Tapsearch Com EditorJansenism - Modern Heresies
July 2nd 2009 19:28
By Ray Tapajna - Based on notes from Father McQuade SJ JCU Modern Heresies course - Taking it Global
JANSENISM Heresy
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The Protestant revolt prompted theological research. It drove the learned Doctors of the Church to reach back in time for a better understanding of the deposit of faith.
Cornelius Jansen was born in Leerdam , Holland in 1585. He studied philosophy and theology at the University of Louvain and received his Doctor of Theology in 1619 after being the President of the College of St. Pulcherie and Director ofthe Episcopal College at Bayonne. He specialized in Scriptural Exegesis and was very good at it. He studied the Fathers of the Church in the process. He selected St. Augustine as a favorite project with a friend of his , Jean du Verger de Hauranne for twelve years.
Jansen's writings were all published after this death with most of them being on Sacred Scripture, and all except one being perfectly orthodox in doctrine The exception was a study of the great St. Augustine related to the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians controversies.
The book dealt with the problem of grace and free will. The problem consists in reconciling two doctrines which, though not contradictory to each other, but are difficult to put together. The first doctrine is that God, being the First Cause of all things, must be the source of all that happens outside Himself, - even the acts fo the human will. The second doctrine is that the will of man is free and that his will is not forced even by God.
Theologians discovered that there was two kinds of actual grace. Efficient grace and sufficient grace. Efficient grace is that help which God gives and which He knows will be used by the free will of man. Sufficient grace is that help which He gives but which He knows from the beginning will not be used my the free will of man.
Broadly speaking the sides of the controversies rested with the Dominicans and Jesuits. In the Jesuit School, the only difference between efficient and sufficient grace was that was the free will chose to use the former and not the latter. In the Dominican School, held the difference between efficient and sufficient grace depended on God who made these two things different in character. With Efficient grace, man was determined to act according to that grace. The Jesuits cound not see this "determined man to do an action freely" and accused the Dominicans of Calvinism. The Dominicans had no difficulty in seeing how, if it were man who determined the difference between efficient and sufficient grace.
With this as a background, Jansen held that element of the problem of grace that was causing all the trouble was free will. He maintained that man must follow his strongest impulse, his strongest appetite. He said there were two appetites in man. the worldly appetite and the heavenly appetite. The worldly appetite was man's inclination to wealth, power, pleasure: the heavenly apetite was man's inclination to virtue, self-denial and spiritual goods. If man's worldy appetite is greater than his heavenly appetite, that man would go for the things of this world. If his heavenly appetite prevailed, that man will necessarily be good. Thus God creates a man in whom the heavenly appetite prevails, and that man is predestined to heaven and the other man whose appetite is worldly is predestined to hell.
To do all this, of course, Jansen modified the Church's teaching on the creation of man and the whole doctrine of original sin. It became a strong heresy which impacted the Church for years. Even in the way Jansenism played out was a rejection of what Jansen believed. We will show how in our next post.
JANSENISM Heresy
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The Protestant revolt prompted theological research. It drove the learned Doctors of the Church to reach back in time for a better understanding of the deposit of faith.
Cornelius Jansen was born in Leerdam , Holland in 1585. He studied philosophy and theology at the University of Louvain and received his Doctor of Theology in 1619 after being the President of the College of St. Pulcherie and Director ofthe Episcopal College at Bayonne. He specialized in Scriptural Exegesis and was very good at it. He studied the Fathers of the Church in the process. He selected St. Augustine as a favorite project with a friend of his , Jean du Verger de Hauranne for twelve years.
Jansen's writings were all published after this death with most of them being on Sacred Scripture, and all except one being perfectly orthodox in doctrine The exception was a study of the great St. Augustine related to the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians controversies.
The book dealt with the problem of grace and free will. The problem consists in reconciling two doctrines which, though not contradictory to each other, but are difficult to put together. The first doctrine is that God, being the First Cause of all things, must be the source of all that happens outside Himself, - even the acts fo the human will. The second doctrine is that the will of man is free and that his will is not forced even by God.
Theologians discovered that there was two kinds of actual grace. Efficient grace and sufficient grace. Efficient grace is that help which God gives and which He knows will be used by the free will of man. Sufficient grace is that help which He gives but which He knows from the beginning will not be used my the free will of man.
Broadly speaking the sides of the controversies rested with the Dominicans and Jesuits. In the Jesuit School, the only difference between efficient and sufficient grace was that was the free will chose to use the former and not the latter. In the Dominican School, held the difference between efficient and sufficient grace depended on God who made these two things different in character. With Efficient grace, man was determined to act according to that grace. The Jesuits cound not see this "determined man to do an action freely" and accused the Dominicans of Calvinism. The Dominicans had no difficulty in seeing how, if it were man who determined the difference between efficient and sufficient grace.
With this as a background, Jansen held that element of the problem of grace that was causing all the trouble was free will. He maintained that man must follow his strongest impulse, his strongest appetite. He said there were two appetites in man. the worldly appetite and the heavenly appetite. The worldly appetite was man's inclination to wealth, power, pleasure: the heavenly apetite was man's inclination to virtue, self-denial and spiritual goods. If man's worldy appetite is greater than his heavenly appetite, that man would go for the things of this world. If his heavenly appetite prevailed, that man will necessarily be good. Thus God creates a man in whom the heavenly appetite prevails, and that man is predestined to heaven and the other man whose appetite is worldly is predestined to hell.
To do all this, of course, Jansen modified the Church's teaching on the creation of man and the whole doctrine of original sin. It became a strong heresy which impacted the Church for years. Even in the way Jansenism played out was a rejection of what Jansen believed. We will show how in our next post.
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