Grace, Actual and Habitual: A Dogmatic Treatise

by Joseph Pohle

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.