Grace, Actual and Habitual Part 4

Neither of these difficulties probably occurred to Vasquez or Ripalda,(217) because at the time when they wrote Pius VI had not yet condemned the teaching of the pseudo-Council of Pistoia,(218) nor had Innocent XI censured the proposition that "Faith in a broad sense, as derived from the testimony of creatures or some other similar motive, is sufficient for justification."(219) If the love of G.o.d, even perfect love, (such as we have shown to be possible in the natural order), were of itself necessarily supernatural, as Ripalda contends, it would be possible for a pagan to receive the grace of justification without theological faith, which he does not possess, as is evident from the Vatican teaching that it is "requisite for divine faith that revealed truth be believed because of the authority of G.o.d who reveals it."(220)

*Thesis III: Not all actions performed by man in the state of mortal sin are sinful on account of his not being in the state of grace.*

This is _de fide_.

Proof. Though this thesis is, strictly speaking, included in Thesis II, it must be demonstrated separately on its own merits, because it embodies a formally defined dogma which has been denied by the Protestant Reformers and by the followers of Baius and Jansenius. Martin Luther taught,-and his teaching was adopted in a modified form by the Calvinists,-that human nature is entirely depraved by original sin, and consequently man necessarily sins in whatever he does,(221) even in the process of justification. Against this heresy the Tridentine Council defined: "If any one shall say that all the works done before justification ... are indeed sins, ... let him be anathema."(222)

The Protestant notion of grace was reduced to a theological system by Baius(223) and Jansenius,(224) whose numerous errors may all be traced to their denial of the supernatural order.

The Jansenist teaching was pushed to an extreme by Paschasius Quesnel, 101 of whose propositions were formally condemned by Pope Clement XI in his famous Const.i.tution "_Unigenitus_."(225) The Jansenistic teachings of the Council of Pistoia were censured by Pius VI, A. D. 1794, in his Bull "_Auctorem fidei_." The quintessence of this heretical system is embodied in the proposition that whatever a man does in the state of mortal sin is necessarily sinful for the reason that he is not in the state of grace (_status caritatis_). Baius(226) and Quesnel(227) gave this teaching an Augustinian turn by saying that there is no intermediate state between the love of G.o.d and concupiscence, and that all the works of a sinner must consequently and of necessity be sinful. This heretical teaching is sharply condemned in the Bull "_Auctorem fidei_."(228) Quesnel pushed it to its last revolting conclusion when he said: "The prayer of the wicked is a new sin, and that G.o.d permits it is but an additional judgment upon them."(229)

The teaching of Baius and Quesnel is repugnant to Revelation and to the doctrine of the Fathers.

a) The Bible again and again exhorts sinners to repent, to pray for forgiveness, to give alms, etc. Cfr. Ecclus. XXI, 1: "My son, thou hast sinned? Do so no more: but for thy former sins also pray that they may be forgiven thee." Ezech. XVIII, 30: "Be converted, and do penance for all your iniquities: and iniquity shall not be your ruin." Dan. IV, 24: "Redeem thou thy sins with alms, and thy iniquities with works of mercy to the poor: perhaps he will forgive thy offences." Zach. I, 3: "Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Turn ye to me, saith the Lord of hosts: and I will turn to you." If all the works thus enjoined were but so many sins, we should be forced to conclude, on the authority of Sacred Scripture, that G.o.d commands the sinner to commit new iniquities and that the process of justification with its so-called dispositions consists in a series of sinful acts. Such an a.s.sumption would be manifestly absurd and blasphemous.

Quesnel endeavored to support his heretical conceit by Matth. VII, 17 sq.: "Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit; a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit." But as our Lord in this pa.s.sage speaks of prophets, the fruits he has in mind must obviously be doctrines not works.(230) And what if they were works? Are not doctrines and morals ultimately related, and may we not infer from the lives they lead (according to their doctrines) whether prophets are true or false? By their fruits (_i.e._ works) you shall know them (_i.e._ the soundness or unsoundness of the teaching upon which their works are based).

b) In appealing to the testimony of the Fathers the Jansenists were notoriously guilty of misinterpretation.

a) Origen plainly teaches that prayer before justification is a good work.

"Though you are sinners," he says, "pray to G.o.d; G.o.d hears the sinners."(231) The seemingly contradictory text John IX, 31: "Now we know that G.o.d doth not hear sinners,"(232) is thus explained by St. Augustine: "He speaks as one not yet anointed; for G.o.d also hears the sinners. If He did not hear sinners, the publican would have cast his eyes to the ground in vain and vainly struck his breast saying: O G.o.d, be merciful to me, a sinner."(233) Moreover, since there is question here of extraordinary works and signs only (_viz._ miracles), the text is wholly irrelevant in regard to works of personal righteousness. St. Prosper teaches: "Human nature, created by G.o.d, even after its prevarication, retains its substance, form, life, senses, and reason, and the other goods of body and soul, which are not lacking even to those who are bad and vicious. But there is no possibility of seizing the true good by such things as may adorn this mortal life, but cannot give [merit] eternal life."(234)

) Baius and Quesnel succeeded in veiling their heresy by a phraseology of Augustinian color but with implications foreign to the mind of the Doctor of Grace. Augustine emphasized the opposition between "charity" and "concupiscence" so strongly that the intermediary domain of naturally good works was almost lost to view. Thus he says in his _Enchiridion_: "Carnal l.u.s.t reigns where there is not the love of G.o.d."(235) And in his treatise on the Grace of Christ: "Here there is no love, no good work is reckoned as done, nor is there in fact any good work, rightly so called; because whatever is not of faith is sin, and faith worketh by love."(236) And again in his treatise on Grace and Free Will: "The commandments of love or charity are so great and such, that whatever action a man may think he does well, is by no means well done if done without charity."(237) We have purposely chosen pa.s.sages in which the "Doctor of Grace" obviously treats of charity as theological love, not in the broad sense of _dilectio_.(238) At first blush these pa.s.sages seem to agree with the teaching of Baius, who says: "Every love on the part of a rational creature is either sinful cupidity, by which the world is loved, and which is forbidden by St. John, or that praiseworthy charity which is infused into the heart by the Holy Spirit, and by which we love G.o.d;"-(239) and with the forty-fifth proposition of Quesnel: "As the love of G.o.d no longer reigns in the hearts of sinners, it is necessary that carnal l.u.s.t should reign in them and vitiate all their actions."(240) Yet the sense of these propositions is anything but Augustinian. Augustine upholds free-will in spite of grace and concupiscence, whereas the Jansenists a.s.sert that the _carnalis cupiditas_ and the _caritas dominans_ produce their effects by the very power of nature, _i.e._ necessarily and of themselves.(241)

Besides this capital difference there are many minor discrepancies between the teaching of St. Augustine and that of Baius and Quesnel. Augustine, it is true, in his struggle with Pelagianism,(242) strongly emphasized the opposition existing between grace and sin, between love of G.o.d and love of the world; but he never dreamed of a.s.serting that every act performed in the state of mortal sin is sinful for the reason that it is not performed in the state of grace. Scholasticism has long since applied the necessary corrective to his exaggerations. It is perfectly orthodox to say that there is an irreconcilable opposition between the state of mortal sin and the state of grace. "No one can serve two masters."(243) This is not, however, by any means equivalent to saying, as the Jansenists do, that the sinner, not being in the state of grace, of necessity sins in whatever he does. Augustine expressly admits that, no matter how deeply G.o.d may allow a man to fall, and no matter how strongly concupiscence may dominate his will, he is yet able to pray for grace, which is in itself a distinctly salutary act. "If a sin is such," he says in his _Retractationes_, "that it is itself a punishment for sin, what can the will under the domination of cupidity do, except, if it be pious, to pray for help?"(244) Compare this sentence with the fortieth proposition of Baius: "The sinner in all his actions serves the l.u.s.t which rules him,"(245) and you will perceive the third essential difference that separates the teaching of St.

Augustine from that of the Jansenists. The former, even when he speaks, not of the two opposing habits, but of their respective acts, does not, like Jansenism, represent the universality of sin without theological charity as a physical and fundamental necessity, but merely as a historical phenomenon which admits of exceptions. Thus he writes in his treatise On the Spirit and the Letter: "If they who by nature do the things contained in the law, must not be regarded as yet in the number of those whom Christ's grace justifies, but rather as among those whose actions (although they are those of unG.o.dly men who do not truly and rightly worship the true G.o.d) we not only cannot blame, but actually praise, and with good reason, and rightly too, since they have been done, so far as we read or know or hear, according to the rule of righteousness; though were we to discuss the question with what motive they are done, they would hardly be found to be such as to deserve the praise and defense which are due to righteous conduct."(246)

In conclusion we will quote a famous pa.s.sage from St. Augustine which reads like a protest against the distortions of Baius and Jansenius.

"Love," he says, "is either divine or human; human love is either licit or illicit.... I speak first of licit human love, which is free from censure; then, of illicit human love, which is d.a.m.nable; and in the third place, of divine love, which leads us to Heaven.... You, therefore, have that love which is licit; it is human, but, as I have said, licit, so much so that, if it were lacking, [the want of] it would be censured. You are permitted with human love to love your spouse, your children, your friends and fellow-citizens. But, as you see, the unG.o.dly, too, have this love, _e.g._ pagans, Jews, heretics. Who among them does not love his wife, his children, his brethren, his neighbors, his relations and friends? This, therefore, is human love. If any one would be so unfeeling as to lose even human love, not loving his own children, ... we should no longer regard him as a human being."(247) Tepe pertinently observes(248) that St.

Augustine in this pa.s.sage a.s.serts not only the possibility but the actual existence of naturally good though unmeritorious works (_opera steriliter __ bona_), and that the theory of Ripalda(249) is untenable for this reason, if for no other, that the quoted pa.s.sage is cited in Pius VI's Bull "_Auctorem fidei_."(250)

Article 2. The Necessity Of Actual Grace For All Salutary Acts

Salutary acts (_actus salutares_) are those directed to the attainment of sanctifying grace and the supernatural end of man.

According to this double purpose, salutary acts may be divided into two cla.s.ses: (1) those that prepare for justification (_actus simpliciter salutares_), and (2) those which, following justification, gain merits for Heaven (_actus meritorii_).

In consequence of the supernatural character of the acts which they comprise, both these categories are diametrically opposed to that cla.s.s of acts which are good only in a natural way,(251) and hence must be carefully distinguished from the latter. The Fathers did not, of course, employ the technical terms of modern theology; they had their own peculiar phrases for designating what we call salutary acts, _e.g._ _agere sicut oportet vel expedit, agere ad salutem, agere ad iustificationem, agere ad vitam aeternam_, etc.(252)

1. PELAGIANISM.-Pelagianism started as a reaction against Manichaeism, but fell into the opposite extreme of exaggerating the capacity of human nature at the expense of grace. It denied original sin(253) and grace.

As the necessity of grace for all salutary acts is a fundamental dogma of the Christian religion, the Church proceeded with unusual severity against Pelagian naturalism and condemned its vagaries through the mouth of many councils.

a) Pelagius was a British lay monk, who came to Rome about the year 400 to propagate his erroneous views.(254) He found a willing pupil in Celestius, who after distinguishing himself as a lawyer, had been ordained to the priesthood at Ephesus, about 411.

The Pelagian heresy gained another powerful champion in the person of Bishop Julian of Eclanum in Apulia. Its strongest opponent was St.

Augustine. Under his powerful blows the Pelagians repeatedly changed their tactics, without however giving up their cardinal error in regard to grace. Their teaching on this point may be summarized as follows: The human will is able by its natural powers to keep all the commandments of G.o.d, to resist temptation, and to gain eternal life; in fact it can attain to a state of holiness and impeccability(255) in which the pet.i.tion "Forgive us our trespa.s.ses" no longer has any meaning except perhaps as an expression of humility.(256) In so far, however, as free-will is itself a gift of the Creator, man can perform no good works without grace. At a later period of his career Pelagius admitted the existence of merely external supernatural graces, such as revelation and the example of Christ and the saints,-which led St. Augustine to remark: "This is the hidden and despicable poison of your heresy that you represent the grace of Christ as His example, not His gift, alleging that man is justified by imitating Him, not by the ministration of the Holy Spirit."(257) But even this external grace, according to Pelagius, does not confer the strength necessary to perform good works; it merely makes it easier to keep the commandments. Pelagius did not deny that justification and adoptive sonship, considered in their ideal relation to the "kingdom of Heaven," as distinguished from "eternal life,"(258) are not identical in adults with the grace of creation, but he denied their gratuity by a.s.serting that the free will is able to merit all these graces by its own power.(259)

Whatever may have been the variations of Pelagianism, it is patent from the writings of St. Augustine that its defenders one and all rejected the necessity and existence of the immediate grace of the will.(260) Their att.i.tude towards the illuminating grace of the intellect is in dispute.

Some theologians(261) think the Pelagians admitted, others(262) that they denied its existence. No matter what they may have held on this point, there can be no doubt that the followers of Pelagius conceived the object of grace to be nothing more than to facilitate the work of salvation.

b) Within the short span of twenty years (A. D. 411 to 431) no less than twenty-four councils occupied themselves with this new heresy.

At first the wily heretic succeeded in deceiving the prelates a.s.sembled at Lydda (Diospolis), A. D. 415; but the bishops of Northern Africa, among them St. Augustine, roundly condemned his teaching at two councils held with the sanction of Pope Innocent I at Carthage and Mileve in 416.

Shortly afterwards, deceived by the terms of the creeds and explanations which they circulated, Pope Zosimus (417-418) declared both Pelagius and Celestius to be innocent. Despite this intervention, however, two hundred African bishops, at a plenary council held at Carthage, A. D. 418, reiterated the canons of Mileve and submitted them for approval to the Holy See. These proceedings induced Zosimus to adopt stronger measures. In his _Epistula Tractoria_ (418) he formally condemned Pelagianism and persuaded the Emperor to send Julian of Eclanum and seventeen other recalcitrant bishops into exile. The canons of Carthage and Mileve were subsequently received by the universal Church as binding definitions of the faith. The most important of them in regard to grace is this: "If anyone shall say that the grace of justification is given to us for the purpose of enabling us to do more easily by the aid of grace what we are commanded to do by free-will, as if we were able, also, though less easily, to observe the commandments of G.o.d without the help of grace, let him be anathema."(263) The Ec.u.menical Council of Ephesus (A. D. 431), with the approval of Pope Celestine I, renewed the condemnation of Celestius, but it was not until nearly a century later that Pelagianism received its death-blow. In 529 the Second Council of Orange defined: "If any one a.s.sert that he is able, by the power of nature, and without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Ghost, who grants to all men the disposition believingly to accept the truth, rightly (_ut expedit_) to think or choose anything good pertaining to eternal salvation, or to a.s.sent to salutary, _i.e._ evangelical preaching, such a one is deceived by a heretical spirit."(264) This decision was reiterated by the Council of Trent: "If any one saith that the grace of G.o.d through Jesus Christ is given only for this, that man may be able more easily to live justly and to merit eternal life, as if by free-will without grace he were able to do both, though hardly indeed and with difficulty, let him be anathema."(265)

2. PELAGIANISM REFUTED.-Sacred Scripture and the Fathers plainly teach that man is unable to perform any salutary act by his own power.

a) Among the many Biblical texts that can be quoted in support of this statement, our Lord's beautiful parable of the vine and its branches is especially striking. Cfr. John XV, 4 sq.: "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing."(266)

a) The context shows that Jesus is not speaking here of purely natural works of the kind for which the _concursus generalis_ of G.o.d suffices, but that He has in mind salutary acts in the strictly supernatural sense; and the truth He wishes to inculcate is that fallen nature cannot perform such acts except through Him and with His a.s.sistance. This supernatural influence is not, however, to be understood exclusively of sanctifying or habitual grace, because our Divine Saviour refers to the fruits of justification and to salutary works. "Of these he does not say: 'Without me you can do but little,' but: 'Without me you can do nothing.' Be it therefore little or much, it cannot be done without Him, without whom nothing can be done."(267) If this was true of the Apostles, who were in the state of sanctifying grace,(268) it must be true _a fortiori_ of sinners. Consequently, supernatural grace is absolutely necessary for the performance of any and all acts profitable for salvation.

) Nowhere is this fundamental truth so clearly and insistently brought out as in the epistles of St. Paul, who is preeminently "the Doctor of Grace" among the Apostles.

There are, according to him, three categories of supernatural acts: salutary thoughts, holy resolves, and good works.

St. Paul teaches that all right thinking is from G.o.d. 2 Cor. III, 5: "Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is from G.o.d."(269)

He also declares that all good resolves come from above. Rom. IX, 15 sq.: "For he saith to Moses: I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy; and I will shew mercy to whom I will shew mercy. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of G.o.d that sheweth mercy."(270)

He furthermore a.s.serts that all good works come from G.o.d. Phil. II, 13: "For it is G.o.d who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish, according to his good will."(271) 1 Cor. XII, 3: "No man can say: Lord Jesus, but by the Holy Ghost."(272) p.r.o.nouncing the holy name of Jesus is obviously regarded as a salutary act, because mere physical utterance does not require the a.s.sistance of the Holy Ghost.(273) But the act as a salutary act is physically impossible without divine a.s.sistance, because it is essentially supernatural and consequently exceeds the powers of nature.(274)

b) The argument from Tradition is based almost entirely on the authority of St. Augustine, in whom, as Liebermann observes, G.o.d wrought a miracle of grace that he might become its powerful defender. There is no need of quoting specific texts because this whole treatise is interlarded with Augustinian dicta concerning the necessity of grace.

a) An important point is to prove that the early Fathers held the Augustinian, _i.e._ Catholic view. It stands to reason that if these Fathers had taught a different doctrine, the Church would not have so vehemently rejected Pelagianism as an heretical innovation. Augustine himself insists on the novelty of the Pelagian teaching. "Such is the Pelagian heresy," he says, "which is not an ancient one, but has only lately come into existence."(275) And this view is confirmed by Pope Celestine I, who declares in his letter to the Bishops of Gaul (A. D.

431): "This being the state of the question, novelty should cease to attack antiquity."(276)

In fact the teaching of the Apostolic Fathers, although less explicit, agrees entirely with that of Augustine. Thus St. Irenaeus says: "As the dry earth, if it receives no moisture, does not bring forth fruit, so we, being dry wood, could never bear fruit for life without supernatural rain freely given.... The blessing of salvation comes to us from G.o.d, not from ourselves."(277)

The necessity of grace is indirectly inculcated by the Church when she pet.i.tions G.o.d to grant salutary graces to all men-a most ancient and venerable practice, which Pope St. Celestine explains as follows: "The law of prayer should determine the law of belief. For when the priests of holy nations administer the office entrusted to them, asking G.o.d for mercy, they plead the cause of the human race, and together with the whole Church ask and pray that the unbelievers may receive the faith, that the idolaters may be freed from the errors of their impiety, that the veil be lifted from the heart of the Jews, and they be enabled to perceive the light of truth, that the heretics may return to their senses by a true perception of the Catholic faith, that the schismatics may receive the spirit of reborn charity, that the sinners be granted the remedy of penance, and that the door of heavenly mercy be opened to the catechumens who are led to the sacraments of regeneration."(278) In matters of salvation prayer and grace are correlative terms; the practice of the one implies the necessity and gratuity of the other.(279)

) That the Fathers not only conceived grace to be necessary for the cure of weakness induced by sin (_gratia sanans_) in a merely moral sense, but thought it to be metaphysically necessary for the communication of physical strength (_gratia elevans_), is evidenced by such oft-recurring similes as these: Grace is as necessary for salvation as the eye is to see, or as wings are to fly, or as rain is for the growth of plants.

It will suffice to quote a pa.s.sage from the writings of St. Chrysostom.

"The eyes," he says, "are beautiful and useful for seeing, but if they would attempt to see without light, all their beauty and visual power would avail them nothing. Thus, too, the soul is but an obstacle in its own way if it endeavors to see without the Holy Ghost."(280)

This view is strengthened by the further teaching of the Fathers that supernatural grace was as indispensable to the angels in their state of probation (in which they were free from concupiscence) and to our first parents in Paradise (gifted as they were with the _donum integritatis_), as it is to fallen man; the only difference being that in the case of the latter, grace has the additional object of curing the infirmities and overcoming the difficulties arising from concupiscence. In regard to the angels St. Augustine says; "And who made this will but He who created them with a good will, that is to say with a chaste love by which they should cleave to Him, in one and the same act creating their nature and endowing it with grace?... We must therefore acknowledge, with the praise due to the Creator, that not only of holy men, but also of the holy angels, it can be said that 'the love of G.o.d is shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Ghost, who is given unto them.' "(281)

Equally convincing is the argument that Adam in Paradise was unable to perform any salutary acts without divine grace. "Just as it is in man's power to die whenever he will," says St. Augustine, "... but the mere will cannot preserve life in the absence of food and the other means of life; so man in Paradise was able of his mere will, simply by abandoning righteousness, to destroy himself; but to have led a life of righteousness would have been too much for his will, unless it had been sustained by the power of Him who made him."(282)

This is also the teaching of the Second Council of Orange (A. D. 529): "Even if human nature remained in the state of integrity, in which it was const.i.tuted, it would in no wise save itself without the help of its Creator. If it was unable, without the grace of G.o.d, to keep what it had received, how should it be able without the grace of G.o.d to regain what it has lost?"(283)

c) The theological argument for the metaphysical necessity of grace is based on the essentially supernatural character of all salutary acts.

a) St. Thomas formulates it as follows: "Eternal life is an end transcending the proportion of human nature, ... and therefore man, by nature, can perform no meritorious works proportioned to eternal life, but requires for this purpose a higher power,-the power of grace.

Consequently, man cannot merit eternal life without grace. He is, however, able to perform acts productive of some good connatural to man, such as tilling the soil, drinking, eating, acts of friendship, etc."(284) For the reason here indicated it is as impossible for man to perform salutary acts without grace as it would be to work miracles without that divine a.s.sistance which transcends the powers of nature.(285)