a) The operation of grace and the liberty of the will never appear in Sacred Scripture as mutually exclusive, but invariably as coöperating factors, though sometimes the one is emphasized, and sometimes the other, according to the purpose the sacred writer happens to have in view.
The Council of Trent expressly calls attention to this:[690] “When it is said in the sacred writings, ‘Turn ye to me, and I will turn to you,’[691] we are admonished of our liberty; and when we answer: ‘Convert us, O God, to thee, and we shall be converted,’[692] we confess that we are forestalled by the grace of God.”
St. Paul, it is true, asks: “Who resisteth his [God's] will?”[693] But he also admonishes his favorite disciple Timothy: “Exercise thyself unto godliness.”[694] St. Stephen testifies that the grace of the Holy Ghost does not compel the will. “You always resist the Holy Ghost,” he tells the Jews; “as your fathers did, so do you also.”[695] Our Lord Himself teaches that grace exerts [pg 228] no interior compulsion but invites free coöperation: “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.”[696] The exhortations, promises, and threats uttered in various portions of Holy Writ would be meaningless if it were true that grace destroys free-will.[697]
b) As regards Tradition, the Greek Fathers who wrote before St. Augustine defended the freedom of the will so energetically that they were subsequently accused of harboring Pelagian and Semipelagian errors.[698] Calvin himself admits that with but one exception the Fathers are unanimously opposed to his teaching.[699]
The one exception noted is St. Augustine, to whom both Calvin and Jansenius appeal with great confidence. It should be noted, however, that the point which chiefly concerned St. Augustine in his controversies with the Pelagians and Semipelagians, was the necessity and gratuity of grace, not its relation to free-will. Where he incidentally touches upon the latter, he shows by the manner in which he formulates his sentences that he regards the relation of grace to free-will as a great mystery. But he does not try to solve this mystery in the manner in [pg 229] which Alexander the Great cut the Gordian knot. He does not declare: Grace is everything, free-will is nothing. If the power of grace destroyed the freedom of the human will, their mutual relation would be no problem.[700] Possibly St. Augustine in the heat of controversy now and then expressed himself in language open to misinterpretation, as when he said: “Therefore aid was brought to the infirmity of the human will, so that it might be unchangeably and invincibly influenced by divine grace.”[701] But this and similar phrases admit of a perfectly orthodox interpretation. As the context shows, Augustine merely wished to assert the hegemony of grace in all things pertaining to salvation, and to emphasize the fact that free-will, strengthened by grace, is able to resist even the most grievous temptations.[702] At no period of his life did the Saint deny the freedom of the will under the influence of grace. We will quote but two out of many available passages in proof of this statement. “To yield consent or to withhold it, whenever God calls, is the function of one's own will.”[703] “For the freedom of the will is not destroyed because the will is aided; but it is aided precisely for the reason [pg 230] that it remains free.”[704] St. Bernard of Clairvaux echoes this teaching when, in his own ingenious way, he summarizes the Catholic dogma as follows: “Take away free will and there will be nothing left to save; take away grace and there will be no means left of salvation.”[705]
Readings:—*Bellarmine, De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio (Opera Omnia, ed. Fèvre, Vols. V and VI, Paris 1873).—*Dechamps, S. J., De Haeresi Ianseniana, Paris 1645.—F. Wörter, Die christliche Lehre über das Verhältnis von Gnade und Freiheit bis auf Augustinus, Freiburg 1856.—*Palmieri, De Gratia Divina Actuali, thes. 39-48, Gulpen 1885.—S. Schiffini, De Gratia Divina, pp. 357 sqq., 377 sqq., Freiburg 1901.—B. J. Otten, S. J., A Manual of the History of Dogmas, Vol. II, St. Louis 1918, pp. 507 sqq.
Section 2. Theological Systems Devised To Harmonize The Dogmas Of Grace And Free-Will
The relation of grace to free-will may be regarded from a twofold point of view. We may take grace as the primary factor and trace it in its action on the human will; or, starting from the latter, we may endeavor to ascertain how free-will is affected by grace.