To resist sufficient grace involves an abuse of liberty. Now, where does the right use of liberty come in? If coöperation with sufficient grace moves God to bestow the gratia per se efficax, as the Thomists contend, then the right use of liberty must lie somewhere between the gratia sufficiens and the gratia efficax per se. But there is absolutely no place for it in the Thomistic system. The right use of liberty for the purpose of obtaining efficacious grace is attributable either to grace or to unaided nature. To assert that it is the work of unaided nature would lead to Semipelagianism. To hold that it is owing to grace would be moving in a vicious circle, thus: “Because the will offers no resistance, it is efficaciously moved to perform a salutary act; that it offers no sinful resistance is owing to the fact that it is efficaciously moved to perform a salutary act.”[726]
It is impossible to devise any satisfactory solution of this difficulty which will not at the same time upset the very foundation on which the Thomistic system rests, viz.: “Nulla secunda causa potest operari, nisi sit efficaciter determinata a prima [scil. per applicationem potentiae ad actum],” that is to say, no secondary cause can act unless it be efficaciously determined by the First Cause by an application of the latter to the former as of potency to act.
b) The Thomistic gratia efficax, conceived as a praedeterminatio ad unum, inevitably destroys free-will.
α) It is important to state the question clearly: Not physical premotion as such,[727] but the implied connotation of praevia determinatio ad unum, is incompatible with the dogma of free-will. The freedom of the will does not consist in the pure contingency of an act, or in a merely passive indifference, but in active indifference either to will or not to will, to will thus or otherwise. Consequently every physical predetermination, in so far as it is a determinatio ad unum, must necessarily be destructive of free-will. Self-determination and physical predetermination by an extraneous will are mutually exclusive. Now the Thomists hold that the gratia per se efficax operates in the manner of a supernatural praedeterminatio ad unum. If this were true, the will under the influence of efficacious grace would no longer be free.
To perceive the full force of this argument it is necessary to keep in mind the Thomistic definition of praemotio physica as “actio Dei, quâ voluntatem humanam, priusquam se determinet, ita ad actum movet insuperabili virtute, ut voluntas nequeat omissionem sui actus cum illa praemotione coniungere.”[728] That is to say: As the non-performance of an act by the will is owing simply and solely to the absence of the respective praemotio physica, so conversely, the performance of an act is conditioned simply and solely by the presence of a divine premotion; the will itself can neither obtain nor prevent [pg 241] such a premotion, because this would require a new premotion, which again depends entirely on the divine pleasure. If the will of man were thus inevitably predetermined by God, it could not in any sense of the term be called truly free.
β) The Thomists meet this argument with mere evasions. They make a distinction between necessitas consequentis (antecedens), which really necessitates, and necessitas consequentiae (subsequens), which does not. A free act, they say, necessarily proceeds from a physical premotion, but it is not on that account in itself necessary. But, we answer, a determinatio ad unum, which precedes a free act and is independent of the will, is more than a necessitas consequentiae—it is a necessitas consequentis destructive of free-will. The Thomists reply: Considered as a created entity, physical premotion may indeed be incompatible with free-will; not so if regarded as an act of God, who, being almighty, is able to predetermine the will without prejudice to its freedom.[729] The obvious rejoinder is that an intrinsic contradiction cannot be solved by an appeal to the divine omnipotence, because even God Himself cannot do what is intrinsically impossible.[730] He can no more change a determinatio ad unum into a libertas ad utrumque than He can create a square circle, because the two notions involve an intrinsic contradiction. Furthermore, if the Almighty wished intrinsically to compel a man to perform [pg 242] some definite act, would He not choose precisely that praemotio physica which, the Thomists claim, also produces free acts? Not so, replies Alvarez; “for the will remains free so long as the intellect represents to it an object as indifferent.”[731] That is to say: Liberty remains as long as its root, i.e. an indifferent judgment, is present. But this new rejoinder, far from solving the riddle, simply begs the question. Liberty of choice resides formaliter in the will, not in the intellect, and consequently the will, as will, cannot be truly free unless it possesses within itself the unimpeded power to act or not to act. This indifferentia activa ad utrumlibet, as it is technically termed, is absolutely incompatible with the Thomistic praemotio ad unum. What would it avail the will to enjoy the indifferentia iudicii if it had to submit to compulsion from some other quarter?
γ) To escape from this quandary the Thomists resort to the famous distinction between the sensus compositus and the sensus divisus. The Molinists argue: “Liberum arbitrium efficaciter praemotum a gratia non potest dissentire; ergo non est liberum.” The Thomists reply: “Distinguo:—non potest dissentire in sensu diviso, nego; non potest dissentire in sensu composito, concedo.” They explain this distinction by certain well-known examples taken from dialectics. Thus Billuart says: “Ut si dicas, sedens potest stare, significat in sensu composito, quod possit sedere simul et stare; ... in sensu diviso, quod sedens sub sessione retinet potentiam standi, non tamen componendi stationem cum sessione. Uno verbo: sensus compositus importat potentiam simultaneitatis, sensus divisus simultaneitatem [pg 243] potentiae.”[732] As one who sits cannot at the same time stand (sensus compositus), although he is free to rise (sensus divisus), so the consent of the will effected by efficacious grace, cannot become dissent (sensus compositus), though the will retains the power to dissent instead of consenting (sensus divisus), and this is sufficient to safeguard its freedom.
Is the distinction between sensus compositus and sensus divisus correctly applied here? Can the will, under the predetermining influence of the gratia efficax, change its consent into dissent at any time and as easily as a man who is sitting on a chair can rise and thereby demonstrate that his sitting was an absolutely free act? Alvarez[733] describes the Thomistic potentia dissentiendi as a faculty which can never under any circumstances become active. But such a potentia is really no potentia at all. A man tied to a chair is not free to stand; his natural potentia standi is neutralized by external restraint. Similarly, the will, under the influence of the Thomistic gratia efficax, no longer enjoys the power to dissent, and the alleged potentia resistendi, by which the Thomists claim to save free-will, is a chimera.
δ) It is at this decisive point in the controversy that the Molinists triumphantly bring in the declaration of the Council of Trent that “man ... while he receives that inspiration [i.e. efficacious grace], ... is also able to reject it.” And again: “If any one saith that man's free-will, moved and excited by God, by assenting to God exciting and calling, does in no wise coöperate towards disposing and preparing itself for obtaining the [pg 244] grace of justification; that it cannot refuse its consent if it would, but that, as something inanimate, it does nothing whatever and is merely passive; let him be anathema.”[734] To adjust their system to this important dogmatic decision, the older Thomists claimed that the Tridentine Council had in mind merely the gratia sufficiens, to which the will can refuse its consent. But this interpretation is untenable. The Council plainly refers to that grace with which the will coöperates by giving its consent (cooperatur assentiendo) and which it can render inefficacious by withdrawing its consent, in other words, with the grace which disposes and prepares a sinner for justification, and under the influence of which, according to Luther and Calvin, the will remains inanimate and merely passive. This can only be the gratia efficax. Other Thomist theologians, not daring to contradict the obvious sense of the Tridentine decree, assert that the Council intentionally chose the term dissentire (sensus divisus) rather than resistere (sensus compositus), in order to indicate that under the predetermining influence of grace it is possible for the will to refuse its consent (posse dissentire) but not to offer resistance (posse resistere).[735] This interpretation is no longer tenable since the Vatican Council has defined that “Faith, even [pg 245] when it does not work by charity, is in itself a gift of God, and the act of faith is a work appertaining to salvation, by which man yields voluntary obedience to God Himself, by assenting to and coöperating with His grace, which he is able to resist.”[736] If efficacious grace can be successfully resisted, it can not possess that “irresistible” influence which the Thomists ascribe to it.[737]