Grace, Actual and Habitual: A Dogmatic Treatise

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.

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.

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 [pg 021] 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.

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 [pg 022] 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 [pg 024] strengthening grace of the will, which is far more important and more necessary.

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 [pg 025] 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 [pg 026] (‘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

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 [pg 027] 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,” [pg 028] 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

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, [pg 029] 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 grace70 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 [pg 030] 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

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 [pg 031] 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 [pg 032] 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 [pg 033] 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.”

A third division of the same grace is that into praeveniens and subsequens. It is likewise distinctly Scriptural,81 [pg 034] 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 [pg 035] to another, so grace may be called prevenient or subsequent according as we regard it in its relations to different effects.”84

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.