Dist. 26, Art. 1, Q. 6
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/2/d/26/q/bon-sent-II-d26-a1-q6
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### Article (Sole). *On the quiddity of grace.*
### Question VI. *Whether grace is related to the soul in the character of a mover.*

Sixth and last it is asked whether grace is related to the soul in the character of a mover. And that it is, seems [the case]:

1. *First*, by the authority of Augustine, which the Master adduces in the text, that grace is prevenient, which «anticipates the merit of a good will, and in regard to which the good will itself is a follower, not a forerunner»: therefore grace with respect to the will stands by way of an arouser, commander, and ruler; and everything of this sort stands in the character of a mover: therefore, etc.

2. *Likewise*, Augustine: «Grace stands to free choice as a rider to a horse»; but the rider is the mover of the horse: therefore grace is the mover of free choice.

3. *Likewise*, this seems [so] *by reason*. It is more to raise some potency above itself than to move it; but grace elevates the potency of free choice to meritorious works, which are above it: therefore it is the mover of free choice.

4. *Likewise*, grace can do more upon free choice than free choice can do upon itself; but «free choice is an instrument moving itself», as Anselm says, and the will can move itself: therefore much more strongly can it be moved by grace.

5. *Likewise*, everything that is the principle of perfect life is the principle of motion in that which it vivifies; but grace is the principle of life in the soul: therefore, etc.

**On the contrary:**
1. The will is free by this very fact, that it is moved from itself. Since therefore grace is something other than the will, if grace moves the will, it takes away its freedom; but it is established that grace does not take freedom from the will: therefore it does not move it.

2. *Likewise*, every sufficient mover is *a this-something* and a complete substance distant from the movable: therefore either grace does not move free choice, or, if it moves it, it is a substance. If therefore created grace cannot be in the genus of substance, but in the genus of accident: therefore, etc.

3. *Likewise*, if grace moves free choice, it moves either *naturally*, or *violently*, or *voluntarily*. If *naturally*: therefore meritorious works will be natural. *Again*, if it moves *naturally*, it always moves, as far as it depends on itself: therefore a man never rests from meritorious works. If *violently*: therefore neither is the character of merit preserved there nor the freedom of choice, both of which are clearly false. If *voluntarily*; but nothing moves voluntarily unless it has cognition and will: therefore grace knows and wills, and thus is a rational substance. Therefore either grace, if it moves free choice, is not something created, or, if it is something created, it does not move free choice.

4. *Likewise*, if it moves free choice, [it does so] either as a *moved mover*, or as an *unmoved mover*. If you grant that [it moves] as a *moved mover*: therefore, since nothing is moved and moves according to the same [respect], grace will have in itself one nature and another, by which it is moved and moves: therefore it will not be a simple accident. If as an *unmoved mover*; but such a mover is not something created: therefore either grace is not something created, or it does not move free choice.

5. *Likewise*, «the same thing remaining the same is, in creatures, always apt to do the same»: therefore if grace is something created and moves free choice; since grace is not varied, it will always incline free choice to the same thing: therefore a man never does, through grace, anything but one meritorious work. If therefore free choice is now aroused to one kind of work, now to another; it seems that either that arousal is not from grace, or grace does not signify something created, or grace is changed and varied, like free choice.

### Conclusio

> **Conclusion.** Free choice is moved by grace in two ways: both by grace *operating* as the instrument of God, and by [grace] *cooperating* as a disposition to motion.

**I respond:** It must be said that, beyond doubt, as the authorities of the Saints say, it is necessary to hold that free choice is moved and aroused by grace. For by *operating* grace itself it is prevented, and by *cooperating* [grace] it is elevated to meritorious works, so that with respect to a meritorious work grace is as it were the principal mover, and the will as it were a follower.

But *how* grace itself, since it is an accident of the soul, can move it, this has its difficulty. For the explanation of this difficulty there is a twofold way of speaking or of understanding, according to which free choice is said to be moved by grace. —

One way of speaking is that grace is said to move free choice because it is a *disposition* toward a certain spiritual motion. For just as weight in bodies disposes to motion, so too in its own way [is there] a weight in spirits. But grace is a certain spiritual weight, given to the soul, by which it has [the power] to tend upward; and since free choice is apt to move itself according to the acts of which it is capable of itself; when it is aided and informed by grace, it more excellently moves itself, so that, since free choice is mover and moved, grace disposes it under the character of mover. And to this extent grace is said to move free choice, because free choice, informed by grace, moves itself; in which manner love is said to move a man to the doing of great works.

The other is the way of understanding according to which free choice is said to be moved by grace. For grace is as it were a certain *influence* proceeding from the supernal light, which always has conjunction with its origin, as light with the sun; and because it is always joined to its origin, therefore operation is attributed to it not only by reason of the subject *in which* it is, but also by reason of the subject *from which* it is. Hence just as light operates not only *with* the air, but also operates *in* the air itself by reason of its continuation with its source; so too grace not only operates *with* free choice, but also operates *in* free choice and moves free choice. — Hence to say that grace moves free choice is nothing other than [to say] that grace is the *instrument* of the Holy Spirit for moving free choice.

Each of these ways of understanding is fitting and correct, nor does one suffice without the other. For the first belongs to *cooperating* or *subsequent* grace; the second belongs to *operating* or *prevenient* grace. For *operating* grace prevents and moves free choice, because God, by infusing it, heals and prepares the will of man. But *cooperating* or *subsequent* grace is said to move free choice, because the will, informed by such a gift of grace, moves itself. For the will has this potency, namely of moving itself, because it is a potency not bound to matter, as was shown above, when free choice was treated of. — The reasons therefore are to be granted which show that grace must be related to free choice in the character of a mover. But to the reasons to the contrary the response is plain from what has now been said.

1. For as to what is objected first concerning the will, that it moves itself; it must be said that this does not stand against, nay rather agrees with, what is said, that it is moved by grace. For just as the will moves itself to natural works, so, aided by grace, it moves itself to meritorious works. — Or according to the other way of understanding, God through grace moves the will; nor yet does this repugn the will, because the will wills thus to be moved by God. Hence it is so moved by God that it is also moved by itself; and therefore every meritorious work is attributed to grace and to free choice.

2. To what is objected, that a mover is distant from the movable; it must be said that this is understood of that motion in which to be moved is truly to *undergo*, as is the case in bodily motion, and of that mover which is the whole *sufficient* cause and the whole cause of the motion. But such a mover is not said to be grace, for the reason that it moves only as a *disposition*, or as an *instrument*, as was explained before.

3. To what is asked: whether it moves *naturally*, etc.; it must be said that it moves *voluntarily*, not by a will whereby grace itself is willing, but by the will whereby God *infusing grace* is willing, and by the will whereby free choice *made pleasing* wills to move itself.

4. To what is asked, whether it is a *moved mover* or an *unmoved* one; the response is already clear. For that division of mover is about the mover which is *a this-something* and a substance and is a *sufficient* mover; but such a mover is not grace, as was said before.

5. To what is objected, that the same thing, remaining the same, always [does the same], etc.; it must be said that this fails in God; and therefore, according as *God* moves through grace, through the same grace he can arouse to diverse works. But according as *free choice* moves itself through grace to diverse works, there is in it a diversity of cognition and of affection, according to which it is to be ordered to diverse kinds of works: and therefore, although grace is not varied in itself, it nevertheless moves to diverse things by reason of the variation in the mover joined to it, without which it cannot move. For grace never elicits a meritorious work unless the will cooperates with it.