1567–1606

Catholic Controversies on Grace after Trent: Baius, Báñez, Molina and the De Auxiliis Controversy

Trent defined that one cannot turn to God without prevenient grace, but that the will can and must cooperate with it; how to reconcile these statements remained a matter of controversy. In Salamanca Báñez taught that God gives efficacious grace to the elect and withholds it from the reprobate; in Louvain Baius held that the fall had corrupted human nature itself, and in 1567 Pius V condemned seventy-nine of his propositions. The Jesuit Luis de Molina, in the Concord of Free Will with the Gifts of Grace (Lisbon, 1588), proposed the notion of "middle knowledge" and taught that grace is made efficacious by the consent of the will. The Dominicans replied that grace is efficacious in itself, and the de auxiliis controversy moved to Rome; in 1606 Paul V decided not to decide, allowing both positions and forbidding mutual accusations of heresy.