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 GRACE

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GRACE

(a) The inner nature of sanctifying grace.

(b) Its formal operations.

(c) Its supernatural retinue.

(a) The Inner Nature. — (a) As we have seen that sanctifying grace designates a grace producing a per- manent condition, it follows that it must not be con- founded with a particular actual grace nor with a series of actual graces, as some ante-Tridentine theolo- gians seem to have held. This view is confirmed by the fact that the grace imparted to cliildren in bap- tism does not differ essentially from the sanctifying grace imparted to adults, an opinion which was not considered as altogether certain under Pope Innocent III (1201), was regarded as having a high degree of probability by Pope Clement V (1311), and was de- fined as certain by the Council of Trent (Sess. V, can. iii-v). Baptized infants cannot be justified by the use of actual grace, but only by a grace which effects or produces a certain condition in the recipient. Is this grace of condition or state, as Peter Lombard (Sent., I, dist. xvii, §18) held, identical with the Holy Spirit, whom we may call the permanent, uncreated grace (gratia IncTeata)"! It is quite impossible. For the person of the Holy Ghost cannot be poured out into our hearts (Rom,, v, 5), nor does it cleave to the soul as inherent justice (Trent, sess. \T, can. xi), nor can it be increased by good works (loc. cit., can. xxiv), and all this is apart from the fact that the justifying grace in Holy Writ is expressly termed a "gift [or grace] of the Holy Ghost" (Acts, ii, 3S; x, 45), and as the abiding seed of God (I John, iii, 9). From this it follows that the grace must be as distinct from the lloYy Ghost as the gift from the giver and the seed from the sower; consequently the Holy Spirit is our holiness, not by the holiness by which He Himself is holy, but by that holiness by which He makes us holy. He is not, therefore, the causa jormalis, but merely the causa efficiens, of our holiness.

Moreover, sanctifying grace as an active reality, and not a merely external relation, must be philosoph- ically either substance or accident. Now, it is cer- tainly not a substance which exists by itself, or apart from the soul, therefore it is a physical accident inher- ing in the soul, so that the soul becomes the subject in which grace inheres; but such an accident is in meta- physics called quality (qualitas, TrotirTjs), therefore sanctifjing grace may be philosophically termed a "permanent, supernatural quality of the soul", or, as the Roman Catechism (P. II, cap. ii, de bap., n. 50) says, "divina qualitas in anima inhserens".

(/3) Sanctif j-ing grace cannot be termed a habit {Itah- ilus) with the same precision as it is called a quality. Metaphysicians enumerate four kinds of quality: habit and disposition; power and want of power; passion and passible quality, for example, to blush, pale with wrath; form and figure (cf. Aristotle, Categ., VI). Manifestly sanctifying grace must be placed in the first of these four classes, namely habit or disposition; but as dispositions are fleeting things, and habit has a permanency, theologians agree that sanctifying grace is undoubtedly a habit, hence the name: Habitual Grace (gratia liabitualis). Habitue is subdivided into habitus entitativus and habilus operativtis. A habitus entitatii'us is a quality or condition added to a sub- stance by which condition or quality the substance is found peimanently good or bad, for instance: sickness or health, beauty, deformity, etc. Habitus operativus is a disposition to produce certain operations or acts, for instance, moderation or extravagance; this habi- tus is called either virtue or vice just as the soul is in- clined thereby to a moral good or to a moral evil. Now, sine.' sanctifying grace does not of itself impart any such -eadiness, celerity, or facility in action, we must consi ler it primarily as a habitus entitativus, not as a hnhitus operativus. Therefore, since the popular concept of habitus, which usually designates a readi- ness, does not accurately express the idea of sancti- VI.— 45

fying grace, another terra is employed, i. e. a quality after the manner of a habit (qualitas per modum habi- tus), and this term is applied with Bellarmine (De grat. et lib. arbit., I, iii). Grace, however, preserves an inner relation to a supernatural activity, because it does not impart to the soul the act but rather the dis- position to perform supernatural and meritorious acts; therefore grace is remotely and mediately a disposi- tion to act (habitus remote operativus). On account of this and other metaphysical subtleties the Council of Trent has refrained from applying the term habitus to sanctifying grace.

In the order of nature a distinction is made between natural and acquired habits (habilus innalu.<i, and habitus acquisilus), to distinguish between natural in- stincts, such, for instance, as are common to the brute creation, and acquired habits such as we de- velop by practice, for instance skill in playing a musi- cal instrument etc. But grace is supernatural, and can not, therefore, be classed either as a natural or an acquired habit ; it can only be received, accordingly, by infusion from above, therefore it is a supernatural in- fused habit (habilus inlusus).

(y) If theologians could succeed in estabUshing the identity sometimes maintained between the nature of grace and charity, a great step forward would be taken in the examination of the nature of grace, for we are more familiar with the infused virtue of charity than with the hidden mysterious nature of sanctifying grace. For the identity of grace and charity some of the older theologians have contended — Peter Lom- bard, Scotus, Bellarmine, Lessius, and others — declar- ing that, according to the Bible and the teaching of the Fathers, the process of justification may be at times attributable to sanctifying grace and at other times to the virtue of charity. Similar effects de- mand a similar cause; therefore there exists, in this view, merely a virtual distinction between the two, inasmuch as one and the same reality appears under one aspect as grace, and under another as charity. This similarity is confirmed by the further fact that the life or death of the soul is occasioned respectively by the presence in, or absence from, the soul of char- ity. Nevertheless, all these arguments may tend to establish a similarity, but do not prove a case of iden- tity. Probably the correct view is that which sees a real distinction between grace and charity, and this view is held by most theologians, including St. Thomas Aquinas and Suarez. Many passages in Scripture and patrology and in the enactments of synods con- firm this view. Often, indeed, grace and charity are placed side by side, which could not be done without a pleonasm if they were identical. Lastly, sanctifying grace is a habilus entitativus, and theological charity a habilus operativus: the former, namely sanctifying grace, being a habitus entitativus, informs and trans- forms the suKstance of the soul; the latter, namely charity, being a habilus operativus, supernaturally informs and influences the will (cf. Ripalda, "l3e ente sup.", disp. cxxiii; BiUuart, "De gratia", disp. iv, 4).

(S) The cUmax of the presentation of the nature of sanctifying grace is found in its character as a partici- pation in the Divine nature, which in a measure mdi- cates its specific difference. To this imdeniable fact of the supernatural participation in the Divine nature is our attention directed not only by the express words of Holy Writ: ut efjiciamini dii'inw consortes nalurw (II Pet., i, 4), but also by the Bibhcal concept of "the issue and birth from God", since the begotten must receive of the nature of the progenitor, though in this case it onl}- holds in an accidental and analogical sense. Since this same idea has been found in the writings of the Fathers, and is incorporated in the liturgy of the Mass, to dispute or reject it would be nothing short of temerity. It is difficult to excogitate a manner (modus) in which this participation of the

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