The Plan of the Summa Contra Gentiles and Divisions of Grace (Summa I-II, Q. 111, aa. 2-3)

Orientation #

He opens by answering a student’s question about the Summa Contra Gentiles, takes a break, and then reads Q. 111 a. 2 and a. 3 (verified against the text; the stretch between a. 1 and a. 2 is inferred). He says at the very end only “we better stop now.”

The class, in order #

1. Why the Summa Contra Gentiles has four books (“divide the first three against the fourth”) #

A student asks whether the SCG was written to help Muslim unbelievers.

• The Summa Theologiae is divided into three parts, and each part into two or three; we are in the prima secundae, with the thick secunda secundae still to come.
• The SCG’s division into four is only understood by first dividing the first three books against the fourth.
• Books I–III: God in Himself; God as beginning of things (Creator); God as end of things and His providence moving things to their end — following “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” the Arche and the Telos.
• The distinction of I–III from IV is natural and supernatural: the first three treat what can be known by natural reason as well as by faith, proceeding by reason and then adding authorities at the end (e.g. arguing God is not movable from His being pure act, then quoting James); Book IV treats what can be known only by faith and proceeds by faith — e.g. starting from passages that indicate a proceeding in God, a Father and a Son.
• The Summa Theologiae does not follow that division: the Prima Pars treats God in Himself both as reason knows Him and by faith, plus the Trinity.
• Reason for the SCG’s order: Thomas was answering the Dominicans’ need, at the master general’s request; so it is natural to separate what reason can show, and then, for what requires faith, not to try to prove three persons in God by reason alone but to defend it as not contrary to reason and not involving more than one God.
• Aside: he once gave a convention talk on the distinction of the order in the two Summas, not claiming either order better, but that something is made clearer in one than in the other.

2. The rule of dividing into two or three (“always dividing into two or three”) #

The point: Thomas explains any multitude by successive divisions into two or three.

• Proemium to the Ethics: philosophy is divided by the order reason considers — but by a distinction of order in comparison to reason, not by the five senses of order. Order not made by reason (natural philosophy, and wisdom also); order reason makes in its own acts (logic); in the acts of the will and actions following (ethics); in wood or other exterior matter (the mechanic arts). So really a division into two, and the second into three; ethics then subdivides into ethics, domestics, politics. Thomas doesn’t bother to state the first division into two, but that is what he is doing.
• The categories: Aristotle merely enumerates ten and exemplifies them; the commentators must divide. Thomas divides them in Physics III, because Aristotle there compares motion with acting and undergoing (two of the ten), while motion is found in quantity, quality and where; and again in Book V of wisdom [ed.: Metaphysics], where being is divided according to the figures of predication — always two or three, subdivided until ten.
• The Ten Commandments: first into three and seven; the three subdivided into three; the seven by dividing the fourth (affirmative) against the last six, and the six into deeds, words and desires.
• The seven sacraments: those ordered primarily to the good of the receiver against those preparing one to do something for the Church or the family or as a priest.
• Later, on the four causes: four can be divided into two twos in two ways — intrinsic (matter, form) against extrinsic (maker, end), or matter and maker against form and end — and both reveal something, so use both. Example: men and women against boys and girls, or men and boys against women and girls.

3. Islam and philosophy (“their God is arbitrary”) #

A student asks whether philosophy is possible in Islam if Allah is arbitrary.

• He agrees: there is no real theology to speak of, God being whimsical in His decisions.
• Averroes and Avicenna did get involved in philosophy, but fell into bad grace in the history of Islam; the movement was never a majority and was outlawed and destroyed. “Our friend Benedict” pointed out that they had to some extent given up the attempt.
• Some Protestants are a little like that too — thinking we have gone too far using reason; predestination is at the root of it.
• Asked how to deal with a devout Muslim: very difficult, “they might rather chop your head off than talk with your head.” The hope is that they are less consistent with Islam than with their reason — that they be more human than logical in their religion, which is a work of grace.
• Chesterton: poets are not as mad as logicians; if you start with the wrong premise and are consistent, you end in insanity.
• Aside: Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech on the imagination in Romeo and Juliet — she trickles across a woman’s lips and she dreams of kissing, across lawyers’ fingers and they dream of fees. “A little foretaste of that great work the hymn of Contra Gentiles.”

4. Article 2, objection 1 and its reply (“whiteness is said to make surface white”) #

Objection: grace is an accident, and an accident cannot act upon its subject; so no grace should be called operating. Reply: as an accidental quality grace does not act on the soul effectively (as efficient cause) but formally, as whiteness makes a surface white.

• Example: the spherical shape makes wood to be a sphere, another shape makes it a cube — “make” here is not the third kind of cause. The shape makes the chair a chair; the carpenter makes it, and makes it this chair rather than a stool.

5. Objections 2–4 and their replies (“God does not justify us without us”) #

• Obj. 2: if grace does anything in us it most of all justifies; but Augustine (on “the works which I do, you also shall do”) says He who created you without you will not justify you without you. — Reply: God does not justify us without us, because we are justified through the motion of free will consenting to God’s justice; but that motion is not the cause but the effect of grace, whence the whole operation pertains to grace.
• Obj. 3: to cooperate belongs to the lower, not the principal agent; but grace operates more chiefly than free will — “it is not of the one willing or running (currentis) but of the merciful God” (Romans). — Reply: one is said to cooperate not only as secondary to principal agent, but as aiding toward a presupposed end. Grace operating aids man that he may will the good; that end presupposed, grace cooperates in aiding the will to will the good. He prays: “God help us to know and love you.”
• Obj. 4: a division should be by opposites, but to operate and to cooperate are not opposites, since the same thing can do both. — Reply: operating and cooperating grace are the same grace, distinguished according to diverse effects. He notes that in editing the text he set “it is the same grace” on one line, then skipped a line before “but it is distinguished according to diverse effects.”
• Sed contra: Augustine, On Grace and Free Will — God cooperating perfects what He begins by operating; that we might will, He begins by operating; we willing, He cooperates by perfecting.
• Aside: a Pope said the teaching of Augustine on grace is the teaching of the Church on grace — a very strong statement, and a compliment to Augustine’s authority. “Augustine’s a little bit like Aristotle. You need time to understand them.”

6. The body of article 2: two senses of grace, each divided in two (“the operation is attributed to the mover”) #

Grace is understood two ways: as a divine aid moving us to will and act well, and as an habitual gift given divinely within us. In both ways it is fittingly divided into operating and cooperating.

• Principle: the operation of an effect is attributed not to the movable but to the mover. Where our mind — meaning reason and will — is moved and not moving, God alone moving, the operation is attributed to God: operating grace. Where our mind is both moved and moving, the operation is attributed also to the soul: cooperating grace.
• Grace as motion: there are two acts in us. The interior act of the will, where the will is moved and God mover — especially when the will begins to will the good which before it willed as bad; that is operating grace. Example: the woman taken in adultery, “go and sin no more” — undoubtedly He is moving her will to the good which she willed as bad before. The exterior act commanded by the will is attributed to the will; and because God aids us both inwardly, strengthening the will to reach this act, and outwardly, giving the ability to operate, here grace is cooperating. Augustine: “that we will, He operates; when we will, that we perfect, He cooperates.” — “So we’re really dependent upon God as far as I can see.” His own prayer: “God moved me to love you above all other things and all other things for the sake of you, even myself.”
• Grace as habitual gift: like any form it has two effects, esse and operation — as the operation of heat is to make something hot and to heat other things (calefactio). So habitual grace, as it heals or justifies the soul and makes it acceptable to God, is operating; as it is the source of meritorious work proceeding also from free judgment, it is cooperating. (He notes “heals” and “justifies” are used as synonyms here — “going to confession to get my soul healed.”)
• His summary: one division into two, each subdivided into operating and cooperating — four altogether, always by dividing into two. “Very subtle thing.”
• Connected back: when Aristotle distinguishes the four causes and reaches the third, he distinguishes mover from maker — the mover cause of motion, the maker cause of form. Example: the form of a bowling ball gives it a shape, and the ball does nothing further of itself; but when you roll it, it rolls better than a cube would — the shape cooperates with the rolling. Joke: a cube for golf; putting with a cube, “it would not cooperate with what you’re trying to do.”

7. Article 3, objections 1–2 on prevenient and subsequent grace (“the love of God is never following”) #

• Obj. 1: grace is an effect of divine love, but God’s love never follows — He does not love us because we are good, but we are good because He loves us; “not as if we loved God, but because He first loved us” (1 John). — Reply: the love of God names something eternal, and therefore can never be called anything but prevenient; but grace signifies a temporal effect in the creature, which can precede one thing and follow another, and so can be called before and after.
• Obj. 2: gratia gratum faciens is one only in man, since it is sufficient — “my grace is sufficient for thee” (2 Cor.); but the same cannot be before and after. — Reply: grace is not diversified according to its essence by being before and after, but only according to its effect, as with operating and cooperating; subsequent grace, pertaining to glory, is not other in number from prevenient grace by which we are now justified, just as the charity of the road (caritas viae) is not evacuated but perfected in heaven; and so of the light (lumen) of grace, since in its notion it implies no imperfection. He recalls “every perfect gift coming down from the Father of lights.”
• Aside on “you can chew these things” — not in the first sense of chew; chewing your book up won’t help you understand it.

8. Objection 3, the sed contra, and the body (“there are five effects of grace in us”) #

• Obj. 3: grace is known through its effects; the effects are infinite, one coming before another; so there would be infinite species of grace, but every art avoids the infinite. — Reply: though the effects of grace can be infinite in number, as the possible acts of man are, they are all reduced to a determinate number in species, and all agree in this, that one precedes another. He compares the old idea of motion, divisible forever, and distinguishes senses of before and after: Wednesday before Thursday, Thursday before Friday, against father before son, grandfather before father, I before my son and my son before my grandchildren — different species of before and after.
• Sed contra: from the Psalms — “his mercy comes before me” (Ps. 58, as he numbers it) and “his mercy following” (Ps. 22).
• Body: as grace is divided into operating and cooperating by diverse effects of the same grace, so into prevenient and subsequent, in whichever sense grace is taken. The five effects of grace: (1) that the soul be healed; (2) that it will the good; (3) that it efficaciously work the good it wills; (4) that it persevere in the good; (5) that it arrive at glory. “That’s it. No other thing after that.” As causing the first, grace is prevenient with respect to the second; as causing the second, subsequent with respect to the first. Since one effect is after one and before another, the same grace is called prevenient and subsequent according to the same effect with respect to different effects — just as Thursday is both after Wednesday and before Friday.
• Authority: Augustine, On Nature and Grace — “It goes before that we be healed; it follows that as healed we are vivified. It goes before that we are called; it follows that we are glorified.” “That’s beautiful.”

His words #

• “wisdom” — his name for the Metaphysics (“the fifth book of wisdom”; “that great work the hymn of Contra Gentiles” is a joke).
• Arche / Telos — the beginning and the end, from “Alpha and Omega.”
• “acting upon and undergoing” — two of the ten categories [ed.: action and passion].
• “the mechanic arts” — the order reason makes in exterior matter.
• “maker” — the third kind of cause [ed.: efficient cause]; distinguished within it: the mover, cause of motion, and the maker, cause of form.
• “operating / cooperating grace” — gratia operans / cooperans; the same grace distinguished by diverse effects.
• “free judgment” — liberum arbitrium [ed.: free will/free choice], also rendered “free will.”
• calefactio — “heating,” the second effect of the form of heat, its operation.
• “prevenient” / “running before, coming before” — gratia praeveniens; “subsequent, following” — subsequens.
• “the charity of the road” — caritas viae, his deliberately literal translation.
• lumen — the light of grace, implying no imperfection in its notion.
• “gratum faciens” — grace making us acceptable to God.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 111, a. 2 (objections 1–4, replies, sed contra from Augustine, body).
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 111, a. 3 (objections 1–3, replies, sed contra from the Psalms, body).
• Augustine, De gratia et libero arbitrio (sed contra of a. 2) and De natura et gratia (end of a. 3), as quoted in the articles.
• Romans 9:16 (inferred); 2 Corinthians 12:9 (inferred); 1 John 4:10 (inferred); Psalms 58 and 22 as he numbers them — all as quoted within the articles.

Mentioned

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, division of Books I–IV.
• Thomas Aquinas, Proemium to the commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics (division of philosophy by order).
• Thomas’s division of the categories in Physics III and in Metaphysics V (inferred loci).
• Aristotle’s enumeration of the ten categories; the four causes.
• Apocalypse, “I am the Alpha and the Omega” (inferred).
• The Epistle of James, quoted by Thomas on God’s unchangeableness; “every perfect gift from the Father of lights.”
• The woman taken in adultery, “go and sin no more” (John, inferred).
• Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech; Chesterton on poets and logicians.

His questions #

• Why is the Summa Contra Gentiles divided into four books? Because the first three, proceeding by natural reason, must be divided against the fourth, which proceeds by faith.
• Into how many does Thomas divide, when he divides? Always into two or three, subdividing until the full number is reached.
• If grace is an accident, how can it be said to operate? It acts formally, not effectively — as whiteness makes a surface white.
• Does God justify us without us? No: we are justified through the motion of free will consenting, but that motion is grace’s effect, so the whole operation pertains to grace.
• If operating and cooperating are not opposites, is the division bad? No: it is the same grace, distinguished according to diverse effects.
• Can God’s love be called subsequent? No — it is eternal, hence always prevenient; only its temporal effect, grace, is before and after.
• Are there then infinite species of grace, since its effects are infinite? No: infinite in number, but reduced to a determinate number in species.
• How many effects of grace are there in us? Five: healing, willing the good, efficaciously working it, persevering, arriving at glory.
• Is Thursday before or after? Both — and so grace is both prevenient and subsequent, with respect to different effects.
• Is philosophy possible for a devout Muslim, given an arbitrary God? Very difficult; the hope is that they be more human than logical — left open.