Grace, Free Will, and Predestination
in the Biblical Commentaries of William Estius and Cornelius a Lapide s.j.
Wim François, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
The Council of Trent, while emphasizing the priority of God’s grace in the process of justification, had also insisted upon the cooperation of human will with God’s grace. The Tridentine formulation should however be considered as a general framework, in which several theological currents could develop or continued to develop their own views as regards grace, free will and predestination. In my contribution, I will shed light on two renowned biblical scholars from the Low Countries, viz. William Hessels van Est, and Cornelius a Lapide, who were contemporaries, although the former was a representative of the Augustino-Thomistic school of Louvain and Douai, the latter an adherent of the theology cherished by his Jesuit Order. Through the examination of some key biblical passages (viz. 1 Tim 2:4.6, John 10, Eph 1:4-6.11, and Phil 2:12b-13), it will become evident that A Lapide accepted that Christ’s redemptory passion and death was a sufficient aid to all men, in the sense that it bestowed all men with the ability to be saved – a theological option that leaves room for man’s choosing to reject or cooperate with God’s grace. Estius for his part denied such sufficient grace and could only conceive of Christ’s redemptory passion and death as efficacious in the sense that it efficiently predetermined and predisposed solely the elect, to both will and perform the good. In this case, the question is raised of the extent to which man has any freedom of choice. These issues are related to the topic of predestination and reprobation, and the place of God’s foreknowledge therein. Ample attention will also be given in the paper to how both commentators appealed to Augustine, Thomas (in addition to other ‘auctoritates’) in order to underpin their views on grace, free will and predestination.