Christ’s atoning sacrifice is sufficient for every human being, and God offers sufficient grace to everyone. We can however distinguish between sufficient grace and efficacious or effectual grace. It is consistent with Catholic theology that the grace of God is efficacious or effectual for those who have been predestined to final salvation, whereas the non-elect (the reprobate) receive grace sufficient for their salvation, but not effectual for their salvation. According to some Catholic schools (classical Molinism, e.g.), efficacious grace is extrinsically effective — that is, it becomes effective when recipients of such grace respond to it in a salutary manner — whereas according to other schools (Augustinian and Thomistic) efficacious grace is intrinsically effective, in the sense that it is effectual per se. Augustinian and Thomistic thought is therefore closer to Calvinist thought than is (classical) Molinism, as regards the nature of the grace of final perseverance.
For further reading on this, I suggest Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange’s Predestination, Louis Bouyer’sThe Spirit and Forms of Protestantism (see his chapter on Aquinas and Trent), or the Catholic Encyclopedia’s entry on Predestination. (This latter is written by someone with clear classical Molinist sympathies, and he offers some criticisms of stronger views of predestination; however, it is important to note that the views of predestination he criticizes qua Molinist are not deemed heretical, but are admissible views for Catholics to take.)
also from http://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/TULIP.htm
A Catholic can agree with the idea that enabling grace is intrinsically efficacious and, consequently, that all who receive this grace will repent and come to God. Aquinas taught, "God's intention cannot fail... Hence if God intends, while moving it, that the one whose heart he moves should attain to grace, he will infallibly attain to it, according to John 6:45, 'Everyone that has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.'" [31] Catholics must say that, while God may give efficacious grace only to some, he gives sufficient grace to all. This is presupposed by the fact that he intended the atonement to be sufficient for all. Vatican II stated, "[S]ince Christ died for all men, and since the ultimate calling of man is in fact one and divine, we ought to believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery." [32]
from here:comment 21 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2011/04/thought-experiment-for-monergists/
The Council here is teaching that there are two kinds of actual grace that must be received by fallen man before he can make a free choice for reconciliation with God through the Sacraments of Initiation. First, he must receive the actual grace of prevenient grace that enlightens his understanding, and that grace is received without any merit on the part of man. This is a monergistic movement by God – God deigns, by a sovereign act of his will, to give fallen man enlightenment, an enlightenment that allows man to understand that he is in need of justification and conversion. After the man has been enlightened by prevenient grace, he receives the actual grace of quickening and assisting grace, and this actual grace gives enough healing to man’s wounded nature that he can now cooperate with God in his conversion and movement towards justification. Quickening and assisting grace can be resisted, and, ultimately, it can be rejected – or – this actual grace can be accepted, and by cooperation with this grace, a man can move towards reception of the sanctifying grace bestowed by the Sacraments of Initiation. This is cooperation with quickening and assisting grace is synergistic – the man can’t move in this grace unless he has this grace, yet at the same time, this grace is not irresistible, since he can exercise his free will to reject this grace.
see also http://www.ewtn.com/library/Theology/grace5.htm
This is really a helpful article dealing with sufficient grace and efficacious gracealso from http://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/TULIP.htm
A Catholic can agree with the idea that enabling grace is intrinsically efficacious and, consequently, that all who receive this grace will repent and come to God. Aquinas taught, "God's intention cannot fail... Hence if God intends, while moving it, that the one whose heart he moves should attain to grace, he will infallibly attain to it, according to John 6:45, 'Everyone that has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.'" [31] Catholics must say that, while God may give efficacious grace only to some, he gives sufficient grace to all. This is presupposed by the fact that he intended the atonement to be sufficient for all. Vatican II stated, "[S]ince Christ died for all men, and since the ultimate calling of man is in fact one and divine, we ought to believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery." [32]
from here:comment 21 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2011/04/thought-experiment-for-monergists/
The Council of Trent, Session VI, Chapter V directly addresses the question of the actual graces that must be received by an adult before he chooses to become justified through the Sacrament of Baptism:
“The Synod furthermore declares, that in adults, the beginning of the said Justification is to be derived from the prevenient grace of God, through Jesus Christ, that is to say, from His vocation, whereby, without any merits existing on their parts, they are called; that so they, who by sins were alienated from God, may be disposed through His quickening and assisting grace, to convert themselves to their own justification, by freely assenting to and co-operating with that said grace: in such sort that, while God touches the heart of man by the illumination of the Holy Ghost, neither is man himself utterly without doing anything while he receives that inspiration, forasmuch as he is also able to reject it; yet is he not able, by his own free will, without the grace of God, to move himself unto justice in His sight.”
The Council here is teaching that there are two kinds of actual grace that must be received by fallen man before he can make a free choice for reconciliation with God through the Sacraments of Initiation. First, he must receive the actual grace of prevenient grace that enlightens his understanding, and that grace is received without any merit on the part of man. This is a monergistic movement by God – God deigns, by a sovereign act of his will, to give fallen man enlightenment, an enlightenment that allows man to understand that he is in need of justification and conversion. After the man has been enlightened by prevenient grace, he receives the actual grace of quickening and assisting grace, and this actual grace gives enough healing to man’s wounded nature that he can now cooperate with God in his conversion and movement towards justification. Quickening and assisting grace can be resisted, and, ultimately, it can be rejected – or – this actual grace can be accepted, and by cooperation with this grace, a man can move towards reception of the sanctifying grace bestowed by the Sacraments of Initiation. This is cooperation with quickening and assisting grace is synergistic – the man can’t move in this grace unless he has this grace, yet at the same time, this grace is not irresistible, since he can exercise his free will to reject this grace.
see also http://www.ewtn.com/library/Theology/grace5.htm
another one found here http://www.ewtn.com/library/theology/reality.htm#59
Concerning this (some of these links) this guy writes comment 358 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/09/why-protestantism-has-no-visible-catholic-church/
Sure. I read Predestination a few years back – great book (have not yet read Providence) – it’s where I first came across Thomas’ notion of predilection – those 4 links I sent cover some of the same ground as the book so it definitely won’t hurt getting familiar with that before the book.
He does in that link, as all traditions have to in these matters, retreat to mystery ultimately as he references Bossuet – “In other words, “It must be admitted (in opposition to the Jansenists) that there are two interior graces, of which one (namely, sufficient grace) leaves our soul inexcusable before God after sin, and of which the other (that is, efficacious grace) does not permit our will to glory in itself after accomplishing good works.”
In part 7 of the link he cites an objection to intrinsically efficacious grace by those who say Trent condemned it via:
“If anyone should say that free will, moved and stimulated by God, does nothing to cooperate by assenting to God’s encouragement and invitation…or that it cannot dissent if it so wills but, like something inanimate, does not act at all and merely keeps itself passive, let him be anathema.”
He replies:
“Indeed, more probably than not, the fathers of the Council referred in this canon not only to efficacious grace, but to intrinsically efficacious grace and motion, for Luther had spoken of it, declaring that: “Intrinsically efficacious grace takes away liberty.” The Council anathematizes those who speak thus, so that the Council must be defining the contradictory proposition. Its intention is to declare that even intrinsically efficacious grace does not deprive man of liberty, for he can resist if he so wills. The Council does not maintain that man does, in fact, sometimes dissent, but that “he can dissent if he so wills.” In other words, the contrary power remains, but under efficacious grace man never wills to resist, nor does he; otherwise the grace would not be efficacious or there would be a contradiction in terms; that is, otherwise grace would not cause us to act.”
Notice how LFW is maintained – the power remains to resist, even though the agent will never do so (similar to sufficient grace being both truly sufficient and merely sufficient). Not so in Jansenism or other deterministic systems.
[see here the book on Predestination http://www.thesumma.info/predestination/index.php and then the one on Providence http://www.ewtn.com/library/theology/provid.htm both by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.
Then there was a guy that disagreed with Lagrange who was also a Dominican--here is a summary: http://catholicforum.forumotion.com/t914-god-s-permission-of-sin-negative-or-conditioned-decree
and excerpts from a book discussing this can be found here http://openisbn.org/preview/3727816597/
Here is a bit of a quote from the book quoted in the summary:
Garrigou-Lagrange’s position defines God’s permission as a non-preservation in the moral good. Given this permission, a creature is infallibly defective. God, knowing his defect, moves him to his sinful act. God is not responsible for sin, because He need not preserve a creature in the moral good. Marin-Sola’s position defines God’s permission as a will to leave a creature to its condition. If the creature is defectible, this entails moving him towards the honest good such that he can fail or not fail to obtain is end. If the creature is defective, this entails leaving him to his condition, from which he infallibly remains defective. The defect itself, however, proceeds from the creature, even though it need not, and grounds his responsibility for sin.
Garrigou-Lagrange’s position is indefensible, for God’s non-preservation is a per accidens cause of a consequent defect. On this theory, God becomes the first cause of sin as sin. Its mistake lies in assuming that defect in being must be explained in relation to an extrinsic, rather than an intrinsic, cause. Its mistaken interpretation of Aquinas derives from conflating two senses of permission, without realizing that they involve different suppositions.
Marin-Sola’s position insists on the radical absurdity of sin. It cannot be reduced to God being, intellect, or will. By sinning, the creature places impediments to the course of grace, to particular ends of God’s general providence, and to the fruition of His antecedent will. Only if the creature abandons God is he abandoned. God eternally sees the creature’s independent defect in its own action and uses it to good effect. This is Aquinas’s doctrine and implicitly that of the Catholic Church.
..................................................................................."Marin’s doctrine argues for two different physical premotions, one fallible and one infallible, one conditionally efficacious or simply sufficient and one unconditionally efficacious or simply efficacious. From this, he logically deduces that there are two orders of God’s providence, a general one whose particular ends are impedible and a special one whose particular ends are unimpedible. It is not surprising then, to find him likewise deducing a similar truth about God’s will. That is, he holds that God possesses an antecedent will of an end that is conditional and resistible, and a consequent will of an end that is absolute, unconditional and irresistible:
................................................................................................................................................................If God’s antecedent will considers a man without some circumstances of his life, but not without all, it remains to determine from what circumstances it abstracts. In Marin’s view, it abstracts from only one such circumstance, final impenitence. For each and every man, until the moment of his death, it can truly be said that God possesses an active will to save him:.......................Garrigou-Lagrange’s position is indefensible, for God’s non-preservation is a per accidens cause of a consequent defect. On this theory, God becomes the first cause of sin as sin. Its mistake lies in assuming that defect in being must be explained in relation to an extrinsic, rather than an intrinsic, cause. Its mistaken interpretation of Aquinas derives from conflating two senses of permission, without realizing that they involve different suppositions.
Marin-Sola’s position insists on the radical absurdity of sin. It cannot be reduced to God being, intellect, or will. By sinning, the creature places impediments to the course of grace, to particular ends of God’s general providence, and to the fruition of His antecedent will. Only if the creature abandons God is he abandoned. God eternally sees the creature’s independent defect in its own action and uses it to good effect. This is Aquinas’s doctrine and implicitly that of the Catholic Church.
..................................................................................."Marin’s doctrine argues for two different physical premotions, one fallible and one infallible, one conditionally efficacious or simply sufficient and one unconditionally efficacious or simply efficacious. From this, he logically deduces that there are two orders of God’s providence, a general one whose particular ends are impedible and a special one whose particular ends are unimpedible. It is not surprising then, to find him likewise deducing a similar truth about God’s will. That is, he holds that God possesses an antecedent will of an end that is conditional and resistible, and a consequent will of an end that is absolute, unconditional and irresistible:
"The essential difference between the antecedent and the consequent will, therefore, lies in this, that the antecedent will to save man regards that man without taking into consideration whether or not he dies impenitent. God’s consequent will, however, considers man with all the circumstances of his life, including the final one. It is only on supposition of a person’s final refusal of God that one can say that He absolutely wills not to save Him, and that His salvific will is inefficacious.
"To say that a person wills something without considering certain circumstances is equivalent to saying that he wills the object conditionally. This is why it is called a conditional will to save that person
................................................................“The easiest way to appreciate his position is to recall that God is free to govern His creatures according to certain laws, to provide for them according to a certain established order. This equally applies to his gift of grace. The first “law” concerns His general supernatural providence:
Of this order we recognize two laws (a) that God gives to all men, at least to all adults, some sufficient grace, grace greater or less, proximately or remotely sufficient, as it pleases God, but really and truly efficient to keep the commandments and be saved; (b) that once the first sufficient grace, called vocation is given, God always and infallibly gives the efficacious grace for justification if man, by his own fault, does not paralyze the course of sufficient grace, placing an impediment to its course; that is, if he does with it what he can and prays for what he is not able to do (N 377).
“Such laws, clearly, signaled by most of the Thomistic commentators, are not based on any merit on man’s part or in any way tied to what he is capable of doing by nature much less what he can do by his fallen nature. Rather, for fallen man, they are based solely upon what Christ has done for him
:
The laws of the motions of general supernatural providence are founded, for the angels and for man in a state of integral nature, upon the elevation to the supernatural order. The laws of the motions of general supernatural providence, for fallen nature, are founded on the passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom, all men have been redeemed, that is restored to the rights of the elevation to the supernatural order lost through original sin … the premotions of grace proper to the general supernatural providence are in a certain manner owed to redeemed nature, or better, owed to the adorable blood of our Divine Saviour (N378).
“Thus, any action or any merit accomplished through the gift of sufficient grace is first and foremost to be attributed not to fallen man, but the perfect God-man who came to save all His brothers and sisters.
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