Whether the Sacraments Are the Cause of Grace?
Objection 1: It seems that the sacraments are not the cause of grace.
For it seems that the same thing is not both sign and cause: since
the nature of sign appears to be more in keeping with an effect. But
a sacrament is a sign of grace. Therefore it is not its cause.
Obj. 2: Further, nothing corporeal can act on a spiritual thing:
since "the agent is more excellent than the patient," as Augustine
says (Gen. ad lit. xii). But the subject of grace is the human mind,
which is something spiritual. Therefore the sacraments cannot cause
grace.
Obj. 3: Further, what is proper to God should not be ascribed to a
creature. But it is proper to God to cause grace, according to Ps.
83:12: "The Lord will give grace and glory." Since, therefore, the
sacraments consist in certain words and created things, it seems that
they cannot cause grace.
_On the contrary,_ Augustine says (Tract. lxxx in Joan.) that the
baptismal water "touches the body and cleanses the heart." But the
heart is not cleansed save through grace. Therefore it causes grace:
and for like reason so do the other sacraments of the Church.
_I answer that,_ We must needs say that in some way the sacraments of
the New Law cause grace. For it is evident that through the
sacraments of the New Law man is incorporated with Christ: thus the
Apostle says of Baptism (Gal. 3:27): "As many of you as have been
baptized in Christ have put on Christ." And man is made a member of
Christ through grace alone.
Some, however, say that they are the cause of grace not by their own
operation, but in so far as God causes grace in the soul when the
sacraments are employed. And they give as an example a man who on
presenting a leaden coin, receives, by the king's command, a hundred
pounds: not as though the leaden coin, by any operation of its own,
caused him to be given that sum of money; this being the effect of
the mere will of the king. Hence Bernard says in a sermon on the
Lord's Supper: "Just as a canon is invested by means of a book, an
abbot by means of a crozier, a bishop by means of a ring, so by the
various sacraments various kinds of grace are conferred." But if we
examine the question properly, we shall see that according to the
above mode the sacraments are mere signs. For the leaden coin is
nothing but a sign of the king's command that this man should receive
money. In like manner the book is a sign of the conferring of a
canonry. Hence, according to this opinion the sacraments of the New
Law would be mere signs of grace; whereas we have it on the authority
of many saints that the sacraments of the New Law not only signify,
but also cause grace.
We must therefore say otherwise, that an efficient cause is twofold,
principal and instrumental. The principal cause works by the power of
its form, to which form the effect is likened; just as fire by its
own heat makes something hot. In this way none but God can cause
grace: since grace is nothing else than a participated likeness of
the Divine Nature, according to 2 Pet. 1:4: "He hath given us most
great and precious promises; that we may be [Vulg.: 'you may be
made'] partakers of the Divine Nature." But the instrumental cause
works not by the power of its form, but only by the motion whereby it
is moved by the principal agent: so that the effect is not likened to
the instrument but to the principal agent: for instance, the couch is
not like the axe, but like the art which is in the craftsman's mind.
And it is thus that the sacraments of the New Law cause grace: for
they are instituted by God to be employed for the purpose of
conferring grace. Hence Augustine says (Contra Faust. xix): "All
these things," viz. pertaining to the sacraments, "are done and pass
away, but the power," viz. of God, "which works by them, remains
ever." Now that is, properly speaking, an instrument by which someone
works: wherefore it is written (Titus 3:5): "He saved us by the laver
of regeneration."
Reply Obj. 1: The principal cause cannot properly be called a sign of
its effect, even though the latter be hidden and the cause itself
sensible and manifest. But an instrumental cause, if manifest, can be
called a sign of a hidden effect, for this reason, that it is not
merely a cause but also in a measure an effect in so far as it is
moved by the principal agent. And in this sense the sacraments of the
New Law are both cause and signs. Hence, too, is it that, to use the
common expression, "they effect what they signify." From this it is
clear that they perfectly fulfil the conditions of a sacrament; being
ordained to something sacred, not only as a sign, but also as a cause.
Reply Obj. 2: An instrument has a twofold action; one is
instrumental, in respect of which it works not by its own power but
by the power of the principal agent: the other is its proper action,
which belongs to it in respect of its proper form: thus it belongs to
an axe to cut asunder by reason of its sharpness, but to make a
couch, in so far as it is the instrument of an art. But it does not
accomplish the instrumental action save by exercising its proper
action: for it is by cutting that it makes a couch. In like manner
the corporeal sacraments by their operation, which they exercise on
the body that they touch, accomplish through the Divine institution
an instrumental operation on the soul; for example, the water of
baptism, in respect of its proper power, cleanses the body, and
thereby, inasmuch as it is the instrument of the Divine power,
cleanses the soul: since from soul and body one thing is made. And
thus it is that Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. xii) that it "touches
the body and cleanses the heart."
Reply Obj. 3: This argument considers that which causes grace as
principal agent; for this belongs to God alone, as stated above.
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