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Yes we have free will, but probably out of 10 Christian 9 doesn’t know the way our free will works because they believe an unaided free will.
Before we are able to understand the way our free will works first we must understand the chain of causality, and second we also need to know very well the differences between sufficient and efficacious graces.
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St. Thomas properly explains the CHAIN OF CAUSALITY. – God’s aide of our free wills.
It is to be observed that where there are several agents in order, the second always acts in virtue of the first: for the agent moves the second to act.
Because God is the cause of action in every agent, even man’s free will determination to do good comes from God.
And thus all agents act in virtue of God Himself: and therefore He is the cause of action in every agent. ST, Pt I, Q 105, Art 5.
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THE MYSTERY OF PREDESTINATION John Salza
Hence, a sufficient grace has an operating effect only ( empowering the will to act),
whereas an efficacious grace has both an operating and cooperating effect ( applying the will to act).
Sufficient grace remains an interior impulse, whereas an efficacious grace produces an exterior act.
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Sufficient grace gives man the potency to do good, but efficacious grace is required to move him from potency to act.
Therefore, sufficient grace is insufficient to move him to act, the power remains in potency and is never actualized.
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When God wills a person to perform a salutary act (e.g., prayer, good works), He grants him the means (an efficacious grace) that infallibly produces the end (the act willed by God).
If God wills to permit a person to resist His grace, He grants him a sufficient, and not an efficacious, grace.
The distinctions between these graces reveal that God is responsible for man’s salvation.
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EXAMPLE
The Mystery of Predestination by John Salza, Page 113.
However, the Church teaches that God infused Adam with sufficient grace to resist temptation and to perform his duties with charity.
God, however, willed to permit Adam to reject His grace and to sin. End quote.
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THE SAME PRINCIPLE APPLIES TO US AS WELL
When our wills aided with sufficient grace, we always infallibly and FREELY reject the grace and we every time FREELY commit the acts of sins.
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When our wills aided with efficacious graces, we ALWAYS FREELY and infallibly reject the temptation of sin and we every time FREELY choose the good.
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Nor would God permit evil at all, unless He could draw good out of evil.
Evil, therefore, ministers to God’s design (St. Gregory, op. cit.,)
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WITHOUT GOD WE CAN DO NOTHING.
The Divine will is cause of all things that happens, as Augustine says.
Hence if this divine influence stopped, every operation would stop.
Every operation, therefore, of anything is traced back to Him as its cause. (Summa Contra Gentiles, Book III.)
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God bless
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