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The Divine Foreknowledge and Causality in Relation to Freewill

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

ÆLred Whitacre O.P.
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Extract

I.

The Encyclical ‘ Studiorum ducem?

On the 29th day of June, 1923, the Holy Father, Pope Pius XI, published the Encyclical Studiomm ducem. After extolling the virtues and holiness of the life of St. Thomas, the Holy Father says:

‘From this slight glance at St. Thomas’s great virtues, it will not be difficult to understand the extraordinary excellence of his doctrine and the great authority it holds in the Church. Our Predecessors, as it were with unanimous utterance, have sounded its praises. ... It is not possible to recount all the innumerable documents of the Apostolic See, yet we must not omit to mention Leo XIII, who did so much to revive Thomistic studies. . . . Pius X, of holy memory, following Leo’s worthy example, declared the splendour of St. Thomas in his Motu proprio ‘ Doctoris Angelici,’ . . . Benedict XV, our beloved Predecessor, more than once repeated the same. . . . and it was reserved for him to give in the Code of Canon Law which he promulgated a unique consecration to the method, doctrine and; principles of the Angelic Doctor. We ourselves therefore, in approving these tributes to iso great a genius, consider that St. Thomas should be called not only the Angelic, but also the Common or Universal Doctor of the Church, because his doctrine the Church has made her own.

. . . Truly and wisely did our Predecessor say: “To

desert Aquinas, especially in his metaphysical teachings, is to risk disaster.”

. . . ‘There is no doubt that Theology reached the apex of its dignity in the words of Aquinas, who combined an absolute knowledge of divine things with a force of intellect wonderfully fitted for philosophical argument. Wherefore both in our schools of philosophy and Theology, St. Thomas holds the supreme mastership.

Type
Research Article
Information
Blackfriars , Volume 4 , Issue 47 , February 1924 , pp. 1388 - 1398
Copyright
Copyright © 1924 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

1 Cf. Can. 1366, 2.

2 Pascendi, 8 Sept. mcmvii.

3 Can. 1366, 2.

4 Act. Apost. Sedis, 1916, p. 397.

5 Cf. Blackfriars, Dec., 1923, ‘Scientia media and Freewill,’ and Jan., 1924, ‘The Divine Concurrence and Free-will.’.

6 De gratia, t. II, c. 3, a. 9; t. III, c. 2 and the Epilogue.

7 Ia q. 105, a. 5; de Pot., q. 3, a. 4, ad 7, and 13; Contra Gent. III, c. 66; de Malo, q. 3, a. 2, ad 4; Contra Errores Græcorum, c. 23. Cfr. Del Prado, op. cit. t. III, p. 36–40.

8 Ia q. 105, a. 4; Ia IIæ q. 10, a. 4, and ad 3; Ia IIæ q. III, a. 2, ad 2; q. 113 throughout the whole; IIa IIæ q. 24, a. 11; de Malo q. 6, a. 1, ad 3; de Carit. a. 12.—Rom. 9, lect. 3 Commentary upon: ‘Therefore not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that showeth mercy.’—Ephes. 3, lect. 2; Heb. 12, lect. 3; 13, lect. 3.—Cfr. Del Prado, op. cit. t. II, p. 92–109.

9 Ia IIæ q. 79, a. 1 and 2.

10 IIa IIæ q. 2, a. 5, ad I.—Cont. Gent. III, c. 158. Cfr. Garrigou-Lagrange, who treats this question fully, Dieu, p. 682- 711.

11 Ia IIæ q. 113, a. 3; q. 10, a. 4.—Cont. Gent. III, c. 89; de Malo q. 6, a. 1, ad 3, etc.—Cfr. Del Prado, op. cit. II, p. 259- 298.—Garrigou-Lagrange, Dieu, p. 411, 477, 485, 689.

12 Ia. q. 16, a. 7, ad 3. And Perihermenias, 1, lect. 13.

13 Ia q. 19, a. 4.

14 Ia q. 14, a.8.

15 Ia IIæ q. 17, a. 2.

16 Ia q. 14, a. 8, ad 1.

17 Cfr. the above citations; and de Verit. q. 6, a. 3; Ia q. 57, a. 2; Ia q. 14, a. 11; IIa IIæ q. 171, a. 3, ‘Contingentia futura quorum veritas non est determinata in seipsis non sunt cog- noscibilia’ Cont. Gent, III, c. 56.—Cfr. Del Prado, op. cit., p. 49–52.

18 Molina, Concordia q. 23, a. 4 and 5, disp. 1, membr. 13. Paris, p. 549.

19 Ibid. Paris, p. 526.

20 Ibid. Paris, p. 196.

21 The present writer treated of this at greater length in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. See art. Thomism, P. 323, 324.

22 Positively Molinism is not one, but legion; negatively only is it one in that all forms deny St. Thomas's doctrine on the Divine prescience and causality.

23 Italics mine.