Perichoresis

Volume 18.6 (2020): 103–118

DOI: 10.2478/perc-2020-0036

FRANCISCO SUÁREZ’S ENCOUNTER WITH

CALVIN OVER HUMAN FREEDOM

VICTOR M. SALAS*

Sacred Heart Major Seminary

ABSTRACT. This essay explores Francisco Suárez’s account of the nature of human free will. To
that end, Suárez’s engagement with John Calvin is considered so as to place the Jesuit’s account
into greater relief. The conclusion of this study will reveal that, for Suárez, the human will’s
freedom of self–determination is both caused by God and consists in its own indifference regard-
ing the power to act and the power not to act.

KEYWORDS: Suárez, Calvin, Freedom, Necessity, Indifference

Introduction
Spain’s siglo de oro included not only unparalleled cultural achievements and
flourishing in the Iberian Peninsula but also bitter theological disputes and
controversies. The Congregatio de auxiliis, established to settle the controversy
that raged between the Dominicans (in particular Domingo Bañez) and the
Jesuits (especially Luis de Molina) concerning the relationship among human
freedom, grace, divine foreknowledge, and providence, is but one example
of the contentious atmosphere. Yet, controversies concerning human free-
dom and divine grace were not merely intramural disputes within Catholi-
cism, for they often spilled over into debates between Catholic and Reformed
thinkers as well. While the Council of Trent established the parameters ac-
cording to which the human will cooperates with and is moved by grace, it
remained for Catholic theologians to fill in the particular details of just how
the two (grace and freedom) could be fully reconciled. Francisco Suárez was
one such theologian; indeed, he was not just a theologian but—as Pope Paul
V called him—the Doctor eximius ac pius! Suárez’s mammoth opera spans both
the entire theological and philosophical spectra, and thus it is not surprising
that he himself should be drawn into disputes concerning the nature of hu-
man freedom.

* VICTOR M. SALAS (PhD 2008, Saint Louis University) is Associate Professor of Philos-
ophy at Sacred Heart Major Seminary. Email: [email protected]

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104 VICTOR M. SALAS

In defending his account of human freedom, Suárez’s confrontation with

Calvin is particularly noteworthy. The reason for this is that the difference
between the two thinkers marks opposite ends of the theological spectrum.
Recent literature has pointed out that Suárez’s view of human freedom can
be characterized as a form of libertarianism (see Burlando 1999; Penner
2013), robustly so, in contrast to Calvin, whose account has been described as
strongly compatibilist (see Helm 2010: c. 8). While there is more than a little
merit to these claims, I believe the terminological baggage these labels im-
port, drawn as it is from contemporary philosophical disputes, risks obfuscat-
ing each thinker’s position more than clarifying it. Be that as it may, at the
root of the controversies—whether among Catholic theologians or between
Catholics and Reformers—is the very nature of the human will itself. Just
how does it operate and in what does its freedom consist? There can be no
doubt that Suárez and Calvin articulate their theories of freedom according
to radically incommensurate paradigms—whether those paradigms be la-
beled as ‘libertarian’ and ‘compatibilist’ or not; yet there can also be no doubt
that both intend to capture a meaningful and authentic sense of the Christian
understanding of human freedom as a prelude to detailing the workings of
grace.
In what follows, I explore Suárez’s account of human freedom. To do so,
I give particular consideration to the Jesuit’s engagement with Calvin for the
purpose of placing Suárez’s own doctrine into greater relief. While discus-
sions of providence and divine auxilium are ineluctable in such discussions, as
Suárez himself often notes (e.g., 1861: 693), (created) nature, nevertheless, is
itself the basis upon which grace operates. Suárez is clear, ‘grace perfects na-
ture, especially inasmuch as it is the principle of human and free acts’ (1857:
1). For this reason, ‘Since free nature is the foundation of grace, and since
grace is the perfection and health of nature, therefore the debate about grace
supposes some knowledge of such nature’ (1857: 1).
Ultimately, my contention is that, while Suárez’s confrontation with Calvin
regarding human freedom certainly involves serious theological considera-
tions, the controversies that result from those theological considerations can
be located within an even broader context: namely, Suárez’s effort to secure
the real efficacy of secondary (created) causality, especially with respect to
(free) human agency. On the one hand, there are those who would deny the
efficacy of any secondary causality (let alone any true human agency) for the
purpose of securing divine providence and omnipotence (1861: 593). One
might say, then, that prior to the coinage of the term, Suárez is anxious to
refute the threat of ‘occasionalism’. On the other hand, there are those (e.g.,
Luther and Calvin) who more specifically seek to deny a certain subset of
secondary causality (viz., intrinsically efficacious, free human actions) in or-
der to secure the necessity of grace. I argue that, for Suárez, the human will

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has its own intrinsic efficacy whereby it exercises true (free) secondary cau-
sality. Yet, precisely as instances of secondary causality, those free actions do
not metaphysically stand apart from God’s exercise of primary causality. In
short, as we shall see, the human will and its actions are truly and intrinsically
free and efficacious but only because God is the sustaining, primary cause of
that freedom.

Freedom from Necessity

While Suárez takes it as a given that human beings often act freely, the ques-
tion for him is: what are the necessary conditions for those free actions and,
more specifically, what precisely is meant by ‘freedom’? When addressing
these questions throughout his works, he always notes that, what experience
itself seems so evidently to teach, numerous philosophers and theologians—
old and new (including Calvin)—have argued against and maintain that no
human action is truly free (Suárez 1861: 695–96; 1857: 267–68). The motives
behind the rejection of human freedom are varied. Some, such as Simon Ma-
gus and Priscillian deny freedom for the sake of preserving divine providence
and ensuring that its ordinances are infallibly realized (Suárez 1857: 268).
Such reasoning is not unlike what one finds in other thinkers throughout
the history of philosophy, such as Al–Ghazālī, Nicolas of Autrecourt, and
Malebranche. For example, in Al–Ghazālī’s Tahāfut al–Falāsifa (Incoherence of
the Philosophers) he argues pointedly against the Aristotelian conception of na-
ture for the reason that, upon such a conception, nature operates with strict
necessity. It would be utterly contradictory, after all, if it happened that fire
failed to produce heat for heat follows necessarily upon fire as a proper effect.
But if such necessitation is the case, there would seem to be no opening for
God to intervene miraculously within creation, which is a problematic notion
for a committed religious thinker such as Al–Ghazālī. Indeed, divine inter-
vention would only interrupt the necessary connections between a natural
cause and its effect, which would, again, yield a contradiction. To provide a
theoretical space for divine intervention and avoid any contradictory entail-
ments, Al–Ghazālī, not unlike a host of other similarly minded thinkers (es-
pecially David Hume), simply denies that there is any intrinsic (causal) con-
nection between what one would ordinarily consider a cause and effect.
‘[T]he connection between what is habitually believed to be a cause and what
is habitually believed to be an effect is not necessary’ (Al–Ghazālī 2000: 170).
Indeed, there is no connection at all, for concerning any two things ‘where
“this” is not “that” and “that” is not “this” and where neither the affirmation
of the one entails negation of the other, it is not a necessity of the existence of
the one that the others should exist, and it is not a necessity of the nonexist-
ence of the one that the other should not exist’ (Al–Ghazālī 2000: 166). If
there is no entailment of an effect from a (secondary) cause, then the nature

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of a cause precisely as a cause is undermined. That is to say, as Malebranche

would affirm centuries later, there is simply no secondary causality. The im-
plications such a position has for the free will are obvious. If God is the sole
cause, then even acts of the will would have no necessary connection to the
will. God’s providence and decrees might be preserved, but at the cost of any
true, efficacious free human action.
While Al–Ghazālī wished to undermine the necessity of nature to allow
divine intervention, Calvin took a different tactic. Divine providence and
prescience demand that creation infallibly realizes God’s decree, which
means that creation must be necessitated. But the necessity with which crea-
tion operates does not stem from the intrinsic exigencies of nature; Calvin
would be in agreement with Al–Ghazālī on that score. Rather, the necessity
stems from God’s predetermination, for, as the Reformer holds, ‘Nothing is
more absurd for anything whatsoever to happen unless ordained by God,
since it would happen blindly’ (1576: 44). Though approaching secondary
causality from different perspectives, Al–Ghazālī and Calvin converge upon
the same point: the human will has no intrinsic efficacy unto itself. Does this
mean, then, that, in necessitating all actions, God even necessitates sinful ac-
tions, for example, the fall of Adam? Calvin’s answer is ‘yes’. There is, how-
ever, a caveat: God ordains that Adam should fall freely (ibid: 234). I shall
return to this issue below when discussing the difference between God’s per-
missive and ordained will.
Be that as it may, Suárez further notes, there are those who reject human
freedom on the basis of more ‘theological’ reasons, as it were. Some—the ‘In-
novators’ (novatores), such as Luther and Calvin—deny freedom in order to
defend the necessity of grace (Suárez 1857: 268). If human beings lost free-
dom on account of original sin, then not only are people necessitated to sin
but they can only be liberated from that sin (i.e., justified) through unmerited
grace. But it is the claim that the human will can be ‘necessitated’ that per-
turbs Suárez. How can a free will that is necessitated to specific actions be free
in the execution of those actions? The Jesuit protests: ‘That is called free
which is free from necessity’ (Suárez 1857: 3).
While that claim might seem a little less than illuminating given that it
appears to place the definiendum in the definiens, its vagueness is almost inev-
itable, and Suárez admits that it is not so much a definition as it is an assertion
(Suárez 1857: 11). Indeed the reason for the vagueness stems from the poly-
morphic character of necessity. If freedom is the opposite of necessity and if
necessity is said in many ways, then freedom itself can be said in as many ways
as necessity (Suárez 1861: 695). It seems plausible, then, that certain actions
operating according to one kind of necessity can nevertheless be free with
respect to another kind of necessity. But again our question remains: how can
that which is necessitated in any manner be said to be free? Needless to say,

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an answer to this question turns upon what is meant by ‘necessity’, and it will
be critical for Suárez to distinguish and examine the different kinds of neces-
sity.
To that end, Suárez identifies two main senses of necessity. There is (N1) a
modal sense of necessity that is simply the opposite of both the impossible
and the possible, ‘in which way an action is called necessary that is not able
[either] not to be or be brought into being, always keeping in mind that sup-
position, namely, that once all the requisites for action are posited; and we
discussed this necessity of action in the previous section’ (Suárez 1861: 695).
But it would appear that N1 is not restricted merely to the logical domain, for
it also pertains to the intrinsic structure of created nature(s) and the activities
that issue therefrom. Suárez alludes to an earlier section (19th) of the Dispu-
tationes metaphysicae where he had argued that, beyond the first efficient cause
(i.e., God), there are created efficient causes that act with necessity. For ex-
ample, the sun, by its own nature, necessarily illuminates, and the fire, by its
own nature, necessarily heats (Suárez 1861: 688). To speak of these causes as
functioning with a kind of necessity does not entail that such necessity is ab-
solute but only hypothetical. That is to say, the necessity of created efficient
causes is contingent upon the supposition of all prerequisites for action
(ibid.). A normally functioning human eye is of such a nature that, once an
illuminated object is placed within proximate view, the eye will necessarily see
a visible object. Of course, the illuminated object could be obscured by an
opaque medium and vision would then be impeded, but in such an event it
is not the case that the eye actively withholds its power of sight. Given that all
the necessary conditions for vision are in place, an eye does not have the
power or ability not to see. Similarly, the sun cannot not illuminate and fire
cannot not heat, unless God intervenes. But even then it is not the case that
a contradiction would ensue, as Al–Ghazālī had feared. Rather, Suárez thinks
that in such a situation wherein God intervenes, it is not the case that God
alters or transforms the nature of the created agent—as if, for example, to
make fire cool. Rather, God withholds His concurrence (i.e., His creative cau-
sality that holds secondary causality in being) so that the created agent fails
to produce its otherwise necessary effect (Suárez 1861: 692–93). This will be
an important point, as we shall see, in our consideration of the efficacy of
human free acts.
Regarding the second sense of necessity (N2), Suárez points out that it not
only involves the necessity proper to N1, N2 additionally involves that which
is opposed to the voluntary (Suárez 1861: 694). To explain the nature of N 2
Suárez adverts to Aristotle’s account of voluntary action found in the third
book of the Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle holds, and Suárez agrees, that two
conditions render an action non–voluntary. According to the first condition,
necessity (N2.1) arises when an agent acts without any cognition (e.g., fire

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108 VICTOR M. SALAS

heats without perception); according to the second condition necessity (N2.2)

arises when an action is coerced by some extrinsic agent. To illustrate this
distinction, Suárez explains that a brute animal’s pursuit of its appetite’s nat-
ural object is not necessitated in the sense of N2 but it is according to N1. The
gold fish’s natural appetite, for example, necessitates (N1) its action in such a
manner that it will necessarily eat, even to the point of death if too much food
is present. But, since the goldfish acts both with perception and in accordance
with an internal appetite its action is not necessitated according to N2. Nev-
ertheless, insofar as that appetite arises from the nature of the animal itself,
the fish necessarily pursues nourishment according to N1. That said, should
it be the case that an animal is forced by some external agent (e.g., a horse is
spurred on to pull a carriage by a driver’s whip), that action would be neces-
sitated in terms of N2.2 as contrary to the animal’s internal appetite (Suárez
1861: 694). This kind of necessity (N2.2) is simply coercion which is a subset
of the necessary (N1): ‘And thus coercion is a kind of necessity and adds some-
thing beyond it’ (1857: 2).
In short, for Suárez, while all coerced act are necessitated (N2.2), not all
necessitated acts (N1) are coerced. Does this mean, then, that a free act can
be necessitated? Certainly, voluntary acts (i.e., those actions that arise with
cognition and are aimed at satisfying and internal appetite) can be necessi-
tated. But there is a difference between voluntary actions and free actions,
for as Suárez sees it, ‘That action is called free in the most proper sense which
is truly free from that necessity which natural and irrational things have when
acting’ (1861: 695; cf. Penner 2013: 17). It is precisely with respect to such
non–necessitated actions that Suárez inquires when asking whether any cre-
ated agent acts freely. Aristotle has something similar in mind when he tells
us that both children and animals exercise voluntary actions, although they
lack ‘choice’ or ‘προαίρεσις’ on account of the fact that they are deprived of
or have an underdeveloped rational faculty (Aristotle 1999: 129). But herein
resides the problem: if human beings act according to the exigencies of their
nature, how can any act be free from the natural necessities (N1) that are
intrinsic to that nature?

Indifference of the Will

Suárez himself is only too keenly aware of the difficulty involved in the rela-
tion between a nature that possesses its own intrinsic necessities and truly free
action. In one of his efforts to demonstrate that the will exercises truly free
activity, Suárez confronts the following objection: ‘[A] power that deliberates
towards one thing is not free; but the will is terminated in one thing, namely,
the good’ (1978: 382). What the objection points to is the classical scholastic
teaching that, while the proper object of the intellect is the true (verum), the
proper object of the will is the good (bonum). The intellect is naturally and

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 Francisco Suárez’s Encounter with Calvin over Human Freedom 109

thus necessarily drawn to the true, and in a similar way the will is necessarily
drawn to the good. But if it is the case that both faculties are necessitated to
their own proper objects, how can the will operate freely? In order to over-
come this dilemma and secure the will’s freedom, Suárez sketches the rela-
tionship between the will and the intellect, the exact nature of which was a
matter of considerable dispute among medieval and late scholastic thinkers.
Suárez observes that all are agreed that human freedom emerges from
rationality. Confusion has arisen, however, regarding the nature of freedom
because of a failure to appreciate the distinction between ‘formal freedom’
and the ‘root of freedom’ (Suárez 1861: 707). That is, while the intellect might
be the ‘root of freedom’ as its origin or source, an act of the intellect does not
itself formally produce free action. Rather, the will’s actions formally consti-
tute freedom, which is to say, those actions are essentially free. In developing
his thesis regarding the nature of free action, Suárez confronts the Thomists,
who ‘commonly explain that liberty of the will arises from the indifference of
the intellect’ (Suárez 1978: 394). That is to say, if the will is drawn to the good,
it is because the intellect cognizes some object as having the character (ratio)
of a good (Suárez 1861: 719). If the will’s choice is to be rational, then it can
only operate subsequent to the intellect’s presentation of some object as good.
Summarizing the Thomist position, Suárez explains, ‘the will is not able to
[move toward an object] unless that object is known and proposed through
reason since [the will] is a rational appetite’ (1861: 719). What is more, if the
intellect is itself indifferent to the object, as the Thomists hold, then freedom
is secured. The reason for this latter claim follows from the fact that if the
intellect is indifferent to its object, then it is not necessitated to that particular
object. If the intellect is not so necessitated, then the will’s election of an object
results in a free act. And, in fact, the intellect is indifferent precisely insofar
as there is discovered within each object some good element as well as some-
thing that has the character of what is bad. For example, in considering an
inoculation, the health–preserving properties can be perceived as good while
the pain of the needle can be perceived as bad. The upshot of the Thomist
view, as Suárez presents it, is that ‘if the intellect were to cognize some good
thing, in whose love no character of evil should be discovered, the will would
not be able not to love that [good]’ (1978: 396).
The notion that the will could not, not love some object presented to it as
a good strikes Suárez as extraordinarily problematic for the purpose of main-
taining the will’s freedom. To the Jesuit’s mind, freedom consists in the fol-
lowing: that agent is free that—once all the prerequisites for acting are pos-
ited—has within itself the power either to act or not to act; that is to say, free-
dom consists in the will’s indifference with respect to its acting. The intellect
itself, however, does not enjoy such indifference. ‘The will, however, with all
the requisites for action posited, just as it is able to act from an internal faculty

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110 VICTOR M. SALAS

by determining itself without the motion of another power, so also by the

same internal faculty is able not to act by suspending its influx and internal
power and dominion’ (Suárez 1857: 12). It is important to note that the will’s
ability not to act does not stem from an absence of some necessary condition
(ibid.). For example, a blind person does not exercise an act of vision freely
or through choice for the very reason that he is deprived of sight; that is to
say, he is lacking one of the prerequisites for acting. The will’s freedom, in
contrast, consists in the power not to act as well as the power to act.
Yet, if what the Thomists hold regarding the relationship between the in-
tellect and the will is truly the case, the will’s freedom would be undermined.
Suárez thinks that since the intellect is not really indifferent, as the Thomists
propose, it is not a formally free faculty. Suárez argues that the intellect, by
its own nature, is determined either to assent to what is true or dissent from
what is false (Suárez 1861: 715). For instance, confronted with the self–evi-
dent truth of the principle of non–contradiction, the intellect cannot not as-
sent to its truth, which means that its assent to that truth is necessitated by
that very truth itself. One might object, however, that if it happens that the
intellect is uncertain about the truth value of its object, then there remains a
certain degree of indifference that is necessary for freedom. For example,
one might not be certain whether a particular kind of wild berry is nutritious
or harmful. As such, the intellect would seem to be free or undetermined with
respect to the object (Suárez 1861: 715). Suárez rejects that line of reasoning
since it is not the case that the intellect, of itself, has any control over its action
in assenting or dissenting to the propositions ‘This kind of berry is healthy’
or ‘This kind of berry is not healthy’, but rather that an object might not be
sufficiently presented to the intellect (ibid.). To return to our example, if
upon a chemical analysis of the berry some poisonous chemical should be
discovered, the intellect would not be able to assent or dissent with indiffer-
ence from the proposition ‘This kind of berry is good for me’. If the intellect
is not a formally free faculty, then neither would the will be free on the Tho-
mist assumption, ‘for [the will] always follows a judgment of the intellect, and
should choose what the intellect judges to be better; but the intellect is not
free; therefore neither is the will’ (Suárez 1978: 396). That is to say, given the
intellect’s presentation of a good to the will, the will would be unable not to
elect that good (Suárez 1861: 719). But, again, the ability not to act once all
the requisites for action are in place is the very essence of freedom.
While not denying that the intellect plays a crucial role in free action—for,
indeed, Suárez thinks the will is ‘blind’ without the intellect (1861: 719)—the
Jesuit nevertheless sketches a different account of the will’s freedom relative
to the intellect. As we have seen, Suárez holds that the intellect is necessarily
determined to its proper object (the true), but he thinks that the will is not
determined to the good in the same manner. The intellect cannot determine

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 Francisco Suárez’s Encounter with Calvin over Human Freedom 111

itself to assent or dissent when some sufficiently clear truth is present, but the
will can either act or not act for the sake of some object even once it has been
presented as a good. To return to the inoculation example, the intellect, upon
the sufficient cognition of relevant data, cannot fail to assent to the claims that
‘The inoculation will preserve health’ and that ‘Health is a good’. And though
for most people the intellect cannot fail to assent to the claim that ‘The prick
of the needle is uncomfortable’, the intellect cannot also fail to assent to the
claim that ‘It is better to suffer the needle than suffer a horrible disease’. Nev-
ertheless, because one and the same object presents an aspect of the good
(health) as well as an aspect of some evil (pain), the will remains indifferent
to that object (the inoculation). For Suárez, the will:

‘[I]s not determined by all things, since some necessary character of the good does
not appear in all things, or [it could be the case that] such goodness does not ap-
pear that would not have evil, some inconvenience, or defect mixed with it’ (1861:
722).

Because the will is indifferent it can, after a judgment of reason and together
with all the other prerequisites for acting, either elect to take the inoculation
or elect not to take it. Indeed, Suárez is convinced that, in this life, all good
things (bona) are presented in such a manner that they possess a mixture of
both good and evil (1978: 398). Accordingly, unlike the intellect, the will is
never determined with respect to its object and remains free in its actions, for
the will brings its very self into act.

God as Cause of Human Freedom

Thus far, our presentation of Suárez’s account of human freedom reveals that
one’s free actions emerge entirely from the will’s own active power and indif-
ference with respect to its self– determination. But how does God stand in
relation to the will’s own self–determination? Suárez points out that all
agree—both Catholics and ‘heretics’—that for ‘supernatural’ acts God’s aid
of grace (auxilium gratiae) is absolutely required for the efficacy of the will
(1858: 379, 387). Our question, however, pertains to the will’s natural (voli-
tional) acts. Indeed, given Suárez’s claim, noted above, that an account of the
nature of grace cannot be forthcoming without a proper understanding of
the will, the question of the will’s freedom relative to God is not without cru-
cial importance. To be sure, the relationship among sufficient grace, effica-
cious grace, and the will’s freedom only emphasizes the urgency of arriving
at some proper understanding of human freedom. Does the difference be-
tween efficacious and sufficient grace emerge as a consequence of God’s ini-
tiative, as the Dominicans had taught, or does sufficient grace become effica-
cious upon the assent of the will, as the Jesuits held? Further still, is there
really any room for sufficient grace since, as Suárez points out, the ‘heretics

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112 VICTOR M. SALAS

of this time’—by which he means Luther, Calvin, and their followers—not

only admit efficacious grace, but they ‘exaggerate’ it to such an extent so as
to deny any sufficient grace. For the Reformers ‘efficacious grace is a certain
kind of divine motion which imports necessity upon the will so as to will what-
ever [God] wants’ (1858: 181). But, at least on Suárez’s view, the will’s coop-
eration with or rejection of sufficient grace (i.e., its indifference) determines
whether that grace becomes efficacious or remains merely sufficient. ‘There-
fore efficacious aid is that principle of grace that has a particular strength and
efficacy to induce the human will [to action] as [the will] consents to it’ (ibid.).
But if the determining factor between sufficient and efficacious grace is the
will and the innovators have denied sufficient grace, Suárez thinks they have
also simply denied free will (ibid.).
Again, if grace perfects nature, then understanding how, at the natural
level, God interacts with the human will in such a way that the latter remains
free will be of paramount concern for the theologian. In describing the rela-
tionship between God and human freedom Suárez defends the following four
propositions. (1) The will (voluntas) determines itself to free action; (2) the will
is not physically predetermined to its free actions by God alone or by any
other extrinsic agent; (3) God determines the will, not however without the
will; (4) the will (voluntas) freely determines itself (Suárez 1858: 86–90). Im-
portantly, Calvin, as we shall soon see, advances a doctrine that is incompati-
ble with these four propositions.
Propositions (1), (2), and (4), seem consistent enough with what we have
seen regarding Suárez’s treatment of human freedom. Concerning (1),
Suárez simply claims that the will determines itself in its free actions, but then
adds that the will determines itself ‘with proportionate divine concourse’
(1858: 87). The obvious question that arises from this proposition is: to what
extent does ‘divine concourse’ move or effect the will? In defending (2)
Suárez makes it clear that the will is not determined by any external agent—
even God—alone, for if that were the case, the will would not be truly free
(1858: 89). Rather, operating with a sense of what has come to be known as
‘congruism’, Suárez thinks that both the will and God work simultaneously to
bring about some effect, namely, a particular act of the will. Suárez explains
this further in defending the third proposition.
Suárez holds that God does in fact determine the will, but, lest this claim
seem to strip away the will’s freedom, he immediately adds ‘but not without
the will’. In our preceding discussion of human freedom, we saw that the
human will has a true efficacy to it. It is the will itself that, once all the condi-
tions for acting are present, moves itself either to an action or to refrain from
action. If the will acts, that action is an effect of a secondary cause, namely,
the created will. As such, the secondary cause’s dependence upon a primary
cause (God) cannot be left out of ultimate consideration. ‘Anything

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 Francisco Suárez’s Encounter with Calvin over Human Freedom 113

whatsoever that a secondary cause accomplishes, so does the first; for if fire
heats, so also does God heat’ (Suárez 1858: 89; cf. Esposito 2014: 122). In-
deed, as Suarez sees it, the efficacy whereby the first agent acts is greater
(magis) than that of the secondary. The reason for this is that the secondary
cause depends upon the primary cause precisely for the exercise of its own
causality. In other words, though he does not use the terminology in the pre-
sent passage, the relationship between the divine cause and the human cause
(i.e., the will) relative to the effect (i.e., the will’s action) is an ‘essentially or-
dered causal series’.
Well before Suárez, John Duns Scotus had offered an extensive discussion
of the nature of an essentially ordered causal series, which boils down to these
three main conditions. First (i), a secondary cause depends upon the primary
cause precisely insofar as it (the secondary cause) exercises its own causality.
Second (ii), in an essentially ordered series the causality of the primary cause
is of a higher character (ratio) and is thus superior and more perfect than its
effect. Third (iii), in an essentially ordered causal series the causal efficacy of
all the causes is simultaneously required to produce the effect (Scotus 1950:
154–55). Holding Scotus’s account of essentially ordered causes in mind, we
can make sense of Suárez’s claim that God determines the human will since
‘that determination is something [aliquid], which cannot come about without
God’ (Suárez 1858: 89). That is, the volition of the will is itself an effect of the
will. But the will is a secondary cause that, according to (iii) can only exercise
its causality if the primary cause (God) exercises His. A number of important
corollaries arise from Suárez’s account.
First, it is clear that, to Suárez’s mind, the will’s (free) actions (i.e., its ef-
fects) enjoy some true, entitive reality. In its willing, the will truly exercises
secondary causality the effects of which are dependent upon the human will,
even though the will acts in concert with divine concourse. There can be no
mistaking the Suárezian account for an early form of occasionalism. Second,
God, by conferring His ‘proportionate concourse’ to the will’s choice(s), is
intimately connected to that choice. For Suárez, God’s concurrence can take
one of two forms: ordaining or permitting (see Esposito 2014: 125). In sup-
plying divine concourse to all free choices, it is not that God causes or ordains
the choices that are evil. ‘It is certain from faith’, argues Suárez, ‘that God
does not predetermine the will nor incline it by any other way to formal sin’
(1858: 94). God ‘permits’ such actions on account of human freedom which
moves itself to such an (evil) action—that is, the will determines itself accord-
ing to proposition (4) as we shall see—but He does not ‘ordain’ them. Third,
the will acts freely precisely because of God’s effecting it. God’s causal con-
course, in other words, is itself one of the necessary prerequisites for acting.
But, as Suárez explains, ‘[T]o determine the will is nothing other than to ef-
fect its determination’ (1858: 89).

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114 VICTOR M. SALAS

To return to the second point made above, while Suárez marks a differ-
ence between God’s ordained and permissive will, Calvin is of an entirely dif-
ferent mind. As noted above, Calvin thinks that God ordains Adam’s fall to-
gether with all of humankind. The reason for this claim, again, is at least in
part to ensure that God’s providential decrees are infallibly realized. But if
there is strict necessity in all creation, including in free human acts, for the
sake of securing divine providence and prescience, then how does one rec-
oncile that account of providence with the reality of sin? One is left with no
other conclusion than that God ordains evil, for, ‘[I]f God so necessitates the
will so as to compel it to act, God will be the author of sin in evil [actions],
which Calvin consequently admits with the ancient heretics’ (Suárez 1857:
269). Calvin himself say, ‘It is evident [God] creates light and darkness, He
forms good things and bad things; no bad thing happens that He Himself
has not made’ (1576: 51). Thus it is not the case that God merely permits evil,
as Suárez thinks; for Calvin, God is the very author of evil. If such a claim
strikes one as utterly abhorrent, as it does Suárez, this is simply because, on
Calvin’s reckoning, the weakness of our understanding [imbecillitas] cannot
understand how one and the same thing should be desired and not desired
by God (1576: 51). While Calvin may be content to retreat to the ineffable
mystery of the divine will, Suárez thinks that if God truly is the author of our
evil works then ‘all moral quality is inept, inasmuch as it is only passion’
(Suárez 1857: 269). That is to say, human beings are not truly (moral) agents
that exercise their own efficacy but are entirely passive to the designs of prov-
idence.
Be that as it may, if, as Suárez thinks, God determines the will, it is not in
the sense of imposing absolute necessity upon it. Thus to keep proposition
(3) in balance he establishes proposition (4). In order for the will truly to
determine itself it must first have by its own nature and in its power ‘every-
thing that is necessary for its self–determination’ (1858: 90). Suárez thinks
this claim is entirely consistent with the aforementioned propositions, espe-
cially (3), since if any of those requisite conditions are lacking, the will would
not be able to exercise its own free self– determination, which simply means,
the will would not be free. The will has within itself the power to determine
itself but only because God sustains the secondary causality of the will (ibid).
Once again it is the congruence of both the divine concourse as well as the
will’s own power of self– determination that a free act results. In short, God
Himself is the ultimate source and ground of a truly efficacious human free-
dom.

The Confrontation with Calvin

We have seen that in developing his account of the freedom of the will, Suárez
often touches upon the thought of the ‘innovators’, if only in passing. Never-
theless, in one passage from his De gratia Suárez offers a direct, albeit brief,

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 Francisco Suárez’s Encounter with Calvin over Human Freedom 115

critique of Calvin’s account of free will. This critique is located within a

broader discussion of various thinkers—old and new—who have erred with
respect to the nature of human freedom relative to grace. Again, though my
present concern is with the will in its natural operations, the implications of
the various theological theories discussed directly bear upon our topic. As
mentioned above, there were a number of thinkers who denied freedom of
the human will for diverse reasons, going so far as to introduce a ‘certain fatal
necessity’ (fatalem quamdam necessitatem) in human actions (Suárez 1857: 267).
On the part of the ‘Innovators’ (novatores) this ‘fatal necessity’ is intro-
duced as a consequence of sin, and—as Suárez points out—for the innovators
free will did not remain in man (1857: 267–68). Indeed, apart from the effi-
cacy of divine predestination, the Reformers held that ‘nothing could effect
our will’ (1857: 268), presumably this means not even the will itself. Yet,
herein Suárez marks a tension within the Innovators’ position. According to
them, human beings lost freedom because of sin and now operate according
to the necessity of grace. But predestination is not introduced because of sin
but because of divine providence. Thus, if predestination introduces neces-
sity, there is no less necessity imposed upon Adam in the state of innocence
than now obtains among fallen man. Thus, the claim that liberty is lost
through sin seems to be problematic (1857: 268).
Nevertheless, the innovators were not without reasons for their positions,
and they themselves noted problems in allowing an absolute and unchecked
freedom of the will. If a robust sense of freedom is allowed to human nature,
then how can both the necessity of divine grace as well as the infallibility of
divine providence be sustained? The horns of the dilemma, then, seem to be
as follows: on the one hand, one can secure the freedom of the will, but to do
so one must reject divine grace, since grace seems to function as a form of
coercion that would determine the will and thus dissolve freedom. On the
other hand, one can defend the necessity of grace, but to do so would be to
undermine, at least in some measure, the freedom of the will. Yet, as Suárez
sees it, the Catholic position forms a median between the two horns of the
dilemma. If that median is going to be achieved, Suárez is convinced it can
only be as a result of his account of freedom articulated, as we have seen, in
terms of indifference. If that indifference of the will is not preserved, then
intractable problems emerge. Such is precisely the case, Suárez thinks, with
respect to Calvin’s account.
Calvin, as Suárez notes, is much more sophisticated in his account and
does not merely deny human freedom simpliciter. Indeed, the Reformer holds
that:

We count among the natural faculties of man, approving, rejecting: willing, refus-
ing: striving for, resisting: often approving vanity, rejecting a firm good: willing an
evil, not willing a good: striving for wickedness, resisting justice (1576: 76).

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116 VICTOR M. SALAS

Be that as it may, for Calvin, though those actions are willed freely, they are
still necessitated by God’s ordinance. To be necessitated, however, is not nec-
essarily to be coerced, we recall. Thus God necessitates the will but does not
coerce it. Here one might ask: does maintaining that God necessitates the will
commensurate with Suárez’s above–mentioned proposition (3) that God de-
termines the will?
It strikes me that Calvin’s view is incommensurate with Suárez’s account
for a number of reasons. Though the Jesuit admits that God determines the
will in the sense of proposition (3) discussed above, it is not in the sense of
absolute necessity. In further addressing the manner in which God moves the
will, Suárez marks a distinction between necessity taken in the ‘composed
sense’ as opposed to the ‘divided sense’. These two senses of freedom were a
subject of controversy in the disputes between the Dominicans and Jesuits,
but, for Suárez, the difference amounts to this: in the composed sense the
will’s freedom consists in its ability to act or not to act, once all the prerequi-
sites for acting (including God’s concourse) are in place (Suárez: 1857: 11–
12); in the divided sense it is possible for the will not to act once all the pre-
requisites are given, but only if one of those prerequisites is removed. That is
to say, in the divided sense if all the prerequisites for acting remain in place,
the will cannot not act (Suárez 1857: 10). Matava explains the difference be-
tween the composed and divided sense as the difference between necessity de
dicto and necessity de re or, what is the same, between the ‘necessity of the
consequence’ and the ‘necessity of the consequent’ (2015: 83–84). Thus,
Suárez thinks it is possible for the will to be necessitated in the composed
sense yet, because such necessitation is only hypothetical, the will remains
free (1861: 706). But necessity in the divided sense, which Calvin here seems
to espouse, is such that it destroys freedom because the will’s indifference is
compromised (1857: 12). Calvin, however, is entirely content to reject such
indifference or even the idea that the human will ‘cooperates’ with divine
grace (Calvin 1576: 58).
Finally, Suárez complains that, on the view of the Reformers, there is given
no explanation why the necessity of divine motion should have more efficacy
after the fall of man than before. The consequence of their argument is that
they have simply denied contingency. ‘And therefore all the heretics, who,
[on account of] divine prescience, providence, or predestination, have re-
moved liberty… have [thereby] simply denied contingent things, and have
introduced necessity into every creature, every state, and every time’ (Suárez
1857: 269). If there is no contingency, there is no potency. Finally, if there is
no potency, there is no intrinsic power to act efficacious across all creation, to
say nothing of man, In short, Calvin, it would seem, has played his own role
in the long history of denying secondary causality.

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 Francisco Suárez’s Encounter with Calvin over Human Freedom 117

Conclusion
Given the historical development of Catholic and Reformed theologies
proceeding from the Tridentine period, although Trent did reject certain
Protestant propositions regarding free will, no consensus on all the issues
surrounding the nature of freedom and the necessity of grace was or even
could be achieved. This should hardly be surprising as no agreement was
reached even within Catholicism itself. The matter is unavoidably rendered
all the more complicated when the topic of grace is introduced into the
mix. The almost abrupt and anticlimactic conclusion of the Congregatio de
Auxiliis only underscores the irresolvable tensions. While Pope Paul V as-
sured both parties involved in the dispute that neither could justly be con-
demned as heretical and that both viewpoints represented licit theological
sententiae, that pronouncement did little actually to resolve the theoretical
tensions that existed between Dominican and Jesuits, to say nothing of
Catholics and Reformers. Nevertheless, perhaps such a situation is inevita-
ble since apart from the doctrine of the Trinity, there seems to be no reality
shrouded in greater mystery than freedom. Citing Augustine, Suárez is
only too aware of the obscurity of this mystery:

The question of free will is the most obscure and with great danger in turning to
either side. Therefore, both those deny free will to defend grace and, conversely,
those who fight for free will against grace, must most carefully advance by the
middle way, which the Catholic truth professes (Suárez 1857: 267).

Whatever the contours of that mystery may be, Suárez subscribed whole-
heartedly to its truth and devoted himself to the speculative unfolding of its
intelligibility. For the Jesuit, despite the ‘obscurity’ of human freedom, one
thing is clear: man has been redeemed by God, and one’s salvation now de-
pends upon his truly free response to that fact.

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