The Extrinsic Model of Universal Divine Causality: Divine Providence and Grace

I hope you are now persuaded that the dual sources account of universal divine causality, when articulated within the extrinsic model, represents a plausible construal of the relationship between divine and human agency. And as we have seen, it appears to fulfill the criteria of libertarian freedom. To refresh our memories, the extrinsic model is grounded upon classical theism. It arguably expresses the views of the Angelic Doctor, though there are others who would disagree, particularly those steeped in the thought of Domingo Báñez and Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, who advance a Thomistic position that grounds human agency upon ontologically prior divine premotion.¹ The Banezian model is described by its critics as deterministic, which the Banezians dispute. The extrinsic model, on the other hand, grounds the free will of human beings in the cause-and-effect relation that lies on the border between Creator and creature. God’s causal actions are not metaphysically prior to our rational choosing and acting. We and God are simultaneous causes of our actions, thereby avoiding determinism. We retain the freedom to do otherwise. To quote W. Matthews Grant:

Given EM [extrinsic model] and DUC [divine universal causality], it is not possible for God’s act of causing A to exist without A nor for A to exist without God’s act of causing A. Thus, the co-operation of God and the creaturely agent whose act A is, is necessary in order for either God or the creaturely agent to operate. The co-operation between God and the creaturely agent is one on which neither God’s act nor the creature’s act can be prior to the other. God’s act of causing A cannot be prior to A for reasons already discussed. A cannot be prior to God’s act of causing A, since God must already be causing A in order for A to exist. Since both God’s act and the creature’s act are necessary for the existence of the other, yet neither act is prior to the other, we can say that God’s act and the creature’s act are simultaneous (or concurrent) necessary conditions for each other.²

How can we judge whether one nonoccurrence, such as God’s not causing A, is prior to another nonoccurrence, such as S’s not performing A? At least the following principle seems right: The nonoccurrence (or nonexistence) of x is not explanatorily or causally prior to the nonoccurrence (or nonexistence) of y, if the occurrence (or existence) of x presupposes the occurrence (or existence) of y. . . . Since, then, God’s act of causing A presupposes S’s performing A, God’s not causing A cannot explain S’s not performing A. But, then, God’s not causing A is not explanatorily or causally prior to S’s not performing A. And so God’s not causing A exists too late to make it such that S could not have performed A in a case where S refrains. . . .

Given DUC and EM, God’s causing A and S’s performing A are simultaneous necessary conditions for each other. There is no world in which S performs A without God’s causing A and no world in which God causes A without S’s performing it. What we have seen, however, is that from God’s not causing A, it doesn’t follow that S could not have performed A, only that S doesn’t. In the same way, from S’s not performing A, it doesn’t follow that God could not have caused A, only that God doesn’t. Given DUC and EM, both God and S retain the ability to do otherwise all antecedent conditions remaining the same.³

The reasoning seems counterintuitive, I know; but it gains plausibility given the asymmetrical relationship between Creator and cosmos. The divine action that brings about a created action does not modify the divine essence, nor does it determine the created action; it inheres in the cause-and-effect relation. We might even say that is simply is the relation. “Creation is really nothing,” comments Thomas, “but a certain relation to God” (TP 3.3). The relata are not prior to the relatio. God’s causing me to dine at the very fine restaurant Alexander’s is not logically prior to my rational and voluntary decision to dine at Alexander’s; it just is my deciding to dine there. I might just as easily have chosen instead to have dinner at Lucky’s. If I had, God would have brought about that excellent dining experience, too.

Yet questions remain. In this penultimate article, I will summarize Grant’s reflections on two topics: providence and grace.

Divine Providence

Grant’s discussion of divine providence is fairly brief, as is he principally concerned to raise objections to the model many libertarian philosophers within the classical theism school prefer—Molinism. I will skip over his critique of Molinism and restrict myself to his discussion of providence within the extrinsic model. The extrinsic model, Matthews asserts, expresses a robust understanding of divine providence. All events lie within the omnipotent hands of the Creator. God is infallibly directing the world to the fulfillment of his plans, both historical and eschatological. Nor should we think, Grant reiterates, that his providence compromises the libertarian freedom of human agency:

Given DUC, free creaturely acts, like all other entities distinct from God, are in God’s hands, immediately caused by him for some purpose, whether known or unknown to us. Yet . . . this does not conflict with libertarian creaturely freedom. For, God’s causing our acts does not introduce any factor that determines them. Moreover, even though God has control over whether my act occurs since it cannot exist without his causing it, and since he freely causes it when he could have done otherwise, nevertheless, God’s control does not take away my own control over my act. For I perform my act voluntarily and intentionally when it was within my power voluntarily and intentionally to have done otherwise all antecedent conditions remaining the same. I even have control over God’s act of causing my act, since had I done otherwise than perform my act, God’s act, which simply consists in my act qua dependent on God, would not have occurred. We can thus accommodate the Open Theist’s desire to give us a role in shaping the future. But precisely because our free acts have dual sources—God and us—our role does not require that God step aside or entail that whatever part of the future we shape God doesn’t. The common assumption that our acts cannot be ultimately up to us if they are ultimately up to God is mistaken.⁴

God works providentially in and through the free actions of human beings. “But since the very act of free will is traced to God as to a cause,” declares Thomas, “it necessarily follows that everything happening from the exercise of free will must be subject to divine providence. For human providence is included under the providence of God, as a particular under a universal cause” (ST 22.2).

Divine Grace

Over the course of two millennia, Latin theology developed a distinction between sufficient grace and efficacious grace. Sufficient grace provides the the sinner the potency and ability to consent to God’s offer of salvation and live a holy life in the Spirit, but does not necessitate the performance. If the person withholds consent and cooperation, sufficient grace proves inefficacious; in other words, sufficient grace is resistible. Efficacious grace, on the other hand, effectively and infallibly produces the operation and action it intends, including the sinner’s free consent; in other words, it is irresistible. Now this is where matters get fun. All grace is resistible according to Catholic theology. To call grace irresistible would imply that human beings no longer possess the faculty of free will. This is why the Council of Trent condemned the proposition that the will “cannot refuse its assent [to efficacious grace] if it wishes.”⁵ And so we end up with resistible efficacious grace that infallibly effects its intended goal. This in turn led to a dispute between Dominicans and Jesuits on the sufficient–efficacious grace distinction during the De Auxiliis controversy.⁶

As Grant observes, a robust version of efficacious grace has also long been taught in the Latin theological tradition, beginning with St Augustine of Hippo and philosophically reformulated by Thomas: our faith and good works are themselves the gift of grace. Augustine’s thesis is based upon his reading of Holy Scripture and was powerfully advanced to refute the teachings of the Pelagians. Human beings are saved by grace alone.⁷ Even our merits, by which we are ultimately judged worthy of the Kingdom, are the fruit of grace. “Eternal life is both a grace and a reward for good works,” states Grant. “And it can be both because our merits are God’s gifts, so that when God awards eternal life ‘it is His own gifts that God is crowning’ [Augustine].”⁸ The Augustinian thesis requires the notion of efficacious grace. By grace God infallibly brings about the dispositions and actions he wills, without violating personal autonomy. Many scholars, including Denys Turner, believe that efficacious grace is clearly taught by Thomas:

“Now I call you friends,” says Jesus, and it is from this offer of friendship that the whole doctrine of grace evolves, as also the complexity and precision with which Thomas interlaces the elements of irresistibility on the side of grace and freedom of choice on the side of the human. At one point Thomas says that grace does its work “infallibly” but not “coercively,” and he seems to mean that the work of grace cannot fail, because grace does all the work and its efficacy depends on only such conditions obtaining as it effects for itself: for “no pre-condition of God’s infusing the soul with grace is required other than such as God himself brings about.” While it is true, then, that the grace, whether of justification or of sanctification, cannot do its work without the free consent of the human will, that free consent is itself the work of grace. Therefore, because there are no conditions not of grace’s making to impede its work, the action of grace is “infallible.” And yet because the free consent of the human will is precisely what grace does bring about, its action is not “coercive.”⁹

Grant then proceeds to distinguish between antecedent, concurrent, and consequent grace based upon the three forms of divine action that characterize the extrinsic model. Each form of grace can refer equally to the gift bestowed by God and to the act of giving:

• Antecedent, or prevenient, grace precedes human action, enabling or inclining the person to perform a good or meritorious act. Postlapsarian human beings cannot come to faith, repentance, and subsequent good works without such antecedent grace.
• Consequent grace is given in response to a meritorious act. It is grace because the meritorious acts are themselves God’s gifts. Examples of consequent grace are God’s giving grace in response to our petitions and God’s rewarding eternal life for good works.
• Concurrent grace is a meritorious act given by God in an instance of concurrent divine action. The meritorious act is a grace, a gift—since it is a favor freely bestowed by God when God directly causes the act. But it is also an act that we perform, satisfying the conditions of libertarian freedom.

While Grant’s threefold classification of grace overlaps with traditional Catholic classifications, it also differs from them, as it seeks to bring the different kinds of grace into conformity with the extrinsic model of divine causality.¹⁰

Grant notes an immediate problem with reconciling libertarian freedom with antecedent grace and consequent grace, if conceived in terms of Augustine’s robust sola gratia:

Now, just as prevailing opinion rejects or overlooks the possibility of concurrent divine action, so also does it reject or overlook the possibility of concurrent grace. But that makes it very difficult to see how libertarian freedom could be reconciled with the claim that our merits are through and through God’s gifts. For, clearly, we can’t explain how our merits are God’s gifts by appeal to consequent grace: consequent grace is a response to those merits. But neither does it seem possible to reconcile libertarian freedom with the claim that our merits are God’s gifts by appealing only to antecedent grace. For, either the antecedent grace is logically sufficient for the good act or it isn’t. If it is, then this grace constitutes a prior and logically sufficient condition for the act, which is to say it determines the act, contrary to libertarian freedom. If, on the other hand, this antecedent grace is not logically sufficient for the good act, but merely enables, or inclines us toward, the good act, then it is hard to see how the good act is fully and unequivocally something God has given. Strictly speaking, what God would have given is grace enabling the good act, or inclining us toward the good act, but not the good act itself. It would be consistent with what God gave that we not perform the good act. Whether we perform it, in the context of what God gave (and given that God does not cause the act itself), would be up to us and us alone. But this would make the good act a value we add over and above what God gives, something of credit to us that was not received from God. . . . Hence, the creature deserves credit for something over and above what God has given; the creature has merit that is not God’s gift.¹¹

Now this is not a problem for the Banezian model of grace, in which antecedent grace is immediately followed by operative grace when God so chooses, nor is it a problem for Orthodox and Arminian construals, in which all grace is cooperative, synergistic, and resistible. But it does pose a problem for an extrinsic model that seeks to remain faithful to Latin orthodoxy. Grant acknowledges that if antecedent grace is resistible, then the subsequent good works cannot be due to God’s gracious gifting:

The antecedent grace given by God will not by itself be sufficient for the good act. On the contrary, it will be up to the creature alone whether or not the antecedent grace God has given results in the creature’s performing the good act. But, then, the creature’s performance of the good act is something over and above what God has given, and the creature deserves credit for something beyond what she has received.¹²

In other words, we end up with grace plus works. The problem remains if consent to grace is replaced by indifference, that is, by a passive response to grace that does not put up any obstacles to its reception. Grant now offers the dual sources solution:

Dual Sources eliminates these problems that emerge from trying to reconcile libertarian freedom with the claim that our merits are God’s gifts by appeal to antecedent grace alone. On Dual Sources, in addition to the antecedent grace that enables or inclines the creature toward the good act, there is also concurrent grace: the giving of the good act itself, caused by God in an act that is simultaneous with the good creaturely act and that is therefore consistent with that act’s being free in the libertarian sense for reasons already explained. Though free in the libertarian sense, the good act performed by the creature is, in its entirety, given by God. There is no good introduced by, and creditable to, the creature alone. If God gives the exact same antecedent grace in two identical scenarios, and if the creature performs the good act in one scenario but not in the other, God will have given something in the one that he did not give in the other—the good act itself. We can thus boast of no good that has not been given from on high. Any merit we enjoy is, without remainder, God’s gift.¹³

This is a difficult passage to parse. Grant stipulates that antecedent grace is resistible. It it weren’t, God would be determining the sinner’s consent. If the sinner rejects the initial offer of salvation, well and good—the Tridentine teaching on sufficient grace is satisfied. If the sinner consents to the offer and performs the required good work (faith, repentance, works of mercy, etc.), then God has, by way of concurrent grace, caused the act in the same double agency mode by which he causes all human action. In this way both the freeness of grace and the libertarian freedom of the agent are preserved.

I am confused, however, how we are to understand the relation between antecedent and concurrent grace. Does the bestowal of concurrent grace follow sequentially upon the acceptance of antecedent grace? That was my initial thought. The question we have to answer is “To whom is antecedent grace given?” The ecumenical answer is everyone. God offers the salvation of Christ to all, and to all he gives sufficient grace to embrace his gift. But our historical experience, as well as the standard teaching of the Churches, instructs us that only some receive Christ and many others do not. And so we are forced to conclude, if we are faithful to the Augustinian sola gratia, that to the former God has given antecedent grace plus concurrent grace (grace within grace?), while to the latter he has given only sufficient grace.

Grant is even happy to say that concurrent grace is efficacious and irresistible. “For, concurrent grace,” he explains, “refers either to the good act itself that God causes by a concurrent divine action or to God’s concurrent act of causing the good act.”¹⁴ In both cases (are they different?) concurrent grace serves as a logically sufficient explanation that respects libertarian autonomy and avoids determinism:

The irresistibility of concurrent grace is consistent with libertarian freedom because . . . given EM, God’s act of causing the good act simply consists in the good act qua dependent on God, and thus God’s act is not prior to the good act. Accordingly, God’s act neither determines the good act nor takes away the creature’s ability to do otherwise all prior conditions remaining the same. To be sure, it is not possible that God cause the good act and the creature not perform that act. But whether or not God causes the good act—whether he gives concurrent grace—is not entirely outside the creature’s control. For, the creature could have done otherwise in those very same antecedent conditions, and had the creature done otherwise, God’s act of concurrent grace would not have occurred. By the same token, . . . since the creature’s act is not prior to God’s act, in a case where the creature does not perform the good act, it does not follow that God could not have caused the creature’s performing it, all prior conditions remaining the same. . . . To sum up, given Dual Sources, antecedent grace, which enables or inclines the creature to the good act, is prior to that act without being logically sufficient; and concurrent grace, in which God causes the good act, is logically sufficient to the good act (and, so, irresistible) without being prior. Thus, neither type of grace determines the creaturely act or removes the creature’s ability to do otherwise. And, yet, nothing the creature does (or doesn’t do) limits God’s ability freely to bestow these graces.¹⁵

Would Grant’s proposal satisfy Augustine? Perhaps . . . once we explained to him God’s universal salvific intent as now authoritatively taught by the Catholic Church . . . but probably not. My impression is that Augustine did not distinguish between sufficient grace and operative grace. Grace is God’s love and mercy bringing  forgiveness and new life to those who cannot deliver themselves from their bondage to sin. The dead cannot raise themselves. God must give a good will through the bestowal of the Spirit. This is the only solution that effectively refutes Pelagianism. On the other hand, he does appear to know of a grace that is only sufficient, as it is possible to be brought into the life of grace yet fail to persevere in faith.

Would Grant’s proposal satisfy Thomas? Possibly but probably not. Thomas appears to have accepted the premise that God antecedently desires the salvation of all, and he seems to have also believed that prevenient grace is offered to every human being but many do not receive it in faith and repentance—hence sufficient grace:

In fact, as far as He is concerned, God is ready to give grace to all; “indeed He wills all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth,” as is said in 1 Timothy (2:4). But those alone are deprived of grace who offer an obstacle within themselves to grace; just as, while the sun is shining on the world, the man who keeps his eyes closed is held responsible for his fault, if as a result some evil follows, even though he could not see unless he were provided in advance with light from the sun. (SCG 3.159.2)

Moreover, as we saw above, Turner interprets Aquinas as teaching that God can infallibly move the sinner to repentance, faith, and good works—hence efficacious grace. I turn now to Tobias Hoffman and Taylor Patrick O’Neill for additional scholarly support. Both agree with Turner’s reading of Thomas and note that Thomas did not believe that the sinner can prepare himself to receive grace except by grace:

Again, an instrumental agent is not disposed to he brought to perfection by the principal agent, unless it acts by the power of the principal agent. Thus, the heat of fire no more prepares matter for the form of flesh than for any other form, except in so far as the heat acts through the power of the soul. But our soul acts under God, as an instrumental agent under a principal agent. So, the soul cannot prepare itself to receive the influence of divine help except in so far as it acts from divine power. Therefore, it is preceded by divine help toward good action, rather than preceding the divine help and meriting it, as it were, or preparing itself for it. (SCG 3.149.2)

If the reception of grace requires preparation, and if the preparation requires the unilateral infusion of new dispositions and inclinations before consent, then do we not have here an efficacious gift given before consent, a grace that enables consent? It’s not as if God first asks for permission. According to Hoffman, Aquinas maintains that operative grace is necessary to render human beings capable of cooperating with God:

Grace never operates without or even against our free will, but it does not always produce its effect in cooperation with our will. When God’s grace moves our mind, that is, our intellect and will, to produce its effect without our collaboration, it is called operative grace; when it does so with our cooperation, it is called cooperative grace. . . . By operative actual grace, God causes our justification by efficient causality, moving us to will the good—especially after willing evil—and to have an act of faith, by which we believe that God brings about our justification through Christ. Once our will is thus fixed on the good end, we can collaborate with cooperative actual grace to do good deeds in view of this end, and thereby we can accomplish God’s precepts and counsels. God does not justify us without us, because we consent to our justification, but this consent is itself an effect of grace, and if God so wants, it comes about infallibly, albeit without coercion.¹⁶

The sinner must first be moved to desire the new freedom of sanctifying grace. And recall from our previous article, Thomas would not have regarded this interior moving as an act of coercion or violence; he would have regarded it as an expression of love and a merciful redirection of the fallen will to its proper end. Thomas elaborates in his Summa Theologiae:

The preparation of the human will for good is twofold: the first, whereby it is prepared to operate rightly and to enjoy God; and this preparation of the will cannot take place without the habitual gift of grace, which is the principle of meritorious works, as stated above (Article 5). There is a second way in which the human will may be taken to be prepared for the gift of habitual grace itself. Now in order that man prepare himself to receive this gift, it is not necessary to presuppose any further habitual gift in the soul, otherwise we should go on to infinity. But we must presuppose a gratuitous gift of God, Who moves the soul inwardly or inspires the good wish. For in these two ways do we need the Divine assistance, as stated above (Articles 2 and 3). Now that we need the help of God to move us, is manifest. For since every agent acts for an end, every cause must direct is effect to its end, and hence since the order of ends is according to the order of agents or movers, man must be directed to the last end by the motion of the first mover, and to the proximate end by the motion of any of the subordinate movers; as the spirit of the soldier is bent towards seeking the victory by the motion of the leader of the army—and towards following the standard of a regiment by the motion of the standard-bearer. And thus since God is the First Mover, simply, it is by His motion that everything seeks to be likened to God in its own way. Hence Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv) that “God turns all to Himself.” But He directs righteous men to Himself as to a special end, which they seek, and to which they wish to cling, according to Psalm 72:28, “it is good for Me to adhere to my God.” And that they are “turned” to God can only spring from God’s having “turned” them. Now to prepare oneself for grace is, as it were, to be turned to God; just as, whoever has his eyes turned away from the light of the sun, prepares himself to receive the sun’s light, by turning his eyes towards the sun. Hence it is clear that man cannot prepare himself to receive the light of grace except by the gratuitous help of God moving him inwardly. (ST I/II.109.6)

And in the very next article, Thomas writes: “Hence man cannot be restored by himself; but he requires the light of grace to be poured upon him anew, as if the soul were infused into a dead body for its resurrection” (ST I/II.109.7). The dead do not cooperate with grace; they must be given the freedom to cooperate.

Who prepares the sinner to receive grace? God.

Who turns the sinner toward God? God.

Does Thomas speak of the sinner as having the ability to successfully resist preparatory grace? No he does not. “In this way,” comments O’Neill, “man is bid to turn himself to God, since he participates in God’s motion within him and wills that he turn toward God. But this is not possible apart from God working within him as an exterior principle.”¹⁷

I don’t know about you, but for me compatibilist freedom is becoming more and more attractive.

(Revised: 8 November 2023)

Footnotes

[1] See, e.g., Steven Long, “St. Thomas Aquinas, Divine Causality, and the Mystery of Predestination,” Thomism and Predestination (2017), chap. 2. Also see Taylor Patrick O’Neill’s Banezian critique of R. J. Matava’s presentation of the extrinsic model: Grace, Predestination, and the Permission of Sin (2019), 312-316. Cf. Joshua Brotherton, “Toward a Consensus in the De Auxiliis Debate,” Nova et Vetera, 14 (2016): 783-820.

[2] W. Matthews Grant, Free Will and God’s Universal Causality (2019), 63-64. See “How Does God Cause Free Human Actions?” and “Divine Universal Causality, Determinism, and the Mystery of Double Agency.”

[3] Ibid., 67.

[4] Ibid., 157-158.

[5] Decree on Justification, canon 4. “Indeed, more probably than not, the fathers of the Council re­ferred in this canon not only to efficacious grace, but to intrinsically efficacious grace and motion, for Luther had spoken of it, declaring that ‘Intrinsically efficacious grace takes away liberty.’ The Council anathematizes those who speak thus, so that the Council must be defining the contradictory proposition. Its intention is to declare that even intrinsically efficacious grace does not deprive man of liberty, for he can resist if he so wills. The Council does not maintain that man does, in fact, sometimes dissent, but that ‘he can dissent if he so wills.’ In other words, the contrary power remains, but under effica­cious grace man never wills to resist, nor does he; otherwise the grace would not be efficacious or there would be a contradiction in terms; that is, otherwise grace would not cause us to act.” Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Grace (1952), 261.

[6] See John A. Hardon’s brief discussion of sufficient and efficacious grace in his Course on Grace, chap. 15. He also offers an accessible introduction to the De Auxiliis controversy in his book History and Theology of Grace (2003), chap. 8. Also see Yilun Cai, “The Efficacy of Grace According to Domingo Banez,” Augustiniana 62 (2012): 291-326.

[7] See “St Augustine’s Rejection of Free Will Theodicy.”

[8] Grant, 160.

[9] Denys Turner, Thomas Aquinas: A Portrait (2014), pp. 150-151.

[10] Eastern Orthodoxy is traditionally loathe to classify divine grace, perhaps because grace is understood as the uncreated gift of the Holy Trinity. After a quick search through the online Orthodox catechisms, I have not found the term antecedent grace, but the idea is everywhere present in Orthodox theology. As far as the other kinds of grace, Orthodox theology generally avoids the term merit, but it does emphasize the necessity of cooperating with divine grace and does speak of everlasting reward for faithful discipleship and good works.

[11] Grant, 161-162.

[12] Ibid., 162.

[13] Ibid., 163-164.

[14] Ibid., 164.

[15] Grant., 164-165.

[16] Tobias Hoffman, “Grace and Free Will,” in New Cambridge Companion to Aquinas (2022), 244. “A question lurking in the background throughout this chapter is to what extent, on Aquinas’s theory, grace leaves us control of our acts. In his view, the most important choice is made by God, not us; he decides whether we are predestined to eternal salvation or not. Yet God does not micromanage our choices to lead us to the intended end. Rather, if we are predestined, God accomplishes our salvation by means of the free choices we make in our lives. While our choices imply by definition alternative possibilities, not all alternatives are accessible to us. Christ, who enjoys the fullness of grace and thereby is made perfectly obedient to God, could in fact not refuse to accept his passion. Mary was moved by grace in such a way that she could not but consent to becoming Christ’s Mother. When by actual operative grace God turns our soul to him, we cannot help but be attracted to God. Nevertheless, these acts are eminently free. After the reception of operative grace, however, we can collaborate with grace or not, or posit an obstacle to grace, or even act directly against it. Our charity grows or diminishes in proportion to our collaboration with grace” (249-250).

[16] O’Neill, 39. “God also moves the will . . . by bestowing upon it a higher power than it has from its own nature; that power is grace, a participation in God’s nature. . . . Still, divine help is needed to properly prepare to receive this higher power as habitual grace. God effects proper disposition in the soul in two ways: by moving its act immediately toward the highest good [by interior grace], and toward proximate goods through subordinate movers [divine providence]. This divine assistance is the kind of help every creature needs to achieve its good.” Thomas Loughran, “Aquinas, Compatibilist,” in Human and Divine Agency: Anglican, Catholic and Lutheran Perspectives (1999), 1o. But cf. William Most, “Actual Grace.” Also see his book Grace, Predestination, and the Salvific Will of God (2004), chap. 14. Most denies that Aquinas ever distinguished between sufficient and efficacious grace. FWIW, I believe that Turner, Hoffman, O’Neill, and Loughran offer the superior reading of Thomas. Most appears to be unacquainted with the double agency interpretation of Thomas, and he decidedly minimizes Augustine’s anti-Pelagian influence upon him, particularly with regard to his doctrine of predestination. Absolute predestination cannot work apart from efficacious grace. While it may be true that Thomas does not make explicit the distinction between sufficient and efficacious grace, the distinction, I suggest, is implicit in his later writings. But I am now punching well above my weight class.

(Go to “Predestination, Grace, Determinism”)