Grace
Actual and Habitual
A Dogmatic Treatise
By
The Rt. Rev. Msgr. Joseph Pohle, Ph.D., D.D.
Formerly Professor of Dogmatic Theology at St. Joseph’s Seminary, Leeds
(England), Later Professor of Fundamental Theology at The Catholic
University of America
Adapted and Edited by
Arthur Preuss
Third, Revised Edition
W. E. Blake & Son, Limited
Catholic Church Supplies
123 Church St.
Toronto, Canada
1919
CONTENTS
Imprimatur
Introduction
Part I. Actual Grace
Chapter I. The Nature Of Actual Grace
Section 1. Definition Of Actual Grace
Section 2. Division Of Actual Grace
Chapter II. The Properties Of Actual Grace
Section 1. The Necessity Of Actual Grace
Article 1. The Capacity Of Mere Nature Without Grace
Article 2. The Necessity Of Actual Grace For All Salutary Acts
Article 3. The Necessity Of Actual Grace For The States Of
Unbelief, Mortal Sin, And Justification
Section 2. The Gratuity Of Actual Grace
Section 3. The Universality Of Actual Grace
Article 1. The Universality Of God’s Will To Save
Article 2. God’s Will To Give Sufficient Grace To All Adult Human
Beings In Particular
Article 3. The Predestination Of The Elect
Article 4. The Reprobation Of The Damned
Chapter III. Grace In Its Relation To Free-Will
Section 1. The Heresy of The Protestant Reformers And The Jansenists
Section 2. Theological Systems Devised To Harmonize The Dogmas Of
Grace And Free-Will
Article 1. Thomism And Augustinianism
Article 2. Molinism And Congruism
Part II. Sanctifying Grace
Chapter I. The Genesis Of Sanctifying Grace, Or The Process Of
Justification
Section 1. The Necessity Of Faith For Justification
Section 2. The Necessity Of Other Preparatory Acts Besides Faith
Chapter II. The State Of Justification
Section 1. The Nature Of Justification
Article 1. The Negative Element Of Justification
Article 2. The Positive Element Of Justification
Section 2. Justifying Or Sanctifying Grace
Article 1. The Nature Of Sanctifying Grace
Article 2. The Effects Of Sanctifying Grace
Article 3. The Supernatural Concomitants Of Sanctifying Grace
Section 3. The Properties Of Sanctifying Grace
Chapter III. The Fruits Of Justification, Or The Merit Of Good Works
Section 1. The Existence Of Merit
Section 2. The Requisites Of Merit
Section 3. The Objects Of Merit
Index
Footnotes
IMPRIMATUR
_NIHIL OBSTAT_
_Sti. Ludovici, die 18 Jan. 1919_
_F. G. Holweck,_
_ Censor Librorum_
_IMPRIMATUR_
_Sti. Ludovici, die 21 Jan. 1919_
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_Copyright, 1914_
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INTRODUCTION
Humanity was reconciled to God by the Redemption. This does not, however,
mean that every individual human being was forthwith justified, for
individual justification is wrought by the application to the soul of
grace derived from the inexhaustible merits of Jesus Christ.
There are two kinds of grace: (1) actual and (2) habitual. Actual grace is
a supernatural gift by which rational creatures are enabled to perform
salutary acts. Habitual, or, as it is commonly called, sanctifying, grace
is a habit, or more or less enduring state, which renders men pleasing to
God.
This distinction is of comparatively recent date, but it furnishes an
excellent principle of division for a dogmatic treatise on grace.(1)
PART I. ACTUAL GRACE
Actual grace is a transient supernatural help given by God from the
treasury of the merits of Jesus Christ for the purpose of enabling man to
work out his eternal salvation.
We shall consider: (1) The Nature of Actual Grace; (2) Its Properties, and
(3) Its Relation to Free-Will.
GENERAL READINGS:—St. Thomas, _Summa Theologica_, 1a 2ae, qu.
109-114, and the commentators, especially Billuart, _De Gratia_
(ed. Lequette, t. III); the Salmanticenses, _De Gratia Dei_
(_Cursus Theologiae_, Vol. IX sqq., Paris 1870); Thomas de Lemos,
_Panoplia Divinae Gratiae_, Liège 1676; Dominicus Soto, _De Natura
et Gratia_, l. III, Venice 1560; *Ripalda,(2) _De Ente
Supernaturali_, 3 vols. (I, Bordeaux 1634; II, Lyons 1645; III,
Cologne 1648).
*C. v. Schäzler, _Natur und Übernatur: Das Dogma von der Gnade_,
Mainz 1865; IDEM, _Neue Untersuchungen über das Dogma von der
Gnade_, Mainz 1867; *J. E. Kuhn, _Die christliche Lehre von der
göttlichen Gnade_, Tübingen 1868; Jos. Kleutgen, S. J., _Theologie
der Vorseit_, Vol. II, 2nd ed., pp. 152 sqq., Münster 1872; R.
Cercià, _De Gratia Christi_, 3 vols., Paris 1879; *C. Mazzella, S.
J., _De Gratia Christi_, 4th ed., Rome 1895; *J. H. Oswald, _Die
Lehre von der Heiligung, d. i. Gnade, Rechtfertigung, Gnadenwahl_,
3rd ed., Paderborn 1885; *D. Palmieri, S. J., _De Gratia Divina
Actuali_, Gulpen 1885; *Heinrich-Gutberlet, _Dogmatische
Theologie_, Vol. VIII, Mainz 1897; *S. Schiffini, S. J., _De
Gratia Divina_, Freiburg 1901; G. Lahousse, S. J., _De Gratia
Divina_, Louvain 1902; Chr. Pesch, S. J., _Praelectiones
Dogmaticae_, Vol. V, 3rd ed., Freiburg 1908; G. van Noort, _De
Gratia Christi_, Amsterdam 1908; E. J. Wirth, _Divine Grace_, New
York 1903; S. J. Hunter, S. J., _Outlines of Dogmatic Theology_,
Vol. III, pp. 1 sqq.; Wilhelm-Scannell, _A Manual of Catholic
Theology_, Vol. II, 2nd ed., pp. 227 sqq., London 1901; A. Devine,
_The Sacraments Explained_, 3rd ed. pp. 1-43, London 1905.—L.
Labauche, S. S., _God and Man, Lectures on Dogmatic Theology II_,
pp. 123 sqq., New York 1916.—J. E. Nieremberg, S. J., _The Marvels
of Divine Grace_, tr. by Lady Lovat, London 1917.
On the teaching of the Fathers cfr. Isaac Habert, _Theologiae
Græcorum Patrum Vindicatae circa Universam Materiam Gratiae Libri
III_, Paris 1646; E. Scholz, _Die Lehre des hl. Basilius von der
Gnade_, Freiburg 1881; Hümmer, _Des hl. Gregor von Nazianz Lehre
von der Gnade_, Kempten 1890; E. Weigl, _Die Heilslehre des hl.
Cyrill von Alexandrien_, Mainz 1905.
Chapter I. The Nature Of Actual Grace
Section 1. Definition Of Actual Grace
1. GENERAL NOTION OF GRACE.—The best way to arrive at a correct definition
of actual grace is by the synthetic method. We therefore begin with the
general notion of grace.
Like “nature,”(3) grace (_gratia_, χάρις) is a word of wide reach, used in
a great variety of senses. Habert(4) enumerates no less than fourteen;
which, however, may be reduced to four.
a) Subjectively, grace signifies good will or benevolence shown by a
superior to an inferior, as when a criminal is pardoned by the king’s
grace.
b) Objectively, it designates a favor inspired by good will or
benevolence. In this sense the term may be applied to any free and
gratuitous gift (_donum gratis datum_), as when a king bestows graces on
his lieges.
c) Grace may also mean personal charm or attractiveness. In this sense the
term frequently occurs in Latin and Greek literature (the Three Graces).
Charm elicits love and prompts a person to the bestowal of favors.
d) The recipient of gifts or favors usually feels gratitude towards the
giver, which he expresses in the form of thanks. Hence the word _gratiae_
(plural) frequently stands for thanksgiving (“_gratias agere_,” “_Deo
gratias_,” “to say grace after meals”).(5)
The first and fundamental of these meanings is “a free gift or favor.” The
benevolence of the giver and the attractiveness of the recipient are
merely the reasons for which the gift is imparted, whereas the expression
of thanks is an effect following its bestowal.
Dogmatic theology is concerned exclusively with grace in the fundamental
sense of the term.
e) Grace is called a gift (_donum_, δωρεά), because it is owing to free
benevolence, not required by justice. It is called gratuitous (_gratis
datum_), because it is bestowed without any corresponding merit on the
part of the creature. A gift may be due to the recipient as a matter of
distributive or commutative justice, and in that case it would not be
absolutely gratuitous (_gratis_). Grace, on the contrary, is bestowed out
of pure benevolence, from no other motive than sheer love. This is
manifestly St. Paul’s idea when he writes: “And if by grace, it is not now
by works: otherwise grace is no more grace.”(6) It is likewise the meaning
of St. Augustine when he says, in his Homilies on the Gospel of St. John,
that grace is “something gratuitously given ... as a present, not in
return for something else.”(7)
2. NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL GRACE.—Grace is not necessarily supernatural.
Sacred Scripture and the Fathers sometimes apply the word to purely
natural gifts. We petition God for our daily bread, for good health, fair
weather and other temporal favors, and we thank Him for preserving us from
pestilence, famine, and war, although these are blessings which do not
transcend the order of nature.(8)
a) Our petitions for purely natural favors are inspired by the conviction
that creation itself, and everything connected therewith, is a gratuitous
gift of God. This conviction is well founded. God was under no necessity
of creating anything: creation was an act of His free-will. Again, many of
the favors to which human nature, as such, has a claim, are free gifts
when conferred upon the individual. Good health, fortitude, talent, etc.,
are natural graces, for which we are allowed, nay obliged, to petition
God. The Pelagians employed this truth to conceal a pernicious error when
they unctuously descanted on the magnitude and necessity of grace as
manifested in creation. It was by such trickery that their leader
succeeded in persuading the bishops assembled at the Council of Diospolis
or Lydda (A. D. 415) that his teaching was quite orthodox. St. Augustine
and four other African bishops later reported to Pope Innocent I, that if
these prelates had perceived that Pelagius meant to deny that grace by
which we are Christians and sons of God, they would not have listened to
him so patiently, and that, consequently, no blame attached to these
judges because they simply took the term “grace” in its ecclesiastical
sense.(9)
b) Generally speaking, however, the term “grace” is reserved for what are
commonly called the supernatural gifts of God, the merely preternatural as
well as the strictly supernatural.(10) In this sense "grace" is as sharply
opposed to purely natural favors as nature is opposed to the supernatural.
The importance of the distinction between supernatural and purely natural
grace will appear from an analysis of the concept itself. Considered as
gifts of God, the strictly supernatural graces (_e.g._, justification,
divine sonship, the beatific vision) ontologically exceed the bounds of
nature. Considered as purely gratuitous favors, they are negatively and
positively undeserved. The grace involved in creation, for instance, is
not conferred on some existing beneficiary, but actually produces its
recipient. The creation itself, therefore, being entirely _gratis data_,
all that succeeds it, supernatural grace included, must be negatively
undeserved, in as far as it was not necessary for the recipient to exist
at all. But the supernatural graces are _indebitae_ also positively,
_i.e._ positing the creation, because they transcend every creatural claim
and power. Both elements are contained in the above-quoted letter of the
African bishops to Pope Innocent I: “Though it may be said in a certain
legitimate sense, that we were created by the grace of God, ... that is a
different grace by which we are called predestined, by which we are
justified, and by which we receive eternal beatitude.”(11) Of this
last-mentioned grace (_i.e._ grace in the strictly supernatural sense),
St. Augustine says: “This, the grace which Catholic bishops are wont to
read in the books of God and preach to their people, and the grace which
the Apostle commends, is not that by which we are created as men, but that
by which as sinful men we are justified.”(12) In other words, natural is
opposed to supernatural grace in the same way that nature is opposed to
the supernatural. “[To believe] is the work of grace, not of nature. It
is, I say, the work of grace, which the second Adam brought us, not of
nature, which Adam wholly lost in himself.”(13) Adding the new note
obtained by this analysis we arrive at the following definition: Grace is
a gratuitous _super-natural_ gift.(14)
3. THE GRACE OF GOD AND THE GRACE OF CHRIST.—Though all supernatural
graces are from God, a distinction is made between the “grace of God” and
the “grace of Christ.” The difference between them is purely accidental,
based on the fact that the “grace of Christ” flows exclusively from the
merits of the atonement.
a) The following points may serve as criteria to distinguish the two
notions:
A) The _gratia Dei_ springs from divine benevolence and presupposes a
recipient who is unworthy merely in a negative sense (=not worthy, _non
dignus_), whereas the _gratia Christi_ flows from mercy and benevolence
and is conferred on a recipient who is positively unworthy (_indignus_).
B) The _gratia Dei_ elevates the soul to the supernatural order (_gratia
elevans_), while the _gratia Christi_ heals the wounds inflicted by sin,
especially concupiscence (_gratia elevans simul et sanans_).
C) The _gratia Dei_ is a gratuitous gift conferred by the Blessed Trinity
without regard to the theandric merits of Jesus Christ, whereas the
_gratia Christi_ is based entirely on those merits.
b) The Scotists hold that the distinction between _gratia Dei_ and _gratia
Christi_ is purely logical. They regard the God-man as the predestined
centre of the universe and the source of all graces.(15) The Thomists, on
the other hand, regard the grace of the angels, and that wherewith our
first parents were endowed in Paradise, purely as _gratia Dei_; they hold
that the merits of Christ did not become operative until after the Fall,
and that, consequently, there is a real distinction between the grace of
the angels and that of our first parents on the one hand, and the grace of
Christ on the other.
As it cannot reasonably be supposed that the angels are endowed with
specifically the same graces by which mankind was redeemed from sin, the
Scotists are forced to admit a distinction between the grace of Christ as
God-man (_gratia Christi Dei-hominis_) and the grace of Christ as Redeemer
(_gratia Christi Redemptoris_), so that even according to them, the
dogmatic treatise on Grace is concerned solely with the grace of Christ
_qua_ Redeemer.
Hence, grace must be more particularly defined as a gratuitous
supernatural gift _derived from the merits of Jesus Christ_.(16)
4. EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL GRACE.—External grace (_gratia externa_)
comprises all those strictly supernatural institutions which stimulate
pious thoughts and salutary resolutions in the human soul. Such are, for
example, Holy Scripture, the Church, the Sacraments, the example of Jesus
Christ, etc. Internal grace (_gratia interna_) inheres or operates
invisibly in the soul, and places it in relation with God as its
supernatural end. Internal graces are, _e.g._, the theological virtues,
the power of forgiving sins, etc. The Pelagians admitted external, but
obstinately denied internal grace.(17)
St. Paul(18) emphasizes the distinction between external and internal
grace by designating the former as “law” (_lex_, νόμος) and the latter as
“faith” (_fides_, πίστις). With one exception, (_viz._, the Hypostatic
Union, which is the climax of all graces), external is inferior to,
because a mere preparation for, internal grace, which aims at
sanctification. We are concerned in this treatise solely with internal
grace. Hence, proceeding a step further, we may define grace as a
gratuitous, supernatural, _internal_ gift of God, derived from the merits
of Jesus Christ.(19)
5. “GRATIA GRATIS DATA” and “GRATIA GRATUM FACIENS.”—The supernatural
grace of Christ, existing invisibly in the soul either as a transient
impulse (_actus_) or as a permanent state (_habitus_), tends either to the
salvation of the person in whom it inheres or through him to the
sanctification of others. In the former case it is called ingratiating
(_gratia gratum faciens_), in the latter, gratuitously given (_gratia
gratis data_). The term _gratia gratis data_ is based on the words of our
Lord recorded in the Gospel of St. Matthew: “Heal the sick, raise the
dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils: freely have you received,
freely give.”(20)
a) The _gratia gratum faciens_ is intended for all men without exception;
the _gratia gratis data_ only for a few specially chosen persons. To the
class of gratuitously bestowed graces belong the charismata of the
prophets and the ordinary powers of the priesthood.(21)
Each of these two species of internal grace may exist independently of the
other because personal holiness is not a necessary prerequisite for the
exercise of the charismata or the power of forgiving sins, etc.
b) Considered with regard to its intrinsic worth, the _gratia gratum
faciens_ is decidedly superior to the _gratia gratis data_. St. Paul,
after enumerating all the charismata, admonishes the Corinthians: “Be
zealous for the better gifts, and I show unto you yet a more excellent
way,”(22) and then sings the praises of charity:(23) “If I speak with the
tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as
sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and
should know all the mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all
faith, so that I could remove mountains, I am nothing, etc.”(24) Charity
is a _gratia gratum faciens_. Hence, since the _gratia gratis data_ is
treated elsewhere (Apologetics, Mystic and Sacramental Theology), we must
add another note to our definition: Grace is a gratuitous, supernatural,
internal gift, derived from the merits of Jesus Christ, _by which man is
rendered pleasing in the sight of God_.(25)
6. ACTUAL AND HABITUAL GRACE.—The _gratia gratum faciens_ is given either
for the performance of a supernatural act or for the production of a
permanent supernatural state (_habitus_). In the latter case it is called
habitual, or, as it sanctifies the creature in the eyes of God,
sanctifying grace.
Actual grace comprises two essential elements: (1) divine help as the
principle of every salutary supernatural act, and (2) the salutary act
itself. Hence its designation by the Fathers as Θεοῦ ἐνέργεια, ἡ τοῦ Λόγου
χείρ, θεία κίνησις, or, in Latin, _Dei auxilium, subsidium, adiutorium,
motio divina_,—all of which appellations have been adopted by the
Schoolmen. Actual grace invariably tends either to produce habitual or
sanctifying grace, or to preserve and increase it where it already exists.
It follows that, being merely a means to an end, actual grace is inferior
to sanctifying grace, which is that end itself.
Actual grace may therefore be defined as an unmerited,
supernatural, internal divine help, based on the merits of Jesus
Christ, which renders man pleasing in the sight of God, enabling
him to perform salutary acts; or, somewhat more succinctly, as a
supernatural help bestowed for the performance of salutary acts,
in consideration of the merits of Jesus Christ.
Actual grace is (1) a _help_ (_auxilium_), because it consists in a
transient influence exercised by God on the soul. (2) A _supernatural_
help, to distinguish it from God’s ordinary providence and all such merely
natural graces as man would probably have received in the state of pure
nature.(26) (3) It is attributed to the merits of Jesus Christ, in order
to indicate that the graces granted to fallen man are all derived from the
atonement both as their efficient and their meritorious cause. (4) Actual
grace is said to be given for the performance of salutary acts to show
that its immediate purpose or end is an act, not a state, and that the
acts for which it is given must be in the order of salvation.
7. THE TWOFOLD CAUSALITY OF ACTUAL GRACE.—If grace is a supernatural help,
mere nature cannot, of its own strength, perform salutary acts.
Consequently, actual grace exercises a causal influence without which man
would be helpless in the matter of salvation.
The causality of actual grace is both moral and physical.
a) As a moral cause grace removes the obstacles which render the work of
salvation difficult. Besides this negative it also has a positive effect:
it inspires delight in virtue and hatred of sin.
This mode of operation manifestly presupposes a certain weakness of the
human will, _i.e._ _concupiscence_, which is an effect of original sin.
Actual grace exercises a healing influence on the will(27) and is
therefore called _gratia sanans sive medicinalis_. “Unless something is
put before the soul to please and attract it,” says St. Augustine, “the
will can in no wise be moved; but it is not in man’s power to bring this
about.”(28) Concretely, this moral causality of grace manifests itself as
a divinely inspired joy in virtue and a hatred of sin, both of which
incline the will to the free performance of salutary acts. These
sentiments may in some cases be so strong as to deprive the will
temporarily of its freedom to resist. The sudden conversion of St. Paul is
a case in point. Holy Scripture expressly assures us that God is the
absolute master of the human will and, if He so chooses, can bend it under
His yoke without using physical force. Cfr. Prov. XXI, 1: “The heart of
the king is in the hand of the Lord: whithersoever he will, he shall turn
it.” “Who will be so foolish as to say,” queries St. Augustine, “that God
cannot change the evil wills of men, whichever, whenever, and wheresoever
He chooses, and direct them to what is good?”(29) It is but rarely, of
course, that God grants to any man a summary victory over his sinful
nature; but this fact does not prevent the Church from praying:
“Vouchsafe, O Lord, to compel our wills to thee, even though they be
rebellious.”(30)
b) Even more important than the moral causality of grace is its physical
causality. Man depends entirely on God for the physical strength necessary
to perform salutary works. Grace elevates the faculties of the soul to the
supernatural sphere, thereby enabling it to perform supernatural acts.
Physical is as distinct from moral causality in the order of grace as in
the order of nature. The holding out of a beautiful toy will not enable a
child to walk without support from its elders. Moral causality is
insufficient to enable a man to perform salutary acts. Grace (as we shall
show later) is absolutely, _i.e._ metaphysically, necessary for all
salutary acts, whether easy or difficult, and hence the incapacity of
nature cannot be ascribed solely to weakness and to the moral difficulty
resulting from sin, but must be attributed mainly to physical impotence. A
bird without wings is not merely impeded but utterly unable to fly;
similarly, man without grace is not only handicapped but absolutely
incapacitated for the work of salvation. Considered under this aspect,
actual grace is called _gratia elevans_, because it elevates man to the
supernatural state.(31)
This double causality of grace is well brought out in Perrone’s classic
definition: “_Gratia actualis est gratuitum illud auxilium,_(_32_)_ quod
Deus_(_33_)_ per Christi merita_(_34_)_ homini lapso_(_35_)_ largitur, tum
ut eius infirmitati consulat,_(_36_)_ ... tum ut eum erigat ad statum
supernaturalem atque idoneum faciat ad actus supernaturales
eliciendos,_(_37_)_ ut iustificationem possit adipisci_(_38_)_ in eaque
iam consecuta perseverare, donec perveniat ad vitam aeternam._”(39) In
English: “Actual grace is that unmerited interior assistance which God, by
virtue of the merits of Christ, confers upon fallen man, in order, on the
one hand, to remedy his infirmity resulting from sin and, on the other, to
raise him to the supernatural order and thereby to render him capable of
performing supernatural acts, so that he may attain justification,
persevere in it to the end, and thus enter into everlasting life.” This
definition is strictly scientific, for it enumerates all the elements that
enter into the essence of actual grace.
Section 2. Division Of Actual Grace
Actual grace may be divided according to: (1) the difference existing
between the faculties of the human soul, and (2) in reference to the
freedom of the will.
Considered in its relation to the different faculties of the soul, actual
grace is either of the intellect, or of the will, or of the sensitive
faculties. With regard to the free consent of the will, it is either (1)
prevenient, also called coöperating, or (2) efficacious or merely
sufficient.
1. THE ILLUMINATING GRACE OF THE INTELLECT.—Actual grace, in so far as it
inspires salutary thoughts, is called illuminating (_gratia illuminationis
s. illustrationis_).
This illumination of the intellect by grace may be either mediate or
immediate. It is mediate if grace suggests salutary thoughts to the
intellect by purely natural means, or external graces, such as a stirring
sermon, the perusal of a good book, etc.; it is immediate when the Holy
Ghost elevates the powers of the soul, and through the instrumentality of
the so-called _potentia obedientialis_,(40) produces in it entitatively
supernatural acts.
The existence of the grace of immediate illumination follows from its
absolute necessity as a means of salvation, defined by the Second Council
of Orange, A. D. 529.(41)
a) The grace of mediate illumination may be inferred aprioristically from
the existence of a divine revelation equipped with such supernatural
institutions as the Bible, the sacraments, rites, ceremonies, etc. In
conformity with the psychological laws governing the association of ideas,
intelligent meditation on the agencies comprised under the term “external
grace”(42) elicits in the mind salutary thoughts, which are not
necessarily supernatural in their inception.
It is not unlikely that Sacred Scripture refers to such graces as these
when it recommends “the law of God” or “the example of Christ” as fit
subjects for meditation. Cfr. Ps. XVIII, 8 sq.: “The law of the Lord is
unspotted, converting souls, ... the commandment of the Lord is lightsome,
enlightening the eyes.”(43) 1 Pet. II, 21: “Christ also suffered for us,
leaving you an example that you should follow his steps.”(44) St.
Augustine probably had in mind the grace of mediate illumination when he
wrote: “God acts upon us by the incentives of visible objects to will and
to believe, either externally by evangelical exhortations, ... or
internally, as no man has control over what enters into his thoughts.”(45)
The grace of mediate illumination has for its object to prepare the way
quietly and unostentatiously for a grace of greater import, namely, the
immediate illumination of the mind by the Holy Ghost.
b) The grace of immediate far surpasses that of mediate illumination
because the supernatural life of the soul originates in faith, which in
turn is based on a strictly supernatural enlightenment of the mind.
α) St. Paul expressly teaches: “And such confidence we have, through
Christ, towards God; not that we are sufficient to think anything of
ourselves, as of ourselves: but our sufficiency is of God.”(46)
The salient portion of this text reads as follows in the original Greek:
Οὐχ ὅτι ἱκανοί ἐσμεν λογίσασθαί τι ἀφ᾽ ἑαυτῶν ὡς ἐξ ἑαυτῶν, ἀλλ᾽ ἡ
ἱκανότης ἡμῶν ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ. Speaking in the plural (_pluralis
maiestaticus_), the Apostle confesses himself unable to conceive a single
salutary thought (λογίσασθαι), and ascribes the power (ἱκανότης) to do so
to God. Considered merely as vital acts, such thoughts proceed from the
natural faculties of the mind (ἀφ᾽ ἑαυτῶν), but the power that produces
them is divine (ἐκ Θεοῦ), not human (ἐξ ἑαυτῶν). Hence each salutary
thought exceeds the power of man, and is an immediate supernatural grace.
A still more cogent argument can be derived from 1 Cor. III, 6 sq.: “I
have planted, Apollo watered, but God gave the increase. Therefore,
neither he that planteth is anything, nor he that watereth; but God that
giveth the increase.”(47) In this beautiful allegory the Apostle compares
the genesis of supernatural faith in the soul to that of a plant under the
care of a gardener, who while he plants and waters, yet looks to God for
“the increase.” The Apostle and his disciple Apollo are the spiritual
gardeners through whose preaching the Corinthians received the grace of
mediate illumination. But, as St. Paul says, this preaching would have
been useless (_non est aliquid_) had not God given “the increase.” In
other words, the grace of immediate illumination was necessary to make the
Apostolic preaching effective. “For,” in the words of St. Augustine, “God
Himself contributes to the production of fruit in good trees, when He both
externally waters and tends them by the agency of His servants, and
internally by Himself also gives the increase.”(48)
β) The argument from Tradition is based chiefly on St. Augustine, “the
Doctor of Grace,” whose authority in this branch of dogmatic theology is
unique.(49) His writings abound in many such synonymous terms for the
grace of immediate illumination, as _cogitatio pia, vocatio alta et
secreta, locutio in cogitatione, aperitio veritatis_, etc., etc.
He says among other things: “Instruction and admonition are external aids,
but he who controls the hearts has his cathedra in heaven.”(50) Augustine
esteems human preaching as nothing and ascribes all its good effects to
grace. “It is the internal Master who teaches; Christ teaches and His
inspiration.”(51) In harmony with his master, St. Fulgentius of Ruspe, the
ablest defender of the Augustinian (_i.e._ Catholic) doctrine of grace,
says: “In vain will our sacred discourses strike the external ear, unless
God by a spiritual gift opens the hearing of the interior man.”(52)
2. THE STRENGTHENING GRACE OF THE WILL.—This grace, usually called _gratia
inspirationis_,(53) may also be either mediate or immediate, according as
pious affections and wholesome resolutions are produced in the soul by a
preceding illumination of the intellect or directly by the Holy Ghost.
Owing to the psychological interaction of intellect and will, every grace
of the mind, whether mediate or immediate, is _eo ipso_ also a mediate
grace of the will, which implies a new act of the soul, but not a new
grace. What we are concerned with here is the immediate strengthening
grace of the will, which is far more important and more necessary.
We are not able to demonstrate this teaching from Sacred Scripture. The
texts John VI, 44 and Phil. II, 13, which are usually adduced in this
connection, are inconclusive.
Hence we must rely solely on Tradition. The argument from Tradition is
based mainly on St. Augustine. In defending divine grace against Pelagius,
this holy Doctor asserts the indispensability and superior value of the
strengthening grace of the will.
“By that grace it is effected, not only that we discover what ought to be
done, but also that we do what we have discovered; not only that we
believe what ought to be loved, but also that we love what we have
believed.”(54) And again: “Let him discern between knowledge and charity,
as they ought to be distinguished, because knowledge puffeth up, but
charity edifieth.... And inasmuch as both are gifts of God, although one
is less and the other greater, he must not extol our righteousness above
the praise which is due to Him who justifies us in such a way as to assign
to the lesser of these two gifts the help of divine grace, and to claim
the greater one for the control of the human will.”(55) St. Augustine
emphasized the existence and necessity of this higher grace of the will in
his controversy with the Pelagians. He was firmly convinced that a man may
know the way of salvation, and yet refuse to follow it.(56) He insisted
that mere knowledge is not virtue, as Socrates had falsely taught.
Ecclesiastical Tradition was always in perfect accord with this teaching,
which eventually came to be defined by the plenary Council of Carthage (A.
D. 418) as follows: “If any one assert that this same grace of God,
granted through our Lord Jesus Christ, helps to avoid sin only for the
reason that it opens and reveals to us an understanding of the [divine]
commands, so that we may know what we should desire and what we should
avoid; but that it is not granted to us by the same (grace) to desire and
be able to do that which we know we ought to do, let him be
anathema;—since both are gifts of God: to know what we must do and to have
the wish to do it.”(57)
Like the illuminating grace of the intellect the strengthening grace of
the will effects vital acts and manifests itself chiefly in what are known
as the emotions of the will. St. Prosper, after Fulgentius the most
prominent disciple of St. Augustine, enumerates these as follows: “Fear
(for ‘the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’); joy (‘I rejoiced
at the things that were said to me: We shall go into the house of the
Lord’); desire (‘My soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the
Lord’); delight (‘How sweet are thy words to my palate, more than honey to
my mouth’);”—and he adds: “Who can see or tell by what affections God
visits and guides the human soul?”(58)
3. ACTUAL GRACES OF THE SENSITIVE SPHERE.—Though it cannot be determined
with certainty of faith, it is highly probable that actual grace
influences the sensitive faculties of the soul as well as the intellect
and the will.
God, who is the first and sole cause of all things, is no doubt able to
excite in the human imagination phantasms corresponding to the
supernatural thoughts produced in the intellect, and to impede or paralyze
the rebellious stirrings of concupiscence which resist the grace of the
will,—either by infusing contrary dispositions or by allowing spiritual
joy to run over into the _appetitus sensitivus_. The existence of such
graces (which need not necessarily be supernatural except _quoad modum et
finem_) may be inferred with great probability from the fact that man is a
compound of body and soul. Aristotle holds that the human mind cannot
think without the aid of the imagination.(59) If this is true, every
supernatural thought must be preceded by a corresponding phantasm to
excite and sustain it. As for the sensitive appetite, it may either assume
the form of concupiscence and hinder the work of salvation, or aid it by
favorable emotions excited supernaturally. St. Augustine says that the
_delectatio victrix_ has for its object “to impart sweetness to that which
gave no pleasure.”(60) St. Paul, who thrice besought the Lord to relieve
him of the sting of his flesh, was told: “My grace is sufficient for
thee.”(61)
4. _The Illuminating Grace of the Mind and the Strengthening Grace of the
Will Considered as Vital Acts of the Soul._—If we examine these graces
more closely to determine their physical nature, we find that they are
simply vital acts of the intellect and the will, and receive the character
of divine “graces” from the fact that they are supernaturally excited in
the soul by God.
a) The Biblical, Patristic, and conciliar terms _cogitatio_, _suasio_,
_scientia_, _cognitio_, as well as _delectatio_, _voluptas_, _desiderium_,
_caritas_, _bona voluntas_, _cupiditas_, all manifestly point to vital
acts of the soul. But even where grace is described as _vocatio_,
_illuminatio_, _illustratio_, _excitatio_, _pulsatio_, _inspiratio_, or
_tractio_, the reference can only be—if not _formaliter_, at least
_virtualiter_—to immanent vital acts of the intellect or will. This is the
concurrent teaching of SS. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. The former says:
“God calls [us] by [our] innermost thoughts,” and: “See how the Father
draws [and] by teaching delights [us].”(62) The latter quotes the
Aristotelian axiom: “_Actus moventis in moto est motus._”(63)
If the graces of the intellect and of the will are supernaturally inspired
acts of the soul, by what process does the mind of man respond to the
impulse of illumination and inspiration?
The language employed by the Fathers and councils leaves no doubt that
supernatural knowledge manifests itself mainly in judgments. But simple
apprehension and ratiocination must also play a part, (1) because these
two operations are of the essence of human thought, and the grace of
illumination always works through natural agencies; and (2) because some
intellectual apprehensions are merely condensed judgments and syllogisms.
The graces of the will naturally work through the spiritual emotions or
passions, of which there are eleven: love and hatred, joy and sadness,
desire and abhorrence, hope and despair, fear and daring, and lastly
anger. With the exception of despair (for which there is no place in the
business of salvation), all these passions have a practical relation to
good and evil and are consequently called “graces” both in Scripture and
Tradition. Love (_amor_) is the fundamental affection of the will, to
which all others are reducible, and hence the principal function of grace,
in so far as it affects the will, must consist in producing acts of
love.(64) The Council of Carthage (A. D. 418) declares that “both to know
what we must do, and to love to do it, is a gift of God.”(65) It would be
a mistake, however, to identify this “love” with theological charity,
which is “a perfect love of God above all things for His own sake.”(66)
Justification begins with supernatural faith, is followed by fear, hope,
and contrition, and culminates in charity.(67)
St. Augustine sometimes employs the word _caritas_ in connections where it
cannot possibly mean theological love.(68) This peculiar usage is based on
the idea that love of goodness in a certain way attracts man towards God
and prepares him for the theological virtue of charity. In studying the
writings of St. Augustine, therefore, we must carefully distinguish
between _caritas_ in the strict, and _caritas_ in a secondary and derived
sense.(69) The champions of the falsely so-called Augustinian theory of
grace(70) disregard this important distinction and erroneously claim that
St. Augustine identifies “grace” with _caritas_ in the sense of
theological love; just as if faith, hope, contrition, and the fear of God
were not also graces in the true meaning of the term, and could not exist
without theological charity.
b) Not a few theologians, especially of the Thomist school, enlarge the
list of actual graces by including therein, besides the supernatural vital
acts of the soul, certain extrinsic, non-vital qualities (_qualitates
fluentes, non vitales_) that precede these acts and form their basis. It
is impossible, they argue, to elicit vital or immanent supernatural acts
unless the faculties of the soul have previously been raised to the
supernatural order by means of the _potentia obœdientialis_. The _gratia
elevans_, which produces in the soul of the sinner the same effects that
the so-called infused habits produce in the soul of the just, is a
supernatural power really distinct from its vital effects. In other words,
they say, the vital supernatural acts of the soul are preceded and
produced by a non-vital grace, which must be conceived as a “fluent
quality.” These “fluent” (the opponents of the theory ironically call them
“dead”) qualities are alleged to be real graces.(71) Alvarez and others
endeavor to give their theory a dogmatic standing by quoting in its
support all those passages of Sacred Scripture, the Fathers and councils
in which prevenient grace is described as _pulsatio_, _excitatio_,
_vocatio_, _tractio_, _tactus_, and so forth. The act of knocking or
calling, they say, is not identical with the act of opening, in fact the
former is a grace in a higher sense than the latter, because it is
performed by God alone, while the response comes from the soul coöperating
with God.(72)
The theory thus briefly described is both theologically and
philosophically untenable.
α) Holy Scripture and Tradition nowhere mention any such non-vital
entities or qualities,—a circumstance which would be inexplicable if it
were true, what Cardinal Gotti asserts,(73) that the term “grace” applies
primarily and in the strict sense to these qualities, while the vital acts
are merely effects. Whenever Sacred Scripture, the Fathers, and the Church
speak literally, without the use of metaphors, they invariably apply the
term “grace” to these vital acts themselves and ascribe their supernatural
character to an immediate act of God.(74) In perfect conformity with this
teaching St. Augustine explains such metaphorical terms as _vocare_ and
_tangere_ in the sense of _credere_ and _fides_.(75) God employs no
“fluent qualities” or “non-vital entities” in the dispensation of His
grace, but effects the supernatural elevation of the soul immediately and
by Himself.(76)
β) The theory under consideration is inadmissible also from the
philosophical point of view. A quality does not “flow” or tend to revert
to nothingness. On the contrary, its very nature demands that it remain
constant until destroyed by its opposite or by some positive cause. It is
impossible to conceive a quality that would of itself revert to
nothingness without the intervention of a destructive cause. Billuart
merely beats the air when he says: “_Potest dici qualitas incompleta
habens se per modum passionis transeuntis._”(77) What would Aristotle have
said if he had been told of a thing that was half ποιόν and half πάσχειν,
and consequently neither the one nor the other? Actual grace is
transitory; it passes away with the act which it inspires, and
consequently may be said to “flow.” But this very fact proves that it is
not a dead quality, but a _modus vitalis supernaturalis_. In the
dispensation of His grace, God employs no fluent qualities or non-vital
entities, but He Himself is the immediate cause of the supernatural
elevation of the human soul and its faculties. St. Thomas is perfectly
consistent, therefore, when he defines actual grace as a vital act of the
soul.(78)
5. PREVENIENT AND COÖPERATING GRACE.—The vital acts of the soul are either
spontaneous impulses or free acts of the will. Grace may precede free-will
or coöperate with it. If it precedes the free determination of the will it
is called prevenient; if it accompanies (or coincides with) that
determination and merely coöperates with the will, it is called
coöperating grace.
Prevenient grace, regarded as a divine call to penance, is often styled
_gratia vocans sive excitans_, and if it is received with a willing heart,
_gratia adiuvans_. Both species are distinctly mentioned in Holy
Scripture. Cfr. Eph. V, 14: “Wherefore he saith: Rise thou that sleepest,
and arise from the dead: and Christ shall enlighten thee.” 2 Tim. I, 9:
“Who hath delivered us and called us by his holy calling, not according to
our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us
in Christ Jesus before the times of the world.” Rom. VIII, 26: “Likewise
the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity.” Rom. VIII, 30: “And whom he
predestinated, them he also called. And whom he called, them he also
justified. And whom he justified, them he also glorified.” Apoc. III, 20:
“Behold I stand at the gate and knock. If any man shall hear my voice, and
open to me the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he
with me.”
St. Augustine says: “Forasmuch as our turning away from God is our own act
and deed, and this is [our] depraved will; but that we turn to God, this
we cannot do except He rouse and help us, and this is [our] good
will,—what have we that we have not received?”(79)
An equivalent division is that into _gratia operans_ and _coöperans_,
respectively—names which are also founded on Scripture. Cfr. Phil. II, 13:
“For it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish,
according to his good will.” Mark XVI, 20: “But they going forth preached
everywhere: the Lord working withal, and confirming the word with signs
that followed.”
St. Augustine describes the respective functions of these graces as
follows: “He [God] begins His influence by working in us that we may have
the will, and He completes it by working with us when we have the
will.”(80)
A third division of the same grace is that into _praeveniens_ and
_subsequens_. It is likewise distinctly Scriptural,(81) and its two
members coincide materially with _gratia vocans_ and _adiuvans_, as can be
seen by comparing the usage of St. Augustine with that of the Tridentine
Council. “God’s mercy,” says the holy Doctor, “prevents [_i.e._ precedes]
the unwilling to make him willing; it follows the willing lest he will in
vain.”(82) And the Council of Trent declares that “in adults the beginning
of justification is to be derived from the prevenient grace of God,
through Jesus Christ, that is to say, from His vocation, whereby, without
any merits existing on their part, they are called.”(83)
If we conceive a continuous series of supernatural graces, each may be
called either prevenient or subsequent, according as it is regarded either
as a cause or as an effect. St. Thomas explains this as follows: “As grace
is divided into working and coöperating grace, according to its diverse
effects, so it may also be divided into prevenient and subsequent grace,
according to the meaning attached to the term grace [_i.e._, either
habitual or actual]. The effects which grace works in us are five: (1) It
heals the soul; (2) moves it to will that which is good; (3) enables man
efficaciously to perform the good deeds which he wills; (4) helps him to
persevere in his good resolves; and (5) assists him in attaining to the
state of glory. In so far as it produces the first of these effects, grace
is called prevenient in respect of the second; and in so far as it
produces the second, it is called subsequent in respect of the first. And
as each effect is posterior to one and prior to another, so grace may be
called prevenient or subsequent according as we regard it in its relations
to different effects.”(84)
Among so many prevenient graces there must be one which is preceded by
none other (_simpliciter praeveniens_), and this is preëminently the
_gratia vocans s. excitans_.
There is a fourth and last division, mentioned by the Council of Trent,
which is also based on the relation of grace to free-will. “Jesus Christ
Himself,” says the holy Synod, “continually infuses His virtue into the
justified, and this virtue always precedes, accompanies, and follows their
good works.”(85) The opposition here lies between _gratia antecedens_,
which is a spontaneous movement of the soul, and _gratia concomitans_,
which coöperates with free-will after it has given its consent. This
terminology may be applied to the good works of sinners and saints alike.
For the sinner no less than the just man receives two different kinds of
graces—(1) such as precede the free determination of the will and (2) such
as accompany his free acts.
Thus it can be readily seen that the fundamental division of actual grace,
considered in its relation to free-will, is that into prevenient and
coöperating grace. All other divisions are based on a difference of
function rather than of nature.(86)
a) The existence of prevenient grace (_gratia praeveniens s. excitans s.
vocans_) may be inferred from the fact that the process of justification
begins with the illumination of the intellect, which is by nature unfree,
_i.e._ devoid of the power of choosing between good and evil. That there
are also graces which consist in spontaneous, indeliberate motions of the
will,(87) is clearly taught by the Council of Trent,(88) and evidenced by
certain Biblical metaphors. Thus God is described as knocking at the gate
(Apoc. III, 20), as drawing men to Him (John VI, 44), and men are said to
harden their hearts against His voice (Ps. XCIV, 8), etc. Cfr. Jer. XVII,
23: “But they did not hear, nor incline their ear: but hardened their
neck, that they might not hear me, and might not receive instruction.”
The Catholic tradition is voiced by St. Augustine, who says: “The will
itself can in no wise be moved, unless it meets with something which
delights or attracts the mind; but it is not in the power of man to bring
this about.”(89) St. Prosper enumerates a long list of spontaneous
emotions which he calls supernatural graces of the will.(90)
Prevenient grace is aptly characterized by the Patristic formula: “_Gratia
est in nobis, sed sine nobis_,” that is, grace, as a vital act, is in the
soul, but as a salutary act it proceeds, not from the free will, but from
God. In other words, though the salutary acts of grace derive their
vitality from the human will, they are mere _actus hominis_ (θέλησις), not
_actus humani_ (βούλησις).(91) “God,” explains St. Augustine, “does many
good things in man, which man does not do; but man does none which God
does not cause man to do.”(92) And again: “[God] operates without us, in
order that we may become willing; but when we once will so as to act, He
coöperates with us. We can, however, ourselves do nothing to effect good
works of piety without Him either working that we may will, or coöperating
when we will.”(93) St. Bernard employs similar language.(94)
b) Coöperating grace (_gratia cooperans s. adiuvans s. subsequens_)
differs from prevenient grace in this, that it supposes a deliberate act
of consent on the part of the will (βούλησις, not θέλησις). St. Gregory
the Great tersely explains the distinction as follows: “The divine
goodness first effects something in us without our coöperation [_gratia
praeveniens_], and then, as the will freely consents, coöperates with us
in performing the good which we desire [_gratia cooperans_].”(95) That
such free and consequently meritorious acts are attributable to grace is
emphasized by the Tridentine Council: “So great is the bounty [of God]
towards all men that He will have the things which are His own gifts to be
their merits.”(96) Such free salutary acts are not only graces in the
general sense, but real actual graces, in as far as they produce other
salutary acts, and their existence is as certain as the fact that many men
freely follow the call of grace, work out their salvation, and attain to
the beatific vision. It is only in this way, in fact, that Heaven is
peopled with Saints.
α) St. Augustine embodies all these considerations in the following
passage: “It is certain that we keep the commandments when we will; but
because the will is prepared by the Lord, we must ask of Him that we may
will so much as is sufficient to make us act in willing. It is certain
that we will whenever we like, but it is He who makes us will what is
good, of whom it is said (Prov. VIII, 35): ‘The will is prepared by the
Lord,’ and of whom it is said (Ps. XXXVI, 32): ‘The steps of a [good] man
are ordered by the Lord, and his way doth He will,’ and of whom it is said
(Phil. II, 13): ‘It is God who worketh in you, even to will.’ It is
certain that we act whenever we set to work; but it is He who causes us to
act, by giving thoroughly efficacious powers to our will, who has said
(Ezech. XXXVI, 27): ‘I will cause you to walk in my commandments, and to
keep my judgments, and do them.’ When He says: ‘I will cause you ... to do
them,’ what else does He say in fact than (Ezech. XI, 19): ‘I will take
away the stony heart out of their flesh,’ from which used to rise your
inability to act, and (Ezech. XXXVI, 26): ‘I will give you a heart of
flesh,’ in order that you may act.”(97)
β) The manner in which grace and free-will coöperate is a profound
philosophical and theological problem. A salutary act derives its
supernatural character from God, its vitality from the human will. How do
these two factors conjointly produce one and the same act? The unity of
the act would be destroyed if God and the free-will of man in each case
performed, either two separate acts, or each half of the same act. To
preserve the unity of a supernatural act two conditions are required: (1)
the divine power of grace must be transformed into the vital strength of
the will and (2) the created will, which by its own power can perform at
most a naturally good act, must be equipped with the supernatural power of
grace. These conditions are met (a) by the supernatural elevation of the
will (_elevatio externa_), and (b) by the supernatural concurrence of God
(_concursus supernaturalis ad actum secundum_). The supernatural elevation
of the will is accomplished in this wise: God, by employing the
illuminating and strengthening grace, works on the _potentia
obœdientialis_, and thus raises the will above its purely natural powers
and constitutes it a supernatural faculty _in actu primo_ for the free
performance of a salutary act. The divine concursus supervenes to enable
the will to perform the _actus secundus_ or salutary act proper. This
special divine concurrence, in contradistinction to the natural concursus
whereby God supports the created universe,(98) is a strictly supernatural
and gratuitous gift. Consequently, God and the human will jointly perform
one and the same salutary act—God as the principal, the will as the
instrumental cause.(99)
6. EFFICACIOUS GRACE AND MERELY SUFFICIENT GRACE.—By efficacious grace
(_gratia efficax_) we understand that divine assistance which with
infallible certainty includes the free salutary act. Whether the certainty
of its operation results from the physical nature of this particular
grace, or from God’s infallible foreknowledge (_scientia media_), is a
question in dispute between Thomists and Molinists.(100)
Merely sufficient grace (_gratia mere sufficiens_) is that divine
assistance whereby God communicates to the human will full power to
perform a salutary act (_posse_) but not the action itself (_agere_).
The division of grace into efficacious and merely sufficient is not
identical with that into prevenient and coöperating. Coöperating grace
does not _ex vi notionis_ include with infallible certainty the salutary
act. It may indeed be efficacious, but in matter of fact frequently fails
to attain its object because the will offers resistance.
a) The existence of efficacious graces is as certain as that there is a
Heaven filled with Saints. God would be neither omnipotent nor infinitely
wise if all His graces were frustrated by the free-will of man. St.
Augustine repeatedly expresses his belief in the existence of efficacious
graces. Thus he writes in his treatise on Grace and Free-Will: “It is
certain that we act whenever we set to work; but it is He [God] who causes
us to act, by giving thoroughly efficacious powers to the will.”(101) And
in another treatise: “[Adam] had received the ability (_posse_) if he
would [_gratia sufficiens_], but he had not the will to exercise that
ability [_gratia efficax_]; for if he had possessed that will, he would
have persevered.”(102)
b) Before demonstrating the existence of sufficient grace it is necessary,
in view of certain heretical errors, carefully to define the term.
α) Actual grace may be regarded either in its intrinsic energy or power
(_virtus_, _potestas agendi_) or in its extrinsic efficacy (_efficientia_,
_efficacitas_). All graces are efficacious considered in their intrinsic
energy, because all confer the physical and moral power necessary to
perform the salutary act for the sake of which they are bestowed. From
this point of view, therefore, and _in actu primo_, there is no real but a
purely logical distinction between efficacious and merely sufficient
grace. If we look to the final result, however, we find that this differs
according as the will either freely coöperates with grace or refuses its
coöperation. If the will coöperates, grace becomes truly efficacious; if
the will resists, grace remains “merely sufficient.” In other words,
merely sufficient grace confers full power to act, but is rendered
ineffective by the resistance of the will.
The inefficacy of merely sufficient grace, therefore, is owing to the
resistance of the will and not to any lack of intrinsic power. This is a
truth to which all Catholic systems of grace must conform.
Merely sufficient grace may be subdivided into _gratia proxime sufficiens_
and _gratia remote sufficiens_.
Proximately sufficient grace (also called _gratia operationis_) confers
upon the will full power to act forthwith, while remotely sufficient grace
(also termed _gratia orationis_) confers only the grace of prayer, which
in its turn brings down full power to perform other salutary acts.
The _gratia orationis_ plays a most important rôle in the divine economy
of grace. God has not obliged Himself to give man immediately all the
graces he needs. It is His will, in many instances, as when we are
besieged by temptations, that we petition Him for further assistance. “God
does not enjoin impossibilities,” says St. Augustine, “but in His
injunctions He counsels you both to do what you can for yourself, and to
ask His aid in what you cannot do.”(103)
Hence, though grace may sometimes remain ineffective (_gratia inefficax_ =
_gratia vere et mere sufficiens_), it is never insufficient
(_insufficiens_), that is to say, never too weak to accomplish its
purpose.
Calvinism and Jansenism, while retaining the name, have eliminated
sufficient grace from their doctrinal systems.
Jansenius (+ 1638) admits a kind of “sufficient grace,” which he calls
_gratia parva_, but it is really insufficient because no action can result
from it unless it is supplemented by another and more powerful grace.(104)
This heretic denounced sufficient grace in the Catholic sense as a
monstrous conception and a means of peopling hell with reprobates.(105)
Some of his followers even went so far as to assert that “in our present
state sufficient grace is pernicious rather than useful to us, and we have
reason to pray: From sufficient grace, O Lord, deliver us!”(106)
β) It is an article of faith that there is a merely sufficient grace and
that it is truly sufficient even when frustrated by the resistance of the
will. The last-mentioned point is emphasized by the Second Council of
Orange (A. D. 529): “This also we believe, according to the Catholic
faith, that all baptized persons, through the grace received in Baptism,
and with the help and coöperation of Christ, are able and in duty bound,
if they will faithfully do their share, to comply with all the conditions
necessary for salvation.”(107) The existence of sufficient grace was
formally defined by the Council of Trent as follows: “If any one saith
that man’s free-will, moved and excited by God, ... no wise coöperates
towards disposing and preparing itself for obtaining the grace of
justification; that it cannot refuse its consent if it would, ... let him
be anathema.”(108)
This dogma can be convincingly demonstrated both from Sacred Scripture and
Tradition.
(1) God Himself complains through the mouth of the prophet Isaias: “What
is there that I ought to do more to my vineyard, that I have not done to
it? Was it that I looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it hath
brought forth wild grapes?”(109) This complaint clearly applies to the
Jews. Yahweh did for the Jewish nation whatever it behooved Him to do
lavishly (_gratia vere sufficiens_), but His kindness was unrequited
(_gratia mere sufficiens_). In the Book of Proverbs He addresses the
sinner in these terms: “I called, and you refused: I stretched out my
hand, and there was none that regarded.”(110) What does this signify if
not the complete sufficiency of grace? The proffered grace remained
inefficacious simply because the sinner rejected it of his own free will.
Upbraiding the wicked cities of Corozain and Bethsaida, our Lord exclaims:
“If in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the miracles that have been wrought
in you, they had long ago done penance in sackcloth and ashes.”(111) The
omniscient God-man here asserts the existence of graces which remained
inefficacious in Corozain and Bethsaida, though had they been given to the
inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon, they would have proved effective. The
conclusion evidently is: these graces remained ineffective, not because
they were unequal to the purpose for which they were conferred, but simply
and solely because they were rejected by those whom God intended to
benefit.(112)
(2) Though they did not employ the name, the Fathers were thoroughly
familiar with the notion of sufficient grace.
Thus St. Irenaeus comments on our Lord’s lamentation over the fate of the
Holy City: “When He says: (Matth. XXIII, 37): ‘How often would I have
gathered together thy children, ... and thou wouldest not,’ He manifests
the ancient liberty of man, because God hath made him free from the
beginning.... For God does not employ force, but always has a good
intention. And for this reason He gives good counsel to all.... And those
who do it [_gratia efficax_] will receive glory and honor, because they
have done good, though they were free not to do it; but those who do not
do good will experience the just judgment of God, because they have not
done good [_gratia inefficax_], though they were able to do it [_gratia
vere et mere sufficiens_].”(113) St. Augustine is in perfect agreement
with ecclesiastical tradition, and the Jansenists had no right whatever to
claim him for their teaching. “The grace of God,” he expressly says in one
place, “assists the will of men. If in any case men are not assisted by
it, the reason lies with themselves, not God.”(114) And again: “No one is
guilty because he has not received; but he who does not do what he ought
to do, is truly guilty. It is his duty to act if he has received a free
will and amply sufficient power to act.”(115)
READINGS:—St. Thomas, _Summa Theologica_, 1a 2ae, qu. 110, art. 1; qu.
111, art. 1-5.—J. Scheeben, _Natur und Gnade_, Mainz 1861.—M. Glossner,
_Lehre des hl. Thomas vom Wesen der Gnade_, Mainz 1871.—Palmieri, _De
Gratia Divina Actuali_, thes. 1-16, Gulpen 1885.—Oswald, _Die Lehre von
der Heiligung_, 3rd ed., § 1-3, Paderborn 1885.—S. Schiffini, _De Gratia
Divina_, disp. 1, sect. 2; disp. 3, sect. 1-5, Freiburg
1901.—Heinrich-Gutberlet, _Dogmatische Theologie_, Vol. VIII, pp. 3 sqq.,
Mainz 1897.—B. J. Otten, S. J., _A Manual of the History of Dogmas_, Vol.
II, St. Louis 1918, pp. 234 sqq.
Chapter II. The Properties Of Actual Grace
Actual grace has three essential properties: (1) necessity, (2) gratuity,
and (3) universality. The most important of these is necessity.
Section 1. The Necessity Of Actual Grace
In treating of the necessity of actual grace we must avoid two extremes.
The first is that mere nature is absolutely incapable of doing any thing
good. This error was held by the early Protestants and the followers of
Baius and Jansenius. The second is that nature is able to perform
supernatural acts by its own power. This was taught by the Pelagians and
Semipelagians.
Between these two extremes Catholic theology keeps the golden mean. It
defends the capacity of human nature against Protestants and Jansenists,
and upholds its incapacity and impotence against Pelagians and
Semipelagians. Thus our present Section naturally falls into three
Articles.
Article 1. The Capacity Of Mere Nature Without Grace
The capacity of nature in its own domain may be considered with regard
either to the intellect or to the will.
*Thesis I: Man is capable by the natural power of his intellect to arrive
at a knowledge of God from a consideration of the physical universe.*
This proposition embodies an article of faith defined by the Vatican
Council: “If any one shall say that the one true God, our Creator and
Lord, cannot be certainly known by the natural light of human reason
through created things, let him be anathema.”(116)
For a formal demonstration of this truth we must refer the reader to our
treatise on _God: His Knowability, Essence, and Attributes_, pp. 17 sqq.
The argument there given may be supplemented by the following
considerations:
1. The Vatican Council vindicates the native power of the human intellect
when it says: “The Catholic Church, with one consent, has ever held and
does hold, that there is a twofold order of knowledge, distinct both in
principle and in object: in principle, because our knowledge in the one is
by natural reason, and in the other by divine faith; in object, because,
besides those things to which natural reason can attain, there are
proposed to our belief mysteries hidden in God, which, unless divinely
revealed, cannot be known.”(117) This teaching, which the Church had
repeatedly emphasized on previous occasions against the scepticism of
Nicholas de Ultricuria,(118) the rationalistic philosophy of Pomponazzi,
the “log-stick-and-stone” theory(119) of Martin Luther, the exaggerations
of the Jansenists, and the vagaries of the Traditionalists,(120) is based
on Revelation as well as on sound reason. Holy Scripture clearly teaches
that we can gain a certain knowledge of God from a consideration of the
created universe.(121) Reason tells us that a creature endowed with
intelligence must be capable of acquiring natural knowledge, and that
supernatural faith is based on certain _praeambula_, which are nothing
else than philosophical and historical truths.(122) “The existence of God
and other like truths,” says St. Thomas, “are not articles of faith, but
preambles to the articles; for faith presupposes natural knowledge, even
as grace presupposes nature, and perfection something that can be
perfected.”(123) Luther denounced reason as the most dangerous thing on
earth, because “all its discussions and conclusions are as certainly false
and erroneous as there is a God in Heaven.”(124) The Church teaches, in
accordance with sound philosophy and experience, that the original powers
of human nature, especially free-will, though greatly weakened, have not
been destroyed by original sin.(125) The Scholastics, it is true, reckoned
ignorance among the four “wounds of nature” inflicted by original
sin.(126) But this teaching must be regarded in the light in which the
Church condemned Quesnel’s proposition that “All natural knowledge of God,
even that found in pagan philosophers, can come from nowhere else than
God, and without grace produces nothing but presumption, vanity, and
opposition against God Himself, instead of adoration, gratitude, and
love.”(127) The Traditionalist contention that the intrinsic weakness of
the human intellect can be cured only by a primitive revelation handed
down through the instrumentality of speech and instruction, or by a
special interior illumination, involves the false assumption that there
can be a cognitive faculty incapable of knowledge,—which would ultimately
lead to a denial of the essential distinction between nature and the
supernatural, because it represents exterior revelation or interior grace
as something positively due to fallen nature.(128) Following the lead of
St. Thomas,(129) Catholic apologists, while maintaining the necessity of a
supernatural revelation even with regard to the truths of natural religion
and ethics, base their argument not on the alleged physical incapacity of
reason to ascertain these truths, but on the moral impossibility (_i.e._
insuperable difficulty) of finding them unaided. “It is to be ascribed to
this divine Revelation,” says the Vatican Council, “that such truths among
things divine as are not of themselves beyond human reason, can, even in
the present state of mankind, be known by every one with facility and firm
assurance, and without admixture of error.”(130) In conformity with the
teaching of Revelation and Tradition, the Church has always sharply
distinguished between πίστις and γνῶσις,—faith and knowledge, revelation
and philosophy,—assigning to reason the double rôle of an indispensable
forerunner and a docile handmaid of faith. Far from antagonizing reason,
as charged by her enemies, the Church has on the contrary always valiantly
championed its rights against Scepticism, Positivism, Criticism,
Traditionalism, Rationalism, Pantheism, and Modernism.(131)
2. As regards those purely natural truths that constitute the domain of
science and art, Catholic divines are practically unanimous(132) in
holding that, though man possesses the physical ability of knowing every
single one of these truths, even the most highly gifted cannot master them
all. Cardinal Mezzofanti had acquired a knowledge of many languages,(133)
and undoubtedly was capable of learning many more; yet without a special
grace he could not have learned all the languages spoken on earth, though
their number is by no means infinite. The science of mathematics, which
embraces but a limited field of knowledge, comprises an indefinite number
of propositions and problems which even the greatest genius can not
master. Add to these impediments the shortness of human life, the
limitations of the intellect, the multitude and intricacy of scientific
methods, the inaccessibility of many objects which are in themselves
knowable, (_e.g._ the interior of the earth, the stellar universe)—and you
have a host of limitations which make it physically impossible for the
mind of man to encompass the realm of natural truths.(134)
*Thesis II: Fallen man, whether pagan or sinner, is able to perform some
naturally good works without the aid of grace.*
This thesis may be technically qualified as _propositio certa_.
Proof. A man performing moral acts may be either in a state of unbelief,
or of mortal sin, or of sanctifying grace. The question here at issue is
chiefly whether all the works of pagans, that is all acts done without
grace of any kind, are morally bad, or whether any purely natural works
may be good despite the absence of grace. Baius and Jansenius affirmed
this; nay more, they asserted that no man can perform good works unless he
is in the state of grace and inspired by a perfect love of God
(_caritas_). If this were true, all the works of pagans and of such
Christians as have lost the faith, would be so many sins. But it is _not_
true. The genuine teaching of the Church may be gathered from her official
condemnation of the twenty-fifth, the twenty-sixth, and the thirty-seventh
propositions of Baius. These propositions run as follows: “Without the aid
of God’s grace free-will hath power only to sin;”(135) “To admit that
there is such a thing as a natural good, _i.e._ one which originates
solely in the powers of nature, is to share the error of Pelagius;”(136)
“All the actions of unbelievers are sins and the virtues of philosophers
vices.”(137) To these we may add the proposition condemned by Pope
Alexander VIII, that “The unbeliever necessarily sins in whatever he
does.”(138)
1. Sacred Scripture and the Fathers, St. Augustine included, admit the
possibility of performing naturally good, though unmeritorious, works
(_opera steriliter bona_) in the state of unbelief; and their teaching is
in perfect conformity with right reason.
a) Our Divine Lord Himself says:(139) “If you love them that love you,
what reward(140) shall you have? Do not even the publicans this? And if
you salute(141) your brethren only, what do you more? Do not also the
heathens(142) this?” The meaning plainly is: To salute one’s neighbor is
an act of charity, a naturally good deed, common even among the heathens,
and one which, not being done from a supernatural motive, deserves no
supernatural reward. But this does not by any means imply that to salute
one’s neighbor is sinful.
St. Paul(143) says: “For when the gentiles,(144) who have not the
law,(145) do by nature(146) those things that are of the law; these having
not the law are a law to themselves: who shew the work of the law written
in their hearts.” By “gentiles” the Apostle evidently means genuine
heathens, not converts from paganism to Christianity, and hence the
meaning of the passage is that the heathens who know the natural law
embodied in the Decalogue only as a postulate of reason, are by
nature(147) able to “do those things that are of the law,”(148) _i.e._
observe at least some of its precepts. That St. Paul did not think the
gentiles capable of observing the whole law without the aid of grace
appears from his denunciation of their folly, a little further up in the
same Epistle: “Because that, when they knew God, they have not glorified
him as God, or given thanks; but became vain in their thoughts, and their
foolish heart was darkened, etc.,”(149) and also from the hypothetic form
of Rom. II, 14 in the original Greek text: “Ὅταν γὰρ ἔθνη ... τὰ τοῦ νόμου
ποιῶσιν—_Si quando gentes, ... quae legis sunt, faciunt._”(150)
In Rom. XIV, 23: “For all that is not faith is sin,”(151) a text often
quoted against our thesis, “faith” does not mean the theological habit of
faith, but “conscience,”(152) as the context clearly shows.(153)
b) The teaching of the Fathers is in substantial harmony with Sacred
Scripture.
α) Thus St. Jerome, speaking of the reward which Yahweh gave to
Nabuchodonosor for his services against Tyre,(154) says: “The fact that
Nabuchodonosor was rewarded for a good work shows that even the gentiles
in the judgment of God are not passed over without a reward when they have
performed a good deed.”(155) In his commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to
the Galatians the same holy Doctor observes: “Many who are without the
faith and have not the Gospel of Christ, yet perform prudent and holy
actions, _e.g._ by obeying their parents, succoring the needy, not
oppressing their neighbors, not taking away the possessions of
others.”(156)
β) The teaching of St. Augustine offers some difficulties. There can be no
doubt that this Father freely admitted that pagans and infidels can
perform naturally good works without faith and grace. Thus he says there
is no man so wicked that some good cannot be found in him.(157) He extols
the moderation of Polemo(158) and the purity of Alypius, who were both
pagans.(159) He admires the civic virtues of the ancient Romans,(160) etc.
Holding such views, how could Augustine write: “Neither doth free-will
avail for anything except sin, if the way of truth is hidden.”(161) And
what did his disciple Prosper mean when he said: “The whole life of
unbelievers is a sin, and nothing is good without the highest good. For
wherever there is no recognition of the supreme and immutable truth, there
can be no genuine virtue, even if the moral standard be of the
highest.”(162)
To understand these and similar passages rightly and to explain at the
same time how it was possible for Baius and Jansenius to bolster their
heretical systems with quotations from the writings of St. Augustine and
his disciples, it is necessary to observe that the quondam rhetorician and
Platonic idealist of Hippo delights in applying to the genus the
designation which belongs to its highest species, and _vice versa_.(163)
Thus, in speaking of liberty, he often means the perfect liberty enjoyed
by our first parents in Paradise;(164) in using the term “children of God”
he designates those who persevere in righteousness;(165) and in employing
the phrase “a good work” he means one supernaturally meritorious. Or,
_vice versa_, he designates the slightest good impulse of the will as
“_caritas_,” as it were by anticipation, and brands every unmeritorious
work (_opus informe s. sterile_) as false virtue (_falsa virtus_), nay sin
(_peccatum_). To interpret St. Augustine correctly, therefore, allowance
must be made for his peculiar idealism and a careful distinction drawn
between the real and the metaphorical sense of the terms which he employs.
Baius neglected this precaution and furthermore paid no attention to the
controversial attitude of the holy Doctor. Augustine’s peculiar task was
not to maintain the possibility of naturally good works without faith and
grace, but to defend against Pelagius and Julian the impossibility of
performing supernaturally good and meritorious works without the aid of
grace. It is this essential difference in their respective points of view
that explains how St. Augustine and Baius were able to employ identical or
similar terms to express radically different ideas.(166)
c) It can easily be demonstrated on theological grounds that fallen man is
able, of his own initiative, _i.e._ without the aid of grace, to perform
morally good works, and that Baius erred in asserting that this is
impossible without theological faith.
α) With regard to the first-mentioned point it will be well, for the sake
of clearness, to adopt Palmieri’s distinction between physical and moral
capacity.(167) Man sins whenever he transgresses the law or yields to
temptation. This would be impossible if he were physically unable to keep
the whole law and resist temptation. Hence he must be physically able to
do that which he is obliged to do under pain of sin, though in this or
that individual instance the difficulties may be insuperable without the
aid of grace. To put it somewhat differently: Baius and Jansenius hold
that fallen man can perform no morally good works because of physical or
moral impotence on the part of the will. This assumption is false. Man is
physically able to perform good works because they are enjoined by the
moral law of nature under pain of sin; he is morally able because, in
spite of numerous evil tendencies, not a few gentiles and unbelievers have
led upright lives and thereby proved that man can perform good works
without the aid of grace.(168) This is also the teaching of St.
Thomas.(169)
β) It is an expressly defined dogma that the process of justification
starts with theological faith (_fides_), preceded by the so-called grace
of vocation, which prepares and effects conversion. To say, as Baius did,
that all good works performed in a state of unbelief are so many sins, is
tantamount to asserting that the preliminary acts leading up to faith, and
which the unbeliever performs by the aid of prevenient grace, are sinful;
in other words, that God requires the unbeliever to prepare himself for
justification by committing sin. This is as absurd as it is
heretical.(170)
The whole argument of this section applies _a fortiori_ to the theory that
no act can be morally good unless prompted by both theological charity and
theological faith.(171)
2. We must now define the limitations of fallen nature unaided by grace.
Though the graces dispensed by Providence even for naturally good deeds
are in the present economy _de facto_ nearly all supernatural, nothing
prevents us from conceiving a different economy, consisting of purely
natural helps, such as would have been necessary in the state of pure
nature.(172)
As regards the limitations of man’s moral power in the natural order, we
may say, in a general way, that the will is able to keep the easier
precepts of the moral law of nature without the assistance of grace
(either supernatural or natural). However, as it is impossible in many
instances to determine just where the easier precepts end and the more
difficult ones begin, a broad field is left open for theological
speculation.
a) Theologians are practically unanimous in holding that man cannot
observe the natural law in its entirety for any considerable length of
time without the aid of grace.
Suarez is so sure of this that he does not hesitate to denounce the
contrary teaching,—which is (perhaps unjustly) ascribed to Durandus,
Scotus, and Gabriel Biel—as “rash and verging on error.”(173) In matter of
fact the Church has formally defined that, because of concupiscence, no
one, not even the justified man, much less the sinner, is able, without
divine assistance (grace), to keep for any considerable length of time the
whole Decalogue, which embodies the essentials of the moral law.
“Nevertheless,” says the Council of Trent, “let those who think themselves
to stand take heed lest they fall, and with fear and trembling work out
their salvation, ... for ... they ought to fear for the combat which yet
remains with the flesh, with the world, with the devil, wherein they
cannot be victorious unless they be with God’s grace obedient to the
Apostle, who says: ‘We are debtors, etc.’ ”(174)
St. Paul, who lived, so to speak, in an atmosphere of grace, yet found
reason to exclaim: “I am delighted with the law of God, according to the
inward man, but I see another law in my members, fighting against the law
of my mind, and captivating me in the law of sin, that is in my
members,”(175) and: “Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? The grace of God, by Jesus Christ our Lord.”(176)
Surely it would be vain to expect the proud ideal of the Stoics or
Pelagius’ presumptuous claim of impeccability ever to be realized on earth
except by a special privilege of grace, such as that bestowed upon the
Blessed Virgin Mary.(177)
The Fathers follow St. Paul in describing the power of concupiscence, even
after justification.(178)
b) A pertinent question, closely allied to the proposition just treated,
is this: Can the human will, without the aid of grace, overcome all the
grievous temptations to mortal sin by which it is besieged?
It is the common teaching of theologians that, without the aid of grace,
man in the fallen state succumbs with moral (not physical) necessity to
grievous temptations against the moral law, _i.e._ to mortal sin. This
conclusion flows from the impossibility, which we have demonstrated above,
of observing the whole law of nature for life or for any considerable
length of time without the help of grace. If man were able to resist all
violent temptations, he would be able to keep the whole law.
The theological teaching which we are here expounding may be formulated in
two different ways: (1) No man can overcome all grievous temptations
against the moral law without the aid of grace; (2) there is no man living
who is not now and then assailed by temptations to which he would
inevitably succumb did not God lend him His assistance.
In its first and rather indefinite form the proposition is attacked by
Ripalda,(179) Molina,(180) and many later Scholastics. These writers argue
as follows: It is impossible to deduce from Revelation or experience a
definite rule by which man could determine the conditions on which the
grievousness of a temptation depends. To say that a temptation is grievous
when it cannot be resisted without the aid of grace, would be begging the
question. Besides, the possibility always remains that there be men who,
though in theory unable to withstand all grievous temptations without the
aid of grace, _de facto_ never meet with such temptations, but only with
the lighter kind which can be overcome without supernatural help.
The second and more specific formulation of our proposition is supported
by Sacred Scripture, which explicitly declares that all men are subject to
temptations which they could not resist if God did not uphold them.(181)
If the just are obliged to watch and pray constantly, lest they fall,(182)
this must be true in an even higher degree of sinners and unbelievers. St.
Augustine writes against the Pelagians: “Faithful men say in their prayer:
‘Lead us not into temptation.’ But if they have the capacity [of avoiding
evil], why do they pray [for it]? Or, what is the evil which they pray to
be delivered from, but, above all else, the body of this death?... the
carnal lusts, whence a man is liberated only by the grace of the
Saviour.... He may be permitted to pray that he may be healed. Why does he
presume so strongly on the capability of his nature? It is wounded, hurt,
harassed, destroyed; what it stands in need of is a true confession [of
its weakness], not a false defense [of its capacity].”(183)
c) Another question, on which Catholic divines disagree, is this: Can
fallen man, unaided by grace, elicit an act of perfect natural charity
(_amor Dei naturalis perfectus_)?
Scotus answers this question affirmatively,(184) and his opinion is shared
by Cajetan,(185) Bañez,(186) Dominicus Soto,(187) and Molina.(188) Other
equally eminent theologians, notably Suarez(189) and Bellarmine,(190) take
the negative side.
In order to obtain a clear understanding of the question at issue we shall
have to attend to several distinctions.
First and above all we must not lose sight of the important distinction
between the _natural_ and the _supernatural_ love of God. Supernatural
charity, in all its stages, necessarily supposes supernatural aid. The
question therefore can refer only to the _amor Dei naturalis_.(191) That
this natural charity is no mere figment appears from the ecclesiastical
condemnation of two propositions of Baius.(192)
Another, even more important distinction is that between _perfect_ and
_imperfect_ charity. Imperfect charity is the love of God as our highest
good (_amor Dei ut summum bonum nobis_); perfect charity is the love of
God for His own sake above all things (_amor Dei propter se et super
omnia_). The holy Fathers and a number of councils(193) declare that it is
impossible to love God perfectly without the aid of grace. The context and
such stereotyped explanatory phrases as “_sicut oportet_” or “_sicut
expedit ad salutem_,”(194) show that these Patristic and conciliary
utterances apply to the _supernatural_ love of God. Hence the question
narrows itself down to this: Can fallen man without the aid of grace love
God for His own sake and above all things by a purely natural love? In
answering this question Pesch,(195) Tepe,(196) and other theologians
distinguish between _affective_ and _effective_ love. They hold that
whereas the _amor affectivus_ in all its stages is possible without the
aid of grace, not so the _amor effectivus_, since that would involve the
observance of the whole natural law. This compromise theory can be
demonstrated as highly probable from Scripture and Tradition. St. Paul
says(197) that the gentiles knew God and should have glorified Him. This
evidently supposes that it was possible for them to glorify God, and
consequently to love Him affectively, as easily and with the same means by
which they knew Him. Else how could the Apostle say of those gentiles who,
“when they knew God, glorified him not as God,” that they “changed the
truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather
than the Creator”?(198) This interpretation of Rom. I, 21 sqq. is
explicitly confirmed by St. Ambrose when he says: “For they were able to
apprehend this by the law of nature, inasmuch as the fabric of the cosmos
testifies that God, its author, is alone to be loved, as Moses hath set it
down in his writings; but they were made impious by not glorifying God,
and unrighteousness became evident in them when, knowing, they changed the
truth into a lie and refused to confess the one God.”(199)
3. It follows, by way of corollary, that Vasquez’s opinion,(200) that
there can be no good work without supernatural aid in the shape of a
_cogitatio congrua_, is untenable, as is also the assertion of
Ripalda(201) that in the present economy purely natural good actions are
so invariably connected with the prevenient grace of Christ that they
practically never exist as such.
a) Vasquez, whose position in the matter is opposed by most other
theologians, contends(202) that no man can perform a good work or resist
any temptation against the natural law (Decalogue) without the help of
supernatural grace derived from the merits of Christ. To avoid the
heretical extreme of Baianism, however, he makes a twofold limitation. He
assumes with the Scotists that there is such a thing as a morally
indifferent act of the will,(203) and defines the grace which he holds to
be necessary for the performance of every morally good deed, as _cogitatio
congrua_. This “congruous thought,” he says, is in itself, _i.e._
ontologically, natural, and can be regarded as supernatural only _quoad
modum et finem_. The subtle argument by which Vasquez tries to establish
this thesis is based principally on St. Augustine and may be summarized as
follows: Whenever the Fathers and councils insist on the necessity of
grace for the performance of good works, they mean _all_ good works,
natural as well as supernatural. The only alternative they know is virtue
or vice, good or evil. Consequently the grace of Christ, in some form or
other, is a necessary requisite of all morally good deeds.
As we have already intimated, we regard this opinion of the learned
Spanish divine as erroneous.(204) Three solid reasons militate against it.
The first is that, to guard against Baianism, Vasquez is compelled to
assume the existence of morally indifferent acts of the will, which is
untenable, as “St. Augustine and St. Thomas, and theologians generally
teach that there is no such thing in the concrete as a morally indifferent
act of the free will, and consequently, if the will is able, without
grace, to perform acts that are not evil, it is also able to perform good
acts.”(205) Second, Vasquez’s theory counterfeits the notion of Christian
grace. “Good thoughts” come so natural to man, and are so closely bound up
with the grace of creation, that even Pelagius found no difficulty in
admitting this sort of “grace.”(206) Surely fallen nature is not so
utterly corrupt that a good child is unable to honor and love his parents
without the aid of “grace” (in the sense of _cogitatio congrua ex meritis
Christi_). The third reason which constrains us to reject Vasquez’s
theory, is that it leaves no room for natural morality (_naturaliter
honestum_) to fill the void between those acts that are naturally bad
(_moraliter inhonesta_, _i.e._ _peccata_) and such as are supernaturally
good (_supernaturaliter bona_, _i.e._ _salutaria_). The existence of such
naturally good acts would seem to be a highly probable inference from the
condemnation, by Pius VI, of a certain proposition taught by the
pseudo-Council of Pistoia.(207)
b) Martinez de Ripalda (+1648) tried to improve Vasquez’s theory by
restoring the Christian concept of grace and adding that Providence
invariably precedes all naturally good works, including those performed by
heathens and sinners, with the entitatively supernatural grace of
illumination and confirmation.(208) In this hypothesis the necessity of
grace is not theological but purely historic.(209)
Despite the wealth of arguments by which Ripalda attempted to prove his
theory,(210) it has not been generally accepted. While some, _e.g._
Platel(211) and Pesch,(212) regard it with a degree of sympathy, others,
notably De Lugo(213) and Tepe,(214) are strongly opposed to it. Palmieri
thinks it may be accepted in a restricted sense, _i.e._ when limited to
the faithful.(215)
Ripalda’s hypothesis of the universality of grace is truly sublime and
would have to be accepted if God’s salvific will could be demonstrated by
revelation or some historic law to suffer no exceptions. But Ripalda has
not been able to prove this from Revelation.(216) Then, too, his theory
entails two extremely objectionable conclusions: (1) a denial, not indeed
of the possibility (Quesnel), but of the existence of purely natural good
works, and (2) the possibility of justification without theological faith.
Neither of these difficulties probably occurred to Vasquez or
Ripalda,(217) because at the time when they wrote Pius VI had not yet
condemned the teaching of the pseudo-Council of Pistoia,(218) nor had
Innocent XI censured the proposition that “Faith in a broad sense, as
derived from the testimony of creatures or some other similar motive, is
sufficient for justification.”(219) If the love of God, even perfect love,
(such as we have shown to be possible in the natural order), were of
itself necessarily supernatural, as Ripalda contends, it would be possible
for a pagan to receive the grace of justification without theological
faith, which he does not possess, as is evident from the Vatican teaching
that it is “requisite for divine faith that revealed truth be believed
because of the authority of God who reveals it.”(220)
*Thesis III: Not all actions performed by man in the state of mortal sin
are sinful on account of his not being in the state of grace.*
This is _de fide_.
Proof. Though this thesis is, strictly speaking, included in Thesis II, it
must be demonstrated separately on its own merits, because it embodies a
formally defined dogma which has been denied by the Protestant Reformers
and by the followers of Baius and Jansenius. Martin Luther taught,—and his
teaching was adopted in a modified form by the Calvinists,—that human
nature is entirely depraved by original sin, and consequently man
necessarily sins in whatever he does,(221) even in the process of
justification. Against this heresy the Tridentine Council defined: “If any
one shall say that all the works done before justification ... are indeed
sins, ... let him be anathema.”(222)
The Protestant notion of grace was reduced to a theological system by
Baius(223) and Jansenius,(224) whose numerous errors may all be traced to
their denial of the supernatural order.
The Jansenist teaching was pushed to an extreme by Paschasius Quesnel, 101
of whose propositions were formally condemned by Pope Clement XI in his
famous Constitution “_Unigenitus_.”(225) The Jansenistic teachings of the
Council of Pistoia were censured by Pius VI, A. D. 1794, in his Bull
“_Auctorem fidei_.” The quintessence of this heretical system is embodied
in the proposition that whatever a man does in the state of mortal sin is
necessarily sinful for the reason that he is not in the state of grace
(_status caritatis_). Baius(226) and Quesnel(227) gave this teaching an
Augustinian turn by saying that there is no intermediate state between the
love of God and concupiscence, and that all the works of a sinner must
consequently and of necessity be sinful. This heretical teaching is
sharply condemned in the Bull “_Auctorem fidei_.”(228) Quesnel pushed it
to its last revolting conclusion when he said: “The prayer of the wicked
is a new sin, and that God permits it is but an additional judgment upon
them.”(229)
The teaching of Baius and Quesnel is repugnant to Revelation and to the
doctrine of the Fathers.
a) The Bible again and again exhorts sinners to repent, to pray for
forgiveness, to give alms, etc. Cfr. Ecclus. XXI, 1: “My son, thou hast
sinned? Do so no more: but for thy former sins also pray that they may be
forgiven thee.” Ezech. XVIII, 30: “Be converted, and do penance for all
your iniquities: and iniquity shall not be your ruin.” Dan. IV, 24:
“Redeem thou thy sins with alms, and thy iniquities with works of mercy to
the poor: perhaps he will forgive thy offences.” Zach. I, 3: “Thus saith
the Lord of hosts: Turn ye to me, saith the Lord of hosts: and I will turn
to you.” If all the works thus enjoined were but so many sins, we should
be forced to conclude, on the authority of Sacred Scripture, that God
commands the sinner to commit new iniquities and that the process of
justification with its so-called dispositions consists in a series of
sinful acts. Such an assumption would be manifestly absurd and
blasphemous.
Quesnel endeavored to support his heretical conceit by Matth. VII, 17 sq.:
“Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the evil tree
bringeth forth evil fruit; a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit,
neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit.” But as our Lord in this
passage speaks of prophets, the fruits he has in mind must obviously be
doctrines not works.(230) And what if they were works? Are not doctrines
and morals ultimately related, and may we not infer from the lives they
lead (according to their doctrines) whether prophets are true or false? By
their fruits (_i.e._ works) you shall know them (_i.e._ the soundness or
unsoundness of the teaching upon which their works are based).
b) In appealing to the testimony of the Fathers the Jansenists were
notoriously guilty of misinterpretation.
α) Origen plainly teaches that prayer before justification is a good work.
“Though you are sinners,” he says, “pray to God; God hears the
sinners.”(231) The seemingly contradictory text John IX, 31: “Now we know
that God doth not hear sinners,”(232) is thus explained by St. Augustine:
“He speaks as one not yet anointed; for God also hears the sinners. If He
did not hear sinners, the publican would have cast his eyes to the ground
in vain and vainly struck his breast saying: O God, be merciful to me, a
sinner.”(233) Moreover, since there is question here of extraordinary
works and signs only (_viz._ miracles), the text is wholly irrelevant in
regard to works of personal righteousness. St. Prosper teaches: “Human
nature, created by God, even after its prevarication, retains its
substance, form, life, senses, and reason, and the other goods of body and
soul, which are not lacking even to those who are bad and vicious. But
there is no possibility of seizing the true good by such things as may
adorn this mortal life, but cannot give [merit] eternal life.”(234)
β) Baius and Quesnel succeeded in veiling their heresy by a phraseology of
Augustinian color but with implications foreign to the mind of the Doctor
of Grace. Augustine emphasized the opposition between “charity” and
“concupiscence” so strongly that the intermediary domain of naturally good
works was almost lost to view. Thus he says in his _Enchiridion_: “Carnal
lust reigns where there is not the love of God.”(235) And in his treatise
on the Grace of Christ: “Here there is no love, no good work is reckoned
as done, nor is there in fact any good work, rightly so called; because
whatever is not of faith is sin, and faith worketh by love.”(236) And
again in his treatise on Grace and Free Will: “The commandments of love or
charity are so great and such, that whatever action a man may think he
does well, is by no means well done if done without charity.”(237) We have
purposely chosen passages in which the “Doctor of Grace” obviously treats
of charity as theological love, not in the broad sense of _dilectio_.(238)
At first blush these passages seem to agree with the teaching of Baius,
who says: “Every love on the part of a rational creature is either sinful
cupidity, by which the world is loved, and which is forbidden by St. John,
or that praiseworthy charity which is infused into the heart by the Holy
Spirit, and by which we love God;”—(239) and with the forty-fifth
proposition of Quesnel: “As the love of God no longer reigns in the hearts
of sinners, it is necessary that carnal lust should reign in them and
vitiate all their actions.”(240) Yet the sense of these propositions is
anything but Augustinian. Augustine upholds free-will in spite of grace
and concupiscence, whereas the Jansenists assert that the _carnalis
cupiditas_ and the _caritas dominans_ produce their effects by the very
power of nature, _i.e._ necessarily and of themselves.(241)
Besides this capital difference there are many minor discrepancies between
the teaching of St. Augustine and that of Baius and Quesnel. Augustine, it
is true, in his struggle with Pelagianism,(242) strongly emphasized the
opposition existing between grace and sin, between love of God and love of
the world; but he never dreamed of asserting that every act performed in
the state of mortal sin is sinful for the reason that it is not performed
in the state of grace. Scholasticism has long since applied the necessary
corrective to his exaggerations. It is perfectly orthodox to say that
there is an irreconcilable opposition between the state of mortal sin and
the state of grace. “No one can serve two masters.”(243) This is not,
however, by any means equivalent to saying, as the Jansenists do, that the
sinner, not being in the state of grace, of necessity sins in whatever he
does. Augustine expressly admits that, no matter how deeply God may allow
a man to fall, and no matter how strongly concupiscence may dominate his
will, he is yet able to pray for grace, which is in itself a distinctly
salutary act. “If a sin is such,” he says in his _Retractationes_, “that
it is itself a punishment for sin, what can the will under the domination
of cupidity do, except, if it be pious, to pray for help?”(244) Compare
this sentence with the fortieth proposition of Baius: “The sinner in all
his actions serves the lust which rules him,”(245) and you will perceive
the third essential difference that separates the teaching of St.
Augustine from that of the Jansenists. The former, even when he speaks,
not of the two opposing habits, but of their respective acts, does not,
like Jansenism, represent the universality of sin without theological
charity as a physical and fundamental necessity, but merely as a
historical phenomenon which admits of exceptions. Thus he writes in his
treatise On the Spirit and the Letter: “If they who by nature do the
things contained in the law, must not be regarded as yet in the number of
those whom Christ’s grace justifies, but rather as among those whose
actions (although they are those of ungodly men who do not truly and
rightly worship the true God) we not only cannot blame, but actually
praise, and with good reason, and rightly too, since they have been done,
so far as we read or know or hear, according to the rule of righteousness;
though were we to discuss the question with what motive they are done,
they would hardly be found to be such as to deserve the praise and defense
which are due to righteous conduct.”(246)
In conclusion we will quote a famous passage from St. Augustine which
reads like a protest against the distortions of Baius and Jansenius.
“Love,” he says, “is either divine or human; human love is either licit or
illicit.... I speak first of licit human love, which is free from censure;
then, of illicit human love, which is damnable; and in the third place, of
divine love, which leads us to Heaven.... You, therefore, have that love
which is licit; it is human, but, as I have said, licit, so much so that,
if it were lacking, [the want of] it would be censured. You are permitted
with human love to love your spouse, your children, your friends and
fellow-citizens. But, as you see, the ungodly, too, have this love, _e.g._
pagans, Jews, heretics. Who among them does not love his wife, his
children, his brethren, his neighbors, his relations and friends? This,
therefore, is human love. If any one would be so unfeeling as to lose even
human love, not loving his own children, ... we should no longer regard
him as a human being.”(247) Tepe pertinently observes(248) that St.
Augustine in this passage asserts not only the possibility but the actual
existence of naturally good though unmeritorious works (_opera steriliter
__ bona_), and that the theory of Ripalda(249) is untenable for this
reason, if for no other, that the quoted passage is cited in Pius VI’s
Bull “_Auctorem fidei_.”(250)
Article 2. The Necessity Of Actual Grace For All Salutary Acts
Salutary acts (_actus salutares_) are those directed to the attainment of
sanctifying grace and the supernatural end of man.
According to this double purpose, salutary acts may be divided into two
classes: (1) those that prepare for justification (_actus simpliciter
salutares_), and (2) those which, following justification, gain merits for
Heaven (_actus meritorii_).
In consequence of the supernatural character of the acts which they
comprise, both these categories are diametrically opposed to that class of
acts which are good only in a natural way,(251) and hence must be
carefully distinguished from the latter. The Fathers did not, of course,
employ the technical terms of modern theology; they had their own peculiar
phrases for designating what we call salutary acts, _e.g._ _agere sicut
oportet vel expedit, agere ad salutem, agere ad iustificationem, agere ad
vitam aeternam_, etc.(252)
1. PELAGIANISM.—Pelagianism started as a reaction against Manichaeism, but
fell into the opposite extreme of exaggerating the capacity of human
nature at the expense of grace. It denied original sin(253) and grace.
As the necessity of grace for all salutary acts is a fundamental dogma of
the Christian religion, the Church proceeded with unusual severity against
Pelagian naturalism and condemned its vagaries through the mouth of many
councils.
a) Pelagius was a British lay monk, who came to Rome about the year 400 to
propagate his erroneous views.(254) He found a willing pupil in Celestius,
who after distinguishing himself as a lawyer, had been ordained to the
priesthood at Ephesus, about 411.
The Pelagian heresy gained another powerful champion in the person of
Bishop Julian of Eclanum in Apulia. Its strongest opponent was St.
Augustine. Under his powerful blows the Pelagians repeatedly changed their
tactics, without however giving up their cardinal error in regard to
grace. Their teaching on this point may be summarized as follows: The
human will is able by its natural powers to keep all the commandments of
God, to resist temptation, and to gain eternal life; in fact it can attain
to a state of holiness and impeccability(255) in which the petition
“Forgive us our trespasses” no longer has any meaning except perhaps as an
expression of humility.(256) In so far, however, as free-will is itself a
gift of the Creator, man can perform no good works without grace. At a
later period of his career Pelagius admitted the existence of merely
external supernatural graces, such as revelation and the example of Christ
and the saints,—which led St. Augustine to remark: “This is the hidden and
despicable poison of your heresy that you represent the grace of Christ as
His example, not His gift, alleging that man is justified by imitating
Him, not by the ministration of the Holy Spirit.”(257) But even this
external grace, according to Pelagius, does not confer the strength
necessary to perform good works; it merely makes it easier to keep the
commandments. Pelagius did not deny that justification and adoptive
sonship, considered in their ideal relation to the “kingdom of Heaven,” as
distinguished from “eternal life,”(258) are not identical in adults with
the grace of creation, but he denied their gratuity by asserting that the
free will is able to merit all these graces by its own power.(259)
Whatever may have been the variations of Pelagianism, it is patent from
the writings of St. Augustine that its defenders one and all rejected the
necessity and existence of the immediate grace of the will.(260) Their
attitude towards the illuminating grace of the intellect is in dispute.
Some theologians(261) think the Pelagians admitted, others(262) that they
denied its existence. No matter what they may have held on this point,
there can be no doubt that the followers of Pelagius conceived the object
of grace to be nothing more than to facilitate the work of salvation.
b) Within the short span of twenty years (A. D. 411 to 431) no less than
twenty-four councils occupied themselves with this new heresy.
At first the wily heretic succeeded in deceiving the prelates assembled at
Lydda (Diospolis), A. D. 415; but the bishops of Northern Africa, among
them St. Augustine, roundly condemned his teaching at two councils held
with the sanction of Pope Innocent I at Carthage and Mileve in 416.
Shortly afterwards, deceived by the terms of the creeds and explanations
which they circulated, Pope Zosimus (417-418) declared both Pelagius and
Celestius to be innocent. Despite this intervention, however, two hundred
African bishops, at a plenary council held at Carthage, A. D. 418,
reiterated the canons of Mileve and submitted them for approval to the
Holy See. These proceedings induced Zosimus to adopt stronger measures. In
his _Epistula Tractoria_ (418) he formally condemned Pelagianism and
persuaded the Emperor to send Julian of Eclanum and seventeen other
recalcitrant bishops into exile. The canons of Carthage and Mileve were
subsequently received by the universal Church as binding definitions of
the faith. The most important of them in regard to grace is this: “If
anyone shall say that the grace of justification is given to us for the
purpose of enabling us to do more easily by the aid of grace what we are
commanded to do by free-will, as if we were able, also, though less
easily, to observe the commandments of God without the help of grace, let
him be anathema.”(263) The Ecumenical Council of Ephesus (A. D. 431), with
the approval of Pope Celestine I, renewed the condemnation of Celestius,
but it was not until nearly a century later that Pelagianism received its
death-blow. In 529 the Second Council of Orange defined: “If any one
assert that he is able, by the power of nature, and without the
illumination and inspiration of the Holy Ghost, who grants to all men the
disposition believingly to accept the truth, rightly (_ut expedit_) to
think or choose anything good pertaining to eternal salvation, or to
assent to salutary, _i.e._ evangelical preaching, such a one is deceived
by a heretical spirit.”(264) This decision was reiterated by the Council
of Trent: “If any one saith that the grace of God through Jesus Christ is
given only for this, that man may be able more easily to live justly and
to merit eternal life, as if by free-will without grace he were able to do
both, though hardly indeed and with difficulty, let him be anathema.”(265)
2. PELAGIANISM REFUTED.—Sacred Scripture and the Fathers plainly teach
that man is unable to perform any salutary act by his own power.
a) Among the many Biblical texts that can be quoted in support of this
statement, our Lord’s beautiful parable of the vine and its branches is
especially striking. Cfr. John XV, 4 sq.: “As the branch cannot bear fruit
of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you
abide in me. I am the vine; you the branches: he that abideth in me, and I
in him, the same beareth much fruit: for without me you can do
nothing.”(266)
α) The context shows that Jesus is not speaking here of purely natural
works of the kind for which the _concursus generalis_ of God suffices, but
that He has in mind salutary acts in the strictly supernatural sense; and
the truth He wishes to inculcate is that fallen nature cannot perform such
acts except through Him and with His assistance. This supernatural
influence is not, however, to be understood exclusively of sanctifying or
habitual grace, because our Divine Saviour refers to the fruits of
justification and to salutary works. “Of these he does not say: ‘Without
me you can do but little,’ but: ‘Without me you can do nothing.’ Be it
therefore little or much, it cannot be done without Him, without whom
nothing can be done.”(267) If this was true of the Apostles, who were in
the state of sanctifying grace,(268) it must be true _a fortiori_ of
sinners. Consequently, supernatural grace is absolutely necessary for the
performance of any and all acts profitable for salvation.
β) Nowhere is this fundamental truth so clearly and insistently brought
out as in the epistles of St. Paul, who is preëminently “the Doctor of
Grace” among the Apostles.
There are, according to him, three categories of supernatural acts:
salutary thoughts, holy resolves, and good works.
St. Paul teaches that all right thinking is from God. 2 Cor. III, 5: “Not
that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves;
but our sufficiency is from God.”(269)
He also declares that all good resolves come from above. Rom. IX, 15 sq.:
“For he saith to Moses: I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy; and I
will shew mercy to whom I will shew mercy. So then it is not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.”(270)
He furthermore asserts that all good works come from God. Phil. II, 13:
“For it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish,
according to his good will.”(271) 1 Cor. XII, 3: “No man can say: Lord
Jesus, but by the Holy Ghost.”(272) Pronouncing the holy name of Jesus is
obviously regarded as a salutary act, because mere physical utterance does
not require the assistance of the Holy Ghost.(273) But the act as a
salutary act is physically impossible without divine assistance, because
it is essentially supernatural and consequently exceeds the powers of
nature.(274)
b) The argument from Tradition is based almost entirely on the authority
of St. Augustine, in whom, as Liebermann observes, God wrought a miracle
of grace that he might become its powerful defender. There is no need of
quoting specific texts because this whole treatise is interlarded with
Augustinian dicta concerning the necessity of grace.
α) An important point is to prove that the early Fathers held the
Augustinian, _i.e._ Catholic view. It stands to reason that if these
Fathers had taught a different doctrine, the Church would not have so
vehemently rejected Pelagianism as an heretical innovation. Augustine
himself insists on the novelty of the Pelagian teaching. “Such is the
Pelagian heresy,” he says, “which is not an ancient one, but has only
lately come into existence.”(275) And this view is confirmed by Pope
Celestine I, who declares in his letter to the Bishops of Gaul (A. D.
431): “This being the state of the question, novelty should cease to
attack antiquity.”(276)
In fact the teaching of the Apostolic Fathers, although less explicit,
agrees entirely with that of Augustine. Thus St. Irenaeus says: “As the
dry earth, if it receives no moisture, does not bring forth fruit, so we,
being dry wood, could never bear fruit for life without supernatural rain
freely given.... The blessing of salvation comes to us from God, not from
ourselves.”(277)
The necessity of grace is indirectly inculcated by the Church when she
petitions God to grant salutary graces to all men—a most ancient and
venerable practice, which Pope St. Celestine explains as follows: “The law
of prayer should determine the law of belief. For when the priests of holy
nations administer the office entrusted to them, asking God for mercy,
they plead the cause of the human race, and together with the whole Church
ask and pray that the unbelievers may receive the faith, that the
idolaters may be freed from the errors of their impiety, that the veil be
lifted from the heart of the Jews, and they be enabled to perceive the
light of truth, that the heretics may return to their senses by a true
perception of the Catholic faith, that the schismatics may receive the
spirit of reborn charity, that the sinners be granted the remedy of
penance, and that the door of heavenly mercy be opened to the catechumens
who are led to the sacraments of regeneration.”(278) In matters of
salvation prayer and grace are correlative terms; the practice of the one
implies the necessity and gratuity of the other.(279)
β) That the Fathers not only conceived grace to be necessary for the cure
of weakness induced by sin (_gratia sanans_) in a merely moral sense, but
thought it to be metaphysically necessary for the communication of
physical strength (_gratia elevans_), is evidenced by such oft-recurring
similes as these: Grace is as necessary for salvation as the eye is to
see, or as wings are to fly, or as rain is for the growth of plants.
It will suffice to quote a passage from the writings of St. Chrysostom.
“The eyes,” he says, “are beautiful and useful for seeing, but if they
would attempt to see without light, all their beauty and visual power
would avail them nothing. Thus, too, the soul is but an obstacle in its
own way if it endeavors to see without the Holy Ghost.”(280)
This view is strengthened by the further teaching of the Fathers that
supernatural grace was as indispensable to the angels in their state of
probation (in which they were free from concupiscence) and to our first
parents in Paradise (gifted as they were with the _donum integritatis_),
as it is to fallen man; the only difference being that in the case of the
latter, grace has the additional object of curing the infirmities and
overcoming the difficulties arising from concupiscence. In regard to the
angels St. Augustine says; “And who made this will but He who created them
with a good will, that is to say with a chaste love by which they should
cleave to Him, in one and the same act creating their nature and endowing
it with grace?... We must therefore acknowledge, with the praise due to
the Creator, that not only of holy men, but also of the holy angels, it
can be said that ‘the love of God is shed abroad in their hearts by the
Holy Ghost, who is given unto them.’ ”(281)
Equally convincing is the argument that Adam in Paradise was unable to
perform any salutary acts without divine grace. “Just as it is in man’s
power to die whenever he will,” says St. Augustine, “... but the mere will
cannot preserve life in the absence of food and the other means of life;
so man in Paradise was able of his mere will, simply by abandoning
righteousness, to destroy himself; but to have led a life of righteousness
would have been too much for his will, unless it had been sustained by the
power of Him who made him.”(282)
This is also the teaching of the Second Council of Orange (A. D. 529):
“Even if human nature remained in the state of integrity, in which it was
constituted, it would in no wise save itself without the help of its
Creator. If it was unable, without the grace of God, to keep what it had
received, how should it be able without the grace of God to regain what it
has lost?”(283)
c) The theological argument for the metaphysical necessity of grace is
based on the essentially supernatural character of all salutary acts.
α) St. Thomas formulates it as follows: “Eternal life is an end
transcending the proportion of human nature, ... and therefore man, by
nature, can perform no meritorious works proportioned to eternal life, but
requires for this purpose a higher power,—the power of grace.
Consequently, man cannot merit eternal life without grace. He is, however,
able to perform acts productive of some good connatural to man, such as
tilling the soil, drinking, eating, acts of friendship, etc.”(284) For the
reason here indicated it is as impossible for man to perform salutary acts
without grace as it would be to work miracles without that divine
assistance which transcends the powers of nature.(285)
β) Catholic theologians are unanimous in admitting that all salutary acts
are and must needs be supernatural; but they differ in their conception of
this supernatural quality (_supernaturalitas_). The problem underlying
this difference of opinion may be stated thus: A thing may be supernatural
either entitatively, _quoad substantiam_, or merely as to the manner of
its existence, _quoad modum_. The _supernaturale quoad substantiam_ is
divided into the strictly supernatural and the merely preternatural.(286)
The question is: To what category of the supernatural belong the salutary
acts which man performs by the aid of grace? Undoubtedly there are actual
graces which are entitatively natural, _e.g._ the purely mediate grace of
illumination,(287) the natural graces conferred in the pure state of
nature, the actual graces of the sensitive sphere,(288) and the so-called
_cogitatio congrua_ of Vasquez.(289) The problem therefore narrows itself
down to the _immediate_ graces of intellect and will. Before the
Tridentine Council theologians contented themselves with acknowledging the
divinely revealed fact that these graces are supernatural; it was only
after the Council that they began to speculate on the precise character of
this _supernaturalitas_.
Some, following the teaching of the Scotist school, ascribed the
supernatural character of salutary acts to their free acceptation on the
part of God, holding them to be purely natural in their essence and raised
to the supernatural sphere merely _per denominationem extrinsecam_.(290)
This view is untenable. For if nature, as such, possessed the intrinsic
power to perform salutary acts, irrespective of their acceptation by God,
the Fathers and councils would err in teaching that this power is derived
from the immediate graces of illumination and strengthening.(291)
Others hold that the salutary acts which grace enables man to perform, are
supernatural only _quoad modum_; because while it is the Holy Ghost
Himself who incites the natural faculties to salutary thoughts and good
resolves, He does not _eo ipso_ raise these thoughts and resolves to the
supernatural plane. This theory, besides being open to the same objection
which we have urged against the first, involves another difficulty. If all
salutary acts were supernatural only _quoad modum_, sanctifying grace,
which is as certainly supernatural in its essence as the beatific vision
of God,(292) would cease to have an adequate purpose; for the intrinsic
reason for its existence is precisely that it raises the nature of the
justified into a permanent supernatural state of being.
A third school of theologians tries to solve the difficulty by adding to
the natural operation of the intellect and the will some accidental
supernatural _modus_. There are several such _modi_, which, though
inhering in nature and really distinct therefrom, depend solely on the
Holy Ghost, and consequently transcend the natural powers of man, _e.g._
the duration or intensity of a salutary act. This theory at first blush
appears more plausible than the other two, but it cannot be squared with
the teaching of Tradition. In the first place, the duration or intensity
of a salutary act cannot affect its essence or nature. Then again, every
such accidental supernatural _modus_ is produced either by grace alone, or
by grace working conjointly with free-will. In the former hypothesis it
would be useless, because it would not render the free salutary act, as
such, supernatural; in the latter case it could do no more than aid the
will to do what is morally impossible, whereas every salutary act is in
matter of fact a physical impossibility, that is, impossible to unaided
nature.(293)
There remains a fourth explanation, which ascribes to every salutary act
an ontological, substantial, intrinsic _supernaturalitas_, whereby it is
elevated to a higher and essentially different plane of being and
operation. This theory is convincingly set forth by Suarez in his treatise
on the Necessity of Grace.(294)
It may be asked: If the salutary acts which we perform are supernatural in
substance, why are we not conscious of the fact? The answer is not far to
seek. Philosophical analysis shows that the intrinsic nature of our
psychic operations is no more a subject of immediate consciousness than
the substance of the soul itself. Consequently, sanctifying grace cannot
reveal its presence through our inner consciousness. Having no intuitive
knowledge of our own Ego, we are compelled to specify the different acts
of the soul by means of their respective objects and their various
tendencies (cognition, volition). To our consciousness the supernatural
love of God does not present itself as essentially different from the
natural.(295)
Article 3. The Necessity Of Actual Grace For The States Of Unbelief,
Mortal Sin, And Justification
Every adult man, viewed in his relation to actual grace, is in one of
three distinct states:
(1) The state of unbelief (_status infidelitatis_), which may be either
negative, as in the case of heathens, or positive, as in the case of
apostates and formal heretics;
(2) The state of mortal sin (_status peccati mortalis_), when the sinner
has already received, or not yet lost, the grace of faith, which is the
beginning of justification;
(3) The state of justification itself (_status iustitiae sive gratiae
sanctificantis_), in which much remains yet to be done to attain eternal
happiness.
The question we have now to consider is: Does man need actual grace in
every one of these three states, and if so, to what extent?
1. SEMIPELAGIANISM.—Semipelagianism is an attempt to effect a compromise
between Pelagianism and Augustinism by attributing to mere nature a
somewhat greater importance in matters of salvation than St. Augustine was
willing to admit.
a) After Augustine had for more than twenty years vigorously combatted and
finally defeated Pelagianism, some pious monks of Marseilles, under the
leadership of John Cassian, Abbot of St. Victor,(296) tried to find middle
ground between his teaching and that of the Pelagians. Cassian’s treatise
_Collationes Patrum_,(297) and the reports sent to St. Augustine by his
disciples Prosper and Hilary, enable us to form a pretty fair idea of the
Semipelagian system. Its principal tenets were the following:
α) There is a distinction between the “beginning of faith” (_initium
fidei_, _affectus credulitatis_) and “increase in faith” (_augmentum
fidei_). The former depends entirely on the will, while the latter, like
faith itself, requires the grace of Christ.
β) Nature can merit grace by its own efforts, though this natural merit
(_meritum naturae_) is founded on equity only (_meritum de congruo_), and
does not confer a right in strict justice, as Pelagius contended.
γ) Free-will, after justification, can of its own power secure the gift of
final perseverance (_donum perseverantiae_); which consequently is not a
special grace, but a purely natural achievement.
δ) The bestowal or denial of baptismal grace in the case of infants, who
can have no previous _merita de congruo_, depends on their hypothetical
future merits or demerits as foreseen by God from all eternity.(298)
b) Informed of these errors by his disciples, St. Augustine energetically
set to work, and in spite of his advanced age wrote two books against the
Semipelagians, entitled respectively, _De Praedestinatione Sanctorum_ and
_De Dono Perseverantiae_. The new teaching was not yet, however, regarded
as formally heretical, and Augustine treated his opponents with great
consideration, in fact he humbly acknowledged that he himself had
professed similar errors before his consecration (A. D. 394).(299)
After Augustine’s death, Prosper and Hilary went to Rome and interested
Pope Celestine in their cause. In a dogmatic letter addressed to the
Bishops of Gaul, the Pontiff formally approved the teaching of St.
Augustine on grace and original sin, but left open such other “more
profound and difficult incidental questions” as predestination and the
manner in which grace operates in the soul.(300) But as this papal letter
(called “_Indiculus_”) was an instruction rather than an ex-cathedra
definition, the controversy continued until, nearly a century later (A. D.
529), the Second Council of Orange, convoked by St. Caesarius of Arles,
formally condemned the Semipelagian heresy. This council, or at least its
first eight canons,(301) received the solemn approbation of Pope Boniface
II (A. D. 530) and thus became vested with ecumenical authority.(302)
2. THE TEACHING OF THE CHURCH.—The Catholic Church teaches the absolute
necessity of actual grace for all stages on the way to salvation. We shall
demonstrate this in five separate theses.
*Thesis I: Prevenient grace is absolutely necessary, not only for faith,
but for the very beginning of faith.*
This is _de fide_.
Proof. The Second Council of Orange defined against the Semipelagians: “If
any one say that increase in faith, as well as the beginning of faith, and
the very impulse by which we are led to believe in Him who justifies the
sinner, and by which we obtain the regeneration of holy Baptism, is in us
not as a gift of grace, that is to say, through the inspiration of the
Holy Ghost, but by nature, ... is an adversary of the dogmatic teaching of
the Apostles....”(303)
a) This is thoroughly Scriptural doctrine, as St. Augustine(304) and
Prosper(305) proved. St. Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians had
opened the eyes of Augustine, as he himself admits. 1 Cor. IV, 7: “For who
distinguisheth(306) thee? Or what hast thou that thou hast not received?
And if thou hast received, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not
received it?” The Apostle means to say: In matters pertaining to salvation
no man has any advantage over his fellow men, because all receive of the
grace of God without any merits of their own. This statement would be
false if any man were able to perform even the smallest salutary act
without the aid of grace.
With a special view to faith the same Apostle teaches: “For by grace you
are saved through faith,(307) and that not of yourselves,(308) for it is
the gift of God;(309) not of works,(310) that no man may glory.”(311)
This, too, would be false if faith could be traced to a purely natural
instinct or to some _meritum de congruo_ in the Semipelagian sense.(312)
Our Lord Himself, in his famous discourse on the Holy Eucharist,
unmistakably describes faith and man’s preparation for it as an effect of
prevenient grace. “No man can come to me, except the Father, who hath sent
me, draw him.”(313) The metaphorical expression “come to me,” according to
the context, means “believe in me;” whereas the Father’s “drawing” plainly
refers to the operation of prevenient grace. Cfr. John VI, 65 sq.: “But
there are some of you that believe not.... Therefore did I say to you,
that no man can come to me, unless it be given him by the Father.” John
VI, 29: “This is the work of God,(314) that you believe in him whom he
hath sent.” According to our Saviour’s own averment, therefore, preaching
is of no avail unless grace gives the first impulse leading to faith.
b) As regards the argument from Tradition, it will suffice to show that
the Fathers who wrote before Augustine, ascribed the beginning of faith to
prevenient grace.
α) In the light of the Augustinian dictum that “prayer is the surest proof
of grace,”(315) it is safe to assume that St. Justin Martyr voiced our
dogma when he put into the mouth of a venerable old man the words: “But
thou pray above all that the gates of light may be opened unto thee; for
no man is able to understand the words of the prophets [as _praeambula
fidei_] unless God and His Christ have revealed their meaning.”(316)
Augustine himself appeals to SS. Cyprian, Ambrose, and Gregory of
Nazianzus, and then continues: “Such doctors, and so great as these,
saying that there is nothing of which we may boast as of our own, which
God has not given us; and that our very heart and our thoughts are not in
our own power, ... attribute these things to the grace of God, acknowledge
them as God’s gifts, testify that they come to us from Him and are not
from ourselves.”(317)
β) Like the Pelagians in their teaching on original sin,(318) the
Semipelagians in their teaching on grace relied mainly on the authority of
St. John Chrysostom, from whose writings they loved to quote such
perplexing passages as this: “We must first select the good, and then God
adds what is of His; He does not forestall our will because He does not
wish to destroy our liberty. But once we have made our choice, He gives us
much help. For while it rests with us to choose and to will antecedently,
it lies with him to perfect and bring to an issue.”(319)
To understand St. Chrysostom’s attitude, and that of the Oriental Fathers
generally, we must remember that the Eastern Church considered it one of
its chief duties to safeguard the dogma of free-will against the
Manichaeans, who regarded man as an abject slave of Fate. In such an
environment it was of supreme importance to champion the freedom of the
will(320) and to insist on the maxim: “Help yourself and God will help
you.” If the necessity of prevenient grace was not sufficiently
emphasized, the circumstances of the time explain, and to some extent
excuse, the mistake. St. Augustine himself remarks in his treatise on the
Predestination of the Saints: “What need is there for us to look into the
writings of those who, before this heresy sprang up, had no necessity of
dwelling on a question so difficult of solution as this, which beyond a
doubt they would do if they were compelled to answer such [errors as
these]? Whence it came about that they touched upon what they thought of
God’s grace briefly and cursorily in some passages of their
writings.”(321) Palmieri remarks(322) that it would be easy to cite a
number of similar passages from the writings of the early Latin Fathers
before Pelagius, who certainly cannot be suspected of Semipelagian
leanings.(323)
The orthodoxy of St. Chrysostom can be positively established by a twofold
argument. (1) Pope Celestine the First recommended him as a reliable
defender of the Catholic faith against Nestorianism and Pelagianism.(324)
(2) Chrysostom rejected Semipelagianism as it were in advance when he
taught: “Not even faith is of ourselves; for if He [God] had not come, if
He had not called, how should we have been able to believe?”(325) and
again when he says in his explanation of the Pauline phrase ἀρχηγὸς τῆς
πίστεως:(326) “He Himself hath implanted the faith in us, He Himself hath
given the beginning.”(327) These utterances are diametrically opposed to
the heretical teaching of the Semipelagians.(328)
c) The theological argument for our thesis is effectively formulated by
Oswald(329) as follows: “It is faith which first leads man from the sphere
of nature into a higher domain,—faith is the beginning of salutary action.
That this beginning must come wholly from God, and that it cannot come
from man, goes without saying. By beginning we mean the very first
beginning. Whether we call this first beginning itself faith, or speak, as
the Semipelagians did, of certain preambles of faith,—aspirations,
impulses, desires leading to faith (_praeambula fidei: conatus, desideria,
credulitatis affectus_), makes no difference. Wherever the supernatural
domain of salutary action begins—and it is divided off from the natural by
a very sharp line—there it is God who begins and not man, there it is
grace which precedes,—_gratia praeveniens_, as it has come to be known by
a famous term.”
Indeed, if man were able by his own power to merit for himself the first
beginnings of grace, then faith itself, and justification which is based
on faith, and the beatific vision, would not be strictly graces.
As for the precise moment when prevenient grace begins its work in the
soul, the common opinion is that the very first judgment which a man forms
as to the credibility of divine revelation (_iudicium credibilitatis_) is
determined by the immediate grace of the intellect,(330) and that the
subsequent _affectus credulitatis_ springs from the strengthening grace of
the will. St. Augustine, commenting on 2 Cor. III, 5, demonstrates this as
follows:
“Let them give attention to this, and well weigh these words, who think
that the beginning of faith is of ourselves, and the increase of faith is
of God. For who cannot see that thinking is prior to believing? For no one
believes anything unless he has first thought that it is to be
believed.... Therefore, in what pertains to religion and piety [of which
the Apostle was speaking], if we are not capable of thinking anything as
of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God, we are certainly not capable
of believing anything as of ourselves, since we cannot do this without
thinking, but our sufficiency, by which we begin to believe, is of
God.”(331)
*Thesis II: The sinner, even after he has received the faith, stands in
absolute need of prevenient and co-operating grace for every single
salutary act required in the process of justification.*
This proposition also embodies an article of faith.
Proof. The Semipelagians ascribed the dispositions necessary for
justification to the natural efforts of the will, thereby denying the
necessity of prevenient grace. This teaching was condemned as heretical by
the Second Council of Orange (A. D. 529),(332) and again by the Council of
Trent, which defined: “If any one saith that without the prevenient
inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and without His help, man can believe,
hope, love, or be penitent as he ought, so that the grace of justification
may be bestowed upon him; let him be anathema.”(333)
a) The Scriptural texts which we have quoted against Pelagianism(334) also
apply to the Semipelagian heresy.
Our Lord’s dictum: “Without me you can do nothing,”(335) proves the
necessity of prevenient and co-operating grace, not only at the beginning
of every salutary act, but also for its continuation and completion. St.
Augustine clearly perceived this. “That he might furnish a reply to the
future Pelagius,” he observes, “our Lord does not say: Without me you can
with difficulty do anything; but He says: Without me you can do
_nothing_.... He does not say: Without me you can _perfect_ nothing, but
_do_ nothing. For if He had said _perfect_, they might say that God’s aid
is necessary, not for beginning good, which is of ourselves, but for
perfecting it.... For when the Lord says, Without me you can do nothing,
in this one word He comprehends both the beginning and the end.”(336)
St. Paul expressly ascribes the salvation of man to grace when he says:
“... with fear and trembling work out your salvation; for it is God who
worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish.”(337)
The Tridentine Council, as we have seen, designates the four salutary acts
of faith, hope, love, and penitence as a preparation for justification.
Now St. Paul teaches: “The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in
believing, that you may abound in hope and in the power of the Holy
Ghost;”(338) and St. John: “Charity is of God.”(339)
b) The argument from Tradition is chiefly based on St. Augustine, who in
his two treatises against the Semipelagians, and likewise in his earlier
writings, inculcates the necessity of grace for all stages on the way to
salvation.
Thus he writes in his _Enchiridion_: “Surely, if no Christian will dare to
say this: It is not of God that showeth mercy, but of man that willeth,
lest he should openly contradict the Apostle, it follows that the true
interpretation of the saying (Rom. IX, 16): ‘It is not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy,’ is that
the whole work belongs to God, who both prepares the good will that is to
be helped, and assists it when it is prepared. For the good will of man
precedes many of God’s gifts, but not all; and it must itself be included
among those which it does not precede. We read in Holy Scripture, both
‘God’s mercy shall prevent me’ (Ps. LVIII, 11), and ‘Thy mercy will follow
me’ (Ps. XXII, 6). It precedes the unwilling to make him willing; it
follows the willing to render his will effectual. Why are we taught to
pray for our enemies, who are plainly unwilling to lead a holy life,
unless it be that God may work willingness in them? And why are we
admonished to ask that we may receive, unless it be that He who has
created in us the wish, may Himself satisfy the same? We pray, then, for
our enemies, that the mercy of God may precede them, as it has preceded
us; we pray for ourselves, that His mercy may follow us.”(340)
That grace accompanies us uninterruptedly on the way to Heaven is also the
teaching of St. Jerome: “To will and to run is my own act; but without the
constant aid of God, even my own act will not be mine; for the Apostle
says (Phil. II, 13): ‘It is God who worketh in you, both to will and to
accomplish.’... It is not sufficient for me that He gave it once, unless
He gives it always.”(341)
St. Ephraem Syrus prays in the name of the Oriental Church: “I possess
nothing, and if I possess anything, Thou [O God] hast given it to me.... I
ask only for grace and acknowledge that I shall be saved through
Thee.”(342)
The Second Council of Orange summarizes the teaching of Tradition on the
subject under consideration.(343)
c) The theological argument for our thesis is based on the character of
the adoptive sonship resulting from the process of justification.(344)
This sonship (_filiatio adoptiva_) is essentially supernatural, and hence
can be attained only by strictly supernatural acts, which unaided nature
is both morally and physically incapable of performing.(345)
*Thesis III: Even in the state of sanctifying grace man is not able to
perform salutary acts, unless aided by actual graces.*
This is likewise _de fide_.
Proof. The faculties of the just man are permanently kept in the
supernatural sphere by sanctifying grace and by the habits of faith, hope,
and charity. Hence the just man in the performance of salutary acts does
not require the same measure of prevenient grace as the unregenerate
sinner, who lacks all, or at least some, of the habits mentioned.
The question here at issue, therefore, can only be: Is actual grace (as
_gratia excitans s. vocans_, not _elevans_) absolutely necessary to enable
a man in the state of sanctifying grace to perform salutary acts? The
answer is—Yes, and this teaching is so firmly grounded on Sacred Scripture
and Tradition, and so emphatically sanctioned by the Church, that we do
not hesitate to follow Perrone in qualifying it as _de fide_.(346) The
councils in their teaching on the necessity of grace, assert that
necessity alike for the justified and the unjustified. That of Trent
expressly declares: “Whereas Jesus Christ Himself continually infuses His
virtue into the justified,—as the head into the members, and the vine into
the branches,—and this virtue always precedes and accompanies and follows
their good works, which without it could not in any wise be pleasing and
meritorious before God, we must believe that nothing further is wanting to
the justified....”(347)
a) Our thesis can be easily proved from Holy Scripture. We have already
shown that the Bible and Tradition make no distinction between the
different stages on the way to salvation, or between different salutary
acts, but indiscriminately postulate for all the illuminating grace of the
intellect and the strengthening grace of the will. It follows that to
perform salutary acts the justified no less than the unjustified need
actual grace. Our Saviour’s pithy saying: “Without me you can do
nothing,”(348) was not addressed to unbelievers or sinners, but to His
Apostles, who were in the state of sanctifying grace.(349)
This interpretation is fully borne out by Tradition. St. Augustine, after
laying it down as a general principle that “We can of ourselves do nothing
to effect good works of piety without God either working that we may will,
or co-operating when we will,”(350) says of justified man in particular:
“The Heavenly Physician cures our maladies, not only that they may cease
to exist, but in order that we may ever afterwards be able to walk
aright,—a task to which we should be unequal, even after our healing, were
it not for His continued help.... For just as the eye of the body, even
when completely sound, is unable to see, unless aided by the brightness of
light, so also man, even when fully justified, is unable to lead a holy
life, unless he be divinely assisted by the eternal light of
righteousness.”(351)
This agrees with the practice of the Church in exhorting all men without
exception, saints as well as sinners, to pray: “Precede, we beseech Thee,
O Lord, our actions by Thy holy inspiration, and carry them on by Thy
gracious assistance, that every prayer and work of ours may begin always
from Thee, and through Thee be happily ended.”(352)
b) Some theologians have been led by certain speculative difficulties to
deny the necessity of actual grace in the state of justification.
Man in the state of justification, they argue, is endowed with sanctifying
grace, the supernatural habits of faith, hope, and charity, and the
infused moral virtues, and consequently possesses all those qualifications
which are necessary to enable him to perform salutary acts with the
supernatural concurrence of God. Why should the will, thus supernaturally
equipped, require the aid of additional actual graces to enable it to
perform strictly supernatural, and therefore salutary, actions?(353)
We reply: The necessity of actual grace in the state of justification is
so clearly taught by divine Revelation that no theological theory is
tenable which denies it. Besides, the objection we have briefly summarized
disregards some very essential considerations, _e.g._ that there remains
in man, even after justification, concupiscence, which is accompanied by a
certain weakness that requires at least the _gratia sanans sive
medicinalis_ to heal it.(354) Furthermore, a quiescent _habitus_ cannot
set itself in motion, but must be determined from without; that is to say,
in our case, it must be moved by the _gratia excitans_ to elicit
supernatural thoughts and to will supernatural acts. Just as a seed cannot
sprout without the aid of appropriate stimuli, so sanctifying grace is
incapable of bearing fruit unless stimulated by the sunshine and moisture
of actual graces. Man may perform purely natural acts even though he be in
the supernatural state of grace; hence if any particular act of his is to
be truly supernatural and conducive to eternal salvation, God must lend
His special aid.(355)
*Thesis IV: Except by a special privilege of divine grace, man, even
though he be in the state of sanctifying grace, is unable to avoid venial
sin throughout life.*
This is likewise _de fide_.
Proof. The Pelagians held that man is able to avoid sin, nay to attain to
absolute impeccability,(356) without supernatural assistance. Against this
error the Second Council of Mileve (A. D. 416) defined: “It likewise hath
pleased [the holy Synod] that whoever holds that the words of the Our
Father: ‘Forgive us our trespasses,’ when pronounced by saintly men, are
pronounced in token of humility, but not truthfully, should be
anathema.”(357) Still more to the point is the following declaration of
the Council of Trent: “If any one saith that a man once justified ... is
able, during his whole life, to avoid all sins, even those that are
venial, except by a special grace from God, as the Church holds in regard
of the Blessed Virgin; let him be anathema.”(358)
To obtain a better understanding of this Tridentine definition it will be
well to ponder the following considerations:
The Council declares that it is impossible for man, even in the state of
sanctifying grace, to avoid all sins during his whole life, except by
virtue of a special privilege such as that enjoyed by the Blessed Virgin
Mary.(359) A venial sin is one which, because of the unimportance of the
precept involved, or in consequence of incomplete consent, does not
destroy the state of grace. Such a sin may be either deliberate or
semi-deliberate. A semi-deliberate venial sin is one committed in haste or
surprise. It is chiefly sins of this kind that the Tridentine Council had
in view. For no one would seriously assert that with the aid of divine
grace a saint could not avoid at least all deliberate venial sins for a
considerable length of time. The phrase “_in tota vita_” indicates a
period of some length, though its limits are rather difficult to
determine. Were a man to die immediately after justification, the
Tridentine canon would _per accidens_ not apply to him. As the Council
says in another place that “men, how holy and just soever, at times fall
into at least light and daily sins, which are also called venial,”(360) it
is safe practically to limit the period of possible freedom from venial
sin to one day. Theoretically, of course, it may be extended much farther.
The phrase “_omnia peccata_” must be interpreted collectively, not
distributively, for a sin that could not be avoided would cease to be a
sin. For the same reason the term “_non posse_” must be understood of
(moral, not physical) disability; in other words, the difficulty of
avoiding sin with the aid of ordinary graces for any considerable length
of time, is insuperable even for the just. This moral impossibility of
avoiding sin can be removed only by a special privilege, such as that
enjoyed by the Blessed Virgin Mary. It may incidentally be asked whether
this privilege was also granted to other saints, notably St. Joseph and
St. John the Baptist. Suarez lays it down as a theological conclusion that
no human being has ever been or ever will be able entirely to avoid venial
sin except by a special privilege, which must in each case be proved.
Palmieri maintains that the moral impossibility of leading an absolutely
sinless life without the special assistance of grace is taught by
indirection in the canons of Mileve (416) and Carthage (418), which
declare that no such life has ever been led by mortal man without that
assistance.(361)
a) The Scriptural argument for our thesis was fully developed by the
councils just mentioned. The careful student will note, however, that
those texts only are strictly conclusive which positively and exclusively
refer to venial sins. Thus when St. James says: “In many things we all
offend,”(362) he cannot mean that all Christians now and then necessarily
commit mortal sin. For St. John expressly declares that “Whosoever abideth
in him [Christ], sinneth not.”(363)
It follows that not even the just can wholly avoid venial sin. Hence the
most devout and pious Christian may truthfully repeat the petition of the
Lord’s Prayer which says: “Forgive us our trespasses,(364) as we forgive
those who trespass against us.”(365) Profoundly conscious of the
sinfulness of the entire human race, the author of the Book of Proverbs
exclaims: “Who can say, My heart is clean, I am pure from sin?”(366)
Other Scripture texts commonly cited in confirmation of our thesis lack
cogency, because they either deal exclusively with mortal sin or do not
refer to sin at all. Thus Prov. XXIV, 16: “A just man shall fall seven
times and shall rise again,” is meant of temporal adversities.(367)
Eccles. VII, 21: “There is no just man upon earth, that doth good and
sinneth not,”(368) can scarcely be understood of venial sin, because the
sacred writer continues: “For thy conscience knoweth that thou also hast
often spoken evil of others.”(369) 1 John I, 8: “If we say that we have no
sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us,”(370) would be a
splendid argument for our thesis, could it be shown that the Apostle had
in mind only the venial sins committed in the state of justification. This
is, however, unlikely, as the term _peccatum_ throughout St. John’s first
Epistle(371) is obviously employed in the sense of mortal sin.(372)
b) Tradition is again most effectively voiced by St. Augustine, who
writes: “There are three points, as you know, which the Catholic Church
chiefly maintains against them [the Pelagians]. One is, that the grace of
God is not given according to our merits.... The second, that no one lives
in this corruptible body in righteousness of any degree without sins of
any kind. The third, that man is born obnoxious to the first man’s
sin....”(373) To Pelagius’ objection: “If all men sin, then the just must
die in their sins,” the holy Doctor replies: “With all his acuteness he
[Pelagius] overlooks the circumstance that even righteous persons pray
with good reason: ‘Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.’...
Even if we cannot live without sin, we may yet die without sin, whilst the
sin committed in ignorance or infirmity is blotted out in merciful
forgiveness.”(374) In another chapter of the same treatise he says: “If
... we could assemble all the afore-mentioned holy men and women, and ask
them whether they lived without sin, ... would they not all exclaim with
one voice: ‘If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth
is not in us’?”(375)
c) We come to the theological argument. The moral impossibility of
avoiding venial sin for any considerable length of time results partly
from the infirmity of human nature (_infirmitas naturae_), partly from
God’s pre-established plan of salvation (_ordo divinae providentiae_).
α) The infirmity of human nature flows from four separate and distinct
sources: (1) concupiscence (_fomes peccati_); (2) imperfection of the
ethical judgment (_imperfectio iudicii_); (3) inconstancy of the will
(_inconstantia voluntatis_); and (4) the weariness caused by continued
resistance to temptation. In view of these agencies and their combined
attack upon the will, theologians speak of a _necessitas antecedens
peccandi_;—not as if the will were predestined to succumb to any one
temptation in particular, but in the sense that it is morally unable to
resist the whole series (_suppositione disiunctâ_). The will simply grows
weaker and weaker, and in course of time fails to resist sin with
sufficient energy.
Let us exemplify. The proofsheets of a book are scrutinized by several
trained readers, yet in spite of the greatest care and many ingenious
devices for the elimination of error, a perfect book, _i.e._ one entirely
free from mistakes, is a practical impossibility. How much harder must it
be for man to avoid moral lapses throughout his whole life, considering
that he cannot choose his own time for meeting temptations, but must keep
his mind and will under constant control and be prepared to resist the
enemy at any moment.(376)
St. Thomas Aquinas says: “Man cannot avoid all venial sin, because his
sensual appetite is depraved. True, reason is able to suppress the
individual stirrings of this appetite. In fact, it is on this account that
they are voluntary and partake of the nature of sin. But reason is not
able to suppress them all [collectively], because, while it tries to
resist one, there perhaps arises another, and, furthermore, reason is not
always in a condition to exercise the vigilance necessary to avoid such
impulses.”(377)
It follows that the _necessitas peccandi antecedens_ does not destroy the
liberty of the will or the moral imputability of those venial sins which a
man actually commits; for it is merely a _necessitas indeterminata_, which
refers not to certain particular instances, but to the one or other
indeterminately. It follows further that God does not command the
impossible when He insists that we should avoid venial sin, for He does
not in each single case command something which is physically or morally
impossible,(378) but merely demands a perfection which in itself is not
entirely unattainable _hic et nunc_ with the assistance of ordinary
grace.(379)
β) The second theological reason for the impossibility of avoiding venial
sin for any considerable time is based on the eternal scheme of salvation
decreed by Divine Providence. This scheme of salvation must not, of
course, be conceived as a divine precept to commit venial sins. It is
merely a wise toleration of sin and a just refusal, on the part of the
Almighty, to restore the human race to that entirely unmerited state of
freedom from concupiscence with which it was endowed in Paradise, and
which alone could guarantee the moral possibility of unspotted innocence.
Both factors in their last analysis are based upon the will of God to
exercise those whom He has justified in humility and to safeguard us
against pride, which is the deadliest enemy of our salvation.(380) In
making this wise decree God, of course, infallibly foresaw that no man
(with the sole exception of those to whom He might grant a special
privilege) would _de facto_ be able to pass through life without
committing venial sins. This infallible foreknowledge is based not alone
on the _scientia media_, but also on the infirmity of human nature.
Hence Suarez was entirely justified in rejecting the singular opinion of
de Vega,(381) that the Tridentine definition does not exclude the
possibility of exceptions.(382)
Nevertheless the faithful are wisely warned against both indifference and
despondency. “Let no one say that he is without sin, but let us not for
this reason love sin. Let us detest sin, brethren. Though we are not
without sins, let us hate them; especially let us avoid grievous sins, and
venial sins, too, as much as we can.”(383)
*Thesis V: No man can persevere in righteousness without special help from
God.*
This proposition is also _de fide_.
Proof. The Semipelagians asserted that man is able by his own power to
persevere in righteousness to the end.(384) Against this teaching the
Second Council of Orange defined: “Even those who are reborn and holy must
implore the help of God, in order that they may be enabled to attain the
good end, or to persevere in the good work.”(385) This definition was
repeated in substance by the Council of Trent: “If any one saith that the
justified either is able without the special help of God to persevere in
the justice received, or that, with that help, he is not able; let him be
anathema.”(386)
Perfect perseverance is the preservation of baptismal innocence, or, in a
less strict sense, of the state of grace, until death. Imperfect
perseverance is a temporary continuance in grace, _e.g._ for a month or a
year, until the next mortal sin. Imperfect perseverance, according to the
Tridentine Council, requires no special divine assistance (_speciale
auxilium_).(387)
Final perseverance is either passive or active, according as the justified
dies in the state of grace irrespective of his will (as baptized children
and insane adults),(388) or actively coöperates with grace whenever the
state of grace is imperilled by grievous temptation. The Council of Trent
has especially this latter case in view when it speaks of the necessity of
a _speciale auxilium_, because the special help extended by God
presupposes coöperation with grace, and man cannot strictly speaking
coöperate in a happy death. The Council purposely speaks of an _auxilium_,
not a _privilegium_, because a privilege is by its very nature granted to
but few, while the special help of grace extends to all the elect. This
_auxilium_ is designated as _speciale_, because final perseverance is not
conferred with sanctifying grace, nor is it a result of the mere power of
perseverance (_posse perseverare_). The state of sanctifying grace simply
confers a claim to ordinary graces, while the power of perseverance of
itself by no means insures actual perseverance (_actu perseverare_). The
power of perseverance is assured by those merely sufficient graces which
are constantly at the command of the righteous. Actual perseverance, on
the other hand, implies a series of efficacious graces. God is under no
obligation to bestow more than sufficient grace on any man; consequently,
final perseverance is a special grace, or, more correctly, a continuous
series of efficacious graces. The Council of Trent is therefore justified
in speaking of it as “a great gift.”(389)
a) Sacred Scripture represents final perseverance as the fruit of prayer
and as a special gift not included in the bare notion of justification.
α) Our Divine Saviour Himself says in His prayer for His disciples, John
XVII, 11: “Holy Father, keep them in thy name whom thou hast given me,
that they may be one, as we also are.”(390) St. Paul teaches in his
Epistle to the Colossians: “Epaphras saluteth you ... who is always
solicitous for you in prayers, that you may stand perfect and full in all
the will of God.”(391) Hence the necessity of constantly watching and
praying: “Watch ye and pray that ye enter not into temptation.”(392)
β) That perseverance is not included in the bare notion of justification
appears from such passages as these: Phil. I, 6: “Being confident of this
very thing, that he who hath begun a good work in you, will perfect it
unto the day of Christ Jesus.”(393) 1 Pet. I, 5: “Who, by the power of
God, are kept by faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last
time.”(394)
b) The threads of Tradition run together in the hands of St. Augustine,
who has written a special treatise On the Gift of Perseverance.(395)
His main argument is based on the necessity of prayer. “Why,” he asks, “is
that perseverance asked for from God, if it is not given by God? Is it a
mocking petition inasmuch as that is asked of Him which it is known He
does not give, but, although He gives it not, is in man’s power?... Or is
not that perseverance, perchance, asked for from Him? He who says this, is
not to be rebuked by my arguments, but must be overwhelmed with the
prayers of the saints. Is there indeed one among them who do not ask for
themselves from God that they may persevere in Him, when in that very
prayer which is called the Lord’s—because the Lord taught it—whenever it
is prayed by the saints, scarcely anything else is understood to be prayed
for but perseverance?”(396) He then proceeds to show, in accordance with
St. Cyprian’s little treatise On the Lord’s Prayer, that the seven
petitions of the “Our Father” are all prayers for perseverance, and
concludes as follows: “Truly in this matter let not the Church look for
laborious disputations, but consider her own daily prayers. She prays that
the unbelieving may believe; therefore God converts to the faith. She
prays that believers may persevere; therefore God gives perseverance to
the end.”(397) And again: “For who is there that would groan with a
sincere desire to receive what he prays for from the Lord, if he thought
that he received it from himself and not from the Lord?”(398)
c) From this teaching flows a corollary of great practical importance, to
wit: The grace of final perseverance cannot be merited by good works, but
it can be obtained by pious and unremitting prayer.
“This gift of God,” says St. Augustine, speaking of final perseverance,
“may be obtained suppliantly [by prayer], but when it has been given, it
cannot be lost contumaciously.”(399) And again: “Since it is manifest that
God has prepared some things to be given even to those who do not pray for
them, such as the beginning of faith, and other things not to be given
except to those who pray for them, such as perseverance unto the end,
certainly he who thinks that he has this latter from himself, does not
pray to obtain it.”(400)
Between merit (_meritum_) and prayer (_oratio, preces_) there is this
great difference, that merit appeals to God’s justice, prayer to His
mercy. If man were able to merit final perseverance by good works
(_meritum de condigno_), God would be in justice bound to give him this
precious grace. But this is plainly incompatible with the Catholic
conception of final perseverance.
It may be asked: Is God determined by the _meritum de congruo_ inherent in
all good works to grant the gift of final perseverance as a reward to the
righteous? Theologians are at variance on this point. Ripalda(401) thinks
that this is the case at least with the more conspicuous good works
performed in the state of grace. Suarez modifies this improbable
contention somewhat by saying that prayer alone can infallibly guarantee
final perseverance.(402) Our prayers are infallibly heard if we address
the Father through Jesus Christ, because Christ has promised: “If you ask
the Father anything in my name, he will give it you.”(403) To insure its
being infallibly heard, prayer for perseverance must be made in the state
of grace and unremittingly. True, Christ did not make sanctifying grace a
necessary condition of efficacious prayer. But, as Suarez points out,
prayer cannot be infallibly efficacious unless it proceeds from one who is
in the state of grace, because the moral conditions that render it
efficacious are found only in that state.(404) As to the second point, if
we say that prayer for perseverance must be unremitting, we mean, in the
words of the same eminent theologian, that it must continue throughout
life and must be made with becoming trustfulness and zeal, especially when
there is a duty to be fulfilled or a temptation to be overcome.(405)
READINGS:—Suarez, _De Gratia_, 1. I-II.—*Tricassin, O. Cap., _De
Necessaria ad Salutem Gratia_.—Byonius, _De Gratiae Auxiliis_, in
Becanus, _Theologia Scholastica_, Rouen, 1658.—Scheeben _Natur und
Gnade_, Mainz 1861.—IDEM, _Dogmatik_, Vol. III, § 292-298,
Freiburg 1882.—*Palmieri, _De Gratia Divina Actuali_, thes. 19-29,
Gulpen 1885.—Oswald, _Lehre von der Heiligung_, § 9-11, 3rd ed.,
Paderborn 1885.—Tepe, _Institutiones Theologicae_, Vol. III, pp.
8-51, Paris 1896.—*Heinrich-Gutberlet, _Dogmatische Theologie_,
Vol. VIII, § 396-416, Mainz 1897.—Chr. Pesch, _Praelectiones
Dogmaticae_, Vol. V, 3rd ed., pp. 32 sqq., Freiburg
1908.—Schiffini, _De Gratia Divina_, disp. 2, Freiburg 1901.
On St. Augustine and his teaching cfr. *J. Ernst, _Werke und
Tugenden der Ungläubigen nach Augustinus_, Freiburg 1871.—F.
Wörter, _Die Geistesentwicklung des hl. Augustinus bis zu seiner
Taufe_, Paderborn 1898.—Wolfsgruber, _Augustinus_, Paderborn
1898.—Boucat, _Theologia Patrum Dogmatico-Scholastico-Positiva_,
disp. 3, Paris 1718.—*Zaccaria, _Dissert. de Adiutorio sine quo
non_, in the _Thesaurus Theol._, Vol. V, Venice 1762.—O.
Rottmanner, O. S. B., _Geistesfrüchte aus der Klosterzelle_,
München 1908.—B. J. Otten, S. J., _A Manual of the History of
Dogmas_, Vol. I, St. Louis 1917, pp. 306 sqq., 374 sq.
On the heresy of Pelagianism cfr. *F. Wörter, _Der Pelagianismus
nach seinem Ursprung und seiner Lehre_, Freiburg 1874.—F. Klasen,
_Die innere Entwicklung des Pelagianismus_, Freiburg
1882.—Schwane, _Dogmengeschichte_, Vol. II, 2nd ed., § 60 sqq.,
Freiburg 1895.—H. Zimmer, _Pelagius in Irland_, Berlin
1901.—Warfield, _Two Studies in the History of Doctrine_, New York
1897.—Tixeront, _Histoire des Dogmes_, Vol. II, 2nd ed., Paris
1909 (English tr., St. Louis 1914).—Pohle in the _Catholic
Encyclopedia_, Vol. XI, pp. 604-608.—B. J. Otten, S. J., _A Manual
of the History of Dogmas_, Vol. I, pp. 357 sqq.
On Semi-Pelagianism cfr. Suarez, _De Gratia_, Prolegom., V, 5
sqq.—Livinus Meyer, _De Pelag. et Semipelag. Erroribus._—Wiggers,
_Geschichte des Semipelagianismus_, Hamburg 1835.—A. Hoch, _Lehre
des Johannes Cassianus von Natur und Gnade_, Freiburg 1895.—*A.
Koch, _Der hl. Faustus, Bischof von Riez_, Stuttgart 1895.—Fr.
Wörter, _Zur Dogmengeschichte des Semipelagianismus_, Münster
1900.—Sublet, _Le Semipélagianisme_, Namur 1897.—Tixeront,
_Histoire des Dogmes_, Vol. II, 2nd ed., Paris 1909 (English tr.,
St. Louis 1914).—Pohle in the _Catholic Encyclopedia_, Vol. XIII,
pp. 703-706.—B. J. Otten, S. J., _A Manual of the History of
Dogmas_, Vol. I, pp. 379 sqq.
On Jansenism cfr. *Steph. Dechamps, _De Haeresi Ianseniana_, Paris
1645.—Ripalda, _De Ente Supernaturali_, Vol. III: “Contra Baium et
Baianos,” Cologne 1648.—Duchesne, _Histoire du Baianisme_, Douai
1731.—*Linsenmann, _Michael Bajus und die Grundlegung des
Jansenismus_, Tübingen 1867.—A. Schill, _Die Konstitution
Unigenitus, ihre Veranlassung und ihre Folgen_, Freiburg
1876.—Ingold, _Rome et France: La Seconde Phase du Jansénisme_,
Paris 1901.—P. Minges, O. F. M., _Die Gnadenlehre des Duns Scotus
auf ihren angeblichen Pelagianismus und Semipelagianismus
geprüft_, Münster 1906.—Lafiteau, _Histoire de la Constitution
Unigenitus_, 2 vols., Liège 1738.—Van den Peereboom, _Cornelius
Jansenius, Septième Évêque d’Ypres_, Bruges 1882.—J. Forget in the
_Catholic Encyclopedia_, Vol. VIII, pp. 285-294.—B. J. Otten, S.
J., _A Manual of the History of Dogmas_, Vol. II, pp. 507 sqq.