α) St. Paul expressly teaches: “And such confidence we have, through Christ, towards God; not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves: but our sufficiency is of God.”[46]
The salient portion of this text reads as follows in the original Greek: Οὐχ ὅτι ἱκανοί ἐσμεν λογίσασθαί τι ἀφ᾽ ἑαυτῶν ὡς ἐξ ἑαυτῶν, ἀλλ᾽ ἡ ἱκανότης ἡμῶν ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ. Speaking in the plural (pluralis maiestaticus), the Apostle confesses himself unable to conceive a single salutary thought (λογίσασθαι), and ascribes the power (ἱκανότης) to do so to God. Considered merely as vital acts, such thoughts proceed from the natural faculties of the mind (ἀφ᾽ ἑαυτῶν), but the power that produces them is divine (ἐκ Θεοῦ), not human (ἐξ ἑαυτῶν). Hence each salutary thought exceeds the power of man, and is an immediate supernatural grace.
A still more cogent argument can be derived from 1 Cor. III, 6 sq.: “I have planted, Apollo watered, but [pg 022] God gave the increase. Therefore, neither he that planteth is anything, nor he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.”[47] In this beautiful allegory the Apostle compares the genesis of supernatural faith in the soul to that of a plant under the care of a gardener, who while he plants and waters, yet looks to God for “the increase.” The Apostle and his disciple Apollo are the spiritual gardeners through whose preaching the Corinthians received the grace of mediate illumination. But, as St. Paul says, this preaching would have been useless (non est aliquid) had not God given “the increase.” In other words, the grace of immediate illumination was necessary to make the Apostolic preaching effective. “For,” in the words of St. Augustine, “God Himself contributes to the production of fruit in good trees, when He both externally waters and tends them by the agency of His servants, and internally by Himself also gives the increase.”[48]
β) The argument from Tradition is based chiefly on St. Augustine, “the Doctor of Grace,” whose authority in this branch of dogmatic theology is unique.[49] His writings abound in many such synonymous terms for the grace of immediate illumination, as cogitatio pia, vocatio alta et secreta, locutio in cogitatione, aperitio veritatis, etc., etc.
He says among other things: “Instruction and admonition are external aids, but he who controls the hearts has his cathedra in heaven.”[50] Augustine esteems human preaching as nothing and ascribes all its good effects to grace. “It is the internal Master who teaches; Christ teaches and His inspiration.”[51] In harmony with his master, St. Fulgentius of Ruspe, the ablest defender of the Augustinian (i.e. Catholic) doctrine of grace, says: “In vain will our sacred discourses strike the external ear, unless God by a spiritual gift opens the hearing of the interior man.”[52]
2. The Strengthening Grace of the Will.—This grace, usually called gratia inspirationis,[53] may also be either mediate or immediate, according as pious affections and wholesome resolutions are produced in the soul by a preceding illumination of the intellect or directly by the Holy Ghost. Owing to the psychological interaction of intellect and will, every grace of the mind, whether mediate or immediate, is eo ipso also a mediate grace of the will, which implies a new act of the soul, but not a new grace. What we are concerned with here is the immediate [pg 024] strengthening grace of the will, which is far more important and more necessary.
We are not able to demonstrate this teaching from Sacred Scripture. The texts John VI, 44 and Phil. II, 13, which are usually adduced in this connection, are inconclusive.
Hence we must rely solely on Tradition. The argument from Tradition is based mainly on St. Augustine. In defending divine grace against Pelagius, this holy Doctor asserts the indispensability and superior value of the strengthening grace of the will.
“By that grace it is effected, not only that we discover what ought to be done, but also that we do what we have discovered; not only that we believe what ought to be loved, but also that we love what we have believed.”[54] And again: “Let him discern between knowledge and charity, as they ought to be distinguished, because knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.... And inasmuch as both are gifts of God, although one is less and the other greater, he must not extol our righteousness above the praise which is due to Him who justifies us in such a way as to assign to the lesser of these two gifts the help of divine grace, and to claim the greater one for the control of the human will.”[55] St. Augustine emphasized the [pg 025] existence and necessity of this higher grace of the will in his controversy with the Pelagians. He was firmly convinced that a man may know the way of salvation, and yet refuse to follow it.[56] He insisted that mere knowledge is not virtue, as Socrates had falsely taught.
Ecclesiastical Tradition was always in perfect accord with this teaching, which eventually came to be defined by the plenary Council of Carthage (A. D. 418) as follows: “If any one assert that this same grace of God, granted through our Lord Jesus Christ, helps to avoid sin only for the reason that it opens and reveals to us an understanding of the [divine] commands, so that we may know what we should desire and what we should avoid; but that it is not granted to us by the same (grace) to desire and be able to do that which we know we ought to do, let him be anathema;—since both are gifts of God: to know what we must do and to have the wish to do it.”[57]