We must understand, however, that, although Almighty God does not deliberate, change, modify, watch for results, make experiments, profit by experience, devise new expedients, like a man of creative genius, and although his creative art is one, simple, and from eternity, yet it includes in itself in an eminent mode all these operations of the finite intelligence. If by an impossible supposition, God had delegated creative wisdom and powered to a created spirit, such as Arians fancied the Logos, and others the Demiurgus, to be; and this mighty intelligence had proceeded to execute his task in the same manner, but on a grander scale, that men execute great undertakings, and we should endeavor to describe the way in which he accomplished his work, we should have a correct though imperfect representation of the actual operation of Almighty God in the execution of his works ad extra. The conceptions we are able to form of the operation of God are all analogical. We cannot transcend [{297}] these analogies. And although we know them to be imperfect and inadequate, yet we know also that they have all the verisimilitude necessary to give us true conceptions. In this way we understand that God knew all the risks to which his plan was exposed, and made provision for them. Wherever it was necessary, he protected his designs from the risk of failure through the non-concurrencc of second causes. For instance, having determined to create a heaven containing a multitude of beatified spirits, and foreseeing that a certain number of those who were destined to this high position would forfeit it by sin, he took this into the account in determining the number to be created, and the conditions of the trial through which they were to pass. A profound theologian, who was of the strict Thomist school, the late Bishop of Philadelphia, expressed to the author on one occasion the opinion, that only the lower orders of angels were made liable to sin. He thought that the higher orders received a grace incompatible with sin, though not with merit, and that Lucifer was therefore the chief, not of the Seraphim, but of the Archangels. On this supposition, the risk of sin was confined within narrow limits, so far as the angels were concerned. Whether this be a well-grounded hypothesis or not, it is evident that these pure and exalted spirits, possessing the highest natural intelligence, being impelled to good by their nature, having received the gift of supernatural grace, and having the prospect of a still greater glory before them, were very likely, speaking after a human mode of thought, to make the requisite act of concurrence with the divine will and thus secure their confirmation in grace. In other words, there appears to be an à priori probability that at least a great number of them would do so. We know that, in point of fact, a great number of them did, and, according to the common opinion, much the largest portion of the whole number who were tried.
Now, this to us apparent probability was a certainty to God, as clearly known before as after the fact. In view of this certainty he created them and placed them in the state of probation. He foreknew, also, how many would fail, and therefore, if his purposes required it, could easily create such a multitude that the angels who fell would not be missed from their ranks. Those who fell did indeed thwart the benevolent designs of God, so far as their own particular persons were concerned. But these designs were conditional, as respecting individuals, and were made in full view of the actual event. God could not be thwarted or disappointed in regard to his grand design, because this did not depend on any particular individuals.
So in regard to men. Jesus Christ as man, and the Blessed Virgin, on whom the fulfilment of the divine plan absolutely depended, were absolutely predestined, and rendered impeccable; Jesus Christ by nature, and the Blessed Virgin by grace. If any other particular individuals were placed in a position which required it, they too received a grace which gave them immunity from any liability to fail in their necessary concurrence with the divine will as second causes. A vast multitude of human beings are elevated to beatitude without running any of the risks of probation. Adam, it is true, was able to thwart the first design of God in regard to the mode of bringing the race to its destination. But he could not thwart God's ultimate design, because he was able to accomplish it by another mode. Particular men, in vast numbers, are able to thwart the designs of God toward themselves. But they cannot thwart his designs toward the race. For he is able to regulate and order times, events, and circumstances, and to continue creating generation after generation, until, by moral means alone, he has completed the number of his saints and peopled heaven sufficiently to fulfil his purpose. Moreover, if necessary, he can always [{298}] touch the springs of the will directly, and determine it to any act which he has positively decreed must be performed. He can also modify, restrict, alleviate, set aside, or shorten the risks of probation, according to his own good pleasure, in regard to any or all of men, with an infinite and infallible wisdom.
But it is again argued, that according to this view, God is not the absolute cause of all things, nor the absolute sovereign over all things. The created will has an independent sovereignty of its own, and God is dependent in certain things on his creatures, obliged to modify his plans and to condition his decrees to suit their determinations.
This is not a conclusive argument. It is a maxim of philosophy, that causa causae est causa causati; the cause of a cause is the cause of that which is caused; i.e., caused by this second cause. God is the creator of free-will, and his perpetual influx gives it always the power of choosing and acting. Free-will is not, therefore, an independent, but a delegated and dependent sovereign. God can deprive it of the opportunity of choosing, or frustrate its determinations. It is sovereign within a limited sphere, because God has chosen to create it and give it sovereignty.
If God is absolute sovereign, can he not concede to a creature the power to do his own will within a certain sphere, if it [is] his sovereign pleasure to do so? Can he not determine to do certain things on the condition that the creature uses his free-will in a certain way, if he pleases? He has pleased to do it. He has made his eternal decrees with a full view of all that his creatures would do before him. All the incidental and partial evil resulting from the misuse of free-will in the universe he has foreseen, and determined to permit. He has decided on his great plan, notwithstanding the incidental evil, in view of a greater universal good. Not that sin and evil are necessary means of the greatest good, or directly conduce to a greater good than that which could exist in a universe without sin; but that the concession of the liberty on a grand scale, the particular and incidental misuse of which occasions sin and evil, is the necessary means to that greater good. The greater good itself is the obedience, homage, love, service, and fidelity given to God by a multitude of creatures who have been left free to sin, and who have not sinned, or not sinned irremediably and finally.
We conclude, therefore, pace tantorum virorum who have maintained it, that the theory of the strict Thomists on this point is not conclusively established. To our mind, the theory which is in accordance with the philosophy of the great fathers before St. Thomas, with that of the Scotists in the middle ages, and with that of the most prevalent Catholic schools since the Jansenist controversy, is the more probable one. According to this theory, in a system of strict probation, a physical premotion, or a grace efficacious in se and ab intrinseco is not metaphysically necessary in order that free-will may actually concur with the divine will to secure the permanence of the creature in a supernatural state. Nothing is necessary beyond liberty of choice and the grace which gives power to elicit supernatural acts. When the angels passed through their probation, therefore, we cannot go behind the exercise of their liberty in choosing or rejecting the proffered boon of celestial glory, to seek a deeper cause, determining some to choose and not determining others. They were free to choose; and being free, some shows wisely and well, others foolishly and ill. So, also, with Adam. He might have stood, but he did not. He had the power to choose, and he chose wrongly. By the very same power he might have chosen rightly, without any additional Grace, The arbitrium mentis, the exercise of free self-dominion, is the only reason that [{299}] can be given. This prerogative is indeed mysterious and inscrutable. We do not pretend to have removed all difficulty of comprehending it. But it is incomprehensible to us in our present state of imperfect intelligence, because the soul itself is an inscrutable mystery. Its relation to the divine will and operation is a mystery full of inexplicable difficulties. But it is because of that ground mystery of mysteries, the coexistence of God and the creation, which was the insoluble enigma of all ancient philosophy. The great Aristotle saw the difficulty so clearly which is involved in the relation of a contingent world to the necessary being of God, that, unable to find an ideal formula which could unite the two terms by a dialectic relation, he denied all relation between them. He affirmed the existence of God and of the world. But he affirmed also, that the world exists independently of God, as self-existent, eternal, and necessary. Moreover, that God has or can have no knowledge of the world. For, he argued, God can have no knowledge of the world unless the world is the object or terminus of the divine intelligence. But if the world is the object of the divine intelligence, God is not perfect as intelligence in himself alone, but is conditioned and perfected by that which is inferior to his own being. Thus we see that the objection to the divine foreknowledge of the contingent in its objective verity which is found in scholastic theology, is one derived from Aristotle, and that the extremely subtle and acute reasoning of St. Thomas and the Thomists were directed toward a reconciliation of the Aristotelian philosophy with the Catholic dogmas. The difficulty lies in the creative act of God, which is a mystery not fully comprehensible by human reason, and, therefore, not fully to be explained by any hypothesis or theory of philosophy. The activity of free-will as concurrent, con-creative cause with God approaches the nearest of anything in creation to the creative act of God, and, therefore, is the most mysterious and incomprehensible fact of psychology. It is incomprehensible in itself, and it complicates still further the incomprehensibility of the creative act of God. It is not strange, therefore, that there should have been such a long and still unsettled controversy in the Catholic schools respecting this topic, since the church has hitherto abstained from deciding it. Still less can we wonder that non-Catholic schools, having no fixed dogmas or authoritative formulas of doctrine to check the spirit of private speculation, go round and round continually, involving themselves more hopelessly every day in entanglements from which they can never extricate themselves.
The explanation we have endeavored to set forth as the most probable will, we think, commend itself to the minds of most of our readers as the most intelligible and satisfactory which can be given. If a better one can be furnished by some one more competent to the task, we shall welcome it. Meanwhile, we leave what we have written to find what acceptance it may.
It will be seen at once, by those who are at all versed in these matters, that, according to the theory we have proposed, the predestination of those who attain eternal life as the term of a period of probation is consequent on the foresight of their fidelity and merit, at least as a general rule. It does not follow from this, however, that we reject the doctrine of efficacious grace. As this doctrine is immediately connected with the points we have been examining, we will give it a brief consideration now, in order to avoid returning to it hereafter.
In the Thomist theology, efficacious grace means a grace distinct in its own nature from sufficient grace. Sufficient grace gives the power to elicit a supernatural act, efficacious grace gives the act itself. It is therefore efficacious in se and ab intrinseco. [{300}] This notion of efficacious grace is derived from the philosophical notion of the previous and efficacious concurrence of the will of God with every act of free-will, in the exercise of the faculty of choice. According to this philosophy, it is impossible for this faculty, as it is for every second cause in potentia to its proper act, to pass from potentiality into act without a special movement from the first cause.