Bannesianism

BANNESIANISM. - It is the school of theological thought that traces back to Bañez (v.), characterized in general by a rigorous adherence to the principles of Thomism and in particular by their extreme interpretations in the questions concerning divine foreknowledge, concurrence and predestination. Historically, Bañez's taking of a position and the rigid defining of his thought were determined by the new ideas that, on the theme of human freedom in connection with concurrence, with Grace and with God's foreknowledge, were proposed in the Concordia of Ludovico Molina (v.). Such doctrines, in whose birth and formulation the anti-Protestant struggle had certainly played a part, aimed at a decisive vindication of free will, and to this end excluded from the human will every previous and determining motion of God, defending in its place a divine concurrence immediately connected with the action of the creature and simultaneous with its activity. Beyond the reflowering of ideas already previously incriminated by the inquisition of Valladolid, Bañez saw in Molina's doctrines an open renunciation of the thought of St. Thomas; for which reason he did not hesitate to commit himself, in writings and controversies, to what in his intuitions was nothing other than a vindication and a more exact formulation of the traditional Thomistic doctrine. The essential lines of his thought, to which the term b. coined later refers, may thus be identified: the action of God as first cause is not only necessary, but is ontologically prior to every activity of the creature, whether irrational or spiritual. Therefore every human act, including the free act, cannot be performed except as a consequence of a premotion of God, of a physical order, that is, in the line of efficient causality. Such premotion is also predetermining with respect to the act of the creature. Nothing, in fact, being able to be subtracted from the universal sphere of the First Cause, every determination of being and therefore of created activity, even free activity, must necessarily be traced back to its dominion. The action, however, of the First Cause, which is the principal and universal cause, even while moving and determining the human will to individual acts, does not compromise its freedom. In the same way the concurrence of God in the supernatural order must be conceived. Grace, with respect to the meritorious act, its modalities and its effects, including the last, salvation, is absolutely antecedent and sovereign. Hence the concept of efficacious grace and of predestination independent of any foresight of merits or of correspondence on man's part. Coherently with these doctrines, Bañez defends, for all the actions of creatures, whether necessary or free, God's foreknowledge through the eternal decisions of his predetermining will. Such a rigorous accentuation of God's predominance, which makes the vindication of the freedom of the human act somewhat arduous, while it is by some theologians even today traced back, at least implicitly, to the principles of Thomism, is by others detached from the direct responsibilities of St. Thomas and held, in its ultimate determinations, to be the exclusive teaching of Bañez and his disciples.

Ugo Viglino