Bellarmine and Peter of Saint Joseph against efficacy from cooperation
Thesis CXXIV. This is Bellarmine's express doctrine in book 1 of On Grace and Free Choice, chapter 12. He first reports the view of those who place efficacious grace in human assent and cooperation, so that grace is called efficacious from its outcome because the human will cooperates, and who think it lies in a person's power to make grace efficacious when of itself it would be only sufficient. Then he adds: 'This opinion is wholly foreign to the teaching of blessed Augustine and, as I judge, to the teaching of the divine Scriptures as well.'
Peter of Saint Joseph likewise lays down this assertion: 'The efficacy of grace does not consist in the cooperation of the will' (On divine grace, disputation 7, section 9, number 61). He proves it on the ground that grace is not efficacious because the will acts; on the contrary, the will acts because grace is efficacious. The efficacy of grace therefore cannot formally be taken from the will's cooperation, since that efficacy is the cause of the cooperation and comes before it (Idea of speculative theology, book 4, chapter 7, on the seventh resolution).
Latin
CXXIV. Haec est expressa Bellarmini Doctrina libro primo de Gratia & Libero Arbitrio cap. 12. ubi postquam retulit opinionem eorum, qui gratiam efficacem constituunt in assensu & cooperatione humana, ita ut ab eventu dicatur gratia efficax, quia voluntas humana cooperatur; quique existimant in potestate hominis esse, ut gratiam faciat esse efficacem, quae alioquin ex se non esset nisi sufficiens: subjungit, Haec opinio aliena est omnino a sententia Beati Augustini, & quantum ego existimo a sententiis etiam scripturarum divinarum. Et similiter Petrus a Sancto Joseph hanc ponit assertionem, Efficacia gratiae non consistit in cooperatione voluntatis. De gratia Divina disputat. 7. Sectione 9. num. 61. Efficaciam autem gratiae non consistere in illa voluntatis cooperatione probat, quia non ideo gratia est efficax, quia voluntas operatur; quin potius ideo voluntas operatur, quia gratia est efficax. Ac proinde efficacia gratiae non potest formaliter sumi a cooperatione voluntatis, cum sit causa illius, eamque praecedat. In Idea Theol. specul. l. 4. cap. 7. ad 7. Resolutionem.