MOLINA, Louis, a celebrated Spanish Jesuit theologian, was b. at Cuenca, in New. Castile, in the year 1535; and having entered the Jesuit society in his 18th year, studied. at Coimbra, and was appointed professor of theology at Evora, where he continued to teach for 20 years. He died at Madrid in 1600 in the 65th year of his age. 3101ina's. celebrity is mainly confined to the theological schools. Ilis principal writings are a com mentary on the Samna of St. Thomas (Cuenca, 2 vols. 1503); a minute and comprehen sive treatise On Justice and Right (Cuenca, 6 vols. 1592; reprinted at :Mainz in 1659); and the celebrated treatise ou The Reconciliation of Grace and Jame-Will, which was printed at Lisbon in 1588, with an appendix, printed in the following year. Although it is to the last-named work that Molina's celebrity is mainly due, we must be content with a very brief notice of it. The problem which it is meant to resolve is almost as old as the origin of human thought itself, and has already led, in the 4th c., to the well-known Pelagian controversy (q.v.). In reconciling with the freedom of man's will the predestination of the elect to happiness, and of the reprobate to punishment, Molina asserts that the pre destiniftion is consequent on God's foreknowledge of the free determination of man's will, and, therefore, that it in no way affects the freedom of the particular actions, in requital of which man is predestined, whether to punishment or to reward. God, in Molina's view, gives to all men sufficient grace whereby to live virtuously, and merit. happiness. Certain individuals freely co-operate witli this grace; certain others resist it. God foresees both courses, and this foreknowledge is the foundation of one or of the other decree. This exposition was at once assailed in the schools on two grounds—first
as a revival of the Pelagian heresy, inasmuch as it appears to place the efficacy of grace in the consent of man's will, and thus to recognize a natural power in man to elicit supernatural acts; second, as setting aside altogether what the Scriptures represeut as the special election of the predestined, by making each individual, according as be freely accepts or refuses the grace offered to all in common, the arbiter of his own predestina tion or reprobation. Hence arose the celebrated dispute between the and the Tnomis•s. It was first brought finder the cognizance of the inquisitor-general of Spain, whom it was referred to pope Clement VIII. This pontiff, in 1697, appointed the cele brated congregation, De Au.riliis, to consider the entire question; but notwithstanding many lengthened discussions, no decision was arrived at during the life-time of Clement; and although the congregation was continued under Paul V., the only result was a decree in 1607 permitting both opinions to be taught by their respecti ve advocates, and pro hibiting each party from accusing the adversaries of heresy. The dispute, in some of its leading features, was revived in the Jansenist controversy (see JANsEx); but with this striking difference, that whereas the rigorous Jansenists denied the freedom of the will when acted on by efficacious grace, all the disputants in the scholastic controversy—even the Thomists—maintain that, in all circumstances, the will remains free, although they may fail to explain how this freedom is secured under the action of efficacious grace.. See AqurNas.