Reason for predestination: The controversy between the Molinist ‘simultaneous concursus’ and Thomistic ‘praemotio physica’

Abstract

In 1588, the Jesuit Luis de Molina published his famous Concordia liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis, in which he tries to defend -against protestant fatalism- the free determination of the will with respect to its ultimate supernatural end. However, the theological explanations of Fr. Molina suppose serious metaphysical errors, particularly with respect to the general or simultaneous concourse of God over the second causes in which God does not work in but cum causa, where the action of the creature determines the Creator to jointly produce an effect. From the Apology of the Dominican Fathers, which includes the doctrine of St. Thomas about the physical premotion, we will proceed in the critique of this Molinist thesis: only God is Pure Act and then is the cause of the updating movement of both natural and spiritual powers, for every effect, whether contingent or necessary, depends on the divine will that transcends every order of necessity and contingency: hence, only God can move our intellect and will efficiently, and that is not why our actions cease to be ours and personal.