This dogma is clearly contained in Holy Scripture. We shall quote the most important texts.
a) 1 John V, 3 sq.: “For this is the charity of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not heavy. For whatsoever is born of God, overcometh the world.”[507] According to this text the “charity of God” manifests itself in “keeping his commandments” and “overcoming the world.” This is declared to be an easy task. Our Lord Himself says: “My yoke is sweet and my burden light.”[508] Hence it must be possible to keep His commandments, and therefore God does not withhold the absolutely necessary graces from the just.
St. Paul consoles the Corinthians by telling them that God will not suffer them to be tempted beyond their strength, but will help them to a happy issue, provided they faithfully coöperate with His grace. 1 Cor. X, 13: “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able, but will make also with temptation issue, that you may be able to bear it.”[509] As it is impossible even for the just to overcome grievous temptations without supernatural aid,[510] and as God Himself tells us that we are able to overcome them, it is a necessary inference that He [pg 170] bestows sufficient grace. The context hardly leaves a doubt that St. Paul has in mind the just, for a few lines further up he says: “Therefore he that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall.”[511] But there is no exegetical objection to applying the text to all the faithful without exception.[512]
b) This dogma is clearly set forth in the writings of the Fathers. Some of them, it is true, when combating the Pelagians and Semipelagians, defended the proposition that “grace is not given to all men,”[513] but they meant efficacious grace.
α) A typical representative of this group of ecclesiastical writers is the anonymous author of the work De Vocatione Omnium Gentium,[514] whom Pope Gelasius praised as “probatus Ecclesiae magister.” This fifth-century writer, who was highly esteemed by his contemporaries, discusses the question whether and in what sense all men are called, and why some are not saved. He begins by drawing a distinction between God's general and His special providence.[515] “It so pleased God,” he says, “to give His efficacious grace to many, and to withhold His sufficient grace from none, in order that it might appear from both [actions] that what is conferred upon a portion is not denied to the entire race.”[516]
β) The Jansenists appealed in favor of their teaching to such Patristic passages as the following: “After the withdrawal of the divine assistance he [St. Peter] was unable to stand;”[517] and: “He had undertaken more than he was able to do.”[518] But the two Fathers from whose writings these passages are taken (SS. Chrysostom and Augustine) speak, as the context evinces, of the withdrawal of efficacious and proximately sufficient grace in punishment of Peter's presumption. Had St. Peter followed our Lord's advice[519] and prayed instead of relying on his own strength, he would not have fallen. That this was the mind of St. Augustine clearly appears from the following sentence in his work De Unitate Ecclesiae: “Who shall doubt that Judas, had he willed, would not have betrayed Christ, and that Peter, had he willed, would not have thrice denied his Master?”[520]
c) The theological argument for our thesis may be formulated as follows: Since the state of grace confers a claim to supernatural happiness, it must also confer a claim to those graces which are necessary to attain it.
To assert that God denies the just sufficient grace to observe His commandments, to avoid mortal sin, and to persevere in the state of grace, would be to gainsay [pg 172] His solemn promise to His adopted children: “This is the will of my Father that sent me: that every one who seeth the Son and believeth in him, may have life everlasting, and I will raise him up in the last day.”[521] Consequently, God owes it to His own fidelity to bestow sufficient graces upon the just.
Again, according to the plain teaching of Revelation, the just are obliged, under pain of sin, to observe the commandments of God and the precepts of His Church.[522] But this is impossible without the aid of grace. Consequently, God grants at least sufficient grace to his servants, for ad impossibile nemo tenetur.[523]
Thesis II: In regard to Christians guilty of mortal sin we must hold: (1) that ordinary sinners always receive sufficient grace to avoid mortal sin and do penance; (2) that God never entirely withdraws His grace even from the obdurate.