There is something incongruous in the notion that the efficacy or inefficacy of divine grace should depend on the arbitrary pleasure of a created will. If sufficient grace does not become efficacious except by the consent of the will, how can the resultant salutary act be said to be an effect of grace? St. Paul, St. Augustine, and the councils of the Church do not say: “_Deus facit, si volumus_,” but they declare: “_Deus facit, ut faciamus_,” “_Deus ipse dat ipsum velle et facere et perficere_,” and so forth. What can this mean if not: Divine grace need not concern itself with external circumstances, occasions, humors, etc., but it takes hold of the sinner and actually converts him, without regard to anything except the decree of the Divine Will. On account of this and similar difficulties Cardinal Bellarmine, who was a champion and protector of P. Molina, seems to have rejected Molinism(765) in favor of Congruism.(766) c) The same reasons that induced Bellarmine to embrace Congruism probably led the Jesuit General Claudius Aquaviva, in 1613, to order all teachers of theology in the Society to lay greater emphasis on the Congruistic element in the notion of efficacious grace. This measure was quite in harmony with the principles defended by the Jesuit members of the _Congregatio de Auxiliis_ before Clement VIII and Paul V. Aquaviva’s order is of sufficient importance to deserve a place in the text of this volume: “_Nostri in posterum omnino doceant, inter eam gratiam quae effectum re ipsâ habet atque efficax dicitur, et eam quam sufficientem nominant, non tantum discrimen esse in actu secundo, quia ex usu liberi arbitrii etiam cooperantem gratiam habentis effectum sortiatur, altera non item; sed in ipso actu primo, quod positâ scientiâ conditionalium [scientiâ mediâ] ex efficaci Dei proposito atque intentione efficiendi certissime in nobis boni, de industria ipse ea media seligit atque eo modo et tempore confert, quo videt effectum, infallibiliter habitura, aliis usurus, si haec inefficacia praevidisset. Quare semper moraliter et in ratione beneficii plus aliquid in efficaci, quam in sufficienti gratia est, in actu primo contineri: atque hac ratione efficere Deum, ut re ipsâ faciamus, non tantum quia dat gratiam quâ facere possimus. Quod idem dicendum est de perseverantia, quae procul dubio donum est._” This modified, or perhaps we had better say, more sharply determined form of Molinism is called Congruism.(767) 2. CONGRUISM.—The system thus recommended by Aquaviva in its fundamental principles really originated with Molina himself. It was developed by the great Jesuit theologians Suarez, Vasquez, and Lessius, and became the official system of the Society of Jesus under Muzio Vitelleschi (d. 1645) and Piccolomini (d. 1651).