Theological Theses · §2381 · Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu

Alvarez: assisting grace prior in the order of causality

Thesis LXII. Others, on the contrary, maintain that assisting and cooperating grace comes before free choice in the order of causality and acts before it does. Although grace and free choice act on the devout work at the same time, the influence of grace is in some way prior in nature, and is not simultaneous with the influence of free choice in the order of causality.

This is the view of Diego Alvarez in the Epitome of his work on the helps of divine grace, book 3, chapter 19, whose heading is: 'That cooperating grace, as cooperating, is prevenient, or premoves free choice to consent, and does not merely act on the devout work equally and simultaneously with it.'

The chapter itself begins: 'From what has been laid down it is clear that cooperating grace, insofar as it is distinguished from rousing grace, goes before the free cooperation of created choice, not by priority in time but only in reason and causality.'

Latin

LXII. Contra vero pertendunt alii gratiam adjuvantem atque cooperantem, secundum causalitatis ordinem, praevenire liberum arbitrium, & prius quam illud agere: Ac quanquam simul tempore tam gratia, quam liberum arbitrium influant in piam operationem, natura tamen quodammodo priorem esse gratiae influxum, nec ordine causalitatis cum influxu liberi arbitrii simultaneum. Haec est sententia Didaci Alvares in Epitome de Auxiliis divinae gratiae, libro tertio, capite decimo nono, cujus hoc lemma est, Quod Gratia cooperans, in quantum cooperans, sit praeveniens, seu praemovens liberum arbitrium ad consensum, & non solum pariter, & simultanee cum illo in piam operationem influens. Idem vero caput his verbis incipit, Ex praemissis constat, quod gratia cooperans, quatenus ab excitante distinguitur, sit praeveniens liberam cooperationem arbitrii creati, non quidem prioritate temporis, sed rationis duntaxat & causalitatis.

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About this text

Louis Le Blanc, a Reformed professor at Sedan, sets out theology in theses argued against Rome: Scripture, faith, grace, free choice, good works and the saints.

This volume holds the Theses on Theology I–XLIII and On Faith I–XXII, in eighteen sections.

Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu (1614–1675) was minister and professor of theology at the Academy of Sedan, the Reformed school on France's eastern border. His Theses were disputed by students over many years and collected in a London folio (1675).

The Theological Theses range across the whole Reformed system — Scripture, God, predestination, grace, and justifying faith — in the crisp thesis-and-proof form of the seventeenth-century schools.

Date1675 AD (Sedan theses; London collection)

No modern English.

Reference

ESTC R17887; Wing L802. IA bub_gb_eOkHAW4G0-wC (+ EEBO 1675 for gap leaves).

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