Thomist theory of grace and predestination

Started by Quaremerepulisti, November 22, 2016, 09:27:40 AM

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Non Nobis

#75
Quote from: james03 on December 08, 2016, 06:05:42 PM
St. Thomas is clear. God does not do violence to the will and there is no compulsion.

This much is accurate, but nevertheless St. Thomas DOES teach that God moves the will internally.

Quote from: james03 on December 08, 2016, 06:05:42 PM
There is no cite you have put up where St. Thomas says that.

Here is your cite, James: text right above the minimal context cite you made earlier:

https://sites.google.com/site/aquinasstudybible/home/romans/st-thomas-aquinas-on-romans/chapter-1/chapter-2/chapter-3/chapter-4/chapter-5/chapter-6/chapter-7/chapter-8/chapter-9
Quote...man's will is moved to good by God, as it says above: "All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God" (Rom 8:14); therefore, an inward action of man is not to be attributed principally to man but to God: "It is God who of his good pleasure works in you both the will and the performance" (Phil 2:13). But if willing does not depend on the man willing or exertion on the man exerting himself, but on God moving man to this, it seems that man is not master of his own action, which pertains to freedom of will. But the answer is that God moves all things, but in diverse ways, inasmuch as each is moved in a manner befitting its nature. And so man is moved by God to will and to perform outwardly in a manner consistent with free will. Therefore, willing and performing depends on man as freely acting; but on God and not on man, as initial mover.

St. Thomas is speaking to people like you, who think that GOD moving the will means "man is not master of his own action", i.e. that man does not have free will. His answer to you is that God moves ALL things, including the will, but it moves the will in a manner befitting its nature as FREE WILL (that is, without violence or compulsion).  I know that is hard to understand, but that is what he is saying.  I could find more cites if I need to, and spent some time.

The last bit that you quoted:

QuoteTherefore, willing and performing depends on man as freely acting; but on God and not on man, as initial mover.

Willing DOES depend on man as freely acting, but while he freely moves his will as secondary cause, God is moving it inwardly too, as primary cause.

Here's a another minimal context quote from St. Thomas (you can examine the larger context yourself if you want).  I include this quote because it speaks of primary and secondary causes, but it (and all that is linked to)  is also pertinent to our overall discussion.

http://dhspriory.org/thomas/english/QDdeVer24.htm
QuoteAlthough man can perform good actions of this kind [natural acts like building a house]without ingratiatory grace, he cannot perform them without God, since nothing can enter upon its natural operation except by the divine power, because a secondary cause acts only by the power of the first cause, as is said in The Causes. This is true of both natural and voluntary agents. Yet it is verified in a different way in either case.
[Matthew 8:26]  And Jesus saith to them: Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith? Then rising up he commanded the winds, and the sea, and there came a great calm.

[Job  38:1-5]  Then the Lord answered Job out of a whirlwind, and said: [2] Who is this that wrappeth up sentences in unskillful words? [3] Gird up thy loins like a man: I will ask thee, and answer thou me. [4] Where wast thou when I laid up the foundations of the earth? tell me if thou hast understanding. [5] Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?

Jesus, Mary, I love Thee! Save souls!

John Lamb

#76
Quote from: james03 on December 08, 2016, 06:21:36 PM
QuoteHe does not ever propose something to our minds and let our free-will determine to be good by itself.

This is the kind of nebulous statement that bears further examination.  What does "determine to be good" mean?  So let's expand my example.  A man does not want to go to Church.  God sends a Grace, in this case he hears Fr. Isaac preaching hell fire on Youtube.  The man then wills to get in the car and drive to Church.  It is a Free Will decision of the man to get in the car and drive to Church.  The first cause was the Grace given to him to consider hell.  It indeed moves his will, but the choice of the man to drive his car is a free will choice he made.

This is not how grace works according to St. Thomas. According to St. Thomas, it is not just God's grace that causes the man to hear Fr. Isaac preaching hell fire, it is God's grace that softens the man's heart, causing him to listen to the preacher without dismissing what he hears, and then moves the will towards fearing hell and towards the Church. In other words, grace actively moves the will. St. Thomas explicitly states that grace heals and strengthens and moves the will.

Quote from: St. ThomasNow there are five effects of grace in us: of these, the first is, to heal the soul; the second, to desire good; the third, to carry into effect the good proposed; the fourth, to persevere in good; the fifth, to reach glory.

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2111.htm

Grace according to you is merely an external act (external to the will), and the free will can of its own power choose to do good (in this case, choose to go to Church), when in St. Thomas, God's grace must act upon the will itself and move it towards the good (towards going to Church). God's grace does not stop at putting the idea in the intellect, it also acts upon the will in order to respond to what is in the intellect meritoriously; so, in this case, grace moves the man to get in the car and go to Church.

Your understanding of grace is Pelagian, imo, because your leaving merit to depend on man's free will. God merely gives the opportunity, but man decides whether or not to merit. Listen to what Cardinal Journet says here, because I think he's describing your position as Pelagian:

Quote from: Cardinal JournetOn the one hand there is the position of Pelagius, a British monk, a contemporary of St Augustine who attacked him. The Pelagian error consists in saying that the good act is decisively the product of man alone. Of course, Pelagius says, God created the universe, placed me in the world, gave me my human nature with its faculties, and imparts abundant graces of illumination [This is the grace you describe]. But it is I alone who assent freely to God, and it is this assent which is decisive. Take an example of two men at the bottom of a well: God holds out his hand to each, and so is ready to help; but it is I alone who take his hand; I am, doubtless, saved because God first stretched out his hand, but the decisive factor is that I, by my free will alone, took the hand, whereas my neighbor did not. So the choice is mine alone.

https://www.ewtn.com/library/DOCTRINE/MNGGRACE.HTM

Pelagius thought that God merely gave men instructions (like in the Bible, or by preachers, or by philosophers), and God left it to man's free-will to decide how to use these illuminations and to what extent to merit. He did not believe that God's grace actively moved the will, like St. Augustine did.
"Let all bitterness and animosity and indignation and defamation be removed from you, together with every evil. And become helpfully kind to one another, inwardly compassionate, forgiving among yourselves, just as God also graciously forgave you in the Anointed." – St. Paul

John Lamb

#77
The relationship between grace and free-will, is like the relationship between faith and reason. People think that faith and reason are mutually opposed, so that where faith starts, reasons must end, and vice versa; the truth is that the light of faith perfects reason, just as the light of grace perfects the free-will.

Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange points out that the Molinists agree with the Calvinists/Jansenists that where grace starts, free-will ends, and vice versa:

Quote from: Fr. Garrigou-LagrangeAnother general system is that of the theologians of the Society of Jesus, who deny that efficacious grace is intrinsically efficacious since, as they declare, intrinsically efficacious grace deprives man of his liberty. In this major, as Del Prado shows, they are in agreement with Protestants and Jansenists. For these heretics say that intrinsically efficacious grace takes away liberty; but grace efficaciously moving one toward the good is intrinsically efficacious; therefore freedom from necessity is not required in order to merit, but only freedom from force.

The theologians of the Society of Jesus agree with these in the major and distinguish the minor, thus: intrinsically efficacious grace takes away freedom; but freedom from necessity is required in order to merit; therefore grace is not intrinsically efficacious but only extrinsically so, that is, on account of our consent foreseen by mediate knowledge. We, on the other hand, disagree with the heretics in the major, that is, in the very basic principle by which the problem is solved: whether God can, gently and firmly, in other words, infallibly, move our will to this free act rather than to another. To this fundamental question we reply in the affirmative; the heretics, however, deny it, and with them the Molinists and Congruists.  It is clear from this how greatly Thomism differs from Calvinism and Jansenism.

The inability to see how grace can move the free-will without destroying its freedom, is similar to the inability to see how faith can move the rational mind without destroying its reason. Of course, faith itself is a species of grace, applicable to the intellect.
"Let all bitterness and animosity and indignation and defamation be removed from you, together with every evil. And become helpfully kind to one another, inwardly compassionate, forgiving among yourselves, just as God also graciously forgave you in the Anointed." – St. Paul

Michael Wilson

But the Thomistic explanation on how grace operates, leaves no room for free will; here is Msgr. Pohl in the Catholic Encyclopedia:http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06710a.htm
Quote.....The first objection is the danger that in the Thomistic system the freedom of the will cannot be maintained as against efficacious grace, a difficulty which by the way is not unperceived by the Thomists themselves. For since the essence of freedom does not lie in the contingency of the act nor in the merely passive indifference of the will, but rather in its active indifference — to will or not to will, to will this and not that — so it appears impossible to reconcile the physical predetermination of a particular act by an alien will and the active spontaneousness of the determination by the will itself; nay more, they seem to exclude each other as utterly as do determinism and indeterminism, necessity and freedom. The Thomists answer this objection by making a distinction between sensus compositus and sensus divisus, but the Molinists insist that this distinction is not correctly applicable here. For just as a man who is bound to a chair cannot be said to be sitting freely as long as his ability to stand is thwarted by indissoluble cords, so the will predetermined by efficacious grace to a certain thing cannot be said to retain the power to dissent, especially since the will, predetermined to this or that act, has not the option to receive or disregard the premotion, since this depends simply and solely on the will of God. And does not the Council of Trent (Sess. VI, cap. v, can. iv) describe efficacious grace as a grace which man "can reject", and from which he "can dissent"? Consequently, the very same grace, which de facto is efficacious, might under other circumstances be inefficacious.

Herein the second objection to the Thomistic distinction between gratia efficax and gratia sufficiens is already indicated. If both graces are in their nature and intrinsically different, it is difficult to see how a grace can be really sufficient which requires another grace to complete it. Hence, it would appear that the Thomistic gratia sufficiens is in reality a gratia insufficiens. The Thomists cannot well refer the inefficacy of this grace to the resistance of the free will, for this act of resistance must be traced to a proemotio physica as inevitable as the efficacious grace.

Moreover, a third great difficulty lies in the fact that sin, as an act, demands the predetermining activity of the "first mover", so that God would according to this system appear to be the originator of sinful acts. The Thomistic distinction between the entity of sin and its malice offers no solution of the difficulty. For since the Divine influence itself, which premoves ad unum, both introduces physically the sin as an act and entity, and also, by the simultaneous withholding of the opposite premotion to a good act, makes the sin itself an inescapable fatality, it is not easy to explain why sin cannot be traced back to God as the originator. Furthermore, most sinners commit their misdeeds, not with a regard to the depravity, but for the sake of the physical entity of the acts, so that ethics must, together with the wickedness, condemn the physical entity of sin. The Molinists deny that this objection affects their own system, when they postulate the concursus of God in the sinful act, and help themselves out of the dilemma by drawing the distinction between the entity and malice of sin. They say that the Divine co-operation is a concursus simultaneus, which employs the co-operating arm of God only after the will by its own free determination has decided upon the commission of the sinful act, whereas the Thomistic co-operation is essentially a concursus proevius which as an inevitable physical premotion predetermines the act regardless of the fact whether the human will can resist or not.

From this consideration arises the fourth and last objection to the claim of the Thomists, that they have only apparently found in their physical premotion an infallible medium by which God knows in advance with absolute certainty all the free acts of his creatures, whether they be good or bad. For as these premotions, as has been shown above, must in their last analysis be considered the knell of freedom, they cannot well be considered as the means by which God obtains a foreknowledge of the free acts of rational agents. Consequently the claims and proper place of the scientia media in the system may be regarded as vindicated.
As Msgr. Pohl expressed elsewhere, the place for freedom of the will in the Thomistic System should be between the application of "sufficient grace" which would offer the soul the choice of acceptance or rejection and efficacious grace, that would give him the act to accomplish the choice, but there is no room for it in the system.
"The World Must Conform to Our Lord and not He to it." Rev. Dennis Fahey CSSP

"My brothers, all of you, if you are condemned to see the triumph of evil, never applaud it. Never say to evil: you are good; to decadence: you are progess; to death: you are life. Sanctify yourselves in the times wherein God has placed you; bewail the evils and the disorders which God tolerates; oppose them with the energy of your works and your efforts, your life uncontaminated by error, free from being led astray, in such a way that having lived here below, united with the Spirit of the Lord, you will be admitted to be made but one with Him forever and ever: But he who is joined to the Lord is one in spirit." Cardinal Pie of Potiers

Non Nobis

#79
Quote from: Michael Wilson on December 10, 2016, 10:32:02 AM
But the Thomistic explanation on how grace operates, leaves no room for free will; here is Msgr. Pohl in the Catholic Encyclopedia:http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06710a.htm

Would you say simply that St. Thomas Aquinas' explanation of grace leaves no room for free will?  How can you state something like that so firmly? Why not just say you can't understand how it does, or it seems not to, or "many theologians and Saints explain their view"...?

The Church does allow (at least) 2 views on predestination and grace.  I know the Thomists sometimes accuse the Molinists of virtually being heretics too; but maybe both sides should be more considerate and work together to find truth. (I know I am probably being too idealistic...)

I know I have a stubborn bias in favor of St. Thomas (pretty much until the Church makes the contrary clear), but so does the Church.

("The Thomists" are not equivalent to St. Thomas, but I think that most people who disagree with the root of the former disagree with the latter too.  St. Thomas definitely (as you know) teaches predestination and reprobation, and that God moves the will to good).
[Matthew 8:26]  And Jesus saith to them: Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith? Then rising up he commanded the winds, and the sea, and there came a great calm.

[Job  38:1-5]  Then the Lord answered Job out of a whirlwind, and said: [2] Who is this that wrappeth up sentences in unskillful words? [3] Gird up thy loins like a man: I will ask thee, and answer thou me. [4] Where wast thou when I laid up the foundations of the earth? tell me if thou hast understanding. [5] Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?

Jesus, Mary, I love Thee! Save souls!

james03

#80
QuoteWilling DOES depend on man as freely acting, but while he freely moves his will as secondary cause, God is moving it inwardly too, as primary cause.
NN, can you find one quote from St. Thomas where he says God moves the will "inwardly"?  This has the savor of arguing with Prots who tell you you are saved by Faith alone.  You ask them for the alone quote over and over again, and they never produce.

To recap, God DOES move the will externally.  See my example.  Go back and reread my example, i.e. fear of sin, and point out where this conflicts with anything St. Thomas wrote in your cite.  You will discover you can't.

Edit:  NN, I do concede that God also acts inwardly, for example His actions on the intellect and passions is certainly God acting inwardly.  So for example, we can add to my example that God arouses the fear in the man.  God does not act inwardly on the will. (Note if the mere hearing of the fire and brimstone is enough, then that would be the only Grace God would send). The will is truly free.  It would seem that if you say a man can't choose rightly, you reject regeneration and are preaching Luther's manure pile covered with snow.
"But he that doth not believe, is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God (Jn 3:18)."

"All sorrow leads to the foot of the Cross.  Weep for your sins."

"Although He should kill me, I will trust in Him"

Michael Wilson

#81
Non,
Let me modify the last statement as close as I can remember how Msgr. Pohl stated it: "The action of free will should come between "sufficient grace" and "efficacious grace"; but the Thomists deny that there is any room for it there. In other words the Thomists believe that their system does protect the freedom of the will and therefore there is no necessity to "make room for it" at all. I did not word that correctly; and if I can find the actual quote, I will post it.
Yes, I agree one can hold the Thomistic position as it is approved by the Church.
Re. Predestination & Reprobation in St. Thomas. I will see if I have time to post from Fr. Most's book on this very subject; as he stated that St. Thomas did not fully reconcile the two threads of his thinking on this matter.
"The World Must Conform to Our Lord and not He to it." Rev. Dennis Fahey CSSP

"My brothers, all of you, if you are condemned to see the triumph of evil, never applaud it. Never say to evil: you are good; to decadence: you are progess; to death: you are life. Sanctify yourselves in the times wherein God has placed you; bewail the evils and the disorders which God tolerates; oppose them with the energy of your works and your efforts, your life uncontaminated by error, free from being led astray, in such a way that having lived here below, united with the Spirit of the Lord, you will be admitted to be made but one with Him forever and ever: But he who is joined to the Lord is one in spirit." Cardinal Pie of Potiers

james03

#82
Quotetherefore, an inward action of man is not to be attributed principally to man but to God: "It is God who of his good pleasure works in you both the will and the performance"

NN., why did you italicize "inward"?  Let's write the equivalent: "man's inward action.  The inward action is man's.

Question:  How would you move free will such that it is befitting it's nature?   That's consistent with free will?  Such that willing and performing depend on man freely acting?  Does not my example show how this is done?

edit: see above edit showing that God does work inwardly on the intellect and passions.
"But he that doth not believe, is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God (Jn 3:18)."

"All sorrow leads to the foot of the Cross.  Weep for your sins."

"Although He should kill me, I will trust in Him"

james03

QuoteThe inability to see how grace can move the free-will without destroying its freedom,
In my example, does Grace move the will?  Is it your position that considering hell does not move the will?
"But he that doth not believe, is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God (Jn 3:18)."

"All sorrow leads to the foot of the Cross.  Weep for your sins."

"Although He should kill me, I will trust in Him"

james03

#84
QuoteYour understanding of grace is Pelagian, imo, because your leaving merit to depend on man's free will.

So you believe merit does not depend on man's free will?  Is that your position?  That's heresy.

Edit: 
Quote from: St.Thomas, de Veritate, Reply on Free ChoiceWithout any doubt it must be affirmed that man is endowed with free choice. The faith obliges us to this, since without free choice there cannot be merit
"But he that doth not believe, is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God (Jn 3:18)."

"All sorrow leads to the foot of the Cross.  Weep for your sins."

"Although He should kill me, I will trust in Him"

james03

On man being an efficient cause of his actions, again de Veritate:
QuoteBut man, judging about his course of action by the power of reason, can also judge about his own decision inasmuch as he knows the meaning of an end and of a means to an end, and the relationship of the one with reference to the other. Thus he is his own cause not only in moving but also in judging. He is therefore endowed with free choice—that is to say, with a free judgment about acting or not acting.

The Conguent Thomistic position was taught by St. Thomas himself.
"But he that doth not believe, is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God (Jn 3:18)."

"All sorrow leads to the foot of the Cross.  Weep for your sins."

"Although He should kill me, I will trust in Him"

Michael Wilson

Non,
here is the quote from Msgr. Pohl's book
Grace, Actual and Habitual; A Dogmatic Treatise pgs. 237 ffd.
Quote
A. The Thomistic Conception of efficacious is open to two serious theological difficulties:
(1). To draw an intrinsic and substantial distinction between  efficacious and merely sufficient grace destroys the true notion of sufficient grace.
(2). The Thomistic theory of efficacious graces is incompatible with the dogma of free will. Note: Thomist defend both the sufficiency of grace and the freedom of the will.
a) Sufficient grace, as conceived by the Thomists, is not truly sufficient to enable a man to perform a salutary act, because "ex vi notionis" (the force of the idea) it confers merely the power to act, postulating for the act itself substantially new grace (gratia efficax).  A grace that requires to be entitatively supplemented by another, in order to enable a man to perform a salutary act, is clearly  not sufficient for the performance of that act.  "To be truly sufficient for something" and "to require to be complemented by something else" are mutually exclusive notions, and hence "sufficient grace" as conceived by Thomists is in reality insufficient.
Many subtle explanations have been devised to obviate this difficulty.  Billuart and nearly all the later Thomists say that if any one who has received sufficient grace (in the Thomistic sense of the term) is denied the 'gratia efficax' it must be attributed to the sinful resistance of the will.  But this explanation is incompatible with the Thomistic teaching that together with the 'gratia sufficiens' there co-exists in the soul of the sinner an irresistible and inevitable 'premotio physica' to the entity of sin, with which entity formal sin is inseparably bound up. (see Banez, Comment. In S. Theol. Etc.) If this is true, how can the will of man be held responsible so long as God denies him the 'gratia ab intrinseco efficax" (Intrinsically efficacious grace)?
Speaking in the abstract, the will may assume one of three distinct attitudes toward sufficient grace.  It may consent, it may resist, or it may remain neutral.  It cannot consent except with the aid of a predetermining 'gratia efficax', to merit which is beyond its power. If it withstands, it 'eo ipso' (by this) renders itself unworthy of the 'gratia efficax'. If it takes a neutral attitude, (which may in itself be a sinful act), and awaits efficacious grace, of what use is sufficient grace?
To resist sufficient grace involves an abuse of liberty.  Now, where does the right use of liberty come in?  If co-operation with sufficient grace moves God to bestow the 'gratia per se efficax', as the Thomists contend, then the right use of liberty must lie somewhere between the 'gratia sufficiens' and the 'gratia efficax per se'.  But there is absolutely no place for it in the Thomistic system.  The right use of liberty for the purpose of obtaining efficacious grace is attributable either to grace or to unaided nature.  To assert that it is the work of unaided nature would lead to Semipelagianism.  To hold that it is owing to grace would be moving in a vicious circle, thus: "Because the will offers no resistance, it is efficaciously moved to perform a salutary act; that it offers no sinful resistance is owing to the fact that it is efficaciously moved to perform a salutary act." 
It is impossible to devise any satisfactory solution of this difficulty which will not at the same time upset the very foundation on which the Thomistic system rests, viz.: "Nula secunda causa potest operari, nisi sit efficaciter determinate a prima [scil. Per applicationem potentiae ad actum],"  that is to say, no secondary cause can act, unless it be efficacious  determined by the First cause; by the application of the latter to the former as of potency to act.
The Thomistic 'gratia efficax' conceived as a 'pradeterminatio ad unum' [predermination to one], inevitably destroys free will.
It is important to state the question clearly: Not physical premotion as such, but the implied connotation of 'previa determination ad unum' (the previous determination to one), is incompatible with the dogma of free will.  The freedom of the will does not consist in the pure contingency of an act, or in a merely passive indifference, but in active indifference either to will or not to will, to will thus or otherwise.  Consequently every physical predetermination, in so far as it is a "determination ad unum' (determination to one), must necessarily be destructive of free will.  Self determination and physical predetermination by an extraneous will are mutually exclusive.  Now the Thomists hold that the 'gratia per se efficax' operates in the manner of a supernatural 'praedeterminatio ad unun'.  If this were true, the will under the influence of efficacious grace would no longer be free.
To perceive the full force of this argument, it is necessary to keep in mind the Thomistic definition of 'praemotio physica'..(Gonet,Latin)..that is to say: As the non-perfomance of an act by the will owing simply and solely to the absence of the respective physical premotion, so conversely, the performance of an act is conditioned simply and solely by the presence of a divine premotion; the will itself can neither obtain nor present such a premotion, because this would require a new premotion, which again depends entirely on the divine pleasure.  If the will of man were thus inevitably predetermined by God, it would not in any sense of the term be called truly free.
The Thomists meet this argument with mere evasions. They make a distinction between 'necesitas consequentis (antecedens) [(antecedent) consequent necessity], which really necessitates, and 'necessitas consequentiae' (subsequens)[(subsequent) necessity of consequence], which does not. A free act, they say, necessarily proceeds from a physical premotion, but it is not on that account in itself necessary.  But we answer, a 'determinatio ad unum' which precedes a free act and is independent  of the will, is more than a 'necessitas consequentiae'-it is a 'necessitas consequentis' [consequent necessity] destructive of free will. 
"The World Must Conform to Our Lord and not He to it." Rev. Dennis Fahey CSSP

"My brothers, all of you, if you are condemned to see the triumph of evil, never applaud it. Never say to evil: you are good; to decadence: you are progess; to death: you are life. Sanctify yourselves in the times wherein God has placed you; bewail the evils and the disorders which God tolerates; oppose them with the energy of your works and your efforts, your life uncontaminated by error, free from being led astray, in such a way that having lived here below, united with the Spirit of the Lord, you will be admitted to be made but one with Him forever and ever: But he who is joined to the Lord is one in spirit." Cardinal Pie of Potiers

james03

#87
Quotethat is to say, no secondary cause can act, unless it be efficacious  determined by the First cause; by the application of the latter to the former as of potency to act.
This smacks of heresy.  A will that is determined is not a will that is free.  Compare the Banez Thomist to St. Thomas:

QuoteThus he is his own cause not only in moving but also in judging. He is therefore endowed with free choice—that is to say, with a free judgment about acting or not acting.

edit: The Banez Thomist quote is kind of an out-of-the-closet event.  If you subsititute "moved" for "determined", then I would not object, except to the ambiguity.  At least they finally come out and say that the will is determined and not free.  Except when it is sinning, because then it is totally depraved.
"But he that doth not believe, is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God (Jn 3:18)."

"All sorrow leads to the foot of the Cross.  Weep for your sins."

"Although He should kill me, I will trust in Him"

Michael Wilson

#88
James.
I'm not sure about that statement being heresy or contradicting the statement from St. Thomas; as I understand it, man is not the primary mover of himself, but the secondary; he needs God's assistance to perform even the most basic movement. Its been a while since I read this, but it goes back to the "five proofs of the existence of God"; the one about "the first mover"; nothing can move itself except if it is not first moved by another; all the way back to the prime mover which is God. Do you know what I am referring to?
The second quote i.e. "he is his own cause not only in moving but in judging etc." Is true if one first stipulates that God's cooperation with man willing, thinking and choosing make possible that man be his own secondary cause. At least that is the way I understand it.
"The World Must Conform to Our Lord and not He to it." Rev. Dennis Fahey CSSP

"My brothers, all of you, if you are condemned to see the triumph of evil, never applaud it. Never say to evil: you are good; to decadence: you are progess; to death: you are life. Sanctify yourselves in the times wherein God has placed you; bewail the evils and the disorders which God tolerates; oppose them with the energy of your works and your efforts, your life uncontaminated by error, free from being led astray, in such a way that having lived here below, united with the Spirit of the Lord, you will be admitted to be made but one with Him forever and ever: But he who is joined to the Lord is one in spirit." Cardinal Pie of Potiers

james03

God is the First Cause.  Man is an efficient cause.  That is my point.

If the act is meritorious, it is because it is done in Charity.  The Cause of Charity is the infusion of Charity into the soul during Justification.  The Cause of the infusion, and the First Cause, is God.  God is therefore the First Cause.

The meritorious act is not meritorious because man freely chose to do it, and is the cause of this choice, which he is.  The meritorious act is meritorious because it is done in Charity.  This is the teaching of St. Thomas that the Banez Thomists forget.
"But he that doth not believe, is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God (Jn 3:18)."

"All sorrow leads to the foot of the Cross.  Weep for your sins."

"Although He should kill me, I will trust in Him"