History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French Revolution — Volume 1MacCaffrey, James
Religion
History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French Revolution — Volume 1
MacCaffrey, James
Catholic Church -- History -- Modern period, 1500-
Against this Molina maintained that the human faculties having been
elevated by what might be called prevenient Grace, so as to make them
capable of producing a supernatural act, the act itself is performed
by the will co-operating with the impulse given by God. Man is,
therefore, free, and at the same time dependent upon God in the
performance of every good act. He is free, because the human will may
or may not co-operate with the divine assistance, and he is dependent
upon God, because it is only by being elevated by prevenient Grace
freely given by God that the human will is capable of co-operating in
the production of a supernatural act. It follows, too, that the
efficaciousness of Grace arises not from the Grace itself but from the
free co-operation of the will, and that a Grace in itself truly
sufficient might not be efficacious through the failure of the will to
co-operate with it. The omniscience of God is safeguarded, because,
according to Molina, God sees infallibly man's conduct by means of the
/scientia media/ or knowledge of future conditional events (so called
because it stands midway between the knowledge of possibles and the
knowledge of actuals). That is to say He sees infallibly what man
would do freely in all possible circumstances were he given this or
that particular Grace, and acting upon this knowledge He predestines
the just to glory /post praevisa merita/. The main difficulty urged
against Molina was, that by conceding too much to human liberty he was
but renewing in another form the errors of Pelagius; while the
principal objection brought forward against the Dominicans was, that
by conceding too much to Grace they were destroying human liberty, and
approaching too closely to Calvin's teaching on Predestination.
Needless to say, however much they differed on the points, both the
followers of St. Thomas and the friends of Molina were at one in
repudiating the doctrines of Calvin and Pelagius.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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