Autor: Stebbins, J. Michael

Buch: The Divine Initiative

Titel: The Divine Initiative

Stichwort: Molina, Banez (Molinists, Bannezians): Theorie der vitalen Akte (Fehlschluss)

Kurzinhalt: ... analysis something like the following. A supernatural act is an act of either the intellect or the will; hence it is a vital act; hence it must somehow be produced by the potency ...

Textausschnitt: 3/7 Despite their radical differences, the Bannezians and the Molinists concur in professing allegiance to the theory of vital act. From this theory they deduce that a supernatural act can occur in a finite potency only if the act is produced by a supernatural principle in the potency itself. The task here is to determine what the sufficient and necessary conditions of the occurrence of a supernatural act in a finite subject are (DES:84). Must an act of this kind always be produced by the potency in which it occurs, as the conventional scholastic analysis would have it? (212f; Fs)

1.1 The Supernatural Elevation of Vital Potencies

4/7 When called upon to explain the occurrence of supernatural acts in a finite subject, the adherent of the theory of vital act provides an analysis something like the following. A supernatural act is an act of either the intellect or the will; hence it is a vital act; hence it must somehow be produced by the potency that it perfects. Since an efficient cause can produce only that perfection in another that it itself already possesses, a finite potency can produce a supernatural act only if it is 'elevated' to the supernatural order so that it becomes proportionate to producing the act. (213; Fs) (notabene)

5/7 In what does this elevation consist? The Bannezians and the Molinists would agree that in the case of those who have been justified, an answer is easy enough to come by. These finite beings have already received sanctifying grace, and so they possess the theological virtues as immanent, proportionate principles of supernatural operations. Of course, as Lonergan points out, this view takes the infused virtues to be efficient causes of their own actuation (DES:98). Some go so far as to assert that the occurrence of supernatural acts in the justified does not involve a gift of actual grace, except for those times of weakness or temptation when the infused habit cannot muster the energy to produce a supernatural act. (213; Fs)

6/7 As for supernatural acts that occur prior to justification and hence prior to the subject's reception of the infused virtues, we have already seen that both the Molinists and the Bannezians require an elevation of the relevant potency, though they diverge on the question of whether the elevation is extrinsic or intrinsic. Most Molinists (including those of the Suarezian variety) wish to deny that God in any way moves the potency itself to the production of its first act, and so they assert that the potency is elevated only extrinsically, by the supernatural assistance of the Holy Spirit. This assistance is nothing other than a special instance of the divine concourse itself that, like the Bannezian premotion, is made to do double duty in the absence of the infused virtues. Once the potency is in first act, no further elevation is required to render it proportionate to the production of a salutary second act. For both Bannezians and semi-Bannezians, by contrast, the occurrence of a supernatural act in a subject requires a prior, intrinsic elevation that makes the subject proportionate to the production of that act. This elevation is supplied either by the infused virtues or, in the unjustified, by the same divine premotion that moves the potency to produce its vital act. (213; Fs) (notabene)

7/7 In sum, the Bannezians' and Molinists' espousal of the theory of vital act leads them to affirm that supernatural acts must necessarily be produced by the finite subjects in which they occur and that, as a consequence, no supernatural act can occur in a finite subject unless the subject is made proportionate to the production of the act. The requisite elevation is provided either permanently by the presence of an infused virtue, or transiently by the conferral of actual grace. (213; Fs) (notabene)