly the same among themselves, as we proved in chapter 7. Because things that are not distinguished really by any actual distinction are properly one and the same, even if they are virtually distinguished, as is evident in the divine essence and relations. Therefore Aristotle and the Angelic Doctor said: “For these are indeed one”, on account of having improper identity both because of mutual connection and also of negation of most strict entitative distinction, which I explained above. Hence, Aristotle adds: “but the reason is not one.” But if they were not actually distinguished as formalities, their reason, that is, essence, would be one before the operation of the intellect.

Therefore, when it is said in the argument that action is motion as it proceeds from the agent, although from a grammatical point of view, motion seems to be predicated of action, what is really and formally predicated is not motion itself, but egress or origin of motion and effect from the agent, which is nothing but the very essence of action, hence, it is said as it proceeds from the agent. Hence, motion is only posited to explain this egress, which must also be said proportionally of passion.

Thus, we must distinguish the consequent: action and passion are the same motion, therefore they are the same by proper identity and excluding real distinction, I deny; they are the same by improper identity importing unity of subject-by-which and that action and passion are not received in different motions but in the same, I concede.

2. Refutation of the Second Opinion. It can be replied that potency through which a body is called mobile only imports relation to the term as to its proper complement, and expresses nothing of subjection to the agent. However the potency by which a body has being as patient explicitly imports order to the agent and to its effect; not indeed as to the complement of the mobile thing, but by which reason it is a term proceeding from the agent.

3. Refutation of the Third Opinion. The first argument for this position relies on a false foundation, namely, on supposition that a transient action is subjectively in the agent, not in the patient. But this begs the question, since this hasn’t been demonstrated. Furthermore, the view that a transient action is in the patient is a position with shallow and weak foundations, which I might demonstrate in another article. But to briefly show the absurdity of such position, we can prove it by saying that a formally transient action is distinguished against every formally immanent action — however much it may be virtually transient and externally productive of a term — therefore formally transient action is received intrinsically in the patient. The consequence is evident because if it were subjectively and formally in the agent, it would be formally immanent and only virtually transient, insofar as it would import efficacy of acting externally, therefore either it must be said that formally transient action is not distinguished essentially from formally immanent and virtually transient action, which is absurd, or it must be asserted that it is received in the patient. This is confirmed: from the fact that action is called formally transient by the fact that it is received in the subject in which it induces its proper effect, for no other reason is assignable by reason of which it would be called formally transient, therefore it is repugnant to be formally transient and not to be subjected in the patient, since it produces its effect in it. Thus, those who hold that a transient action is subjectively in the agent, and not in the patient, can in no way whatsoever distinguished a formally transient action from a formally immanent action which is virtually transient and productive. For both of these can produce an effect, yet the latter is formally immanent and merely effectively transient, but the former is formally transient. Therefore, if a formally transient action is in the agent, it can in no way be distinguished from a formally immanent and virtually transient action.

Concerning the second argument adduced in its favor, it is easily replied that it only proves their actual distinction apart from the intellect, but not a strictly real distinction, which I have shown to be false.

Nor does it matter if Dupasquier says that even if action was subjectively in the patient (which is indeed the true opinion), the Scotist conclusion would follow. For I have already said that it merely proves an actual distinction apart from the intellect, which I’ve shown to be formal among action and passion which are identified in the modal entity of motion.

This concludes the eighth chapter.

Chapter 9.
Interpreting the Passage from St. Thomas.

Given the fourth position which I have defended at length, the reply of St. Thomas in ST I, q. 28, art. 3, ad 1 is explained away really easily with no difficulties.

For just as motion is modally distinct from action and passion and these two are identified in motion’s modal entity, yet action and passion among themselves are distinguished as two formalities.

Therefore, a similar case can be assigned to the relation of the divine essence to the divine persons, although there is more dissimilarity than similarity in the Divine reality, as Lateran IV correctly taught.

Thus, the divine essence can be likened to motion, but with the difference that motion, although it identifies action and passion in its modal entity, is still a mode or a modal entity on account of its imperfection and thus, modally distinct from action and passion, whereas the divine essence is identified adequately with the divine persons such that it is distinguished from the persons neither really, nor modally, nor formally, but solely virtually and by a distinction of reason on account of its supreme simplicity and perfection.

Likewise, the Father and the Son can be likened to action and passion, with this difference that action and passion are not of such perfection that they are things and entities, but are of such minute and thin entity that are only called formalities and thus are distinguished formally from each other; whereas the Father and the Son are relative things and entities and are distinguished from each other as two relative things and entities on account of their supreme perfection, and the same equally applies to the Holy Spirit.

Jean-Baptiste Gonet, O.P. (1616–1681) beautifully explains the example of action, passion and motion in relation to the Father, the Son and the divine essence:

Some trace of the same mystery is seen in action, passion, and motion, which St. Thomas here, in art. 3, ad 1, adduces as an example of it. For although action and passion are distinguished from motion only by a modal distinction, nevertheless they differ really from each other by a greater real distinction, on account of the opposition which they have. And if motion were of such perfection and breadth that it could wholly and really identify with itself action and passion, with only a distinction of reason reasoned; still action and passion, by reason of the opposition which they possess, would really be distinguished from each other. I said that some trace is seen, because, as the same holy Doctor says in Sent. I, dist. 33, q. 1, art. 1, ad 2: All likenesses which can be adduced from creatures to explain the unity of essence with the distinction of Persons have more of dissimilarity than of similarity; and therefore they lead more away from the truth of the mystery than bring the understanding into its truth.

Jean-Baptiste Gonet, O.P. (1616–1681), Clypeus Theologiae Thomisticae, De trinitate, tract. 6, disp. 3, art. 3, n. 127.

But what if someone is not convinced of the truth of the fourth opinion and wants to hold that action, passion and motion are only distinct in reason? Would St. Thomas’s response to the objection taken from the Aristotelian maxim of identity work?

Thomists commonly respond that it still would work, even though it loses its force in the most effective way, it can still manage to explain the aforementioned maxim to some extent.

I will quote the Most Illustrious Pedro de Godoy, O.P. (1599–1677) who arguably wrote one of the best and longest commentary on Summa Theologiae. His influence on Thomism and Thomists is acknowledged by everyone and is considered to be one of the most authoritative Thomists and one of the greatest theologians and philosophers not only among Thomists, but also among all Catholic schools. Jean-Baptiste Gonet, O.P., whom I mentioned above was influenced by him more than anyone else.

Commenting on ST I, q. 28, art. 3, ad 1, the Illustrious Godoy writes:

But you will say: action and passion are really identified with motion, and are really distinguished among themselves: therefore real distinction of extremes from each other with real identity in some third thing is found in creatures. The antecedent, in which alone there is difficulty, is proved from Saint Thomas above in q. 28, art. 3, ad 1, where from the Philosopher he teaches: That although action is the same as motion, similarly passion, nevertheless it does not follow that action and passion are the same; because in action is imported a respect, as that from which motion is in the movable thing, but in passion, as that which is from another; these are the words of Saint Thomas; but they are to be understood concerning the real identity of action and passion with motion, and the real distinction of those among themselves: therefore according to Saint Thomas action and passion are really identified with motion, and are really distinguished among themselves. The minor is proved: for Saint Thomas adduces the identity of action and passion with motion, and the distinction of those among themselves, to explain how from the identity of relations with essence the distinction of relations among themselves is not inferred, but identity; but the identity of relations with essence is real, and similarly their distinction from each other is real; therefore he speaks of the real identity of action and passion with motion, and their real distinction among themselves, otherwise the example would be adduced utterly in vain.

I respond by denying the antecedent, to the proof I deny the minor, to its proof having conceded the major and minor, I deny the consequence: for as we have already seen from Saint Thomas, examples taken from creatures are rather dissimilar than similar, and lead away more than they lead into the understanding of this mystery; but if action and passion were really the same as motion, and really distinct among themselves, an example wholly similar would be taken from creatures to explain the most profound mystery of the Trinity. Besides which, all who really distinguish passion from action consequently admit the real distinction of one of those from motion, and who constitute the distinction from the nature of the thing between passion and action, admit the same distinction also between some one of those and motion; and finally in the opinion, which I judge truer, asserting that action and passion are distinguished by virtual distinction and reasoned reason, they are also distinguished from motion by reasoned reason and virtually: for in creatures it is universally true that some two things cannot be identified with a third by greater identity than they are connected among themselves.

Since therefore these things are true, no small difficulty consists in explaining the opinion of the Angelic Doctor: for although in examples complete similarity is not required, yet that they may be good, they ought to preserve similarity in something; but in action and passion compared with motion and among themselves, no similarity is found (if what we have taught is true) with the mystery of the Trinity: therefore Saint Thomas used the example of action and passion with motion utterly beside the point. The minor is evident: action and passion are identified with motion by no identity which they do not have among themselves; but that the example might have some similarity, it was necessary that they be identified with motion by some kind of identity which they did not have among themselves, as appears manifestly of itself: therefore if the doctrine handed down is true, Saint Thomas used the said example utterly beside the point.

This difficulty however will be easily overcome: if we attend to the intention of Saint Thomas, Saint Thomas intended that principle, “things which are the same to a third thing are the same among themselves,” to found inference only without exception, when the extremes are the same in reality and reason with the third: for if they were really identified, and are distinguished in reason from the third, they can import reasons opposed among themselves and not opposed to the middle, and therefore from the affirmation of the identity of the extremes with the middle, the identity of the extremes among themselves is not collected, and for this he adduces the example of action and passion, not because Saint Thomas holds them to be identified with motion really or formally, and distinguished really and formally among themselves, but because these premises are conceded absolutely, “action is motion,” “passion is motion,” and yet this conclusion is absolutely denied, “action is passion,” and this because passion explains the respect of the patient as in this, action explains the respect to the agent as from which, but motion does not explain this distinction: whence although the difference of action and passion from motion is as great as that which exists between action and passion, because nevertheless action and passion in their signification explain this difference, but motion does not say those things in its signification, but abstracts from the respect of action and passion, this is absolutely denied, “action is passion,” but these are absolutely conceded, “action is motion,” “passion is motion,” and thus the consequence does not hold on account of the distinction of reason of action and passion from motion, and in this the example holds.

Pedro de Godoy, O.P. (1599–1677), Disputationes Theologicae in Primam Partem Divi Thomae, Tomus Tertius, De trinitate, tract. 11, disp. 82, § 8.

As we see, therefore, although the efficacy of St. Thomas’s reasoning would not be as great as those who hold the fourth position on the identity and distinction of action, passion, and motion, still, it can be defended that St. Thomas’s example is valid and that from the affirmation of the identity of the extremes with the middle, the identity of the extremes among themselves is not collected.

For as Godoy says, the distinction of action and passion among themselves is as great as their distinction from motion, still, action and passion in their concepts denote difference, but motion does not, rather, it abstracts from both, and as a result, even though all three of these formalities according to this opinion are said to differ virtually or by a reasoned reason distinction, still, it can be conceded absolutely that “action is motion”, and that “passion is motion”, but it is absolutely denied that “action is passion” as already explained.

Chapter 10.
Conclusion.

In this article, we have examined and defended the common and true position on this profound question discussed in the Philosopher’s Physics. We have also shown how the Holy Doctor’s position on Aristotelian maxim can be validly used with either of those positions we have already mentioned. I urge the reader to consider carefully the reflections I have set forth by my own efforts so that the Wisdom and Glory of the Angelic Doctor be shared and manifested, and that he himself be glorified in this. May it serve for the glory of the blessed Trinity, of whom nothing that can be said is ever sufficient. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

Many modern philosophers raise an objection that God’s knowledge must be mutable, since the things or the objects known by His knowledge are constantly changing: events arise, pass away, and shift in time, and thus it seems that God’s knowledge must also change along with them. If Christ was once “to be born” and is now “born,” then, they argue, God’s knowledge also passes from one state to another. In what follows, we will address this by drawing upon the rich tradition of scholastic theology and will provide a simple and reasonable solution to the apparent mutability of divine knowledge.

The following excerpt is taken from Becanus’s principal work Summa theologiae scholasticae, tract. I, cap. 10, q. 16.

QUESTION XVI.
Whether the knowledge of God is changeable?

The reason for doubting is because God knew that Christ would be born before He was born. He no longer knows this, because He is no longer about to be born, but has been born: therefore the knowledge of God has now been changed. This difficulty was proposed above in chapter 7. It must now be explained.

Note 1: the question can be understood either of a real change, or of a change of reason.

Note 2: three things can be considered here. 1. The knowledge of God taken in itself, as to its real entity. 2. Its object, namely the nativity of Christ, which by that knowledge is known. 3. The respect or relation of the knowledge of God to the known object. For just as vision implies relation to the thing seen, and volition to the thing willed, and creation to the thing created, so the cognition of God to the thing known by God. Now this relation is not real in God, but of reason. These points being laid down, let it be said:

First conclusion. The knowledge of God, taken in itself as to its real entity, cannot be changed. The reason is, because thus considered, it is nothing other than the substance or essence of God, which in itself is immutable, as was proved above: therefore so also is His knowledge. See St. Thomas, q. 14, art. 15.

Second conclusion. The object of knowledge can be changed. For from being future it can become present, and from being present become past: in this way the nativity of Christ was once future, afterwards present, now past. But this change of the object, although real, does not bring about a real change in God, or in the knowledge of God. For it is outside of God, and the knowledge of God, according to its real entity, does not depend on an extrinsic object.

Third conclusion. The respect of reason, by which the knowledge of God is referred to an extrinsic object known by Him, whether it be changed or not, matters little. If it is changed, it is only a change of reason, not real. If it is not changed, it is more easily defended that the knowledge of God is in every way immutable. I add nevertheless that that respect is not changed. For the knowledge of God from eternity, by way of simple knowing, was terminated to the nativity of Christ, as future for such a time, present for such a time, and past for such a time. In the same way it is terminated to it now. For God, by the same knowledge which He had from eternity, now also knows the nativity of Christ with respect to one time as future, with respect to another as present, and with respect to another as past. Therefore, on the part of the knowledge of God, or on the part of the respect of reason, no change has been made, although on the part of time and of the object a change has been made.

You will say: our knowledge is changed as many times as its object is changed; therefore also the knowledge of God.

I reply: the case is different. For our knowledge is a certain vital act, distinct from the substance of man, and according to its real entity is produced anew as often as we know some object anew; nor can it retain its real entity unless it is actually directed toward the known object. Whence it happens that when the object is changed, our knowledge also is changed. In God it is otherwise. For the knowledge of God is not an act distinct from the substance of God; nor according to its real entity is it produced anew; but it is the very uncreated and eternal substance of God, which without any change of itself can be terminated to various secondary objects: just as the person of the Word, without any change of Himself, was terminated to the humanity of Christ, and could be terminated to other created natures if He so willed.

SECTION II.
WHETHER IT CAN BE DEMONSTRATED THAT GOD IS INFINITE.

1. Finite and infinite, according to Aristotle’s testimony, are properly said in the quantity of mass; since therefore this is not in God, as we suppose, there cannot be discourse here about the infinite according to this property, but according to that transference by which Augustine said, in On the Trinity VI, chapter 8: In those things that are not great by mass, to be greater is the same as to be better. Again, the question is not understood about infinity of duration alone; for it is most evident that God is eternal and consequently infinite in duration. This can easily be convinced both from effects and from what has been said about the being of God. For either the world is eternal, or it began in time; if it is eternal, therefore much more so is God, who is the first author and mover of it; but if it began in time, therefore it took its beginning from someone who could not begin, otherwise he would have taken a beginning from another; since therefore we do not proceed to infinity, but stop at the first being, as has been shown, it is necessary that it be and always have been. Likewise because it has been shown that the first being is a simply necessary being, because it is not from another but from itself; therefore it cannot have a beginning or end of existing; therefore it is of infinite duration. Therefore the question is chiefly understood about infinity in essence and perfection, and consequently also in power of acting; for these two maintain proportion among themselves; hence infinity of power is shown a priori from infinity of essence, and infinity of essence a posteriori from infinity of power. But how this infinity is to be conceived and in what it consists, was sufficiently declared in the preceding disputation, section 1.

Resolution of the question.

2. Therefore it must be said that it can be demonstrated by natural reason that God is infinite. This truth, namely, that God is infinite, faith teaches, as is evident from Theology, Psalm 144; Baruch 1; and the Lateran Council under Innocent III, in the chapter Firmly, On the Holy Trinity. And among the holy Fathers, Dionysius, 9 On the Divine Names; Nazianzus, oration 38. And philosophers have had an inkling, as Aristotle relates, Physics III, chapter 4, although their meaning is not sufficiently established, just as we shall immediately say about the same Aristotle. But this conclusion can be proved in the double way posited above, namely, either from effects, or a priori from some attribute previously demonstrated about God. In the former way Aristotle proves, Physics VIII, text 7, and Metaphysics XII, text 41, that God is of infinite power from the fact that he moves for infinite time. Because to move (he says) for infinite time requires infinite power. This he proves through reduction to the inconvenient, because otherwise two movers of equal power, one would move for finite time and another for infinite time. This reasoning has twisted the minds of many, since it immediately appears altogether ineffective; for to move for infinite time, even if we freely admit that such motion is possible, finite power perpetually enduring suffices, which does not languish nor is diminished or wearied by moving; but it can have these conditions even if it is finite, provided that it is incorruptible. For thus the same thing remaining the same is always naturally suited to do the same thing, as the sun to illuminate perpetually, if it were perpetual. Indeed, according to Aristotle’s testimony, the sun or heaven is the cause of perpetual succession of generations and corruptions, and similarly all intelligences move for infinite time according to him, although they are not infinite.

The mind and reasoning of Aristotle is examined.

3. Because of this difficulty many doctors deny that it was Aristotle’s mind to assert that God is infinite in power, but only in duration; for they think it less inconvenient that Aristotle failed in the conclusion than in his proof. Thus Gregory thinks, In I, dist. 42, q. 3, a. 1; Ockham, Quodlibet III, q. 1, and Quodlibet VII, q. 22 and 23; Marsilius, In I, q. 24, a. 2, and some others. Nevertheless it cannot be denied that Aristotle in that place treats of infinite power in the force of acting and moving, for this is plainly evident from his discourse. For this reason he proves that God is of infinite power, so that from this he may gather that he lacks magnitude; but this collection is chiefly of no moment in his opinion, since he himself posits that heaven and corporeal elements are eternal and infinite in duration. Then he proves that infinite power cannot be in magnitude, because otherwise it would move in no time, which inference would be altogether impertinent, if the discourse were only about duration; for power does not therefore move more quickly because it lasts longer. And thus St. Thomas, Albert, Simplicius, and others understood Aristotle there. But whether Aristotle spoke of infinite power intensively secundum quid only and only in moving or simply in acting, cannot be effectively proved from those places. But what should be thought I shall say at the end of this point.

4. Scotus’s exposition. — It is disproved. — Otherwise therefore Scotus, In I, dist. 2, q. 1, and in Quodlibet, q. 7, responds that Aristotle’s medium in that reasoning is not moving for infinite time in any way, but from itself and independently. But, whatever may be the case about the efficacy of this medium, which we shall see below, it is certain that this was not Aristotle’s mind, both because he makes no mention of that particle “from itself” or “independently,” and also because that reasoning proceeds equally in finite motion and in any action. But Aristotle does not prove his intention from motion or action, but precisely from the infinite duration of motion. And finally that reduction to the inconvenient, that equal movers would move for unequal time, is not founded on the mode of moving from itself or from another, but only on the quantity of the effect. Add that Aristotle there argues from a purely physical and previously proved medium in the same book; but the physical medium is that the first mover moves for infinite time, and this alone had been proved by Aristotle; but that it moves from itself and without dependence on another, is not a physical medium, but rather metaphysical; nor had Aristotle made mention of this there. Especially, because there Aristotle openly signifies that there are two movers in the same way, so that one moves for finite time, another for infinite; but there cannot be two movers from themselves and independently from a superior; therefore Aristotle does not make force in this mode of moving. Finally, granted that it is true that to move from itself requires infinite power, this nevertheless is neither self-evident, nor proved by Aristotle, indeed neither attempted to be proved nor insinuated.

5. St. Thomas’s exposition. — Otherwise St. Thomas there expounds that Aristotle speaks of infinite motion on the part of the mobile, not on the part of space. On the part of the mobile he calls infinite that motion in which infinite time must be consumed before the whole mobile passes through any prefixed or designated terminus or part of space; but motion infinite on the part of space he calls that which through continuous repetition of the same mobile within the same space lasts for infinite time. He says therefore that Aristotle’s principle is that to move some mobile for infinite time on the part of the mobile itself requires infinite power. But if you object: Aristotle could not subsume that the first mover can move for infinite time on the part of the mobile, but only on the part of space, because he only acknowledged the motion of heaven, which he thought had lasted for infinite time, and as such to be from the first mover, but truly that motion can only last for infinite time through repetition of the whole mobile through the whole space, St. Thomas responds in sum that Aristotle spoke directly and explicitly of this infinite time; but implicitly from this infinity he inferred another, which is on the part of the mobile. So that his reasoning in force is this: God moves heaven for infinite time on the part of space; therefore he is of himself potent to move for infinite time on the part of the mobile; therefore he is of infinite power. The consequence is clear, because the infinity of motion through repetition of space is per accidens, but on the part of the mobile it is per se; but what is per accidens is reduced to that which is per se; since therefore the first mover is the per se cause of the infinity of motion, infinity per se and not only per accidens must be attributed to it.

6. What difficulties in the just related exposition. — In this exposition many difficult things occur. First, that this was Aristotle’s mind, because he made no mention of the double infinity of motion of time, nor of the reduction of one to the other. Then, because, for motion to last for infinite time on the part of the mobile, it is necessary that the mobile be infinite; otherwise it could not last for infinite time without repetition and without complete transit of the whole mobile through a designated point of space, especially if the same motion always perseveres, as is supposed; and thus St. Thomas posits that such a mobile must be actually infinite according to magnitude. But truly, according to Aristotle’s testimony, it is altogether repugnant for an infinite body to be moved; how therefore could he here have assumed that the first mover can move an infinite mobile?; for this itself is to move a body for infinite time on the part of the mobile, especially because Aristotle expressly posits a finite mobile in his proof; for he says that mobile which is moved for infinite time through the removal of equal parts, would finally be consumed; which would not be true, if the mobile were infinite.

7. Second, even if we granted that Aristotle intended that kind of proof, it would be no less difficult to declare its force and efficacy. For first of all, what is the force of that inference: God moves heaven for infinite time on the part of space; therefore he can move for infinite time on the part of the mobile? For it is just as if it were inferred: He can move a finite body and continue that motion for infinite time; therefore he can move an infinite mobile. But this consequence seems to be founded on no reason. Because, just as the augmentation of motion through repetition and revolution of the same mobile in the same space, or through augmentation of the mobile itself, is far different, so the augmentation of power required on the part of the mover is far different, nor is it licit to infer one from the other, since they are of different nature, indeed since one is not properly augmentation, but duration of the same power. Hence that reduction of infinity per accidens to per se has no foundation here, indeed in force it is nothing other than to infer what is greater from what is less. For, speaking per se and (so to speak) from the object, it is less to move the same mobile for a longer time than to move a greater mobile. Hence in finite motions the inference would not be correct from greater continuation of motion of the same mobile to gather power of moving a greater mobile. Finally the instance made above against Aristotle’s reasoning proceeds in the same way against this interpretation; for an angel can move heaven for infinite time on the part of space, and yet cannot move any body for infinite time on the part of the mobile; therefore neither in the first mover is it licit to infer one from the other.

8. But if perhaps it be said that an angel is not thus the per se cause of infinity of motion as God is, if by per se cause is understood an independent cause and one operating from itself, we fall into Scotus’s exposition, and it is to be rejected for the same reasons; but if it is understood as a cause truly and properly influencing the effect and by proper power, as a proximate principal cause, thus it is undeservedly denied that intelligence is the per se cause of infinity of motion; for it effects it by proper power and endures perpetually in it. Nor can it be explained in what consists that God per se causes infinity and not an angel, because they do not differ except in that God effects as first cause and angel as second, which difference pertains nothing to the present, as has been said. Indeed it is scarcely understood why infinite motion on the part of space is called per accidens, and on the part of the mobile, per se; for, if any infinity can be in physical motion, only in circular motion through repetition about the same space, as Aristotle proved in Physics VIII, and On the Heavens I. And, just as continuous motion or time is per se one by continuation, so, if it lasted infinitely, it would be per se infinite by continuous circulation. But motion infinite on the part of the mobile is impossible; for, if the mobile is impossible, also the motion, Physics IV, text 115. Why therefore is it called per se infinite? or why from the potency of moving for infinite time in one way, is potency inferred of moving in another way? You will say: even according to our opinion motion infinite on the part of space is impossible. It is answered that we argue in Aristotle’s principles; but if motion infinite in that way is also impossible, Aristotle’s reasoning will be weaker even interpreted in the said way, because neither is the antecedent true, nor the inference good.

9. Wherefore St. Thomas, I Contra Gentiles, chapter 20, a. 8, ad 4 objection, otherwise declares this reasoning, saying that it only proves that finite corporeal power of itself does not suffice to move for infinite time, because it cannot be moved unless moved, and from itself does not have that it be moved perpetually, since it is in potency to being moved and not being moved, and therefore neither from itself does it have power that it move perpetually. Nevertheless neither does this interpretation appear sufficient. For first of all Aristotle does not prove immediately from the infinity of motion that the power of moving cannot be corporeal, but proves that it is infinite and from infinity afterward gathers that it cannot be corporeal, which inference we shall examine later; hence Aristotle here does not use that medium that a body does not move unless moved. Then this principle, if it is understood about actual and proper and physical or local motion, that is, that a body cannot locally move unless locally moved, is neither demonstrated, nor true, because in the motion of attraction often one body remaining unmoved attracts another, and in impulsion or expulsion this sometimes happens, although more rarely, as in living things in the expulsive power of excrements; and in the repercussion of a ball it is probable that it is impelled by the wall which it vehemently touches, although the wall itself remains unmoved. But if that principle is understood more broadly about motion through the help or concurrence of a superior cause, thus it is not a physical principle nor is it proper to bodies, but common to all secondary causes. And finally in that sense it is the same to say that corporeal power cannot of itself move for infinite time, as to say that a body cannot move without the concurrence of a superior cause, and thus we fall into Scotus’s opinion, who reduced the force of the reasoning to this, that no finite power acts independently of a superior, and thus finally Ferrariensis there reduces the exposition to this, that only the first cause per se primo and not through another causes infinite motion.

10. Finally Cajetan, in a lengthy opuscule On the Intensive Infinity of God, constitutes the force of this reasoning in this, that God per se primo, that is, from the force of his own and intrinsic perfection, causes the infinity of motion; but to cause infinite motion in this way requires (he says) intensively infinite power. This he proves thus, because duration is being; therefore of some perfection; therefore greater duration, of greater perfection; therefore infinite duration, of infinite perfection; therefore he who causes it from the force of his own perfection must be of infinite perfection. But God causes infinite duration in motion in this way; but intelligence or another finite agent cannot cause it per se primo, that is, from the force of its own perfection, but from an annexed condition, that is, from the fact that it lasts infinitely; just as heat as eight from the force of its intension and perfection has to heat as eight; but to heat through a day it does not have from the force of its perfection, but from an annexed condition, namely, because it lasts through the day. But against this exposition the same difficulties occur as against the preceding ones. And first of all, as far as pertains to Aristotle, we can object to Cajetan what he deservedly objects to Scotus: It is wonderful that Aristotle did not express the medium of his reasoning; just as Aristotle did not assume as medium a cause moving from itself, as Scotus wanted, so neither a cause moving per se primo, as Cajetan takes, but precisely from the continuation of motion through infinite time he infers infinite power of the mover. Likewise that reduction by which Aristotle proves that motion of infinite time cannot be from finite power, is far different from the discourse that Cajetan makes; for Aristotle infers that two equal movers would move for unequal time. This kind of arguing cannot be applied to movers that per se primo cause infinity or duration of motion in the way that Cajetan speaks. Indeed, if the matter is attentively considered, no created power (even according to Cajetan’s discourse) can per se primo move for an hour, much less for infinite time, because from the force of intensive perfection alone it cannot effect even the duration of one hour by moving, but from an adjoined condition, namely, insofar as it also lasts for an hour.

11. Cajetan’s ineffective discourse for proving the intention. — Furthermore I add that Cajetan’s discourse taken per se is ineffective. For first of all, what is the cause that can move for infinite time from the force of intensive power alone, prescinding it from its own duration? Certainly none, even if it be feigned to be maximally infinite. Otherwise if we feigned per impossibile that infinite motive power lasted for an instant of our time, it as such would be potent to move for infinite time, which is plainly false. And the consequence is clear, because, with a sufficient and per se and primary cause posited, the effect can be posited. But if it be said that the duration of the cause is a necessary condition for persevering in action, even in a cause of infinite intensive power, therefore infinite continuation of motion is never so made per se primo by infinite power that it does not require as a necessary condition the duration of power; but in this way and not otherwise perpetual duration in finite power suffices and is required for causing infinite motion; therefore in this there is no difference and infinite power is required without cause for causing infinite motion per se primo. Nor can it be declared what is imported by that particle “per se primo,” since through it the duration of the cause, as a necessary condition, cannot be excluded. Unless perhaps it be said that this duration is intrinsically included in the cause of infinite power, and therefore in such a cause this is not numbered as a condition distinct from the power itself. But this refers nothing to the matter we are treating; for even perpetual duration can be connatural to finite power, with this difference alone intervening, that in a simply infinite thing that duration is independent, but in finite power it is dependent, which difference does not refer to the present discourse, unless we return to Scotus’s exposition, which Cajetan himself does not admit.

12. Moreover, that ascent or gradation of Cajetan is fallacious, both because, although duration is perfection, yet greater duration is not always greater perfection. For in three ways one duration can be greater: in one way essentially, in which way eternity, for example, is greater duration than time and eternity than aeviternity. And in this way greater duration is also greater perfection; hence it would more properly be called better duration, or of higher nature; but finite time is not exceeded by infinite in this way, as is evident per se. In another way one duration is said to be greater than another or than itself, only through comparison to an extrinsic measure true or imaginary, in which way an angel is said to have lasted more today than yesterday, and in this way greater duration is not in itself greater perfection, but the same coexisting with greater succession. And thus, to cause greater duration in this way in an angel does not require greater power, as is also evident per se. In another way it happens that one duration is greater than another through real addition of part to part of the same nature. And in this way a year is greater duration than a day, and infinite time than finite, and thus greater duration is not greater perfection intensively, but only extensively (if nevertheless local motion or its duration deserves the name of perfection distinct from its terminus). And this comparison is what pertains to the proposition. But from this augmentation of perfection in the effect it cannot be gathered that greater power is necessary, but the same lasting longer, because it is only successive multiplication of the same or similar effect, for example, of similar circulation; but to multiply an effect successively does not require greater power; for the same heat can produce similar heat successively to infinity. And it is confirmed first, because from the infinity of the effect infinity no greater in the cause than is in the effect cannot be inferred; therefore, if the effect is only augmented extensively in duration, from this consideration it does not require infinite intensive power in the cause, but power infinitely enduring. And it is confirmed finally, because, if infinite power were necessary for moving for infinite time, because infinite duration is infinite perfection, infinite motion could in no way be made by finite power neither per se primo, nor by a principal and per se cause. The consequent is false, because finite intelligence can effect such motion; therefore.

13. The conclusion posited cannot be proved by physical medium alone. — I think therefore that the conclusion posited cannot be effectively proved through purely physical medium or from motion. First indeed, because not only is it true that no motion has lasted for infinite time, but I also think it more probable that it cannot last for infinite time, although it can last infinitely without end, yet not without beginning, as was touched upon above. Second, because, even if we granted that motion had lasted for infinite time, infinite power in the mover could not be gathered from this, as the arguments touched upon conclude. Nor does the reason by which Aristotle tries to prove that the finite cannot move for infinite time accomplish anything. For it is founded on this principle, that if integral power moves an integral mobile for infinite time, part of the power will move part of the mobile in less time, and thus finite. But this principle is false, for, if part of the power moves part of the mobile proportioned to it through the same proportioned space and repeated in the same way or so often passing through it, it will be able to move it for as long a time, speaking per se, as the whole power could move the whole mobile. Which Aristotle himself taught at the end of Physics VII and is evident from commuted proportion, and applying it to the motion of heaven, it can almost be perceived by sense. For if we feign that one mover had moved only the star of the sun from eternity and another had moved the remaining body of the fourth sphere, each would move for infinite time. But what some say, that Aristotle spoke of power that is diminished by moving, is beside the point; for what would Aristotle infer for the proposition, if he supposed this? For he could not conclude that that power is infinite, but that it is not wearied nor diminished by moving. Wherefore I do not fear to say that Aristotle did not argue correctly, where the matter is so clear and manifest. And Cano himself seems to have felt this, book XII On Places, chapter 5, where among Aristotle’s errors he places that he believed all intelligences moving the heavens to be of infinite power, because they move for infinite time. Hence it also becomes probable to me that Aristotle, at least in that place, did not speak of active power absolutely infinite in the genus of being or in the force of acting simply, but only of infinite power in moving locally, which is only infinite secundum quid. For, even if we granted that infinite power could be gathered from that effect, it would not exceed this infinity, and, if he attributed infinite power to all movers of the heavens, it is not credible that he attributed greater; but he there speaks equally of all, for from this he concludes that all movers of orbs are incorporeal, as St. Thomas notes there.

14. Someone will say: granted that infinite power of God cannot be proved from infinite duration of motion, yet it can be proved from augmentation to infinity in velocity of motion. For thus Gregory thinks, In I, dist. 42, q. 3, a. 2, that the infinity of God can be demonstrated from the fact that he can move heaven faster and faster to infinity. But that this can be proved he proves, because this effect does not repugn; therefore it is possible; therefore through some potency; therefore that potency is especially in the first being. And similarly he argues from other effects which he supposes to be possible, although this is not evident but rather obscure, as I shall say below treating the attribute of omnipotence. Hence some also think that the reasoning made is not efficacious, because it is not sufficiently proved nor self-evident that that process to infinity in velocity of motion is possible or does not involve repugnance. But, although we grant that this also is evident (as it certainly seems), nevertheless infinite power simply cannot be concluded from this, but only secundum quid, that is, in moving, which efficacy could be understood in finite power of a superior order, as is common in such processes to infinity.

Another reason proposed taken from creation.

15. Another reason therefore taken from another effect is usually considered more efficacious and proper to metaphysics, namely from creation, which I shall only insinuate, because its principles have been proved in the above. One principle is that God has power to create, which from what has been said is evident, because it has been demonstrated that he in fact produced this world, which could not be produced except through creation, since both matter itself and all things even incorruptible have been effected by him. Another principle is, that to create requires simply infinite power. This is not as evident as the preceding, yet it is sufficiently consonant with reason, as has been proved and declared in the above. And especially this is indubitable about the power of creating which from itself embraces as adequate object everything creatable, because this object extends to infinity and surpasses any finite perfection determinately signifiable; therefore it requires in the cause having such power infinite force and perfection.

16. But that the divine power is of this kind, can be shown in many ways from things made. First, because in them God created all grades of things and in individual grades various species, for whose production he did not need either any matter that would be supposed to his action, or any other helping cause, but by his power alone, supposing on the part of effects only that it does not repugn them to be; therefore it is a sign that God could have made by the same power and facility everything that would not have repugned being and thus whatever is creatable. Second, because in these beings that God created, he per se primo produces participated being itself or participated being insofar as it is such being, because neither in itself nor in another does he presuppose such nature of being; therefore it is a sign that this is the adequate object of that power and consequently that that power extends to everything that can participate the nature of being; but this is everything creatable. Third, because, whatever God creates, he will never make an effect adequate to his power, nor equal to his perfection, and on the other hand his power always remains equally integral and perfect; therefore, with any effect made, he can create another being that more participates his own perfection; therefore he can effect any creatable being.

17. Objection against the preceding reason. — You will say that repugnance seems to be involved in this reasoning; for, if God cannot create an effect adequate to himself, therefore he cannot make a simply infinite thing; therefore from the object of that power it cannot be gathered that it itself is simply infinite. It is answered by denying the ultimate consequence; for God cannot create a nature or substance equal to himself, because this involves open repugnance; for the most powerful excellence of the divine nature is that it be uncreated, independent and simply necessary being, which perfection anything created necessarily lacks. But with this equality excluded, it does not repugn that created beings be made to infinity that more and more participate the perfection of God. Hence neither on the part of God can power be lacking, especially since it has been shown that every possible perfection is contained eminently in him. And this object suffices that that power be in itself simply infinite, not only because of the mode of acting from nothing, but also because of the breadth of the creatable, which can be extended or augmented in perfection to infinity. Hence it is necessary that infinite power be supposed in the cause, both because the cause is superior and exceeding in perfection its whole object; and also because if it were finite, it could not progress in its action beyond some certain term. This reason therefore taken from the effect of creation not only as it has been made, but also as it is shown possible either from those things that have been made, or from the mode in which they have been made, is sufficiently efficacious. But Scotus, In I, dist. 2, q. 1, § Having shown therefore, proves this from those things that God made and continually makes, adding that in this effection of things he could perpetually endure. But Durandus, In I, dist. 43, q. 1, adds that he could also conserve all those things simultaneously. But this that Durandus adds is less evident, and with all that conceded, if the whole process stops within the species of things that have been made, infinite power simply cannot be concluded from it, but only finite power of a superior order, as Scotus also saw, unless from elsewhere something else is inferred from the mode of creation, as was said above.

On the mode of demonstrating the infinity of God a priori.

18. It remains to speak briefly about the other way of demonstrating the infinity of God a priori from some attribute of his previously demonstrated. And in this way St. Thomas proves, I, q. 7, a. 1, that God is infinite from the fact that he is being itself through essence received in no essence but subsisting per se. The disciples of St. Thomas think that the force of this reasoning is founded on this, that in God being is not distinguished from essence ex natura rei, but in creatures it is distinguished. And they think that no being is limited or bounded unless insofar as it is received in finite essence, and conversely essence is finite insofar as it is capable of finite being; for both act through potency and potency through act can mutually limit each other in diverse genera of causes. Thus therefore they conclude that divine being, which is altogether unreceived, is infinite. And in this way Cajetan understands this reasoning there, and Capreolus, In I, dist. 43, q. 1, a. 1, and Ferrariensis, I Contra Gentiles, chapter 43, and they defend it from the impugnations of Aureolus, in the said dist. 43, and Scotus, In I, dist. 2, q. 1, and Aegidius, In I, dist. 43, q. 1, a. 1; Richard, a. 1, q. 1 consent to this opinion.

19. But I think the reasoning is not efficacious, if it is founded on this, that essence cannot be finite unless it is potency truly and properly receptive of being itself, and conversely being cannot be finite, unless it is truly received in essence, as in properly passive and receptive potency. For even in creatures I think it false that essence and being are compared in this way, as I shall say at length in the following disputation. Therefore for being to be finite, it suffices that it be received from another in such and such measure of perfection, even if it is not properly received in any passive potency, and similarly created essence can be limited through its intrinsic difference, even if it is not compared to being through the mode of receptive potency. For by no sufficient reason has it yet been proved that a thing cannot be finite except in that way; for, although things that have mutual transcendental relation of act and potency among themselves can be said to be limited to each other in this sense that the relation of one, from the fact that it is determined to the other, is so finished that it does not remain indifferent to others, nevertheless, in an absolute thing, as is the essence of an angel, for example, it is very well understood that it can be finite without such relation, from this alone that it has received such grade of being and prescinds from another.

20. How from the fact that God is being through essence, that he is infinite is gathered. — That consequence therefore: God is being itself through essence, therefore he is infinite in perfection, seems to be founded proximately on this, even from St. Thomas’s mind, that to be infinite in essence consists in a certain negation that indicates absolute perfection of the thing and not any imperfection; but the first being, by this very fact that it is its own being through essence, is most perfect; therefore it also includes this perfection which is to be simply infinite. Hence St. Thomas, in the same I, q. 4, a. 2, from the fact that God is subsisting being itself, infers that he is so supremely perfect that he includes in himself every perfection of being. The force of this inference seems to be situated chiefly in this, that, since God participates being or the nature of being from no one, but from himself and from intrinsic nature and necessity is what he is, he cannot have in himself diminished and only quasi partially the nature and perfection of being; therefore he is in some way including all being and all perfection of being. From the same principle therefore and by almost the same proportion the infinity of such a being is concluded.

21. In what the infinity of God is situated. — First indeed, because this infinity consists in nothing else than in this, that the perfection of the first being is neither so precise and defined to one genus of perfections that we see distinguished in creatures, that it includes only that and not all other things in that most eminent way that can pertain to supreme perfection; nor also in individual genera of perfections is it so limited to some certain and definite grade that can be understood in participated being, that it does not have that perfection in a more noble and more excellent way than can be participated by a creature, even if it be participated more and more to infinity. But this whole is included in the perfection of the first being, by reason of which it is said to contain in itself every possible perfection, as is evident from what was said in the preceding assertion. Therefore from that principle infinity is equally inferred, just as supreme perfection. Indeed from this it also becomes consequent that all the reasons by which we proved above the perfection of the first being, equally prove its infinity, because both the mode of perfection exposed by us is convertible with rightly declared infinity, and infinity, insofar as under that negation it indicates perfection, pertains to perfection simply and thus to the supreme perfection of being.

22. Second, the same inference can be proved, because being through essence has nothing from which it is limited; for participated being can be limited either from the will of the giver giving so much perfection and not more, or from the capacity of the receiver, whether that capacity is understood through the mode of passive potency, or only through the mode of objective or non-repugnance; but in the first being, which from itself is its own being, no principle or reason of limitation can be understood; because, just as it has no cause of its being, so it cannot have limitation in it either on the part of the giver, or from another principle. You will say, just as the first being is from itself, so from itself and without another cause it can be limited to a certain genus or grade of perfection. It is answered that this repugns to a being necessary intrinsically and having being from itself. This indeed can easily be proved a posteriori and from inconveniences from what has been said, either because in that way it would not repugn that many beings intrinsically necessary be given, or because any being having limited perfection and quasi part of being can emanate from the first being, or because such a being would not be supremely perfect, which with true non-repugnant conception could be conceived as possible.

23. But a priori it can only be proved through non-repugnance, or negation of every cause or reason, on account of which the necessity of being as such would rather be limited to this genus of perfection than to another, and to this grade than to a better one. And indeed this is sufficient demonstration, unless someone wants to be willfully obstinate, both because here there cannot intervene another reason a priori through positive cause, since this being has no cause; and also because in every genus of possible perfection it was necessary that such perfection have in some being intrinsic necessity of being; otherwise it would not have whence to take beginning, or to flow to other beings, and the same is true of any possible grade of entitative perfection; therefore the very nature of being as such postulates that according to the whole breadth of possible perfection or truly conceivable it have in some being necessity of being either formally or eminently; but it cannot have this necessity as if divided and partitioned in many necessary beings, as was proved above; therefore it is necessary that it have it as if congregated wholly in one per se necessary being, and this itself is for that being to be infinite. In this way therefore, from the fact that God is being through essence, it is rightly gathered that he is infinite in perfection.

24. Whether the infinity that we say belongs to God is possible and indicates perfection. — But there still remains one difficulty both about the assertion posited and about its proofs, for all suppose that such an infinite being is possible; but this is neither self-evident, nor proved in all the things adduced. For he who would deny that God is infinite, would consequently deny that this infinity pertains to the perfection of being, because it is not possible. Rather it seems to include some imperfection, because what is conceived to be infinite, is apprehended as something confused and indeterminate and never sufficiently perfect, and therefore this property seems to repugn a being in act and can only be attributed to a being in potency. And it is confirmed, for, if one being simply infinite in act were given, other beings distinct from it could not be understood as possible, because an infinite being encloses all in itself; just as, if there were a body of simply infinite magnitude, no other body could be understood outside it. Hence conversely, by this very fact that one body is outside the place of another, it is understood to be finite locally; therefore, by this very fact that one being is outside the entity of another, it is finite entitatively.

25. It is answered that the reasons made not only prove that this infinity of the first being is possible, but also that it is simply necessary, so that any other finite perfection of being may be possible; nor can a being necessary of itself be reasonably defined or limited to a certain grade of perfection. Nor is it true that such infinity involves or indicates any imperfection, because infinity in the present case does not say negation of consummate perfection, in which way an inchoate and not yet perfect thing is said to be not finished, for this is great imperfection, but it says negation of limitation and of a terminus limiting the thing. Again this is not infinity of quantity, which is through the mode of extension or multitude, in which to lack terminus is as if to lack intrinsic complement, and therefore is not understood without imperfection and some confusion or indetermination; but it is infinity of altogether indivisible perfection, which in itself is supremely actual and complete; about which matter was said in disputation XXVIII. To the confirmation the conclusion is denied, because the infinity of the first being does not consist in multitude of being only, but in eminent perfection of one entity, and therefore, just as it does not take away the unity of that being, so it does not impede its distinction from any other being that does not attain to that perfection, and therefore St. Thomas, I, q. 7, a. 1, ad 3, touching almost the same argument, responds nothing else than that God is distinguished from other beings, because he himself is his subsisting being, but others are not. But Alensis, I, q. 6, memb. 1, ad 9, rightly adds that something is not said to be finite, because it is this and not another, but because it is terminated to another, or because it is for another, or because it is perfected by another. By which words he does not so much declare the proper formal reason of infinity as its indications, and in the third member he indicates the reason declared by us; but the second is conjoined with the third, for a thing that does not have an efficient cause, cannot have a final cause either, and conversely, and therefore just as he who lacks an end does not have whence to be limited, so he who lacks an efficient cause. But the first member pertains to local infinity, as he also declares. Hence to the first example taken from bodies it is answered that it is partly similar, partly dissimilar. The similarity is in this, that, if an infinite body were given, from this precisely it would not repugn that other bodies distinct from it be given, because its infinity would not consist in multitude or aggregation of all bodies, but in the sole unity of its magnitude without terminus. But the dissimilarity is in this, that one infinite body would occupy all spaces, hence naturally would not give place to other bodies; but God has no repugnance with other beings, because he is purest spirit. But in the second example there is no proportion or similarity, wherefore the consequence must be denied; for it belongs to the nature of an infinite body that it occupy all spaces, and therefore, if a body is contained in one finite space, it is necessary that it be finite; but it does not belong to the nature of an infinite being that it be all beings formally or identically, but that it be formally one being eminently containing the rest. But here immediately occurred the difficulty about the multitude of God’s perfections, whether it is finite or infinite, whose exposition will be evident from what will be said in the two following sections. But other difficulties, which could arise from the infinite power of God, will be better treated in the final section.

This section is taken from Suarez’s famous work Disputationes Metaphysicae, disp. 30.

May the Blessed Francisco Suarez pray for us poor sinners.

Gratias tibi ago, divine omnipotens, ob omnia beneficia tua, qui vivis et regnas in aeturnum.

CHAPTER IV.
On the divine attributes in general.

An attribute is an absolute and necessary perfection formally existing in God and supervening upon the essence as constituted. In this definition, by the first two conditions, free acts and relative properties are excluded from the notion of attribute, while by the third condition, the imperfect perfections of creatures are excluded, which are not formally but only eminently in God. Finally, by the last words it is declared that attributes do not pertain to the constitutive [reason] of the divine nature, but are as it were its affections and properties, modifying it as it were and drawing it to another line.¹ These are called by the Hebrews Sephirot, that is as it were Sapphires, as Rabbi Moses testifies in the commentaries of his first book Sefer Yetzirah; because with these as it were Sapphires, and gems and precious stones, the divine nature and substance is wonderfully adorned and decorated, although they make no composition whatsoever with it, as will be established from what is to be said in the following section.

§ I.
By what kind of distinction are the divine attributes distinguished from the essence and among themselves?

Scotus and his Disciples admit between the divine attributes and the essence a certain formal actual distinction, which they call from the nature of the thing, and they want it to precede every operation of the intellect, as the Subtle Doctor clearly explains himself in Sent. I, dist. 8. q. 4, where he says that such distinction precedes the intellect in every way. But the Nominalists, placed at the other extreme, assert that the divine attributes, both among themselves and from the essence, are distinguished by reason reasoning alone, or only by a certain connotation to created things; so that the same uncreated entity of God, as it connotes effects produced by itself, is called omnipotence, but wisdom or knowledge, as it connotes things objectively present to itself and known by itself. Finally other Theologians commonly teach that attributes are distinguished from the essence and among themselves by a distinction of reasoned reason and with foundation in reality; but some want such distinction to be by way of excluding and excluded, just as genus is distinguished from difference; others however think that it is only by way of explicit and implicit, just as being is distinguished from its properties.

First conclusion: The divine attributes are not distinguished among themselves, nor from the divine essence, by a formal distinction, or from the nature of the thing, which Scotus and his Disciples posit.

It is proved first: Those things which are distinguished from something formally and really from the nature of the thing, ought not to be predicated absolutely of it, but rather absolutely denied: whence in the opinion distinguishing relation from foundation by real formal distinction, these propositions are considered absolutely false, whiteness is similarity, generation is paternity: But according to the Holy Fathers the divine attributes, not only in concrete, but also in abstract, are predicated of the essence: Therefore they are not distinguished from it by real formal distinction, or from the nature of the thing. The Major is certain, but the Minor is established from the Holy Fathers asserting that God is not only good, but is goodness itself, is not only wise, but also wisdom itself, as St. Bernard declares in Canticum Canticorum, sermon 80, and De consideratione, lib. 5. Whence in the Council of Rheims when required that his propositions be written: Let it be written (he says) with an iron stylus, and with an adamantine nail, and let it be carved in flint, that the divine essence, form, nature, deity, goodness, wisdom, virtue, power, magnitude, truly is God.

The conclusion is proved second: The divine attributes enjoy no less identity with the essence and divine nature than the relations: But these are not distinguished by real formal distinction from the essence: Therefore neither are those. The Major is evident, but the Minor is usually demonstrated in the Treatise on the Trinity, and is manifestly gathered from the Council of Florence, sessions 15, 18, 19, and 24, where it is said that relation is the same thing with nature, but differs only according to the mode of our understanding. Also that not by thing, but by reason alone, the paternal hypostasis is separated from substance. Which words manifestly exclude the Scotistic distinction, since that, according to Scotus cited above, precedes the intellect in every way.

It is proved third: God, from the the confession of the Lateran IV, We firmly believe, etc., is a substance entirely simple: But he would not be such, if his attributes were distinguished from the essence by real formal distinction: Therefore etc. The Minor is proved: For just as if there were entitative distinction between the divine essence and its attributes, real entitative composition would result from them: so if they are distinguished by real formal distinction, real formal composition will result from them.

This reason is confirmed and more illustrated: composition is the union of distinct things: Therefore just as the union of things distinct by real entitative distinction is real entitative composition, so the union of things distinct by real formal distinction is real formal composition.

The Scotists respond that it does not suffice for composition that the extremes are distinguished among themselves, but it is further required that they be compared among themselves by way of act and potency, which does not happen in the present case. But (besides the fact that this seems entirely arbitrary, since the definition of composition only says that it is the union of distinct things, and since some things are composite in which the extremes do not relate by way of act and potency, as is evident in composite from integral parts) by the very fact that the divine essence is posited as really formally distinct from the attributes, by this very fact it is posited as formally actualizable and perfectible by them: Therefore by this very fact it is compared to them as potency to act, and perfectible to perfective: whence although this comparison to true composition were necessary, this nevertheless would not prevent there being composition in God, if his nature were really formally distinguished from his attributes.

It is proved fourth: Just as God is supremely simple, so also supremely one, and as St. Bernard speaks, most unified: But he will not be supremely one, if his essence is distinguished formally from the nature of the thing, and before every operation of the intellect, from his attributes: Therefore etc. The Major is evident, but the Minor is shown thus. No less does any real distinction repugn to supreme unity, than any real composition to supreme simplicity: But if there were in God any real composition from essence and attributes, however small, God would not be supremely simple; for as St. Bernard says in De consideratione, lib. 5, cap. 7, that is no more simple which has been subject to even one form, than a virgin known to even one man. Therefore similarly, if there is any real distinction, however small, between essence and attributes, God will not be supremely one.

Finally the conclusion can be persuaded from the fact that the formal reason of the divine essence is no less simply infinite than its entity: But the entity of the divine essence, by reason of its infinity, demands not to be distinguished in act before the operation of the intellect from the entity of the attribute: Therefore also the formal reason of God’s nature, by reason of its infinity, demands not to be distinguished, excluding the operation of the intellect, from the formal reason of the attribute.

Second conclusion: The divine attributes are distinguished among themselves and from the essence by a distinction of reasoned reason.

It is proved first: Distinction of reasoned reason is that which has foundation in reality: But such is the distinction between the essence and divine attributes; and between attributes among themselves: Therefore that is of reasoned reason. The Major is established, the Minor is proved. The virtual multiplicity of a thing is sufficient foundation for the intellect to distinguish it virtually: But the divine essence and its attributes, although they are formally one thing on the part of reality, nevertheless that thing is virtually multiple, as being equivalent to several created perfections really distinct, even from their genus or formal reason; for it is equivalent to absolute and respective, communicable and incommunicable, principles of understanding and willing, of punishing and having mercy: Therefore etc. I said equivalent to several distinct from their genus in created things, because to found virtual distinction in divine perfections it does not suffice that they be equivalent to created perfections really distinct, if those do not pertain to diverse genera, or, as some speak, to diverse lines: for divine knowledge is one attribute virtually indistinct, and yet is equivalent to all created knowledges really distinct among themselves. Similarly God’s understanding is equivalent to radical and proximate power of understanding, impressed species, and intellectual operation, and yet is not distinguished virtually from those formalities, because those pertain to the same intellectual line.

It is proved second: The names of the attributes and divine essence are not synonymous, like these, Marcus, Tullius, Cicero, but are of diverse reason: Therefore although they all signify the same perfection, entity, and formality, they do not however signify it under entirely the same reason, and consequently to the concepts expressed by these names correspond diverse objective reasons in God: But this diversity of reason is not taken only from our intellect, but is founded partly in the eminence of divine perfection, partly in the weakness and imperfection of our intellect not being able to conceive it with one concept, nor consequently to name it with one name, as St. Thomas excellently declares in Sent. I, dist. 2, q. 1, art. 3, with these words: The plurality of these names is not only on the part of our intellect forming diverse conceptions about God, which are called diverse reasons, but also on the part of God himself, insofar as there is something in God corresponding to all these conceptions, namely the full and complete perfection of himself: Therefore the distinction of attributes among themselves, and from the essence, is not of reasoning reason, but of reasoned reason.

Third conclusion: The distinction of reasoned reason, which is between attributes and essence, or between attributes among themselves, is not by way of excluding and excluded, but only by way of explicit and implicit.

It is proved by a fundamental reason: The divine essence cannot be conceived with foundation in reality, except as including, at least implicitly, the attributes, nor one attribute, except as including implicitly the others: Therefore between essence and attributes, or between the attributes themselves, there cannot be given with foundation in reality a distinction of reason by way of excluding and excluded, but only by way of explicit and implicit: The Consequence is evident, the Antecedent is proved. The essence of God, or his attribute, cannot be conceived, at least with foundation in reality, except as pure act, and simply or in the genus of being infinite: Therefore since it is of the nature of pure act that it cannot be conceived as perfectible by addition of another, and in potency to it; and of the nature of the simply infinite, or in the genus of being, that it formally include in itself every reason of being, which does not involve limitation and imperfection, for to the infinite nothing can be added in that genus in which it is infinite; it is manifest that the divine essence cannot be conceived with foundation in reality, except as including, at least implicitly, every perfection and entity of the attribute, nor one attribute, except as including implicitly, the perfection and entity of the essence, and of all other attributes.

§ II.
The principal objections are solved.

You will object first against the first conclusion: Since definition explains the nature of a thing, those things which differ by definition ought to be distinguished from the nature of the thing: But the nature of God and the attributes, and the attributes themselves among themselves, differ by definition, for nature is defined as that by which God is the radical principle of his operations and attributes; intellect as that by which God understands, will as that by which God loves, and so of other attributes, which definitions are distinct: Therefore the nature of God and the attributes, and the attributes themselves among themselves, are distinguished from the nature of the thing.

I respond by distinguishing the Major: Those things which differ by definition, given about the thing as it is in itself, are distinguished from the nature of the thing, I concede the Major. Given about the thing not as it is in itself, but as it is conceived by us, I deny the Major, and under the same distinction of the Minor, I deny the consequence. Therefore the divine nature and attributes can be defined in two ways, namely by definition given about them as they are in themselves, in which way they can only be defined by God, or at most by the intellect of the blessed; or by definition given about them, not as they are in themselves, but as they are conceived by us wayfarers, imperfectly and through alien species. If they were defined in the first way, they would not have diverse definitions, but one, but in the second way they are defined by diverse definitions; from which however it does not follow that they are distinguished before the consideration of our intellect by real formal distinction, or from the nature of the thing, because since definition is given by us about them, not as they are in themselves, but as they are conceived by us, it suffices that they be distinguished by our reason, so that they enjoy diverse definitions.

You will object second: Those things are distinguished in act before the operation of the intellect, at least formally and from the nature of the thing, about which contradictories are verified in act, before the operation of the intellect: But about the divine intellect and divine will, before the operation of the intellect, contradictory propositions are verified, for instance that the intellect is the principle of generation of the Word, will is not the principle of generation of the Word: Therefore they are distinguished in act before the operation of the intellect, by distinction at least formal and from the nature of the thing, such as Scotus and his Disciples admit.

I respond by denying the Major, for in order that contradictories be verified in act about some things, before the operation of the intellect, it suffices that they be distinguished virtually among themselves; because just as virtual heat in the sun can perform all that, excluding imperfections, which formal heat performs in fire; so virtual distinction can perform all that which actual distinction does. For that is founded in the eminence of a thing virtually multiple, and equivalent to diverse perfections; whence just as the rational soul, because it is eminently vegetative, sensitive, and intellective, equally well confers the vegetative, sensitive, and rational grade, as three really distinct souls would perform, to which it is equivalent. So virtual distinction can equally well found contradictory predicates, as formal distinction and from the nature of the thing, which Scotus admits between divine attributes.

You will object third against the second conclusion: There is not given in God composition of reason with foundation in reality: Therefore neither distinction of reason. The Antecedent will be established from what is to be said in the following chapter. But the Consequence is proved: Distinction even of reason seems to oppose no less the supreme unity of God, than composition of reason opposes his supreme simplicity: Therefore if composition of reason with foundation in reality cannot be given in God, neither can distinction of reason having foundation in reality be found among divine attributes, which is usually called of reasoned reason.

I respond, conceding the Antecedent, denying the consequence and parity. Both because composition of reason is founded in the potentiality of the object, in which there must be two formalities or objective concepts, one of which relates to the other as potency to act, and perfectible to perfective: but distinction of reason between divine attributes is founded in the supreme perfection and eminence of the uncreated entity of God, equivalent to several created perfections, which are dispersed in inferior things, as we declared before. And also, because composition of reason must be from several concepts mutually excluding themselves, since it is of the nature of a metaphysical part to exclude another part from its concept, as is established in composition from genus and difference: but distinction of reason which is between the divine essence and attributes, or between the attributes themselves, does not require this mutual exclusion of concepts, but for it it suffices that one is not included explicitly in the other. The same happens in being and its properties, which differ virtually and by reasoned reason among themselves, although they mutually include themselves, and perfect precision cannot be given between them.

From what has been said it is gathered that the distinction of reason of attributes from essence is not made by the intellect of God and the blessed, seeing God as he is in himself. For this distinction is founded partly in the eminence of the divine entity, virtually multiple, partly in the limitation of our intellect, not being able in one act to equal the entire perfection of the divine essence, and in the medium by which we know God through analogy to creatures, and species received from them: although however God knows the distinction of his attributes, virtual in reality, and formal in our intellect, he does not distinguish by that reason, since with one most simple act he comprehends all things as they are in themselves by way of one simple perfection, entirely indivisible. Similarly the blessed, with one and indivisible concept, behold God as he is in himself, because they know him by one and most simple species, namely the divine essence, serving the function of both expressed and impressed species in the beatific vision: Therefore neither God, nor the blessed within the Word form distinction of reason of the divine essence from attributes, or of attributes among themselves. St. Bernard excellently and elegantly expounds this reason in De consideratione, lib. 5, cap. 13, where he thus discourses: To us, because we cannot contend with God’s simplicity while we strive to apprehend one thing, there occurs as it were a quadruplicate, this mirror and enigma through which alone it is given to see does this. But when we shall see face to face, we shall see him as he is. For not even then will the fragile edge of our mind, however vehemently intending, in any way rebound, and leap down into its plurality; it will rather collect itself, unite, and conform itself to his unity, or rather to that unity, so that one unified face may respond to face. I said the blessed do not form within the Word distinction of reason of the divine essence from attributes, or of attributes among themselves, because it is very probable that they can effect such distinction outside the Word, since the knowledge of the blessed outside the Word can be not one but multiple.

Footnotes.

¹ What is meant by the text is that an attribute is something absolute, not relative, therefore, the divine relations cannot be considered attributes; second, attributes are necessary, to exclude things that are freely said of God, like God’s free act, for it is clear that God could’ve chose not to create; third, in order to exclude imperfect perfections from God which are said to exist in God merely virtually, i.e., in God’s power to cause them, and not formally, as being present in His essence by their own formal nature and reason; lastly, an attribute is said to follow upon God’s essence as already constituted, just like properties of a thing emanate from its essence; therefore, all the attributes of God emanate from His essence which is constituted by pure and actual understanding.

St. Thomas, Worthy child of the Queen of Virgins, Pray for us.
St. Thomas most chaste, Pray for us.
St. Thomas most patient, Pray for us.

One of the most controversial debates among scholastic philosophers, especially among Thomists and Suárezians, is the debate over act and potency. These two are the primary and intrinsic principles of being, but how they function and relate to each other — and to the whole composite — is disputed among scholastics.

Thomists, on the one hand, affirm that act is not limited except through a potency that is really distinct from act, which it limits. Suárezians, on the other hand, hold that for the limitation of act, no really distinct potency is needed; rather, the act itself can have a limitation of its own, without the need for a really distinct limiting potency.

This dispute is of utmost importance, because the entirety of Thomistic philosophy is built upon it, and from this principle is derived and proven the real distinction between essence and existence in creatures. It is so vital that, without it, the whole Thomistic system collapses. Put simply, without it, there would be no Thomism.

It is thus no wonder that the first two propositions of the 24 Thomistic Theses are as follows:

1. Potency and Act so divide being that whatsoever exists either is a Pure Act, or is necessarily composed of Potency and Act, as to its primordial and intrinsic principles.

2. Act, because it is perfection, is not limited except by Potency, which is capacity for perfection. Therefore, in the order in which the Act is pure, it is unlimited and unique; but in that in which it is finite and manifold, it comes into a true composition with Potency.

Is it really true that potency limits act? Why can’t act itself be limited on its own? Why does it need a really distinct, opposite, limiting principle in order to be limited? These and many other points are used by Francisco Suárez, S.J., to reject the Thomistic doctrine.

The following article was written by Fr. Joseph Gredt, O.S.B. (1863–1940), in response to critiques made by an eminent Suárezian philosopher, Fr. Fuetscher Lorenz, S.J. (1894–1935).

THE THOMISTIC DOCTRINE OF POTENCY AND ACT VINDICATED AGAINST RECENT ATTACKS

By Fr. Joseph Gredt O.S.B.

Professor of Philosophy at the Pontifical Institute of St. Anselm, Academy

The work The Essence of Thomism published two years ago by Fr. Manser O.P. has provided an opportunity for Laurence Fuetscher to attack the Thomistic doctrine of potency and act. Fr. Manser had asserted that the essence of Thomism consists in the rigorously logical and consistent development of the Aristotelian doctrine of potency and act. The opponent concedes that the essence of recent Thomism consists in a special doctrine of potency and act, but denies that this doctrine is solidly founded. He says this special doctrine is contained in the twenty-four theses approved by the Roman Congregation of Studies on July 27, 1914 and March 7, 1916, and can be reduced to these four main points: 1) the doctrine of the limitation of act by potency really distinct from act, 2) the doctrine of the multiplication of formal act through reception in matter, 3) the doctrine of the unity of act in composite substance, 4) the doctrine of the way in which potency is reduced to act. The opponent directs his attack against what he calls recent Thomism and recent Thomists, and does not wish to determine anything about the doctrine of St. Thomas himself. The recent Thomists against whom he contends are: Billot, Del Prado, De Maria, Garrigou-Lagrange, Glossner, Gredt, Hugon, Manser, Mattiussi, Mauri, Remer-Geny.

1. On the Limitation of Act

First, the opponent proceeds against the infinity which, according to Thomistic doctrine, pertains to act as such: Act cannot be physically limited by itself. It is limited only by potency really distinct from the act in which it is received. Consequently, act not received in any potency is infinite. Against this doctrine, he argues thus: “Act, e.g., wisdom, as such certainly does not express limitation from itself. But this does not yet mean that act denies limitation: it expresses neither one nor the other, but perfectly abstracts from both. Indeed, if act as such expressed infinity, it could not exist as limited; wisdom from itself (according to its concept) could not be limited and would therefore also exclude limitation through potency really distinct from itself. The principle limiting act is thus first found only outside the metaphysical notion of act, which in itself contains nothing of either limitation or infinity. From this follows a distinction of reason (metaphysical distinction) between potency and act, but not a real physical distinction. This appears necessary only if we supposed a parallelism according to which whatever is distinguished by reason is also really distinct.”

We respond: Thomists do not attribute to act as such a positive infinity that would exclude limitation of act, but only a negative infinity. Act according to its formal notion expresses no imperfection; indeed, by its nature it tends to give the fullness of perfection of that order in which it is act. According to its formal notion, it expresses perfection and perfection only. However, it does not express positively infinite perfection. It includes nothing in itself by which it would be limited, yet it does not exclude limitation. Therefore, from the Thomistic doctrine of the infinity of act, what the opponent attempts to deduce does not follow: that act could not be limited at all; rather, act as conceived by Thomists and as it should be conceived according to its formal notion reveals itself immediately as that which cannot be limited by itself as such. Act is limited only either by potency really distinct from itself or by the fact that the act itself is potency for some higher act. Act is limited by potency really distinct from itself in which it is received: thus existence is limited by essence and form by matter. Act is limited because it is potency for some higher act: thus form is the act of matter, and together with matter is potency with respect to existence. But then act is not limited insofar as it is act, but insofar as it is potency. Therefore, we can simply say: Act is not limited by itself, but is limited only by potency really distinct from itself. This proposition constitutes the foundation of Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy. And this proposition is indeed self-evident from its terms. For act immediately reveals itself from its concept as that which cannot be limited by itself, but is limited only by potency really distinct from itself. By its nature, act tends to give the fullness of perfection of that order in which it is act. For act is essentially perfection: perfection simply as entitative act, as act simply; perfection in a certain respect, perfection in some order, as formal act, as act in some order. Given this, it cannot be understood how in its physical reality it could include that which limits it in that order in which it is act. For that which is essentially perfection in some order and which essentially tends to give the fullness of perfection of that order, cannot simultaneously be that by which the fullness of this perfection is hindered, i.e., it cannot in its physical reality include that by which the fullness of this perfection is hindered: That by which formally each thing has perfection of being cannot be that by which formally the fullness of being is hindered, i.e., entitative act, or existence cannot include in its physical reality that by which it is limited, existence cannot formally limit itself. And that by which formally each wise thing is wise cannot be that by which formally the fullness of wisdom is hindered; wisdom cannot formally limit itself. Wisdom as formal cause cannot include in its physical reality that by which it is limited. That impediment by which the fullness of being is hindered, by which the fullness of wisdom is hindered, must necessarily come from outside; it cannot come from the physical reality of the formal cause itself, from the physical reality of existence or wisdom itself. If formal cause limited itself, it would have to be simultaneously that by which formally something has perfection in some order and that by which formally it does not have perfection in the same order; which is contradictory. Every formal cause gives fullness in its order from itself; this fullness cannot be hindered formally, but only materially through potency in which form or act is received. For formal cause is that which tends without limit to give the fullness of perfection: Wisdom of itself gives the whole fullness of wisdom, and being the fullness of being. If, therefore, this formal cause is not received in any subject, in any potency, but subsists unreceived, it cannot but unfold all its infinity: it necessarily subsists as infinite act and unique in its order. Wisdom, therefore, received in no subject, is infinite. Indeed, wisdom simply as a perfection that is simply simple, is infinite simply. Wisdom in some genus, wisdom in a certain respect, would be infinite in its genus. However, received in some subject, it is a limited quality. This limitation, moreover, comes uniquely from the subject with which it is communicated imperfectly according to the clarity of knowledge and according to the objects it regards. Thomists, following St. Thomas, use a sensible example to explain this metaphysical truth: If whiteness as a Platonic idea were to subsist essentially by itself, it would be infinite in its line; for it is that by which indefinitely each white thing is white — nor could it be other than one. So indeed substantial form, which is not only immaterial or spiritual like the human soul, but as pure spirit is not at all the form of a body, is infinite in its line and cannot be other than one in its species, because as a specifying principle subsisting by itself it exhausts the scope of the whole species. And subsistent being, which is not received in any limiting essence, is simply infinite or pure act. Nor can it be said that act is limited, not by potency in which it is received, but by the efficient cause: that act receives its limitation from the efficient cause by which it is produced as limited. For the efficient cause cannot produce limited act, unless it produces it as received in some potency. If it produces unreceived act, it is necessary that it produce it as befits unreceived act, i.e., as infinite. So indeed God produces purely spiritual substance infinite in its line.

But the opponent contends that being or existence is not at all act, is not perfection (p. 113–116). But the contrary appears from the very concept of existence. When we attempt to show from the very concept of existence that existence is act, is perfection, let us abstract from the real distinction which in creatures exists between essence and existence, lest the opponent object to us a petitio principii. Existence, whether conceived as really or only virtually distinct from essence, must necessarily be conceived as that which actuates essence. For essence in itself expresses a mode of existing or ability to exist; and existing essence expresses that mode of existing, that ability to exist as actuated by existence. Existence, therefore, whether really distinct or not really distinct from essence, is act and perfection of essence. It is true that the diverse generic and specific perfections of a thing come from essence. But from essence they come as potential perfections which are actuated by existence and have their actual perfection from existence. These generic and specific perfections are limitations which come from the limiting essence, whether this is really or only virtually distinct from existence. If mentally we remove that which by limiting determines existence, i.e., if we remove the essence limiting being, we will have unlimited perfection, unlimited act. But, as has already been shown, that which limits act cannot be really the same as act. Therefore, neither can essence limiting the act of being be really identified with being, and being cannot be limited except by essence really distinct from being.

The Thomistic doctrine of the real distinction between act and potency limiting act, which is immediately had from the concept of act, is also demonstrated by a demonstration which proceeds from the contingency of created essence. When in “Elements of Aristotelian-Thomistic Philosophy”, n. 705, I say: therefore created essence and existence are really distinct because in the adequate concept of actual created essence existence is not contained, the opponent thinks (p. 158) I wanted to derive the real distinction immediately as if from some intuition of essence. But my whole argument rests on the contingency of the creature. Therefore, in the adequate concept of actual essence existence is not contained, and consequently essence and existence are really distinct, because the creature exists contingently. Essence and existence in the creature are connected contingently, not only because essence in its origin has existence from another and is not from itself, but created essence for its whole duration has existence from another. It never exists by force of itself. If after initially receiving existence from another it later had it by force of itself, it would become a being from itself, absolutely necessary. Therefore, essence and existence in the creature are contingently joined by another continually, the creature must be continually conserved in being by another. Given this, it is necessary that in the creature essence and existence be really distinct. For if they were really the same, they would be joined not contingently, but absolutely necessarily, and the creature would exist necessarily and from itself. Created essence would have existence from itself and by force of itself and would not need the conservative influence of another in order to endure in being.

The opponent thinks that the contingency of the creature is saved by a distinction of reason with foundation in reality and objects against my argument thus: “If real identity grounds absolute necessity with respect to existence, the same applies also with respect to individuation. But then man, if his individuation in reality is identified really with essence, with absolute necessity is this man and consequently there cannot be except a single man.” I respond: I concede the opponent’s supposition, i.e., that individuation is identified with essence really, and intrepidly deduce also the consequence, although determining it more accurately: Man necessarily is this man, nor can there be except a single such man. The individual cannot be multiplied, there cannot be except a single such. For the man who is being discussed here is individual man. To him necessarily pertains individuation and indeed this determinate individuation. Individual man is necessarily this man, just as man is necessarily rational. To individual essence necessarily pertains determinate individuation just as to specific essence necessarily pertains specific difference. But neither individual essence nor specific essence is necessarily existing. The opponent further argues: To existing essence pertains actuality which it has really identified with itself. Therefore, according to Thomistic principles it necessarily exists (p. 159 sq.). We respond: The actuality which pertains intrinsically to existing essence, which is identified with it, is the state of physical reality which it has through existence contingently joined to it, which therefore it has only contingently. Actual essence is essence contingently actuated by existence. Therefore, the actuality of essence is nothing but the actuality of a potential principle which exists through contingent conjunction with existence, which therefore exists only contingently, not necessarily. Besides, supposing real identity between essence and existence, not even a distinction of reason with foundation in reality can be saved between actual essence and its existence. For with the real distinction between essence and created existence denied, actual essence cannot be conceived as prescinded from existence, nor can created existence be conceived without essence being explicated in the concept. For when essence (actual) is explicated, that by which a thing is placed in a species is explicated, i.e., that physical reality by which a thing is placed in a species. This reality, however, cannot be other than existence, since those who deny real distinction acknowledge no other physical reality: the specifier itself, essence itself formally is some existence. Similarly, in explicating created existence in concept or that by which something is opposed to nothing, not absolutely, but in a certain respect or in a limited way, there is explicated not only existence, but also its determiner, essence. One thing from which it is possible to prescind, with the real distinction between essence and existence denied, is the exercise of existence, insofar as essence-existence is conceived without affirming its exercise in the nature of things, just as God or subsistent being itself can also be conceived while doubting whether this being is exercised in the nature of things. But this does not suffice to save the contingency of the creature. For just as, when God or subsistent being itself is conceived by prescinding from its exercise, it must be said: If such a thing exists, it necessarily exists, so also about the creature it would have to be said (doubting whether it exists): If it exists (i.e., if such a thing is), it necessarily exists.

2. On the Multiplication of Act

The real distinction, which must obtain between act and potency limiting act, for formal act is proved from the Thomistic doctrine of the principle of individuation of corporeal substances by which in the same species they are multiplied merely numerically. The radical principle of individuation is matter designated by quantity. From this doctrine it is deduced that form not received in matter is infinite in its line, this infinity is removed by reception in matter. The opponent strenuously contends against this doctrine. First, he amasses difficulties against the designation of matter by quantity. Since this designation is made by means of the disposition of matter, and this disposition is qualitative, he asks how quantity obtains first place in the designation of matter. He does not understand how utterly indeterminate matter can have an intrinsic order to some quantity, nor how this quantity is called indeterminate. Finally, he objects that in substantial mutation matter cannot remain the same in number, if it is designated by order to quantity (p. 222, sq.). To respond, it is necessary to explain the process of generation of corporeal substance. In the instant of generation, matter by force of previous dispositions says order to a new form and the accidents of the new composite, which accidents in the order of material dispositive cause again precede the form and are proximate dispositions to it, and among these accidents quantity, as the first accident, precedes the others as a disposition to them. For matter is not disposed to this form in number, except because it is disposed to this quantity, just as it is not disposed to this species of form except because it is disposed to accidents which are required by this species. Therefore, matter is already understood as distinct and divided, before quantity is actually present, indeed before the new substantial form to be generated is present, insofar as by force of previous dispositions it connotes and requires this quantity rather than another. Thus when water is resolved, the matter of the molecule is divided into two parts of which one becomes hydrogen, the other oxygen. Similarly, when a man dies, his matter is divided into many parts according to diverse organic chemical substances which then arise. Quantity, therefore, as a condition for individuating a body holds first place, because it is the first accident of a body. Indeed, quantity alone concurs as a condition of individuation. Qualities do not concur at all. For solely by the fact that matter has order to determinate quantity according to position, matter is divided from any other matter and as ultimate incommunicable subject by itself is individual and apt to individuate substantial form and the whole corporeal substance. Consequently, this substance individuates all accidents received in it, not excluding quantity itself insofar as it is an accident inhering in substance. But how can utterly indeterminate matter have a transcendental relation to some determinate quantity according to its position? It is answered: It is necessary that it can have that relation, because it is the subject from which by substantial mutation a new corporeal substance arises. This mutation can happen only by the fact that matter is deprived of any substantial form and accidents and thus as pure potency because of previous dispositions requires a new substantial form and accidents of the new substance, i.e., from its nature as pure potency it contains a relation to them. The quantity which concurs in individuation is not quantity determinately limited. However, this does not mean that matter in the instant of generation has a relation to abstract quantity. It means only that quantity concurs in individuating substance not according to determinate magnitude and figure, but solely as quantity distinct and divided from any other quantity by its position. For magnitude and figure in the individual can vary while the same individuation remains. Thus in the generation of man, matter coming from two germinal cells is designated by one continuous quantity which is distinct and divided from any other quantity by its position. This mass of matter then actually has a relation to embryonic man and to magnitude and figure corresponding to him. But quantity concurs in individuation not according to this magnitude and figure, but solely as quantity which according to position is distinct from any other quantity. Since, however, quantity which is a condition for individuation is not quantity already inhering in the generated substance, but quantity only required by matter, therefore it is prior to substantial form. By no means, therefore, as the opponent thinks, is it a contradictory entity which relative to form would simultaneously have to be prior and posterior. But how does matter remain the same, when in substantial mutation it acquires relation to another quantity? We respond: By substantial mutation a new individual arises. Therefore, in matter there also arises another act of individuation. Matter, therefore, is the root of another individuation and consequently it itself is also individuated otherwise exigitively and potentially. It is, however, the same matter as pure potency which is now otherwise determined according to individuation. The same matter is determined otherwise by relation to another quantity.

The Thomistic doctrine of individuation of corporeal substances presupposes “Parallelism according to which, whatever is distinguished by reason is also really distinct in reality.” So the opponent, who throughout his whole work again and again repeats that Thomists profess Realism exaggerated beyond Scotism. But undeservedly. Even according to Thomists metaphysical degrees in the same thing are distinguished only by reason, similarly numerical difference of corporeal substance from its specific essence is distinguished only by reason. It is true that according to Thomists these distinctions of reason are founded in some real distinction. Thus, the distinction of reason between generic degree and specific difference is founded in real distinction between essence and existence, because under a genus nothing can be contained except that whose existence is limited by essence really distinct from existence. Similarly, the distinction of reason between corporeal substance and its numerical difference is founded in real distinction between matter and form. According to Parallelism tacitly supposed, individuation from substance ought to be distinct “ex natura rei”. So the opponent, and he continues: “Quite consistently according to Thomistic doctrine, Gredt reproaches Suarez with nominalism, because according to the way Suarez explains the principle of individuation, all things would be specifically distinct.” To this I say: Individuation, i.e., the formal principle of individuation according to Thomists, is distinguished from substance not really or ex natura rei, but only by reason. However, the foundation of this distinction, the radical principle of individuation is really distinguished from substance, but inadequately: for it is not the whole substance taken by itself, but only matter with transcendental relation to quantity. To avoid nominalism, it is absolutely required that the principle founding individuation be really distinct from substantial form founding specific agreement. Only thus can it be understood how in things of the same species the same specific essence is preserved notwithstanding the numerical distinction by which they differ individually. If the difference by which singulars differ in number or individually comes from form, from the specifying principle, all singulars necessarily also differ specifically. Therefore, I quite consistently act if I reproach Suarez with nominalism, because according to the way he explains the principle of individuation, all things would necessarily differ specifically, since he teaches that every thing is simply by itself the principle of its individuation. Nor does Suarez solve this objection by his distinction between metaphysical and physical essence, as the opponent thinks. For if in corporeal things form differs from form by itself, then a metaphysical essence which would apply universally to many is no longer possible. All these things would differ specifically from each other. Agreement of singulars within the same species can be obtained only by the fact that their forms differ not by themselves, but by relation to different matter. This relation, however, is a transcendental relation, which is entirely identified with the very entity of form. Just as every form informing matter intrinsically according to its essence as form of a body bears in itself relation to matter, so also this and that determinate form intrinsically bears in itself relation to this or that matter. And this applies also to the human soul. Although spiritual, nevertheless according to its essence it is form of a body, and has an essential relation to matter. Even relation according to position, in which consists individuation or the formal principle of individuation of bodies, is a transcendental relation: transcendental relation according to position. Since things which differ specifically are separated from each other by specific differences, individuals of the same species are separated from each other only by position.

The Thomistic doctrine of the principle of individuation, improperly understood, leads our opponent also to improperly understand the doctrine of Thomists on the origin of ideas. He presents this doctrine thus (p. 273 sq.): What the intellect according to Thomists properly understands is the real physical form of things, which the agent intellect abstracts from individuating matter. This form, really distinct from individuating matter, is joined to it in such a way that individuation itself remains extrinsic to form. Therefore, this form would be “universal in reality”: universal essence existing in reality as universal. And thus according to Thomists “we acquire universal essence by abstracting it from its principle of individuation really distinct from essence.” But the Thomistic doctrine of the origin of ideas is entirely different. All knowledge, even sensitive knowledge, is through form, through determination of a thing, through its notes. But intellective knowledge, which according to Thomistic doctrine directly and immediately is borne to the universal, happens through abstraction from determinate corporeity as it is known by the senses and represented by the phantasm which collects the cognitions of the individual senses into one. If by Thomists the intellect is said to understand through abstraction from matter, by the name of matter by no means is signified prime matter which gives individuation to corporeal substance, but concrete corporeity. The intellect by its universal concepts distinguishes what is necessary and essential to a thing from all those things which are contingently concreted with it and do not pertain to essence. Sense cannot make this distinction, but apprehends the whole concrete without attaining the essence of any thing or without knowing what it is. Sense does not know the essence of extension or of body, but only this extended thing of determinate quantity, determinate figure, in this determinate place and time. The intellect indeed, when it leaves all these things, apprehends extension or body as such. And thus it knows universal corporeal essence through abstraction from concrete corporeity. But thus the object of the intellect is rendered spiritual or inextended: by leaving concrete corporeity, it primarily leaves concretely determinate extension. Only thus can it be received in spiritual intellective potency, only thus is it rendered intelligible. Our opponent does not admit the necessity of this spiritualization, but with Suarez teaches that the intellect directly and immediately knows the concrete singular and by this cognition comes to know universal essence. But this is impossible for the human intellect, which begins from sensitive cognition. Suaresian doctrine by right consequence would lead to sensualism. But it is true that more determinate cognition of diverse corporeal essences arises by induction from singulars in the way Fuetscher teaches (p. 265–272). The intellect knows determinate essences of things by proceeding gradually from the more universal to the particular. Only the most universal and most imperfect concepts are acquired by simple abstraction of the agent intellect. With these acquired, judicative and ratiocinative cognition begins, by which concepts are perfected. But this cognition absolutely presupposes that the first most universal concepts have been acquired spontaneously and naturally.

3. On the Unity of Act

The Thomistic doctrine is that in composite or corporeal substance there is only one formal act and one entitative act, one substantial form and one being. If the real distinction between essence and existence is established, this doctrine of the unity of act in substance composed of matter and form is also solidly founded. For then existence is really distinct also from matter and from form, and matter and form have only one existence. The opponent concedes this and critically proceeds against special arguments which are proposed for this unity of act (p. 296–310). However, he does not sufficiently consider the principal argument which is derived from the nature of entitative act. He says only that according to Thomistic doctrine existence is the ultimate substantial act; but with this supposed, the doctrine itself of unity of act in composite substance is already established. And he refers to what he had already said against the way Thomists conceive existence as perfection, as act. But we have already rejected these arguments above. From the concept of existence it is had that existence by its nature is act and ultimate act as the utterly simple and indivisible ultimate term. Every essence, even corporeal composite essence, has only one simple existence by which all its parts both essential: matter and form, and integral exist. Existence is the simple term of all these parts. These parts as parts of one and the same essence, of one and the same being, are not existing except through mediation of the whole, through the existence of the whole. Existence immediately affects the whole, but affects parts only mediately, through mediation of the whole. Existence renders the whole as such existing and thus only renders parts also existing. In parts it is only mediately, through mediation of the whole, immediately it is in the whole. A part which would immediately have existence would be existing through itself, would have existence through itself alone, so that it could no longer be part of another, but would necessarily constitute essence completely terminated in itself whether as substance or as accident. Therefore, wherever there is multiple being, there is also plurality of beings, plurality of essences, and the whole which is thus had is not one per se, but one per accidens only, like substance with its accidents, man with clothes, heap of stones. Thus therefore matter and form have only one entitative act, one being, and thus constitute one being, one per se. Therefore, substantial being is the utterly first being, and substantial form is only that which gives this being. Whatever is further superadded is either an accident, like color, or another substance extrinsically added like the clothes of a man. Second act, therefore, or existence is also ultimate act which ultimately terminates any essence. Whatever else is superadded is a new essence accidentally added to another. Therefore, from two incomplete substances one substance cannot be constituted except insofar as one is pure potency: prime matter, the other its first substantial act: substantial form, which gives substantial being to the whole thus constituted. From this it follows that two substantial forms cannot inform the same matter. Those who admitted plurality of forms in the same matter taught that one form subordinated another to itself insofar as one as superior completed through its being the being of the inferior form. This doctrine, from what we have said about the simplicity and indivisibility of existence, is altogether excluded.

4. On the Way in Which Potency is Reduced to Act

The opponent raises doubt about the universal value of the principle: Whatever is moved is moved by another. Up to now he has never made a judgment whether the doctrine maintained by Thomists is really that of St. Thomas. But in this matter he tries to show that the doctrine of Thomists is not at all that of saint Thomas. He interprets the doctrine of St. Thomas on divine concurrence in the way Stufler does: St. Thomas would have taught neither physical premotion, maintained by Thomists, nor simultaneous concurrence, commonly admitted by scholastics. After all that has already been written about the doctrine of St. Thomas in this matter, it is not necessary to investigate again about his mind. Let us inquire solely into the doctrine of our opponent on that principle: Whatever is moved, is moved by another. According to Thomists this principle applies universally in an absolute sense. Applied to operative potency of a creature, it means that potency cannot proceed to second act except under a double divine influence: under previous and simultaneous influence. Potency must be reduced to act in two ways: by simultaneous concurrence, in order to have operation; by previous concurrence, in order to have operation as dependent on itself, as produced by itself. Fuetscher, following Suarez, thinks that operative potency can pass to second act without being premoved by God. But Fuetscher proceeds further and raises doubt also about immediate divine simultaneous concurrence. Suarez affirmed this concurrence to be necessary (Metaphysical Disputations 22, 1, 17 and 22, 2, 17). Fuetscher tries to support his doctrine by the fact that, given the conditions required for operating, operative potency virtually contains operation in itself: “In both cases the perfection in question is actually present, although it has a diverse mode of being: as virtual act and as formal act. Virtual act and formal act are contained in the same line of specific perfection in which they formally agree. Only the mode, by which the same specific perfection is had in these acts, is diverse; and these modes are related to each other as potency and act, as disposition and evolution of disposition. By which is preserved the relation of potency and act required for any change.” For this, however, in order that operative potency may pass from itself to operation, it is necessary that it suffice that formal act (operation) be contained virtually in virtual act (in operative potency): “If it were necessary that virtual act contain in itself not only specific perfection, but also the mode of being which this perfection afterwards obtains, then indeed something absurd would be had and ‘motion’ to formal mode of being would not be possible. But from the very doctrine opposed to us it arises that the perfection of effect is already formally contained in its adequate cause; therefore, absurdity falls upon this doctrine. Motion is not possible except as transition from virtual act to formal act, but not from formal to formal, because virtual act and formal act only are related to each other as potency and act.”

Let us respond. It is clear that no Thomist would say that operative potency before operation must already contain in itself its operation as such. But a Thomist affirms that over and above all created causes is the first cause which contains in itself eminently whatever being, not excluding the being of created action, and which through simultaneous concurrence participates this being to second causes. The entity of operation, which newly arises in operative potency, must necessarily be reduced to the font of all being, to subsistent being which in itself contains whatever being. Whatever entity which arises can arise only through participation from being itself through essence, through participation from God, and indeed through immediate participation, because every created cause is found in the state of potency and consequently must receive its action and its effect from above. But God participates action and its effect as proceeding from the creature and dependent on it. Therefore, by no means does that which Fuetscher fears occur (p. 333), that divine concurrence removes created activity. But divine concurrence, by which God participates action to the creature, must be continuation of divine premotion. For divine premotion gives to the second cause causal dominion over action in its origin, so that it arises as proceeding from operative potency, i.e., as causally dependent on it. “Let us remove from divine action,” thus Fuetscher, l. c., “whatever suggests imperfection of the creature. Just as God is not contained in time, but supereminently transcends time, with all things contained in time coexisting with him, so God as cause is not contained in the order of creatures, so as to act simultaneously with them, but transcends creatures.” This is excellently said, but this itself is Thomistic doctrine. According to this doctrine, God is not a co-agent, as if juxtaposed to created cause which produces the act simultaneously with it. Divine concurrence is not called simultaneous except because it is simultaneous with created action, in order to be distinguished from previous concurrence, which precedes this action.

CONCLUSION

Let us conclude. What the opponent amasses against Thomistic doctrine on act and potency cannot overthrow this doctrine. The whole Thomistic system is ultimately founded in real distinction between act and potency limiting act. This foundation, however, is entirely solid. Already from the concept of act it immediately becomes clear that it is really distinct from limiting potency. From the other side, we deduce this same truth by way of conclusion from potency, i.e., from essence which because of its contingency must be really distinct from existence and from matter, which individuates form received in it by limiting it. Besides, the unity of corporeal composite substance requires unity of substantial formal and entitative act, i.e., unity of substantial form and existence, whence again results real distinction between essence and existence. Also universal knowledge of corporeal essences requires that the principle of individuation be really distinct from substantial form which gives specification. Therefore, Thomistic philosophy is not only a system evolved with rigorous consequence, but also rests on a foundation firmly established in every respect. On the contrary, the Suaresian metaphysics of our opponent, insofar as it does not agree with Thomism, vainly plays with distinctions of reason not founded in reality: The distinction of reason between essence and existence, which is affirmed to save the contingency of the creature, is not founded; similarly, the distinction of reason between physical and metaphysical essence, which is posited to avoid nominalism, is not founded. The judgment which the opponent makes against Thomistic philosophy seems to arise from the fact that sometimes he has not penetrated this philosophy so well. The sober and truly scientific method of discussion, however, manifests him as truly studious of truth. Therefore, we hope that he will be led to judge otherwise about the philosophy of St. Thomas, if he will consider the wisdom of St. Thomas more diligently.

Laus Deo

The following disputation is taken from Benedict Pereira, S.J. (1535–1610), a Jesuit scholastic philosopher, theologian and exegete on the controversy regarding the nature of the Angel of the Lord.

For those who do not know, there is a dispute among the Church Fathers on whether the Angel of the Lord is the Son of God pre-incarnate or merely a created angelic being as one of God’s ministering spirit.

FIRST DISPUTATION.
Whether the one who wrestled with Jacob was an Angel or the Son of God.

The extreme words of Theodoret’s Commentary should be observed, in which he says that the one who wrestled with Jacob in human form was the Son of God. Indeed, in this opinion Theodoret followed many of the ancient Fathers, who held that the divine visions and appearances made in the Old Testament to the Patriarchs and Prophets, in which either God or even an Angel is said to have appeared to men, were appearances of God, but not properly of the Father, for He never appeared to men in the Old Testament; but rather were of the Son of God. Therefore, although Scripture according to the Greek reading calls the one who appeared to Moses in the flame of fire from the midst of the bush an Angel, Theodoret nevertheless argues in two ways that it was the Son of God, and not an Angel properly so called: Both because he himself says he is the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob; and because in declaring his name, he says: “I am who I am”; these things, however, can in no way be fitting for an Angel. Nor is it surprising that the Son of God is called an Angel, since Isaiah in chapter nine, according to the translation of the Seventy, openly calls him the Angel of great counsel: And Malachi in chapter three names him the Angel of the Covenant desired by the Jews. Indeed, because the Son was sent into the world by God the Father to announce to men the will, counsels, and decrees of the Father, as he himself said in John 15: “All things that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you,” therefore the name of Angel fits him most aptly. And Theodoret’s disputation on this matter, comprehended by us in a few words, is of this kind.

But perhaps the reader will desire to know who among the ancients and more noble Authors were approvers and followers of this opinion. Let him know, therefore, that Justin Martyr was of this opinion, as he himself argues in that discourse which he had with Trypho the Jew, which he himself committed to writing: Tertullian also acceded to this opinion in the second book against Marcion, and in the book against Praxeas, and Hilary in the fourth and twelfth books on the Trinity; likewise Ambrose in the first book on Faith, chapter five. And also Chrysostom on the seventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. Augustine, however, seems to have been uncertain and doubtful on this matter. For arguing on both sides, he establishes and determines nothing certain, as can be seen in his second book on the Trinity, chapter 13, and more fully in the Treatise on those words: “I am who I am,” which is placed in the Sixth Volume of his Works, which if anyone should deny to be Augustine’s, he will certainly not deny it to be that of a prudent and learned writer.

But I consider the contrary opinion to be more probable. For what has been handed down by these Authors, that God the Father never appeared to men in the Old Testament through any vision, whether imaginary or sensible, seems to be able to be proven manifestly false by the authority of Daniel: for in chapter seven he narrates that there appeared to him in a vision the Ancient of days sitting on a throne, around whom stood thousands of thousands ministering, and ten thousand times a hundred thousand standing by him, and afterwards one like a Son of man came in the clouds of heaven to the Ancient of days, and received from him an eternal kingdom and power over all the earth, and that all nations should serve him. It is clear that in this vision that Ancient of days represented God the Father, and that Son of man was CHRIST, who through his passion merited to be exalted above all things, and to receive dominion and empire over all things. Indeed, what was revealed to Daniel in this vision is the same thing that David, inspired by the prophetic spirit many centuries before, had predicted in the second psalm: “You are my Son, today I have begotten you: Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession”: And in psalm 109: “The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand; Until I make your enemies your footstool.”

But that in the appearances which are narrated in Scripture to have been made to the Patriarchs, and to Moses, and to the Prophets, the one who then appeared to them, immediately and according to his own person, was not the Son of God, but some Angel, I can prove by many and firm reasons. But lest I be too lengthy, I will select some of the clearer and firmer ones. First, that the one who wrestled with Jacob was an Angel, Hosea clearly teaches us in chapter twelve, speaking thus of Jacob: “In the womb he supplanted his brother, and in his strength he contended with an Angel, and prevailed against the Angel, and was strengthened, he wept, and entreated him, in Bethel he found him, and there he spoke with us.” Behold for you, Hosea calls that wrestler simply and precisely an Angel, in a way that one never finds the Son of God called in the sacred writings: For where he is called an Angel, there something is always added, by which it is signified that he is not called an Angel as to his person, but as to a certain similarity of angelic office; and therefore he is called the Angel of great counsel, and the Angel of the Covenant. The same can be said of the one who appeared in the bush, and in the flame of fire to Moses: for Blessed Stephen in Acts 7 precisely and simply calls him an Angel. And although in the Latin translation he is precisely and simply called the Lord in that passage of Exodus, the Hebrew Scripture, and the Chaldaic Paraphrase, and the Greek translation, name him an Angel: And indeed he could be called by both names: for as to his person, he was an Angel, but as to representation and authority, he was God: for the Angel formed that voice and words; but those words signified not the Angel, but the one by whom he had been sent, that is, God. I will speak, therefore, briefly and clearly in the Scholastic manner: Personally he was an Angel, representatively and authoritatively he was God.

Hear the excellent opinion of Saint Gregory on this matter, writing in his Preface to the book of Job in this manner: “The Angel,” he says, “who is described as having appeared to Moses, is sometimes called an Angel, sometimes the Lord. An Angel, of course, because of this, that he served by speaking externally: But he is called the Lord, because presiding interiorly, he supplied the efficacy of speaking. Therefore when the speaker externally is governed by the interior one, he is named both Angel through his service, and Lord through his inspiration. Hence David says in Psalm 77: ‘Give ear, O my people, to my law:’ And yet neither that law, nor that people was David’s, but God’s: nevertheless assuming the person of him, from whom he was speaking, he speaks with his authority, by whose inspiration he was filled. We see this happening daily in the Church. For the reader standing in the midst of the people exclaims: ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.’ And that he himself is God, he certainly does not truly say, nor nevertheless does he depart from the rule of truth by what he says, because he puts forward by voice the lordship of the one to whom he renders the ministry by reading.” Thus Gregory.

If in any Appearance, the one who appeared should be thought to be the Son of God, this should be thought especially of the one who appeared on Mount Sinai, and gave the law to the Hebrews: for that appearance was the most noble and celebrated of all, and not in one place does Scripture say that God descended on Mount Sinai, and gave the law. Indeed, that very one who appeared openly calls himself God, and demands from the Hebrews love of himself above all things, and worship, and obedience, and observance of his law. Nevertheless, that it was not God who appeared immediately to Moses, and through whom that law was given, the words of St. Paul and Blessed Stephen make manifest. For he in chapter 3 of the epistle to the Galatians writes that that law was ordained by Angels. But he in Acts 7 said that the Jews received the law by the disposition of Angels. Indeed, it is particularly said in the plural number that the law was given through Angels, that is, through some one of the number of Angels, lest if it had been said in the singular number, through an Angel, the assertors of the above-mentioned opinion would interpret it of the Son of God, who is sometimes accustomed to be called Angel. But for the confirmation of this matter, I am pleased to write in this place the words of St. Jerome explaining that passage of Paul to the Galatians: Thus he writes: “What Paul says, that the law was ordained through Angels, he wishes this to be understood, that in the entire Old Testament, where an Angel is first reported to have been seen, and afterwards is introduced as speaking as if God, an Angel indeed was truly one of the many ministers of God, the one who was seen, but that in him the mediator spoke, who said: ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.’ Nor is it surprising if God speaks in Angels, since also through Angels, who are in men, God speaks in the Prophets, as Zechariah says: ‘And the Angel who spoke in me said,’ and immediately following: ‘Thus says the Lord Almighty.’” Thus Jerome. In addition, if God had immediately appeared in visions and prophetic Revelations, it would have been especially fitting that the revelation of the Incarnation of the Son of God be made immediately by God to the ever-Virgin Mother of God Mary, because of the highest dignity both of the revealed mystery and of the person to whom it was revealed; but that that revelation was made through the Archangel Gabriel, the Evangelical History clearly speaks, by which example and argument St. Dionysius the Areopagite confirms this opinion of ours, as we are about to say.

Finally, that general opinion of Blessed Dionysius, long ago received and approved by the Scholastic Theologians, seems also to be approved by all. He affirms that all divine visions, appearances, and revelations before the coming of Christ, whether in the law, or before the law, whatever they were, and of whatever things, and to whatever persons they happened, they did not proceed immediately from God, but were accomplished by the work and ministry of Angels. The words of Dionysius in the fourth chapter of his book, which is on the celestial hierarchy, are as follows: “Therefore, and above all, celestial Spirits have merited the Angelic name, because when the splendor of divine brightness first emanates into them, they afterwards transmit to us those more sublime announcements from above. For thus the law also, as divine Scripture testifies, was granted to us through Angels; And Angels raised to God those illustrious Fathers of ours, who were before the law, and who were after the law, either admonishing what should be done, and leading from sacrilegious error and profane life to the right path of truth: or teaching and revealing any sacred institutions, or hidden visions of heavenly Sacraments, or some divine predictions.” And with some things interposed he adds: “Our most celebrated Fathers learned such divine visions by the ministry of celestial powers.” But Dionysius objects to himself that the law is not once said in Scripture to have been given by God: “Does not,” he says, “the tradition of sacred Scripture speak of the very sanction of the law as handed down to Moses from God? But that indeed instructs us more truly, that it was an image of divine and more sacred law. From which, and also this wisest Theology seems to discover, that therefore that law flowed even to us through Angels, so that in the institution of the most holy and divine law it might be provided that the former things prepare the way to God for the latter.” Thus far from Dionysius.

It remains for us to very briefly dissolve the two above-placed reasons of Theodoret contrary to this opinion. He objects that the one who wrestled with Jacob is called God: for he said: “If you have been strong against God, how much more against men?” Indeed also when Jacob asked him about his name, he responded: “Why do you ask my name, which is wonderful?” But the difficulty of this objection has been completely discussed by what we have taught. For the one who appeared, even if according to his person he was an Angel, nevertheless represented the majesty and authority of God: therefore it is not surprising that he is called God, and his name is said to be wonderful. Although those words, “which is wonderful”, even if they are read in many Latin copies, and in the more ancient Greek ones: nevertheless neither the Hebrew scripture, nor the Chaldaic Paraphrase, nor the Greek translation recently corrected and published in Rome, nor the Latin Bible corrected and published by order of Sixtus V, have them in that place. The second reason of Theodoret was that Jacob most ardently desired and asked for the blessing of the one who appeared to him, and having received it, rejoicing and glorying said, “I have seen God face to face, and my soul has been saved.” Nor would he have asked for such a blessing from an Angel, since to give it is proper to God: indeed of whom David sang: “The Lord will give grace and glory.” But this reason is light: for to bless is not only of God, but also of an Angel, and of man, yet in a different way. The same Jacob indeed below in chapter 48, blessing the sons of Joseph, prayed for them first the blessing of God, then also of the Angel. For he spoke thus: “God, who feeds me from my youth, and the Angel, who delivered me from all evils, bless these boys.” Not only can blessing be desired and asked from an Angel, but also grace and peace; not as from the author and bestower of it, but as from a most gracious intercessor, procurer, and minister before God.

Let the Reader, I ask, hear and weigh the words of Blessed John, which are in the first chapter of the Apocalypse: for they add great faith to our opinion. He speaks thus: “Grace to you and peace from him who is, and who was, and who is to come; and from the seven Spirits who are before his throne.” Behold John desires and prays that not only blessing, but also what is most divinely the gift of God, grace and peace, be given by the seven spirits. I am not unaware that Victorinus, Primasius, Bede, and many others have interpreted these words of the Holy Spirit, for this reason, as he is the bestower of sevenfold grace: For Isaiah in chapter eleven calls the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit Spirits: “There shall rest upon him,” he says, “the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,” etc. They want therefore the sense of these words to be of this kind, “Grace to you and peace be from the Holy Spirit, whose are the seven Spirits, that is, the seven gifts;” so that the person of the Holy Spirit is denoted in this place by his sevenfold effect celebrated in Scripture. But indeed two things make this exposition improbable. For it is harsh and unusual in the sacred writings that grace is said to come from the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, for grace making one pleasing, since it is as it were the foundation of these gifts, precedes them in the order of nature. Then, that statement: “Who are before his throne,” cannot aptly be fitting, except for some person, and one ministering and serving God: wherefore it cannot truly be attributed either to the Holy Spirit, or to his seven gifts. The truer opinion therefore is that the seven Spirits are said to be the very multitude and universality of Angels, from the custom of Scripture, not rarely signifying by such a number, either the universality of some things, or some great multitude. Although it is probable enough, what Aretas, and Lyranus, and before them Andrew Archbishop of Caesarea hand down, that it was the opinion of the ancient Fathers, and especially of Blessed Irenaeus, that there are seven principal Angels, who are primary among the others, ministers of divine providence over the governance of the World, or the Church: Whom Raphael doubtless signified, when he said that he was one of the seven Spirits who are before the sight of God, as is read in Tobit 12. And in the book of Revelation itself, not once are the seven Spirits named, and Angels sent by God into all the earth, and they are introduced either sounding trumpets, or having vials full of the wrath of God. But let us return to the history of the Angelic wrestling with Jacob.

Laus Deo

The following text is an AI translation of the complete treatise on Justification written by Fr. Charles-René Billuart, O.P. (1685–1757) from his Summa Sancti Thomae hodiernis academiarum moribus accomodata, vol. 3, diss. VII, pp. 171–188.

DISSERTATION VII.

On the Justification of the Sinner.
St. Thomas, q. 113.

Until now we have dealt with the Author concerning the necessity, essence, division, and cause of grace; it remains to address its effects, of which there are two principal ones, namely, the justification of the impious and the merit of the just. We shall speak of the first in this dissertation, and of the second in the following one.

Justification is named from justice: taken passively, it denotes a movement toward justice, just as heating denotes a movement toward heat. Justice, since by its very nature it imports a certain rectitude of order, can be understood in two ways: in one way, as it imports right order in the very act of a man with respect to another, and in this sense justice is a particular virtue, which is not our concern here. In another way, justice is spoken of as it imports a certain rectitude of order in the interior disposition of man himself, namely, insofar as man’s highest part is subject to God, and the lower powers are subject to the highest, namely reason. This justice can come about in man in two ways: in one way, by way of simple generation, which is from privation to form; and in this way justification can belong to one who is not in sin, as it belonged to Adam and the angels. In another way, this kind of justice can come about in man according to the nature of movement, which is from contrary to contrary; and in this sense, justification imports a certain transformation from the state of injustice to the state of the aforesaid justice, and it is in this way that we speak here of the justification of the impious. About this, three principal questions can be asked: First, whether in justification sin is properly deleted. Second, whether it can be remitted without the infusion of grace. Third, what acts are required on the part of the sinner for justification.

ARTICLE I.
WHETHER IN THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE IMPIOUS, SINS ARE SO REMITTED THAT THEY ARE TRULY DELETED AND REMOVED, AND NOT MERELY COVERED?

To justify is to make just with that justice which we have just explained; it can be taken in two ways. First, improperly, for that which is to declare, pronounce, or consider someone just, whether meanwhile he is truly just or not, in the forensic usage, when a judge out of favor or ignorance declares someone just, even if he is guilty. In the second way, it is taken properly for that which is to truly make someone just, right, holy, well-ordered interiorly and exteriorly toward God, himself, and his neighbor.

The heretics of our time take justification in the improper sense, and contend that in the justification of the sinner, sins are not truly deleted or removed, but remain entirely in man, and are only covered and not imputed; so that justification on the part of God consists only in this: that He does not impute sins, but as it were covers them with the merits and grace of Christ. On the part of man, it consists in firmly believing that the sins he has committed and will commit are forgiven him because of Christ’s merits, and are in no way to be imputed for the punishment of damnation. Against these:

I say: In the justification of the sinner, sins are not only covered or not imputed, but truly remitted, deleted, and removed.

Proof 1°: By the most formal terms of Holy Scripture. Psalm 50: “Blot out my iniquity.” And: “Blot out all my iniquities.” Isaiah 43: “I am he who blots out your iniquities for my own sake.” Hosea 14: “Take away all iniquity.” Micah 7: “Who is a God like you, who takes away iniquity?” John 1: “Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world.”

Proof 2°: By other terms of Holy Scripture. Man through sin is interiorly stained and defiled, as we have said concerning sins and all agree. But according to Holy Scripture, man in his justification is cleansed, washed, purged, and sanctified from sins. Psalm 50: “You shall wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow.” Ezekiel 36: “I will pour clean water upon you, and you shall be cleansed from all your filthiness.” 1 John 1: “The blood of his Son Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.” 1 Corinthians 6: “Neither fornicators… nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor thieves, etc. shall possess the kingdom of God. And such some of you were; but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified.” But if sins are only covered, it is falsely said that man is cleansed, washed, purged from them, etc. For who would say that a man defiled with filth is clean and washed because he covers the filth with a cloak?

Proof 3°: From St. Augustine. The holy Doctor, in book 1 to Boniface against the two letters of the Pelagians, chapter 12, responding to the Pelagians who said that Catholics teach that baptism does not take away crimes but only shaves them, with their roots remaining, says: “We say that baptism gives forgiveness of all sins and takes away crimes, not merely shaves them, nor that the roots of all sins remain in evil flesh, as if they were hairs shaved from the head, from which sins grow again to be cut again.” And in book 3, chapter 3, responding to the Pelagians who falsely accused Catholics of asserting that baptism does not truly make men new, that is, does not give full remission of sins, but that they become children of God in part, and in part remain children of the world, that is, of the devil, he replies: “They lie, they lay snares, they evade; we do not say this.” And below: “Baptism therefore washes away all sins, indeed all sins of deeds, words, etc.” And in explanation 2 on Psalm 34, expounding those words, “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered,” on which the heretics chiefly rely, he says: “Nor should you understand sins to be covered, as if they were there and alive… God therefore covers wounds, not you: for if you wish to cover them out of shame, the physician will not cure them; let the physician cover and cure, for he covers with a plaster; under the physician’s covering the wound is healed, under the covering of the wounded the wound is hidden.” Thus, according to St. Augustine, God covers wounds in such a way that by covering them He heals them, like a physician who covers a wound with a plaster and heals it. This is clearly decisive against the heretics. See other fathers, if you wish, in Bellarmine, book 2 On Justification, chapter 8.

Proof 4°: From the Council of Trent, session 5, canon 5, where it is said: “If anyone denies that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is conferred in baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted, or even asserts that all that which has the true and proper nature of sin is not taken away, but says that it is only shaved or not imputed, let him be anathema; for in the regenerate, God hates nothing.” And in session 6, chapter 7, it says that justification is the renewal of the interior man, and that from unjust he becomes just.

Proof 5°: From absurdities. If in the justification of the impious, sins remain and are only covered, but not truly deleted and destroyed, it follows: 1° that man would be simultaneously just and unjust; just, because justified; unjust, because remaining in sin which is essentially injustice; 2° it follows that God would love sinners as His friends and in relation to eternal happiness, contrary to Wisdom 14: “God hates the impious and his impiety”; 3° that Christ would not be the Lamb taking away the sins of the world, that He would not free His children from the servitude of sin, nor make them holy; 4° that in John 3, He would have falsely said to the Apostles: “Now you are clean”; for how could they be clean if they were still defiled with the filth of sins? 5° that God’s judgment would not be right, esteeming and considering just someone who is in sin, and not considering worthy of punishment one in whom remains that which is worthy of punishment, namely sin; just as a forensic judge out of favor or ignorance erroneously and not rightly pronounces or considers just one who is truly unjust and guilty.

Objection 1°: The heretics object to that of Psalm 31: “Blessed are they whose sins are covered, blessed is the man to whom the Lord has not imputed sin.”

To this argument, which is the principal one of the heretics, an answer has already been given from St. Augustine, that God covers sins by healing them, just as a physician heals a wound by covering it with a plaster; and because He heals them, He does not impute them. Moreover, since all things are naked and open to the eyes of God, nothing is covered from God except what does not exist.

Objection 2°: The Apostle explains justification by our putting on Jesus Christ: Romans 13: “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Similarly, Galatians 5 and Ephesians 4. But clothing does not take away, but covers the deformity of the body: therefore.

Response: The Apostle there explains that to put on Christ is not to apprehend His merits externally for the non-imputation of sins only, but to be changed interiorly from the state of sin to the state of innocence, by putting off the old man and all affection for sin, and beginning a new and immaculate life: “Let us cast off,” he says in Romans 13, “the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light; let us walk honestly, as in the day, not in rioting, etc. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” And Ephesians 4: “Put off the old man, who is corrupted according to the desires of error, be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man.”

They reply indeed that sanctification imports an interior reformation and purity of heart, but justification, which they distinguish from sanctification, imports only the non-imputation of sin because of Christ’s merits; just as a forensic judge is said to justify the guilty when he pronounces him free from crime and henceforth to be considered innocent because of someone else’s merit or out of indulgence.

Response 1°: The distinction between justification and sanctification is fictitious; for according to the usage of Holy Scripture, justice is not separated from holiness, and to be justified is to be sanctified: Thus 1 Corinthians 6: “You are washed, you are sanctified.” Ephesians 4: “Put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness.” Moreover, justice, as it is taken here, is the interior rectitude of the whole man, insofar as reason is subject to God and the lower powers to reason, in which holiness consists. Hence, 2° what they say is false, that justice imports only the non-imputation of sin, since according to Holy Scripture only he is just who does what is just according to rectitude of heart: “Little children,” says John in Epistle 1, chapter 3, “let no one deceive you; he who does justice is just.” 3° Likewise, it is false and very injurious to divine equity and truth that God, like a forensic judge, pronounces and considers just anyone who is not truly just.

Objection 3°: According to Holy Scripture, no one is without sin: therefore, if the destruction of sin is required for justification, no one is justified.

Response: I distinguish the antecedent. No one is without venial sin, let it pass; without mortal sin, I deny. And this is sufficient for man to be justified.

The objections that heretics raise concerning justifying faith will be resolved below.

ARTICLE II.
WHETHER FOR THE REMISSION OF SIN, WHICH IS THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE IMPIOUS, THE INFUSION OF GRACE IS REQUIRED?

This matter concerns both heretics and Catholics.

Lutherans and Calvinists, who do not acknowledge a true and proper remission of sins in the justification of the sinner through their deletion, but only an improper one through their non-imputation, consequently say that it is not obtained through a form that justifies intrinsically, but either through the justice by which God is just, or through the justice of Christ extrinsically imputed.

All Catholic theologians reject this doctrine as erroneous, but they dispute among themselves whether, at least by God’s absolute power, the remission of sins and justification of the impious could be obtained through God’s extrinsic favor alone, or through acts of charity and contrition without the infusion of habitual grace.

§I.
Whether in fact justification occurs through the extrinsic imputation of the justice of God or of Christ without the infusion of habitual grace?

I say: The remission of sins, which is the justification of the sinner, does not occur through the extrinsic imputation of the justice by which God is just, or of the justice of Christ, but through true and intrinsic justice or the infusion of habitual grace.

This is of faith, decided in the Council of Trent, session 6, canon 10, in these words: “If anyone says that men are justified without the justice of Christ by which He merited for us to be justified, or that they are formally just by that justice itself, let him be anathema.” Canon 11: “If anyone says that men are justified either by the imputation of Christ’s justice alone, or by the remission of sins alone, excluding the grace and charity which is poured into their hearts by the Holy Spirit and inheres in them, or even that the grace by which we are justified is only the favor of God, let him be anathema.” And: “The only formal cause (of the justification of the impious) is the justice of God, not by which He Himself is just, but by which He makes us just, namely that being endowed by Him we are renewed in the spirit of our mind, and are not only reputed but truly named and are just, receiving justice within us.”

Proof 1°: From the Holy Scriptures cited in the previous article, proof 2°, in which the sinner is said to be washed, purged, renewed, sanctified; for no one can be washed, purged, renewed, sanctified, except through something intrinsic by which he is denominated and is such.

2° Holy Scripture frequently says that we have in us grace, charity, and justice by which we are just: John 1: “Of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.” Romans 1: “Through whom we have received grace.” Ephesians 4: “To each one of us grace is given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” Romans 5: “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us.”

3° The Apostle in the same place compares the justice and obedience of Christ with the sin and disobedience of Adam: but we contract the sin of Adam really and intrinsically, and not only through extrinsic imputation; therefore, the justice which is opposed to it and by which it is expelled is intrinsic to us and not only extrinsically imputed. Confirmation: Christ restored to us what we lost in Adam; but in Adam we lost justice intrinsic to him, and which he would have transfused to his posterity if he had persevered in good; therefore, true and intrinsic justice is restored to us through Christ.

4° St. Augustine, in the book On the Spirit and the Letter, chapter 32, on the previously cited words of the Apostle in Romans 5, says: “Charity is poured forth in our hearts, not by which He Himself loves us, but by which He makes us His lovers; just as the justice of God (so called) is that by which we are made just by His gift.” And in chapter 9, on these words of the Apostle: “The justice of God is manifested,” he says: “The Apostle does not say the justice of man, but the justice of God, not by which God is just, but by which He clothes man when He justifies the impious.”

5° The justification of the sinner is the effect of God’s love; but God’s love is not only affective but effective, making the beloved object intrinsically pleasing and just, as we proved above in dissertation 4, article 1.

6° The formal cause is distinguished from the efficient; but the justice of Christ is the efficient cause of our justice; therefore, it is not its formal cause. Confirmation: Our justice sometimes increases, sometimes decreases; but the justice of God and of Christ is always equal; therefore.

Objection 1°: The heretics object to certain texts of Holy Scripture, in which it seems to be implied that our justification is accomplished formally through the justice of Christ; Romans 5: “By the obedience of one, many will be made just.” And again: “By the justice of one, unto all men to justification of life.” In 1 Corinthians 1, Christ is said to be made justice and sanctification for us.

Response: These and similar texts are not to be understood in a formal sense, but in a causal one, insofar as Christ is the efficient and meritorious cause of our justification; in which sense in the same place He is called our wisdom; John 11: “The resurrection and the life.” And Deuteronomy 3, He is called the life of men and the length of days.

Instance: The Apostle in Romans 10 rebukes those who want to establish their own justice: “For they, not knowing the justice of God, and seeking to establish their own, have not submitted themselves to the justice of God.” Therefore.

Response: The Apostle rebukes the Jews and Pharisees who presumed that they could fulfill the law by the powers of nature, and thus be justified without the grace of God, as St. Augustine interprets in the book On Grace and Free Will, chapter 12.

They press further: According to Holy Scripture, no one is just before God: Psalm 142: “In your sight no living man shall be justified.” And Job 9: “Man shall not be justified compared with God.” But these would be false if man had intrinsic justice; therefore.

Response: To the first, the meaning is either that no one is so just that he is not found to have sinned in some minor matters; or that no one is just before God of himself and by his own virtue without God’s gift. To the second, it can similarly be answered, or it should be said that man’s justice compared to God’s infinite justice is as if it were not, because of the infinite distance and inequality, just as stars, although they shine, seem not to shine when the sun appears. Hence in Job 25 it is added: “Behold even the moon does not shine, and the stars are not pure in His sight; how much less man, who is rottenness, and the son of man, who is a worm?”

Objection 2°: That is called just which is adequate to the rule or law; but there is not in us such justice that is adequate to the law, since we sin in many things, at least in minor ones. Therefore.

Response: I distinguish the minor. There is not in us such justice that is actually adequate to the law, I concede; such that from it of itself is not naturally followed adequacy, I deny. The fact that it is not actually adequate is not by reason of itself, but by reason of the way in which it exists in an imperfect state due to the lack of the light of glory and the beatific vision, from which it does not follow that it is not justice, but only that it is not perfect justice.

§II.
Whether by God’s absolute power the justification of the impious could be accomplished through God’s extrinsic favor alone, or through acts of charity and contrition alone without the infusion of habitual grace?

Because these questions about God’s absolute power are more subtle than useful, I will briefly resolve this and the following.

I say 1°: The justification of the impious absolutely cannot be accomplished through God’s extrinsic favor alone without an intrinsic change in the sinner. This is against Scotus.

Proof 1°: Justification at minimum imports the remission and forgiveness of offense; but God absolutely cannot remit and forgive offense without an intrinsic change in the sinner; therefore. I prove the minor: It is impossible for God to remit offense to the sinner unless He becomes pacified toward him; but He cannot become pacified toward him without an intrinsic change in that sinner; therefore. I prove the minor: For God to be pacified toward us means to love us with a special love; for nothing else can be assigned in which our peace with God consists. And the reason is evident, because for God to become pacified toward us from being offended is from His special benevolence. But God cannot love the sinner unless through this love He impresses some effect in him and infuses a supernatural gift by which he is intrinsically changed; therefore. I prove the minor from the Author’s principle above, q. 110, a. 1, that God’s love is not only affective but also effective, not presupposing but effecting by His love the good and pleasing quality in the one He loves, since He is the cause and author of all goodness; therefore.

Confirmation: In the fact that God begins to love the sinner whom He previously hated, some change occurs; but this change cannot be on the part of God, who is immutable; therefore it is on the part of the object loved, which from being unjust and hateful becomes just and pleasing.

They respond that God can be pacified toward the sinner not through a positive love by which He wills him to be His friend, but through a negative one by which He only wills not to be offended with him anymore, as can happen between humans. But from such love no change in the sinner follows, but only that the evil of guilt is taken away from him and is no longer imputed to him.

But against this: Although it can happen this way between humans, it cannot with God: 1° because a human can forgive another’s offense through his own change, but not God; hence the change that occurs here is on the part of the human, as has been said; 2° because a human offending another human is not deprived of anything intrinsic that he had received from the offended party, without the recovery of which the mind of the offended would not be considered fully pacified; but a human offending God is deprived of something intrinsic, namely the gift of grace, without the recovery of which God is not considered entirely pacified, as I will explain more presently.

Proof 2°: Complete and perfect justification imports not only the forgiveness of offense, but also the deletion of habitual sin; but habitual sin cannot be deleted without an intrinsic change in the sinner; therefore. I prove the minor: Habitual sin essentially consists in the privation of sanctifying grace as caused by the preceding actual sin, as we proved in the treatise on sin, dissertation 6. But a privation absolutely cannot be removed except through the opposite form, just as blindness cannot be removed except through sight, and darkness except through light; therefore.

You will say that this minor is true of physical privation, which is the lack of a form that the subject by the nature of things ought to have, but not of moral privation, which is the lack of a form that the subject ought to have not by the nature of things but by divine ordination, such as the privation of grace. For this can be removed not only by the introduction of the opposite form but precisely by the fact that God’s ordination is changed, and He establishes that this form is no longer owed to this subject, which He would do if He removed man’s ordination to the supernatural end.

But against this: 1° Although God could remove man’s ordination to the supernatural end, and thereby make it so that grace is not now owed to him, He nevertheless cannot absolutely make it so that then, when he sinned, he was not ordained to the supernatural end and grace was not owed to him, for there is no power over the past. But for the lack of grace to remain in the nature of moral privation, it is sufficient that then, when man sinned, he was ordained to the supernatural end and grace was owed to him, just as for the moral privation of conformity to a positive law to remain in one who has transgressed it, it is sufficient that he was then bound to observe it, although he is not now bound, either because the law has ceased or because he has been dispensed from it. 2° The lack of grace that one ought to have had when he sinned remains in the nature of moral privation as long as it remains voluntary, for the voluntary is the foundation of morality. But this privation of grace cannot cease to be voluntary except through the intrinsic change of the sinner retracting his previous volition, from which this privation has its voluntariness. Therefore.

Confirmation of the preceding reason, or proof 2°, subverting the foundation of our adversaries by its first minor: Habitual sin does not imply only the liability to punishment or worthiness of punishment, as our adversaries wish, but also aversion from God, conversion to the creature, rejection of God’s grace and friendship, and through these, offense inflicted on God, from which follows deformity and stain. But it is absolutely impossible for these to be deleted by God’s extrinsic forgiveness alone without an intrinsic change in the sinner; for it is impossible for one who is averted from God to become converted to God, for one converted to creatures to become averted from them, for one despising God’s grace and friendship to seek and recover it, unless he is changed, as is self-evident; therefore.

And do not say that these things are indeed imported in the act of sin but pass away with it, and that there remains in the sinner only the obligation to punishment, and on God’s part, offense and alienation from the sinner.

For the contrary is that although these things belong to the act as it were in exercise and thus pass away with it, nevertheless by way of state and habit they pass to the person and remain in him until retracted. For just as a body, from the fact that it has receded from another body through motion, even when the actual motion ceases, remains in a state of distance until it is brought near again by a contrary motion, so the soul, from the fact that by its act, which is its motion, it has receded from God, approached the creature, and rejected God’s grace and friendship, when that act ceases, remains in a state of aversion from God, conversion to the creature, and enmity and offense toward God, until it is changed by contrary acts, and as it is said in 1 John 3, is transferred from death to life.

You will say: The obligation of a vow can be dissolved without a change in the one making the vow, through God’s extrinsic remission; therefore, also the liability of sin.

Response: I deny the consequence. The disparity is that the obligation of a vow depends on the will of the one accepting it, and thus can be dissolved by him alone; but the nature of sin consists in voluntary aversion from God, which remains as long as it is not retracted.

From what has been said in the proofs, when well considered, you can easily resolve other arguments.

I say 2°: In the hypothesis that God moves the sinner to acts of charity and contrition through actual assistance without infusing habitual grace, the sinner could absolutely be justified incipiently and imperfectly through those acts, but not completely and perfectly.

Proof of the first part: Sin implies man’s aversion from God and God’s aversion from man; hence it is removed to the extent that man is reunited and reconciled to God, and God to man. But through acts of charity and contrition without habitual grace, man returns to God loved above all things and is united to Him, because love unites the lover to the beloved, and in turn God is united to him, because He loves those who love Him, and this love of man is the effect of divine love; therefore.

Proof of the second part: There is not perfect and consummated justification unless the principal effect of divine love, which was interrupted by sin, is recovered. But this principal effect of divine love is sanctifying grace, by which man is formally made just, a partaker of the divine nature, a son of God, and heir of the heavenly kingdom; therefore. The minor is evident. I prove the major: Sin is not considered perfectly and completely remitted unless the mind of the offended party is perfectly and completely pacified. But God is not considered completely pacified as long as He does not restore the principal effect of His love, which we lost through sin; just as if a prince deprived a citizen of his dignity because of an offense, and the citizen asked for pardon, and the prince forgave the offense but did not restore the dignity, he would not be considered fully and completely pacified, nor would the fault be fully and completely forgiven; therefore.

If you say that from this reasoning it follows that original sin is not perfectly forgiven through baptism, since through it the defects of concupiscence and death, which original justice removed, are not taken away,

Response: In original justice, the principal effect of divine love was sanctifying grace, by which man was rendered formally just, a partaker of the divine nature, a son and heir, but not the other gifts consequent upon it, such as the subjection of the body to the soul and of the lower part to the higher, without which man can please God and be His son and heir.

Objection against the first part of this second conclusion: 1° St. Thomas here, a. 2. o, says that “the remission of guilt could not be understood if the infusion of grace were not present.” 2° The remission of sin is the formal effect of habitual grace; acts of love and contrition are dispositions to grace; but a disposition to a form does not give the formal effect of the form. 3° A privation cannot be removed except through the opposite form; but sin consists in the privation of grace; therefore.

Response to the first: St. Thomas is speaking of the perfect and consummated remission of sin, not of incipient and imperfect remission; or he is speaking of the infusion of actual grace, not habitual. To the second: A disposition to a form indeed cannot produce the perfect and complete formal effect of the form, but it can give an incipient and imperfect effect, since a disposition is the beginning of a form. To the third: The privation of grace does not have the nature of sin except insofar as it is voluntary; but through the act of contrition it ceases to be voluntary; hence from this it somewhat fails to have the nature of sin. Compare the following objection.

Objection against the second part of the same conclusion: 1° From what has just been said, the privation of grace does not have the nature of sin except insofar as it is voluntary; but through the act of contrition it ceases to be voluntary; therefore. 2° According to Holy Scripture, the remission of sins is attributed to love: Luke 7: “Many sins are forgiven her, because she has loved much.” 3° A man loving God with his whole heart is just; therefore he does not remain in the state of sin.

Response to the first: I distinguish the minor. The privation of grace through the act of contrition ceases to be voluntary as regards the present disposition, I concede; as regards the previous disposition, I deny. It is sufficient that this privation was previously voluntary for it to retain the nature of stain and sin, until the principal thing lost through sinning is restored; just as in the example given, the privation of dignity in the repentant citizen whose offense has been pardoned is always ignominious and has the nature of a stain because of the past offense, from which he is not considered fully purged until his dignity is restored to him.

To the second: The remission of sin is attributed to love not precisely by reason of itself, but by reason of grace, which always accompanies it; for Holy Scripture does not speak in the hypothesis of the conclusion, that God through actual assistance moves to the act of love without infusing grace, but according to the present state in which charity is always joined to grace.

To the third: One who loves God with his whole heart is just with a justice that fulfills the present duty, but not one that perfectly removes past sin; for this it is not sufficient that man be converted to God, but it is required that God be converted to man and restore to him the principal effect of His love, which is sanctifying grace.

If you insist that an act of charity is not of less efficacy to recover grace than an act of sin is to destroy it; likewise, that an act is more perfect than a habit,

Response to the first: I deny the assumption; because the act of sin efficiently destroys the habit of charity and grace, but the act of charity does not efficiently produce the habit of charity, but God alone does, as we have said in the preceding. To the second: Whatever may be the case with other habits, the habit of grace is more perfect and nobler than any supernatural act.

From what has been said in this second part of the conclusion, you may gather that the only formal cause of perfect and consummated justification in this state of elevation to the supernatural end is habitual grace, as the Council of Trent also defined in session 6, chapter 7, canons 10 and 11; see the preceding §.

I said “in this state of elevation to the supernatural end” because in the state of pure nature it seems that man without it could be perfectly justified according to the manner of that state. The reason is that man is perfectly and completely justified when he recovers all or at least the principal thing that he had lost through sin; but man in the state of pure nature, by sinning, would not lose sanctifying grace, because in that state it would not be given, but would lose only the rectitude of the natural order, by which he would be accepted for natural beatitude. But through acts of contrition and love of the natural order elicited with God’s help, he would recover that rectitude and be accepted as before for natural beatitude; therefore, without grace, but through acts of contrition and love of the natural order alone, he would be perfectly justified.

The objections that can be made either from St. Thomas or from reason should be understood according to the present state of elevation, or concerning grace taken more broadly for some gratuitous gift, which in this hypothesis of pure nature would not be the same as the present gift of sanctifying grace.

ARTICLE III.
WHETHER BY GOD’S ABSOLUTE POWER SIN AND GRACE CAN EXIST SIMULTANEOUSLY IN THE SAME SUBJECT?

I say: Sin and grace cannot exist simultaneously in the same subject, even by God’s absolute power.

This conclusion is to be understood of both actual and habitual sin. It is the more common view among theologians against the Scotists and Suarez regarding both parts, and against Lorca regarding actual sin.

Proof: Sanctifying grace by its essence and nature is justice, holiness, and rectitude, whose primary and formal effect is to make the one to whom it is given just, holy, and right. Sin, on the contrary, by its essential nature is iniquity, uncleanness, and a departure from rectitude and subjection to divine law. But justice cannot stand, even by God’s absolute power, with injustice, holiness with iniquity and uncleanness, rectitude with departure from rectitude. Therefore.

Likewise, the formal and primary effect of grace is to constitute man a partaker of the divine nature, an adoptive son of God, an heir of the kingdom, pleasing to God and His friend. On the contrary, the formal effect of sin is to destroy in man the participation in the divine nature, to deprive him of divine sonship and the right to the kingdom, to render him hateful and an enemy to God, to constitute him a son of the devil, and worthy of eternal damnation — which effects, being privatively opposed, are absolutely incompossible. But things whose formal effects are incompossible cannot absolutely exist together, because the formal effect is the form itself as communicated. Therefore.

And this Holy Scripture clearly suggests in 1 John 3, where it says: “Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed (that is, sanctifying grace) remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.” In these words, it repeats the incompossibility of grace with sin, not from divine ordination, but from the very nature of grace, because it is a participation in the divine nature, or because he who has it is born of God and is His son.

Suarez responds that the effects assigned are not the primary effects of grace, but only secondary effects; but secondary effects can be separated from the form by God’s absolute power, as risibility, for example, from rationality.

But against this, I deny the assumption, which is gratuitously invented by Suarez: for, as I said, grace is by its essential nature justice, holiness, rectitude, and participation in the divine nature. Therefore, its formal and primary effect is to make one just, right, holy, a partaker of the divine nature, and consequently to provide all the other things we have mentioned.

Fr. Henno responds that these things are indeed true of grace formally and reduplicatively taken in the nature of grace, or as it is subject to God’s ordination establishing that through that quality man is rendered pleasing to Him, dear, and heir of the heavenly kingdom; but not of grace materially taken in the nature of a supernatural quality.

But against this, I repeat again: Sanctifying grace, even as a supernatural quality, is by its essential nature and independently of divine ordination a participation in the divine nature, justice, holiness, and rectitude — or let the learned theologian say what else it is. Therefore, its formal effect as such is to constitute by its nature, and independently of God’s ordination, man a partaker of the divine nature, just, holy, right, etc.

Objection 1°: Grace and sin, at least actual sin, are not privatively opposed; therefore they can exist simultaneously by God’s absolute power. Proof of the antecedent: Grace is a habit, sin is an act; but an act and a habit are not privatively opposed; therefore. Confirmation: An act can stand with a contrary habit, as an act of intemperance with a habit of temperance.

Response: I deny the antecedent. To the proof, I distinguish the minor: An act and a habit are not privatively opposed under the aspect of act and habit, I concede; under the various other aspects which they essentially involve, I deny. But the act of sin and habitual grace essentially and inseparably involve privatively opposed aspects, namely, holiness and iniquity, justice and injustice, rectitude and departure from rectitude, participation and non-participation in the divine nature, being a friend of God and not a friend, pleasing and not pleasing, spiritual death of the soul and spiritual life, etc. Hence the answer to the confirmation is evident.

Add that if the argument were valid, it would prove that grace and sin could naturally exist together, because an act can naturally exist with a contrary habit, which, however, no one admits. Note, therefore, that these aspects or effects of sin do not follow sin because it is an act or a habit, but because it is a mortal fault, and as such is privatively opposed to grace.

Hence various instances are also anticipated: for although grace is in the essence of the soul and sin in the will, and granted that sin does not consist in the privation of grace but in the privation of rectitude, the very fact that it is mortal means that there is in the whole man injustice, iniquity, expulsion of divine participation, extinction of the right to glory, departure from God as sanctifying and vivifying through grace and from the rectitude of divine law, and death of the soul, and thus it expels grace which is opposed to all these things.

Objection 2°: Sin does not expel grace physically, but only demeritoriously, insofar as one who sins is unworthy of grace; but God can give grace to the unworthy.

Response: I distinguish the major: Sin does not expel grace physically, that is, through a positive form physically acting on grace, I concede. It does not expel physically, that is, by its nature, but only by way of demerit, I deny. For iniquity, injustice, rejection of God’s friendship, departure from God, death of the soul, etc., physically, that is, by their nature, expel justice, holiness, God’s friendship, approach to God, life of the soul, etc.

Instance: God is not necessitated to take away grace from the sinner; therefore.

Response: I distinguish the antecedent: God is not necessitated absolutely, I concede. On the supposition that He permits man to fall into mortal sin, I deny. For God cannot will contradictory things.

You will reply: God alone is the cause of grace; therefore He alone, and not sin, destroys it.

Response: Sin, as I have already said, does not destroy grace by acting physically on it, but by removing its subject and introducing a form or dispositions incompossible with grace. Thus, although God is the sole cause of the rational soul, nevertheless man can posit dispositions incompossible with its union to the body.

Objection 3°: Sin is understood to be in the soul before God withdraws grace, as the Council of Trent defines, session 6, chapter 11, that God does not desert with His grace those once justified unless He is first deserted by them; therefore sin can exist with grace.

Response 1°: This argument proves too much, namely, that according to the ordinary course grace and sin exist together, which the objectors do not admit.

Response 2°: I distinguish the antecedent: Sin is understood to be in the soul before God withdraws grace, with priority of nature and causality, I concede. With priority of time, I deny. For sin and the privation of grace exist simultaneously. Therefore, just as although the sun is understood to illuminate the air before darkness recedes, because the sun’s light is the cause of darkness’s recession, yet the sun’s light and darkness do not exist together, so although sin is understood to be in the soul before grace recedes, because it is the cause of grace’s recession, nevertheless there is no instant in which they exist together.

ARTICLE IV.
ON THE ACTS REQUIRED FOR THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE ADULT SINNER.

St. Thomas here proves in a. 3 that adult sinners must be disposed to justification by their own acts, and we proved it in the preceding dissertation, a. 3. We now investigate with the same holy Doctor what these acts are. The Council of Trent, session 6, chapter 6, assigns six: namely, the act of faith, fear, hope, love of God, penitence or contrition, and finally the purpose of receiving the sacraments instituted for the remission of sins, of beginning a new life, and of keeping the divine commandments — which purpose is included in contrition itself. Therefore, in treating of these, we shall first and principally speak of the faith required for justification against the heretics, then briefly of the others.

§I.
What faith is required for justification?

Lutherans and Calvinists distinguish a threefold faith. The first they call historical, though they would better call it dogmatic, by which we believe all things contained in the sacred Scriptures; we call it Christian and Catholic faith. The second they call the faith of miracles, through which miracles are performed or obtained, by which we believe that there is nothing that cannot be done by God. The third they call the faith of promises, by which we believe that God has promised the remission of sins. This third they subdivide into general and particular: they call general that by which we believe that God has promised to all believers in common the remission of sins and salvation; they call special that by which each one believes or confidently trusts that his sins are forgiven because of Christ’s merits. For they wrongly confuse this faith with trust, which pertains to hope and the will, not to the intellect; for trust, according to St. Thomas, is strengthened hope.

They contend that this particular faith or trust is required for justification and that it alone justifies. Although some, to avoid the odium of this most pestilent error, require love, contrition, and good works, not as contributing to justification, but as signs and properties of justifying faith or trust. We ask, therefore, in this section, what faith is required for justification; in the following, whether it alone suffices.

I suppose as certain and admitted by all that some movement of faith is required in adults for justification. Holy Scripture clearly testifies to this. Hebrews 10: “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” Mark, at the end: “He who believes will be saved; he who does not believe will be condemned,” and often elsewhere. And the Council of Trent declares this in the cited session 6. The reason is that, as we showed above, a movement of the soul turning to God is required for the justification of an adult, according to Hebrews 11: “He who comes to God must believe.” But what is that faith?

I say: The faith required for justification is not the trust by which we believe or trust that our sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake, but that by which we believe all truths revealed to us by God because of His authority and truthfulness.

Thus the Council of Trent defines in session 6, canon 12, in these words: “If anyone says that justifying faith is nothing else than trust in divine mercy remitting sins for Christ’s sake, or that this trust alone is that by which we are justified, let him be anathema.”

Proof 1°: By the most clear testimonies of Holy Scripture. Mark, at the end: “Preach the gospel to every creature; he who believes (namely, the gospel and the truths contained in it) will be saved.” Romans 10: “This is the word which we preach, that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God raised Him up, you will be saved.” Therefore, Christ and His resurrection, not the mercy of God alone remitting sins, are the object of saving faith. In Hebrews 10, at the end, when the Apostle had said, “The just man lives by faith,” immediately at the beginning of the following chapter, explaining what that faith is by which the just man lives, he says: “Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not.” But this definition can in no way apply to the trust by which we believe sins are forgiven us, but only to that faith by which, as the Apostle adds there, “We understand that the world was framed by the word of God, that from invisible things visible things might be made.” Likewise, the Apostle says there: “Without faith it is impossible to please God; for he that comes to God must believe that He is, and is a rewarder to them that seek Him.” Therefore, the faith without which it is impossible to please God is not trust in the remission of sins, but that by which we believe God exists and is a rewarder of those who seek Him. In John 11, when the Lord said to Martha: “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me shall not die forever,” she replies: “Yes, Lord, I have believed that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God, who has come into this world.” Therefore, the faith required for eternal life is to believe in the divinity of the Incarnate Word. John, at the end of his Gospel, concludes thus: “These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Son of the living God, and that believing you may have life in His name.” Therefore, the same as before. I omit many other testimonies of Holy Scripture, lest I be too lengthy.

Proof 2°: From tradition: The Church, as from the beginning so now, when it requires faith from those to be baptized, requires no other than that by which we believe the articles of faith contained in the creeds, not that by which we believe or trust that our sins are forgiven. For which of the Apostles, or bishops, or other ministers ever taught one coming to him for justification thus: “Believe your sins are forgiven, and immediately they will be forgiven”? Such a doctrine would certainly be absurd and offensive to pious ears.

Calvin responds on chapter 3 of the Epistle to the Galatians: “In the creed it is stated: ‘I believe in the holy Church,’ which is nothing other than ‘I believe there is no more sin, no more death in the Church.’”

But against this, we believe the Church is holy because it has a holy spouse, holy dogmas, holy laws, many holy children, and outside it there is no one holy; but we know from Holy Scripture that the Church is a threshing floor in which there is chaff with the wheat, a net in which there are good and bad fish.

Melanchthon responds in the Apology for the Confession: “The remission of sins is not omitted in the creed of faith, and that is what justifying faith properly looks to.”

But against this, the meaning of this article is not, as the heretics imagine: “I believe my sins are forgiven”; for the Church requires faith in this article from catechumens, and yet it does not believe their sins are forgiven, but only that they will be forgiven through baptism. Therefore, the Catholic and genuine sense of this article is: “I believe there is in the Church the power of remitting sins through baptism and other sacraments duly received.” Hence the Constantinopolitan Creed expresses this article thus: “I confess one baptism for the remission of sins.”

Regarding the holy Fathers, see Bellarmine, book 1 On Justification, chapter 9.

Proof 3°: By reasons. Faith rests solely on the authority of God revealing, who can neither deceive nor be deceived; but it is nowhere revealed to me or to any other particular person that sins are forgiven; therefore, I cannot believe this with certain faith.

They say that a particular promise is contained in the general: hence he who said in John 3, “He who believes in the Son will be justified,” signified that all who believe, that is, this one and that one, are justified.

But against this: 1° Holy Scripture says, “He who believes in the Son,” not “who believes his sins are forgiven.” 2° No one knows with certain faith that he believes in the Son as he ought; for that is nowhere revealed.

3° Justifying faith must precede justification, for it is its cause; but that faith of the heretics does not precede but follows justification, otherwise it would be false; for it is false faith by which I believe my sins are forgiven, if they are not yet truly forgiven. If you say that by this faith it is not believed that sins are forgiven, but that they are being forgiven here and now, it still remains that this faith is posterior to that remission; because that present remission is the object of this faith: but an act does not make or specify its object; rather it presupposes it and is specified by it.

4° That faith is justifying which Christ and the Apostles preached; but Christ and the Apostles never preached this special faith, or that each one should believe his sins are forgiven, but they preached faith in the mysteries which they announced and penitence; therefore.

The heretics object to that of Paul in Acts 13: “Be it known therefore to you, men and brethren, that through this Christ forgiveness of sins is preached to you… in him everyone who believes is justified”; that is, everyone who believes in the forgiveness of sins announced to him is by that very fact justified.

Response: This gloss is false, for these words, “In him everyone who believes is justified,” do not refer to the remission of sins as to an object, but to Christ and His resurrection which the Apostle was preaching there; so that the sense is: “Through Christ forgiveness of sins is announced to you; and everyone who believes in Him will be justified.” Hence justification is the effect of this faith, not its object, in which same sense the same Apostle said in Romans 10: “If you believe that God has raised Christ from the dead, you will be saved.”

Instance: In Matthew 9 it is said: “Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic: ‘Be of good heart, son, your sins will be forgiven you.’” And there: “Be of good heart, daughter, your faith has made you well”; the meaning of which words seems to be: “Trust that your sins are forgiven, and they are forgiven.”

Response: Both passages harm the heretics more than they help them, for before the paralytic and the woman obtained the remission of sins, they already had faith, and yet they did not yet believe their sins were forgiven; therefore, the remission of sins in one particular person is not the object of faith. Moreover, trust is not required here by Christ as the reason or condition for the remission of sin; for He does not say: “Trust and they will be forgiven,” or conditionally: “If you trust, they will be forgiven,” but absolutely: “Trust, they are forgiven,” so that remission is the cause of trust, not trust the cause of remission; as if to say: “Be of good heart, because your sins are forgiven”; and to the woman: “Trust or do not fear that you have touched my garment, because your faith by which you believe in me has made you well”; in which same sense He said to the trembling Apostles: “Do not fear, it is I.” More in the following section.

§II.
Whether faith alone suffices for justification?

This was once the dogma of Simon Magus according to Irenaeus, book 1, chapter 20, and later of Eunomius according to St. Augustine in On Heresies, heresy 54, and in the book On Faith and Works, chapter 14, from a misunderstanding of the words of the Apostle Paul. To refute them, as these Fathers note, Peter, John, James, and Jude wrote their Epistles. This error has been revived by Lutherans and Calvinists, with this difference, however, that those ancient heretics understood the faith which they said was sufficient for salvation to be that faith by which we believe all the articles of faith; but the new heretics understand it to be that special faith by which each one believes or trusts that his sins are forgiven. Against both:

I say: Neither that special faith of recent heretics, which is vain and null, nor true and Christian faith alone suffices for justification.

This has been defined in the Council of Trent, session 6, canon 9, in these words: “If anyone says that the impious is justified by faith alone, so that he understands nothing else is required to cooperate in obtaining the grace of justification, and that it is in no way necessary for him to be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will, let him be anathema.” And in canon 19: “If anyone says that nothing is commanded in the Gospel besides faith, that other things are indifferent, neither commanded nor forbidden but free, etc., let him be anathema.”

Proof 1°: From the holy Apostles who, as we noted, wrote expressly against this error. St. James, chapter 2: “What shall it profit, my brethren, if a man say he has faith, but has not works? Shall faith be able to save him?… Faith, if it has not works, is dead in itself.” After proving this with many arguments, he concludes the chapter thus: “You see that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only; for as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.” These words are decisive and need no gloss.

St. Peter, in his second epistle, chapter 1, after exhorting to various good works, concludes: “Wherefore, brethren, labor the more that by good works you may make sure your calling and election.” Therefore, faith is not sufficient if works are lacking.

St. Jude exhorts the faithful to build good works upon faith to obtain God’s mercy and eternal life: “But you, my dearly beloved,” he says, “building yourselves upon your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto life eternal.”

St. John, in his first epistle, chapter 3, says: “Little children, let no man deceive you. He that does justice is just.” Therefore, for justification it is not sufficient to believe, but it is necessary to do; and he teaches this throughout the whole chapter.

These are so clear against the present error that the heretics have denied that these epistles are canonical, although the Church acknowledges them as canonical in several councils, most recently in the Council of Trent.

But St. Paul also, in whom the innovators wrongly trust, clearly defeats this error. In 1 Corinthians 13, he says: “If I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.” Galatians 5: “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith that works through charity.” Romans 2: “For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.”

Finally, Christ in the Gospel everywhere commends good works as necessary for justification and salvation. Matthew 5: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” And below: “Unless your justice exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” And in chapter 7: “Every tree that does not bring forth good fruit shall be cut down and cast into the fire.” In chapter 19, to one asking, “What good shall I do that I may have life everlasting?” He does not say, “Only believe,” but: “If you will enter into life, keep the commandments.” And finally in chapter 28, He not only admonishes the apostles to preach faith and baptize, but also wants them to teach to observe all things whatsoever He has commanded. This is also proved by all those passages in which Christ is announced not only as Redeemer but also as Lawgiver: Matthew 5, 6, 7, and elsewhere; establishing rewards for those who observe the laws, Matthew 19, Luke 10, Revelation 3; decreeing punishments for their transgressors, Matthew 5, 7, 25, and elsewhere.

The heretics try to evade so many and such clear testimonies in two ways. Some respond that faith alone without works is indeed sufficient for justification, but not for salvation.

But against this: 1° In many of the alleged testimonies, 1 John 3, 1 Corinthians 13, Galatians 5, Romans 2, good works are required not only that man may be saved, but also that he may be just, or not unjust. 2° Salvation is everywhere promised in Holy Scripture to every just person, and it is certainly established that no just person will be condemned by God, according to Genesis 18: “Will you destroy the just with the wicked? Far be it from you to do this thing.” Therefore, if faith alone justifies, it alone saves; and if it does not alone save, it does not alone justify.

Others respond, and more commonly, that the faith which they say is sufficient for justification is not faith alone, but faith joined to good works; not indeed that these good works cooperate in justification, but because they accompany justifying faith as its signs, or as properties and fruits following from it. Hence they say that by the aforementioned testimonies of Holy Scripture, those are condemned who formerly said that faith alone, dead and void of good works, is sufficient for salvation; but not those who indeed attribute this to faith alone, but to living, active faith accompanied by good works.

But against this: 1° This colored response, devised to soften the horror of this monstrous error, openly conflicts with the principles of the heretics; for they teach: 1° that man, when justified through faith, does not truly become just, but is only reputed so, and none of his works are good, but all are mortal sins, although they are not imputed to him because of Christ. With what face, therefore, do they say that not faith alone, but faith joined to good works justifies, when according to them there are no good works? 2° They teach that man, once justified through faith, cannot fall from justice by any crime. So Calvin in book 3 of the Institutes, chapter 2, §11, and Luther in his Sermon on the words, “For God so loved,” etc., excepting only unbelief. Thus one once justified through faith, although he becomes a thief, murderer, adulterer, sodomite, remains just. Therefore, faith justifies without good works, indeed with evil and the worst works, which is the ancient heresy condemned in Holy Scripture. Hence Luther in chapter 2 on Galatians expressly says: “Faith without and before charity justifies.” And in volume 1, disputation on whether works justify, proposition 3, he says: “Faith, unless it is without any works, even the smallest, does not justify; indeed, it is not faith.” And therefore the more rigid Lutherans frankly admit that good works are in no way required for justifying faith.

Against 2°: Holy Scripture attributes the function of justifying and saving no less to good works than to faith, as is evident from the places cited and many others. Therefore, if faith cooperates in justification, so do works.

The heretics argue principally from the Apostle, who, as it seems to them, is wholly engaged in asserting that faith without works suffices for justification. In Romans 3, he says: “We account a man to be justified by faith, without the works of the law.” Ibid., 4: “If Abraham were justified by works, he has glory, but not with God.” Galatians 2: “Knowing that man is not justified by the works of the law.” Philippians 3: “That I may be found in him, not having my own justice, which is of the law, but that which is of faith.”

Response 1°: Even if the Apostle taught that faith without any works suffices for justification, this would in no way benefit the heretics; because the Apostle understands Christian and Catholic faith, by which we believe in the divinity of the Incarnate Word, His resurrection, and other mysteries contained in Holy Scripture; not that ridiculous faith or trust by which heretics believe their sins are forgiven.

Response 2°: The Apostle only excludes works which are done either before faith or after faith is had, but without the grace of faith, that is, works which proceed from the natural powers and free will alone, such as were certain honorable works of natural justice among the Gentiles, and the works of the Jews who observed the Mosaic law carnally. Hence the Apostle frequently expresses “works of the law”; but he does not exclude works following faith and done by the grace of faith. Hence St. Augustine in the book On Grace and Free Will, chapter 7: “Men,” he says, “not understanding what the Apostle Paul himself says: ‘We account a man to be justified by faith without the works of the law,’ have thought he was saying that faith is sufficient for man, even if he lives badly and has no good works; which, far be it that the Vessel of Election should think.”

Instance: Abraham and the Galatians were already reborn and were working from faith at the time of which the Apostle speaks, and yet he excludes their works; therefore.

Response: Granting the major, I distinguish the minor. He excludes their works which were done from the grace of faith, I deny; which had been done before faith, or which after faith was had were not done from the grace of faith, I concede. For there is nothing to prevent one who has faith from sometimes not working from faith, as when he sins or does a morally good work without relation to God.

They reply: The Apostle says there in Romans 4: “To him that works, the reward is not reckoned according to grace, but according to debt. But to him that works not, yet believes in him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is reputed to justice, according to the purpose of the grace of God; as David also terms the blessedness of a man, to whom God reckons justice without works.” Therefore, that justification may be gratuitous, no account of works is to be had, whether done before faith or after faith; otherwise justification would be rendered from debt.

Response: I deny the consequence. For the sense of these words of the Apostle is this: “To him that works, etc.,” that is, if our works done without the grace of faith and from natural powers alone, such as the heathen do, were to obtain justification, it would not be gratuitous, but a reward due to such works; for to everyone who works from his own powers, a reward is due. “But to him that works not, etc.,” that is, for him who is justified not from his own works according to the powers of nature, but from faith in Christ, justification is gratuitous, both because faith itself is grace, and because faith of itself does not merit so great a gift, although it disposes to it.

They urge: The Apostle excludes merits, that no one may boast; but if man were justified through the works of faith, he could boast of them; therefore.

Response 1°: From this it would follow that he could not be justified even through faith, because he could also boast of the very act of faith. Hence response 2°: I distinguish the minor. He could boast in God, I concede; in himself, I deny. For faith itself, as I was just saying, is a gratuitous gift of God, and consequently also the works that proceed from it. The Apostle does not intend to exclude boasting in God, but in oneself; hence he says: “He who boasts, let him boast in the Lord.”

The heretics raise many other objections both from Holy Scripture and from the Fathers, all of which would take too long to discuss; you have these resolved in Bellarmine, book 1 On Justification, from chapter 20 to 25. Meanwhile, accept the following general solutions. The first is: Justification is attributed to faith as its beginning and root, but not excluding other works disposing to it; so the Council of Trent, session 6, chapter 8. The second: Living faith is to be understood, which works through charity, as the Apostle says in Galatians 5. The third: By faith is sometimes understood those things which are contained in the Gospel or evangelical doctrine, doing those things which according to this doctrine are to be done. The fourth: When works are excluded, works before faith, or done without the grace of faith are to be understood, not works which are done from the grace of faith itself, as I explained above; or works of the Mosaic law, or external works, when the power to execute them is lacking.

§III.
On the other acts required for the justification of an adult.

We said at the beginning of this article, from the Council of Trent, that besides faith, five other acts are required on the part of the sinner for his justification, namely, the act of fear, hope, love of God, contrition, and the purpose of receiving the sacrament and keeping the divine commandments. These acts are deduced as follows.

Faith, illuminating the mind of the sinner, presents to him on one hand divine justice preparing punishments for him, on the other hand divine mercy offering pardon; hence there arises in his will fear of divine justice, then hope or confidence of obtaining pardon.

After hope follows incipient love of God as the fountain of all justice; for from the fact that merciful God offers pardon to the sinner fearing punishment, not only is hope excited, but also love, at least incipient, of such goodness, concerning the necessity of which for justification with the sacrament, there is a celebrated controversy to be settled in its proper place.

From faith, fear, hope, and incipient love is born detestation of sin: because from the fact that the sinner knows punishments are prepared for his sins, and from the fact that he begins to love God who is ready to forgive them, he is moved to hatred of sin as harmful to himself and offensive to divine goodness. This hatred is called contrition, perfect indeed if sin displeases principally as offensive to God, imperfect if it displeases principally as harmful to the sinner. This contrition necessarily has joined to it the purpose of beginning a new life and keeping the divine commandments; for there is no sincere sorrow for sins in anyone unless he wills henceforth to avoid them.

It is asked whether it is necessary that all these acts required for justification be formal, or whether it is sufficient that they be virtual and implicit, contained in some more eminent act.

Response: The acts of faith and love must necessarily be formal, because neither in the intellect nor in the will are there more excellent and eminent acts in which these could be virtually contained.

As for the act of hope, when one proceeds in conversion gradually from the imperfect to the perfect, it is required that it be formal; but if a man is suddenly moved by God from sin to justice from the sole consideration of God and sin as it is injurious to God Himself, not attending to that sin as evil to himself, nor to the goods promised by God, it seems that virtual hope contained in the more eminent act of charity suffices.

As for the act of penitence or contrition, it seems that it must be formal; because man ought to grieve for sin, not only as it is contrary to divine goodness, but also as it is injurious to divine right: for right reason demands that he who has injured another’s right should grieve for this injustice and injury, and make reparation for it as far as he can. But grief for sin as injurious to divine right properly pertains to penitence, not to charity, which only has to hate sin as opposed to divine goodness, as is more fully explained in the treatise on Penitence; therefore. However, accidentally, if a man, invincibly ignorant that he is in sin, or not thinking of sins, were to elicit an act of perfect charity, he would be justified without an act of formal penitence, but with only virtual penitence implicitly contained in the act of charity. The purpose, as I said, is always included in the act of penitence; hence a penitent who, wholly attentive to the detestation of sins from most fervent love of God, did not attend to an explicit purpose, would be justified.

§IV.
From what principle effectively proceed the acts of contrition and charity which ultimately dispose to habitual grace?

It will perhaps seem surprising that theologians labor and are tormented so much in explaining this difficulty, when they themselves admit that it is more subtle than useful. We, therefore, who pursue utility more than subtlety, will briefly expound the various opinions on this matter and leave them to the judgment of the reader.

Thus, among the theologians who disagree on this point, some say that these ulterior dispositions to habitual grace are effectively from actual assistance communicated transiently: so from the Thomists, John of St. Thomas, Sylvius, Contenson, with many others. Some say they are effectively from habitual grace itself. So Gonet, Serra, and others. St. Thomas seems to favor both opinions, and hence the difficulty increases. A third opinion, which tries to reconcile both, says that these acts ultimately disposing to justification are effectively from the infused virtue of charity and penitence, communicated not permanently by way of habit, but transiently by way of actual assistance and motion. So most recently our most wise Goudin.

Foundations of the first opinion.

1° The Council of Trent, session 6, chapter 5, and canons 3 and 4, refers the disposition to justification to God’s motion and exciting, helping, and preventing grace, as the efficient cause; therefore it does not proceed from the infusion of habitual grace as from an efficient cause. Likewise, the council in the same place, chapter 7, says that justice and habitual grace are given to each one according to each one’s disposition and cooperation; but if such disposition proceeded from habitual grace, it would rather be said that the disposition is according to the proportion of habitual grace; therefore.

2° St. Thomas, in the Prima Pars, question 62, article 2, reply to objection 3, says: “The third conversion is that by which one prepares oneself to have grace, and for this no habitual grace is required, but the operation of God converting the soul to Himself.” Here in question 109, article 6: “In another way, the preparation of the human will for obtaining the gift of habitual grace itself can be understood. But for man to prepare himself to receive this gift, it is not necessary to presuppose any other habitual gift in the soul, because then we would proceed to infinity; but it is necessary to presuppose the gratuitous help of God internally moving the soul, or inspiring the good purpose.” Ibid., question 112, article 2: “Whatever preparation can be in man is from the help of God moving the soul to good.” And in the Tertia Pars, question 89, article 1, reply to objection 2: “The first act of the penitent serves as the ultimate disposition for obtaining grace; but the other subsequent acts of penitence proceed already from grace and the virtues.” He thinks, therefore, that the first act, which is the ultimate disposition, is not from habitual grace, but from actual assistance.

3° Habitual grace necessarily presupposes dispositions that are effected and produced, since it is not received except in a disposed subject; therefore it does not effect them.

4° It is unintelligible that any act should be effected by some form, and yet dispose the subject for the reception of that form; for if it is effected by that form, it presupposes that form already existing and received in the subject; for no efficient cause acts unless it exists, and the being of an accident, such as habitual grace, is to inhere in a subject; therefore this act effected by that form cannot dispose the subject for the reception of that form.

The defenders of the second opinion meet all these and other arguments with a single distinction: for they say that habitual grace can be considered in two ways: 1° in the process of becoming and as it flows from God, having a flowing being and in an imperfect mode; 2° as having been made, as received in the soul, having in it a permanent and complete being. Considered in the first way, they say, it has the nature of a moving assistance and is the efficient cause of the disposition. Considered in the second way, it is a permanent form, which presupposes dispositions made and does not make them. Therefore, they explain everything that the defenders of this first opinion bring forward as concerning habitual grace considered in the first way.

But against this distinction, Contenson strongly argues: He says first that it introduces incredible confusion into the doctrine of St. Thomas, for since in countless places the holy Doctor says that preparation for habitual grace is from the assistance of God moving, if by the assistance of God moving he meant habitual grace, he would have confused actual grace with habitual grace a thousand times, though he is usually careful to distinguish them. Second, he says that not only grace considered as having been made, but also as in the process of becoming, requires a disposed subject; for grace, he says, is not made in the air or in the hollow of the moon, or remains suspended at the door of the soul, but is made in the subject and in a subject disposed by its own acts sown by divine assistance.

Foundations of the second opinion.

1° St. Thomas here in question 112, article 2, reply to objection 1, says that the ultimate disposition is meritorious, not of grace which is already had, but of glory; but it would not be meritorious if it did not proceed from grace, without which an act, even if proceeding from actual assistance, would not be meritorious, as we shall say below. Likewise, here in question 113, articles 6, 7, and 8, he attributes disposition to the infusion of grace or to infused grace as to an effective principle: “The disposition of the subject,” he says in article 8, reply to objection 2, “precedes the reception of the form in the order of nature, but follows the action of the agent by which the subject itself is disposed; and therefore the movement of free choice, in the order of nature, precedes the attainment of grace, but follows the infusion of grace.”

2° It is of the nature of a vital act that it proceeds from a proximate principle of life as conjoined to the radical principle, as is evident in all vital acts, both corporeal and spiritual, which proceed from a power conjoined to the soul; but the acts of charity and contrition are vital with supernatural life; for the just man lives by faith that works through love; therefore they proceed from the habits of charity and penitence as conjoined to habitual grace.

3° It is a principle received in philosophy that causes are causes to each other; and therefore they precede and follow each other in a different genus of cause; understanding, namely, of material and formal causes, likewise of efficient and final causes compared to each other; but not of efficient cause compared to material and formal causes; for the efficient cause in execution is prior simply and in all ways to the material and formal cause; for it transmutes the material that it may receive the form, and introduces the form into the matter. They say, therefore, that the acts of charity and contrition effected by grace considered in the process of becoming precede the same grace in the genus of material and dispositive cause, not as an efficient cause, but as a form permanently affecting the soul, and this in turn precedes those dispositions in the genus of formal cause informing and dignifying them. Thus, they say, it happens in natural things: thus heat to the eighth degree produced by fire disposes the subject for the form of fire, and in that genus precedes it, which nevertheless it follows in the nature of a form from which it flows as a proper passion. “Heat,” says St. Thomas in the Tertia Pars, question 7, article 13, reply to objection 2, “which was a disposition to the form of fire, is an effect flowing from the form of fire already existing.” And in question 9, article 3, reply to objection 2: “Through heat, matter is disposed to receive the form of fire, which nevertheless, when it comes, the heat does not cease, but remains as a certain effect of such a form.” Likewise, the organization of the body is a disposition for the reception of the soul, nevertheless the body does not have its final organization except from the soul, as St. Thomas teaches in the Prima Pars, question 76, article 4, reply to objection 1. They further offer the example of wind entering through a window into a room. The impulse of the wind or air, because it efficiently opens the window, is prior in all ways to the opening of the window and the entrance of the wind or air; but the entrance of the wind or air and the opening of the window itself precede and follow each other in the genus of material and formal cause; for the air would not enter unless the window were opened, nor would the window be opened unless the air entered. Now if this is the case in natural things, why not in supernatural things? Therefore, they say, habitual grace as it is in the process of being infused and as it has the nature of moving assistance, under which aspect it causes effectively — radically, that is — the acts of contrition and charity, precedes them simply and in all ways, and is in no way posterior to them. But according to the other formality which it has, namely, as it is a form affecting the subject and constituting it just and pleasing to God, it is prior and posterior to those acts in a different genus of cause; for it precedes them in the genus of formal cause, and follows them in the genus of material and dispositive cause.

Almost all the arguments that are opposed to this opinion are resolved by its defenders, as I said, through this distinction of “grace in the process of becoming, and as having been made.”

The third opinion is explained.

This opinion observes and supposes three things. It observes first that the ultimate disposition to grace is the free act of man accepting it, or the consent by which he detests sin and loves God above all things; from St. Thomas in this question 113, article 7, reply to objection 1.

It observes secondly that supernatural habits have this advantage over natural habits, that they are not only habits that give the ability to act easily, but virtues or powers that give the simple ability to act; hence, just as it is impossible for an agent to understand without the intellective power, so it is impossible for man to elicit a supernatural act without a supernatural virtue communicated to him in some way.

It observes thirdly, from St. Thomas in the Secunda Secundae, question 175, article 2, reply to objection 3, that supernatural virtue can be participated in two ways: 1° by way of a transient passion; 2° by way of a permanent form. In the latter way, it takes on the nature of a habit or habitual gift; in the former way, it has the nature of a transient motion, or actual assistance. In reality, however, it is the same thing in both cases, differing only according to the mode of being on the part of the subject, as light permanently inhering in the sun and transiently impressed on the air is the same light. According to St. Thomas in the Secunda Secundae, question 171, article 2, this can be seen in the rapture of Paul, to whom the light of glory was given by way of a transient impression and not by way of a habit or permanent form as in the Blessed; for in reality it was the same light of glory, differing only in mode; for since it is essentially an active power with respect to vision, it is impossible for this act to be effected without it, just as it is impossible for any effect to be produced without the power that effects it.

From these observations, it further observes that when it is said that man lacking a habit effects a supernatural act through actual assistance, by the name of actual assistance is not understood a purely applicative motion, such as that by which God moves a man endowed with the habit of charity to its act, but there must be understood a motion which at the same time confers the very power of acting, and thus includes the supernatural virtue whose act it is, not indeed by way of habit and permanent form, but of transient impression.

Having observed and supposed these things, it establishes that the act of conversion ultimately disposing to habitual grace proceeds effectively from the infused virtue of charity and penitence, not however communicated by way of habit, but by way of assistance or motion, and thus disposes to grace and to the infused virtues themselves to be obtained by way of habit.

The reason for the first part is taken from the second and third observation, because, as has been said, a supernatural act cannot proceed except from its own supernatural virtue communicated either by way of permanent form or by way of transient motion; but contrition or the love of God above all things is the proper act of charity; therefore these acts in man disposing himself to grace cannot proceed except from the infused virtue of penitence and charity. Nor can it be said that such acts can proceed from some other actual assistance eminently containing the virtue of charity; because a motion received in man that is more eminent than charity does not seem possible; and even if it were possible, it would not be given to man before charity, otherwise he would be of better condition and more highly elevated than through charity itself.

The reason for the second part is: Because the term of motion cannot be its effective principle, as is clear from the terms; for the term of motion is posterior to it, and the principle is prior to it; but charity and penitence under the aspect of habit are the term of the motion of preparation for grace; therefore under the aspect of habit they are not its effective principle. I prove the minor: The same is the case with the habit of charity and grace, for both are infused together; but the habit of grace is the term of the motion of preparation and justification, according to St. Thomas here in question 113, article 1. Therefore.

The aforementioned Fr. Goudin believes this intermediate opinion of his to be handed down by St. Thomas, when the holy Doctor in this question 113, article 8, reply to objection 2, says “that the movement of free choice precedes the attainment of grace, but follows the infusion of grace.” For, according to him, by “infusion of grace” the holy Doctor understands God’s motion or assistance given by way of motion, because he says there that “the disposition of the subject follows the action of the agent, by which the subject itself is disposed,” which seems to imply actual motion. But by “attainment of grace,” he understands grace received by way of habit, that is, permanently; for we are said to attain that which we have permanently and not by way of something transient. And this also is required by the condition of an adult, namely, that he should not have the gift of grace permanently except by freely accepting it, which acceptance, however, is only through the assistance of divine grace. Hence grace by way of assistance precedes that act which grace by way of habit follows, although all these things are in the same real instant.

From this, the highly recommended author infers that this ultimate disposition can in some sense be said to proceed quasi-materially from the supernatural habit, but is more exactly said to proceed from actual assistance, and to dispose to the attainment of both the habit of grace and the infused virtues. Because in reality it is the same grace in both cases, different only as to state. Insofar as God through it moves free choice to the act of ultimate preparation, it has under that respect the nature of actual assistance and is pre-understood to the act; but insofar as it is accepted through the act itself, it is now understood to be given by way of permanent habit and to follow the preparatory act. Hence this act can be said to proceed from supernatural virtue, which in the same real instant has the nature of a habit; yet because as it is pre-understood to the act, it does not have the nature of a habit, but of actual assistance, this act is more exactly said to proceed not from a supernatural habit, but from actual assistance. And through this he seems to concede something to each of the preceding opinions.

But because he considers his opinion as a kind of middle ground between the two, and through it the arguments of both are satisfied, he objects to himself only the following single argument:

You will say: This preparatory act is meritorious; therefore it proceeds from the habit of grace, which is the root of merit. Confirmation: If that act preceded the habit of grace, it could merit it; for it is an act of charity worthy of glory, and consequently also of grace itself, if it preceded it. Hence St. Thomas here in article 2, reply to objection 1, for this reason alone says that this act does not merit grace, because grace is already had.

He responds that an act is not meritorious unless it proceeds from grace at least as from a form giving merit; but it is not required that it proceed from grace as from an effective principle. Therefore, this act is meritorious because it proceeds effectively from actual grace and in the same instant is informed by habitual grace; for in the same instant in which God moves man to convert himself, He simultaneously infuses into him the habit of grace, by which He makes both the person and the act pleasing to Himself and thus meritorious, not indeed of grace from which it has the nature of merit, but of glory which is not yet had. Through this the answer to the confirmation is also clear: since the habit of grace is the principle of merit of that act, it does not merit grace, because the principle of merit does not fall under merit.

These and other things which we have omitted are offered by the aforementioned Goudin for the reconciliation of both prior opinions: whether it is so, let the reader judge, and let him choose whichever opinion of these three he wishes. For it is not of great importance. But if he delights in subtleties, let him consult for the first opinion John of St. Thomas and Contenson, for the second Serra and Gonet.

ARTICLE V.
CERTAIN SMALL QUESTIONS ARE BRIEFLY RESOLVED FOR THE COMPLETION OF ST. THOMAS’S QUESTION.

You ask first: Whether the justification of the impious occurs in an instant?

Response 1°: The justification of the impious, taken for the infusion of grace and the remission of sins, occurs in an instant; because that a form is produced successively comes from the fact that either the subject is not in the ultimate disposition, or because the agent, being of finite power, needs time to overcome the resistance of the subject and introduce the form. But here we suppose the ultimate disposition, since we are speaking of the justification of the impious as it simply denotes the infusion of grace; and furthermore, since God requires no disposition except what He Himself makes, He can effect it in the instant in which He produces grace itself, as He did in Paul; and since He is of infinite power, He does not need time to overcome the resistance of the subject.

Confirmation: When between the extremes of change or motion there is no medium through which one passes from one extreme to the other, the transition from one to the other occurs in an instant; but between the extremes of justification, which are grace and the privation of grace, no medium is given; therefore.

Response 2°: If, however, justification is taken not only for the infusion of grace, but also for the dispositions by which the sinner is prepared, although it can occur in an instant, as in Paul and Magdalene, nevertheless it ordinarily occurs successively; because those dispositions which the Council of Trent requires in session 6, chapters 5 and 6, ordinarily precede in time the infusion of grace itself.

You ask secondly: Whether justification is the greatest work of God?

Response: If justification is considered from the part of the mode of acting, creation is a greater work than justification; because the most excellent mode of operating is to make something from nothing.

If justification is considered from the part of the thing produced, it is a greater work than creation, but not than glorification; because the good to which creation is terminated is the good of mutable nature; the good to which justification is terminated is eternal good in hope; but the good to which glorification is terminated is eternal good in reality.

If finally justification is considered according to the proportion of the one who is justified, it is a greater work than glorification; because the gift of grace more exceeds the dignity of the impious, who was worthy of punishment, than the gift of glory exceeds the dignity of the just, who was worthy of glory.

You ask thirdly: Whether the justification of the impious is a miraculous work?

Response: The justification of the impious, as it commonly occurs, can be called wonderful; because those things which can be done by divine power alone have a hidden cause, and for this reason are wonderful. However, it cannot be called miraculous, because for a miracle properly so called, it is not sufficient that it can be done by God alone, but it must be beyond the common course of divine providence, such as the resurrection of the dead or the giving of sight to one born blind. But justification, as it commonly occurs, is according to the common course of supernatural providence; for it is the common and customary course of justification that, with God moving the soul interiorly, man is converted to God, at first indeed by an imperfect conversion, that afterward he may arrive at the perfect. But when, beyond this common course, God suddenly moves to perfect justification, as with Paul and Magdalene, then justification can be called miraculous.

CHAPTER XIV.

Refutation of Three Opinions on the Harmony of Divine Cooperation with Free Will.

There remains an objection which arises from the apparent conflict between the cooperation of the divine will and human freedom. The objection is as follows:

The divine will is the first cause of all things, and has decreed from eternity what it wills or does not will to happen; therefore, there can be no freedom of choice in man; for the first cause is most efficacious, and according to the Scriptures, no one can resist the divine will.

Calvin confirms this objection from experience. For in matters that are hardly complex, our mind and reason often fail us, so that afterward we wonder how we did not see what was before our eyes; on the contrary, however, in the most obscure matters, the best counsel often immediately shines forth, by which the whole matter is resolved with ease. Similarly, with regard to effect, often in matters that are hardly arduous, the spirit grows faint; but in difficult and dangerous matters, the spirit prevails superior to all difficulty. From this it can be understood that our minds are ruled and governed by God, according to Proverbs 20: “That the ear may hear and the eye may see, the Lord has made both.” And in chapter 21: “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord; he will turn it wherever he wishes.”

To this objection, responses are typically given in various ways. First, Cajetan in Prima Pars, question 22, article 4, teaches that this harmony of free will with divine providence seems inexplicable and not intelligible in this life. And indeed, if this were the case, neither God’s providence nor human freedom should be denied. For it can easily happen that something is manifestly established from one perspective, while from another it is most doubtful and obscure; and then one should not be denied because of the other. “Should we,” (says St. Augustine in his book On the Gift of Perseverance, chapter 14) “deny what is evident because we cannot comprehend what is hidden?”

But although this matter is obscure and deeply hidden, as Cajetan rightly warned, nevertheless we must attempt to bring some light even to obscure matters. Durandus in 2 Sentences, distinction 37, question 1, believed that he resolved such a great matter with almost no effort, when he taught that no concurrence of the divine will is required for the actions of secondary causes, but that the natures themselves and their powers are sufficient, and that God, just as he created both, likewise preserves both. But we have recently shown that this opinion is false and contradicts Scripture, the testimonies of the Fathers, and reason.

There is, therefore, a third opinion of others who admit that God by His concurrence determines the action of the human will, and once this is established, the human will cannot but act; yet it is absolutely free, either because (as James Almain writes in his Morals, chapters 1 and 2) God’s concurrence is not among the prerequisites for the action of free will, but among those things that accompany it — for a power is free which, given all prerequisites, can act or not act — or because, as others teach, God’s concurrence in determining the human will does not prevent man from having a full and perfect judgment of reason, and therefore from judging that one means is contingent, another necessarily connected with the end. For this is the root of freedom, and wherever this root is found, there freedom is also found.

This opinion cannot be approved by me, for many reasons. First, because the reasons by which they defend the freedom of choice do not seem solid: for what Almain says, that God’s concurrence is not among the prerequisites, is false. For if the human will is among the prerequisites because it is the cause of action, why will God’s concurrence, which is also the cause of action, not be among the prerequisites? For we are speaking of God’s concurrence in the first act. Nor does what someone writes seem true, that for free will it is sufficient that man has a full and perfect judgment of reason. For it is further required that man be the master of his action, and can act or not act. This is why the Greeks call the free “autexousion,” that is, having power over oneself. But one who is determined by another to some action is certainly not the master of that action. Therefore, although the blessed have a full and perfect judgment with respect to the divine vision, they are nevertheless not free regarding it because they are determined to one thing and cannot not will it. And all of us, with no less perfect judgment, know means necessarily connected with the end than means contingently connected, and yet we are free regarding the latter, not the former, namely because we can choose not to elect the latter, but not the former.

Therefore, it is true that free will exists where the root of freedom exists, that is, the knowledge of the contingency of means; not because mastery of actions is not required, but because God has given to no one that knowledge of the contingency of means without also giving mastery of actions. For in vain would He have given that knowledge, unless He had given the power of deliberation, and in vain would He have given the power of deliberation unless He had given mastery of actions and indetermination, in which true freedom consists.

But, you will say, God cannot will and not will, but is determined to one thing from eternity; and yet because He judges that created things are not necessary for Himself, He is said to have free will regarding them. I respond that God is determined to one thing from eternity, but by Himself, not by another, and that He could have determined Himself to something else, and therefore He is truly and properly the Master of His outward actions; wherefore, even man, who is created in the image of God, in order to be truly free, must not only have full and perfect judgment, but also mastery of his actions, so that he determines himself.

Moreover, this opinion seems inconsistent with Scripture, which in Ecclesiasticus 15 says that man is left in the hand of his own counsel, so that he may extend his hand to whatever he wills. For how is he left in the hand of his own counsel, who in all actions is determined by another, whom he can in no way resist? The Scriptures which we cited above, which say that man has the option of choosing this or that, undoubtedly signify that man is the master of his actions and undetermined.

Third, it seems to contradict the testimonies of the Fathers. For St. John Chrysostom speaks thus in Homily 11 on John: “The soul, having jurisdiction over itself, has in itself the power of acting, and in nothing obeys God unless it wishes.” Likewise in Homily 42 to the people of Antioch: “It is necessary,” he says, “that we first choose the good, and then he brings in his own; he does not prevent our wills, lest he violate our liberty.” In this passage, the holy Doctor does not deny prevenient grace or God’s cooperation, which he often confesses elsewhere, but he denies preventive determination to one thing, such that it is not truly in man’s power to do or omit.

St. Jerome in his commentary on chapter 26 of Jeremiah: “The ambiguous word (perhaps) cannot be suitable to the majesty of the Lord, but he speaks according to our feeling, so that free will may be preserved for man, lest from His foreknowledge, as if by necessity, he be compelled either to do or not to do. For it is not because God knows something will happen that it therefore happens, but because it will happen, God knows it.” In this passage, St. Jerome denies that foreknowledge is the cause of future things, lest free will be destroyed. But if foreknowledge would destroy free will if it were the cause of future human action, how much more will predetermination of the divine will destroy it, if it is posited as the cause of human actions, since predetermination is far more repugnant to liberty than foreknowledge? The same Jerome in his letter to Damasus on the prodigal son: “He gave,” he says, “to man the freedom of his own mind, so that everyone might live not by the command of God, but by his own compliance, that is, not by necessity, but by will.” Where that phrase “not by the command of God” does not mean that man is free from the obligation of God’s precepts, but that he is free from necessity determining him to one thing.

St. Augustine in book VII of The City of God, chapter 30: “He so administers all things that He has created,” he says, “that He allows them to exercise and perform their own movements.” But certainly it is proper to free will to be the master of its action, and to determine itself to it, not to be determined by another.

St. Gregory of Nyssa in book VII of Philosophy, chapters 1 and 2, teaches that the actions of free will are not to be referred to God as their cause, but to ourselves; and therefore they are said to be in our power.

St. John Damascene in book II, chapter 30: “It is worth noting,” he says, “that God foreknows all things, but does not predefine or predestine all things. For He foreknows even those things which are in us, but He does not predefine these.”

Fourth, it contradicts the principal Scholastic authorities. For St. Bonaventure in 2 Sentences, distinction 37, question 1, in his final response: “To that which is objected, that God is the principal mover in such action, it must be said that this is true; nevertheless, it does not follow from this that He excites free will to perform that operation. For excitation implies some effect of grace preventing the will itself. This is required in good meritorious works; but in other indifferent works, or even evil ones, there is only the cooperation of divine power, which, existing in the creature potentially, essentially, and presently, just as it preserves it in being, so it helps it in operating. Therefore, it is granted that there is cooperation there, not prevention.”

Gregory of Rimini in 2 Sentences, distinctions 34 and 37, question 1, article 3: “God,” he says, “follows the determination of the will, not that the determination of the will is some entity distinct from the will and its act, which is first made by the will, as the argument seems to imagine; nor even understanding that the will first by nature performs that act, before God, properly speaking of what is prior by nature; since then it would follow that it could perform that act with God co-acting, as is clear from the definition of prior according to nature: but in this sense I say that God follows the determination of the will, because God performs that act because the will performs it, and not because God acts, therefore the will acts. And therefore it is said more properly that God co-acts with the will in causing such an act, than that the will is said to co-act with God.”

Scotus in 2 Sentences, distinction 37, question 1, § on the solution of these etc., discussing the cooperation of the first cause with the second free cause, teaches that God in no way acts before the will, and through this the will is not predetermined by God: “Just as,” he says, “in one instant of nature matter materializes and the efficient cause effects, so two ordered efficient causes in an instant of nature cause a common effect, so that neither then causes without the other; but that a not-right effect is caused, this is not then because of the prior cause, which as far as it is concerned, would cause rightly, if the second cause would cause, but because of the defect of the second cause, which has in its power to co-cause with the first cause, or not to co-cause, and if it does not co-cause with it, as it is bound to do, there is no rightness in the common effect of both.”

St. Thomas in 1–2, question 9, article 6, in response to the third objection, speaks thus: “To the third it must be said that God moves the will of man, as the universal mover to the universal object of the will, which is the good; and without this universal motion man cannot will anything; but man determines himself through reason to will this or that, which is truly good, or apparently good.” Where that adversative particle, “but,” shows that the particular determination is to be referred to the will itself, not to God first determining, but the universal determination to the good in general is to be referred to God, who is the universal cause.

The same in 1–2, question 10, article 4: “Because,” he says, “the will is an active principle not determined to one, but indifferently related to many, God so moves it that He does not of necessity determine it to one, but its motion remains contingent, except in those things to which it is naturally moved.”

The same in 1–2, question 80, article 1, in response to the third objection: “It must be said,” he says, “that God is the universal principle of all interior human motion; but that the human will is determined to evil counsel, this is directly indeed from the human will, and from the devil by way of persuading, or proposing desirable things.” Likewise in 2–2, question 174, article 1, he teaches, following Damascene, that God predestines those things which are not in our power, but foreknows, but does not predestine, those things which are to be done by our free will. Finally, in question 3 on power, article 7, in response to the 13th objection, he says thus: “The will is said to have mastery of the act, not by exclusion of the first cause, but because the first cause does not so act on the will as to determine it of necessity to one, as it determines nature; and therefore the determination of the act is left in the power of reason and will.”

Cajetan in his commentary on the Prima Pars, question 19, article 8, says: “God’s cooperation in each thing is according to the nature of each, for thus He disposes all things sweetly. Hence whether God cooperates necessarily or freely, nevertheless the created will freely uses that cooperation.”

Fifth, it contradicts reason. For in the first place, given the determination of the will made by God, it does not seem possible to save the freedom of choice. For that is called a free power which can act and not act; but the human will cannot act before it is determined by God according to the doctrine of the adversaries; after it has been determined by God, however, it cannot not act, because it cannot be understood that God moves it and it is not moved, or that God determines it and it is not determined; therefore, there will never be a time when it can truly act and not act.

Moreover, if God were a necessary agent and determined the human will, it would act not freely, but of necessity, as the adversaries admit. But it is the same to the will whether God moves it necessarily or freely; for the act of the will will not proceed freely from the will because it proceeds freely from God, just as if God freely moves a beast to eat grass, the beast will not therefore freely eat grass. Nor does a slave turn a mill wheel by choice because the master by choice compels him to turn the mill wheel. Therefore, whether God freely or of necessity determines the will, the will determined by God acts not freely, but necessarily. For God indeed freely determines, because it is in His power not to determine; but the will, prevented and determined by God, did not have it in its power to effect that it not be prevented and determined. Therefore, its act is indeed free as it exits from God, yet it is not free as it exits from itself, and therefore it is not a free cause, but a necessary one.

Moreover, if this determination is posited, it will not be possible to understand how God is not the cause of sin, and how men who sin are not worthy of excuse. For if God determines and moves the will to act in every positive act, He will certainly also determine and move it to will to steal, fornicate, lie, blaspheme, etc. But who can grasp that a man is worthy of punishment if he wills what God, by determining and moving, makes him will? But on this matter we have said much in book 2 on the state of sin.

CHAPTER XV.

Explaining One Method of Harmonizing Divine Cooperation with Free Will.

Having refuted that opinion, two reasonably suitable approaches occur to us for explaining the harmony of divine cooperation with free will and resolving the objection proposed in the previous chapter.

One approach follows the view of Gregory of Rimini, Scotus, Gabriel, and others in 2 Sentences, distinction 37, who teach that divine cooperation relates to the effect, not to the cause. That is, God’s concurrence does not determine our will, nor impress anything upon it or operate on it, but immediately influences the effect and produces it at the very same moment in which it is produced by our will.

From this it follows that neither does God determine or necessitate the will, nor does the will determine God. For each applies its concurrence freely, and if either refuses to concur, the work will not happen. It is similar to when two people carry a massive stone that one could not carry alone: neither adds strength to the other or impels him, and each is free to abandon the burden. Although God, unless He wishes to work an extraordinary miracle, always concurs when our will concurs, because He freely obligated Himself to this in a certain way when He created the free will. From this it also follows that, although God and the will begin to operate at precisely the same moment of time and nature, nevertheless God operates because the will operates, not the contrary. And this is what some mean when they say the will operates prior in nature to God, not with priority of the instant in which, but from which. But it will be worthwhile to resolve the arguments that are usually made against this view.

First argument: Between the first cause and the second cause there is a certain essential order, such that the first moves the second, and the second does not act unless moved by the first; God is the first cause and our will is the second; therefore God moves the will and applies it to work.

I respond: Between a principal cause and an instrumental cause there is that order, that one moves the other. However, between the first cause and the second, when the second is not properly an instrument, there is not an order such that one moves the other, but that one is prior to the other in perfection, unlimitedness, and necessity; namely, because it is a more perfect and nobler cause, and again more universal, since it is not limited to one effect or another, and finally supremely necessary, since without it no effect can occur.

But, you will say, Scripture indicates that humans are instruments of God, for in Isaiah 10 it says: “Assyria is the rod of God’s anger.” And in the same place it is called an axe and a saw. But it is easy to respond, for humans are called instruments of God, not properly but metaphorically, because God can, when He wishes, bend their minds in the way an artisan bends his instruments. For otherwise, man is also a principal cause, since he is free and has dominion over other living beings. How God bends the minds of humans, yet does not remove the freedom of choice, has been explained above.

Second argument: If God operates because the will operates, and not the contrary, it certainly follows that God depends on the will and is somehow determined by it. But it is absurd that God should depend on a creature, and that the eternal should be determined by the temporal.

I respond: God does not depend on or is determined by the human will, although He operates because it operates. For God freely established the free will and could have not established it; and again He freely willed and decreed from eternity to concur with the work of the free will when it should wish to operate; and finally He can also, when He wishes, not concur, if He wishes something to happen outside the order established by Himself. Therefore, that God operates because the will operates is not God depending on a creature, but on His eternal institution and will.

Third argument: God is the cause of all things that in any way have being; but that our will determines and applies itself to operate is undoubtedly something; therefore God Himself does this. Therefore God makes the will determine and apply itself, and through this He moves, determines, and applies it.

I respond: In that which is the will determining itself to work, or (which is the same thing) actually operating when previously it was not operating, three things can be considered: the will, its action, and the emergence of the action from the will, or the relation and connection of the action as an effect to the will as its cause. Of these three, the will was undoubtedly made by God alone; the action also is made by God, although not by Him alone; finally, the relation is not properly made, but follows; however, as it is really identical with the action, it is made by the one by whom the action itself is made.

Therefore, there is nothing that is not made by God, and yet God is not said to determine or apply the will to work, because that relation is not referred to God, but to the will alone. It would, however, be referred also to God if He used the will as an instrument for performing that very action.

Fourth argument: The act of the will is a vital and immanent action; therefore it cannot be immediately made except by an intrinsic and vital principle. Hence God does not concur in immediately producing that action, but through our will.

I respond: God’s concurrence is a general and indifferent influx, which is modified and determined by second causes, at least regarding specification, as we said in the book on the cause of sin. And this is also gathered from St. Thomas in book III Against the Gentiles, chapter 66, where he says second causes are particularizing (for thus he speaks) and determining the action of the first agent. Furthermore, an immanent and vital action cannot be produced except by an intrinsic principle, or by an extrinsic one modified and determined by the intrinsic principle itself.

Fifth argument: God’s providence extends to all things, even to singular, contingent, and free things; therefore God has determined all effects from eternity, and through this He has also determined second causes to produce them. For otherwise, if free and contingent effects were not predetermined by God, but were such because the second causes are such, they would happen outside God’s intention, which St. Thomas demonstrates to be absurd in the Prima Pars, question 19, article 8, where he concludes that God prepared some causes as necessary, others as contingent or free, because He willed effects to be such; not the contrary, that He willed some effects to be necessary, others contingent or free, because the causes are such.

I respond: God determined all effects from eternity, but not before the foresight of the determination of second causes, especially contingent and free ones; and again He determined all effects, but not in the same way; for He determined some to happen with Him operating or cooperating, others with Him permitting or not impeding. Nor does the nature of providence require that God predetermined everything before all foresight, but only that nothing happens without His foresight and cooperation or permission. Otherwise, He would also have predetermined sins before the foresight of the evil will, and would have willed the evil will to exist so that the sins already predetermined might proceed from it, which is a most absurd heresy and open blasphemy. Nor would the Lord say in the Gospel that not one sparrow falls to the ground without our Father, but would say that not one sparrow falls to the ground that our Father does not cast down.

As for what St. Thomas says, that God established certain contingent or free causes because He willed effects to be such, this seems to be understood of effects in general, not in particular. That is, because God willed that in this world not everything should happen necessarily, but some things contingently or freely, therefore He established causes both necessary and contingent and free. However, in particular, He did not establish this free cause because He willed this free effect, but on the contrary, He willed this effect to be free because it has a free cause. For in this way, neither do contingent things happen outside God’s intention, nor are second causes the first root of contingency, and yet providence does not impede free will.

That St. Thomas spoke in general and not in particular can be known from the Prima Pars, question 23, article 7, where he says that God determined the number of essential parts of the world, such as heavens, elements, and all species; yet He did not determine the number of corruptible individuals, such as gnats, flies, etc., nor that this fly should be born today, that one tomorrow; but only provided in general, and continues to provide, that no species of animals should fail. But if divine providence did not predetermine in particular substantial individuals, although it foresaw they would exist and willed to cooperate with second causes in their production, much less did it determine in particular all transient free actions, although it foresaw them and decreed to cooperate, or impede, or permit them if they are evil, and to draw some good from them.

Sixth argument: If God did not predetermine everything before foreseeing the determination of second causes, He could not know everything with certainty. For God does not see future free actions in the actions themselves, because they do not exist; nor does He see them in the second cause, that is, the human will, because it is undetermined, and given all the prerequisites for acting, it can still not act; nor does He see them in the first exemplary cause, that is, in the idea, because that represents all possibles, whether they will happen or not; nor does He see them in His eternity, which embraces all times. For although eternity coexists with all time, yet future time does not coexist with eternity except when it actually exists, that is, when it is present; therefore the future, while it is future, does not exist, and cannot be known in itself. Add to this that God also knows certain things that will never be, as in 1 Kings 23, when David asked, “Will the men of Keilah surrender me?” He answered, “They will surrender you”; and in Matthew 11, when the Lord predicted that the people of Tyre and Sidon would have repented if they had seen the miracles that the people of Capernaum saw. These and similar conditionals God foreknows with certainty, and yet they will never exist in themselves, nor will they ever coexist with eternity. Therefore, either He sees them in His will, as in the first efficient and most efficacious cause, or He does not see them at all.

I respond: This matter is exceedingly difficult, and perhaps incomprehensible in this life — by what method God foreknows future things. And David seems to have indicated this in Psalm 139 when he says: “Your knowledge has become wonderful to me; it is beyond me, and I cannot attain to it.” For that phrase “to me” in the Hebrew idiom means “beyond me” or “above me,” so that the sense is: the manner of your knowledge is more wonderful than I can comprehend. Namely, how you have understood my thoughts from afar and have investigated all my paths, etc.

Nevertheless, it seems probable to us that God does not see future free actions except in the human will. For Scripture first signifies this when it says that God searches the reins and hearts, and in this Psalm 139, that God investigates all our paths. For if He saw them in His will predetermining everything, He would not be said to search our hearts and investigate our paths, but to look at His will. Furthermore, it would not be wonderful that God foreknows everything if He predetermined everything. For even we easily foreknow and predict what we are going to do; but St. David in the whole of Psalm 139 marvels at God’s knowledge, by which He foresees all our ways and understands our thoughts from afar, etc.

Moreover, St. Augustine in book XI of the Confessions, chapter 18, teaches this quite openly when he says: “However the hidden things of foreknowledge of future things may be, what does not exist cannot be seen; but what already exists is not future, but present. Therefore, when future things are said to be seen, not the things themselves, which do not yet exist (that is, which are future), but perhaps their causes or signs, which already exist, are seen. Therefore, they are not future, but already present to those seeing them, from which future things are predicted, conceived in the mind.” So he says.

Therefore, because God perfectly knows all the inclinations and the whole character of our mind, and again is not ignorant of everything that can occur to it in individual deliberations, and finally has insight into what is more congruent and apt to move such a mind endowed with such inclination and character, He infallibly deduces to which side the mind will incline. And perhaps this is what those mean who teach that God knows all future things, both free and necessary, both absolute and conditional, because He knows all truth; and because all things that are in any way future are somehow true, for it is true to say, “This will be,” when it really is future.

This opinion, I say, seems to coincide with ours. For “true” and “being” are convertible, and therefore it is not true now that something will be in the future, unless that something now has some being, namely in its cause; but that which is freely and contingently future does not have being in its cause except when there is some determination in the cause. And since in the contingent cause precisely considered, there is no determination, therefore the Philosopher truly said that concerning future contingents, there is no determinate truth; for he looked only at the contingent cause itself. However, if someone joins with the contingent or free cause all things that can occur and impede, and sees the inclinations and aptitudes both of the cause itself and of all the objects and circumstances, which God alone can do, some determination will result from that, and by reason of that it will be true to say: “This will happen at such a time.”

CHAPTER XVI.

Explaining Another Method of Harmonizing Freedom with God’s Cooperation, and Resolving the Objection Proposed in Chapter 14.

Another method of reconciling human freedom with divine cooperation, and perhaps even more probable, follows the view of St. Thomas, who teaches that divine cooperation concurs with second causes, even free ones, in such a way that God not only has given them and preserves their operative powers, but also moves and applies them to action, as can be known from the Prima Pars, question 105, article 5, and book 3 Against the Gentiles, chapter 70, and in question 3 on power, article 7. This view seems very consistent both with Scripture, which says that in God “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17), and also with reason and with the order that the first cause has with second causes. Nor is it necessary to labor in this view to show that absolutely nothing happens without God. Nevertheless, this view also has its difficulties, which we will briefly explain before we expound how, according to this view, free will is preserved.

Some therefore object against St. Thomas’s view that it cannot be understood how God moves and applies second causes. For if God moves second causes, He moves them either with local motion or with alterative motion. Not with local motion, because second causes, for the most part, can act without being moved according to place; for fire does not need local motion to burn nearby straw, and much less does the human will need local motion to will something. Nor with alterative motion, because then some quality would have to be impressed on the second cause. But no such quality is necessary, neither on the part of God, who operates all things through the act of His will, nor on the part of the second cause, which already has operative power from nature.

You will say it is necessary both on the part of God and on the part of the second cause: on the part of God, so that through that quality He may reach the effect; on the part of the second cause, so that it may be determined and applied to operating. Against this: for God does not need a quality to reach the effect; and furthermore, if He needed a quality to reach the effect, not in the cause but in the effect, He would impress it there. Moreover, when the object is present, the second cause does not seem to need another determination or application.

To this objection I respond that God does not move the second cause locally, nor impress any quality on it, but only uses it as an instrument for accomplishing the work. Wherefore, the power impressed by God by way of something transient, while the second cause operates, is not distinguished from natural power itself, but is the same power, insofar as God uses it to perfect that action. This motion of God is necessary on the part of the second cause, which, being such, that is, second, has a necessary dependence on the first cause, in whose power it operates. See what we said about the power of God impressed in the Sacraments through motion, in book 2 on the Sacraments in general, chapter 11.

Having explained these things, in order to show that according to this view of St. Thomas, free will is rightly defended, it should be known that the influx or power of God, by which the will is moved and applied to work, is received in second causes according to their disposition (as the same St. Thomas says in question 3 on evil, article 2): “It should be noted,” he says, “that the motion of the first mover is not received uniformly in all mobile things, but in each according to its proper mode.” And in 1–2, question 10, article 4: “It pertains to God’s providence,” he says, “not to corrupt nature, but to preserve it. Wherefore He moves all things according to their condition.” And below: “Because,” he says, “the will is an active principle not determined to one, but indifferently related to many, God so moves it that He does not of necessity determine it to one, but its motion remains contingent and not necessary, except in those things to which it is naturally moved.” So he says.

Furthermore, this mode or condition in the will, according to which the motion of God is received in it, is nothing other than a certain negative determination, preceding both the influx of God and the act elicited by the will. Namely, that the will allows itself to be moved by the object proposed to it by reason, or does not allow it. For this determination is called negative because it does not consist in a positive act, but in the negation of an act, although the will is no less free to act than not to act.

St. Thomas explains this in question 1 on evil, article 3, where he says: not using the rule of reason is understood in the will before disordered choice; but of this, which is not using the rule of reason, it is not necessary to seek another cause besides the freedom of the will, because evidently it is in its power to allow itself to be moved by reason or not to allow it. And again in question 3 on evil, article 2, the same St. Thomas says that a certain disposition is required in man for receiving the influx of God, and according to that disposition the good or evil act is produced. But no positive disposition can be required before the influx of God, since nothing positive can happen without God. Therefore, only the negative disposition is required beforehand.

And hence it happens that the will is truly free and determines itself, although God moves it and applies it to work, because God’s motion itself is in its power, or (as Cajetan says in the Prima Pars, question 19, article 8) our will freely uses God’s motion. For if it allows itself to be moved by the proposed object, God applies it and moves it to elicit the act; if it does not allow it, God does not apply it or move it. And therefore St. Thomas in 1–2, question 10, article 4, reply to objection 3, concludes that given God’s motion, it is impossible for the will not to be moved; but absolutely it is not impossible. Because evidently the will can choose not to dispose itself through negative determination to receive God’s motion.

It is similar to what we said above about the harmony of the ultimate practical judgment and free choice. For just as, given the ultimate practical judgment, it cannot happen that the will does not choose what is then proposed to it by reason, and yet the choice is free, because the practical judgment itself is in the power of the will, due to the preceding negative determination, so also, given the influx of God, it cannot happen that the will does not operate, and yet the operation is free, because God’s influx is not given unless the will first disposes itself through negative determination to receive it.

Against this view, the two final arguments could be made that were made against the view of the preceding chapter, concerning the providence of all things in particular, and concerning the manner in which God knows future contingent things; but these have already been proposed and explained.

From these things, therefore, we can easily respond to Calvin’s objection proposed at the beginning of chapter 14. The objection was this: the divine will is the first cause of all things, and has already decreed from eternity what it wills to happen; therefore there can be no freedom of choice in man, for the first cause is most efficacious, and according to the Scriptures, no one can resist the divine will.

I respond: the divine will is indeed the first cause of all things and has decreed from eternity what it wills or does not will to happen; but in particular cases, and especially in free actions, it did not decree this except after first knowing the disposition and determination of second causes, as we showed above. Wherefore, although no one can resist the divine will, nevertheless the freedom of the human will remains intact, because God Himself, whom no one can resist, willed this: that the human mind should be free and have its actions in its power, and therefore decreed to cooperate with it, or to apply and move it, whenever through negative determination it would dispose itself.

Calvin added a confirmation from experience, that in matters that are hardly complex, counsel often fails us, and on the contrary, in obscure matters light sometimes suddenly shines forth, and similarly, with regard to affect, often in matters that are hardly arduous, the spirit grows faint, but in difficult ones it is raised up — which would be an argument that our minds are ruled and governed by God.

I respond: it is most true that our minds are ruled by God’s providence, and that sometimes ready counsel and great confidence in arduous matters are supplied by God, and in easy matters they are not supplied. However, this in no way works against the freedom of choice, for the supplying of counsel and the inflaming of the will does not necessarily determine people to choose one thing rather than another. Otherwise, wise and eloquent people, who often lead and bend their hearers as they themselves wish, would deprive them of free will.

But there is also a natural cause of this thing that Calvin marvels at so greatly. For it is natural that people, when they perceive the difficulty of a matter, are excited and strive against it, but despise easy and safe things. It is not surprising if counsel is available when the mind is vehemently intent on thinking about a matter, and if counsel does not occur when the matter is neglected. Thus, indeed, iron is sharpened by a whetstone, and through antiperistasis, contraries are more vehemently strengthened at the presence of their contraries.