lmelahn I think, and I, are making the distinction between the particular predestination to glory, and the ordering of the application of grace. Although it gives two different meanings to the same word (predestination), Aquinas’s chapter in the Summa on predestination I think can be read this way. I read it all the way through once with Imelahn’s interpretation which he expounded to me, and it made sense
I think it helps to see how grace “works” for Aquinas; that can clear up problems regarding predestination (or its lack thereof).
(1) First of all, what is grace? The term itself can refer to any gratuitous gift from God, but most properly it refers to those gifts that render a person pleasing to God:
gratia gratum faciens (grace that renders a person pleasing).
God can give us a punctual “help” (
auxilium) that will help turn us to Him; that kind is called “actual grace.” If we accept His help and turn to Him (in Baptism or after Reconciliation), then the Holy Trinity dwells within us in a
habitual way, and that indwelling constitutes
habitual or
sanctifying grace.
Note that
habitual grace differs only in degree to
heavenly glory (in which the indwelling in the soul is perfected to Beatific Vision). Hence possessing sanctifying grace at death is the definitive
condicio sine qua non for being saved.
So far, all the schools are in agreement, I think.
(2) Now the question is, how does actual grace move the human will?
No one can receive sanctifying grace without the intervention of God—without an actual grace, or many actual graces, to bring it about. Moreover, for conscious, adult human beings, it can only happen with the consent of the will. Again, so far, everyone is in agreement.
What is the will? Together with the intellect, it is a “power” or faculty that emanates from the soul (Ia qq. 77-78 & 82); it is an accident, a “quality” that inheres in the soul. Hence, the will is
intermediate between the person, considered as a spiritual substance, and the
action or
operation that it produces. And the will’s specific function is to be the
rational appetite: that is, to desire and, if possible, to unite the soul to what the intellect presents to it as
good.
It is very important to understand that the will cannot move unless something good—or at least something with a good aspect to it—is presented to it.
Now, if the good presented to the will is infinite (which can only be God Himself, when He reveals Himself face-to-face), the will is constrained to unite to that good—not by force, but by compelling desire. (Indeed, by nature the will
cannot be forced, not even by God, for the simple reason that forcing it would be a kind of evil, and the will can only be moved by something good.)
All other goods—that is, finite goods—the will is capable of accepting or rejecting.
Actual graces, therefore, move the will by presenting to it
something good. It is, clearly, a supernatural good that no creature can provide, but the will tends toward it in the normal way. Since it is not the infinitely intense good of the Beatific Vision, the will is still free to accept or reject it.
(3) At this point, in my opinion, both Bañez and Molina start to stray from their master Aquinas.
They both seem to assume that the very
operation (actions) of the will requires a sort of special creation by God. (Aquinas, on the other hand, teaches that God creates the will’s operation
through the mediation of the substance. A faculty’s operation flows from the substance, and ultimately from its act of being, as water flows from a fountain.)
Hence for them, an actual grace (one that leads to conversion, anyway) is also a sort of specially created action of the will.
Again, we all agree that when God acts, His action always produces the intended effect.
Given Bañez’ understanding of how the will’s operation is constituted, it is not surprising the he thought that actual graces
always result in conversion (actual grace is
always efficacious, in his terminology), and that God must somehow refrain from sending those graces in people who are condemned. (This is, in essence, your question, thinkandmull: why does God pass some people over?)
Molina—without changing Bañez’ presuppositions about the operation of the will—tried to temper Bañez by saying that no, God send graces that are “sufficient” for conversion, and they only become “efficacious” when the person makes an act of the will accepting them.
And since—following their logic—God’s actions always bring about their effect, this opens up the whole question of how God “knows” whether to send “sufficient” or “efficacious” grace, hence the problem of the future conditionals.
In reality, if we realize that the
effect of actual grace is to
empower the will—not to act on the will’s behalf, as Bañez and Molina thought—the problem disappears.
If I knew that would be the outcome, I would never have consented to be born. Of course, this is impossible, but nonetheless if this is how existence really is, then I wish I had never been born. Is that so unfounded? I sometimes wonder if others think similarly.