Grace
109. The Necessity of Grace
1. A creature depends upon God for its existence and its ability to act, and also for the exercise of its ability to act. Man's intellect therefore needs God to know anything whatever. But man's intellect needs God in a special way to know truths that lie beyond its natural range. To grasp such truths, the mind of man requires supernatural light in addition to its own natural light. This supernatural light is the light of grace.
2. Man's will also needs supernatural aid to choose and accomplish supernatural good. This aid is a strength added to the natural strength of the will, and bestowed on the will as a gift of God. The name of this gift is grace.
3. Speaking absolutely, man can love God above all things without grace, for this is the very drive and purpose of his nature. But man is fallen; sin has hurt his nature; he can no longer achieve what ought to be naturally attainable. Therefore, even to love God naturally above all things, man requires supernatural grace. Certainly, to love God supernaturally above all things, man requires grace, and would require it even if he had retained his primal innocence.
4. Man cannot fulfill the Commandments of the Law without the help of grace. Before the fall, innocent man could, without grace, perform the works required by the Commandments, but could not perform them out of supernatural charity as their perfection demands. Therefore, man, innocent as well as fallen, needs the grace of God to fulfill the law of God.
5. Hence it is clear that man cannot merit heaven by his unaided efforts. Man labors for a supernatural end, and such an end is, by the very force of ideas and words, outside the range and grasp of natural powers: the natural cannot compass the supernatural. To win heaven, man must have divine grace.
6. Indeed, man cannot, without grace, even prepare himself to receive grace. To prepare himself for grace, man must be turned to God in a supernatural way; for this supernatural turning to God, supernatural aid is required; grace is required.
7. Man cannot rise from sin without grace. By serious sin, man stains his soul, brings disorder into his natural powers, and incurs the debt of everlasting punishment. And man cannot, without grace, remove these evil consequences of grave sin.
8. Nor, without grace, can a man avoid sin. For the fall of Adam has left man prone to sin, and has dulled his natural powers of alertness and ready opposition to its attacks. Without supernatural aid, man must certainly succumb to some of the assaults of temptation. Hence, man needs grace to avoid sin.
9. Once he has attained grace, man is not thereby permanently equipped for doing good and avoiding evil. He needs new graces, constantly supplied. True, once grace is attained, man's nature is healed and made capable of meritorious acts; his soul has the state or habit of sanctifying grace. But, in addition to this habitual grace, man needs special helps to meet continual emergencies, unruly tendencies and urges in his nature, darkness of mind and weakness of will in particular cases where he needs to know what to do and needs prompt strength to do it valorously. Man in the state of sanctifying grace needs an unfailing supply of actual graces. Just so, a man in robust health needs an unfailing supply of food and the other things that will keep him in health.
10. Perseverance in God's grace to the end of life requires the sustained giving of graces by almighty God, and is itself a special grace. The fact that a man has obtained grace is not a guarantee that he will never lose it, nor is it guarantee that, if lost, grace will be recovered and possessed at the time of death. Yet it is of paramount importance that man have grace at the moment of death. He is required to "persevere unto the end," if he is to be saved. Hence man needs the special gift and grace of God which is called "the grace of final perseverance," and for this gift and grace he must ever pray.
110. The Essence of Grace
1. The grace of God is a gift bestowed on man's soul to enlighten and strengthen it above the measure of its natural light and strength.
2. Grace is received into the soul as a quality of the soul. It is a supernatural quality which disposes the soul to supernatural well-being and supernatural well-doing.
3. Grace is not identical with supernatural virtue; it is prior to such virtue, and is its root. Supernatural virtue is a habit which works by, through, and with grace.
4. Grace is not, as virtue is, primarily in the powers of the soul; it is received into the essence of the soul, and flows from the soul's essence into the soul's powers.
111. The Classification of Graces
1. Grace given to make the receiver holy is sanctifying grace. Grace given to one person for the benefit and holiness of others is gratuitous grace; such, for example, is the grace of miracles, or the grace of prophecy.
2. Grace which directly moves the mind or will to act is operating grace; grace which disposes mind and will to receive and use operating grace is cooperating grace.
3. Grace which precedes an operation or state of the soul is pre-venient grace; grace which follows a prior effect of grace is subsequent grace. Grace has five effects: (a) it heals the soul; (b) it awakens the desire for good; (c) it helps carry the desire for good to the actual achievement of good; (d) it gives perseverance; (e) it conducts the soul to glory. The same grace may be subsequent to one of these effects and prevenient to another.
4. Gratuitous graces are thus listed by St. Paul (I Cor. 12:8-10): wisdom, knowledge, miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, tongues, interpretation of speeches.
5. Sanctifying grace sets man directly in line with God, his last end. Gratuitous grace stirs man and prepares him to get in line with his last end. Thus a man observing a miracle (wrought by the gratuitous grace of miracles in the person God uses as instrument to perform the miracle) may be stirred to repentance or to deeper piety, and so be moved to obtain sanctifying grace. It is clear, therefore, that sanctifying grace is, in itself, more noble and excellent than gratuitous grace; it is better to be in the state of sanctifying grace than to have the grace of miracles.
112. The Cause of Grace
1. Only God can make a man a sharer in the divine nature. Only God can bestow the gift of God. Now, grace is "a participation in the divine nature"; grace is a gift of God. Hence, God alone is the true cause of grace.
2. Grace which helps move us to good, in being or action, is all from God, and not in any way from ourselves. Even the preparation or disposition for grace is entirely from God. By accepting cooperating grace, we enter into the disposition which prepares us for the receiving of sanctifying or habitual grace.
3. In so far as the human will can thus (by accepting cooperating grace and using it) make preparation for grace, it can set up no necessity or demand that grace should actually follow upon the preparation. For no merely human preparation can adequately and compellingly dispose the soul for supernatural gifts. But in so far as man's preparation is from God, grace follows it infallibly.
4. Sanctifying grace is a greater or lesser gift (not in itself, for in itself it admits of no degrees), according to the capacity and readiness of the receiver. Yet, since God alone can effectively dispose the soul to receive grace, it is God who is truly "the measure of grace." St. Paul (Eph. 4:7) says, "To every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the giving of Christ."
5. Man cannot know for certain that he has the grace of God unless God reveal the fact to him. Merely natural knowledge cannot give certitude of a supernatural fact or experience. But man may have an imperfect knowledge of the fact that he has grace; that is, he may have justified conjectural knowledge, based on signs, such as delight in the thought of God, a contempt for merely material and worldly goods, and the fact that he is not conscious of mortal sin.
113. The Effects of Grace
1. A man is justified by the remission or removal of the guilt of sin.
2. This removal or remission of sins is effected in man by the in-pouring of supernatural grace.
3. God gives the grace which justifies; he also gives to free will the grace to accept justification. God moves all things according to the nature he gave them in creating them; to man's nature he gave free will; hence, by grace he moves man's will to accept freely the justifying or sanctifying grace which removes the guilt of sin from the soul.
4. To move the will to accept grace, the mind or intellect is moved; for free will follows in its choice the ultimate practical judgment of the intellect. Now, the intellect is here moved by being turned to God by faith. Hence, a movement of faith is required for the justifying of a sinner.
5. Since free will cannot choose to turn to God unless it also chooses to turn away from sin, there are two will-acts required for justification: the repudiating of sin, and the embracing of God's justice.
6. Four things are required for the justification of a sinner: (a) the infusion of grace; (b) the movement of the free will towards God; (c) the movement of the free will to reject sin; (d) the remission of sins.
7. The justification of a sinner, which is the change from the state of sin to the state of grace, is not a gradual change but an instantaneous one. The effective factor in this change is the infusion of grace, and this is an instantaneous act. Sometimes, indeed, the soul is gradually disposed, by successive influences, to receive justification. But the actual justification does not consume time, or admit of successive degrees or steps.
8. In the actual justification of a sinner, all four requisites-grace, faith, hatred of sin, remission-concur in the same instant. But in their own nature there is priority among these requisites for justification. Thus considered, first comes the infusion of grace; then, the will's movement towards God by faith and love; then, the will's rejection of sin; finally, the remission of guilt.
9. The justifying of sinners by grace can be called the greatest work of God. Not only is this work great in itself; it is great in the fact that it is done for those unworthy of it. Psalm 144 says that God's tender mercies are over all his works. And the work of justifying a sinner is a work of most tender mercy.
10. Apart from wondrous and unusual manifestations, as in the conversion of St. Paul, the justifying of a sinner is not called a miracle. For a miracle, taken in its widest meaning as a wondrous work divinely wrought, is always something outside the usual course of God's proceeding with men. Now, justification regularly proceeds by the same course: grace, faith, rejection of sin, remission.
114. Merit
1. Merit, taken objectively, is something earned, something owed to a person. Taken subjectively, merit is the right of a person to his earnings, to what is owed him. Now, man cannot by his own nature set up a right towards God, and demand by the law of justice that he be paid for anything he has done. Yet God has been pleased to allow man what creatural nature cannot achieve of itself. God has provided that man can have merit, and can establish a just claim for supernatural reward. The basis of this blessed situation lies in the fact that human free will, although moved by unmerited grace, actually does cooperate with God's will in accepting and using grace.
2. Eternal life (that is, the enjoyment of the beatific vision forever in heaven) is something beyond the power of any created nature to achieve unaided. Even in his primal state of innocence, man could not merit eternal life by his natural powers. For meriting eternal life, supernatural grace is absolutely necessary.
3. There are two types of merit, condign merit and congruous merit. Condign merit is the right in strict justice to a reward. Congruous merit is not so much a right as a claim; it rests upon what is suitable or fitting in a situation; it is a kind of deserving rather than an earning. Now, in so far as a man's meritorious work is human, although performed in and by grace, it can merit only congruously. But in so far as the meritorious work is God's work in man, it can merit condignly, and thus establish a right to eternal life. By his grace, God makes us participators in the divine nature; he makes us his adopted children; he makes us "sons of God." And St. Paul says (Rom. 7:17): "If sons, heirs also." And thus we can merit our inheritance as God's children; we can merit eternal life.
4. The meriting of eternal life by grace comes first by charity; and under charity, by the other virtues.
5. Man cannot merit the first grace which justifies him. For to have merit, man must have grace; merit is the fruit of grace. Hence the first grace, the grace which removes the guilt of sin and establishes the soul in the state of grace, is imparted to the soul by God, with no right or claim on man's part to demand or deserve it.
6. No one but Christ can condignly merit the first grace for another. But a man in the state of grace, praying and offering good works for the justification of another person, may set up a claim for God's mercy towards that person. Thus one may merit congruously, but never condignly, the first grace for another.
7. A man who sins mortally cuts himself off from God and from all claims on God. He cannot merit his own restoration to grace, either condignly or congruously. Nor can a man in the state of grace merit his own restoration in case he should commit mortal sin at some future time. For mortal sin, if it comes, will destroy all existing merits.
8. But a man in grace can, by using present grace, condignly merit further grace; that is, a man in grace can condignly merit increase in grace.
9. The special grace of final perseverance cannot be merited. It is the free gift of God to those who will receive it.
10. Man cannot merit temporal goods except in so far as these are needed for virtuous works that lead to heaven.