Within Catholic theology, there are two primary perspectives on how God's grace and our free will interact.
First, there is the Jesuit position, which states that God's grace woos and leads us to choose what is right but is never efficacious, that is, grace does not guarantee our cooperation. God's grace might lead us to the water, but it does not make certain that we will drink. The final decision as to whether or not grace is effective is our choice.
Second, there is the Dominican position, which states that God's grace not only woos and leads, but is also efficacious, that is, it guarantees our cooperation. God's grace leads us to the water and guarantees that we will drink. However, this guarantee does not do violence to or take away our free will. The will is totally free. Its cooperation is assured because of the influence of grace on the heart.
I prefer the Dominican position for one reason: it seems to eliminate boasting in a way the Jesuit position does not.
According to the Jesuit perspective, we can thank God for his wooing grace, for leading us to the water; but we cannot thank him for our choice to cooperate because this was totally ours. God gets the praise for leading us; we get the praise for making the right choice, and this praise we get seems to be a ground for boasting on our part.
According to the Dominican perspective, God gets the glory for everything, for leading us to the water and for seeing to it that we drink. In this, there is no ground for boasting on our part.
According to the Dominican position, God gets all the glory, but how then are we not robots? The Dominicans can say our free will is not violated, but how can that be if we are unable to refuse God's grace?
ReplyDeleteAccording to the Dominican position, we are not robots. How we are not robots is a mystery. The Dominican position affirms two things equally: God's grace is efficacious, i.e., it guarantees our cooperation, and we are totally free because God always works with free will never against it. How these two things work together is not something we can understand.
DeleteHere's a question: Could Mary have said "no" at the Annunciation? In one sense, we could answer this in the affirmative, since it was an option. However, given the grace that had been in her life, she was not going to say "no".
I can understand it being a mystery, but I don't understand how it is a mystery in the same sense as transubstantion, where we merely can't understand how what appears to be bread and wine is truly Christ's body and blood. Rather, it seems illogical in the sense that we say God does not violate our free will, yet if the grace is efficacious, it means we won't say no to God's grace, and because of that we don't really use our free will, because we aren't permitted to choose any other option.
DeleteHere's an example. Five years ago I was in graduate school, and at the time, my oldest daughter was only 15 months. One afternoon, I was intensely working on a paper when my daughter came up to me with her arms up and said, "Up, up!" Part of me didn't want to pick her up because I was in a zone with the paper; however, I couldn't resist her cute little face and voice. There was nothing, per se, keeping me from rejecting her request. I could have said "no" and it was a legitimate option. However, given the love I had for my daughter and the love she had for me, I wasn't going to say "no". I think that's how efficacious grace works.
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