Molina in his own words: the motions of prevenient grace toward faith
Thesis CII. To show Molina's view more clearly, it will be to the point to set out in his own words the order and pattern of the motions of prevenient grace by which we are called to faith, hope, love and contrition, in which a person's conversion consists. In the disputation already cited he reasons about this as follows.
'While a person not yet inwardly called to faith in a supernatural way thinks over and weighs the things to be believed, through notions acquired by a preacher's ministry or from some other source,' he says, 'God flows into those notions by a particular, supernatural influence. By it he helps that knowledge, so that the matter is weighed better and more clearly and is penetrated, and also so that the knowledge now reaches the level of supernatural knowledge, fitted in its order and degree to a supernatural end.
When the mind weighs and enters into the things that belong to faith, that is, how worthy they are of assent and how much it matters to assent, a motion of affection toward the things so known arises naturally in the will. By it the will is drawn and, so to speak, invited to command the intellect to assent to them. God too, as it were, inserts himself into this motion. He flows into it through a particular aid and with that aid as it were sharpens it, so that it presses and draws more strongly, and he makes it supernatural, so that in its order and degree it is fitted for salvation as well.'
Latin
CII. Sed ut clarius pateat quae sit Molinae sententia, non alienum erit verbis ipsius exponere ordinem & rationem motuum gratiae praevenientis, qua vocamur ad fidem, spem, dilectionem, & contritionem, quibus hominis conversio constat. Sic ergo jam dicta disputatione ea de re philosophatur. Dum homo, inquit, nondum ad fidem supernaturaliter interius vocatus, cogitat & expendit res credendas, per notitias concionatoris ministerio, aut aliunde comparatas, influit Deus in easdem notitias influxu quodam particulari ac supernaturali, quo cognitionem illam adjuvat, tum ut res melius & dilucidius expendatur, & penetretur, tum etiam ut notitia illa jam limites notitiae supernaturalis, & ad finem supernaturalem in suo ordine & gradu accommodatae attingat. Ex cognitione vero & penetratione earum rerum quae ad fidem spectant, nempe quum expenditur quam digne sint quibus assensus adhibeatur, quantumque id expediat, oritur naturaliter in voluntate motus affectionis ad res ita cognitas, quo allicitur, & quasi invitatur, ad imperandum intellectui assensum, quo eis assentiatur. Cum hoc ergo motu quasi se inserit etiam Deus; influens in illum per auxilium particulare, illumque eo auxilio quasi acuit, ut magis urgeat & alliciat, efficitque illum supernaturalem, ut in suo ordine & gradu sit etiam ad salutem accommodatus.