Congregatio de Auxiliis - Context of The Dispute

Context of The Dispute

The principal question, giving its name to the whole dispute, concerned the help (auxilia) afforded by grace; the crucial point was the reconciliation of the efficacy of grace with human freedom. Catholic theology holds on the one hand that the efficacious grace given for the performance of an action obtains, infallibly, man's consent and that action takes place; on the other hand that in so acting, man is free. Hence the question: How can these two -the infallible result and liberty- be harmonized?

The Dominicans solved the difficulty by their theory of physical promotion and predetermination; grace is efficacious when, in addition to the assistance necessary for an action, it gives a physical impulsion by means of which God determines and applies our faculties to the action. The Jesuits found the explanation in that mediate knowledge (scientia media) whereby God knows, in the objective reality of things what a man, in any circumstances in which he might be placed, would do. Foreseeing, for instance, that a man would correspond freely with grace A, and that he, freely, would not correspond with grace B, God, desirous of man's conversion, gives him grace A. This is efficacious grace. The Dominicans who seemed to lean towards Calvinism declared that the Jesuits conceded too much to free will. In turn, the Jesuits tended toward Pelagianism, which had been harshly attacked by the Father of the Church St Augustine during the 5th century and complained that the Dominicans did not sufficiently safeguard human liberty.