Is God's efficacious grace irresistible?

[Counterpoint]

Fr. William Most has written well on this subject. If you search the EWTN library you will find several of his articles about effiacious grace, sufficient grace etc. He certainly raises many valid points against common interpretations of Aquinas.

Ordinarily, grace can be resisted, but a number of theologians say that there are extraordinary graces that infallibly produce their intended effect, though without destroying free will. How this works, I do not know… and if I somehow could, I doubt it would be easy to explain!

This implies that God has the power to save everyone (without violating anyone’s free will).

In his work, ‘Grace, Predestination and the Salvific Will of God,’ Fr. William Most provides the following anecdote, which I believe is as far as most of us should probe into this intellectually exhausting topic: "One day, when the thought of the mystery of predestination caused St. Rose of Lima to fear greatly, Jesus said to her: 'My daughter, I condemn only those who will to be condemned. Therefore, from today forth banish from your mind all uneasiness on this point.’ "

I explain why the free will defense does not resolve the problem of eternal damnation in my thread entitled “Free Will, Determinism, Indetrminism, Moral Responsibility, and Salvation.”

 

[Richca]

Final causality itself requires an explanation. What is this teleological cause?

God himself is the final cause of all things. For God is the First Being, First Cause, and the Final Cause of all other beings and causes. As the First Being, First Cause, and the final cause of all things there is not other being to which final causality can point to except God himself.

 

[Counterpoint]

I think its interesting what Fr Rohr teaches about Grace :

The goodness of God fills all the gaps of the universe, without discrimination or preference. God is the gratuity of absolutely everything. The space in between everything is not space at all but Spirit. God is the “goodness glue” that holds the dark and light of things together, the free energy that carries all death across the Great Divide and transmutes it into Life. When we say that Christ “paid the debt once and for all,” it simply means that God’s job is to make up for all the deficiencies in the universe. What else would God do?

Grace is not something God gives; grace is who God is. Grace is God’s official job description. Grace is what God does to keep all things that God has created in love alive—forever. If we are to believe the primary witnesses—the mystics, the saints, the transformed people—an unexplainable goodness is at work in the universe. (Some of us call this phenomenon God, but that word is not necessary. In fact, sometimes it gets in the way of the experience, because too many have named God something other than Grace.)

You didn’t address the question I posed in the OP of this thread: Is God’s efficacious grace irresistible?

 

[Counterpoint]

I see what you mean.

Interestingly, in Heaven the blessed will love God spontaneously and perfectly; they will be drawn to Him like moths to the flame. Perhaps (in the extraordinary ways of Providence) God has a similar way of removing our resistance to Him? After all, evil is not a substance; it is merely the privation of being and perfection. Subsequently, it seems that God could fill our emptiness (with His grace), so to speak, thus drawing us to Himself, without hindrance. This might seem absurd as it seems to destroy free will; but this is not enough to discredit such a possibility, for one could just as easily argue that free will (for us) cannot exist due to the will’s inability to rise from potency to act without the assistance of the divine power.

This would imply universal reconciliation.

 

[orang]

Don’t forget free will is all about freedom although within the boundaries of the setting and the boundaries of human developing conditions.

Free to choose although, in the nature or boundary of belonging to a species and belonging to a surviving initiative.

It becomes a question, why did God give the human the freedom to be a human. If he did not, the observation would be why did the creator not allow the unique non repeatable event human individual to express the individual him or herself ?

so its a matter of a power God gave the human to be the unique non repeatable event and realize the self through the journey and becoming, all that.

The teology and causation question has to do with boundaries. In other words don’t forget free will or freedom comes with the boundaries of being human and the setting.
So the creation has boundaries built in, whatever end must logically conform with the boundaries. A comment in this area requires the including of this important framing in the subject. ( this is why I never read philosophy except in a group setting which is hardly ever. The mind needs a clear path without emphasized suggestions…one on one is a powerful suggestion to self which includes suggestion trust. I could go on about this but leave it at that for now. I read the Saints books , thats it. And yes good to see the Saint Augustine quote that’s a good one.

For example,

A little cute kid comes along with lots of hope, a big smile trying to get some attention and approval and be a good part of the day in the natural way, and a stranger walking along or whatever says, hey get out of my way Im busy and push’s the kid aside.

In above the grouch does not have the freedom to choose to be normal and is cruel.

So its not free will to choose the right answer or right course of behav, its a freedom to BE FREE to express the true natural intended which is a given uncovering the soul. Written quicly but I’m pretty sure I can back up with the appropriate content.

 

[zippy2006]

This implies that God has the power to save everyone (without violating anyone’s free will).

The similar opinion that God could have created a world in which everyone is saved is common among traditional theologians and does not require that efficacious grace be irresistible.

There is a mystery here, and it is expressed by two seemingly contradictory propositions:

1. 
   *]Humans have free will (or choice)
   *]Nothing is outside of God’s providence
   
   Calvinists will emphasize (2) to the point that (1) is denied, and Personal Theists will do the opposite. The key in accepting both lies in emphasizing God’s transcendence and the fact that he is not a creature on the same (causal) level as we are.

 

[littlestsouls2]

This implies that God has the power to save everyone (without violating anyone’s free will).

I explain why the free will defense does not resolve the problem of eternal damnation in my thread entitled “Free Will, Determinism, Indetrminism, Moral Responsibility, and Salvation.”

As the former point, you are right. Such graces, therefore, are “extraordinary” graces. (I am only presenting the opinion of certain theologians).

 

[littlestsouls2]

This would imply universal reconciliation.

I agree that it would imply the theoretical possibility of universal reconciliation.

 

[Counterpoint]

hello counterpoint,
You make a good point here. However, it would be against the very nature of human beings whom God has created with free will to always move them infrustrably and irresistably. God would be contradicting the very nature He created if he always moved human beings with an irresistable grace. As St Augustine said. “God created us without us, but He will not save us without us.” God saves the willing, not the unwilling.

It our nature to seek the good. And God is the supreme good.

“Goodness is that which all things desire.” - St. Thomas Aquinas

“Our hearts are restless, O Lord, until they rest in You.” - St. Augustine

 

[Counterpoint]

God himself is the final cause of all things. For God is the First Being, First Cause, and the Final Cause of all other beings and causes. As the First Being, First Cause, and the final cause of all things there is not other being to which final causality can point to except God himself.

That’s my point.

“God…is the first cause, Who moves cause both natural and voluntary.” - St. Thomas Aquinas (ST I.83.1)

 

[Counterpoint]

So its not free will to choose the right answer or right course of behav, its a freedom to BE FREE to express the true natural intended which is a given uncovering the soul. Written quicly but I’m pretty sure I can back up with the appropriate content.

It’s seems to me that you are attempting to define free will in terms of freedom and slavery. (Are we free to express our nature or a slave to it?)

 

[Counterpoint]

The similar opinion that God could have created a world in which everyone is saved is common among traditional theologians and does not require that efficacious grace be irresistible.

There is a mystery here, and it is expressed by two seemingly contradictory propositions:

1. 
   *]Humans have free will (or choice)
   *]Nothing is outside of God’s providence
   
   Calvinists will emphasize (2) to the point that (1) is denied, and Personal Theists will do the opposite. The key in accepting both lies in emphasizing God’s transcendence and the fact that he is not a creature on the same (causal) level as we are.

1. 
   There’s no mystery here. Either free will is compatible with determinism or it is not. If it is not, then it must be compatible with indeterminism (which necessarily implies that an element of pure chance or randomness is at play). The problem is that people who invoke “free will” can’t bring themselves to acknowledge this.

 

[Counterpoint]

I agree that it would imply the theoretical possibility of universal reconciliation.

It also implies that eternal damnation is a theoretical impossibility because this would imply that God is either evil or incompetent.

 

[Richca]

It also implies that eternal damnation is a theoretical impossibility because this would imply that God is either evil or incompetent.

Eternal damnation implies neither that God is evil or incompetent unless one has some sort of strange idea of God. What it does imply is that God is just and that rational creatures have freedom of choice.

 

[Richca]

There’s no mystery here. Either free will is compatible with determinism or it is not. If it is not, then it must be compatible with indeterminism (which necessarily implies that an element of pure chance or randomness is at play). The problem is that people who invoke “free will” can’t bring themselves to acknowledge this.

Indetermininism does not necessarily imply that an element of pure chance or randomness is at play. For what happens by chance happens unintentionally according to the proximate cause or causes because of some other intervening cause. What appears to happen by chance can be traced to some cause and ultimately to the Universal Cause which is God to which nothing happens by chance.
In regard to rational creatures possessed of an intellect and will, they do things intentionally according to some reason or reasons provided by the intellect. This is not doing things by chance or unintentionally or at random.

 

[Richca]

It our nature to seek the good. And God is the supreme good.

“Goodness is that which all things desire.” - St. Thomas Aquinas

“Our hearts are restless, O Lord, until they rest in You.” - St. Augustine

God has certainly helped us to seek Him naturally because the object of the will is the universal good which is God and the object of the intellect is universal truth which is God. But in this present life, God is not manifest to our wills and intellects as He is in Himself as St Paul says “At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.” ( 1 Cor 13:12). Consequently, what is manifest to our wills in this present life are particular goods which do not necessitate the will and from which we can choose one or the other.

 

[Richca]

That’s my point.

“God…is the first cause, Who moves cause both natural and voluntary.” - St. Thomas Aquinas (ST I.83.1)

Yes, God is the First Cause, who moves causes both natural and voluntary. Yet, God does not move the will of necessity.

"On the contrary, It is written (Sirach 15:14): “God made man from the beginning, and left him in the hand of his own counsel.” Therefore He does not of necessity move man’s will.

I answer that, As Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv) “it belongs to Divine providence, not to destroy but to preserve the nature of things.” Wherefore it moves all things in accordance with their conditions; so that from necessary causes through the Divine motion, effects follow of necessity; but from contingent causes, effects follow contingently. Since, therefore, the will is an active principle, not determinate to one thing, but having an indifferent relation to many things, God so moves it, that He does not determine it of necessity to one thing, but its movement remains contingent and not necessary, except in those things to which it is moved naturally." (ST, I- II, Q. 10, Art. 4).

 

[Counterpoint]

Eternal damnation implies neither that God is evil or incompetent unless one has some sort of strange idea of God. What it does imply is that God is just and that rational creatures have freedom of choice.

What does justice have to do with it?

 

[Vico]

Is God’s efficacious grace irresistible? If not, why not?

Modern Catholic Dictionary has for efficacious grace:
The actual grace to which free consent is given by the will so that the grace produces its divinely intended effect.
…
In every Catholic theory, however, it is agreed that efficacious grace does not necessitate the will or destroy human freedom.

 

[zippy2006]

There’s no mystery here. Either free will is compatible with determinism or it is not. If it is not, then it must be compatible with indeterminism (which necessarily implies that an element of pure chance or randomness is at play). The problem is that people who invoke “free will” can’t bring themselves to acknowledge this.

No, our only options aren’t randomness or determinism. You’re begging the question, and apparently can’t bring yourself to acknowledge this.

No theists in the free will debates understand indeterminism to imply pure chance or randomness. Neither does the word itself mean that. It simply means, “Not determined.” It’s just a strawman you’re setting up.