Grace and Freedom
If grace does it, am I free?
Main teaching: De fide
The big question
If grace is necessary for every good act, and God gives it, are we just puppets? If God has already chosen who will be saved, what is the point of trying? And if we can refuse grace, is God really in charge?
What the Church teaches
Free will, moved and awakened by God, cooperates with God’s grace, and can refuse it if it wishes (Trent, Session VI, ch. 5 and canon 4; DH 1525, 1554; CCC 1993).
Free will was weakened by the Fall, but not destroyed (Trent, Session VI, canon 5; DH 1555).
God predestines no one to evil or to damnation (Council of Orange, conclusion, DH 397; Council of Quierzy, 853, DH 621; Trent, Session VI, canon 17, DH 1567; CCC 1037).
No one can know with absolute certainty, without a special revelation, that they are among the elect (Trent, Session VI, ch. 12; DH 1540).
How sure is this? De fide. See CCC 1993, 2001–2002, 600, 1037.
How exactly grace and freedom fit together is an open question. In 1607 Pope Paul V ended a long dispute between Dominicans and Jesuits without deciding it, and forbade either side to call the other heretical.
Where it comes from
Scripture. St Paul holds both sides together in one sentence: “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12–13). God’s grace can be refused: “we entreat you not to accept the grace of God in vain” (2 Corinthians 6:1). Christ knocks, but does not force the door: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him” (Revelation 3:20). He even weeps over Jerusalem’s refusal: “How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!” (Matthew 23:37).
Scripture also speaks of predestination: “those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Romans 8:30). Yet God “desires all men to be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4).
The early Church. St Augustine put the balance memorably: God, who created you without you, will not justify you without you (Sermon 169.13; CCC 1847).
How theologians explain it
Not rivals. The mistake is to picture God and the human will as two forces pushing on the same object, so that the more God does, the less we do. Lesson 2.4 showed that God is not a cause alongside other causes, but the first cause who gives every creature its own power to act. When God moves the will by grace, he moves it as a free will, and so it acts freely. Grace does not take away freedom; it sets freedom free. The saints are not the least free people who have ever lived, but the most.
What the Church rejected. The Protestant Reformers, and later the Jansenists, held that the Fall destroyed free will, and that grace works irresistibly. Trent rejected the first (canon 5), and Pope Innocent X condemned the Jansenist claim that interior grace is never resisted (1653; DH 2002). Calvin’s teaching that God positively predestines some to damnation was also rejected (Trent, canon 17).
Predestination, rightly understood. God, who is outside time (Lesson 2.3), knows and wills from eternity the whole order of salvation. Those who are saved are saved entirely by his grace, so their salvation was willed by God from all eternity. But no one is lost except by their own free and final refusal. God’s knowing does not cause the refusal, as Lesson 2.4 explained.
The great debate. How does God’s grace infallibly achieve its effect while the will remains free? Two schools give different answers:
| Thomism (Dominicans: Báñez) | Molinism (Jesuits: Molina) | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting point | God’s sovereignty: grace is effective of itself | Human freedom: God works through free choices he foresees |
| Key idea | Physical premotion: God moves the will to act, freely | Middle knowledge: God knows what each person would freely do in any circumstance |
| Efficacious grace | Effective by its own power | Effective because God gives the grace he knows will be freely accepted |
| Its worry about the other | Makes God depend on creatures | Threatens human freedom |
Pohle, whose volumes are on this site, defends Congruism, a form of Molinism. The Church allows both views.
Philosophy bridge
Lesson 2.4 explained primary and secondary causes: an effect can come wholly from God as first cause and wholly from a creature as secondary cause, at different levels and without competition. Applied to grace, this means a good act can be wholly God’s gift and wholly our free choice.
What the Church does not claim
- Not that we are puppets. We cooperate freely, and can refuse.
- Not that God predestines anyone to hell. No one is lost except by their own free and final choice.
- Not that we can be sure we are saved. We can have confident hope, but not, without revelation, absolute certainty.
- Not that one school has settled the question. Thomists and Molinists are both within Catholic teaching.
Check your understanding
- What did the Council of Trent teach about free will and grace?
Show answer
That free will, moved by God’s grace, cooperates with it and can refuse it; and that free will was weakened, but not destroyed, by the Fall.
- Explain Augustine’s saying that God, who created you without you, will not justify you without you.
Show answer
We did not cooperate in our creation, because we did not yet exist. But God saves us with our free cooperation: he gives the grace, and we freely respond to it.
- Why is it a mistake to think that the more grace does, the less we do?
Show answer
Because God is not a rival cause alongside us. He is the first cause who moves the will according to its nature, as free. So a good act can be wholly from grace and wholly our free choice.
- Does the Church teach that God predestines some people to hell? Explain.
Show answer
No. Several councils rejected this. God wills all to be saved, and no one is lost except by their own free and final refusal of grace.
- What is the main difference between the Thomist and Molinist explanations, and has the Church chosen between them?
Show answer
Thomists say grace is effective by its own power, moving the will to act freely. Molinists say God gives the grace he knows the person will freely accept. The Church has not chosen between them.