Luis Molina

Luis Molina , 1535-1600, Spanish Jesuit theologian. He taught at Coimbra and Évora. In 1589 he published Concordia, a work in which he expounded the doctrine known as Molinism. Molinism tries to reconcile the dogma of the efficacy of God's grace with the dogma of the freedom of human will. Discarding St. Thomas's reconciliation of the two dogmas (see grace ), Molina made the condition of grace dependent upon the free consent of the will. The Dominicans attacked Molinism and Molina; the Jesuits defended him in a dispute that grew extremely bitter. The theology of Francisco Suárez attempted to bridge the differences.

Molina, Luis de (1535–1600), Spanish Jesuit theologian and author of the Concordia liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis (1588).

The term ‘Molinism’ is used to describe doctrines of grace of the kind elaborated in Molina's Concordia; their central tenet is that the efficacy of grace has its ultimate foundation, not within the substance of the Divine gift of grace itself, but in the Divinely foreknown fact of free human cooperation with this gift. The implications of this teaching were attacked by conservative theologians and the ensuing controversies ‘De Auxiliis’ were the subject of a special Congregation in Rome (1598–1607).