The necessity of grace is indirectly inculcated by the Church when she petitions God to grant salutary graces to all men—a most ancient and venerable practice, which Pope St. Celestine explains as follows: “The law of prayer should determine the law of belief. For when the priests of holy nations administer the office entrusted to them, asking God for mercy, they plead the cause of the human race, and together with the whole Church ask and pray that the unbelievers may receive the faith, that the idolaters may be freed from the errors of their impiety, that the veil be lifted from the heart of the Jews, and they be enabled to perceive the light of truth, that the heretics may return to their senses by a true perception of the Catholic faith, that the schismatics may receive the spirit of reborn charity, that the sinners be granted the remedy of penance, and that the door of heavenly mercy be opened to the catechumens who are led to the sacraments of regeneration.”[278] In matters of salvation [pg 091] prayer and grace are correlative terms; the practice of the one implies the necessity and gratuity of the other.[279]
β) That the Fathers not only conceived grace to be necessary for the cure of weakness induced by sin (gratia sanans) in a merely moral sense, but thought it to be metaphysically necessary for the communication of physical strength (gratia elevans), is evidenced by such oft-recurring similes as these: Grace is as necessary for salvation as the eye is to see, or as wings are to fly, or as rain is for the growth of plants.
It will suffice to quote a passage from the writings of St. Chrysostom. “The eyes,” he says, “are beautiful and useful for seeing, but if they would attempt to see without light, all their beauty and visual power would avail them nothing. Thus, too, the soul is but an obstacle in its own way if it endeavors to see without the Holy Ghost.”[280]
This view is strengthened by the further teaching of the Fathers that supernatural grace was as indispensable to the angels in their state of probation (in which they were free from concupiscence) and to our first parents in Paradise (gifted as they were with the donum integritatis), as it is to fallen man; the only difference being that in the case of the latter, grace has the additional object of curing the infirmities and overcoming the difficulties arising from concupiscence. In regard to the angels St. Augustine says; “And who made this will but He who created them with a good will, that is to say with a chaste love by which they should cleave to Him, in one [pg 092] and the same act creating their nature and endowing it with grace?... We must therefore acknowledge, with the praise due to the Creator, that not only of holy men, but also of the holy angels, it can be said that ‘the love of God is shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Ghost, who is given unto them.’ ”[281]
Equally convincing is the argument that Adam in Paradise was unable to perform any salutary acts without divine grace. “Just as it is in man's power to die whenever he will,” says St. Augustine, “... but the mere will cannot preserve life in the absence of food and the other means of life; so man in Paradise was able of his mere will, simply by abandoning righteousness, to destroy himself; but to have led a life of righteousness would have been too much for his will, unless it had been sustained by the power of Him who made him.”[282]
This is also the teaching of the Second Council of Orange (A. D. 529): “Even if human nature remained in the state of integrity, in which it was constituted, it would in no wise save itself without the help of its Creator. If it was unable, without the grace of God, to keep what it had received, how should it be able without the grace of God to regain what it has lost?”[283]
c) The theological argument for the metaphysical necessity of grace is based on the essentially supernatural character of all salutary acts.
α) St. Thomas formulates it as follows: “Eternal life is an end transcending the proportion of human nature, ... and therefore man, by nature, can perform no meritorious works proportioned to eternal life, but requires for this purpose a higher power,—the power of grace. Consequently, man cannot merit eternal life without grace. He is, however, able to perform acts productive of some good connatural to man, such as tilling the soil, drinking, eating, acts of friendship, etc.”[284] For the reason here indicated it is as impossible for man to perform salutary acts without grace as it would be to work miracles without that divine assistance which transcends the powers of nature.[285]
β) Catholic theologians are unanimous in admitting that all salutary acts are and must needs be supernatural; but they differ in their conception of this supernatural quality (supernaturalitas). The problem underlying this difference of opinion may be stated thus: A thing may [pg 094] be supernatural either entitatively, quoad substantiam, or merely as to the manner of its existence, quoad modum. The supernaturale quoad substantiam is divided into the strictly supernatural and the merely preternatural.[286] The question is: To what category of the supernatural belong the salutary acts which man performs by the aid of grace? Undoubtedly there are actual graces which are entitatively natural, e.g. the purely mediate grace of illumination,[287] the natural graces conferred in the pure state of nature, the actual graces of the sensitive sphere,[288] and the so-called cogitatio congrua of Vasquez.[289] The problem therefore narrows itself down to the immediate graces of intellect and will. Before the Tridentine Council theologians contented themselves with acknowledging the divinely revealed fact that these graces are supernatural; it was only after the Council that they began to speculate on the precise character of this supernaturalitas.
Some, following the teaching of the Scotist school, ascribed the supernatural character of salutary acts to their free acceptation on the part of God, holding them to be purely natural in their essence and raised to the supernatural sphere merely per denominationem extrinsecam.[290] This view is untenable. For if nature, as such, possessed the intrinsic power to perform salutary acts, irrespective of their acceptation by God, the Fathers and councils would err in teaching that this power is derived from the immediate graces of illumination and strengthening.[291]