GRACE
712
GRACE
their physical premotion an infallible medium by
which God knows in advance with absolute certainty
all the free acts of his creatures, whether they be good
or bad. For as these premotions, as has been shown
above, must in their last analysis be considered the
knell of freedom, they cannot well be considered as the
means by which God obtains a foreknowledge of the
free acts of rational agents. Consequently the claims
and proper place of the scientia media in the system
may be regarded as vindicated.
(2) Augustinianism. — Just as Thomism appeals to the teaching of St. Thomas as its authority, Augustinianism appeals to St. Augustine. Both systems maintain that grace is intrinsically and by its very nature efficacious, but Augustinianism claims merely a prwdeterminatio moralis, and proceeds not from the concept of God as the first and universal cause and prime mover, but with Jansen builds upon the idea of a twofold delight in human nature. The exponents of this system are; Berti, Bellelli, Louis Ha- bert, Bertieri, Brancatus de Lauria, and others. Tlie greatest defender of the system is Laurentius Berti (1696-1766), who in his work "De theologiois dis- ciplinis" (Rome, 1739 — ) propounded the theory with such boldness, that the Archbishop of Vienne, Jean d'Yse de Salmon, in his work entitled " Le Bajanisrae et le Jans^nisme resuscit^s dans les livres de Bellelli et Bertieri" (s. 1., 1745), declares it to be nothing other than a revival of Jansenism. After an official investi- gation, however, Benedict XIV exonerated the system.
The foundation of the system is the same as that of Jansenism, though it claims to be thoroughly Augus- tinian. In Augustinianism also there is a ceaseless conflict between the heavenly delight and the evil de- light of the flesh, and the stronger delight invariably gains the mastery over the will. Sufficient grace, as a weak delight, imparts merely the ability (posse), or such a feeble will that only the advent of the victor- ious delight of grace {delectatio coslestis victrix, caritas) can guarantee the will and the actual deed. There- fore, like Thomism, the system postulates an essential difference between sufficient and efficacious grace. The necessity of gratia eflicax does not spring from the subordinate relation between causa prima and causa secunda, but from the inherited perversity of fallen human nature, whose evil inclinations can no longer, as once in Paradise, be overcome by the converting grace (gratia versatilis; adjutorium sine quo non), but only by the intrinsically efficacious heavenly delight (gratia efjicax; adjutorium quo).
Augustinianism differs, however, from Jansenism in its most distinctive feature, since it regards the influ- ence of the victorious delight as not intrinsically coer- cive, nor irresistible. Though the will follows the rel- atively stronger influence of grace or concupiscence infallibly (injaUibiliter) , it never does so necessarily (necessario) . Although it may be said with infallible certainty that a decent man of good morals will not walk through the public streets in a state of nudity, he nevertheless retains the physical possibility of doing so, since there is no intrinsic compulsion to the main- tenance of decency. Similar to this is the efficacy of grace. We fiiay refrain from a criticism of Augustin- ianism since it never really became a school, and since it has as little in common with true Augustinism, as Jansenism has. (Cf. Schiffini, "De gratia divina", Freiburg, 1901, p. 422 sqq.; also the article Augus- tine, Saint.)
(.'{) Molinism. — The famous work of the Jesuit Molina, "Concordia liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis" (Lisbon, 1588), brought in Spain the learned Domini- can Banez to the valiant defence of Thomism. In 1594 the dispute between the Thomists and the Molin- ists reached a fever heat. Pope Clement VIII in order to settle the dispute convened in Rome a Congregatio de Auxiliis (1598-1607), and to this the Dominicans and the Jesuits sent, at the pope's invitation, their
ablest theologians. After the congregation had been
in session for nine years without reaching a conclusion,
Paul V, at the advice of St. Francis de Sales, per-
mitted both systems, strongly forbidding the Jesuits
to call the Dominicans Calvinists, or the Dominicans
to name the Jesuits Pelagians. The deUberations of
the congregation are fully set out in the article Con-
gregatio DE Auxiliis.
It seems fitting to say a few words here concerning the celebrated Spanish Jesuit, Peter Arrubal, who took a leading part in the controversy between the Domini- cans and the Jesuits (from 22 Feb., 1599, to 20 March, 1600) as well as in the disputations held before Clem- ent VIII (1602-1606). Peter Arrubal was born in 1559 at Cenicero in the Diocese of Calahorra; he died at Salamanca on 22 Sept., 1608. On 21 April, 1579, he entered the Jesuit novitiate at Alcald. Later on he taught theology at Alcald, Rome, and Salamanca. During the disputation on Grace, he distinguished himself by refuting the Apologia of the Dominicans, composed by them against the teaching of Molina. In the public disputations held before the Holy Father, he was the leader of the Jesuits. Successfully and impressively he demonstrated in these disputations that the teaching of Molina was altogether removed from Semipelagianism, and that he (Molina) merely taught the holdings of the Council of Trent and in no wise introduced into the Church any new doctrine. The Holy Father forbade the publica- tion of any work on the disputed question by reason of the intense e.xcitement then prevalent, consequently Arrubal 's great work "De auxiliis gratiae divinse" re- mained unpublished. But two folio commentaries, "In primam partem Summse theol. S. Thomse" (Mad- rid, 1619, 1622; 2nd ed., Cologne, 1630), were pre- Eared by him and published through the agency of P. te Villegas and P. De la Paz, both Jesuits. The fundamental principles of the Molinistic system of grace are the following: efficacious grace and suf- ficient grace, considered in actu prima, are not in naturd and intrinsically different one from the other (as the Thomists hold), but only accidentally so and according to their external success, inasmuch as suffi- cient grace becomes efficacious just as soon as the free will corresponds with it. If the will withholdsits con- sent then sufficient grace remains inefficacious and is termed "merely sufficient grace" (gratia mere sufficiens). Now since one and the same grace may in one instance be efficacious, and in another inefficacious, it follows that the so-called gratia, efjicax must be conceived ac- cording to its essence as efjicax ah extrinsico. In this conception there is no lessening of the dignity and pri- ority of grace. For since the anticipatory grace invests the created will, quite irrespective of its consent in actu prima, supernaturally with moral and physical powers, and since moreover, as a supernatural concursus, it influences the actus secundus or good act and thus becomes efficacious grace, it follows that the good act itself is the joint product of grace and free will, or rather more the work of grace than of free will. For it is not the will which by its free consent determines the power of grace, but conversely it is grace which makes the free good act possible, prepares for it and co-operates in its execution. The infallibility of the success, which is contained in the very idea of effica- cious grace, is not to be explained by the intrinsic nature of this grace, nor by a supernatural prcrmotio physica, but rather by the Theologoumcnon of the scientia media, by virtue of which God foreknows from all eternity whether this particular will would freely co-operate with a certain grace or not. But since God by virtue of His scientia media has at His own disposal all the sufficient and efficacious grace, the infallibility of the successful outcome remains in per- fect accord with the freedom of the will, and further- more the dogma concerning final perseverance and predestination is entirely preserved.
