In the theory developed by Spanish theologian Domingo Báñez and other Thomists of the 16th-century second scholasticism, physical premotion (Latin: praemotio physica) is a causal influence of God into a secondary cause (especially into a will of a free agent) which precedes (metaphysically but not temporally) and causes the actual motion of its causal power (e.g. a will): it is the reduction of the power from potency to act.
More broadly, according to this Thomistic theory, physical premotion is the causal influence of any principal cause upon the respective instrumental cause (such as the influence of a scribe upon his pen) by which the instrumental cause is elevated so as to be capable of producing an effect which is beyond its natural powers (e.g., the pen is enabled to write a poem).
Whether they really are determinists depends on how strictly the necessity of the connection between a divine decree, the resulting premotion, and the ultimate free act is conceived.
After holding very numerous sessions, the congregation was able to decide nothing, and in 1607 its meetings were suspended by Paul V, who in 1611 prohibited all further discussion of the question De auxiliis and of discussions about efficacious grace, and studious efforts were made to control the publication even of commentaries on Aquinas [citation needed].
Two Dominican proponents of physical premotion, Diego Alvarez and Tomas de Lemos, were given the responsibility of representing the Dominican Order in debates before Pope Clement VIII and Pope Paul V.[4] In contemporary analytical philosophy, the opponents of Molinism (such as Robert Merrihew Adams or William Hasker) typically do not subscribe to the Báñezian-Thomist theory of praemotio physica; instead, they maintain libertarian freedom but insist that it excludes the possibility of Molinist middle knowledge.