RECAPITULATION AND SUPPLEMENT
I. WHETHER SANCTIFYING GRACE
IS A FORMAL PARTICIPATION IN DEITY AS IT IS IN ITSELF
(We here reprint an article which
appeared in the Revue Thomiste, 1936.)
“Grace, which
is an accident, is a certain participated likeness of the divinity
in man” (St. Thomas, IIIa, q. 2, a. 10 ad I).
This question
has been put to us in connection with recent debates
and with reference to what we
recently wrote in the Revue Thomiste on the subject of Deity.
More precisely, the question
was formulated as follows: Is grace a participation in Deity as it
is in itself and as seen by the blessed, or only in Deity as
imperfectly known by us? This latter aspect could be further
differentiated: Is it a question of Deity as imperfectly known by
the philosopher, or as known by the theologian-wayfarer?
State of
the question. In order to
grasp better the sense of the terms, let us recall what we have
discussed elsewhere
at greater length. The Deity
as it is in itself remains naturally unknowable, and even cannot be
known except by the immediate vision of the blessed. But among the
divine perfections which it contains formally in its eminence, which
we know by natural means, is there not one which has priority over
the others, from which the others can be deduced, as the properties
of man are deduced from his rationality?
The
controversy on this subject, relative to the formal constituent of
the divine nature according to our imperfect mode of knowledge, is
well known. Even the Thomists themselves are not in complete accord
on this point. Some maintain that this formal constituent is
subsistent being itself, according to the words of Exod. 3:14: “I am
who am,” because all the divine attributes are deducible therefrom.
Others hold that it is subsistent intellection (intelligere
subsistens). We have explained elsewhere
why we accept the first solution, on account of the text from
Exodus, of the radical distinction between subsistent being
andcreated being, and because all the divine attributes are
deducible from it. Does not St. Thomas accordingly delay treating of
the divine intelligence until question fourteen of the First Part,
after he has deduced several attributes from subsistent being
itself?
Whatever may
be the issue of this discussion, it remains true for all Thomists
that Deity as it exists in itself is superior to all the absolute
perfections which it contains in its eminence (formaliter
eminenter).
This is
evident from the fact that these perfections, which are naturally
capable of participation by creatures, such as being, life,
intelligence, are naturally knowable in a positive way, whereas
Deity is not: it is the great darkness which the mystics speak of.
It designates the very essence of God, that which is proper to Him,
His intimate life. It is the object of the beatific vision itself,
and, before that vision, it is the “obscurity from above” which
proceeds from a light too intense for the weak eyes of our souls.
From this it
can be inferred that subsistent being itself contains only in
implicit act the attributes which are progressively deducible from
it, but Deity as such contains them in explicit act, since, when it
is seen, there is no longer any need of deducing these attributes.
Deity can thus be represented as the apex of a pyramid the sides of
which would represent subsistent being, subsistent intellection,
subsistent love, mercy, justice, omnipotence, that is, all the
attributes formally contained in the eminence of Deity. To adopt a
less far-fetched symbolism, Deity in relation to the perfections
inhering in its eminence is somewhat like whiteness in relation to
the seven colors of the rainbow, with this difference: the seven
colors are only virtually present in the whiteness, whereas the
absolute perfections (being, intelligence, love, etc.) are in Deity
formally and eminently.
Thereupon the
question presents itself: Is grace a participation in the divine
nature (or in Deity), the intimate life of God as it is in itself,
or only in the divine nature as it is imperfectly conceived by us as
subsistent being or subsistent intellection?
The
theologians who have written on this subject generally concede that
grace is a participation in Deity as it is in itself, objectively
(inasmuch as it disposes us radically to see it). But some add that
it is not so intrinsically or subjectively, for Deity is infinite
and hence, as such, cannot be participated in subjectively.
Furthermore, they declare that Deity is the intimate life of God,
none other than the Trinity of the divine persons. Now grace cannot
be a subjective participation in the Fatherhood, the Sonship, the
Spiration which constitute the intimate life of God. These
theologians deduce therefrom that grace is subjectively a
participation in the divine nature as imperfectly conceived by us,
as one (not as triune) and as subsistent intellection.
It is at once evident that this viewpoint can
be interpreted in two ways, according to whether it refers to the
divine nature imperfectly known by the philosopher or to the divine
nature imperfectly known beneath the light of essentially
supernatural revelation by the theologian, who knows God, not only
under the nature of being and first being, but also under the nature
of Deity, already known obscurely by the attributes of God, author
of grace (as supernatural Providence) and, above all, by the mystery
of the Trinity. (Before the revelation of this mystery of the
Trinity, under the Old Testament, the super-natural providence of
God, author of salvation, was known.)
Basis of a solution. To the question thus
stated, we reply that, according to traditional teaching,
sanctifying grace in itself is intrinsically (and not merely in an
objective, extrinsic manner) a formal, analogical (and, of course,
inadequate) participation in the Deity as it is in itself, superior
to being, intelligence, and love, which it contains in its eminence
or formally and eminently. As Cajetan says, Ia, q. 39, a. I, no. 7:
“The Deity is prior to being and all its differences; for it is
above being and beyond unity, etc.” The reasons which we are about
to indicate are presented in progressive order, beginning with the
most general.
I. There can be no question of a participation
in the divine nature merely as conceived by the philosopher. He
does, in fact, know God as first being and first intelligence,
inasmuch as He is author of nature, but not as God, author of grace.
This is the basis of the dis-tinction between the proper object of
natural theology or theodicy (a branch of metaphysics): God under
the reason of being and as author of nature, and the proper object
of sacred theology: God under the nature of Deity (at least
obscurely known) and as author of grace. This is the classical
terminology employed by the great commentators on St. Thomas, Ia, q.
I, a. 3, 7; cf. Cajetan, Bañez, John of St. Thomas, the
Salmanticenses, Gonet, Gotti, Billuart, etc. Nowadays several
writers make use of this classical terminology from force of habit,
without apparently having pondered very deeply the difference
between the proper object of theodicy, or natural theology, and that
of theology properly so called. Nevertheless St. Thomas has
expressed this difference in very precise terms, Ia, q. I, a. 6:
“Sacred doctrine properly treats of God under the aspect of highest
cause, for it considers Him not only to the extent that He is
knowable through creatures (as the philosophers knew Him) but also
with respect to what He alone knows of Himself which is communicated
to others by revelation.” This is what later theologians referred to
as “God, not under the general reason of being, but under the
essential, intimate reason of Deity, or according to His intimate
life.” Hence in the question which engages our attention, we are not
concerned with the divine nature only as it is imperfectly conceived
by the philosopher.
2. Moreover,
only God can produce grace in an angel or in the very essence of the
soul, and He does so independently of the conception which the
philosopher or theologian holds regarding the divine nature, and
independently of any natural effect which might be the source of
these imperfect conceptions. Grace thus assimilates us immediately
to God as such in His intimate life; it is therefore a formal,
analogical participation in the Deity as it is in itself. In the
natural order, a stone has an analogical likeness to God inasmuch as
He is being, the plant inasmuch as He is living, man and angel
inasmuch as He is intelligence. Sanctifying grace, which is far
superior to the angelic nature, is an analogical likeness to God
inasmuch as He is God, or to His Deity, to His intimate life, which
is not naturally knowable in a positive way. This is why, above the
kingdoms of nature (mineral, vegetable, animal, human, angelic),
there is the kingdom of God: the intimate life of God and its formal
participation by the angels and the souls of the just.
Therefore to
know perfectly the essence or quiddity of grace, one would have to
know the light of glory of which it is the seed, just as one must
know what an oak is to know the essence of the germ contained in an
acorn. But it is impossible to know perfectly the essence of the
light of glory, essentially ordered to the vision of God, without
knowing the divine essence immediately by intuition. Hence St.
Thomas declares, in demonstrating that only God can produce grace,
Ia IIae, q. 112, a. 2: “It must be that God alone should deify,
communicating a fellowship in the divine nature by a certain
participated likeness, just as it is impossible for anything but
fire to ignite.” The word “deify” shows that grace is a
participation in the divine nature, not according to the reason of
being or intelligence merely, but by the essential, intimate reason
of Deity.
3. But in that case, it will be objected, grace
would have to be intrinsically a (subjective) participation in the
intimate life of God. Now this is none other than the Trinity of
the divine persons. There would therefore be in grace a
participation in the fatherhood, the sonship and the spiration,
which theory is a departure from traditional teaching.
The answer to this objection is
that, according to traditional teaching, and particularly that of
St. Thomas, the adoptive sonship of the children of God, ex Deo nati,
is a certain likeness to the eternal sonship of the Word. In fact we
find explicitly in IIIa, q. 3, a. 5 ad 2: “Just as by the act of
creation divine goodness is communicated to all creatures by way of
a certain similitude, so by the act of adoption a similitude of
natural sonship is communicated to men, according to the words of
Rom. 8:29: ‘Whom He foreknew . . . to be made conformable to the
image of His Son.’” And further (ibid., a. 2 ad 3):
“Adoptive
sonship is a certain likeness of eternal sonship; just as all the
things that were made in time are, as it were, likenesses of those
which were from all eternity. Man however is likened to the eternal
splendor of the Son by the brightness of grace, which is attributed
to the Holy Ghost. And hence adoption, although common to the whole
Trinity, is appropriated to the Father as its author, to the Son as
its exemplar, to the Holy Ghost as imprinting this likeness of the
exemplar upon us.”
Likewise St.
Thomas again in his commentary on Rom. 8:29 thus explains the words
“to be made conformable to the image of His Son”: “He who is adopted
as son of God is truly conformed to His Son, first, indeed, by a
right to participate in His inheritance . . . ; secondly, by sharing
His glory (Heb. 1:3). Hence by the fact that He enlightens the
saints with the light of wisdom and grace, He makes them conformable
to Himself. . . . Thus did the Son of God will to communicate to
others a conformity with His sonship, that He might not only be the
Son, Himself but also the first-born of sons. And so He who is the
only-begotten by eternal generation (John 1:18), . . . is, by the
conferring of grace, the first-born of many brethren. . . .
Therefore we are the brothers of Christ because He has communicated
a likeness of sonship to us, as is here said, and because He assumed
the likeness of our nature.”
St. Thomas
speaks similarly in his commentary on St. John’s Gospel (1:13),
explaining the words, “who are born of God.” “And this is fitting,
that all who are sons of God by being assimilated to the Son, should
be transformed through the Son. . . . Accordingly the words, ‘not of
blood, etc.,’ show how such a magnificent benefit is conferred upon
men. . . . The Evangelist uses the preposition ‘ex’ speaking
of others, that is, of the just: ‘Ex Deo nati sunt’;
but of the natural Son, he says ‘De Patre est natus.’ ” Why?
Because, as explained in the same commentary, the Latin preposition
‘de’ indicates either the material, efficient, or
consubstantial cause (The smith makes a little knife of [de]
steel); the Latin preposition ‘a’ always refers to the
efficient cause, and the preposition ‘ex’ is general,
indicating either the material or efficient cause, but never the
consubstantial cause.
Now the
objection raised was that grace cannot be intrinsically a
(subjective) participation in the Deity or the intimate life of God,
for that is none other than the Trinity of persons in which there is
no participating. The participation is in the divine nature as one.
From what has
just been explained, the reply may be made as follows: True, the
participation is in the divine nature as one, however not merely
such as conceived by the philosopher, but such as it is in itself,
in the bosom of the Trinity. It is not only a question of the unity
of God, author of nature, but of that absolutely eminent, naturally
unknowable unity which is capable of subsisting in spite of the
Trinity of persons. We are concerned with the unity and identity of
the nature communicated by the Father to the Son and by Them to the
Holy Ghost. Therein lies the meaning of the traditional proposition
which we have just read in St. Thomas: “Adoptive sonship is a
certain likeness of eternal sonship.” So has it always been
understood.
From
all eternity God the Father has a Son to whom He communicates His
whole nature, without dividing or multiplying it; He necessarily
engenders a Son equal to Himself, and gives to Him to be God of God,
Light of Light, true God of true God. And from sheer bounty,
gratuitously, He has willed to have in time other sons, adopted
sons, by a filiation which is not only moral (by external
declaration) but real and intimate (by the production of sanctifying
grace, the effect of God’s active love for us). He has loved us with
a love that is not only creative and preserving, but vivifying,
which causes us to participate in the very principle of His intimate
life, in the principle of the immediate vision which He has of
Himself and which He communicates to His Son and to the Holy Ghost.
It is thus that He has predestinated us to be conformable to the
image of His only Son, that this Son might be the first-born of many
brethren (Rom. 8:29). The just are accordingly of the family of God
and enter into the cycle of the Holy Trinity. Infused charity gives
us a likeness to the Holy Ghost (personal love) ; the beatific
vision will render us like the Word, who will make us like unto the
Father whose image He is. Then the Trinity which already dwells in
us as in a darkened sanctuary, will abide in us as in an
illuminated, living sanctuary, where It will be seen unveiled and
loved with an inamissible love.
The only Son
of God receives the divine nature eternally, not merely as it is
conceived by the philosopher (as being itself or even as subsistent
intellection), but as it is in itself (under the reason of the Deity
clearly perceived). Consequently He received the unity of that
nature, not only as conceived by the philosopher, but as it is
capable of subsisting in spite of the Trinity of persons really
distinct one from another. He receives with Deity the essential
intellection common to the three persons, which has for its primary
object the Deity itself known comprehensively. He also receives
essential love, not only as known by the philosopher, but that
essential love which, remaining numerically the same, belongs to the
three persons, since they love one another by one sole, identical
act, just as they know one another by the same, identical
intellection.
Now according
to traditional teaching, as we have just seen, sanctifying grace
makes us children of God by an analogical, participated likeness to
the eternal sonship of the Word. Hence, in us, it is a participation
in Deity as it is in itself, not only under the nature of being or
under the nature of intellection, but under the nature of Deity, and
not only a participation in Deity as known obscurely by the
theologian through created concepts, but as it is in itself and seen
as it is by the blessed.
Such is the
true sense of these assertions, admitted by all theologians. But
their profundity does not always receive sufficient attention. The
mineral already resembles God analogically as being, the plant and
animal as living, man and angel as intelligent; but the just man by
grace resembles God precisely inasmuch as He is God, according to
His very Deity or His intimate life as it is in itself. Thus the
just man penetrates, beyond the human kingdom of reason, beyond the
angelic kingdom, into the kingdom of God; his life is not merely
intellectual but deiform, divine, theological: “it is deified,”
according to St. Thomas, Ia IIae, q. 112, a. I.
That is truly
the formal aspect of the life of grace, what is proper to it,
unique, significant, and interesting. Thereby it is a formal,
although inadequate and analogical, participation in the divine
nature as it is in itself, or of Deity as such. This is found above
all in con-summate, inamissible grace received into the essence of
the soul, and also in the light of glory received into the intellect
by the beatified soul, and in the charity received into its will.
4. It is, then, materially (in the
theological sense of the term) that grace is a finite accident (an
entitative habit received into the essence of the soul), that
infused faith is an operative habit received into our intellect, and
charity an operative habit received into our will. All of this is
true by reaTon of the receptive subject. But these habits are a
formal participation in the intimate life of God; otherwise they
would not dispose us to see it as it is in itself by an immediate
vision that will have the same formal object (objectum formale
quod et quo) as the uncreated vision which God, one in three
persons, has of Himself.
This
distinction of what grace is either materially or formally, is
similar to the one that is generally made in the natural order
between intelligence and the created mode whereby it exists in us
and in the angels, as a
faculty (accident) distinct from the substance of the soul or of the
angel, distinct also from the act of intellection. This is quite
true and does not prevent intelligence as such from being an
analogical perfection, the formal notion of which does not imply any
imperfection, and which, consequently, is to be found properly and
formally in God as subsistent intellection. In the same way, the
perfection of wisdom is distinguished from its created mode whereby,
in us, wisdom is measured by things, whereas in God it is the
measure and cause of things.
From the same
more or less material standpoint, when sanctifying grace is compared
to faith and charity, it may be said that grace is a participation
in the Deity as a nature, faith a participation in the Deity or
intimate life of God as knowledge, and charity a participation in
that intimate life as love. But it is always a question of formal
participa-tion in the intimate life of God or in the Deity in its
eminent unity, not such as it is known by the philosopher, but as it
is in itself in the Trinity.
Moreover, sanctifying grace cannot be an
objective participation in the Deity as it is in itself (and dispose
us radically to immediate vision) without being intrinsically
specified by it, that it, without having an essential (or
transcendant) relationship to the Deity as it is in itself.
Hence, in his reply to Father Menéndez Rigada, Father Gardeil
recognizes, with reference to the passage from the Salmanticenses
which we have just indicated in a note, that “it does not seem
possible for the intuition of the divine persons to originate in
sanctifying grace, if the latter is not a kind of exemplary
participation in the divine nature inasmuch as it subsists in the
divine persons. For, as the Salmanticenses declare (loc.
cit.), the inclination toward an object should originate in some
participation in the object aimed at.” Yes, for there is here, not
an accidental, but an essential (or transcendant) relationship
between grace and Deity seen immediately. This argument clarifies
the last problem which we are about to propose.
6. In the light of what immediately precedes,
it is apparent that subsistent intellection (intelligere
subsistens), even considered subjectively, is no less infinite
than subsistent being, or than Deity as it is in itself. Granted
that sanctifying grace can be a participation in the divine nature
as intellection, one should admit that it can be a participation in
Deity as it is in itself.
If it is objected: but Deity as it is in itself
is, like subsistent being, infinite and therefore cannot be
participated in subjectively or intrinsically, the reply in the
words of Father Gardeil is as follows:
“That would be true if a participation could be adequate, but
it could be only imitative and analogical.” The Salmanticenses (o.p.
cit., no. 64) are in accord: “Therefore in the mind of St.
Thomas it is perfectly consistent for grace to participate, that is,
to imitate, the whole being as to its essence and infinity, although
it does not correspond to it adequately in all its predicables but
only partially.
Deity is thus
identified with subsistent being itself (inasmuch as it contains
being and the other absolute perfections formally and eminently),
whereas in us the formal, analogical participation in Deity takes
the form of an accident. This is the more or less material, not
formal, aspect of sanctifying grace, just as in the natural order
there is a difference between the perfection of intelligence and the
created mode whereby it is in us a faculty distinct from the
substance of the soul and the act of intellection.
Conclusion.
For these various reasons, of which the first are more general and
are presupposed according to our mode of cognition, we consider
sanctifying grace to be a formal, analogical participation in Deity
as it is in itself. Two important corollaries follow from this:
1. It can be seen manifestly, as we have
established elsewhere,
that reason alone is incapable (for instance, by the natural,
conditional, inefficacious desire to see God) of demonstrating
precisely the possibility of grace, the possibility of a formal,
analogical participation in the Deity or intimate life of God which
would be, materially, a finite accident of our souls. Of this
possibility reason can give a proof of suitability, but not an
apodictic proof, for, of itself, reason cannot know the Deity or
intimate life of God positively. “This possibility of grace,” as is
commonly taught, “is neither proved nor disproved apodictically, but
it is urged by reason, defended against those who deny it, and held
with a firm faith.”
2. With regard
to the problem of the formal constituent of the divine nature,
according to our imperfect mode of understanding, the solution which
identifies it with subsistent intellection rather than with being
itself is not confirmed by the sequence: grace would be a
participated likeness, not of subsistent being but of subsistent
intellection. This question of the philosophically formal
constituent is of no importance here for the definition of grace,
which is in reality a participated likeness in Deity, superior to
both being and intellection which are contained in its eminence,
that is, formally and eminently.
The doctrine
we have just presented is found in St. Thomas, Ia, q. 13, a. 9:
“This name of God is not communicable to any man according to the
fullness of its meaning, but something of it is so by a kind of
likeness, so that they may be called ‘gods’ who participate by such
a likeness in something of the divinity, according to the words
of psalm 81:
‘I have said: You are gods.’ ” And the answer to the first
objection: “The divine nature is not communicable except by the
participation of likeness.” Likewise IIIa, q.2, a.6 ad I. Cf.
Salmanticenses, De gratia, disp. IV, the quiddity and
perfection of habitual grace, dub. IV, nos. 62, 63, 7072, where the
participation by formal, analogical imitation is very well defined;
also John of St. Thomas and Gonet, quoted in the same place.
NOTE
SUPERNATURAL AND NATURAL
BEATITUDE
In his volume entitled
Surnaturel (Etudes historiques, 1946), p. 254, Father H.
de Lubac, having examined certain texts of St. Thomas on the
distinction between the natural and the supernatural, writes as
follows: “At any rate, nothing in his works declares the distinction
which a certain number of Thomistic theologians would later concoct
between ‘God the author of the natural order’ and ‘God the object of
supernatural beatitude.’ . . . Nowhere, explicitly or implicitly,
does St. Thomas refer to a ‘natural beatitude.’” It is evident that
Father de Lubac has never explained the Summa theologica
article by article.
St. Thomas
says, Ia, q. 23, a. I, Whether men are predestined by God: “It
pertains to providence to ordain a thing to its end. But the end
toward which created things are ordained by God is twofold. One,
which exceeds the proportion and faculty of created nature, is
eternal life, which consists of the divine vision and which is
beyond the nature of any creature as is shown above (Ia, q. 12, a.
4). The other end, however, is proportioned to created nature, such,
that is, as a creature can attain to by the power of its nature.
Again in the
De veritate, q. 14, a. 2: “The final good of man, which first
moves the will as to its final end, is twofold. One good is
proportioned to human nature, since natural powers are sufficient to
attain it; this is the happiness of which the philosophers have
spoken. It is either contemplative, consisting in the act of wisdom,
or active, consisting first in the act of prudence and accordingly
in the acts of the other moral virtues. The other good of man
exceeds the proportion of human nature, since natural powers do not
suffice to attain it, nor even to conceive or desire it; but it is
promised to man by the divine bounty alone.” The whole article
should be read; it affirms that “in human nature itself there is a
certain beginning of this good which is proportioned to nature,” and
further that infused “faith is a certain beginning of eternal life.”
St. Thomas
also declares, Ia IIae, q. 62, a. I: “The beatitude or happiness of
man is twofold. One sort is proportioned to human nature, that which
man can attain by the principle of his nature. But the other is a
beatitude surpassing human nature, to which man can attain only by
divine power, by means of a certain participation in divinity,
according to the words of St. Peter’s Second Epistle (1:4): ‘By
these [the promises of Christ] . . . you may be made partakers of
the divine nature.’ ” St. Thomas speaks similarly with reference to
angels, Ia, q. 62, a. 2.
He even
affirms, II Sent., dist. 31, q. I, a. I ad 3: “In the
beginning when God created man, He could also have formed another
man of the slime of the earth and have left him in his natural
condition; that is, he would have been mortal, passible, and have
experienced the struggle of concupiscence against reason; this would
not have been derogatory to human nature, since it follows from the
principles of nature. Nor would any reason of guilt or punishment be
attached to this defect, since it would not be caused voluntarily.”
This is indeed evident for, if sanctifying grace and likewise the
gift of integrity and immortality are gratuitous or not due (as
defined against Baius), it follows that the merely natural state
(that is, without these gratuitous gifts) is possible both from the
part of man and from that of God.
Is
sanctifying grace a permanent gift in the just, like the infused
virtues? Of recent years an opinion has been expressed according to
which sanctifying grace is not a form or a permanent, radical
principle of supernatural operations, but rather a motion.
It is nevertheless certain
that the infused virtues, especially the three theological virtues,
are, within us, permanent principles of supernatural operations and
meritorious as well; and it is no less certain that sanctifying or
habitual grace is the permanent root of these infused virtues. It is
not therefore merely a transitory motion, nor even a motion
unceasingly renewed in the just man as long as he preserves
friendship with God. The Fathers always referred to the theological
virtues and to sanctifying grace which they presuppose as their
radical principle.
The Council
of Trent leaves no room for doubt on this point. Denzinger in his
Enchiridion sums up the definitions and declarations of the
Church very correctly in the formula: “Habitual or sanctifying grace
is distinct from actual grace (nos. 1064 ff .); it is an infused,
inherent quality of the soul, by which man is formally justified
(nos. 483, 792, 795, 799 ff., 809, 821, 898, 1042, 1063 ff.), is
regenerated (nos. 102, 186), abides in Christ (nos. 197, 698), puts
on a new man (no. 792), and becomes an heir to eternal life (nos.
792,799 ff .).
II. THE PRINCIPLE
OF PREDILECTION AND EFFICACIOUS GRACE“
Since the
love of God is the cause of the goodness of things, nothing would be
better than another were it not better loved by God” (St. Thomas,
Ia, q. 20, a. 3).
One
of the greatest joys experienced by the theologian who, for long
years, has read and explained each day the Summa theologica
of St. Thomas, is to glimpse the sublime value of one of those
principles, often invoked but not sufficiently contemplated, which
by their simplicity and elevation form, as it were, the great
leitmotivs of theological thought, containing in themselves
virtually entire treatises. The great St. Thomas formulated them
especially toward the end of his comparatively short life, when his
contemplation had reached that height and simplicity which one
associates with the intellectual vision of the higher angels, who
encompass within a very few ideas vast regions of the intelligible
world, metaphysical landscapes, so to speak, composed not of colors
but of principles, and illumined from above by the very light of
God.
Among these
very lofty, very simple principles upon which the contemplation of
the Angelic Doctor paused with delight, there is one to which
sufficient attention is not generally paid and yet which contains in
its virtuality several of the most important treatises. It is the
principle which we find thus formulated, Ia, q. 20, a. 3: “Since the
love of God is the cause of the goodness of things, none would be
better thari another, were it not better loved by God.” In article 4
of the same question, the same principle is thus stated: “If some
beings are better than others it is because they are better loved by
God.” In short: no creature is better than another unless it is
better loved by God. This may be called the principle of
predilection, for principles derive their names from their
predicates.
This is the
principle against which all human pride ought to dash itself. Let us
examine: 1. its bases, necessity, universality, 2. its principal
consequences according to St. Thomas himself, and 3. by what other
principle it should be balanced so as to maintain in all their
purity and elevation the great mysteries of faith, particularly
those of predestination and the will for universal salvation.
THE BASIS,
NECESSITY, AND UNIVERSALITY OF
THE PRINCIPLE OF PREDILECTION
This principle,
“no creature is better than another unless better loved by God,”
seems at the outset to be manifestly necessary in the philosophical
order. If the love of God is, in fact, the cause of the goodness of
creatures, as St. Thomas affirms in the first text quoted, no one
can be better than another except for the reason that it has
received more from God; this greater goodness in it, rather than in
another, obviously comes from God.
As will be
seen, this principle of predilection is a corollary of the principle
of effcient causality: “Every contingent being or good requires an
efficient cause and, in the final analysis, depends upon God the
first cause.” It is also a corollary of the principle of finality:
“Every agent acts for an end”; consequently the order of agents
corresponds to the order of ends,
the first agent produces every good in view of the supreme end,
which is the manifestation of His goodness, and hence it is not
independently of Him or of His love, that one being is better than
another, the plant superior to the mineral, the animal to the plant,
man to the animal, one man to another, either in the natural order
or in the order of grace.
It is also
apparent from reason alone that this principle is absolutely
universal, valid for every created being from a stone to the
hightest angel, and not merely applicable to their substance, but to
their accidents, qualities, actions, passions, relations, etc., for
whatever is good in them and better in one than another, whether it
is a question of physical, intellectual, moral, or strictly
spiritual values.
The principle of predilection is also
supported by revelation under various aspects in both the Old and
New Testaments; it is even applied therein to our free, salutary
acts. Our Lord tells us: “Without Me you can do nothing”
in the order of salvation. St. Paul explains this by saying: “It is
God who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish, according to
His good will”;
“Who distinguisheth 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 principle in question is contained in many other texts cited by
the Council of Orange:
“Unto you it is given for Christ, not only to believe in Him, but
also to suffer for Him”;
“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”;
“By grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves,
for it is the gift of God”;
Now concerning virgins . . . I give counsel, as having obtained
mercy of the Lord, to be faithful.”
Again we find: “Do not
therefore, my dearest brethren. Every best gift, and every perfect
gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with
whom there is no change, nor shadow of alteration”;
“No man can say the Lord
Jesus, but by the Holy Ghost”;
“Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of
ourselves: but our sufficiency is from God.”
That is
clearly the principle of predilection or of the source of what is
better. St. Augustine often expresses it in commenting on the
scriptural texts which we have just quoted together with several
others from the Epistle to the Romans (chapters 8, 9, and 11). He
applies it not only to men but to angels, regarding whom there is no
question of the fact of original sin (by title of infirmity,
titulus infirmitatis) but only of right, of the dependence (titulus
dependentiae) of the creature upon the Creator, both in the
natural order and in the order of grace. He observes that those
angels who attained supreme beatitude received greater aid than the
others, “amplius adjuti.”
St. Thomans
discerned an equivalent formula of the principle of the origin of
superiority in the Council of Orange and the scriptural texts cited
by it. He writes, in fact, with reference to predestination, in
rendering an account of the condemnation of the Semi-Pelagians who
attributed the beginning of salvation to man and not to God: “But
opposed to this is what the Apostle says (II Cor. 3:5), that we are
not sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves.
However no principle can be found anterior to thought. Hence it
cannot be said that any beginning exists in us which is the cause of
the effect of predestination.” The reader is no doubt acquainted
with the texts of the Council of Orange (can. 4; cf. Denz., nos.
177-85): “If anyone holds that God waits upon our will to cleanse us
from sin, and does not admit that even our willing to be cleansed is
brought about by the infusion and operation of the Holy Ghost, he
resists the Holy Ghost Himself . . . and the salutary preaching of
the Apostle: ‘It is God who worketh in you, both to will and to
accomplish, according to His good will’ (Phil. 2:13).” Canon 9 on
the help of God asserts: “It pertains to the category of the divine
when we both think rightly and restrain our steps from falsehood and
injustice; for whatever good
we may do, God operates in us
and with us to enable us to operate”; and canon 12 on the quality in
which God loves us: “God so loves us according to the quality we
shall have by His gift, and not as we are by our own merit.” This
text taken from the fifty-sixth Sentence of St. Prosper summarizes
the one preserved in the Indiculus de gratia Dei, a
collection of anterior statements by the Holy See wherein we read (Denz.,
nos. 133-4): “No one uses his free will well except through Christ”;
“All the desires and all the works and merits of the saints should
be referred to the glory and praise of God, for no one pleases Him
otherwise than by what He Himself has bestowed.” This is essentially
the principle of the origin of superiority in a formula almost
identical with the one which St. Thomas was to give later (Ia, q.
20, a. 4). The same Indiculus preserves the following (Denz.,
nos. 135, 137, 139, 141, 142): “God so works in the hearts of men
and in the free will itself, that a devout thought, holy counsel and
every movement of good will is from God, since we can do some good
through Him without whom we can do nothing (John 15:5)”; and
likewise, no. 139: “The most devout Fathers taught the beginnings of
good will, the growth of commendable desires, and perseverance in
them to the end is to be referred to the grace of Christ . . .”;
“Hearkening
to the prayers of His Church, God deigns to draw many souls from
every kind of error, and once they are rescued from the power of
darkness He transports them into the kingdom of the Son of His love
(Col. 1:13), that from vessels of wrath He might fashion vessels of
mercy (Rom. 9:22). All this is regarded as of divine operation to
such an extent that gratitude may always be referred to God as
effecting it.”
The end of
this famous Indiculus is well-known: “Let us acknowledge God to be
the author of all good dispositions and works . . . Indeed, free
will is not taken away but rather liberated by this help and gift of
God . . . He acts in us, to be sure, in such wise that nothing
interior is to be withdrawn from His work and regard; this we
believe to satisfy adequately, whatever the writings taught us
according to the aforesaid rules of the Apostolic See” (Denz., no.
142). Is this not equivalent to saying: “In the affair of salvation
everything comes from God”? “Nothing interior is to be withdrawn,”
as the last text quoted declares. If, then, one man is better than
another, especially in the order of salvation, it is because he has
been loved more by God and has received more. This is the meaning
of: “What hast thou that thou hast not received?” quoted by the
Council of Orange (Denz., nos. 179, 199). The sense in which the
same Council speaks of God the author of every good, whether natural
or supernatural, is explained by the definition contained in canon
20: “Nothing of good can exist in man without God. God does many
good things in man which are not done by man; but man does nothing
good which God does not grant it to him to do” (Denz., no. 193); and
canon 22: “No one has anything of his own but lying and sin. But if
a man possesses anything of truth and justice it comes from that
fountain for which we should thirst in this desert, so that,
refreshed, as it were, by a few drops from it, we may not faint on
the way.” Cf. in the Histoire des Conciles of C. J. Héflè,
translated, corrected, and augmented with critical notes by Dom. H.
Lecleroq, Vol. II, Part II, pp. 1085-1110, the passages from St.
Augustine and St. Prosper from which these canons of the Council of
Orange are drawn, as confirmed by Boniface II; the most interesting,
of course, are those concerning the beginning of salvation and final
perseverance (“persevering in good works”) for both of which they
affirm the necessity of a special, gratuitous grace (Denz., nos.
177f., 183). But the grace of final perseverance is that The Semi-Pelagians,
reducing predestination to a foreknowledge of merits, held that from
the height of His eternity God desires equally the salvation of all
men and that He is therefore rather the spectator than the author of
the fact that one man is saved rather than another. Is this true or
not? Such was the profound question which confronted thinkers at the
time of the Semi-Pelagian heresy, as anyone will recognize who reads
St. Augustine and St. Prosper.
But did the Council of Orange leave it
unanswered? It asserted the principle of predilection, affirming, as
everyone admits, the necessity and gratuity of grace which is not
granted to all in the same manner, and demonstrating that in the
work of salvation everything, from beginning to end, is from God,
who anticipates our free will, supports it, causes it to act without
doing it any violence, lifts it up often, but not always; and
therein lies the very mystery of predestination. So true is this
that, heneceforth, to avoid Semi-Pelagianism it will always be
necessary to admit a certain gratuity in predestination.
Is not the
incontrovertible principle of all this teaching that all good
without exception comes from God, and that if there is more good in
one man than in another, it cannot be so independently of God? ‘“For
who distinguisheth thee? Or what hast thou that thou hast not
received ?” This text, according to St. Augustine, should cause us
to admit that there is no sin committed by any other man that I am
not capable of committing under the same circumstances, as a result
of the weakness of my free will or of my own frailty (the apostle
Peter denied his Master thrice); and if, in fact, I have not fallen,
if I have persevered, it is no doubt because I have labored and
struggled; but without divine grace I should have accomplished
nothing. Such was the thought of St. Francis of Assisi at the sight
of a criminal condemned to death. St. Cyprian had said (Ad Querin.,
Bk. III, chap. 4, PL, IV, 734): “We should glory in nothing, when
nothing is our own.” St. Basil asserts (Hom. 22 De humitate):
“Nothing is left to thee, O man, in which thou canst glory . . . for
we live entirely by the grace and gift of God.” And St.’ John
Chrysostom adds (Serm. 2, in Ep. ad Coloss., PG, LXII, 312): “In
the affair of salvation everything is a gift of God.”
THE PRINCIPAL APPLICATIONS OF
THE PRINCIPLE OF
PREDILECTION, ACCORDING TO
ST. THOMAS
St. Thomas deduces therefrom, in the
first place, the reason for the inequality of creatures, Ia, q. 47,
a. I: “The distinction and multitude of things is from the design of
the first agent who is God; for He brought creatures into existence
in order to communicate His goodness to them and be represented by
them. And since He cannot be adequately represented by one creature,
He produced a multitude of diverse creatures”; and article 2: “And
unequal . . . because a formal distinction [which is paramount]
always requires inequality.” By creation God willed to manifest His
goodness, but it could not be sufficiently represented by one
creature, which would be too deficient and limited for that. Hence
He desired many and these unequal and subordinate one to another,
for the mere material multiplication of individuals of the same
species is much less representative of the richness of divine
goodness than a multiplicity of species, hierarchically arranged as
are numbers. Leibnitz remarked that there would be no satisfaction
in having a thousand copies of the same edition of Virgil in one’s
library. But among these unequal creatures, one is better than
another only because it has received more from God.
St. Thomas
draws from the same principle the reason why grace is not equal in
all men, Ia IIae, q. 112, a. 4: “It cannot be said,” he remarks,
“that the primary reason for this inequality arises from the fact
that one man has prepared himself better than another to receive
grace, for this preparation does not pertain to man except so far as
his free will is moved by God. Hence the primary reason for this
difference must be found in God who dispenses the gifts of His grace
in diverse ways, so that the beauty and perfection of the Church may
come forth from these different degrees.” God sows a more or less
choice divine seed in souls according to His good pleasure with the
beauty of His Church in view.
St. Thomas
also deduces from this principle of the origin of superiority that
if one man prepares himself better than another for justification it
is because, in the last analysis, he received more help from a
stronger actual grace. In fact the holy doctor states in his
commentary on St. Matthew (25:15) with reference to the parable of
the talents: “He who strives harder receives more grace, but the
fact that he does strive requires a higher cause.” Again on the
Epistle to the Ephesians (4:7), with respect to the words, “To every
one of us is given grace, according to the measure of the giving of
Christ,” St. Thomas comments: “This difference is not owing to fate
or chance or merit, but to the giving of Christ, that is, to the
extent to which Christ measured it out to us. . . . For, as it is in
the power of Christ to give or not to give, so also is it to give
more or less.”
The principle
of the origin of superiority is so evident that all theologians
would accept it, did it not imply as a consequence that grace, which
is followed by its effect, is infallibly efficacious of itself and
not on account of our consent. Yet this consequence is manifest, as
many texts of St. Thomas show. If, in fact, actual grace followed by
consent to the good were not infallibly efficacious of itself but
only through the consent which follows it, there would be the
possibility that of two men equally aided by grace one would become
better than the other by his consent; he would become better without
having been loved and aided more by God.
This reason is put forth by all Thomists.
It rests on the principle of which we are speaking and is a6rmed
equivalently in several texts of St. Thomas. It is found clearly
stated particularly in the distinction which he establishes between
consequent divine will (which bears upon every good, easy or
difficult, which will come to pass here and now) and antecedent
divine will (bearing on the good separated from the particular
circumstances without which nothing comes to pass); cf. Ia, q. 19,
a. 6 ad I : “What we will antecedently we do not will absolutely but
under a particular aspect; for the will is applied to things as they
are in themselves, and in themselves they are individual. Hence we
will a thing absolutely to the extent that we will it taking into
account all the particular circumstances, which means willing it
consequently. . . . And thus it is evident that whatever God wills
absolutely comes to pass, although what He wills antecedently may
not.” If it happens, then, that Peter becomes here and now better
than another man, whether by a facile or a difficult act, this is
because from all eternity God has so willed by consequent will.
St. Thomas adds that this consequent will is
expressed in time by a grace which is efficacious of itself; cf. Ia
IIae, q. 112, a. 3: “The intention of God cannot fail, according to
the affirmation of Augustine in the book De dono perseverantiae,
chap. 14, that those who are liberated are most certainly liberated
by the beneficence of God. Hence if it is in the designs of God who
moves, that the man whose heart He moves should obtain grace, he
will infallibly obtain it, according to the words of John 6:45:
‘Everyone that hath heard of the Father, and hath learned, cometh to
Me.’”
This proposition of St. Thomas is manifestly
very different from an apparently similar one of Quesnell,
for the latter denies freedom from necessity and admits only freedom
from coercion; moreover, he denies sufficient grace and considers
every actual grace intrinsically efficacious.
Many other
texts of St. Thomas on the intrinsic efficacy of grace might be
cited. They are well known, quoted and explained in all the
treatises on grace written by Thomists.
This conception of the
intrinsic efficacy of grace is in no way contradictory of the
traditional definition of free will, which recent historical works
have set in increasingly clear relief: “the faculty of choosing the
means in view of an end to be attained,”
so that to deviate from the true end is an abuse of liberty.
Intrinsically efficacious grace is opposed
only to a new definition of free will
which disregards the specifying object of the free act (an object
not good in every respect), a definition which will not withstand
metaphysical analysis and which is unmindful of the truth that free
will is applied not univocally but analogically to God and to man,
according to a reason not absolutely but proportionately the same,
so that the free will of man, not only as an entity but also
as such under the idea of free entity (sub ratione liberi
arbitrii) depends on God, who is not merely first being, but
first intelligence and first liberty. Freedom is a perfection in
God, and we can participate in it only analogically.
As a matter
of fact, the human will can resist efficacious grace if it so wills,
as the Council of Trent declares, but as long as the will is under
efficacious grace, it never wills to resist. Under efficacious
actual grace it never sins, for the grace which is termed
efficacious is that which is followed by its effect: consent to
good. As St. Thomas ex-plains, in the same way, a man who is seated
can stand up, he has the real, proximate power to do so; but as long
as he remains seated he never does stand up, since by virtue of the
principle of contradiction, he cannot be both seated and standing.
The new
definition of liberty: “a faculty which, assuming all the
prerequisites for acting, can either act or not act,”-if understood
in the sense: under efficacious divine motion and after the final
salutary, practical judgment, the free will not only can resist but
at times actually does-such a definition is contrary to the
principle of predilection which is a corollary of the principles of
causality and finality.
By what other principle should that of
predilection be balanced? By the following: God never commands the
impossible. St. Thomas, great contemplative even more than able
dialectician, recognizes that the Christian doctrine of
predestination and grace rises like a summit above the two opposing
chasms of Pelagianism and predestinationism. He understands that, on
undertaking the ascent of that peak, one must deviate neither to
right nor to left, neither toward a rigid doctrine which restricts
the will for universal salvation and limits sufficient grace nor
toward a contrary doctrine which denies the intrinsic efficacy of
grace. He perceives, too, that one must not come to a halt halfway
up the slope at one of those eclectic combinations which would admit
grace to be intrinsically efficacious for difficult acts conducive
to salvation and not intrinsically efficacious for facile acts
conducive to salvation. Such a solution may appear simple in
practice, but speculatively it disregards the necessity and
universality of principles with relation to divine causality,
principles which there upon lose all their value; and it adds to the
obscurity of the doctrine admitted for difficult acts the insoluble
difficulties of that which is admitted for facile acts. St. Thomas
sees in such eclectic combinations nothing but a quite human
clarity, merely apparent and without basis, substituted for the
higher obscurity of the mystery, the loftiness of which is thus
minimized. Assuredly he does not look upon this as an insoluble
question which it is useless to fathom, but rather as an object of
loving contemplation, “the terrible but sweet mystery of the love of
predilection in God: ‘Who is like to Thee, among the strong, O Lord?
who is like to Thee, glorious in holiness, terrible and
praiseworthy, doing wonders?’ (Exod. 15:11) .”
Incapable of
stopping halfway as does eclecticism, St. Thomas aspires to climb
straight toward the summit. But at a certain height the trail ends,
the path has not yet been blazed, as St. John of the Cross indicates
on the illustration representing the Ascent of Carmel. St. Thomas
perceives clearly that here on earth no one can attain to that
culminating point where it will be granted him to see the intimate
reconciliation of the will for universal salvation with gratuitous
predestination. Thus he preserves all the loftiness of the mystery
and does not seek to substitute for its sublime obscurity any vain
human clarity. But without seeing the summit (faith regards what is
not seen), he succeeds in determining where it is to be found by
means of higher principles which mutually balance one another. He
formulates these very lofty, very simple principles with such great
lucidity that they only bring out in clearer relief the superior
obscurity of the inaccessible mystery located in its true site,
there where it must be contemplated in the cloud of faith, and not
elsewhere. It is one of those most beautiful chiaroscuros which have
ever attracted and riveted the contemplation of great theologians.
The masters of former times delighted in such vistas, painted not
with pigments but with principles, wherein the luminous circle
surrounding the mystery expresses so powerfully the grandeur of
faith; vistas so manifestly surpassing those of the greatest
painters or the most beautiful musical conceptions of Beethoven or
Bach. And just as these great artists understood that har-mony is
destroyed by a discordant commingling of sharps and flats, so did
those great masters of theology strive no less to avoid the jarring
dissonance produced in such difficult questions by a sharp which
would tend toward predestinationism or a flat which would incline
toward the opposite error.
The
principles which produce equilibrium here are, on the one hand, that
of predilection: “no creature is better than another unless it is
better loved by God,” a simple interpretation of the words of
Christ: “Without Me, you can do nothing,” and of those of St. Paul:
“It is God who worketh in you, both to will and accomplish,
according to His good will”; “Who distinguisheth thee? Or what hast
thou that thou hast not received?” This principle is immutable, and
together with it that other: “All that God wills by consequent will
comes to pass, without liberty being thereby destroyed.”
On the opposite slope of the invisible,
inaccessible peak, so as to determine the point where it rises and
where the blessed contemplate it in heaven, must be recalled the
principle of St. Augustine quoted by the Council of Trent (Denz.,
no. 804): “God does not command the impossible, but by commanding He
teaches thee both to do what thou canst and to ask what thou canst
not.” This formula is sacrosanct.
Invoking several passages of St. Paul, St.
Augustine,
St. Prosper,
and St. John Damascene, the Angelic Doctor gives us the
principle of the will for universal salvation (“God . . . will have
all men to be saved,” I Tim. 2:4) in an admirable and very profound
formula which echoes the most beautiful psalms in praise of the
mercy of God. He writes (Ia, q. 21, a. 4): “Every work of divine
justice presupposes a work of mercy or of sheer bounty, and finds
therein its basis. If, in fact, God owes something to His creature,
it is by virtue of a preceding gift. If He owes a reward to our
merits, it is because He has first given us the grace to merit; if
He owes it to Himself to give us the grace necessary for salvation,
it is because, from pure liberality in the first place, He has
created us and called us to the supernatural life. . . . Divine
mercy is thus the root, as it were, or the principle of all the
divine works; it penetrates them with its virtue and governs them.
In the capacity of primary source of all gifts, it is mercy which
has the strongest influence, and it is for this reason that it
surpasses justice, which takes second place. This is why, even with
regard to things due to the creature, God in His superabundant
liberality gives more than justice requires, “et propter hoc
etiam ea, quae alicui creaturae debentur, Deus ex abundantia
suae bonitatis largius dispensat quam exigat propitio rei.” (See
also Ia, q. 21, a. 2 ad 3.) St. Thomas also affirms in the very
question dealing with predestination: “God does not deprive anyone
of what is his due.”
“He gives help sufficient to avoid sin”;
“Those to whom efficacious help is not given are denied it in
justice, as punishment for a previous sin, . . . those to whom it is
granted receive it in mercy.”
This is the echo of the psalms relating to divine mercy,
particularly Ps. 135: “Praise the Lord, for He is good: for His
mercy endureth forever. Praise ye the God of gods: for His mercy
endureth forever.” Likewise Ps. 117: “Give praise to the Lord, for
He is good.”
How is this mercy, principle of all the works
of God, reconcilable with the divine permission of evil and of the
final impenitence of many? Why does it sometimes raise up the
sinner, but not always? Therein lies a mystery surpassing the
natural powers of any intelligence created or capable of being
created, and beyond them not only because of its essential
supernaturalness, as in the case of the Trinity, but also by the
contingency resulting from dependence on the sovereign liberty of
God:
“If efficacious grace is refused to many,” says St. Thomas following
St. Augustine, “it is in justice, as the result of a sin [permitted,
of course, by God, but of which He was in no sense the cause]; if
this same grace is granted to others, it is out of mercy.”
It is fitting that these two divine perfections should be
manifested, as St. Paul declares;
there is consequently involved here the cooperation of
infinite justice, infinite mercy, and also of supreme liberty,
eminently wise in its good pleasure, which is in no way a caprice.
Obviously each of these divine perfections herein involved exceeds
the natural powers of any intelligence created or capable of being
created. None among them may be limited, just as in the mystery of
the Cross and Passion of the Savior neither infinite justice nor
infinite mercy may be restricted; they are reconciled in the
uncreated love of God and in the love of Christ delivered up for our
sake. The apparently contradictory aspects of a mystery must not be
restricted for the sake of a better understanding of them. Rather
must one, as it were, soar above this apparent contradiction by the
contemplation of faith. This is why St. Paul exclaims: “O the depth
of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How
incomprehensible are His judgments, and how unsearchable His ways!”
(Rom. 11:33.)
To acknowledge this mystery which is at the
topmost point of the peak we have just been describing, of that
summit which can never be seen from here below, one must cling to it
in pure faith, as Holy Scripture frequently urges us to do. Let us
recall, for example, the hymn of thanksgiving uttered by the elder
Tobias (Tob 13): “Thou art great, O Lord, forever, and Thy kingdom
is unto all ages. For Thou scourgest and Thou savest: Thou leadest
down to hell, and bringest up again: and there is none that can
escape Thy hand. . . . There is no other almighty God besides Him.
He hath chastised us for our iniquities: and He will save us for His
own mercy. See then what He hath done with us, and with fear and
trembling give ye glory to Him: and extol the eternal King of worlds
in your works.”
Theology, as the Council of the Vatican
asserts,
is essentially ordained to the contemplation of revealed
mysteries; infused faith, entirely divine and essentially
supernatural, is, in spite of its obscurity, eminently superior to
it, especially faith which is enlightened by the gifts of wisdom and
understanding. It becomes increasingly evident, then, that this
obscurity does not derive from absurdity or incoherence, but from a
light too intense for our feeble gaze. We begin to realize that,
with reference to these great mysteries of predestination, of grace,
and also of the will for universal salvation, we should read above
all the great theologians who were at the same time great
contemplative.
We come to understand better and better why, in the passive
purification of the soul described by the great spiritual writers,
St. John of the Cross in particular, the light of the gift of
understanding removes little by little the false lucidity of
eclectic combinations which stop halfway, and set the soul in the
presence of the real mystery without diminishing its sublimity. We
finally grasp the reason for St. Theresa’s remark: “The more obscure
a mystery is the more devotion I have to it,” obscure, that is, with
the translucent darkness which gives us a presentiment of the very
object of the contemplation of the blessed. Above all, we attain to
a growing realization of the fact that what is most obscure in these
mysteries is what is most divine, most elevated, most lovable; and
if we cannot yet cling to them in vision, we do so by faith and by
love.
The mystery involved here, whence proceeds the
principle of the origin of superiority to which this principle
leads, is the incomprehensible mystery of the love of predilection
in God. “No created being would be better than another were it not
better loved by God” (Ia, q. 20, a.
3); “What hast thou that thou hast not received?” (I Cor. 4:7); “He
[God] chose us in Him [Christ] before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and unspotted in His sight in charity.
Who hath predestinated us unto the adoption of children through
Jesus Christ unto Himself: according to the purpose of His will:
unto the praise of the glory of His grace, in which He hath graced
us in His beloved Son” (Eph. 1:4-6). We can understand that these
words, “unto the praise of the glory of His grace,” ought to become
the delight of contemplatives, expressing as they do with
extraordinary splendor the principle of predilection which
manifestly dominates all the problems of sanctifying and actual
grace in every degree.
II. THE ULTIMATE BASIS OF THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN SUFFICIENT AND
EFFICACIOUS GRACE
(By way of
recapitulation, we here reprint this article which appeared in
French in the Revue Thomiste, May, 1937.)
“Whatsoever
the Lord pleased He hath done” (Ps. 134:6). “God does not command
the impossible” (St. Augustine and Council of Trent, Sess. VI, chap.
II).
We dealt with
this subject in a book which appeared in 1936: La prédestination
des saints et la grâce; cf. especially pp. 257-64; 341-50;
141-44. In the present article we wish to stress a higher principle
admitted by all theologians wherein the Thomists find the ultimate
basis of the distinction between sufficient and efficacious grace.
The problem. It is certain from
revelation that many actual graces bestowed by God do not produce
the effect (or at least the entire effect) toward which they are
ordered, whereas others do. The former are called sufficient and
purely sufficient; they confer the power of doing good without
carrying over efficaciously to the act itself. Man resists their
attraction; but their existence is absolutely certain, regardless of
what the Jansenists maintain. Otherwise God would command the
impossible, which would be contrary to His mercy and His justice.
Sin, moreover, would be inevitable; hence it would no longer really
be sin and consequently could not be justly punished by God. In this
sense we say that Judas, before sinning, could really, at the time
and place, have avoided the crime he committed; the same is also
true of the unrepentant thief before he expired beside our Lord.
The other actual graces which are termed
efficacious not only convey the real power of observing the
commandments; they cause us to observe them in fact, as in the case
of the good thief in contrast with the other. The existence of
efficacious actual grace is affirmed in numerous passages of
Scripture, such as: “I will give you a new heart, and put a new
spirit within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your
flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My spirit
in the midst of you: and I will cause you to walk in My
commandments, and to keep My judgments, and do them” (Ezech. 36:26
f.); “Whatsoever the Lord pleased He hath done” (Ps. 134:6), that
is, all that He wills, not conditionally but absolutely, He
accomplishes even the free conversion of man, as in the case of King
Assuerus at the prayer of Esther (Esther 13:9; 14:13); “And God
changed the king’s spirit into mildness” (ibid., 15:11). The
infallibility and efficacy of a decree of God’s will are obviously
based in these texts upon His omnipotence and not upon the foreseen
consent of King Assuerus. In the same sense the Book of Proverbs
declares (21:1): “As the divisions of waters, so the heart of the
king is in the hand of the Lord: whithersoever He will He shall turn
it”; likewise Ecclus. 33:24-27. Jesus Himself declares: “My sheep
hear My voice: and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them
life everlasting: and they shall not perish forever, and no man
shall pluck them out of My hand” (John 10:27); and again: “Those
whom Thou gavest Me have I kept; and none of them is lost, but the
son of perdition, that the scripture may be fulfilled’’ (ibid.,
17:12). St. Paul writes with the same purport to the Philippians
(2:13): “For it is God who works in you, both to will and to
accomplish, according to His good will.”
The Second Council of Orange, opposing the
Semi-Pelagians, quotes several of these scriptural texts and refers
to the efficacy of grace in the following terms (Denz., no. 182):
“Whatever good we do, God works in us and with us so that we may
work.” There is therefore a grace which not only gives the real
power of doing good (which exists in one who sins), but which is
effectual in the act, although it does not exclude our free
cooperation but arouses and induces it in us. St. Augustine explains
these same scriptural texts when he says: “God converts and
transforms the heart of the king . . . from wrath into mildness by
His most secret and efficacious power” (I ad Bonifatium,
chap. 20).
Hence a great
majority of the ancient theologians, Augustinians, Thomists,
Scotists, have allowed that the grace termed efficacious is so of
itself, because God wills it and not because we will it by a consent
foreseen in the divine prevision. God is not merely the spectator of
what distinguishes the just man from the sinner; He is the author of
salvation. It is true that these ancient theologians are divided on
the secondary question of explaining how grace is efficacious of
itself; some have recourse to the divine motion known as physical
premotion, others to a predominating delight or some similar
attraction. But all admit that the grace called efficacious is so of
itself.
Molina, on
the contrary, maintained that it is extrinsically efficacious on
account of our consent which was foreseen by God through mediate
knowledge. This mediate knowledge has always been rejected by
Thomists who accuse it of attributing passivity to God with respect
to our free determinations (possible in the future, and then future)
and of leading to determinism regarding circumstances (so far as, by
examining these, God would foresee infallibly what a man would
choose). Thus the very being and the goodness of man’s free and
salutary choice would derive from him and not from God, at least in
the sense in which Molina writes: “It may happen that, with equal
help, one of those called will be converted and not the other.
Indeed, even with less help one man may rise while another with
greater help does not, but perseveres in his obduracy.”
The opponents of Molinism reply that there
would thus be a good, that of salutary free choice, which would not
proceed from God, the source of all good. How then can the words of
Jesus be sustained (John 15:5): “Without Me you can do nothing” in
the order of salvation, and those words of St. Paul: “For who
distinguisheth 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?” (I Cor. 4:7.) It would in fact come to pass that of
two sinners placed in the same circumstances and equally aided by
God, one would be converted and not the other; man would distinguish
himself and become better than another without greater assistance
from God, without having received more, contrary to the text of St.
Paul.
The Molinists
do not fail to press the question further: If in order to act
effectually one requires, in addition to sufficient grace, a grace
which is efficacious of itself, does the former truly convey a real
power of acting? It does so, the Thomists reply, if it is true that
a real power of acting is distinct from the action itself; if it is
true, as Aristotle maintained against the Megarians, that an
architect who is not actually building still has the real power to
do so; if it is true that a man who is asleep still has a real power
of seeing: from the fact that he is not exercising his sight at the
moment it does not follow that he is blind, Moreover, if a sinner
did not resist sufficient grace, he would receive the efficacious
grace proferred in the former, as the fruit is in the flower. If he
refuses, he deserves to be deprived of this further help.
Our
adversaries insist that St. Thomas himself did not distinguish
explicitly between grace efficacious of itself and grace which
merely conveys the power of doing good. It is an easy matter to cite
many texts of the Angelic Doctor wherein he makes this distinction;
for instance: “The help of God is twofold: God gives a faculty by
infusing power and grace through which man is made able and apt to
operate. But He confers the very operation itself inasmuch as He
works in us interiorly moving and urging us to good, . . . according
as His power works in us both to will and to accomplish according to
His good will” (In Ep. ad Ephes., chap. 3, lect. 2);
likewise, Ia IIae, q. 109, a. I, a. 2, a. g, 10; q. 113, a. 7, 10,
and elsewhere. He also writes: “Christ is the propitiation for our
sins, for some efficaciously, for all sufficiently, since the price
of His blood is sufficient for the sal-vation of all, but possesses
efficacy only in the elect, on account of an impediment” (In Ep.
ad Tim., 2:6). God often removes this impediment, but not
always. Therein lies the mystery. “God deprives no one of what is
his due” (Ia, q. 23, a. 5 ad 3); “He gives sufficient help to avoid
sin” (Ia IIae, q. 106, a. 2 ad 2). As for efficacious grace, “if it
is given to one sinner, that is through mercy; if it is denied to
another, that is in justice” (IIa IIae, q. 2, a. 5 ad I) .
Thomists
analyze these texts as follows: Every actual grace which is
efficacious of itself with regard to an imperfect salutary act such
as attrition, is sufficient with regard to a more perfect salutary
act such as contrition.
This is manifestly the sense of St. Thomas’ doctrine, and, according
to him, if a man actually resists the grace which confers the power
of doing good, he deserves to be deprived of that which would
effectually cause him to do good.
But St. Thomas not only distinguished between these two graces; he
indicated the ultimate basis of the distinction.
ANTECEDENT AND
CONSEQUENT DIVINE WILL
Thomists
generally affirm that the distinction between efficacious and
sufficient grace is based, according to St. Thomas, on, the
distinction between consequent will and antecedent will, as
explained by him (Ia, q. 19, a. 6 ad I ). From the will known as
consequent proceeds efficacious grace, and from the antecedent will,
sufficient grace.
In this
connection, St. Thomas writes: “The will is applied to things in
accordance with what they are in themselves; but in themselves they
are individual. Hence we will a thing absolutely inasmuch as we will
it taking into consideration all the particular circumstances; this
is willing consequently. . . . And thus it is evident that whatever
God wills absolutely comes to pass.” As the psalms tell us,
“Whatsoever the Lord pleased He hath done” (Ps. 1346).
The object of
the will is the good. But goodness, unlike truth, resides formally
not in the intellect but in the thing itself, which exists only here
and now. Therefore we will absolutely, purely and simply, whatever
we will as it must be realized here and now. This is consequent
will, which is always efficacious in God, for all that God wills
(unconditionally) He accomplishes.
If, on the contrary, the will regards what is
good in itself independent of circumstances, not here and now, it is
the antecedent (or conditional) will, which in itself and as such is
not efficacious, since the good, natural or supernatural, facile or
difficult, is realized only here and now. That is why St. Thomas
says in the same place a few lines before: “In its primary
signification and considered absolutely, a thing may be good or
evil, which, however, when considered in connection with something
else that effects the consequent estimate of it, may become quite
the contrary; just as it is a good thing for a man to live,. . . but
if it is added with regard to a particular man that he is a
murderer, . . . it is a good thing for him to be executed.”
Thus during a storm at sea, a merchant would
wish (conditionally) to save his merchandise, but he is willing in
fact to cast the merchandise into the sea to save his life (Ia IIae,
q. 6, a. 6). Thus likewise does God will antecedently that all the
fruits of the earth come to maturity, although for the sake of a
higher good He permits that all do not do so. Again, in the same
way, God wills antecedently the salvation of all men, although He
permits sin and the loss of many in view of a higher good of which
He alone is judge. Hence St. Thomas concludes in the text quoted:
“It is thus evident that whatever God wills absolutely comes to
pass, although what He wills antecedently may not.” It nevertheless
remains true that God never commands the impossible, and that by His
will and love He renders the keeping of the commandments possible to
all, in the measure in which they are known and can be known. “He
gives sufficient help to avoid sin” (Ia IIae, q. 106, a. 2 ad 2). In
fact, He gives to each even more than strict justice demands (Ia, q.
21, a. 4). So does St. Thomas reconcile the antecedent divine will
which St. John Damascene speaks of, with omnipotence which must not
be lost sight of.
THE ULTIMATE
PRINCIPLES ON WHICH THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE TWO WILLS AND THE
TWO GRACES RESTS
But is there not a higher, simpler
principle from which the distinction may be derived between the two
divine wills, one of them always efficacious, the other conditional
and the source of sufficent grace? Is there not a universally
accepted principle whence proceeds the notion of consequent and
antecedent will, which we have just reviewed, and which would
justify them in a higher light before the eyes of those who might
remain unconvinced?
The principle
we are seeking is precisely the one upon which this entire article
of St. Thomas is based (Ia, q. 19, a. 6). It is expressed in the
psalms in the words (134:6): “Whatsoever the Lord pleased He hath
done.” That is, God brings to pass all that He wills purely and
simply, with an unconditional will. This is the will known as
consequent, the principle of grace efficacious in itself. The
enunciation of this principle is completed by the formula: “For
nothing is done in heaven or on earth unless God either graciously
brings it about or permits it to happen in His justice.” In other
words, nothing happens without God’s willing it if it is a good or
permitting it if it is an evil.
So does the Church teach universally, and accordingly it is
acknowledged that there is in God a conditional will, termed
antecedent, which regards a good the privation of which is permitted
by God for the sake of a higher good. Thus He permits that in
certain cases His commandments are not kept, and He does so for the
sake of that higher good, the manifestation of His mercy or of His
justice.
To this
principle must be added another which is also universally received,
was frequently invoked by St. Augustine,
and was quoted by the Council of Trent, Sess. VI, chap. II: God
never commands the impossible. The fulfillment of His commands is
really possible, in the measure in which they can be known. Hence it
is evident that the antecedent divine will is the source of a
sufficient grace which renders the accomplishment of the precepts
really possible, without causing them to be fulfilled here and now.
From these
two revealed principles is derived, as can be seen, the distinction
between the two divine wills, the one always efficacious, called
consequent, the other conditional and the source of sufficient
grace. Herein lies the ultimate basis, then, of the distinction
between the two kinds of grace which we are considering.
There is no
exception to the universal principle: All that God wills (purely,
simply, and unconditionally) comes to pass, without thereby
violating our liberty, for God moves it strongly and sweetly,
actualizing rather than destroying it. He wills efficaciously our
free consent, and we do consent freely. The sovereign efficacy of
divine causality extends even to the free mode of our acts (Ia, q.
19, a. 8). This supreme maxim is thus explained by St. Thomas (ibid.,
a. 6): “Since the divine will is the most universal cause of all
things, it is impossible for it not to be fulfilled,” when it is a
question of unconditional will. The reason for this is that no
created agent can act without the concurrence of God, or fail
without His permission. Hence this principle amounts to a
declaration of what is generally taught by the Church: No good is
brought about here and now (in one man rather than in another)
unless God has willed it positively and efficaciously from all
eternity; and no evil, no sin, takes place here and now (in one man
rather than in another) unless God has permitted it. The simpler
formula is frequently used: Nothing takes place without the will of
God if it is a good, or the permission of God if it is an evil.
Equivalent definitions are found in the Councils, for example, that
of Trent (Denz., no. 816).
This very
sublime and absolutely universal principle is repeated by many
writers without any perception of what it implies. But it implies
precisely, as we have just seen, the basis of the distinction
between the two kinds of grace we are discussing, grace efficacious
in itself and grace which is merely sufficient, which man resists,
but which he would not resist without divine permission.
Hence in the
ninth century, in order to terminate the discussions with regard to
Gottschalk’s opinion and to grant to the Augustinian bishops what
they were asking, and at the same time maintaining the divine will
for universal salvation and the responsibility of the sinner, the
synodal letter approved by the Council of Toucy in 860 began in the
following terms”:
“God did all that He willed in heaven and on earth. For nothing is
done in heaven or on earth unless He either graciously accomplishes
it or permits it to happen in His justice.” That is to say that
every good, natural or supernatural, easy or difficult, initial or
final, comes from God, and that no sin takes place, nor does it take
place in one man rather than in another, without divine permission.
This extremely general principle very evidently contains innumerable
consequences. St. Thomas saw in it the equivalent of the principle
of predilection which he thus formulated (Ia, q. 20, a. 3): “Since
the love of God is the cause of the goodness of things, nothing
would be better than something else did not God will a greater good
to one than to another.” No one would be better than another were he
not more loved and helped by God. This is the equivalent of St.
Paul’s: “For who distinguisheth thee? Or what hast thou that thou
hast not received?” (I Cor. 4:7.)
CONSEQUENCES OF THIS PRINCIPLE
This truth is
one of the foundations of Christian humility, resting on the dogmas
of creation out of nothing and of the necessity of grace for every
salutary act. The same principle of predilection contains virtually
the doctrine of gratuitous predestination, for, as St. Thomas shows
so clearly (Ia, q. 23, a. 5), since the merits of the elect are the
effect of their predestination, they cannot be its cause. This great
truth leads the saints, when they see a criminal mounting the
scaffold, to say within themselves: “If that man had received all
the graces I have received, he would perhaps have been less
unfaithful than I; and had God permitted in my life all the faults
He permitted in his, I should be in his place and he in mine.” Such
humility in the saints is manifestly the consequence of the
principle: “Nothing happens unless God wills it, if it is a good, or
permits it, if it is an evil.”
In fact,
whatever there is of being and of action in the sin, apart from the
moral disorder it contains, all proceeds from God, first cause of
all being and all action, as St. Thomas demonstrates so well (Ia
IIae, 9.79, a.2). The divine will cannot will, either directly or
indirectly, the disorder which sin contains (ibid., a. I),
nor can divine causality produce it. That disorder is outside the
adequate object of God to much greater extent than sound is outside
the object of the sense of sight. Just as we cannot see a sound, so
God cannot be the cause of the disorder which lies in sin; but He is
the cause of the being and action which it contains. There is
nothing more precise and more “precisive,” if we may so speak, than
the formal object of a faculty.
Thus, although goodness and
truth are not actually distinct in any reality, the intelligence
attains to it only as true and the will only as good. In the same
way, the effect of gravity in our bodily organism must not be
confused with that of electricity or of heat; each of these causes
produces its own effect in us, not that of any other. Likewise God
is the cause of being and action in sin, but not of its moral
disorder. Thus is verified once more the principle: nothing real is
effected without God’s will, nor any evil without His permission.
It is
apparent, therefore, that theology should not only labor to deduce
new conclusions following from its principles, but should also
return to the first principles of faith so as to clarify conclusions
which do not seem certain to those who do not recognize their
connection with the prime verities.
To revert to
the distinction between grace efficacious in itself and sufficient
grace, it must be said, according to the generally accepted same
circumstances, as were the two thieves who died with our Lord,
eternity for his salvation, and if the other continues in his
impenitence, this does not happen without the just permission of
God.
It is clear
that if one of these two sinners should be converted, it will be as
a result of a special mercy which causes him to merit before death
and subsequently will crown its own gifts by rewarding him. But if a
just man never sins mortally from the time of his first
justification in baptism, that is the result of an even greater
bounty on the part of God, who has preserved him thus efficaciously
in good when He could have permitted his fall. This simple
observation demonstrates the gratuity of predestination.
Such
manifestly are the ultimate principles of the distinction between
grace efficacious of itself which causes one to do good and
sufficient grace which gives the power to do good. If a man resists
the latter, as we have said, he deserves to be deprived of the
former, which is offered to him in sufficient grace, as the fruit in
the flower. Resistance or sin falls upon sufficient grace like hail
upon a tree in blossom, which gave promise of a rich yield of fruit.
The Lord in His mercy often lifts up the sinner; but He does not
always do so, and therein lies the mystery.
Molina,
refusing to admit that efficacious grace is so intrinsically, or of
itself, maintained that it is efficacious only on account of our
consent foreseen from all eternity through mediate knowledge. Thus
there is a good, namely, that of our free, salutary determination,
which comes about without God’s having willed it efficaciously,
contrary to the principle: “Whatsoever the Lord pleased He hath
done; nothing is done unless He either graciously does it or permits
it to happen in His justice.”
Molina, nevertheless, attempts to preserve this
universally accepted principle. But he succeeds only in retaining it
in an indirect, extrinsic way by asserting that God from all
eternity has seen, through mediate knowledge, that if Peter were
placed in given circumstances with such and such sufficient grace,
he would in fact be converted; and thereupon, since He had the
intention of saving him, He willed to place him in these favorable
circumstances rather than in others wherein he should have been
lost. Thus the supreme principle which we have invoked, as well as
that of predilection, would be degraded to a condition of
relativity. It is no longer intrinsically true of itself but only on
account of circumstances extrinsic to the salutary determination.
In fact, for
Molina it remains true, contrary to the principle of predilection,
that of two sinners placed in the same circumstances and equally
aided by God, one may be converted and not the other. “A person who
is aided by the same or even less help can rise from sin, while
another with greater help does not rise but remains in his obduracy.
One of the two is converted without having received any more,
contrary, so it seems, to the words of St. Paul: “Who distinguisheth
thee? Or what hast thou that thou hast not received?” (I Cor. 4:7.)
THE PROBLEM
One objection
remains, which St. Paul himself poses: “Thou wilt say therefore to
me: Why doth He then find fault? for who resisteth His will?” (Rom.
9:19.) We know the Apostle’s answer: God can prefer whom He wills
without thereby being unjust (ibid., 14-24), and the hymn to
divine wisdom whose designs are impenetrable: “O the depth of the
riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How
incomprehensible are His judgments, and how unsearchable His ways! .
. . Who hath been His counsellor? Or who hath first given to Him,
and recompense shall be made him?” (ibid. 11:33-35.) St.
Augustine makes the same reply: “Why does He draw this man and not
that one? Do not attempt to judge if you do not wish to err.”
St. Thomas adds that
predestination cannot have as its cause the merits of the elect
since these are the effect of predestination, which consequently is
gratuitous or dependent upon the divine good pleasure (Ia, q. 23, a.
5).
Not infrequently an effort is made to answer
the foregoing problem more specifically than either St. Paul, St.
Augustine, or St. Thomas did. But is not the significance of the
mystery sacrificed to an inferior sort of clarity which it does not
contain? From this standpoint one comes back, in spite of oneself,
to the position of Molina, for instance, by the statement which
recently appeared as follows: “Herein lies the mystery of
predestination: Since from all eternity God knew that Judas would
not profit by the sufficient graces which He willed to give him, why
did He not will to give him, as he did to the good thief, graces
with which He knew that he would correspond?” That is indeed the
language of the Molinists and, willy-nilly, it presupposes the
theory of mediate knowledge, which posits a passivity in the
foreknowledge regarding the free determination a man would take,
were he placed in given circumstances, and which he will take if he
is in fact so placed. There is the dilemma: God either determines or
is determined; there is no middle ground.
If, on the contrary, one
attempts to safeguard the generally accepted principle: “Nothing
happens which God has not either efficaciously willed if it is a
good, or permitted if it is an evil,” it does not suffice to affirm,
as in the formula quoted above, that God knew what would happen,
that the good thief would consent to the sufficient grace and that
Judas would resist it. It must be held that: in one case, God
permitted the final impenitence of Judas (had He not permitted it,
it would not have happened, and God would not have been able to
foresee it infallibly) and He would not have permitted it if he had
willed efficaciously to save Judas. In other case, God willed
efficaciously the conversion of the good thief because He willed
efficaciously to save him (gratuitous predestination to glory).
This is the conclusion which
proceeds from the generally accepted principles.
If a good which ought to happen does not happen
(such as the conversion of Judas), it must be concluded that God had
not efficaciously willed it to happen actually although He may have
willed the possibility of its happening (antecedent will) and that
Judas should hav eth real power to be converted, without being so in
fact. (Thus a man who is asleep and not actually seeing still has
the real power of sight.) If, on the contrary, a good actually
comes to pass (such as the conversion of Peter), it must be
concluded that from all eternity God had efficaciously willed (by
consequent will) that it should in fact take place, and in Peter
rather than in Judas.
It follows, therefore, that no one would be
better than another (all other things being equal), were he not
better loved efficaciously and aided more by God (consequent will);
although the other (less loved) could, of course, have received and
often may, under other circumstances, have received greater graces.
Thus Judas received the grace of the apostolate which many of the
elect have never received. Hence no one would be better than
another were he not loved more by God through consequent will. This
is the meaning of the divine predilection upon which predestination
is based (cf. St. Thomas, Ia, q. 23, a. 4). Bariez says no more than
St. Thomas on the subject, and it is quite apparent that the epithet
of “Bañezianism” to designate classical Thomism is only a poor
attempt at humor, as Father N. Del Prado demonstrates (De gratia,
1907, III, 427-67: Whether Bañezianism is not really a farce
invented by the Molinists). Molina spoke more frankly and admitted
that his doctrine did not coincide with that of St. Thomas.
As for negative reprobation, according to the
Angelic Doctor, it consists precisely in the divine permission of
sins which in fact will not be remitted and especially of the sin of
final impenitence.
To this one cannot make answer, as has recently been done, that the
permission of sin is general with regard to elect and reprobates
alike; it is clear that we are here dealing with the will to permit
sin which will not be forgiven.
CONCLUSION
Hence it is apparent that the
ultimate bases of the distinction between grace efficacious in
itself and sufficient grace, as well as between consequent divine
will and antecedent will, is to be found in these two principles:
“Nothing happens which God has not either willed efficaciously if it
is a good, or permitted if it is an evil”; and “God never commands
the impossible, but renders the fulfillment of His commands really
possible when He imposes them and to the extent to which He imposes
them and to which they can be known.”
If the true
meaning of each of the terms of these two principles is well
weighed, especially the opposition that exists between
“efficaciously willed” and “permitted,” it can be seen that there is
a real difference between efficacious grace, the result of the
intrinsically efficacious will of God, and merely sufficient grace,
the result of His antecedent will accompanied by the divine
permission of sin. In the first case, God confers the free, salutary
action. In the second, He gives the real power to act, but not to
act efficaciously. In sufficient grace, we cannot repeat too often,
efficacious grace is offered, as the fruit in the flower, as act in
potency. But if anyone resists sufficient grace, he deserves to be
deprived of the efficacious help which he would have received had it
not been for this resistance.
Therein lies
a great mystery, as St. Paul acknowledges (Rom. 9:14-24; 11:33-36).
He reminds us that, without being unjust, God can show preference
for whom He will. No one has first given unto Him that he should
receive a recompense in return. “O the depth of the riches of the
wisdom and of the knowledge of God! . . . who hath been His
counsellor? Or who hath first given to Him, and recompense shall be
made him?
What
does appear manifestly in the midst of this chiaroscuro is that the
question here posed involves the reconciling of infinite justice,
infinite mercy, and supreme liberty within the eminence of Deity. If
the grace of perseverance is granted to one, it is out of infinite
mercy; if it is not granted to another, that is in just punishment
for his faults. Each of these divine perfections is infinite, and
their intimate reconciliation in the eminence of Deity or in the
inner life of God can be seen only in the immediate vision of the
divine essence.
The
principles which we have just enunciated and which balance one
another give us an inkling about the location of the summit toward
which they converge, but the peak remains hidden from our sight.
Only in heaven shall we behold the intimate reconciliation of these
two truths: “Whatsoever the Lord pleased He hath done” (Ps. 134:6),
and “God does not command the impossible.” He who receives from God
the real power to observe the commandments does not always do so in
fact. If he observes them, he is obviously better in that respect.
And this is a sign that he has received more.
We must
therefore conclude with Bossuet: “Let us learn to control our
intelligence so as to admit these two graces [sufficient and
efficacious] of which the one leaves the will without any excuse
before God and the other does not allow it to glory in itself.”
Sufficient grace leaves us
without any excuse before God because, as we have said, in it
efficacious grace is offered to us; but by the very fact that a man
resists this divine attention, he deserves to be deprived of the
efficacious help which was virtually offered to him. Resistance to
grace is an evil which derives from us alone; nonresistance is a
good which would not come to pass here and now, had not God willed
it from all eternity with a consequent or efficacious will.
But to arrive
at a clear understanding of this doctrine, one must avoid several
confusing misconceptions that are frequent among those who read the
explanation of it for the first time. It would be an error to think
that some receive only efficacious graces and others only sufficient
graces. We all receive both of these helps. Even those who are in
the state of mortal sin occasionally receive an efficacious grace to
make an act of faith or of hope; but they often also resist the
sufficient grace which inclines them toward conversion. Faithful
servants of God frequently receive sufficient graces which they do
not resist and which are followed by efficacious graces. The various
degrees of sufficient grace must also be carefully considered. First
of all, sufficient grace is far from always being sterile or merely
sufficient; it is rendered sterile by our resistance. But if this is
not forthcoming, sufficient grace, followed by efficacious help,
fructifies like a flower which produces, under the action of the
sun, the fruit which it is intended to yield.
Moreover,
sufficient graces are most varied in kind. There are, in the first
place, the exterior graces such as the preaching of the gospel, good
example, wise direction. Then there is the interior habitual or
sanctifying grace received in baptism which confers the radical
power of acting meritoriously. There are the infused virtues and the
gifts of the Holy Ghost, which are so many principles bestowing the
proximate power of supernatural action. There are interior actual
graces, graces of light which produce good thoughts, graces of
attraction which cause an impulse toward the good, inclining us to a
salutary consent to good without causing us as yet to produce it.
Thus it is that, as we have said above, the grace which produces
attrition in us efficaciously is sufficient with regard to
contrition.
Sufficient
grace, which renders possible the fulfillment of duty, may therefore
go very far in the order of this real possibility. But however far
it may go in this order of proximate power to produce a given
salutary act, for instance, contrition, it remains distinct from the
efficacious grace which will cause us to produce freely, here and
now, this particular act of contrition. The latter would not in fact
have been produced had it not been willed eternally by the
consequent will of God.
A cursory
reading of this doctrine may leave one unaware of how far sufficient
grace can go within us. Sometimes it urges us with insistence not to
resist God’s will in a certain respect, manifested repeatedly by a
superior or a spiritual director. It may happen that for a year or
two or even more all the circumstances continue to confirm what is
being asked of us in God’s name. And yet the soul continues to allow
itself to be deceived by self-love and by the enemy of all good; it
resists the light over a period of months, in spite of all the
prayers that are said for it and all the Masses offered for its
intention. The prayers and Masses obtain for it graces of light
which produce good thoughts in it, graces of attraction which elicit
transitory impulses toward the good. But these sufficient graces are
blocked by a resistance which may even go so far as obduracy of the
heart. Then is fulfilled the text of the Apocalypse (3:19): “Such as
I love, I rebuke and chastise. Be zealous therefore, and do penance.
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.”
“Behold, I
stand at the gate, and knock,” says the Lord. The soul often
resists; it does so by itself; the evil comes only from the soul.
When it ceases to resist and at least hearkens to Him who knocks, it
is already He, the Lord, who gives it to the soul to listen with
docility. And if it really stops resisting, it will be led from
grace to grace even to divine intimacy.
If the soul
ceases its resistance, efficacious grace ever sweeter and stronger
will be given it; sweetly and strongly will this grace gradually
penetrate its will, as the beneficial warmth penetrates little by
little a cold body which has been frozen stiff. Then the soul
becomes more and more aware that all the resistance came from itself
alone; that the nonresistance is itself a good proceeding from the
author of all good; and that the soul must ask it of Him in that
prayer which the priest repeats every day at Mass before the
Communion, a prayer by which he begs for the efficacious grace which
leads one to the good: “Lord, make me always adhere to Thy
commandments and never suffer me to be separated from Thee.” Grant,
Lord, not only that I may have the power of observing Thy
commandments, but that I may in fact observe them; and never permit
me to be separated from Thee.
Undoubtedly,
he who keeps the commandments is better than he who, although really
able to keep them, does not do so. He who is thus rendered better
should th