Gerhard: grace does not determine the will by physical action
Thesis V. He then tries to show how two claims fit together: that the efficacy of divine grace is not to be credited to the cooperation of the human will, and yet that it is not to be credited either to some physical action of God that determines the will to will and choose the good which stirring grace has inspired in it. He sets out his view as follows.
'In the work of conversion,' he says, 'the Holy Spirit finds a subject with no strength to cooperate, for the mind of one not yet reborn is blind and the will turned away from God and hostile to him. So the Spirit acts with every kind of healing and helping grace, to turn the one he wants to convert from unwilling to willing, from enemy to obedient. This does not happen as though he converted someone who neither thinks nor knows, or even someone unwilling, by forcing him. Rather, the Holy Spirit gives new strength by which the person can assent to the call, yet does not in one instant take away that old liberty, or better, that wretched slavery, by which he can refuse the grace offered.
We must not say, then, that the grace of the Holy Spirit in conversion determines the will by some physical action to will and choose the good. The Holy Spirit allows himself to be resisted, lets his work be hindered, and sees many judge themselves unworthy of conversion and of its fruit, eternal life itself.
After the fall every person has a will, but the will does not have from its own strength the power to will spiritual good, for it is enslaved to sin. In conversion, then, the Holy Spirit renews a person's will and gives it new strength, so equipped that it can actually will and choose the good. Even so, because of the depravity of nature that still clings to him, a person can refuse the good and can obstruct the Spirit's work. So it must not be said that in conversion grace determines the will by some physical action to will and choose the good.' Otherwise, as the same doctor says, all whom the Holy Spirit wants converted would be converted by unchangeable necessity, which he holds to be absurd.
Latin
V. Postea vero ostendere conatur quomodo ista inter se constent, efficaciam gratiae divinae non esse tribuendam cooperationi voluntatis humanae, & tamen ejusdem gratiae efficaciam tribuendam quoque non esse Physicae cuidam Dei actioni, qua determinet voluntatem ad volendum & eligendum bonum, quod illi fuit per gratiam excitantem inspiratum. Sic autem ea de re sententiam suam exponit. In conversionis opere Spiritus Sanctus, inquit, tale invenit subjectum, quod nullas habet ad cooperandum vires, siquidem mens hominis nondum renati est caeca, voluntas aversa ac Deo inimica: hoc igitur omni genere medendi atque auxiliandi gratia agit, ut eum quem convertere vult, ex nolente volentem, ex inimico obedientem faciat: illud vero non fit eo modo, ac si homine nec cogitante, nec cognoscente, vel etiam invito hominem convertat, ipsique vim afferat; sed Spiritus Sanctus donat novas vires, quibus assentiri vocationi possit; nec tamen uno statim momento homini adimit veterem illam libertatem, vel potius miseram servitutem, qua oblatam gratiam repudiare possit. Absit igitur ut dicamus, Spiritus Sancti gratiam in conversione Physica quadam actione determinare voluntatem ad volendum & eligendum bonum. Siquidem patitur Spiritus Sanctus sibi resisti, permittit opus suum impediri, videt multos seipsos conversione, & conversionis fructu, ipsa scilicet vita aeterna indignos judicare. Voluntas igitur in omnibus hominibus est post lapsum: ut autem voluntas velit bonum spirituale, id non habet ex suis viribus, siquidem peccato servit: renovat igitur Spiritus Sanctus in conversione hominis voluntatem, ac donat ei novas vires, quibus instructa bonum actu velle & eligere possit: interim ex adhaerente naturae pravitate potest homo nolle bonum, potest Spiritus Sancti opus impedire: ac proinde neutiquam dicendum, quod in conversione Physica quadam actione gratia determinet voluntatem ad volendum ac eligendum bonum. Quippe hac ratione, ut ait idem Doctor, converterentur omnes immutabili necessitate, quos Spiritus Sanctus converti vult. Quod absurdum ille judicat.