tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4213316015209503694.post8450955410661354698..comments2024-01-22T01:52:37.473-06:00Comments on RENEGADE TRADS: Grace and Free Will: A Thomist Double-Standard?A Sinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05083094677310915678noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4213316015209503694.post-55443357815113332362011-11-16T21:14:38.379-06:002011-11-16T21:14:38.379-06:00"I think we have to be extremely careful ther..."I think we have to be extremely careful there. The human will can't make grace efficacious"<br /><br />No it can't. But I think that's the genius of Fr. Most switching from an "if" to an "unless" formulation. Human will can't make grace efficacious. All Good must come from God. But what about the other way around: is Human Will may be able to "make" grace NOT efficacious?<br /><br />"There's a common misconception out there that views grace as this thing which God sort of dangles in front of a person, and he waits to see if he or she accepts. But this can't be the case because the very act of cooperating with grace itself requires grace."<br /><br />Right. But, at the same time, if what we're really talking about is rejection and non-rejection of a default, rather than cooperation and non-cooperation (ie, an "unless" rather than an "if" formulation) then the latter is not a positive act, it's a metaphysical zero.<br /><br />"we can all rest assured in sinning knowing that we can have sufficient help to return to God at any time. When point of fact is that we have no such guarantee."<br /><br />I disagree. We CAN rest assured that we always have sufficient grace to return to God at any time. The lack of a guarantee comes from ME and MY sinfulness.<br /><br />I can trust God. But I can't trust MYSELF. The fear that should frighten us is not that we will become such terrible sinners that God's (even "ordinary") grace no longer is sufficient for us, but rather that we will become such terrible sinners that I MYSELF will never stop sinning, will never, in fact, not choose sin for even a moment of non-resistance before my death.A Sinnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05083094677310915678noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4213316015209503694.post-70366395729522209302011-11-16T07:24:19.051-06:002011-11-16T07:24:19.051-06:00"...it is the human will (which He foresees) ..."<i>...it is the human will (which He foresees) which makes it efficacious or sufficient.</i>"<br /><br />I think we have to be extremely careful there. The human will can't make grace efficacious (and all schools of thought -- whether it be Thomism, Molinism, or Fr. William Most's-- are in agreement here. To say otherwise would be semi-palegianism). There's a common misconception out there that views grace as this thing which God sort of dangles in front of a person, and he waits to see if he or she accepts. But this can't be the case because the very act of cooperating with grace itself requires grace. This, however, can't go on ad infinitum (i.e, if God gives you a grace, then you need another grace to accept that grace, but you need another grace to accept that grace too - and so on). Hence the classical problem of grace and free will arises and the different theories.<br /><br />As you know, Thomism proposes an inherent distinction between sufficient grace and efficacious grace. But this raises the problem you brought up: if sufficient grace needs an additional different type of grace to make it efficacious, how can it be said to be truly sufficient? Thomists have proposed various answers to this of course. But suffice it to say they believe that if one doesn't resist, God will not refuse the efficacious graces needed for one to be saved.<br /><br />Otoh, I think Fr. Most's idea of how grace works with free will a great insight as well. I'm only half way through his 700+ page book, (you can read online through that link I gave), but so far, from what I've read, he takes pains to make clear that his view does not mean that grace is made efficacious by free will. Rather it's man doing nothing ("metaphysically zero", his words) in the beginning, and if that "nothing" or that "absence of resistance" is there, then grace will proceed to move the will to make an act of cooperation with grace. The problem with this, as I see it, is that it can't explain why God gives greater graces to others (like hardened sinners on their death bed). You, in your last response, dismissed Fr. Most's explanation in that quote I gave, but still - I think it's common sense that hardened sinners need extraordinary (i.e., out of the ordinary) graces to change their ways. Otherwise, we can all rest assured in sinning knowing that we can have sufficient help to return to God at any time. When point of fact is that we have no such guarantee. <br /><br />Molinism is far more complex imo and I'm not too familiar with it to be quite honest. But even here, I think they hold that God chooses the circumstances or different world scenarios (through his "middle knowledge" as they call it) where he foresees the elect will infallibly respond with the graces he gives given the circumstances they're in. So even here, God is the one who ultimately decides who will be saved or who he will pass over, only he does it through deciding the circumstances favorable for the elect, and not through intrinsically efficacious graces. This, however, arises a whole host of problems considering how God is pure act and the first cause of all our actions (i.e., all schools agree that God being pure act, he is not the recipient of knowledge but the cause of things known. He is the first cause of all our actions in the here and now as well, so that he doesn't merely observe our actions - he in fact truly causes them to be the way they are at any given moment, even the actions we make freely! How to reconcile this with the concept of middle knowledge is where the Molinists get into trouble...). <br /><br />Anyways, it's a very thorny issue, isn't it? And thinking about these things for long certainly makes my head hurt lol so I'll let this topic alone for now.Romannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4213316015209503694.post-24189986739808089502011-11-15T11:02:41.262-06:002011-11-15T11:02:41.262-06:00Hm, then I disagree with him a bit here, though I ...Hm, then I disagree with him a bit here, though I think the position he takes in this case is mainly to appease strict Thomists regarding their notion of infrustratably efficacious grace.<br /><br />Forget a distinction between ordinary and extraordinary graces. I think "sufficient" grace means just what it says: sufficient. In ALL cases. Sufficient for salvation. Sufficient for even the hardened sinner enslaved by vice. Everyone is given sufficient grace up until the last moment, that is the ordinary way of things. <br /><br />If a hardened sinner does not resist at last (his will is still ultimately free, after all, even in the face of habit) sufficient grace will be just that: sufficient. It is sufficient to have him overcome the force of that vice/habit. If it weren't, if it required something extra, something "extraordinary"...it wouldn't be truly sufficient.<br /><br />Clearly in the final consideration God's final act of the Will must involve His foreknowledge that His conditional Will will either be resisted or non-resisted. Thus the grace will, in actuality, be either infallibly efficacious or not.<br /><br />But that infallibility may involve foreknowledge of the human response. No where is there a dogma that says efficacious grace must be efficacious (unconditionally) prior to any consideration of how a soul responds to (conditional) sufficient grace. In fact, the dogma on the matters says, "The Human Will remains free under the influence of efficacious grace, which is not irresistible. (De fide.)"<br /><br />Maybe I'm starting to sound a bit too Molinist this time, lol, but I think efficacious grace being infallible doesn't mean it has to be independent of consideration of human freedom. I think really efficacious and sufficient grace are the "same thing" on God's end, and it is the human will (which He foresees) which makes it efficacious or sufficient.<br /><br />God's will in either case, formulated conditionally, is something like "I will a good act into existence, UNLESS sheer human freedom rejects the opportunity I give"...and that "unless" clause, as it were, is "activated" (in terms of formulating God's will in the final absolute and unconditional manner) by His foresight of that condition (of spontaneous sin on the part of human freedom) even in the face of the sufficient (ie, conditional) grace.<br /><br />I think that was Fr. Most's great insight. Previously, theologians seem to have conceived of conditionality on God's part hinging on an "if" regarding human free will (thus requiring an "unexplained" good act on the part of the human agent, a metaphysical impossibility, hence the attempts to appeal to either arbitrary grace or scientia media). Fr. Most was brilliant to recognize that grace doesn't hinge on an "if" but rather on an "unless"A Sinnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05083094677310915678noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4213316015209503694.post-34446127658956014212011-11-15T10:46:40.683-06:002011-11-15T10:46:40.683-06:00"I'm not sure why the example of a sinner..."I'm not sure why the example of a sinner on his deathbed requires something extraordinary anymore than in any other situation..."<br /><br />A man who sins all his life has acquired a habit (vice). It would be harder for him to convert than, say, another sinner who hasn't acquired such a habit, and therefore needs special graces to overcome his resistance.<br /><br />Fr. Most puts it this way,<br /><br />"a) Physical incurability: A man becomes physically incurable, i.e., such that he cannot be healed by ordinary graces, if, by repeated sins he makes himself so hardened and blinded that he can no longer perceive ordinary graces, and so that by the very force of bad habit, even without deliberation, he resists ordinary graces. It is obvious that such a man cannot be converted by ordinary graces: an extraordinary grace will be required, so as to forestall or overcome all human resistance.21 Now even the most vehement salvific will does not mean that God will regularly grant extraordinary graces: the extraordinary cannot become ordinary<br /><br />...<br /><br />3) God can also use an infrustrable grace to bring about perseverance. "<br /><br />From Part 1, Chapter 8 of his book, Grace, Predestination and the Salvific Will of God: New Answers to Old Questions (http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/most/getchap.cfm?WorkNum=214&ChapNum=12)Posternoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4213316015209503694.post-53019239199576091362011-11-14T12:48:52.724-06:002011-11-14T12:48:52.724-06:00I'm not sure why the example of a sinner on hi...I'm not sure why the example of a sinner on his deathbed requires something extraordinary anymore than in any other situation; if he at last does not resist, then the default of that grace which was constantly being rejected previously (but now, at last, is not-rejected, a metaphysical zero requiring no further explanation than the grace itself)...will simply "move forward."<br /><br />Yes, it is a mystery in that I am getting the sense that really God's will and our will are "two sides of the same coin" in the chicken-and-the-egg fashion I hint at in the post. And that neither cause can ultimately be attributed as prior.<br /><br />That Freedom (on God's part and ours) is in some ways "circular" such that we can only attribute people not having grace to their sin and only attribute their sin to not having grace in a sort of mysterious irreducible causative circle, such that whether to put the causation ultimately on God or on Man is to be asking the wrong question, or a question by nature unanswerable.<br /><br />Another way to phrase the causative loop might be something like "grace was infallibly efficacious IF it secures a good act, an act is good IF it is caused by efficacious grace" without being able to give precedent to one or the other order of causation, like somehow they are "simultaneous" and yet perfectly "synchronized" in the order of the cosmos.<br /><br />I have a sense this sort of direction might lead to some insight (I referenced the Eckhart quote about "the eye with which I see God, is the eye with which God sees me") regarding the ultimate relationship of our intellect and free will "in the image of God" and God's own intellect and free will.<br /><br />I'd also think it could open up some insight into the relationship (and inequality) between being and non-being, and how (not being dualists) the latter is in some ways not really the "opposite" of the former.A Sinnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05083094677310915678noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4213316015209503694.post-18128281782443925712011-11-14T02:33:34.938-06:002011-11-14T02:33:34.938-06:00I personally like Fr. Most's idea of non-resis...I personally like Fr. Most's idea of non-resistence being an "ontological zero" - so that if that "non-resistence" is somehow "there", sufficient grace moves forward to elicit and secure a positive act (such as, for instance, a positive resolve not to sin). <br /><br />But, I think we have to keep in mind that there is an element of mystery here that no theological school of thought can solve -- not even Fr. Most's. <br /><br />Fr. Most himself concedes that there are *some times* when God does use intrinsically efficacious graces, in the Thomistic sense (the kind of grace that intrinsically will infallibly over-come all resistance, while leaving the recipient truly free). Such is the case with, for example, cases where some great sinner is converted on their death bed. Fr. Most reasons that this is extraordinary and not often used in the course of providence (for the extraordinary cannot, by definition, become ordinary). Hence the element of mystery: "why exactly *this* sinner and not *that* one?" Fr. Most himself admits that we can't explain this. It's ultimately left up to the gratuitous will of God in the end.Romannoreply@blogger.com