Chapter II. The State Of Justification
Though the term “justification” may be extended to the preparatory acts that lead up to the state of justice, strictly speaking it signifies only that decisive moment in which the sinner is cleansed from mortal sin by an infusion of sanctifying grace. Hence a careful distinction must be made between justification as an act (actus iustificationis) and justification as an habitual state (habitus iustificationis s. status gratiae sanctificantis). The transient act introduces a permanent state, just as the Sacrament of Holy Orders constitutes a man in the sacerdotal state or priesthood.
Both as an act and as a state justification possesses three distinct properties; it is uncertain, unequal, and capable of being lost.
This gives us the basis for a division of the present Chapter into three Sections: (1) On the Nature of Justification, (2) On Justifying, i.e. Sanctifying Grace, and (3) On the Properties of that Grace.
Section 1. The Nature Of Justification
Justification in the active sense (iustificatio, δικαίωσις) is defined by the Tridentine Council as “a translation from that state wherein man is born a child of the first Adam, to the state of grace and of the adoption of the sons of God through the second Adam, Jesus Christ, our Saviour.”[860]
Justification, therefore, has both a negative and a positive element. The positive element is interior sanctification through the merits of Jesus Christ. The negative element consists in the forgiveness of sin. Though these elements are objectively inseparable, the forgiveness of sin being practically an effect of interior sanctification, yet we must treat them separately in order to be able to refute more effectively the Lutheran heresy that sin is not wiped out but merely “covered,” and that justification consists in an external “imputation” of the righteousness of Christ.
Article 1. The Negative Element Of Justification
1. The Heresy of the Protestant Reformers and the Teaching of the Church.—Luther held that human nature was radically depraved by original sin[861] and that justification consists in this, that sin (original and mortal) is no longer “imputed” to the sinner; that is to say, it is not blotted out but merely “covered” by the merits of Christ.
a) Forgiveness of sins, therefore, according to Luther, consists simply in their being no longer imputed.[862] This heresy was incorporated in the Formula of Concord and other symbolical books of the Lutheran Church,[863] and subsequently adopted by Calvin.[864]
b) The Catholic Church has always maintained that justification is a renewal of the soul by which [pg 303] a man's sins are blotted out and he becomes truly just. This applies first of all to original sin. “If,” says the Council of Trent, “anyone denies that by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is conferred in Baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted, or even asserts that the whole of that which has the true and proper nature of sin is not taken away, but says that it is only raised or not imputed, let him be anathema.”[865] What it here defines in regard to original sin, the Council elsewhere reaffirms in respect of mortal sin.[866]
2. Refutation of the Lutheran Theory.—The theory thus solemnly condemned by the Tridentine Fathers is unscriptural and opposed to Catholic Tradition.
a) The teaching of the Bible on this point may be reduced to four distinct heads.
(1) The remission of sin granted in the process of justification is a real annihilation of guilt; that is to say, the sins remitted cease to exist in the moral (though not, of course, in the historical) order. Cfr. Ps. L, 3: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy great mercy; and according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my iniquity.”[867] Is. XLIII, 25: “I am [pg 304] he that blot out thy iniquities.”[868] After God has blotted out a sin, it no longer exists. Cfr. Is. XLIV, 22: “I have blotted out thy iniquities as a cloud, and thy sins as a mist.”[869] Acts III, 19: “Be penitent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out.”[870] Elsewhere God is said to “take away” sin. Cfr. 2 Kings XII, 13: “The Lord also hath taken away thy sin.”[871] 1 Paral. XXI, 8: “I beseech thee, take away the iniquity of thy servant.”[872] When He takes away sin, it is really and truly blotted out. Cfr. Mich. VII, 18 sq.: “Who is a God like to thee, who takest away iniquity?... He will put away our iniquities, and he will cast all our sins into the bottom of the sea.”[873] Ps. X, 15: “His sin shall be sought, and shall not be found.”[874] Ps. CII, 12: “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our iniquities from us.”[875] Consequently, when our Divine Saviour said of Mary Magdalen: “Many sins are forgiven her,”[876] He meant that her sins were completely blotted out and taken away.
(2) Justification washes the soul from iniquity and purifies the heart. Cfr. Ps. L, 4: “Wash me yet more from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.”[877] Is. I, 16: “Wash yourselves, be clean.”[878] After one's sins are [pg 305] washed away, the heart is clean and pure. Cfr. Ez. XXXVI, 25 sq.: “And I will pour upon you clean water, and you shall be cleansed from all your filthiness, ... and I will give you a new heart.”[879] 1 Cor. VI, 11: “And such [fornicators, etc.] some of you were; but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified.”[880] Spotless purity takes the place of the impurity that previously defiled the soul of the sinner. Cfr. Ps. L, 9: “Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed: thou shalt wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow.”[881] Is. I, 18: “If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool.”[882] No trace of sin remains in the soul after it has been washed in the Precious Blood of Christ. Apoc. I, 5: “... Jesus Christ, ... hath loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood.”[883] 1 John I, 7: “... the blood of Jesus Christ ... cleanseth us from all sin.”[884]
(3) Justification is an awakening of the sinner from death to life, a transition from darkness to light. Cfr. 1 John III, 14: “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren; he that loveth not, abideth in death.”[885] Col. II, 13: “And you, when [pg 306] you were dead in your sins, ... he hath quickened together with him, forgiving you all offences.”[886] Eph. V, 8: “For you were heretofore darkness, but now light in the Lord.”[887]
(4) Baptism, in particular, completely removes all guilt. Cfr. Acts XXII, 16: “Rise up, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins.”[888] Hence, though concupiscence remains, the soul has no longer in it anything damnable, i.e. any trace of original or mortal sin. Cfr. Rom. VIII, 1: “There is now therefore no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.”[889]
It requires no special acuteness to perceive that this Biblical teaching is irreconcilably opposed to the Protestant theory of non-imputation. If, as the Lutherans allege, God merely declared the believer just, justification would not blot out or take away sin, nor could it be truthfully said that light and life take the place of death and darkness; something deserving of condemnation would still remain in those that are in Christ Jesus.[890]
There are a few Scriptural texts that seem to favor the Lutheran view, but they must be interpreted in conformity with the general teaching of the Bible as outlined [pg 307] above. Among these texts is Ps. XXXI, 1 sq.: “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord hath not imputed sin, and in whose spirit there is no guile.”[891] The parallelism apparent in this verse allows us to conclude that “covered” is used in the sense of “remitted” and that “he to whom the Lord hath not imputed sin” is identical with the man “in whose spirit there is no guile.” The text manifestly refers to a real forgiveness of sins, for any sin that God “covers” and ceases to “impute,” must be blotted out and swept away, because “all things are naked and open to the eyes” of the omniscient Creator.[892]
Another favorite text of the Lutheran theologians is Rom. VII, 17: “Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.”[893] This passage clearly refers to concupiscence, which remains in the sinner after justification, but, according to Rom. VIII, 1 and James I, 14 sq., is not truly and properly sin but merely called “sin”[894] by metonymy, “because,” in the words of the Tridentine Council, “it is of sin and inclines to sin.”[895]
b) The Fathers of the Church, both Greek and Latin, unanimously teach that justification effects the forgiveness of sins.
St. Justin Martyr says: “By doing penance, all who desire it can obtain mercy from God, and Scripture calls them blessed in saying: ‘Blessed is he to whom God hath not imputed sin,’ which means that he receives forgiveness of his sins from God, not as you, deceiving yourselves, and others like you aver, that God does not impute [their] sin to them, though they are [still] sinners.”[896] Clement of Alexandria likens Baptism to “a bath in which sins are washed off.”[897] St. Gregory Nazianzen says: “It is called Baptism [βαπτισμός, from βάπτειν, to immerse] because the sin is buried in water, ... and a bath (λουτρόν), because it washes off.”[898] St. Augustine indignantly opposes the erroneous opinion of the Pelagians that Baptism does not take away sins but merely “trims them off.” “Who but an unbeliever,” he exclaims, “can affirm this against the Pelagians? We say, therefore, that Baptism gives remission of all sins and takes away crimes, not merely trims them off (radere) in such wise that the roots of all sins may be preserved in an evil flesh, as of hair trimmed on the head, when the sins cut down may grow again.”[899] Pope St. Gregory the Great seems almost to have foreseen the heresy of the Protestant Reformers, for he says: “But if there are any who say that in Baptism sins are forgiven [pg 309] as to outward appearance only, what can be more un-Catholic than such preaching?... He who says that sins are not completely forgiven in Baptism might as well say that the Egyptians did not perish in the Red Sea. But if he admits that the Egyptians actually died [in the Red Sea], let him also admit that of necessity sins completely die in Baptism.”[900]
c) The theological argument may be briefly formulated as follows: We can imagine but two reasons why God should not truly forgive us our sins in the process of justification: inability and unwillingness. To say that He is unable to forgive us our sins would be to assert that the remission of sin involves a metaphysical impossibility. This no Protestant will admit, because all believe that “nothing defiled shall enter into heaven.”[901] To assert that God is unwilling to forgive our sins would be to contradict the plain teaching of Scripture, as set forth above. Consequently there is no reason whatever for assuming that God does not truly forgive us our sins in the process of justification. Furthermore, it would be incompatible with His veracity and holiness to assume that He merely declares the sinner to be “free from sin,” without actually cleansing his soul. It would be a contradiction to assert that a man whom the truthful and all-holy God has declared free from sin, remains steeped in iniquity. Cfr. Prov. XVII, 15: “He that justifieth the [pg 310] wicked [i.e. absolves him from his sins], and he that condemneth the just, both are abominable before God.”
According to Revelation the justification of the sinner is not a mere change, with a privation for its terminus a quo[902] and an indifferent form for its terminus ad quem, but involves a movement from extreme to extreme, and hence the genesis of the one extreme must coincide with the destruction of the other. Sin, being in contrary opposition to righteousness, must depart when righteousness enters the soul.[903]
Article 2. The Positive Element Of Justification
1. Heretical Errors and the Church.—Calvin held that justification consists essentially and exclusively in the remission of sins.[904] The other “Reformers” maintained that there must also be a positive element in the process, but differed in determining its nature.
a) The ambiguous language employed by Luther and Melanchthon gave rise to many different opinions, which agreed only in one point, that is, in holding, contrary to Catholic teaching, that the positive element of justification is not inward sanctification or inherent righteousness (i.e. sanctifying grace). Probably the view most common among the supporters of the Augsburg Confession was that the sinner, by a “fiduciary apprehension” of God's mercy, as proclaimed [pg 311] in the Gospel, “apprehends” the extrinsic justice of Christ, and with it covers his sins, which are thereupon no longer “imputed” to him. In other words, he is outwardly accounted and declared righteous in the sight of God, though inwardly he remains a sinner. With the exception of “sola fides” there was probably no shibboleth in the sixteenth century so persistently dinned into the ears of Catholics and Protestants alike as “iustitia Christi extra nos.” It is found in the Apologia written in defence of the Augsburg Confession[905] and recurs in the Formula of Concord.[906] According to the “orthodox” Lutheran view, therefore, justification on its positive side is a purely forensic and outward imputation of the righteousness of Christ, which the sinner seizes with the arm of faith and puts on like a cloak to hide the wounds of his soul.[907]
b) Against this dismal heresy the Tridentine Council solemnly declared that “Justification ... is not remission of sins merely, but also the sanctification and renewal of the inward man through the voluntary reception of the grace and of the gifts,”[908] and anathematized all those [pg 312] who say that “men are justified either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ or by the sole remission of sins, to the exclusion of the grace and the charity which is poured forth in their hearts by the Holy Ghost and is inherent in them, or even that the grace whereby we are justified is only the favor of God.”[909]
In thus defining the doctrine of the Church, the Council did not, however, mean to deny that the sinner is in a true sense “justified by the justice of Christ,”—in so far namely, as our Lord has merited for us the grace of justification. He merely wished to emphasize the fact that a sinner is not formaliter justified by the imputation of Christ's justice. For the sake of greater clearness the various “causes” of justification are enumerated as follows: “Of this justification the causes are these: the final cause indeed is the glory of God and of Jesus Christ, and life everlasting; while the efficient cause is a merciful God, who washes and sanctifies gratuitously; ... but the meritorious cause is His most beloved only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who ... merited justification for us by His most holy Passion on the wood of the Cross; ... the instrumental cause is the Sacrament of Baptism, which is the sacrament of faith, without which no man was ever justified; lastly, the sole formal cause is the justice of God, not that whereby He Himself is just, but that whereby He maketh us just, that, to wit, with which we being endowed are renewed [pg 313] in the spirit of our mind, and are not only reputed, but are truly called, and are, just.”[910]
So important did the distinction between the causa meritoria and the causa formalis of justification appear to the Fathers of Trent, that they made it the subject of a separate canon, to wit: “If anyone saith that men are just without the justice of Christ, whereby He merited for us to be justified; or that it is by that justice itself that they are formally just; let him be anathema.”[911] Justification in the Catholic sense, therefore, is not a mere outward imputation of the justice of Christ, but a true inward renewal and sanctification wrought by a grace intrinsically inhering in the soul. This grace theologians call the “grace of justification.”
2. Refutation of the Lutheran Theory of Imputation.—Nothing is so foreign to both the spirit and the letter of Holy Scripture as the idea that justification merely covers a man's sins with a cloak of justice and leaves him unsanctified within.
Justification is described in the Bible not only as a remission of sins,[912] but likewise as the beginning [pg 314] of a new life,[913] a renewal of the spirit,[914] a new creation,[915] a regeneration,[916] a supernatural likeness of God,[917] etc. All these similes point to a permanent state of sanctity in the soul of the just.
α) The Lutheran theory of imputation can be most effectively refuted by an analysis of the Scriptural term “regeneration” (regeneratio, ἀναγέννησις, παλιγγενεσία). “Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost,” says our Divine Lord, “he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”[918] This spiritual rebirth wipes out sin and inwardly sanctifies the soul. The regenerate sinner receives a new and godlike nature. That this nature can be conceived in no other way than as a state of sanctity and justice appears clearly from Tit. III, 5 sqq.: “Not by the works of justice which we have done, but according to His mercy, He saved us, by the laver of regeneration and renovation of the Holy Ghost, whom he hath poured forth upon us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour: that, being justified by His grace, we may be heirs, according to the hope of life everlasting.”[919] Both text and context show that the Apostle is here speaking of the justification of adult sinners in Baptism, which he describes as a “laver of regeneration and renovation” [pg 315] resulting in an “outpouring of the Holy Ghost.” These phrases plainly denote a positive quality of the soul as well as a permanent interior grace. Regeneration consists in the remission of sin through Baptism, and also, more particularly, in man being made like God, i.e. becoming a child of God,[920] while “renovation” means “putting off the old man”[921] and “putting on the new.”[922] The “outpouring of the Holy Ghost” effected by Baptism is not, of course, an outpouring of the Hypostasis of the Third Person of the Trinity, but of created grace, which re-forms the sinner and makes him just.[923] This justifying grace must not be conceived as an actual grace, much less as a series of actual graces, for it is not given us merely as an aid in the performance of some particular act, but as a new nature. Regeneration and renovation denote a state of being, as we can plainly see in the case of baptized infants. It is for this reason that the Apostle speaks of it as a lasting state;—that which theologians call the status gratiae sanctificantis.[924]
Closely akin to the notion of “regeneration” is that of “re-creation.” Justification renews the sinner inwardly and makes of him, so to speak, a new creature, which has sloughed off sin and become just and holy in the sight of God. Cfr. 2 Cor. V, 17: “If then any be in Christ a new creature, the old things are passed away, behold all things are made new.”[925] This is all the more true since re-creation effects an “incorporation of man [pg 316] with Christ,” and is closely connected with “regeneration of God.” Cfr. James I, 18: “For of his own will hath he begotten us by the word of truth, that we might be some beginning of his creature.”[926] A comparison with Gal. VI, 15 and Gal. V, 6 fully establishes it as a Biblical truth that in the process of justification the sinner, through faith informed by charity, is changed into a new creature. “For in Christ Jesus,” says St. Paul, “neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.”[927] And again: “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith that worketh by charity.”[928] In both these texts the Jewish rite of circumcision is rejected as useless and contrasted with justification, which by means of the fides formata gives birth to a “new creature.” This is incompatible with the Protestant notion that a man is justified by being declared righteous in the sight of God, though he remains inwardly unchanged.[929]
β) The Lutherans vainly appeal to the fact that Holy Scripture employs the word “justify”[930] for the purpose of declaring a man to be just in a purely forensic sense, as in Is. V, 23: “Who justify the wicked for gifts.” This proves nothing against the Catholic doctrine, which is based entirely [pg 317] on texts that exclude the judicial meaning of the term and plainly refer to inward sanctification.[931]
The word “justification” also occurs in two other meanings in the Bible. Ps. CXVIII, 8 and 26 it stands in the plural for the “law”: “I will keep thy justifications;”[932] and “Teach me thy justifications.”[933] Apoc. XXII, 11 and in a few other passages it signifies “growth” in interior holiness, which theologians call iustificatio secunda.[934]
The Lutherans are equally unfortunate in maintaining that St. Paul countenances their theory when he speaks of “putting on Christ.” Cfr. Gal. III, 27: “For as many of you as have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ.”[935] The Apostle in employing this simile does not mean to say that justification consists in putting on an outward cloak of grace to cover sins which inwardly endure, but precisely the contrary, viz.: that the sinner by being justified is inwardly cleansed from sin and becomes a new creature and a child of God. This interpretation is supported by various parallel texts[936] and by the staple of St. Paul's teaching.
Another passage which the Lutherans cite in their favor is 1 Cor. I, 30: “... who [Christ Jesus] of God is made unto us wisdom, and justice, and sanctification, and redemption.”[937] Christ is made unto us justice [pg 318] and sanctification, in what sense? Manifestly in the same sense in which He is made unto us wisdom of God, that is to say, in so far as He imparts to us wisdom, which thereupon becomes our own, but not in the sense that the wisdom of Christ is outwardly imputed to us. Note that St. Paul in this and many other passages of his Epistles merely wishes to emphasize the gratuity of the Redemption and of grace to the exclusion of all natural merit on the part of man.[938]
b) As regards the teaching of the Fathers, the “Reformers” themselves admitted that it was against them.[939]
We read in the Epistle of Barnabas, which was probably composed about A. D. 100:[940] “Since then He made us new by the remission of sins, he made us another type, that we should have the soul of children, as though He were creating us afresh.”
The reason why St. Paul calls Baptism the “laver of regeneration” rather than the laver of forgiveness, is explained by St. John Chrysostom[941] as follows: “Because it [Baptism] not only remits our sins and wipes out our misdeeds, but accomplishes all this in such a way as if we [pg 319] were born anew;[942] for it entirely re-creates and re-forms us.”[943]
St. Ambrose regards innocence as the positive element of justification: “After this [i.e. Baptism] you received a white robe, to indicate that you stripped off the vesture of sin and put on the chaste garments of innocence.”[944]
Harnack claims that St. Augustine first stemmed the current dogmatic tradition and reshaped it by going back to St. Paul. Bellarmine[945] refuted this audacious assertion long before it was rehashed by the German rationalist. The Council of Trent was so thoroughly imbued with the teaching of Augustine that its decrees and canons on justification read as though they were lifted bodily from his writings. The great “Doctor of Grace” flatly contradicts the Protestant theory of imputation in such utterances as these: “He [St. Paul] does not say, ‘the righteousness of man,’ ... but ‘the righteousness of God,’—meaning not that whereby He is Himself righteous, but that with which He endows man when He justifies the ungodly.... The righteousness of God is by faith of Jesus Christ, that is, by the faith wherewith one believes in Christ. For here is not meant the faith with which Christ Himself believes, just as there was not meant the righteousness whereby God is Himself righteous. Both no doubt are ours; but yet they are called [in one case] God's, and [in the other] Christ's, because it is by their bounty that these [pg 320] gifts are bestowed upon man.”[946] Again: “When righteousness is given to us, it is not called our own righteousness, but God's, because it becomes ours only so that we have it from God.”[947] Again: “The grace of God is called the righteousness of God through our Lord Jesus Christ, not that by which the Lord is just, but that by which He justifies those whom from unrighteous He makes righteous.”[948] Again: “The love of God is said to be shed abroad in our hearts, not because He loves us, but because He makes us lovers of Himself; just as the righteousness of God is used in the sense of our being made righteous by His gift.”[949] According to St. Augustine, therefore, justification culminates in a true sanctification of the soul. “When he [St. Paul] says: ‘We are transformed into the same image,’ he assuredly means to speak of the image of God; and by calling it ‘the same,’ he means that very image which we see in the glass,... and that we pass from a form that is obscure to a form that is bright,... and this [human] nature, being the most excellent among things created, is changed from a form that is defaced into a form that is beautiful, when it is justified by its Creator from ungodliness.”[950]
The Augustinian passages which we have quoted (and they are not by any means all that could be quoted) enumerate the distinguishing marks of sanctifying grace in so far as it is the formal cause of justification.[951]
c) The argument from Revelation can be reinforced by certain philosophical considerations which show the absurdity of the imputation theory from the standpoint of common sense.
A man outwardly justified but inwardly a sinner would be a moral monster, and Almighty God would be guilty of an intrinsic contradiction were He to regard and treat such a one as just. This contradiction is not removed but rather intensified by the Lutheran appeal to the extraneous justice of Christ.[952]
The incongruity of the Lutheran doctrine of justification becomes fully apparent from the consequences which it involves, to wit: (1) all Christians without distinction would possess exactly the same degree of sanctity and justice; (2) justification once obtained by fiduciary faith could not be lost except by the sin of unbelief; and (3) children would not be justified by Baptism because they are not sufficiently advanced in the use of reason to enable them to “apprehend” the external righteousness of Christ. The first of these inferences [pg 322] runs counter to common sense and experience. The second, which Luther clothed in the shameful exhortation, “Pecca fortiter et crede fortius et nihil nocebunt centum homicidia et mille stupra,”[953] is repugnant to the teaching of Scripture and destructive of morality.[954] The third consistently led to the rejection of infant baptism by the Anabaptists, the Mennonites, and other Protestant sects.
3. Sanctifying Grace the Sole Formal Cause of Justification.—In declaring that “inherent grace” is the “sole formal cause of justification,” the Council of Trent[955] defined it as an article of faith that sanctifying grace of itself is able to produce all the formal effects of justification, e.g. forgiveness of sins, the sanctification of the sinner, his adoption by God, etc.,[956] and consequently requires no supplementary or contributory causes. In other words, justification is wholly and fully accomplished by the infusion of sanctifying grace.
a) It appears from the discussions preceding its sixth session that the Tridentine Council not only meant to condemn the heretical contention of Butzer that “inherent grace” must be supplemented by the “imputed justice of Christ” as the really essential factor of justification,[957] but also wished to reject the view of divers contemporary Catholic theologians[958] that “intrinsic righteousness” [pg 323] is inadequate to effect justification without a special favor Dei externus.[959] In this the Fathers of the Council were on Scriptural ground. The principal effects of justification,—forgiveness of sins and internal sanctification,—are both produced by sanctifying grace. Sacred Scripture is perfectly clear on this point. It represents sin as opposed to grace in the same way in which darkness is opposed to light,[960] life to death,[961] the new man to the old.[962] The one necessarily excludes the other. Sanctifying grace and sin cannot co-exist in the same subject.
Internal sanctification may be defined as a permanent, vital union with God, by which the soul becomes righteous and holy in His sight and obtains a claim to Heaven. That this is also a function of sanctifying grace appears from those Scriptural texts which treat of the positive element of justification.[963] With this doctrine Tradition is in perfect accord, and consequently the Fathers of Trent were right in teaching as they did, in fact they could not have taught otherwise.[964]
b) While all Catholic theologians admit the incompatibility of grace and sin in the same subject, they differ as to the kind and degree of opposition existing between the two. Some hold that this opposition is purely moral, others that it is physical, again others that it is metaphysical.
α) Nominalists[965] and Scotists[966] before the Tridentine decision maintained that the distinction between sanctifying grace and (original or mortal) sin is based on a free decree of the Almighty, and therefore purely moral. God, they held, by a favor externus superadditus, externally supplies what sanctifying grace internally lacks, just as a government's stamp raises the value of a coin beyond the intrinsic worth of the bullion. Followed to its legitimate conclusions, this shallow theory means that sanctifying grace is of itself insufficient to wipe out sin, and that, but for the superadded divine favor, grace and sin might co-exist in the soul. This is tantamount to saying that justification requires a twofold formal cause, viz.: sanctifying grace and a favor Dei superadditus,—which runs counter to the teaching of Trent. Henno tries to escape this objection by explaining that the favor Dei acceptans appertains not to the formal but merely to the efficient cause of justification. But this contention is manifestly untenable. Sanctifying grace is either able to wipe out sin, or it is unable: if it is unable to produce this effect, the favor Dei acceptans must be part of the causa formalis of justification, and then, in Henno's hypothesis, we should have a duplex causa formalis, which contradicts the Tridentine decree. If, on the other hand, sanctifying grace is able to wipe out sin without any favor superadditus, then the Scotistic theory has no raison d'être.
β) From what we have said it follows that there must be at least a physical contrariety between grace and sin. The difference between physical and metaphysical opposition may be illustrated by the example of fire and water. These two elements are incompatible by a [pg 325] law of nature. But as there is no metaphysical contradiction between them, Almighty God could conceivably bring them together. It is this physical kind of opposition that Suarez and a few of his followers assume to exist between grace and sin. Absolutely speaking, they say, there is no intrinsic contradiction in the assumption that God could preserve the physical entity of sanctifying grace in a soul guilty of mortal sin.[967] In so far as this school admits the existence of an internal opposition, which actually prevents original or mortal sin from ever co-existing in the soul with justifying grace, its teaching may be said to be acceptable to all Catholic theologians. The Scotistic view, on account of its incompatibility with the teaching of the Tridentine Council, is no longer held.
It may be questioned, however, whether Suarez goes far enough in this matter, and whether the opposition between grace and sin could really be overcome by a miracle. The simultaneous co-existence of grace and sin seems to involve an absolute, i.e. metaphysical, contradiction.
γ) This is what the Thomists maintain with the majority of Jesuit theologians.[968] As some subtle objections have been raised against this view, it cannot be accepted as theologically certain; but it undoubtedly corresponds better than its opposite to the spirit and letter of Scripture. The Bible, as we have already pointed out, likens the opposition existing between grace and sin to that between life and death,[969] justice and injustice, [pg 326] Christ and Belial, God and an idol.[970] But these are contradictories, ergo.[971] The same conclusion can be reached by arguing from the character of sanctifying grace as a participatio divinae naturae.[972] If grace is a participation in the divine nature, it must be opposed to sin in the same way in which God Himself is opposed to it. Now God as the All-Holy One is metaphysically opposed to sin; consequently, the same kind of opposition must exist between sanctifying grace and sin.
It is alleged against this teaching that between habitual grace and habitual sin there is merely a disparate opposition, i.e. that of a physical to a moral form, the concepts of which are not mutually exclusive. But sanctifying grace is more than a physical ornament of the soul; it is an ethical form which has for its essential function to render the soul holy and righteous in the sight of God.[973]
Readings:—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 1a 2ae, qu. 113, and the commentators, especially Billuart, De Gratia, diss. 7, art. 1 sqq.; *Bellarmine, De Iustificatione, l. II (Opera Omnia, ed. Fèvre, Vol. VI, pp. 208 sqq., Paris 1873).
Besides the current text-books cfr. *Jos. Wieser, S. Pauli Apostoli Doctrina de Iustificatione, Trent 1874; H. Th. Simar, Die Theologie des hl. Paulus, 2nd ed., §33 sqq. Freiburg 1883.
On the Protestant notion of justification cfr. Möhler, Symbolik, [pg 327] §10 sqq., Mainz 1890 (Robertson's translation, pp. 82 sqq., 5th ed., London 1906); Realenzyklopädie für prot. Theologie, Vol. XVI, 3rd ed., pp. 482 sqq., Leipzig 1905 (summarized in English in the New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. VI, pp. 275 sqq., New York 1910); Card. Newman, Lectures on the Doctrine of Justification, 8th impression, London 1900; J. Mausbach, Catholic Moral Teaching and its Antagonists, New York 1914, pp. 150 sqq.—B. J. Otten, S. J., A Manual of the History of Dogmas, Vol. II, St. Louis 1918, pp. 246 sqq., 464 sq., 470 sqq.
Section 2. Justifying Or Sanctifying Grace
Sanctifying grace is defined by Deharbe as “an unmerited, supernatural gift, imparted to the soul by the Holy Ghost, by which we are made just, children of God, and heirs of Heaven.” As it makes sinners just, sanctifying grace is also called justifying, though this appellation can not be applied to the sanctification of our first parents in Paradise or to that of the angels and the sinless soul of Christ. Justification, as we have shown, consists in the infusion of sanctifying grace, and hence it is important that we obtain a correct idea of the latter. We will therefore consider (1) The Nature of Sanctifying Grace, (2) Its Effects in the Soul, and (3) Its Supernatural Concomitants.
Article 1. The Nature Of Sanctifying Grace
1. Sanctifying Grace a “Permanent Quality” of the Soul.—Having no intuitive knowledge of sanctifying grace, we are obliged, in order [pg 329] to obtain an idea of its true nature, to study its effects, as made known to us by Revelation. Sacred Scripture and the teaching of the Church do, however, enable us to form certain well-defined conclusions, of which the most important is that sanctifying grace must be conceived as a permanent quality (qualitas permanens) of the soul. If it is a permanent quality, sanctifying grace cannot be identical with actual grace or with “uncreated grace,” i.e. the Person of the Holy Ghost.
a) In conformity with such Biblical expressions as “the new life,” “renovation of the spirit,” “regeneration,” “divine sonship,” etc., the Council of Trent defines justifying grace as a supernatural something “infused” into and “inherent” in the soul. Both ideas denote a permanent state, not a mere transient act or the result of such acts. “The charity of God is poured forth by the Holy Spirit in the hearts of those that are justified, and is inherent therein.”[974] “That justice which is called ours, because we are justified from its being inherent in us, that same is (the justice of God) because it is infused into us by God, through the merit of Christ.”[975] “If any one saith that men are justified ... to the exclusion of the grace and the charity which is poured forth in their hearts by the Holy Ghost and is inherent in them,... let him be anathema.”[976] Hence Justification is defined by [pg 330] the Fathers of Trent as “a translation ... to the state of grace and adoption of the sons of God.”[977]
Before the Tridentine Council a number of theologians held that sanctifying grace consists in some particular actual grace or in a consecutive series of actual graces. This view is incompatible with the definition just quoted; in fact Suarez, Bellarmine, Ripalda, and others regard it as positively heretical or at least intolerably rash. During the preliminary debates at Trent some of the Fathers asked for an express declaration of the Council to the effect that justification is wrought by the instrumentality of an infused habit; but their request was set aside on the ground that the nature of justifying grace as a stable habit is sufficiently indicated by the word “inhaeret.”[978]
That sanctifying grace is a permanent state of the soul may also be inferred from the Catholic teaching that the grace which Baptism imparts to children does not differ essentially from that which it imparts to adults. True, this teaching was not always regarded as certain;[979] but [pg 331] at the Ecumenical Council of Vienne, A. D. 1311, Pope Clement V declared it to be “the more probable opinion,”[980] and it was rendered absolutely certain by the Tridentine decision that infant Baptism results not only in the remission of sins, but likewise in an infusion of sanctifying grace. This being so, there can be no essential difference between the justification of children and that of adults. Now it cannot be actual grace which renders children righteous in the sight of God, for they are unable to avail themselves of actual grace on account of the undeveloped state of their intellect. The grace that Baptism imparts to them is consequently a gratia inhaerens et informans, that is, a permanent state of grace; and it must be the same in adults.[981]
Peter Lombard[982] identified sanctifying grace with the gratia increata, i.e. the Person of the Holy Ghost. This notion was combatted by St. Thomas[983] and implicitly rejected by the Tridentine Council when it declared that sanctifying grace inheres in the soul and may be increased by good works.[984] To say that the Holy Ghost is poured forth in the hearts of men, or that He may be [pg 332] increased by good works, would evidently savor of Pantheism. The Holy Ghost pours forth sanctifying grace and is consequently not the formal but the efficient cause of justification.[985]
b) The gratia inhaerens permanens is not a mere relation or denominatio extrinseca, but a positive entity productive of real effects,[986] and must consequently be conceived either as a substance or as an accident. We have shown that it is not identical with the uncreated substance of the Holy Ghost. Neither can it be a created substance. The idea of an intrinsically supernatural created substance involves a contradiction.[987] Moreover, sanctifying grace in its nature and purpose is not an entity independently co-existing with the soul but something physically inherent in it. Now, a thing which has its existence by inhering in some other thing is in philosophic parlance an “accident.” St. Thomas expressly teaches that, “since it transcends human nature, grace cannot be a substance nor a substantial form, but is an accidental form of the soul itself.”[988] Agreeable to this conception is the further Thomistic teaching that sanctifying grace is not directly created by God, but drawn (educta) from the potentia obedientialis of the soul.[989] Not even the Scotists, though they held grace to be created out of nothing[990] claimed that it was a new substance.
An accident that inheres in a substance permanently and physically is called a quality (qualitas, ποιότης). Consequently, sanctifying grace must be defined as a supernatural quality of the soul. This is the express teaching of the Roman Catechism: “Grace ... is a divine quality inherent in the soul, and, as it were, a certain splendor and light that effaces all the stains of our souls and renders the souls themselves brighter and more beautiful.”[991]
2. Sanctifying Grace an Infused Habit.—Sanctifying grace may more specifically, though with a lesser degree of certainty, be described as a habit (habitus). Being entitatively supernatural, this habit must be infused or “drawn out” by the Holy Ghost.
a) Aristotle[992] distinguishes four different sets of qualities: (1) habit and disposition; (2) power and incapacity; (3) passio (the power of causing sensations) and patibilis qualitas (result of the modification of sense); (4) figure and circumscribing form (of extended bodies). As sanctifying grace manifestly cannot come under one of the three last-mentioned heads, it must be either a habit or a disposition. Habit denotes a permanent and comparatively stable quality, by which a substance, considered as to its nature or operation, is well or ill adapted to its natural end.[993] As a permanently inhering quality, sanctifying [pg 334] grace must be a habit. Hence its other name, “habitual grace.” The Scholastics draw a distinction between entitative and operative habits. An operative habit (habitus operativus) gives not only the power (potentia) to act, but also a certain facility, and may be either good, bad, or indifferent. An entitative habit (habitus entitativus) is an inherent quality by which a substance is rendered permanently good or bad, e.g. beauty, ugliness, health, disease.
Philosophy knows only operative habits. But sanctifying grace affects the very substance of the soul. Hence the supplementary theological category of entitative habits. “Grace,” says St. Thomas, “belongs to the first species of quality, though it cannot properly be called a habit, because it is not immediately ordained to action, but to a kind of spiritual being, which it produces in the soul.”[994] There is another reason why grace cannot be called a habit in the philosophical sense of the term:—it supplies no acquired facility to act. This consideration led Suarez to abstain altogether from the use of the term “habit” in connection with grace,[995] and induced Cardinal Bellarmine to describe sanctifying grace as a qualitas per modum habitus,[996] by which phrase he wished to indicate that it imparts a supernatural perfection of being rather [pg 335] than a facility to act. To obviate these and similar subtleties the Council of Trent defined sanctifying grace simply as a permanent quality.
Nevertheless scientific theology employs the term habitus because it has no other philosophical category ready to hand. This defect in the Aristotelian system is somewhat surprising in view of the fact that besides the supernatural, there are distinctly natural qualities which “belong to the first species,” though they impart no facility to act but merely a disposition to certain modes of being, e.g. beauty, health, etc.
There is also a positive reason which justifies the definition of sanctifying grace as a habit. It is that grace imparts to the soul, if not the facility, at least the power to perform supernaturally meritorious acts, so that it is really more than a habitus entitativus, namely, a habitus (at least remotely) operativus.[997]
b) The Scholastic distinction between native and acquired habits does not apply in the supernatural domain, because the supernatural by its very definition can never be either a part or an acquisition of mere nature.[998] It follows from this that supernatural habits, both entitative and operative, can be imparted to the human soul in no other way than by infusion (or excitation) from above. Hence the name habitus infusus. When the Holy Ghost infuses sanctifying grace, the habitus entitativus imparts to the soul a supernatural principle of being, while the habitus operativus confers upon it a supernatural power, which by faithful coöperation with (actual) grace may be [pg 336] developed into a facility to perform salutary acts. Hence, if we adopt the division of habits into entitative and operative, sanctifying grace must be defined first as an entitative habit (habitus entitativus), because it forms the groundwork of permanent righteousness, sanctity, divine sonship, etc.; and, secondly, as an infused habit, because it is not born in the soul and cannot be acquired by practice. This view is in accord with Sacred Scripture, which describes the grace of justification as a divine seed abiding in man,[999] a treasure carried in earthen vessels,[1000] a regeneration by which the soul becomes the abode of God[1001] and a temple of the Holy Ghost.[1002]
3. The Controversy Regarding the Alleged Identity of Sanctifying Grace and Charity.—As justifying grace and theological love (charity) are both infused habits, the question arises as to their objective identity. The answer will depend on the solution of the problem, just treated, whether sanctifying grace is primarily an entitative or an operative habit. Of theological love we know that it is essentially an operative habit, being one, and indeed the chief [pg 337] of the “three theological virtues.” What we have said in the preceding paragraph will enable the reader to perceive, at the outset, that there is a real distinction between grace and charity, and that consequently the two can not be identical.
a) Nevertheless there is an imposing school of theologians who maintain the identity of grace with charity. They are Scotus[1003] and his followers,[1004] Cardinal Bellarmine,[1005] Molina, Lessius, Salmeron, Vasquez, Sardagna, Tournely, and others. Their principal argument is that Holy Scripture ascribes active justification indiscriminately to theological love and sanctifying grace, and that some of the Fathers follow this example. Here are a few of the Scriptural texts quoted in favor of this opinion. Luke VII, 47: “Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much.”[1006] 1 Pet. IV, 8: “Charity covereth a multitude of sins.”[1007] 1 John IV, 7: “Every one that loveth is born of God.”[1008] St. Augustine seems to identify the two habits in such passages as the following: “Inchoate love, therefore, is inchoate righteousness; ... great love is great righteousness; [pg 338] perfect love is perfect righteousness.”[1009] According to the Tridentine Council, “the justification of the impious” takes place when “the charity of God is poured forth ... in the hearts of those that are justified, and is inherent therein.”[1010] It is argued that, if charity and grace produce the same effects, they must be identical as causes, and there can be at most a virtual distinction between them. This argument is strengthened by the observation that sanctifying grace and theological love constitute the supernatural life of the soul and the loss of either entails spiritual death.
These arguments prove that grace and charity are inseparable, but nothing more. All the Scriptural and Patristic passages cited can be explained without recourse to the hypothesis that they are identical. Charity is not superfluous alongside of sanctifying grace, because the primary object of grace is to impart supernatural being, whereas charity confers a special faculty which enables the intellect and the will to elicit supernatural salutary acts.
b) The majority of Catholic theologians[1011] hold with St. Thomas[1012] and his school that grace and charity, while inseparable, are really distinct, sanctifying grace as a habitus entitativus imparting [pg 339] to the soul a supernatural being, whereas charity, being purely a habitus operativus, confers a supernatural power.
Let us put the matter somewhat differently. Grace inheres in the substance of the soul, while charity has its seat in one of its several faculties. Inhering in the very substance of the soul, grace, by a physical or moral power, produces the three theological virtues—faith, hope, and love. “As the soul's powers, which are the wellsprings of its acts, flow from its essence,” says the Angelic Doctor, “so the theological virtues flow from grace into the faculties of the soul and move them to act.”[1013] And St. Augustine: “Grace precedes charity.”[1014]
This is a more plausible view than the one we have examined a little farther up, and it can claim the authority of Scripture, which, though it occasionally identifies the effects of grace and charity, always clearly distinguishes the underlying habits. Cfr. 2 Cor. XIII, 13: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the charity of God.”[1015] 1 Tim. I 14: “The grace of our Lord hath abounded exceedingly with faith and love.”[1016] Furthermore, “regeneration” and “new-creation” in Biblical usage affect not only the faculties of the soul, but its [pg 340] substance. Finally, many councils consistently distinguish between gratia and caritas (dona, virtutes)—a distinction which has almost the force of a proof that grace and charity are not the same thing.[1017] These councils cannot have had in mind a purely virtual distinction, because theological love presupposes sanctifying grace in exactly the same manner as a faculty presupposes a substance or nature in which it exists. The Roman Catechism expressly designates the theological virtues as “concomitants of grace.”[1018]
The question nevertheless remains an open one, as neither party can fully establish its claim, and the Church has never rendered an official decision either one way or the other.[1019]
4. Sanctifying Grace a Participation of the Soul in the Divine Nature.—The highest and at the same time the most profound conception of sanctifying grace is that it is a real, though of course only accidental and analogical, participation of the soul in the nature of God. That sanctifying grace makes us “partakers of [pg 341] the divine nature” is of faith, but the manner in which it effects this participation admits of different explanations.
a) The fact itself can be proved from Sacred Scripture. Cfr. 2 Pet. I, 4: “By whom [Christ] He [the Father] hath given us great and precious promises: that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature.”[1020] To this text may be added all those which affirm the regeneration of the soul in God, because regeneration, being a new birth, must needs impart to the regenerate the nature of his spiritual progenitor. Cfr. John I, 13: “Who are born, not of blood, ... but of God.”[1021] John III, 5: “Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.”[1022] St. James I, 18: “For of his own will hath he begotten us by the word of truth.”[1023] 1 John III, 9: “Whosoever is born of God, committeth no sin.”[1024]
The Fathers of the Church again and again extol the deification (deificatio, θείωσις) of man effected by sanctifying grace and compare the union of the soul with God to the commingling of water with wine, the penetration of iron by fire, etc. St. Athanasius[1025] begins his [pg 342] Christological teaching with the declaration: “He was not, therefore, first man and then God, but first God and then man, in order that He might rather deify us.”[1026] St. Augustine describes the process of deification as follows: “He justifies who is just of Himself, not from another; and He deifies who is God of Himself, not by participation in another. But He who justifies also deifies, because He makes [men] sons of God through justification.... We have been made sons of God and gods; but this is a grace of the adopting [God], not the nature of the progenitor. The Son of God alone is God; ... the others who are made gods are made gods by His grace; they are not born of His substance, so as to become that which He is, but in order that they may come to Him by favor and become co-heirs with Christ.”[1027] The idea underlying this passage has found its way into the liturgy of the Mass,[1028] and Ripalda is justified in declaring that it cannot be denied without rashness.[1029]
b) In trying to explain in what manner grace enables us to partake of the divine nature, it [pg 343] is well to keep in view the absolutely supernatural character of sanctifying grace and the impossibility of any deification of the creature in the strict sense of the term. The truth lies between these two extremes.
A few medieval mystics[1030] and modern Quietists[1031] were guilty of exaggeration when they taught that grace transforms the human soul into the substance of the Godhead, thus completely merging the creature in its Creator. This contention[1032] leads to Pantheism. How can the soul be merged in the Creator, since it continues to be subject to concupiscence? “We have therefore,” says St. Augustine, “even now begun to be like Him, as we have the first-fruits of the Spirit; but yet even now we are unlike Him, by reason of the old nature which leaves its remains in us. In as far, then, as we are like Him, in so far are we, by the regenerating Spirit, sons of God; but in as far as we are unlike Him, in so far are we the children of the flesh and of this world.”[1033]
On the other hand it would be underestimating the power of grace to say that it effects a merely external and moral participation of the soul in the divine nature, similar to that by which those who embraced the faith of [pg 344] Abraham were called “children of Abraham,” and those who commit heinous crimes are called “sons of the devil.” According to the Fathers[1034] and theologians, to “partake of the divine nature” means to become internally and physically like God and to receive from Him truly divine gifts, i.e. such as are proper to God alone and absolutely transcend the order of nature.[1035] Being self-existing, absolutely independent, and infinite, God cannot, of course, be regarded as the formal cause of created sanctity; yet the strictly supernatural gifts which He confers on His creatures, especially the beatific vision and sanctifying grace, can be conceived only per modum causae formalis (not informantis), because through them God gives Himself to the creature in such an intimate way that the creature is raised up to and transfigured by Him.[1036] Consequently, the so-called deificatio of the soul by grace is not a real deification, but an assimilation of the creature to God.[1037]
c) Which one of God's numerous attributes forms the basis of the supernatural communication made to the soul in the bestowal of grace, is a question on which theologians differ widely. The so-called incommunicable attributes, (self-existence, immensity, eternity, etc.), of course, [pg 345] cannot be imparted to the creature except by way of a hypostatic union.[1038]
Gonet[1039] misses the point at issue, therefore, when He declares the essential characteristic of deification to be the communication to the creature of the divine attributes of self-existence and infinity. Self-existence is absolutely incommunicable.[1040] Somewhat more plausible, though hardly acceptable, is Ripalda's opinion that deification formally consists in the participation of the creature in the holiness of the Creator, particularly in the supernatural vital communion of the soul with God in faith, hope, and charity, thus making sanctifying grace the radix totius honestatis moralis.[1041] While it is perfectly true that the supernatural life of the soul is a life in and through God, and that the very concept of sanctifying grace involves a peculiar and special relation of the soul to God, the Biblical term κοινωνία θείας φύσεως points to a still deeper principle of the sanctifying vita deiformis. This principle, as some of the Fathers intimate, and St. Thomas expressly teaches,[1042] is the absolute intellectuality of God. Hence the object of sanctifying grace is to impart to the soul in a supernatural manner such a degree of intellectuality as is necessary to perceive the absolute Spirit—here on earth in the obscurity of faith, and in the life beyond by the lumen gloriae.[1043] This view is to a [pg 346] certain extent confirmed by Sacred Scripture, which describes the regeneration of the sinner as a birth of spirit from spirit.[1044] It is also held by some of the Fathers, who attribute to sanctifying grace both a deifying and a spiritualizing power. Thus St. Basil[1045] says: “The spirit-bearing souls, illuminated by the Holy Ghost, themselves become spiritual[1046] and radiate grace to others. Hence ... to become like unto God,[1047] is the highest of all goals: to become God.”[1048] Finally, since the Holy Ghost, as the highest exponent of the spirituality of the divine nature, by His personal indwelling crowns and consummates both the regeneration of the soul and its assimilation to God, there is a strong theological probability in favor of Suarez's view. Of course the process does not attain its climax until the creature is finally admitted to the beatific vision in Heaven. Cfr. 1 John III, 2: “We are now the sons of God, and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like to Him, because we shall see Him as He is.”[1049]
Article 2. The Effects Of Sanctifying Grace
We shall better understand the nature of sanctifying grace by studying what are known as its “formal effects.” As the causa efficiens of a thing is commonly farther removed from our mental grasp than its effects, we are ordinarily more familiar with the latter than with the former. For this reason the glories of divine grace can be best explained to children and to the faithful in general by describing the effects it produces in the soul.[1050]
1. Sanctity.—The first among the formal effects of sanctifying grace (an effect connoted by its very name) is sanctity. Eph. IV, 24: “Put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth.”[1051] The Tridentine Council explicitly mentions sanctity as an effect of sanctifying grace: “Justification ... is not remission of sins merely, but also the sanctification and renewal of the inward man through the voluntary reception of the grace and of the gifts whereby man from unjust becomes [pg 348] just.”[1052] It follows that the two elements of active justification, viz.: remission of sin and sanctification, are also constitutive elements of habitual or sanctifying grace. For it is precisely by the infusion of sanctifying grace that sin is wiped out and sanctity established in its place.[1053]
a) By sanctifying grace the justified man becomes a living member (membrum vivum) of the mystical body of Christ. His sins, it is true, did not forfeit membership in the Church, so long as he preserved the faith, but by sinning he became a dead member who can regain life only by returning to the state of grace. Grace is the life of the soul, sin its death. Hence the evil of mortal sin can be most effectively illustrated by contrast with the glory of divine grace, and vice versa. Cfr. Gal. II, 20: “And I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me.”[1054]
b) He who hates mortal sin and faithfully obeys the will of God, enjoys peace of heart,[1055] whereas the sinner is incessantly harassed by qualms of conscience. The faithful Christian rejoices in serving His Master and combats the flesh, the world, and the devil with a fortitude that not infrequently rises to heroic proportions, as the example of many holy men and women proves.
c) Sanctifying grace entails a particular providence, inasmuch as, by means of it, God grants man His special [pg 349] assistance towards preserving the state of grace, without, of course, interfering with free-will. Cfr. Is. XLIX, 16: “Behold, I have graven thee in my hands.”[1056] Rom. VIII, 28: “... to them that love God, all things work together unto good.”[1057] Mediately, God also proves his special love for the just man by shielding him from bodily and spiritual danger.
2. Supernatural Beauty.—Though we can quote no formal ecclesiastical definition to prove that sanctifying grace beautifies the soul, the fact is sufficiently certain from Revelation. If, as is quite generally held by Catholic exegetes, the Spouse of the Canticle typifies the human soul endowed with sanctifying grace, all the passages describing the beauty of that Spouse must be applicable to the souls of those whom Christ embraces with His tender love. The Fathers of the Church frequently extol the supernatural beauty of the soul in the state of grace. Ambrose calls it “a splendid painting made by God Himself;” Chrysostom compares it to “a statue of gold;” Cyril, to “a divine seal;” Basil, to “a shining light,” and so forth. St. Thomas says: “Divine grace beautifies [the soul] like light,”[1058] and the Roman Catechism declares: “Grace ... is a certain splendor and light that effaces all the stains of our souls and renders the [pg 350] souls themselves brighter and more beautiful.”[1059]
In defining beauty as “the representation of an idea in a sensual form,” modern aesthetics has eliminated the spiritual element and in consequence is unable to appreciate the spiritual beauty of God and of the soul. Being composed of body and soul, man is naturally most impressed by beauty when it appears in a material guise. But this does not prove that there is no spiritual beauty, or that true beauty abides solely in matter. Some present-day writers strongly emphasize the need of realism as against an idealism which, they claim, is not truly human because it exalts the spiritual at the expense of the material. In its last conclusions this perverted realism harks back to the sophistry of Protagoras who held that “man is the measure of all things.”[1060] Idealism, on the other hand, is based on the true Platonic doctrine that God is the measure of all things.[1061] St. Augustine defines beauty as “unity in variety,” which is a correct definition, because it is adaptable to both the spiritual and the material order.[1062] Applying this definition we find that the soul is not only naturally beautiful by the substantial unity and simplicity which shines forth in the variety of its faculties and powers, but also supernaturally by virtue of sanctifying grace, which transfuses nature into a new unity with the supernatural,—at the same time producing a variety of theological and moral virtues and the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, and thus [pg 351] creating a true work of art. Moreover, by enabling man to participate in the Divine Nature,[1063] grace produces in the soul a physical reflection of the uncreated beauty of God, a likeness of the creature with its Creator, which far transcends the natural likeness imprinted by creation. True, only God and the Elect in Heaven perceive and enjoy this celestial beauty; but we terrestrial pilgrims can, as it were, sense it from afar and indulge the hope that we may one day be privileged to contemplate and enjoy the divine beauty that envelops the souls endowed with grace.
The beauty produced by sanctifying grace must be conceived not merely as a reflection of the absolute nature of God, who is the pattern-exemplar of all beauty, but more specifically as an image of the Trinity impressed upon the soul. St. Paul teaches that the soul is transformed into an image of the Divine Logos, to whom, as the holy Fathers tell us, beauty is appropriated in an especial manner.[1064] Cfr. Rom. VIII, 29: “Whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son.”[1065] Gal. IV, 19: “My little children, of whom I am in labor again, until Christ be formed in you.”[1066] In virtue of the adoptive sonship effected by grace,[1067] the soul becomes a true “temple of the Holy Ghost.”[1068]
3. The Friendship of God.—Closely connected with the beauty which sanctifying grace [pg 352] confers, is the supernatural friendship it establishes between God and the soul. True beauty elicits love and benevolence. By nature man is merely a servant of God; in fact, since the fall, he is His enemy. Sanctifying grace transforms this hostile relation into genuine friendship. By grace, says the Council of Trent, “man of unjust becomes just, and of an enemy a friend.”[1069] And again: “Having been thus justified and made the friends and domestics of God.”[1070] God loves the just man as His intimate friend and enables and impels him, by means of habitual grace and habitual charity, to reciprocate that love with all his heart. Here we have the two constituent elements of friendship. The Bible frequently speaks of friendship existing between God and the just. Cfr. Wisd. VII, 14: “They [the just] become the friends of God.”[1071] John XV, 14 sq.: “I will not now call you servants, ... but I have called you friends.”[1072] This friendship is sometimes compared to a mystic marriage. Cfr. Matth. IX, 15: “And Jesus said to them: Can the children of the bridegroom mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them?”[1073] Apoc. XIX, 7: [pg 353] “The marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath prepared herself.”[1074]
a) Friendship (φιλία), according to Aristotle,[1075] is “the conscious love of benevolence of two persons for each other.” Hence, to constitute friendship, there must be (1) two or more distinct persons; (2) pure love of benevolence (amor benevolentiae, not concupiscentiae), because only unselfish love can truly unite hearts; (3) mutual consciousness of affection, because without a consciousness of the existing relation on both sides there would be merely one-sided benevolence, not friendship. It follows that true friendship is based on virtue and that a relation not based on virtue can be called friendship in a qualified or metaphorical sense only (amicitia utilis, delectabilis).
From what we have said it is easy to deduce the essential characteristics of true friendship. They are: (1) benevolence; (2) love consciously entertained by both parties; (3) a mutual exchange of goods or community of life; (4) equality of rank or station. The first condition is based on the fact that a true friend will not seek his own interest, but that of his friend. It is to be noted, however, that one's joy at the presence or prosperity of a friend must not be inspired by selfishness or sensual desire, for in that case there would be no true friendship.[1076] The second condition is based on the necessity of friendship [pg 354] being mutual love, for friendship is not a one-sided affection, nor does it spend itself in mutual admiration. The third condition is necessary for the reason that love, if it is to be more than “Platonic,” must result in acts of benevolence and good will.[1077] Of the fourth condition St. Jerome says: “Friendship finds men equal or makes them equal.”[1078]
b) All these conditions are found in the friendship with which Almighty God deigns to honor those who are in the state of sanctifying grace.
(1) That God loves the just man with a love of pure benevolence and eagerly seeks his companionship, is proved by the mysteries of the Incarnation and the Holy Eucharist. Cfr. Prov. VIII, 31: “And my delight [is] to be with the children of men.”[1079]
(2) The just man is enabled to return God's love by the habit of theological charity, which is inseparably bound up with and spontaneously flows from sanctifying grace.[1080] God's consciousness of this mutual love is, of course, based on certain knowledge, whereas man can have merely a probable conjecture. This, however, suffices to establish a true friendship, as the example of human friends shows.[1081]
(3) There is also community of life and property between God and man when the latter is in the state of sanctifying grace; for not only is he indebted to God for his very nature and all natural favors which he enjoys, but likewise and especially for the supernatural blessings bestowed upon him.[1082] On his own part, it is true, he cannot give his Benefactor anything in return which that Benefactor does not already possess; but the just man is ever eager to further God's external glorification, agreeable to the first petition of the Our Father: “Hallowed by Thy name.”[1083] God has furthermore given him a kind of substitute for operative charity in the love of his neighbor, which has precisely the same formal object as the love of God. Cfr. 1 John III, 17: “He that hath the substance of this world, and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him: how doth the charity of God abide in him?”[1084]
(4) There can be no real equality between God and the human soul, but God in His infinite goodness, elevating the soul to a higher plane and allowing it to participate in His own nature,[1085] makes possible an amicitia excellentiae s. eminentiae, which is sufficient to constitute a true relation of friendship. Without this elevation of the soul by grace there could be no friendship between God and man.[1086]
4. Adoptive Sonship.—The formal effects of sanctifying grace culminate in the elevation of man to the rank of an adopted child of God (filius Dei adoptivus), with a claim to the paternal inheritance, i.e. the beatific vision in Heaven. This truth is so clearly stated in Scripture and Tradition that its denial would be heretical. The Tridentine Council summarily describes justification as “the state of grace and of the adoption of the sons of God,”[1087] The teaching of Holy Scripture can be gathered from such texts as the following. Rom. VIII, 15 sqq.: “... You have received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry: Abba (Father). For the spirit himself giveth testimony to our spirit, that we are the sons of God. And if sons, heirs also; heirs indeed of God, and joint heirs with Christ.”[1088] 1 John III, 1 sq.: “Behold what manner of charity the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called, and should be the sons of God.... Dearly beloved, we are now the sons of God.”[1089] Gal. IV, 5: “... that we might receive the adoption of sons.”[1090] That the just become the adopted [pg 357] sons of God follows likewise as a corollary from the doctrine of regeneration so frequently taught by Scripture. This regeneration is not a procession of the soul from the divine essence, but a kind of accidental and analogical procreation substantially identical with adoption (filiatio adoptiva, υἱοθεσία). Cfr. John I, 12 sq.: “... He gave them power to be made the sons of God, ... who are born ... of God.”[1091]
a) St. Thomas defines adoption as “the gratuitous acceptance of a child of other parents to be the same as one's own child and heir.”[1092] Adoption implies (1) that the adopted child be a stranger to the adopting father; (2) that it have no legal claim to adoption; (3) that it give its consent to being adopted; (4) that it be received by the adopting father with parental love and affection. All these elements are present, in a far higher and more perfect form, in the adoption of a soul by God.
(1) The rational creature, as such, is not a “son” but merely a “servant of God,”[1093] and, if he be in the state of mortal sin, His enemy.
(2) That adoption is a gratuitous favor on the part of the Almighty, follows from the fact that the adopted creature is His enemy and that grace is a free supernatural gift, to which no creature has a natural claim. Adoption furthermore implies the right of inheritance.[1094] [pg 358] The heritage of the children of God is a purely spiritual possession which can be enjoyed simultaneously by many, and consequently excels every natural heritage. Men, as a rule, do not distribute their property during life, while, after their death, it is usually divided up among several heirs.[1095]
(3) Whereas adoption among men owes its existence to the desire of offspring on the part of childless parents, the adoption of the soul by God springs from pure benevolence and unselfish love, and for this reason presupposes (in the case of adults) the free consent of the adopted. No one can become an adopted son of God against his will.[1096]
(4) Whereas human adoption supposes substantial equality between father and child, and therefore at best amounts to no more than a legal acceptance, adoption by God elevates the soul to a higher level by allowing it to participate in the Divine Nature, and consequently is a true (even though merely an accidental and analogical) regeneration in God.
b) From what we have said it follows—and this is a truth of considerable speculative importance—that there are essential points of difference as well as of resemblance between Jesus Christ, the true Son of God, and the justified sinner adopted by the Heavenly Father.
α) The difference between the “natural Son of God” and an “adopted son” is exactly like that between God and creature. The Logos-Son, engendered by eternal generation from the divine substance, is the true natural Son of the Father, the Second Person of the Divine Trinity, and Himself God.[1097] The just man, on the [pg 359] other hand, is a child of God merely by the possession of sanctifying grace,[1098] which can be lost by mortal sin and consequently is founded upon a free relation that may be terminated by man as freely as it was entered into between himself and God.
Intimately related to this distinction is another:—Christ is the Son of the Father alone, the just man is an adopted child of the whole Trinity.[1099] This fact does not, however, prevent us from “appropriating” adoptive sonship to each of the three Divine Persons according to His peculiar hypostatic character:—the Father as its author, the Son as its pattern, and the Holy Ghost as its conveyor.[1100] Now, if Christ, as the true Son of God, is the efficient cause (causa efficiens) of that adoptive sonship of which, as God, He is also the pattern-exemplar (causa exemplaris), it follows that He cannot be an adopted son of God. “Christus est incapax adoptionis,” as Suarez puts it.[1101] To say that He is both the natural and an adopted Son of God would be heretical.[1102] Consequently, sanctifying grace, in Him, did not exercise one of the functions it invariably exercises in the souls of men, i.e. it did not make Him an adopted son of God.
β) It is to be noted, however, that the unique position enjoyed by our Lord gives rise, not only to essential distinctions but also to an equal number of analogies between the Only-begotten Son of God and His adopted [pg 360] sons. The first and most fundamental of these analogies is the attribution of the common appellation “son of God” both to Christ and to the just. Though Christ is the only true Son of God, the Heavenly Father has nevertheless charitably “bestowed upon us, that we should be called, and should be, the sons of God.”[1103] According to John I, 13, Christ “gave power to be made the sons of God” to them “who are born ... of God.” Hence divine sonship formally consists in an impression of the hypostatic likeness of the Only-begotten Son of God, by which the soul in a mysterious manner becomes an image of the Trinity, and especially of the Only-begotten Son of God, who is the archetype and pattern-exemplar of adoptive sonship. This hypostatic propriety and exemplariness was the reason why the Second Person of the Trinity became man.[1104] That the soul of the justified is transformed into “an image of the Son of God” is expressly taught by the Greek Fathers. Thus St. Cyril of Alexandria says: “Christ is truly formed in us, inasmuch as the Holy Ghost impresses on us a certain divine likeness by means of sanctity and justice.... But if any one is formed in Christ, he is formed into a child of God.”[1105]
These considerations also explain the points of resemblance between the adoptive sonship of God and the Holy Eucharist. Being our Father by adoption, God is bound to provide us with food worthy of a divine progenitor. The food He gives us (the Holy Eucharist) corresponds to our dignity as His children, sustains us in this sublime relation, and at the same time constitutes the pledge of a glorious resurrection and an eternal beatitude.
c) Is the adoptive sonship of the children of God constituted entirely by sanctifying grace, or does it require for its full development the personal indwelling in the soul of the Holy Ghost?[1106] This subtle question formed the subject of an interesting controversy between Joseph Scheeben and Theodore Granderath, S. J. Father Granderath claimed on the authority of the Tridentine Council that divine sonship is an inseparable function of sanctifying grace, and through that grace alone, without the inhabitatio Spiritus Sancti, constitutes the unica causa formalis of justification. Against this theory Dr. Scheeben maintained with great acumen and, we think, successfully, that sanctifying grace of itself alone, without the aid of any other factor, not only completely justifies the sinner but raises him to the rank of an adopted son of God, though there is nothing to prevent us from holding that the indwelling of the Holy Ghost forms the climax of the process, and develops and perfects the already existing filiatio adoptiva.[1107]
Petavius had contended[1108] that the just men of the Old Testament, though in the state of sanctifying grace, were not adopted children of God, because the filiatio adoptiva is an exclusive privilege of those living under the Christian Dispensation. This theory became untenable when the Tridentine Council defined sanctity and adoptive sonship as inseparable formal effects of sanctifying grace. There can no longer be any doubt, therefore, that the patriarchs, together with sanctifying grace also enjoyed [pg 362] the privilege of adoptive sonship, though, as Suarez observes,[1109] adoptive sonship under the Old Covenant depended both as to origin and value upon the adoptive sonship of the New Testament, and therefore was inferior to it in both respects.[1110]
Readings:—Scheeben, Lehrbuch der Dogmatik, Vol. II, § 168 sqq., Freiburg 1878.—J. Kirschkamp, Gnade und Glorie in ihrem inneren Zusammenhang, Würzburg 1878.—P. Hagg, Die Reichtümer der göttlichen Gnade und die Schwere ihres Verlustes, Ratisbon 1889.—Card. Katschthaler, De Gratia Sanctificante, 3rd ed., Salzburg 1886.—P. Einig, De Gratia Divina, Part II, Treves 1896.—Heinrich-Gutberlet, Dogmatische Theologie, Vol. VIII, pp. 575 sqq., Mainz 1897.—Scheeben, Die Herrlichkeiten der göttlichen Gnade, 8th ed., by A. M. Weiss, O. P., Freiburg 1908 (English translation, The Glories of Divine Grace, 3rd ed., New York s. a.).—Th. Bourges, O. P., L'Ordre Surnaturel et le Devoir Chrétien, Paris 1901.—*B. Terrien, La Grâce et la Gloire ou la Filiation Adoptive des Enfants de Dieu Etudiée dans sa Réalité, ses Principes, son Perfectionnement et son Couronnement Final, 2 vols., Paris 1897.—*P. Villada, De Effectibus Formalibus Gratiae Habitualis, Valladolid 1899.—L. Hubert, De Gratia Sanctificante, Paris 1902.
Article 3. The Supernatural Concomitants Of Sanctifying Grace
Besides producing the effects described in the preceding Article, sanctifying grace also confers certain supernatural privileges, which, though not [pg 363] of the essence of grace, are, in the present economy at least, inseparably connected with it and may therefore be regarded as its regular concomitants.
The existence of these privileges is established by the fact that certain councils (e.g. those of Vienne and Trent), couple “grace and gifts” in their official definitions.[1111] The doctrine is clearly stated by the Roman Catechism as follows: “To this [sanctifying grace] is added a most noble accompaniment of all virtues, which are divinely infused into the soul together with grace.”[1112]
We will treat of the supernatural concomitants of sanctifying grace in four theses.
Thesis I: The three divine virtues of faith, hope, and charity are infused into the soul simultaneously with sanctifying grace.
Some theologians (notably Suarez, Ripalda, and De Lugo) declare this thesis to be de fide, while others (Dom. Soto, Melchior Cano, and Vasquez) hold it merely as certain. Under the circumstances it will be safest to take middle ground by characterizing it as fidei proxima.
Proof. The Council of Trent teaches: “Man through Jesus Christ, in whom he is ingrafted, receives, in the said justification, together with the [pg 364] remission of sins, all these [gifts] infused at once—faith, hope, and charity.”[1113]
a) That theological charity, as a habit, is infused together with sanctifying grace can be convincingly demonstrated from Holy Scripture. Cfr. Rom. V, 5: “... the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us.”[1114] In connection with charity, Holy Scripture frequently mentions faith. Cfr. 1 Cor. XIII, 2: “And if I should have ... all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.”[1115] All three of the theological virtues are expressly enumerated in 1 Cor. XIII, 13: “And now there remain faith, hope, and charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity.”[1116] Unlike certain other texts, the one last quoted leaves no doubt that faith, [pg 365] hope, and charity are to be conceived as dona inhaerentia, i.e. habits or qualities inherent in the soul. This interpretation is approved by the Fathers and Scholastics.
b) St. Thomas proves the necessity of the three theological virtues for salvation as follows: “In order that we be properly moved towards our end [God], that end must be both known and desired. Desire of an end includes two things: first, hope of attaining it, because no prudent man will aspire to that which he cannot attain; and secondly, love, because nothing is desired that is not loved. And hence there are three theological virtues,—faith, by which we know God; hope, by which we trust to obtain Him; and charity, by which we love Him.”[1117]
When are the three theological virtues infused into the soul? This is an open question so far as faith and hope are concerned. Of charity we know that it is always infused with habitual grace. Suarez contends that, when the soul is properly disposed, faith and hope are infused before justification proper, that is to say, in the process leading up to it. St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure, on the other hand, hold that faith and hope, like charity, are infused at the moment when justification actually takes place in the soul. This last-mentioned opinion is favored by the Tridentine Council.[1118]
Mortal sin first destroys sanctifying grace together with the habit of charity that is inseparable from it. Faith [pg 366] and hope may continue to exist in the soul, and if hope, too, departs, faith may remain alone. But the loss of faith invariably entails the destruction of hope and charity.
Thesis II: Together with sanctifying grace there are also infused the supernatural moral virtues.
This proposition may be characterized as sententia communior et probabilior. Though denied by some theologians, it can claim a high degree of probability.[1119]
Proof. The infused moral virtues (virtutes morales infusae) differ from the theological virtues in that they have for their immediate formal object, not God Himself, but the creature in its relation to the moral law.
The moral virtues may be reduced to four, viz.: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. These are called the “cardinal” virtues; first, because they perfect the principal faculties of the soul; secondly, because all the other virtues may be scientifically deduced from them.[1120] In the supernatural order the infusion of the cardinal virtues and of the other virtues subordinate to them has for its object the government of intellect and will in their relation towards created things and the guidance of these faculties to their supernatural end.
a) The existence of supernaturally infused [pg 367] moral virtues is intimated in Wis. VIII, 7: “And if a man love justice: her labors have great virtues; for she teacheth temperance, and prudence, and justice, and fortitude, which are such things as men can have nothing more profitable in life.”[1121] The teacher of the three cardinal virtues here mentioned is “Divine Wisdom,” i.e. God Himself, and we may assume that He inculcates them by the same method which He employs in infusing the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity.
Another relevant text is Ezechiel XI, 19 sq.: “... and I will take away the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my commandments, and keep my judgments.”[1122] Here Yahweh promises to give the just men of the New Covenant a “heart of flesh” as opposed to the “stony heart” of the Jews. The meaning evidently is that a disposition to do good will be a characteristic of the New Testament Christians in contradistinction to the hardhearted [pg 368] Old Testament Jews. He who has a “heart of flesh” will walk in God's commandments and keep His judgments. Hence “heart” signifies the sum-total of all those habits which impel and enable a man to lead a good life. Since it is God Himself who gives the “heart of flesh,” i.e. the moral virtues, it follows that they are supernaturally infused.[1123]
b) Some of the Fathers ascribe the moral virtues directly to divine infusion.
Thus St. Augustine observes that the cardinal virtues “are given to us through the grace of God.”[1124] And St. Gregory the Great says that the Holy Ghost does “not desert the hearts of those who are perfect in faith, hope, and charity, and in those other goods without which no man can attain to the heavenly fatherland.”[1125] St. Thomas shows the theological reason for this by pointing to the parallel that exists between nature and the supernatural. “Effects,” he says, “must always be proportionate to their causes and principles. Now all virtues, intellectual and moral, which we acquire by our acts, proceed from certain natural principles preëxisting in us.... In lieu of these natural principles God confers on us the theological virtues, by which we are directed to a supernatural end.... Hence there must correspond to these theological virtues, proportionally, other habits caused in us by God, and which bear the same relation to [pg 369] the theological virtues that the moral and intellectual virtues bear to the natural principles of virtue.”[1126]
Thesis III: The seven gifts of the Holy Ghost are also infused with sanctifying grace.
This proposition may be qualified as “probabilis.”
Proof. The Church's teaching with regard to the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost is based on Isaias XI, 2 sq.: “And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: the spirit of wisdom, and of understanding, the spirit of counsel, and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge, and of godliness. And he shall be filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord.” Four of these supernatural gifts (wisdom, understanding, counsel, and knowledge) perfect the intellect in matters pertaining to salvation, while the remaining three (fortitude, godliness, and the fear of the Lord) direct the will to its supernatural end. Are these seven gifts, (or some of them), really distinct from the infused moral virtues? Are they habits or habitual dispositions, or merely transient impulses or inspirations? What are their mutual relations and how can they be divided off from one another? These and similar questions are in dispute among theologians. The prevailing opinion is that the gifts of the Holy Ghost are infused habitual dispositions, [pg 370] realiter distinct from the theological and moral virtues, by which the soul is endowed with a supernatural capacity for receiving the inspirations of the Holy Ghost and a supernatural readiness to obey His impulses in all important matters pertaining to salvation.[1127]
That the gifts of the Holy Ghost are infused into the soul simultaneously with sanctifying grace, can be demonstrated as follows: Christ, as the mystical head, is the pattern of justification for the members of His spiritual body, who are united to Him by sanctifying grace.[1128] Now the Holy Ghost dwelled in Christ with all His gifts as permanent habits.[1129] Consequently, these gifts are imparted by infusion to those who receive the grace of justification. This is manifestly the belief of the Church, for she prays in the “Veni Sancte Spiritus”:
“Shed upon thy faithful fold,
By unbounded hope controlled,
Thy seven gifts.”[1130]
Thesis IV: The process of justification reaches its climax in the personal indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the soul of the just.
This thesis embodies what is technically called a propositio certa.
Proof. There are two ways in which God may dwell in the soul, either by virtue of His created grace (inhabitatio per dona accidentalia, ἐνοίκησις κατ᾽ ἐνέργειαν) or by virtue of His uncreated substance (inhabitatio substantialis sive personalis, ἐνοίκησις κατ᾽ οὐσίαν). The personal indwelling of the Holy Ghost, therefore, may consist in a twofold grace: gratia creata and gratia increata, of which the former is the groundwork and necessary condition of the latter, while the latter may be described as the climax and consummation of the former.[1131] The indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the souls of the just is taught by Holy Scripture and attested by the Fathers.
a) Holy Scripture draws a clear-cut distinction between the accidental and the substantial indwelling of the Holy Ghost.
α) Our Lord Himself, in addition to the charismata, promised His Apostles the Holy Ghost in Person. John XIV, 16 sq.: “... the Father ... shall give you another Paraclete, that he [pg 372] may abide with you for ever, ... but you shall know him, because he shall abide with you, and shall be in you.”[1132] This promise was made to all the faithful. Cfr. Rom. V, 5: “... the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us.”[1133] Hence the Holy Ghost abides in the just and sets up His throne in their souls. Cfr. Rom. VIII, 11: “And if the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead, dwell in you; he that raised up Jesus Christ from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies, because of his Spirit that dwelleth in you.”[1134] By His indwelling our souls become temples of God. 1 Cor. III, 16 sq.: “Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?... For the temple of God is holy, which you are.”[1135] 1 Cor. VI, 19: “Or know you not that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own?”[1136]
β) Agreeable to this teaching of Scripture the Fathers, especially those of the East, assert the substantial indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the souls of the just.
The fact that no one but God can dwell substantially and personally in a creature was cited by the Greek Fathers in their controversies with the Pneumatomachians to prove the divinity of the Holy Ghost. St. Athanasius writes to Serapion:[1137] “If we by receiving the Holy Ghost are allowed to participate in the Divine Nature, no one but a fool will assert that the Holy Ghost is not of divine but of human nature. For all those in whom He abides become deified[1138] for no other reason. But if He constitutes them gods, there can be no doubt that His nature is divine.” St. Basil comments as follows on Ps. LXXXI, 6 (Ego dixi, dii estis): “But the Spirit that causes the gods to be gods, must be divine, and from God, ... and God.”[1139] St. Cyril of Alexandria[1140] glowingly describes the soul inhabited by the Holy Ghost as inlaid with gold, transfused by fire, filled with the sweet odor of balsam, and so forth.
The Latin Fathers, with one exception, are less definite on this point. St. Augustine says that the Holy Ghost “is given as a gift of God in such a way that He Himself also gives Himself as being God,”[1141] and that “the grace of God is a gift of God, but the greatest gift is the Holy Spirit Himself, who therefore is called a grace.”[1142] Again: “... the Holy Spirit is the gift of [pg 374] God, the gift being Himself indeed equal to the giver, and therefore the Holy Ghost also is God, not inferior to the Father and the Son.”[1143]
b) While theologians are unanimous in accepting the doctrine of the personal indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the just as clearly contained in Sacred Scripture and Tradition, they differ in explaining the manner in which He dwells in the soul.
α) The great majority hold that the Holy Ghost can not dwell in the soul, as the human soul dwells in the body, per modum informationis, nor yet by a hypostatic union, as godhead and manhood dwell together in the Person of Christ; and that consequently His indwelling is objectively an indwelling of the whole Trinity, which is appropriated to the Third Person merely because the Holy Ghost is “hypostatic holiness” or “personal love.” This view is based on what is called “the fundamental law of the Trinity,” viz.: “In God all things are one except where there is opposition of relation.”[1144] Sacred Scripture speaks of the personal indwelling of the Father and the Son as well as of the Holy Ghost. Cfr. John XIV, 23: “If any one love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and will make our abode with him.”[1145] St. Athanasius [pg 375] concludes from these words that “the energia of the Trinity is one.... Indeed when the Lord says: I and the Father will come, the Spirit also comes, to dwell in us in precisely the same manner in which the Son dwells in us.”[1146] And St. Augustine teaches: “Love, therefore, which is of God and is God, is properly the Holy Spirit, by whom the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts,—that love by which the whole Trinity dwells in us.”[1147] Accordingly, the personal indwelling of the Holy Ghost consists in the state of grace as bearing a special relation to the Third Person of the Trinity; the “higher nature” which sanctifying grace imparts to the soul is not an absolute but a relative form (σχέσις), by which the soul is mysteriously united with the Three Divine Persons and, by appropriation, with the Holy Ghost, thereby becoming a throne and temple of God. It is in this sense that the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the soul is called the climax of justification.[1148]
β) Other eminent theologians (Petavius, Passaglia, Schrader, Scheeben, Hurter, et al.) regard the explanation just given as unsatisfactory. They contend that the Fathers, especially those of the East, conceived the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the souls of the just, not as an indwelling (ἐνοίκησις) of the Trinity, appropriated to the Holy Ghost, but as a union (ἕνωσις) of the Holy Ghost Himself with the soul.[1149] This union, they say, is [pg 376] neither physical nor hypostatic, but an altogether unique and inexplicable relation by which the soul is morally, accidentally, and actively united to the person of the Holy Ghost.[1150]
γ) Unfortunately this exalted and mystic theory cannot be squared with the theological principles underlying the Catholic teaching on the Trinity, especially that portion of it which concerns the appropriations and missions of the three Divine Persons.[1151] It is true that sanctifying grace culminates in a communication of the Divine Nature, and that this θείωσις is effected by imprinting upon the soul an image of the divine processes of generation and spiration,—the first by adoptive filiation, the second by an indwelling of the Holy Ghost.[1152] In fact all the Trinitarian relations are reflected in the justification of the sinner. Thus regeneration corresponds to the generation of the Logos by the Father; adoptive sonship and the accompanying participation of the soul in the Divine Nature corresponds to our Lord's natural sonship and his consubstantiality with the Father; the indwelling of the Holy Ghost and His union with the soul, on the other hand, corresponds to the divine process of Spiration, inasmuch as it is preëminently a supernatural union of love and effects a sort of mutual inexistence or perichoresis of the soul in the Holy Ghost or the three Divine Persons respectively.[1153] Since, however, this union of the [pg 377] soul with the substance of the three Divine Persons in general, and the Holy Ghost in particular, is not a substantial and physical but only an accidental and moral union, the regeneration of the sinner must be conceived as generation in a metaphorical sense only, divine sonship as adoptive sonship, the deification of man as a weak imitation of the divine homoousia, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the soul as a shadowy analogue of the Divine Perichoresis.[1154]
Readings:—Deharbe, Die vollkommene Liebe Gottes nach dem hl. Thomas von Aquin, Ratisbon 1856.—Marchant, Die theologischen Tugenden, Ratisbon 1864.—Mazzella, De Virtutibus Infusis, 4th ed., Rome 1894.—G. Lahousse, S. J., De Virtutibus Theologicis, Louvain 1890.—S. Schiffini, S. J., Tractatus de Virtutibus Infusis, Freiburg 1904.—J. Kirschkamp, Der Geist des Katholizismus in der Lehre vom Glauben und von der Liebe, Paderborn 1894.—C. Weiss, S. Thomae Aquinatis de Septem Donis Spiritus Sancti Doctrina Proposita et Explicata, Vienna 1895.
On the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the souls of the just see A. Scholz, De Inhabitatione Spiritus Sancti, Würzburg 1856.—*Franzelin, De Deo Trino, pp. 625 sqq., Rome 1881.—Oberdörffer, De Inhabitatione Spiritus Sancti in Animabus Iustorum, Tournai 1890.—* B. Froget, O. P., De l'Inhabitation du S. Esprit dans les Âmes Justes d'après la Doctrine de S. Thomas d'Aquin, Paris 1901.—De Bellevue, L'Oeuvre du S. Esprit ou la Sanctification des Âmes, Paris 1901.
On the historic development of the dogma see Schwane, Dogmengeschichte, 2nd ed., Vol. II, § 56-75, Freiburg 1895.
Section 3. The Properties Of Sanctifying Grace
By a property (proprium, ἴδιον) we understand a quality which, though not part of the essence of a thing, necessarily flows from that essence by some sort of causation and is consequently found in all individuals of the same species.[1155] A property, as such, is opposed to an accident (accidens, συμβεβηκός), which is neither part of, nor necessarily attached to, the essence, but may or may not be present in the individual. Thus the ability to laugh is a property of human nature, whereas the color of the skin is an accident.
How do the properties of grace differ from its formal effects, and from its supernatural concomitants? The formal effects of grace, as we have seen, are the elements constituting its nature, the properties are determinations necessarily flowing from that nature, while the supernatural concomitants are free gifts superadded by God.
According to the Protestant theory, justification is absolutely certain, equal in all men, and incapable of being lost. The Catholic Church, on the contrary, teaches that justification [pg 379] is (1) uncertain, (2) unequal, and (3) amissible. We will explain this teaching in three theses.
Thesis I: No man knows with certainty of faith whether he is justified or not.
This proposition is de fide.
Proof. The Tridentine Council rejected the “fiduciary faith”[1156] of Luther as “an empty heretical confidence,”[1157] and in three distinct canons denied the properties attributed to faith by the early Protestant dogmaticians.[1158]
a) Holy Scripture again and again warns us that we can never be sure of our salvation. St. Paul, though himself “a vessel of election,” freely admits: “I am not conscious to myself of any thing, yet I am not hereby justified; but he that judgeth me is the Lord,”[1159] and declares: “I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway.”[1160] He exhorts the faithful to work out their salvation “with fear and trembling.”[1161]
b) The Fathers also teach the uncertainty of justification in the individual, and attribute it to the fact that, while we know that God pardons penitent sinners, no man can be entirely certain that he has complied with all the conditions necessary for justification.
“Our fate,” says St. Chrysostom, “is uncertain for a number of reasons, one of which is that many of our own works are hidden from us.”[1162] St. Jerome, commenting on Eccles. IX, 1 sq.,[1163] observes: “In the future they will know all, and all things are manifest to them, that is to say, the knowledge of this matter will precede them when they depart this life, because then the judgment will be pronounced, while now we are still battling, and it is now uncertain whether those who bear adversities, bear them for the love of God, like Job, or because they hate Him, as do many sinners.”[1164] Pope St. Gregory the Great said to a noble matron who asked him whether she could be sure of her salvation: “You ask me something which is both useless and difficult [to answer]; difficult, because I am unworthy to receive a revelation; useless, because it is better that you be uncertain with regard to your sins, lest in your last hour you should be unable to repent.”[1165]
c) We now proceed to the theological explanation of the dogma embodied in our thesis.
α) The purpose of this dogma is not, as Harnack[1166] thinks, “partly to assuage and partly to excite the restlessness that still remains, by means of the sacraments, indulgences, liturgical worship and ecclesiastical encouragement of mystical and monkish practices,” but to prevent undue security and careless assurance. What the Church condemns, in accordance with Sacred Scripture and Tradition, is the certitudo fidei, that vain confidence which leads men to feel certain that they are in the state of grace (inanis fiducia), not the certitudo spei, i.e. humble trust in God's abundant mercy. “As no pious person ought to doubt of the mercy of God, of the merit of Christ, and of the virtue and efficacy of the sacraments,” says the Tridentine Council, “even so each one, when he regards himself and his own weakness and indisposition, may have fear and apprehension touching his own grace; seeing that no one can know with a certainty of faith, which cannot be subject to error, that he has obtained the grace of God.”[1167]
One needs but to apply to theology the epistemological principles and criteria furnished by philosophy to perceive that the Catholic dogma is as reasonable as the Protestant theory is absurd. The Protestant syllogism: “I know with a certainty of faith that the penitent sinner who does his share, is justified through the grace of Christ; [pg 382] now, I, who am a penitent sinner, know with a certainty of faith that I have done my share; therefore, I know with a certainty of faith that I am justified,” may be formally correct, but the minor premise embodies a material error, because no man knows with a certainty of faith that he has done his share, unless it be specially revealed to him by God. No matter how sure I may feel of my own goodness, I have no certainty of faith, such as that which Mary Magdalen had, or that which was vouchsafed to the penitent thief on the cross, that I am justified. It is one of the approved rules of syllogistic reasoning that “the conclusion must follow the weaker premiss.”[1168] Hence, in the above syllogism the certainty cannot be of faith, but human and moral only. We do not mean to deny that God may grant to this or that individual a certainty of faith with regard to his justification; in fact theologians expressly teach that in such a rare and exceptional case the privileged person would be obliged to believe in his own justification, fide divinâ.[1169]
β) Can any one, without a special revelation, be theologically certain that he is justified? Theological certainty (certitudo theologica) is the result of a syllogism which embodies an article of faith in one of its premises and an obvious truth of reason in the other. Ambrosius Catharinus[1170] stands alone among Catholic theologians in holding that there are rare cases in which men do have a theological certainty as to their justification without a private revelation. All other writers deny the [pg 383] possibility: (1) because Scripture and Tradition do not countenance the proposition; (2) because there are no criteria available for such certainty outside of private revelation, and (3) because the Tridentine Council censured the assertion “that they who are truly justified must needs, without any doubt whatever, settle within themselves that they are justified.”[1171]
γ) For precisely the same reasons no man can be metaphysically certain of his own justification. Hence there remains only moral certainty. Moral certainty admits of varying degrees. The highest degree of moral certainty concerning justification can be had in the case of baptized infants, though, of course, we can never be metaphysically certain even in regard to them, because there is always room for doubt as to the intention of the minister and the validity of the matter and form employed in the administration of the sacrament. In the case of adults, certainty regarding justification varies in proportion to the measure in which it can be ascertained whether one has complied with all the requirements demanded by God. However, certainty may be so great as to exclude all reasonable doubt. St. Paul says: “I am sure that neither death nor life ... shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”[1172] And St. Augustine: “What do we know? We know that we have passed from death to life. Whence do we know this? Because we love our brethren. Let no one ask another. Let each question his own heart; if he there finds fraternal charity, let him be sure that he has passed from death to life.”[1173] This teaching [pg 384] has led theologians to set up certain criteria by which the faithful may be relieved of unreasonable anxiety and obtain some sort of assurance as to the condition of their souls. Such criteria are: a taste for things spiritual; contempt of earthly pleasures; zeal and perseverance in doing good; love of prayer and pious meditation; patience in suffering and adversity; a fervent devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary; frequent reception of the sacraments, etc.[1174]
Thesis II: Sanctifying grace admits of degrees and therefore can be increased by good works.
Both propositions contained in this thesis are de fide.
Proof. The Protestant contention that the grace of justification is shared in an equal measure by all the justified, was a logical deduction from Luther's false principle that men are justified by faith alone through the external justice of Christ. If this were true, good works would be superfluous, and all Christians would enjoy an equal measure of grace. Luther formally asserted this in his sermon on the nativity of the Blessed Virgin: “All we who are Christians are equally great and holy with the Mother of God.”[1175] [pg 385] The Catholic Church rejects this teaching. She holds that justification is an intrinsic process by which the justice and holiness of Christ becomes our own through sanctifying grace, and that consequently sanctifying grace may be present in the soul in a greater or less degree, according to the liberality of God and the disposition of the individual Christian, and those who are in the state of grace may augment it by good works. The Council of Trent formally defines these truths when it says: “[We receive] justice within us, each one according to his own measure, which the Holy Ghost distributes to every one as He wills, and according to each one's proper disposition and coöperation.”[1176] And: “[The justified], faith coöperating with good works, increase in that justice which they have received through the grace of Christ, and are still further justified....”[1177] The second and more important of these truths is re-iterated and emphasized in the canons of Session VI: “If anyone saith that the justice received is not preserved and also increased before God through good works, but that those works are merely the fruits and signs of justification [pg 386] obtained, but not a cause of the increase thereof: let him be anathema.”[1178]
a) The Tridentine Fathers base their teaching on a number of Scriptural texts which either expressly declare or presuppose that grace is capable of being increased in the soul after justification.
Thus we read in Prov. IV, 18: “The path of the just, as a shining light, goeth forwards and increaseth even to perfect day.”[1179] Ecclus. XVIII, 22: “Let nothing hinder thee from praying always, and be not afraid to be justified even to death: for the reward of God continueth for ever.”[1180] 2 Pet. III, 18: “Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”[1181] 2 Cor. IX, 10: “[God] will increase the growth of the fruits of your justice.”[1182] Eph. IV, 7: “But to every one of us is given grace, according to the measure of the giving of Christ.”[1183] Apoc. XXII, 11 sq.: “He that is just, let him be justified still; and he that is holy, let him be sanctified still. Behold, I come [pg 387] quickly, and my reward is with me, to render to every man according to his works.”[1184]
Such texts could easily be multiplied.
b) Tradition found definite utterance as early as the fourth century.
When Jovinian attempted to revive the Stoic theory of the absolute equality of all virtues and vices, he met with strenuous opposition on the part of St. Jerome, who wrote a special treatise Contra Iovinianum, in which he said: “Each of us receives grace according to the measure of the grace of Christ (Eph. IV, 7); not as if the measure of Christ were unequal, but so much of His grace is infused into us as we are capable of receiving.”[1185] St. Augustine teaches that the just are as unequal as the sinners. “The saints are clad with justice (Job XXIX, 14), some more, some less; and no one on this earth lives without sin, some more, some less: but the best is he who has least.”[1186] But, we are told, life as such is not capable of being increased; how then can there be an increase of spiritual life? St. Thomas answers this objection as follows: “The natural life pertains to the substance of man, and therefore can be neither augmented nor diminished; but in the life of grace man participates accidentaliter, and consequently he can possess it in a larger or smaller degree.”[1187]
c) From what we have said it is easy to understand the distinction which theologians make between justification as gratia prima and justification as gratia secunda. The latter is merely another term for an increase of grace after justification.
α) Such an increase may be effected either ex opere operantis, that is, by good works, or ex opere operato, through the sacraments, and is called justification (iustificatio, δικαίωσις) partly because Sacred Scripture refers to it by that name[1188] and partly because “to become just” (iustum fieri) and “to become more just” (iustiorem fieri) both imply true sanctification.
In this connection the question may be raised whether sanctifying grace is diminished by venial sin. Venial sin does not destroy the state of grace and consequently cannot augment or diminish grace. To assume that it could, would lead to the absurd conclusion that a definite number of venial sins might eventually grow into a mortal sin, or that repeated venial sins gradually diminish grace until finally it disappears. The first-mentioned assumption is impossible because venial differs generically from mortal sin, and a transition from the one to the other would be a μετάβασις εἰς ἄλλο γένος. The second assumption would entail the heretical inference that the state of [pg 389] grace can be lost without mortal sin.[1189] No doubt venial sin influences the state of grace unfavorably; but this evil influence must be conceived as indirect—by committing venial sins man weakens his will-power, and temptation eventually grows so strong as to make mortal sin inevitable. “He that contemneth small things, shall fall little by little.”[1190]
β) If we inquire how sanctifying grace increases in the soul, we find that the process must be conceived as a growing intensity analogous to that of light and heat in the physical order.
Gratia prima, as we have seen in a previous chapter, is a supernatural physical quality.[1191] Hence its increase, i.e. gratia secunda, must be an increase of physical quality. Such an increase is called in Scholastic parlance intensio.[1192] In what does this process consist? Certain Thomists[1193] describe it as a maior radicatio in subiecto, while the majority of theologians hold that it is simply an additio gradus ad gradum. This latter explanation is probably the correct one. Sanctifying grace is either capable of gradual increase, or it is not. If it is, there is no reason why God should deny such an increase under certain conditions. If it is not, Luther would have been right in contending that a newly baptized infant enjoys the same measure of holiness as the Blessed Virgin Mary [pg 390] or the human soul of our Divine Lord. It is impossible to imagine how grace could produce a quantitatively higher holiness by simply striking its roots deeper into the soul.[1194]
γ) A question of greater practical importance is this: Is the increase of sanctifying grace accompanied by a corresponding increase of the infused virtues, and vice versa.
Every increase or decrease of sanctifying grace must eo ipso entail a corresponding increase or decrease, respectively, of theological charity. Charity is either identical with grace or it is not.[1195] If it is, an increase of the one implies an increase of the other; if it is not, the one cannot increase without an increase of the other, because they are inseparable and related to each other as nature to faculty, or root to blossom. Moreover, the degree of heavenly glory enjoyed by a soul will be commensurate with the measure of charity which it possessed at death. Now grace and glory bear a proportional relation to each other. Consequently, grace is augmented as charity increases, and vice versa. The same argument applies to the infused moral virtues.
The case is different, however, with the theological virtues of faith and hope. These may continue to exist in the soul after charity has departed, and hence are not inseparable from sanctifying grace and charity, nor from the moral virtues. This consideration led Suarez to infer that, as the theological virtues of faith and hope may be infused into the soul independently of charity and before [pg 391] justification, they must be susceptible of increase in the course of justification without regard to the existing state of grace and charity.[1196] This is true of the sinner. In the justified, as Suarez himself admits, an increase of grace (or charity) probably always entails an increase of faith and hope,[1197]—a proposition which finds strong support in the decree of Trent which says: “This increase of justification Holy Church begs, when she prays: ‘Give unto us, O Lord, increase of faith, hope, and charity.’ ”[1198]
δ) A final question forces itself upon the enquiring mind, viz.: Is sanctifying grace capable of an indefinite increase, or is there a limit beyond which it cannot grow? In trying to find an answer to this question we must draw a careful distinction between the absolute and the ordinary power of God.
There is no intrinsic contradiction in the assumption that grace can be indefinitely augmented. True, it can never become actually infinite, as this would involve an absurdity.[1199] But if we regard the power of God as He sees fit to exercise it in the present economy (potentia Dei ordinata), we find that it is limited by two sublime ideals of holiness to which neither man nor angel can attain, viz.: the overflowing measure of sanctifying grace in the human soul of our Lord Jesus Christ[1200] and the “fulness of grace” granted to His Mother.[1201] Though [pg 392] these ideals are beyond our reach, we must not be discouraged, but try to approach them as nearly as possible.[1202]
Thesis III: Sanctifying grace is lost by mortal sin.
This thesis also embodies an article of faith.
Proof. Calvin asserted that neither justification nor faith can be lost by those who are predestined to salvation, and that the unpredestined are never truly justified. Luther held that justifying grace is lost solely through the sin of infidelity. Against the former the Council of Trent declared: “If anyone saith that a man once justified can sin no more, nor lose grace, and that therefore he that falls and sins was never truly justified; ... let him be anathema.”[1203] Against the latter the same council defined: “If anyone saith that there is no mortal sin but that of infidelity, or that grace once received is not lost by any other sin, however grievous and enormous, save by that of infidelity, let him be anathema.”[1204] At the same time, however, the Holy Synod expressly declared that venial sin does not destroy the state [pg 393] of grace: “For although during this mortal life, men, how holy and just soever, at times fall into at least light and daily sins, which are also called venial, they do not therefore cease to be just.”[1205]
a) This teaching is so obviously in accord with Sacred Scripture that we confine ourselves to quoting three or four passages. Ezechiel says that sanctifying grace may be irretrievably lost: “If the just man turn himself away from his justice, and do iniquity according to all the abominations which the wicked man useth to work, shall he live? All his justices which he hath done shall not be remembered; in the prevarication, by which he hath prevaricated, and in his sin, which he hath committed, in them he shall die.”[1206] Our Lord Himself admonishes His Apostles: “Watch ye and pray, that ye enter not into temptation.”[1207] St. Paul not only warns the faithful in general terms: “He that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall;”[1208] but expressly designates certain mortal sins as a bar to Heaven: “Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, [pg 394] nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God.”[1209]
b) The teaching of Tradition was brought out clearly in the fight against Jovinian.
That wily heretic claimed the authority of St. John for the assertion that the grace of Baptism can never be lost. The Johannean passage in question reads: “Whosoever is born of God, committeth no sin: for His seed abideth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.”[1210] St. Jerome in his reply paraphrases the passage as follows: “Therefore I tell you, my little children, whosoever is born of God, committeth no sin, in order that you may not sin and that you may know that you will remain sons of God so long as you refrain from sin.”[1211] St. Augustine teaches: “If a man, being regenerate and justified, relapses of his own will into an evil life, assuredly he cannot say: ‘I have not received,’ because of his own free choice of evil he has lost the grace of God that he has received.”[1212] And St. Gregory the Great:
“As he who falls away from the faith is an apostate, so he who returns to an evil deed is regarded by Almighty God as an apostate, even though he may seem to retain the faith; for the one without the other can be of no use, because faith availeth nought without [good] works, nor [good] works without faith.”[1213] The penitential discipline of the primitive Church furnishes additional proofs for the doctrine under consideration. If grace could be lost in no other way than by unbelief, the Sacrament of Penance would be useless.[1214]
c) In connection with this subject theologians are wont to discuss the question whether or not the forfeiture of sanctifying grace involves the loss of its supernatural concomitants.
Theological love or charity is substantially identical with sanctifying grace, or at least inseparable from it, and hence both are gained and lost together. This is an article of faith. To lose sanctifying grace, therefore, is to lose theological love. On the other hand, it is equally de fide that theological faith (habitus fidei) is not destroyed by mortal sin;[1215] it can be lost only by the sin of unbelief.[1216] The same is true, mutatis mutandis, of theological [pg 396] hope. True, the Church has not definitely declared her mind with regard to hope, but it may be set down as her teaching that hope is not lost with grace and charity but survives like faith.[1217] The two contrary opposites of hope are desperation and presumption, concerning which theologians commonly hold that the former destroys hope, while the latter probably does not. But even if hope and charity are lost, faith may remain in the soul like a solitary root, from which, under more favorable conditions, new life is apt to spring. As regards the infused moral virtues and the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost (and, a fortiori, His personal indwelling in the soul),[1218] it is the unanimous teaching that these disappear with sanctifying grace and charity, even though faith and hope survive. The reason is that these virtues and gifts are merely supernatural adjuncts of sanctifying grace and cannot persist without it. “Accessorium sequitur principale.”[1219]