I use Father Most's word, infrustrable, which he intends to be inclusive of secondary freedom, which I suppose is opposed to "irresistible" which would be without consideration of man's freedom or will. In his book Grace, Predestination and the Universal Salvific Will, he states: "116. God is always able to move us infallibly or infrustrably. It is clear from Scripture that God always can, if He wishes, so move a man so that at least as a matter of fact the man does not resist, but instead consents." and "We do not deny that man is truly free even under infrustrable physical movements (in secondary freedom). Nor do we deny that man makes decisions in secondary freedom. Yet, precisely because a man is unable to "distinguish himself" in regard to reprobation, God cannot, within the Thomistic system, simultaneously reprobate any man and still say He wills the salvation of that same man.82 Furthermore, as we shall see below,83 in the system of the older Thomists, God becomes, in the full sense, the author of sin."
In one sense, this position holds that God will not reprobate infrustrably with secondary freedom, as that would violate the universal salvific will to save all men, but, God does move some men infrustrably, but not ordinarily. Passages such as 2 Chronicles 30:12 and Proverbs 21:1 do seem to imply that God will move men, much more powerfully then the temporal positioning for seeking mentioned in Act 26-27. But does this, or can this, amount to a final salvific movement? Does God sometimes save man, not just temporally move man, infrustrably? I would be very interested in your opinion on this matter.
Sincere regards,
John
R. Sungenis: John, right before Fr. Most died a few years ago, he and I were in the midst of discussing this topic through an exchange of letters. Although Fr. Most was a great scholar and I respected him much, I disagreed to some extent with his formulations about God’s grace and man’s free will. I found his views on the subject a little too mechanical and artificial. He seemed to be inventing terms and procedures for both God and man that did not hit the real problem. At one point, Fr. Most was attributing “negative free will” to man. You get a hint of that idea above when Fr. Most says, “Yet, precisely because a man is unable to “distinguish himself’ in regard to reprobation.” He believed that man didn’t really choose for God by his own free will, since that would be an act independent of God, and therefore not possible. Rather, Fr. Most said man did not really make a choice. The best man could do is be neutral (theologically speaking), and then God would sweep him up by grace (even though on the outside it looked like man was making a decision for God). Fr. Most was trying to save free will theology from being a work of man in an effort to agree with Paul that salvation was not of works. I told him that his formulation was not what either Scripture or the Church has taught, and that his terms were complicating the matter more than helping. When the Church and Scripture ascribe free will to man, it is genuine free will and is not “neutral” in any sense. Moreover, free will makes no infringement on the truth that salvation is by grace and not works, since the ability to make a choice is a gift of grace. We would be in violation of the works principle only if we attempted to obligate God by our choice for him. Since God responds by grace, not by debt, we need not worry about the works problem. I think Fr. Most’s error came from a faulty understanding of Paul’s teaching against works for justification. Paul did not mean that man could not work; he only meant that work done outside of God’s grace would not procure justification.
I believe it is very important to keep man’s free will independent in the fullest sense (including reprobation) since it will allow God to both desire the salvation of the man and also reprobate him if he chooses against God. Once you make God’s desire contingent upon whether God can apply so much force upon the man that he, in Fr. Most’s words “does not resist, but instead consents,” then the question becomes, “why does God not apply the same force upon every man so that it results in the man’s consent?” and thus, Fr. Most has not escaped the charge of making God the “author of sin.” The only answer to this, I believe, is that there is no force God can apply to a man so that it is guaranteed the man will “not resist but consent. ”The best God can do without violating either Himself or the man, is to give man more grace and more evidence so that the man can make the decision, from his own free will, for good instead of evil. One means by which this extra grace and evidence will come to a man is if another individual prays for him.
Passages such as 2 Chronicles 30:12 and Proverbs 21:1 don’t prove the case for Fr. Most, any more than John 6:37 (“All that the Father gives me will come to me”) proves the case for Calvinism. Implicit in a reading of 2 Chr 30:12 and Pro 21:1, as well as John 6:37, is that there has already been a free will action by man that has already been taken into account but just not stated in the verse (e.g., John 5:40). We get a more explicit indication of this dual action in a passage such as Exodus 9:34 and 10:1 wherein the former says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart, yet the latter says that God hardened his heart. The implication, if read at face value, is that both God and Pharaoh are involved in this hardening but that God cannot be blamed for putting Pharaoh in the hardened state, or even initiating it. It is Pharoah alone who initiated it, but God uses it as he wishes, even increasing the hardness, and can do so without any infringement against Pharaoh’s free will. Hence, Proverbs 21:1 is not teaching that the king is like a puppet in the hands of God, rather, that as the king makes his own free will decisions in his “heart,” God knows what those free will decisions will be and uses them to his advantage. Actually, the Hebrew of Pro 21:1 says “to wherever He desires he extends it,” as opposed to “turns it.”(From the Hebrew NATSAH, meaning “to stretch out, spread out, bend” etc).
I think that one of the most important things we need to maintain whenever discussions of this type occur is the integrity of God. All things are possible for God (Mt 19:26) but there is one thing that is impossible even for God, and that is that God cannot lie (Titus 1:2). Hence, any schema that we develop to iron out the difficulties of God’s will and man’s will cannot put God in a compromising position wherein His integrity is under suspicion. His integrity is certainly violated when systems such as Calvinism or Zwinglism inevitably make God the author of sin, but I think we also run the risk of infringing on God’s integrity in Fr. Most’s system, since he sometimes increases God’s will against man so that the man is guaranteed to consent, as well as sometimes weakening man’s will against God so that the man is considered as not making a genuine free will decision and is understood as “neutral.”
Those are my thoughts on the matter. I hope they help iron it out for you. Thanks so much for the generous donation and your encouraging post script!
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