310. Objections.
1 From Rom. 9:21 where God is compared to a potter, and man to clay which is in
his hand. Therefore man, preceded by grace, is forced to act.
I concede the antecedent and deny
the consequent. For with this comparison one thing is signified, namely, that
God can either justify Christians with his grace or he can permit the rejection
of Pharaoh and the Jews. Hence it is said that God is the primary cause of
justification, in such a way that a man, without his grace, cannot be
justified; but in no way is the free cooperation of the human will excluded.
2. According to Eph. 2:1-5 man is presented
as dead in the way of salvation, but a dead man lacks all freedom.
Therefore a man is also coerced by the grace of God to act in a salvific way.
I concede the antecedent and deny
the consequent. For here it is only said that a man without grace cannot raise
himself up and be moved in the way of salvation. Therefore the necessity of
grace is affirmed, by man’s free cooperation is not at all denied.
3. Man is said to be a slave of
sin; he is freed from this servitude only by Christ (John 8:34; Gal. 4:31).
Therefore man does not cooperate in any way in the work of salvation.
I concede the antecedent and deny
the consequent. For there it is said that the grace of Christ is necessary for
us to be freed from sin; but the cooperation of our freedom is not excluded.
4. God is at work in man both
to will and to work (Phil. 2:13), that is, the whole work of salvation.
Therefore man, under the influence of grace, is totally passive, without any
free cooperation or resistance.
I distinguish the antecedent.
God produces the whole work of salvation, with the totality of the effected, conceded;
also with the totality of the cause, so that He alone while denying man’s
freedom, denied.
5. Justification is called a
new creation (2 Cor. 5:17; Eph. 2:10)
and regeneration (Tit. 3:5). But in creation and generation what is created
and generated is only something passive. Therefore the justified person does
not do anything freely.
I
concede the major and distinguish the major. What is substantially created or generated
does not do anything, conceded; what is accidentally created or
generated, as happens in justification, I subdistinguish: does not do
anything in the actual creation taken formally, which comes from God alone by
the infusion of sanctifying grace, conceded; does not do anything in
providing the disposition in order to receive the grace of justification, denied.
(Severino González Rivas, Sacrae Theologiae Summa, 4 vols.
[trans. Kenneth Baker; Keep the Faith, Inc., 2014], 3-B: 202-3)
