D. To the Arguments for the Opinion attributed to Peter Lombard.

178. To the arguments for the opinion imposed on the Master, namely the opinion that denies a supernatural habit bestowing grace [nn.101-112].

179. [To the arguments for the first way] - To the first [n.104] I say that the habit in question gives acceptable acting [nn.150, 129], and that it gives some activity with respect to act, as some second cause with respect to it [n.151]; but it does not give pleasurable or easy acting, which belong to an acquired habit insofar as it is distinguished from an infused habit, on account of its being acquired from repeated acting.

180. To the second [n.105] I say that although some say the will in its purely natural state cannot have any act about a supernatural object seen bare, yet this was rejected in I d.1 nn.88-89, 141-142. I concede, then, that the will could have an act about such an object whether shown bare or by an act of faith, - but the act about an object shown by faith would not be meritorious, because it would not be according to the inclination of the habit by which alone God makes disposition to accept the act; nor even in the fatherland would it be beatitude, because it would not be as perfect as it could be possessed by such a power if the power were perfect in a way proportionate to the supernatural habit.

181. And if you object that the act about the divine essence as seen could be so perfect that it would give rest to the will, because the act would be elicited in accord with its total effort and would consequently be beatific, - which seems to be the case also because such a will would have ‘whatever it wanted and would want nothing badly’ (but this is ‘to be blessed’ according to Augustine On the Trinity XIII ch.5 n.8), - I reply that it would not be blessed, not only because it would not have whatever it wanted in the way it should want it (for it should want ‘to love acceptably’ and this it would not have), but also because it would not have an act as perfect as to agree with it in the grade of its nature. For no power capable of being habituated can have, without that habit, an act as perfect as it can with it [nn.40, 70, following the third way, n.32]; nay, the more perfect the power the less can it, if it lacks all habit, have an act proportional to its perfection, because, from the fact that the geometrical proportion between two unequal powers is like proportionally perfective habits, there will be therefore another proportion, arithmetical proportion - and thus a more perfect power, if it has not been habituated, will be simply more deficient than a lower and more imperfect power [III Suppl. d.27 q. un. n.19]

182. As to the remark added that ‘it has whatever it wants’, - I reply: not with as much volition as it can in an ordered way desire the object with. For it can in an ordered way desire to have it with an act as great as would agree with it from the nature of the power and the habit proportional to it, and not merely with an act as perfect as agrees with it from its purely natural resources; now it would not have [sc. whatever it wants] in the first way but only in the second.

183. Against this [nn.181-182]:

It seems then that no will would be blessed that did not have the greatest charity it was capable of.

184. Further, as was argued in the preceding solution [n.30], by that reason by which a power in the supreme grade of the power is perfect, it is capable of the supreme act such that nothing is lacking to it from lack of the habit; therefore to a will in any grade nothing in that grade is lacking to it because of lack of the habit.

185. To the first [183] I say that it cannot in an ordered way will to have the beatific object with a greater act than corresponds with its merits; such an act is not the greatest ‘it is capable of’, although always greater than the one it could have existing in its purely natural state.

186. To the second [184] I say that an infinite will contains eminently in itself by identity every perfection or the whole perfection of the habit, and so it does not give any lesser perfection to its act on account of not being understood to be informed with the habit; but a finite power does not include by identity the habit proportional to it, and so it can in its acting fail of the proportion that agrees with it, if be not perfected with the habit.

187. To the third [n.106] I say that this act is not created, speaking of creation properly; both because there is, with respect to it, the concurrence of some active second cause, while creation belongs to the first agent alone without a second cause, - and because there is presupposed here something that is receptive of the act (namely the will), while in creation nothing is presupposed that is susceptive of creation. When therefore it is said that ‘everything supernatural is created’ [n.106], if it be conceded of every supernatural first act, yet it should not be conceded of something supernatural that is a second act, because there is for this latter the concurrence of created power, both in idea of what is active in some way [nn.152-153] and in idea of what is receptive; and yet it can be called supernatural by reason of the form or the habit that concurs in its production, even though it be not immediately created.

188. One can in another way say [to the third, n.106] that the act is not properly supernatural the way the habit is, because although ‘the presupposed habit’ is immediately from a supernatural cause, yet it is, when posited in existence, a natural cause with respect to its act; and so the act that is produced by such a habit is not supernatural; for the form that is supernaturally produced can be as naturally related to its act as a form that is merely natural is related to its act, so that the difference in the production of the forms does not cause nor entail a distinction between them in comparison to their acts.

189. To the fourth [n.107] one can say that a will thus habituated has in its power the use of a habit of this sort; and when the will operates with equal effort, the habit cooperates equally along with it, because a habit acts, on its own part, by way of nature. However, there will not always be an equal pleasure following on the elicited act; the pleasure is, to be sure, from the object that is attained by the act and not only from the power acting about the object; but now [sc. in this present life], when the object is not present in itself but in figure, the pleasure can be caused by a limited object in diverse ways, now more now less, although an equally intense act with equal effort be elicited about it. - As for what is said of contemplatives [n.107], it is true about the devotion, that is, about the pleasure consequent to the act; but it is not true about the elicited act of loving itself, which is sometimes more intense and sometimes more meritorious, although a lesser pleasure or almost none follow upon it, - and sometimes a lesser act, lesser both in itself and in divine acceptance, is accompanied by a greater pleasure, for attracting little ones so that they might more eagerly pursue that whose sweetness they have had advance taste of.

190. [To the arguments for the second way] - To the first argument about the second way [nn.108-109], I concede that the Holy Spirit could cause an act immediately in the will, and could accept that act - as caused by himself - as worthy of eternal life; but then that act would neither be of the will nor in its power; nor do we believe that he accepts such an act, but he makes disposition to accept an act of free choice - which act is in the will’s power.

191. To the second [n.110] I say that the Holy Spirit’s cooperating with fire for it to heat is not a miracle; but his cooperating with water for it to heat (provided however some causality with respect to heating could, without contradiction, be said to belong to water), this would be miraculous. Thus I say in the proposed case that the Holy Spirit’s cooperating with an habituated human will for it to elicit an act in accord with the habit, that this is part of the common law by which God assists a second cause in doing its act; but his cooperating with a non-habituated will would be miraculous, provided however the will itself could operate. I say, therefore, that the Holy Spirit cooperates with a will possessed of charity; not indeed because the will possesses it such that its charity is the prior cause, namely moving the Holy Spirit to cooperate, - but because the Holy Spirit cooperates generally with a second cause in the act to which the second cause, according to its form, is ordered, the way it is with act of love in an habituated will. - When you say, therefore, that ‘the Holy Spirit cooperates before the will has charity’ [n.110], this is false unless it be understood of priority of nature, as a superior cause is prior. The Holy Spirit, to be sure, cooperates with a will possessed of charity at the same time as the will operates, - or if it be conceded that the Holy Spirit cooperates with the will before the will have charity, it does not therefore follow that ‘he could be cooperating equally with a will not possessed of charity’ [n.110], because he does not cooperate with a will not possessed of a form for acting as he does with a will that is.

192. To the third [n.111] I say that although by the communication of properties [sc. between the two natures in the incarnate Christ] human operations are truly asserted of the Word, yet the proper acts of the Word in his divine nature were not in the power of ‘this man’ [sc. Christ] so that he could, insofar as man, merit by those acts; for Christ did not merit for us in this act, namely if the Son of God - who was in the flesh - created souls along with the Father and the Holy Spirit; and so as to the proposed case, the will will not merit if the Holy Spirit, in whatever way he is joined to it, were to cause in it an act of loving.

193. To the final argument [n.112] I say that although it cause difficulty for those who hold that the species is first act with respect to the intellect whereby the intellect is capable of second act (as hot wood heats by heat), because if this were true it would be difficult to save the proposition that the intellect ‘when not informed by any form’ would be capable of operation [I d.3 nn.456-459]; yet according to the way that I stated in distinction 3 of this first book [d.3 nn.494-498], that ‘the object - whether in itself or in the species - is a sort of partial cause, concurring with the intellect in causing intellection’, this argument does not cause any difficulty, because the object when present in itself (the way it will be in the fatherland) suffices without any informing for causing vision, or suffices of itself alone along with the intellect.

194. And if it be argued ‘if vision can be perfect without an informing habit, then the enjoyment can be most perfect too [sc. without a habit]’, - I reply: no one commonly denies that in glory there is ‘a habit of the light of glory in the intellect’ [I d.3 n.114; III d.14 qq.102 nn.2-4, 8; IV Suppl. d.49 p.2 q.3 nn.9-10], - and this habit on the part of the intellect can be set down as corresponding to charity on the part of the will.Interpolation, see the immediately follow appendix. ²⁹