VI. To the Principal Arguments of the Third and Fourth Question

88. To the arguments of these two questions.

A. To the Arguments of Both Parts of the Third Question

89. The first two arguments [nn.20-21] show that the will of Christ’s soul cannot elicitively have the highest enjoyment, and this insofar as the action is due to second causes, with God not supplying the action of any second cause.

90. The argument to the opposite [n.22] shows that Christ’s will cannot have the highest enjoyment formally - which I concede. However the argument fails in that it seems to prove that enjoyment is from grace as from the total cause, which is false; hence although grace is disposed for enjoyment by nature, yet the will, which is the other partial cause, is not but is disposed freely; however in the fatherland the will always cooperates, according to the utmost of its power, with the action of grace according to the utmost of grace.

91. And if it be objected against the distinction set down for the third question [n.79] that then Christ’s soul could, by its union, have enjoyment without grace (the opposite of which was stated in d.2 [nn.18-22]) - I say that God could cause enjoyment immediately in any soul, and thus the soul would have enjoyment formally without habitual grace; but no soul could be disposed to enjoyment actively according to the order of causes now in place [n.87], unless it had grace as the second cause for it to be able to use in its acting; therefore enjoyment could not, by force of the union, belong more to Christ’s soul than to another soul, unless by force of the union enjoyment belonged to it elicitively according to the established order of second causes; but it could only do so if God supplied the action of grace, which would naturally be the will’s second cause in producing the effect - and God could supply it in this way for some other will. The will could also have enjoyment formally if God caused enjoyment in it immediately; but this would not be by force of the union, because God could cause it as immediately in another will. So this does not contradict what was said there [d.2 nn.18-22]; and also the enjoyment would not be praiseworthy if it were only caused immediately by God in the will as in a subject, because it would not be in the power of the will of the enjoyer, for it is not in the power of a second cause to use a first cause but conversely.

92. And therefore both for the wayfarer and in the fatherland some created form is posited, so that the will can use that form in its operation, and so that the form is in the will’s power and may thus be used in a praiseworthy way.

B. To the Arguments of the Fourth Question

93. To the arguments of the fourth question.

To the first [n.24] I say that grace is required for merit, because merit formally requires that the act be freely elicited by the will, and that it thus be in the will’s power; and in this way too grace is required for enjoyment, so as to be elicited actively by the will; but to have formally from God the act that is called merit, or the act that is called enjoyment, grace is not necessarily required; because grace is not the reason for receiving the form but the will itself is (and I say this about God’s absolute power).

94. To the second argument [n.25] I say that its conclusion concerns having enjoyment elicitively not formally, because in order to cause the highest effect (according to the now established order of causes [n.87]), both partial causes must have the highest perfection; it is not so for passive reception of the highest form, which form can be immediately caused by God in a passive subject without the prior perfection of that passive subject, or without any partial second cause.