Article 2. God's Will To Give Sufficient Grace To All Adult Human Beings In Particular
In relation to adults, God manifests His saving will by the bestowal of sufficient grace upon all.[503] The bestowal of sufficient grace being evidently an effluence of the universal voluntas salvifica, the granting of such grace to all who have attained the use of reason furnishes another proof for the universality of grace.
God gives all men sufficient graces. But He is not obliged to give to each efficacious graces, because all that is required to enable man to reach his supernatural destiny is coöperation with sufficient grace, especially with the gratia prima vocans, which is the beginning of all salutary operation.
To prove that God gives sufficient grace to all adult [pg 168] human beings without exception, we must show that He gives sufficient grace (1) to the just, (2) to the sinner, and (3) to the heathen. This we shall do in three distinct theses.
Thesis I: God gives to all just men sufficient grace to keep His commandments.
This is de fide.
Proof. The Tridentine Council teaches: “If any one saith that the commandments of God are, even for one that is justified and constituted in grace, impossible to keep; let him be anathema.”[504]
A contrary proposition in the writings of Jansenius[505] was censured by Pope Innocent the Tenth as “foolhardy, impious, blasphemous, and heretical.”
The Church does not assert that God gives to the just sufficient grace at all times. She merely declares that sufficient grace is at their disposal whenever they are called upon to obey the law (urgente praecepto). Nor need God always bestow a gratia proxime sufficiens; in many instances the grace of prayer (gratia remote sufficiens) fully serves the purpose.[506]