Let me try this again: I blipped out several words and miss-aimed the post of which this is a correction.
Note that the line from Trent does not say by “one’s own will” acting without grace.
Aquinas, IIRC, says that it is grace first in every instance. It is grace which enables the freedom of the will and which directs it.
And since the will is “ordered toward” freedom and the good, as the intellect is “ordered toward” truth, when their proper order is restored by grace, then grace directs the will not with reins, but as the beloved directs the sight of her lover’s eyes.
If you want to criticize our words, I think you have to read them as we read them.
I don't think so...We can read them just as well as you can read them...None of them require a spiritual discernment...
Aquinas, IIRC, says that it is grace first in every instance. It is grace which enables the freedom of the will and which directs it.
Aquinas was wrong...Learn what God says...
Php 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
Rom 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Rom 7:25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
And since the will is ordered toward freedom and the good, as the intellect is ordered toward truth, when their proper order is restored by grace, then grace directs the will not with reins, but as the beloved directs the sight of her lovers eyes.
Sounds like pure, unbiblical philosophy...
Col 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
Jesus already covered this conversation...