Abstract

Throughout the history of Thomism, interpretations of the ontology of God’s physical premotion of human free will have been divided mainly into two main groups. Most authors have thought that physical premotion constitutes a certain “entity” infused by God in the creature, although not all of them accept the account of Cabrera, who affirmed that premotion was a “quality”. On the other hand, there are some authors who understand premotion as a direct intervention of God in the vital act of the creature which does not originates any entity prior to the created deliberate action itself. Báñez himself never spoke of any such entity, although some of his disciples soon adopted this view. One of his disciples, Pedro de Ledesma, is the author who best developed this minimalist approach in his treatise published on the occasion of the Controversy De auxiliis. This paper studies the main reasons used by Ledesma in his book to defend such an interpretation.