An accident that inheres in a substance permanently and physically is called a quality (qualitas, ποιότης). Consequently, sanctifying grace must be defined as a supernatural quality of the soul. This is the express teaching of the Roman Catechism: “Grace ... is a divine quality inherent in the soul, and, as it were, a certain splendor and light that effaces all the stains of our souls and renders the souls themselves brighter and more beautiful.”[991]
2. Sanctifying Grace an Infused Habit.—Sanctifying grace may more specifically, though with a lesser degree of certainty, be described as a habit (habitus). Being entitatively supernatural, this habit must be infused or “drawn out” by the Holy Ghost.
a) Aristotle[992] distinguishes four different sets of qualities: (1) habit and disposition; (2) power and incapacity; (3) passio (the power of causing sensations) and patibilis qualitas (result of the modification of sense); (4) figure and circumscribing form (of extended bodies). As sanctifying grace manifestly cannot come under one of the three last-mentioned heads, it must be either a habit or a disposition. Habit denotes a permanent and comparatively stable quality, by which a substance, considered as to its nature or operation, is well or ill adapted to its natural end.[993] As a permanently inhering quality, sanctifying [pg 334] grace must be a habit. Hence its other name, “habitual grace.” The Scholastics draw a distinction between entitative and operative habits. An operative habit (habitus operativus) gives not only the power (potentia) to act, but also a certain facility, and may be either good, bad, or indifferent. An entitative habit (habitus entitativus) is an inherent quality by which a substance is rendered permanently good or bad, e.g. beauty, ugliness, health, disease.
Philosophy knows only operative habits. But sanctifying grace affects the very substance of the soul. Hence the supplementary theological category of entitative habits. “Grace,” says St. Thomas, “belongs to the first species of quality, though it cannot properly be called a habit, because it is not immediately ordained to action, but to a kind of spiritual being, which it produces in the soul.”[994] There is another reason why grace cannot be called a habit in the philosophical sense of the term:—it supplies no acquired facility to act. This consideration led Suarez to abstain altogether from the use of the term “habit” in connection with grace,[995] and induced Cardinal Bellarmine to describe sanctifying grace as a qualitas per modum habitus,[996] by which phrase he wished to indicate that it imparts a supernatural perfection of being rather [pg 335] than a facility to act. To obviate these and similar subtleties the Council of Trent defined sanctifying grace simply as a permanent quality.
Nevertheless scientific theology employs the term habitus because it has no other philosophical category ready to hand. This defect in the Aristotelian system is somewhat surprising in view of the fact that besides the supernatural, there are distinctly natural qualities which “belong to the first species,” though they impart no facility to act but merely a disposition to certain modes of being, e.g. beauty, health, etc.
There is also a positive reason which justifies the definition of sanctifying grace as a habit. It is that grace imparts to the soul, if not the facility, at least the power to perform supernaturally meritorious acts, so that it is really more than a habitus entitativus, namely, a habitus (at least remotely) operativus.[997]
b) The Scholastic distinction between native and acquired habits does not apply in the supernatural domain, because the supernatural by its very definition can never be either a part or an acquisition of mere nature.[998] It follows from this that supernatural habits, both entitative and operative, can be imparted to the human soul in no other way than by infusion (or excitation) from above. Hence the name habitus infusus. When the Holy Ghost infuses sanctifying grace, the habitus entitativus imparts to the soul a supernatural principle of being, while the habitus operativus confers upon it a supernatural power, which by faithful coöperation with (actual) grace may be [pg 336] developed into a facility to perform salutary acts. Hence, if we adopt the division of habits into entitative and operative, sanctifying grace must be defined first as an entitative habit (habitus entitativus), because it forms the groundwork of permanent righteousness, sanctity, divine sonship, etc.; and, secondly, as an infused habit, because it is not born in the soul and cannot be acquired by practice. This view is in accord with Sacred Scripture, which describes the grace of justification as a divine seed abiding in man,[999] a treasure carried in earthen vessels,[1000] a regeneration by which the soul becomes the abode of God[1001] and a temple of the Holy Ghost.[1002]
3. The Controversy Regarding the Alleged Identity of Sanctifying Grace and Charity.—As justifying grace and theological love (charity) are both infused habits, the question arises as to their objective identity. The answer will depend on the solution of the problem, just treated, whether sanctifying grace is primarily an entitative or an operative habit. Of theological love we know that it is essentially an operative habit, being one, and indeed the chief [pg 337] of the “three theological virtues.” What we have said in the preceding paragraph will enable the reader to perceive, at the outset, that there is a real distinction between grace and charity, and that consequently the two can not be identical.
a) Nevertheless there is an imposing school of theologians who maintain the identity of grace with charity. They are Scotus[1003] and his followers,[1004] Cardinal Bellarmine,[1005] Molina, Lessius, Salmeron, Vasquez, Sardagna, Tournely, and others. Their principal argument is that Holy Scripture ascribes active justification indiscriminately to theological love and sanctifying grace, and that some of the Fathers follow this example. Here are a few of the Scriptural texts quoted in favor of this opinion. Luke VII, 47: “Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much.”[1006] 1 Pet. IV, 8: “Charity covereth a multitude of sins.”[1007] 1 John IV, 7: “Every one that loveth is born of God.”[1008] St. Augustine seems to identify the two habits in such passages as the following: “Inchoate love, therefore, is inchoate righteousness; ... great love is great righteousness; [pg 338] perfect love is perfect righteousness.”[1009] According to the Tridentine Council, “the justification of the impious” takes place when “the charity of God is poured forth ... in the hearts of those that are justified, and is inherent therein.”[1010] It is argued that, if charity and grace produce the same effects, they must be identical as causes, and there can be at most a virtual distinction between them. This argument is strengthened by the observation that sanctifying grace and theological love constitute the supernatural life of the soul and the loss of either entails spiritual death.
These arguments prove that grace and charity are inseparable, but nothing more. All the Scriptural and Patristic passages cited can be explained without recourse to the hypothesis that they are identical. Charity is not superfluous alongside of sanctifying grace, because the primary object of grace is to impart supernatural being, whereas charity confers a special faculty which enables the intellect and the will to elicit supernatural salutary acts.