Theological Theses · §2388 · Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu

God makes man act, not the reverse

Thesis LXIX. They therefore say that the whole good is carried out by grace and free choice together, in one undivided work. What comes from free choice is not distinct from what comes from grace, just as what comes from the first cause is not distinct from what comes from the second.

Between the two agents, they teach, the difference is this: as free choice has its being from God, so it has all its good working from God's grace, which works in it and through it; but God, in what he works, does not in turn depend on man's free choice, either wholly or in part. For God causes man to act; man does not cause God to act.

The same holds in every work or action done by any second cause whatever.

So on the view of these doctors divine grace and free choice do not cooperate as partial causes that depend on each other in acting, but as total causes ordered one under the other, the lower depending on the higher and moved by it, not the reverse. This may be seen at more length in the same Estius on book 2 of the Sentences, distinction 26, paragraph 29.

Latin

LXIX. Dicunt igitur totum bonum simul & individuo opere peragi a gratia & libero arbitrio: nec esse distinctum quod est ex libero arbitrio, & quod est ex gratia; quia non est distinctum quod est ex causa prima, & quod est ex causa secunda. Sed inter utrumque agens docent illud esse discrimen, quod liberum arbitrium, sicut suum esse habet a Deo, ita & totum hoc quod bene operatur habet a gratia Dei, in ipso, & per ipsum operantis: non autem contra, vel in totum, vel ex parte, Deus in eo quod operatur, dependet a libero hominis arbitrio. Facit enim Deus ut homo faciat, non autem facit homo ut Deus faciat. Quae eadem ratio est in omni opere, seu actione, quae fit a quacunque causa secunda. Adeoque juxta hos Doctores, gratia divina, & liberum arbitrium non cooperantur ut causae partiales, quae in agendo pendeant ab invicem, sed ut causae totales atque subordinatae, quarum inferior pendet & movetur a superiore, non contra. Ut latius videre est apud eundem Estium in 2. sentent. distinct. 26. paragr. 29.

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